Rethinking "Left" and "Right"

It is vital that we repudiate the false paradigm of left wing egalitarianism vs. right wing patriarchy. This vesitge of the French Revolution is a grand equivocation that is deceptive when applied to American politics. It supports the clever deception that liberals are about freedom and fairness and conservatives long to oppress people, when in fact the reverse is true. The real dichotomy is actually with regard to the fundamental role of government.
 
In a classical sense, "liberal" meant support for the proposition of the State being less controlling, offering the people more liberty; "conservative" meant preserving the prerogatives of the State to invade, control  tax and regulate the people's lives, holding the reins of power ever tightly. But America, with the help of ideas borrowed from elsewhere, was founded on the principle of limited government: the state inherently has no powers but those explicitly granted by the people. Liberal has come to mean loose with regard to the amount and scope of power the people allow the state to exercise: the government now spends quite liberally, for example, and elected officials and unelected bureaucrats tend to see few, if any restraints on their ability to regulate. By contrast, conservative now means giving the state less power and maintaining strict limits on its scope.

Even the terms "left" and "right" come from the seating arrangements in the french National Assembly. As in the French Revolution, leftist revolutions merely transfer the power of the State from one group of people to another, without substantially changing the fundamental presupposition that the State was to centrally control everything.
 
Because Leftism repudiates limited government, even leftist "revolution" merely devolves to functional feudalism, albeit by a different ruling class. Class warfare is the Marxist revolutionary's stock-in-trade. Leftists pit disparate interest groups against one another while dangling in front of both sides the carrot of special treatment by the state. Leftist egalitarianism is merely pandering to the envy of the masses in order to acquire the critical mass of power to control everyone, resulting in a least common denominator situation with everyone having the same amount of nothing, except for the ruling class. Economically, Leftism basically amounts to capitalism for a much smaller amount of people. Politically, it amounts to a neo-feudalism, with alliances forged not by marriages among ruling families but by the greed and hatred commonly shared among interest groups that function as tribal identities. Seeing the State as the savior who will give them what they see as equality, they readily relinquish their liberty and give the State more power.

Populism, the central rhetorical strategy of the left, is merely a means to an end: inciting the masses with a sense of cheatedness born of envy to leverage their collective will in a democratic majority that votes to transfer wealth from the minority into the hands of en even smaller ruling class, on the promise that they will in turn get a bigger slice of the pie. If not for the realities of human nature, this might conceivably work. But as conservatives acknowledge and liberals deny, consolidation of power in the hands of the State is a petri dish for corruption, abuse and tyranny. Thus, invariably, leftist leaders distribute confiscated wealth to their favorites, as they deem politically expedient.  

Those who long for the old way see the limited government as a regrettable development because it is an obstacle to them seizing that power to do all sorts of things they think are wonderful and noble. They need this power, they say, so they can impose their idea of righteousness on the world with scientific precision by means of new technology, toward a new destiny. Therefore, they call themselves "progressive." So, despite the Left's forward-looking aspirations of an evolutionary leap for humankind wrought by advancements of "new" organizational structures, progressivism is a significant regression to central control by an elite ruling class who thinks they can run your life better than you. 

What other terms ought instead to be used is fodder for another conversation. Suffice to say that in the very sense leftists use the term as a pejorative to disparage the authority of their parents or the wisdom of prior generations, you can't be more "patriarchal" than the progressive Left.

Thoughts on Paul Revere and the Shot Heard Round the World.

On this day in 1775, the first shots of the War of Independence were fired, but the war was won years before then, in the hearts and minds of American colonists. Paul Revere's Ride is not the story of one man on horseback shouting "the Redcoats are coming." It is rather the story of a whole community of proud and loyal citizens that was prepared to pull together in the face of crisis and rise in mutual defense of their God-given liberty. 
 

By midnight, Paul Revere had alerted the village of Lexington and the message went on from there: the anticipated mission by the king's troops to deprive them of their guns and natural rights was afoot. Not long after, the militiamen were gathered at the tavern, ready for a fight. 

There had been many false alarms in the prior weeks, many times the people had mustered and then dispersed. But they remained vigilant, ready and eager to respond to the call because they knew the cost of complacency.
 

The legacy of the colonial militias lives on in America's citizen solders, who take seriously our oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and will not trample, but defend the people's rights. It also lives on in the social networks of watchdogs who, like the Committees of Observation, organized to keep a close watch on the government and pass the word.

Boston Bombing was NOT the Work of Patriots

by Joel Barret

 

A tragedy has occurred on Patriots Day today in Boston, with two bombs exploding at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and another at the JFK Library. The terrible carnage at the scene is not unlike what the colonists experienced as they picked up the dead and wounded along the Battle Road in the hours after the opening shots of the Revolutionary War when British forces fired on the colonial militia at Lexington, Mass before proceeding to Concord on a mission to confiscate the people's guns.

 

It is unknown who the perpetrators were, but you can be sure the NRA and Tea Party will be blamed, just as they were in the hours following the Sandy Hook, Colorado Theater, Fort Hood and Phoenix massacres. Progressives in the media, government and academia, and garden variety group-thinkers love to parrot the inane arguments that private firearms ownership is the source of violence in America and gun bans will prevent criminals from acquiring and using guns to commit crimes. They are also itching to grab hold of any evidence, however thin or specious, to generalize a perception of the typical gun owner as both a moron and part of a sleeper cell.

