Choices

"Anonymous" comments on other comments in "The Grand Inquisitor." We answer, yes, of course times change. But progress means changing for the better, and the on-going loss of fundamental American values we are witnessing today is quite the opposite. The collectivist assault on liberty and justice affects the quality of our lives and the character of our civilization. To minimize these foul usurpations by calling them "my" narrow-minded prejudices enables Anonymous to pretend that they aren't all that important. If "liberty and justice" are just words, then they are abstractions not worth defending. Big mistake.

George Washington warned, "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Why is Mao's "barrel of a gun" so difficult to understand?

It is indeed a sad and bitter day when the inestimable gifts purchased with the blood and sacrifice of generations of patriots - our forefathers - are not valued, but foolishly neglected and thrown away. We are betraying our heritage, and the consequences will be dire. Like the German people on Kristalnacht, when you hear the stamp of jackboots at your door it is too late.

We can debate when the assault on America's founding principles began. The process is always gradual: Hitler laughingly referred to it as "salami tactics." We propose the direct election of senators certified by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan when the states had not, in fact, approved this Constitutional amendment. Carpetbaggers like Hillary Clinton can now pretend to represent New York while having no connection with it. Populist Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who followed Taft, not Teddy Roosevelt, instituted the per capita income tax, opening the door to the tyranny of the majority and the destructive welfare state. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society accelerated the process, and Republican George W. Bush added prescription drug entitlements. The pitch is always "something for nothing," but it's the current voters who get the benefit and their children and grandchildren who get the bill.

Anonymous offers the typical ad hominem by saying that your writer's "tone echoes the liberal eugenicism [he] supposedly denounce[s]." Really? My critic should look up the definition of words he doesn't understand, but he is right about "liberal eugenics." Ethnic cleansing appeals to people who don't value others' lives. As a matter of fact your writer actually does oppose mass murder, which leftists are prone to think of as "social engineering." Stalin's slaughter of the Kulaks, Mao's Great Leap Forward, and Pol Pot's "killing fields" come to mind, all ideologically motivated atrocities without parallel in sane society. We find this kind of moral relativism abhorrent, but recognize Anonymous' need to posture in the absence of disciplined thought.

What solutions do we propose? The enemies of freedom are too delusional, or worse, selfish and ignorant, to recognize their own best interest, so reasoned argument is wasted. They can only be defeated politically. Numerous structural fixes come to mind, which we'll discuss at leisure. The 20th Century's encroachments on freedom can be reversed, but the longer we wait the more difficult and dangerous the task becomes. Thomas Jefferson declares that "when government becomes destructive of [man's natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." That day will come.

In the meantime, we note that Communist China has aroused a worldwide storm of protest over its outrageous tyranny in Tibet. It may also be true that the stark incompetence, disloyalty and arrogance of this year's Presidential candidates may finally get enough people's attention to prompt the necessary debate on where the nation has gone wrong. Could the scales be falling? Anonymous sighs, "we can't go back to the 1950s." Who said we wanted to? Just another Straw Man. As Prythroes writes in his "Inquisitor" comment, better to ask where we'll be in 2018. Time is getting short.