The Good Shall Not Perish From the Earth

I've become increasingly convinced that we have reached a new, epochal stage in the long-running cultural war in America.

The turning point was the November 4th election. It's not so much Barack Obama himself (although his election was certainly one of the biggest frauds ever imposed on this country). It's the larger creeping fog of political-correctness and postmodern moral equivalence that is like a gathering storm of death for this nation's historic vision of the moral good: Indeed, a left-wing cultural totalitarianism is fastening its grip on American society. From the unquestioning media bias toward the Democratic presidential ticket, to the left's political demonization of anyone who respects and defends traditional culture, to the anti-democratic movement of the fringe masses to overturn a popular voter initiative in California, we today are witnessing the triumph of a cultural realignment that may very well end up destroying this nation.

Some time back, in the 1980s - and during a period of powerful Cold War tensions - I recall reading Jean-Francois Revel's, How Democracies Perish. I was young then, and still figuring out much about politics, but the basic theme has stayed with me, thank goodness:

Democracy tends to ignore, even deny, threats to its existence because it loathes doing what is necessary to counter them. What we end up with in what is conventionally called Western society is a topsy-turvy situation in which those seeking to destroy democracy appear to be fighting for legitimate aims, while its defenders are pictured as repressive reactionaries. Identification of democracy's internal and external adversaries with the forces of progress, legitimacy, even peace, discredits and paralyzes the efforts of people who are only trying to preserve their institutions ...

The key for democractic survival is an unflinching will to stand for liberty and moral goodness, and, sadly, today I think this country may be losing its consciousness of clarity; the country is not comprehending the enormity of the impending battle, and it is losing the resolve to wage the fight that will come.

I write this from a very personal perspective, not just from what I see in the headlines. I have been writing overwhelmingly on moral questions facing the nation, for example, the controversy over the left's increasing strident program of imposing its culture on the rest of society, with particular reference to the No on H8 campaign that has created a climate reminiscent to the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s.

For example, I argued recently that the refusal among leftists to pledge allegiance to the flag was a classic manifestation of postmodern transnationalism and the repudiation of the American nation-state. That essay generated a very disturbing backlash, which I see as, frankly, the kind of creepy ideological entitlement cum totalitarianism that is truly representative of the country's internal enemies today.

One commenter in particular - who refused to actually engage the argument I had made at the post - became increasing belligerent and intolerant, to the point of essentially calling me a terrorist:

... you just happened to pick a fight ... that not only were you wrong about, but which you proceeding to try to psychoanalyze your way around because it just never occurred to you that you, a upstanding, righteous conservative intellectual, could be wrong about anything.

And that is the problem, Donald. And that is why I called you out on it ....

And there is no weaseling your way out of this one, in the real world. Play games all you want to in your head. The fact is that you are being defensive on a matter that you are both wrong about and that you condescended this person's quite reasonable position of conscience and tried to intellectually strong-arm your way through by pretending that your disagreement was just an argument when, in fact, you had overtly argued that this person hated their country because they didn't agree with you and then tried to weasel your way around that by intellectualizing the whole exercise.

And then when you got called on the same, you backtracked instead of owning up.

And not owning up on these questions is exactly what is wrong with the world, right now, Donald. And it is exactly what leads to the nonsensical conclusion that power and not respect for conscience is necessary to avoid a regime where, in your words, "there will be no possibility of conscience, only death."

If I'm using too much intellectual muscle, here, Donald, I apologize. But I don't like watching people with intellect manipulating their way through conversations where they are insulting peoples' love for their country, where they are disrespecting their conscience, an argument about respecting conscience, doing so all in the name of preserving conscience, and just can't admit they are being a jerk ....

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is actually a kindred spirit with you, on this point. And he is wrong too. And I don't care how much power he wields. It will never be legitimate as long as it does used in the service of a more honest and decent conscience and as little as possible to boot.

The irony, Donald, is that you have more in common with those terrorists and despots that you rightly villify with that argument.

Actually, there's not much "intellectual muscle" there, but readers might want to check the comment thread to see what was so objectional to this person, but mostly, it was superior argumentation and the very moral clarity that this author outwardly rejects.

