Never Give Up or How to fight a successful insurgency

First published November 9, 2008

By Spartucus

Near the end of the 1959 movie Spartacus, we find the subdued army of ex-slaves awaiting punishment from the Roman legions. The Roman commander, Gnaius Pompey, wants to punish their leader, but he doesn’t know which one of the thousands of men is Spartacus. He asks the prisoners “which one of you is Spartacus?” Kirk Douglass, the actor who plays the title character is obviously sweating. Should he stand and declare himself and face crucifixion, or remain seated and hope for the best? When he realizes what he must do, he begins to stand and declare himself: “I am Spartacus!” He is surprised however when at the very same time, one by one, the other prisoners stand up and speak as well. Soon every one of the captured men stands and yells: “I am Spartacus!”

In this vein I think all of us who went down to defeat yesterday can likewise say “I am Joe the Plumber,” or ”I am Tito the Builder.” We can also say “I am Sarah Palin” as well. I am any man or woman who comes from humble circumstances and by sheer grit and hard work, makes it on our own, with no handouts or grievance counselors. We can also say that –in the words of the eminent African-American economist Thomas Sowell—when America went past a point of no return, we went down fighting.

OK, it’s over. Let’s get rid of the myths first of all. We should not blame McCain except in two respects: he foolishly held to his principles to not accept campaign donations, and two, he pulled his punches. McCain was outspent three-to-one in the battleground states. That’s why he lost them by razor-thin margins. Second, the media turned out to be a propaganda machine for Obama. We never learned anything about him or the evil men who have mentored and nurtured him throughout his career. Avowed Leninists like Saul Alinsky, Frank Marshall, and Bill Ayers. We knew more about Sarah Palin’s dating habits during her college days than we still know about Obama. There’s no way anybody could have overcome those disadvantages, even Reagan.

Let’s not blame Palin either. She was the one true bright spot in this sordid affair. Unlike the top of the ticket, she was a true movement conservative who wasn’t afraid to pull her punches. In her speeches she emasculated both Obama and Biden. This woman is one tough cookie. She could easily be the American Thatcher. (Let’s hope she doesn’t go to the Senate, the graveyard of ideas and reputations.) If it wasn’t for her, it wouldn’t have been as close as it was.

And we should not blame Bush. When he became president, our nation was attacked. Unlike any of his predecessors, he chose to fight back. Because of his resolute leadership, we’ve won n Iraq and pacified Afghanistan. The Muslim world and its terror network have chosen to subdue themselves while on his watch. That is no small thing. Am I happy that W enacted Medicare Part D or No Child Left Behind? No. I wish he hadn’t. But when he became the first president to try to fix Social Security nobody was there in his corner. Neither can we blame him for the aftermath of Katrina. It is not his fault nor ours that New Orleans had become a Third World city ruled by thugs and kleptocrats –Democrats all. From his inauguration on, he was dealt a bad hand which he played as best as anybody could given the circumstances. In fact, he may have played it better as we may see in retrospect

When all is said and done, we must remember that this was a toxic year for Republicans and conservatives. Rarely has a party held the White House for 3 consecutive terms even in the best of times. This certainly wasn’t the best of times.

At base, Barack Obama has cobbled together a Third-World coalition of African-Americans, Latinos, gays, guilty white liberals, young single people, Jews, American Muslims, the unemployed, and those who are on some type of government assistance. All this, coupled with the stock market collapse of 2008, and willing propagandists in the media, enabled him to be dragged across the finish line.

As Christians and patriots, we should wish Obama Godspeed and goodwill. It was a hard-fought campaign. We should pray for him, perhaps the Lord will enlighten him and soften his heart, especially regarding the unborn and the secularist agenda he and his party wish to impose on us. Unfortunately, there is no more loyal opposition and the liberals have nobody to blame but themselves. Over the past eight years they have been atrocious to our incumbent president. They’ve called him every name in the book and have tried everything within their power to undermine our war effort, even though many of them voted for it. In a more civilized time, this would have been called giving aid and comfort to the enemy and they would have been clapped in irons and left to rot on Alcatraz. They cannot expect the Right to now treat them with the respect that they think they deserve. As C S Lewis said in another time and place: “We scoff at honor and are surprised when we are surrounded by traitors.” I’m afraid to say that after a perfunctory honeymoon, the producing class, the warrior class, the working class, in other words, the patriots, are not going to be there for Obama. This isn’t sour grapes, it’s just the way it is: you can’t go poking your finger in people’s eyes by ridiculing their folkways and the cumulative experience of civilization and expect them to be there for you when things are bad.

