Abstract:
The storm clouds over the western democracies since 1979 strikingly resemble the frightening 1930s climate that forewarned the horrors of World War II. Then as now, detached people and their anti-war leaders were swayed by wishful thinking that faraway troublemakers could be reasoned with and that they would keep their distance. Delaying until it was almost too late, democracy’s citizens paid a terrible price in the 1940s for their leaders’ naive tardiness. At Least I Know I’m Free takes a “what-if” look at how the decision not to fight by Western leaders could have cost Americans their basic rights and freedoms.