I had never read Daniel Greenfield before. I saw this posted on Patrick Kelly's Fb page and had to do some research. Sharp fella, this Daniel Greenfield. His post below, a link above... Worth reading, IMO.
The left doesn’t want to secede. It wants to rule.
A civil war has begun.This civil war is very different than the last one. There are no cannons or cavalry charges. The left doesn’t want to secede. It wants to rule. Political conflicts become civil wars when one side refuses to accept the existing authority. The left has rejected all forms of authority that it doesn’t control.
The left has rejected the outcome of the last two presidential elections won by Republicans. It has rejected the judicial authority of the Supreme Court when it decisions don’t accord with its agenda. It rejects the legislative authority of Congress when it is not dominated by the left.
It rejected the Constitution so long ago that it hardly bears mentioning.
It was for total unilateral executive authority under Obama. And now it’s for states unilaterally deciding what laws they will follow. (As long as that involves defying immigration laws under Trump, not following them under Obama.) It was for the sacrosanct authority of the Senate when it held the majority. Then it decried the Senate as an outmoded institution when the Republicans took it over.
It was for Obama defying the orders of Federal judges, no matter how well grounded in existing law, and it is for Federal judges overriding any order by Trump on any grounds whatsoever. It was for Obama penalizing whistleblowers, but now undermining the government from within has become “patriotic”.
There is no form of legal authority that the left accepts as a permanent institution. It only utilizes forms of authority selectively when it controls them. But when government officials refuse the orders of the duly elected government because their allegiance is to an ideology whose agenda is in conflict with the President and Congress, that’s not activism, protest, politics or civil disobedience; it’s treason.
After losing Congress, the left consolidated its authority in the White House. After losing the White House, the left shifted its center of authority to Federal judges and unelected government officials. Each defeat led the radicalized Democrats to relocate from more democratic to less democratic institutions.
This isn’t just hypocrisy. That’s a common political sin. Hypocrites maneuver within the system. The left has no allegiance to the system. It accepts no laws other than those dictated by its ideology.
Democrats have become radicalized by the left. This doesn’t just mean that they pursue all sorts of bad policies. It means that their first and foremost allegiance is to an ideology, not the Constitution, not our country or our system of government. All of those are only to be used as vehicles for their ideology.
That’s why compromise has become impossible.
Our system of government was designed to allow different groups to negotiate their differences. But those differences were supposed to be based around finding shared interests. The most profound of these shared interests was that of a common country based around certain civilizational values. The left has replaced these Founding ideas with radically different notions and principles. It has rejected the primary importance of the country. As a result it shares little in the way of interests or values.
Instead it has retreated to cultural urban and suburban enclaves where it has centralized tremendous amounts of power while disregarding the interests and values of most of the country. If it considers them at all, it is convinced that they will shortly disappear to be replaced by compliant immigrants and college indoctrinated leftists who will form a permanent demographic majority for its agenda.
But it couldn’t wait that long because it is animated by the conviction that enforcing its ideas is urgent and inevitable. And so it turned what had been a hidden transition into an open break.
In the hidden transition, its authority figures had hijacked the law and every political office they held to pursue their ideological agenda. The left had used its vast cultural power to manufacture a consensus that was slowly transitioning the country from American values to its values and agendas. The right had proven largely impotent in the face of a program which corrupted and subverted from within.
The left was enormously successful in this regard. It was so successful that it lost all sense of proportion and decided to be open about its views and to launch a political power struggle after losing an election.
The Democrats were no longer being slowly injected with leftist ideology. Instead the left openly took over and demanded allegiance to open borders, identity politics and environmental fanaticism. The exodus of voters wiped out the Democrats across much of what the left deemed flyover country.
The left responded to democratic defeats by retreating deeper into undemocratic institutions, whether it was the bureaucracy or the corporate media, while doubling down on its political radicalism. It is now openly defying the outcome of a national election using a coalition of bureaucrats, corporations, unelected officials, celebrities and reporters that are based out of its cultural and political enclaves.
It has responded to a lost election by constructing sanctuary cities and states thereby turning a cultural and ideological secession into a legal secession. But while secessionists want to be left alone authoritarians want everyone to follow their laws. The left is an authoritarian movement that wants total compliance with its dictates with severe punishments for those who disobey.
The left describes its actions as principled. But more accurately they are ideological. Officials at various levels of government have rejected the authority of the President of the United States, of Congress and of the Constitution because those are at odds with their radical ideology. Judges have cloaked this rejection in law. Mayors and governors are not even pretending that their actions are lawful.
The choices of this civil war are painfully clear.
We can have a system of government based around the Constitution with democratically elected representatives. Or we can have one based on the ideological principles of the left in which all laws and processes, including elections and the Constitution, are fig leaves for enforcing social justice.
But we cannot have both.
Some civil wars happen when a political conflict can’t be resolved at the political level. The really bad ones happen when an irresolvable political conflict combines with an irresolvable cultural conflict.
That is what we have now.
The left has made it clear that it will not accept the lawful authority of our system of government. It will not accept the outcome of elections. It will not accept these things because they are at odds with its ideology and because they represent the will of large portions of the country whom they despise.
The question is what comes next.
The last time around growing tensions began to explode in violent confrontations between extremists on both sides. These extremists were lauded by moderates who mainstreamed their views. The first Republican president was elected and rejected. The political tensions led to conflict and then civil war.
The left doesn’t believe in secession. It’s an authoritarian political movement that has lost democratic authority. There is now a political power struggle underway between the democratically elected officials and the undemocratic machinery of government aided by a handful of judges and local elected officials.