Therefore, I’m not so hopeful about the future. As Christians and patriots, we should hope for the best and prepare for the worst, particularly if the Democrats act like the neo-Leninists they are. Barney Frank wants to cut the military budget by 25 percent. He won’t succeed of course but the mood is set: watch recruitments and reenlistments start to decline. The liberals want a more “progressive” tax code. That lady on YouTube –Peggy the Moocher—thinks that with Obama in the White House, she’ll never have to worry about filling her tank with gasoline or having her mortgage paid. American Muslims think they’ve got a secret friend in Washington who’s going to stick to the Israelis, and American Jews think they can co-opt Obama. The Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton grievance industry can’t and won’t go away. If this isn’t a coalition of dunces I don’t know what is. The homosexualists want a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and an end to don’t ask, don’t tell in the military. The DailyKos/Blame America First crowd wants America to surrender everywhere yesterday. There’s nothing principled about any of this. Somebody on that side of the isle is going to be disappointed.

What is to be done?

First of all, we must create a narrative as the Left is so fond of saying. So far, Obama has won 52% of the vote, the same share of the vote as did George W Bush in 2004. What’s more, he did it with the same number of votes as Bush (63 million). As of now, the Democrats have picked up only twenty Congressional seats and five Senate seats, not the 36 and nine that their propagandists were confidently predicting. This is not the blowout that they were expecting. Even if all breaks the Democrats’ way in the Senate, they’ll have gained seven seats for a total of fifty-eight. Not the 60 they need to override filibusters. All of this taken together means that Left’s narrative of widespread voter turnout especially among the youth hasn’t been borne out. In other words, the MSM lied to us again and tried to depress our turnout. More good news, they didn’t succeed as much as they could have.

Second, we must concentrate our forces and fight where we should. In military terms, there are important battles that must be fought, and if lost, then lost in such a way that makes the other side pay. No more retreats, keeping our losses in the Senate to a minimum was our strategic retreat. We can fight back from there. Concentrate on the big picture, not on little squabbles. Don’t die for real estate we already have or can’t be taken. Here, in my opinion, are the major battles that must be fought:

