Since my father’s passing two months ago, seven years after my mother’s, I consider how both significant and ephemeral their lives were. My parents were born in the 1920s, and their formative years were spent surmounting two of the greatest crises this country has faced: the Great Depression and World War II.

This hardship tempered the national character. My parents were from poor families that lost most of their means during the Depression. Forces of totalitarianism and cruelty threatened the world, and vast armies killed millions. America was swept up in this conflict, and our civilians, including women, contributed mightily to the war effort.

Mom and Dad worked at Sun Shipyard in Chester, Pa. My father was a party animal, zoot suit and all. But the lovely olive-skinned Mary Anna Foreacre captured his attention, they had lunch together, and their relationship blossomed.  Dad became a soldier, and in October 1944, days before he shipped out to fight in the Pacific, they were married. Like many newlyweds then, they did not see each other for two years. But for her, he would ultimately dedicate his life for 61 years.

Dad was an army construction engineer, a dangerous job. I knew long ago that Dad had incurred a wartime injury, but I never heard it from him. (Mom wished he had applied for the Purple Heart.) At our father’s funeral, my oldest brother revealed that Dad had been burned over much of his body. He recovered and went back to active duty, but I never saw him on a beach without a shirt and long shorts. Upon smelling something disgusting, he would say, “smells like human flesh burning.”

In my experience, WWII vets responded to the war in very different ways. My father’s reticence contrasted strongly with my Uncle John’s loquacity. Uncle John, also a hero to me, was a gunner in a flying fortress and brimmed with war stories we boys eagerly devoured. But Dad said hardly a thing. Mom told me many of his best friends were killed in combat.

The animosity that my father harbored against the Japanese diminished as the years went by. In later decades he said they were decent people who had a lousy government, and he and other GIs in the occupation force collected some of their food to feed hungry Japanese. He learned to speak a little of the language, and in later years, in a grumpy mood, he said it would have been better for this country had the Japanese won, given all those “damned politicians in Washington.”

On the other hand, he was a soldier and obeyed as a soldier should. Roosevelt and Truman demanded unconditional surrender of the Germans and Japanese, and this meant the war was pursued with ferocity. Dad had little patience with the moral posturing of those who said we shouldn’t have dropped the atomic bombs. He was in the infantry, deploying to invade Japan just as the bombs were dropped. The GIs all cheered. Moralizing is easy when you’re not preparing to invade an island fortress.

After the war, my father’s life was characterized by competence. He never strived to become elite in society: a celebrity, plutocrat, or even a member of the country club. He was successful in his chosen career as a factory engineer. He was there when I needed him and faithful to his chronically ill wife. He built furniture for his sons and grandchildren, re-worked old guns, and flew gliders and painted in retirement, renewing a hobby he had to give up during the Depression. He was always interested in science, and until the very end at age 90, he loved discussing the latest advances and read about quantum mechanics. Dad always told me to pay attention—that everyone could teach me something.

At Dad’s death I pondered the words of Blaise Pascal, Christian natural philosopher: “Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. . . . All our dignity then, consists in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.”

My father was a deeply creative person who coupled the analytical abilities of an engineer with the sensibilities of an artist. But he was a reed. And Mom was another kind of reed herself. The fierce independence of the American spirit was sublimated to strength in the faithful soldiers of our wars. Many of those soldiers of World War II are dying only now, as are their sweethearts, and freedom depends on their children and our children.

Requiescat in pace, Dad and Mom.

Speaking of whom, Memorial Day always brings another constant, a sad one: each new Memorial Day brings less World War II veterans. They are leaving us at a rapid clip. Anyone who entered World War II at age 18 in 1945—the final stretch when someone could have joined the war effort—would now be 86 years old. Anyone who entered the war at age 18 in 1941 is 90. There aren’t as many now as there were 10 years ago, and 10 years from now … well, do the math.

A colleague of mine was reminded of this universal reality just a few weeks ago. His name is Glenn Marsch. He teaches with me at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. As a professor of physics, Glenn understands something about constants and universal laws. This Memorial Day will be his first without the constant of his father. He lost his dad in March.

Glenn’s dad became a soldier in October 1944, shipping off to the Pacific. He was an army construction engineer, often a dangerous job. He had fellow troops—friends of his—who were killed. He personally incurred a serious wartime injury. Because he didn’t talk about the injury (or the war), Glenn didn’t learn the full extent of it until the funeral. “My oldest brother revealed that Dad had been burned over much of his body,” says Glenn. “He recovered and went back to active duty, but I never saw him on a beach without a shirt and long shorts. Upon smelling something disgusting, he would say, ‘smells like human flesh burning.’”

