Posted on 08/06/2004 7:30:39 AM PDT by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch
America is Indeed Becoming Two Nations
Over the last few weeks I have come to realize that Democratic Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards is at least partially correct when he says there are two Americas. Unfortunately, his portrayal of the two Americas is nothing more than a recycling of the liberal political tactic of promoting class distinction and envy attempting to pit us against each other.
But a more serious analysis of the social, cultural and political forces presently vying for their place in our nation would show that there are, indeed, two Americas. One America is still trying to hold on to Christian values and apply them not only in their personal and family lives but also in how they engage as citizens and as community members. The other America is a secular America that is growing more openly and stridently anti-Christian day-by-day. This America is being taken over by secular extremists that now openly display their loathing of traditional values and of "fundamentalist" Christians with no concern that they will suffer any consequences for their words or actions.
For example, in a recent interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, singer Linda Ronstadt said, "It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment," she said.
Perhaps if the attacks were only coming from entertainers like Ronstadt such meanness and rudeness could be dismissed. But these positions are not just arising from entertainers and their industry; they are being echoed and argued by respected and successful members of American political and social life.
In a column he wrote for American Prospect entitled "Bush's God," Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, denounced religious zealots that give greater allegiance to God than they do to the government and labeled them as a greater threat than terrorism.
Reich said, "The great conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those that give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face."
Reich is not alone in this belief. On March 6th of this year, Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, told an audience that the so-called "Religious Right" is more dangerous than Neo-Nazis and Muslim extremists.
In other words, to the Dees and Reiches of this land, if your allegiance is first and foremost to Almighty God and not to the almighty state, you are more dangerous than a terrorist. Reich takes great offense when right-wing fundamentalists criticize him and other secularists as being moral relativists. In so doing, he said, "they confuse politics with private morality." Reich continued, "For religious zealots, there is no distinction between the two realms. And that is precisely the problem."
As secularists like Reich see it, when Christians, as American citizens, speak out against abortion or homosexual marriage or presidents having sex with interns, such expressions represent a greater threat to the well being of the nation than terrorism.
Reich called on his fellow Democrats to "mount a firm and clear counter-assault" against the Religious Right during this election and hold them, he says, "…accountable for what they are trying to do in our nation's schools - promoting the teaching of creationism, demanding school prayer, pushing "abstinence until marriage" programs, and opposing sex education." "This," according to Reich, "is all about imposing their religious views on our children."
Frankly, most Christians have thought it was the other way around: that our children's Christian values have long been under assault by the secular public schools. In fact, the secular left has for years been engaged in ideological warfare against Christian values that is systematically purging our nation of the very basis of our democracy…the belief that our rights are from God and not conferred to us by a benevolent, secular government. And the federal courts have been their weapons of mass destruction.
Right now there are still two Americas, but if secular extremists such as Robert Reich, Morris Dees, Linda Ronstadt and their like have their way, someday there will only be one nation under their god of politically correct secularism.
Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.
July 29, 2004
NOTE: This column is a copyrighted feature distributed free of charge by the Alabama Policy Institute. For information or comments contact: Gary Palmer, Alabama Policy Institute, 402 Office Park Drive, Suite 300, Birmingham, Alabama 35223, (205) 870-9900, e-mail garyp@alabamapolicy.org. To subscribe to this column, please go to www.alabamapolicyinstitute.org/subscribe. To unsubscribe, go to www.alabamapolicyinstitute.org/unsubscribe.
Well if this happens? the guy driving the black VW with an America flag sticker in WA is on your side.
Just keep that in mind ok :-)
The conflict goes clear back to the earliest modernist urges, traceable to a cabal of pagans who had managed to survive for nearly 1000 years after Constantine's conversion by overtly going along with Romano-Christian society while covertly continuing their near worship of Plato. The Rennaissance gave them their first big opportunity, but the fire and brimstone of Savoranolla caused them to hold back at that time. They got their first real openning with the popularization amongst certain urban intellectuals of the ideas of Rousseau, and the copycatting of them by Jacobins, Marxists, anarchists and the like. The Baby Boom combined with the corrosive forces of the long years of the FDR regime and the post WW2 explosion of commercialism gave the pagans and utopian "humanist" intellectuals their coup, when they were able to con a critical mass of the Worst Generation into undertaking full rebellion against God and against Western core values and traditions. And here we are, picking up the pieces of the mess.
But Obama said there is no liberal America and no conservative America - only the United States of America - are they going to argue with him?
;^)
Maybe we should also do away with those government programs that help the poor, since isn't charity and helping others one of those pesky "religious" thingies? /sarc
The impact of the Baby Boom is huge. The largest generation ever, with the fewest traditions of any ever to walk on the surface of the Earth.
