Keeping the cold civil war from getting hot
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
We are in the midst of a cold civil war in which two very different visions of America are fighting. Central to the struggle is how we view the U.S. Constitution – one side reveres it as a peerless check on government power; the other, as a document so flawed that it should change rapidly with the times.
There's been loose talk over America's ideological divide becoming so bitter that it could lead to armed conflict.
A Democratic congressman quipped that if gun owners resisted with force his proposal to confiscate rifles, it would be a "short war" because the government has nuclear weapons. Right. The feds are going to nuke Texas.
The congressman (Eric Swalwell of California) has since taken a good amount of flak for his statement, which he said was a joke.
In any case, talk of violence should be chilled. Anyone hoping our current cold civil war of values turns hot should dig up a copy of Gone with the Wind or tour the Gettysburg battlefield, where 50,000 Americans in blue and gray were either killed, wounded or went missing over three days, with some maimed for life and others later dying of their wounds.
Or perhaps they should visit nearby Antietam, Maryland (aka the battle of Sharpsburg), where the single bloodiest day in American history took place, with about 23,000 casualties, plus many more deaths from disease in the days following the battle.
In Gone with the Wind, a clueless bunch of Southern young men at a party cheer the onset of war as if it were a glorious adventure. By the film's end, the hospital scenes amid the devastation of Atlanta bear grim witness to war's reality.
The best outcome of raising consciousness over war's devastation is not to turn pacifist; it's finding renewed respect and appreciation for those who serve sacrificially in the armed forces so we can live peaceful lives.
All this said, we truly are in the midst of a cold civil war in which two very different visions of America are fighting on other battlefields, such as courtrooms, legislatures, college campuses and in the media. Not to mention dining room tables and social media. Central to the struggle is how we view the U.S. Constitution.
On one side are conservatives. They revere the Constitution as a peerless check on government power that should be changed only with broad social acceptance and only through an orderly, difficult process. They see the document through the lens of the Declaration of Independence, which states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
This means that natural rights originate with God, not government, which cannot create them and has no right to abridge them.
On the other side are progressives, who believe in the living Constitution. This is the idea that the original document was so flawed that it should change rapidly with the times, with or without amendments. The primary method is having the courts rewrite it in ways that legislators – and the people who voted for them – never intended.
As Claremont Review of Books editor Charles R. Kesler notes in Hillsdale College's October "Imprimis" edition, the idea of the "living Constitution" arose with Woodrow Wilson, the most important progenitor of progressivism.
"Wilson called the spirt of the old Constitution Newtonian, after Isaac Newton, and that of the new Constitution Darwinian, after Charles Darwin. By Darwinian, Wilson meant that instead of being difficult to amend, the liberal Constitution would be easily amenable to experimentation and adjustment."
In practice, as Mr. Kesler puts it, "while keeping the outward forms of the old Constitution, the idea of a living Constitution would change utterly the spirit in which the Constitution was understood."
In the hands of progressive judges, the Constitution is an engine for social change. Instead of being a check on government power, it was and is seen as a blank check for the liberal agenda.
Since the middle of the 20th century, liberal courts have wielded the Constitution like a scythe. They righted some wrongs, such as ending school segregation through Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
But they also warred against elements that stand in the way of the growth of the state: Natural marriage; laws against taking innocent life in the womb; due process for property rights; the rule of law regarding immigration; religious liberty (they misread the First Amendment as ensuring freedom fromreligion, not of); the right of communities to ensure a minimal level of decency; and the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. Some of this is being righted by the current court, albeit we have a long way to go.
Meanwhile, goons of the progressive left continue to employ violence and censorship against opponents while the media pretend that any dissenters from the liberal agenda are consumed by "hate" and "white supremacy."
Standing athwart the current conflict is President Trump, whose policy victories, caustic style and taunting of the ruling elites have made him a lightning rod. Given all this, it's now nearly impossible in America's cold civil war to have civil conversations.
But it's still better than a hot war on U.S. soil.
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The far far far far far right is at war with reality but realty is kicking their asses...
This 'issue' is simple to fix.
Take all of the Trumpers and Trumpetts and relegate them into civil servitude for the Trumpian elites. Problem solved. The billionaires have their serfs and the serfs finally have their calling.
The article's title is really thought provoking and catchy. I really like it. Everything underneath.........eh, not so much.
"Do you agree that the Far Left despises the U.S. Constitution?"
