J Robert Smith
- Nov. 9, 2019
- 4 min read
In his new book, “The War for America’s Soul,” [Sebastian]Gorka details with alarm how the political left was radicalized and how socialist, communist ideology managed to penetrate and subvert core American institutions.
In Gorka’s view, there’s a war being waged for the soul of America, namely “the collective principles, the first principles, upon which this nation was founded by the founding fathers.” The first principles refers to a strongly held belief in the “individual and the God-given rights of the individual—what Reagan called that ‘shining city on the hill,’” Gorka said.
The subversion of first principles is evident on today’s campuses.
— The Epoch Times, November 7, 2019
The Take
We’re living in change times. We’ve reached a critical crossroads in the nation’s life. Are we to be free or are we to be slave, to borrow from Abraham Lincoln? A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Sebastian Gorka isn’t indulging hyperbole in his new book. We are in an existential fight for the nation’s soul. If the forces of liberty emerge from this fight victorious, America’s great experiment in freedom continues. We can bequeath freedom to coming generations, who, in turn, will be charged with defending liberty from threats, external and internal. It is a great blessing to the bearers of liberty. It’s a greater blessing to fight for it.
As we won our freedom from the tyrannical British crown, as we ended pernicious slavery, as we cast off Jim Crow, as we beat back fascism, and then communism in the Cold War, so now we’re faced with the existential threat of backdoor leftist totalitarianism. Backdoor because its insidious, as Gorka explains.
Leftism isn’t upon us via revolution. There’s been no earth-quaking social and political upheavals – no sudden overthrow of our institutions. No Lenin, Mao, Mussolini or Hitler has risen. Instead, there’s been a “long march” through America’s institutions, as Gorka observes. The left, to its credit, learned from its past mistakes and failures. America wouldn’t be “transformed” directly and quickly. It would have to be radically changed gradually, from the inside out.
Leftism is a cancer that was introduced into the American body decades ago. We are seeing now, starkly, the deadly effect of that cancer on our culture and freedoms. A degraded, broken culture… the collapse of family in many communities; narcissism and licentiousness rationalized as moral freedom; an explosion of homelessness and upticks in crime; censorship via PC sanctimoniously championed and imposed; police spat upon while criminals are excused and esteemed. The left has toppled common sense and common decency… its created chaos, imposing an Alice in Wonderland worldview – up is down and good is bad, while bad is good.
Leftism leads to tyranny. The nihilism the left dresses up as “progressivism” is a means to tyranny. But that’s as perilous for the left as it is for society. The cancer of nihilism may also lead to societal destruction.
We are at war with the left. Winning this fight isn’t an option. We’re long past splitting differences – if that was ever really a possibility. It’s a zero-sum game.
We must purge leftism not just from our politics, but from education and popular culture. The indoctrination of the young through both is deadly effective.
Liberty lovers have social media, talk radio, and some outlets like Fox News and Newsmax. But the left relentlessly seeks to shut out our voices in the alternative media. Donald Trump has pushed back against censorship on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere. He’s had some positive impact in curtailing attacks on conservative voices. But we need to find ways of expanding our reach in media – or creating new avenues to reach more Americans.
We must – no holds barred – repulse the left’s attacks on faith. Without God, we’re nothing. The men and women who won the war of independence and then founded the Republic keenly understood the vital role of providence in the affairs of mankind.
We must counter the left’s demeaning and destruction of innocent human life. If the left can unhesitatingly kill the innocent in the womb – and now advocate for more brazen forms of infanticide – why then won’t the day come when it manufactures reasons to destroy any of us? No? The old and defective – unproductive souls all? The “social malcontents,” translated, those who dare to buck the new leftist order?
The great challenge for most Americans who love liberty is to accept the war underway. Time to appreciate that the left’s aim is to deprive Americans of the rights and freedoms that are God-given and, hence, natural. The Constitution – the parchment its written on – is only as valuable as the citizens who fight to uphold it.
Most Americans are good and decent people. They don’t desire a fight. They simply want to pursue happiness, in their ways, knowing that their rights and freedoms are secure. Today, they are not. They are imperiled as never before in the nation’s history. It is so on multiple fronts.
In this time, we must beat our plowshares into swords. Only thereafter, having secured our freedoms, can we return our swords to plowshares. We are called, as our forefathers and foremothers were called, to defend and advance liberty.
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