PrintJune 18, 2010
So What's a Patriot to Do? Confront a Liberal Today
We're at a pivotal moment in American history. Never in our lifetimes have the consequences of liberal big government been on such ubiquitous display, not only here, but everywhere we look. The socialist democracies of Western Europe stand at the precipice of complete downfall. Many of our own liberal states are facing the same bankrupt status. Our own federal debt is choking the life out of any hope for quick recovery. A president in so far over his head that he is drowning in his own useless rhetoric has become an embarrassment to the nation. And plenty of enemy states are just chomping at the bit ready to pounce at our weakness.
Many who stay conscientiously involved in politics on a daily basis seem ready to throw in the proverbial towel on America and go down in ignominious defeat like the Europeans. Just follow them off the cliff because nothing can be done to stop it. It's too late. The socialists' march through our institutions has gone too far; it can't be reversed. I've heard and read this sentiment over and over again of late. Our grand Republic, say the defeatists, is just one step shy of the historical grave.
Sure, I'll be the first to admit that things are very grave. But grave, as in buried? I don't think so. And I'll be darned if I want to be on the same team with anyone else who does think this way. Because defeatism is like a deadly virus. It spreads by word of mouth. If left unchecked, defeatism eventually chokes the very life out of human free will.
I've never seen -- outside of real war -- a moment when we Americans more needed to get back in touch with our inner Patriot.
Who were those people that risked all in their fight for liberty? They were people just like us. They had families to support. They had lived a certain way all their lives, and just like us, probably saw life continuing on in much the same way for their children.
Until it finally dawned on them that it wasn't going to work out that way. Things were growing worse in the colonies, just as they are now nearly 300 years later. Tyranny is a beast never satiated, after all. But the colonists didn't want to believe that any more than we have wanted to believe it, simply because once they saw the truth, they would have to choose. And that choosing inevitably meant real suffering. Real risk.
Our patriot ancestors didn't just wake up one morning and preemptively realize that if they were willing, as a generation, to sacrifice the lives of about 5,000 men, agree to get another 10,000 or so wounded, let a finite number of homes be burned to the ground and so many fortunes lost, then they could usher in a fundamentally different era in the annals of civilization. No, they were just like us, suddenly so caught in a tyranny of taxation and over-bearing law they could no longer endure it.
And what did they do about it, our patriot ancestors?
The very first thing they did was to get out of their comfort zones and into their meeting places -- their taverns and churches and offices and homes. There they confronted their more complacent, loyalist-bent friends, neighbors and co-workers. Our patriot ancestors did not buckle under in cowardice and shy from the verbal confrontations so necessary to change minds and hearts.
The very first rule of revolution -- and of counter-revolution, which is what we are in now -- is that thoughts and words must precede all other actions. The return to our American brand of common sense will come one person at a time. Discounting the impact one individual can have is the silver bullet that can kill a resistance movement with a single shot.
It is now time for all good patriots to get a grip and confront a liberal today.
We all know at least one liberal. And we all know, too, that while there are indeed a group of diehard revolutionaries running the show on the left, most -- yes, most -- liberals are minding their own business, going to work, raising kids, helping out at church or synagogue, leading the PTA and the myriad other things that we Americans do. Many liberals may seem brainwashed to us but most have just stopped thinking much beyond the platitudes they heard in school or from the liberal MSM, or vote Democrat because their parents did or haven't yet hit their own heads into the brick wall of tyranny that our federal government has become.
It's vital at this very opportune teaching moment, when the Obama they saw as a political savior is standing proverbially naked on the Gulf, to confront them with the choice they made. To call them out. To ask the hard questions: Are you sure you voted wisely? Are you happy with the change we've gotten? Do you still have hope in liberal big government to solve all the world's problems?
Many conservatives now seem to believe that our liberal brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors and co-workers are simply too far round the bend to bother with. That we would only be wasting both breath and energy to try to engage with them. That we would end up on the rhetorically bloody end of a racist jab to our throats or a swastika painted on our homes. And that, after suffering such abuse, we would still have nothing whatsoever to show for the effort.
I'm well aware, perhaps more than most, of the Alinsky influence on the entirety of our civil discourse. I've been studying the tactic of political ridicule for a few years now, and I think we can all admit that even the most nitwit liberal follower -- who hasn't got a lick of real fact to back up a single taunt he hurls -- has, at least, got ridicule down pat. Now, Alinsky may have considered ridicule to be man's most potent weapon but he was flat-out wrong.
Ridicule only wins when its opponent bows down before it and gets just as low-down dirty, or when its opponent retreats into cowardly silence.
Contrary to the Alinsky doctrines, truth is man's most potent weapon.
And confronting a liberal with the truth about the ineptitude of big government -- no matter what "savior" is in charge -- ought not be that difficult at the moment. The Gulf debacle is blowing all liberal claims of Obama's extraordinary presidential prowess and the competency assertions of federal bureaucracy to kingdom come.
The latest Rasmussen polling, taken just before president know-nothing gave his big speech Tuesday night, shows the glow is not only off that rose, but the stink of decay is already setting in. The President got a strongly-approve rating from only 26%, while those strongly disapproving hit a whopping 46%, giving him an indexed rating of negative 20 points. The most important index to follow, in my mind, is among independents, of whom a full 52% disapprove of the way Obama is handling his whole job as president. With numbers like those, there are millions of Americans ready to be confronted.
It should not matter whether an Obama voter changes his mind on the spot, when confronted with the truth regarding the ramifications of his vote. It's pretty much human nature for all of us to become somewhat defensive when confronted with evidence that goes against our thinking bent. But none of us can know whether the liberal so confronted, who slams back at us in defensive anger, does not go home and in privacy there, really give the matter some thought. At pivotal moments such as these, when lies are exposed as transparently as they are now, that's the time to charge in with truth.
Neither you nor I can take responsibility for what a liberal does with the truth we foist upon him. Only he can take accountability for that. But not knowing how our confrontation will turn out, whether for good or naught, should not deter us from our mission to save America - one voter at a time.
A single verbal confrontation, using truth as a weapon, is like one bullet fired at the enemy in war. One shot of confrontation may not kill all the liberal lies in a voter's mind, but it may wound enough lies seriously enough that time and events will take care of the rest.
At a time such as this - when our Republic is on the line -- no wise patriot can afford to be silent. A few words of truth might actually begin the chain reaction of common sense regained that's heard around the world.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at www.kyleanneshiver.com.
