Category Archives: Constitution

Broken Deals: Violating the Commandments, Abrogating the Constitution

I happen to be a member of two communities, inside each of which a majority of the members is in the process of abandoning the fundamental agreement that established the community. I am speaking about the Jewish people and the United States of America. In the first case, the deal was struck more than three thousand years ago; in the latter, a mere two and one quarter centuries have passed since the bargain was made. My purpose here is: to briefly describe the deals, who made them and how they were ratified; then to present some evidence to establish that indeed they are being broken; and finally, to compare the two processes of revocation in order to uncover both the similarities and differences between them. The latter comparison will lead me to some speculative thoughts on the consequences these broken deals might have in the future.

The deal that set the Jewish people off on their at times majestic, at times horrific journey through history was struck in the Sinai after the Exodus from Egypt. The deal was between a ragtag bunch of homeless tribes unified in their belief in a single God and that God. The people promised that they would lead a holy life, chiefly by complying with a set of complicated, onerous and in some ways incomprehensible laws that He ordained for them. In return, He would make them a mighty nation whose example would lead all the peoples of the world to accept God’s reign under which humanity would know peace and harmony. It is not unreasonable to view the Jewish people’s willingness to endure 40 years in the desert without losing their faith and the resulting successful conquest of Canaan as the ratification of the deal by both parties. But God’s promise has not been fulfilled. Many Jews would argue that that is because the Jews have not kept their part of the bargain.

The deal that established the USA is more recent and more concrete. It is laid out clearly in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The parties to the deal were the American people, that is, the Yanks of the late eighteenth century made the deal with themselves. Of course, like the Jewish deal, it obligated the descendants of the original deal-makers to adhere to the terms. And like the deal the Jews made with God, the terms of the deal the American patriots made with themselves are not hard to state. Briefly, in exchange for establishing a system of government characterized by: clearly delineated limited powers, entrusted to distinct branches of government, subject to checks and balances between the branches and between the federal and state governments, and capable of modification only by an elaborate process that required the support of the great majority of the people; in return, the people would enjoy individual liberty, clearly enunciated rights and freedoms, equal opportunity to achieve prosperity and a civil society upon which the government and its members would not tread. The deal was ratified by the thirteen colonies and the American people largely lived up to the bargain for more than a century. But in the last hundred years, the deal has been slowly unraveling.

That both deals are in a poor state of repair is self-evident. First, the percentage of world Jewry that adheres to the laws God set down for them is very low—certainly no more than 10%. Moreover, one probably has to go back to the nineteenth century to discover a time when that percentage was significantly higher. God hasn’t been doing such a great job holding up his end either. It is only two thirds of a century since he allowed one third of his partners to be ruthlessly butchered. Yes, the State of Israel was born and American Jewry enjoys great freedom to pursue its Jewish culture and traditions. But ‘a mighty nation leading the world to peace and harmony.’ I think not. The world-wide animosity toward Israel and the Jewish people is as deep and wide as at any time in recent centuries.

Sad to say, the American deal is not in great shape either. Let me review: limited government—hardly; checks and balances—Congress has relinquished its power to declare war, the executive violates the Bill of Rights with impunity, and the Courts usurp the powers of both the executive and legislative branches with abandon; a federal system with sovereignty shared by the national and state governments—that would be news to the States; and finally, both the government and the people ignore the Constitution as if it were a dusty old family document in the attic that invokes fond memories but has little relevance to life today. As a consequence, our freedoms are eroding, our prosperity is at risk, group rights are eclipsing individual liberty and society is not so civil any longer.

Well, you might say, this is very interesting, but what do the two phenomena have to do with one another? The answer will emerge from a close examination of where the two processes resemble each other, and where they differ.

First, the processes of severing their seminal agreements—which is being perpetrated by Jews and Yanks—are alike in at least four main ways:

1. Double deals. The Jews concluded their deal with God, but certainly the deal was also with themselves and with their posterity. The 12 tribes might have been unified in their monotheistic belief, but they also had separate identities and they saw the deal as a mutual obligation. Furthermore, it goes without saying that they expected their progeny to maintain the agreement.

Similarly, although the Yanks of 1775-1787 were binding themselves to a specific form of government and organization of society, they saw themselves as fulfilling a holy vision, and in particular they believed that their success in the Revolutionary War could not have been achieved without the benevolent hand of Divine Providence. The writings of the Founding Fathers are well-stocked with references to America as the new Jerusalem and the American people as the new Israelites. They definitely saw God as a party to the deal. And like the ancient Israelites, they expected that their descendants would live up to the agreement.

So in both cases, the deal breakers are betraying themselves, their God and their children.

2. Not a recent phenomenon. The cracks in both deals have been evident for a very long time. The Jews were fashioning golden calves almost from the beginning. The spies Moses sent to scout the land of Canaan doubted God’s ability to keep His promise. Indeed, Jewish history is overflowing with examples of both parties violating their obligations under the Sinai agreement. It’s a wonder that the parties still pay any homage to the agreement at all. (More on that later.)

As for the Yanks, I and others have repeatedly written about how the origins of the unraveling of the American experiment in self-government trace to the socialist ideas imported from Europe in the late nineteenth century. I won’t repeat the litany here, but let me just mention again that from John Dewey’s idea of ‘free’ public education intended to capture the minds of American youth, to Wilson and the 16th and 17th Amendments, to Roosevelt’s New Deal (note the choice of noun), to Johnson’s Great Society, to our current Messiah, we have seen a more or less steady drift of American society away from the ideals bequeathed to us by the Founders.

3. Remaining remnant. Neither revocation is complete. There exist ardent adherents in both communities who remain faithful to the terms of the deal as fervently as their forefathers were at the inception. Their percentage might be small, but they are deeply committed.

4. Failure to recognize. In both revocations, the descendants of the original deal-makers, who are throwing the agreement out, are either blind or naïve. Either they are unaware of what they are doing, i.e., they are truly ignorant of their obligations under their ancestors’ agreement. Or they believe that the course they are pursuing—which is in direct violation of their obligation—will actually improve on the deal, and that the radical changes they intend are consistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the  agreement. Thus, one has Jews who see the pursuit of ‘social justice’ superseding religious obligation; moreover, they pronounce that such a pursuit is in fact a fulfillment of the deal at Sinai. Similarly, there are Americans who do not accept that their statist philosophy is a perversion of the founding agreement, but instead see it as consistent with the Founders’ Constitution—and even if not, it will yield a more just society than living under the Constitution has.

