Too few understand, really viscerally understand, that this struggle between conservative and leftist values and ideals is a desperate war. A non-shooting war...now...in this part of the world...but still serious and deadly.
It is not, as politicians and talking heads portray it, a simple difference of opinion on how best to bring about the American dream. If the Clinton's, Schumer's, Kennedy's, Pelosi's and Daschle's win we will all be slaves for a long long time.
The American Dream will continue on as a video fantasy where we all stand up and cheer during the daily five minutes of patriotism...then back to work for the state.
They won't need gulags and guards with machine guns to enforce compliance. Drugs and class envy are far more effective and subtle ways to control behaviour.
Drugs administered (or withheld) by government employed doctors and shrinks. Behavioural evaluations given and backed by the authority of government employed bureaucrats. Employment, benefits, social class and lifestyle shaped by the most powerful person in your life, your doctor, with strings that go all the way back to the halls of Congress. (Universal Government Healthcare.)
Class envy manipulated by giving or withholding benefits and entitlements, manufactured news, accepted national spokesmen for different groups (gives the illusion of independent thought, ala Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader) and institutionalized Political Correctness (hate crimes, drug laws and smoking ordinances for starters) which establishes a means of applying a shaming peer pressure with the weight of law behind it to give it some real leverage.
This country is fractured on numerous lines. Race, economics, region, religion, morals and more. This is not an accident. We are not victims of coicumstance. We are witnesses of power grabbing. The U.S. was founded on the principle of individual sovereignty, power is to be held by "we, the people". Since day one individual sovereignty has been under attack, its power being usurped and accumulated into ever larger concentrations held by ever smaller groups of people.
"We, the people," weren't bestowed with power we were offered the opportunity to take it. Many have believed it was instantly bestowed and can't be taken away and those who wish to accumulate power are more than pleased to encourage that misunderstanding.
None of us can afford to fight for a group. Christian, Buddhist, atheist. Black, white, hispanic. Logger, miner, environmentalist. Or for a specific ideal of life; urban, rural, wilderness. Capitalist, spiritualist, hedonist. All that will accomplish is mutual destruction and further opportunity for the power grabbers.
None of those things represents America by itself. None of those things protects individual sovereignty for all, however much they might fulfill the dream of liberty and happiness for some.
Only the founding principles of self government and individual sovereignty give hope to ALL of those dreams, for this world. (Beyond earthly life is not a political matter, just the struggle to find and understand it is which is still a part of this world.) Only our Constitution gives ratified voice to those principles. Only the unified will of the people brings about manifestation of those principles. Only the principles of individual liberty and sovereignty can serve as a single indivisible rallying point, a point which simultaneously creates a clear demarcation between us and our enemy, tyranny.
To my mind conservative philosophy is the map that shows the path to that higher ground. The map is two dimensional and subject to interpretation both clear and cloudy, both selfish and selfless. The path is rocky, steep and full of twists and turns and the summit will never be reached. There is no summit to this path, on earth, only the path and the accomplishment of the path. Our vehicles are wagons loaded with our dreams and hopes, our lives, powered by our desire to move forward and our will to work together. We aspire to equality of vision, that we might all have a view to moving upwards.
Liberal philosophy is an Etch-A-Sketch map. It is redrawn daily to suit the agenda of the moment. The path is clear, just follow orders. The vehicle is a shovel for every man, powered by a common ideology, hatred and envy of those who aspire to move upwards. It's not supposed to go anywhere it's used to undermine the hill and bring everyone else down to the bottom with you. They aspire to equality of position.
Equality through common poverty. Poverty of mind, heart and pocketbook. When the merit of individual thought is discredited, all values are reduced by moral equivalence to irrelevance and material wealth is evenly distributed we will all be equal...equal in position relative to everyone else.
We won't be equal to animals though. We will be much lower not living up to the potential of what we can be and doing it deliberately.