Blogs For Victory

Not backing down an inch – but greatly clarifying. From Mark Hemingway over at the Washington Examiner:

…Daniels called me to say that he’s dead serious about the need for the next president to declare a truce. “It wasn’t something I just blurted out,” he told me. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”

He’s emphasized the need to focus like a laser beam on the existential threats facing the country — the two big issues he’s previously identified being the war on terror and the country’s precarious fiscal position. “We’re going to need a lot more than 50.1 percent of the country to come together to keep from becoming Greece,” he said.

He did, however, want to clarify that he’s not just singling out controversial social issues. “I’m talking about all divisive issues,” he said. Clear and unified priorities are the only way he sees the country rallying around common purposes…

I, on the other hand, am a firm believer in the scheme, the whole scheme and nothing but the scheme. Taking my cue – and that phrase – from Lord John Fisher, First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty during his reform of the Royal Navy in the early 20th century. He got a much more powerful navy, vastly more prepared for war at no more cost than the old, weaker and less ready navy. While his special area was narrow, he showed how you go about fixing a broken governmental system – you take it apart and put it all back together the way you want.

And since Governor Daniels is repeating his statement with emphasis and without retreat (for which he gets a tip of the hat from me – courage is a rare and vital trait in a leader, and Daniels has it), I’ll repeat mine: you can’t have a truce. A truce would have been akin to trying to build a modern, efficient naval fighting force while allowing the dinosaurs to continue on in their old, inefficient ways.

Our opponents don’t look at issues in separation – any advancement of the leftist goal is good and will never be surrendered. You give them an inch, they’ll take the mile, and then demand one more inch, in preparation for taking one more mile. And it doesn’t matter if they don’t get it this year, or next year, or the year after. Patience is the one virtue they have shown – they’ll wait for years, continually grinding away at our position, knowing that they’ll eventually topple it, if given time and never hit back.

If we surrender the initiative on, say, gay marriage, then the left will just continue to press it. If we say, “let us put aside this contentious issue and concentrate on rebuilding our economy”, the left might say they agree, but that would simply be a tactical lie – the very next day they’d be back at it, pressing their agenda and if anyone on our side subsequently brought up the fact that they were, indeed, pressing their agenda, the left would scream that we’re bringing back partisanship at a time when we’re all supposed to be working together to rebuild the economy. What we’d find is that while we, acting as patriots, fixed the economy, the left had busily besieged several places we thought safe during the truce.

We have to fight them all, and all down the line. The left must be destroyed in order to save our nation – ripped out of the body politic root and branch. Exposed for their corruption and de-funded. We might beat a tactical retreat from time to time from direct assault, but we must never entirely let up the pressure. Flexibility is an absolute requirement – but we must never say, “we won’t battle on this issue, if you don’t”, simply because they’ll lie and say they agree, and then just go on as before.

As they plan to continually press us, we must change the dynamics and continually press them…force them to defend the destruction they have wrought and convince ever more Americans that liberty and safety are best secured by limiting the baleful influence of the left.

I understand where Governor Daniels is coming from – and should he win the GOP nomination at some point, I will vote for him, as he’s been an excellent governor – but he’s flat wrong on this truce idea. Battle, continual and aggressive until the war is won – that is what we must do.