Living With Politics as War

American Greatness ^ | 13 Apr 2018 | Angelo Codevilla

[Rummyfan]

Whoever was surprised by the hate-fest against the National Rifle Association and conservative Americans in general that followed the Parkland, Florida school shooting must not have been paying attention. Over the past half-century, a ruling class formed by our uniformly leftist educational system and occupying the commanding heights of corporate life, governmental bureaucracies, the media, etc. accuses its targets of everything from murder and terrorism to culpable psycho-social disorders (racism, sexism, and so forth).

Leaders, marchers, and rioters speak from identical scripts. They do not try to persuade. They strengthen their own side’s vehemence. They restrict opponents from speaking on their own behalf, and use state and corporate power to push them to society’s margins. While demanding deference to themselves, they mention right-leaning Americans and their causes only to insult and de-legitimize them.

epublican politicians and Fox News grant the respect denied them. They respond with facts and reason. But the Left’s reasoning is war’s reasoning: helping one’s own by hurting the enemy.

Political-war-by-accusation-of-crime is common in the world. As a rule—Charles de Gaulle was not the first to note it—“peoples are moved only by elemental sentiments, violent images, brutal invocations.”

But in America, political war used to be rare. The Federalist Papers begin thus: “it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice.”

[bravo whiskey]

The left and the Democraps continue to act more and more like Lenin and the Bolsheviks did in 1917.

[Retvet]

Now I realize why here in Oklahoma I have developed dislike of teachers. Because hearing some of their comments and reading their signs it is obvious they are indoctrinaters not educators. Also they act like spoiled kids. When the parents don’t have money they stompthe whine and scream they want this and that without concern for others. They were overdue for a raise but when they got one did they say thank you, NO! They screamed we want more when do we want it, NOW!

[wastoute]

The centers for public indoctrination need to be closed. Let people pay for the education they feel they need.

[loveliberty2]

One can, perhaps, hope that Trump and DeVos may be able to look behind the numbers of citizens in prisons and examine the possible connections between Progressive control of the public "education" system and the number of youth in prisons.

Clearly, anyone who speaks out against the Dept. of Education and all of the other multitudinous Progressive bureaucracies that control the propagandizing of children over the past few decades in the name of "educating" them must be willing to be marginalized by the media and politicians; but in order to understand the increase in prison populations, one must look behind the numbers and the crimes and examine objectively contributing facts to the cultural changes which may have brought them to where they are today. Progressives seldom do that, relying, instead on whatever the current Progressive narrative seems to be.

Even as early as the Year 1886, serious efforts to make that link were treated badly by the political structure of the day. At that date, today's self-identified "progressives" called themselves "liberals," though not in the "classical liberal" tradition.

Examine the case of an accomplished man by the name of Zacharias Montgomery who was denied an important post in government for doing just that. You will read some of his words below.

With that said, those who love liberty must be willing to come forward to declare that it is better to be remembered for standing on and articulating enduring principles of right versus wrong, liberty versus tyranny, than to be praised by the mainstream media and so-called "progressives."

Here are excerpted portions of the words of Zacharias Montgomery in his 1886 Book entitled "Poison Drops in the United States Senate . . . ." Although his treatise dealt primarily with the public school question, the following remarks might be helpful to those who, today, are concerned by what passes for "public education."

Excerpts from Zacharias Montgomery:

"My countrymen, disguise the fact as we may, there is in this country to-day, and in both the political Parties, an element which is ripe for a centralized despotism. There are men and corporations of vast wealth, whose iron grasp spans this whole continent, and who find it more difficult and more expensive to corrupt thirty odd State Legislatures than one Federal Congress. It was said of Nero of old that he wished the Roman people had but one head, so that he might cut it off at a single blow. And so it is with those moneyed kings who would rule this country through bribery, fraud, and intimidation.

"It is easy to see how, with all the powers of government centered at Washington in one Federal head, they could at a single stroke put an end to American liberty.

"But they well understand that before striking this blow the minds of the people must be prepared to receive it. And what surer or safer preparation could possibly be made than is now being made, by indoctrinating the minds of the rising generation with the idea that ours is already a consolidated government ; that the States of the Union have no sovereignty which is not subordinate to the will and pleasure of the Federal head, and that our Constitution is the mere creature of custom, and may therefore be legally altered or abolished by custom.

"Such are a few of the pernicious and poisonous doctrines which ten millions of American children are today drinking in with the very definitions of the words they are compelled to study. And yet the man who dares to utter a word of warning of the approaching danger is stigmatized as an enemy to education and unfit to be mentioned as a candidate for the humblest office.

"Be it so. Viewing this great question as I do, not for all the offices in the gift of the American people would I shrink from an open and candid avowal of my sentiments. If I have learned anything from the reading of history, it is that the man who, in violation of great principles, toils for temporary fame, purchases for himself either total oblivion or eternal infamy, while he who temporarily goes down battling for right principles always deserves, and generally secures, the gratitude of succeeding ages, and will carry with him the sustaining solace of a clean conscience, more precious than all the offices and honors in the gift of man.

"History tells us that Aristides was voted into banishment because he was just. Yet who would not a thousand times rather today be Aristides than be numbered amongst the proudest of his persecutors.

"Socrates, too, in violation of every principle of justice, was condemned to a dungeon and to death. Yet what name is more honored in history than his? And which of his unjust judges would not gladly, hide himself in the utter darkness of oblivion from the withering scorn and contempt of all mankind?

"From the noble example of Aristides and of Socrates let American statesmen learn wisdom, and from the undying infamy of their cowardly time-serving persecutors let political demagogues of today take warning."

So said Zacharias Montgomery in 1886. Read his complete work HERE.

Anyone who reads his complete volume will realize the wisdom and farsightedness of Montgomery's ability to see the consequences of what his fellow Americans were advocating in the area of education of youth.

Montgomery's analysis of what he called a "parental" system of education versus an "anti-parental" system was backed up by analytical documentation from public records. Please review pages 19 through 43 for statistical summaries from those records. Make up your own mind about the validity of this official's work. Such an examination, conducted in 2017, might be enlightening on the subject of this thread.