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Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Fran’s Sunday Ruminations, A Tuesday Edition: What’s The Use?
Kim Du Toit gave us all one hell of a scare yesterday:
This is not the country I wanted to live in. This is not the country I agreed to support when I swore my allegiance to the Republic, and dedicated my life to its defense.This is not the America to which I came twenty years ago, and of which I so joyfully became a citizen soon after. The dream is over, the promise has been broken.
But I have nowhere else to go, and, for the first time in twenty years, I don’t feel like celebrating.
I’m starting to feel just like I used to feel back in South Africa.
This blog will be closed until further notice.
When the Armorer to the Blogosphere starts talking like that, you know things are getting dicey -- and not just for him. Og the NeanderPundit and Kevin Baker at the Smallest Minority have voiced similar sentiments, albeit with more of the small of gunpowder and cordite to them.
But what's the true state of affairs? Does it justify either resignation or armed revolt? And if not, what ought we to be doing instead?
1. The Temperature.
The political state of the nation is actually more healthful than it's been since the Eisenhower Administration:
- A healthy majority of Americans are fed up with endless government growth, government meddling in properly private matters, government incursions upon individual rights, and government impotence at its sole defensible function: protecting the citizenry from violence and fraud.
- The Old Media's ongoing attempts to delegitimize the World Wide Web, most importantly the Internet Commentariat, as representative of national opinion, indicates quite clearly the actual trend in American opinion.
- Politicians and bureaucrats are aware of this. Their sole remaining tactics by which to thwart the majority's will are the federal courts, the use of special-interest pandering, and the Washington Monument Defense.
- Recent struggles over court nominations, backlighted by recent Supreme Court decisions that attempt further eviscerations of Americans' rights, now deny the statists the concealment they desperately need to protect and advance their agenda.
So, far from being near to total acceptance of the Total State, most Americans are girding for a renewal of their Constitutional freedoms. They've succeeded in locating like-minded others with unprecedented success. They're evolving new tactics for resisting government incursions. They're arming, too, just in case ballots have to give way to bullets at some unforeseeable time.
Of course, political will is sometimes thwarted by "political won't" -- the natural desire of politicians and bureaucrats for ever-increasing power, prestige, and pelf, and their many ways of diverting or dissipating citizen opposition to their schemes. Nothing is foreordained. Still, if I had to pick the time in our history when things looked bleakest for liberty, I wouldn't pick this one.
2. Cathedrals.
I'm a religious man, which Kim is not, so I tend to think about certain subjects that on the surface might not seem relevant to his concerns. Yet they are.
Europe is dotted with mighty edifices to faith: cathedrals of impressive size and soaring grace. Most of these were built long before the advent of power machinery. The usual time-to-completion of these works was about a century. Let that sink in for a moment.
C. Northcote Parkinson has noted that a single man may save a currency (e.g., J. P. Morgan, Antoine Pinay) or restore order in a city (e.g., Rudolph Giuliani), but no single man can build a cathedral. Cathedrals, particularly those of pre-Industrial Era design and construction, require many hands and many years to complete. What motive power could persuade three and four generations of workers, many of whom were donating their labor and time, to continue in the execution of a design written by a man who was probably long dead?
The answer is conviction.
If one believes that the cause is supremely important, one can move mountains by sheer force of will. Every revolution in history, including all the successful ones, was undertaken against heavy odds. Those that carried the field seemed like miracles even to many of their contemporaries. They failed to appreciate the magnitude of the strength-of-conviction factor in their evaluation of the opposing forces.
To be a Freedom Commando in our time and place, one must have strong convictions and a matching willingness to fight for them, by whatever means are appropriate. But this alone will allow us to overmatch the mandarins of the State, whose convictions, if one may call them that, are wrapped exclusively around their power and perquisites. We'll find tougher opponents among the organized special interests, but they too are defeasible, given time and determination.
3. Good Causes.
"Your enemy is always your teacher." -- Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
"Defeat is education. It is a step to something better." -- Louis Nizer, My Life In Court
"In a good cause, there are no failures." -- Isaac Asimov
America took a long time "getting sick": roughly from about 1890 to 1980. It's foolish to think that it can be made well in a much shorter period. Organizations and movements that set out to reverse a century of degradation in a handful of years might as well try to stop the rotation of the Earth. It might not be impossible, but it's surely not the way to bet.
