The [well named] Optimistic Conservative writes a stream of consciousness well worth reading in its entirety, but from which it's damned difficult to pull an excerpt. I tried:
... Reagan knew about communism...that it is weak at its core. Anger, hatred, envy, deceit, soulless ruthlessness: these things do not arise from strength and do not bolster it. When communists sought to keep the record of their real actions from being made public, Reagan recognized weakness in that. He saw weakness in their refusal to engage with the truth; instead, they dealt, by policy, in lies. When the United States stood firm against their gambits, they backed down. Oh, they shrieked and hopped like thwarted delinquents, spitting out strings of accusatory lies – but they backed down....
.... Collectivism has noise and fury on its side; too often it gets the armament of state power on its side as well. But it cannot win in the end, because it is the antithesis of people having hope and a future. Its purpose is to tear down what is, and keep as many people as possible enslaved to hopelessness. It has no room for independent ingenuity, the wonder of personality, or hope and the building of a life outside of the political collective. Its sole political purposes are to punish – punish anyone, punish whatever, punish on principle – and to enrich and consolidate the power of the rulers.
Collectivism cannot produce any other result....
.... I am not sure what form of organization it will take to defeat the collectivist juggernaut now seeking to embed itself in America. The Cold War seemed politically complicated compared to World War II, with the latter’s cartoon-caricature villains who were so easy to spot a mile away. But breaking the back of Soviet Communism turned out to be a relatively simple matter among nation-states. It didn’t look simple at the time, of course, but we ended up achieving it doing what Americans know how to do: elect presidents and talk about freedom.
This time, the players and dynamics are different. The problem is within our society. I made the point several times during the campaign that we couldn’t “fix” what’s wrong with us by electing Mitt Romney, but only give ourselves time for introspection and planning. We can’t elect our way out of the problem we’re in.
But we can rejoice – and I mean rejoice – that the side that won the 2012 election is the weaker side, because it offers no hope, no future, no prospect of the freedom to build and plan as humans are predisposed to: for the joy of hard work rewarded, for our families, for our communities, for prosperity, for posterity.
Posted by: scp | Wednesday, 14 November 2012 at 12:19 AM
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