Has America become a permanently divided country?

A reader, Jason McDougal, raises a disturbing point, which, among other things, suggests the unprecedented difficulties we face in trying to mount a Western defense against Islam, namely that half the West is already against the West:

Given that every nomination to the Supreme Court has been and forever will be a battle over cultural principles and ideological presuppositions, is the U.S. a country in perpetual warfare with itself? Every political and judicial appointment has been and will continue to be an ideological battleground.

Every police action, every media pronouncement, every entertainment piece, every economic policy decision—all these have become issues of betrayal, conflict, sell-out, etc. Absolutely everything in American life has become tinged with ideological implications. Such that whether one is a conservative or a liberal, one has to be on guard over one’s perceptions. Almost everything now in American society is geared towards moving one in one direction or another.

Doesn’t this show that Americans have arrived at a point in time and history in which society is in a state of perpetual war with itself?

And if this is the case, is America a “home” any longer in the sense of which the Bible speaks of a state of rest? The U.S. had been conceived as a haven of rest for those immigrants wearied and worn through worldly struggle.

But now it appears that the U.S. has become a battleground. Not only in the sense of which I speak above but also through groups that intend to remake America in their image. Latino groups in Texas and California that have indicated that their immigration status is really a reconquest of ancient Mexican territories. Or Muslims who assume that one day the U.S. will become an Islamic state as long as their birth rates outpace the native population.

It appears to me that given the cultural wars being fought in the U.S. on a daily basis, this country has become socially fractured and ideologically motivated to the point that there no longer exists a state of rest for it. In which case, where no rest exists, is there a home?

LA to JM:

This is very eloquent. You’ve captured a painful truth. But I believe the reason for this miserable state of affairs is leftism. What is leftism, after all, but the belief that “all history heretofore has been the history of class conflict,” as Marx put it in The Communist Manifesto? Leftism seeks to divide humanity into oppressor and oppressed, so that in the name of helping the oppressed the left takes total power for itself. Thus it must turn society from a state of rest into a state of perpetual war, as you’ve described. After the French Revolution, France became two countries, divided between left and right, and remained that way for centuries.

JM to LA:

I agree with you that the left has turned America into a battleground. Since the left has no fixed, eternal objective in mind, their “fight” for social justice (as they conceive of it) must become a perpetual battleground.

As well, if history is a history of oppression, then in their minds history has to be overcome. Tradition then is conceived as a set of shackles rather than the ground of freedom and liberty.

No wonder the leftist uses government at every opportunity as a mechanism to “undo” history. But as you point out, undoing American history means undoing our identity and character.

You mention that the conservative who only subconsciously holds his principles will inevitably veer to the left. I might add that the liberal himself invariably also moves further leftward towards socialism. FDR’s New Dealers in time became outright socialists (and some like Alger Hiss became communists). The Democratic Party, if unconstrained by American society and opinion, would no doubt promulgate socialist legislation at every opportunity.

The problem is that the Republican Party would appear to be “conservative” by only accepting one-half of what the Democrats would propose. Thus political conservatism these days amounts to what percentage (less than 80 percent) of Democratic legislation is “acceptable” to the mainstream. What I call the “Laura Bush conservative”.

LA to JM:

“As well, if history is a history of oppression, then in their minds history has to be overcome. Tradition then is conceived as a set of shackles rather than the ground of freedom and liberty.”

That is just excellent. I also like “Laura Bush conservative.” A new addition to my political lexicon.

JM to LA:

BTW you don’t know how much I hate seeing Laura Bush on TV. She reminds me so much of the JFK Peace Corps type, who in his/her teens during the 60’s joined the Peace Corps “to do good in the world”, then came back to the U.S. to carry the mission into the schools by becoming a teacher. I had just these type of teachers who insisted that an American was only a good American if he/she used our resources to go out into the poor world (inevitably it was Africa) to “do good out there.”

Laura Bush is the type who sees an American as one who conservatively holds personal values while publically espousing liberal principles. In other words, you privately go to church, have a heterosexual relationship, dress nicely, speak discretely, etc. Publically you extend everything to all races and all cultures.

The problem with that approach is that public liberalism overwhelms personal conservatism. Perfect example—HER DAUGHTERS! Their private personas no longer differs from their public personas.

LA to JM:

I also disapprove of Mrs. Bush, for much the same reasons. I wrote some blog entries about her last year, at the time of her off-color performance at the National Press dinner.

However, I disagree that she is privately conservative. I’d say she is privately liberal. It’s clear from articles about the Bush family that she has always been unbelievably indulgent toward her daughters, empowering their disrespectful attitudes.

And lately, since her makeover last year, she’s gotten very full of herself, publicly pushing for a female Justice, and so forth. So I guess she is privately and publicly liberal.

JM to LA:

Yes, that floored me—her pushing for a female justice. This reminds me of the Star Wars Jedi council—which has on its advisory board a type for every creature in the galaxy. Liberals must view the Supreme Court as this type of “advisory council” in which all cosmic positions are heard, entertained and evaluated.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 25, 2005 01:09 AM | Send