November 6, 2012: A Day That Will Live in Infamy

If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide" ... Abraham Lincoln

One of the most powerful results of the radical sixties was the determination by American leftists to incrementally take over decision-making positions in American public and higher education, the mainstream media, and, as a result, the three branches of government. That particularly incendiary goal had been alive and well in America since the turn of the twentieth century, but it received a major shot in the arm with the supposed 'age of enlightenment' offered by the left-leaning sixties and the winding down of the war in Vietnam.

With the blessed exception of the Reagan years, that subversive movement has gained strength and power in direct proportion to the degree of ignorance (of America's foundations and those concepts that our Founders held dear) and apathy of the American electorate.

With each succeeding generation, our public and higher education systems are turning out young people who have no familiarity with the magnificent vision of our Founders, who recognized God's omnipotence and acknowledged His blessings, and who, painstakingly and through incredible personal sacrifice, laid out a blueprint for governance that defined individual liberty as the basis for the most prosperous and moral civilization in the history of mankind. Our indoctrinary education systems are turning out young people who have been taught what to think rather than how to think, blank slates where media propaganda finds fertile ground, and the ability to analyze and seek out alternative opinions and explanations has been buried under a mountain of soundbite 'facts' that inevitably paint America, and her noble history, with a black brush while providing easy answers to complex questions.

The American mainstream media now wield more power than any body of elected leaders, and its highest level decision-makers consistently make sure that the public sees and hears only those 'news' stories that further the leftist agenda. Stories that are virtually screaming for the public's attention are left buried, while fluff pieces that focus our attention on celebrity and other forms of bread and circuses flood our airwaves and cover our television screens.

As a result of all of the above, in 2008 we elected a president who despises our Founders' vision, a man whose childhood and young adulthood were spent immersed in a sea of leftist indoctrination. A man whose parents and grandparents, and whose major personal mentors, directed him toward a virulently anti-American, pro-Marxist mindset.

As a result, this president has spent four years attempting to make America pay for her capitalist/colonialist 'sins', by amassing a debt that we can never hope to repay, dramatically increasing our energy dependence and handing over many of our energy sources to our ideological enemies, systematically destroying our healthcare system and our access to what is left of it, de-stabilizing governments in the Middle East, emboldening our enemies, gutting our military and defense systems, punishing and demonizing those who succeed, and instilling in America's national conscience a sense of guilt for our power and prosperity.

Billions of 'stimulus' dollars that were earmarked to spur the American economy have found their way into leftist causes, be they 'green energy' programs, global initiatives, or simply the pockets of political supporters.

Oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy production has been handcuffed, resulting in a huge, and potentially irreversible, increase in our dependence on foreign energy supply, not to mention hundreds of thousands of lost American jobs.

Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, and virtually every ideological enemy of America has been emboldened, and often supported, by this American administration. Barack Obama has offered more support, both moral and financial, to the leadership of Russia than he has offered to the citizenry of the country he leads.

Without the advice and consent of congress, this president effectively declared war on Egypt and Libya, deposing their leadership and leaving a leadership vacuum that has systematically found itself filled by radical, violent, anti-American Islamic forces that believe their destiny includes the annihilation of both Israel and the western world.

The most excellent, compassionate and innovative healthcare system in the history of mankind is being systematically dismantled and replaced by a government bureaucracy that will dictate who will receive medical care and how much of the ever-decreasing government treasury will be devoted to maintaining the health and lives of its citizens. The innate desire to serve humanity that has always sat at the core of the practice of American medicine will find itself smothered under a mountain of bureaucratic regulations and life and death decisions based on dwindling funding and the whims of small groups of un-elected, elitist government decision-makers and bureaucrats.

The funding of the American military is soon to be cut to a point at which all reliable military experts predict unavoidable impotence. Our new priorities have now declared American military might to be a secondary consideration, with social and entitlement priorities taking center stage. Our missile defense shield, which was decades and tens of billions of dollars in the making, has been virtually dismantled at a time when our enemies' ability to pose a major, deadly threat is rapidly expanding. Our allies no longer believe that we can be trusted, and our enemies are gaining in power and adherents.