Next, let’s consider the key differences. I will highlight three.

1. Size. This is obvious. There are three hundred million Americans and perhaps as many as 14-15 million Jews in the world. The proportion is no better if instead one considers the size of only the remaining remnants. It’s hard to say in either case exactly what the size of the remnant is. But I venture that no more than 2-3 million Jews see themselves as bound by the deal at Sinai, while there might be as many as 60-75 million Americans who believe that the US should continue to be governed according to the principles of our founding documents. This would suggest that the latter (i.e., the remnant Americans) have a better chance of reinstating their deal than do the former (remnant Jews). But let’s see.

2. Dispensation. What I am after here is an understanding of ‘what comes after’ should the deal be totally forsaken. In fact, as with the matter of size, this issue appears to be transparent. Should the end of the ConstitutionalRepublic that is the USA come about, there will be no great Gotterdammerung. Our country will simply morph into a clone of a Euro-socialist state, as Canada has. Gradually, the memory of American exceptionalism will fade away and the people of the USA, or should I say the servants of the US Government, will live their lives unaware of what they have surrendered. Still, there are many unknowns. Will China come to dominate the world? What about India? Or will the Islamic fundamentalists succeed in creating a world-wide Caliphate? Whatever happens, the best we could hope for America is a continued existence as a second-rate power with scarcely a trace of the creative drive and prosperity that was fueled by the unparalleled freedoms we enjoyed in the past.

The fate of the Jewish people, should they totally renege on their deal, is easier to describe—oblivion. From the end of the Second World War until now (roughly two thirds of a century) the Jewish population of the world has increased by at most 25%, and probably less. Most of that increase can be attributed to the remaining remnant. If there will be no remnant, there will eventually be no Jewish people. If the maniacs in Iran and/or the Arab world manage to defeat Israel, the end might come very swiftly.

So while neither fate is particularly appetizing, one is much harsher than the other—extinction versus a radical change in the nature of the organism, but not its destruction.

3. Survival. Now I am thinking about what might happen should there continue to be a strong remnant, but its percentage does not rise significantly from its current state. Here my projection might surprise the reader. In fact, unlike #2, the advantage is to the Jews over the Americans. The Jewish people have proven, over a history whose length exceeds ten times that of the Americans, that their ability to survive—even the most horrendous circumstances (Shoahs, expulsions, pogroms and the like)—is unequaled by any group in history. I have absolutely no doubt that even a small group of Jews, if committed to the ideals of their forefathers, could survive—perhaps for another few millennia.

I am less sanguine about the survivability of the AmericanRepublic. We are perilously close to changing the fundamental nature of the nation. In a majority rule country like ours, should a sufficient percentage of the citizenry decide that it wants to make a completely new deal, there will be little the surviving remnant will be able to do save leave.

So let me conclude with a speculative glimpse into the future of both communities. As I said, time has proven that the power of the ideas put forth at Sinai is sufficient to guarantee the continued existence of a critical remnant of Jewry, committed to upholding the deal. Even if—God forbid—Israel and America should fold, that remnant will continue, likely in South America or Australia, perhaps even in corners of North America or Europe. Even if the light from the star that the Jewish people represent in the firmament of the world might dim, it’s not going out. Nevertheless, that does not excuse the Jewish people—all of them, not just the remnant—from its responsibility to do everything it can to ensure that the star continues to shine brightly. Unfortunately, as I have shown in two recent articles (http://www.freeman.org/MOL/pages/july2009/are-american-jews-the-most-foolish-voters-in-the-united-states.php and http://www.freeman.org/MOL/pages/sept2009/are-american-jews-the-most-foolish-voters-in-the-united-states–ii.php), the American Jewish community has not been doing such a good job discharging that responsibility. If the star dims, the percentage of the Jewish people that the remnant constitutes could grow—and then the ‘foolishness’ might cease.

As for the American deal, I fear that the vectors are pointing in the wrong direction. If I may quote from a previous article:

‘The Left has been advancing on many fronts in our country for more than a hundred years. They have captured the media, the educational establishment, most foundations, the legal profession and more. Their progress has been steady, highlighted by periods of huge leaps to port (under Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and perhaps now Obama). The only successful counterattacks in the 20th century came under Coolidge and Reagan. And while Reagan had some success, his good work has largely been undone by the Bushes and other fake conservative Republicans who aped and appeased the liberals over the last twenty years—which has resulted in the unmitigated disaster that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid regime represents.

It is easy for a conservative to survey the scene and be dejected. The behemoth that the Federal Government has become constrains our individual freedoms on a daily basis—and the Obama team is working feverishly to turn the screws tighter. The respect for Western Civilization and our Constitutional, republican system among the people is at an all-time low—and declining. Our economy is crippled by massive debt, a crumbling dollar and runaway entitlements; the latter summons the image of a train speeding on a one-way track toward a brick wall—and Obama is stepping on the accelerator. Who or what shall rescue us? Oh despair…’

Still, as the catchy line goes, ‘Predictions are difficult, especially of the future.’ At the time of Johnson’s Great Society, who could have predicted Reagan? And in the days of Reagan’s morning in America, who could have predicted Obama’s dark night? But I don’t foresee many more seesaw movements like this. It seems to me that one of two eventualities is in store for us. I believe that within a generation, two at most, either there will be a true, powerful and long-term conservative renaissance in the USA or we will slip irreversibly into a permanent leftist nightmare. By the former I mean a complete reversal of the statist path we have been traveling. I’m talking huge majorities in Congress, several presidents at least as conservative as Reagan, and the marginalization (but preferably the dismantling) of the liberal hegemony that the leftist-dominated media, educational system, legal profession and foundations have imposed on the nation. I know, it’s hard to imagine that happening, but I believe it is possible. If it doesn’t occur, then I think the slow (and sometimes not so slow) inexorable drift of American society to the left will pass what Thomas Sowell has called the ‘tipping point,’ on the other side of which is an egalitarian tyranny that spells the death knell for the Republic that our Founders envisioned. If that happens, given the horrendous mistake the American people made in the last election, I doubt that we will even recognize the moment that our collective heads slip under the water.