Think about that: Glenn never caught his dad without a shirt and pants or long shorts—not even at the beach in the summer. His father stoically concealed his wounds. Never talked about them.

Glenn’s dad instead quietly came home from combat and served his country in another way—as a good, God-fearing American who held a job, loved his wife, raised his kids, and made a better culture and country. And there were millions like him.

Another was John Shrode. Born in Rockport, Indiana, August 11, 1925, just four days after the birth of the girl (Martha) he would marry and take care of for 67 years, John landed on Omaha Beach at 7:35 a.m. on June 6, 1944—D-Day. He was literally among the first Allied troops to storm the beaches of Normandy. The French government awarded him the Croix de Guerre for rescuing France from the Nazis.

“He will forever be my hero,” says his daughter-in-law, Kendra Shrode. Kendra’s husband, who was John’s first-born child, died in 1989 without ever really knowing about John’s service. “He had not yet reached the point of talking about it,” remembers Kendra. “With my children he did, and I am so grateful they had that opportunity.”

John’s life wasn’t easy. He grew up in a broken home, had only an eighth-grade education, and lost a child. Later in life, he developed three types of cancer, atop other illnesses. He struggled to take care of his wife as she came down with Alzheimer’s. Nonetheless, says Kendra, “He was the most well-read ‘uneducated’ man I have ever known. And his life code was integrity…. The strength of this man lives on in his children and grandchildren.”

A dairy and grain farmer, John went on to work for Caterpillar Tractor Company for 31 years. He loved his wife, raised his kids, and made a better culture and country.

For Kendra and the many Shrode children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, this will be a Memorial Day without “Papa John.” John Denzil Shrode, 8th Platoon, Company C, 6th Naval Beach Battalion, died November 5, 2011.

John’s final resting place is quintessentially American. It sits aside a tombstone awaiting his beloved wife and across from the baseball field in small-town America where he played and coached his children for years.

“As I stood looking at the flag tributes and glanced over at the fields,” says Kendra of a recent visit to John’s grave, “I realized he will be forever with us all.”

For all of those veterans who didn’t make it to Memorial Day this year, I say thank you. You remain constants—forever with us all.

What we are learning now is that non-profit political organizations connected to the network of tea party groups were not the only organizations targeted by IRS administrators. In the past few days, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association sent an open letter to President Obama outlining its contention that it was subjected to discrimination because IRS agents investigated, audited and threatened them with the loss of their tax-exempt status. To the current administration the man who has appeared in Gallup’s Top-10 Most Admired Men in the World for 56 years needed to be investigated. So, too, did his son Franklin Graham’s non-profit charity, Samaritan’s Purse. The BGEA letter to the President states, “This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’”

Then, of course, there is the case of Z STREET, the right-leaning, pro-Israel, supporter of a one-state solution to the Middle East tensions. When this educational non-profit organization, headed by the courageous Lori Lowenthal Marcus, found out that the IRS was delaying and might deny their 501(c)(3) status because their viewpoint differed from the current administration’s policy on the Middle East, they sued. After two years, their case is now slated for its first hearing in federal district court in early July.

Many Americans are rightly appalled and confused about the scandal that continues to unfold. News media including The New York Times, MSNBC, CBS News, and even The Daily Show with John Stewart, are pressing for answers. They are not, however, pressing on the most important question. While the current voices denounce “What” has happened, while they wonder “How” it happened, while they demand to know “Who” was behind the decisions, we have yet to consider “Why” the IRS pursued what appears to some to be the aggressive pursuit of certain categories of non-profits.

The IRS itself explained in legal documents related to the Z STREET case precisely “Why” it believes it can proceed and do what it is doing. It’s time for everyone to know.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in 1983 in a tax-exemption case. In that case, the 8-1 majority held that

Entitlement to tax exemption depends on meeting certain common law standards of charity — namely, that an institution seeking tax-exempt status must serve a public purpose and not be contrary to established public policy. Thus, to warrant exemption under § 501(c)(3), an institution must fall within a category specified in that section, and must demonstrably serve and be in harmony with the public interest.

The phrases “established public policy” and “public interest” are the phrases that the Court embraced in this case, Bob Jones University v. U.S. Because the appellee in this case, BJU, the private, Christian college in South Carolina, based student policies and decisions on race, it was “contrary to established public policy” and lost its tax-exempt status.

In court documents arguing for the dismissal of Z STREET’s case, the IRS cited Bob Jones University v. U.S. no fewer than seven times. Court documents filed by Z STREET argue that the IRS agent assigned to their case stated directly that, “These cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the administration’s public policies.” Some will conclude that this special unit within the IRS is likely the same special unit that tea party organizations believe is handling their cases.

