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Saturday, September 12, 2009

The New American Reality

This essay from Eowyn at Giovanni's World succintly sums up the new American reality


No Longer One Nation, Under God

During the ‘08 campaign, an essay written by Dennis Prager made a deep impression on me because it said out loud what increasingly was in my mind and heart: The Left and Right in America have become irreconcilable.

As Prager wrote then:

It is time to confront the unhappy fact about our country: There are now two Americas….

For most of my life I have believed, in what I now regard as wishful thinking, that the right and left wings have essentially the same vision for America, that it’s only about ways to get there in which the two sides differ. Right and left share the same ends, I thought.

That is not the case. For the most part, right and left differ in their visions of America and that is why they differ on policies.

Right and the left do not want the same America.


The latest pundit to say the same thing is Patrick Buchanan:

We seem not only to disagree with each other more than ever, but to have come almost to detest one another. Politically, culturally, racially, we seem ever ready to go for each others’ throats….

The question invites itself. In what sense are we one nation and one people anymore? For what is a nation if not a people of a common ancestry, faith, culture and language, who worship the same God, revere the same heroes, cherish the same history, celebrate the same holidays and share the same music, poetry, art and literature?

…Christmas and Easter, the great holidays of Christendom, once united Americans in joy. Now we fight over whether they should even be mentioned, let alone celebrated, in our public schools.

…One part of America loves her history, another reviles it as racist, imperialist and genocidal…. But the old holidays, heroes and icons endure, as the new have yet to put down roots in a recalcitrant Middle America.

We are not only more divided than ever on politics, faith and morality, but along the lines of class and ethnicity. Those who opposed Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court and stood by Sgt. Crowley in the face-off with Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates were called racists. But this time they did not back down. They threw the same vile word right back in the face of their accusers, and Barack Obama.

Consider but a few issues on which Americans have lately been bitterly divided: school prayer, the Ten Commandments, evolution, the death penalty, abortion, homosexuality, assisted suicide, affirmative action, busing, the Confederate battle flag, the Duke rape case, Terri Schiavo, Iraq, amnesty, torture.

Now it is death panels, global warming, “birthers” and socialism. If a married couple disagreed as broadly and deeply as Americans do on such basic issues, they would have divorced and gone their separate ways long ago. What is it that still holds us together?


I believe that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable difference between conservatives and liberals.

Conservatives truly believe that in 1776 something remarkable happened — the founding of the United States of America. The American republic, though far from perfect — given the shameful treatment of the indigenous “Indians” and black slaves — nevertheless was something special in human history. Conservatives therefore revere the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. We also believe that it is only because of American ideals as embodied in the Constitution that later reforms — emancipation of slaves and women, the civil rights movement — were even possible.

But conservatives are like the Ents in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Revering what the Founding Fathers instituted, conservatives are by our nature not revolutionaries. And so, we became complacent -- while the Left infiltrated and took over every institution in American society.

Liberals, however, especially the far Left, fixate on America’s imperfections, past and present, and in so doing create and embrace Identity Politics with its narcissistic permanent sense of aggrieved victimhood.

More importantly, instead of faulting flawed men who did not live up to the Declaration of Independence’s promise that all human beings “are created equal,” the Left blame “The System” — the very essence and institutions of the American republic for our problems and imperfections. They do not think something very special happened in 1776. They do not revere the Constitution or the Founding Fathers and, worshiping at the altar of radical feminism, insist that the latter be referred to as gender-neutral emasculated “Founders.”

The Left mean to destroy and transform America.

What to do then?

I don’t believe it is productive to lament this reality. Better that we be clear-eyed, for we can’t fix something if we can’t even name what’s wrong.

And the last thing conservatives should do is play nice because the Left don’t. Being the revolutionaries they are, they actually had known our differences are irreconcilable long before we did.

What we must do is:

Stand firm on our beliefs, ideals, and principles.
Inform and educate the American people.
Take back our schools, colleges, universities, and pop culture.
And fight, fight, fight to win elections at the national, state, and local levels, so that the Left, who are a numerical minority in the population, never again seize political power.

The Ents were slow to anger and to action. But when they finally realized that the very continuation of Middle-Earth was in peril, led by the great Treebeard, the Ents went to war.

We have numbers on our side because recent survey data say conservatives are an ideological majority, at 40%. We simply need to be energized and mobilized to action — which we are.

Our labor will be hard and unrelenting and unending. To do otherwise is to consign the American Republic to the trash-heap of history.

15 Comments:

Blogger OMMAG said...

This is the long game of the left.

The next steps are consolidation of power to the socialist element.
The next step .... the elimination of constitutional rights for the individual.

The end game ... Government dictates what is allowed for everyone.

These protagonists ... Obama and such ... and their enablers ... need to be put in their place RFN!

10:41 AM  
Blogger Danielle Nelson said...

I hope the reality is not so bleak, but sometimes it feels that way...

9:42 AM  
Blogger Cobra said...

The situation is very bad.
I have buddies of mine, very educated folks, who are going crazy only when I try to open their eyes by explaining what I see and think.
They are worshiping this guy. It's like I live in my old communist country once again.
This country is broken by philosophical, religious, ethnic and class faults.
It reminds of Yugoslavia pre-1990.

12:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In my opinion we are flooded with assimilated citizens that benefit the socialists at the polls. This prosperous society has also bred an entitlement mentality that started with the New Deal and SSI.

Can't have a real socialist takeover until traditional American values are destroyed. Our values are in tune with our Constitution. Our values have protected the Constitution from any real alteration so far. So the left is very busy redefining our history, and the Constitution for the immigrants and the dead beats of our society in order to attack our values.