The incomparable work ethic, initiative and inventiveness that caused America to rise from an upstart colony to the most prosperous country in the history of mankind is being consistently suppressed by the punitive hand of government regulation and taxation. This president despises American exceptionalism, and, since his first day in office, has attempted to oppress those who strive to accomplish without government largesse, and demonize those who succeed. 'The rich' have become pariahs, and the masses want, even demand, what they have. The president has encouraged that kind of entitlement mentality, with the result being a major increase in the number of Americans who are now dependent on food stamps, disability payments, unemployment compensation, and all manner of government 'handouts'. The workers and doers find themselves in chains while the majority of the citizenry has been programmed to see themselves as victims of an unjust social order.

Last night's election results represent nothing less than a resounding betrayal of the divinely-inspired vision of our Founding Fathers, a betrayal of the sanctity of individual liberty for which ten generations of Americans have sacrificed. The American electorate has chosen dependence, weakness and mediocrity over independence, individual liberty, work ethic, and personal responsibility.

Nearly 1.5 million Americans have died in wars since we declared our independence 200+ years ago, and nearly every one of those lives was offered as a willing sacrifice in order to obtain or insure freedom for other human beings, be they fellow Americans or oppressed people somewhere else on the globe. The magnitude of that American sacrifice lends powerful meaning to the belief that a man shows no greater love than through his willingness to lay down his life for another. Keeping that powerful concept in mind, it somehow defies any rational concept of justice that, a mere sixty-five years after the Greatest Generation of Americans sacrificed so dearly to obtain freedom from the oppression and expansionism of Nazi Germany, we have decided that that kind of freedom is now not worth fighting for, even from the comfort of the ballot box.

I am sixty-five years old. I have been an observer of, and an active participant in, American politics for nearly forty years, having voted in every election, primary or general, since coming of age, having run for office, marched on Washington, circulated and presented petitions, picketed in front of the Capitol, delivered speeches in small community gatherings and on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, written speeches for others more powerful than I, campaigned door-to-door, and written countless political commentaries and letters to the editor. As of last night, my days of political involvement are over. As these eyes see it, the dimming light at the end of the tunnel has flickered out. If the Lord wills it, I suspect that I may have ten or fifteen years left to enjoy my life, and I intend to do just that. I see future involvement in anything political as not adding to that enjoyment, but detracting from it, as a terrible exercise in futility and frustration.

I have nothing but boundless respect for those, mostly younger, more energetic and idealistic than I, who see last night's election results as a clarion call to re-group and re-define the battle lines. America has always deserved that kind of dauntless determination, and she deserves it no less today than she did yesterday, a week ago, or two centuries past. Those who still believe that good and honest men and women can someday, once again, attain the highest offices in the land, and that America's moral compass can once again read true, represent not only the hope of our beloved republic, but the hope of human liberty and dignity across the globe. Without a free and prosperous America the world will gradually find itself bathed in a black cloud of violence, despair and decay.

It tears my heart out to see our generation squander the God-given gift we received from the founders.

A child born in the USA in any year since 1800 would have lived an entire life time in an ascendant USA. They would have died knowing their children had better opportunities than they had, and expecting their grandchildren would have better still.

I was born in 1958 and for most of my life and I mourn that I am the last generation to see a truly ascendant USA.

The final dose of poison to the USA came in the 1960s and has never stopped. By the stagflationary 70s, we hit a point where America began its decline. It is nice to think we were ascendant during Reagan’s terms, but the fact is most families who didn’t send their wives/mothers into the workforce have seen a deep drop in living standards since Reagan was first elected.

At least I saw an American at its apogee and lived during a couple of decades of ascendancy.

A child today will see only decay and decline throughout his entire lifetime, will see that his children have LESS opportunities than he had, and will know his grandchildren have even less.

All my faith lies in God. None in man.

I’m bitter but I understand human nature and am a student of history. America’s fall is right on schedule. It is horrible to see but God chose put me here when he did for a reason, so I have to witness the fall of his greatest gift to mankind so far.

As long as there are people who have faith in God, freedom will exist in the world and will come from Christians who throw off the yoke of tyranny.

Knowing that doesn’t make the coming US oppression any more palatable. I don’t have children and I selfishly take joy in knowing I haven’t sent a bloodline into the future to suffer the coming oppression. Then again, I’m not sending a bloodline into the future who can lead the rise out of the ashes either.

Three cheers for the future generation that throws off the yoke of tyranny and struggles to re-win their freedom. The cycle doesn’t end, it just repeats.

We had a good run. It is terrible to see the decline and fall. God can take me anytime he wants me and frankly, the sooner the better. If he takes me away and spares me from seeing the fall of the USA, he would be doing me a great favor. But His Will be done, so I’m guessing he is going to make me witness the entire gory collapse.

