I'm a conservative who has been active in government. Because of that, a number of acquaintances have recently asked me, "Senator, how did we ever get into the political mess we're in?"
Frankly, I'd rather not take the time to tell them because there is no simple answer--- However, I try anyway. Fact is, after I explain the facts, most don't get it. They rarely grasp the consequences of what I'm telling them --- They don't have the background to comprehend the consequences of what I've just told them. It's a rare bird who asks the important question "what can I do, or, is there a good cause that I can donate to?”
No mater what the response, I have to tell them anyway. Why? Because the Scripture tells me that if I know the answer, I should give them an ear full. In Ezekiel 3:18, the prophet Ezekiel was told to inform the people to shape up or else. The Lord commanded him to tell the impudent and stubborn children, both the good and the bad ones, to repent and ask for forgiveness. God told Ezekiel that if he didn't tell them, their blood was on his hands. What was good advice for Ezekiel was meant for all of us today. If we know and don't tell, the blood is on our hands as well.
That's why I'm writing this article so when the next person asks, I tell them to look it up on my Blog, www.SENHLR.BLOGSPOT.COM and think about it. Maybe if they read it over a few times, they might get it and get busy.
It's a tough story to tell because it didn't happen overnight ---but happen it did! Ignoring God's directions and being a stiff necked people, we're now in deep, deep trouble. Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "Sooner or later in life, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.”Well, we're at the banquet and we're suffering the consequences of having denied God's directions for a good life and a trip to eternity.
There are many reasons but this article is about the political complacency that affects most Americans. The vast number of our citizens have been happy the way we all live and aren't interested in changing anything, or doing much about politics. Slowly but surely, they have drifted away from knowing the vital role God played in this nations birth. Therefore, after paying scant attention to the mechanics of American politics, most Americans have little understanding or interest in how it has been cleverly changed. Most have been too busy to think about it and can't imagine "why anyone would ever want to change it anyway". Comfortable with the attitude of "If it ain't broke why bother to fix it!" --- and, forgetting the statement that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," complacency has pushed us to the cusp of losing big chunks of our income, our property and our personal freedom.
The second reason is that there are political activists who don't like "our way of life' and for over a century, have been working diligently to turn us into another godless European socialist state --- or worse.
"Well, you may ask, “How did this all happen?" It is difficult to cram a century of activity into a short article, but I'll try to give the highlights of how the socialists have gotten us in this bureaucratic mess and now have the power to push us over the cliff. Let's first revue some important historical facts.
Theodore Roosevelt, one our most popular and articulate Presidents, said at the very beginning of the twentieth Century that our destiny as a nation was being threatened. He excoriated some American intellectuals who were espousing what they called "a new morality." Emphatically and without equivocation he stated, "There are those who believe that a new modernity demands a new morality. What they fail to consider is the harsh reality that there is no such thing as a new morality. There is only one morality."
He went on to state "There is only true Christian ethics over against which stands the whole of paganism. If we are to fulfill our great destiny as a people, then we must return to the old morality, the sole morality.”
Roosevelt saw the beginnings of the moral and intellectual slippage and it bothered him greatly. He saw some college academicians advocating a “new morality” embodying atheism, evolution, and socialist materialism. Our twenty sixth president then emphatically said, “All those blatant sham reformers, in the name of new morality, preach the old, old vice and self indulgence which rotted out first, the moral fiber and then even the external greatness of Greece and Rome.”
Tough stuff, hardly what today's political liberal sophists would publicly say much less believe. Not many paid attention to Roosevelt's prophetic warnings. The ethics of these “new moralists” flowed primarily from the theories of two atheistic authors; the now 150 year old, 1859 "scientific" evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin; detailed in his book “Origin of Species,” and, the 1848 socialist "scientific" concepts in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, and Communist Manifesto. Darwin and Karl's theories became quickly the 'new thing" for a number of American academics who, not only accepted as truth, but, quickly began to advocate as scientific fact to their students.
Over the last 150 years, both Marx and Darwin have been thoroughly discredited and debunked by modern science, logic and time. However, both fallacies were taking hold at the turn of the 1900's. These “new moralists" were becoming increasingly vocal on our college campuses and in the national labor union movement. It didn't take long before they were demanding their “new scientific" ideas should become implemented politically. They began their maiden political voyage by attempting to elect their candidates under the socialist banner. They were unsuccessful and their numbers and influence remained small.
