Because it has failed us. The Constitution was written for people who are moral, just, and interested in their society. Over half of the population no longer fits that bill and is willing to elect politicians who will enslave them just so they can feel good for the moment.
Because it has failed us. The Constitution was written for people who are moral, just, and interested in their society. Over half of the population no longer fits that bill and is willing to elect politicians who will enslave them just so they can feel good for the moment.
The Constitution has not failed us. But it was written for people who were moral, etc.. However, it reflects a very pragmatic understanding of what actually works well in the human comedy. The problem is that too few, over the past century or so, have bothered to read it as an entity, rather than as a bunch of clauses, to be taken out of context for ulterior motives. For an example, consider how well the Constitution, correctly understood and applied, could have headed off the present financial meltdown, which probably more even than the tactics being discussed here, made the Obama election possible: Congress & The Regulation of Commerce.
The problem with wanting to immitate the tactics of the Left is that while much can be learned by studying them, they are premised upon exploitation of human failure, upon organizing discontent; upon spreading an egalitarian fantasy that simply substitutes wishes for reality. We need to organize our forces, far better, to be sure. But we are the defenders of heritage; defenders of people who have built on what is sound, generation by generation. This certainly rules out an organization directed at fueling the fires of discontent of those driven by envy, jealousy and hate--the staple of the revolutionary. (The American Revolution, by contrast, was a rising of the high achievers--a true counter-revolution against an increase in the power of a remote Government into the daily affairs of those high achievers.)
The coming more intrusive style of the Obama Administration will indeed provide an opportunity to rally our core support--those who want the liberty to achieve, as opposed to those who seek dependence on a collective, as an entitlement. While today, there may be more of the latter; among those intelligent enough to take effective action, the numbers are hardly against us. But what we must learn to do a better job of, is in trying to reach those whom Alinsky (above) distinguishes as "Liberals." I would not so characterize them, rather as "Parlor Pinks:" Lenin's confused, "useful idiots." With slightly better focused tactics, I think there will soon be opportunity to wake some of these latter types up. I think that some of them are going to be frightened by the monster they have funded, once they get over their orgasms over the "Historic Moment."
The key to any strategy, of course, is a good understanding of the context of issues; the dynamics of human interaction; the fuller reality that the Left always misses in their emotional commitment to their wish lists. We need to be able to explain to any intelligent person, who will listen, why the new programs cannot work out, in terms of real factors that most people are aware of, but have never been taught to see the essential connections with what is proposed.
Above all, we need to understand that we do not ever need to concede the high ground to the Left. Their policies are good only for demagogues and bureaucrats. They are destructive to the interests of all groups, once those interests are understood in the larger context of the multi-generational struggle that has characterized the history of every people--in part, because they subsidize all that is harmful, while discouraging all that is productive.