Amused Cynic

Just a random wrap-up of the bad news. Is it too late for us? I don’t know. The remarkable thing about this disaster is how few people are really seeing it yet, but I guess that’s why Titanic disasters always fascinate us. How could this possibly have happened to the unsinkable country? The orchestra is still playing, and nobody sees the iceburg. Hindsight will turn out to be 20/20, as always.

My pals at the WSJ editorial board call the Dems’ attempt to ram through an un-read “health care reform” bill “one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history.” True, as far as it goes, but it’s even worse than that. It’s a total scam, and an obvious one. But not enough serious people are paying attention. Its sheer magnitude, like Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, allows it to hide in plain sight. Dr. Betsy McCaughey continues fighting the good fight. Pat Buchannan sounds a somber tone, and tells us that the die may be cast….the jig is up.

After half a century of fighting encroachments upon freedom in America, journalist Garet Garrett published “The People’s Pottage.” A year later, in 1954, he died. “The People’s Pottage” opens thus: “There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.” Garrett wrote of a revolution within the form. While outwardly America appeared the same, a revolution within had taken place that was now irreversible. One need only glance at where we were before the New Deal, where we are and where we are headed to see how far we are off the course the Founding Fathers set for our republic.

Looking at us from across the backyard fence, Canadian writer David Warren offers a more palatable perspective….”a war between two world views,” perhaps intentionally reminding us of who won at the end of the H.G. Welles classic.

Perhaps better terms for the two sides, to replace left and right, might be “martians” and “earthlings.”

It is to the earthlings in this scenario that Ms. Palin is speaking. And when she writes lines like this intentional jaw-dropper in the Washington Post — “We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil” — she is quite intentionally signalling that she is ready for war.

That only implies an immediate run for the presidency to people who cannot understand her. Instead, she intends to use her celebrity to champion the views of the many earth-based Americans who have been overlooked — and whom the Republican establishment will continue to patronize, and overlook, at the cost of their own annihilation.

We are going to have a war, next door in the U.S.A. — a war between two world views that have become very nearly mutually incomprehensible. One might almost say that it was quietly declared on the op-ed of the Washington Post Tuesday.

I am a relentless optimist in life….there has got to be a pony in here somewhere, with all this manure all around, so I prefer Warren’s take. This isn’t over yet, and the role of rallying the troops in our defense isn’t going to fall to our Lilliputian Republican office-holders. If we defeat Leviathan, it will be because of those who are operating outside of the Matrix, those who, like Palin, took the Red Pill, disconnected, and now will be able to fly around and do all that cool Kung Fu stuff. That’s why the agents are so keen on destroying her, talk radio, the blogosphere, etc. Warren also had an interesting take on the demise of afternoon papers….I do remember the days when we had The Evening Bulletin in Philly (it is trying to make a comeback) and the Evening Star in D.C. And yes, we well-informed folks read them both.

You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Don’t forget to donate to DbD….Think of it as your contribution to fighting “The War on Error.”

UPDATE: Another relentless optimist weighs in. Why, oh why, did I not go to Hillsdale College?

We are now, in effect, without the shield that we protected us from fully falling prey to inquiétude in Tocqueville’s day, and, as Rahm Emanuel has openly acknowledged, the Obama administration is now intent on exploiting our present difficulties for the purpose of radically extending the scope of the administrative state. “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste,” he candidly remarked. “it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

At no time have we faced up to the soft despotic consequences of democracy’s drift, and no President, apart from Ronald Reagan, has in any serious way drawn our attention to the problem. There are, nonetheless, I believe, genuine grounds for hope. Outlining these will require, however, another post.

Paul A. Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. Some of the material in this post is adapted from his book, Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect.

UPDATE II: More relentless optimism! This time from Victoria Jackson at Big Hollywood. A trend!

At least I got to live at the tail end of a magical place called America. I’m an eyewitness who can tell my grandchildren about a faraway land of freedom where the people who worked the hardest were rewarded. And everyone tried to out perform each other and so, everything was top quality. Houses and cars and pools and food. They were all the biggest and best in the world. And people respected God and humbly thanked Him for their blessings. But gradually, the people started taking their blessings for granted. They started to expect rewards without working for them. They felt entitled. Even the strangers who moved into the land felt entitled. No one thanked God. They even started to mock Him. Bible studies started to be referred to as “Hate Speech” gatherings…Leviticus 26 was a crumpled, yellowed page blowing in the wind…

I put my dog-eared Bible in the back seat of my car and stared at it. Someday soon we both might be “underground.”

My friend Liz called me today, “I think there needs to be a call-to-action rather than just resolving that this is our fate. Obama, who shouldn’t be President in the first place, is systematically destroying this country. It used to be called TREASON. He’s NOT upholding the constitution — that’s treasonous! And we’re just watching as though it’s all right!”

“Okay,” I sighed, ”I’ll stay in the fight.”