It is a good thing from time to time to step back and remember just what it is that we who believe in the free society fight for each day. I stumbled across Michael Totten’s exploration of Romania – Twenty Years After the Fall of the Tyrant. With the passage of time, it is easy to forget – at least for those of us who never directly experienced it – just how suffocating and cruel the Communist dictatorships of the 20th century were.

“Communism changed our mentality,” said Daniel Apostol, editor in chief of Romania’s Money Channel. “We are still fighting now e back to what we were. We lost the culture of private property. We lost this sense of privacy and respecting each other’s time and respecting people as individuals, as human beings. That was the worst thing that happened to us. This is why we are struggling so much now to get back to the capitalist society, to the free market, which can run only if there is respect for private property…”

Totten details the continuing consequences of totalitarian rule in Romania, and the country’s struggle to rebuild itself. All in all, a fine reminder to all of us who experience the blessings of liberty to never take those blessings – or the systems that were built to protect and preserve them – for granted.

See also: The Architect as Totalitarian by Theodore Dalrymple