Western civilization is in the midst of a crisis that threatens its very existence. It is a crisis born of success in which the boundary between optimism and hubris has been erased. The spirit of renewal to preserve and improve our small corner of the world lost to the passions of the present. This small space will seek to defend "the little platoon we belong to in society."
Douglas Murray is a best-selling author, an award-winning political commentator, and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. He has written books on neoconservatism, terrorism and national security, freedom of speech, and the rise of woke culture and identity politics.
His upcoming book, The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason, explores why in recent history it has become acceptable to discuss the flaws and crimes of Western culture, but celebrating the West’s contributions is condemned as hate speech.
Recorded on November 10, 2021, in St. Louis, Missouri
Still a teenager, had the opportunity to listen and meet Ronald Reagan
when he visited Miami, Florida on June 29, 1988 and spoke at the Omni International Hotel to support the Senate candidacy of Connie Mack. He actually came across better in
person than he did on camera. A treasured memory shared here on the 110th anniversary of his birth in Tampico, Illinois.
Sadly,
since Ronald Reagan left the presidency the quality of political
leadership in the White House has been in decline, but now is a time to
celebrate the life of a great American and be grateful that the United
States had such a Chief Executive for eight years.
Americans need
to be grateful because prior to 1980 Ronald Reagan was viewed by many
as too extreme to ever be President of the United States because he
refused to embrace "constructive engagement" and "detente" with a system
that he viewed as fundamentally evil. A large part of this nervousness
by the Left came from Ronald Reagan's first national political speech
that introduced him to the country in 1964.
Those
who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state
have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They
call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any
direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and
learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They
say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a
simple answer -- not an easy answer -- but simple: If you and I have
the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national
policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We
cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by
committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings
now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom
because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your
slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer
disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now
let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice
between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have
peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender.
Admittedly,
there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every
lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement,
and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face
-- that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no
choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender.
1981 Inaugural Address
On January 20, 1981 Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States and what follows is an excerpt from the Inaugural Address:
To
those neighbors and allies who share our freedom, we will strengthen
our historic ties and assure them of our support and firm commitment. We
will match loyalty with loyalty. We will strive for mutually beneficial
relations. We will not use our friendship to impose on their
sovereignty, for or own sovereignty is not for sale.
As for the
enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be
reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We
will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for
it--now or ever.
Our forbearance should
never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be
misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our
national security, we will act. We will maintain sufficient strength to
prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of
never having to use that strength.
Above all, we must realize
that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so
formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a
weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that
we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice
terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.
I am told that tens of
thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day, and for that I
am deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God
intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on
each Inauguration Day in future years it should be declared a day of
prayer.
During
my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question,
I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have
openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is
that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I
should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who
said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from
supernatural ideas -- that's their name for religion -- or ideas that
are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the
interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for
the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the
proletariat.
Well, I think the refusal of many influential
people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an
historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We
saw this phenomenon in the 1930's. We see it too often today.This
doesn't mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an
understanding with them. I intend to do everything I can to persuade
them of our peaceful intent, to remind them that it was the West that
refused to use its nuclear monopoly in the forties and fifties for
territorial gain and which now proposes 50-percent cut in strategic
ballistic missiles and the elimination of an entire class of land-based,
intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
At the same time, however,
they must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles
and standards. We will never give away our freedom. We will never
abandon our belief in God. And we will never stop searching for a
genuine peace. But we can assure none of these things America stands for
through the so-called nuclear freeze solutions proposed by some.
The
truth is that a freeze now would be a very dangerous fraud, for that is
merely the illusion of peace. The reality is that we must find peace
through strength.
I would agree to a freeze if only we could
freeze the Soviets' global desires. A freeze at current levels of
weapons would remove any incentive for the Soviets to negotiate
seriously in Geneva and virtually end our chances to achieve the major
arms reductions which we have proposed. Instead, they would achieve
their objectives through the freeze.
A freeze would reward the
Soviet Union for its enormous and unparalleled military buildup. It
would prevent the essential and long overdue modernization of United
States and allied defenses and would leave our aging forces increasingly
vulnerable. And an honest freeze would require extensive prior
negotiations on the systems and numbers to be limited and on the
measures to ensure effective verification and compliance. And the kind
of a freeze that has been suggested would be virtually impossible to
verify. Such a major effort would divert us completely from our current
negotiations on achieving substantial reductions.
