How to take America back

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 25, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern

The political debate in America between conservatives and liberals usually leaves conservatives thinking they won, but liberals actually moving the country in their direction.

Liberals have an idea of where they want to take America. They don't explain that it is in the direction of socialism. Instead, they tell you they want the government to restrict possession of firearms, they want the government to control health care, they want government to spend more on education, they want government to redistribute wealth more equitably and they want government to protect the environment from the ravages of man.

What they really want to do is to transfer all of man's accountability to God to accountability to government. They want to diminish personal responsibility and de-incentivize personal initiative and achievement. They seek to replace the natural order of the world as defined through the Ten Commandments and biblical revelation with a coercive, new, man-made set of rules and regulations.

And what do conservatives want? Where do they want to take the world? How do they counter the real goals of their opposition, as well as those unstated objectives?

By definition, conservatives don't really have a goal – other than preserving the status quo, defending their turf, battling back against the political and moral offensives of their adversaries.

For instance, let's say there are 1,000 battles under way at any given moment between liberals and conservatives. I'm sure there are actually many more, but, for simplicity's sake, let's assume 1,000.

There might be a battle in Congress over a new ban on a category of firearms. There might be another battle over an increase in Medicare spending. There might be another battle over teaching sex education in schools. There might be another over food-stamp eligibility. There might be another over the Endangered Species Act.

Notice that the overwhelming percentage of government initiatives promotes the liberal agenda. It may be as high as 99 percent. So even if conservatives win 80 percent of the battles, the liberals advance their agenda by 20 percent.

That's because winning a strictly defensive battle gains a political movement no ground.

This was the most important point I made in my most recent book, "Taking America Back." Unless you have defined goals, other than beating back the enemy, you cannot advance an agenda and win new turf.

That's why I believe conservatism, by definition, at best forestalls the persistent, relentless march of liberalism and, ultimately, socialism and tyranny.

The alternative is something that doesn't exist as a political movement, per se, in America today – a radical vision, not unlike the one put forth by our founders, for freedom, personal responsibility, accountability to God and self-government.

That's not to say there aren't millions of Americans who share this dream. It's just that they are unorganized. There is no political party that represents them. There are few organizations promoting this agenda. There are almost no effective political leaders who understand what I am saying. There are few visionaries painting the picture of a better way of life – not by turning back the clock, but by imagining a future where freedom is expanding, where personal responsibility is on the increase, where our rights come from God, not government, and where the shackles of government are being destroyed, not mass produced.

Liberals are effective because they are change agents. They point out a problem – either real or imagined – and they ride to the rescue with solutions that advance their warped, corrupt, freedom-stealing agenda.

Conservatives are not change agents. They are relegated to fighting back against the proposed solutions of the liberals. They win some of those battles, they lose some. But win or lose, the liberals advance their agenda.

This is such a simple and profound concept, but it goes unnoticed, unrecognized by even the most politically astute observers.

Liberals have bad ideas, but great tactics and strategy. Conservatives may have better ideas, but they don't realize the game they are playing won't permit them to win. The only question is how long it will take before they lose everything.

Those who believe in freedom, in accountability to God, in self-government, in personal responsibility rather than coercion, need to understand that conserving those ideals is not enough. They need to be expanded.

What's our destination? Is it that shining city on a hill in which the citizens bow down to a sovereign Creator-God and who do unto others as they would have them do? If that's the goal, the picture needs to be painted just as our founders painted it more than 200 years ago.

And those of us who hold fast to that vision need to be willing to sacrifice our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to restore it.

How many of us, I wonder, are ready to break the bands that tie us to an inevitable drift to tyranny?

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Liberal policies still abound and expand because the sheeple either don't care, or secretly want the changes, ie affirmative action, pornography, abortion, divorce, feminism, drugs, etc. Of course I'm referring to the half of the country that bothers to vote.

God for most Americans is now Hollywood. The temples are the millions of TV's in American homes. Everyday day and night Americans faithfully take their place in front of these Hollywood temples where they are proselytized in every manner of human perversion and degradation, in the comfort and safety of their own homes. Amazing what people will do these days when they think no one is looking. And then they call it all entertainment.

In gratitude for Hollywood's blessings, Americans throw billions of dollars at the feet of their Hollywood gods. From which Hollywood grows stronger and are then able to provide us with even greater perversions every new TV season.

Remember, virtually half of the American voting electorate elected a lying traitorous POS, twice, and almost elected the same kind of men twice - Gore and sKerry.

Perhaps we should accept the fact that America's direction is exactly what the majority of the American people want it to be - a direction that will not interfere with their worship of Hollywood or episodes of the soft porn perversions of Quentin Tarantino's Crime Scene Investigations (CSI) which drew 30 million viewers. Were they all staunch conservatives?

Want to know where the minds and principles of Americans are, check out what they are watching on TV - when they think no one is watching them. Then imagine what they do in the voting booth, when they think no one is watching.

So who is deluded here, them or us?

Farah's article is almost 100% libertarian in substance and I find it interesting how Libertarians share so much in common with Conservatives, yet won't get together. I suspect it's because lots of "Conservatives" are really statists in business suits.

Maybe Search4Truth is right that the people have spoken (as deluded as we may think they are) and liberalism is what they want. Maybe we have lost the battle for the conservation of the American Dream?

I'm a Canadian but the original American concept is what I want: it's what I deserve.

It took me a long time to understand why the Right here in the US never seemed to develop its own vision to compete with the Left against. Firstly, Leftists are very comfortable with political wonkdom. People who become political scientists are innately academic or non profit in orientation. In order to get their, they typically were indoctrinated early and often to Leftist thinking. The innate supply of Leftist political scientists and wonks far outstrips the supply of Rightist ones. Due to all that, Leftists get an early taste of political street fighting tactics and learn how to articulate political strategies in ways that excite other political scientists and wonks. Meanwhile, the typical Rightist only gets involved in politics out of frustration and at best pursues it as a hobby or a second career. Street fighting skills never get fully developed plus, being a practical minded, business oriented person, the BS tolerance level for political shenanigans is low. Most Rightists who do go into politics tend not to stay in politics, prefering to go back to business.

Secondly, particular to American Rightists, we tend to fail to recognize the sources of our values. We do acknowledge family and in some cases, church. But being of the Whiggish tradition, we tend to write off, in toto, all aspects of European origins of The Western Tradition and Judeo-Christianity. We do not identify with knightly traditions and with pre 1700 martial orientation. This deprives us of a potentially very powerful proactive mission statement and organizational theme. So, we fall back into defending turf, but never really having any sort of future vision. Although our patron visage is Charlemagne, and others of that type, divorced as we are from our real roots, we fail to visualize the sort of unified and activist Rightist structures and behaviors that led someone like a Charlemagne to be so successful. Helping matters not at all is the fact that Hitler overtly idolized Charlemagne and thereby made any such inkling a third rail.

This is not to say that organizing a positive Rightist program that is free of procrustean aspects, or destructive bastardizations of the Western Tradition, is impossible. But it is to say that doing so would be non trivial and would require major out-of-the-box thinking.

"Liberals have an idea of where they want to take America."

And they preached to the easiest convert.

The classrooms are so full of liberals that the war was won without a major battle.

And it wasn't just America.

The "West" lost out big time.

Yes, there will always be a George W. Bush.

However, the days of Reagan and Thatcher are over.

John Howard remains the last true "Conservative" of the English speaking nations.

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