Prayers up for all Americans. Father, forgive all the stupid ignorant voters, they know not what they’ve done.

Dear brother Diamond, thank you so much for referring me to Bill Whittle's outstanding analysis (as MHGinTN had also done) of our post-election national condition, and what we "losers" can do about it.

He is absolutely right: The moral collapse to which I referred in Post #8 has entirely to do with the loss of virtue in the American body politic — in the (classical) Ciceronian sense. Note that Cicero was not a Christian; but still he knew very well that there is a universal moral law that pertains to man which cannot be avoided, if man is to be "fully human," according to his (divinely-given) nature.

On the basis of this (utterly fraudulent) election, Whittle (correctly it seems to me) points out that about one-half of the American population has no concept of "virtue." They do not see virtue as the very source of genuine human liberation, but as a constraint on behaviors that the lower nature of man actually prefers to engage in.

He gives as a prime example Bill Maher, who is actually working to destroy the very idea of "virtue" (as classically understood, and as understood in the Judeo-Christian tradition) for he fears it; it makes him "feel bad," since he totally lacks any sense of it. What he wants is to be able to engage in any act that satisfies the basest drives of his nature, such that he can do whatever it is he wants to do without any need to feel "guilty" about it.

Cicero invokes a universal moral law intended to be a help to humankind. And he bases this law in the will of god. Because it is universal and divine, it cannot be evaded by man.

Bill Maher and Ivan Karamazov have something in common: the conviction that "if God does not exist, then everything is permitted." So if one wants to do the impermissible, then one has to get rid of God.

But God cannot be gotten rid of by man. With or without human faith, still He is Creator of both man and the world, and the Source of the good order of both.

Again, you don't have to be a Christian to believe the truth of that statement; the classical philosophers had already acknowledged its truth, before (and after) the historical Incarnation of Christ.

Whittle's argument rests on the idea that about half the current American population is (and/or has been trained to be) unvirtuous. They are "takers," not "makers." And they expect the "makers" to take care of all their needs.

Unfortunately, the 0bama administration is in the business of making ever-new "takers," while punishing the "makers" that are expected to pay the freight of the totally unfulfillable promises that 0bama has made to the unvirtuous, indolent "takers." (This is the fly in the ointment of every experiment in socialism to date: there aren't enough rich people [i.e., "makers"] to pay for the extravagant promises the government has made to the "takers.") Once you run out of other people's money — the by-product of hard work, dedication, risk-taking, and economic and spiritual capital — there's no way to pay the bill. Unless you start borrowing massive amounts of money from unfriendly governments like China, and passing the bill to Americans who have not even been born yet. Which is the situation in which we Americans find ourselves today.

The great analogy he comes up with is that of the Titanic: a ship so massive that it could not turn fast enough to avoid collision with the iceberg which destroyed it. The federal government has become so "big" that it cannot turn fast enough to avoid the coming fiscal debacle. Its sheer size and weight render it a "government so big it can't be steered anymore," which will soon enough collapse of its own weight.

At which point, according to John Locke, we citizens are back in the "state of nature," and shall have to fend for ourselves....

This government MUST fail, because of its grossly overweening, arrogant pretensions. It's just a matter of time. Then, we shall become Greece redux: civil disorder, rioting in the streets, looting, etc.

On the present course, I don't know how this outcome can be avoided. But, does 0Bama even care?

What I find totally ludicrous is that people speak as if 0Bama's first-term policies have "failed." Oh really???

It seems very clear to me that 0bama's policies have been wildly successful — from his point of view.

The reason I say that: Just consider who his mentors have been: Frank Marshall Davis; Cloward & Pivin; Saul Alinsky; Jeremiah Wright; Bill Ayers, et al.

NONE of these people carry a brief for VIRTUE. Rather, their entire purpose is to destroy public virtue altogether; for then — and only then — can they gain full power over all of us, destroy any notion of our God-given liberty, and turn us all into the slaves of the State.

The beauty of Whittle's argument is that a free, virtuous people can overcome this "playbook." As he puts it, the government is NOT the country; it is an appurtenance imposed on the country. "Government" won last Tuesday. But this does not mean that the country at large LOST. It just means we have to think outside the box, construct parallel institutions, and stop thinking that political parties per se are the answer to all our problems. (I think my dear sister joanie-f has already realized this, and I join with her in her conclusion.)

