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High Road to Hell
We frequently tell those who fail to recognize the importance of defending ourselves against radical Islam that “you may not be at war with radical Islam, but radical Islam is at war with you.” Yet many of us refuse to acknowledge a truth just as important but perhaps even more urgent: You may not be in a political war with the radical Left, but the radical Left is in a political war with you.
I openly concede that we have opponents who merely disagree with us on policy and fight us with ethical restraint, but almost none of them are in charge. Instead, the Democratic Party’s leadership and its supporting leftist organizations fall almost entirely under the direction of those who see us not as mere political opponents, but enemies. Whether or not you support gay marriage, if you pose any effective resistance to their overall agenda, you will be vilified. They care less about you being an actual racist than if you can be portrayed as one. It doesn’t matter if the GOP nominates Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, or drafts Jon Huntsman to run for president: the nominee will be torn apart and have his character assassinated with every underhanded tactic and rhetorical smear the media can possibly get away with. And yet, our response is much like the Left’s pathetic hopes to defeat Islamism by demonstrating how virtuous we are in comparison.
I understand the desire to not “go down to their level.” I also feel the pangs of conscience and dedication to truth and principle that constrain us. I’m aware of the danger of becoming too much like our enemies in our attempts to defeat them.
Nevertheless, among the truths and principles we should adhere to is the idea that no matter how “principled” you may be, your “principles” are rendered irrelevant if they stop you from effectively defending yourself, your loved ones, and ideals from those who reject the very notions of truth and principle. Moreover, if you refuse to acknowledge that you are at war with an enemy who has declared war on you, you will lose.
After Harry Reid lied on the Senate floor about Mitt Romney never having paid taxes, every GOP partisan should have should have dedicated themselves to destroying Reid, calling attention to his shady land deals and whatever else might have tarnished his reputation without being dishonest. That fact that only the most dedicated conservative newshounds know about his ethical violations proves that we failed.
When “Bush lied, people died” became a repeated mantra on the Left, the GOP released an excellent web ad pointing out how many Democrats had also believed Iraq had WMD’s. This ad should have been re-cut for television and aired repeatedly to ensure that millions of Americans actually saw it so often that Democrats were put on the defensive and forced to drop the accusation.
Instead, the accusation was countered only on talk radio and other forums for conservative audiences already inclined to support Bush. Whether Bush and Rove’s “strategy” stemmed from passive idiocy or some skewed nobility, the meme caught on, Iraq became political poison. My brothers in arms (I was in the Army at the time) were being killed by barbarians encouraged by a Senate Majority Leader who proclaimed that the war was already lost, and we elected a president who squandered their victory. The military gains and sacrifices abroad were rendered moot because we lost the public relations war here at home. The burgeoning democracy of Iraq is now home to the endless horrors of sex slavery and mass decapitations, but at least Bush “maintained the dignity of the office” and didn’t “get dragged down to the level” of his opponents.
While the Democrats’ court nominees routinely sail through confirmation, ours have been rejected or withdrawn multiple times. Republicans hope to sneak through conservatives, knowing full well that — if there’s too much indication that the nominee will rule the way we’d like — that Democrats will fight the nomination as hard as they can. Democrats nominate true progressives who consistently rule that way on the court because they know the GOP will cling to its high-minded ideals and confirm them regardless of their track record. Republicans therefore find themselves often nominating either unreliable squishes like O’Connor, Kennedy, and Roberts, or even leftists like Souter. Democrats harbor no such concerns about Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor, or any of their other nominees.
Those who run America’s worst neighborhoods as their private, one-party fiefdoms repeatedly accuse us of holding African Americans down. In response, we give every indication we’re more afraid of being called racist than attacking Democrats and calling them out for the terrible damage they do to urban America. They burden our children and grandchildren with unfathomable levels of debt; we respond with wonkish proposals to cut taxes. We fail to make the Planned Parent videos the subject of more than a few Congressional hearings and then pat ourselves on the back for not being so “irresponsible” as to risk a government shutdown like the utter “disaster” that cost us two House seats in 1996 (not to mention the massive electoral gains after the last shutdown).
