Forum: What Do You See As The Most Important Fronts In The Culture War?

Every week on Monday, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What Do You See As The Most Important Fronts In The Culture War?

Stately McDaniel Manor :The battle over what is wrongly termed “gun culture”  is our most vital cultural struggle. The term assumes there is some monolithic, massive group of people that share the same ideals, aspirations and values. This kind of group-think is natural for Progressives, who are compelled to place people in specific, progressive-defined categories, but it is nonsense. Most Americans own motor vehicles. Do they comprise a “car culture?” Is there a blue jean culture? Perhaps an underarm deodorant culture?

During the Age Of Obama, an unprecedented number of progressives--some now former progressives--have become gun owners. Surely progressives, by definition, cannot be part of a gun-loving, God-honoring “gun culture?” Would not the same apply to women? Black people? Hispanics? Are gay and lesbian gun owners members of the “gun culture”--first, or is their primary allegiance to their sexual orientation?

Since Barack Obama became the greatest gun salesman in American history, progressives have bemoaned the enormous ground lost in the gun culture battle. The NRA’s membership continues to skyrocket, and more and more Americans buy guns, yet the rates of violent crime continue to decline. True, Progressives are doing all they can to reverse that trend by forcing the police to avoid arresting criminals, and by trying to free convicted felons from prison, but poor Progressives have been horrified to discover that the fundamental transformation of America Mr. Obama promised did not extend to gun ownership.

However, as it took progressives a century to get Obamacare, and they had to do it through trickery, they will never give up on destroying the Second Amendment though it take millennia. Actually, all it will take is a progressive Supreme Court majority or a Democrat President and a large enough Democrat majority in the House and Senate. Either and both are possible in the near term.

So why is this the premier cultural struggle? It is the Second Amendment that secures every other human right. If there is no Second Amendment, or via Supreme Court dismantlement it has no application in the lives of Americans, there is no right to self-defense. When that day comes, expect government to take advantage of that advantage. Politicians have not yet gone too far because of the rule of law, enforced by the individual arms of all Americans. When we lose those arms, we lose the rule of law, our lives, and America. That process is already under way.

 Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason : The culture war is being fought primarily in our schools, beginning in pre-K and all the way through to our universities. Teaching multiculturalism and diversity seems to have started in the United States with the International Baccalaureate program which came out of the United Nations. It was and has been sold to parents as a rigorous program in which only a select few students are invited to participate. According to the IB website “The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.” In addition:“These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.”

While International Baccalaureate began as a high school program in the 1960s it now includes a primary years program for ages 3 to 12 and a middle school program. Getting to children at younger ages when they are still impressionable and their consciences and belief systems developing is extremely dangerous to a society. It is how Hitler was able to bring about the rise of the Third Reich; indoctrinating German youth beginning as early as ten years and the Hitler Youth programs that began when they turned fourteen years old. It was easy for Hitler to engage the German people with promises of a return to greatness for their country. Here in America we are a nation comprised of people from many different nations and cultures who have been able to keep alive some of the traditions of our former cultures while assimilating into this melting pot with the shared vision of a land of limitless opportunity for those who work hard and follow the rules. However, our country’s foundation comes from the Judeo Christian tradition and the belief that we as individuals are born with rights coming from our Creator. We understand the concept of the “laws of nature and nature’s God.” Most of us acknowledge these laws are inviolable and should not have anything to do with one’s culture.

While exposing our children to other cultures can be educational and enlightening, it is the moral relativity that comes with it that is where the culture war is being fought… and sadly being won. This moral relativity creates doubt and uncertainty and leaves our children vulnerable to indoctrination from forces with evil intentions. This is not so much a culture war as it is an attempt to deny the laws upon which we have based our western civilization.

Progressives are working hard on college campuses inciting our youth to protest for social, economic and even environmental justice. They have no idea they are being used in this effort to fundamentally transform America. The only way to win this war is to take back our education from the progressive left and teach our children the truth; that the laws of nature are and always will be inviolable and cannot be denied. And that other cultures and people, with their differences, might just be wrong.

 JoshuaPundit : We live in a time when decadence is not only celebrated, but mainstreamed. The work is done through our media, our schools, our politicians and even some of our religious institutions. When someone like Curt Schilling can be fired by ESPN merely for pointing out (privately, not on the air) that he's against allowing males with male equipment to use women's bathrooms where they have the opportunity to assault and molest women and children, you know the rot goes deep. And yes, some cases of this have unfortunately occurred already.

This is yet another tool to be used to disrupt and eventually supplant the traditional family with loyalty to the state, something Mao, Hitler and Stalin would find completely familiar and understandable.

Votes and even our Supreme Court have proven to be of little help in this struggle against the destruction of our culture, although voting and political activism may still play a role in the future. The basic weapons are organization, the realization that money talks  and voting with our feet.

First, any parent should do two things. First, if they have the means, they need to get their kids out of the public schools as soon as possible and into private schools, or if not, home school. And organize to force politicians to allow voucher programs and school choice, or elect ones that will.

The second thing, if very young children are involved is to get rid of television. Even a casual glance at  supposedly innocuous PBS might surprise you. Very young children lack the mental armor to defend themselves from what's being fed to them, and it takes time for them to develop it. Also, the amount of television viewed in many homes promotes passivity and inaction.

A third tool that needs to be used far more aggressively is the realization that money talks. Imagine what would happen if ESPN's advertisers received a few thousand or more e-mails and calls informing them that those members of the public would no longer patronize the products of companies that supported a network that violated Curt Schilling's First Amendment Rights? And that they were going to spread the word to others?  Duck Dynasty is a good example of what happens when this garbage is exposed to sunlight.

Part of that sunlight also involves seeing whom these companies give their money and support to. Often, they're not even aware of the full nature of whom they write the checks to.  Calling their attention to it and perhaps even following up with a practical demonstration of what their continued support can cost often can be surprisingly effective.

Organization, voting with our feet and political action.That's how to win the culture war. In fact,it's how the Left has been waging it, bit by bit.


Well, there you have it.

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