 

The great irony in these accusations is that the Boston Bombing is another example of how the insurgent’s weapon of choice is not a gun, but a bomb, as all modern insurgencies have shown. Despite all the chest-thumping by gun advocates about the Second Amendment’s purpose in empowering the people to revolution if necessary, civilian gun ownership, training, and actual use are uniformly defensive, and patriotic respect for police and military is a distinguishing factor among conservatives. In any case, a fundamental principle of the firearms community is that guns are not to be used for intimidating people into compliance with any particular political view. The Second Amendment exists to protect the First. Any fear that gun ownership will actually foment a rebellion is really a straw argument designed to garner support for policies that have less to do with guns, than control.

 

But if it can actually be shown that someone even remotely associated with the NRA, Republican Party, Tea Party, or the neighbor of a distant relative of Ron Paul, this would be a liberal's wet dream.

 

This time, it's perhaps understandable why associations to the gun rights or limited government community would be drawn: this year April 15th is also the third Monday in April, which means that Tax Day coincides with Patriots Day. In view of the current discontent over federal tax policy and the progressive efforts to trade in the values of the American Revolution for those of the French Revolution, the timing couldn’t be more obvious.

 

In fact, President Obama’s wholesale rejection of both the proper duties and proper limits of office is not altogether different from the complaints the Founders lodged at King George III in the Declaration of Independence. Obama's administration is overreaching with limitless expansion of an omnivorous government bureaucracy, draconian regulations, confiscatory taxation and flagrant disregard for the natural rights of the people and longstanding traditions of limited government. He is appointing judges who do not respect the Constitution, ambassadors who do not place American interests first, and hordes of unaccountable “czars” to regulate everything under the sun. His administration refused to take proper measures to protect our embassies and consulates abroad, then said “who cares.” He has undermined military morale and readiness, and is permitting invasion across open borders by criminals and migrants who seek the benefits of American society without its responsibilities or loyalties. Obama may play fast and loose with language and the truth, but he is keeping his promise to "fundamentally transform this country."

 

In fact, the timing of the Boston Bombing may be a little too obvious… I seriously doubt any patriotic, limited government advocate would be so stupid as to sully this day by perpetrating this evil, terrorist act, although every movement has its nutcases. But unlike the progressive movement, which curiously has strong sympathy for Islamic Fundamentalists and Occupy Wall Street rioters, conservatives consistently repudiate any violent extremists. It's as likely, or more so, that the perpetrators were Fascist Islamists, anarchists, or that this is a false flag event to cast blame on all gun owners and advocates of limited government. Remember, the Tea Party Rallies were all peaceful events with zero incidence of criminal activity, while the Occupy Wall Street protests were rife with violent crime, including robbery, rape and murder.

 

To caricature the other side with hasty generalizations and irresponsible exaggerations is something we have come to expect as a cornerstone of progressive rhetoric. How else could they label the Tea Party and other advocates of limited government as anarchists who want no government at all? What’s even more revealing is how the militant Occupy Wall Street movement has morphed from a populist phenomenon, demanding more socialist goodies from the state and greater regulatory control over business, into an anarchist underground brooding for a revolution that would topple the government entirely. It’s rather reminiscent of the work of admitted domestic terrorist, America-hating socialist reformer and longtime Obama friend and fundraiser, Bill Ayers. Saul Alinsky would be proud.

 

But don’t underestimate the conservative movement’s ability to self-destruct. It wasn't so long ago when millions of "staunch conservatives" did their level best to re-elect Obama by refusing any support for Romney. Warnings abounded that gun control would be a major priority for Obama's second term, and whaddya know, it is -- along with a litany of odious encroachments by the fascists who run the Nanny State. 

 

Conservatives, you missed your chance at the ballot box in November, 2012. Don't let foolish antics destroy our chances of winning back the Senate in 2014. We need that to prevent approval of international treaties that restrict our rights at home.

 

In reflecting on the events of April 19^th, 1775, John Adams recalled the carnage he beheld walking the length of the Battle Road the following day, saying, “O Posterity! You will never know what it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it.”

 

The Founding Generation fought the War of Independence so that subsequent generations of Americans wouldn’t have to. They gave us a republic, if we can keep it. When asked when the Revolutionary War began, Adams said that although the first shots were fired April 19^th, 1775 at Lexington and Concord, it was won years before then in the hearts and minds of the American Colonists, in their resolve to live free.

 

The battle to rebuild our nation’s foundations in liberty and limited government is an urgent one, but it will not be won in a day. And yet, it can be lost in a day if we allow the values of the founding to be sullied in popular perception by false association with domestic terrorists who do not represent us. It took a century to lose this country, and it will take time to win back. We must do the hard work of bringing clear arguments for liberty and limited government to the American people. Change must occur through the electoral process, or we’ll have no hope of rescuing our nation. If it comes down to a violent revolution, we’ve already lost.

 

Let us honor those who fought so long ago to secure for us the blessings of liberty, as well as those who were hurt by the Boston Bombing, by recognizing that the road ahead will not be a sprint, but a marathon.