Public Universities: Proliferation of Leftist Dogma at Taxpayer Expense (Issue #463)

The next sit-ins on campuses across the country really need to be staged by rightists.  Of course, “right-wing” in the context of the modern public university could simply mean an individual who doesn’t entirely despise his parents or America.  A “right-wing bigot” then is someone who doesn’t intuitively understand why universities should erase the names off of buildings, because those names belonged to people whose opinions and attitudes in their time do not conform to the in vogue truths of today.  Rename them all Freak-side, just to be inclusive.

As one University of Texas professor and administrator informed the state legislature recently, even “The name ‘Western Civilizations and American [Traditions]’ sounds really right-wing.”  So does ham and eggs; and red, white and blue.  The administrator made no attempt to reconcile his assertion with the stated commitment of the university to “advance a free society” or prepare “educated, productive citizens” through academics that “enrich and expand the appreciation and preservation of our civilization.”  As if we had a civilization—heck, who are you fooling?  Imagine instruction that provides students with knowledge about the country in which they live!  What will right-wing nutcase teabag rednecks think of next—Shakespeare?

We all know that words mean nothing anymore, not in the Constitution and certainly not in some university’s charter or propaganda to parents for “PR” purposes.  Most public institutions of higher learning trace their heritage to land grant legislation in the 19th century and still rely on legislative funding to some degree.  Beyond the taxpayer money, however, their link is severed between education and the health of American democracy.  Their mission no longer has to be consistent with creating an informed citizenry.  Just give them your money and shut up!

Regarding U.S. history, the past decade has featured aggressive schemes to “re-vision” U.S. political and diplomatic history around themes of race, class, and gender, the same pedagogy that already dominates contemporary humanities and social sciences departments.  Increasingly, U.S. history is only taught through the prism of a race-class-gender trinity.  Moreover, the arrogance of universities has reached such a level, that academic freedom now means freedom of the liberal majority in academe to evade all public criticism.  Just leave them alone you stupid moron!

The dirty little secret on campus is that if you want to go somewhere and actually do something with that degree, particularly if you are post-graduate and aspire to a Ph.D., you had better tow the party line.  Only if one does this, might one earn the coveted key to the kingdom and certain access to do damage to the other little minds out there.  Students who do not agree with the liberal ideology of the Prof do not have an appropriate “disposition,” you see, to teach anyone else.

The university curriculum is thoroughly radicalized, and leftists control the academic departments of the major public universities throughout this nation.  Universities no longer serve, as it were, the pursuit and transmission of knowledge but of leftist dogma.  To reach into history—that poorly overlooked oblivion, today’s public universities smack of the kind of corporate corruption that Montesquieu described in The Spirit of the Laws (1748), in which those who govern renege on the fundamental principles of that system they were empowered to serve and protect.    

The surest way to destroy a civilization is to erase its collective memory and reduce chronology to the present tense.  After that, well, power brokers and puppeteers of the mind are free largely to mold it to any and everybody’s Progressive dream of Utopia.  The process is just about complete at every level of education in these United States, including at the highest.  Thanks to you and your hard-earned cash, and to a negligent inattention to where that money is going.  Your mediocre representatives and outright corrupt lawmakers are bloated on the swill of debt liquidity.  They have bought you public universities, anathema to learning and averse to the very future of your children and grandchildren.  They shall have bankrupted their minds and pockets simultaneously, the better to lead the next docile generation to a slaughter.  Taxpayers and concerned citizens, all—those who still hold the purse string and pull the lever to vote: it is time now again to sit in.  It is time to listen and to tell a thing or two.  The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, and a hard rain is going to fall.

