Has political discourse in America reached an uncivilized pitch? Yes, and it’s about time! But unless my observations are faulty, it will soon change again.
Americans who believe in personal freedom, independence and self reliance have had a long history of political stability and limited government to rely on. For centuries they’ve stayed out of government at all levels and simply exercised their freedom to work on building a better mousetrap, believing that US government was limited by the Constitution so politicians couldn’t get too much control over their lives.
But for a century another force has been at work, so that now most public segments of society have become controlled by a different kind of group-think. This new-old principle of government asserts that giving people complete freedom is dangerous to the people themselves and so government is a good and necessary means to take that self-destructive self-control away from the people. It’s government by “smart people,” currently known as “progressivism,” but once known as “feudalism.”
The fiscal devastation that resulted from the election of the Democrat-controlled Congress in 2006 and the subsequent election of Obama woke up the freedom-lovers. They finally realized the real and present danger to their freedoms that are posed by Congressmen and Presidents who say things like “Our situation is so urgent we don’t have time to do things the Constitutional way,” or “You have to pass this bill into law in order to find out what’s in it,” or “The law requiring Congress to pass an annual budget is inconvenient, so we just won’t follow it anymore,” or “You didn’t build that, the fruits of your success belong to the people.” So the freedom-lovers formed their own political party within a party, ran for Congress, and generally created a more vocal opposition, all while trying to keep their jobs and build their companies.
But unlike the government-phobic freedom-lovers of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70, 80s, and 90s the freedom-haters are not about to roll over and play dead. After all, the power of government is all Progressives think about day and night, so they are going to fight like hell to keep and expand that power! The result is we now have a full-scale donnybrook between a once docile segment of society and the “smart people” who want to control them.
The “smart people” hate this political backlash. Even though it takes two opposing sides to fight, all the blame for this rancor is heaped onto the once docile segment of society, the ones who cling to their religion and their guns. “Smart people” complain that the system is broken, Congress is dysfunctional, and the opposition is radical, etc. How dare those people stand up and want to be part of politics now, after so many decades of simply letting us “smart people” rule! They need to be muzzled so we “smart people” can fix all the ills of society as we were destined to.
Hence the uncivilized pitch of current politics.
But, after only a few years of exercising their rights to be part of the political system, the freedom-lovers are already growing tired of the fight. They’re bruised by being called names like “stupid,” and “racist,” and “greedy,” and “unfair.” I see, hear, and read about freedom-lovers who want to abandon America because freedom is no longer so easy to keep. Whah!
Modern freedom-lovers are not made of the same stock as the original patriots who were willing to sacrifice their lives and livelihoods to secure the bounties of freedom for themselves and their posterity. So I foresee American society soon settling back into a civilized political discourse once again, albeit under the boot of tyranny by “smart people.”