Liberals Losing the Culture Wars

HUMAN EVENTS ^ | 09/03/2010 | Roger Hedgecock

[neverdem]

For decades, liberals won the culture wars and, consequently most of the elections that reshaped America. More than politics is changing in this crossroads year of 2010—Americans are reasserting traditional culture. You won't read or see it in the mainstream media, but this fact is driving the political story.

The Republican Party is not resurgent (although it may be the beneficiary); America is resurgent.

Generations of Americans have never known any culture except the progressive, politically correct left.

Beginning in the 1960s, God was driven out of American public life because liberals said the Constitution demanded a separation of church and state.

Planned Parenthood was part of a campaign that convinced many Americans that killing unborn babies was really a defense of a woman's constitutional right to choose.

The ACLU sued to define "free speech" to include vandalism, sacrilegious art, and spitting on returning veterans of the Vietnam War.

Even more depressing, the drive for equal rights for liberated slaves, begun by Republicans during and after the Civil War, morphed into a liberal affirmative action program which reintroduced privilege based on skin color.

In 2010, the tide has turned.

This year, liberals demanded Americans respect the triumphalist mosque near Ground Zero as an expression of American commitment to religious freedom. At the same time, liberals sued to remove a cross in a remote area of California's Mojave Desert and sponsored hate crime legislation that would put Christian pastors in jail for reading Biblical passages condemning homosexuality.

The hypocrisy had gone too far. Americans noticed the one-sidedness; they saw “The Agenda” at work. Americans by 70% oppose the Ground Zero mosque and Obama's support of it has hurt him and his party going into November. The liberals lost the culture conflict and, consequently, the political momentum.

In the 2008 campaign, liberals promised Planned Parenthood that healthcare "reform" would include all "reproductive services" (read: federally funded abortions). But in the debate over healthcare legislation, Rep. Bart Stupak and a small band of pro-life Democrats joined with Republicans in demanding the continuation of a ban on federally funded abortions.

Based on promises made by Pelosi and Reid, Stupak and enough others caved and the "reform" passed. But the "ban" was watered down in the final bill drafted in secret; abortion coverage was made subject to further rule-making by the federal bureaucracy.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was given the power to write regulations governing required coverage in all health insurance plans under the Obamacare bill. A notorious pro-abortion advocate, Sebelius prepared to require abortion as a covered procedure, with federal funding for those who could not afford it.

The deception was too obvious. Americans noticed. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi would say or do anything (or bribe anyone) to advance a federal takeover of our healthcare choices.

Americans by 60-70% want this "reform" repealed. Obama and Co. won the legislative battle, but lost the culture. Now they are losing the politics as well.

The Obamacare debate awakened what Nixon called the "Silent Majority." Silent no more, the Tea Party gatherings starting in the summer of 2009 galvanized American grassroots opposition. Liberal attempts to scold, denigrate, and marginalize this movement backfired. Now, incumbents of both parties are being thrown out of office in a political bloodbath that will reach a crescendo in November.

Al Sharpton's pathetic counter demonstration to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” event in D.C. is only the latest highlight of the perversion of the civil rights movement by its current self proclaimed "leaders." More and more American blacks have come to realize that the Democratic government plantation is not so different from the Democrat's original version in the pre-Civil War South. Dependency is dependency. A welfare check and food stamps are doled out by the new "massa”—same as the old "massa".

Americans of all backgrounds have noticed. Equality of opportunity has degenerated into new privileges based on skin color. Most Americans want a return to an opportunity society with "equal justice for all." The Voting Rights Act should apply to the New Black Panthers, too.

Too many commentators have looked only to the economy and Obama's failed economic policies to explain the Democrats swift fall from grace and the growing belief that the November election will turn the House, and maybe the Senate, over to the Republicans.

Underlying all politics is the culture. It is changing. The dominant liberal culture has yielded division and decay in American society—and a government-directed economy destroying our standard of living. The rejection of liberal culture has begun; the rejection of liberal politics will follow.