A number of
years ago, I heard a young father, a very prominent young man in the
entertainment world, addressing a tremendous gathering in California. It
was during the time of the Cold War, and communism and our own way of
life were very much on people's minds. And he was speaking to that
subject. And suddenly, though, I heard him saying, "I love my little
girls more than anything -- -- "And I said to myself, "Oh, no, don't.
You can't -- don't say that."
But I had underestimated him. He
went on: "I would rather see my little girls die now, still believing in
God, than have them grow up under communism and one day die no longer
believing in God."
There were thousands of young people in that
audience. They came to their feet with shouts of joy. They had instantly
recognized the profound truth in what he had said, with regard to the
physical and the soul and what was truly important.
Yes, let us
pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian
darkness -- pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until
they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the
state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its
eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of
evil in the modern world.
It was C.S. Lewis who, in his
unforgettable "Screwtape Letters," wrote: "The greatest evil is not done
now in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is
not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see
its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded,
carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted
offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and
smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."
Well,
because these "quiet men" do not "raise their voices"; because they
sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace; because,
like other dictators before them, they're always making "their final
territorial demand," some would have us accept them at their word and
accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history
teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful
thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our
past, the squandering of our freedom.
So, I urge you to speak out
against those who would place the United States in a position of
military and moral inferiority. You know, I've always believed that old
Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So,
in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to
beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation of blithely declaring
yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore
the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to
simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove
yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
I
ask you to resist the attempts of those who would have you withhold
your support for our efforts, this administration's efforts, to keep
America strong and free, while we negotiate real and verifiable
reductions in the world's nuclear arsenals and one day, with God's help,
their total elimination.
While America's military strength is
important, let me add here that I've always maintained that the struggle
now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets,
by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a
spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.
Whittaker
Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a witness to
one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote
that the crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which the
West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in
communism's attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he
said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second oldest faith, first
proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, "Ye shall
be as gods."
The Western world can answer this challenge, he
wrote, "but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He
enjoins is as great as communism's faith in Man."
I believe we
shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another sad,
bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being
written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest
for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows
no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who
would enslave their fellow man. For in the words of Isaiah: "He giveth
power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increased strength
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary."
"Enlightened"
opinion blasted the speech and warned of Reagan the warmonger, but his
strong, principled and moral stand backed up with moral toughness and
prudent conservative policies in solidarity with dissident movements
opposing international communism helped to turn the tide. By 1987 the
Russians were willing to negotiate for peace in real terms and Reagan
held them to it. The speech at the Berlin Wall indicates how he went
about it.
Reagan at the Berlin Wall (1987)
In this excerpt from his June 12, 1987 address at the Berlin Wall Ronald Reagan provided
both the history and economic realities that offered the context that
explained his optimism on behalf of freedom and challenging the Russians
to back up their rhetoric with action:
In the 1950s,
Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a
free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being
unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see
failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even
want of the most basic kind--too little food. Even today, the Soviet
Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there
stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion:
Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among
the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.
And now
the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand
the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy
of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released.
Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some
economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom
from state control.
Are these the beginnings of profound changes
in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise
false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without
changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom
and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only
strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can
make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the
cause of freedom and peace.
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you
seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr.
Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
During
Ronald Reagan's tenure the United States did not participate in any
major conflicts. The US military invaded and occupied Grenada in 1983 to
drive out Cuban troops building a military runway there, but on
Reagan's watch America was it peace and the Cold War was on its way to
being resolved peacefully.
Well,
back in 1980, when I was running for President, it was all so
different. Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe.
Our views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy
would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even
remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that "The
engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they're likely to
stay that way for years to come." Well, he and the other opinion leaders
were wrong. The fact is what they call "radical" was really "right."
What they called "dangerous" was just "desperately needed."
And
in all of that time I won a nickname, "The Great Communicator." But I
never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a
difference: it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I
communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my
brow, they came from the heart of a great nation--from our experience,
our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two
centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept
that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a
rediscovery of our values and our common sense.
Common sense told
us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce
less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the people produced
more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been
cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program
brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real
family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and
an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more than
ever because American industry became more competitive, and at the same
time, we summoned the national will to knock down protectionist walls
abroad instead of erecting them at home.