The answer to the American problem is a virtuous public. Whittle says virtue is something that can and ought to be taught. Just because the education establishment as presently constituted refuses to do this, doesn't mean that other ways cannot be found to advance this objective.

I hope people will take the time to view Whittle's outstanding video. I believe it is accurate in its analysis of our current condition, and full of practical, common sense advice.

I never quite hit the pit of despair, post-election, but was a tad dispirited. I was already feeling better about things when I got up today, realizing that although there's nothing I can do to change past results, that doesn't mean I can't get up and continue to go forward, trusting in God, according to the virtue that derives from aligning myself with His infallible, universal Law.

Even if it were to prove that the "fecal matter" will "hit the rotating device" in due course, the Lord God takes care of his own.

So I am unafraid. I can and will go on without crying or complaint. For I do believe that Whittle is right: We "virtuous people" need to find alternative, parallel structures to what government is offering. And, if we think outside the box, very likely we will do so.

Thank you again, dear brothers in Christ, Diamond and MHGinTN, for posting the link to this wonderful article!

Thank you so much for your kind words, dear Diamond!

I could only touch on a few points that arrested me in Whittle's essay, lest my reply be even longer than it already was.

Thank you for pointing to the Apple and AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] models: both are "self-organizing, open-source structures" that do not operate "top-down," but only "laterally."

And as both you and MHGinTN have pointed out, our very own FReeper Buckhead is a perfect illustration of this phenomenon. Although an "obscure" person on an "obscure" website, he personally blew up Dan Rather's chicanery WRT Dubya's actual military service. And by exposing Rather's perfidy to public view, probably led to his "early retirement." A perfect "David vs. Goliath" scenario.

Truth will ever out — especially when there are willing truth bearers like Buckhead.

Also I did not mention Whittle's profound insight, that public change must come BEFORE political change. Especially in a constitutional republic like ours. Culture precedes politics.

For as any student of Plato already knows, no State (polis) can ever be any "better" than the human capital that constitutes it. If the people are disordered, if they are devoid of virtue, then their government will be likewise — disordered, and lacking in virtue. And so, lacking in truthful law and thus justice — but vastly empowered from the very same cause that "disorders."

Whatever flaws that lie in the public culture cannot be corrected by the State. This will come as news to committed Left Progressives. Indeed, Left Progressives seem to believe that just by repeatedly invoking the "right magic words," social reality itself can be absolutely transformed: Rhetoric with them always trumps Reality.

They don't seem to realize how stubborn, how durable, Reality actually is. And so they end up trying to be the "tail that wags the dog."

Do we (and they) not understand that in the end the State itself is but a reflection of the culture, and not the other way around? That the State is but the condensation or concretization of whatever passes for public morals and thus — if the culture is barbarous — will be vicious towards its own?

0Bama plus pals Axelrod, Jarrett, et al., thrive on the vicious — and cultivate it as a matter of principle. The bottom line of "community organizing" is that it is a school of and for the cultivation of thuggery. The ends justify the means.

Cicero — and Benjamin Franklin and John Adams and George Washington, et al. — were all keenly aware that there is one universal Truth of human nature, of states, and of Nature herself....

And that is why we rarely if ever hear about these great men in elite academe nowadays, not to mention in the taxpayer-funded public schools....

Whittle holds that virtue is "teachable." And desperately needs to be taught.

Anyhoot, the video runs nearly an hour and a half; I couldn't recommend it more, for FReeper reflection.... Oh, on that score, Whittle suggests that political parties and political battles are increasingly irrelevant. They constitute a status quo that only divides the people.

His conclusion: You can't fight city hall; so go around it: "Ignore the unvirtuous people, leave them alone." And remember that the government is NOT the same thing as the country We the People call the United States of America. Notwithstanding, all the while render under Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's.

As a "parallel-structure alternative," I'd say FreeRepublic is an excellent example: FR does not carry water for any political party. And so folks feel they are free to speak freely. We gain a great deal from a variety of perspectives offered by many FReepers. In this sense, FR itself is a "self-organizing, open-source structure" in Whittle's sense.

And Buckhead proved how essential that is, if Truth is to receive its just due.

Thanks so much for writing, dear brother in Christ! It's so good to hear from you.