The IRS agent claimed there was a special unit and that unit was in D.C. Why? It is simply because the organization engaged in “activities [that] contradict the administration’s public policies.” The IRS cited case law to support their actions. The link to Bob Jones is explicit in court documents.

The Agency’s decisions to pursue individual organizations that oppose the administration’s public policies, is legally, morally, politically and ethically unacceptable. Perhaps more simply, however, it is linguistically unacceptable. Where Bob Jones lost its tax exemption for running afoul of “established public policy,” the IRS is targeting groups that disagree with the “administration’s public policies.” “Public policy” and “administration policy” are different worlds legally and linguistically. Either Congress or the courts, perhaps both, will ultimately provide the grammar lesson that the IRS so badly needs.

According to a report published by the New York Federal Reserve Bank, college students are borrowing more than ever and debt delinquency is on the rise. Student debt almost tripled between 2004 and 2012 and is now just over $1 trillion. In fact, student debt is the only kind of household debt to rise during the Great Recession and is now second only to mortgage debt in magnitude. At the same time, for all age groups the share of borrowers who are more than 90 days delinquent on their student loan repayment has almost doubled.

Some, like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, claim that student debt is not inflating a higher education bubble that will cause a financial crisis, because the vast majority of student loans are backed by the U.S. government. The taxpayers are on the hook and not the banks, so banks will not be in financial distress if students default.

Bernanke’s claim is revealing. It’s clear that he thinks that the financial system is the economy. It seems that if the financial system is afloat, everything is okay. Such reasoning ignores that what helps people achieve their ends is not money per se but the actual producer and consumer goods that are produced throughout the social economy.

Alas, investment made possible by subsidized loans of newly created money contributes to an unproductive use of resources. Thus the economic problem with government-guaranteed student loans. Consider:

In the first place, it is not at all clear that the educational payoff matches the expense. According to data from the Collegiate Learning Assessment, 45 percent of students demonstrated no significant learning in their first two years of college and 36 percent demonstrated no learning in four years. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, from 1992 to 2003, literacy among college graduates declined at about the same rate that enrollment grew; all the while government grants and guaranteed student loans significantly increased.

This dismal educational payoff is largely because much of increased subsidized tuition payments have been absorbed by increases in personnel. For example, in 2007, colleges utilized 13.1 percent more employees to educate the same number of students than they did in 1993. The vast majority of growth has been in administrative staff. From 1976 to 2005, the number of administrative staff per student more than doubled; from 3 per 100 students to more than 6 per 100 students. The financial effect of administrative bloat is magnified by the fact that the average mid-level and senior-level administrative salaries are noticeably higher that the average faculty salary. Between 1993 and 2007, while expenditures per student for instruction increased 39.3 percent, expenditures per student for administration increased by 61.2 percent

Making the college experience available requires using many resources—land, labor, buildings, desks, computers, energy, and all sorts of amenities. These are all resources that have alternative uses. If they are being allocated to provide education merely due to government subsidies, it is likely they would be more valued in other uses.

That student debt is fueling malinvestment is indicated by the rising debt delinquencies. Like the old gray mare, the college wage premium ain’t what she used to be. Increasing default rates prove this. What matters is not only the level of a post-college salary, but the level of that salary relative to the cost of college. As higher salaries fail to keep pace with college tuition, an increasing number of students are put at risk of not paying off their loans.

Additionally, many students who have borrowed money for college do not complete college. Six-year college completion rates at public four-year institutions have remained just below 55 percent for a decade. At the same time, the four-year rate has been stuck around 30 percent.

Colleges, universities, and their students are caught in a costly game of leap frog. The perceived need for financial aid and loans results in more government subsidies. More debt results in more demand for college schooling and consequently higher tuition. Higher tuition increases the perceived need for more debt. More student debt increases the demand for college which increases tuition price. On it goes.

The only solution is to get government out of the business of subsidizing student debt. Then, at least decisions of students to borrow and banks to lend—and colleges to set tuition—will be based on economic reality rather than the shifting sand of monetary inflation.

By now everyone knows that Sen. Mitch McConnell has called out the Internal Revenue Service for its “thuggish practices” involving intensive scrutiny and extended delays of decisions in cases where an organization included the words “tea party,” “patriot,” or “9-12” in its application for federal tax-exempt status. Apparently at McConnell’s request, the matter is now being investigated by the IRS Inspector General. The House Ways and Means Committee initiated its own investigation into the agency’s policies and practices.

Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers said publically on Sunday that the IRS had “agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups.” He added, furthermore, “I don’t care if you’re a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine. It needs to have a full investigation.”

Indeed there will be an investigation. To grant Rogers his “full investigation,” however, will require Congress to look well beyond the tax enforcement agency’s policies related to tea party organizations. Consider:

In a move that is astounding because it so obviously chills political speech in the United States, the IRS has delayed and may deny the awarding of tax-exempt status to Z STREET because its mission and goals contradict President Obama’s Middle East policy.

When the nonprofit, educational Z STREET, a self-described Zionist-organization, applied for tax-exempt status in 2009, the IRS demanded in writing to know “Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?”  Where the president “strongly supports” the two-state solution, Z STREET was founded to support the state of Israel as currently recognized by the international community.

Court documents filed by Z STREET verify that the IRS maintains a special policy for organizations that are connected with Israel. The IRS informed the nonprofit organization that its application had been forwarded to “a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

Z STREET should be praised for pushing back. The small organization has taken up the cause of defending itself and other organizations that may find themselves at odds with particular political beliefs of a future administration.  Z STREET’s initial hearing is scheduled for July 2 in federal district court in Washington, D.C.

What is lamentable is that any nonprofit educational or charitable organization would find itself pressured by the federal government to prove that its charitable, religious, or educational goals are not incongruent with the foreign or domestic policy agenda of a sitting president.

Four decades ago, after returning from a tour as an intelligence officer in Southeast Asia, I reported to the Intelligence Early Warning Center (INEW) at Headquarters, Strategic Air Command (SAC). Warning centers existed at headquarters throughout the U.S. military and at the Intelligence and Research Branch in the State Department, at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon and the White House. Secure Teletype machines connected SAC INEW to the warning centers at CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and the NMCC. INEW also communicated via secure telephone with every other intelligence warning center as well as the NMCC and White House. The word “FLASH” put watch officers in instant contact with the right party.

An American ambassador under attack at a U.S. consulate in a Muslim country would have generated a “CRITIC message” from the appropriate embassy. The reception of a CRITIC in INEW, at whatever hour, required the senior watch officer contact the SAC Director of Intelligence who then decided how to handle it. Had Benghazi occurred on September 11, 1972, 40 years ago, warning centers in Washington and at SAC Headquarters would have gotten the message in mid-afternoon on a weekday when all hands were on deck to make decisions. Appropriate area specialists would have been contacted within seconds of the CRITIC’s arrival. In the case of Benghazi, the Department of State was critically affected.

Had the Benghazi attack occurred on a date as auspicious as 9/11, every U.S. intelligence warning center would have been on a heightened state of alert. We were especially attentive to dates marking events like the Tet Offensive of 1968, birthdays of leaders like Mao Tse Tung, the start of the Korean War, etc. We knew our enemies: the communist countries and terrorists ranging from the Baader Meinhoff Group in Germany to the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the Middle East. Forces appropriate to cover contingencies would have been on alert, ready to respond. Intelligence officers also studied mistakes from Pearl Harbor in 1941, TET-68, and the capture of the USS Pueblo a few weeks later.

According to recent Congressional testimony, the State Department knew about the September 2012 Benghazi attack around 3:00 p.m Washington time. All hands were on deck in Washington, DC, including area specialists at every intelligence agency. Supposedly, the national security advisor was at his desk in the White House. News that terrorists were attacking a U.S. consulate with the ambassador on the premises should have gone directly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A secure phone call to the White House, possibly vetted through the national security advisor, should have followed. If it didn’t, someone was inexcusably inept.

Evidently, the extent of the Air Force’s global reach must have shrunk considerably in the past few years. Although the Benghazi attack started after duty-hours at Aviano, it should have taken less than an hour to prep F-16s for combat. Any weaponeer would have known to load highly accurate munitions sufficient to take out small targets without risking collateral damage. Our pilots are experienced at supporting troops in contact with enemy forces. The internal M61 Gatling gun spews 1,000 rounds per minute. Although F-16s carry only a few seconds worth of ammunition, it’s enough to decimate the half-company of terrorists involved at Benghazi. Remarkably, on the anniversary of 9/11 U.S. fighter planes in the Mediterranean area were so unprepared for combat it would have taken “several hours” to get them over Benghazi. Although USAF tankers were unavailable, F-16s could have refueled at Italian air bases in southern Italy. Did anyone ask?

Ineptitude and lack of ability to respond resulted from a policy mindset unwilling to acknowledge words like “war or terror” or “Islamic terrorism,” despite the reality of the continuing war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. Our armed forces had appropriate capabilities but couldn’t use them. Why?

