It's around somewhere, but I can't remember where I put it.
Not that I accept this government's ever-more-open contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. It's obvious that the ruling elite of both parties are not afraid of us, don't care about opposition to their serial transgressions (the TSA, population replacement through legal and illegal immigration, Fast and Furious, using the IRS as a weapon against organized criticism, Benghazi, NSA surveillance of everybody, arming local police to act as paramilitary units, imposing an untested and conceptually unsound healthcare plan -- those and all the rest you know about if you've been paying attention).
For years I wrote political blog posts in the naive belief that they might be a small part of a peaceful uprising that would reverse the trend. Along with thousands of other commentators, many of them more dedicated and better informed than me, I expected we might have an effect.
From here it looks like we were all mistaken. The road to government tyranny is wide open.
The late Lawrence Auster wrote millions of words in resistance. They made no difference. I suspect toward the end of his time he realized the futility of his calling, but he persisted and I admire him for it.
But I won't emulate him. Longtime readers of Reflecting Light will have noticed that this blog has gradually, hesitatingly, evolved away from political issues except once in a while when something calls out for satire. I've no desire to discourage others from resistance in whatever way they see fit. But I'm tired of repeatedly pushing the rock up the damned hill.
As for outrage, we'd best get past that. It's necessary as a launch pad, but after a while it's just a diversion. The times call for strategy and tactics, for organizing a mass resistance movement broad enough to include people of varied shades of belief, even people who disagree on some things but agree that the metasticizing of central government power and subjugation of individual rights must be stopped.
Don't ask me how. I don't know. As for organizing, I can't even organize my life very well. But I retain some faith in the old American spirit of inventing, improvising, daring. We need that more than outrage.
4 comments:
How can we effectively resist? That is the question. Individual state governments must resist through nullification of unconstitutional laws and even secession. Every citizen should buy a gun and a rifle and learn to use them. The militias need to reform and train for combat.
Alternatives to public education (leftist indoctrination) must be created and used, as in home schooling.
It may be time for drastic measures, and we need to identify and prepare for those measures.
Yes, but we have to try to avoid drastic measures that result in everybody losing, as in 1861-65.
The resistance needs to outsmart the leftist Establishment and federal bureaucracy. That isn't too far-fetched: our politicians will turn on a dime if they believe it's in their best interests; the media comprise, by and large, some of society's dumbest people; gargantuan bureaucracies are inflexible and incapable of creative response to mass resistance.
Mass is the key to it, though. Individuals are helpless against tyranny unless they want to sacrifice themselves, and there is no reason to think even that will do any good. So we wait and keep looking around for someone else to light the torch and gather a legion of followers, which we can then consider joining.
At this point I want to hear people talking and writing about "what can we do?" rather than complaining. I wish I could offer useful ideas, but nothing arrives in my mind. So rather than write negative post after negative post, I prefer to blog about other subjects that I hope will be interesting or entertaining to readers.
As I age, spiritual questions loom ever larger. According to Blogger's counter, spirituality and the paranormal don't seem to interest very many people -- the number of hits is far lower than when I tackle some political issue.
While that is disappointing, I'd rather run with what's "live" and authentic to me than keep hectoring the audience with political messages like those I was dishing out five or six years ago, and about which I have nothing new to say.
I think it would be a mistake to quit posting on political topics, especially since you are very good at it. Sometimes you add a lot of understanding with a single word or phrase, like when you described third world immigration as "population replacement."
Yes, we need a legion of like-minded individuals, and the Tea Party is a good start. However, we need to make a list of our political goals and explore methods of outreach to our apathetic fellow citizens.
Personally, like Lawrence Auster, I won't quit fighting until I'm dead.
Stogie,
"How can we effectively resist?" you asked at the beginning of the comment thread. And that's what everybody who is dismayed by the ever-tightening thumbscrews of the cultural Marxist/political authoritarian Establishment needs to focus on.
Alas, this blogger has no answer. My only means of opposing l'infame, namely words and argument, have failed. Not only failed me, but all who've taken the same tack -- even the supremely eloquent Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club has inspired his audience, without changing the course of events.
I am afraid we are past the point where debate and the normal processes of civil society can sort things out. The shattering of the U.S. into mutually distrustful tribes and a self-serving political class seems impossible to reverse.
Meanwhile life goes on. I hope I will still have a lot to say about what remains that is good, useful, interesting, or funny. And if I have any new political ideas that might be worth expressing, I will.
At the moment my best idea is one that I have urged often before: we need a constitutional amendment specifying how states can peacefully and legally secede.
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