Ideological Wars

Only yesterday I found myself in a discussion with a neighbor on the failing economy and dastardly world situation. "What do we do?" she asked. "You don't want to feel hopeless, you don't want to feel helpless and not in control over your own destiny, but you're made to feel that way nowadays. You're made to feel as if you can't control the world around you." Her complaints are far from unique; in fact, they echo the disenchantment of my generation, whether they are liberal or conservative, politically active or not, they are disgruntled with the world around them. More importantly, they are at a complete loss as to how they can help rectify the situation.

Today, I came upon two blog entries at familiar sites, both of which expressed similar discontent with the current American administration. Michelle Malkin half-heartedly critiques singer Neil Young's impeachment cries with "Now, if he had said something about Bush's open-borders insanity, I might have been more sympathetic..." Malkin is not alone in her disenchantment with W. Millions of conservative voters share in her discontent with the President, whose approval ratings have hit new all-time lows. Rob, a MilBlogger at Kommentariat writes, "Honestly, I hope Bush is impeached. I hope he is impeached for failing to fulfill the duties of the Executive concerning US sovereignty."

In what was his final entry to the reading public, Rob declares, "Well, I'm off. I'm going to pursue my life and seek the enrichment of the individual: Me."

Is it that simple? Is it that simple to turn yourself off, as so many others in my generation have, to just give up on the world and float through it a renegade with no country, no loyalties, nothing but your name to call your own? Can anyone successfully turn themselves off from the rest of the world without running the risk of becoming what they so despise-- another cog in the wheel, another ostrich with their head in the sand?

This goes beyond merely losing interest in politics; if you truly have a passion for improving the world around you, can you really just disconnect yourself and expect to be satisfied? With all the frustration that the battle brings, can you really expect not to be bothered if you just stop talking? Theoretically, it isn't the sound of your own voice that bothers you; it's the sound of everyone else's, right? So how will silencing yourself solve any problems?

But all of it boils down to more than these mere arguments. In his final blog entry, Rob evidenced an attitude that is woefully far too common among my generation: resignation. A professor whom I admire very much recently said to me that there are students out there who want to learn, who are frustrated by the lack of truth in this world and want to know where to turn; I believe heartily in his assumption. The twenty and thirtysomethings of this world, the Generation X who isn't supposed to give a damn, really does care about what is going on in this place. The proof is in their apathy, their melancholy, and their resignation to defeat that evidences itself in a life where the universe becomes "Me" and the world becomes "The Other." What causes this? What causes a person to live their life in a shell? What is driving such passionate young souls to retreat?

Disenchantment with one political figure, in this case, George W. Bush, cannot possibly have that much of a mass effect unless that person was viewed as a masthead of some sort. Was George W. Bush the General of the Conservatives? Were the Republicans in Congress supposed to be our righteous Captains, leading us into battle? Is that how the war works? Is that how the game was to be played?

Look at the mainstream media and you'd think so; the mainstream media with their squawking heads spouting press-released rhetoric into the echo-chamber of the human psyche, the reverb so vociferous you'd think your eardrums would collapse from the sheer magnitude of it all. The alternative media, with their bloggers shouting, platforming, campaigning, crusading righteously for their candidate-- the man who was to save us all from the evils of the liberal rings of fiery hell. We've had painted for us a dramatic and triumphant picture, indeed. Apparently someone forgot to tell us that the painter was a pre-Raphaelite who, despite their love for the literal, still managed to craft a work slightly too romantic for real life.

Despite our suspicions, we were swept up in the fervor; Gen X dared to dream, and has been squinching their eyes closed ever since. Now that they have been forced open by reality, a maelstrom of vices has swept in, turning the dream into a nightmare. The borders are crashing; the price of oil is rising; nuclear warfare is quickening; enemies are closing in; the world is literally crashing around us. Who do we blame? Whose fault is it? Who is responsible to fix everything, to patch it up, to stick a band-aid on the world's wound, to kiss it and make it all better? George W. Bush was supposed to fix it all-- he made promises. Yes, I know, this is what politicians do, they make promises and don't keep them. But he was going to keep them; good ol' George is a man of his word... wasn't he? If the General fails, then the Captains will fail. And if they fail, the soldiers will fall. We will fall. Now is the time to sound our retreat, to run in the face of the enemy before we fall!

In the dust of retreat, we are blinded to the fact that this isn't about the President. It isn't about what the Republican party has or hasn't done for you. This isn't about the left-wing lunatics, the right-wing radio hosts, or 5% of Fox News being owned by the King of Saudia Arabia. This, this battle, this crisis of human history is about ALL OF THESE THINGS, for they are merely SYMPTOMS OF THE CRISIS. It is about suicide bombers in Israel as much as it is about the growing nuclear threat of North Korea. This is about left and right, liberal and conservative, America and the world. Don't you see? Can't you understand that when you hear obscure terms like "New World Order" and "War on Terror" that the simplicity of concrete, rational thinking is gone, that we are no longer able to point a finger at an enemy and eradicate it?

We do not live in a world of Hitlers and Tojos, but of mullahs, and politicians, and secret societies, and lobbyists, and think tanks, and alternative media, and hundreds of other things that all weave together into a tangled web even the most talented of spiders could not hope to construct in their lifetime, all of which serve a purpose in the dissemination of chaos. Chaos that serves to distract you, the listening public, you with your eyes and ears open, ready to speak out against the perceptible injustices of the world, from what is really going on. You, men and women of action, you are being distracted away from your true targets and instead taught to shoot at your fellow soldiers on the battlefield. Can't you see? Is the fog of chaos that surrounds this deception so thick, so impenetrable, that you cannot see that you are shooting yourself in the foot?

Why? Why are conservative bloggers wasting so much time on blaming the President for failing? Why are such a growing number of Gen-X thinkers and doers withdrawing into their shells? Why are we letting the frustration beat us, and beat us so easily at that? So, a politician failed-- that is what politicians do. That is why the Constitution begins not with "We the Politicians" but WE THE PEOPLE. We are those people, the people endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights to life, to liberty, to all that is holy and good, all that the enemy is trying so viciously to take away from us. And every time we allow ourselves to be disillusioned by one person's behavior, to be frustrated by one bill going through Congress, to be disheartened by one news report we read on Drudge, every time we allow ourselves to pull back tighter and tighter into our shells, we lose. We are not fighting a conventional war; lines aren't being drawn on maps of land, they are being drawn on the maps of our minds and hearts. Victory is not measured in land won or lost, or lives won or lost, but in hearts and minds won or lost.

We, the conservatives, the lovers of America, the lovers of Israel, the believers in the Bible and the Constitution, in the powers of the First Amendment, in those beautifully unalienable rights, we cannot give up. We cannot simply settle into a world that revolves solely around ourselves. To do so would be the moral equivalent of throwing a handful of dirt into our own graves. This crisis is not going to go away if we merely shut our eyes to it. To merely sit around, condemning the President, without offering realistic, alternative solutions to the problems we face, is tantamount to serving the Kool Aid to Bill Clinton at the next Bildebergers meeting. If we stop talking, the crisis wins. If the crisis wins, we lose. If we lose, we die.

Don't let the chaos cloud your vision-- that is what the enemy wants most of all!! Don't allow anger to morph into resignation and defeat. Don't stop standing up for what is right. Instead, unite fellow lovers of truth! Unite, and impassion each other to move forward, to move this nation forward, to move the world forward into a future that will not be shrouded by the darkness of the evil that currently surrounds us, but will be a place where we may bask in victory's glorious light.

Tags: Israel Bush America conservatives war