Andy Barron’s Strange Stand against the Evil Tide (Issue #462)

Dr. Andy Barron of Belton, Texas is an orthodontist running for Governor in the Great State of Texas. He says the nation is a sitting prey, about to lose the war of “incrementalism.” As an orthodontist, he knows how to move teeth around incrementally little by little, so he thinks he recognizes a similar but evil process at work in American politics. He just announced his candidacy in late July. He is definitely not to be mixed up with the New York City councilman and former Black Panther, one Charles Barron who announced entry into the gubernatorial race for his state a month earlier. What Charles Barron is to the Democrat Party in New York, however, Andy Barron is to the Republican Party of Texas. Both are sorely tired of “Republicrats” and to that extent, they mirror a very large discontent across the country with both major political parties, as well as an advanced polarization of American politics and the fragmentation of old coalitions whether conservative or liberal.

Andy comes at Republicans from the religious Right; whereas, Charles attacks Democrats from the radical Left. The “Barron” of New York is black and a racist, while the “Barron” of Texas is Anglo, supports the Tea Party movement, and is decidedly not a racist. The latter is inclusive of every race and color, empathically and ideologically, notwithstanding the reference he makes occasionally to “the evil tide” of Socialism happens inadvertently to echo a title of an obscure white racist’s autobiography. People of many stripes have, after all, talked and written about rising tides and stemming tides, not to mention bad moons rising for centuries.

Timing as they say, especially in politics is everything, and Andy says “our time has come,” by which he means time for serious Christians to take a stand, conscientiously in politics as elsewhere based explicitly on their worldview. In Texas, two-term Governor Rick Perry has already won the Republican Party’s nomination, fending off challengers Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina and avoiding a run-off. Likewise, Bill White soundly beat Farouk Shami for the Democrats’ nod, while Kathie Glass beat her opponent Jeff Daiell to earn top spot on the Libertarian Party ticket. That was all back on March 2nd! Moreover, the Green Party of Texas successfully met a May 24th deadline for new parties, submitting more than enough signatures on their petition to qualify for ballot access. Now enter Andy Barron, the Johnny-come-Lately who has to be the largest underdog in the race for Governor ever in the history of the State. Not to worry though, because if his endeavor seems quixotic, the reason he gives for entering the race four months after Primary elections are over is equally compelling: God told him to do it.

As a political phenomenon, Andy Barron offers anecdotal evidence as to the undercurrent of a movement not yet fully self-aware. Witness the thousands of people from various conservative factions and groups, who protested the president’s mere visit to Austin August 9th chanting the words, “Hands off Texas!” Andy Barron speaks in similar terms of wanting to save Texas, not necessarily the entire United States—because that may not be possible. Texans are not too keen on raising their taxes or spending a dime, in order to bail out the likes of profligate spender states like California, Illinois or New York. Texans have their own budget challenges ahead to face in their own way. Peggy Noonan in a recent op-ed observed more urgently than she did before in 1994 prior to Republican takeover of Congress, that there is a clear tendency and potential in American politics to extricate political sovereignties from consolidated national government, particularly if the country’s national leadership have remained tone deaf for extended periods of time ignoring the people’s fundamental concerns and demands.

From time to time my “horse sense” has alluded to the apparent metaphors in life, i.e., to the physical and material happenings which correspond to deeper spiritual reality and meaning. Believers are more accustomed to this unique method of understanding, since the wars we fight in daily life typically have their spiritual dimension. So I was taken by a certain reference Andy Barron made to “the evil tide” of Socialism, indeed as black oil from the BP spill washed ashore on the Gulf Coast. This was similar in fact to comparisons and interpretation of events in something that Dr. Charles Stanley, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, preached July 4th in his sermon. Speaking of “Turning the Tide,” a primary focus of that sermon was on the clash between Christianity and Socialism. Dr. Stanley: “We find ourselves as a nation, violating the laws of God and heading in a direction that is going to be disastrous for us, for our children and for the generations that are to come, unless there is a change…. There is a tide that has touched our shores and reached the heart of our nation. It is a tide that is bringing with it ideas and philosophies, actions and attitudes, that will ultimately destroy the way of life that you and I have.”

