You have a talent to make difficult subject matter very clear. I hope you have ambitions of publishing beyond the blogosphere!

“Anything and everything we don’t like about what is happening to our country and culture, and in our churches and synagogues, is a direct result not of unforeseen occurrences or unpredictable challenges but unpreparedness and a pervasive inability to reinforce those same weak links in our spiritual, intellectual and moral armor that consistently allow us to be struck where the most damage can be inflicted.”

This might be the quote of my week.

Elaine:… I don’t even know where I’m going.
Peterman: That’s the best way to get someplace you’ve never been.

Unfortunately, we all know where the Left is going. And it rhymes with failure.

-Adam

Appreciate you taking the time to read and comment.

I think the coming “war” is already here and it is ideological in this country, not violent (thank God). Americans in significant numbers are wising up to the ever-increasing control of a federal government and congress that spends and spends recklessly as their popularity declines precipitously. What needs to happen is that the passion and momentum that began in August must carry over to the primaries in 2010. Fiscally responsible conservatives and libertarians need to be nominated and elected to supplant the RINO and the liberal Democrats. We still have power.

Politics, I firmly believe, is downstream of culture and right now the culture has for too long been either apathetic or misinformed. But things are changing. It HAS to start in the home, among families, friends, and neighbors. Every person you know under the age of 30 should be in your cross-hairs in terms of speaking to them about these issues, sharing pertinent articles, and buying them books instead of Wii games. If public schools (and sadly, many private religious schools) will not teach ALL of our History and refuse to even acknowledge the legitimacy (and I believe supremacy) of our conservative-libertarian values, then we have to do it. There’s no way around it: self-governance is not easy. But its worth the effort and worth the fight.

-R.J. Moeller

Thank you for the rare treat of reading a well thought out essay to start my day. You have hit the nail on the head and being a huge Lewis and Chesterton fan, I throughly enjoyed your approach. As a student of history, I am afraid that we are headed for another Great War in this century. I think it will be again a war for freedom, a war to throw off the chains of despotism forged by those who impose change for the sack of their own power cravings.

My question for you is do you believe this fight can be postponed or avoided altogether, or is it inevitable? It does not seem like the Left is willing to listen to reason and the only way to assure the success of unreasonable positions is through despotic coercion. Free men will suffer some things but not everything. How long do you think it will be before Free men rise up and say enough of this!
Or has the dumbing down of America been successful and the land of the free and home of the brave now just another myth of history?

Thank you again for your efforts and thoughts.

Thanks for commenting. I COMPLETELY agree that a massive difference between Right and Left in this nation is their respective views on issues regarding economics. You couldnt be more right. In fact, if you stick around for next week’s installment of Mere Conservatism I’ll be devoting an entire column on that difference. It is the third pillar of the Theology-History-Economics triumvirate that describes MC. For the purposes of this essay, I was focusing on History. The difference between liberals and conservatives is authority when it comes to History. That is my hypothesis.

The larger point of what I’m attempting to do here is fleshing out a conservative worldview as I see it. Conservative is a big word that encompasses a lot of different ideas to a lot of different people, but I believe that are some basic, mere things that define a conservative view of the world.

Free market economics and economic liberty is KEY to this. While you wait for my next piece on that very topic, PLEASE check out this essay that helps further describe my views on the matter: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G701

Thanks and God bless.

Classical liberals–some Democrats, most Republicans and almost all Independents–believe in the free market, or ‘capitalism’ as Marx has named it. (There really is no such thing as ‘capitalism’. A free market is what people do when they have freedom of choice, or left to their own devices.) Those who are now calling themselves ‘liberals’ and vote Democrat are, at the very least, economic populists. Mr Obama and his buds are actually Marxists who believe in economic “equality”, regardless of the logic or cost.

So-called “Conservatives” are now primarily social conservatives who subsume economic and personal freedom in the interest of their morality.

Excellent essay, RJM.