Common sense also told
us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after
years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this
New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have
the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear
weapons--and hope for even more progress is bright--but the regional
conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian
Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The
Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an
American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home from
Angola.
The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're
a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this
way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in
ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we
learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it
will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.
Countries
across the globe are turning to free markets and free speech and
turning away from the ideologies of the past. For them, the great
rediscovery of the 1980's has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of
government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the
profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.
When you've
got to the point when you can celebrate the anniversaries of your 39th
birthday, you can sit back sometimes, review your life, and see it
flowing before you. For me there was a fork in the river, and it was
right in the middle of my life. I never meant to go into politics. It
wasn't my intention when I was young. But I was raised to believe you
had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you. I was happy with
my career in the entertainment world, but I ultimately went into
politics because I wanted to protect something precious.
Nothing
is less free than pure communism--and yet we have, the past few years,
forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've been asked
if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no, because we're basing our
actions not on words but deeds. The detente of the 1970's was based not
on actions but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and
the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and
the state was still expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Well, this time, so far, it's
different. President Gorbachev has brought about some internal
democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has
also freed prisoners whose names I've given him every time we've met.
But
life has a way of reminding you of big things through small incidents.
Once, during the heady days of the Moscow summit, Nancy and I decided to
break off from the entourage one afternoon to visit the shops on Arbat
Street--that's a little street just off Moscow's main shopping area.
Even though our visit was a surprise, every Russian there immediately
recognized us and called out our names and reached for our hands. We
were just about swept away by the warmth. You could almost feel the
possibilities in all that joy. But within seconds, a KGB detail pushed
their way toward us and began pushing and shoving the people in the
crowd. It was an interesting moment. It reminded me that while the man
on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is
Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and
they view such issues as freedom and human rights very differently.
We
must keep up our guard, but we must also continue to work together to
lessen and eliminate tension and mistrust. My view is that President
Gorbachev is different from previous Soviet leaders. I think he knows
some of the things wrong with his society and is trying to fix them. We
wish him well. And we'll continue to work to make sure that the Soviet
Union that eventually emerges from this process is a less threatening
one. What it all boils down to is this: I want the new closeness to
continue. And it will, as long as we make it clear that we will continue
to act in a certain way as long as they continue to act in a helpful
manner. If and when they don't, at first pull your punches. If they
persist, pull the plug. It's still trust but verify. It's still play,
but cut the cards. It's still watch closely. And don't be afraid to see
what you see.
Finally,
there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and
I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough, it
starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the
resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This
national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last
unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
An
informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job
teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the
long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of
age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what
it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love
of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get
these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from
the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost
someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school.
And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the
popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly
reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too,
through the mid-sixties.
But now, we're about to enter the
nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that
an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach
modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture,
well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but
we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of
getting across that America is freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of
religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's
fragile; it needs [protection].
So, we've got to teach history
based not on what's in fashion but what's important--why the Pilgrims
came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo
meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a
letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on
Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "We will
always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did."
Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't
know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory
that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.
Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a
greater emphasis on civic ritual.
And let me offer lesson number
one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner
table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And
children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be
an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very
American thing to do.
And that's about all I have to say tonight,
except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window
upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The
phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he
imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early
Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call
a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a
home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my
political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw
when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks
stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people
of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that
hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls,
the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and
the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.
And
how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure,
and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200
years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite
ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's
still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all
the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the
darkness, toward home.
We've done our part. And as I walk off
into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan
revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years did the
work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just
marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made
the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not
bad at all.
And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
Lawrence W. Reed, in an essay remembering Reagan's freedom legacy on the 110th anniversary of his birth observed that "for the most part, and more than any of his fellow presidents since
Coolidge, Reagan knew that there was no loftier achievement for any
society than freedom. We do ourselves a service to get re-acquainted
with that notion."In these challenging times it would do all Americans well to revisit the 40th President's legacy of freedom, and adapt and adopt them for today.
In this time of moral and political
crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to
affirm certain eternal truths.- The Sharon Statement, September 11, 1960
"When
bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by
one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." - Edmund Burke
It
was our natural reaction against this that led a group of college
students of different backgrounds to seek out and form a chapter of Young Americans for Freedom at Florida International University back in 1992. The first president of YAF-FIU was Craig Herrero, followed by John Suarez, and Cesar Vasquez.