Referring to Socialism, Stanley exclaims: “This tide is bringing in [a] control that will attempt to silence the truth, and will attempt to squash the religious devotion and worship of the people of God. There will be a collision with Socialism and the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” whereas Christianity, Stanley said, interferes with the spread of Socialism. On that basis, one may assert that the loss of freedom regarding religious expression and public display of religious symbols, and especially the removal of opening day prayers from the public schools beginning in 1962, were a prerequisite not only to the advance of secularism but also to the accomplishment of the progressives’ transformational agenda that leads to a Socialist state. Andy Barron says that our youth are left without foundation. In that context therefore, everything of a policy nature that does not address our relationship with God becomes the treatment of symptoms rather than a cure for disease. He propones matter-of-factly that, if a substantial majority of people in Texas believe that we ought to have prayer in our public schools—which is what he and the polls consistently find—then by God, we ought to institute the same regardless of what a national government says.

His reasoning is also very interesting and something quite a bit more than academic neo-federalist constitutionalism or the Southern impulse towards a strict construction, Original Intent and textual definition. He says that Texas is at the center of resistance to evil these days, and Central Texas is at the Heart. A squeeze, as from a constrictor is coming to Texas, and Texas must brace herself and resist with all her might. Andy Barron speaks of a dream he had, in which he is inside a corral with other people. Its gate is about to be shut, and all the while he sees the enemies of freedom perched to shoot inside and kill the people there, as soon as the gate is securely closed. He says he knows with a certainly, that it is now or never to make our move to escape.

Principles of Political War - Part 3 (Issue #461)

Here are six principles of political war the left understands much better than most conservatives:

1. Politics is war conducted by other means;
2. Politics is a war of position;
3. In political wars the aggressor usually prevails;
4. Position is defined by fear and hope;
5. The weapons of politics are symbols evoking fear and hope;
6. Victory lies on the side of the people.

Now let’s explain them further, one at a time.

Politics is war conducted by other means: In modern political warfare one doesn’t only fight to prevail in argument but to destroy the opponent’s ability to argue at all. Conservatives often regard their political combat as a debate before the Oxford Union Society. Theoretically one’s winning should depend upon rational and well-articulated arguments. Unfortunately the democratic audience in American politics today is not made up of many Oxford dons, and the modern media environment gives one about 30 seconds to make his point! Even if one were afforded time to develop arguments sufficiently, the undecided voter and millions not paying close attention still won’t get it. Careful analysis or policy prescriptions are quickly forgotten in the hurly-burly of everyday life. A certain advantage is afforded to the left, which sidesteps argument altogether, in order to paint conservative debaters as mean-spirited-racist-religious-zealots-in-bed-with-the-filthy-rich. Now quite simply, anyone who sees another this way will not try to listen to his argument. Liberals don’t play an attrition game in politics, they shoot to kill. The result is to make conservatives dead politically, a.k.a., Endgame.

Politics is a war of position: There are essentially two sides to every political contest, namely friends and enemies. One can also identify two sides as winners and losers. A political combatant strives to define oneself as “friend” to the largest possible constituencies compatible with his principles. Friends that way become winners. “Others” (i.e., not friends) are simply enemies, and these become the losers. Caution is in order, however, in that American politics takes place in a pluralistic framework. Constituencies are diverse, overlap and are often in conflict. Coalitions are always shifting. Over the course of several election cycles, one’s friends might become enemies and vice versa. Two unwritten formal rules in democratic engagement are therefore fairness and tolerance. According to David Horowitz, “If you appear mean-spirited, nasty, or too judgmental, it will make the task easier for your opponent to define you as a threat, and therefore as the enemy.” Only nice conservatives win, in other words.

In political warfare, the aggressor usually prevails: Aggression is advantageous precisely because politics is a war of position. Position is defined by the images that stick moreover. By striking first, one defines issues and the adversary. Defining the opposition is indeed the most decisive move in a political war. Other things being equal, whoever is put on the defensive generally winds up on the losing side. Going negative, as it were, increases the risk of being defined as an enemy, but ruling that out is a huge risk. The trick is to be aggressive and selectively negative towards an opponent without being ugly about it.

