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If They Try Harder, Do We Roll Over?
There are many of us who encourage people to keep fighting those on the Left with all our might. And there are those who simply are living their lives quietly and not paying a whole lot of attention to current events. And finally, there are those who say fighting back, at this point, is a hopeless effort. So here’s the elephant in the room:
Should we just give up?
I have no problem with people who think fighting back is going to be extremely difficult and it could literally take years to take our country back. And there’s not much I can do with those people who make-believe that everything is fine and refuse to engage because it’s just so hard. But I ask those of you who write as if there is no chance of our defeating the Left eventually—what are we supposed to do?
I guess I just refuse to resign myself to a gloomy and tyrannical future. Maybe I am Sisyphus, pushing the rock every day, chained to a dismal struggle.
But I am asking a most sincere question of those of you who think it’s too late or impossible to take our country back.
Are you literally giving up? Do you think everyone should stop trying to restore our democratic republic?
Published in Culture
That’s amazing, David. Your broad and deep understanding of history is inspiring.
Did it survive, though? Britain is our family’s favorite overseas travel destination. But, it has a museum quality to it. Very pleasant to visit, lots of interesting history, charming villages and pastoral scenes. But, the people are not what they were, I’m fairly certain. And I think the same can be said about Americans. We’re an exhausted civilization. Prosperity, acedia, and godlessness have altered the American character.
I don’t think I’ve “given up.” I prefer to call it acceptance — or even surrender to the will of God. I will continue to tell the truth about the life issues, about the impossibility of same-sex marriage, about the psychosis of gender and race ideology, about the beneficence of the American founding based very much on Judeo-Christian principles and the necessity of a religious people to uphold them. And I expect someday I may end up in the gulag for speaking the truth, but I won’t stop. I can’t. That would be giving up. But, I also think I’m pretty powerless to have much of an effect on the national trajectory. I certainly don’t see same-sex “marriage” being undone even though it is immensely destructive to the family and feeds the gender insanity.
I also can’t waste my life worrying about tomorrow. We’ve learned that through intense trials — take it a little bit at a time. And as Prager says in one of his jingles, if nothing’s horrific, life is terrific. We have it so good. We should appreciate it while it lasts.
I will never never give up. Never
Cogent, thought-provoking post and comments. I am not optimistic regarding institutional change–if we live as though our freedoms are dependent on institutional change I do not think many of us on Ricochet will live long enough to see it. I am optimistic regarding the courage and ingenuity of Americans; we’ll figure out ways to live with liberty in spite of our institutions rather than because of them. Therein lies my hope.
This! This is my hope, too, Jake.
Will our institutions allow us to live? .
These kinds of evil actions make my blood boil!
The key is to not be silent. It is only when we are silent that we acquiesce. Active resistance is the job of the young(er), but you have a voice at any age; you can help the young(er) maintain their hope and resolve.
Dennis Prager wrote a very good article about truth-telling and its costs a few months ago. He said you’ll lose friends and maybe even your job, but you’ll find others who are also truthtellers. And, really, aren’t those the people you want in your life anyway?
I won’t acknowledge the lesbian doctor’s partner as her “wife.” I will not sacrifice to the god of sexual libertinism. I will not profane the sacrament of marriage in this way. I will try to tell the truth with kindness, but I will not be bullied.
WC, I’ve been mulling over your statement and I realized I don’t know what it means. Seriously, I don’t disagree with it, but wonder what it means to surrender to the will of G-d. How do we tell the difference between the will of G-d that we should accept, and bad outcomes that we shouldn’t surrender to, but fight? If this requires too long an answer, I understand. But at some point it would at least make a great post for us beginners!
I think this is a valid piece of the puzzle. There’s a bit of my thinking that believes even though we are in charge of our own destinies, I don’t think we are in charge of anyone else’s. Maybe we call this the collective destiny. Or is it a higher-order set in play that we have choices about how we get there, whether we do right or wrong, but we don’t necessarily have a big choice that affects everyone else. The big choice we have is to trust or not trust. I think part of the trust is trust in G-d and part of it is trusting we do the right thing ourselves. This then makes me think the trust comes from the preparation to trust.