Throughout
our years of existence, YAF-FIU attended Florida conventions
hosted by the Young America's Foundation, attended Leadership
Institute trainings as well as Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum
Collegiate's first annual leadership seminar. YAF-FIU also
lobbied to bring conservative speakers starting with Phyllis Schlafly, with the help of Young Americas Foundation, Jack Kemp, and later Pat Buchanan.
Aside from our own newsletter, VOX LIBERTAS, which was regularly distributed, YAF-FIU also distributed CAMPUS: AMERICA'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER, Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) publications and Campus Report, produced by Accuracy in Academia.
FIU-YAF
fought battles on the cultural and political front for more than a
decade before the increasingly restrictive university policies nibbling
away at student freedoms finally took their toll. FIU-YAF fought the
battles greatly outnumbered at times by faculty and administration with
an apathetic student body untroubled by the loss of their freedoms on
campus, and a student newspaper with a left-wing tilt.
"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts." -Edmund Burke
In
many ways what took place at Florida International University mirrors
what has happened both in Miami-Dade County and in the country at large.
The question that gnaws is what can be done about this?
"We
must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of
nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation." -Edmund Burke
There
are a number of texts and thinkers out there that provide a diagnosis
of the crisis and the onslaught against American freedoms and the West in general.
Identifying the problem and recognizing that the America we group up in
is disappearing replaced with new generations that are much more
passive and obedient to bureaucratic controls. Continued mass
immigration combined with multiculturalism is fracturing the American
identity and whatever homogeneity existed before which is perfect for
the managerial elite because it gives them excuses for more bureaucracy
and more controls.
"If you set
out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any
time, and you would achieve nothing." - Margaret Thatcher
Much
of these revolutions undermining the United States have taken place
under Republican presidents and were not reversed even when both the
executive and the legislative were controlled by the Republican party.
"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe." -Edmund Burke
Add
to that conservatives going along with the party line defending George
W. Bush as he trashed America's reputation abroad and demonstrated
incompetence (one hopes) domestically ending with massive federal bail
outs of companies "too big to fail" and as Herbert Hoover prepared the
ground for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s so Bush did for Obama
today.
"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." - Edmund Burke
These failures on the political front pale in comparison to the failure to transmit American traditions
and concepts of liberty to the new generations in the public schools.
Conservatives have retreated into home schooling that is doing the job
with a select few children, but the vast majority have been lobotomized
by the education establishment and an increasingly toxic popular culture. This is what Gramsci described as the long march through the institutions by cultural Marxism.
Sadly these trends are not new William F. Buckley Jr.
identified it in 1955 stating "The largest cultural menace in America
is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as
well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads
and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural
issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather
than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than
conformity)."*
The buzz word of today's Utopian is globalization but what is being globalized? Vaclav Havel offered the following observation last week:
"We are living in the first truly global civilization. That means that
whatever comes into existence on its soil can very quickly and easily
span the whole world. But we are also living in the first atheistic
civilization, in other words, a civilization that has lost its
connection with the infinite and eternity. For that reason it prefers
short-term profit to long-term profit. What is important is whether an
investment will provide a return in ten or fifteen years; how it will
affect the lives of our descendants in a hundred years is less
important. However, the most dangerous aspect of this global atheistic
civilization is its pride. The pride of someone who is driven by the
very logic of his wealth to stop respecting the contribution of nature
and our forebears, to stop respecting it on principle and respect it
only as a further potential source of profit." What Havel is describing
is the triumph of cultural Marxism.
Finally, the Sharon Statement
is as relevant today as it was in 1960 including its plank on
international communism. A large part of humanity continues to live
under Marxist-Leninist despots in China,
North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and are threatened by executives that would
like to impose it in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Ecuador undermining
basic political freedoms. Jesse Helms in his memoirs
written long after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of
the Soviet Union in 2005 said it best: "It was never a mistake to give
our support to the person or group who did not embrace Communism
rather than a person or faction who did. Communism has been tried and
found wanting in countries around the world. In every case, the rule of
Communism brought the death of dissidents, the banning of religion,
the destruction of revered cultures and the devaluation of human life. …
Communism is not truly dead.”
Today, we are witnessing Maoists carrying out struggle sessions on the streets of the United States, and new generations of young Americans drawn to the siren call of communism. It can happen here, and friends of freedom of all generations need to step up.There is a link between the Black Panthers and the Maoists. William F. Buckley Jr. engaged some of their leaders back in the 1960s and is worth watching today.