No. Do you agree that the Far Right loves to eat warm dog shit for breakfast? This ridiculous article makes the claim that we're in a cold civil war then claims conservatives as true Americans and defenders of the constitution while it paints the "leftists" as evil outsiders trying to destroy the constitution without any actual evidence, just a bunch of rhetorical platitudes and taking a congressman's obvious attempt at a joke and claiming the liberals are the ones who want to nuke conservatives.
Then it switches gears and says "talk of violence should be chilled". Great, get your side all riled up telling them leftists want to rip up the constitution, then hedge by saying everyone should just calm down.
Then the article quickly attempts to demonize the left again.
"Since the middle of the 20th century, liberal courts have wielded the Constitution like a scythe. They righted some wrongs, such as ending school segregation through Brown v. Board of Education (1954)."
I love how he says so offhandedly "They righted some wrongs" as if the things liberals have been fighting for since our founding weren't all that important, then mentions one tiny sliver of what they fought against and won with school segregation. But liberals fight goes back much further.
Liberals fought slavery, segregation, the unconstitutional bans on blacks and women voting, the unconstitutional bans on interracial marriage, the unconstitutional bans on gay marriage, and they fought for woman to have rights and control over their own bodies. They fought for union rights and workplace safety laws, they fought for the social safety net that protects our elderly from falling through the cracks of society to die on the street as they once did. Those are the things that have made us a more perfect union over the 240 years of our Democratic constitutional Republic experiment. Only conservatives have fought such progress and enlightenment tooth and nail, clinging to the past like a child's blanket, screaming and crying as each of their old favorites is stripped away from them as they continually lose the battle against progress.
"But they also warred against elements that stand in the way of the growth of the state: Natural marriage; laws against taking innocent life in the womb; due process for property rights; the rule of law regarding immigration; religious liberty (they misread the First Amendment as ensuring freedom from religion, not of); the right of communities to ensure a minimal level of decency; and the Second Amendment's right to bear arms."
So the religious right think they get to define "Natural marriage", define "decency", define immigration law (which they're the only ones violating right now by refusing immigrants the right to apply for asylum) and get to define when a mass of cells becomes a human. And they define it all through their religious lens of an interpreted book cobbled together hundreds of years after the events by a Roman Emperor, and thus force their faith on secular society. They claim if you don't let them define these things, than you're trying to tear up the constitution! Oh, and they claim the left is trying to shred the 2nd amendment yet there is zero evidence submitted for this, it's now just rhetorical nonsense often repeated by the right. Universal background checks, limits on magazine capacity, bans on bump stocks or some assault rifles, none of that violates the 2nd amendment as Justice Scalia ruled, the 2nd amendment is not unlimited and we have many laws preventing civilians from owning certain weapons of war.
So no wonder there is a rift in America. We have religious conservatives who believe it's their constitutional right to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else, claiming "they misread the First Amendment as ensuring freedom from religion, not of" implying that while their religion should be completely protected from any government interference, non-believers should have no such protections from the religious. And on top of that they're lying about the left claiming we want to take all your guns away and get rid of the 2nd amendment which is total bull shit.
We would all be a lot more peaceful, a lot less angry and a lot happier if we all agreed to leave our faith at home and in our churches where we can practice all we want, but when you enter secular society you should refrain from proselytizing and stop basing your vote for candidates on how much you believe they'll inject your brand of religion into government. "Pay back Caesars things to Caesar, and Gods things to God." Even the bible says to treat the world separately, the secular world of taxes and governance and the spirit world which can be different for every single person on the planet which means we have some 7 billion versions of religion out there and no one actually knows which is right. Because religious beliefs are up to each individual, we shouldn't be using such a subjective system to govern secular life. It's unnecessary and simply causes confusion and division.
So if you're on either side of the debate, just stop for a second, think about what you're really fighting about. Is anyone trying to force you to give up your religion? Is anyone trying to force you to be gay or marry a gay? Is there really any evidence of a war on Christmas when the advertisements seem to come earlier and earlier each year? Is anyone trying to force you to sin in any way? Even the baking of a cake for a gay wedding isn't a sin as far as I can tell. I've read the bible numerous times cover to cover and I've never found such a law within. Not even one saying not to help a sinner, in fact it's the exact opposite. Christ dined with the prostitutes and tax collectors, but I guess that bar is too low for Christians today, they have to refuse to serve those they have judged as "sinners". Maybe, just maybe, after reflecting on who's really trying to force their beliefs on others and trying to legislate their subjective opinions, we can all agree to disagree and go about our daily lives without any conflict. I welcome Christians and serve them in my business, I just assume they'd do the same for any law abiding tax paying American citizen.
Well, most NEED their Captain America's
On both sides....