Posted on 09/08/2002 2:50:28 AM PDT by rambo316
Sept. 11, 2001, had a triple impact. It focused American minds on how vulnerable to attack we were, it showed us how pathetic our intelligence operations were, and it gave us a respite from our national spiritual, cultural and political division.
But 9-11 did not cure that division. We are still a nation as divided as that now-famous map – the one that shows red small-town and rural America that voted for Bush and blue Al Gore urban-suburban city-states.
The philosophical divisions between red and blue country are not the kind that can be healed or compromised away. That is because one side does not understand that the basic principles upon which this nation was founded are not up for discussion or compromise. Over a period of years, the U.S. Constitution has been shunted aside. What replaced it is the dogma of the politically correct collectivist and corporate state.
Because of this failure to understand how profound our divisions really are, in the long run the war on terror and the patriotism that temporarily unite us may not be enough to keep us together.
In all probability the majority of people in the U.S. will remain ignorant and apolitical. Meanwhile, the U.S. will continue to drift into the American version of Euro-socialism and corporate statism. If another leftist on the order of Bill Clinton is elected president, that will increase the division and set the course for the foreseeable future.
That is not hyperbole. If another Clinton type takes office, the direction of the country will be too entrenched and tenured for reform to occur.
Conservatives and libertarians understand that government seldom reforms itself. Because of that, they also know the greatest civilizations always end the same way. Once the dependent client state is created, it does not disappear on its own. Eventually that civilization or nation is destroyed, invaded, loses its cultural and political fire, or dies of its own bureaucratic weight.
A Euro-socialist corporate state for America will leave conservatives and libertarians with nowhere to go. As it is, most libertarians and principled conservatives already know that is the case. They also know that their chance of voting agents of change into office, on a large enough scale to stop the leftward drift, are nil.
As a matter of fact, significant implementation of the agenda of libertarians and conservatives in the United States is a lost cause. National dialogue, agenda and debate on policy will continue to be controlled by the left. Republicans will go along with it or they will not be elected.
The body politic has changed and will continue to change. It is true especially with uncontrolled immigration, in which the ethnic minorities invariably vote left, which means they vote for Democrats. Voting records show this is the case. The only minorities that are exceptions are Cuban refugees and some Asian communities.
In a recent commentary, Martin Kettle of the U.K.'s leftist Guardian newspaper reviews a book which sets out the reasons why the libertarian and conservative agenda may be over with in the United States. Kettle relates:
"In their striking new book, "The Emerging Democratic Majority," the left-of-center writers John B Judis and Ruy Teixeira have used census data, voting studies and exit polls to argue that a combination of deep-rooted modern American demographic, economic and cultural trends is beginning to stack the odds ever more heavily against the Republicans."
Kettle of course incorrectly assumes that the Republican Party still stands for conservative or libertarian or constitutional values. He assumes they have been able to slow the leftward juggernaut that has propelled the United States for 75 years. To paraphrase conservative William F. Buckley, it was the job of conservatives to stand astride history and yell stop.
Well, conservatives have been doing that for decades to absolutely no permanent effect. The direction of America is still leftward HO!
What is frightening is how close Judis and Teixeira have called it. They state:
"The new majority ... is based on professionals, women and minorities, all of whom, especially the Latino minority, are growing as a proportion of the electorate, and all of whom are keen to vote. These Democratic voters are concentrated in postindustrial urban "ideopolises" in the Northeast, the upper Midwest, the West Coast and in significant parts of the South, including Florida and Virginia."
Kettle tells us, "Judis and Teixeira go out of their way not to be deterministic, but their argument is undeniably intriguing. As long as Democrats remain fiscally moderate, socially liberal, reformist and egalitarian, the authors say, the party will enjoy the edge over Republicans for years to come."
What that means is that the direction of the American system and its institutions are going to be in the hands of demographic groups that are the product of the incremental growth of collectivism.
The New American will demand more transfer payments, not fewer. The New American will not mind when there is increased regulation of our lives, as well as multiculturalism at the expense of the American culture and self- interest. They will demand and receive more "stuff" of all kinds from government (prescription drugs, for instance). In addition, there will be the expansion of identity politics, micromanagement of the economy, more taxes and more benefits and more money thrown at worthless expensive failed programs.
Almost nothing short of an act of God, or the individual states insisting on their rights under the Ninth and 10th amendments, can stop the growth of the collectivist central state.
Additionally, the twisted kind of leftist intolerance already in place in society will force libertarian and conservative voices underground. Hate- speech legislation will be the tool that will make that possible. Hate- speech legislation is another indication that, for conservatives, the First Amendment will cease to exist. It has already happened in Canada and it is happening in California and Massachusetts.
When the great silence falls, any opinion that does not fit with the agenda and goals of the left will be called hate.