When Candy Crowley violated the rules of the debate she moderated to make Romney look like a fool, the GOP failed to inflict any penalties of consequence on either CNN or Crowley herself. She quietly apologized and kept her job. The GOP didn’t insist on any firings or boycotts, instead collectively shrugging its shoulders with a collective “Hope it never happens again.”
But it will. It will because when the Left hits below the belt, however loudly the talk radio hosts may scream about it, the response of our political leaders will be measured and dignified. We’ll whine about them being divisive and poisoning the tone of debate, but we’ll never make it hurt in such a way that whoever hit us feels as much pressure reigning down on them as the baker who refuses to provide a gay wedding cake.
I recognize that some of you may disagree with the tactics I mention above, and I’ll concede that there’s no guarantee that any specific tactic will succeed. Furthermore, I’ll grant that there are innumerable obstacles standing in our way. When we attack, they’ll respond, and sometimes they’ll win.
Nevertheless, whatever the merits of any specific technique or tactic, what matters is that we lack a sufficiently aggressive mindset. With the exceptions of Newt Gingrich (for a short time), George W. Bush immediately after 9/11, and Sarah Palin, since Reagan we’ve not had a single national party chairman, president, vice president, nominee, speaker of the house, or senate leader candidate who has demonstrated to his followers that he is determined to win. Instead, we’re perpetually told to be patient as our national debt reaches $19 trillion, traditional values disintegrate, and our border remains unsecured. We take Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s college transcripts off the table before campaigns even begin while complaining about unfair attacks on our character instead of attacking their character more virulently in return.
In international conflicts, we recognize the value of deterrence and that it’s ludicrous to tell to the enemy what you won’t do. Domestically, however, we rush to the microphone to assure Speaker Pelosi that we won’t threaten a government shutdown no matter what, somehow reaching the absurd conclusion that if we’re reasonable with Democrats that they’ll be reasonable with us.
We’re correct when we criticize the divisiveness of Obama’s rhetoric. However, when we fail to acknowledge that it actually works we’re rendering ourselves impotent against it. Indeed, we should live in a world in which people patiently and soberly reflect on the views of various candidates as they rationally determine who to vote for. Unfortunately, we don’t. Instead, people fall for idiocies like the Life of Julia and believe Romney was a “vulture capitalist” because they heard a lot of people say he was. We run campaigns geared for the American people as they should be, they run campaigns aimed at how they are. Thus, it’s no surprise who runs the real Washington.
Not unlike the Leftist who thinks the Iranian mullahs will respond to reason because the leaders of Denmark and Spain all seem so reasonable, we find it difficult to believe that vast swaths of the country are actually swayed by “The eighties called: They want their foreign policy back” because we’re so reasonable ourselves. For the simple reason that we’re not as interested in power as Democrats, we fail to see both how power-hungry and ruthless they really are and how effective ruthlessness can actually be. We may be fine with boring, but the American public isn’t. Yes, our talk show hosts and some of the commentariat gets it. Does Paul Ryan?
Like most conservatives, I’d rather stick to the issues and not get personal. I’d prefer to reason with people to vote Republican because they understand why they should, instead of whether or not our guy wins the “beer test” or has better one-liners. I wish that people wrote off all those commercials about how heartlessly Mitt Romney treated his employees, that we could treat our opponents as nice-but-misguided and still consistently win, that they’d cringe like I do at the thought of a president violating the Constitution.
But they don’t. Not only is far too much of the American public ignorant of the beauty of our constitutional checks and balances or the importance of Western civilization and values, our opponents vigorously and effectively use such ignorance to their advantage. We’re fighting opponents who may presently fail to deprive us of our livelihoods, throw us in prison, and overturn every liberty protected by the Bill of Rights (including ban Ricochet), but they’ll do all of this and more without a moment’s hesitation the moment they can get away with it.
For the Left are the true warriors in this cultural Civil War, we’re George McClellan, always waiting for that perfect future day that never comes. They’re the guerillas, battling on every front, pressing every advantage in the media, schools and universities, pop culture, and Senate rules; we’re the redcoats marching in perfect formation, sneering at the barbarians who consistently violate the “rules of war” as they overrun our cities, take over our culture, and not only violate specific standards of decency, violate the very notion of decency itself.
