by Rick David
Clash Daily Guest Columnist
Abraham Lincoln was correct in quoting the wisdom of Jesus, that a “house divided cannot stand.” In 1860, our nation was so fundamentally divided over the issue of slavery that it led to the bloodiest war in our history. I would posit that we are more divided today than we were then. Our nation is split relatively in half over a number of fundamental issues.
The most basic issue is the role of government and individual liberty. We are divided between those who seek to transform our nation into a European style socialist democracy which provides all things to all people and those who wish to retain the original limited government structured around individual liberties and free enterprise. The differences between these two philosophies of government are thoroughly explored in the book Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin. He argues that the socialist state eventually devolves into tyranny.
There exists a cultural divide as well. Do we have Christmas trees, mangers and menorahs or only holiday trees and Halloween? Is there freedom to express religious faith in all aspects of life or is faith restricted to inside the religious building? Is marriage more than a state sanctioned tax status? Do we honor traditional heterosexual marriage or sanction the destruction of the natural family structure? (The fact that homosexual couples cannot produce children makes it impossible for them to create more families; if it was natural, the human race would become extinct) Do we continue to sanction the wholesale murder of the infants and elderly simply because they are inconvenient or should the government provide free birth control and abortions? (In order to understand the consequences of such social choices, I suggest the reader study America Alone by Mark Steyn).
Do we continue to protect second amendment rights or should we disarm the populace so that only police and criminals have guns? (We can count on the government to sell the guns to the criminals simply to prove how dangerous guns are).
Do we have free speech or speech codes and a government run press? Do we have “free” government health care where bureaucrats decide when and what type of care we get or do we allow private insurance and family doctors? Should there be public education run by a central government bureaucracy and a union or will parents decide what their children should learn?
Will we have abundant, inexpensive energy by drilling for oil and gas or should government environmental police pick winners and losers on the basis of campaign contributions rather than science? Will government employee unions control the government or will voters?
Our country has been on the path to socialism for more than a century now and the complete “fundamental transformation” advocated by Barrack Obama is almost complete. His academic supporters now bravely claim that we should abandon the constitution altogether.The two philosophies are as incompatible as slavery and freedom; they cannot long coexist in the same nation. Soon, we will have one or the other. Right now, it appears that the socialists are winning. As a result we are witnessing growing demands for secession from some quarters. This is a dangerous situation. Open rebellion is not as feasible as it was in 1860 because our government is more centralized and we have become more of a police state.
Secessionists would most likely suffer the same fate as Gordon Kahl. Heavily populated states like California, New York and Illinois are bankrupt and cannot permit wealth producing states like Texas and North Dakota to secede and drain the federal revenue that they need to mollify their large dependent populations. Soon we may experience massive inflation resulting from printing money to finance the debt and or we will be forced into “austerity measures” like Greece with the attendant violence. The mobs are not going to stand still for cuts in benefits. The Wisconsin and Occupy demonstrations are only a harbinger of things to come.
Prosperity, and the belief that individual effort will produce reward, is the only way out of this jam. This will not happen through government stimulus packages. The population will need to embrace the concepts of free enterprise and abandon the offer of government hand outs. This will only happen through a change of heart and attitude. We need to neutralize the indoctrination occurring in our public schools and universities. This can best be accomplished at the state and local level and by raising a generation of free enterprise educators.
It is a mistake to think that we can accomplish reform by electing the right people to Congress or President. It is futile to hope that the Republican Party can bring about reform. I think the last election has proved that we have reached the tipping point in terms of national elections. The takers outnumber the workers, or as Rush Limbaugh says, ”you can’t beat Santa Claus in a nation of children.” We are saddled with a generation of low information voters who have no clue about the issues facing our nation. Our national elections have become an American Idol contest.
I credit Jim DeMint for recognizing that the solution to our problems cannot be found in Congress, but rather through education. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation will accomplish more through education than the Republicans ever will in Congress. We need to overcome the bias of the traditional media by building alternative media like Clash Daily and the Blaze.
Conservative donors like the Koch brothers are wasting their money on the Romney RINOs. They’ll get more bang for the buck investing in the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, Liberty University and conservative alternative media. Unless hearts and minds change, they’ll be forced to emigrate (Reagan said America was the last place to go) or they’ll be dragged into the streets and beaten by the mobs.
Image: Courtesy of:Itzuvit; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
