Students defend freedom

Government imposes a million rules.

Americans seem to want more!

Leftists want new gun laws and bans on singleuse plastics, gas stoves, fossil fuels, gas-powered cars, nuclear power. Conservatives want to ban porn and books that discuss gender identity and critical race theory.

People just accept bans on recreational drugs, flavored vapes and menthol cigarettes.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain.”

What he predicted keeps happening.

Ignorant young people are especially eager to ban things like “offensive” speech and “excess” profit. Some would happily ban capitalism.

Fortunately, there are some students who buck the trend.

“It’s very easy to lose freedom,” says Northwood University’s Kristin Tokarev in my new video. “It’s very easy for politicians to legislate freedom away. But it’s incredibly hard to get back.”

Ms. Tokarev is one of the winners of my video contest. My nonprofit, Stossel in the Classroom, provides videos to teachers who want teaching aids that help explain economics. Every year, we give out $25,000 in prizes to college, high school and middle school students who write the best essays or make the best videos.

This year’s competition is under way. If you know teachers, please let them know about it. The deadline for entries is March 31.

Ms. Tokarev watched my videos in school. She found them “more engaging” than listening to a professor’s lecture.

Kurdish separatists. However, Turkey, which occasionally has collaborated with Russia, shows no signs of supporting the Ukraine invasion.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict in total has become long-term. In 2014, Russia seized Crimea and the eastern portion of Ukraine. Crimea had been part of Russia until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred the peninsula to the authority of Ukraine in 1954.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed by the disintegration of the Soviet bloc of satellite states and then the Soviet Union, represented historic strategic victory for the West. The end of the Cold War confirmed the policy of restraint and deterrence termed “Containment,” initiated by the Truman administration. Poland, a NATO member since 1999, is active in the collective effort to provide arms to Ukraine. The coalition government in Germany led by Chancellor Scholz began with a low profile regarding Europe, in considerable contrast to the assertive long-term leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel. This changed abruptly when Russia invaded Ukraine, and Germany now provides arms and other aid. During the early phases of the Cold War, the Arctic was the focus of intense security concern.

NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command, was formed in 1958 (retitled North American

Aerospace Defense Command in 1981) to coordinate Canada and U.S. security.

The threat of Soviet longrange bombers attacking across the Arctic was a prime military worry. President Dwight Eisenhower secured demilitarization of Antarctica in 1959. Eisenhower also sent the new nuclear submarine Polaris on a spectacular voyage under the North Pole — a silent but profound message. Today, the Arctic nations except Russia are with the NATO alliance.

Germany today is ideally positioned to play an increasing, and increasingly positive as well as powerful, role in the affairs of Europe.

Henry Kissinger has emphasized that the vexing irony for Germany historically was that a Germany powerful enough to feel secure inevitably threatened neighbors, while a Germany that was not threatening would inevitably be insecure. Today, German militarism is part of the past, while strongly rooted democracy and a powerful economy help stabilize Europe.

Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War - American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia” (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan). He is also the director of the Clausen Center at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisc., and a Clausen Distinguished Professor. He welcomes questions and comments at acyr@carthage.edu.