Living in Interesting Times

“May you live in interesting times.”  Whether that famous saying really is an ancient Chinese curse is questionable, but there is no question at all that it is our curse right now to be living in interesting times.  We are engaged in two wars overseas (one supposedly winding down, the other still in full swing), we have a massive oil spill threatening ecological devastation on our southern coast, we are mired in a recession so deep that many reputable economists are predicting its descent into a full-blown depression next year (as I write this the actual national unemployment rate is hovering around 17%), and the nation’s citizenry is more sharply divided along political/philosophical lines than at any time since the Civil War.

While wars, ecological disasters, recessions, and depressions make the times more interesting, they are not new, no matter how terrible they may be.  What is new (and therefore the most interesting) is the extreme political polarization of the nation’s population right now.  This political polarization is strongly affecting the debates about the wars, the oil spill, and the economy.  Many in Washington, D.C. think that this is a bad thing, that we must work together, “reach across the aisle,” and compromise in order to pass new laws and move on to a more collegial future.  They call the Republicans “The Party of No.”  People who say this, or even think this are all, without exception, left-wing progressives/liberals.  They do not want other people to have individual liberty because with liberty comes risk; people who have liberty may do harm with that liberty.  They want government to greatly limit individual liberty and thereby the harm that might be done by those exercising that liberty.  Those of the left are more afraid of their fellow citizens than they are of the government.  They forget that every character flaw, every vice that is present in the person who owns the local restaurant or runs the giant corporation is present in the politician and the bureaucrat.  They also forget that the politician and bureaucrat have much more power to do far greater harm than the grocer or even the corporate chieftain could ever dream of.  The bottom line is that leftist liberals/progressives are frightened creatures so desperate for protection from their peers that, in order to get it, they are willing to sacrifice everyone else’s life, liberty, and property on the altar of big government, despite history’s numerous cautionary tales against doing so.

“But, Horatius,” you may be thinking, “there’s nothing new there.  The left has always despised and feared individual liberty, and celebrated and cherished authoritarian, collectivist government.  Why do you think they all wear Che Guevara T-shirts?”  True, that part is not new.  However, what is new (in our nation at least) is the source of the polarization: the grass-roots political activism on the right that is quite assertively pushing back against the left-wing agenda.  Keli Carender, Rick Santelli, and Glen Beck have sparked a never-before-seen level of protest from the people who Spiro Agnew branded as "the silent majority.”  Well, they are silent no more; across the country, from town hall meetings to giant rallies in the nation's Capital, they have expressed their complete opposition to further expansion of federal government power.  Whether or not this will continue past the present election cycle is unforeseeable, however, for the present it is a force to be reckoned with.  Regardless of the left’s attempts to make an issue of Rep. Joe Barton’s politically stupid comments about BP, this November’s elections will wreak havoc with the left’s plans to ram even more coercive, liberty stealing, authoritarian, collectivist laws down the throats of the American people.  It is vital that we who value freedom more than security continue this fight for as long as the left tries to strip us of our inherent rights and liberties, and that means forever.