Preaching to the Choir

After a recent posting here, a regular reader sent me a message saying: ‘As usual, Ron, I like very much what you wrote; but in the end, what is the point? You are just preaching to the choir!’ By this, she meant that, as far as she could see, the readership of my blog—and other outlets of a similar bent—consisted of people who were already convinced of the merits of the arguments advanced by me and other conservative writers. Therefore, she wondered, what were we accomplishing beyond the reinforcement of each others already well-established beliefs? She has a point. But I also believe she misses some points. My goal here is to address her concern.

I will first lay out four objectives that I pursue in publishing a conservative point of view in the blogosphere. Then I will step back and briefly describe the current perilous state of our country, which is in part a consequence of the political drubbing that conservatives have suffered recently, occasioned by their failure to practice what they preach. This will lead to a fifth—and most crucial—reason for why it is important that conservative authors continue to fill the ‘pages’ of the conservative blogoshphere with their ideas.

1. Development and Reinforcement. The most basic objective, and the one I stand ‘accused of’ by my reader, is the development and reinforcement of my own ideas on political conservatism. A measure of the worth of one’s beliefs is how well they stand up to one’s own scrutiny as well as the scrutiny of one’s sympathetic listeners. More than three decades ago, my formerly liberal ideas failed that test when several traumatic events (chief among them the forced busing of my child) caused me to closely reexamine my political axioms. It is important that those who are motivated to put their political ideas ‘out there’ should regularly subject those ideas to the tests of self-examination and public scrutiny. In any event, the positive feedback I receive from readers is very reassuring.

2. Refinement. This is close to, but not exactly the same as the first objective. I seek not only to reinforce my and my ‘co-believers’ ideas, but also to refine and improve them. In this regard, the reactions I hear from both sympathetic and non-sympathetic readers are highly useful. We are often seduced by the harmony of our own music, but there is always room for improvement. Putting one’s ideas into the trough of public opinion is a good means to elicit both the friendly and unfriendly criticism that can lead to a sharpening of one’s arguments.

3. Influencing the opposition. I am always a little surprised to learn that my blog does receive some limited attention from liberal readers. In particular, I have many friends and relatives who fall in the enemy camp, and yet some of them read my posts carefully. Occasionally, I get correspondence from such a reader acknowledging a point I made and admitting the legitimacy of my view. A small but gratifying victory. No liberal would be exposed to conservative ideas if the blogosphere did not exist. Other conservative media outlets, some of which have substantial liberal following, play a similarly salutary role.

4. Winning the culture war. In several earlier postings (see, e.g., http://new.ronlipsman.com/2009/04/10/different-visions/ or http://new.ronlipsman.com/2009/05/17/what-culture-is-it-that-the-politics-have-caught-up-with/), I outlined a long-term strategy for recapturing the conservative spirit that once animated the majority of the American populace. Put simply, it was to reverse engineer the mechanism, dreamt up by socialist thinkers a century ago—which was to completely capture the culture of the nation, knowing that the politics would follow. That is precisely what has happened. In those articles I laid out some ideas for reversing the process. The conservative blogoshpere plays a fundamental role in motivating the foot soldiers of the counterrevolutionary struggle.

The Left has been advancing on many fronts in our country for more than a hundred years. They have captured the media, the educational establishment, most foundations, the legal profession and more. Their progress has been steady, highlighted by periods of huge leaps to port (under Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and perhaps now Obama). The only successful counterattacks in the 20th century came under Coolidge and Reagan. And while Reagan had some success, his good work has largely been undone by the Bushes and other fake conservative Republicans who aped and appeased the liberals over the last twenty years—which has resulted in the unmitigated disaster that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid regime represents.

It is easy for a conservative to survey the scene and be dejected. The behemoth that the Federal Government has become constrains our individual freedoms on a daily basis—and the Obama team is working feverishly to turn the screws tighter. The respect for Western Civilization and our Constitutional, republican system among the people is at an all-time low—and declining. Our economy is crippled by massive debt, a crumbling dollar and runaway entitlements; the latter summons the image of a train speeding on a one-way track toward a brick wall—and Obama is stepping on the accelerator. Who or what shall rescue us? Oh despair…which leads me to my last and most important reason why I, why all conservatives need to keep putting the truth before the American people.

5. Faith. The creation of the American experiment in self-government more than two centuries ago was an act of faith. Our founders had faith, not only in Divine Providence, but also in the good sense of the American people, whom they believed manifested a unique zeal for the ideals of individual liberty, limited government and moral propriety. They understood that the struggle to maintain those ideals in the future would be difficult—that it would require the continued benevolent hand of Providence and the good judgment of the people. Without these, the Republic would succumb to one of the tyrannies at either end of the political spectrum—the concentrated power of a despotic individual or group, or the mobocracy inherent in an unchecked ‘democracy’ devoted to mindless egalitarianism. Today the Republic is in danger, thanks to a bizarre combination of both extremes—albeit much more of the latter than the former.

The fifth objective of the conservative blogosphere is to express its continued faith that the two sets of hands into which our founders entrusted the American experiment are still reliable. Conservatives still believe, as Reagan said, that ‘God had a divine purpose in placing this land between the two great oceans to be found by those who had a special love of freedom and courage,‘ which expresses our faith in both founding pillars. If we lose that faith, then there truly is no hope.

Is the United States of America Doomed?

Recently I posted a piece in this blog entitled, ‘On the Existential Threat to Israel.’ In it, I discussed the manifold, deadly threats confronting the Jewish State and how many of them eventually, and perhaps imminently, could prove lethal. I also located the threats in the context of three portentous developments in the world:

  1. A worldwide resurgence of Islam, much of it in a radical and deadly mode;
  2. A worldwide resurgence of virulent Anti-Semitism, much of it cloaked as anti-Zionism, but in reality nothing more than old-fashioned Jew hatred;
  3. The steep decline within Western Civilization of self-esteem.

Finally, I pointed out how each of these developments also posed a mortal danger to the nations of the West (specifically in Europe and North America). It was easy to justify the latter claim for numbers 1 and 3; the justification for number 2 was somewhat subtle and restricted to Europe.