Now, as readers can see, the attacks in the comments are often relentless, and they've seemed to pick up even more with all of my recent writing and analysis on the Mumbai massacre.

But as I was reading Snooper's recent post a light came on, reminding me once more that we now indeed battle demons internal to the nation, demons who will not relent in their program of hegemonic destruction of our culture and tradition.

Indeed, one of the commenters there has responded to this at his own blog, with a post entitled, "Donald Douglas: Enemy of Americans." The main body of the entry is in the "Obey Obama" genre, that with the election of "The One," all partisanship must end, for anyone who continues to stand up for the moral beliefs is a traitor to a newly-created set of political standards. But this addtional commentary by the publisher, in the comments, is particularly macabre (referring to my concurrence in Snooper's moral outrage):

He didn't write those words [Snooper's]... He only quoted them approvingly.

Of course, the fact that Anyone who thinks those words were written by someone in his right mind is not in his/her, um, right mind. still stands.

And all the freakish namecalling done by either of 'em doesn't do a thing to change that "I hate my fellow Americans" thinkin' that's becoming so pervasive among some elements on the right.

That they find it impossible to work for the changes they seek in a positive way, & without attacking those who don't share their political & social goals, is just plumb sad. But this need to demonize "the other," whoever they may be, seems to be the only thing that keeps these types going. As long as they see us as an "enemy," rather than as fellow Americans who just don't share their politics, they have no need of common decency, which I guess makes them feel more powerful, or something.

I could never live my life that way, and I predict that they'll reap the same hatred they sow. Bright as Nero may be (& I happen to think he is, which makes him all the more pathetic), he lacks the human decency God should've given him, and the values America should've instilled in him. That he claims to speak for both, while understanding so little about either, baffles me. But in the end, I really feel sorry for him, living in a world he so reviles, and is so powerless to change to his liking.

Note something here, dear readers: I haven't attacked anyone in either of the posts I'm referencing. I have simply made (1) a logical argument on the implications of the rejection of the nation-state for the absence of patriotism on the left, and (2) a confirmation of Snooper's own sense of insanity at the nihilist destruction of this nation's soul.

I have no need to defend myself, in the long run, against these smears that I am a terrorist or that I've abandoned God's gift of decency. I am not and I have not. I am a loving family man and a caring teacher, and my values are affirmed every day when I see little bits of goodness in a prevailing environment broken loose from the moorings of eternal right.

But let me share an e-mail, by permission, from a newer reader to my blog, who contacted me before the election:

This is a thank-you note for your eloquence and reason on American Power. I am happy to have found your site.

Just as there are people whose beliefs were shaken and galvanized by September 11, there are (I suspect) many conservatives besides me who are now at a new higher level of civic involvement due to the stunning array of outrageous events this election year. A babyboomer, I have been a conservative since the days of Ronald Reagan (beliefs made even stronger by a year at U.C. Berkeley), but until this year I had never experienced such deep fear and concern for my country.

Normally my time is spent in a very different world, a tranquil one of art and fiction. I have no love for politics or civics, if the truth be known, but it's pretty hard to have an attitude of 'business as usual'.

This new, dear friend thanked me further, and pledged to add my page to her blogroll. But it's not the gratifying sense of moral recognition that's important here - as reaffirming as that is - it's this notion that my reader is not a political person - she is, in fact, a lover of art and literature - but one who is so shaken by the current times, that she is genuinely fearful of an approaching cultural apocalypse.

So then, let me just say to finish: There is a flame that is flickering, but it cannot be extinguished unless those of good will and values capitulate. Many traditionalists are now looking inward, and my hope is that from that introspection they will draw strength and be empowered by a new birth of righteous awareness that our roots are divine and just, and that the banishment of values from the public square will surely bring a wrath of evil upon this nation, and that the time is now to say, no ... the good shall not perish from the earth. That we, as Americans, will tolerate difference but will not countenance a hegmonic, evil destruction of universal American values.

The American democracy will endure only so long as people of right and faith reject the perversion of morals, language, and culture that we see in the current program of leftist totalitarianism across the land.