Political perseverance

By Cathy Keim

I have just returned from two trips to see family in Georgia, Florida, and California. I saw all six of my grandchildren in a three week period. I put aside all my usual responsibilities and just enjoyed seeing family. However, I could not put aside my thoughts of what will my grandchildren’s lives be like? Change is in the air. Everywhere you look you see chaos and systems stretching to the breaking point. When will the turmoil explode into our lives and how will that affect our children and grandchildren?

The question that I have posed to many people recently is: Do you think that this is what the 1930’s felt like? People knew that trouble was brewing, but what could the individual do about it?

Richard Fernandez takes a stab at setting the current stage of events and offering possible actions to take in his excellent two part post on PJ Media. I hope that you will take the time to read his posts as I found them very helpful.

He agrees with my feeling of a system that is about to break. In the face of the rapidly morphing ISIS, he sees the nation-states floundering and becoming more totalitarian as they try to control events. There are many problems converging on the bloated liberal western governments that make them unable to adapt to the changing times, but the Muslim jihadists could be the final straw.

The liberal politicians will try to manage the crisis by seizing more and more of our liberties in the name of security. He projects this as a done deal, but his proposal about what to do to survive that and to bring back a civilization for our grandchildren caught my interest because many of us that are trying to have an impact on our government sometimes feel defeated by the lack of positive results.

Fernandez states:

The challenge before ordinary people is to join actions which will help Europe and North America work its way through this coming episode of psychosis. In general three survivable exits from madness can be attempted.

  1. Reforming the system through regular political action in a way similar to how the British went from absolutism to a constitutional monarchy. The old system replaces itself with new parts in a more or less peaceful process;
  2. Creating “monasteries” of survival by establishing affinity groups which preserve culture, technology and values from submergence in the wave of chaos;
  3. Flight to the frontier. Creating technology that will allow some people to physically escape or hold off barbarism.

Reforming the system through political action is probably the most obvious response and the one people will most commonly use. It means engaging in thankless, often fruitless interaction with the generally dishonest political class, but while it will never deliver as much change as one hopes, it will never be completely fruitless. It does something. Whether it can do enough to help us avoid the crisis entirely remains to be seen. But it should be tried. (Emphasis mine.)

There is the call to action for all of you who regularly pick up your phone to call your representatives, write thoughtful emails to be read by disinterested staffers, attend hearings and public sessions to state your case, and write letters, articles and blogposts to educate and motivate your fellow citizens. He covers it all in that paragraph.

The constant disappointment when your representative votes the wrong way again, the easily discernable ruses the professional politicians use to cover their lies, and the irritation when a staffer is rude or implies that you are uninformed are all familiar to anybody that dabbles in politics. For those of us that are called to action in this area, enjoy a small chuckle at how succinctly he covers the whole array of political malfeasance, but remember that we must keep trying.

Eventually the wheels will fall off the progressives’ vision of utopia. They can continue to try to perfect mankind by increasing their control over our thoughts and actions, but at some point the money will run out, the debt ceiling cannot be increased again, and the barbarian hordes will breech the defenses. At that moment, the progressives will finally see that the myth of the perfect man living in harmony with others is not possible on this earth. There can be no utopia.

It is at the moment that the conservatives will need to step in and guide the shattered remnants of Western Civilization to begin again or the new Dark Ages will descend. So, take a deep breath and prepare to call our politicians to account. We must keep trying to work with the system we have to prevent this dire scenario. The stakes are high, but our Founding Fathers never said it would be easy. They struggled to birth this nation. We must struggle to keep it.

Impressive

I’m going to have much more on this tomorrow evening (let’s face it – why put out your best stuff on an evening not known for huge readership) but tonight’s Lincoln Day Dinner here in Wicomico County was quite successful and well-attended.

Even though it’s Easter weekend, we had three statewide candidates make their appearance and a fourth may have only been prevented from coming because of the impending birth of his fourth child. I think that’s pretty good.

Yet with all that excitement statewide, the local front is strangely quiet. Sure, most of the GOP stalwarts will be running again but I’d like to see someone in the County Executive’s chair who is more fiscally prudent. And if we have the same County Executive, let’s have him face a County Council who can override his vetoes with a 5-2 supermajority.

Maybe it’s time to entrust some of these county offices which have been in Democratic hands for a long period of time to the GOP. Certainly there’s something to be said for experience but, despite the wretched attempts at change coming from the White House, it’s not such a bad thing all the time. Sure, these are county positions but no one needs to remain as Register of Wills or Clerk of the Courts for decades on end. Maybe some new blood and new ideas in the office will prove to be the fiscally responsible thing to do.

This can be put another way. Despite the great turnout we had tonight, with over 150 attending, I would expect the TEA Party on April 15th to have at least four times that number. Out of all those people one would think we have a few who would stand up and put their name on the line to serve their public for a few years before returning to the private sector. That’s all I’m asking for.

Personally, I’ve made a promise to myself that I would not run for an office after I turn 50 (and I’m 45 right now.) I understand that elected office isn’t something one should aspire to for a lifetime but many of my opposite number treat the perks of office as their birthright. That’s the attitude we need to have changed and it’s going to take people who wish to sacrifice to effect the change we all seek.