The United States is engaged in a bitter civil war for its very survival as a free nation. Most of us have an innate aversion to emotional disturbance and conflict, but honest folks who spend a few moments alone must face the facts. Everything that we cherish is at risk—our liberty, our wealth, our very lives.

Although war has not been officially declared, and while experts may disagree over when it actually began, the truth is that hostility to the righteous use of freedom and economic power in America has been building for many decades. Precious moral high ground has been captured or surrendered to the enemy.

Is this a spiritual war? Yes, a war that is waged on an ideological battlefield. The coronavirus pandemic is the most recent battle theater in which the enemies of liberty are fighting to subdue the American spirit and steal its treasure and heritage. The weapons of this war are not bullets and bombs, but fear, misinformation, and distraction employed by operators in Washington, state houses and the media, in an effort to demoralize supporters of President Trump and faithful U.S. citizens. The effectiveness or failure of this propaganda campaign cannot yet be known.

Policies enacted and precautions recommended by the Trump administration have certainly mitigated the COVID-19 death toll, and dishonest news sources have predictably manipulated the data to suit their destructive purposes. Every loss of human life is a tragedy. However, it’s worth noting that the average U.S. survival rate of COVID-19 is 99.98% overall.

According to an L.A. Times article, the mortality rate of those infected with COVID-19 is between 0.9% and 3.4% depending on age and other factors. According to the CDC, SARS was fatal to 9% and the 1918 Spanish flu was fatal to 10%. Neither of these outbreaks prompted cries for a national shutdown.

Surprising for its serendipity or Providence, PBS recently aired the documentary about Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words. In this program, Justice Thomas chronicles his own transformation from radical political activist to noble freedom warrior. It’s a story that many of us share with Clarence Thomas, though the circumstances and details may differ.

The Waterloo moment for Judge Thomas came during his after-hours testimony before the Democrat henchmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by then-Senator Joe Biden. In an oft-repeated Democrat scheme, Thomas’ confirmation to the Supreme Court was threatened by despicable false sexual abuse charges leveled by former staffer, Anita Hill. In his remarks, Judge Thomas told the Senate committee that he was the subject of a “high-tech lynching.”

Judge Thomas was not under attack for his qualifications, his character, his religious faith, or his race. His solitary offense was ideological—steadfast devotion to the original intent of the U.S. Constitution which necessarily rejects the policies of radical socialist Democrats. Arrayed behind his inquisitors were the ACLU, the NOW, the AFL-CIO and the NAACP. Humiliation was evident on the faces of Senate Democrats, Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy in a moment of history that might have been appropriately punctuated with, BOOM! Shaka-laka!

Judge Thomas said that he would willingly face death, but he would not surrender to the false charges of his Democrat accusers. I wonder how many of us would stand in the face of such intimidating hostility. Would I? Thomas’ wife, Virginia, confessed that she knew God had to be providing her husband with the strength to stand before the Senate committee to the conclusion of the hearings.

America’s founders judiciously enshrined for us the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, and the press in the First Amendment. Each of these can be abused and used for malicious purposes. But the first generation of Americans had confidence that free and noble people would be able to discern the truth and use their liberty for good more often than for ill. Will our generation confirm or betray their faith in us?

Martin Luther King, Jr. rightly declared, “If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” If faith and freedom; life and liberty are not worth dying for, nothing else is.

Among the nations of the earth, the United States stands alone as the preeminent economic and military power. Diverse foreign nations and powers have been drawn into our civil war for their own varied interests. And while many of the very people who now seek to undermine American freedom and economic achievement are, themselves, the beneficiaries of them, there is one fact that they cannot seem to comprehend. The very spirit that drives the engine of power and achievement which the enemy endeavors to capture and control, begins to die the moment it ceases to be free.

In this bizarre chapter of American history marked by absurd fabricated scandals, mandated church closings, economic shutdowns, and dubious global pandemics, perhaps the ultimate target is freedom of conscience. After all, when a prescribed ideology can be compelled by a government, a media coalition, or a political syndicate, that society, though free to worship and to work, has submitted itself to a more oppressive and bitter bondage than Hebrew slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt.

The coronavirus pandemic will not be the last ploy perpetrated by America’s enemies. Therefore, it’s important, not only to understand what information is reliable and true, but to analyze and weigh each data point carefully.

On September 11, 2001, radical Islam declared war against the United States. Since January 20th, 2017, radical socialism has taken its place. History attests that God appoints and empowers unlikely but willing men like Justice Thomas and President Trump to stand against evil in days like these.