If You Still Believe

This is something of a coda to Anesthetizing The Conscience, below. The core of that piece has struck me ever more powerfully since I wrote it, because it expresses the key to political victory for the forces of right:

Compelling the forces of darkness to cast off all pretense and express their ultimate premises where everyone must deal with them.

I can't think of a worthier purely political undertaking than exposing those premises...but there's a precondition: to persevere in doing so, and to do so effectively, you must believe that the purely political means -- speaking, arguing, writing, debating, voting, and the like -- might still be sufficient to win the day and save the Republic.

Do you still believe?

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My own belief has wavered in recent years. It often seems to me that the Left has established exactly those conditions in which the majority of Americans will support the continuation and intensification of government-mediated evil despite their clear and unambiguous knowledge that it is evil.

Such persons would avert their eyes from evil in their midst.
They would refrain from coming to the aid of those it assaults.
They would align with it when it appeared to offer personal advantages.
They would rationalize it as "inevitable," and not stay to answer objectors.
And the worst of them would vote for its proponents without any moral qualms.

How many are they? That's the critical question. Are there enough such passive enablers and active supporters of evil to foreordain the defeat of the Right? If it doesn't require a majority to entrench them immovably, how many would it require -- and are we yet beset by a force of that size?

But those are questions about objective circumstances. Perhaps the more important question is about the subjective aspects of the situation:

Do enough of us in the Right still believe in the justice of our cause to press onward despite the appearance of overwhelming opposition?

If you still believe, how many persons known to you personally do as well? Of those who don't, are their reasons objective or subjective?

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I can only write these essays on those occasions when I can persuade myself that speaking out as I do might yet matter, even in some microscopic degree. To go on, I must persuade myself that non-violent methods still have a chance of prevailing over the forces of the Left. I must do so rather frequently, these days.

Yet I still believe, at least some of the time. I still cherish a hope that Americans' consciences can be awakened to the evil being perpetrated upon us -- the evil we've tolerated. I return repeatedly to the great voices of freedom, searching for a way to use their insights to strengthen my puny effect upon the political landscape. And now and then, as with the admission cited in Anesthetizing The Conscience, I find myself thinking that our enemies might yet be induced to commit the error of hubris and make a fatal admission of their true agenda.

I believe it's possible when a Mary Elizabeth Williams states the pro-death premise in plain English.
I believe it's possible when an Amy Richards admits to aborting two of her three unborn triplets so she "won't have to shop at Wal-Mart."
I believe it's possible when a presidential appointee states that her favorite philosopher is unparalleled mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung.
I believe it's possible when a presidential appointee is shown to have supported putting sterilants into the water supply.
I believe it's possible when a Scandinavian "ecologist" argues for Stalinism to stop economic growth and reduce the human population.
I believe it's possible when a presidential candidate supports abortion on demand because he wouldn't want to see his daughter "punished with a baby."

And I hold on to that belief as long as I possibly can.

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All the same, there are days it's harder than usual for me to believe. Our enemies are clever, adroit at evading the bald statement of their core premises. They excel at manipulating the public discourse, striving always to see that whatever's being discussed is discussed in their preferred lexicon, according to their preferred terms of admissibility. They've succeeded in enlisting the support of the Main Stream Media, a mighty engine even in these days of its decline. And the political machine behind them is unequalled for ruthlessness and amorality, anywhere in the West.

At times, in awareness of all that, I cease to believe. I find myself praying for surcease before the last darkness falls upon us.

The hour has grown dark. If we are to continue on, we must hold fast to our conviction that victory is possible without bloodshed. More to the point, we must reassure one another that we are not few, but many...that no one among us needs to feel alone.

Leonidas's Spartans could hold Thermopylae with a few hundred men. But they were willing to kill without restraint and to give their lives to the last man to see to it. Those are not the conditions for political perseverance, but for the "last stand," the ultimate act of defiance demanded of us because, as Churchill put it, it is better to die free, fighting to the last for a lost cause knowing that it's lost, than to live on as slaves.

Please, please, please: help an old man to hold fast to the hope of victory. Believe. More important still, speak and act as if you believe. Encourage and support one another. Compromise on nothing. Fly the colors of right, justice, and individual liberty fearlessly and proudly.

For as long as the political battle lasts:
No quarter!
No prisoners!
And no mercy!