In this article I will look more closely at these ‘existential threats as they apply to the United States. While alarmingly present in Europe, number 2 above is, thankfully, not really pertinent in the US — but its place in the list is taken ably by another malignant threat to our nation, our gargantuan federal government. Thus, with some revision to the first and third to make them more applicable to the US as opposed to the entire West, the threat list now reads:

  1. The rise of Islamist fundamentalism, or Islamism or Islamo-fascism as some prefer to call it — is it as much of a threat to the US as it obviously is to Europe?
  2. An increasingly powerful, coercive, unresponsive, irresponsible and repressive federal government.
  3. The sharp decline among the American public of faith in American exceptionalism, esteem for the historic culture of America and Western Civilization, respect for and adherence to the Constitution, and public displays of virtue as this would have been understood by the Founding Fathers.

Now the majority of the threats to Israel’s existence are physical —should they be fulfilled, it would likely result in the actual destruction of the State: the slaughter or expulsion of its people, the annihilation of its cities and towns, the total loss of sovereignty — that is, the physical extinction of the State in any corporal sense. (It makes my blood curl just to write that sentence.)

The threat to the US is more political, cultural and economic than it is physical. Even though one could imagine an attack or attacks on US soil by Islamists with WMD, it is not possible to foresee the Iranian Revolutionary Guard occupying the US, declaring an Islamist totalitarian state, and killing or forcibly converting those Americans who resist. Rather, the envisioned consequence, especially of the latter two threats to the US, should either reach a cataclysmic stage, is that our beloved republic would cease to exist in any sense in which our Founders understood it. Our people, our towns, our industry,our farms, our infrastructure, even our armed forces might remain intact. But: liberty would no longer be our most sacred value; our freedoms would vanish; our Constitutional rights would be replaced by the ‘bounty’ we receive from the State; a phony tolerance for all cultures would supersede our Judeo-Christian heritage; our morals would be defined by the government and its lackey media,not by religious principles; our economy would be directed by the government and entrepreneurs would not exist; our standard of living would sink precipitously; our military would atrophy and we would cease to be a great power; and the concept of American exceptionalism would be relegated to the dustbin of history as we take our place as just another cowardly, Euro-socialist, crippled nation watching as the might of China, India, Islam or whomever grows and supplants us as the most powerful force on Earth. America has been a beacon of freedom and a force for good in the world for nearly a quarter millennium. Will that be true of our successor if we fall?

How real are these threats and, if they are, what can we do to forestall them? They are very real. First, the end of the Cold War has seen the emergence of a virulent, fanatical and apocalyptic brand of Islam. It has always been there, just in decline and/or slumbering for the last few hundred years. But now ‘Islamic Civilization’ is displaying some traits that seem to be disappearing in the West — namely, self-confidence, religious fervor, ample foot soldiers willing to die for the cause and a bold vision of the future. The ascendant forces in the Islamic world would seem intent on restoring the caliphate and extending Muslim hegemony over vast stretches of the planet, commensurate with their reach a millennium or more ago. They see Europe, and increasingly the United States, as soft, retreating, lacking faith and morale,and ripe for the plucking. It would be the height of folly for the US to ignore the goals of the Islamists, and thus fall prey to the malevolent harm they intend to inflict (and to some extent have already inflicted) on our society.

With the prior assessment of the first threat, I suspect a significant portion, perhaps a majority, of my fellow citizens might agree. But I doubt any such agreement is forthcoming on the second threat.

The ranks of conservative, republican (small ‘r’) patriots have been thinning rapidly since Ronald Reagan passed from the scene. I venture that no more than 20-25% of the US citizenry is aware of the century-long degradation of our Constitutional republic that has occurred. From Teddy Roosevelt, through Wilson, then FDR, Johnson, Carter and now Obama we have seen a near constant retreat from the original liberty-focused, market-oriented, limited form of republican government that our Founders established, and a concurrent march toward the egalitarian, government-controlled, Constitution-ignoring, business-bashing, soft tyranny that our system has become. If Obama wins on either cap and trade or nationalized health insurance, we might pass the point of no return and the Republic will be lost forever.

Am I overstating the danger posed by our overgrown government? Recently, a financial adviser speaking to me about the economy and the stock market, acknowledged the grave dangers that Obama’s and the radical leftists in Congress’ programs portend for the economy. But then he asserted that historically, the market has factored in the constraints caused by the introduction of the income tax, Social Security, Medicare, Sarbanes-Oxley and myriad other government laws and regulations that have hampered American business; and then continued its inexorable, if uneven, march forward. Well then, he continued, the market will just factor in Obama’s monstrosities as well and continue as in the past. I would sum up that stance in the words: we’ve been alright in the past despite stupid and self-destructive moves, so we shall be alright in the future, despite stupid and self-destructive moves. I’m not so sure! As Thomas Sowell has said, there is a tipping point and I fear we are getting mighty close to it.

Yet, I doubt there is widespread agreement with my fear of an existential danger posed by the federal government. Some folks believe, like my colleague, that we’ll withstand the government’s latest assaults and continue our march forward. I suspect an even greater proportion of the populace doesn’t acknowledge the threat at all. They cherish all the ‘security’ and goodies that big government provides for them and ignore the wisdom of Reagan, who said that Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

Finally, the third threat — loss of self esteem — poses, in my mind, the gravest threat of the three. History reveals that great civilizations more often die by suicide than by conquest. The nations of Western Europe, having lost their faith in the cultural, political and economic principles that sustained them for centuries, are playing the death scene right now. The US is manifesting the same symptoms, albeit at an earlier stage. And yet again, I think there is even less support for my belief in this threat than there is for the previous, I sense that the vast majority of my fellow citizens do not recognize that the egalitarian, anti-religious, anti-patriotic, anti-free market, anti-family, big government, unconstitutional and basically anti-American program that is being thrust on them — and to which they appear increasingly receptive — is a recipe for the death of the United States as a free republic. People say reflexively that America is still the greatest country in the world. But because of the brainwashing to which they have been subjected for many decades at the hands of the media, government schools, the higher education establishment and all the other liberal-dominated, opinion-forming organs of American society, those naively optimistic folks have little understanding of how much the US has changed in the last century and where it is headed sans a conservative course correction.

