Conservative Refocus

By Barry Secrest

My teenage daughter, a lovely and spirited lass who is not so terribly inclined to even try to understand politics, recently paused by the TV screen as the anchor delivered his report, then looked at me, and asked, "Dad, how is it that the President of the United States can take so many vacations, and you don't have the time to even take one vacation in over two years?" I looked at her, briefly smiled, shook my head and stated, " Too many important things going on in the businesses' and this country to engage in such an extravagant waste of time."

I then thought about my response as she knitted her eyebrows, she not entirely sure what those" important things" might be; however, being a knowing female, she  soon let loose with a bit of patented sarcasm: "Well, what's more important than your family?"

I looked off to the side, wearily I am sure, and defiantly stated, "My family's future."

This set me to wondering how many other fathers and mothers across the nation have wrestled with similar scenarios. It is true that running a pair of small businesses under the scourge of Obamanomics, and continually building and working on an increasingly catching-on website, which is on a mission, requires a considerable sacrifice in both time and effort for our small team, not to mention facing the criticism heralded from the ever-present, never-knowing, sparsely-cognitive, peanut gallery that always stands close-by, ready to watch each of us fail--and to do so utterly and miserably. But I did finally give-in and decided to take a few days away in Charleston SC, where I lived during my Naval tour of duty.  This was not for me, mind you, I was "fine," but it was for the family.

My son, who is probably even more conservative than I, believe it or not, and understands more about politics at age 16 than many much older, did not have to ask the question of why the President could take countless more vacations in 2.8 years than his Dad; he already knew the answer. His father cares  far too much, within his own wide but still limited sphere, while the President cares far too little within his own narrowing  but still massive circle of influence. This led us to consider an ongoing theme that continually emerges in virtually all of our writings by weaving together various ideas into one particular piece to illustrate how we seem to be continually chasing a now fleeting Liberty.

The Demolitionist In Chief

To explain a bit further, the continuing act of a centralized demolition, as perpetrated by our core leadership, requires nothing much more involved than a passing understanding of where the weak points within America's given structure lie, strategically placing each of the pseudo-explosives, and then sequentially detonating the charges while watching their handiwork's target implode in slow motion.  So, why should Obama constantly involve himself within the act of saving the nation from itself, when his sole purpose is to demolish the existing structure only to replace it with something else entirely in the first place?

It is we Conservatives job, the guardians of our Republic, to find as many of these explosive charges as possible and to then render them inoperable by way of identification, or better, nullification, until more Americans begin to recognize what is happening. In essence, an operation to save the larger part of liberty's architecture until more help--in the form of society's cognizance--arrives.

And it's working, albeit slowly and painfully; America is beginning to understand what we and many others have been pounding away at for well over two years now:  Our current governance and national condition is not at all what they thought they were getting, and it's going to get worse.  Americans are also beginning to exhibit an increasingly jaundiced eye at the White House when Obama rummages about in his liberal handbag of "the buck stops over there somewhere" excuses, while smilingly offering up yet another steaming turdle-pie of platitudes on his presidentially embossed platter, as if we should all accept these quickly amassing failures with a smattering of applause and a familial good try anyway enablement.

Doesn't anyone find it ironic? The fact that when the President spoke, during his candidacy, of transforming the nation, many seemed to think that America would soon morph into a Utopian butterfly and then gracefully float on the breezes of change we can believe in?  But what the people got instead was a stormy maelstrom of disenchantment, extreme upheaval with unparalleled modern poverty, and a loss of upward mobility that could last for a decade at least.

However, now, as the American people are growing ever-more vaguely cognizant of where the true problems within the Nation lie, we find that what started with the President being elected as a virtual panacea for what was "wrong" with Government has quickly become a poison pill that we have all been forced to reluctantly gulp down. This fact can be more readily seen with every day that passes, which must always include far more bad news than good, as a vague shadow of pessimism settles firmly over a weary but resolute populace.

The Left-Wing Carnage of Redistribution

Interestingly,  most of the Civil Society is now coming to the rude awakening that the Liberals, Democrats, Leftists, and Progressives, in their mad experiment with redistributive Socialism, have had their day, and you can increasingly see this fact with Obama's base now turning on him in earnest, their agenda clearly devastating to the nation, so that a scapegoat must now be found. The extreme left-wing carnage in virtually every sector, as a predictive result, has been beyond horrid to observe, especially for many of the those who elected Obama.

But a new Understanding  is also now dawning to many, that the sleek, impossibly high-powered racing machine that is America was never designed to be powered by a wheezing, cumbersome, steam engine fueled by the compost of Socialism.