The tragedy at Benghazi resulted from dereliction of duty spawned by an inane sense of political correctness coupled with determined deference to political expediency emanating from the highest levels of the Obama administration.

Every human life is special, unique, unrepeatable — to borrow from Pope John Paul II. Every loss of life is a loss. Some losses, however, seem larger, leaving a void no one else can fill. When some people go, too much goes with them. That’s undoubtedly the case with the loss of Herbert Romerstein, who died this week after a long illness. With Herb’s passing, we lose not only a good guy, but a vast reservoir of knowledge that is not replaceable. If only we could have downloaded the man’s brain. Alas, we could not, and our knowledge of the 20th century is suddenly less than it was.

Herb knew the Cold War and communist movement unlike anyone. He understood it because he lived it and breathed it. Born in Brooklyn in 1931, he himself had been a communist, having joined the Communist Youth League before becoming a card-carrying member of Communist Party USA (CPUSA). He broke ranks over 60 years ago, the final straw being the Korean War, which made clear to him that he was dealing with inveterate liars, whether in Korea, Moscow, or among communists on the home-front. He went on to become one of America’s best anti-communists and most respected authorities, regularly testifying before Congress. He became a chief investigator for the House Committee on Internal Security. In the 1980s, he joined the Reagan administration, where his full-time job at the U.S. Information Agency was to counter Soviet disinformation, a duty for which few were so well-equipped or enthusiastic. He relished the role of taking on professional Soviet propagandists such as Georgi Arbatov and Valentin Falin. Later, he did the highly touted analysis of the Venona transcripts, which he published as The Venona Secrets.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I cannot do justice to how this translated into action. I never tire of listening to stories from Herb’s longtime friend Charlie Wiley on how they penetrated the communist-run World Youth Festivals in the 1950s, or challenged a Soviet official successfully spooning the Party line to open-mouthed progressives at the All Souls Church in New York, or tossed a wrench into this or that meeting of communist youth leaders. Guys like this were one of a kind who lived life to its fullest. They were warriors — unafraid, cheerful, colorful Cold Warriors.

I first met Herb Romerstein in June 2005. I was writing a book on Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War, which became The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. I was nearing the end of the manuscript when I got a remarkable email from Marko Suprun, whose father had survived the 1930s Ukrainian genocide perpetrated by Stalin. I didn’t know Marko, but he brought to my attention a stunning document, a highly sensitive May 1983 letter from the head of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, to the head of the Soviet Union, the odious Yuri Andropov. The letter concerned a secret offer by Senator Ted Kennedy that, in effect, sought to undermine President Reagan’s security policy and perhaps his reelection bid. It allegedly came from Soviet archives in Moscow. I embarked upon a long process of confirming the letter’s authenticity. I exchanged emails with Walter Zaryckyj, who had turned the document over to Marko for translation. Walter immediately recommended I contact Herb Romerstein. If anyone could confirm this, it was Herb, said Walter, describing Herb as a “national treasure.”

I talked to Herb and he assuaged me. “Don’t worry,” he assured. “It’s real. Take it to the bank.”

I spent the next few months confirming what Herb had told me from the outset. Yes, it was real.

This began a partnership and friendship. Herb loved the fact that I was a Cold War researcher half his age and planning to do more, including a book on Cold War dupes — a unique category of Cold War individual that Herb knew too well. He took me under his wing, eager to provide counsel on anything related to the Cold War. Having access to his mind was like having the Library of Congress, the FBI files, the Soviet archives, Daily Worker microfiche, thousands of congressional reports, and CPUSA holdings all rolled into one, retrievable by a quick phone call or email from my BlackBerry. The process would go something like this: “Hi, Herb. A question on Arthur Miller: Did he ever join the Party?” The response was instantaneous: “In 1956, Arthur Miller testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. They published his Party application card. You can find it in the official report on the hearings. He wrote for New Masses, the Daily Worker loved him….”

We would meet in-person (less often, unfortunately) during my visits to Washington to do research. Herb introduced me to the Soviet Comintern Archives on CPUSA. He showed me how to use them, helped me get my library card — covering all bases. I fondly remember when he first introduced me to M. Stanton Evans. We spent hours at Stan’s office one summer afternoon going over everything imaginable on Soviet penetration of the Roosevelt administration and other vital areas in the 1930s and 1940s. We also had lunch at the Hawk n’ Dove on Capitol Hill, a favorite place of Herb and Stan.

