The Coming Wars

For my conservative and Tea Party brethren, there must now be an acknowledgment that the immediate future looks quite grim. We have a country in some stage of collapse, though I contend that like a free-falling elevator, the rate at which it's falling may not be entirely apparent to its occupants until it hits the ground. As this situation worsens, we must consider what's ahead, how we'll stop it if we can, and salvage it if we're able. For the country to be restored, we'll be compelled to adopt a more proactive stance, because it's probably going to get messy. We face the greater war for our culture and our country, but before we can wage that one to a successful conclusion, we will need to win the opening skirmish.

The Presidential nomination cannot be allowed to go to a useless, tepid, weak candidate who will not pursue the restoration of the country with full vigor. We should consider this primary like an instructive field training exercise, whereby we will polish our skills and extend our endurance, because the other engagements will demand it. As I detailed yesterday, there can really be one candidate among all those under consideration who is able to take on this difficult duty and hope to prevail.

One of the problems in this political season is with us. We've largely failed to understand the larger trends and the clear signals of impending danger those trends are transmitting. People have compared this coming season to 1980, noting its significance is greater than all the election years from them until now. This is an error. A few have even remarked, myself one or twice, that his is more like 1932, but this is also wrong. It's much more substantial than that, and I need your undivided attention in considering it fully. The coming election year is most like 1860, and we're facing a different sort of war to stop a different sort of slavery, and to restore the freedom that had prevailed in most of the years since. I am going to say it more bluntly, because it needs to be said: We are near the tipping point into some sort of civil war.

You may now pause, and wish to ask if I might have blown a gasket, but ladies and gentlemen, we must admit what is true. We now have a government that issues more money to citizens(and some non-citizens) in some form of direct payment than it annually collects in revenues. Those same people are dissatisfied with the amount, and demand still more. Roughly 65% of the Federal government's expenditures go to some sort of redistributive or entitlement program. That includes agricultural subsidies, and most corporate welfare, but does not include the amount we've handed out in bail-outs on a one-time basis due to some supposed crisis or other. At the same time, we know that government is borrowing roughly 40% of what it spends. This means only 60% of its expenditures are covered by revenues. Let me ask once more: Do you not see a problem with this? Again, you are confronted with a stark reality: We now expend more on entitlements to individuals than we now collect. These same beneficiaries now scream that it isn't enough, and are beginning to threaten civil unrest in thinly veiled words.

Whether violence erupts before or after the elections, there will be at least some domestic strife. Leftist groups now openly agitate for "Days of Rage." Consider what message this is meant to deliver. You don't pay enough, they argue , and whether through threats or violence, they intend to have whatever they want and demand. Need I clarify this further? You say, "but Mark, surely they can see you can't squeeze blood from a turnip." I'm telling you that they're willing to settle for turnip soup. You can try to rationalize it in any manner you wish, and try to comfort yourself with the notion that these people wouldn't eat the goose that lays the golden egg. I'm telling you flatly that they'll happily pluck and roast the engine of capitalism because they have been convinced that they're entitled to do so. Who convinced them? You did.

You convinced them because in every previous challenge, in the name of "getting along," or "being compassionate," you have wavered and relented in the face of their demands. With the creation of each additional program over the last century or so, you've said to them that their unlimited wishes will be met. Has it never bothered you that people who claim to seek help due to a desperate need now make their requests in the form of a demand? Finally, and perhaps a bit too late, you're onto them. That's what the Tea Party really is: It's born of the recognition that it's time to begin saying "No." Your problem is that they're no longer accustomed to being told "No." Why would they be otherwise? You have acceded to all previous demands. We have arrived fully in the age of moral cannibalism, and what now threatens our future is the real thing in all its terrifying forms.

