regardless of all other factors, the way to reclaim succeeding generations is to remove them from the indoctrination centers called public education.

That being, until we can clean house there by dismantling federal education and returning control/responsibility to the local community, (… is the term “local community” a redundency?).

During the period when UT was presented for inclusion into the U.S., there were two sticking points: (1)sufferage already existed there. And (2)there were laws for community & religious schools, and against government-run schools.

During the debate concerning the choices presented to the people concerning inclusion, the then president of the LDS Church presented a passionate dissertation on both the evils of removing the vote from women and the abducation of the heavenly responibility of teaching citizenship to succeeding generations. He (correctly) stated that there was no better way of indoctrinating the next generation that to create a “public” school.

This was insight was from a man who had indowed numerous centers of learning, from a culture who basic principles demand as full an education as an inividual can absorb. A culture where among the 2nd generation there obtained a literacy rate of 100%. Brigham Young was not a man hostile to schooling… just government manipulation, (his distrust of governments might have come from items such as the “Mormon Extermination Order” in Mississippi — an order making it a lawful act to kill w/out cause any Mormon — which existed until repealed in 1979).

If we could setup schools free of government control, simply teach the basics: the three “R”s, the unvarnished & unabashed history of Western Civ & the U.S., the rest would decend, as a natural process, from there.

I don’t know if it is possible to do that….

- martin.musculus

So much good stuff, where do I start… Since my space is short, (the size of my PDA’s buffer), I’ll just comment on one item I think shows the “uphillness” of the battle.

Concerning the presidental ranking, I think that there is more than ignorance of the previous operating. Thinking abt this, I’ve decided that there is a measure of two other elements operating. Niether bode well, and are infact a product of “Progessivism” unchallenged cultural grip on our American way of life.

The elements of which I speak are both “feelings”, and as such are difficult to logically assail. The 1st is the notion that has been ingrained in our culture through 70yrs of mass-media force-feeding that “new”=”better” always! . admittably, the technological revolution has purposely been melded w/the cultural changes desired by the barbarian hosts in order to sell it.
The 2nd point has been grown in the succeeding generations through Dewey’s Indoctrination Daycamps. Call it Lack of Focus, or Microattention Span, or even Overweaning Impatience. With most of the current generation you can’t take the time to setup a logical, cogent argument — nor impart more thn a thimbleful of info — because unless you can say it in a soundbite, their eyes, (& minds), glaze over — and you’ve lost them. I 1st noticed this in my own son, and it took heroic efforts to break him of that thought-mechanism. The problem we’ve found is the method of unchaining a person from this spiritual slavery is, of a necessity, highly specific to each indiviual. The only commonality we’ve found is the work is easier between contemporaries.

An aside:
This piece states well the reason that I, when asked, state not that I am a “Conservative”, but that I am a Constitutionalist! (though through force-of-old-habit I do sometimes slip{grin}).

- martin.musculus

Personally, I’ve always felt too much emphasis is spent on the national elections and too little on the local. The National is a winner-take-all-proposition only big players can win. It is at the local level we can have our greatest impact. What happens at the state level is reflected at the national level, whoever wins that contest. Start by winning our state houses, governors, and Congressmen, and enough of them, and things will shift inexorably rightward. Add to that a replacement of bureaucrats and appointees. Holding seats at the lower level is more stable over time because it has mass and inertia. This is what the left has been doing for decades, taking over from the inside out.

More than that, I agree with Mr. Duke conservatives need to get some fire in the belly if we expect to win. To do that, we must be willing to speak all that has been rendered unspeakable by the left, convincing others it is the leftist rhetoric that is unspeakable. There are a number of subjects even conservatives mention only mincingly; race-relations, unhindered speech, parenting rights and duties, war conduct, judicial activism, and deconstructing the welfare-state among them. Timidity in speech does not win arguments any more than it does in war or elections. Risk giving offense if only to breakdown the barrier of silence.

Great article. A battle cry to conservatives. Thanks. We needed that. But, what are we to do?

6 paragraphs of a New Yorker article on McCain linked from RealClearPolitics summarizes what 4 conservatives (Gingrich, Norquist, Frum, & Gerson) suggest. Search on “Norquist” to retrieve the first paragraph.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_lizza?printable=true

Then, there’s Newt’s CPAC speech.

http://newt.org/tabid/102/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/3173/Default.aspx

Sorry, but none of these 4 counsel revolution. Ergo, they suck.

A recent Harris poll http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=869 ranked the greatest Presidents: Lincoln, Reagan, FDR, JFK, Washington, Clinton, Jefferson, Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bush II.

My Lord. Forget everything except Washington’s placement. He is our greatest President. He not only defined the template for the Presidency and won the Revolutionary War, but he also presided over the Constitutional Convention. All our Founding Fathers obeised to Washington. He was the man.

My point? If Americans are as ignorant about Washington as the poll indicates, they are ignorant about our nation’s founding, too. Since they are, then we conservatives are doomed. After all, when we articulate our principles, we simply renourish those principles originally enunciated by the Founding Fathers.

Progressives control our educational establishment, the juristocracy, the media, and Hollywood. They control our culture. Their control is permanent.

Demographics disfavor conservatives. So does the purpling of red states. The most youthful voters have never lived during a time when Progressive policies crashed and burned. In fact, just the opposite. The success of the EU and their de facto parity with the US in terms of both GDP and GDP growth rates is the success of Progressive policies.

Both conservatism and the American Revolution are dead.

Our future will be a defensive one. We have no ideas with which to mount an offensive. The compromise reached in the Senate over FISA permanently erodes Presidential powers as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. On issue after issue, we can look forward to more of the same.