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Hey, Conservatives: Take the Long View for Winning Hearts and Minds

This week I decided to plant a raised bed garden. I built an above ground box and filled it with what I thought was good top soil obtained from a local bulk materials company. It turned out that my soil was mostly river bottom clay. It was full of huge clods that needed to be broken up, entailing twice the labor that I had anticipated. My toils reminded me of Jesus’ parable of the sower who went out to plant seed and along the way seed fell on various types of soil and, as expected, yielded various results.

His point was that the message of the gospel can only be received by a willing heart. There is a universal principle at work here. Surprisingly, when it comes to our public policy debates, liberals and progressives have shown more understanding of this principle than conservatives.

The 60’s radicals that filled the ranks of the Weather Underground were smart enough to infiltrate the educational establishment, the entertainment industry, the media and the government. So, today we are burdened with people like Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn having considerable influence in all of these institutions. The election of Barrack Obama to the highest office in the land is the culmination of decades of ground work. These people have an agenda to “fundamentally transform” this nation into something completely foreign to what it was founded as.

These radical progressives have been empowered and are well on their way to accomplishing their goals by successfully indoctrinating a majority of our population. They have used the educational establishment and popular culture to convince a generation that free markets are unfair, big business is evil, and that “white privilege” is responsible for success. They have successfully convinced a majority that government is the only solution to societal problems. They have convinced them that hard work, accountability and responsibility don’t work.

These values have been replaced with a victim entitlement mentality. They have manufactured non-existent crises to justify an all empowered government that is stripping Americans of their God-given freedom. Our health care system may not have been perfect, but it was the best in the world and there was no “crisis” that justified a government take-over. “Climate change” has been present as long as the earth has existed, but man-made climate change is a hoax that does not justify massive government regulation and the decimation of fossil fuel industries.

It is a daunting task to convince people that the constitutional republic that built this nation offers the best opportunity for prosperity, justice and freedom. The soil of their minds is often not prepared to hear the message. It is a long row to hoe, but it must be done. Some “Republicans” consider the task too laborious and think it easier to compromise conservative principles. They prefer power to principle. In the long run, they will have neither if they refuse to labor in order to win the debate.

To win this war, conservatives must take back the culture and the information establishment. We need believers to offer their lives in sacrifice to the cause of freedom. We need conservative teachers. Some of the best and brightest might need to forego higher paying positions in industry or public education for more rewarding careers in private education where they can be free to teach the truth. We’re never going to be able to recapture public education as it is hopelessly under the thumb of big government and big labor, which are anathema to our freedom. I’m afraid that battle is lost.

We need the brightest stars to dedicate themselves to winning back the culture by being involved in every aspect of the information and entertainment industries. The world is changing and so is technology which offers opportunities to expand our influence with new methods without compromising the message. We are beginning to see this with the alternative media. Thank God for ClashDaily.com and other new conservative media like it. The brightest among us need to dedicate ourselves to these endeavors. We need to explore new avenues of social media to get the message out. I’m attempting to master being a Face Book evangelist for conservative principles, but I know that there are already new social media venues that need to be tapped into.

I had a conversation this week with an enterprising young conservative salesman. He happens to have a family with three young children who also happen to be my grand children. He works hard to support his family and takes as many opportunities as he can to share the truth with people, but like many of us, he is very discouraged and frustrated. He is concerned about the future for his children. He isn’t very optimistic that they will grow up to enjoy the same free country that we used to have. Like many, he fears a violent reaction from some who see no alternative to a tyrannical government. He is probably correct in assessing that it would be a losing, bloody proposition. If we want to save our country, we must win the debate. We need to prepare the soil.

Image: Courtesy of: http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2012/11/program-offers-chance-for-refugees-to-farm-on-vacant-phoenix-lot/

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Rick David

Rick David retired from a career in business in 2011. His experience includes service in the USAF, in medical sales and in operations for an educational testing company. He has a passion for and has been actively engaged in conservative issue advocacy and campaigning for over 30 years. He currently resides in North Liberty, Iowa where he also served as a church pastor with his wife of 43 years and travels extensively volunteering in lay ministry.

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