This civil war will not be defined so much by geography as by ethical orientation, but in truth, if we examine the last civil war, the lines merely happened to coincide with geography, but it too was about legal and moral considerations. What defined the last war was a notion about the right of states as sovereigns, irrespective the underlying issues, and the object was the ultimate power of the Federal government. Everything that has happened since is an outgrowth of the resolved issue of Federal supremacy over the states, but as was inevitable, once the states were almost fully subdued, all that remained was to then control local governments and ultimately, individuals. Rather than having a tiered system, wherein most citizens seldom deal directly with the federal or even state establishments, we have grown all levels of government in such a thoroughly entangled manner, with power over individual citizens being routinely exercised at all levels that rather than resembling the orderly layered cake our founders conceived, our governments now resemble a stew. It is now nearly impossible to discern the individual parts without some effort to separate them. If we are to repair our country, we'll be forced to begin rebuilding our layer cake, each layer with its own distinctive flavor and function. As it is, we now have federal authorities wishing to impose Commercial Drivers' Licenses on farmers on their own property. We have local officials intervening in other matters, like the right to keep and bear arms, where their authority to restrict rights guaranteed under the federal constitution ought to be negligible. The more you turn this over in your head, and the more thoroughly you grasp what has been done, it becomes clear that whatever layer of government you ought to be engaging in a particular matter, if at all, they are becoming one uniform mass from top to bottom. We are becoming the Soviet Union.

If this all seems a bit too overly dramatic to you, consider the increasingly frequent instances of local governments gone berserk with power, with such things as requiring business licenses of children who wish to set up lemonade stands. There shouldn't be an American alive who doesn't get a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach at the mere thought. That some sort of ridiculously power-hungry government officials who would even think to enforce such a thing should cause you no shortage of concern. No, we mustn't allow our children to experiment in capitalism. No, we mustn't let them experience a capitalism limited only by the extent of their own dedication and imagination. Do you see what this does to our culture, at is simplest, most innocent root? It corrupts it with cynicism about an honest day's work or entrepreneurship and instills submission to the arbitrary demands of government officials, no matter how unreasonable. I now ask you: Isn't this what we have permitted ourselves to become?

I can already imagine the critiques of my leftist counterparts, who will in shrill tones denounce and dismiss what I have said, in the main because they know it to be true. Somehow, like every vanguard of statist "intellectuals" in history, the current crop also believes they will somehow be held harmless and immune, but in truth, once those of us who stand for liberty are displaced, what these self-defrauding useful idiots will discover is that we had been the only thing protecting them, too.

Now, considering this as your actual situation, and armed with this knowledge, what are you to do? Will you flee? Submit? What will be your course? For my part, I will fight. For now, we may expect to fight as we are, in politics, and words, but there may yet come a time when more will be required. To defend this Republic, I will give all if need be. My oath didn't end with my term of service, and I don't know of any statute of limitation upon it. I know most of you feel likewise. Let us work now with extra fervor within the political process in the sincere effort to avert the worst of it.

Part of our problem, nationally, but particularly as conservatives and Republicans, exists in the realm of what we called "enemy identification" when I was in the Army. If you don't know who to fight, it's damned-well difficult to prevail. The simplest answer must be that we must oppose any who wish to further trample our constitution, or otherwise negate its guarantees. We must also demand a stoppage to the inclusion of false guarantees it never contained, but have been increasingly discovered there nonetheless.

We must arise for the task before us, and it is a solemn and difficult chore in the best of times. We must restore our governments, all of them, to their proper limited roles. Some number of our fellow Americans are going to resist a restoration because it means that so much of what they've come to demand by right will no longer be, and this is the first point of conflict, and the threat of that moment will be the probable impetus to a change in the terms of this struggle from the political to the violent. The question is again laid before us: What sort of nation shall we be? What sort of freedom do you seek? What is a right?

We've been building to this for a very long time. The resolution will likely be as sudden in a historical sense as it is likely to be final. Will we continue as a Republic, restoring our liberties, or will we be fundamentally transformed into something even worse than we've already become? Ayn Rand once admonished us through the fictional character of John Galt in the book Atlas Shrugged that no nation could continue indefinitely as half property and half loot. Look around you. What have we become? As we live out the worst of that novel, and seem poised to go to a still more ignominious end, I'm asking you to consider arresting its decline while there's still time. It may be that I'm no different from those in the book who thought it could be saved when it couldn't, but I suspect we've still enough people who know the lessons of history well enough to avoid repeating them.