We may think that allowing this to happen somehow preserves morality and justice, but it doesn’t. You can’t “poison political discourse” that’s already saturated with cyanide. Instead, you’ve got to make those who pour the poison drink from the wells they’ve polluted. Yes, we’re correct to dislike these techniques, but the best way to stop such tactics from becoming our predominant mode of political discourse is to use them with precision against those who use them indiscriminately. The very fact that we’re hesitant to use them proves we are in fact better than our opponents who use them with glee.
Because we have actual ethical standards that transcend political agendas, there are — and will be — ways in which we’re constrained that the Left is not. Nevertheless, there’s room for us to become more aggressive without surrendering all our values. Is it really immoral to assassinate the character of character assassins, to launch spurious John Doe investigations against people who launch them against us, or pressure a company to fire a leftist who pressured another company to fire a gay marriage opponent?
I recognize the importance of ideals, but to everything there is a season, and this season is getting desperate. Our national debt alone should be cause for alarm on the part of our political leaders, yet they seem as cautious, passive, and risk-averse as they were a decade ago. We understand the intransigence of our international enemies, yet assume we can reason away Black Lives Matter activists who shut down interstate highways. Instead, Black Lives Matter sees us as being every bit as unreasonable as Black Lives Matter actually is.
Enough with the high road. Enough with remaining reserved and reasonable like Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan. Enough with run good clean campaigns like Romney’s, McCain’s, and Dole’s. Enough with patting ourselves on the back for how honest and noble we are and not “lowering ourself to their level.”
Enough with ignoring our $19 trillion national debt and porous borders. Enough with paying for Planned Parenthood with our money. Enough with the rape and pillage sweeping across the Middle East. Enough with the IRS and other government agencies being used as weapons against ordinary Americans. Enough with the strangulation of small business, the American Dream, and the bakers and photographers having their livelihoods destroyed for not participating in ceremonies they oppose. Enough with being so scared of getting called on a foul that we never make a play.
Just like George McClellan only needed a little more time to defeat the South, we just need a few more Senate seats and then we’ll start changing things, right? On the other hand, McClellan ran for President on a platform of a “negotiated peace” with the South, indicating that perhaps he didn’t really want to win, either.
Published in Politics
Thanks for this and your other comments.
I honestly didn’t think it would make it up there, but I’m glad it did.
And after the shutdown, Gingrich lost his fire.
Palin wasn’t nearly as effective as she could have been during the campaign because she was kept under wraps by McCain’s handlers. If she had her way, many of the topics McCain declared off limits would have been front and center.
I agree that fire is by no means “sufficient,” but it is necessary. All the knowledge and understanding in the world will get you nowhere against somebody out to destroy you.
You also need to be smart about how you fight, but that’s for another post.
I can see how maintaining your “honor” might trump winning in an athletic contest of whatever sort.
But here there is so much more at stake: our very way of life is under direct assault, as is the very world our children will inherit.
To think your own sense of “honor” trumps your children’s well-being is the height of selfishness.
Good grief! Do this and we are acting, albeit in the short term less extreme, like radical Islamists doing ‘honor killings’.
I think you’re partly (or even mostly right).
But as for myself, I can say that I haven’t “stayed where [I am],” I’ve moved to the right, but I’ve done so largely because of left’s march forward.
For example, me as I used to be would have been fine with supporting some sort of civil unions for gays, but I now see that gay marriage is largely a front to overwhelm traditional Christianity. I’m more intransigent in my conservatism than I used to be because I know now that any sense of decency or reasonableness on my part will just be taken for weakness.
Thus, although some of us are exactly where we’ve always been, others in fact are more conservative as we’ve woken up to what’s really at stake.
Yes! again.
Great post. Two thoughts … one I used to believe it was the gentlemanly high ideals of the Republican party that kept them sitting down, I don’t think that way so much anymore. I think it’s because we have lost a good bit of the Republican party to the liberals within. To me it is very clear the liberals (who would probably insist on being called moderates) are now the ruling class of the Republican party and that is the only reason the Republican party does not fight back. They are not going to fight against themselves, so yes, I think we, the people, need to take the fight to our own circles of influence.