Or as I've heard it: The Producers vs. The Parasites
OK, how about this, the dreaded N word, nationalism. Combined with some means of restoring the truly republican nature of our political institutions. Our problem is we are too open to foreign influence and anti sovereign forces, and, our political power structure as become too diffuse. It might seem paradoxical, but further democratization may not be the best way forward. For a potential model, look at how Charlemagne managed to pull Europe out of chaos and internal divisions and stave off the barbarian invasions. Not to say we need the same structure as the Holy Roman Empire, but that was a definitive example in history where a highly fragmented society was brought back from the brink. Some would counter this with "but the Dark Ages returned." I would counter this with my own belief that the so called Dark Ages were not as bad as we, modernist, secularized, post-Enlightenment types are fond of thinking, and, that the true Dark Ages were really only from a few years AD up until Charlemagne. Naturally, sitting here after both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, we value judge all times between the end of the Pagan era of Rome and the Rennaissance as being inferior. Gee, could there perhaps be a bit of natural bias in such a point of view? ;)
Actually, Alabama born, Alabama raised and Alabama proud...
I jest love to poke a little fun at my home.....Actually, creating that impression about Alabama has helped keep the Damn Yankees away. They move to Floriduh instead, and Alabama is very happy about that.
These same anointed have figured out that this so-called G-d their parents or grandparents believe(d) in is not Santa Claus!! So how could He be real? This tiny bit of introspection ends right there, meaning for them that the highest of all possible Thought and Value must come from the puny but busy brains of their loudest voices.
Soft, furry animals are to be REVERED at all costs. Too bad human fetuses don't have fur.
Praying and reading a Holy Book is backward and stupid. Unless you are not Christian. Then, it becomes exotic, quaint, and deserving of deep respect. [Look, if I am not even Christian and I have figured it out, it only shows how biased and stupid the Left is.]
Big business is Evil. Unless it donates to an anointed cause, or hires an anointed person.
Rich people do not deserve their money. It should be taken from them. Unless they received it from entertaining people.
I could go on all day. Liberals are so stuck on teeny concepts. I would guess they are pee-poor chess players.
*standing ovation*
These issues aren't anything new. In fact, our country was founded upon these very concepts; what the new totalitarians are very clever about in their arguments, are cafeteria style menus of quoting founding framers out of context whenever religion or morality is brought up, what is clear by reading Jefferson, Adams, Washington et al; is they realized no form of government can survive long without a moral populace. They are being proved correct, of course. The new left have twisted the framers vision consciously and deliberately into a grotesque parody of normality and goodness, all the while branding adherents as
"the problem". It is criminal to cultivate an "anything goes" populace.
ping
Well written, BTTT.
It's sad that the plurality our political landscape is devolving into simple polarities. Where does that leave America? Where is the plurality our founding fathers envisioned? No one party should have to speak for the whole nation. No one leader has all the answers. In my view the Democratic party has made itself all but irrelevant at a time of war and economic upheaval. It offers no constructive criticism, no alternative ideas with value. Who are these people who refuse to take the responsibility of "loyal opposition" seriously? They can't be trusted.
If you could have forced yourself to listen to democracynow.org this morning, Robert Fisk was interviewed in Iraq from the broadcast's hostess. Raving about the inevitable doom we are all about to experience due to our abuse of the Arab world, he suggested that damage to the mosques in Najaf is like having Arabs invade England and damage cathedrals in Canturbury, or even destroying monuments in Washington DC here in America.
My first thought was that the left is getting itself far too worked up to be civil anymore. They prattle on as if most of America is being manipulated or coerced into supporting the war in Iraq. They had themselves convinced that the Cold War was unnecessary, and that Iran was liberated by the mullahs. While their rage has been slowly building, they seem to ignore the restraint we've shown.
Someone more religious than I would say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
I listen to President Bush and other leaders like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tonight on Jay Leno trying to help us find common ground, and I appreciate that. Ben Stein today said that we could handle either Kerry or Bush since Kerry had approved the war on Iraq; he made his points with less bravado than the divisive voices such as Moore or Dean.
President Bush is to my left on the issue of gun control, the war, and the marriage amendment. Does democracynow.org understand what that means? I think they and their constituency are so obsessed with its agenda that they don't realize how moderate President Bush really is. He's a paragon of tolerance and patience, and they are only all too lucky to have him smoothing out the waters in this country.
I doubt that Kerry would be able to lead a country he helped divide. We may have to find out if he can. Let's hope we can be more constructive if we aren't with an executive branch that shares our views. I'm going to do my best. Some of you have been for 35 years, ever since you came back to an America you didn't expect, one that didn't appreciate your service in Vietnam. Maybe I'm going to learn something from you all.
It's coming to a fight-maybe sooner than later.
The good news is that history shows us that while many are willing to kill for socialism, few are willing to die for it.
Keep your powder dry.
In one way I fear immediate threats of violence much less than the "village" incrementalism that will continue unabated with a Kerry administration. I worry far more about the division sewed in this land by power-hungry Fabians than I fear al Qaeda's access to WMD, because one leads to the other. If we were unified, the world would respect us. As we aren't, they think we're weak. Proliferation is encouraged by this very fact. We could agree to disagree about many things, but public expression of emnity to the degree heard at the Democratic convention and much worse beforehand is a serious danger to us all.
That is a great response I must admit. I grew up in Alabama too. Good angle I didn't think off.....That is, say things bad about the South to keep the
Yanks scared of the place. OF course, saying bad things about Bama football is inexcusable in all instances.
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We Were Soldiers Once and Young
(Photos)
(Then)
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
(Now)
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm
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