The battle against totalitarianism has been fought as much in university halls as in battlefields. Even more so.

It helps when those fighting such enemies have a strong and consistent intellectual and moral foundation, which does not automatically mean a religious one. Short of war, collectivism has won by slow consolidation of populations that have been morally and intellectually disarmed--no longer equipped to judge right from wrong.

1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.

2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.

--"The Anatomy of Compromise" by Ayn Rand