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It’s Not About You, but the Survival of the Republic
We are at a critical juncture in the history of this country: survival of the Republic is at stake. We can’t afford to try to be comfortable with politics; all the evidence points to more disruption, anger, and chaos, as the Progressives realize they are, for one of the first times in their movement, in serious trouble. Now is not the time for conservatives and Republicans to quibble about differences. The moral high ground is not what you’ve always thought it was. And we need to deal with the shift through the power of our own unity.
Donald Trump has been the scapegoat of our rebellion against social and political change. But instead of throwing up our hands in resignation, or blaming everyone but ourselves for the mire we find ourselves in, we have to face the truth: the Constitution itself is at risk. We have violated it by allowing our children to be taught to disrespect it; we continually see the misuse of the court system; we’ve allowed politicians to distort the Constitution and the rule of law for their own purposes. It’s time to act.
We must unify for the sake of the Republic, to honor our founders and to preserve the Constitution.
What does unifying “look like?” We watched an excellent example through the entire impeachment process: Congressmen decried the abuse of due process regularly, Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows in the lead. They spoke out repeatedly without personal attacks unless, as in the case of Adam Schiff, blatant lies were spoken. Senators came together, too, voicing their concerns but making a wise decision to acquit the President. We must learn to express outrage with dignity. We have to do it every chance we get, regardless of what the Democrats say and the MSM ignores. We must unify in making our message clear: the public is being betrayed and lied to, and we are losing our country in the process.
We must do even more:
- We must transcend to a higher level of values to preserve the Republic. Our personal values (which are usually only personal beliefs and preferences) must be studied carefully, to make sure we are not just making excuses about protecting them because we are afraid of change. We must identify the larger issues, such as freedom and the Constitution, and not demand that our personal agendas are met. We must unify to save the country.
- We must weigh the importance of the character of the President against the continuance of liberty. Is it more important to have a President that doesn’t tweet hyperbole, or to have a country that teaches our children about the Constitution, about our American history and heroes, about the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights? We must unify around priorities.
- We must constantly hold the bigger picture in mind, whether we think the President does or not. “Keeping America Great” also extends to maintaining the greatness of the most successful Democratic Republic on earth. We must unify whenever we possibly can about the policies he supports, not whether we like the manner in which he presents them.
We need to recognize and accept that the near future will be ugly. We can contribute to the chaos or we can align ourselves around its survival. We can have a knee-jerk reaction to the President’s actions, or we can weigh them against the consequences of their potential failure.
Please know, however, that I am acutely aware of how difficult this sacrifice will be. We will need to sacrifice trying to always realize our personal beliefs around character and decorum. We may need to let go of our strong commitment to seeing the country operate as we wish it would; we have already lost the high ground in many areas to the Progressives. Continuing to lament those losses without unifying around a greater cause will further damage the country.
Also, I want to emphasize that I am not asking people to walk in lock-step. We can disagree with the President without attacking him. We can point out better alternatives; we’ve seen him change his mind. But we can no longer afford to fight interminably among ourselves. We may win a battle or two, but we will lose the war.
We are fighting for the future of our Republic.
Published in Politics
If you’re deep in blue territory, get out and establish yourself somewhere else.
Keep a low profile; you don’t want your neighbors to know you have food unless you trust them implicitly. If you can’t find neighbor you can trust, and work with that’s probably enough reason to move to somewhere where you can.
This is actually probably impossible if things get bad enough. If you used a credit card to buy any items in the following categories —”Bullets, beans, and bandaids”— it is discoverable.
The totalitarian regimes of the 20th century all rested on massive surveillance and repression of their populations. The surveillance was largely done through low tech means: informers. In the US, while there were abuses, domestic spying by the Federal government in the US was under some degree of institutional and legal restraint, albeit often after the fact. This is eroding. Technology based surveillance capabilities only dreamed of by the KGB are now in corporate hands, and the corporations in question are Leftist and are eager to overthrow Trump and return to totalitarian transformation.
Then there is the looming and growing debt crisis. Economic growth is the only way to cushion that fall. It will end if another Leftist occupies the White House.
In this as in other ways, Trump is buying us time. His policies may be able to buy enough time and grow the economy enough to buy time to deal with the deficits. Don’t bet your life or your family’s life on it.
If there is a way out, it depends on so many things going right that it will be miraculous if it happens.
When you attack someone’s view so openly, you should be ready and willing to provide something beyond generalities. Give us the specifics where Trump is doing what you say. @valiuth
That is literally not what Dershowitz said.
And yes they will. It is called progressivism for a reason.
Bottom line is this: all republics, and democracies in general, fail. Just a matter of when and how.
France is on their 4th republic (maybe 5th?). Even de Tocqueville was jailed for some time in the 1830s.
In the last 100 years, the closest we came was during the House Unamerican Affairs committee time, and then McCarthyism, when speech and though were almost crimes. But we survived it. For those of us who came of age during the 60s and 70s, this is minor.
If Sen. Sanders is elected, how much of his agenda will be implemented? None.
I think the chance of his being elected is small, but if it were to happen he might carry both Houses as well.
Then you said earlier:
Disagree. Our political institutions are simply not that fragile. This is the argument that the House democrats used.
So your point? All fail? Or all generally fail? So are you assuming we might fail, or that we will certainly fail but you’re not sure when?
History and Heinlein’s “bad luck” formulation says we are doomed, but not when. John Adams said our nation could only thrive under our Constitution so long as we are a moral people. We are sadly not that, today, but revivals have happened. The effect of revivals are not permanent but can defer doom.
There’s a good many saying we have to be polite and nice. Let’s be clear who we’re dealing with. These folks foster hate, centralization, concentration of power, and uniformity of beliefs, but unlike the rise of Nazism, which they often look and sound like, the economy and its citizens are doing well, we weren’t defeated in a war, they aren’t fostering a new war or militarization and there is no reason for it other than the desire for power. Nazism was the product of defeat and chaos, this new totalitarian thrust is the product of systematic effort over many years. Folks in Washington are educated, non radical, polite there’s nothing that smells like totalitarianism, but we just saw the whole system turn against a man who they thought would challenged them. The apparatus is scary and has to be dismembered as rapidly as possible. If we can do that while being nice and polite great, but what we must do should be clear.
There are two unknowns in the middle of everything. What role is China playing and what is the probability of honest elections in two and three years. If China’s role is insignificant, there’s another unknown, whose running the show?