Replies

Redcloak wrote: “The alternative is to not fall for this RINO ruse [of a Pledge to America].”

I tend to agree (although I still don’t advocate voting for any party in a general election other than Republican. The Republican party must be reformed, and then voted for no matter what the outcome in a primary. All 3rd party delusions are just that, delusions).

I have found myself in the last few weeks and months, if not years, thinking about the “Contract with America”; how exactly did that work out for the purposes of reform of government? That’s a rhetorical question for all reading this to consider.

Another, and this is something that may generate some vitriol from virtually everyone reading this now, is that I have also found myself doubting the effectiveness of this current Tea Party “movement”. It seems to be based on the assumption that the nation is finally “waking up to the threat of big government”, that the nation is “ready to assert its burgeoning, if not latent conservatism”, and that if we all, Democrat and Republican alike, unite under a more conservative political banner, this country will get back on track.

Over these past weeks, months and years, ever since the resounding defeats of 2006, I cannot help but think back to what I heard Rush Limbaugh say, and I know he said it, sometime before 2006 (for reasons that will become immediately obvious) but I cannot remember the exact year. I think it may have been in 2002. He predicted that the Democrat party would be “reduced to irrelevancy” (almost a direct quote) in 10-15 years. He predicted this because of a similar assumption of the Tea Party today, that this nation is “inherently conservative”, and (at that time of course) had finally begun to realize that conservatism was the key to success for our nation.

Well does anyone here really think that the Democrats are going to be irrelevant in 1-6 years? Are we really on such a path? Most importantly, do we think that the events of 2006 and 2008 are of no consequence? That they are a mere aberration in a nation of “conservatives”?

If my tone seems defeatist and glum, I apologize, for I suppose in some ways it is; 2006 was a watershed year for me. I honestly and truly believed that this nation had turned a corner, and was about to finally throw off the shackle of liberalism, and then 2006 occurred, and then 2008.

How can we believe that this nation is “inherently conservative” with results such as those? Aren’t we falling into the same self-deluded trap that resulted in the RINO (or I should say CINO, CONSERVATIVE in name only) arrogance that got us to 2006 and ‘08 in the first place? It’s such enthusiasm, based on quite frankly the faulty premise of national conservatism, that enabled CINO’s to be elected to government at the highest levels, to spend money on THEIR pork barrels, on THEIR special interests, and we celebrated, drunk on the victory of “our side”. I think this paragraph describes some current general races we find ourselves in now, which I won’t name for the reasons I stated in my opening. But I think it should be rather obvious to which I refer (no, I won’t state which ones, because now, we have no choice, we must support the Republican).

The purposes of this post is a reality check. To (hopefully) get some reader somewhere to realize that enthusiasm for the current climate is based on false hope. Just as the liberals are now realizing their “hope and change” in 2008 was a false hope, if we base our agenda, our reason for being political, on the assumption that somehow this nation is “waking up”, then we have already lost, in every real sense of the word. We may make some gains (and indeed may win both houses of Congress) this fall, and maybe even gain the presidency back in 2012, but they will be fleeting victories, just as they were in 2002 and 2004.

How can I say this with any confidence, without being overly pessimistic? Simply because of the reasons for the defeats of 2006. Again, if this nation were “inherently conservative” then Democrats wouldn’t have gained any power then, a 3rd party would have risen to ascendency, to throw out both parties, at least in Congress at the time.

No, I think it’s clear what the nature of our nation is and has always been: Largely, our fellow citizens are simply concerned about their own pocketbook, their own houses, their own lives, and the lives of their immediate friends and family. The vast majority of the citizenry is not concerned with how “conservative” or “liberal” a candidate is. The vast majority just want to be left alone, and don’t care if its a “big government” that will leave them alone, or a small one. This may seem like a disconnect, for after all, as we all know here, on FR, how can one expect a “big government” to leave anyone alone. But this is the common mentality. This is America, and indeed, I would argue it’s been American culture from the beginning. (I believe history even shows that the majority of people in the colonies didn’t really care about the Revolution, simply wanted justice for themselves and their families, and didn’t really care who, or what provided said justice, but it’s irrelevant if I’m wrong about that point, as I’m quite certain I’m correct about the apathy of today’s culture in America).

Once and until we realize this basic, fundamental fact about our culture, then we on the “right” side will always be condemned to put our hope in a falsity, a fallacy, forever believing in the delusion that America is “finally waking up”, counting immediate victories as “proof” of said impending rationality, and then receiving the shock of realism as Joe Citizen votes against our conservative ideals in 4-6 years, not because Mr. Citizen is inherently liberal OR conservative, but because he looks at his paycheck and sees no change.

So, how do we truly move forward as a nation? I propose that we do not focus on “educating the people” about the values of conservatism. I believe Glenn Beck had and still has the best idea with what he proposed during his recent rally in Washington. That we, as individuals, in our communities, help our fellow citizens realize their full potential as human beings, and, through this example, the values of conservatism that we all cherish here, will be a natural outpouring, a natural consequence of said actions. This is best accomplished, I propose, through the proposal of Christianity, a proposal that states, along with, above, and before our Constitution, that each person is a valuable being, a human being. If this is what the Tea Party movement is proposing, then I grant that I have missed that; however to me it seems it’s another movement based solely on political argumentation in favor of conservatism. A laudable goal, but not one that gets to the root of every human problem, which is our failed humanity. There doesn’t seem to be, to me, much of a proposal to address fundamental human desires in the Tea Party.

