Jeffery Anderson over at Pajamas Media has an excellent article about just whom the GOP will need in 2012 – essentially, we’ll need our best of the best to beat Obama, but it seems that a lot of our top flight candidates are going to sit 2012 out. This worries Anderson, correctly, because he views the election of 2012 as crucial as the 1864 election. In that year, had Lincoln lost, the Union would have been permanently split – in 2012, if Obama wins then we might well see the permanent imposition of socialism in America…but the time 2016 rolls around so many people will be made dependent upon government that no small government candidate will ever win.
Which is all true, but I’m not entirely convinced that any of the top flight candidates Anderson lists (Ryan, Christie and Pence in his view – though I’m sure he’d have kind words to say about Daniels, Pawlenty and a few others) are what we need. They may end up being what we need, but only one candidate, in my view, has shown an inkling of what we really face – and even she (yes, its Sarah Palin) has yet to completely demonstrate an understanding of the gravity of the situation.
The Civil War analogy is apt, but one must add to it a bit more to fully understand the nature not just of the threat, but of our opponents. Do you remember that scene in Terminator where the soldier from the future was explaining just how inexorable the Terminator would be? Keep on going no matter what, reach down her throat and rip her heart out? That sort of thing? Well, that is the nature of the left – they will not stop. Not ever. If we beat them in 2012, they’ll just keep coming at us until we crush them completely.
What do I mean by “crush them completely”? I mean not just beating them at the polls but after we do so, going about the reform of America to the point where the left is no longer able to exercise influence on American policy. The dirty, little secret of the left is that it is largely government funded. Starting in the 1930s, the left stopped being a purely opposition movement and started moving in to government as a means of re-directing American policy in a leftist manner. From the strong regulatory and funding positions of government, the left also started to press itself upon the media and the education establishment. Here in 2011 there is a massive web of government funding and regulation which both keeps the left well funded as well as allowing it to continually influence policy even when not 1 in 10 Americans agree with the policy being advanced. In order for us to really win – in order for us to stop this leftist terminator of America – we need to clear out that web. We need to de-fund and disbar the left.
Thus far, I’ve yet to see a GOP candidate who fully understands this. Palin comes closest, but none of them have articulated a vision which would have us dismantling the government support for the American left. And make no mistake about it, once the left is excluded from government support, it will dry up and blow away – becoming no more relevant to American policy than was the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas in the early 20th century. Think I’m off base here?
Just think it through for a moment – how much money does Uncle Sam allegedly spend on education? And how much of that actually goes to pay for a classroom teacher? Once you’ve subtracted that amount (which is rather tiny) from the total amount spent on “education”, you’ve now got the part which functions as a slush fund for the left. So, too, with agency after agency of the federal government…very large amounts of the money goes for things other than the stated purpose; that part of the money is going to fund the left. And this leaves off the various regulations which either empower the left without a vote or prevent non-leftists from attacking left wing bastions of power.
This is, in a very real sense, a Civil War – one side or the other will win it all and permanently impose its vision on America. If the left wins, we die out as a nation (I know they don’t see it that way, but they also, apparently, can’t see that rampant sex and violence in popular culture has a negative impact on society…if you can’t see something plain as a pike staff like that, you’re not likely to see that your whole worldview is dysfunctional). If we win, we survive and thrive. 2012 could be crucial and no matter what we must get Obama out – but until we steel ourselves to the real task, utterly destroying the left, then we are just spinning our wheels. What we need is a GOP candidate who sees this – and, so far, I haven’t seen one.
Blogs For Victory 