Two, it is a fallacy to think we are unable keep our ideals while we engage in the fight. The ad put out by Carly Fiorina after she was excluded from participating in the recent ABC debate is a great example of how to do it. (see dittoheadadt’s recent post for the link)
I sent the link to that ad via email to 5 very Blue friends, some of whom openly support HC — all of them responded favorably to the ad, even those who only grudgingly clicked the link to appease me. After watching, all agreed ABC was wrong and that Fiorina should have been in the debate. One even signed the petition.
We can make a connection at the personal level. The fight can be engaged with integrity. It’s UpToUs.
Yep, its a fists boots and all street fight.
Which is why it would be helpful if the bien pensants of the conservative commentariat would devote some of the energy they’re burning trashing the GOP candidates to going after the Democrats [I know, they’ll all say they’re already doing that. I’m saying do more of the latter and much less of the former ]
In theory, I don’t have a problem with Republicans really going after each other in a primary.
But in practice, I have a sneaky suspicion that if (for example) Christie gets the nomination, he’ll refrain from going after Hillary with the same force he used against Rubio.
Romney and McCain both played hardball during their respective primaries, but then put the gloves on against Obama. I see the latter as a much bigger problem than the former.
Emotionally I am tempted to agree 100%. I had quite a few friendships ending or almost ending over W and the war in Iraq and was quite disturbed by the weak response of the Bush administration to the vicious attacks from the Democratic party, the MSM and the Left. Enemies indeed.
Still I have two or three problems with the idea of fighting back with the same or similar methods:
To be conservative means to be grown-up and in the role of a grown-up towards ignorant adolescents. When I was in my twenties I was on the Left as well. Outside professional sports, the military, orthodox religion and a few other niches this is probably quite normal and to be expected. If you want to fight back against the Left for the sake of your children, you will find them more often than not standing against you and on the side of the Left.
One can (potentially) kill jihadists, and thanks to your service to the US and humanity you most likely had the opportunity to work in that direction, but we have to educate the young people on the Left. We must defend ourselves, the conservative ideas of liberty and industriousness that were developted over centuries as well as the future of the young Right and Left against career demagogues and slick opportunists. But we cannot start getting histerical and resort to bitching around, lying, manipulating and stealing (votes) like our political adversaries.
In the long run we can be very effective and successful by chosing the high road. At least I will fight to that end and I refuse to loose hope because I know that our ideological adversaries are maybe clever and cunning but at the same time mostly without dept, true conviction and inner strenght.
Part of being “grown-up towards ignorant adolescents” is putting such ignoramuses in their place when it’s required.
For example, if you’re at a fair with your son and some drunken idiot insults you, the “grown-up” thing to do may be to not retaliate if two conditions are met:
If the first condition isn’t met, we may consider ourselves “merciful” by not doing anything, but we’re actually just being wimpy. You can’t be merciful without power, and at present the Left has most of the power.
If the second condition isn’t met and you fail to do what’s required, you send the child the awful message that being “moral” is a great way to invite humiliation and harm upon yourself.
In a future post I’ll discuss how conservative wimpiness isn’t only costing us at the ballot box, it’s making our ideas themselves far more difficult to sell.
How are we possibly going to educate them when we’re being hounded out of academia and laughed out of every forum young people pay attention to? Nobody thinks they have anything to learn from a wimp.
Some tactics (lying, stealing votes, etc.) I also consider off limits. The problem is that we tend to jump to the conclusion that virtually every tactic employed by the left is ipso facto off limits for us.
SCOTUS nominees are a perfect example. “Advice and consent of the Senate” doesn’t explicitly prohibit Borking nominees, but very few nominees were Borked until Bork. The left pushed the limits of the previous “gentleman’s agreement,” and we’re hoping to restore that agreement by acting like it’s alive when it’s already quite dead.
Not if we’re crushed in the short run we can’t. We’re literally one Supreme Court Justice away from not being able to pass a single law or reform without substantial risk it will be overturned.
The high road won’t do us much good if blog posts are declared campaign contributions or some other such nonsense.
