Hiatus is a good concept. Time away from normal pursuits,especially at Christmas, refreshes the spirit and renews family connections. Welcoming a new born into the family during this time changes the perspective when observing the general response to momentous events. The presence of a new generation diminishes the significance of politics in that the responsibility of raising this new person takes priority over all other pursuits. This same responsibility makes politics all the more significant as decisions made today will effect this young life far more profoundly than your own. If that sounds paradoxical, it is.
Standing back and observing without commenting or participating is difficult but informative. The recent election season was a difficult spiritual trial; something to be endured then reconsidered as calmly as passion permits. Traditional values were challenged and declared defeated. A new order will remake America into nation conforming to progressive visions of a just and fair society.
Traditional values were not repudiated as strongly as the political victors may think. Much of the vote was a negative reaction to the economic crises and the failure of conservatives to propose sound ideas supported by a concise conservative ideology.
A new President, a semi new Congress with a more skewed majority and an economic crisis largely created by the confluence of corporate greed and corrupt political partisanship provide much fodder for bomb throwing commentators and political opportunists. Main street media is the propaganda arm of the newly empowered self identified progressive movement. As a consequence the people who elected these progressives have no real understanding of the forces acting upon them or the impact progressive policies will have on their lives. More importantly, many who voted for the “Neo New Deal” have no idea of ideology ideology and social vision that motivates the progressives. Nor do they understand the fundamental differences between the traditional American vision of a just and ordered society and the progressive vision of a just and ordered society. The two visions are diametrically opposite and irreconcilable.
At the heart of the progressive vision is a concept they believe guarantees economic and social equality: the collective. In the collective every individual is exactly the same as every other individual. No one person is entitled to any more than he needs. Individuals are not entitled to the full fruits of their labor; the fruits of labor are collective property. The state redistributes the collective wealth, produced by individual members of the collective, to each individual according to his need as determined by the state. Progressives place great emphasis on civil rights, legalistic concepts based upon the notion of social contract. Contracts are malleable instruments, subject to interpretation and modification.
The core concept of American revolutionary ideology is the primacy of the individual and protection of the individual’s inalienable rights. Individuals come together to cooperate ta achieve a common purpose with every individual retaining his rightful share of the product according to his participation in the endeavor. Conservatives start with the principle that every person has exactly the same rights by virtue of their membership in species homo sapiens. These rights can not be modified by social contract except by tyrannical repression. A conservative social contract must fully respect all individual rights; any contract that does not respect individual rights is by definition invalid and therefore unenforceable.
Commentators decry ideology as inherently evil, a concept rooted in intolerance, something to be discarded into the landfill of failed social premise. The truth is that those commentators are each ascribing to an ideology while disparaging any ideology that does not conform to the commentators view. Every religion, including atheism, every political system, every philosophy, every economic system has at it’s core a system of ideas, it’s ideology. Ideology is the foundation and framework of virtually every human intellectual activity. Religion, science, and government are unimaginable without an ideology to light the way forward. In an environment of conflicting ideologies it is incumbent on the individual to understand as the ideology he or she supports and those he or she opposes.
Ultimately the ideological conflict between progressive and conservative concepts of government must be resolved in a manner that satisfies both groups. Our strength as a nation is based upon the conservative ideology of the founders and our contemporary recognition that we the people must act to protect ourselves from those who abuse their rights to the detriment of our nation.