But I suspect Trevor has a better handle on this than I do.
dw

8:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

flyover says:
It is indeed grim, but given that we have the truth now, we are in the game. My next read with regard to what has happened to education is "the new tolerance" by Josh McDowell. Talks I think about values, not history revision etc. We are up against it, but God was the foundation of our nation, he still lives, and if his people call on him, he will answer. This is spiritual warfare people, put your armor on.

9:54 AM  
Blogger g.a.b. said...

The founders gave us the rights they gave us for a reason:

If it ain't enough fun, with Amendment One,
then follow through with Amendment Two.

;-)

2:39 PM  
Blogger Darayvus said...

I think you have it reversed. You need to spend more time at liberal blogs like balloonjuice and conservative blogs like rsmccain.

The Liberals are those who believe that being "American" is a contract between the citizen and the state. They are the ones who will insist that a Marxist academic is just as American as a fourth-generation farm boy in Mississippi - because they were both born in America. They claim to resent insinuations that they are less American, in public; in private of course they are given to revulsion against pledges of allegiance. The Declaration of Independence, and Thomas Paine, and Emancipation Proclamation are considered the moral basis of "Americanism" to the Liberal.

The Conservative might be able to cite the Federalist Papers but probably not. He couldn't tell you which founding father believed what in religion or in politics. He's more likely a Josh MacDowell-citing fundamentalist than is the Liberal, and that alone would mark him as not given to serious thought. His "Americanism" is tied to the local community, public ritual, and military service or at least being in a family with active duty members. The Constitution is entirely secondary if it conflicts with what he is used to (c.f., "In God We Trust", technically an illegal slogan).

The Liberal therefore sees himself not as transforming America but as *perfecting* America, through transforming her *people*. Josh MacDowell fans may actually deserve it.

5:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zimri said, in addition to alot of untrue statements, this gem... "In God We Trust", technically an illegal slogan"

Please prove that. The socalled "wall" of seperation does not exist in the Constitution but in a letter. Now, who doesn't know the Constitution again?

4:03 AM  
Blogger Danielle Nelson said...

"In God We Trust", technically an illegal slogan... Zimri- you might want to read the first amendment again. Congress has made no law respecting an establishment of religion. This is the true meaning and origination behind 'separation of church and state'.

4:08 AM  
Blogger Darayvus said...

My point was not so much to prove the ignorance of (most) conservatives, as it was to troll those conservatives into proving their ignorance for me. I succeeded, apparently.

Pretty Peapod 4:08 AM - In 1954 the Congress did define a monotheism with a personal god, and it did impose this as a national slogan for instance on coinage. The slogan isn't "in the gods we trust" or even "in the impersonal Deistic Demiurge we believe".

If you do not believe and TRUST in the One God, then you cannot pledge allegiance to the flag "under" this deity. Atheists, Pagans, Buddhists, a good deal of other Asians and maybe even Deists cannot be American. I think most conservatives if you pushed them on this point would agree; they would never, for instance, vote for an atheist or Wiccan who claimed to be a citizen.

Most conservatives don't admit that "In God We Trust" and the 1954 Pledge are illegal, because most conservatives have a blind spot on the issue and haven't come to terms with its full meaning. That to be charitable; Josh MacDowell is simply a poltroon who profits from ignorance. I have more respect for those conservatives who just admit they are "blood and soil" reactionaries who don't care much about the Constitution; that would at least be honest and smart.

p.s. I got a laugh out of 4:03 AM. Of course I didn't mention the word "wall" in my original post. So, we'll have to add "illiteracy" to that one's ledger of shortcomings.

8:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's too bad you got banned from lgf zimri/zimriel. especially since you embrace the lunacy.

it's nice to know what you really think of all the conservatives in our chat room too. i've made them all aware of your ridiculous comments.

3:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zimri is not conservative and yet thinks he knows what we think. typical leftist arrogance.

3:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Right and the left do not want the same America."

Am traditional conservative and I admit I do feel a little guily trying to usurp this unbelievably great, good and prosperous nation that the socialists built.

I need to be taken out back and shot just on principle.

dw

4:08 AM  
Blogger MissAmericaPie said...

The reason that the 'left' and the 'right' are irreconcileable is that this is SPIRITUAL WARFARE..
When you read the extremely liberal bloggers, the language and thought process is so foul that you want to run take a shower. They infect sites where people seeking Spiritual guidance go to find comfort.
I spend a lot of time rebuking them in the Holy name of Jesus--because I believe some of them are actually demons.
CHRISTIANS will need to really get their Hearts right with God and go to their knees begging Him to come to our aid.
Our adversary is the second most powerful force in the world!
XenaWarrior

3:57 PM  
Blogger Darayvus said...

Since this thread has become the clearing-house for a one-woman "Kill Zimri!" movement on other blogs, I'll just post some further thoughts here:

I'll provisionally take back my comment about "under God" / "In God We Trust" ceremonial deism amounting to a Congressional establishment of religion at the Federal level. I personally think it is, but only if taken to a logical conclusion which the Founders never intended. It's an interesting duel between strict constructionism (a strict secular reading) and original intent (ceremonial Deism). Anyway serious thinkers can agree to disagree on that.

I shouldn't have had to add the following, but some of my detractors are being dishonest and stupid, so here goes: I never meant that being conservative means you HAVE to be dishonest and/or stupid. Conservatives are like liberals in this respect: they focus on the positive and glide over the negative. We are all human and that means we're all primates- tribal beings. Some conservatives do attempt sociological defences of their position; Edmund Burke comes readiest to mind (although I prefer Swift and Hobbes personally). But ultimately conservatism doesn't care about sociological thought; conservatives just live their lives, because it worked for their fathers and fathers' fathers.

9:23 AM  

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