Dennis Prager, in promotion of his new book, "Still the Best Hope," warns Republicans that, in order to win the battle of ideas for the Fall election, they must resist the urge to limit debate to "the economy and jobs."
Prager pointed out in an interview yesterday that those "issues" are the symptom, not the cause, and that the battle will be lost if Romney and his surrogates do not find a way to focus and force the debate to be about America's underlying ideas of Creator-endowed individual liberty versus statism and government control.
The electorate must become educated on America's Founding princples, which can enable them to recognize which are true ideas of liberty, and which are counterfeit ideas of tyranny. That is not easy.
In 2008, Michael Ledeen wrote about how Americans have been "dumbed down" on some basic ideas underlying our freedom:
Ledeen said, "Our educational system has long since banished religion from its texts, and an amazing number of Americans are intellectually unprepared for a discussion in which religion is the central organizing principle."
In the Pope's speech in Germany a few years ago, he observed:
"A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures."
Ledeen put his finger on a problem that stifles meaningful dialogue and debate in America. Censors [disguised as "protectors" (the Radical Left's ACLU, NEA, education bureaucracies, etc., etc.)] have imposed their limited understanding of liberty upon generations of school children.
From America's founding to the 1950's, ideas derived from religious literature were included in textbooks, through the poetry and prose used to teach children to read and to identify with their world and their country.
Suddenly, those ideas began to disappear from textbooks, until now, faceless, mindless copy editors sit in cubicles in the nation's textbook publishing companies, instructed by their supervisors to remove mere words that refer to family, to the Divine, and to any of the ancient ideas that have sustained intelligent discourse for centuries.
The Democrat Party (Progressives) stands:
- for the right of women to determine who is born and who dies in the womb;
- the Party stands for liberalizing the definition of marriage;
- the Party stands for redistribution of wealth from those who produce it to those who don't (no matter how they label it);
- the Party stands for a belief that the U. S. Constitution is a "living," or as I heard one describe it, a "fluid" Constitution [meaning it can be changed by activist judges (instead of by the ONLY method prescribed within the Constitution itself)];
- the Party leadership at all levels is in "lock-step" on these matters, revealing a totalitarian mindset that does not allow for those of differing ideas to become leaders.
As a result, the Progressives' agendas will be adhered to by elected officials, no matter how much the PR officials of the Party may use semantic trickery to "redefine" it to the citizens described as "red staters."
When it comes down to it, even the Joe Liebermans will fall back to "lock-step" when push comes to shove. Only those like Zell Miller, who are willing to be castigated and ignored, dare speak out.
The same can be said for the "Progressives" within the Republican Party.
That's why voters need to be grounded in enduring ideas in order to recognize tyranny camouflaged in "hope" and "change" and to be able to appropriately enter into what the Pope described as "the dialogue of cultures."
Paul Ryan may be one political representative who could engage in such a dialogue.
Thanks, ll2.
s, ping.