So what is to be done? As I outlined in a previous article, ‘Different Visions,’ while there is definitely a political and economic component to the struggle, the effort to recapture the nation and preserve the structure bequeathed to us by the Founders must be primarily cultural. Repeating part of the argument there, ‘We need to have conservative philosophers and cultural icons that state the case for and epitomize the worth of traditional Western culture. More mundanely, we need to nurture conservative film makers, fund conservative law schools, build conservative foundations (like Heritage, but more of them), defend and expand talk radio, establish conservative newspapers (like the Washington Times, but more of them), concoct an organization to counter the NEA in the minds of the country’s teachers, abandon the mainline churches and support religious institutions that champion traditional values, etc. It might take a hundred years to achieve success; after all it took the Left a century to reach the dominance it currently enjoys. If we don’t do this, then the America that we have loved and which has proven to be such a boon to the peoples of the world will surely – perhaps slowly, but maybe not so slowly – wither into one more Euro-socialist State. Then the light from mankind’s last best hope will have gone out.’

To summarize, I believe the US will cope with the first threat. We took care of the Nazis and the Communists; we’ll defeat the Islamists as well — provided we don’t succumb to one of the latter two threats first. As for the second threat, I don’t believe we can meet it without successfully overcoming the third. If we continue to lose self-esteem, that is lose faith in our heritage, pride in our achievements, trust in free markets and respect for the system established by the Founders, then surely the government will continue to grow into a republic-destroying monster that will make our current soft tyranny seem tame in relation to the much harder tyranny we shall experience.

On the other hand, if there is a resurgence of patriotic spirit, cultural pride, renewed faith in American exceptionalism and respect for our historic, republican, Constitutional heritage, then the people will be ready to tame the government beast. America has faced grave crises previously: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Depression, Fascism, and Communism. In every instance, we managed to prevail. But with diminishing self-esteem prevalent, it is easy to be pessimistic about our prevailing again. And yet we have ammunition in this battle that Europe lacks — such as, God-fearing people, a formidable military, guns in the closet, talk radio and of course our Constitution. What we lack is another Reagan, or — recognizing that the battle is cultural more than political — a Martin Luther King who will inspire the people to reconnect with their liberty, rediscover their heritage and overcome the forces of tyranny that are dragging us down.

The Nature of Obama’s Liberalism

In a previous posting on this blog (Different Visions), I have explained, as have many others, how a dispassionate evaluation of the performance of governments that operated according to liberal principles — whether of the extreme varieties like Communism, Nazism, Peronism or Italian fascism; or of the more moderate types practiced in the welfare states of Western Europe — must result in the conclusion that they were abject failures. Of course, by liberal I mean in the modern sense, not classic liberalism as it was understood in the eighteenth century. To wit, and in brief: a collectivist philosophy that emphasizes the central government as the controlling force in society; an elevation of equity, fairness and security above liberty, freedom and private property as fundamental goals of the populace; government control, if not outright ownership, of the means of production; a multicultural, non-religious, ‘global family’ cultural outlook that debases the value of Western Civilization, American history and free markets; and a ‘living Constitutional’ system in which ‘change,’ ‘progress’ and the pursuit of ‘social justice’ count for far more than ‘tradition,’ ‘stability’ andthe ‘rule of law.’ (A more thorough explanation of the basic tenets ofmodern liberalism, as opposed to conservative principles, can be foundin my book, Liberal Hearts and Conservative Brains).

The human carnage, decline in prosperity, loss of freedom and dependent mentality that have resulted in nations in which liberalism has reigned unchecked are so pervasive and obvious that I wondered in the aforementioned article how liberals could ‘ignore these results andcontinue to have faith in their leftist ideas.’ I offered three possible explanations there. It is my purpose in this article to ascribe one (or more) of these rationales to the underlying motives of our dear President. To be more precise in that article, I said:

Either the liberal is blind to the damage; or he sees it but believes the principles have not been applied correctly and that America is a special case in which liberalism can co-exist with classic American ideals in order to improve our country; or he flagrantly does not care. In the first instance, much of the populace simply does not recognize or does not understand the wreckage of liberalism’s failures. They are so brainwashed by the media, the schools, the librarians, the ad agencies, the lawyers, the foundations and all the other opinion molding organs of society that have been thoroughly captured by the Left, that they believe — among other fairy tales — that Roosevelt’s New Deal pulled the US out of the Great Depression; that Great Society programs have produced a more just society — not one characterized by welfare dependency, out of wedlock births, rampant pornography, a permanent underclass and wanton crime; and that the Income Tax and the alphabet soup of federal regulatory agencies allow the Federal Government to assume its rightful place as the most important component of US society, providing vital support for education, energy, transportation, housing and virtually every other facet of American life.

In the second instance, we encounter the ‘well-intentioned liberal.’ The Democratic Party is well-stocked with them. They are confident that they can fine-tune and spruce up American society according to more humane egalitarian principles in order to smooth the rough edges caused by rugged individualism. They do not believe that the fundamental character of the American experiment in freedom will be altered by their policies, rather it will be perfected. We will acknowledge our past flaws like slavery, maltreatment of American Indians and suppression of women’s rights, and by correcting them and other deficiencies in our society, we will create a more enlightened country that remains true to its fundamental creed as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Finally, in the third case, doctrinaire liberals/socialists do not care about the carnage because they would have you believe that America is an unjust, unfair, bigoted and corrupt nation that must be completely remade. They do not see prosperity and success as the nation’s primary goals; rather equality and fairness should reign supreme. Liberty and freedom are not nearly as important as social justice, multiculturalism and environmental justice — whatever that is. In which of these three categories Obama fits is a topic for a future article.

Well, here is that article.

Now of course I do not know Barack Obama personally and so anymotives I ascribe to him will represent conclusions based on my observations of his public persona. But the President of the United States is the most closely scrutinized person in the world. Over the course of his campaign for the Presidency and especially in his actions during the first half year of that Presidency, there is more than ample evidence to formulate what I see as highly probable motivations.

So let us start with the first rationale. This would explain Obama’s extreme left-wing policies as follows. Namely, he believes in his heart that he is doing what is best for America, that his actions and their consequences are fully consistent with American history and Constitutional Law and that they will result in a better country economically, socially and especially morally. I have no doubt that many of his followers, thoroughly brainwashed by the media, the educational establishment and the other opinion molding organs of American society that are firmly in the grip of the Left, fit this description perfectly. They are not cognizant or will not accept that socialism/fascism/liberalism or whatever you want to call Obama’s political orientation has been a colossal failure wherever it has been tried. They do not know or will not recognize that: cap and trade will impoverish the United States, nationalized health insurance will result in the rationing of health care, coddling of the mullahs will endanger our security, pumping up the money supply and out of control governments pending will result in stagflation, and increasing taxes on the ‘wealthy’ will hurt the middle class. Their disbelief or ignorance is breathtaking because these consequences are exactly what has happened when loony liberalism has prevailed — see, e.g., England, prior to the arrival of Margaret Thatcher on the scene.

