Posted on 02/24/2017 7:04:41 AM PST by Kaslin
As the culture war is about irreconcilable beliefs about God and man, right and wrong, good and evil, and is at root a religious war, it will be with us so long as men are free to act on their beliefs.
Yet, given the divisions among us, deeper and wider than ever, it is an open question as to how, and how long, we will endure as one people.
After World War II, our judicial dictatorship began a purge of public manifestations of the "Christian nation" that Harry Truman said we were.
In 2009, Barack Obama retorted, "We do not consider ourselves to be a Christian nation." Secularism had been enthroned as our established religion, with only the most feeble of protests.
One can only imagine how Iranians or Afghans would deal with unelected judges moving to de-Islamicize their nations. Heads would roll, literally.
Which bring us to the first culture war skirmish of the Trump era.
Taking sides with Attorney General Jeff Sessions against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the president rescinded the Obama directive that gave transgender students the right to use the bathroom of their choice in public schools. President Donald Trump sent the issue back to the states and locales to decide.
While treated by the media and left as the civil rights cause of our era, the "bathroom debate" calls to mind Marx's observation, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
Can anyone seriously contend that whether a 14-year-old boy, who thinks he is a girl, gets to use the girls' bathroom is a civil rights issue comparable to whether African-Americans get the right to vote?
Remarkably, there was vigorous dissent, from DeVos, to returning this issue to where it belongs, with state and local officials.
After yielding on the bathroom question, she put out a statement declaring that every school in America has a "moral obligation" to protect children from bullying, and directed her Office of Civil Rights to investigate all claims of bullying or harassment "against those who are most vulnerable in our schools."
Now, bullying is bad behavior, and it may be horrible behavior.
But when did a Republican Party that believes in states rights decide this was a responsibility of a bureaucracy Ronald Reagan promised but failed to shut down? When did the GOP become nanny-staters?
Bullying is something every kid in public, parochial or private school has witnessed by graduation. While unfortunate, it is part of growing up.
But what kind of society, what kind of people have we become when we start to rely on federal bureaucrats to stop big kids from harassing and beating up smaller or weaker kids?
While the bathroom debate is a skirmish in the culture war, Trump's solution -- send the issue back to the states and the people there to work it out -- may point the way to a truce -- assuming Americans still want a truce.
For Trump's solution is rooted in the principle of subsidiarity, first advanced in the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII -- that social problems are best resolved by the smallest unit of society with the ability to resolve them.
In brief, bullying is a problem for parents, teachers, principals to deal with, and local cops and the school district if it becomes widespread.
This idea is consistent with the Republican idea of federalism -- that the national government should undertake those duties -- securing the borders, fighting the nation's wars, creating a continental road and rail system -- that states alone cannot do.
Indeed, the nationalization of decision-making, the imposition of one-size-fits-all solutions to social problems, the court orders emanating from the ideology of judges -- to which there is no appeal -- that is behind the culture wars that may yet bring an end to this experiment in democratic rule.
Those factors are also among the primary causes of the fever of secessionism that is spreading all across Europe, and is now visible here.
Consider California. Democrats hold every state office, both Senate seats, two-thirds of both houses of the state legislature, 3 in 4 of the congressional seats. Hillary Clinton beat Trump 2-to-1 in California, with her margin in excess of 4 million votes.
Suddenly, California knows exactly how Marine Le Pen feels.
And as she wants to "Let France Be France," and leave the EU, as Brits did with Brexit, a movement is afoot in California to secede from the United States and form a separate nation.
California seceding sounds like a cause that could bring San Francisco Democrats into a grand alliance with Breitbart.
A new federalism -- a devolution of power and resources away from Washington and back to states, cities, towns and citizens, to let them resolve their problems their own way and according to their own principles -- may be the price of retention of the American Union.
Let California be California; let red state America be red state America.
Write a check for $2.7T (CA’s share of national debt) plus market value for all federal property, and we’ll talk.
Let them go. The new ‘country’ will be divided into three or four nations within two years.
They’ll be non-contiguous.
If CA secedes, the remaining electoral math will be very stark to MA/CT/NY etc, and the only solution will be to band together.
WOuld be like having a US version of Gaza and the West Bank.
Yes, and take all those blue electoral votes with them.
I can’t believe that national Democrats would be OK with Calif.seceding. Hillary won the popular vote nationwide only because of a huge margin in Calif. The electoral vote was somewhat close only because the Democrats could pencil in Calif 55 electoral votes right off the bat. Democrat presidential candidates will have a much tougher time getting elected without California. For these reasons I would think Democrats in other states would strongly oppose Calif. leaving the union.
It’s the only solution.
We need to be divided into two separate nations. We are different people. I have no desire to get along with liberals. We really don’t agree on anything.
This raises another question, though. With California being a state friendly to illegals, will that mean that we will need a wall between California and the rest of the nation?
Pat makes some good points. The problem as I see it, is that the liberals would never go along with state by state policies.
