Going Galt?

If you're like most of the readers of this and other conservative blogs, you're painfully aware of the ongoing fight for the soul of this country.

The stirrings of the latest conservative revolution began in 2008 - too late to have any impact on the national elections - and exploded onto the national awareness in 2009. The Tea Parties and town hall meetings, where average citizens finally got fed up and decided they'd had enough, made it very clear that the political winds were changing ... not that the elitist politicians paid any attention, but that's another story.

Earlier this year, it seemed that this new conservative movement - which was really a fierce longing to return to our roots, to the original intent, to the ideals espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution - was a juggernaut which would crush all opposition.

The primary elections have borne that out, but only to an extent. There are several states where Tea Party-backed candidates are struggling. (You know which ones they are, don't you?) Where is the fervor of even a few months ago?

I know, I know. The progressives at both local and national levels have bombarded us with so many far-reaching plans, proposals, laws, regulations, taxes and fees that many of us are reeling and overwhelmed.

But this is not the time to back off or give up.  It's still necessary to slug it out in the trenches. It's too soon to step back and wash your hands of the fight; too soon to "rise above the fray". You want to see the bigger picture?  That's fine; we must take the long view, just as the progressives have been doing since Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson* and FDR. You know that to which you want to see us return, don't you?  Do you know what life would be like under a truly free, Constitutionally-limited government?

No, you don't. Frankly, none of us do. We have an idea, but that's all. The bureaucracy has been growing beyond need, beyond reason, for well over 100 years. No one alive remembers what it was like to be truly free, in the way our Founders intended.

But while you imagine and desire life under such a system, we must also understand that one election is NOT going to turn this thing around. It took a long time for us to wander so far off track; it will take a long time to return. Many a Himalayan mountain of red tape would have to be untangled, and there are hundreds of thousands of employees who would lose their jobs. Such a dismantling would be ugly, and unpleasant, for a time.

Will we actually be able to do it? I don't know. But it's certain if we try to distance ourselves from the fight, we will lose.

I know you're tired. But the battle is already joined, and this one's quite probably for keeps.


* Glenn Beck hates that guy.