But I seriously doubt that Obama is that ignorant. Yes, he is brainwashed — after all, his political associations in his young adult life were almost exclusively with those on the hard Left. His entire worldview, from law school student to Community-Organizer-in-Chief, has been fashioned out of the clay molded by extreme left sculptors of American society — Alinsky, Wright, Ayers and the like. Moreover, the disdain that is evident in his manner when he pays lip service to conservative alternatives to his beliefs suggests that he gives absolutely no credence to the possibility that his collectivist views are misguided and potentially lethal to the country. If this is not brainwashed, it is certainly closed-minded.

But my liberal friends keep assuring me that he is a very smart man. I choose to believe them. It is impossible, if he is so smart, that he does not know exactly what he is doing and what the consequences will be. So I am ruling out ignorance. That leaves only naivete or malevolence. If it is the former, then, in spite of its track record, he believes that liberalism is still the best course for America. Yes ,it has failed in other venues, but only because it wasn’t conceptualized well or its implementation was flawed. He doesn’t accept that Nazism or Communism is in any way related to liberalism. And he doesn’t see Western Europe as a failure. Yes, their economic growth and productivity doesn’t match ours, but they have fairer, more equitable societies. Besides, with our Yankee ingenuity and initiative, we’ll do it better than they have. And yes, their militaries are weaker than ours, but if we play our cards carefully in foreign policy, we won’t need such a strong military. Okay, the country will be overall a little poorer, but only because there won’t be so many billionaires. On the other hand, our wealth will be more evenly distributed, resulting in a more just society. Yes, we ignore or circumvent the original meaning of the Constitution on occasion; but Obama would have only been 3/5 of a person under its aegis — thus it is a flawed document. Besides, it is not a biblical tract that demands absolute obedience. It’s only meant as a guide. And I believe, says Mr. Obama, that the path I am taking America down is not inconsistent with that Guide Book.

To me this is naivete par excellence. It is a design for the future based on a faulty reading of the past. Is it a faithful representation of Obama’s core philosophy? Maybe! What about the third possibility?

In fact it is painful to write the following words. To entertain the thought that the freely elected President of the United States is not a patriot, that he despises what our country has stood for and seeks a radical recasting of the fundamental character of the nation, to think thus is to contemplate the possibility that the last election was a suicidal act by the people of the United States. And yet it is possible, many would say plausible, and a not insignificant number would claim that it is self-evident.

The evidence is strong. He promised and he is delivering, together with the left-wing radicals he has appointed, an ultra-liberal government. Of course in this he is greatly aided by the mob of Leftists who now control the Congress. But it is his advocacy of: cap and trade; nationalized, uniform, mandatory and government controlled health insurance; higher taxes (on everyone, not just the ‘rich’); card check; nationalization of critical segments of private industry; massive government spending and debt; a multilateral and WEAK foreign policy that coddles our adversaries and pressures only Israel; evisceration of the armed forces, curtailment of missile defense and abolition of don’t-ask-don’t tell; a marginal place for religion in American life (which church has he joined? Oh, Rev. Wright is not preaching in DC); federal command of public (and private) education; a weakening of the public’s right to bear arms, and on and on . . .. It is his advocacy of all of this (and more) that is the embodiment of an extreme left-wing program that will radically alter the fundamental and historic nature of American society. Moreover, he never speaks of liberty and freedom, or the rights of Americans to their businesses or property. He goes abroad and paints a wretched portrait of an America that has betrayed the ideals of the American Revolution. (Actually I think he has our revolution and that of the French confused.) He seems oblivious to America’s lead role in the fight to eliminate Nazism, Communism and even colonialism from the world. Perhaps these are not worthy accomplishments in his eyes.

So is he a naive waif seeking to rescue an imperfect America in whose fundamental principles he believes, or is he a malevolent soul intent on remaking a corrupt, bigoted and violent America that he reviles? I wish I knew! But it has to be one of these two. Although, perhaps it does not matter. What difference does it make if he is purposefully leading us to hell or if he is accidentally diverting us there? We shall be lost either way.

Obama certainly seems to admire the welfare states of Western Europe and seeks to have the US emulate them. He would appear to be blissfully unaware of the political and social cancers that afflict those societies. Cancers that are largely self-inflicted. For not unlike in the Soviet Union as it decayed into non-existence, the leaders and people of Europe have lost faith in their own guiding principles and legends. How else to explain a continent in which:

  • you cannot speak of Christ, Christianity or Christmas on the soil that used to be known as Christendom;
  • the people that produced the art, science and literature of the Renaissance now produce . . . little, because no one is working very hard;
  • the countries that invented and perfected the idea of the nation-state are falling all over themselves to surrender their sovereignty to a supra-national European Union;
  • some of the strongest armies in world history were created, yet today has virtually no military capability;
  • the defeat of an invading Islamic army was repeated several times, but today lies prostrate before a horde of invading Muslim civilians that are subverting the culture from within;
  • few are getting married, fewer are having babies, and the resulting, quickly aging population is oblivious to the mortal dangers these pose.

My final thought: are we there yet? Does Obama’s election signal the end of the great American experiment in individual liberty, limited government and unbounded opportunity? Will he lead us down the path that Europe has already trod? Americans still describe themselves overwhelmingly as more conservative than liberal. How can that be squared with their political choices in 2008? Are so many of us so thoroughly brainwashed that we don’t realize that we are not really conservative? Or were we just so disappointed in Bush and the fake conservative Republicans that we decided to give the real liberals a chance? Will we regret it as we did with Jimmy Carter and come to our senses? I DON’T KNOW. The stakes are very high. Obama’s liberalism, whatever its true nature, is a lethal dart aimed at the heart of America. Will we duck or will we not even notice that it has struck its mark?

