Taking Back The Country

It is disheartening to watch the country committing, in effect, national suicide, an utterly preventable event but for the delusions of a slight majority of our fellow citizens.  And it is not the relatively trivial “fiscal cliff” about which the moribund media and the equally deadened political class flail about endlessly, but the societal cliff upon which the country is poised, a vast abyss of swirling vortices and black holes of debt, deficits, and unfunded obligations that can never be met.  It is difficult enough to service the debt at the current absurdly low interest rates, let alone to actually pay it down, but should the interest rates even begin to approximate historical levels, the budget would be consumed by interest payments alone, squeezing out all the beloved programs upon which so many have come to depend.

And what has brought us thusly to the precipice?  For it will not do to blame only the President, Barack Hussein Obama; while he may have solidified and extended the welfare state, he is only a symptom of a more insidious disease; he comes, after all, after a century of the left’s assault on the nation, its institutions, traditions, and economic system, and its methodical assembly, brick by brick, of the towering liberal edifice.

But the left’s long march through the nation’s institutions, the effort to decouple the people from its founding and Constitution, from the Enlightenment and our Judeo-Christian roots, began not yesterday or in January 2009 with the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, but many decades before, and has been pursued with great ardor, in every generation since, by the foot soldiers, the lieutenants, and generals of the left, the activists, organizers, and polemicists, and then their allies in the ruling class, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, universities, and press, who seem never to doubt themselves or their mission. 

And it is odd, for the left now has a long track record.  History has provided a remarkable legacy of calamity and misery in the wake of the leftist enterprise, a plethora of examples and preserved specimens, wherever it has been tried, across the continents and in every civilization.  But the left tends not to question itself and its innumerable failures or reflect on the seas of torment it has spawned for it is a religious matter for them, an indelible belief in its own infallible doctrine, which is to say, utopianism. 

Indeed, many on the left reject God and faith.  Lacking messianic compensation, they have sought “religious” rehabilitation or redemption through their more temporal urge to create heaven on earth; which, as we have learned, more commonly devolves into its opposite, living hell. 

But that rarely seems to matter, for the left’s rock solid faith in worldly paradise, in God like government, a bureaucratic priesthood, and a liberal holy creed, propels it forward, never examining itself - or the mass casualties, suffering, and ruin it leaves behind.

The left has a singular focus, its attention riveted on bringing low the one nation that impedes its advance to collectivist Valhalla - and that nation is our own, a nation conceived in liberty and the notion of individual sovereignty, with an economy based on free market capitalism, a freak, if you will, of history, unique and exceptional, and, for the left, a plague and a curse. 

No matter that America has lifted more people out of poverty, provided more opportunities and wealth for its citizens, attracted more immigrants seeking a better life than any nation in history; the left rejects it all and remains hostile to the country and its guiding principles - despite its successes. 

It is understood that the American enterprise can never be repeated for the varying strands and elements that merged at the moment of its inception, with precisely that constellation of circumstances, temperments, philosophical and religious influences, and geographical idiosyncrasies, were truly providential and can not be reproduced. 

And the left understands this fully, as it has since it spread here from Europe in the 19^th century, an intellectual movement alien and opposed to the American creed and Constitution.  To corrupt America from within, neuter it, impoverish it, disable its vibrant culture and economy, and ultimately shatter it so that it may recreate it in its own image, is and has been the goal of the left, knowing that once gone the odious free market behemoth will not reappear - and, indeed, the left's efforts proceed apace, as we march obliviously into a future of paralyzing debt, poverty, and unrest.

Nor did the left limit itself to matters of policy and governance, for its efforts were far more pervasive and profound, and tied to a cultural agenda that sought to overturn the norms and traditions of society and to attack its most vital institutions. 

By creating cultural chaos, through its social libertarianism, and embrace of various movements and trends, the left sought to unmoor the nation from its conventions, undermine its habits and values, and so collapse the civil society, thereby providing yet further venues and opportunities for government tentacles to reach and ensnare, ensuring the continued growth of the state. 

Indeed, social dysfunction goes hand in hand with the growth of government, as those swept up in the maelstrom of cultural breakdown require the government, through its welfare programs, courts, and prisons, to intervene.

But what is important to us now is not the ruin and despair the left has wrought, all of which is well known and well documented.  Rather it is its single-minded focus over the long haul on what is ultimately a destructive dogma that is of interest, its long-term planning and implementation of tactics that is useful to us  - for in its strategy, intensity, and committment to the long game, there are lessons for those who oppose them.

For the left began as a tiny claque of German influenced intellectuals who appeared on our shores and formed the core of the progressive movement.  And they and future generations of progressives were content to fight not just at the national level with grand issues and campaigns but also at the level of the school board, town hall, and county council, for it has always understood the importance of setting liberal building blocks locally as well.

In defeat or victory, it marched forward, pursuing its goals relentlessly, creating the architecture and framework for its movement in every newsroom, classroom, studio, court, and government office; it established beachheads, advanced and held territory, creating liberal facts on the ground, always thinking long term and ready to engage in political hand to hand combat.  

The left infiltrated Hollywood, the networks, the music and entertainment industry, and the schools and colleges, until its hold on society was complete. Where conservatives busily ceded cultural territory, liberals occupied it.  Where conservatives surrendered their hold on the nation, the left pressed forward and dominated it. Where the right conceded and defaulted on its political and cultural assets, the left acquired and foreclosed on them.  We now live in a culture and political milieu, with all its dysfunction and disarray, created lovingly and meticulously by the left. 

And their tenacity has been vindicated, for they have humbled the capitalist giant, their former nemesis, now a docile social democracy of European bend with a heavy supplicant culture.

Conservatives must now embrace the tactics of the left and set the stage for a return to American principles and the American Dream, a Constitutional resurgence and rejection of the welfare state.

We must produce the movies, compose the music, found the networks, prepare the editorials, write the textbooks, and educate the children.  We must retake the cultural terrain abandoned to the left and restore the nation to its former position of virtue, strength, and dynamism.  We must make our case agressively and articulately in every court of opinion, in every office, newsroom, courtroom, and school, in every venue and field, large and small, grand and trivial, giving up not an inch but rather advancing and securing resources, property, and ground - just like the left.  This will not be a short term effort, in fact it is generational; but it must be started, much as the left began some one hundred years before.     

And there is one advantage that we now have. 

In the next four years, the ruinous consequences of the Obama agenda will be felt more fully throughout the body politic.  It will affect liberals and conservatives alike.  Rural gun owners and inner city single Moms. 

None will be spared.

The laws of economics, the arithmetic of debt, the burdens of Obamacare, the teetering welfare state, the flat line economy, the cultural degradation, the hollowed out military, the appeasement abroad, none of it can be sustained. 

Democrats will blame Republicans for the inevitable debacle that will follow. 

But after eight years, it may not work. 

There is still a chance to save the nation.