So perhaps it doesn’t matter what I do when it comes to other people but it does matter what I do when it comes to me. I can’t change the world, but I can change me.
That has traditionally been true, but I’m not sure it’s true today….younger people, at least from my observations, seem *more* afraid to speak out. Many of them have already been beaten down in college or even in K-12, many see their career, social, and dating/marriage horizons as being greatly circumscribed by the ‘wrong’ kind of nonconformity.
All the more reason to speak where they can hear you. Yes, you’ll initially be written off as a fossil, but if they hear it from enough people and consistently it will plant the seed of rebellion against thoughtcrime and rightspeech.
I haven’t been around long enough, haven’t read enough of your writing, I don’t think to fully understand what you mean by “restore our democratic republic.” Is it missing or just needs some structural and/or cosmetic work?
I think the republic is still intact. Democracy still seems to be working. Just because decisions are not to our liking does not mean we had no voice in them. I do think there are some parts that are out of balance. For instance, nothing that resembles a new law should originate in the executive or judicial branches. I think we as a nation of people are in need of massive amounts of education and it’s not just the left. Not just schooling but also on-the-job training along the lines of what it means to be a citizen of a country with our peculiar form of government.
I think we could liken it to a really large ocean-going vessel and maybe it’s listing a bit too far because the thoughts are too heavy in one direction. The design is for balance and maybe it is just the balance that needs to be restored. It would be really really scary if everyone agreed which makes disagreements a symptom of a healthy nation.
This is one reason why what the Founders created was so amazing, and how it lead to the world adopting Liberal Democracies that have fundamentally altered how we view freedom and gov’t around the world.
The fall of Britain and, at some point, the US shows that when the nations turns its attention to internal comforts as opposed to growth and expansion outside of the nation the decline is inevitable. Look, the UK may not be the world power they were through the middle of the 20th Century, but I’d still rather live there than Russia or China. Decline of Empires is a slow process that takes centuries usually. The US will still be a world power into the 22nd century, but will we be dominant or like the UK in the 21st Century?
Fair points, Lawst, and worthy of a response. First, I think the republic still exists, but it has many forces than ever before that are trying to disrupt or destroy it. Maybe my comment would have been more accurate if I’d said, “…stop trying to retain our democratic republic.” I would also say that we are seeing laws “enacted” in our judiciary (as in judicial activism) or executive orders. There are so many areas where we see authoritarian activity, or long-standing rules being violated, that as you say, the balance is way out of whack. But the violations have been going on so long without our realizing they’re happening that they are deeply entrenched. It causes me great concern.
We have more people concerned with “me” than with “us”. I’m guessing most people are okay with the executive and the judicial writing of law when it matches their ideas, but they fail to see the detrimental effect on the balance of power and it muddies up how the whole thing is supposed to work. I think though the bigger republic killer is the legislature enacting laws that appear helpful to many and yet in the long run do much damage. And the biggest republic killer is the people that do not understand what they have. And this last is not a right and left issue though there may be more on the right that have a clue.
I think a narcissistic streak runs through a lot of our concerns. And I think people accept when branches act out of their lanes when it does suit their cause. Frankly, I was often uncomfortable with Trump’s Executive orders; no one has been able to explain to me when they’re appropriate and when they’re not. SCOTUS has already “spoken” when it comes to severak of Biden’s orders; even he has stated when he expects an order will be bounced out. Almost all of the legislation that increases entitlements (and therefore lots more money) causes huge damage; once those laws are enacted, they are never repealed. And you’re right–the right may not propose those kinds of laws, but they sure have voted for them. I have deep concerns that the Republicans are not going to be proactive in helping to balance the ship of they get into office; it will take more than just rejecting what Biden and his people have done.
I have to truncate our previous due to the infringement Ricochet places on my writes. lol
An executive order is in order when it is within the existing law. I think declaring a disaster area for instance is an executive order that is prescribed by law. Someone made a comment one day on each branch pushing the envelope and more or less doing all they could to do what they thought was right and then being clipped by SCOTUS and when this happens, it is the balance of power in action. In a way an overstep and check is a good thing. It shows it’s working.
