from nowhere, and that the ideas-and men who thought them–upon which it
is based are irrelevant. They act as if this system will run itself
forever flawlessly, if we just trust the “people”, with the people
understood as everyone but white males.
This is, in my view, a form of bigotry. It shows a profound lack of
gratitude and appreciation both for the work and sacrifice that went
into forming our system, and the on-going sacrifices of those who
continue to believe in it.
A Constitutional Republic is like a complex machine, full of gears
and levers, steam boilers, and gauges. The operating manual is
contained in foundational works, all of which were written by dead white
men. The possibility of uttering that phrase with contempt began with
those very same men.
This Republic need not last forever. At the rate we are decaying
morally and intellectually, I honestly doubt we will last another 50
years. Even that is almost certainly a stretch. If I were our enemy, I
would have a 10 and 20 year plan. If it were me in the drivers seat, I
think I could pull it off.
I have never been as pessimistic about the future of our country as I
have been these past weeks. I don’t have a problem that we elected a
black man for President. Race doesn’t matter to me.
What bothers me is we elected Obama BECAUSE he is a black man. He is
not even remotely qualified for the office. Not even close. The
biggest organization he’s ever run is a Senate subcommittee, and he
hasn’t spent much time at that.
Even if he isn’t a radical, there were half a dozen red flags that
should have been presented by the media. For example, the career of
Obama’s political Godfather, Saul Alinsky.
The only virtue that is taught in our schools is tolerance. But tolerance is not a virtue that enables societies to survive.
The best way to put this is if I parachute a group of people with
limited supplies onto a desert island, and tell them to survive for 20
years, and build a community, tolerance will not be the top on the list
of virtues. Work ethic, persistence, ingenuity, discipline–those top
the list. Tolerance helps to grease the wheels, but it won’t feed
anybody. If somebody wants to go sit on a stump somewhere and be
tolerant, he will die of hunger.
And I think it is misusing the term to say that tolerance implies
blanket acceptance of all behaviors of certain groups simply because of
their minority status. Tolerance is looking individuals in the eyes,
and seeing who they really are. Seeing them as fellow human beings,
with all the problems, uncertainties, doubts, and hopes as anyone else.
Being color blind, in other words.
This is the sort of activity, the sort of thinking, that studying the liberal traditions of our culture leads to.
Nothing in Locke, or Hamilton, or Jefferson, or Madison, or Adams–etc.–is intended to support cultural suicide.
That impulse comes from the radical Left. The divergence of my own
views from those of many of the people around me has never been more
stark to me. It is almost like half of the people around me suddenly
disappeared mentally into the Twilight Zone. Very few people seem to
realize the profound moral danger we are in, which will not change even
if Obama turns out to be a decent, moderate President.
Our culture is collapsing, and it is collapsing because we stopped
feeding it 30-40 years ago. We did this to improve the world, but
unless I am sorely mistaken, it will end–absent a successful
counteroffensive by those who still believe there is a difference
between right and wrong, and that the question is not a trick
question–with more misery than all but a few of you can imagine.
These Great Books would be an antidote, but what schools are going to pick them up?
One idea I had that I will pass along to avoid ending in abject
bleakness, is what I propose to call Patriot Clubs. This would be a
debating society that gets together once a month or so, in which members
read two books on a topic, one by a liberal, and one by a conservative.
They then debate them, and the group discussed the debate in a
structured way afterwards.
As a conservative, I can imagine no better way to convert people than
placing them in the position of defending their own views. I can also
imagine no better way of coming to understand your enemy than by taking
his place in the order of rhetorical battle.
I don’t fear alternative views, for the simple reason that I have
exposed my own to constant and withering contempt and ridicule for a
number of years now, and they have held their ground admirably.
That’s enough for now. It’s interesting to me that the St. John’s
crowd speaks English and is capable of thinking in paragraphs devoid of
slogans. If only Harvard and Yale could produce people like that.