At this particular point, we must remind our Statist preschoolers in charge, who thought they knew better, that the routes in life, in travel, or even in governance, established for us by those who came before, are there for a definite reason. These pre-established routes purposefully provide us with a means to progress through our lives without having to continually blaze new trails every time we wish to set out. In fact, we have even been given a road map to follow and refer to, if we so choose, and this fact is precisely where the Conservative ideas, which have worked for over two centuries, found their origins. The root of these ideas lies within one particular center point that is sacrosanct within natural law:

Undesired or undue interference within other individual's lives is a matter to be avoided at any and all costs, either by those in positions of authority or otherwise, whenever and wherever possible. Whether such interference is active or passive in its nature is of little consideration. Even well-meaning interference can often have disastrous results. Further,

 

All individuals, whether in positions of real authority and power, or even those considered to be the least among us, truthfully have no greater nor lesser value when meaningfully balanced on the scale of human worth.

 

As you do to the least of these, so you do to the greatest.

The origins of these ideas are no less than the US Constitution and the Charters of Freedom, which find their roots within another road map, thoughtfully provided by the Greatest of Architects, no less.

So, while often “great service” is verbally indentured to the People's endowment of the US Constitution by those currently in power, the actions being set into motion fail to reflect those same ideals.

Further, there is a current overriding, if not demoralizing suggestion, which is alien to any US Government leadership that has come before. Those currently in power have accepted near economic defeat or marginalization as being unavoidable (and worse, perhaps preferable for many insidious reasons). High unemployment levels, contracting incomes and an America that has historically functioned as a powerful engine of the world economy are now being parlayed as things of the past. We, as Americans, have been told that we can no longer expect such lofty aspirations.

It has often been said that great expectations tend to attract far more success than those of marginal designs, and this seems to hold true in virtually any endeavor. Will we as Americans accept this particular "fatalistic" theory from those current leaders who have been proved more often wrong than right in their economic--and otherwise--prognostications?

Losing the Race through Governmentology

Our recent and varied failures as a Nation, many would maintain, are most likely a direct result of an executive mindset that faultily sees--and endeavors to impact--issues on a global basis rather than on a specific, nationally concerned basis. Our way of life--which was sworn in a covenant to the American people by the President--to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States before hundreds of millions--has not found its way to fruition as of yet. We have yet to hear our current Leadership extol words such as these to an increasingly beleaguered populace:

"Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith."

~Ronald Reagan

The simple fact is, our current leadership both ascribes to and leads from a rigid, unspoken "dogma," which might euphemistically be termed as "Governmentology," But, unfortunately for the President, kneeling at the altar of Governmentology is a tricky undertaking. Most individuals will not willingly go along with the overall concept of "Government as God." Much like Scientology and other "humanity as God" religions, including Black Liberation Theology, the “religion” (or cult, perhaps) of Governmentology reveres a construct of Man, an idol if you will, and is connected to a figurative "Central Governance Cathedral." Statism is a more basic definition but leaves out, more or less, the devout religious component to this phenomenon, which would often rail against strict Statism as just too plain vanilla.

The central theme of the Governmentologists is ever-more clearly "redistribution," simply because such a theme can be couched in an innocent construct of trying to draw down the deficit, saving on healthcare, helping the poor and other such civic-minded goals--even while inexorably clawing for the ultimate goal of a "globally centralized" human condition. When viewed in retrospect, the President has keenly focused every one of his efforts on the abominable, unconstitutional practice of redistribution as a service to Governmentology, much like, say, a tithe, if you will--as a means to an end.

But why? The collectivist waves of our nation's destruction, being imparted by our in-house radicals, are a part of a relentless force called by many names, the most common of those being Socialism, Totalitarianism, Statism and even Liberalism. Each of these may be characterized by different facets, but they each, in and of their very essence, point to the same damaging ideologies at play and ultimately arrive at a final desired paradigm, whether expected or not--that being Marxism.

For Example, under the second definition of Socialism, we find the following: "The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not been successfully achieved." In other words Socialism is but a way-point to the final ideological goal of Marxism.

The Anti-Alchemist Guide to Losing Our Republic

The historical journey from Free-Market Capitalism to Socialism and later Marxism has always been one of control. Remember, Socialism is defined as partial control of marketplace forces by a Central or Statist government. The demarcation point from Free-Market Capitalism to Socialism must first include the ingredient of weakening the rule of law, or Republicanism, thereby transferring a greater measure of power and control away from the individual and States and to the Government in the form of increased authority.

The second main ingredient involves a degradation of the natural Free-Market forces in the form of increased regulation and oversight, which as the controls are increasingly tightened, will eventually stifle and snuff out the natural opportunism which comes of entrepreneurship, while strangling profits--which are more often than not used to employ additional personnel.

The third main ingredient must then exert control by establishing a pivot point--a major but seemingly innocuous rearrangement of a current Societal paradigm--such as Healthcare and finance.

The final ingredient requires that the appropriate individuals be in place in order to measure these requirements and apportion each so that the demarcation point can be properly executed.

