I'm Back...

...for a minute, anyway. I wanted to share this thing that I wrote for my family and friends.

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Now What?


Wow. That hurt, eh? Can we get a recount—oh, never mind.

The strangest things can pop into your mind at a time like this. As I sat contemplating all the bad things that are sure to befall our country under this new administration, I had a sudden recollection of a sappy but sincere little poem that I wrote some years back. It is about overcoming pain, sadness, and sorrow to find a good and happy future. The key, according to my witty little verse, is not being controlled by fear—which is, as we all know, the great motivator.

Well, fear is what motivated all of us to get out and vote on Tuesday, and we see where that got us. The reason it didn’t work is because it was too late. We waited for fear to motivate us, instead of maintaining real vigilance on our country. We were too complacent for too long, and it caught up to us… they caught up to us. Accept that so we can move on.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787, as Benjamin Franklin left the hall in Philadelphia, he was asked, "What kind of government have you given us, Dr. Franklin?" He replied: "A republic, if you can keep it."

For generations, most people who read that quote were not sure exactly what he meant. How about now? Does it make more sense now?

The perspective necessary to understand today’s problem cannot be achieved until one understands our history. Before anyone thinks that this is the worst thing that has ever happened to America, allow me to mention a few other “progressive” democrat Presidents with aspirations of dictatorial powers who came before our new messiah.

Under Woodrow Wilson and—less than a generation later—Franklin D. Roosevelt, America was under the thumb of virtual totalitarianism. Individual rights shrank at a level inversely proportional to the mushrooming size of the federal government. The good of “The People” soundly trumped the good of the person. Never in our history had individual rights been so curtailed. In fact, Obama—as our newest would-be Il Duce—will have to work very hard to get to the level of fascism that Wilson and Roosevelt attained. If he does not succeed, I am sure it will not be for lack of trying.

How, then, did we ever recover from such periods? The real answer is that we never really did. Fortunately, the American people swung back the other way after each of those periods—first by electing Harding and Coolidge, then with Truman and Eisenhower. This allowed the country to regain at least some of its equilibrium. The damage, though, was real and lasting. Rather than viewing the Wilson and Roosevelt eras as individual anomalies, it is far more accurate to say that they were the ice breakers for “the movement.”

The next standard bearer for the movement was LBJ, who brought us the “Great Society.” Like the New Deal before it, this was another grand scheme that grew the government exponentially while promising to end poverty and bring prosperity and fairness to all. LBJ’s plans, coming on the cusp of the “counter-culture revolution” of the sixties, were designed to take maximum advantage of the fears and financial hard times that some people were feeling, while simultaneously demonizing “the rich” (sound familiar?).

Also noteworthy was the stunning hypocrisy of LBJ and the democrats—evidenced by their campaigning against Barry Goldwater by calling him a warmonger, as they themselves were embroiling us in Vietnam.

{ As a more than slightly disturbing side-note: look back at the last hundred years and see who got us into wars… was it the “warmongering” Republicans? WW-I: Wilson (d), WW-II: Roosevelt (d), Korea: Truman (d), Vietnam: Kennedy/Johnson (d). }

All of these past democrat tyrants have much in common. First, through populism and class warfare rhetoric, they fooled a significant portion of the population into supporting them. Next, they used their power in an attempt to force “fairness,” which was really just another way to say socialism. Finally, they all attracted a certain kind of thuggish followers, who were more than willing to use force and corruption to further the movement. You can ascribe evil to these past Presidents’ motives if you wish—but I like to believe that, for the most part, they really did believe in their ideas and wanted what they thought was best for the country. The problem was, they lost sight of the fact that America was never designed to be shaped by government. In fact, the exact opposite is true.

Again the question comes: how did this happen? Well, you need look no farther than one of our old enemies to find the answer:

“We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism.” --Nikita Khrushchev, former Soviet Premier

The Marxists were a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. They knew us and they knew that our fundamental weakness would be that our society would get soft and complacent over time. And, indisputably, we did.

So, there’s our brief history detour—now, back to today. We have a choice to make right now. We can choose to stick our heads in the sand and just wait out this newest crisis of government; or, we can take this as the final wake-up call that it is and get involved. I mean really get involved. We must absolutely ensure that we never again let fear be our last resort. How, you ask?

For starters, we can get to know what is happening with local politics. It all starts with the school boards and the city councils and the county commissions. There is no one closer to our everyday lives than our local politicians… and yet we have come to systematically ignore them. All of these social degradations—schools, culture, etc.—came about because we were all too busy with our lives to get involved.

Next, we can take a lesson from the leftists and make our voices heard when something goes against what we know to be right. Not just on the big things like illegal immigration, but on everything that could affect our lives or the lives of our children. I know we all have jobs and lives and cannot be professional demonstrators like the “anti’s” are… but still, when it counts, we have to let ourselves be heard. The era of the silent majority has brought us to where we are today, and we have to stop that trend immediately.

Finally, we can remain strongly attached to the principles that we claim to have. The only way to do that is to live them and defend them. This means we constantly remind ourselves what is important to us and what we will not tolerate. It means that we will teach our children right from wrong, and enforce those things in everyday life. No more sliding into decadence (or, as Judge Robert Bork so eloquently put it: Slouching towards Gomorrah).

So, what are you going to do with your life now? As an American, as a Conservative, and mostly as a Christian and a family man, I am going to rededicate myself to the principles that brought America to life. I am going to make it my business to redouble my efforts to educate my fellow citizens whenever I can. I am going to keep my eye on our elected officials—because I am going to remind myself time and again that they work for us!

My advice to all of my fellow Patriots:

Feel right… because you are.

Live right… because you should.

Remember, everyone sets an example, one way or another. So, set the right example and keep your head up with the pride that comes from living right.

I’ll close as I opened: with my sappy little poem. I just now read it again, and I have to say that it is some pretty damned good advice… I think I’ll take it, and I hope you do, too.


The Other Side

On the other side of sorrow,
I tell myself each day,
Is a doorway to tomorrow,
Through which we'll find our way.

On the other side of sadness,
It must be true as well,
The answers to our madness,
O'er there must surely dwell.

On the other side of all that pain,
Just waiting to be found,
Is all the good we stand to gain,
Once fear stops leading us around.

....... ©1998 kmg

Kurt M. Grinstead, Gunnery Sergeant, USMC (Retired)