If that's so, then let us embark on this first campaign, not to wrest control yet from our statist adversaries of the left, but of their complicit collaborators who would claim our friendship on our side. We must settle on a candidate who will be able to bring them back into the fold, without making further compromise to them. Then we can begin to gear ourselves up for the larger struggle. Mark Levin had it right when he titled his book Liberty and Tyranny. Those are now the distinct choices. There has been only one individual of national prominence who has stated this basic thesis consistently, in many contexts and forms for the last three years or more. None have said it more succinctly or plainly. In 2012, we will have Barack Obama on their side of this argument, and we will have Sarah Palin on ours, if we're wise. There turns the conflict. There will be determined the course of our nation. Will we restore our nation, or slide over the precipice into historical insignificance? Will we emerge as a nation aimed back in the direction of liberty, or will we follow the path of tyranny? The choice is yours, and the time to make it is running out.

Amen MarkAmerica...

I've been looking at this situation for over 25 years now... More than half my life. It's been like being the kid sitting on the last seat in the back of the bus, watching as we approach a high cliff at full speed. I've been yelling at the top of my lungs trying to get the attention of those around me and that of the bus driver (our governments at all levels), but still no one acknowledges or applies the brakes. So I, like you, am waiting for the crash to happen... I won't stop trying to get the attention of the other passengers or the driver, but the stopping distance of that bus is probably longer than the distance to the edge of the cliff at this point.

This whole circumstance hit me heavily around Memorial Day this past spring... I had been out to the check on my dad's marker and flag. I looked around and saw all of the flags in that cemetary and how disappointed those men and women would be to see us now....

******

The Gift They Gave Us

They fought and struggled to deliver it.
Some fell along the way.
Some silently recall their journey.
Some lay in silent graves.

We live our lives concerned with time,
Or what we have or haven’t got.
We’ve left their gift to wither away,
Since their hardships we forgot.

But I see the fields of stones and flags,
And a tear comes to my eye.
I hear their voice, they call to me.
They ask the question “Why?”

My son holds my hand and asks me,
“Daddy why are you so sad?”
I swallow hard and say “I’m okay”,
While I straighten the flag for my dad.

I stand up and realize,
The gift, it must be passed on.
I know I must restore it, though,
Before I leave it to my son.

I hear my dad – his voice is loud.
He says “You know what must be done!
Step up and make me proud my boy,
Give FREEDOM to your son!”

In memory of William S. Sanders, Sr., EM1, USN, WWII

Raven6 © 2011
**********

Somehow, like every vanguard of statist "intellectuals" in history, the current crop also believes they will somehow be held harmless and immune...

They'll discover that nothing could be further from the truth. Think about who and what we're dealing with today: on the one hand there are those who seek to profit from trade with those who are clearly our enemies. They think that the rules of cause and effect, of consequences - unintended and otherwise - simply don't apply to them, and that their money and their influence can shield them from the outcomes of their choices. There are those who hate this country and everything it used to stand for. They hate, fear and despise the very concept of freedom and free will. The latter are the ones who silently cheered on 09/11 and later made smug pronouncements that we obviously deserved what we got. We must also remember that, at the very top and also behind the throne, so to speak, we are dealing with killers without conscience.

These people are not merely traitors to our own country – they are traitors to humanity itself. The cold hard truth is that given the current state of decay of the balance of powers that once held them in check, we're simply not going to be able to vote, talk, negotiate, beg, plead, apologize or debate our way out of what's coming our way this time around. Who's got the courage and intellectual honesty to think this though and call the road we're traveling and its ultimate destination by their proper names? As Victor Davis Hanson said in his 2004 National Review article, The 1930s, Again: A hard rain is going to fall:

The truth is that there is a great storm on the horizon, one that will pass — or bring upon us a hard rain the likes of which we have not seen in 60 years. Either we shall say "no more," deal with Iraq, and prepare for a long and hard war against murderers and terrorists — or we will have more and more of what happened on 9/11. History teaches us that certain nations, certain peoples, and certain religions at peculiar periods in their history take a momentary, but deadly leave of their senses...

That same theme, that of the descent into madness and mass murder by nations, peoples and political movements was echoed in the work of Norman Cohn, author of Warrant for Genocide, where he wrote:

"There exists a subterranean world, where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when that under-world emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, captures, and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people. And it occasionally happens that this subterranean world becomes a political power and changes the course of history."