Why their interest in me? Because, as they openly admitted, they were getting old and “wouldn’t be around much longer.” They were hoping I would be. There weren’t many of them left. I was one of a very small few to whom they might pass the torch.

Fittingly, on my desk right now is a copy of Herb’s final work, Stalin’s Secret Agents, co-authored with Stan Evans. It’s a superb must-read. We’ve waited years for the book’s material on Alger Hiss alone.

Certain Herb aphorisms related to the Cold War stick in my mind, resounding there in the sound of his scratchy, whispery voice:

I asked him if there was a particular group of Americans most susceptible to being duped by communists. His immediate answer: “The Religious Left, Paul, especially from the mainline Protestant denominations. They were the biggest suckers of them all.”

And what of American communists, especially those who went so far as to join CPUSA? Said Herb: “They were loyal Soviet patriots.” As Herb knew, they were dedicated first and foremost to Mother Russia. CPUSA members “were not the useful idiots,” not the “suckers;” they were not the dupes. Quite the contrary, said Herb: “They were fully aware of exactly what they were doing. They manipulated the useful idiots on behalf of Soviet interests.”

Another: “from 1919, when it [the American Communist Party] was formed, to 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was under total Soviet control.”

And then there were his judicious warnings about this or that suspected communist: “Be careful, Paul. That guy was not a communist. He was a fellow traveler, to some degree — a dupe — but not a communist. And the other guy, he was a small ‘c’ communist who never joined the Party.”

That last warning holds a crucial lesson very revealing of Herb Romerstein and his work: He was no bomb-thrower. He was the epitome of responsible, informed anti-communism. He was careful about drawing the necessary lines of distinction between a liberal, a liberal anti-communist, a genuine progressive, a closet communist masquerading as a “progressive,” a socialist, a small “c” or big “C” communist/Communist, a Party member or non-Party member, and so forth. He never wanted to falsely accuse anyone. I doubt his detractors on the left will pause to credit him for such prudence. For many on the left, every anti-communist rightly concerned with Soviet agents or agents of influence was merely another burgeoning Joe McCarthy. (Click here for a particularly cruel piece on Herb by Dana Milbank.)

Herb Romerstein was anything but. And he wanted those of us who follow in his footsteps, or who are concerned about communism still — and about truth above all — to be likewise as careful and thoughtful. Perhaps our best tribute to Herb’s memory would be to do our best to expose what he exposed and remind Americans and the world of what he reminded.

Herbert Romerstein, indeed a national treasure. A happy warrior who fought the good fight, and left the wrong side for the right side. Well done, my friend. Rest in peace.

When Mom moved into her last earthly home, at The Home, she could no longer walk. She had lost her husband, twice. She was losing her memory. She had given up her home. She had lost much of her freedom. We asked many people to pray for her, and I prayed that she could walk again. I prayed that she could move back to a lesser level of care. I prayed that we could play Scrabble again. I prayed for her in her times of weakness. But she wasn’t finished. She had a gift of eleven more months. She had a gift. She had a responsibility.

The first time I ate with Mom at The Home I looked at her, held her hand, and asked her to say grace. I expected her to thank God for the food, and I expected her to pray for her own needs as she recovered from surgery. But instead, I heard her say, “Father, help me to be a blessing to the people in my new home.” She had a gift of time; she had a responsibility.

Over the next few weeks, as the staff got to know Mom, sometimes they would have trouble remembering her name. Bethel, House of God, is not your typical modern name, and it took the staff, quite understandably, a while to learn it. When they couldn’t remember her name, we often heard them say something like, “You mean the nice lady who lives at the end of the hall?” That was my Mom; she was already fulfilling her responsibility.

Mother learned to meet her responsibility, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” She demonstrated a kind attitude, contentment, calmness, great appreciation for everyone who served her in any way.

At  The Home, they cried for Mom when she died. Those who worked with Mom, those who lived with Mom, had become part of her life. They were a blessing to each other. Their lives became raveled together with ours. Mom had a gift, she fulfilled her responsibility.

Mother, you have passed so many gifts on to those who knew you. Thank you for your gifts. If I can meet my responsibilities one-tenth as much as you did, I will honor you, your memory, and our God. Thank you, Mom, for your legacy; thank you for my inheritance.

Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan’s daughter, recently speculated on where her father might stand on same-sex marriage. Politico published her thoughts under the headline, “Patti Davis says Reagan wouldn’t have opposed gay marriage.”

The impact of the article was immediate. A quick Google search yielded multiple follow-up articles and blog posts. Liberals nationwide were off and running with a new same-sex marriage endorsement: this one from Reagan, the conservative’s conservative.

