Sometimes I wonder if America can continue to govern itself as a free nation endowed with certain unalienable rights by its Creator.

Too many Americans, including some with great minds, have lost their bearings – lost all perspective on right and wrong, good and evil.

This is not, as some believe, a relativist mental disorder afflicting and spreading through only the so-called "progressive" camp of the political spectrum. Even some on the other side of the ideological line can no longer distinguish between black and white, up and down, right and left.

Take, for instance, Lew Rockwell – a man for whom I once had enormous respect.

He has gone over to the dark side. There's simply no other way to say it. I don't know how else to characterize his worldview metamorphosis.

Recently he wrote: "Once again, Ron is the only man in the House of Unrepresentatives not to take the pro-war, CIA line. He refuses to do what is constitutionally none of the U.S. government's business: intervene in China. He is also keenly aware of the irony of a murderous empire that has killed 1 million civilians in Iraq alone, in order to maintain its subjugation, criticizing anyone else."

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I, too, respect Ron Paul's views and many of his votes in Congress. In fact, I would say he is right close to 99 percent of the time. But he is dead wrong when he pretends America faces no external threats to its security. And he is wrong when he suggests there weren't good and valid reasons for invading Iraq, overthrowing Saddam Hussein and taking on al-Qaida and other Islamo-fascists who seek to destroy Western Civilization. He also has his head in the sand when he says we should close our eyes to the evil that defines totalitarian China in its repression of its own population, its subjugation of Tibet and its threats against the people of Taiwan.

Nevertheless, good people can disagree about those things, I suppose. Good Americans can and should have a free and lively debate about how best to protect our country and expand freedom around the world.

But good people – good Americans – don't characterize the U.S. as "a murderous empire that has killed 1 million civilians in Iraq alone."

That's what bad people do.

That's what people who have lost perspective do.

That's what people blinded to the truth by extremism do.

That's what people consumed by hatred of their own country – and maybe even themselves – do.

I say this with love and compassion for Lew Rockwell, who, like his political messiah, Paul, is right far more often than he is wrong.

What is going on here?

This kind of hysterical rhetoric – these kinds of lies – serve only to give aid and comfort to America's enemies, much the same way the mindless emotional utterings of people like Cindy Sheehan, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and writers for the Nation do.

And Lew Rockwell is considered a right-winger!

I don't like political labels any more than the next guy. In fact, I hate 'em. I like when people with vastly different worldviews can find consensus and areas of agreement.

But when a man is consumed by hate for America, seeing the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known as the No. 1 problem in the world, it tells you much more about the person than it does about their concerns, their issues, their gripes.

I have many problems with America. I disagree with the direction in which the country seems to be headed. I don't like the political choices that we face. I believe we have moved far away from our founding principles. I am even dismayed and repulsed by some of the ways we have conducted our wars with enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet, I am not willing to give up on America. I am not willing to declare us the enemy. I am not willing to turn a blind eye to the great evils that threaten what is left of our way of life – indeed our very lives.

Does America make mistakes?

Of course.

Does America make great blunders?

Of course.

Is America desperately in need a course correction?

Yes!

But let's not throw this baby of a free republic out with the bath water.

Let's not declare allegiance with the real enemies of freedom around the world.

Let's not tell vitriolic lies about America.

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