Position is defined by fear and hope: The twin emotions of politics are fear and hope. Those who provide people with hope become friends; those who inspire fear become enemies.

The weapons of politics are symbols evoking fear and hope: Conservatives lose a lot of political battles, because they come across as too hard-edged. David Horowitz says a good rule of thumb is to be just the opposite. “You have to convince people you care about them before they’ll care about what you have to say. When you do get to speak, don’t forget that a sound-bite is all you have. Whatever you have to say, make sure to say it loud and clear. Keep it simple and keep it short…. Repeat it often. Get it on television. Radio is good, but with few exceptions, only television reaches a public that is electorally significant. In politics, television is reality.”

Leftists always spout the party line. That’s because it is short and simple and one message is a sound-bite, whereas many messages become an indecipherable noise. Horowitz again: “The result of many messages is that there is no message. Symbols and sound-bites determine the vote. These are what hit people in the gut before they have time to think. And these are what people remember. Symbols are the impressions that last, and what ultimately defines you. Carefully chosen words and phrases are more important than paragraphs, speeches, party platforms and manifestos. What you project through images is what you are” in effect.

Victory lies on the side of the people: This is our faith, but if conservatives are to win the political war they have to turn their negative images around. They have to turn campaigns into causes also. In the Cold War conservatives had a cause and were elected time and again to defend the nation. The cause of anti-Communism resonated well at every level of American society, and even the poorest citizen understood that freedom was at stake. In a democracy, the cause that fires passions up becomes the cause of the people. As the left has shown before, the idea of justice is a powerful cause and energizes its troops in the political war. Horowitz reminds us that, “Conservatives believe in economic opportunity and individual freedom. The core of [conservative] ideas is freedom and justice for all. If we can make this intelligible to the American electorate, we will become the majority again and stop the socialist juggernaut that [now] threatens our American future.”

Principles of Political War - Part 2 (Issue #460

Progressives connect emotionally with people at the level of their fears and anxiety. The metaphysical reason for this is that liberals don’t really want men and women to stand very tall on their own. They want mankind always dependent on something, most usually on the state or fellow human beings. They themselves fear a self-confident, self-reliant freeman or freewoman. They fear a venturesome spirit and would much rather return to the hole or crawl up under a rock, and have everybody else do the same. Now one may put a better face on government coercion and just say that the liberal and progressive appeal is based on helping underdogs and defending bona fide victims. This resonates well with Americans, who are basically a fair-minded people.

Regardless of the motive or psychology you ascribe to a fantastic error, conservatives are nonetheless usually busy defending the real America—its record of success now and in history. The real America is as a land of opportunity and freedom. Almost nobody is properly called oppressed or “an oppressed class.” No group has ever flocked as it were to get out of America except arguably chattel slaves and the Old South, but all sorts of people still clamor to get in.

The truth is that no one alive, nor indeed their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents either, were alive during slave times! It has been 47 years since Rev. Martin Luther King, Junior’s great “I Have a Dream” speech. We have a black president for crying out loud. The institutions are dead that gave us slavery and Jim Crow. The Constitution and laws changed long ago, and the social norms and mores of a majority that once sustained socio-economic prejudice against minorities are overwhelmingly different. One is hard-pressed anymore to find a majority. White means nothing in modern day America. The vestige of slavery is reduced to prejudice in its mildest form; and racism is no longer properly attributable to an inheritance per se, but rather to subjective individual experience in present day context.

Received memory is received media, hardly a matter of real history. At this juncture in history, misguided efforts to whip up the issues of race in order to kill the last spectral existence of racism are far more likely to intensify aural projections and lead to something else reactive, unintended and substantial. If that happens, it will be the product of modern and gross political folly on the left and not the product of historical inertia, vast right-wing conspiracy, or of majority opinions extant today.