1. Fight amnesty for illegal aliens. This means any and all efforts at amnesty of illegal aliens. Fight this one tooth-and-nail. Do it nationally, do it locally. If the Dems get their way, a new permanent underclass of voters will be permanently entrenched in our nation.
2. Fight the felons. Make sure that no laws are passed giving criminals and ex-convicts the right to vote. If Obama is able to get both (1) and (2) passed, then the days of the Republic are definitely over. Our votes won’t mean a thing. America will become one big rotten borough with a bare majority of people voting themselves largesse from the public purse.
3. Protect talk radio. File lawsuits with the courts if need be. Do it on First Amendment grounds. If this fails, invest in XM or Sirius. The AM band will be dead and robust political criticism will only take place via satellite.
4. Go digitally underground. Create an alternative media. Take over the blogosphere. Have camera-ready cell phones ready at all times, like the guy on the airplane who recorded those Dem bigwigs yukking it up about Hurricane Gustav. This one’s doable because the MSM is fat and lazy. Despite their victory, they’re dying and in the tank. Call them out on that. Never watch them, don’t go on their shows. Make them lose ratings. Ditch the big city papers as well. The Left blogosphere will likewise become complacent. Besides, they’re pretty unhinged anyway so whatever information comes from them will be discounted.
5. Marginalize the message. Make sure that all of his associates, known and unknown are brought to the fore. Anybody who even looks or thinks like Bill Ayers should be grilled incessantly if he’s an Obama nominee. Do this on a local level as well. When colleagues start singing the praises of Obama’s henchmen, point out their views. “Gee, I guess now that Bill Ayers got off the hook, maybe we should give a posthumous pardon to Tim McVeigh?” Or my personal favorite: “What do Obama and Bin Laden have in common? Both have friends who bombed the Pentagon.” Try this one on for size: “Did you know that one of Obama’s mentors Saul Alinsky dedicated his book Rules for Radicals to Lucifer? Hmm, isn’t that interesting?” Don’t be afraid, say the word Marxism, Marxist, Leninist, redistributionist loud and often. Make people understand what’s going on.
6. Expose the contradictions. Obama has flipped more times than Kerry. The hard Left will be pissed if he doesn’t declare surrender in Iraq tomorrow. If he augments forces in Afghanistan and then invades Pakistan, they’ll do to him what they did to LBJ (it wasn’t pretty). Same with taxes. Call his “tax cut” what it is: welfare for those who don’t pay taxes. Make him hurt on this one. If the looting class (i.e. his base) doesn’t get their goodies, they’ll turn on him too. If he doesn’t force more concessions from the Israelis, watch the Muslims get pissed.
7. Don’t be afraid to say “A-Ha!” When the next international crisis hits and the world doesn’t blow us kisses, then we should say: “but I thought the world would love us.” Bush had it right: you’re either with us, or agin’ us. As the Emperor Tiberius said, “it’s better to be feared than to be loved.”
8. Don’t be afraid to speak the truth. This is going to be hard. Any criticism of Obama is going to get you branded as a racist, especially in the first year. Get used to it. Even if you’re black, Latino, Jewish, gay, or polka-dot, you’re going to be called a racist even with the most tepid and reasoned criticism. Do it anyway, but only on the things that matter, otherwise our message is marginalized. If we aren’t scared and we criticize correctly, then the incessant hurling of that phrase against at us will lose all meaning. Make them pay for using it like Kleenex.
9. “Go John Galt.” Personally disinvest from all leftist institutions. Do this denominationally, corporately, or privately. Don’t go to a bookstore, restaurant, or small business that’s owned by a leftard. If you’re a Christian, agitate to get your denomination out of the National Council of Churches. Let the corporation you work for know that you don’t want to have 1 percent of your salary garnished by the United Way. Learn from the Left, get a chip on your shoulder. Make the liberals you work with uncomfortable around you. Make them walk on eggshells. Move from areas of town that are depressed (if you haven’t already). Chances are those are leftist strongholds anyway. Get your kids out of public schools (trust me, it’s going to get a LOT worse, see here: www.orthodoxytoday.org). If you can’t afford parochial schools, then home-school. If that’s not possible, be involved in every way in your child’s public school education. Be a jerk with the teachers. Let them know that you don’t approve of the secularist agenda. At the very least, make them cringe every time they see you. As much as possible, seek out libertarian and conservative businesses and give them your dollar. Take up hunting and learn to process your own meat. Work less or hide more.
10. Think globally, act locally. Run as a principled conservative at the local level. Change can be effected there. Be involved in the myriads of what Edmund Burke called “little platoons.” They make life bearable and are bulwarks of democracy. Besides, a deep and wide bench is necessary. Margaret Thatcher came from nowhere. No title, no pedigree, no nothing. She changed Britain for the better. If nothing else, this will allow us to create havens of sanity and decorum. The Red States are growing in population, the Blue States are decreasing. Once a state becomes reliably blue (i.e. Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey) it’s better days are in the past (the Purple States are still salvageable). All that’s left in most Blue States is a welfare-dependant underclass, a lot of over-educated latte-drinkers, underemployed slackers, and tenured hippies living in some college town that haven’t done anything with their lives.
11. Arm yourselves. Self-explanatory. In many Blue States, you are going to be your own police force. Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six. ‘Nuff said.
12. Pray. Pray for the nation. Pray for those poor benighted fools like Peggy the Moocher and Larry the Loafer who think that they have a claim on the proceeds of our hard work. It’s never too late. Some of them may change for the better. Remember, America is still the last best hope on earth.

If we do these things, there is a possibility that we can come back in two years. Notice I didn’t say come roaring back: I think we have passed a point of no return in many ways. It is in the interest of the Left to make sure the dependant class stays that way. Barring a national revival, I don’t see any hope of the return of rugged individualism.

Despite this, major gains can be made. Consider: so far, it looks like the Senate still has a filibuster-proof minority. Many of the new Congressmen will be unable to defend Obama in 2010 if things get iffy (and they always do). By controlling the message via talk radio/, the blogosphere, and FOX news, we can expose the contradictions and foibles of the Obama administration. They’re will be many and they will be apparrent to any and all. (Remember, you will get called a racist.)

Also, the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2010. Do any of these Congressmen want to face the electorate knowing they allowed them to expire? The GOP can sit back and watch them squirm over that one. We don’t have to do anything. Except for obstructing the Left agenda, we literally don’t have to do anything. Let the Left do the heavy lifting of governing.

Watch Obama try to please his base. He’s going to have a six-month honeymoon, a year tops. But when the goodies don’t get handed out, watch out.