We failed to contain and defeat our adversaries on college campuses and they are now wreaking havoc in the larger world off campus. Although YAF has not won the struggle for freedom in the United States, new generations of young conservatives continue to join the fight, and gives us OAFS (Old Americans for Freedom) hope for the future. Today, they are organizing acts of remembrance on the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Congress has no planned moment of remembrance on the 19th anniversary of 9/11.
Instead, @YAF will place 2,977 American flags in the lawn on the East Front—one for each victim—on Friday from 7:30am until 2:00pm.
"Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism… As Fascism sprang
from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot
those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world
into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their
destruction." - Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm (1948)
Looking back at Karl Marx's writings demonstrates that by current standards the German philosopher falls far short. Marx's early formulation of communism is antisemitic and offers a "solution" to the "Jewish Problem."
"Money is the Jealous God of Israel, beside which no other God may exist. Money abases all the gods of mankind and changes them into commodities. The god of the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of the world. In emancipating itself from hucksterism and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself...by destroying the empirical essence of Judaism, the Jew will become impossible." Source Karl Marx-Engels Collected Works (London 1975ff),vol. iii,pp146-74
His early defense of using terror, one of the key elements of Totalitarianism is also problematic.
"We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism." Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. vi pp 503-5
"Far from opposing the so-called excesses, those examples of popular vengeance against hated individuals or public buildings which have acquired hateful memories, we must not only condone these examples but lend them a helping hand." Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. vii p 239
Karl Marx in the essay “Forced Emigration,” in the New York Daily Tribune, 22 March 1853 seems to view the elimination of classes and races as a necessary part of revolution:
Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to,
and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down
than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.
In a July 30, 1862 letter to Frederick Engels, his chief benefactor, Marx described nineteenth-century German socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, in a racist manner:
The Jewish Nigger Lassalle . . .fortunately departs at the end of this
week . . . It is now absolutely clear to me that, as both the shape of
his head and his hair texture shows – he descends from the Negros who
joined Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or grandmother on the
paternal side hybridized with a nigger). Now this combination of
Germanness and Jewishness with a primarily Negro substance creates a
strange product. The pushiness of the fellow is also nigger-like.
Joshua Dill has written an important essay on how even with the early Marx one could see how things would turn out so badly when his theories were implemented.
..."The year was 1844. Hoping to unite German and French radicals, Marx and
his colleague Arnold Ruge moved with their wives to Paris in order to
found a new theoretical journal, the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals)."
“What I’ve recently read, Fourier and the
communists, has much to say in the critical realm—in the organic realm
it is always highly problematic; and you are completely right, before
one sees the “how,” there is not much to be said for the idea of a new
reality. Heads are confused, and the socialist parties don’t speak much
more clearly than they think. Neither the complicated proposals of the
Fourierists nor the abolition of private property of the communists can
be formulated clearly. Both amount in the end to a veritable police
state or slave state. In order to free the proletarians both spiritually
and physically from need and the pressure of need, they think of an
organization that would make all people experience this need and this
pressure. One must accept the challenge of ending the neglect of man at
any price, and if it is necessary that the privileged suffer for this,
one must accept this too. But is the practical problem even solved in
this case? Is freedom achieved when both need for and abundance from the
state is evenly distributed? And would men become more humane if some
are relieved and some are burdened in that way? The communists say ‘yes’
and dream of a paradise as soon as the next revolution brings them to
the helm, as they believe will happen. The communists are so far removed
from humanity and from actual communism that living with them presents
no intellectual or social attraction.”
Those in 2017 who view Marx as having "had it figured out all along" need to have their head examined. One can diagnose a problem but providing a solution worse than the original problem should not be celebrated. The past century of communism in action, with over a 100 million dead, not to mention ideological offspring such as fascism, leaves a clear and negative record that is no cause for celebration.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to the few. . . . The hand entrusted with power becomes . . . the necessary enemy of the people. ~Wendell Phillips
Individuals across the ideological spectrum have recognized this crisis for US freedom and have described it with a variety of terms: soft-totalitarianism, fascism, and anarchotyranny, to name a few. Needless to say, this is a far cry from what the founders of the United States had in mind when the Constitution was drafted and ratified in 1787.