Indeed further attempts to kill the specter can only result in the strangulation death of freedom itself. That is because free people may and should be able to agree or disagree, to associate or disassociate, and even to seek or not seek their own. They may politically congregate and rally too or choose not to, because freedom requires the existence of choice and the ability to choose in every respect. If I don’t like blue jeans, then I don’t have to wear them. Or maybe I like them, say, in one context or liked them just fine yesterday, but now I prefer something else at church or going to the opera. Quite frankly I’ve got no idea whatsoever what I’ll put on tomorrow. People aren’t blue jeans or horses, but the point is valid in terms of selection and the dynamism and free flow of opinions.

Freed of historical legacy, we are all individuals again. Therefore we really ought to be appealing to people now on the basis of individuality, their character and the ideas they hold, not on the basis of their racial groupings. The divisive and racially charged rhetoric from the national NAACP of late is unhelpful in this regard. The unsubstantiated attack by liberal politicians and community leaders, and bold innuendo from the left-leaning press against Tea Parties labeling them as racist, is also unhelpful and could backfire in November.

But politics isn’t just about reality. If it were, according to David Horowitz, “good principles and good policies would win every time.” Rather, in terms of political war, the contest is “about images and symbols and the emotions they evoke, [and] this is a battle that conservatives generally lose. In the romance of the victim as progressives stage it, Republicans and conservatives are always on the side of the bad guys—the powerful, the male, the white and the wealthy…. Defending America is readily misrepresented…. The left relishes the opportunity to smear patriots as members of the selfish party instead of as defenders of individual freedom.” Ann Coulter describes the motto of the left as “Speak loudly and carry a small victim.”

For Democrats, the romance of the victim stirs supporters and energizes their base. Conservatives are the targeted victimizers. Leftists become champions of the so-called oppressed. Sure hate to say it, but news from the front so far is that the Battle of the Bulge is going to the Nazis! Learning how to confront the left’s strategy, however, will turn the political war around. It requires that Americans become a little more clear-headed and informed, and less crybaby when leftists sing their predictable tearjerkers and blues. Fortunately, as Horowitz explains, “conservatives can use the left-wing attack against them. Contrary to the left’s view, America is not a land of victims. It is a highly mobile society, with a citizenry that aspires upwards through the system, not against it.… [The] most powerful forces obstructing opportunity for poor and minority Americans, the most powerful forces oppressing them, are progressives, the Democratic Party, and their political creation—the welfare state.”

Welfare state programs are demonstrably obstacles to the production of wealth and barriers to private opportunity. What is necessary is for conservatives to connect the dots so to speak, to connect their analysis to a political strategy that gives them a decisive edge in battle against the left’s propaganda—or if you prefer, the left’s purely innocent though misguided interpretation of events. In this way, Horowitz believes we can “neutralize the class, race and gender warfare attacks of the political left” and hopefully rise above such petty, counterproductive and polarizing politics

Principles of Political War - Part 1 (Issue #459)

The people are rising up. Americans are waking up at last to the threat: a leftist elite, bent on fundamentally changing America and making every citizen entirely dependent on the state. The Obama machine driven by a socialist agenda is spending trillions of tax-payer dollars to finance takeover of the American workplace and to stifle personal initiative and community awareness and self-determination. America is built of better stuff, however, namely the principles of private property and individual freedom, and the Resistance has begun.

In May 2009 Californians launched a tax revolt, indeed at a time when their state government’s deficit was larger than the budgets of most other states and many countries. State law according to its “Initiative” process required legislators to win a two-thirds referendum of the people before they could raise taxes. Forced to hold special election with multiple ballot Initiatives to raise taxes, California citizens shocked legislators by sending an unmistakable message by margins of 60 percent even in San Francisco: Taxed Enough Already! No more taxes!

The “TEA” Party movement quickly spread, gaining steam across the entire nation. David Horowitz calls it “the most innovative, exciting and powerful grassroots force in the history of American conservatism.” Today and through the election cycles of 2010 and 2012 it is not only vital to the health of the country, but essential to the survival of America. Consider that on the eve of the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama proclaimed, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America!” Tea Partiers threw themselves into the political breach, so to speak, saying unequivocally “No” to Obama’s plans to fundamentally alter the federal constitutional Republic and turn it into a socialist state.

