There is something profoundly wrong in America when survivors of starvation, slave labor, political persecution, and sexual trafficking have to explain to comfortable college students why communism is not a “cute theory.” Yet here we are.
Cornerstone University in Michigan is hosting an event titled “Why Not Communism? A Wisdom Conversation on Freedom, Faith and the Future of America.” It’s not a debate. It’s not a theoretical exercise. It’s a warning — delivered by people who lived through the nightmare that far too many Americans now romanticize.
The university’s president, Dr. Gerson Moreno‑Riaño, says the school chose this theme months ago after watching public opinion drift toward socialism and communism. And he’s right to be alarmed. The history of these ideologies is not misunderstood — it is ignored. It is sanitized. It is whitewashed by people who have never experienced anything harsher than a slow Wi‑Fi connection.
Cornerstone’s event brings in voices America desperately needs to hear:
- Yeonmi Park, who escaped North Korea at 13 only to be trafficked in China
- Xi Van Fleet, who survived Mao’s Cultural Revolution
- Dr. Gary Saul Morson, a scholar of Soviet totalitarianism
- Seth Dillon, CEO of the Babylon Bee
These are not theorists. These are witnesses. And their testimonies carry more weight than every smug, self‑styled “revolutionary” on Twitch combined.
The Luxury of Ignorance
Park warns that American students learn about communism “in a nice classroom with the air conditioning running.” She’s right. They treat communism like a quirky aesthetic — a fashion statement, a meme, a TikTok trend. They have no idea what it means when the theory becomes policy.
Park lived under a socialist regime until she escaped across a frozen river. She starved. She suffered. She was trafficked. She watched her mother submit to assault to protect her. She hid from Chinese authorities. She clawed her way to freedom through Mongolia with the help of Christian activists.
And yet, in America, she has been told she “doesn’t understand oppression” because she is “Asian” or “white‑passing.”
This is the intellectual rot of American communists: they believe their ideology grants them moral superiority over people who survived the very system they worship.
The World Is Not Free — Americans Just Think It Is
According to global democracy research, roughly 74% of humanity lives under authoritarian governments. Most people on Earth are not free. They do not get to speak their minds. They do not get to worship freely. They do not get to criticize their leaders. They do not get to vote in meaningful elections.
Park says it plainly: If America falls, there is nowhere left to run.
She escaped to America. If America collapses into authoritarianism, there will be no escape for anyone.
Freedom Is Not a Political Preference — It’s a Moral Imperative
For Cornerstone University, this isn’t just politics. It’s theology. Moreno‑Riaño ties freedom directly to the Christian belief in the Imago Dei — the idea that humans are created in God’s image and meant to flourish. Flourishing requires liberty. Oppression destroys it.
Communism and socialism are not merely “alternative systems.” They are ideologies built on coercion, control, and the erasure of individual dignity. They require the suppression of faith, the destruction of the family, and the subordination of the human soul to the state.
Cornerstone’s event is a stand — not just for America, but for the moral truth that freedom is sacred.
The Real Enemy Is Not Ignorance — It’s Willful Delusion
There is a difference between someone who doesn’t know what communism is and someone who refuses to learn. The American communist movement is not made of curious students. It is made of people who choose delusion over reality, who choose ideology over evidence, who choose fantasy over the testimony of survivors.
They are not merely misled. They are malignant in their refusal to acknowledge the suffering communism has inflicted on millions.
Cornerstone University is doing what far too few institutions have the courage to do: tell the truth.
America Needs This Conversation — Now More Than Ever
This event is not about nostalgia for the Cold War. It’s about recognizing that freedom is fragile, and that the ideologies responsible for mass graves, starvation, and totalitarian control are being repackaged as “progress.”
Cornerstone is calling students — and the country — to wake up.
To listen.
To learn.
To reject the poisonous fantasy of communism before it becomes a reality we cannot escape.
Yeonmi Park speaks at Cornerstone University anti-communism event | Fox News
editor’s note
My thanks to Copilot for the excellent rewrite.
For anyone who wonders why the ex-NKor defector is so tiny, it’s not because she’s Asian and naturally small. It’s because she starved much of her youth and the only protein she ever consumed was from roasted insects she and her sister occasionally found in the work fields. Welcome to Communism. You may hear her story on multiple youtube podcasts including Jordan Peterson’s.