Loyal To LibertyBeta

Some people, now including a National Committeewoman from North Carolina, have expressed the view that Michael Steele is unfit to be leader of the RNC. I think this assessment is only partially correct. What is left unsaid of course is that the GOP is unfit to claim leadership of the conservative base that is the mainstay of Republican electoral hopes. Steele's erratic performance isn't a matter of personal inadequacy. He's a capable and generally well-spoken individual. He suffers however, from the fact that the Republican Party has ironically become a perfect illustration of the "house divided against itself", the Biblical metaphor Lincoln immortalized in our political history the last time the United States passed through a period like ours. The unprincipled materialists in the Party's big money base, and the otherwise insubstantial politicians who depend upon it for survival, are at war with the grassroots conservatives. Both love America for its freedom. But when a grassroots conservative uses the term, he means liberty, the chance to do as much and go as far as talent and/or hard work will get you; the opportunity to live under laws that reflect your sense of decency; and the character that takes the responsibilities of self-reliance and citizenship seriously. When the unprincipled materialists speak of freedom, they mainly seem to mean freedom of action (the opening to do whatever it takes to preserve what you've got and get more.) Taken in the latter sense, freedom has no substantive meaning or value. When it's useful it's good. When it's not useful, it's expendable.

Confronted with someone like Obama, the grassroots conservative recognizes by instinct and reasoning, that liberty is under threat. The materialist, on the other hand, considers what can be made from the tidal wave of government spending; the flood of cheap labor across unenforced borders; the profitable acquisitions available as prices fall and cash flow problems ripen otherwise undervalued assets for the taking. Any times can be good times for those positioned to take advantage. Money's never lost but when it's also gained, by someone. "O'er forms of government let fools contest", whatever makes a profit, that's the best.

The Obama faction is synthesizing communist goals and political tactics with means drawn from the playbook of National Socialism (translated as "globalism" these days). This gives the materialists lots of room for calculation. For all the talk of negative markets and depression, not far from the surface they have a pretty shrewd hunch that this guy Obama is someone they can work with. He has to throw sops to the leftist populists, of course. But eventually, as he uses the rhetoric of populist hope and change to gather the reins of control into fewer and fewer hands, the burdensome complexities of American politics will be streamlined and simplified. It won't be quite as straightforward as bribing the vanity of self-important tyrants in Africa or the Middle East, but it will be far easier than riding the ornery and unpredictable currents of a really free electoral process, and laws made by representatives who do more than rubber stamp the party line.

Into these and other such practical calculations, intrudes the clamor of people concerned about the Constitution, the moral principles, the loss of control over income and livelihood, and the surrender of self-respect involved in becoming slavish dependents of government and corporate bureaucracy. The materialists think that talking about these concerns is all well and good if it gets votes from well meaning people who care about them. But that 's only so long as none of it really determines actions or policy. When push comes to shove, human achievement consists in a few people doing what they do best, while the others do what the best ones tell them. Once upon a time they called it aristocracy (from a Greek word for the power of superior people), and the privileged few were called, "the nobility" and "the quality." The ugly abuses it involved took the shine off those fine words, however, so now they call it progress, change, globalism, the new world order. The privileged ones are stars, decision makers, or celebrities. Actually it's the same old story, though now equipped with better technology and relieved of any real regard for conscience by the pseudo-scientific ideologies of evolution and behaviorism.

Sometimes in the course of a bureaucratic or corporate power struggle the one who was in charge realizes that others are no longer talking to him, but to each other. The outcome may still seem undecided, but a perceptive player recognizes it as a moment signaling defeat. It's not so much that he has lost. It's that he just doesn't matter anymore. For some time now, on issues like border security and immigration, the massive bank bailout, the push for same sex marriage and the like, the people have been in that position. They thought they were in charge, but now the elites talk only to one another, working out the terms on which the end of constitutional, democratic self-government in America shall be unveiled to the entire world.

This is what really makes the Steele-Limbaugh match-up a distraction from the main event. While they appear to mix it up, the Republican Party stands quietly by as the Constitution is shredded, the country run to bankruptcy, and the people turned from sovereign citizens to bleating subjects, grateful for admission into the electronic presence of their betters. And as cover for it all so-called Republicans, like Mel Martinez, flattering the power of the people with the false notion that their will is superior to the Constitution which alone perpetuates their sovereignty.

Now, don't get me wrong. I still believe the overthrow of the republic can be undone. But the turnaround will not begin until the conservative grassroots abandon the dead end goal of saving the Republican Party. Let the so-called leaders play out their charade, while the citizen leaders, instead of watching, set to work on the achievable miracle of saving the Republic. Visit aipnews.com