A Day Between Storms

     Independence Day weekend is just ahead! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Fire up the old barbecue grill! Let’s have a hot dog or two in commemoration of our glorious history!

     Uh, no, sorry. Actually, Independence Day was yesterday, July 2. The Continental Congress voted unanimously for independence from Britain on July 2, 1776. Approval of the draft of the written Declaration of Independence – which, incidentally, does not contain the words “declaration of independence” – took place on July 4.

     Imagine the thoughts that percolated through the minds of the Congressmen after that vote. They had unanimously agreed to revolt against the strongest military power in Europe. Their names were known to all and sundry, and would not escape the notice of the British authorities. Those who had seen the draft of the Declaration knew how radical and uncompromising it was. The aftermath would surely ratify the fears of many of those whose names would appear on that world-shaking sheet of parchment.

     Thus, July 3, 1776 was a day between momentous events: a day for the Congressmen to reflect on what they had done, and on the storm that would surely follow.

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     We stand at exactly such a pass today.

     In November 2008, American voters raised a glamorous, openly Marxist mediocrity – a man reared by Communists to be a Communist; a man with no substantive accomplishments to his credit; a man whose rise to federal office was based on his skin color and the backing of the incredibly corrupt and vicious Illinois Democratic Party – to the presidency. Given the tens of thousands of well-documented cases of vote fraud from the November 2012 election, whether that mediocrity truly won re-election is open to question. The two midterm elections of 2010 and 2014 make the answer more probably no than yes.

     Our day between the storms has lasted for six years and more. Have we reflected? Have we come to understand what we did and how it has cost us? Who among us who voted for that glamorous, openly Marxist mediocrity regrets his decision today? Indeed, who of that number fails yet to grasp the price we will be required to pay to undo all the damage he has done?

     I’m not of the “we’re doomed” school of thought. I still harbor hope for these United States, though the most promising course forward seems no longer to be that of a politically unitary nation. But all hope of any shape is premised on the reflection and repentance of those who committed the original sin: they who allowed a Marxist Government Uber Alles type to occupy the highest office in the land. This is no longer a nation where a 10% rebellion can throw off a Potsdam tyrant.

     It might not take all of us...but it will take more than 10%.

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     “Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” – George Orwell, 1984

     The conscious adherents of liberalism progressivism the all-encompassing State have characterized themselves as many things, including “tolerant,” “compassionate,” and “reality-based.” The facts do not support those bits of self-praise; indeed, they never have and never will. But facts cannot be made to sway those who have elected to subscribe to a totalitarian ideology. They want absolute, unbounded power over you. They might say it’s “for your own good.” They might chant (along with the glamorous, openly Marxist mediocrity) that “we’re all in this together.” They might harbor all sorts of unadmitted motives – motives they daren’t admit even to themselves – but their object is power, and no other end will be permitted to obstruct it.

     Erick Erickson told us that two years ago:

     The left will allow no fence sitting. You may not believe me. You may think me hyperbolic. But the history of the world shows this. Events ultimately come to a head. They boil to their essence. And at that point you must choose....

     The time will come, more quickly than you can imagine, when you will be made to care.

     You will be compelled to accept the Left’s dictates.
     You will be made to mouth the Left’s slogans.
     Should you dare to dissent even with words alone, you will be made to suffer.

     For the object of power is power...and there is only one way to ensure that you obey the will of those in power:

     “How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”
     Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.
     “Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?” Ibid.

     I hardly need to ask O’Brien’s question of any regular Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch. What about the rest of America – that is, the rest of innocent America? Do they begin to see? If not, what will it take to remove the scales from their eyes? How much longer will it be before they repent having elected a glamorous, openly Marxist mediocrity on the supposition that “a black president would be good for the country” – ?

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     There is a possibility – and I no longer believe it to be a small one – that Barack Hussein Obama will attempt to prolong his time in the White House beyond its Constitutional limit. There’s a movement in progress to repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment for exactly that reason. It’s unlikely to pass; too many people are already disgusted by career officeholders and an eternal, unchanging “government class.” But something worse could eventuate...and the foundation has already been laid for it, under the paradigm of “national emergency.”

     Do I hear the chorus chanting “It can’t happen here” – ? Are the usual naysayers, pooh-poohers, and well-compensated acolytes of the status quo laughing the idea aside? Does anyone else remember Franklin D. Roosevelt running for and winning four terms as president on the grounds of “national emergency” – World War II, wasn’t it? – and claiming that it was “good for the country?”

     Don’t kid yourself. Obama might do the same, or worse. Besides, he’s ignored the first ten Amendments; why assume that he’ll respect the Twenty-Second, especially with a compliant Supreme Court and an opposition that’s behaved so spinelessly to this point? Are you quite sure that, were a national election to be held today, he wouldn’t get a third term – one way or another?

     Don’t leave all the weight on the shoulders of us few vocal ones, Gentle Reader. Ponder what you should do. Ponder how and where you should raise your voice, and to whom. Ponder what you’re willing to say...what you should be ready to say. Above all, ponder what preparations you should make for the possibilities we can all foresee.

     That’s what a day between storms is for, isn’t it?