On my recent flight to California to visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, I read Why We Whisper by Senator Jim DeMint and Clemson Political Science Professor Dr. David Woodard. This excellent book correctly diagnoses the problems, both economic and social, facing our country as the symptoms of secular progressivism. As Americans have been force-fed a diet of platitudes and political correctness, we’ve lost our sense of who we are as a nation. America has never been a nation defined by blood or birth or territorial boundaries. Instead, America has always been a nation of ideals and ideas, which define our very existence. The sweeping tide of secularism threatens to undermine the foundations of America freedom and the strength of our free market system. If bad ideas are introduced into a nation built on ideas, then the nation itself will be corrupted.
Those who wish for America to remain free and prosperous, while accepting moral relativism and economic collectivism, want what has never been and never can be. That’s because the progressive left in this nation is, knowingly or unknowingly, basing its beliefs on Marxist philosophies that are antithetical to the essence of America. Most Americans believe that Marxism fell with the Soviets in the late 1980s and early 1990s. What we’ve not been told, however, is that the same Marxist – Socialist philosophies that drove the Soviet Union have long been regular fare for course curriculum at colleges and universities across this country. Marxism is rooted in the erroneous belief that man is inherently good, and that any belief in a higher power, namely God, is corrupting and the root of all evil. Thus, under the guise of unrestrained freedom, the Marxist – Socialist subverts the sanctity of every human life, and reduces men to mere cattle in the corral of the state. Under the auspices of creating a utopian society, heaven on Earth, the Marxist unleashes hell on Earth for all who live under his ideas.
America is faced with a very clear choice at this moment in history: continue to adhere to the ideals and values on which this nation was founded, namely the Judeo-Christian concepts of human dignity, emphasis on the individual and economic freedom, or adopt secular socialism that will, invariably, collapse into tyranny. I don’t know that the choice could be any clearer or the consequences more consequential for future generations. I believe that Jim DeMint and Dave Woodard aptly identified the essence of American self-government in asserting that people have governed themselves by absolute standards defined by the Judeo-Christian Ethic. If this ethic is purged from public life, then the only thing left to restrain an unrestrained people are more laws and regulations. Attempts at Earthly utopia will inherently lead to unspeakable acts of evil, as they are advanced by angry and embittered leaders. That’s because the leaders of secular socialist movements are trying to go against the grain of history and the human experience; man is not perfectible, and is not inherently good. The only way to have a society of justice and opportunity is to have a society based on values that transcend the laws of men.
I know that my assertion that attempts to create a valueless society will descend into tyranny sound alarming, but you don’t have to take my word for it. This weekend, on the wall of the Reagan Center, there was a quote by Vladimir Lenin that said it all: “It does not matter if three-fourths of the human race perished; the important thing is that the remaining one-quarter be Communist.” I don’t know of any sentences that spell out the results of a valueless society any more than these by one of its greatest champions. That’s why, in the great debate over America’s foundation, we cannot afford the middle ground.
There is no middle ground between secular socialism, the essence of Communism, and the belief that man ought to be valued and free. There is no compromise between a worldview that would enslave the human race, and the worldview that leads to liberty. That’s the essence of another great book I’ve recently been reading: The Tyranny of Clichés by Jonah Goldberg. He argues, very effectively, that there is no mixing statism and liberty. My friends, we stand at the crossroads of our country’s future. If we make the right choice in this moment, and elect to return to the enduring and eternal values of our founders, primarily the belief that the rights of man come from God, not government, then we’ll have secured freedom for our children and our grandchildren. If, however, we take the road of tyrants and despots before us, we’ll relegate the next generation to decades of darkness that we wouldn’t want for ourselves.
So, no, we all can’t just “get along” when some want to enslave and others want to liberate. Respect others, absolutely, but respect and accept their ideology of hate and oppression? Not in my lifetime
good stuff