Posted on 08/09/2008 11:43:39 AM PDT by David Bueche
This past week the Thomas More Law Center won the latest round against the ACLU in a twenty year legal battle to remove a large cross which stands atop a National memorial cemetery in San Diego.
The ruling judge - Larry Alan Burns - wrote:
“The Court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily non-religious messages of military service, death and sacrifice. As such, despite its location on public land, the memorial is Constitutional.”
Assessing the temporal nature of the victory, Richard Thompson from Thomas More said:
Sadly, I fully expect the ACLU attorneys to appeal this decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. So this fight is not over.”
And so it goes, maybe for another twenty years, but in the end why do I feel that if I had to bet, the smart money would be on the cross coming down within my lifetime.
The late William F. Buckley defined conservatism famously as, “standing astride history and yelling, Stop!” Truer words have never been spoken.
Picture a plane in flight - a really long flight. Although most are content to watch the movie or read a book, some begin to speculate that with a couple of key improvements, the plane could be a lot better. After talking amongst themselves for a few hours they decide that the only way to move forward is to dismantle it mid-flight, and rebuild as they go.
An opposition group points out that no one has ever done this, we’re thirty-eight thousand feet up in the air, we don’t fully understand everything the engineers who built it knew. etc., etc.
Meanwhile, someone up in business class finds a wrench and starts taking some of the bolts off the door. Horrified, one of the stuffy “traditionalists” manages to stop him after he’s removed a few more.
“What’s the big deal? - yells the passionate reformer as the wrench is plied from his hand and the bolts re-attached, “It’s not like the plane crashed! We’re still flying. What are you so uptight about?” he shouts as he’s locked in the bathroom.
Many are relieved, but some admire the detainee.
“It took a lot of guts to do that”, they say. “Who says a door’s gotta be designed that way? There’s lots of ways to make a door. How can we progress forward if they won’t let us change things?”
Eventually two groups split evenly down the middle, one feverishly working to take things apart, another constantly trying to stop them.
The progressives are relentless, demanding their freedom to do as they please, decrying the scare tactic of a “plane crash” constantly invoked by the traditionalists.
The traditionalists fight back with all their strength, never gaining the upper hand, locked in a permanent holding action.
Meanwhile, the great majority of the passengers are largely oblivious. They occasionally take notice of a scuffle, sometimes going as far as to take sides and throw their considerable weight behind one group or the other. But for the most part they go about their business as if the whole conflict where a dream, secure in the conviction that a plane - once in flight - stays in flight, no matter what.
A very influential communist named Antonio Gramsci noted wisely that free people in a capitalist country would never revolt of their own accord. The ties of culture and tradition - not to mention the benefits of capitalism - were too strong to support an alien ideology that a revolution could coalesce around.
He reasoned that as a precursor to Communism, a campaign to de-legitimize the existing society was required. Tradition and authority should be attacked wherever they presented themselves. Existing structures and conventions should be challenged, undermined, redefined. Marriage, church, family, national identity - everything must be eroded and weakened to pave the way for the glorious revolution. He called this strategy “The Long March Through the Institutions”.
Gramsci died in 1937 but his ideas soldier on. Marriage redefined by lawsuit, the continued exorcism of religion from public spaces, the glorification of youth and disregard for the wisdom of elders. This list could go on for pages - look around you and everywhere you turn someone is swinging a wrecking ball at the foundations of civilization.
And the amazing part - the dark beauty of Gramsci’s vision is that these “progressives” are not even aware that their real purpose is destruction.
They really think they’re improving the plane.
Once, while debating a liberal, my continued resistance to his myriad social and economic innovations led him to exclaim – “Why are you always against everything? Why can’t you be for something?”
I responded that I was for all sorts of things; market based economics, protection of property rights, individual freedom and accountability, etc. etc. What he couldn’t understand – what most liberals can’t fathom – is that opposition to their social experimentation is not based on a fear of moving forward, but instead an attachment to a set of cherished, and practically speaking, very efficient values and social structures.
A few thoughts for “progressives” to contemplate:
1. Movement, in and of itself, is not necessarily movement forward.
2. There are things in this world that are close to the optimum. As such, significant changes will most likely have a negative outcome.
3. Human nature and institutions are inherently limited in their perfectibility. Any philosophy that does not incorporate this as the base assumption is capable of a great deal of damage.
4. It is much easier to deconstruct standards and traditions than to establish them. Once demolished it is often impossible to rebuild them, even if the demolition crew acknowledges their mistake.
Contemplating the endless series of lawsuits filed by a panoply of Left-wing “progressive’ organizations – of which, the battle over the cross on Mount Soledad is but a single skirmish – I’ve come to realize a false hope I’ve long held as a conservative. That being – the idea that there is some golden future in which the Left wakes up and realizes what they’re doing. A day when common sense prevails and seemingly intelligent people understand that you don’t build things up with a wrecking ball.
In the end, this dream is as childish as the utopian fantasies which populate the minds and hearts of the Left.
Ultimately, the stakes are enormous, the opposition indefatigable, and there is very little chance of a final and lasting victory. But what else can you do? You fight to keep the plane in the air. You try to teach people that things come apart a lot easier than they fit back together.
You hope for the best, but sadly give up the dream that it’s ever going to end.
The plane analogy would be better if the plane crashed, killing everyone, and then a new group got on another plane and tried to do it again, claiming that this time they would get it right. When that plane crashed, they would do it again. And again. And again.
Welcome to FR:)Thanx for posting article.The aclu will not give up.I’ve bookmarked your blog for further reading-just enough time to skim-but looks good-i’ll be back when time permits.I don’t want you to feel i’m hi-jacking your post/blog but if freepers want more info re:Mt.Soledad Memorial,it can be found at www.thomasmore.org.
I think it is because they can make money, or at least get paid for their efforts even if they fail, courtesy of the U.S. Taxpayer. There was a hue and cry about this some years ago and it was supposed to have been stopped, but I don't know for sure.
Keep in mind that the majority of progressives are Useful Idiots but the movers and shakers are just plain evil seekers of power.
Were I going to argue with a liberal, since they are mostly into feelings, I would ask them:
Which feels better - having the government forcefully confiscate your money to do something you consider worthwhile or freely using your own money to do something worthwhile yourself? Why give some lying politician or faceless bureaucrat the credit when you could get the credit and the good feeling all for yourself?
Which is the better feeling - sitting around the house all day or standing on a street corner living off handouts from your fellow citizens or that tired feeling you have at the end of a long day of accomplishing something worthwhile?
Which feels better - hating whitey or blackie or feeling compassion and love for whitey and blackie?
The questions are endless but the answers invariably will be a variation of - But I don't have enough money to do it all myself and I don't trust others to do their fair share. We must make them do their fair share.
And that is the crux of it. Liberals don't trust the individual to do what they, the liberals, think is best. Government must be used to make others do as I want.
In their minds that is what is wrong with a free market. Individuals don't make the correct choices! They buy SUVs and lots of other things they don't need.
You get my drift but you already know it all anyway.
Keep up the good work.
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