An unalterable divide.

Free Republic, Blog of the Gods ^ | 11/4/2004 | Jack Black

[Jack Black]

I see an unalterable divide. I really suggest everyone here go to Democratic Underground (where we are not allowed to post, per their rules) and read what they are saying. Expect a lot of anger, profanity, anti-religous bigotry and hatred. See a lot of mischaracterization of who we are and what we believe.

I see this divide as somewhat permanant. On a personal level people can and do change. In my experience getting people to either become involved in the shooting sports or going to church and over time their politics are going to change. I run a discussion group that is mixed liberals and conservatives and there has been movement to our side, in a few cases dramatic movement.

But this is change at the margins. In general I feel the lines are hardening, not softening. It may even be that there are some pretty big internal population shifts going on. In my own case I left California a decade ago to escape the new, liberal driven anti-gun agenda. More recently I moved from Oregon to southern Washington to remove myself from the absurd tax jurisdiction. This may be happening more and more, "red" people moving to "red" states. (Jeff, I don't think you can reclaim Blue, sorry).

The elected national Republicans are at least subliminally aware of this. Spectors recent comments are reality, he's the only one blunt enough to serve it up. They don't want to be put in the position of fighting tough battles in the culture war. Most of them have no interest in rolling back Socialism in America.

We don't know how much Bush wants to push for this, either. We won, but only by 3%. Pushing back against some leftist programs that are well established could easily result in a 3% shift. Bush has been smart to put together this majority. A great job. But like our majority in the Senate, it is wobbly in the middle.

On the other hand there are many activists out here, and I'd put myself in this category, who are somewhat exhausted of working to deliver power to Republicans and not seeing much of substance come out of it. In fact the Prescription Drug program, another huge entitlement and a big block in the ongoing Socialist conversion of America (and medicine) was delivered by OUR GUYS. That really hurts.

So the Dems have some hard medicine to swallow today, but we may have more to swallow in the next 2 to 4 years as we see Bush struggle to maintain a majority coalition and address the concerns of the base.

The facts are, a lot of these issues are not grey-grey. They are somewhat black and white. And in most cases despite all these Republican gains the Liberal status quo is in force, in law.

Abortion is legal, by dint of judicial activism.

Taxes are high, very high for high income earners, and even small cuts are met with demagogury from the left and left-media. Abominations like "earned income tax credit", a direct transfer payment to selected favored working poor is the law of the land. Bush's tax cuts were only passed with a time out provision.

Spending is out of control. Lots of liberal causes are directly funded. We pay to shoot ourselves in the foot. Again demagogury is the order of the day if anything is even proposed to be cut.

The large entitlements are structurally unsound. The Dem plan to fix them is "tax the rich" .. accelerating the transition to a Euro-socialist model. So far the Republican alternatives, again designed to split the difference and not offend, are subject to lies and distortions.

Affirmative action, absurd eco regulations, endangered species laws, activist judges, obviously illegal campaign finance laws, removal of God from the national heritage, the entire New Deal, public universities as Marxist training facilities, the list goes on and on.

All accomplished fact. What many of us want is a 'velvet revolution' that rolls this back. I have little hope in seeing it happen, even after the work and the great victory we have just won.

We are a nation with two radically different visions. Alignment with them is along a continuim, some all the way Red, some hard Blue and most between the two poles. My sense is many are moving away from the center.

Certainly many of my friends are moving towards the Red Pole. Less acceptance of the status quo. Less willingness to put up with NY Times lies. But all this is not, to date, resulting in real changes for the better in my life. Every time I go to the desert there is more closed land, land that is already so empty it is probably less visited today then it was 100 years ago. Taxes keep going up, spending keeps going up.

How this is resolved I do not know. Paul Wyrich suggested conservatives "have lost" and we withdraw from the political process. (He speaks for Christian conservatives in particular) ... that we build alternative institutions. Thats not realistic. Blue Staters will tax us, regulate us and eventually convict us with impunity.