They, at first, had made the mistake of trying to explain how their atheistic, materialistic, and collectivist political schemes worked --- concepts such as governmental ownership of all businesses and property. These were wild ideas at the time --- diametrically opposite to the way Americans thought and therefore, were not only rejected, but scoffed at. The vast majority of our citizens were happy with personal liberty, ownership of private property, constitutional government, free enterprise and politics implemented through the established two party system.
Up to the beginning of the twentieth Century, the nation's ethics were decidedly Christian based --- 90% of the citizenry proudly called themselves Christians and approved of it being discussed in our public schools. Students were instructed on why and how the Constitution was written and who were the Godly men who did so. Students were instructed to memorized passages from their fore-fathers speeches and recite them before the class. Christmas carols were learned and joyfully sung in our public schools. Bible verses were memorized and recited in class. Even the United States Supreme Court, after years of voluminous study, declared in 1898 that America was decidedly a Christian nation.
Patrick Henry emphatically stated, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been offered asylum, prosperity, and freedom to worship here.”
Americans became very comfortable with our good life, our two party system --- only a few ever thought about wanting to change it. "Why would anyone want anything else?" --- was the national attitude.
In Europe however, the socialists were making some headway in the labor union movement, promoting their Marxist, anti capitalist, hate the rich, divide the wealth, propaganda. The English Fabian socialist movement grew and captured the interest of some of the British intellectuals, such as Bertrand Russell and George Bernard Shaw.
At the turn of the twentieth century, a well organized radical by the name of Lenin, put wheels under the international world socialist movement. He directed a tiny minority of well organized communists in subverting and overthrowing the Russia's Czarist government. He set up what was soon to become a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. In so doing, Lenin developed a financial base and an international platform for the promotion of world socialism through agitation, subversion, and propaganda. Lenin believed that if subversion worked in capturing Russia, why not anywhere else? After the First World War, the leftist movement wanted to become more politically active in the United States. Lenin was an excellent organizer, and he and other socialist leaders such as Norman Thomas, realized that it was an impossible task to sell their bad tasting political medicine to the vast majority of Americans. Lenin wrote extensively on how not to sell socialism, calling left-wingers who tried to explain socialism an "infantile disorder." In essence, he told the faithful, don't try to sell the details of how the socialist system works, if you do, you'll scare people away. They will quickly see how all power is centralized in the hands of a centralized government and in the hands of a powerful few. Just tell the masses that socialism is wonderful and that it promises equality for all. Safe your breath trying to explain how socialism works, make headway condemning the inequities of capitalism.
Norman Thomas, an early leader in the American socialist movement, promoted the concept that Americans would "never knowingly adopt socialism but, under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." The socialist movement decided there were three areas of extreme importance for them to penetrate and influence. Since human beings are nothing more than graduate animals, all humans were just another accident of nature. What they hear and read control all their actions so --- control the avenues of mass communications and you can program the beasts to react like Pavlov's dogs. That meant that the media, education and politics became their prime areas of conquest.
The left then wisely abandoned attempts to sell their socialist programs as a third political party--- deciding that there was more fertile ground within the two party system running as “liberals” and “progressives.” They soon found it wasn't very difficult to do so --- as long as they kept their mouths shut on the glories of socialism. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Democrat’s had a weak national political party, eager for any new members. The left seized the opportunity, registered as Democrats, called themselves "progressives" and went to work within the Democrat party.
They were well aware that both parties are open to any one who wants to join, with no ideological strings attached --- no platform one must adhere to, no specific issues one must accept to be a member. All one had to do was register to vote, be of age, no felonious record and, if caring to run for office, have enough money to file for candidacy. There is no political litmus test in either party in order to be a member or a candidate. Socialists found it easy to register, and run for office as a Democrat; just sublimate their ideology and then campaign around any popular issue in order to get elected. Say what ever works in order to win the office, then legislate as they jolly well please once elected. The end justifies the means was their motto and moral guide, do whatever it takes to win --- lying was never a problem unless caught.
PLEASE PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION. IT'S THE GUTS OF HOW THE LEFT HAS GAINED SUCH OUT OF PROPORTION CONTROL OF POLITICS WITH A SUCH A MINORITY OF VOTERS.
The left-wing political leadership recognized that, by themselves, they were only a tiny percentage of the American population, never enough in numbers to win elections. However, small as they were, they were organized and they had a plan, a grand scheme to socialize America! They knew where they wanted to go but how to get there was the question! Patient gradualism was the answer.
