Our Revolution’s Logic

American Mind ^ | 22 Oct 2018 | Angelo Codevilla

[Rummyfan]

In 2010, Angelo Codevilla reintroduced the notion of "the ruling class" back into American popular discourse. In 2017, he described contemporary American politics as a "cold civil war." Now he applies the "logic of revolution" to our current political scene.

The primary objective of any people who find themselves in the throes of a revolution is to find ways of diverting its logic from its worst conclusions.

Prior to the 2016 election I explained (After The Republic) how America had already “stepped over the threshold of a revolution,” that it was “difficult to imagine how we might step back, and futile to speculate how it might end.” Regardless of who won the election, its sentiments’ growing “volume and intensity” would empower politicians on all sides sure to make us nostalgic for Donald Trump’s and Hilary Clinton’s moderation. Having begun, this revolution would follow its own logic. What follows dissects that logic. It has unfolded faster than foreseen. Its sentiments’ spiraling volume and intensity have eliminated any possibility of “stepping back.”

[Rummyfan]

The logic that drives each turn of our revolutionary spiral is Progressive Americans’ inherently insatiable desire to exercise their superiority over those they deem inferior.

[Ancient Man]

In what will likely be considered the most pivotal election in contemporary American history, it’s important to remember the hundreds-of-thousands of American patriots who sacrificed their lives to establish, preserve and defend America’s freedoms, sovereignty and greatness from the evils of existential totalitarianism, both foreign and domestic. Who will stand on their behalf?

Their voices will not be heard; their opinions and beliefs will not be sought; and, they’ll enjoy no fanfare or spectacle. As patriotic Americans, they saved and entrusted the future of this great Republic, indeed, all of Western Civilization to our care. They cast their votes with their lives - and for all eternity. In their honor, can we beneficiaries be reasonably expected to sacrifice less?

[equaviator]

What ever it takes to have the Democrat Party essentially outlawed.

[abclily]

Has any nation (after starting a downhill moral slide) ever turned itself around without being forced to do so by outside forces?

[bigbob]

Codevilla has proven to be a true thought-leader, read every word.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Unattainable, and gone forever, is the whole American Republic that had existed for some 200 years after 1776. The people and the habits of heart and mind that had made it possible are no longer a majority. Progressives made America a different nation by rejecting those habits and those traditions. As of today, they would use all their powers to prevent others from living in the manner of the Republic. But, perhaps, after their offensive resistance’s failure, they might be reconciled to govern themselves as they wish in states where they command a majority, while not interfering with other Americans governing themselves in their way in the states where they are a majority.

Heavy.

[rightwingcrazy]

“The people and the habits of heart and mind that had made it possible are no longer a majority.”

The habits of heart and mind are not inherited, otherwise Europe would be America. It isn’t. People can be persuaded to these habits, including the children of “progressives”. It just takes time.

The Globalists strive to maintain a rate of immigration higher than the rate of persuasion, lest people acting in their enlightened self-interest become the clear majority.

[semaj]

A great article on where We stand (CWII). Thanks for posting.

[loveliberty2]

Jefferson described what he called "the only road back. . . ." in his First Inaugural.

Once upon a time, Americans understood the essential principles of liberty, as did their leaders.

Thomas Jefferson's 1801 First Inaugural laid out what he considered to be the principles of his Administration. Mr. Trump may find that Jefferson's listing agrees with most of what he ran on as a candidate.

Note the important warning contained in Jefferson's last paragraph--that if "we" strayed from those principles, the nation should return to "the only road which alone leads peace, liberty and safety."

We are just beginning that "road" back. Determination of "We, the People," combined with diligence and patience will be required against those "progressive" paths which have led us away from the principles of Jefferson and the Framers of our Constiution of government.

(Excerpt, "Our Ageless Constitution," p. xiv, reformatted)
"Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation;

- entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them;

- enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;

- acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter

—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people?

- Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

- This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

"About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you,

- it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.

- Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;

- peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;

- the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies;

- the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;

- a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;

- absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;

- a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them;

- the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;

- economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened;

- the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;

- encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;

- the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason;

- freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.

These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

[Jacquerie]

Either you or someone else posted this column a few days ago. I’ve read and reread it at least a dozen times.

Always Kudos to Codevilla.