En Garde In The Bunker
Continuing with the theme of the liberal-progressive-Alinskyite-DemoMarxist-Left and its all-out assault on what made America great, our segue` coming up focuses on George Neumayr and his American Spectator piece “White Flags In The Culture War.” All this is a result of the ongoing de-Christianization of America, which has also ripped the underpinnings from Western culture and civilization and severed its root. Anti-human Leftism has replaced the ancient faith, and society suffers every type of upheaval as a result. The nihilist program that began with the Earl Warren Supreme Court in the mid-1950s is now supinely accepted and abetted by those who should be society’s staunchest defenders and protectors – government and clergy. But they are, in fact, the worst renegades of all. An old African proverb captures the dilemma: If a man relinquishes traditional modes of living, he had better first make certain he has something of value with which to replace them. The exhausted West has nothing. And the Red Death creeps across the lands in silent encroachment.
Ah well, there’s always the silver lining – sort of. In a couple of pieces featuring Robert Gates this past week, I brought to your attention his bold-faced “in your face” diatribe he pulled off in Atlanta, Georgia at the Boy Scout Annual National Business Meeting, where he openly-stated that “the ban on homosexual leaders cannot be maintained.” At least now I know precisely why the rogue fraud “president” of the United States was fine with keeping Gates on as defense secretary. The Professor himself, the very avatar of a spent culture, knows a useful “Laodicean” when he smells one, and it didn’t take him long to adopt “don’t ask, don’t tell” to hide homosexuality in the military. Which brings me to the Biblical Quote of the day: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit thee out of my mouth. ~ Rev. 3:15-16
A wolf in sheeps clothing would be easier to detect. Biblical advice for the day: Try to understand the ten commandments, and the teachings of Christ, as spoken in the gospels. The resultant lifestyle is totally in keeping with human nature, and leads to ease, comfort, and contentment as a human being. You may never be healthy, wealthy, or powerful, but you will be a successful human being, and will live a life of peace and contentment. Ancient Biblical laws aren’t there because an angry God demands obeisance, they are there because if you follow them, you will have a happy, uncomplicated life. Why is this so difficult for so many people to understand? Go for it.
Now on to George Neumayr…
George Neumayr…
The battles of the culture war look increasingly one-sided. Some of the supposed generals on the conservative side are more like defectors. Take Robert Gates, president of the Boy Scouts of America, who recently urged the organization to succumb to the demands of its critics. He essentially told the Boy Scouts that their Christian principles, not his counsel of capitulation, threaten the group’s future.
He urged the group to bow to the “social, political, and judicial changes taking place in our country” and declared that the “the status quo in our movement’s membership standards cannot be sustained.”
In the past, the Boy Scouts served God and country by upholding the organization’s principles. Now, according to Gates’s perverse spin on the code, service to God and country means abandoning those principles: “Our oath calls upon us to do our duty to God and our country. The country is changing, and we are increasingly at odds with the legal landscape at both the state and federal levels. And, as a movement, we find ourselves with a policy more than a few of our church sponsors reject, thus placing Scouting between a boy and his church.”
If Gates is right, that the condition for the group’s survival is moral surrender, then why work for its survival? It might as well dissolve. It was founded to Christianize children, not corrupt them. But Gates is not right. The group could remain true to its principles and survive. It might be smaller but it could survive. What Gates is presenting as a survival strategy is nothing more than his ideological preferences for the group.
The ease with which the Left is toppling institutions is explained by such figures as Bob Gates. They aren’t fighting the culture war themselves and don’t want anyone else to fight it either. It is clear that an institution’s demise is imminent when the statements of its enemies and its “leaders” become indistinguishable.
Another striking example of this phenomenon in recent days came from Ireland, where gay marriage passed easily in a popular referendum. The initiative’s supporters and opponents didn’t sound all that different. Its opponents didn’t even want to be known as opponents. “The Church’s decision not to lead the No campaign marks a new reality,” read one headline in the British press.
According to press reports, some priests voted for the initiative. One priest even wrote an open op-ed in support of it, saying that “I am one of those clergy-persons who intends to vote yes, not to cock a snoot at the leadership of my church, or to jump on a popular bandwagon, but because I think it is the right thing to do.… As a follower of Jesus, the à la carte Jew who recognized when certain laws had run their courses, I am convinced that now is the right time to have marriage equality.”
Robert Gates Boy Scout Speech…
An ostensible opponent of the initiative, Dublin’s archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, reserved most of his rhetorical fire for bashing the Church. Her teaching on marriage has been “harsh” and “dogmatic,” he said, an odd declaration given the liberalization within the Church for decades. He then made a weak and apologetic plea for a “pluralist society” in which “people of same-sex orientation have their rights and their loving and caring relationships recognized and cherished in a culture of difference, while respecting the uniqueness of the male-female relationship.”
A Huffington Post headline also captured the waffling character of the initiative’s opposition: “Irish Bishop on Gay Marriage: ‘I Would Hate For People To Vote No For Bigoted Reasons.’” That bishop, Donal McKeown of Derry, wanted gay marriage supporters to know of his great respect for their stance: “I don’t doubt that there are many people who are practicing churchgoers of whatever church background who will in conscience vote yes and that’s entirely up to them. I’m not going to say they’re wrong.”
Ireland was once a Catholic country that sent missionaries out to the world. It is now a secularist country in need of them. It is clear that the bishops aren’t up to the task of spreading the faith if they can’t even oppose gay marriage straightforwardly.
The Left is making progress in the culture war not in spite of “conservative” opposition but because of it. Before the battle even begins, leaders like Bob Gates and Diarmuid Martin are waving the white flag. To paraphrase Yeats, the conservatives lack all conviction while the liberals are full of passionate intensity.
About the Author
George Neumayr, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is co-author of No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom.