This is not the first time liberals have rushed to recast Reagan according to their policy preferences. Immediately after his death in June 2004, he was trotted out as a poster-boy for embryonic stem-cell research.

Please, not so fast.

In Davis’ defense, she starts with a crucial point about her father, one liberals had utterly refused while the man was alive: “He was a very tolerant person.”

Indeed, Reagan was tolerant — on religion, on race, on ethnic differences, on differences of opinion on many things, and also toward gays. As Davis notes, “He did not have prejudices against gay people.” Davis gives just a few of many examples.

But she then goes where I don’t think we should. She states of her father and same-sex marriage: “I don’t think he would stand in the way of it, at all. I don’t think he would stand in the way of two people wanting to make a commitment to one another.”

Davis then uses an argument that is libertarian (which Reagan was not), and which fails to understand the essence of conservatives’ objection to same-sex marriage: “I also think because he wanted government out of peoples’ lives, he would not understand the intrusion of government banning such a thing. This is not what he would have thought government should be doing.”

The problem with that statement, applied to the same-sex marriage debate, is this: Conservatives object to the federal government rendering unto itself the unprecedented ability to redefine marriage. Such is a massive step toward government intervention (one that should worry libertarians), toward powerful government, toward big government — not restrained and limited government.

It is a step that breaks entirely new ground in not only American history but human history, one with unimaginable and extraordinary effects yet to come on the family, the culture, the economy, government services and (among others) the court system.

The essence of conservatism is to preserve and conserve time-tested values that have endured for good reason and for the best of society and for order. Conservatives — which is what Reagan was — aim to conserve. By their nature and definition, conservatives do not rush into radical changes or what they fear may be another fad or fashion or popular demand. They also, by their definition, ground their ideals in both natural law and biblical law.

I know that secular liberals don’t want to hear religious arguments against same-sex marriage, but, if we’re talking about Reagan (and conservatives), we cannot exclude them.

Contrary to the image of him as president, Reagan was very religious and would not have so easily consented to a culture suddenly demanding the right to redefine what the scriptures (Old Testament and New Testament) say clearly about a man and a woman leaving their parents and coming together to form one flesh in marriage.

Reagan’s religious roots were deep, inculcated by his mother, an extremely devout, traditional Christian, and others who profoundly influenced him in Dixon, Illinois, in the 1920s. He said that “everything” he learned about the values that shaped his life and presidency he learned back in Dixon. It was his “inheritance,” one that never left him. Needless to say, Reagan did not learn to support same-sex marriage in Dixon.

Moreover, Reagan was unwavering in his conviction of the importance of a father and a mother raising children and the next generation of American citizens and understood marriage as a vital bond between a man and a woman.

To cite just one example from the final days of his presidency (January 12, 1989), Reagan insisted that “we must teach youngsters the beauty of the loving, lifelong relationship between husband and wife that is marriage.”

Yes, Reagan was tolerant of gay people — as is everyone I know who opposes same-sex marriage — but that in no way means he would have advocated redefining marriage. Toleration of something certainly does not automatically translate into advocating its legalization.

We could list innumerable things that we tolerate — including from friends and family and loved ones — but wouldn’t argue legalizing. Even then, that’s not quite the issue. The issue, after all, isn’t whether homosexuality should be legal (no one objects to that) but whether marriage will now begin a long process of continual redefinition.

It’s a form of intellectual laziness for liberals/progressives to reflexively assume that anyone who disagrees with them on redefining marriage is a recalcitrant bigot with no possible legitimate reasons.

After all, same-sex marriage opponents are adhering to the prevailing definition of marriage according to its literal and ancient roots; they believe in the cross-cultural norm that humanity has adhered to since the dawn of humanity, to a human understanding as old as the Garden of Eden. It’s remarkably short-sighted to dismiss them as hopeless bigots.

That brings me back to Ronald Reagan.

It’s funny, people on the political left spent eight years calling Reagan a bigot. When liberals weren’t denouncing him as an unregenerate racist — the single most unfair charge unceasingly flung at Reagan — they were saying that he didn’t like gay people and did nothing about AIDS because he was happy to let gays die.

Davis remembers this well, as she does the vicious accusation that her father was a nuclear warmonger. To say that liberals were unhinged in their nastiness to Reagan is insufficient. Now, in his death, they’d like to remold him in their own image, crowning him a poster boy for same-sex marriage.

The simple truth is that Reagan was a committed and principled conservative who had thoughtful and firmly grounded reasons for his positions. That, too, ironically, is a fact that liberals ignored, caricaturing Reagan as an idiot, a simpleton, an “amiable dunce,” as Clark Clifford famously called him.