When we look to what might possibly motivate certain individuals to embark upon a strategy to radically remake an America that has, in the past, proven to be one of the most successful nations ever to exist, one must first examine the subtext of their political origins. Many are confused as to the actual political system America enjoys. Some seem to think of America as a Democracy, which is not exactly true. In fact, America is first and foremost a Republic and is formally defined as a Constitution based Federal Republic as opposed to a Democracy. The difference between these two forms of government is as follows:

A Democracy is defined as government by the people; especially a rule of the majority, and a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them, directly or indirectly, through a system of representation, usually involving periodically held free elections.

The problem with a pure Democracy, as heatedly debated by the Founders, is that, when a majority rules, certain individuals can be left out or selected against, in essence, taking advantage of those whom are the lesser in number. Racism, religious persecution and myriad such excesses could easily prove to be rampant when a pure majority rules.

A Republic, on the other hand, is a political order whose head of state is usually a president and where the supreme power lies in a body of citizens but subject to the rule of law as opposed to majorities. Citizens of a Republic are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them in periodic elections.

A true Republic, such as in the US, operates at a complete subservience to the law, even at sufferance to the Government itself. This allows the Government to be limited in the actions that it can take against its citizenry--especially when the citizenry are protected by a Constitutional Bill of Rights. In fact, a Republic and its rule of law is what limits the excess of a majority when in power. Democracies, historically, have always been shown to eventually fail when the respective government intrinsically tries to take on too much by way of over-redistributing capital, while stifling individuals, and eventually bankrupting itself in a self-defeating loop of ill-designed Utopia-to-misery cycle.

Is This Starting to Sound Familiar?

In the most recent political climate, each branch was dominated by the Democrats, and the nation had been, in effect, operating as a near Socialist Democracy. Thus a common refrain became: "Governing against the will of the people"--even while the level of grassroots protests began to occur at a rate which hasn't been seen since the days of the Civil Rights era.

The Democrat party, along with Liberals, Socialists and even a few cabinet-level Marxists--when in near total power--relied heavily on social spending programs begging higher taxation, extreme deficit spending and social activism. Most Democrats actually prefer a larger government and reactionary over-corrections, which, while "seemingly well-meaning," will actually stifle a Free-Market economy in the predictable process of ultimately--if not ironically--harming the various groups government is trying to aid in the first place. Conversely, Republicans, Libertarians and Conservatives tend to favor private enterprise, smaller Government and a powerful military, while espousing individual self-determination--assuming they hold true to established ideals, eschewing any form of life-long safety net as a means to extraordinarily compromising Liberty.

Our brave new Orwellian emerging world, that is a dream to some few while being a contrived nightmare to most, has now entangled America within a web of conflicted and confused, if not bizarre, unfortunately-engineered events. Our nation is, in fact, rapidly devolving into a decline that no one can deny at this point.  But those within the media who largely control the ebb and flow of opinion and information, not to mention power, have blithely chosen to somnambulantly ignore the certain and present catalyst for a promised change that we now have identified and certainly cannot believe in.

Further, the protests that began in the Mideast and have spread throughout the world are now but the symptoms of a coming insurrection that has been promised and talked about for years from none other than former Obama administration staffer Van Jones himself, among others. Jones, a proud Communist, or more progressively, a "Workers Party" member,  has repeatedly boiled down what we are now seeing transpire, into just a few revolutionary words, if not ideas.

"Top Down, Bottom Up, Inside Out"

The stated intent of these words is nothing short of undermining and completely bringing down America's Free-Market System, and the means to that particular end is being engineered currently by our unprecedented spending. In other words, control would become America's birthright and indentured servitude would become the new foundation for Her re-engineered architecture.

The simple fact is that the current President of the United States does not at all like Free-Market Capitalism, and this one peculiar dislike has tendrils that could now be said to stretch into every avenue of our leadership's new post-modern American agenda. The one simple truth that was, in all likelyhood,  mistakenly uttered by Obama, essentially admits to all of the scenarios above and can be found in one simple quote which will eventually become a herald, if not a battle-cry, for traditional Americans as the deep-seeded meaning implied takes hold:

"Belief in capitalism is blind faith. This philosophy of letting people fend for themselves has failed" ~President Barack Obama, October 2010

Our President, like it or not, does not actually believe in that which is most central to the core of increasing the nation's wealth or standard of living, that being Free-Market Capitalism, which is the cornerstone of Liberty and property ownership itself.

Obama mistakenly believes that variations of wealth are but a zero sum gain, if one moves ahead, another must then drop back, which is at the heart of Obama's extreme mis-education and the nation's now flagging future. This mode of thinking also speaks to a mindset which dwells in the caverns of both linear and limited thinking, which would, therefore, only highlight the cone of destruction that has become America under Obama's leadership.

"The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it." ~ Ayn Rand