For example, a recent great example is homosexual marriage. The liberals insisted that we had to have nationwide homosexual marriage, and decided to mount a long campaign to force that issue through the courts. If the liberals would leave these issues to be resolved by states, Pat’s idea could work. But if you review how homosexual marriage was forced on America, you see that the liberals will not behave in a manner which allows for state by state resolution of societal issues. They insist there has to he a federal 50,state solution to everything; that is their mindset.
” Secularism had been enthroned”
A bit off topic, but when you consider the epa, it’s paganism that has been enthroned.
In the monotheistic religions, only god is more important than man. In the pagan, nature is more important than man because nature is their god.
Originally, pollution controls served to protect people, hence the epa was originally named by nixon the pollution control agency.
Now, it’s the environment that gets the protection, not people. If it’s a choice between your welfare and the planet’s, the planet wins.
You are correct. Pat misses the point. Liberals live to impose their ideas on the rest of us. The rest of us just wish to be left alone. I post this on a reoccurring basis. Civill wars are fought when one class seeks to impose its will on another class. The ideas, values, and beliefs are a sideshow or maybe an avenue to one class ruling over another. I believe every English civil war has been fought over exactly that and I include our own Civil War as one of many wars that the English people have fought over who will rule over them.
I’m for it, but then I’ll want border control— Californians don’t get to move or travel freely into other states and pollute them with their godless marxist values. Let them live in the liberal cesspool paradise they think they’ll build. They’ll learn a hard lesson about reality, and there will be no one to bail them out. If only.
BTW, CA: the Civil War sparked when the South fired on Fort Sumpter. Whatever the condition & occupancy thereof, ANY violent assault on US property (including foreign military bases) WILL be met with dominating force to retain control of that property, up to and including the complete overthrow of any government asserting control over that property.
To wit: I contend the Civil War occurred as it did because the USA does not relent ownership of military bases located in foreign countries (see Guantanamo) without negotiation and unilateral consent, reserving the sovereign right to defend those bases at all costs; the CSA did not negotiate ownership of Fort Sumpter, the USA did not relent ownership, and the CSA attempted to take it by force - and the abject refusal to relent ownership claims was resolved by overthrowing the CSA government. As such, I suggest that if CA wishes to secede in peace, it must not initiate violence, and writing a >$2.7T check will help immensely.
No, just deployment of snipers.
As usual, Pat doesn’t really get it. The US citizens of CA have been the victims of a subtle, insidious invasion, sponsored and encouraged by the traitorous DemonCrap party, to separate CA from the US, a separation the will leave the US militarily weakened with our wet coast possessed by a hostile, marxist power. That’s been the purpose of the illegal alien invasion of CA all along. By now there are two or there million illegals voting illegally in that state.
They and the DemonCraps have stolen the state from its real citizens and now threaten secession, a horrible move that will fundamentally threaten the security of all of us.
The only solution to this is a full Federal investigation of the CA electoral system that will remove the illegals from the voting rolls and stop the myriad other forms of DemonCrap vote fraud. Pat’s suggestion would simply reward the thieves and traitors for their crimes .
Yes we do.
I fought with my brothers all the time, but when an outsider mess with one of us, we were all united. It used to be that way in America, previous it was “we may have our difference but we are all Americans in the end” and “Politics stops at the ocean”.
Not anymore, During the Gulf War Liberals would masturbate ever time soldiers got killed because it made Bush look bad, like wise Conservatives laughed every time Obama got punked by Russia, China or whatever irrelevant country.
We obviously don’t belong together. Liberals are sick, vile, evil people. They are the HIV party, Hate, Intolerance and Violence. There is no reconciling with such people. We would be better off without them.
Can anyone take seriously an author who thinks the civil rights movement had anything to do with African-Americans having the right to vote? The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870, long before civil rights became the early progressives' great campaign.
There’s a better solution that a few on the left have started to recognize. The left has been trying to make control over everyone’s live be (from most to least)
* Federal govt (influenced by UN if our Constitution “fails”)
* state govt
* city govt
* individual (what do you identify as today)
In theory, conservatives say control should be more like
* self-determined (religion, God, personal view of life)
* family
* neighbors
* city
* state
* feds
If we can flip the left’s control hierarchy to family-first/feds-last we can get along. I’m sorry for conservatives in some parts of California. But I’m also not demanding to force my bathroom/genital rules on San Francisco as long as they don’t demand the state and feds force the same rules on everyone.
Dems havem for most of my life, wanted to force their ideas on all from the federal level. They are now accepting that states’ right’s may have a place (pot, crime, etc). So there is an opening to having LA and SanFran (and California) remain part of the US if we can all agree to the individual-first/feds-last order and “leave each other alone”. If LA & SanFran want to control the country they need to go.
I agree with you. My emotional response is, “Great! Let California go”. But that is not the best answer. That will only create more problems, and other states will eventually attempt to follow. Nevada was largely a Republican state for decades. But with the influx of illegal aliens, particularly in Las Vegas, the immigration of liberal Californians to Nevada, and the strength of the Democrat machine, the state is now being controlled by the Democrats, even though the rest of the state is primarily Republican. How long would it be before Nevada would have to join California, against the will of the Republicans who are being outnumbered?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.