Posted on 10/13/2003 9:41:44 PM PDT by kattracks
Whatever your politics, you have to be oblivious to reality to deny that America today is torn by ideological divisions as deep as those of the Civil War era. We are, in fact, in the midst of the Second American Civil War.
Of course, one obvious difference between the two is that this Second Civil War is (thus far) non-violent. On the other hand, there is probably more hatred between the opposing sides today than there was during the First Civil War. And I am not talking about extremists. A senior editor of the respected center-left New Republic just wrote an article titled, "The Case for Bush Hatred," an article that could have been written by writers at most major American newspapers, by most Hollywood celebrities, and almost anyone else left of center. And the conservative hatred of former President Bill Clinton was equally deep.
In general, however, the similarities are greater than the differences. Once again the North and the South are at odds (though many individuals on each side identify with the other). And once again, the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. The two sides' values and visions of America are as incompatible as they were in the 1860s.
For those Americans who do not know what side they are on or who are not certain about what the Second American Civil War is being fought over, I offer a list of the most important areas of conflict.
While the views of many, probably even most, Americans do not fall entirely on either side, the two competing camps are quite distinguishable. On one side are those on the Left -- liberals, leftists and Greens -- who tend to agree with one another on almost all major issues. On the other side are those on the Right -- conservatives, rightists and libertarians -- who agree on stopping the Left, but differ with one another more often than those on the Left do.
Here, then, is Part One of the list of the major differences that are tearing America apart:
The Left believes in removing America's Judeo-Christian identity, e.g., removing "under God" from the Pledge, "In God we trust" from the currency, the oath to God and country from the Boy Scouts Pledge, etc. The Right believes that destroying these symbols and this identity is tantamount to destroying America.
The Left regards America as morally inferior to many European societies with their abolition of the death penalty, cradle-to-grave welfare and religion-free life; and it does not believe that there are distinctive American values worth preserving. The Right regards America as the last best hope for humanity and believes that there are distinctive American values -- the unique combination of a religious (Judeo-Christian) society, a secular government, personal liberty and capitalism -- worth fighting and dying for.
The Left believes that impersonal companies, multinational and otherwise, with their insatiable drive for profits, have a profoundly destructive effect on the country. The Right believes that the legal system, particularly trial lawyers, lawsuits and judges who make laws, is the greater threat to American society.
The Left believes multiculturalism should be the ideal for American schools and for government policy. The Right believes that the Americanization of all its citizens is indispensable to the survival of the United States.
The Left believes that the Boy Scouts as currently constituted pose a moral threat to society. The Right believes the Boy Scouts continue to be one of the greatest moral institutions in the country.
The Left believes in equality more than in liberty. The Right believes more in liberty. For example, the Left believes that for the equality's sake, men's clubs must accept women. The Right believes that for liberty's sake, associations must be free to choose their own members.
The Left believes that when schools give out condoms to teenagers, they are promoting safe sex. The Right believes that when schools give out condoms, they are promoting more sex.
The Left believes that poverty, racism and psychopathology cause violent crime. The Right believes a lack of self-control, lack of religious practice and lack of good values are the primary causes of violent crime.
The Left believes that "war is not the answer." The Right believes that war is often the only answer to governmental evil.
Any one of these differences is enough to create an entirely different America. Added together, the differences suggest people who live in different worlds that are on a collision course.
And I have only listed some of the conflicting views.
Next week, in Part Two, I will discuss the other major conflicts making for the Second American Civil War.
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
In 1994, they lost absolute control of the House of Dipsticks. Subsequently, they lost absolute control of the other house, in the figurative commissary of which waitress sandwiches were occasionally served (or should that be ''serviced''), and possibly still are today. Later on, because their well-honed tactic of electoral fraud failed them, the Left lost the Presidency.
These events were entirely contrary to the Left's perception of the natural order of things, and so, today, they pout, they cavil, they whine, they pettifog, they obstruct, and -- most of all -- they betray, consistently and every time, the Constitution to which each elected member of the Left (the very number of which speaks poorly for the existence of representative gov't) has, putatively, pledged and sworn an oath.
Orwell understood, and explained in full and in writing in his most famous dark satire, all our Clintons and Kennedys, Nixon (if you believe he was anything other than a Leftist, a totalitarian-wannabee, you're either historically illiterate or smoking ciggies w/o any lettering), the abominations and treachery of L B Johnson and Jimmuh, that one-worlder hypocrite G H W Bush, the assorted decades-spoiled garbage infesting the Dep't of State and the CIA, and the cooptation and practical ruination of that once classically American institution, the FBI. Orwell put it this way, in the words of his character O'Brien:
''The object of persecution IS persecution. The object of torture IS torture. The object of power IS power. Now do you begin to understand me?''
