You see a lot of people in America who will self identify as “liberal”, but in almost all cases those people are in fact the opposite of liberal.  The general understanding of the definition of “liberal” in America has changed greatly over the years and now means authoritarian.

This reality and the widespread misunderstanding of it have bothered me for a long time.  In fact, while re-reading portions of F.A. Hayek’s incredibly good The Road to Serfdom a few weeks ago, I saw that Hayek himself addressed it.

When I first read Hayek’s classic, which contends that all collectivist systems ultimately descend into tyranny, I was initially confused by his use of the word liberal to describe people that I would more properly label as libertarians.  My confusion was based upon the reality that the word liberal got hijacked in America by people who are most decidedly not liberal.  In the 1956 preface to the book, Hayek addresses this directly:

The fact that this book was originally written with only the British public in mind does not appear to have seriously affected its intelligibility for the American reader.  But there is one point of phraseology which I ought to explain here to forestall any misunderstanding.  I use throughout the term “liberal” in the original, nineteenth-century sense in which it is still current in Britain.  In current American usage it often means very nearly the opposite of this.  It has been part of the camouflage of leftist movements in this country, helped by the muddleheadedness of many who really believe in liberty, that “liberal” has come to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control. I am still puzzled why those in the United States who truly believe in liberty should not only have allowed the left to appropriate this almost indispensible term but should even have assisted by beginning to use it themselves as a term of opprobrium.  This seems to be particularly regrettable because of the consequent tendency of many true liberals to describe themselves as conservative.

In other words, let’s stop playing along with their self-congratulatory but demonstrably false labeling.

When someone self-labels as a liberal, ask that person if they support ObamaCare or the takeover of the student loan program, for example.  If they answer affirmatively, you should calmly but firmly communicate to them that liberal is an inappropriate word to describe their ideology and that the more correct term is authoritarian or, even better, statist.  Mark Levin has returned the word statist to the lexicon and it is absolutely the most correct word to use when describing the American Left.  They do not believe in individual liberty.  What they do believe in is massively increased centralized control over the lives of the American people.  That is the opposite of freedom.

In my case, I am a lowercase-L libertarian conservative, and I am far more correctly described as a [classical] liberal than any American so-called liberals.  Unlike the American Left, I do believe in individual liberty, whereas they see us all as livestock living on their government collective.

We all remember what happened last December in the Senate and then again in March in the House of Representatives.  After a full court press and in outright defiance of the clearly stated will of a majority of Americans, the Senate voted on Christmas Eve to approve so-called health care reform, now ubiquitously referred to as ObamaCare.  Even though solid majorities of Americans opposed the measure, every single Democrat voted for it, even the fictional “blue dog” Senate Democrats who were once able to claim adherence to fiscal conservatism.  In March the House then voted to pass their version of ObamaCare, once again in the face of clear opposition from the American public.

Even though these politicians should have been concerned with keeping their jobs after their next election, they disregarded the wishes of the American people in order to pass this sweeping new legislation.  Knowing that they were less than a year from the next election and while receiving quite a bit of feedback from their constituents at town hall meetings and rallies across America, they still pursued their agenda against the will of the people.  In fact, I remember seething when I heard Nancy Pelosi say that they had enough votes to allow some Democrats to “vote their district”.  These three dangerous statists – Obama, Pelosi, and Reid – are simply intoxicated by their ideology and have proven over the last 18 months that they will do anything and say anything to advance their agenda, which always seems to boil down to more dependency-based control over Americans.

Now consider this.  Given the likelihood of significant GOP gains in the November elections, just imagine what the fired congressmen will be willing to do in the interim period between receiving their pink slips from the voters and actually leaving office in January.  We have all been forced to recalibrate our government outrage meters in the Obama Age, but we should prepare ourselves for affronts that we simply cannot even imagine today.

Ask yourself a few questions.  Why aren’t they trying to pass Cap and Tax right now?  Why no push for amnesty for illegals Comprehensive Immigration Reform?  Further, have you heard that they have no plans to pass a real budget any time soon?  They are already clumsily tipping their hand to their plans.  They are saving everything for the lame duck session of Congress.  How many times have you been stunned at the audacity and gall demonstrated by this gaggle of statists?  Unfortunately, I think that we have not seen anything yet.

We all know from experience that when people get fired or laid off, they get shown the door immediately and there is a good reason for that.  When someone has been terminated, you can expect that employee to be worthless at best and damaging at worst, with a bit of revenge mixed in.  But in contrast with private sector people, the angry employees that we will terminate in November will retain significant power over our lives until January.  Perhaps more significantly, these “public servants” will feel a pressing need to cut deals to land their next government job.  They will throw us all under the bus and by now we should all accept that fact.

At first I naively thought about proposing a scenario in which every candidate would publicly ask for a pledge from the incumbent that he or she will not vote on any significant legislation during the lame duck session if they are defeated on November 2^nd.  But just thinking like that makes me look like someone who just fell off the turnip truck – in fact I surprised myself with that half-second of naiveté.  These dishonest charlatans have proven that they will do whatever they want even when they still have a chance at reelection.  They would violate any pledge without remorse.  Does the name Bart Stupak ring a bell?

