En Garde In The Bunker
In an insightful piece written for National Review Online, Dr. Ben Carson directs us to recovering America’s exceptionalism. He paints a word-picture of a nation straying from its foundational principles, referencing the people “turning a blind eye toward corruption”, which brings to mind Patrick Henry’s famous cry for freedom some 240 years ago: We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth .. Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? .. Let us not deceive ourselves Sir.
The liberal-progressive Alynskyite Democrat party is committed to a secular, socialist, tyrannical form of big government with rights and values determined by the people ensconced in a centralized poliburo; an agenda antithetical to America’s principles of a constitutional republican government. Obama claims “America is not a Christian nation”, yet much historical documentation refutes his claim (see David Barton’s “Original Intent” for instance, and his scholarship right here). Christianity, of course, is what shaped America and simply cannot be denied, as much as the progressive Alinskyite Marxists would like to rewrite and re-frame the history as such. Recovering America’s exceptionalism is totally dependent on refuting such specious claims from the left.
Generally, and as a matter of course, the media reflects the culture from which it springs, and the press, at least in the past, was far more diligent in its pursuit of political villains. I am not so sure that same fervor still pertains today. For instance, the press had no problem in past years savaging Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and the blue-stained dress, but it has studiously chosen to mostly ignore or downplay far more egregious scandals like Fast & Furious, Benghazi, Obamacare, and the NSA and IRS imbroglios, any one of which would have been red meat to earlier reportage sleuths the likes of Woodward and Bernstein; regardless of ideology. In effect, the media, due to the ideological affinity of the vast majority of its members, has indeed become a tool with which liberal elites attack the traditional basis of our nation and society.
The culture of liberal-progressive Alinskyite elites is to favor victory over process, as witness Obama’s repeated rewriting of law by executive fiat and/or selective (or non-) enforcement. And can anyone remember a time when we heard voices honestly and openly calling for legal suppression of dissenting opinion, as various parts of the left have recently done over global warming/cooling/heating/icing etc? This is a new and fallacious development and springs from a cultural conceit fueled by the tactics of Joseph Goebbels and Saul Alinsky, to whit:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Which is why we cannot abandon the culture war. The dysfunction and discord we are seeing in our politics is a reflection of that in our culture. One struggle cannot be won without the other. If conservatives wish to reclaim the country for what we conceive of as sanity, we have to change the culture. We must be diligent in recovering America’s exceptionalism.
November 2014 is only a few short months away. We The People should heed Dr. Carson’s truthful message while remembering this gem from John Stuart Mill, in an address at the University of St. Andrews in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
Dr. Carson’s intro to recovering America’s exceptionalism …
Dr. Ben Carson
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French historian, came to America to study our nation. Europeans and others were fascinated with the success of the fledgling nation, then barely 50 years old and already competing on the world stage.
Such a thing had never before occurred, and Tocqueville was determined to discover the secret. He was duly impressed by our governmental structure, including the separation of powers, but he was in awe of the public-education system, which rendered its recipients completely literate by the completion of second grade. This depth of education was generally found only among the aristocracy in Europe.
Let’s put aside the diversionary arguments about lack of educational access for all, which was a huge mistake, and concentrate on the tremendous advantage afforded our predecessors by education. Early settlers not only mastered reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also shared practical skills, all of which enabled them to traverse and tame a rugged and frequently hostile terrain from sea to shining sea.
As isolated communities sprang up throughout the nation, they were able to thrive through innovation, industry, and compassion. The “can do” attitude involved hard labor, but it also included a sense of responsibility for those who through injury or other hardships could no longer care for themselves. The spirit of caring, although diminished, remains an important part of who we are today.