The steady erosion of freedoms in the United States did not begin with the election of Obama in 2008, or with Bush in 2000, or even the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The latter did, however, accelerate the process with the war on terror and the cover of permanent interventionism abroad.
This is the first in a series of reflections that seek to understand what happened that led us to this lamentable state of affairs. In learning how we arrived here, the goal shall be to figure out how to carve a path back to a free society.
Let’s go back a generation and consider the role of the judiciary.
At one time, US Americans in their local communities and at the state level had the power to decide whether or not they wanted to do business with repressive regimes. In the 1970s and 1980s, the anti-apartheid movement sought to obtain boycotts from local and state governments doing business with South Africa. This was at a time when the White House was advancing a policy of constructive engagement with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Over the long-run, successes at the local and state level translated into a policy change at the federal level. It was a classic bottom-up approach to governance.
Today, however, an anti-apartheid campaign like the one designed a generation ago would be impossible. In 2000 the Supreme Court in the Crosby versus National Foreign Trade Council decision stripped that power from states and localities and left it in the hands of the executive branch. Soon after, the Supreme Court forced Massachusetts to do business with companies that had done business with the military junta in Burma.
According to constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson in the Fordham Law Review, the Crosby decision compels state and local governments to cooperate with evil. It also concentrates power in Washington, D.C.
In practice these local governments, often corrupt, declare good properties blighted and then seize them at bargain basement prices in order to sell them on to politically-connected parties. To make it a win for the local government, at the expense of the legitimate owner, these parties then redevelop the properties to provide a larger tax base.
The City of New London, Connecticut essentially acted as a strongman by seizing private property from one group of people for the benefit of a more powerful private interest. For its services, the city will be paid a tribute in the form of greater taxes from the new development. In any other context, what’s happening in Connecticut properly would be described as criminal. . . . The individuals losing their homes understand that stealing is stealing, even if the people responsible are government officials. The silver lining in the Kelo case may be that the veneer of government benevolence is being challenged.
In 2009, after the local government had the backing of the Supreme Court, they seized the property of private home owners and destroyed the homes — leaving empty acres where there was once a neighborhood. However, the company that was supposed to develop the property, Pfizer, then decided to walk away from the whole deal.
Susette Kelo’s former home in New London, Connecticut — before and after.
The misguided belief of government officials, that they could get more revenue, destroyed people’s homes and lives. They wound up destroying not just the community but losing even the prior tax revenue.
These Supreme Court decisions have two features in common. They (1) take power from a lower level and concentrate it the hands of fewer decision makers, who often impose unjust and immoral decisions, and (2) they allow a small group to profit from their contacts in government, to advance their economic self-interest.
Of course, these decisions were not shaped by national security issues but narrowly defined interests, seeking to use the state to take from others to enrich themselves. This is crony capitalism — or simply cronyism — and in other parts of the world it has led to rising poverty and less economic freedom. Not surprisingly, the United States is no longer the economically freest country in the world, and the severe plummet has followed these cases. According to the Fraser Institute, the United States has now fallen to 17th in the world.
The weakening of private property rights in the United States and the centralizing of the right to decide who to do business with in the federal government strikes at the heart of the US American tradition of liberty. The late conservative polemicist Joseph Sobran, who passed away in 2010, called the present system “Post–Constitutional America,” and went on to say that “the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.”
“My wife Carol and I join Phyllis Schlafly’s many friends
and admirers in mourning her passing and sending our deepest sympathies
and prayers to her family. While Phyllis and I did not always see
eye-to-eye, we were always willing to work together on those issues—such
as protecting the unborn, dismantling the Department of Education, and
protecting America’s sovereignty—where we agreed.
Phyllis was also a valued ally of the liberty movement in our
battles with the GOP establishment. In 1996, when many Republicans and
even many so –called conservative leaders, where waging a well-funded
smear campaign to prevent my return to Congress, Phyllis defied the
establishment and endorsed me. In 2012, she stood with my supporters at
the Republican convention in opposition to the RNC rules
disenfranchising grassroots activists.
I was honored when she asked me to write the forward to the fiftieth
anniversary of her classic work A Choice Not an Echo, which details the
underhanded tactics used by the establishment, with the support of many
inside-the-beltway conservatives, to maintain control of the
Republican Party. I hope that the new generation of liberty activists discover this book and learns form Phyllis how to effectively offer
the American people a choice of liberty instead of an echo of
authoritarianism."