Indeed what do politics in general force us, in truly the most basic of senses, to do? It forces us to make a judgement, many judgements, about what is important in our lives, what is important to us, what is important to humanity. Ultimately, if we are truly honest with ourselves, we judge that we all, as human beings, have infinite desires for happiness, for peace, for justice, for beauty. With an honest and frank examination of our own, individual experiences, what can we say truly “satisfies” us? “Quid animo satis”? What satisfies the soul? Are we completely satisfied when we win a congressional seat, a house of Congress, both houses, the Presidency? Are we truly satisfied when we get a raise at our job, when we have another child, when we get another car, another house? I propose that, if each person reading this now, truly examines how satisfied you are, you must answer, truthfully, that you can never be truly satisfied no matter how many things you possess, no matter how many victories you win. You, as well as I, have INFINITE desires for everything. From this personal experience, only one question comes to the front, the most important question.

Who, or what, but a “God” could possibly answer such desires, our own, HUMAN desires? Who, but the God-Man Jesus could fulfill such desires, as a true mediator between the Infinite and the finite? How else could we fully realize our own human desires? How else can we BE, FULLY HUMAN? Because without such realization and satisfaction of our own infinite desires, we are relegated to live a truncated life, a life of “compromises” as we tell ourselves “it’s foolish to believe that my infinite desire for everything can ever be fulfilled, because that is just a by-product of my own failed humanity that gets in the way”.

In other words, denying that they ever should be fulfilled because such desires are not how we were intended to be created by our Creator, but rather the result of the sin of Adam. This denies the infinite that God clearly wants us to partake in from an honest reading of Scripture and respect for 2000 years of Christian teaching, after all, we were created in His image, His likeness. Thus to deny our infinite desires as part of God’s plan for us is to imply that infinite desires for good things such as happiness and justice is “sinful”, a ludicrous proposal that makes God a “sinner”, as no believer in Him denies He has an infinite desire for justice and happiness for us, yet somehow our exact same desire is a sin, merely “because we are human”. This is simply a false sense of humility. Or worse, we tell ourselves, that we are merely a product of evolution, or happenstance and thus such infinite desires are a biological malady, an undesirable by-product of an imperfect evolutionary plan, thus denying the infinite because we place more faith, ironically, in science than our own personal experience.

This is a life that does not meet the expectations of our own human nature. By every logical definition and deduction, this therefore implies that if we tell ourselves we should never seek to have our infinite desires satisfied, our humanity is truncated, our humanity reduced, to something less than what it was clearly meant to be, something less than natural, something less than fully human.

Until we realize this, unless we begin this true, yet much more difficult work, true “change” will never occur, no matter how impassioned our speech, no matter how “logical” or “rational” our argument, because history has shown, and indeed our own, individual experience will show, that no “change” ever occurs until and unless a person is changed from within. And such change never occurs, permanently, based solely on powerful speech or “rational argumentation”. The human being changes because he wants to change, and that want, is only borne from experience.

This change, real change, won’t take place simply because we contribute money to the best candidate, go to church on Sunday, hold a sign at a rally, and then, as if the “laundry list of obligations to our fellow man” is done, we rest, and expect “change”. It will occur when we are honest with ourselves, acknowledging that we have an infinite desire for everything and that this is a truly human tendency, and thus to not avoid or suppress it but to seek out the One and Only that can meet our needs. It will take years, decades, maybe centuries, of interacting with our families, friends, co-workers and provoking them to not defend their ideological positions, but provoking them to realize the fact of Christ in YOUR life, by your words but more importantly actions, provoking them to realize that their infinite desires, the same ones you possess, can be and will be fulfilled by Him, not only in “heaven” (wherever that is), but beginning HERE and NOW. That is when true change, or really “conversion” occurs. When one’s own life is impacted in reality. When one’s own reality is changed, by what can only be the God-Man Jesus. It’s hard work, co-operating with Jesus in this fashion, much more difficult, much more time consuming, with far fewer immediate visible victories in probably our lifetimes. But it’s the only way to change anything; it’s the only way to change ourselves.

Until and unless such a conversion occurs, there will be no change. There will be no sea change of the country. The populace will continue to vacillate between the “R” and the “D”, ever seeking after and attempting to grasp by their own power which they know not, which is fulfillment of their infinite desires. The Tea Party will fade, the Pledge to America will become another broken “Contract”, and the goal of a prosperous, peaceful America will seem even further away.

The only way to save our nation is to save humanity. The only way to save humanity is to show our neighbor (in every sense of the word neighbor) that there is a better way to live, and to view life, not through argument or confrontation, or worse, the force of “our” government, but through the saving and immediate reality of Christ in your life. No one can change a man’s heart, permanently, but Him. We all (or many of us here) “know” this, but rarely (and I count myself too here) do we “act” upon and with this knowledge.

Until we do, there will be no change. Until and unless, no Pledge no “movement”, no human action based solely on human power will ever succeed. History has shown this. More importantly personal experience shows this. All human based efforts eventually fail. Faith can and does move mountains, but only real faith, a faith that is the “substance of things hoped for”, the SUBSTANCE. A reality. Not a fantasy, not some dream to make us feel better about our mortality, to assuage our fears of “hell” (wherever that is too).

Until and unless our faith is real, in every sense of the word “real”, then there can be no real change. Without it, we have all lost already, liberal and conservative. Without it, we have already lost our own humanity.