Thanks for the ping, and thank you and joanie-f for a very elevated discussion, which has been quite a rarity on FR for a long, long time. It provokes nostalgia for the days when such was more common.

I’m not sure I accept Whittle’s argument, assuming I understand it correctly. The parallel structures he proposes already exist, and have existed from the beginning. They are the churches, private schools, and voluntary personal and civic associations that fill the interstices of community life. Toqueville wrote about them. They embody the virtuous citizenry working to make their communities better places. So I don’t see that as anything new, not in the slightest.

I’m not quite sure how the Rather episode fits into the argument either. I see it as symbolic of how communications technology is disrupting the old information oligarchy. That oligarchy arose because of the nature, cost and distribution of communications technology. It is being disrupted by radical changes in the nature, cost and distribution of communications technology. A grandiose but nevertheless suitable analogy is to the role of the printing press in the Reformation.

Yet despite that, the MSM and the destructive cultural avatars of Hollywood and the professoriat remain the dominant voices. They are diminished but not yet dead. An no rag tag collection of bloggers can overcome them.

But their trendlines are all negative. The New York Times Company and the Washington Post Company, and many other MSM old media companies are headed for oblivion, brought on by a technological revolution they cannot outrun. No one has figured out how they can remain profitable. It would be good if those trends could be hastened to their ultimate conclusion. Perhaps a corporate raider will buy them and sell their assets for salvage value.

Similarly, the world of higher education is riding an unsustainable bubble and will eventually collapse. There are a number of forces at work here, but once again, technology is disrupting an ossified information oligarchy. Go to iTune U and check out the instruction available at nominal cost. iTunes U may do to higher education what it has done to record labels. Anything that can hasten the collapse of the higher education bubble is devoutly to be wished.

These trends weaken the enemy, but they do not strengthen our allies, or teach virtue to the young or strengthen the ties that bind. These same technological trends undermine virtue through the distribution of pop culture barbarism.

The technology itself is neutral. Weakening the enemy is certainly part of the strategy, but they’ll never be finished off. The inculcation of virtue is a continuous struggle between the forces of good and not so good that will never end. Entropy is only staved off by work.

Thank you Joanie for your always eloquent, and heart penetrating words and essays. Thank you as well to you betty boop and so many others for your thoughts at this critical time for our country...this time when we have been dealt n horrif blow, despite our best effoorts to the contrary.

Forgive what will undoubtedly be a long response...I'll probably end up making it's own post/thread out of it.

Late on election night, November 6, 2012...actually probably early in the morning hours of November 7th at the time...well after Ohio and then Virginia were called, and then after listening to the speeches by Romney and Obama, I wrote the following and shared it with friends and groups I frequent.

"God in Heaven has answered our prayers...but not the answer we hoped and prayed for. I have faith in Him, and accept His will. It just means we have to work harder, that we will probably have to endure much more, and that we have to have even more trust in Him during these difficult times. But HE IS IN CHARGE, and He knows what He is doing. God grant that we all stay true and begin to prepare now for the next mid-terms and the next presidential election.

"We must be in this for the long haul...like any parent is with their own loved children, who loves those children and seeks to help them even if they take a different path. That is something we can, and must do.

"Our forefathers who taimed the wilderness, who defeated the mightest military power on earth to gain their independence at the time, who fought several more wars, who fought and survived one of the most horrific and deadly civil wars in history and preserved the Union and our nation, who crossed the plains and mountains subject to starvation and Indian massacre, who suffered through a great depression, who fought two world wars against the mightest forces of evil the earth had yet seen...and defeated them, and who thye spent almost fifty years contending against and defeating an even greater menace, the greatest evil empire in history...those forebearers suffered much for their way of life, for their liberty, and passed the torch on to us. They suffered much more than we have had to ednure to date.

"Now, perhaps it is our turn to face such tests. I ask you, can we abandon the field, the gtreat animiated contest for liberty and let those sacrifices be in vain?

"As God is my witness, I SAY NO! I will not let their scrifice and their life's blood to have been shed in vain. We can continue this fight,,,WE WLL CONTINUE THIS FIGHT as never before!

"We will have to do a lot of educating, praying, writing, canvasing, praying, petitioning, protesting, praying, holding meetings/rallies/get togethers/town halls, picking ourselves back up and dusting ourselves off during setbacks, praying, and absolutely perservering until the battle is won. And it may be our great grandkids and beyond who ultimately win it...and they are and will be watching us...and their own parents are also watching us and what we do during these times of difficulty. What will be said of us? What will the remember? What will be written? How can they cary pon the fight if we ourselfes do not...if they do not see the fire burning even more brightly within us now...then their lights will shine and burn less intense, and ultimately go out.