The Nazis, Hugo Chavez, and the Bolsheviks (as compared to the Mensheviks), all lacked “depth, true conviction, and inner strength,” too, but they managed to hijack democracies and run their respective societies to the ground anyway.
If you are not up to embracing the unhonorable deeds (lying, stealing votes) of our adversaries but only a solid response to their foolishness and wickedness, then I am all with you. I am not against righteous anger and resolve.
We will tell the truth and won’t let them get away with their lying and character assassinations? At the cost of some peace of mind. But we will never be like them?
Sounds good to me.
I am sorry, I am quite unimpressed by those 13 rules and even more so by Hillary Clintons political skills. If she would not have married Bill Clinton we would probably have never heard from her.
I prefer to spend my time reading Sowell, Hanson and other great minds, I have an aversion against low cunning. Good thing I am not a politician.
I remember being shocked when I first heard of Alinsky- thanks to Glen Beck, circa 2007- because it was blindingly obvious that Alinskyite tactics were being used against the GOP, and had been for a long time.
It says much about the Republican party that not only did this go on for many years without any sort of effective response- but the party still has no effective response.
It doesn’t matter if you like Alinsky or don’t or believe Alinskite tactics are unsporting.
Political parties- much like armies- exist for a reason. An army that fails to effectively respond to the development of machine guns or tanks will not win. Likewise, a political party that fails to respond effectively to the political tactics of its opponents will not win.
And the GOP hasn’t won. The long-suffering foot soldiers are deserting, leaving the hapless officer core to get run down by the well-oiled Alinskyite tanks of the enemy.
Great post Martel.
Just so. I would add that conservatives have the advantage of their criticisms of the Left being valid.
This is a splendid post, Martel, and I agree fully with all your replies, too.
The degree of willful self-delusion among Republicans is shocking. Far, far too many, from cowardice or apathy, seek an excuse not to act, or from fatigue or despair seek repose away from the battle. Worst are those who think there is no battle occurring!
There are some commenters on this thread who seem to think the choice is between angelic forbearance or devilish assaults. But the choice is between feeble compliance with falsehood and manly defense of truth.
Our complacence is a dagger we are sticking in our own hearts, and in the hearts of all those who would otherwise be helped by braver efforts.
Talib-Granny, I love reading your posts.
Xennady, I’m not sure I’ve even heard a prominant Republican acknowledge Alinsky’s playbook, let alone devise a strategy against it.
As an avid fan of Sowell, I understand where you’re coming from.
But in regards to Hillary, let it sink in how repulsive her personality is, and then realize that she has a legitimate chance to be the next President of the United States.
Somehow, despite her innumerable flaws and sheer unlikeability, she not only helped to orchestrate her husband’s rise, she’s risen on her own.
That “somehow” is Alinsky tactics.
They had two chances to defeat a demagogue presidential candidate since the Left’s tactics became widely known and utterly failed.
Trump may be a demagogue, but part of why they’re so hapless against him is that they refused to learn anything from their failures in the last two presidential election cycles.
Your “will not win” paragraph is spot on.
I recommend we ask ourselves the following questions when evaluating responses to Leftist attacks:
Truth is an incredibly powerful weapon when you have the courage to actually use it.
Great ideas for follow-up questions, Martel.
I do believe I’ll be copying and pasting them into some emails, and quoting them in conversations.
The only problem I have with this is it’s too close to buying the premise that this:
is immoral or unjust when applied to someone like Felony Clinton.
The woman is wicked and unrepentant. Before I tell the truth about her, do I really need to take inventory of my motives and tactics? She and her rapist husband should be isolated alright. They should both be in jail! If justice is giving someone his due, should we have qualms about going Alinsky all over the Clintons?
I see no moral reason whatsoever to not go after Hillary in such a way. I encourage others Republicans to agree with me. There’s no good reason not to tell the truth about an evil woman who may well run the most powerful government in the world, nor is there any reason to refrain from obliterating the character of a woman who routinely does the same to others.
However, if somebody just can’t for whatever reason (probably fear or some other type of squeamishness), then that person had damn well better come up with something else that will actually work.
Outstanding! Perfectly put! Keep the danged context in mind.