Then I finally arrived at the obvious and unavoidable core reality of our situation, and wondered why it took me so long to figure this out.  When the rubber hits the road, there are 41 people in America who can stand between us and tyranny.  The only people who can stand in the way of truly significant outrages – potential death blows – against the American Experiment are the 41 Republican Senators who possess the so-called nuclear option of the filibuster.  If they stand together, and only if they stand together, we can weather the two dark and dangerous months between our national repudiation of the Obama agenda and the seating of our new Congress.

234 years ago the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to further our independence and begin the task of creating the American Experiment.  I honestly do not consider it hyperbole to argue that the 41 Republican members of the United States Senate will face a challenging period that could decide the future of our country.  Though it will not even begin to compare to the tribulations faced by the Signers, in duration or in danger, let us hope that they are up to it.  Given that their number includes weak links like Graham (SC), McCain, and Snowe (ME), I worry about whether they possess the principles and intestinal fortitude to stand up to the predictable juggernaut.  Further, imagine what an angry and resentful John McCain will be willing to do if he is defeated in his primary with J.D. Hayworth.  The future of the Republic could depend on whether these 41 Americans are willing to be pariahs for two months.

If they do the right thing, these 41 Senators may go down in history as having fought a holding action that helped save the nation and preceded the restoration of our Constitutional Republic.  The ancient Greeks who fought a desperate holding action at Thermopylae against Xerces’ invading Persians were dubbed The 300.

If they do the right thing, these 41 Senators should be remembered as The 41.

The only thing that will make this idea work is getting it out there.  Please pass this along to your conservative friends and even consider calling into a talk radio show with the idea.  Most importantly, pass it along to your Senators.  Let’s make it clear to The 41 that we understand the seriousness of our situation.  We are watching.  We will be sitting next to our children and grandchildren, the ones who will pay the biggest price for the selfish orgy of the Obama Agenda, and we will be watching The 41 to see if they are up to the challenge.

The new web site will be up soon…

[Note to regular readers: It’s not unusual for me to percolate on a blog post for a month or two, chatting with my wife about it regularly but not quite getting it typed up in a timely manner.  The observed downside to that slow process is that sometimes I end up throwing away a half-written blog post because I do not want to be a “back-bencher”, which is what Mark Levin calls the other pundits, commentators, and bloggers who borrow material from his radio show for their next-day offerings.  In the most recent case, I was mostly done with a blog post – ultimately the one that you just read - that I was going to call Lame Duck Tyranny or Lame Duck Danger in which I intended to discuss the real danger that we face between the next election and the seating of the next Congress.  But on Saturday I listened to Friday night’s Mark Levin show only to find that he was covering the same topic and making some of the same points. This is not the first time that he and I have espoused similar positions and it likely will not be the last – after all we both arrived at our very similar philosophy by reading the same things, studying the same history, and observing the same events.  However, this time I decided not to toss my blog post because this topic gets me worked up and worried.  Mark Levin would likely prefer that even more people are exposed to the idea of this lame duck tyranny anyway.  Finally, I am such a small time blogger that I do not even qualify as a back-bencher!]

Wallis is a political operative who wraps himself up in religion in order to gain some legitimacy so that he can then trash every conservative religious person for not being liberal.  Writing an article in the Huffington Post , Wallis demonstrates his mastery of dishonest sleight of hand.  Wallis first equates the Tea Party Movement with libertarianism and then immediately makes the jump to Rand Paul so that he can find some positions to use to make the Tea Party look bad.  He must have received the email from the Democrats on that one; it is a consistent talking point approach lately.

The basic gist of his article is an attempt to make the case that because he is an alleged reverend he is therefore qualified to pass judgment on “how Christian” the Tea Party movement is.  In fact, his incredibly weak arguments fall well short of convincing any intelligent person of the merits of his position and simply made me want to find out who this clown was.  It seemed clear that this guy was an Alinksy type, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Little did I know how true that was, but I will get to that later.

Wallis starts out by demonstrating his complete misunderstanding of compassion:

Loving your neighbor is a better Christian response than telling your neighbor to leave you alone. Both compassion and social justice are fundamental Christian commitments, and while the Christian community is responsible for living out both, government is also held accountable to the requirements of justice and mercy. Both Christians on the Right and the Left have raised questions about Libertarian abandonment of the most vulnerable — whether that means unborn lives or the poor.

Par for the course for those who revere government because they are utterly terrified of freedom, Wallis is not intellectually honest enough to understand the difference between individuals helping their fellow man when he truly needs it and the government seizing vast amounts of wealth to redistribute to those who have learned to game the system.  It is very important to note that it is never compassion when you are spending someone else’s money and that one can love one’s neighbor without feeling any requirement to pay his bills.