Studying the mechanics of American politics, they soon recognized that, on the average, only fifty percent of all adult Americans ever bothered to register to vote. ONLY HALF! Then, in the primary elections, where the two parties choose their candidates, again, ONLY HALF of those who took the time to register even bothered to participate. So, only ONE OUT OF EVERY FOUR Americans actually vote in primary elections where candidates for the general election are selected. It's quite a shock to realize that three out of every four Americans have no say-so in the selection of primary candidates. THAT'S NOT ALL!!! ... Add to those facts, multiple candidates run in primary elections, it is not uncommon for five to ten candidates to seek the same office for each party; thereby splitting the vote even farther. This is especially true when no incumbent is running for re-election, or when every ten years, new seats are created by reapportionment and the office is considered an "open seat". [More in a later column on how the games are played in reapportionment]
Therefore, a small organized percentage of voters could nominate and elect their candidate in primary elections since multiple candidates inevitably seek the same office. The following is an actual example of how a small minority can win a major California State Senate office. The registration heavily favored one of the major parties.
District population approximately 600,000
Those who could register to vote 400,000
Those who bothered to register 235,000
Total who voted in primary election 120,000
Dominate party primary vote 70,000
Lesser party primary vote 50,000
Eight candidates sought the major party nomination and the winning candidate gained 16,000 of the 70,000 votes cast; the other seven candidates split the remaining 54,000.
The primary winner won handily in the general election because of the registration advantage. He easily gained the Senate seat and served for 22 years. He gained leadership and helped elect many others of like mind. Is this race an exception? No! It happens all the time. Realize the significance of only 16,000 votes out of potentially 400,000 who could have participated. Think about it. Is it any wonder that a small dedicated minority of voters could have a disproportionate impact on our government when three out of four Americans don’t even register or bother to take part in primary elections ---- in the very important process of selecting who their candidates might be? Think long and hard about it!!!
The left saw that in local elections for school boards, city council, supervisory races, a even much smaller numbers of votes could affect the outcome. With an organized minority of fellow activists, left wing candidates could, and have won local offices. Once elected, and establishing a base of operations as an incumbent office holder, it's much easier to develop important name identity --- therefore, making it much easier to move up, step by step, to higher office, such as state representatives and state senators. Then, at a later opportunity, to Congress and the US Senate. Many a national left-wing Congressman and Senator has successfully followed this upward path and are now in national office. Study the careers of Democrat Congressman George Miller and Henry Waxman as good examples.
Once elected, even to the smallest seat, the socialist becomes an active part of the movement; committed to help promote the socialist cause, and helping others succeed. They effectively use their office to hire those of like mind, train staff, raise funds and gradually introduce, bit by bit, socialist legislation. For years and years, the good socialist activist moves upwards to one higher office after another --- that is, if he or she remains a good soldier.
The socialists, in Democrat or Republican garb, believe that any method that achieved socialist power is “ethical.” As mentioned before, “the end justifies the means” becomes their motto and method of operation. Deception and lying became the tools of their trade. To call someone a “lying socialist” is a redundancy.
During the early 1900’s, the socialist base within the Democrat party was still too tiny to elect their numbers to many offices; they needed to attract additional support. Now, clothed as liberals, they increased their numbers by wooing small disgruntled and politically isolated segments of the population, offering them promises of future political advantage for their special and often extreme interests. Knowing, that by adding small segments, their combined numbers could add up enough votes to win primary elections. They first successfully wooed segments of the union movement and later became the dominate factor in the union leadership. Then, over the years, adding little segments one at a time, they captured support from the homosexual community by sympathizing with their “gay” activities. They attracted anti-war pacifists, disgruntled feminists, extreme environmentalists, and any other dissident group that could be wooed with future promises of legislative support and jobs. Adopting Marxist “class action” agitation, they pandered to any group they could exploit and bring on board.
During the growth of their move toward power, the left wing socialist leadership wisely kept these dissident segments in the background, separated and undercover, appealing to each special interest directly, and then, only to each one's special interest. They knew there would be difficulties if they ever brought them all together, for they certainly didn’t want to have large meetings of rank and file teamsters union members with the “gay” community nor the elderly with anti-war activists. They were especially clever keeping these new "friends" out of sight of the old line Democrats.
The great depression of the 1930’s brought the Democrats into national power at all levels of government, including an active segment of the “left - wing.” However, the majority of the Democrat legislators elected during the 1930’s and 1940’s were still traditional Americans in their ethics and values. However, a few old-line Democrats saw trouble brewing and the shift in leadership taking place within their own party. The old time Democrat found out later, rather than soon enough, when he found himself discouraged and gerrymandered out of his seat, replaced by a young leftist.