He would not have merrily hopped on the same-sex marriage bandwagon without first carefully considering how the issue fit with his understanding of the laws of nature and nature’s God, of the first things and first principles that conservatives of Reagan’s generation spent years discussing at great length in their books and publications and conferences.

Could we at least agree on this much?

Reagan was silent on same-sex marriage, as was everyone of his generation. He, like all liberals of his time, could not have conceived of same-sex marriage, and he, like the entirety of the Democratic Party just a decade or two ago, unwaveringly supported traditional marriage.

Let’s leave it at that.

Sunday, April 28, marks the 255th anniversary of President James Monroe’s birth in 1758.

Recently, I had the pleasure of reading one of Harlow Giles Unger’s thorough biographies of key figures in the era of America’s founding. In reading “The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness,” I found myself wondering: How have we let this great patriot become a forgotten man?

Monroe’s military service alone made him a hero. When he was 18 and newly matriculated at William and Mary College, and the Second Continental Congress proclaimed the Declaration of Independence, he suspended his education to enlist in the Virginia infantry.

He arrived in New York to find that the British army had just decimated Washington’s army at Harlem Heights—having killed 1,500 out of 5,000 troops. Two days later, Monroe and his fellow Virginia sharpshooters repelled a British advance, marking the first time in the War for Independence that Americans had whooped the British, forcing the redcoats to turn tail and run for their lives.

Monroe played a key role in Washington’s famous 1776 Christmas night sortie across the Delaware River. The teenaged Monroe was the co-leader, with one of Washington’s cousins, of an advance party of 50 that had crossed the river ahead of the rest of Washington’s troops, and then captured the two strategically placed cannons that defended the Hessian military camp outside of Trenton. Though seriously wounded by a musket shot, Monroe stood his ground, repelling repeated Hessian attempts to recapture the big guns, thereby saving many American lives (including, possibly, Washington’s), and thereby making that indispensable, resounding victory possible.

During the War of 1812, 38 years later, Monroe was in his mid-50s. At that time, he was serving in the Madison administration as both Secretary of State and (after a disastrous performance of his predecessor had almost resulted in total defeat) as Secretary of War. Inheriting a dire military situation in 1814, Monroe virtually single-handedly altered the course of the war. He rallied the country’s disorganized military forces, developed a country-saving military strategy, and personally led American troops from horseback from dawn until dusk—which prevented the total collapse of American resistance to the British by dint of his courage, inspirational leadership, and military genius.

Monroe’s marriage was one of the great love stories in presidential history. He and Elizabeth—who might have been the only First Lady more beautiful and glamorous than Jackie Kennedy, and who displayed heroic courage by intervening in the nick of time to save Lafayette’s wife, Adrienne, from the guillotine—shared a decades-long tender and devoted mutual love.

James Monroe may hold the record for the highest number of offices held during his career in public service. He was either elected or appointed to the following offices: 1782, Virginia legislature; 1790, U.S. Senate; 1794, Minister to France; 1803, Minister to France and Spain whose initiative resulted in the Louisiana Purchase; 1803, Minister to England; 1810, elected to the Virginia legislature a third time; 1811, elected governor of Virginia a fourth time; 1811 becomes U.S. Secretary of State; 1812-13, named acting Secretary of War and in 1814, actual Secretary of War while also remaining Secretary of State; 1816, elected president; 1820, re-elected without opposition—the only American other than George Washington to stand unopposed for the presidency.

It is that last accomplishment—being elected without opposition to the presidency—that is most remarkable. After the bruising election campaign we recently passed through, we may wonder how it was possible that nobody bothered to run against Monroe. Yes, he was an exceptional man, but even great men have enemies.

I think the reason Monroe ran unopposed was that nobody at that time felt threatened by the federal government. In 1820, Uncle Sam was still confined to original duties of keeping Americans safe and upholding contracts and property rights. In other words, in the minds of free Americans, there was neither a handout to be gained from the federal government nor the threat of confiscation of a portion of one’s property for redistribution to special interests. In short, the government was limited, unobtrusive, and benign.

Today, by contrast, the federal government is a predatory aggressor against property rights, and myriad special interests engage in an angry, perpetual battle to see who can take what from whom. Monroe had the good fortune to be president when America was America and not this sorry variation of a demoralized European welfare state.

The amazing life story of James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, would not be complete without mentioning that he passed from this world on the Fourth of July, 1831—five years to the day after his fellow presidents Adams and Jefferson. What a fitting conclusion to the life of a principled patriot who gave his whole adult life to serving his country and upholding our most noble ideals.