Because Wallis claims to be religious, I have to point out that millions of faithful Christians tithe ten percent of their money to their church.  But that sort of chump change is not enough for people like Wallis, whose agenda requires not only what he could raise under the ruse of religion but also necessitates confiscating the property of even non-Christians.  That is mighty Christian of you, Reverend Jim.

In fact, libertarians know that most poor people are poor not because they have encountered some misfortune in life but simply because they have made a series of stupid, short-sighted decisions.  Libertarians are not opposed to individuals helping individuals but are opposed to the government perennially transferring wealth from those who earned it to those who simply know how to harness poverty pimps like Jim Wallis.  Libertarians believe – with good reason – that people who do not suffer from the stupidity of their actions will continue to do stupid things.  Clearly Mr. Wallis thinks that one of the appropriate roles of government is to protect people from the consequences of their actions, but only if they are societal parasites.  That plants him firmly in the camp of the Nanny State Left.

Finally, to hear a member of the laughingly oxymoronic “religious left” criticize libertarians because many (though far from all) support abortion rights is a new level of hypocrisy.  As a member of the alleged religious left, Mr. Wallis is a card carrying stockholder in the abortion industry.  Sure, he may claim to be anti-abortion in front of certain groups, but the Democrat party has perversely elevated their vision of abortion rights to the level of a “canary in the gold mine” bellwether of individual rights.  As such, supporting the agenda of the Democrat party while claiming to be anti-abortion is like being a KKK member in the 1920s while claiming to be anti-lynching – you cannot be a part of the group without implicitly supporting one of its main agenda items.

For what it’s worth, this libertarian believes that the official Libertarian Party’s position on abortion is dead wrong.  That unborn human has just as many rights as the parent who wants to treat the child like an inconvenient mole, but uppercase-L libertarians are so caught up in wanting to be purists that they cannot see that they are just as wrong and selfish as the left is on this subject.  Furthermore, more libertarians should realize how unconstitutional Roe v. Wade is – under our system the judicial branch does not write laws, as Harry Blackmun did in his horrible decision.

Wallis also tries to make the contorted argument that simply because the bible happens to mention government, being anti-government therefore “just isn’t biblical”.  Statists like Wallis must pine for the days when government and religion were intertwined and even went so far as to prevent open inquiry in the sciences.

Then Wallis spews this tripe:

The Libertarians’ supreme confidence in the market is not consistent with a biblical view of human nature and sin. The exclusive focus on government as the central problem ignores the problems of other social sectors, and in particular, the market. When government regulation is the enemy, the market is set free to pursue its own self-interest without regard for public safety, the common good, and the protection of the environment — which Christians regard as God’s creation. Libertarians seem to believe in the myth of the sinless market and that the self-interest of business owners or corporations will serve the interests of society; and if they don’t, it’s not government’s role to correct it.

This is laughable.  The truth is that the left’s supreme confidence in big government is not consistent with the reality of human nature and corruption.  Their exclusive focus on wealth redistribution as the central goal ignores the real problem, which is that these people would not need to live off of the rest of us if the government had not created the lifestyle-subsidy welfare programs.  As an analogy, if you put out food for stray cats those cats will get used to it and will be there every morning.  Like our parasitic class in America, they will even get angry if the free food stops.  That entitlement mentality is at the core of those 47% of Americans who pay no taxes and are therefore living off of the rest of us.  Shockingly, liberals seem to believe in the myth of the blameless societal parasite and that giving someone else’s property to them will actually help rather than harm them.

Further, and I give credit to my brilliant wife for this angle, if Mr. Wallis actually took a clear look at the biblical view of human nature and sin he would realize that it in fact makes the best argument possible for limited government.  We simply cannot trust human beings with that level of control over their fellows.  They are too flawed to handle it without descending into power grabs and corruption and almost every shred of human history is a testament to that undeniable fact. This self-evident truth of government corruption was a main reason that the founding fathers realized that government should be limited to the role of umpire as opposed to the left’s desired role of mommy.  George Washington certainly understood this fundamental truth and put it as clearly as anyone ever has:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.  – George Washington

Showing the complete lack of logical thought that so uniformly characterizes the American left, Wallis continues:

But such theorizing ignores the practical issues that the public sector has to solve. Should big oil companies like BP simply be allowed to spew oil into the ocean? And is regulating them really un-American? Do we really want nobody to inspect our meat, make sure our kids’ toys are safe, or police the polluters to keep our air clean? Do we really want owners of restaurants and hotels to be able to decide whom they will or won’t serve, or should liquor store owners also be able to sell alcohol to our kids?

After seeing such flagrant use of the false dichotomy logical fallacy, it’s getting easy to understand how this clown is a democrat.  But to be fair, being a leftist Mr. Wallis is unaccustomed to dealing with people who possess a command of logical thought, so we cannot blame him for attempting to foist tripe on us that works consistently with his normal bevy of parasitic myrmidons.

Finally, I am just going to say it. There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white. Does that mean every member of the Tea Party is racist? Likely not. But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the Tea Party ethos, and would there even be a Tea Party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office? It’s time we had some honest answers to that question. And as far as I can tell, Libertarianism has never been much of a multi-cultural movement. Need I say that racism — overt, implied, or even subtle — is not a Christian virtue.

Claims of racism are the last refuge of the scoundrel, the trump card played by someone who is losing the debate.  Apparently Mr. Wallis had no problem with every black American voting for Barack Obama simply because of the color of his skin.  They certainly were not voting for the [bankrupt] content of his character!  Mr. Wallis proves that he is a full-fledged race-hustling poverty pimp with this clumsy attempt to play the race card.

Yes, Mr. Obama is a huge part of the rise of the Tea Party Movement, but even Mr. Wallis knows that it has nothing to do with his brown skin and everything to do with his red politics.  Mr. Obama is a Marxist and patriotic Americans would oppose him no matter how much melanin was contained in his skin.

Finally, though there is plenty to criticize in Wallis’ “The Bible Loves Tyranny” screed, one need only read this gem to see the true nature of this leftist propagandist:

But a power-hungry government is clearly an aberration and violation of the proper role of government in protecting its citizens and upholding the demands of fairness and justice. To disparage government per se — to see government as the central problem in society — is simply not a biblical position.

Mr. Wallis has the typically weak leftist knowledge of history and his world view clearly demonstrates that.  Anyone who can make the statement that “power hungry government is clearly an aberration” simply cannot be taken seriously in any context.  When the rubber hits the road, Mr. Wallis is simply dishonestly attempting to use religion to sell tyranny.  As always, that tyranny is disguised as false compassion and false security.

After writing this I wondered if I had been too hard on Reverend Jim Wallis, so I did some more digging in order to ensure that I was not just going off on an unfair rant.  I quickly found what I was looking for in the very place that I should have looked first: David Horowitz’ incredible site, Discover The Networks.

Wallis expressed his hope that “more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes.”

In short, Jim Wallis is a long term left wing radical.  His basic shtick is to attempt to use his status as an alleged religious leader to bash conservatives and push his own agenda.  The entry on Wallis at Discover The Networks contains the following interesting items:

• His magazine, now called Sojourners’, was originally an anti-capitalist publication called Post-American.
• He is a lifelong champion of communism and an apologist for atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese.
• In a 1979 interview, Wallis expressed his hope that “more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes.”
• In a January 13, 2006 radio interview with Interfaith Voices, Wallis was asked, “Are you then calling for the redistribution of wealth in society?” He replied, “Absolutely, without any hesitation. That’s what the gospel is all about.”
• In 1995 Wallis founded Call to Renewal, a coalition of religious groups united in the purpose of advocating, in religious terms, for leftist economic agendas such as tax hikes and wealth redistribution to promote “social justice.” 

The final quote from Discover The Networks lays bare the obvious truth of his screed in HuffPo, which is that Wallis simply wrote a hit piece on the Tea Party because he is a foot soldier in the progressive movement, a hard core Marxist who seeks more government control over the lives of Americans.

More than a mere religious leader, Wallis, a registered Democrat, is also an adroit political operative, publicly portraying himself as a politically neutral religious figure whose overriding allegiance is to God. Always with the disclaimer that neither major political party can claim to authoritatively represent the values of religious faith, Wallis passionately contends that Republican policies tend to be immoral and godless. — Discover The Networks

Jim Wallis is right to fear the Tea Party Movement.  We are taking our country back from freedom loathing charlatans like him and his intellectual soul mate in the White House.  We will once again attempt to toss Marxism back where it belongs, “on the ash heap of history” as a great President once said.

The world needs changing?  Well it does need changing but if you’re going to live with the rest of us then you’ll have to learn to play the game by the rules and in case you have forgotten the name of the game, we call it democracy.

Those of you who voted for this empty suit statist have done more damage to our country than any previous generation of Americans.  This dangerous and dishonest charlatan may succeed in ending the American Experiment.  Good job getting all caught up in the “historic moment” and leaving your brains at the door, you shallow myrmidons.

[I am well aware that we are not a democracy but are instead a [once] Constitutional Democratic Republic.  Rule of Law over rule of men.]

While speaking to a typical crowd of his myrmidons in Illinois, President Obama had another Joe the Plumber moment when he dropped his guard and let his inner Marxist slip out again.  You can listen to the audio here, but the President’s words speak for themselves:

We’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned.  I mean, I do think that at a certain point you’ve made enough money.  But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on makin’ it if you are providing a good product or a good service.  We don’t want people to stop, uh, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy.  — Barack Obama, 4/28/2010 in Illinois

As Levin suggests, when the President goes off-teleprompter you can often get a good glimpse of the Marxist True Believer that he tries to hide from Americans.

Levin’s take?

He hates capitalism, he hates capitalists, he despises the private sector generally and he is at war with it.

This President is the biggest threat to the survival of the American Experiment since the Civil War.  He simply does not believe in any of the principles that made America the greatest nation in the history of mankind and he seeks to knock America down to some feel-good parity with the rest of the world.

