America is at war. There is no denying this truth. But what some may not realize is that we are fighting a war on two-fronts against two very different, yet very real, enemies. There are of course the Islamo-Fascists, the radicals who hate everything that resembles democracy and everyone who does not accept their radical religious views. We all know about this enemy. We’ve all seen what they can do first-hand. We may disagree on how to fight them, but we don’t deny their existence or their intentions.
But then there is the war on the home front, a war of culture. This involves the traditionalists, those who honor America’s traditions, the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian principles on which this nation was founded. Countering the traditionalists are the secular progressives. They are a small segment of the population, but they have a lot of power and financial backing. They believe America is inherently flawed, that this country requires drastic change. Their main targets are the Judeo-Christian ethic, free enterprise, freedom of religion and capitalism. Leading the charge is the ACLU – whose founder was a self-proclaimed socialist – and they have chosen the American court system as the battleground.
Bill O’Reilly details this fight in Culture Warrior. Unlike many Americans, I already knew this country was engaged in a fight for her culture. So there wasn’t much new to me. But O’Reilly did a masterful job of pointing out the tactics and strategy of the "SPs" as he calls them. He calls out their leaders, those who provide the financial support for their causes and the top SP supporters in the mainstream media (which is crawling with secular progressives). In short, they have a gameplan and O’Reilly has exposed it. The only question is what will America do about it?
This is not about "separation of church and state". No, this is about separation of church and behavior. This is about humanism conquering spirituality. And it’s not a Republican versus Democrat issue either, as O’Reilly points out. This war is not being fought at the polls because the SPs know that their measures have been and will continue to be defeated in votes, that is until they can corrupt enough of the younger generation to have their will prevail democratically. Until then, they have chosen the court system as a means of imposing their vision for America on the common American and, so far, it’s working. Billionaires like George Soros provide the funds, the ACLU launches the offensives and the mainstream media acts as the defense perimeter – attacking anyone who offers a dissenting opinion or attempts to expose this campaign for what it is.
I don’t know how this will end, who will emerge victorious. But I do know, without a doubt, that if the secular progressive segment of America’s population have their way, then America will become a socialist state where income is redistributed, deity worship is banned, freedom of speech becomes limited, our borders are opened, human life becomes meaningless and humanism becomes the "religion" of choice. Basically, the Constitution would cease to exist and we would begin to flirt with anarchy. That’s the vision for America that the secular progressives share and that’s the domestic enemy America must confront. Mr. O’Reilly has taken this to challenge and I salute him for it. Now, if America would only join the fight.
6 comments:
I'm not sure it breaks down as neatly as you or O'Reilly are suggesting. I'm a Christian Progressive who values traditional American values that I feel have been abandoned by the Neo-Con-types and many of those in power who identify themselves as "conservative" but who don't really represent conservative values as traditionally defined. I probably find more in common with those that O'Reilly calls Secular Progressives than the Bush-types out there. I find more in common perhaps with traditional conservatives than I do with some SPs.
My parents are in that traditional conservative camp but are very opposed to Bush and his supporters.
Where do we fall in that great spectrum of O'Reilly's? Or are there only two sides?
Dan,
Yes there are only two sides. There is no grey zone. You can determine which side you stand with by answering one question. It's a simple question with a simple answer.
Is America good or bad?
This is a one-word answer and there is no need to analyze or re-analyze or dissect things. It's a simple question.
I believe America is good. Yes, there have been mistakes. We've learned from them. America is inherently good. The traditionalists feel the same, the secular progressives feel otherwise. There are many people who feel America is bad and they are seeking drastic change. That's the SP front.
And if you can't answer without "that depends" or "at times" or "usually" then you stand with the SPs.
Don't be ridiculous, John. My traditionalist Baptist parents would answer, sometimes we've been good and sometimes bad. My rightwing southern Baptist preachers I had growing up would answer "America is on the wrong path, down the road to hell."
America is a nation that has good and bad in its history. We took land from Indians. That was bad. We created the modern ideal of democracy. That was good.
We enslaved folk. That was bad. We set our mistakes right and ended slavery. That was good.
We've supported oppressive, murderous dictators. That was bad. We've supported struggling nations with aid. That was good.
We've bred people who think you can reduce it down to "Us, good, them, bad" - that's bad. We've bred people who want to make the world a safer, cleaner, healthier place in ways that let us remain true to our ideals. That's good.
Throw me and all my christian brothers and sisters, parents and sweet little ol' white-haired, tea-totalling sunday school teachers in with the Secular Progressives if you want in your mind, but that means something in your mind alone. Not in the real world.
And you'll be in a pretty damned small room by yourself, Bush and Rush at the end of the day on the losing side.
Dan,
You answered just as I thought you would and confirmed my suspicion that you were likely a secular progressive. A traditionalist answers that question with "good" and nothing more. This is not to say that we don't acknowledge America's mistakes. Of course we do. I won't for a second try to deny that America has done some things wrong. But that doesn't mean America is not good.
For example, I consider myself a good person. I have sinned and done some pretty bad things, but that doesn't make me a bad person. Want a more familiar example? How about Martin Luther King? I think we'd all agree that he was good. Is that to say that he never did anything bad? Or Charles Manson? We'd all agree that he's bad. Does that mean that he never did anything good? So why couldn't apply the same thinking to a nation?
You seem hesitant to say that something or someone is good/bad because you don't see it as that simple. Instead, you seem to think that it's unfair to categorize in such a way, that there is no good/bad, but a multitude of in betweens in varying degrees. To me, that's moral relativism, and it's not something that the majority of Americans believe in, especially since the majority of Americans claim to be Christian and moral relativism is NOT something Christ taught.
So either you say America is good, or not, or you go into a diatribe about in-betweens and not-that-simples like you just did. And if it's that latter two then you've taken sides with the secular progressive movement. And before you speak on behalf of your congregation I'd caution you to actually pose the question to your parents, or your pastor, or the white-haired tee-totalling old ladies. I think you'd be surprised at their responses because traditionalists are proud to say that America is good despite our mistakes, while progressives tend to point out the mistakes before admitting such.
I think you're a bit clueless about how the average American thinks, my friend. You seem to think that everyone agrees with you, and only Bush and Rush agree with me and I think you're dead wrong. If you don't believe me then pose this question to ten strangers on the street, see what you get. I think you'd find it interesting.
I'd suggest it would depend upon which streets you asked.
Speaking of the "war on terror"...
One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four "pilots" among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake "pilot" of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These "hijackers" somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn't work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn't work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won't let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you "aren't supposed to think about". Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn't respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn't happen, not even close. Somehow these "hijackers" must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn't have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were "supposed to see". Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these "hijackers" wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn't even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying "We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down" attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers' magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be "Muslim hijackers" the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don't laugh) one of their passports was "found" a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously "surviving" the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also "survived" the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be "indestructable" like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn't bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Further making themselves look guilty, the Bush administration steadfastly refused for over a year to allow a commission to investigate 9/11 to even be formed, only agreeing to it on the conditions that they get to dictate its scope, meaning it was based on the false pretense of the "official story" being true with no other alternatives allowed to be considered, handpicked all its members making sure the ones picked had vested interests in the truth remaining buried, and with Bush and Cheney only "testifying" together, only for an hour, behind closed doors, with their attorneys present and with their "testimonies" not being recorded by tape or even written down in notes. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastic far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the "nineteen hijackers" is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.
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