God forbid! I cannot speak for others, but I will now stoke the fires of liberty in any way I can to burn even more brightly!.

"For their sake and the rising generations after them, I vow before God and man to stand, and to fight, and to never stand down, or give in...to never wiaver or falterwith respect to our precious liberty and unalienable rights!

"As for now...well, thank God we still have the House of Representatives to mitigate the situation. We must hoild their feet to the fire so they do not falter as they stand on the wall, They must know that we stand with them. And should one of them falter (ie. Boehner) then that watchman must be replaced because their duty now, in the face of the Senate, the Presidency, and all the agencies of government and a stacked judiciary, is absolutely critical and they must stand strong.

"God bless America, all of it, and all of our people, and may we perservere and committ ourselves to working even harder for the future of our Republic."

We have been dealt a hard, crushing, depressing, wind-knocked-out-of-you, blow. Many are still figuratively gasping for breath. And that is understandable. The thought that in the wake of what we know about this administrtion and President and its horrific record and actions, that the people would willingly vote to continue it is simply astonishing, and literally breath taking..and it is also mortally dangerous for all of us and our liberty.

But we are not out of the fight. Not by a long shot. 58 million sould voted against it. Millions others stayed home. We simply have to seek God's help, humble ourselves, re-dedicate ourselves and have the steel to devise ways of cutting through the decades-long dumbing down and patronizing of so many segments of our population. We must show them that their best interests are served by individual liberty, responsibility, accountability and less government.

That will be hard to do. In many places across this land, you now have 3rd and 4th generation families who have lived nothing else and believe that the hand-out entitlement state of affairs is the norm. It's how they live day to day. Many do not have parents in the home (if they are lucky enought to have both parents) who understand the foundational values of this nation, or the economic engine and free market upon which it rests. Without parents and relatives and friend to teach them, they are left to a liberal, progressive education systems which all too often attacks and down plays those values and systems, and to an utterly biased media which they watch...when they are not playing video games or watching M-TV, that does the same. To them, anyone who threatens this state of affairs...their way of life...is an enemy.

And the fact is, WE DO! We do threaten that way of life. We do so because that way of life threatenns all us us, including them themselves! We know that that very state of affiars threatens ours...and by extension, their liberty and opportunity for any prosperity, because we are the ones paying for it and we know that it is absolutely unsustainable. It leads off a cliff, which is precisely where the designers of this abject social malware want it to go, so they can sieze all power, control, and wealth for themselves in the crisis and chaos that ensures when it does go over the cliff. They are not stupid, these designers of this state of affairs, and they ar eprepared to continue to push it to the point of having all of us living as serfs while they amass all power and wealth to themselves.

At their heart, that's who the Obama's, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Michale Moore, Geroge Soros, Diane Feinstein, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Maxine Waters, Bill Ayers, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Bill Maher, etc., etc. are. As an example, just look how the Obama's live in the White House. Consider the billion dollars of tax-payer money that went to support their "lifestyle" just over the last year. A life style that had did not include Obama's Presidential duties (mostly campaigning and playing golf), but had them as a family living on one hand like abject royalty during these horrible economic times, while on the other hand they tell the "masses" that they care fo them! Actions speak much, much louder than words.

So, this is how I feel in the wake of this election...of this monumental loss. Hard times, potentially very hard times are coming and may be wholly unavoidable at this point. Times which may well completely humble the entire nation of the dollar goes off the cliff and the entire economy tanks to the point where commerce, banking, and transportation are massively and negatively impacted, because that is a very real potential. Such times, and the chos, social unrest, and upheavels that would go along with it will,. sadly, kill...and they will predominantly kill the poor wretches whohave bought into the idea that government is the cure of all their ills, the great provider. They may never realizie that those very government programs and dependencies which they grasp to as a way of life, are the very weapons that will destroy them.

But, even in the face of those dire, worst case scenarios...we can and must fight on. God in Heaven will open the doors, in His time, for us to restore what He established here in the first place, our Constitutional Republic. We must be ready, and worthy, to step through that door when the times come...one at a time...and grasp our liberty, our blessing and birthright for our children, and their children, and their children. In order to do so, whether it is in the next five years, or fifty, we must educate and train them (our children and grandchildren) to do the same.