The breach is one thing, but politics is really more about sustained effort and long-term commitment to ideas. A particular movement without an effective plan or strategy will not succeed. Therefore it is critical to reacquaint ourselves with some principles of political war. Many political philosophers have characterized politics as warfare by other, presumably peaceful means. Nixon described politics as being part and parcel of an overall spectrum of conflict. Most Americans are naïve politically and unfamiliar with what philosophers and political operatives know about the electoral game played every two to four years. Americans think about politics as some kind of spectator sport or movie show, a passive distraction that doesn’t require any of their personal involvement. They mistake the huge personal consequences while sitting in the bleachers or back row of a dark auditorium. They might bemoan results of an election at tax time, but then they turn again to something else entertaining or pressing.

Liberals are morally bankrupt and clueless about policy, but they still win elections because they understand American politics is driven by a dime novel Hollywood romance, with Americans sitting idly by as, you guessed it, spectators. According to Horowitz, the story they love to watch is about an underdog—you know, the little guy who goes up against the system and triumphs in the end. It is a story about opportunity and fairness too, and to win the flitting hearts and minds of American voters, you have to tap into emotions evoked by the underdog. America’s heroes are cut to a common mold: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Davy Crockett, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Amelia Earhart, Jackie Robinson, Ronald Reagan or Colin Powell, etc., etc. Always it is about the common man who rises against the odds. Yep, Mr. Smith goes to Washington and make things right! Luke Skywalker saves the planet! Horowitz isn’t as cynical perhaps about the narrative. Truth is, practically everyone in America thinks of him or herself as the underdog and aspires to be a hero. The romance in fact resonates with our deepest convictions, as well as faith in freedom and the ability to overcome adversity or to challenge and win against unjust power arrayed against you. It is the American Dream and largely her story—rising to the top through hard work in spite of humble origin.

Until the Tea Parties showed up, the political left wielded this romantic narrative as a political weapon virtually unopposed at election time. In positioning themselves as champions of the underrepresented, neglected and oppressed, leftists manufactured a version of the American story and spread it far and wide through the media and academe. According to Horowitz, the left successfully transformed America’s story from “an epic of freedom into a tale of racism, exploitation and domination. In their telling, American history is no longer a narrative of expanding opportunity, of men and women succeeding against the odds. Instead, it is a Marxist Morality Play about the powerful and their victims.” Elections have become staged political dramas too, as progressives invariably speak in the name of America’s alleged victims—women, children, minorities and the poor.

Conservatives play into the trap, approaching politics like management on every issue, as a mere practical problem that needs to be solved—emphasizing, say, utility of the tax cut, efficiency of a certain program, the optimal method to approach this or that. They talk like businessmen in other words, and while there is nothing wrong with instituting good policies and running things efficiently or turning profit, progressives label them as servants of the rich, oppressors of the weak, defenders of the strong and privileged. Conservatives become the enemies of the people, in the liberal parlance of political warfare. Witness Mario Cuomo at the Democrats’ 1996 National Convention: “We need to work as we have never done before between now and November…to take the Congress back from Newt Gingrich and the Republicans, because ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the Republicans are the real threat. They are the real threat to our women. They are the real threat to our children. They are the real threat to clean water, clean air and the rich landscape of America.” Ooh, such good spectator sport. Only now it won’t wash.