My life is probably well past its halfway mark. I once hoped to see a true rebirth of individual freedom in my time, but I no longer expect to live that long. But my convictions about that cause remain strong. I am willing to go to my grave under conditions of (relative) tyranny, yet continue to work for the re-liberation of my country, because I believe it's the right thing to do.
This is the "cathedral" to which I have given, and will continue to give, my labor and my love: as a thinker and writer first and foremost, but, should we come to that terrible pass, as a fighter, too.
Orson Scott Card's statement above is of critical importance. We will suffer defeats, probably many defeats. But this merely emphasizes the urgency of studying our enemy: not merely to learn how to best him, but to learn from the times he bests us.
At each defeat, we must draw the lessons appropriate to the contest and incorporate them into our strategic and tactical thinking. A defeat from which one does not learn is a pure loss. A defeat which teaches one how to avoid future defeats is near to being a gain.
Many of us will never see "the promised land." But our children might, and their children more likely will. If their futures are important to us -- and they are, aren't they? -- then let's use them to keep our spirits up and our motivation strong. If we need to feel that we've spent our lives well, rather than wasting our gifts and our resources to no purpose -- and we do, don't we? -- then what better (secular) devotion could we indulge than devotion to the cause of freedom, whether we get to taste it personally or not?
No more defeatism! If your own convictions have flagged or you've lost your taste for the contest, have the grace to keep silent. That's the least you can do. We who are resolved to continue are willing to drag you behind us, but be good enough not to try to pull us in the opposite direction. Set a good example for your kids, if nothing else.
The battle continues. See you on the front lines.
Comments
I feel like pulling my horns in too often myself, so it’s good to hear a reminder that the fight’s worth fighting.
Posted by Scott Chaffin on 07/05/2005 at 09:02 AMFor some of us, this is “the good fight”. When my 15 year old son walks in on me when I’m blogging we usually begin discussing politics. He gets to hear the counter arguments to his teenaged friends uninformed left-leaning beliefs. A few times, to my delight, I heard him offer these arguments in discussions with his friends. Sure, I’m involved, but I want to pass down that involvement, gently of course. It’s the only way he’ll listen.
Posted by Harry on 07/05/2005 at 10:06 AMThis is the good fight! I was disappointed to read some of the harsh responses to Kim’s despair.
I don’t believe in kicking a good man when he’s down. We’re each only human and so have periods of weakness. These are the times to allow others to refresh themselves in our willingness to carry on the fight, without them temporarily, and in our courage and convictions, and to recite, again for what we struggle and why. (I don’t refer to the permanent whiners, just to the momentarily dispirited.) And to reassure them that they will soon regain their strength and composure.
Is that what you’ve done here, Francis?
Posted by on 07/05/2005 at 10:50 AMReminder and reassurance is the idea, Cindi. And yes, Kim is a good man and oughn’t to be “kicked.” But there are a lot of folks out there who’ve been talking the talk without walking the walk. Some of these latter ones have recently begun to spout counsels of despair. I have little patience with such persons, and a vigorous right foot.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 07/05/2005 at 11:16 AMI think one of the litmus tests of whether or not you’ve picked the right side in a fight should be whether or not members of your side can respond to pessimism and things not going their way with such eloquence, insightfulness and philosophy. Very encouraging, thank you.
Posted by Marie on 07/05/2005 at 07:49 PMThere is on this campus a survivor/refugee of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I asked him once what he wanted from America. He then proceeded to quote the entire Declaration of Independence from memory. Then he said, “I want you to be people who wrote that document.” I have never been so humbled in my life.
The fox knows many clever things. The hedgehog knows but one-how to bite and not let go!
“Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
W. S. ChurchillI am 55 and I may never see the new rise of Liberty in this country. My children will and G-d willing my grandchildren will: Therefore I will not dispair, I will not retreat, I will give no quarter or comfort to the enemies of liberty. This we promise and this debt to our forefathers we will never dishonor.
Posted by on 07/05/2005 at 08:52 PM
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