Over many years, the “extreme leftist” control over the inner workings of the Democrat party structure increased dramatically. Working together and directing these organized minorities during the nineteen fifties and sixties, the leftists had elected sufficient numbers to take control of the larger industrialized states.
Being an organized minority, it wasn't too difficult for the more radical to gain positions of leadership within the majority party, thereby controlling the selection of committee chairmen. Again, a minority controlling the majority. [More on this subject in a later column.}
While in political office, during the 1970’s and 1980’s, I saw the left grasp control over the political fortunes of the Democrat's. On a first hand basis, I sadly watched it all happen ---traditional American Democrats eased out of office and out of leadership. Today, the socialists, although still a numerical minority, are the dominant voice in elected leadership, especially in heavily populated states. They effectively and systematically eliminated conservative Democrat office holders within their ranks. Because the Left now controls leadership, they control candidate funding, thereby dominating those who wish to be elected and effectively leveraging all Democrat incumbents to the left, especially those who wish to stay in office.
The leftist socialists, over the decades, have developed an effective political farm system. They, like major league baseball, have organized a farm system of local left-wing politicians, governmental workers, legislative staffers and Democrat consultants who they can count on to run for any vacated office. The upper echelon controls the money and effectively picks who moves up the ladder.
Over the past fifty years, controlling the vast wealth created through taxation, they have built a huge federal, state and local bureaucracy, which not only employs their own kind but implements a wealth of programs that reflects the wishes of their base, the unions, environmentalists, the gays, the feminists, abortionists, the anti war pacifists, etc. Through laws, they have dramatically increased their power and numbers and have done what Norman Thomas predicted would happen.
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
Is all lost? Not by a long shot.
The leftists are increasingly having problems within their own Democrat ranks.
The dissident splinter groups they’ve attracted and wooed began to make demands in the 1980's and 1990's. They had contributed to the Democrat victories, now they wanted their reward. They wanted more of their own openly elected to office and they wanted their issues enacted into law. Instead of being splinter groups kept in the closet, they demanded to be heard, and their wishes subsequently become part of our laws.
They got their wish and, they the dissonant, are now involved in helping run the Democrat party. The tail is now wagging the old “Democrat” donkey. The anti-war, pro -abortion, environmental extremists, anti-gun, soft on crime, big spending liberals, feminists and deviants of both sexes are calling the political tune and are marching hand in hand with the Democrat San Francisco leadership in gay parades.
A large body of old rank and file Democrats are finally scratching their heads and wondering, “What’s going on?” Many of them hesitatively abandoned the jackass and climbed aboard the elephant when Reagan was in charge but would have nothing to do with the RINO's the Republican party has offered them in recent elections.
Fortunately, a growing number of worried Americans are becoming aware of
how it all happened. Trouble is, most know little about what to do about it.
Outside of trying to inform their fellow Americans, there are many irritated
and disturbed Americans anxious to do something ---but what? [ More about
what to do in the next article I write for my blog ] We must remember, millions
of Americans are waking up, still holding to core traditional and religious
values, and holding their nose to the political corruption that surrounds us. When
properly informed and given good leadership, they will work diligently to see the
left in both parties are routed out and that we return to our traditional morals and
Constitutional government.
There is a truism in economic circles, “bad money drives out good.” The same thing is true in politics. Bad people drive out good ones. In the Democrat party that fact is holding true. Bad Democrats are driving out good ones. In rural America, the trend is decidedly towards a return to basic American values. Who would have believed forty years ago, that below the Mason Dixon Line, the South would turn Republican? Or that rock-ribbed Republican New Englander’s would tolerate Barney Frank or Ted Kennedy in office?
The left hasn’t gained total control, for if they had, they’d have made it a “crime” for me to write what I have just written. There is little time and means to turn it all around and get the buggers out of government ---they are still a minority but so are the Christians. They're organized and in control, and we are not. I know it’s possible to defeat the left, and so do they.
The difference is they are active in politics while Christians are just waking up to the responsibility. An awakened Christian citizenry terrifies the left. That is why, when recently challenged, and confronted, the thin veneer of gossamer wing civility rubs off for all to see. We are now starting to openly witness how uncivil and uncouth these pagans really are when threatened. It's a great complement they pay us when they lose their cool and vulgarly attack our character and beliefs. Let's look forward to more of it ---it means we'll be winning.
Next column---Proven ways for conservatives to win.