So it was with what Jean-François Revel characterized in his Last Exit to Utopia as, “the two most criminal regimes ever inflicted on the human race - the pinnacles of evil and imbecility achieved in a space of less than thirty years." That is, the monstrous evils of communism and National Socialism. And now we see it again today, this time, it's starting with the brown shirt-style thuggery of Marxist union goons.

Some might ask, “How could this have happened?“ The more thoughtful among us might ask instead, “How could this have happened over and over again – repeatedly throughout our modern history? “ The answer is this: men act on their ideas, and those ideas come from somewhere. Most of our fundamental ideas - the notions and the beliefs we have concerning morality, knowledge, reality - are originated by our philosophers and academicians. Most of us simply and gradually absorb the ideas available from our culture. It is in this manner that most people get their life-shaping ideas: indirectly - from the philosophers whose ideas ‘trickle down’ to popular culture, our educational institutions, the media, the arts, music and literature.

Yes, as VDH has said, there is indeed a storm on the way - and it's a terrible one, if we read the signs with an unflinching understanding of history and human nature. That persistent knocking on our front doors is that of history telling us that everything, literally everything can change in a heartbeat. From the transformation of beautiful Sarajevo to a flame-shot hell of ruin and slaughter to the collapse of the old Soviet Empire, from the democide of the Khmer Rouge regime to the cultural genocide of the Taliban and the true believers of Islam, from the murderous midnight raids of BATF and FBI jack-booted killers to the impact of the airliners on the Pentagon and the WTC - genocide, murder, the destruction of your life and your family and your home and livelihood is just a matter of whim and caprice now under the lawless regime of the 0bamunists.

Now think about what it might take to turn this around - those considerations make a mockery of what you see on the lamestream media outlets, doesn't it? It makes a mockery of what you hear coming from the mouths of our so-called 'leaders', doesn't it?

What it should make you realize is that, in the end, it all comes down to you and your willingness to fight for what you hold dear. To confront evil and call it by its proper name and destroy it.P> Don't look to your politicians for help. They're not listening and they don't care.

Don't look to the churches - most of them have become nothing more than the abode of the clergy of oppression; demons dance on their empty altars as they preach 'social justice', cowardice and what amounts to human sacrifice.

Don't look to the schools and the institutes of higher learning - they've become founts of ignorance, lies and hatred of the truth; they teach sheepery and passivity to our children.

All that's left is... you.

I don't think it's too late...yet....but it is getting very close to "too late".

We need to do WHATEVER WE CAN to defeat Obama. No one can refuse to vote in the next election, no matter who gets the nomination. We.Need.Every.Vote.

From the "White House Insider" series, a direct quote:

That’s how big – that’s how important this election coming up is. Even the people who pay attention to this stuff…they don’t realize how big this is. How important to the country. We are truly at a fork in the road here. This administration is going to attempt whatever necessary to remain in power. Race. Intimidation. Media attacks. Division – divide and f****** conquer. You notice how divisive the Republican primary campaigns have already started to become? You think that’s all occurring on its own? Hell no. Tens of millions of dollars are already being spent getting conservatives, Republicans, Independents, whatever – get them to attack each other. Get them frustrated and lower their desire to vote for the eventual nominee. You know, Republicans used to be the party that would unite behind the nominee when they were chosen – it frustrated the hell out of us Democrats who were always bitching over this or that right up until the election. That’s not the case anymore, and your Republicans are much weaker because of it. I’ll say this, if Republicans don’t get their shit together and vote for whoever is the nominee – and I mean WHOEVER is the nominee, then it will be another four years of Barack Obama running this country into the f******* dirt and that’s what we deserve. If we are too stupid as a country to fix this mess…then so be it. It’s over. The America we know, the America we knew – it’s over. Done. And we will only have ourselves to blame.

Read more: http://socyberty.com/history/white-house-insider-the-obama-plan-part-three/#ixzz1Vl1YYWke

Some don't give any credence to this series but what this guys says only makes sense. We've already seen it, in spades, here. All this bickering and infighting and attacking every. single. candidate.

Obviously the primary process will go forward and we certainly don't have to converge around one person right now. But when our nominee is eventually determined WE MUST SUPPORT HIM/HER. No one will be worse than Zero. No one.

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