Roger Hedgecock is a nationally-syndicated radio talk host. Visit rogerhedgecock.com. The Roger Hedgecock Show is syndicated on the Radio America network.

[April Lexington]

the money will just COME from somewhere

Most of it has been coming from China in the form of loans and, they don't like us very much...

[April Lexington]

I suggest that the upper echelons of the GOP have been infiltrated by queers.

The GOP is NOT a conservative organization. Putting your Hope for Change in that bunch is a fool's errand. We need a Conservative Party or Conservatives need to clean house at the GOP... Or, the communists will just take a breather and be back at destroying America in 2012 and beyond... The battle for permanent CHANGE is at your GOP caucus level...

[RobbyS]

I belong to that “Silent” generation before the boomers, a product of the birth dearth of the ‘30s, and was old enough and aware enough in 1948 to remember about the Progressives and Henry Wallace. It was therefore obvious to me in 1972 where George McGovern was coming from ideologically and to see that after Nixon’s Fall and the election of 1974 that the radicals had taken over the Democratic Party. But even as late of the ‘80s, people like Pelosi seemed like lunatics who could never, never rise to power. Guess what. They did, and Obama is no more than ONE of their progeny.

[Mariner]

The author has this essentially right.

But, not ONE WORD on Immigration, Borders, Language?

I believe THESE are the fundamental Culture issue of 2010 and beyond. When combined with the crazy fiscal mess the libs have created...the GOP has an OPPORTUNITY to win big, while at the same time purging itself of big spenders, immigration advocates and secular bigots.

Again, with leadership, the GOP has the opportunity to build a working, multi-decade coalition.

[RobbyS]

The Left is always pointing at the terrible and largely imaginary past.. They blather on about "theocracy," and yell about the Crusades, when what they really oppose is the America presciently described by Tocqueville, where religion and democracy happily co-existed as they did not anywhere in Europe or elsewhere. Despite flurries of intolerance, as exemplified by the anti-Catholicism and anti-semitism of the ‘20s. that all came together in the world of the ‘50s where Protestanr-Catholic-and-Jew happily co-existed. members of all faith enjoyed the TV competition between the Jewish comic Milton Berle and the Catholic Bishop Sheen. It is that happy convergence that the liberals wish to get rid of, imagining an oppression that did not exist, except in the minds of the “Beatniks.” The Left, like all totalitarians, from the Grand Inquisitor to the Bolsheviks, wish us to forget the real past and believe in the one they have made up to use against their foes.

[RobbyS]

The immigration issue is closely connected with the total economic picture. Business interests have moved jobs oversees and opened the door to unskilled labor in a way that undercut the rights of the middle class as a whole,

[Luke21]

You don't know me from squat. Take your insults somewhere else. I am done with you. Bang your head into the wall and be happy. Expect the McCains and Grahams and Kirks to save you, and to have a nation full of people drawing government checks and afraid to speak their minds turn to some three century old rarified document written while people went to the bathroom in chamber pails.

Their judges are everywhere. That's the power. You vote the wrong way they overturn it. That is reality. You are myopic. Go ahead and believe the Superman will show up and the leftists will “lay down their arms.” Welcome to it.

[dr_who]

I have to agree with you. The abortion battle has been a slow drift towards total surrender: federally funded abortion on demand. Same goes for other issues like gay marriage, societal norms, etc. Crosses in the desert are little more than distractions from the big picture.

[Running On Empty]

“It’s not the naysayers, or the threats of gloom and doom, that make men rise to greatness. No it is singularly hope springing eternally from the heart of man that drives him to accomplish that which otherwise should not be.”

Author unknown

[Tribune7]

Liberals have won the culture war.

I don't think so a bit. I remember being defensive about my pro-life views circa 1982. Now, it's the pro-aborts who are defensive.

Gun control is no longer cool unless by gun control you mean squeezing the trigger rather than jerking it.

