[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]

Editor’s Note: On Friday, August 16^th the Freedom Center hosted a very special event to celebrate David Horowitz’s 85th birthday and to honor his lifetime of work fighting the Left and defending liberty which continues on today through the work of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Over 100 people attended the event in Colorado Springs, Colorado, highlighted by talks given by such friends of the Center as Fox News stars Guy Benson and Monica Crowley, former Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, and the Center’s own Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield.

Below are remarks made at the event by David Horowitz himself.

*  *  *

I missed you too, and am grateful to be here tonight. In our collective heart, all our culture warriors are keenly aware that without you – our supporters – we would not be able to do what we do. So, for us, you are family. And we miss you when you’re not around.

About 25 years ago, I was watching an event similar to this one featuring the comedian George Burns who also said, “I am grateful to be here tonight,” but added, “At my age, I am grateful to be anywhere.”

When I told this joke to my wife, she was not amused. Bless her heart, she believes that life is so precious, it’s a waste to dwell on the negative and be constantly depressed that it is inexorably headed toward its end. She immediately demanded that I promise her that I would live to the age of Methusaleh, and just as quickly I promised her I would. Happy wife, happy life.

Over the years, my wife’s attitude turned out to be gold for me. Without her dedicated devotion and love during these last difficult years I don’t think I would be here today, and I certainly wouldn’t have been able to look back so happily on the journey we shared. Thank you, sweetheart.

I am touched by today’s tributes and only wish our great country could share my joys and satisfactions. Instead, it is besieged by the forces of darkness and hate with such ferocity and ignorance that it is unclear whether this free and generous land as we have known it will survive.

The Freedom Center is a unique institution with a unique mission. It was founded in 1988 by two ex-radicals who were alarmed by the way American conservatives and patriots underestimated the malice of their opponents whom they insisted on referring to as “liberals” even as it became more and more obvious that there was nothing liberal about them, beginning with their hatred for their country and willingness to betray it.

Unfortunately, there is much still to be done to restore faith in our Constitution and our people. The upcoming election will be an acid test of the strength of the destructive illusions of the Republican Party, whose leaders still refer to the anti-American, anti-white Democrat Party as merely corrupt, soft on crime, and wrong-headed liberals. But all is not the same as when Peter Collier and I launched the Center thirty years ago. Patriotic America now has a leader in Donald Trump who calls out anti-American Democrats as the fascists and communists they are. He has created the first mass movement of clear-eyed conservatives in American history, naming the true motives of their assault on America, which is already a major blow against their treasonous intentions.

This evening marks a generational transition for the Center. The average age of the Center‘s current team which includes the brilliant and prolific writers Daniel Greenfield and Robert Spencer, is about 42, which is half my age and why I have moved myself to the Board transferring all my administrative responsibilities to Mike Finch, who has been president and chief fund raiser for the Center for 20 years. You have a seasoned and brilliant team here, with a crucial mission to pursue, who need your support.

In closing, I would like to review some of our achievements in advancing that mission. We were the first conservative institution to describe the unholy alliance that American leftists had made with Islamic terrorists, an alliance that today can put 100,000 supporters in American streets and on college campuses calling for “Death to America” and a second Holocaust for the Jews.

We were the first conservative institution to warn that begining in the 1970s, an anti-American, Marxist left had infiltrated and then taken control of American universities and turned them into indoctrination and recruitment centers for their sinister agendas. We did this in five books, innumerable articles, and a dozen Islamo-fascism awareness teach-ins on major college campuses.

Twenty-five years ago, we published a best-selling book – Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes – the only publication of its kind at the time warning that the race war that had been declared on white Americans was an attack on America itself.

Currently we are focused on the otherwise overlooked fact that the IRS is the chief funder of the anti-American left, beginning with the criminal Black Lives Matter organization, whose riots and race-hating rhetoric has led to the deaths of scores of people. It also funds the armed Marxist militia, Antifa and the NGOs aiding and abetting the illegal invasion of our country. In other words, thanks to the efforts of the anti-American radicals in the White House, the American taxpayer is underwriting their country’s suicide.

The little book – America Betrayed – that we put in your bags today is a historical vision of America which shows that a multi-racial society, which respects all individuals equally, is entirely feasible within America’s Constitutional framework and was almost achieved in 1963, with Martin Luther King’s historic march. But shortly thereafter it was sabotaged by the “Black Power” left who ushered in the era of Identity Politics, a throwback to the racial divisions and conflicts of the segregationist South.

With your help, we will put a copy of America Betrayed in the hands of every Republican in Congress, and everyone able to exert pressure on the political process.

This is not a happy note on which to end this reunion, but it is a necessary one if we are to arm ourselves for the battle to help our nation survive.