You can purchase a copy of A Choice Not an Echo here
A great musician and a great American he will be missed.
Merle Haggard – April 6, 1937 to April 6, 2016 R.I.P.
"That's The News"
Suddenly it's over, the war is fin'lly done
Soldiers in the desert sand, still clingin' to a gun
No-one is the winner an' everyone must lose
Suddenly the war is over: that's the news.
Suddenly celebrity is somethin' back in style
Back to runnin' tabloid for a while
Pain's almost everywhere, the whole world's got the blues
Suddenly the war is over: that's the news.
That's the news, that's the news
That's the ever-lovin', blessed, headline news
Someone's missin;' in Modesto, an' it's sad about the clues
Suddenly the war is over: that's the news.
Suddenly the cost of war is somethin' out of sight
Lost a lotta heroes in the fight
Politicians do all the talkin': soldiers pay the dues
Suddenly the war is over, that's the news.
That's the news, that's the news
That's the ever-lovin', blessed, headline news
Politicians do all the talkin': soldiers pay the dues
Suddenly the war is over, that's the news...
Hag's Editorial
My closest buddy in 1951, had just got out of the Marine Corps, because they found out he was to young to be a Marine. Besides that, he received an undesirable discharge for whippin' his sergeant. He wanted to re-enlist because he was now 18. He straightened up his past don't you see. I was 14 and we thought it might be better to change our names. We enlisted under the names of Bobby Eugene and Roy Leslie Davis. Point being we wanted more than anything to be Marines during the Korean conflict. My older brother James L and cousin Gerald Harp were both decorated Marines and saw active battle in World War II in the battle of Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Patalou, I went to both of their funerals with my family. I still get goose bumps when I think about the 21-gun salute and the Marine with a tear in his eye who handed the flag to my brother's wife, Fran. I doubt there are few who care more about the flag than I do.
I went to volunteer for the Marines at the tender age of 14 and I'm convinced I would have given my life. I'm sure if necessary, I'd do the same today. But 14-year olds don't ask questions and they certainly don't begin to understand politics. This nation has a history of being a warrior. Young men always pay the dues, and it was America's way to always be behind what America was doing. And the issues and the reasons why were always argued after the fact. Speaking of after the fact, it's a national shame the way we treat our vets. You see, to be an American you want to respect everything you know about this great country. Those who have the gumption to investigate, know that the reputation of honesty between the government and the people cannot reflect the reason for a single man to have confidence in what were doing in current day conditions. I'm suspicious, I'm paranoid, and I'm afraid. And the person who says he isn't has not looked up or around lately.
I don't even know the Dixie chicks, but I find it an insult for all the men and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of America jumped down their throats for voicing an opinion. It was like a verbal witch-hunt and lynching. Whether I agree with their comments or not has no bearing. And in the same breath let me say that I have become a fan of this new little kid, Toby Keith. There is some humor in me calling Toby Keith little. God bless this great country and I pray he keeps a close eye on us in these last days. And God knows the headlines of today surely indicate that were living in that time now. Seems lately we're awfully quick to criticize and pleased with ourselves to be part of the majority. As a country we need to look inward for the answers to the energy of the future. We need to bring down our demands for oil, rebuild some bridges and highways and allow the farmers to grow something that replenishes the soil. Those who don't know what that is, should do some research. The problem is not in Iraq and the answers are not in Iran. I hope were not buried alive beneath this pending financial collapse if the pipeline doesn't get through. Surely everything doesn't depend on oil!
- Merle Haggard June 2003
Lonesome Day
When the men in black come kickin' in your door.
And guitar-playin' outlaws lay spread-eagled on the floor.
When our celebrated heroes have been cuffed and locked away.
It's gonna be a lonesome day.
Well out of all the crazy things them guitar players said.
They talked about the workin' man and the troubled life he led.
When everything is perfect and no rebel's in the way.
It's gonna be a lonesome day.
They'll be singin' up in heaven while we're livin' here in hell.
Givin' up our liberty and buyin' what they sell.
Who's gonna sing the Song of Freedom if freedom goes away?
It's gonna be a lonesome day.
When the big boys with the microphones just up and back away.
And they're afraid to say the things they know they ought to say.
When the symbol of our freedom like the eagle flies away.
It's gonna be a lonesome day.
A lonesome day lonesome day it's gonna be a lonesome day.
A lonesome day lonesome day it's gonna be a lonesome day.
