Prayer to Save Texas and America (Issue #465)

On August 19, 2010 an important “Save Texas” rally and concert was held at the Mayborn Convention Center in Temple, Texas.  YouTube sensation Krista Branch presented a vibrant concert performance, featuring patriotic and inspirational Christian music.  She started with her song hit entitled, “I am America” and gave an encore performance of the same song at the end of the evening.  The worship event was hosted by Dr. Andy Barron, Central Texas area orthodontist and a devout Christian, who subsequently filed on August 24th to be an official write-in candidate for the Texas Governor’s race.

Barron has stated simply that, if elected Governor, Texans will be free once again to have prayer back in their public schools.  The plank comprises much of his platform.  The following is a slightly altered version of the opening prayer presented by Yours Truly at the “Save Texas” rally and concert.  Prayer of course has a powerful alterative effect, whenever people of faith fervently invoke the Name of God, whether silently or audibly.  Prayer can change the course of nations, as well as the paths that people walk.  Please think of this as you read, in order to infuse the words with power and bring a blessing into your own experience.

“Dear Lord, our God: Thank you for being with us and meeting us always where we are; and Lord thank you for your Son.  Thank you for your mercy and for all the many blessings we enjoy.  Thank you for bringing us to this spot—this physical spot, as well as this place in our lives, this time in history.  We pray for a safe journey and return Home.

“Thank you for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen; and for law enforcement and border patrol and all those who protect us.  Lord—we pray that you’ll protect them, and grant them Victory as You would have it done.

“God grant us peace in our time.  We pray that you will always steer us clear of violence and evil.  Keep us secure also from temptation.  Keep safe those whom we love.  Protect the innocent and the unborn, the frail and weak.  And Lord, if it be Thy will that we must ever confront evil let us not be afraid when doing so.  Be with us in our hour of need and darkness; give us strength and heart, as well as the courage to prevail.

“O Lord our God we pray earnestly for our Country: for healing in our Economy, for a rejuvenation of our civil society; for resuscitation of the Body Politic and regard for the U.S. Constitution and the Rule of Law.  Deliver us from the Evil Tide and from the imposition of socialism and communism in Your Land of Liberty.

“We pray also for your Church.  And Father, in the name of Jesus, we come before you remembering 2 Chronicles 7:14, which says: ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.’  We know your promise is true, even at this grave hour.  We pray for your forgiveness and for healing in the land.  May we do what is required of us to obtain the blessing contained in this your promise.  God grant us vision Lord, as that peculiar people who are called by Your Name.  God save Texas to be that beacon that America so desperately needs, to light the way for our fellow countrymen.

“Enable us to restore the Republic of our Fathers—and so honoring the God of our Fathers again in the Schoolhouse, at the Courthouse, in all manner of private and public discourse.  Let our worship of Thee be always pleasing.  May the love of Christ enter in and bless and sanctify us wholly, that we may abound to every good work and know and follow the leadings of Truth.  Give every self-professing Christian the courage to attend to his or her civic and sacred responsibilities: to participate and to vote, as well as to live according to his or her convictions.

“Lastly, we pray that the Church will awaken to a higher sense of righteousness in every denomination, in every body of believers; that we should begin to unify under the bloodstained banner of the Cross.  Let the message be only this: Christ crucified and resurrected.  And may we know and feel with a calm assurance that He lives and reigns forever.  O God, we give Thee praise because He lives.  To Thine be the glory in our daily walk.  Amen.”

Post Script: Glenn Beck hosted the “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, 28 August with a very similar religious theme.  Like Dr. Andy Barron, he urged his audience to pray more.  Krista Branch was also there at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial performing, and several members of the Central Texas Tea Party were in attendance too.  More than 100,000 people gathered to hear speeches by Beck and Sarah Palin.  The rally coincided with the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  With so much of substance accomplished from that original Dream of his (itself from the Declaration of Independence),  it is ironically time now to begin to  restore key features of the American Dream based upon the United States Constitution, rather than to transform further.  For a very large Christian audience in America, that’s what the November 2nd Mid-Term Elections will be about.

Doggett, Edwards Deal Constitution another Blow in the Name of Education (Issue #464)

Austin Congressman Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX District 25) recently sponsored an amendment to H.R. 1586 that is grossly unconstitutional, and his friend Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX District 17) of Waco supported it enthusiastically.  It just goes to show how any good cause these days, particularly if it is a winner politically, will trump adherence to the U.S. Constitution or the intent of the Founding Fathers.  Doggett’s amendment essentially places an education spending mandate on the State of Texas alone of all the fifty states.