It does. On the other hand, those actions put a lot of pressure on SCOTUS, and I don’t always trust they will stay within the law. Especially when they think 100,000 kids are dying in hospitals of COVID. (Sorry–I couldn’t resist.)
That’s usually the first step to fixing the world anyway.
I beg to differ. The biggest republic killer is the secularization of society — one person at a time. If we don’t understand each other’s moral system of thought, which used to be biblical/Judeo-Christian, it’s no wonder the laws come out ad hoc and serving particular interests (same-sex marriage) rather than the common good. We can’t even agree on what “good” is!
John Adams had it right.
I respectfully disagree with the differing you have begged. The mindblowing wonder of the republic with its constitution is it doesn’t need people to believe in any particular line of thinking. I can see how you may think this is a bad thing, but it is a great thing. It is the thing that allows peaceful change of power and it is the thing that allows the republic to be driven by the silent majority, even though they may not all drink at the same well. Except the silent majority don’t have a clue that they could be in charge if they wanted to be which is my point. Granted, we may both be wrong and there is a good chance we are.
Too much rolling over out there. SAT and colleges rolling over.
People are too dumb to realize they are settling for mediocre.
Race hustlers are the real racists. How do you say black people aren’t smart enough to compete without actually saying it? This is, to use a Michael Walsh word, codswallop.
So colleges chase the inclusivity preening points while the SAT accommodates them to preserve their own profits. Meanwhile, the answer is always to call for more funding for education. Evidently dumbed down is more costly than rigorous education.
I might be white, but I energetically resent this classifying of a whole group of Americans as incapable of learning what I learned. Learning isn’t a white thing. Asian students outperform whites on average. It is a culture thing and it is rotten to the core.
There are two approaches, one is to warn against one ideology and promote another. That is failing, has been for a long time. The left has erected a “pleasure palace” of socialism, promising much but delivering little. Michael Walsh’s approach is to reclaim the culture (arts, music, literature) and all that it teaches us. There is a reason the left attacks it so vigorously, the lessons passed down through it. Separating people from their culture is how you weaken and destroy them.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/sat-fully-digital-stay-relevant-less-stressful?utm_source=theblaze-7DayTrendingTest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Blaze%20PM%20Trending%202022-01-25&utm_term=ACTIVE%20LIST%20-%207%20Day%20Engagement
I respectfully disagree with your disagreement with my disagreement. It’s not that there was some imposition of groupthink at the founding that made the republic work. It was built-in. Mankind has a god-shaped hole born into its nature. How a society of men functions depends on how the people fill it. In colonial America (and for some length of time after) there was widespread filling of the hole with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In more rugged times such as then, people recognize their dependency on their Creator, but once they become fat, stupid, and lazy, their god can be anything, including gender- or race-identity, abortion “rights,” environmentalism, and politics, to name a sampling. People are self-deceived into believing in their self-sufficiency and self-justification. Such an atomization of individual moral thought cannot cohere under the rule of law, for example. Everything is coming apart, as nature dictates under such conditions.
I’m not ignoring your question, Susan. I’m formulating a response. Stay tuned.
Especially this. I continue to be baffled that blacks don’t see the condescension.
Re executive orders. Do they enact rules in something the legislative branch lawfully charged the executive branch to do (and please excuse lack of capitalization – Apple scribble is fighting my cursive and I am tired of fighting it)? Does the executive order repeal a previous executive order? Or is the president issuing the order because the Congress won’t create a law he wants.
Re pendulum and balance. The problem is the left pendulum never swings all the way back but creates a new center point more to the left than the last center point. Soon, the scales will tip over.
re religious vs secular. Our unique and exceptional constitution and its rights have the lessons and values of Christianity as the foundation. Strip that out and you neuter the constitution and individual rights. There is a reason totalitarian impulses come from the secular party..
I pointed that out on either Facebook or Twitter and was warned if it happened again, I would be permanently banned.
This would seem to fit here: