Can Liberty Endure Again?

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]The great news I have to to end with is that we saw in the 20th century that even in the face of Stalin and of Hitler, for that matter of Maong, in the face of the worst tyrants that have ever been produced, the values of individual liberty prevailed.

[00:00:21]You mentioned Orwell earlier, and I'm glad you did. Orwell was the first person to realize that the atomic bomb changed everything and that the Cold War would be a war not only between atomic empires but a war against individual freedom. But Orwell for all his genius was wrong about one vital thing. He thought America would also become a totalitarian autocracy.

[00:00:50]That's the essence of 1984.

[00:00:54]And he was wrong.

[00:00:56]He was wrong because despite ourselves, despite our our tendency only to do the right thing after we've exhausted all the alternatives, Churchill's words, I'm wearing my Churchill bow tine, his honor tonight, the United States prevailed as a free society through World War II and through the Cold War. And I think I hope it will once again prevail as a free society. Prioritizing individual liberty above all else, even in the face of the challenges of artificial intelligence, Zoron Mandani and all the other dreadful things that lie before us tonight. In that respects, I remain an optimist.