I thought that I hated Bill Clinton, but that was just disgust.  Now I know what it means to despise a politician with every fiber of my being.  Interestingly, the biggest winner in the Obama era is Bill Clinton, who now looks like a very reasonable, centrist, and dignified President compared to the empty suit radical who occupies the White House now.

As an aside, you can tell when Barry Obama is speaking to a group of people that he considers morons when he drops the G’s off of the end of his words in order to sound folksy, as he did above talking about how you can “keep on makin’ it”.

In the almost 234 year history of our country, many good Americans have made great sacrifices to preserve and defend the incredible American experiment.  From the soldiers who have served in our wars to the peace officers who work hard to preserve our civil society to the citizen soldiers whose blood was initially spilled in the spring of 1775 as our destiny was unfolding, Americans have sacrificed to defend and continue the idea that is America.  Countless times over the generations, tough Americans have been aware of the stakes and did what it took to preserve our country when it was their turn to stand guard over our liberties with the “jealous attention” exhorted by that early rabble-rouser from Virginia, Patrick Henry.

The Original Tea Party

We are all familiar with the original Tea Party in Boston in 1773.  American Colonists, disgusted by being taxed by England without any representation in Parliament and consistently riled up by that fine patriot Samuel Adams, boarded three ships loaded with taxed tea and threw the cargo overboard.  In 1774, Parliament responded with the Intolerable Acts which set the stage for a full fledged revolution.

These American colonists decided that their government was violating their rights and that since it was happening on their watch, it was up to them to take action in defense of their rights.  Like George Washington’s precedent for what the Commander in Chief should be, these brave Americans created the template for us to follow.  They personify the word patriot for me and I am proud simply to share the label “American” with people like that.

The Overmountain Men

The Overmountain Men was the name given to the inhabitants of a group of settlements on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains in the late 1700s, when the area constituted the westernmost frontier of the colonies.  Made up of tough Scotts-Irish people who ignored the British prohibition on settling west of the mountains, they fought and won battles against the British and their Shawnee and Cherokee allies in the early years of the American Revolution.  In 1780, when Cornwallis sent a force under Patrick Ferguson into the western mountains to attack patriots and protect area loyalists, Major Ferguson made the critical mistake of issuing an ultimatum to the Overmountain Men.

Like those of us who live out in Flyover Country, these were not the kind of people against whom one should issue threats.

Major Ferguson’s message to the settlers declared that if they did not immediately lay down their arms and submit to British rule, he would “march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay waste the country with fire and sword.”  In a very early version of today’s “Oh hell no!” response, the Overmountain Men gathered and immediately agreed to raise a combined army.  They marched over the mountains to take the fight to Ferguson, crushing his forces at the Battle of Kings Mountain.  These rugged Americans saw the threat, knew that it was on their watch and therefore their responsibility, and bravely took decisive action.  Some paid with their lives, but their sacrifice helped secure the freedoms of generations of Americans.

The Battle of Athens

McMinn County, Tennessee, is located between Chattanooga and Knoxville.  After being controlled by a corrupt former Sheriff turned Senator and his puppet successor Sheriff since the mid 1930s, many GI’s returned home from World War II to find that their county was under the grip of deep corruption.  As one might imagine, after having defeated the Nazis and the Japanese they were not about to roll over.

At a rally, a GI speaker said, “The principles that we fought for in this past war do not exist in McMinn County. We fought for democracy because we believe in democracy but not the form we live under in this county” (Daily Post-Athenian, 17 June 1946, p.1 ). At the end of July 1946, 159 McMinn County GIs petitioned the FBI to send election monitors. There was no response. The Department of Justice had not responded to McMinn County residents’ complaints of election fraud in 1940, 1942 and 1944. (JPFO)

In the 1946 primary election, the corrupt Sheriff mustered 200 armed deputies to intimidate and beat potential voters, even shooting one black man who attempted to vote.  Ultimately, a shooting battle ensued in which the veterans ran the Sheriff out of the town, restoring democracy.  The GI’s candidate in the primary won and they quickly returned the town to normalcy, successfully holding the general election.

After the situation stabilized, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a column about what had happened.  In a passage that is eerily similar to the 111^th Congress’s distain for the public will, she has a warning that the Democrat party would do well to listen to today:

Any local, state or national government, or any political machine, in order to live, must give the people assurance that they can express their will freely and that their votes will be counted. The most powerful machine cannot exist without the support of the people. Political bosses and political machinery can be good, but the minute they cease to express the will of the people, their days are numbered. [emphasis mine]

The Civil Rights Movement

Brave Americans stood up to their government in this struggle against bad government as well, although in this case it was fighting racist Democrats in control of many southern states.  From the Freedom Riders who risked their lives to help their fellow Americans to the brave students who staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters to the leader of the movement, MLK, who paid for his principles with his life, they knew that bad things were being perpetrated by government.  They accepted that this was happening on their watch and that inaction was not an option.  They were great and brave Americans.

