In pondering Fonte's presentation, I found myself remembering a passage from William Simon's classic A Time For Truth. He noted that when the forces of the Left start hurling accusations and vilification at such figures as bankers and industrialists, the usual result is not a vigorous self-defense by the latter, but rather a failure of moral courage followed by a campaign of appeasement and propitiation. More often than not, the Left's targets officiate at their own lynchings.
Another thought that struck me was of the pyramidal nature of political organizations, including all the NGOs and special-interest groups Fonte mentioned. The great mass of adherents are probably sincere about their beliefs, and do not grasp their toxic nature. The top operators are clearer-eyed, for their agenda is always the preservation and extension of their power and perquisites. The group's "official" agenda is only a cover for their advancement of themselves.
Finally, we have an ideological shift of continental dimensions, yet one which is so large as to be effectively invisible: the steady elimination of the concept of privacy, especially private property. The private and the public spheres are mutually defining; once there is no more private sphere, there will be nothing which is not subject to thoroughgoing political control. Obviously, as the boundary of the private is pushed back before the encroachments of politics, it will become ever more important to have "friends in high places."
It might not be clear at the outset how all this ties together, but a little reflection will make all the pieces fall into place:
The Constitution, that uniquely American idea, will not protect us from the "transnational progressives" unless we protect it. It is not the origin of freedom, but rather a plan conceived by men already convinced of the rightness of liberty, that sprouted from American defiance of invalid authority and was watered by the blood of patriots. In these days, when few are willing to go to the barricades for freedom, justice, and the rule of law, our founding heritage and its documents provide little cover.
To protect our rights will involve regenerating our understanding of them: whence they emerge, their scope and application, and their implications for our treatment of one another when we find ourselves in disagreement. Isabel Paterson believed that this could be done by encouraging students to approach the Constitution as an engineering plan, a blueprint that emerged from the Framers' understanding of the fundamentals of freedom and the stresses and strains a diverse, often fractious people would undergo. Her book The God Of The Machine was an attempt at such a presentation.
There are few certainties in political combat, but there is always this one: For evil to triumph, it is necessary only that good men do nothing.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
We need to see more defenders of property rights speak plainly and unashamedly about the convictions that motivate them.
You see the problem here.
The National Education Association is at least as dangerous as any NGO, and is sister-in-arms with the America-hating, multiculturalist NGOs named in Fonte's piece. Heck, the NEA is practically the spearhead.