The take-over of American universities by the left shows how smothering conservative opinion works. As the left took control of universities, conservative opinion and worldview became almost nonexistent among the professorate. How could students learn that there is more than one way to look at the world if they only heard one voice?
Once the left was in charge, few if any conservative professors or scholars were hired. Today there is an almost total absence of conservative or libertarian speakers and scholars on college campuses. When there are, riots and demonstrations and intimidation against them often take place. Free speech is only allowed if you are on the left.
Ask any conservative who has been invited by conservative university student organizations to speak on campus. Ann Coulter and David Horowitz as well as Jeanne Kirkpatrick and many others can tell you about the kind of hatred spewed by students when a conservative opinion is voiced.
This is the way the left works. This is what will happen nationwide when the left or Democrats never lose an election. This control of the agenda and speech has already forced Republicans to vote for and approve of numerous collectivist programs.
Society has always worried about the loony fringe right, but though they may be intolerant, they don't have any power. However, the intolerant left does have power, and lots of it – and they don't hesitate to wield it against conservatives.
The Clinton era is a case in point. Universities are a case in point. Congress is a case in point. Bipartisanship has come to mean you do it the Democrat way or no way. When Republicans protest, immediately the demonization and vilification and lies begin.
Meanwhile, our elected representatives have managed to create an ever-expanding un-elected federal bureaucracy. This entity does most of the implementation of leftist policies. From the State Department to the Interior Department, the left is in control. This means that the U.S. Constitution is a dead duck. The Constitution means whatever the representatives of the leftist/socialist majority and their appointed federal court flunkies say it means. Federal bureaucrats make sure the policies of the left remain in place no matter who is in office.
What should be frightening even to dyed-in-the-wool Democrats is that if another leftist like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman or John Edwards is elected president, our national self-interest and sovereignty will be at the mercy of international bureaucrats and one-world-fits-all American political advisers like Strobe Talbot or Jeffrey Sachs.
It is the Democratic left that itches to hand American constitutional sovereignty and liberty over to international bodies. It is the left who cannot act in America's self-interest without the approval of an international body of some sort. It is the left that paralyzes us as we pursue any form of American self-interest.
The sad fact is that Republicans are only capable of calling a halt to the insanity when a major catastrophe like Sept. 11, 2001, occurs. Before Sept. 11, Bush and the Republicans were impotent. Daschle and company set the agenda and the direction, even in foreign policy. Sadly, the leftward drift of the U.S. never stops for long.
Division of the House
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." That was true before the American Civil War and it is true now. Nevertheless, if the issue of slavery had not been the ostensible reason to force the South to submit to Northern demands for Union, there would have been absolutely no legal or political justification for Lincoln to hold the South in the Union.
In our own day, the divide in America is not about states' rights versus federal government. It is about what we are as a nation and what we want to be. The differences between us amount to a chasm.
The most disheartening thing is that most conservatives and libertarians have given up hope that the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights will ever be resurrected. Thus, even responsible conservatives and libertarians recognize that it may be time for a national divorce. They include Walter Williams, Joseph Sobran and Lew Rockwell, to name only a few.
Many of them don't care diddly if the Democrats/progressives go so far left they fall off the earth, they just don't want to fall off with them. Conservatives and libertarians don't wish them ill; they just don't want to be part of the leftist social or political culture. They want the right to choose.
Conservatives and libertarians want something different from what the collectivist left wants. They can't obtain it through voting, but they would prefer to obtain it peacefully and legally.
In a column last year titled "What the Founders Feared," economist Walter Williams related the intentions of the Founders in regard to a national divorce, which we call secession:
"Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address said, 'If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it.' Fifteen years later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, 'If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the Union ... I have no hesitation in saying, 'Let us separate.' "
In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."
What a concept. It is almost unknown in the United States today. The states are no longer able to be in charge of their land, they cannot decide their own educational policy, they do not have their rights as guaranteed under the Constitution in the Ninth and 10 amendments. In fact, the states have become the agents of the federal government. Originally the federal government was supposed to be the agent of the states.
Constitutional conservatives and libertarians care about putting in place the ideals in the Bill of Rights and the ORIGINAL Constitution as written – a Constitution which any person can read and understand. That no longer seems possible by voting it in through our representatives or expecting our courts to interpret it as it is. Another legal way must be found to re-establish the rule of law through constitutional means even if that means a national divorce.
Funny thing is that it is Canadians who may be developing those legal means for autonomy outside the collectivist state. Canadian provinces, other than Quebec, are yearning to breathe free of the control of the urban city-states of Ottawa and Toronto, the centers of power for the Canadian collectivist state. What we in red flyover country have in common with our conservative Canadian brethren may be summed up in the words of Benjamin Franklin: "Where liberty is – there is my country."