Obviously, with these historical examples I am attempting to paint an analogy to the current situation faced by those of us who seek to defend the Constitution and our country against the relentless onslaught of the Fabian socialists who have been cranking the wheel of our ship of state so hard to port.  Candidate Barack Obama told the voters that he wanted to fundamentally change America, but because we are so accustomed to politicians spouting grandiose nonsense we did not take him seriously.  In fact, this radical empty suit of a President meant what he said – he wants to turn America into Amerika – a place that bears no resemblance to the America described in our founding documents or the America that thrived for 233 years before this dangerous Manchurian candidate took office.  Americans must wake up to the reality that this President despises all of the things that regular folks love about our country.  Mr. Obama rejects the institutions and principles that made America the greatest country in human history and instead seeks to remake the country under a political theory that has been discredited every single time that it has been applied throughout history.

Unless we act decisively, history will record that Barack Obama accelerated and completed America’s downward spiral into unexceptionalism, turning us into just another ordinary welfare state like those sclerotic economies in Europe.  In fact, Barry Obama and his Marxist fellow travelers would love that result as it would further cement their power over us, which is all that they care about.  If you believe that they care one bit about your health care or the environment you are naïve, ignorant, or both.  Every single such issue is nothing more than a vehicle used to seize more power over our lives.  It is the raison d’etre of the American left – dependency based control.  Though they sugar coat it for the less intelligent, it remains nothing less than slavery to the State wrapped up in the guise of false security.

Though the examples I chose to demonstrate examples of Americans standing tough on their watch involved the use of force, I am most certainly not suggesting that we should do any such thing at this point.  I categorically reject any talk of revolution.  I believe in our system and I believe that we can pull off a peaceful Constitutional Revolution, but only if we man up and stand up to these statists and their freedom-loathing agenda.

What I do know is that the only thing that I am not willing to do in this fight is nothing.

I do not have the answers yet.  I am genuinely interested in the thoughts of readers.  One thing that I know for sure, however, is that I am not going to be the generation that punks out and lets the moochers and their benefactor looters take over the greatest country in the history of mankind.  I could break beta males like Barry and Rahm over my knee.  I am damned sure not going to let those girly men take over my country.

Not on my watch.  What about you?

Whatever the reason, the trend is clear. Voted out of office in 2006 and 2008, Republicans are now the Party of Opposition. And their network of choice, Fox News, is now king.

After pointing out that both CNN and MSNBC have seen their ratings plunge, she contrasts that with Fox News:

Meanwhile Fox News, which broke records last year, continues to grow. Greta Van Susteren’s show was up 25%. Bill O’Reilly, whose show commands the biggest audience in prime time with 3.65 million viewers, was up 28%. And Glenn Beck, that conspiracy-fueling tinderbox for the Right? His audience was up 50% from last year.

The author quotes Bill O’Reilly repeating what I have heard him say on his program, which is that people get their regular daily news via the internet and typically look to cable news outlets more for analysis and commentary.  Therefore more and more Americans tune into O’Reilly (which I rarely miss), Hannity (which I sometimes watch depending on the guests), and Glenn Beck (which I have seen only a handful of times) to hear what other assorted pundits think about the news.  In a real sense those shows are analogous to the comments on an online article, where you will quite often find far more interesting data and perspectives than the original article (or news story) itself.

In her first lines Neuman hints at the larger lesson from these continuing ratings gains for Fox News Channel when she states “maybe this really is, at heart, a conservative nation”.  I still remember Newsweek’s cover declaring that We Are All Socialists Now less than a month after President Obama took office.  I didn’t believe it, but I also had refused to believe that America would hand the reins of power to the most radical and wholly unqualified candidate in American history, so I was not feeling too optimistic about what my country was thinking.  I openly admit to disappointment in my fellow citizens when the Obama personality cult succeeded, but suffice to say that many like-minded American patriots have renewed my faith in our exceptionalism since last summer.

The emergence of the Tea Party movement has reasserted that America is a center-right country.  Though we certainly have a noisy liberal minority, most Americans would fall into the independent-to-conservative band.  Obviously, the Democrat Party and most of the media are a few clicks to the left of center.  But has there ever been this wide a gap between the President’s philosophical agenda and the average American’s common sense and belief system?  I cannot think of a time.

This reminds me of one of the few episodes of the Glenn Beck show that I have seen.  He drew a horizontal line on his trusty blackboard with a small vertical line in the middle marking the political center in America.  He pointed out where he believed that most Americans were, slightly right of center, with liberals to the left of that line, and finally identified Progressives and the Democrat party’s leadership as well to the left of that line.  I spent a few minutes constructing something similar.  You can click on the image to embiggen it.

As you can see from the cool image of America, I placed the average American a little right of center.  Notice the huge separation between Joe Sixpack and the statist triad of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid who are almost rubbing shoulders with their ideological Uncle Karl.  On the right, standing with average Americans, are fine patriots like Mike Pence, Jim DeMint, Paul Ryan, Tom Coburn and that firebrand from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann.