 

 

 

Different Visions

There is no doubt that the onset of the Obama administration has energized conservative intellectuals. A year ago conservatives were trying to reconcile themselves to the McCain candidacy — an eventuality that filled us with dismay as we contemplated yet another fake conservative presidency and the further dilution of the Reagan brand of conservative republicanism. Then, as the threat of an ultra-liberal Obama presidency loomed larger in the summer and fall of 2008, we exhorted ourselves to a more fervent support of John McCain — realizing that his election, dismal as the prospect might be, was the only hope of preventing the catastrophe that we believed an Obama presidency promised. But our hearts were not in it. When Obama triumphed, we licked our wounds, muttered pathetic excuses like ‘Bush and the Republican Congress brought this on with their profligate spending and betrayal of bedrock conservative principles,’ and took some solace from the ‘moderate’ or’ centrist’ feints that Obama engaged in during the transition period. We were hoping against hope that the newly arrived messiah — a designation not inappropriate to the manner of treatment accorded him by the media — might turn out to be more of a pragmatist, perhaps even a centrist, than his meager record and public utterings predicted that he would be. The dispirited nature of many of our columns, blogs and op/ed pieces during that period reflected the depth of our disappointment, the dejection we were experiencing and the slim reeds of hope at which we were clutching. Alas, not surprisingly, the reeds were ephemeral and the age of Obama has ushered in precisely the far left agenda that we feared.

Therefore, we are no longer able to deceive ourselves that President Obama might govern to some extent like Clinton did — i.e., from the center (sort of). And worse still, the new messiah might not — as many of us hoped — turn out to be as incompetent as the feckless Jimmy Carter. So now that we are truly frightened by the prospect of the great damage Mr. Obama might wreak in the next four or eight years, our juices have started flowing again, our batteries are charged and conservative outlets are overflowing with spirited, passionate and fervent pleas to the American people to recognize Mr. Obama for the dangerous, leftist radical that he surely is and barely attempts to conceal.

The examples are legion, but I would like to cite one specific piece by David Limbaugh in the Washington Times (3/28/09) entitled ‘Capital Arrogance.’ There is much in this trenchant column that highlights the threats posed by Obama and his Congressional allies, but I wish to focus on one specific paragraph:

The liberals see they now have a chance to actualize their vision for an America remade in their image and radically at odds with the vision of this nation’s Founders. It doesn’t matter that there couldn’t be a worse time in our history for implementing their reckless policies. They know they may not get another chance in their lifetimes to work such mischief. Even though it will break the federal bank, us, our children and our grandchildren, it’s all going to be OK because they will finally have achieved their statist vision for America.

There are four critical points raised here by Limbaugh:

  • Obama and his liberal henchmen have a fundamentally different vision for America from that of our Founders.
  • They perceive that this period presents them with perhaps a unique opportunity to implement that vision.
  • The damage to our country by the actualization of that vision, while calamitous at any time, will be especially bad at this time because of the severe economic distress in which we find ourselves.
  • The Obama regime is oblivious to the consequences that the realization of its vision will have on the people of our country; its adherents care only that their utopian dream of a society of equals (their brotherhood of man), guaranteed by an all powerful, ‘benign’ State, is in their view the right way to organize society, and that even if it means a lower standard of living, a diminished status in the world, and an erosion of our individual liberties, the new society will be a far fairer, more just and healthier nation than it was or ever could be under the old system.

Unfortunately, Limbaugh, like many conservative pundits, offers us little or nothing in the way of advice for preventing the calamity that he so acutely predicts. Many fear– and I worry that they might be correct — that there is no forestalling the radical remake of the USA that the age of Obama will usher in. Well, I am not ready to surrender just yet. I would like to make a strategic suggestion for combating Obama’s false nirvana. But before I do, let me say a little more about Limbaugh’s four points — especially the first and last.

Different Visions. One could go on at great length here; let me just say that the Founder’s vision of the USA incorporated: a limited government, empowered primarily to ensure the liberty of the people — thus, to defend the homeland, maintain the worth of the currency, guarantee the validity of contracts, ensure the rule of law, and not too much else; a virtuous populace, whose morals were derived from traditional Western religion and whose primary organization was based on the family (in the classic sense); an economy characterized by free markets and democratic capitalism; checks and balances between the federal government and those of the States, with all unenumerated powers reserved to the States and the people; a set of precious individual rights (life, liberty, freedom of speech, assemblyand religion, and the right to bear arms) that could not be circumscribed by the government; and a respect for and adherence to the Constitution as the fundamental law of the land that could only be altered through an elaborate process, which required a broad consensus of the people.

Obama’s and modern liberals’ vision of America is totally different. In short the fundamental guiding principles are not liberty and freedom, but rather equality and fairness; they take their inspiration from the ideals of the French, not the American Revolution. These include: a benign, but very powerful central government that sets and enforces the rules for virtually all aspects of American life; the elevation of tolerance, a non-judgmental perspective and equity far above all else in determining relationships between people; the belief that inequalities between individuals that result from a free market system are absolutely unacceptable and thus the economy must be strongly regulated — and occasionally controlled — by the government in order to spread the wealth and promote the three principles above; the certainty that American culture is no worthier than any other, therefore merits no celebration and should in fact be infused by cultures from around the world; conflict resolution by negotiation only and a strong aversion to military force — even in defense; the further belief that religion is superstition and inferior to rationalism; all forms of family structure are as valid as the ‘traditional’ family; and finally, the Constitution is a ‘living’ document that guides us but does not bind us.

The two long lists above could be fleshed out further, but you get the idea. Plainly, these are starkly different visions for the future of America.

Unique Opportunity. Due to the egregiously poor performance of the Republican Party (in both the executive and legislative branches) over the last decade, the electorate grew fed up and installed an ultra-liberal regime to govern the country. Something like this has happened three times in the last century — the administrations of Wilson, Roosevelt and Johnson. (The analogy is imprecise.) Liberals look back on these as golden ages; conservatives view them as tragedies that have had permanently devastating consequences for American society. We largely avoided permanent tragedies in the last two Democratic administrations – because Carter was incompetent, and Clinton was not a fanatical true believer; besides, he was checked by Gingrich. But today there is no Gingrich, no Reagan, and the overwhelmingly liberal Democratic Party has a good chance to bring about a fourth great leap to the left in America. They sense — not without justification — that this leap might put America irrevocably over the top. Social justice will reign and individual liberty will be a memory, and there will be no going back. They might be right — we will know soon enough.