On Political Debate and Political Action (Issue #458)

Sometimes it just isn’t worth the effort. Oh one can try to convince the other side, assuming they haven’t clam-shut their minds entirely. At best it will be a lot of work, but increasingly two sides in American politics seem to be from different cultures entirely—if not from different planets. They mostly talk past each other, not really to one another. No one strives for consensus, because consensus no longer involves statesmanlike compromise over details or method, but rather fundamental matters of conviction and principle. Glenn Beck tried to reach out (sort of) through his book, Arguing with Idiots (2009). Mark Olsen and Thomas Rexroth do perhaps the best job possible trying to convert nincompoops out there with a new fiction book called Animal Colony (2010), a modern rendition of George Orwell’s classic. Reading it, grade school students certainly and quite possibly a few indoctrinated adults, may come to understand why socialism is a terrible idea. And while outreach programs and community education initiatives are fine, all that has to wait until after the election November 2nd. If Republicans are handing out Abe Lincoln pamphlets now to the African-American community, well, they’re idiots and need more than just a couple good reads.

The political class has failed the American people—both parties. Many Christians are indeed hypocrites, or apathetic, or both these days. Those who do get theirs, so to speak, forget the struggle of their own climb, as well as whom actually enabled their ascent. Main Street supports Wall Street; and people raised the government in Washington, D.C., albeit the American people are always searching for a mechanistic device to replace the eternal vigilance required. Every election is theoretically a “term limit” after all, and some of the same people at rallies won’t even bother to vote, much less get involved in politics this campaign season—now just over three months left, with the U.S. Congress and the Texas House at stake, and indeed our country.

Although progressives refuse to believe it, many conservatives were highly critical of George W. Bush and did not save their caustic ammo just for Obama Days. The establishment GOP, however, was hijacked by the so-called neoconservative faction. So while vocal critics of President Obama were arguably more passive when Bush was in office, their voices are not now as silenced by a Republican machine or incumbent Republican administration. Unfortunately the battle for the GOP is not quite over, and neoconservatives still hold sway—which is why so much (though not all) of the Tea Party movement is fueled by disaffected conservative Republicans.

Things are not inevitable. No History is. It depends on what you do. In politics action counts for more than debate at election time (and if you hadn’t taken notice yet, election time is upon us). The rationalist deterministic mantra that defines modernity in only a certain way is a total crock. The complexity of our society does not justify violation of the Bill of Rights, or violation of States rights and federalism, or indeed the general loss of freedom we are experiencing. Moreover, ours is not the mental calculus of most Europeans—i.e., what do I get for my tax money? In some instances, Europeans see trade-offs in terms of money for services and they conclude it isn’t that bad. It might not be so far removed from crony capitalism either. Of course, Americans aren’t supposed to trade their taxes and hence their freedom, for a bunch of cradle-to-grave social services, at least not according to Original Intent or the enumerated powers in the Constitution. Americans are not supposed to be “socialist” in other words; albeit, they have been trending that way ever since the Progressive Era and New Deal.

The modern and somewhat resurgent progressive impulse has placed Obama in power, but only after a perceived failed, neoconservative administration. We do need problem solvers and competent people in government to tackle the hard problems. Only they ought to be restricted to constitutional activities! One of the reasons the government is so inept at crisis management, is that it is doing everything else but. The world is not a rosy picture, never was and probably never will be. Someone’s particular problem or special need does not place a government coerced responsibility or legal obligation on a freeman or freewoman to go fix and solve it. One shouldn't have to pay for someone else’s stupidity, mistakes or bad luck either. We can talk moral suasion, and I’m all for family, church and charitable assistance. I also believe in the power of free enterprise and of mutually beneficial exchanges to make things better over time for most people. My acknowledgment of the real world we live in, in other words, does not lead me to the conclusion that freedom is ever a wrongheaded idea or that it should take a back seat to many things.

In a recent speech, the Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, Tom Pauken addressed a 2010 high school graduating class: “Our nation is desperately in need of good leaders. America faces a more serious set of challenges than any time in my life, including our most serious national recession since the Great Depression…. This is a time of high levels of unemployment and the hollowing out of our U.S. manufacturing base. (Even here in Texas, where we have lower unemployment than any other large labor market state in the nation, we too have been hard hit by this nasty national recession). Your generation will be the most adversely affected if we don’t put in place policies to get our economy moving again. It is not inevitable that unemployment remains persistently high, or that our U.S. manufacturing base continues to deteriorate. Americans – and Texans, in particular – have always risen to the occasion whenever our nation faced serious challenges before; and we can do so again if we have the political will and civic courage to make bold decisions for the long term good of the country.”