The Free State Project, which has made many mistakes along the way at least poses a great challenge in their motto: "Liberty in our Lifetime". It's a goal I can sign onto with gusto. I'm skeptical I shall live to see even a small part of it achieved.

[OpusatFR]

One of the things I learned early in life is to clean the kitchen and keep rats away from tablescraps.

It only makes them grow. On the other hand, if you remove a food source, they go away.

[timpad]

I will try until I am sure the echo chamber is impenetrable. I think I owe it to my countrymen, before I write them off.

To borrow one of Dubya's phrases, "the triumph of hope over experience."

[Dan Middleton]

A beautiful piece, but you're wasting your time. It will be deleted and you will be banned within moments of its posting.

[Cooltouch]

The only way the hardcore left will change is if a serious deprogramming-type intervention is performed on a case-by-case basis, and even then I'd give the odds of its prolonged effectiveness at way less than 50%.

These "fellow travelers" understand totalitarianism, though, because that's what they want, even though they might not realize it. So, in view of what's best for this country, I say it is time to deliver them an ultimatum. Something along the lines of "Live Free or Die" comes to mind.

[timpad]

It will be deleted and you will be banned within moments of its posting.

I expect you are right. I hope you are wrong.

[gab1279]

As they say, "It's the entitlements, stupid." Wasteful, misguided government spending is out of control. Under a Republican Congress and Republican President no less, this has gotten even worse, and I'm quite concerned that Bush needs to address this in his second term because we are headed for disaster with spending at this rate.

Republicans are becoming indistinguishable from Democrats in the spending arena...what happened to Reagan Republican ideals? They're as bad as Democrats now in packing expensive home district projects onto any appropriations bills that come along.

Remember the promises of the Contract With America? Backscratching in Washington and protecting their political interests with pork-barreling ended up making it null and void.

Keeping the presidency and increasing our Congress majorities was just the first step, now we really to ask the hard the questions of how we are going to get back to core prinicles and fiscal responsibility.

Bush's Social Security revamp will likely incur huge transition costs. And the Dept. of Education bureaucracy - spending for it was up 110%. It's a sprawling messy thing.

In my profile, I have some concerns there and info about a book that that was very informative and eye-opening about these issues.

I have links to resources concerning the things mentioned in the first post on the Resources page of my website.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I hear every jot you have written. I would ask, however, where were you 10-15 years ago?

Today, the entire political landscape has been changed. Still, that is not far enough or good enough for those that have a spiritual agenda. Your kingdom, my friend, is not earthly.

Here's the real dilema as I see it...

We live in an age where we expect more continuity and consistency from secular leader than we do from those in our pulpits. If Christians really desire change, they'll pay attention to Chronicles which puts the onus squarely on the shoulders of believers. Without brokeness and surrender, there will never be healing.

In short, Washington is not Jerusalem.

[section9]

Jack, allow me to suggest that this is a tad overwrought.

DU is a subgroup of the left wing of the Democratic Party. They are much smaller than FR and are our mirror image on the Left, only much more fanatical. Basically, what you have in DU are the shahid of the Democratic Party. In Palestine, these guys would be wearing vests made up of Semtex and blowing up buses. Since this is America, these guys just wail at the moon.

But it's the same thing. Extremists hate; that's just the nature of the beast. But most Democrats are not like the Totenkopfverbande who post there. Most registered Dems are like most registered Pubbies, and are not a bunch of loony, birkenstock-wearing lefties!

There is a whole lot less to the Red/Blue divide than we are led to believe.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Welsh Rabbit]

Very true. I know plenty of Dims, and they're nothing like these DUmmies fantasizing about a civil war between red and blue states.

[Jack Black]

It's not just the Dummies though. Look at the behavior of CBS News. Look at the NY Times. Watch CNN or ABC. Read the amazing bile on Slate (thougtfully cross posted on Drudge.) These are not fringe outlets, these are as close as it gets to the official voice of the Blue States / eastern liberal elites.

I agree with Jeff that there is a spiritual underpinning to all this, and also to the person who said Washington is not Jerusalem. Nicely put. Perhaps we try to get too much from our politicians left or right.

