Our Second Civil War

American Thinker ^ | January 06, 2010 | Bruce Walker

[neverdem]

The 1860s marked a period of great trial for our land. A bloody civil war resolved, at least nominally, some important issues. It was the period after Appomattox and after Reconstruction, however, which determined the true impact of our first civil war. The 1960s, which ended forty years ago, was the time of our second trial -- our Second Civil War. It is a testament to its ferocity and its reach that the consequences of this internecine war for the soul of America remain undetermined. 

Conservatives -- those who wanted to conserve the values of America going into the 1960s -- stood on one side of this battlefield. These Americans viewed our land as the best candle of hope in a stormy world. They strongly favored equal rights for blacks, despite an Orwellian rewriting of history painting them as racists. The Republican Party, the principle vehicle for conservatives, had a very long and clear record of opposing Jim Crow and the disenfranchisement and segregation of blacks. 

However, the 1960s became a period in which the ideal of equality was deformed into the notion of eternal entitlement. The conservative America ideal -- that merit, over time, lifts the lowly immigrant into success and status -- fought the Marxist ideal that classes of victims and oppressors never change. Social justice (or injustice) replaced individual justice. The mindset of these Marxists was identical to that of the Klansman or the Nazi: All wanted "social" justice and permanent, rigid lines of separation.  

Conservatives understood that American greatness rested foremost upon private and broad fidelity to Judeo-Christian moral traditions. The Founding Fathers warned that American government could work only if the people were imbued with those values (which included religious tolerance). This had little to do with the interaction of state and faith -- when government was small, its attitude toward faith was trivial -- but it had everything to do with the indispensable value of private faith among Christians and Jews, which concur broadly and clearly on the moral nature of the nation. Private, not government, action reined in motion pictures and comic books that strayed outside the boundaries of accepted decency.

The 1960s saw a loosening of corsets (which was simply a question of moderating the equipment of decency) evolve into a long cultural striptease that ended with rabid feminists burning their bras. The abiding faith of Christians and of Jews, which had stabilized families and restrained notions of sin in a healthy check on the direction of culture, began to be portrayed almost always as bigoted ignorance. Defying foundational faith was championed as heroic. God and sin, the left snarled, were false, or worse. Two generations of Americans have grown up in this gulag of godlessness. Now, faith in anything beyond the top bureaucrat or trust in anything above the most decorated sociologists is heresy against militant secularism. 

The machinery of truth changed. Reasonable regard for nature and conservation became Orwellian obsession with grand lies like man-made global warming and the population bomb. Robotic ideologues like Michael Moore could actually look at the nightmare nation of Cuba and see some sort of coloring-book paradise. Instead of all important decisions in life being guided by faith and tradition, they were directed by the political truth of the moment -- the party line.

The 1960s saw the prevailing sentiment of America -- profound gratitude for the freedom and prosperity bestowed by brave and noble predecessors -- transformed by the left into a rude ingratitude, a mocking deconstruction of everything good in America, and an embrace of each imperfection as proof of some capital crime. Conservatives saw America as the place where everyone wanted to be, the one great nation which never had an emigration problem, the refugee country of all oppressed peoples. When GIs fought in Korea or in Vietnam, conservatives saw that the policy mission may have been foolish and the strategies unwise, but the underlying purpose -- to preserve freedom -- was never in question. The left, by contrast, seemed in the 1960s to adopt the belief that the people of South Korea would actually have been better off if they had been incorporated into the vast concentration camp which is North Korea. America in the 1960s became instead Amerika -- a fascist police state.

Forty years ago, our nation survived a rebellion against the existence and the ideal of America. What was the left, and those who were "liberals," changed in the 1960s. The New Left, the Marxist left, emerged as the political commissar of everything which claimed to be on the left. Honorable intentions were cast aside, and the left became as savage as the Vietcong.  Hubert Humphrey shepherded the civil rights legislation through Congress, assuring the nation that what we call affirmative action would be just as wrong as Jim Crow. The Marxist left abandoned him. Martin Luther King appealed, very directly, to the God of Christians and of Jews for the foundation of his movement. The God he cherished became an unperson to the Marxist left. It was JFK, icon of the left, who said that America would bear any price for freedom in the world. His vision of America as the Great Emancipator has been roughly cast aside.

