July 14, 2007

(South Carolina) - Today is le Jour de Bastille - Bastille Day - also known as "la Fête Nationale de la France". On July 14th, 1789, bread became so expensive in Paris that the political demagogues were finally able to whip the rabble into hurling themselves against the jail where political prisoners were kept, known as "the Bastille."* As the frenzy and anger was whipped along, children and the very old were trampled to death as unnoticing mobs are wont to do. The jail was emptied. What followed was a bloody nightmare of "righteous" overindulgence, in turn, followed by the heroic becoming vile. French history has always been an example of what not to do.

The example of the so-called "French Revolution," is a lesson Progressives cannot learn. Not "will not learn," but CANNOT LEARN. What makes people Progressives, keeps them from learning from their fundamental mistakes.

Progressives have big hearts. They want to heal the world. They want it so badly that they have rejected all reason on whatever stands in the way of their belief. Jesus, Buddha, Moses, even Mohammed warned them that the world could not be healed on the physical plain. Instead of investigating this truth, Progressives have rejected any religion that says that the poor will be with us always.

Progressives want peace. But history has shown over and over again that peace is awarded only to those who can bind and have successfully bound their enemies. Instead of investigating this truth, Progressives have rejected the lessons of history in favor of a blind rationalization that not binding our enemies somehow keeps them from dominating us.

Progressives want to tell the truth. But nature tells us that there is truth which exists like the butterfly graphing of chaos theory patterns. It's not what they think it is, but it's close. Instead of investigating this truth, Progressives have rejected truth, denying any basis for it, and finally any basis for fact. They believe neither fish nor fowl - neither existentialism nor transcendentalism. It is the quicksand on which the vile concept of relativism is based.

What happens when you have a group of people who are dedicated to making the world a better place and are absolutely convinced they are right about their dedication, but can't because their ideas on how to get there have never worked? You get a bunch of bitter, bickering, cowardly obsessives who will do anything, say anything for power, and, once in power, vainly try to make their failed ideas work - again. And as they become more frustrated, they will panic and increase all the activities that caused them to fail in a downward spiral of failure fed by more bad ideas. It's what they do.

As we approach the election year, we South Carolinians are going to be tempted to give in to the easy road. We're going to want to listen to the siren song of phony peace, the fear of lies, the temptation of power and greed. It's all false.

We are close to ruin. We have already begun to vote ourselves benefits from the common purse. We have given our power of safety away to underpaid guardians who promise to protect, but never can. We have voted away our expression of free will and generosity into the pockets of a government which, by definition, cannot disburse the money well. We have begun to think that government can solve social problems, yet we cannot point to one situation where this is the case - not one.

Is it any wonder our schools don't teach, our social programs fail, and our moral legislation is unenforceable? It's because you can't do this stuff through government. It can be government funded, but the programs cant be run properly by the government. The Progressives are not the only culprits, but they are, by far, the major proponents of government run programs and that makes them the worst.

They are their own victims of French Revolutionary thinking. Power corrupts them long before they have ascended to power, not by volition, but by definition. They cannot do otherwise.

This time, this place, this set of issues does matter in this election. Look to people who talk about freeing us from government. Support people who want to devolve government to the local level. And if you season as I do, start to work for people who want good armies, good roads, local governance, and independently run publicly funded schools. And above all, DON'T STAY HOME! This time you NEED TO VOTE for the lesser of two evils.

- Dick Anderson

*(There is a pleasant little fiction that Carlo and Letizia Bonaparte's pride and joy was present at the Bastille when the mob arrived, and, in a fit of righteous conscience, he let the mob in. In reality, nobody knows exactly where Napoleon was on Quatorze Juillet, 1789 - he was a commisioned officer in the French Army by 1785, did have partisan sympathies, and his unit could have been in Paris at the time. Harry Turtledove, the wonderful alternative history writer, thinks it was possible. In his book, The Two Georges, co-written with Jaws & Close Encounters star, Richard Dreyfuss, he has Bonaparte stand against the mob and rise to be the symbol of loyalty to the King, unifying France & Spain under Louis XVI.)