H.R. 1586 refers to The FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act.  The bill like so many others is a veritable grab-bag of bailouts and legislation pertaining to unrelated topics such as education, Medicaid, and nutrition—not to mention a massive bailout for state governments.  The total cost is $26 billion, which costs every American family approximately $126 per year.  The bill also allocates $10 billion for jobs in education nation-wide, of which $831 million would go to Texas, in order to pay for 14,500 teacher jobs.  The bill’s controversial amendment introduced by Rep. Doggett and voted for by Congressional Democrats including Edwards, requires Texas to maintain the same level of funding in education for the next three years.

Never mind the Governor has no such authority to guarantee or to direct the State Legislature to spend a certain amount of money, or to possibly bind future Legislatures.  As U.S. Congressmen from Texas, Doggett and Edwards should know that.  Beyond that, one would hope that they appreciate the U.S. Constitution too and the understand the fact that Court precedent precludes federal legislation from treating States unequally.  The idea being that all States, old and new, do and should share an equality of constitutional right and power as a condition of belonging to the Union in the first place.  States are equal in power, dignity and authority, each competent to exert that residuum of sovereignty not delegated to the United States by the Constitution itself.  To maintain otherwise would be to say that the Union, through the power of Congress might come to be a union of States unequal in power, including States whose powers were restricted only by the Constitution and others whose powers had been further restricted by acts of Congress!

It is clear from the legislation that Texas has some Democrat congressmen, who are either unaware of constitutional limits to their authority, or else they are outright traitors to the State.  Doggett’s Amendment would require the Governor to offer some sort of presumably written assurance to the feds to receive the funds earmarked for Texas.  Even if that assurance amounts to a prediction and there are no claw-back or enforcement provisions in the legislation, the Governor does not work for, or report to, the Federal Government.  Hence the language of the Amendment is an attempt to extort certain behavior quid quo pro for the funds, and it amounts at least to implicit infringement on State sovereignty.

Doggett sponsored his amendment essentially to pick a bone: he was unhappy that Governor Perry used part of the money Texas received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (a.k.a. the federal stimulus package) to offset regularly scheduled spending.  Hence Doggett is trying to ensure Texas uses federal money to supplement rather than supplant funds for education with money it receives.  Clearly it is a continuation at federal level of partisan wrangling over Texas legislative priorities and Texas State budget.  If taken on its face, the Amendment doesn’t even satisfy Federal legislative priorities or U.S. Congressional intent.  The federal stimulus package was, well, for economic stimulus—not all about education.  Likewise, this current polyglot bill is for stimulus too.  Education spending clearly has merit, even in the area of stimulus, but there are many other things money can be spent on to foster recovery and economic growth: to put people back to work and take economic pressure off families; to keep students in school and to enable the workforce to pursue education and wellbeing.

Both Representatives Lloyd Doggett and Chet Edwards are myopic at best and, quite frankly, they lack a larger vision—conservative, progressive or otherwise.  In hindsight, Doggett apparently begrudges the fact the Texas economy is doing so well, or that state government is in a far better position than virtually any other state.  Now that Texas faces an $18 billion shortfall next year, he wants to limit flexibility and virtually assure that Texas follows the path of a California or a New York to bankruptcy.  Texans simply cannot know today whether or not they will be able to afford exactly the same percentage of the budget going towards public education.  No one doubts the Governor’s commitment to education, but limiting his and the Legislature’s flexibility in bad economic times is particularly imprudent, even foolhardy.  Not only that, the offset using federal dollars for “scheduled spending” actually includes things like textbooks and other costs which support education.  Indeed, there really is no quantifiable harm for the offset using federal funds that Doggett complains about.  Education is far more complex than that, and benefits do not accrue dollar for dollar.

Doggett’s approach would literally preclude the realization of cost savings ever (so much for improving efficiency or trying innovation to get a better return on investment, or better results in the classroom either).  The Amendment is really a stunt designed to embarrass the Governor, given that economic imperatives are likely to drive him and the Legislature to make hard choices, in order to balance the budget next year.  Doggett was elected in 1994, and if doesn’t know this then he has been in Washington, D.C. too long, having forgotten that unlike the U.S. Congress, States are required to balance their budgets!  In the bigger scheme of things, education is important but economic opportunity for high school and college graduates, as well as the solvency of state government is more important.  Typically there is not a wide trade-off and certainly it isn’t zero-sum, but during the Great Recession and for the next couple of years it could be.  Only Doggett and other liberal Democrats in Congress would attempt to play ostrich with the situation and put their heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge the reality of high unemployment, the slowness of the recovery, the uncertainty of business environment.  For Chet Edwards’s part, he was first elected in 1990 and was considered for President Obama’s Vice-Presidential pick in 2008—largely for his adept record at looking and acting conservative while supporting liberal politics, such as the anti-Texan and unconstitutional Doggett Amendment to score points for supporting education while empowering the federal government even more.

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.