Ann Coulter has her place and is mostly admirable, but she cannot compare to Chambers' depth, experience, or talent. Conservative activists need to develop their intellects. They need to understand what the left is really all about. Chambers provides some good answers.
Were he alive today, he would say that the spirit of communism, under other names, is still winning. If all of us contribute one-tenth the self-sacrifice that Chambers did in combating the left, we might win.
=== Conservative activists need to develop their intellects
They're too busy posting pics of Ann Coulter ... one of the prime cheerleaders of "the spirit ... under other names."
What else to make of a woman whose campaign soundbite for Kansas City FReepers is: "You must vote for Bush, no matter what he does."
Thank you, Citizen Coulter.
===== If all of us contribute one-tenth the self-sacrifice that Chambers did in combating the left, we might win.
Absolutely. But that means a willingness to buck the Conventional Wisdom and risk pointing out the Emperor Wears No Clothes only to lose all your friends and have your former fellows attack you with a viciousness and consistency lacking in their opposition to mortal enemies, even.
I'll bet Whittaker Chambers would have been either the subject of perpetual scorn or outright banned from a site like this.
Once upon a time at the Symphony Book Fair, I found a copy of the 2-volume complete exhibits to the ACLU's appeal on behalf of Alger Hiss. Chambers fan since high school, I snapped them up. Imagine my surprise when I found therein a terrible choice for me: either Whittaker Chambers OR Dick Nixon (whose hand I shook as a child and for whom I cried when he left the White House).
I think Chambers was probably stripped bare and scourged even more adeptly by those supposedly on "his" side once he came forth, than he ever could have been by the dark ones he'd left behind. That was a very difficult lesson for me and one that didn't make sense for another nine years.