I also think the taboo of criticizing homosexual behavior has reached the high-water mark and won't advance much further.

I personally am very tolerant of homosexuals but I no longer care whether they tolerate me or not when I express disapproval of their behavior.

[Windflier]

You don't know me from squat. Take your insults somewhere else. I am done with you.

You're insulted because I called you a "doomer"? Alright. That's fair, but I believe the charge was warranted, given your doom and gloom post. Per what you said, you believe that America is doomed, hence my charge.

In the balance of my post, I believe that I laid out a reasoned appeal to you to try to see the bright side of all the gains we're making against the ruling class. I don't see how any of that could be insulting to you.

You are myopic. Go ahead and believe the Superman will show up and the leftists will “lay down their arms.” Welcome to it.

I acknowledge how you feel about America's current ills, but I have to wonder why you read and post here, if you've given up all hope for America's future. I honestly don't get that.

To each his own. Peace.

[Art in Idaho]

The second revolution has begun!

Damn right it has! Americans, Remember in November when you Vote it's the Republican vs ______-Reid-Pelosi-Obama-Socialism.

[1010RD]

Excellent. Many FReepers would be shocked to see how conservative blacks really are.

Liberalism can be killed in our cities - school vouchers, man/woman marriage, 2nd Amendment liberties and abortion are things we have in common with those trapped on the Democrat’s plantation.

[kearnyirish2]

I agree; there certainly hasn’t been a shift to the right. There is some cause for optimism, between tough economic times (where anyone would baby seals in their fireplace if it would heat their home) and unrestricted immigration that is bringing in many people who live in the 7th century. It will be a shift to the right, but I don’t know what it will look like...

[kearnyirish2]

China will never allow unions; the reason they are a great place to out-source work is because their people are slaves, and things like “safe work environment” or “environmental impact” are irrelevant to the government there. India is only in the picture because they speak English; while they have a growing middle class, the country on the whole has many problems of a developing country; unions in India must keep in mind that call center jobs can be moved to English-speaking parts of east or west Africa if the Indians try to make demands.

[StAnDeliver]

"And as far as culture war issues go, the left has won on abortion. I doubt that Roe vs. Wade will ever be overturned, and even if it were, it would simply return the abortion issue to state laws. Liberal states would pass laws allowing abortion on demand. Some conservative states might severely restrict or outlaw abortion if Roe were overturned, but abortion on demand would still be the law of the land in much of the country."

No. By my count 29 states would outlaw abortion in the first post-Roe year -- even the Left has outright conceded 22 and put 12 'on the fence'. That's 34 -- what does that tell you?

[grey_whiskers]

The battle for permanent CHANGE is at your GOP caucus level...

I know and agree. Look up "The Precinct Project" on RedState.com.

My comment explains *WHY* the GOP is no longer conservative.

NO cheers, unfortunately.

[Tribune7]

You are quite correct. Abortion is gone. It is over.

The biggest problem conservatives have is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Polls indicate a serious turning in opinion regarding abortion.

And if you quit on protecting the helpless you may as well quit on everything else.

[Dumb_Ox]

I agree with your first comment, this piece is ludicrous smoke-blowing.

Outside of religion, conservative institutions are basically banned in this country.

The GOP focused on the mosque and not the Prop. 8 decision, which has a far greater threat to conservative way of life. It's almost like the Republican Party is the controlled opposition intended to make conservatives think they have a voice in the way the country is run.

I'd like to open up a second front within the Democratic Party, to force Republicans to compete for conservative votes and to force Dems from going too far left, but I don't see where to begin. Regardless of Congress & the presidency, the Democrats control the government bureaucracy, and you can't shrink the bureaucracy unless you control it yourself and can advance your partisans while tossing out your enemies.

The GOP belief that it can abolish this government from the outside is laughable.

[Dumb_Ox]

Are you familiar with the Craig Spence blackmail/prostitution ring which afflicted the GHWB White House? FR had some good threads on it back in the day.