A Great Opportunity

IT WAS THE fall of 1987 when Senator Edward Kennedy opened a new era in American politics. In fact, it is perhaps his signature contribution to American politics. An hour after President Reagan nominated Appeals Court Judge Robert Bork to a seat on the United States Supreme Court, Kennedy spoke these words on the floor of the United States Senate:

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution

It was the beginning of the Bork era, in which Democrats arrogated to themselves the right to attack with ruthless character assassination any candidate for the federal bench who did not hew to the liberal line on abortion and the other various “rights” that had been legislated from the federal bench in the era of judicial activism that began in the 1950s with the Warren court.

Ever since, Republicans have walked in fear of being Borked, and Republicans have suffered again and again from vicious campaigns of character assassination from Democratic activists. For Republicans never seemed to be able to avoid getting spattered with mud when Democrats jumped into the gutter.

Central to the Democrats’ power to administer these public floggings was their willing accomplices in the media. Most journalists were liberal and they wanted to preserve the great liberal rights decisions that the Supreme Court had made in the previous generation.

Now they are trying it again. Senator Schumer of New York has stepped into the shoes of Senator Kennedy with a speech made this time moments before President Bush announced the nomination of Samuel Alito for a seat on the Supreme Court, implying that Alito was a racist:

A preliminary review of his record raises real questions about Judge Alito’s judicial philosophy and his commitment to civil rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, the rights of average Americans which the courts have always looked out for.
Now, it’s sad that the president felt he had to pick a nominee likely to divide America instead of choosing a nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor who would unify us.
America needs unity now. America needs reaching out to one another more than ever. But the president seems to want to hunker down in his bunker and is more concerned about smoothing the ruffled feathers of the extreme wing of his party than about governing all of America and changing history for the better.

For conservatives and Republicans, the issue cannot be clearer. After twenty years cowering from the monstrous calumnies of liberal senators and liberal activist groups, the Bork era must be brought to a close. Conservatives and Republicans should not live in fear of Borking and character assassination.

This time, once for all, the Democratic tactic of character assassination and obstruction must not stand. It must fail, and be seen to fail in a national convulsion of disgust with the politics of “the eternal gang of ruthless men.”

Fortunately Republicans now have the tools to do the job: our own publicity machine that can meet or beat the organs of the Democratic Party and their willing accomplices in the mainstream media.

Bring. It. On.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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