THE SUICIDE OF AMERICA -  Feb. 14, 2018

The news cycle is dominated by the division that politics have laid upon us.  We as Democrats and Republicans have strayed so far from being American Patriots, that the words of Abraham Lincoln from his inauguration speech in 1858 reverberate loudly in space…  “A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND”.    We have lost our resolve to build this country as one people and are moving towards committing national suicide.  We have descended into separate corners as opponents and can no longer see the picture of the “greater good”.   We have small, bigoted opinions of our opponents and even a more myopic view of how much smaller and therefore tragic view of what we ourselves represent.  Are we all racists and bigots… are we that stupid that we cannot see ourselves as we portray others?   Has politics replaced patriotism?   Apparently it has. 

If politics is downstream from culture, a corollary could be that hatred for President Trump is downstream from hatred for America. Why is this the case?  Donald Trump represents everything the political Left despises — patriotism, capitalism, economic growth, respect for religion, (especially Christianity), control of borders, contempt for elitist media, energy independence, indifference to the fantasies of climate change, and generally, bullishness for Western Civilization and the United States.  To top it off, Trump fights back; unlike generations of Republican political ‘wusses’ whose souls melt into mush at the slightest hint of criticism, Trump’s smokes the keyboard with comebacks, mostly charging his critics with “fake news,” (unabashed lying). No one’s ever done that before, and America’s alleged “elite” are enraged, as they froth with unprecedented vituperation.

Since Trump represents what leftists yearn to destroy, reasons why America’s cultural elites in media, academia, entertainment, and government have descended into raging despise of their own country needs to be understood.  This question has baffled observers since Woodrow Wilson declared that he wanted to “hang his opponents from scaffolds that scraped the clouds”, but the matter has become especially intense and serious since the 1960s cultural revolution. Scholars believe that the core of the problem is judgment… or standards: “The Left hates standards — moral standards, artistic standards, cultural standards. The West is built on all three, and it has excelled in all three. Why does the Left hate standards? It hates standards because when there are standards, there is judgment. And leftists don’t want to be judged.”

This sounds reasonable enough, except even the most evil and notorious leftists — Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot — had standards; just that their standards were unimaginably evil and perverse.

More likely, leftists embrace standards but don’t want them to be applied to themselves.  Thus, progressives gush about unlimited illegal immigration, provided the unwashed don’t settle in their own neighborhoods; They praise public education, while sending their own children to private schools;  Progressive   congressmen slobber over affirmative action,unless it applies to their own offices; they praise Obama care, while being exempt from its provisions; and they insist on eliminating guns in America, except for their own bodyguards. This list can be extended indefinitely.

The most insightful answer to the question about leftist anti-Americanism is found in an address given by Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, on Jan. 27, 1838.    Young and insightful Lincoln weighed in against the “mob spirit” in defiance of democratic governance by established laws — a position that contemporary leftists support: witness campus mobs shutting down universities and free speech, rioters given free rein by authorities to obliterate and destroy central cities, and bureaucrats who function only as legislators, executors, and judges in their domains.  Lincoln’s exhortation to revere our democratically passed laws is repulsed by too many deafened ears in today’s America.  But Lincoln’s most important observation cut to the heart of motivations that propels such generations following the American Revolutionary War and is worth noting.   

America’s first round of political leaders attached their reputations to what was referred to as “an undecided experiment,” and “all that sought celebrity, fame and distinction expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was risked upon it; their destiny was inseparably linked with it.”  They succeeded: “Thousands won their reverent names” in achieving that success.  Here is the crucial part of Lincoln’s analysis: “But the game has and end; and it is with that ending that the pleasures of the chase also end”.  What comes next, then?  Here is whatLincoln had to say:

“Many great men, sufficiently qualified to achieve any task they should undertake, may never be found if their ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial seat or a presidential chair.  Such a person does not belong to the family of the Lion, or the tribe of the Eagle.  Do you think these levels would satisfy an Alexander The Great, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?  Never!  Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions as yet unexplored.  It sees no distinction in adding to the monuments erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory to serve under any other chief.  It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it. Whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or the unfortunate enslaving of free-men”…

“Distinction will be the paramount objective, and although he would willingly, acquire it by doing good rather than harm, yet if that opportunity be past, and nothing is left to be done in the way of building, he would set boldly to the task of pulling it all down” No truer words were ever uttered in the history of American statesmanship.

This brings us to the present.  Leftists’ monotonous, constant excoriation of America cannot be taken seriously by anyone acquainted with a country that saved the globe from totalitarianism three times during the 20th century; that attracts peoples from around the world to enter its territory, and that has done its best to address historical wrongs.   Evidence?  One only needs to see and hear the disrespect of the Flag or our National Anthem.  What Lincoln understood and what current America-haters are incapable of grasping is that the fuel that currently feeds the fire in their minds spews from ambitions “set boldly to the task of pulling down” the structure that was characterized by Lincoln as the “last best hope on earth.”

No foreign enemy will vanquish America, Lincoln said.  Rather, “If destruction is our destiny we must ourselves be its author.  As a nation of free men we will live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Every policy advocated by the political Left in America today pushes toward that end — the absurdity of multiculturalism; phony alarmism of climate change, imposition of thought control; disdain for organized religion; contempt for ordinary citizens and the embrace of authoritarianism — all proceed from the political psychology identified by Abraham Lincoln 180 years ago.

This leaves us with one question.  Can America survive the depredations of the country’s leftist elites? In short, can the United States prevent itself from committing suicide?  We are already well on that path.   The only question is can we stop it in time?