I agree that people are looking for opinion shows.  But wouldn’t MSNBC’s lineup of hard-left opinion shows be doing well in the ratings if this was simply about people searching for opinion in addition to news?  This dominance by Fox News simply reflects the ideological center of gravity in America, and it is nowhere near Barack Obama or Rachel Maddow.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, John Stewart.

Ever since I was 21 and noticed that Mike Dukakis was a ridiculous gas bag of a candidate for President, I have been debating politics with liberals.  Along the way I went through a long hard-core Libertarian stage and debated with both right and left, often getting into Constitutional issues that neither side thought were very relevant.  Outside of the second amendment, very few Republicans even focused much on the Constitution back then.  In the last year I have been thrilled to hear people discuss and the debate the Constitution in ways that would have been unheard of outside of libertarian circles ten years ago.  I have certainly argued with a lot of liberals since the 2008 election, but as much fun as it has been I need to redirect my energy now.  I still like my liberal friends and assorted sparring partners.  I am due to eat lunch again soon with one very liberal guy who only half-jokingly calls himself an “Elitist Party” member and perhaps we still might collaborate on that book we talked about.  But I am done trying to convince you liberals.  You’re a lost cause, bless your hearts.

Thanks for sharpening my rhetorical sword while it lasted, guys.

Anyone who does not understand why a large portion of America remains both shocked and defiantly angry about how this health care debacle turned out is simply never going to get it.  Only a real statist steeped in end-justifies-the-means thinking could look beyond the back-room deals, bribery, closed-door meetings, and an outright defiance of the will of the people in order to implement such an extreme ideological agenda.  Such an attitude requires an elitist distain for liberty and representative government that disgusts me, particularly when the stakes are this high.  This was not just a debate about public policy or tax increases or even just another modest entitlement program.  This is in effect the “third wave” of a gradual but relentless Fabian socialist attack on Constitutional government in America that got its first huge wins under FDR.  The two previous such waves brought us Social Security and Medicare, both of which are inarguably insolvent and will bankrupt future generations.  It seems clear to anyone with the power of observation, a decent understanding of history, and the ability to perform basic math that the last thing America needs right now is another huge unsustainable entitlement program. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I still intend to try to convince the convincible, mostly Independents and liberals under the age of 30 – at that age you can still chalk a lot of it up to naiveté and inexperience.  And I will certainly try to turn lukewarm conservatives into Constitution-defending activists, because I believe that these people are finally ready to stop standing on the sidelines.  I am seeing old friends on Facebook who had never before posted a single politically-motivated status ranting about socialism, and justifiably so.  Even the older woman who sold me a biscuit the other morning mentioned the R-word, and she likely has teenage grandchildren.  There are people out there that we can get into this peaceful Constitutional revolution.  Let’s get them fired up.

Take it from me, the guy who has bored people for years with political arguments rooted in specific Constitutional issues.  When patriotic people learn about the specificity of the US Constitution and then compare that to the twisted claims used by the Left to justify implementations of their ideology, they get angry.  These are people who will always go vote Republican when the election rolls around but are not active beyond that.  I want to reach these people.  I want to get them engaged.

But let’s ask an honest question.  Who are the real revolutionaries here?

Several months ago I was listening to a Mark Levin show podcast and was reminded that because of our nation’s birth in a revolution, all Americans are in effect revolutionaries.  History is certainly full of examples of groups of people rebelling against a colonial power, but our birth was not just a revolt against the nation-state of England.  The birth of the United States of America and the evolution of what became our Constitution in the years that followed represented a revolution against an otherwise accepted notion of the appropriate role of government in the lives of free people.  Unlike so many other revolutions in history, which end up enslaving the populace in the false freedom of central control and collectivism, our revolution freed up individuals to excel and succeed in ways unprecedented in world history.  America is not great because of government but because of the things that free people can do if government will stay out of their way, acting as an umpire instead of a parent.

Those on the left who are now briefly in power are in effect counter-revolutionaries revolting against the principles of the Constitution.  Nothing in either the specific words of the Constitution, nor in the well documented debates or the arguments in the Federalist Papers, could even come close to supporting the notion that the legitimate enumerated powers of the federal government include instituting a national health care system.  It requires a ridiculously expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause – one that accepts that the Congress can regulate anything anywhere as long as it gets bought or sold – to support most of the mechanisms of the modern liberal welfare state.  Interestingly, American Thinker published an article today comparing some quotes from The Federalist Papers to Obama Care.

Concerning Article 1, Section 8(3) of the Constitution that “Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 17:

“The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same state; the supervision of agriculture, and of other concerns of a similar nature; all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction.”

 (Note: if a transaction between a doctor and patient is not local and therefore subject to local and not general jurisdiction, like buying produce from a farmer, then I don’t know what is. Article I, Section 8 was clearly focused on regulating commerce with foreign nations, eliminating multiple currencies within the states and removing inter-state tariffs in place during the Articles of Confederation. The Founding Fathers are turning in the graves at this massive intrusion into individual liberty.)

