During my college years in the late 1970s, I actively competed in intercollegiate oratory and debate contests. One winter our debate coach announced that she had secured an opportunity for a few of us to attend the Model United Nations event in Boston. This was a chance for students like us to study parliamentary procedure, act as delegates from various countries, and experience what it must be like to function as a UN delegate.

After a few weeks of study and preparation, we headed from our state of Michigan to Boston. I was happy, having taken three years of Russian language classes in high school, to have been assigned the role of “ambassador from Belarus.” I looked forward to taking part in a mock UN general session where I could participate in debating world issues and voting on them.

Shortly after arriving at the host site, I received word that the “ambassador from the USSR” had called a meeting of the eastern bloc nation’s “ambassadors” to begin in 15 minutes, and my attendance was required. In this meeting, the USSR “ambassador” stood to address us and (to my dismay) explained peremptorily and in no uncertain terms that we, as members of the Communist Party and faithful allies and satellites of the Soviet motherland, were going to keep our mouths shut and vote the Party line in all respects during this session, or else very bad things would happen to us and to our countries!

Although I inwardly rebelled, I realized that in reality this was exactly how things operated in the actual United Nations, so I cooperated. And so did the other eastern bloc delegates. At the end of the day, the evaluators handed a commendation to our “comrade from the USSR” for achieving unity among his bloc of “ambassadors.”

As the Model U.N. event ended and we dispersed for our home states, I mused with gratitude that we in the United States of America would never be in such a dire position in our United States Congress, for our elected representatives would always be able to speak and vote their consciences.

But I was young and naive then. Today I think upon the recent impeachment proceedings, during which all Democrats in the House of Representatives were told in no uncertain terms by their party leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, that they could not vote their consciences. Instead, they were expected to remain in lockstep with their party’s leadership and vote for impeachment, despite any objections they (or their constituents back home) might have.

These days are sad ones for freedom and democracy. Pelosi and Schiff may as well be the new, modern Communist party leaders; under their iron fists the Democrat Party has lost all semblance of democracy. House Democrats might as well don their jackboots and parade in lockstep before the Capitol, because they have shown their true colors and we now see them for what they are: mindless, subservient automatons. As for Pelosi and Schiff, they are no better than the Soviet ambassadors of the ‘70s who answered to the Kremlin; when the Deep State handlers pull upon their puppet strings, these corrupt Democrat Party leaders helplessly dance the Mamushka.