(Next time: The American Free State and 10th Amendment movements. Who are Stephen Harper and Corey Morgan and what is the Calgary Declaration? How will Canada's 1999 Clarity Act be the legal means by which provincial Canada will loosen the socialist strangle hold of Ottawa and Toronto? Former PM Elliot Trudeau began Canadian dissolution with the National Energy Policy Act. By signing onto the Kyoto Protocol, current Canadian PM Chretien just hammered one of the last nails in the Canadian coffin – just ask Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.)
To this day it befuddles me how the republicrats continue to coverup for the leftists that are currently in our government. Day after day, the republicrats fail to reveal all the evil the leftists have and will in the future, perpetrate on America. Yeah, day after day, we hear about the treasonous acitivities that Clinton took part in when he was in the White House but we do not get to hear it from the Republicrats, only from the so called "Fringe", unfortunately. We are at the cusp of losing both houses of congress because the Republicrats fail to inform the sheeple of the left's true and swift, evil intentions for America.
Let's face it, do you all feel comfortable with the Leftists at the helm of congressional committees that make the laws of this land? Or for that matter, regarding America's National Security Secrets. Do you all feel comfortable with radical Leftists having access to our National Security Secrets? I don't. Just remember the names of the leftists who will be at the helm of the committees that have to do with our National Seurity: John Conyers, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Nanncy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton in the senate, Shmuck Schumer and Bob Graham who is already the head of the intelligence commitee? Do those names make you all feel comfortable?
"The New American will demand more transfer payments, not fewer."
One thing which is not mentioned in this piece is the fact that blue America subsidizes red America with billions of tax dollars annually. I'm getting tired of hearing that everyone living in urban areas is a leech or a parasite when we actually send a lot of our tax money to the ungrateful whiners in the rural areas!
x42 sort of picked up in the middle of the FDR administration, by putting his wife in charge of a task force to take over the health care industry right out of the chute. FDR, immediately after a 1936 landslide victory in which the Republican party in Congress was reduced to a pitiful remnant, did something even more outrageous.
You may have heard of FDR's court-packing scheme; he proposed to nearly double the size of the court, thus eliminating the conservative effect of all previous presidents' selections. The result of this hubris was a tidal wave of political opposition, leading to the decimation of congressional Democrats (especially in the midwest) in '38 so severe that the Republicans were only a little short of the majority in '39--and given that the South was solid for the Democrats back then, not all of the Democrats were flaming New Dealers, either.
Then FDR got back in the saddle in '40 (in no small part because of pitiful opposition by the Republicans), and then came Pearl Harbor and the Republicans lost won big time in '42. They almost got the majority again, because FDR had overplayed his hand so badly again.
Recall that Neville Chamberlain's attempted appeasement of Hitler was popular in Britain because WWI had been so devastating that nobody wanted any part of another go at it. Why would you think that Americans were any more enthusiastic about another war than the British were? We were in fact 80% united against it. So before Pearl Harbor the common American citizen was about as anti-war as the typical American reporter of 1972 was; "isolationist" politicians were the mainstream.In 1942 FDR presumed to demand that the electorate sweep the pre-12/7/41 isolationists out of Congress; the electorate decided otherwise and Roosevelt had to have most of the Southern Democrats on board anything he wanted to get done.Roosevelt wanted to get into WWII so bad he could taste it, and couldn't get the public exercised over U-boats in the Atlantic even tho he got some US sailors killed harassing them in the summer of '41 (by no coincidence, June 22 1941 was when Hitler invaded the USSR). Finally FDR gulled the Japanese government into attacking us so he could get into WWII and help Stalin win it. By June '42 we had lost 22,000 casualties in the Philipines and Pearl Harbor, and 397 merchant vessels sunk by U-boats off our Atlantic coast.
Stalin was helped to beat Germany with Lend-Lease supplies and FDR's popular (still) "unconditional surrender" demand and "no seperate peace" policies which systematically cornered the Germans as a whole into Hitler's national (as well as personal) suicide program. The Cold War only started because FDR couldn't invegle the Democratic Party into renominating Henry Wallace for VP, and Harry Truman wasn't a complete socialist ideologue.If it wasn't for the post-FDR 22nd Amendment, x42 would probably have become president-for-life like Roosevelt, using the same divisive and manipulative tactics we are only too familiar with in x42 but which have been air-brushed out of FDR's resume.
Should that "solid black" vote even begin to go the way of the "solid south" vote, the DNC would be the endangered species. Even a 20% Republican vote by blacks--or low turnout, or a third-party candidate--would leave the DNC flat on its back with tire tracks across its chest.
Sure.
"One little-known irony of political geography is that the more conservative states tend to be among the top feeders at the federal trough. Bush won 25 of the 31 states that get more in subsidies from the federal government than they pay in taxes."
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