What this really means is that there are two competing governments; the legal government and a treasonous anti-government of the left. If this political conflict progresses, agencies and individuals at every level of government will be asked to demonstrate their allegiance to these two competing governments. And that can swiftly and explosively transform into an actual civil war.
There is no sign that the left understands or is troubled by the implications of the conflict it has initiated. And there are few signs that Democrats properly understand the dangerous road that the radical left is drawing them toward. The left assumes that the winners of a democratic election will back down rather than stand on their authority. It is unprepared for the possibility that democracy won’t die in darkness.
Civil wars end when one side is forced to accept the authority of the other. The left expects everyone to accept its ideological authority. Conservatives expect the left to accept Constitutional authority. The conflict is still political and cultural. It’s being fought in the media and within the government. But if neither side backs down, then it will go beyond words as both sides give contradictory orders.
The left is a treasonous movement. The Democrats became a treasonous organization when they fell under the sway of a movement that rejects our system of government, its laws and its elections. Now their treason is coming to a head. They are engaged in a struggle for power against the government. That’s not protest. It’s not activism. The old treason of the sixties has come of age. A civil war has begun.
This is a primal conflict between a totalitarian system and a democratic system. Its outcome will determine whether we will be a free nation or a nation of slaves.
~~~~~~~
As usual, I am probably a bit late to the dance. Anyway, if you like what you see, there is more food for thought here:
http://freedomoutpost.com/author/danielgreenfield/
Indeed; I've been watching all this going on, and have been saying the same thing, just in different words. There's little unity in the United States anymore. Our country has been like a load of birdshot. It left the barrel of the shotgun closely knit, but has strayed apart ever since.
ReplyDeleteWe are indeed in the early stages of a civil war. With the country being as divided as it is, I see no path to a return to unity...
I think we have all been watching. There will come a time when we either shit or get off the pot. Like the post says, the Left is unwilling to try to get along. It will be their way or their way. No compromise. They want to rule.
ReplyDeleteInteresting times... ;)
If I may contribute to the discussion?
ReplyDeleteI have my own theory about the base cause of everything going 'off the rails' in the western world lately.
It all comes down to addiction. However, it is not exactly what you think.
You see, the so-called 'deep state' - which I refer to as the Professional Political Class - (because politics is the only real thing that exists, to them) is composed exclusively of 2 groups: those who are addicted, and those who are going to become addicted.
Addicted to what, you ask?
The very worst addictive drug in the human universe: Power.
Power that is completely unconstrained by human considerations, such as common sense (often referred to as the inherent awareness of consequences) or compassion.
Power that is not balanced by responsibility, or realistic assessment of the balance of authority.
Power that is actively and ceaselessly sought, even craved, by members of the PPC establishment, in part because they are patently incapable of doing otherwise.
Power that is not restrained by term limits or people acting in the name of the national interest.
Some people like to say (or in one notable town hall meeting, literally scream) that unrestrained power is not an addictive substance like heroin hydrochloride, or crystaline methamphetamine.
Unrestrained power is infinitely worse.
It is the reason the reason that Adolph Hitler, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, and too many others to name in one evening, succeeded in destroying and extinguishing so many lives in the course of their vile depredations.
The people in America, who are trying desparately to destroy Donald J Trump, are absolutely incapable of listening to reasoned arguement, let alone relinquishing power. Their reasoning faculties have already been utterly destroyed by the addiction.
Most of these people don't care if they end up ruling over a lifeless radioactive wasteland of dust and debris, just so long as they rule with absolute power.
L have had people turn to me with utter astonishment and say, in effect: 'No. You're wrong. It's never anything that simple. You're crazy, old man.'
Really?
I tend to believe in Occam's Razor - the theorum that the simplest explaination for a problem is all too often the correct one.
But, some will ask, do you have a possible solution?
Maybe.
I will paraphrase one of Tom Kratman's lines from one of his masterful tomes:
'..when you have a bad problem, and the law can't work, then you have to make war instead.'
'You're freaking insane, old man.' And worse comments. Directed at me, by young people who were indoctrinated (NOT educated), completely unable to see the possibility of civilization itself collapsing, because no one in our oh-so-civilized western world can bring themselves to believe that the Professional Political Class is a deadly threat to all civilization on this planet.
Simple as that.
Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.
If You Would Gain Peace, Be Thou Then Prepared For War.
I must go now. I need my sleep.
Thank you for providing a forum for the ramblings of an old man afraid for the fate of his grandchildren.
Stillicho
Stillicho... Thanks for stopping by and for your comment. Great observations that I think many will agree with. I always wonder where the indoctrination begins. I always thought (based on my own personal experience) that it started in college. I look at it now and see that it starts long before that these days. Liberal teachers who have been educated at Liberal colleges bring the indoctrination process to younger children. Yet, it starts even before that. Parents who have been educated in Liberal schools indoctrinate their children from birth. I have been watching some of our friends on Fb who have small children. Like other Liberals, they hate "America" and they hate the duly elected current administration. And they drag their children into it. They take their 2 year olds to rallies and pump their heads full of shit. It is scary.
ReplyDeleteThe Gravy Train has left the station...
Ahhhh well. :)
Read Daniel Greenfield. AKA Sultan Knish. Every article. His language is simple. His points are simple, yet profound. Every enemy, every opponent, of the left should be reading him. No, that is wrong. Every AMERICAN should be reading him. And recommending him to everyone they can. Wherever they can. Whenever they can. He is THE MAN. He distills it down to the simplest terms. He makes it understandable and relatable. I do not even feel qualified to enter a comment on his website, but read it religiously.
ReplyDelete