Never give in an inch. Make them fight for every bit...and then when given the opportunity, we strike back and take and hold the ground we are given.

As Major General Winfield Scott Hancock said at Gettysburg, upon finding a defenisble positions, "this is good ground,"

May we find that "good ground," in our faith, our commitment to God in Heaven and His fundamental moral principles, and in our willingness to stand up and fight, and also in our willingness to, "Wait upon the Lord," so that we might ultimately, "Rise up as on wings of Eagles."

The parallel structures he proposes already exist, and have existed from the beginning.

Of course they do, Buckhead! As you correctly note, "They are the churches, private schools, and voluntary personal and civic associations that fill the interstices of community life." They care for the needy, give a helping hand "up" to persons who are "down"; they try to help those who are helpless and in despair (e.g., the Salvation Army) — folks the federal government could not care a whit about.

If I'm hearing him right, what Whittle is saying is that the "third great revolution" of the human race — the Information Revolution, and specifically the Internet — provides a means for people to organize across communities in order to achieve goals they desire that the federal government is no longer interested in achieving, or is incompetent to achieve.

The beauty of the Internet is that it doesn't matter where you live; the Internet erases all constraints of physical distance between like-minded folks.

Whittle gives two prime examples of goals the government has either walked away from, or is not in a position to achieve, that NEW types of parallel organizations could achieve, PRIVATELY: (1) the space program; and (2) quality (read: non-publicly funded) education.

I am a life-long lover and supporter of the space program. But now NASA seemingly has been retasked to stroking the vanities of people who want to kill us, and our civilization. Not much new intellectual capital is created under such conditions, to put it mildly.

We already know public education is designed to make young people stupid and ignorant, incapable of exercising their constitutional role as rational citizens in a constitutional republic. Public schools are only interested in turning out future taxpayers, by training students up in "job skills" so that they might one day be gainfully employed, and subsequently fleeced to feed the insatiable maw of an overweening, illegitimate government. Period.

But who in his right mind would want to feed this beast, whose proper name is LEVIATHAN???

Hey, I'm open to new ideas.

You wrote "I’m not quite sure how the Rather episode fits into the argument either." Well, I was simply impressed by the fact that an "obscure" individual could smell a rat, investigate a claim of an elite media type, and show it to be untruthful (to say the least) — and then be able to disseminate the correction to the world, via the Internet. I score it this way: Truth, 1; and the elite, thoroughly corrupt media, 0. Thank you from my heart, Buckhead!

We live in a lying culture, where truth-tellers are scarce.... Personally, I honor and esteem truth-tellers. It seems to me they are the only persons who keep our civilization afloat these days.

I agree that the "old media" are on the brink of collapse, simply because Internet communications are ever so much more economical, with universal reach. The Internet overcomes the limitations of "locality."

You wrote, "Weakening the enemy is certainly part of the strategy, but they’ll never be finished off. The inculcation of virtue is a continuous struggle between the forces of good and not so good that will never end. Entropy is only staved off by work."

Well, of course the inculcation of virtue is "a continuous struggle...." Or at least it used to be, when people had some appreciation of what "virtue" and (heaven forfend!) "Truth" actually mean.

But today, post-election, does it seem at all likely to you that the people who returned to office the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States for a second term have even a clue about what virtue and Truth actually mean???

You and I have both been around here since early 1998, but I don't recall we have ever directly communicated before. So probably neither of us knows where the other "is coming from."

So let me just say that I was troubled by this statement: "The inculcation of virtue is a continuous struggle between the forces of good and not so good that will never end."

I agree that the inculcation of virtue is a prime concern, believing that, in the long run, the survival and well-being of human beings absolutely depends on it.

But what are these weasel words: "the forces of good and not so good?"

What is this business, this "not so good?" Can you not say the word, EVIL???

"Good" is not opposed to "not so good." Good is opposed to Evil. Why can't we use that word???

If people are squeamish about "calling a spade, a spade" like this, eschewing to use the proper word, then how can anybody have a good-faith conversation about the forces that are tearing our society apart?

BTW, I certainly agree with this statement: "Entropy is only staved off by work."

So, how do we "get to work," do you think?

I'll stop for now.

Thank you for your kind words, dear Buckhead. Truly, joanie-f is an exceptionally fine thinker and writer, and I feel blessed to call her my friend.

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