Obama he has a very good chance of losing control of the message. There are too many question marks out there. The MSM did not do their job vetting this man. We only recently found out about the half-brother who sleeps in a tin shack on the outskirts of Nairobi or his Aunt Zeituni, the illegal alien who lives in a slum in Boston. Ordinary people were shocked to hear Jeremiah Wright’s racist rants in a supposedly Christian church. Get ready for more shoes to drop. Wright, Bill Ayers, and Bernadine Dorhn are just the tip of the iceberg. Get used to hearing names like Tony Rezko and Rashid Khalidi. Buyer’s remorse will set it, just as it did in the primaries when Hillary cleaned his clock in all of the later primaries.

As for the international community, which will supposedly love us now forever, ain’t gonna happen. Consider the Muslim world. Has Obama been successfully compromised enough regarding his radical past that he’s too gun-shy about meeting with all the bad apples in that neck of the woods? My gut tells me “yeah.” That means he’ll appear to be a Zionist stooge. Pat Buchanan has even accused him of “doing a passable imitation of Ariel Sharon.” That’s going to make the Muslim world real happy. So much for their good will. Expect rioting in the vaunted Arab Street if they feel they’ve been let down again by yet another American president. Don’t be surprised if some Muslim cleric judges him an apostate from Islam (you know what that means).

What about when the next genocide happens in Africa? Will Obama do a George Bush and bring the might of the US armed forces to bear? If he does, will we hear apologies from those who decry the Bush Doctrine? But what if he does nothing because of our economic situation? How will the world look on the first black man to be president if he dithers? Who’s side is he going to be on, the black African Christians who are being murdered or the black African Muslims who are doing the murdering?

Putin’s going to roll this guy. What will Obama do when Vladimir the Wonderful goes on another rampage? Does he honestly think that the Euroweenies are going to help? Germany needs the oil and gas, England is getting ready to scrap the Royal Navy (yes, they’re actually talking about that). Western Europe is being turned into Eurabia. Good luck with that.

What’s the upside? Being pals with thugs like Ahmadinejad and Chavez and Castro? Wow, that’ll make us stand up and sing. This is going to be the second Carter administration. Lucky for Obama though, Bush cleared a lot of tables for him. We’ve pacified Iraq and conquered Afghanistan. Iran appears close to collapse, again thanks to Bush’s destabilization of that regime. I still don’t underestimate the ability of the Left to totally screw things up strategically. If that happens –or worse—like another terrorist attack on our soil, then Bush will look like the resolute warrior he was. Say all you want about Bush, it’s Obama’s baby now. Whatever happens on his watch will be his responsibility, no matter how much the crybabies on MSNBC say otherwise.

I could go on, but you get the picture. We must fight to protect the Constitution, call him a redistributionist when it’s warranted, and gird our loins for the inevitable crisis. I wish that these crises will only affect the Blue ghettos that comprise the Democratic base, but I’m not so sanguine.

Aristotle said that courage was the first among virtues, because that is the one that make all others possible. This is the time for courage. Let us plan our political battles with discernment and defend our values with courage. And let us never forget that the Democratic Party is basically a party of looters and takers. They can’t survive without the producers and creators. (That would be us.)

Who knows? Obama might see the light. I fervently pray that he will govern from the center as Clinton did after Newt Gingrich handed him his ass in 1994. Maybe he’ll be moderately pro-life. Who knows? At the same time, we got to be realistic. There is nothing in his past that indicates such a possibility. Better to be coldly realistic than foolishly optimistic. Like the senatorial aristocracy during the latter days of the Roman Empire, he and his cronies have coolly assessed the nature of their coalition and they know what a motley crew it is. For every feint to the center, he’s going to have to toss a few scraps to the Left. If he doesn’t, there will be hell to pay.

(Feel better now you “conservatives” such as Christopher Buckley, Doug Kmiec, Colin Powell, and Ken Duberstein? Was your disdain for the fantastically successful governor of Alaska worth this to you? Note to ourselves: never let these bozos back into the fold. I believe in a big tent by they are nothing but opporunists.)

That doesn’t mean that we’ll come roaring back. Chances are we won’t. America’s best days are in the past. Our nation has devolved from being the home of a resilient people who could pull themselves up by their bootstraps to a largely immoral one. The traditional family is now in the minority. Forty percent of all live births are illegitimate. Three thousand abortions are performed daily. Perverts feel that they must act on their desires and that government must sanction them. This isn’t the fault of government policies per se but a lack of individual restraint. Many of us in the creative/working/producing class have our own foibles and moral failings (I know I do).

Then why this call to arms? Because America is still the last, best hope on earth. We must regroup and live to fight another day. Never give in. This country is ours, not theirs. Those who live on handouts are, and have always been a servile class. Worse, they are parasites. And like parasites everywhere, they cannot survive for long on their own. They need us, we don’t need them.

–Spartacus