The counter revolutionaries have certainly achieved a huge victory.  There is no denying it.  Somehow, even though we have all been making our voices heard in this debate, they remain on the offensive and we are still playing defense.  But remember who is defending what.  We are defending the Constitutional principles that made this country the freest and most successful country in the history of human kind.  They are leading a counter-revolution against the principles of the American Revolution.  They are the revolutionaries.

November is Trenton.  Yorktown is a long way away.

We all know that we are going to enjoy significant wins at the polls in November.  What we need to remember is that our gains in November will only be analogous to Washington’s victory at Trenton on the day after Christmas in 1776.  It will be the first victory in what should be planned as a long, multi-front counterattack on the gains already made by the Constitution-hustling American statists.  We have a tough row to hoe.

Though I found the American Thinker article quoted above after writing this post because I was looking for Federalist Papers references, Jakeway’s article ends with the same basic (though more stirring) call for patriots to come to the aid of their country that I attempted last night in American Up.

From that American Thinker article:

The Founding Fathers defined the citizens as the natural guardians of the Constitution. Ultimately, it comes down to us. Remember the immortal motto of Gen. Nathaniel Greene who led his rag-tag militia across the Carolina in 1779-1780, “lost” every battle until providing the Continentals their first major victory at Kings Mountain and cut down Cornwallis’ troops from 30,000 to 15,000 before he quit Charleston and headed to Yorktown:

“I fight, I am defeated, I rise and fight again.” 

It is precisely now that one must not despair. Now is the time for lovers of liberty to throw themselves into the national scale. You are the natural guardians of the Constitution. Now is not the time for Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots; now is the time for the heirs of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, John Adams, John Paul Jones, Patrick Henry, Nathaniel Greene and Ethan Allen.

You have a choice. What will it be? Acquiescence? Submission? Defeat? Where would we be if all the aforementioned had quit when they faced a little headwind (and, comparatively speaking, this is light breeze next to Valley Forge). Be ashamed; be very ashamed if you choose to go gently into that dark neo-Soviet night.  Be assured; a new dawn of American liberty will rise as American Patriots resolve to protect their Constitution and use all of its provisions to protect their liberties.

Yep.

Has the legislative branch ever so blatantly gone against the wishes of the American people with such landmark legislation that oh, by the way, increased their own power so exponentially?  I was already thinking what many pundits were saying, that this would prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the Democrats.

Like you I was really pissed off Sunday night after Stupak caved, and I am glad that being behind in my coding kept me from commenting on things before I had calmed down a little.  Don’t worry,  I am going to stay pissed off (I am southern), and I hope that all of you do as well.  But we need to redirect our justifiable anger and outrage.  Remember the old phrase: Don’t get angry, get even.  Freedom took one on the chin last night, but the people on our side are not the glass-jawed crowd, and we did not even merit the standing eight count.  It’s time to get the hell back up.  If it was just us guys, like the pro-gun movement in the early 90s, I would say that it is time to seriously man up, but this is bigger than that.  Every country has men, but only we have Americans.  It’s time to American Up.  I like the sound of that.

Last night when I was working and trying to avoid Twitter, which is hard to do in the best of circumstances, I saw one from a good guy by the name of @CalebHowe:

So it turned out to be Asculum rather than Waterloo.

I admit that even though I had been thinking that this was a pyrrhic victory for the Democrats, I could not place the battle to which he was referring.  It was of course the very battle won by Pyrrhus with such great cost, giving rise to the phrase so often uttered in the last few days.  Caleb’s point was that while this did not end up being Obama’s Waterloo – as was hoped by the excellent Sen. Jim DeMint – it will be his Asculum.  But I am absolutely certain that it will be up to us to make that a reality.

This challenge is about whether or not our children and grandchildren will enjoy a prosperity and freedom that was given to us by previous generations of Americans.

We need to stay focused and even more active.  I think that we all know that we are playing for keeps, and perhaps more importantly, we know the other side is.  This battle is not about some slight tax increase or a new regulation about how much water our toilets can hold.  This is about an attempt to redefine the historical American perspective on the appropriate relationship between the State and the Individual.  This is about a government that accepts absolutely no limit, constitutional or otherwise, on its spending or its acquisition of new powers over us.  This challenge is about whether or not our children and grandchildren will enjoy a prosperity and freedom that was given to us by previous generations of Americans.

There are always a few around who will talk about bailing and going to Costa Rica or New Zealand.  I invite them to go ahead now so that we do not foolishly count on them when things have gotten worse.   May posterity forget that you were our countrymen.  Many better men and women than me have sacrificed and died to hand me this America.  I’ll be damned if I am about to make it about me and walk away from the greatest country in the history of mankind.

The rest of you: enough said.  I know you’re with me.  I’ve got your back.  It is time for us to finally earn the label of American that we are lucky enough to share with people like Dr. Joseph Warren and Nathan Hale.  The actions and sacrifice of Americans like that are what gave the words patriot and American the very meaning for us that they possess.  Are we up to it now that our country needs us?

We can peacefully retake our country.  It’s finally time for us to reassert the United States Constitution.

It’s time to American Up!