Nine years after the publication of ''1984'', Ayn Rand re-described this entirely parasitic philosophy, and its practitioners' presumption of its permanance as part of the natural order of things, in even more detail, most specifically in Floyd Ferris' speech to Henry Reardon (p. 411 of the Pocket Books edition of ''Atlas Shrugged'').
While I do not and would never pretend to belong to or even to aspire to the company of these two giants, I will add just a thought here: they were optimists, purely, simply, naively, and...sadly. They described the truth, but never the extent of its consequences, and only approached describing the explicit evil of the Left, these would-be controllers, these macromenaces to liberty, these Stalins-in-waiting. There is no describable depth of deceit, depravity, or dishonour to which the Left, of whatever nominal ''political'' or ''philosophical'' orientation, will sink in order to attempt to quench their craving and their lust. These filth never quit, and so also never will they acknowledge the advantages of liberty -- not to be confused with the misbegotten notion of universal license, anything goes, how dare one be ''judgmental'' -- to every person.
The only question that remains is whether there is a sufficient quantity of citizens, whether actually American or American in spirit, of whichever nation or nations by birth, to stand together and say to the tyrants of the Left, "Leave us. Leave us alone to prosper among ourselves, and if you refuse to do so, the consequence will be yours to ponder, and to suffer.''
The tyrants and their syncophants will not do so voluntarily, of course, and the next question will then become: at what point will Americans say to these thieves and murderers, in so many words, ''You refuse to leave us to our own lives -- we refuse to surrender our lives to you, any longer or any further. Draw your weapon.''
Privately, I would rather that matters not come to such event, but, I see no alternative, ultimately.
With best wishes to you and to all, ... FReegards!
If a Hillary-Clark ticket won through obvious rampant fraud, all bets would be off.
Libertarians are not on the right; we're in the middle of the political spectrum -- but on a plane of thought high above the stuck-in-the-mud left and right wingers.
I for one do not consider this to be in past tense.
regards,
I love Dennis and normally he is quite rational and sober about discussions like this one.
But his pandering for PC and weasel attempts at moral equivalency in this case makes me cringe.
No matter how disgusted we non-liberals were with the First Rapist, we felt no need to mutter daily about our hatred and frustration at being unable politically to do him in.
We suffered through the "politics of destruction", and the Orwellianisms, but as adults, accepted the fact that nothing is forever.
By way of contrast, the petulance and physical seething childish behavior of the "progressives", the frustrated socialists, is palpable real ever more vicious and verbal; in your face.
I literally refuse to discuss anything political with these neurotics, and just wish Dennis would call a spade a spade.
What planet did you just arrive from?
Dennis is not talking about anything new in the way of dissent.
It's the way that this dissent is now expressed that is scary, irrational and ultimately explosive.
Victor Davis Hanson recently discussed this topic while being interviewed about his book Mexifornia.
He is usually quite candid, but there was a tension there, while he walked through the cultural minefield.
The bottom line is that all of these primitive types come to this country because it is different.
If their "culture" was satisfying, they would not have traveled thousands of miles to sneak in here.
That they are allowed to transform that desireable place into a carbon copy of the hell holes they left, is irrational and suicidal on our part.
If we must come to blows, I prefer to do it against the invading horde, not against my fellow citizens. But I'll take whatever the clueless among us allow to happen.
In this war, no uniforms are necessary.
It will be those with bumper stickers against those without.
Reduced to a seemingly silly irrelevance, it personifies the seething and real tendency to violence just below the surface.
I am among the "no bumper stickers", for the simple reason that I have no wish to spend my leisure time addressing the physical damage that the "opposition" will inflict.
It is not a trivial issue, since I see no tendency on my part to embrace pacifism when the clueless decide to get more overt about their inability to create their "utopia" out of the cultural mess they have so carefully nurtured for generations.
I, for one, will know instinctively who the enemy is. Metaphorically as well as real. Uniforms or no.
You have put your finger on the problem. And Praeger ain't it.
Talk about not knowing jack!
The essence of "religiosity" is not stupid academic credits, it's how a culture expresses its real values.
Suffice to say that, judged on your superficial assessment of cultural and religious self assesment, the muslim world is the most religious and beneficent of all.
The extreme religious right is as much my enemy as the clueless "multiculturalists". I can tell the difference, and I can tell them apart.
Real religious and civilized cultural behavior is lived, not shouted.
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