[Jack Black]

Thanks for your response. Yes, that's a lot of what I'm saying. I take it as somewhat an unspoken truth the the Republicans are not going to make aboriton illegal, no matter who many of us think they should. That hurts, but I've kind of accepted it.

Now I am thinking I need to accept that the spending and broken entitlement programs also have no end, even with both houses of the legislature and the executive branch in our control. Hard to accept.

[expatpat]

The DUers are a fringe group and do not IMO represent the bulk of democrats -- only the rabid 40%!

[expatpat]

The DUers are a fringe group and do not IMO represent the bulk of democrats -- only the rabid 40%!

[Jack Black]

I hear every jot you have written. I would ask, however, where were you 10-15 years ago? Today, the entire political landscape has been changed. Still, that is not far enough or good enough for those that have a spiritual agenda. Your kingdom, my friend, is not earthly.

Fifteen years ago, as mentioned above, I lived in California. I could walk into a gun shop and buy a new FN-FAL for $900. By the time I left the state I had been fingerprinted just for owning it.

How has the political landscape changed? I think it depends on whether you are in a red or blue state. Red states are getting better, within the confines of the overarching liberal paradigm foisted on us by Washington, D.C. Blue states are getting more and more socialist and horrible. Oregon's most liberal county (which contains our largest city) voted to create a county income tax and increase taxes when the state shota state-wide tax increase down.

[Jack Black]

It is funny, but Lawrence O'Donnell was on McLaughlin tonight and he was mouthing similar views. It's horrible to think I might say anything similar to that idiot. Maybe I need to log off and go have a beer.

[RKBA Democrat]

I have thought for you to take with.

From what I can tell, you're perhaps a Christian. Lately, there has been a catch-phrase that's been going around. It's a deceptively simple question: What would Jesus do?

With that in mind, I suggest you to take a look at the kinds of people that Jesus surrounded himself with and who he ministered to.

[Jack Black]

Do you really think that people with the mind-thought of the idiots at DUmpster did not exist in America prior to the 1980's?

By some history books or get some documentaries of what went on and what was happening in the late 60's and America was able to quickly rebounded.

I am 46, so I remember the 60s. Did we really rebound? No prayer in school, 100 million aborted babies, rampant drug abuse, broadcast TV that is at the level of 60s soft core porn, porn-talk on the AM radio, giant public employee unions bankrupting entire states like California and Oregon.

Glass is half empty / glass is half full. Sure Reagan was great and we won the the cold war. (Didn't we? I mean other than Russia being run by the former head of the KGB who basically cancelled elections, and China being run by Mao's handpicked successors and Vietnam being run by their Communist Party...)

And of course by 140,000 votes we defeated a high traitor from the sixties. He came within a football stadium of votes of being the Commander in Chief.

Yeah, I remember the 60s. Most of what they wanted to see changed did. Most of what they wanted to see destroyed, is gone. Ever read "The Long March"?

[WorkingClassFilth]

"How has the political landscape changed?"

Is the left in a panic and turmoil? Do Republicans control the legislature and executive branches in a single election for the first time in nearly one hundred years?

I think you are laboring under the perfection myth. You live in CA and complain about the laws. In 20 years you have devolved from a solid Reaganite state to a mish-mash of liberalism. That, my friend is a state failing. Still, you seem to project that onto an increasingly conservative national electorate.

The time has come to lay down rigid adherence to a perfect ideology and move the center back to the balance point. you will never achieve your agenda politically without the agreement of the populace.

[George Smiley]

Lurking is all I do there.

You know what the Bible says about posting pearls before swine.

[Welsh Rabbit]

I wasn't disagreeing with your premise, just also agreeing with section9 that DU represents the extreme far left. Most of them actually believe the MSM was pro-Bush. You are right; I think the times of even the pretense of "objective journalism" are over. If the past few days are any indication, the old MSM seems to have chosen to dig their heels in and go even farther Left, forcing the apathetic and indifferent to choose sides.