Special Circumstances. Here I don’t see eye to eye with Limbaugh. Yes, Roosevelt engineered his leap to the left during the Depression and he used it for cover to enact his socialist programs. But both Wilson’s and Johnson’s surge to port were perpetrated in not particularly perilous times. Yet they both still managed to leave us with a sorry legacy. We are still coping with the tragedy of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution that enabled the federal income tax. And the social, moral and economic havoc that resulted from Johnson’s Great Society continues to poison our nation. Obama will almost certainly, like Roosevelt, use the current economic crisis as an excuse to enact his ultra-left program for America. (After all, his right-hand man, Rahm Emanuel, has already informed us that this crisis is too great an opportunity to waste.) But economic distress or not, whichever of Obama’s socialist, collectivist, egalitarian and pacifistic policies he is able to implement will be calamitous for America, even if the Stock Market was not doing a swan dive and the Mullahs were not splitting the atom.

Liberal Motivation. In this fourth point, Limbaugh is spot on. How can anyone survey the history of liberalism/socialismin the world over the last century and not conclude that it has been an abject failure? In its mildest form, Euro-socialism, it has resulted in the decaying societies of Western Europe — plagued by low birth rates, out of control welfare costs, high unemployment and low productivity, inability to project force and defend themselves, and a growing, subversive immigrant population that is needed to fund the entitlement programs. Canada fits that model as well. In its most virulent form, Nazism and Communism, it has resulted in horrors almost beyond human imagination. Well, I believe that liberals can ignore these results and continue to have faith in their leftist ideas for one of three reasons. Either the liberal is blind to the damage; or he sees it but believes the principles have not been applied correctly and that America is a special case in which liberalism can co-exist with classic American ideals in order to improve our country; or he flagrantly does not care.

In the first instance, much of the populace simply does not recognize or does not understand the wreckage of liberalism’s failures. They are so brainwashed by the media, the schools, the librarians, the ad agencies, the lawyers, the foundations and all the other opinion molding organs that have been thoroughly captured by the Left, that they believe — among other fairy tales — that Roosevelt’s New Deal pulled the US out of the Great Depression; that Great Society programs have produced a more just society — not one characterized by welfare dependency, out of wedlock births, rampant pornography, a permanent underclass and wanton crime; and that the Income Tax and the alphabet soup of federal regulatory agencies allow the Federal Government to assume its rightful place as the most important component of US society, providing vital support for education, energy, transportation, housing and virtually every other facet of American life. In the second instance, we encounter the ‘well-intentioned liberal.’ The Democratic Party is well-stocked with them. They are confident that they can fine-tune and spruce up American society according to more humane egalitarian principles in order to smooth the rough edges caused by rugged individualism. They do not believe that the fundamental character of the American experiment in freedom will be altered by their policies, rather it will be perfected. We will acknowledge our past flaws like slavery, maltreatment of American Indians and suppression of women’s rights, and by correcting them and other deficiencies in our society, we will create a more enlightened country that remains true to its fundamental creed as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Finally, in the third case, doctrinaire liberals/socialists do not care about the carnage because they would have you believe that America is an unjust, unfair, bigoted and corrupt nation that must be completely remade. They do not see prosperity and success as the nation’s primary goals, rather equality and fairness should reign supreme. Liberty and freedom are not nearly as important as social justice, multiculturalism and environmental justice — whatever that is. In which of these three categories Obama fits is a topic for a future article.

All that said, what is my strategic suggestion for turning the tide? The inspiration comes from the enemy. How did we reach this point? Why do the consequences of the Reagan and Gingrich Revolutions seem so meager today? Reagan won the Cold War, rebuilt America’s economy and restored the military. Gingrich — admittedly with Clinton’s help – balanced the budget. How did the Left bear those defeats and rise to the seemingly impregnable heights it occupies today? I believe the seeds were sown roughly a century ago, to a great extent by the socialist, Italian philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, who preached that the way to convert the democratic, capitalistic countries of Western Civilization into socialist utopias was to capture the culture. Take over all the prime cultural institutions of the nation, convert the people to believers in the new culture and the politics would surely follow. Whether on purpose or inadvertently, that is exactly what the Left did. Led by early revolutionaries like John Dewey, Upton Sinclair and Woodrow Wilson, followed over several generations by Roosevelt and the New Dealers and then Johnson and the 60s radicals, the Left took control of all the organs of society that determine the culture: the media, educational system, legal profession, foundations, mainline churches, even big business to some extent. When the average American believes that abortion is a fundamental right, that the wall between church and state should be insurmountable, that Hollywood starlets have something to say about politics that is worth listening to, that it is alright for politicized teachers to have more influence over children than their parents, that soft core porn is acceptable fare for 8PM TV, that business is greedy and the government is competent and fair, that it is OK for athletes to tattoo their bodies, strut like peacocks and be role models for our children, then what chance does conservative politics really have against the liberal onslaught? With that cultural background it is not surprising that people vote for Barack Obama andNancy Pelosi.

So what are we to do? Take back the culture! Simple to say; hard to do. Yes, we have to continue to do battle in the political arena. Reagan’s and Newt’s victories in the political and economic spheres were fantastic. But these two gentlemen did not seriously contest the cultural battlefield. And without some advance in that arena, we are seeing that the political and economic victories cannot be consolidated. They are swept away by the influence of the filthy cultural tide that blankets America from the Left. We tend to see the battle between the Left and the Right as a political battle between liberals and conservatives. It is. But it appears that it is more fundamentally a social, cultural battle. It is good to know that Edmund Burke’s ideas can defeat those of Voltaire, that Adam Smith was wiser than Karl Marx, that Milton Friedman outshines John Maynard Keynes. The problem is that no one on the Right has taken on Gramsci. We need to have conservative philosophers and cultural icons that state the case for and epitomize the worth of traditional Western culture. More mundanely, we need to nurture conservative film makers, fund conservative law schools, build conservative foundations (like Heritage, but more of them), defend and expand talk radio, establish conservative newspapers (like the Washington Times, but more of them), concoct an organization to counter the NEA in the minds of the country’s teachers, abandon the mainline churches and support religious institutions that champion traditional values, etc. It might take a hundred years to achieve success; after all it took the Left a century to reach the dominance it currently enjoys. If we don’t do this, then the America that we have loved and which has proven to be such a boon to the peoples of the world will surely — perhaps slowly, but maybe not so slowly — wither into one more Euro-socialist State. Then the light from mankind’s last best hope will have gone out.