Now here’s what I think too: that ours could be—I said could be, the next ‘greatest generation.’ But don’t underestimate the degree of effort required. The good Lord rarely sets up His victory along a primrose path. Freedom has never been free—no, not for Israelites and certainly not for us Americans. The road ahead the next few years is arduous, even risky, but we have every talent we’ll need to win, survive and prosper and to pull this country through, on Election Day and beyond.

Calling Young Patriots (Issue #457)

When I speak to young people about leadership, I like to draw from my own experiences three points with credibility. First, leadership roles and experiences early on, i.e., in your youth—stick with you and make it easier to pick up similar and even greater roles throughout your entire life. Second, although certainly not identical, some leadership skills are transferable from political to military to business and back to political pursuit. My experience today as Chairperson of the Central Texas Tea Party is reminiscent of my Teen-Age Republican (TAR) and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) participation during the Reagan Revolution thirty years ago. Lastly, and borrowing a lesson from history, the big political waves don’t come around all that often—when they do, individuals who catch the wave are better off by far and smarter, for having taken part in something historical.

The fact is that everything builds on everything else and there is no “freebie” in life. The process involves an accumulation of study, work, experience and achievements that move or convey you, over time to higher positions and quite possibly, by the grace of God, to your dreams! Everything counts: reading, playing and behaving; studying in high school to make good grades; making good grades in high school in order to get into college; doing well in college or quite possibly at your first job, in order to get to that employment level that starts a ladder of upward mobility; and then taking one position at a time to get to the other; and finally, from one career to another—so that eventually, retirement really does resemble those mythological “Golden Years.” Everything you do becomes a vantage point to the next step, and to all else that follows.

Of course what I’m implying is that time and effort spent in youth leadership activities (say, organizing a Young Patriots group) begets other, higher positions of leadership and the skills needed for such positions. As I have stated and written before, there is definitely something going on in the country, including Texas in a reaction to President Obama’s relentless progressive agenda. More than at any time since the late 1970s, people have awoken to a sense of danger and a strong desire to do something political. Now I’m going to refrain from saying more about our president or the military’s Commander-In-Chief, other than to point out that he is indeed a civilian president elected every four years. He has command of the people’s military, but Americans have no Commander-In-Chief. The military is subordinate to civilian political leadership and civilians also do not salute their president. Sometimes political leaders forget that Americans are not supposed to take orders from Washington. Rather, Americans are supposed to be left as a free people, at liberty to do things for themselves and families in the ways they personally see fit, with money they have earned.

Historically states created the federal government, not the other way around; and the people of the several states delegated to the federal government enumerated powers but kept everything else to themselves. This past Saturday (26 June) there was a Tenth Amendment Town Hall Meeting held in Temple at which six conservative Texas State legislators, including Ralph Sheffield were present and fielded questions. It was indicative of what you already know if you follow the news carefully, and that is that many states’ Attorneys General have filed suit against the Obama health reform bill on the basis of the Tenth Amendment.

You need to read the Constitution. If words mean anything, then it is impossible to figure where the federal government discerns a power to make private individuals buy something, much less private health insurance; and then tries to enforce legislation using a taxing agency like the IRS. Every citizen of these United States needs to read and study the Constitution and refuse to let the Constitution be trampled by anyone or by any single branch of the federal government. Before it’s all over with, the politics of the tea parties and of conservative groups around the country may even involve civil disobedience—because the principles involved today are as fundamental as what Jim Crow and segregation involved in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. Remember there are different kinds of enslavement and vestiges of the same, as well as tyranny in many guises. The government is not necessarily a benevolent master, and even if it were the American people will not suffer a yoke from any man or institution save Jesus Christ himself.