The very concept of principled negotiations within the framework of a great goodness -- America -- is rejected by a Marxist left who pretended that the Berlin Wall never fell and the manifest failure of Marxism was (again) simply a failure of tactics and not of strategy. The Marxist left continues our Second Civil War because it exists in a smothering cocoon of relative truth, invented values, and faith in a purely material existence. This group, perhaps eight percent(pdf) of the population, has influence far out of proportion to its numbers in America. It cannot be ignored, no matter how silly it seems. This Civil War for the soul of America must be won.

Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

[Pining_4_TX]

Of course, you meant to say the War of Northern Aggression. ;-)

[Gargantua]

Not to mention Northern Victory. :-)

(_8(|) Doh!

[2ndDivisionVet]

Related thread:

What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts

[DakotaRed]

From 1969 to 1974 I was out of the country, serving first in Viet Nam then Germany. From the time I returned I have been trying to figure out and understand where did the country I left back in 1969 go. This article, more than anything I have ever seen or read before, offers the best explanation of what happened during my 5 year absence and why the country I left to fight for disappeared while I was gone.

[Pining_4_TX]

Yes, and look where it got us - an all-powerful federal government.

Don’t make me come up there and raise a flag on your lawn! ;-)

[Smokin' Joe]

Great post, neverdem! (That’s how I remember it, too.)

[Domandred]

When real American’s were out fighting against communists the socialists took over the infrastructure at home.

[FrankR]

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson

[FreeperFlirt]

Tiger Woods who?

[jamaksin]

Suggest Mind of the South by W(ilbur). J(oseph). Cash from 1941 for several other perspectives.

[iowamark]

http://www.amazon.com/Vindicating-Lincoln-Defending-Politics-President/dp/0742559726

[sergeantdave]

If looking for an analogy I prefer the Revolutionary War.

During this period, the Crown tried to destroy our country and economy with brutal dictates to enrich itself, a vial bureaucracy to enforce the dictates and the outright destruction of our governing bodies, as now. And if I were to lay parallel timelines between then and now, I’d say we’re at about 1765 - getting organized. The next step is for leaders to bubble up and be recognized by the people.

The problem is that we have hotheads who want to take on the criminals in DC now, and I understand that. We do have time and need to wait. I say that because we see that we’re not ready because the movement is searching for leaders (plural). King obuma still hasn’t fielded a bureaucratic army to enforce his illegal Marxist dictates. He’s currently hiring and training his “army” to invade. The advantage we have is that they’re cowards. They will pay a price for their perfidy and treason. But now now.

Some wrongly assume that because Americans aren’t attacking now is proof of cowardice, stupidity and a dozen other baseless and stupid charges. They’re wrong.

The time of tar and feathers, threats and action is still properly in the future and certain matters shouldn’t be pressed.

[Jack Black]

Ping

[crosshairs]

Some wrongly assume that because Americans aren’t attacking now is proof of cowardice, stupidity and a dozen other baseless and stupid charges. They’re wrong.

Correct. The patriots need to be organized and know what/who they want to target. Can't just be shooting at everyone and each other.

[Christian4Bush]

bump for later

[orinoco]

Agreed, the socialist have been at this for over 100 years. Conservative patriots need a long term plan to turn this back.

[I Buried My Guns]

"...If looking for an analogy I prefer the Revolutionary War..."

Actually, I prefer the Civil War:

A larger entity attempts to bully a smaller one even though the smaller one is in the right. This larger entity (this time composed of liberals, leftists, social justice groups, racial rabble-rousing groups, Jesse Jackson, George Soros, and unions) is desparate for a win, as their entire platform is empty and hollow.

Even though this larger entity has no moral standing, they attempt to whip up a frenzy of righteous indignation, similar to how the North whipped up a frenzy of patriotism against the South using the newspapers of the day.

[Gargantua]

"Yes, and look where it got us - an all-powerful federal government."

In case you actually hadn't noticed, we had a growing Federal Government before the Civil War. Abolishing slavery had nothing to do with the tumorous growth of the Government.

Idiotic, lazy, sheep-like citizens who did not pay attention or keep the Gummint in check with their votes are to blame. We voters are also the only way that this monstrosity will be reined in and brought back under control.

Whichever side of the conflict between the states our forbears were on, their conflict did not create the tyrannical freak inside the Beltway. We did that.

;-/