By Jacob van Flossen
The novel that epitomizes the spirit of this website: A lusty tale of intrigue, voluptuosity, suspense and violence: The central figure, a Conservative Virginian running for the U.S. Senate, who sticks to the issues and refuses to allow media or liberal opponents to draw him into discussion of youthful frolics--or any subject which could compromise the reputation of any woman.
This carefully plotted hard bound book, combines chivalric romance with graphic realism, historic perspective and numerous subplots featuring characters developed through their private sexuality and personal beliefs. It directly challenges the wisdom of much of what has passed for political analysis during the past sixty years. The scene is America in the 1990s, with the mainstream media in the throes of a "politically correct" mythology, as the Welfare State breaks down under the weight of entitlements, and chaos and revolution appear inevitable.
Against this background of a Kiplingesque day of reckoning--the title from the Kipling poem "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," who return "with terror and slaughter" whenever a people follow the false Gods of the Market too far down the path of wishful thinking--normal men and women pursue survival, love and romance; while conspirators on both the Left and Right maneuver for advantage.
Combining a background of ideological debate with a story of elemental passion, the author puts both politics and passion into a perspective seldom, if ever, encountered in contemporary literature. In projecting the values of traditional Virginia through well drawn and appealing characters of today, the author achieves a sense of the timeless quality of the human drama.
Tired of an intrusive culture, which treats Government as the ultimate solution to human failure while denying each of us, tradition and privacy? You will love RETURN OF THE GODS!
More important: It will suggest a wealth of ways to fight back!
Patten Press
ISBN: 0-9612974-2-5
$24.95, plus shipping, at most leading Internet Bookstores;
or by calling 1-800-247-6553. Trade Discounts available via
www.atlasbooks.com, or at 1-888-822-6657.
Read First Chapter or order>>>>
Students of social history, we fear that the West--as identified with the Nations of America, Canada and Western Europe--may have passed into an era from which future rule by tyrants is virtually certain. Why is this likely? How did it come to pass? Can we yet avert it?
Liberty, as a driving political concept, does not arise as an abstract idea, but in the interactive experiences of members of an established community--one either definable by an ethnic group in a specific location, or by a continuing, multi-generational, self-identified interest group. An individual may achieve a particular species of personal "liberty" by moving to a location, where he or she will not feel interfered with. But such "liberty" is a subjective thing, with few if any safe-guards against what may follow. A community establishes Liberty by a community's effort to remove or escape impediments to its members' freedom to conduct themselves in the ways that the individual members of that community desire.
Thus the Norman Barons--a community of interest, who had provided the underpinnings of the English Monarchy for a century and a half prior to the Charter--forced the compact between their community and the Plantagenet Government known as "Magna Carta," in 1215; thus demonstrating the viability of the compact theory of government, embraced by the Founding Fathers in our Declaration of Independence in 1776. Thus, that Declaration, and the sustained effort that made it viable, was itself made possible by "Committees Of Correspondence," operating among the experienced social leaders in the various local communities, which rallied to the Patriot cause reflected in the American Revolution.
[Note: The language embraced by Jefferson, Adams and Franklin, in the Declaration, was an acknowledgment of "self-evident" truth; a recitation of understanding drawn from human experience to support the concept of a compact to secure Liberty. It was not an ideological call in any sense analogous to those of modern Socialist movements, which seek more, not less, collective interference in the lives of individuals--the opposite of Liberty. Recognition of this important distinction is essential to the point.]
Both the Norman Barons and Patriots managed to prevail in a libertarian direction because they were able to invoke strong community identification among their supporters; a sense of ongoing ethnic values, providing a basis for trust and continuity in both the leadership and credibility of each movement. The concepts and motivations were born, not in theory, but in the interactive involvements--the ethnic experiences of real peoples, over a period of time--which had preceded each action. While the immediate precedents may have been somewhat different, the same essential prerequisites were present in the Athenian and early Roman experiences, as in the later achievement of Liberty in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Contrast the experiences leading to the pursuit of Liberty, with the ideological revolutions that have come since!
In those communities which achieved Liberty, there were both an ongoing sense of ethnic pursuit and purpose, as well as interactive experiences which inspired the quest; there were also fairly cohesive leaderships of affluent high achievers who identified with the ongoing ethnic pursuit. Theory followed experience! Modern ideological revolutions, on the other hand, though led, for the most part, by men born into affluent classes, have generally been characterized by very different motivations. In place of a celebration of ethnic achievement, they sought to vent a vengeful spirit against all who stood in the way of their ideological quests. In place of protection for individual initiative, through a multi-generational prospective, they sought to maximize collective interference with individual prerogatives. Theory became a substitute for experience.
Thus the French Revolution (1789 to 1795) purged and destroyed much of the traditional French leadership, even as it suppressed the freedom of those classes which had previously obtained a species of Liberty. Thus, too, the Bolshevik Communist Revolution in Russia tore down the traditional structure of ethnic Russia, and imposed a brutal totalitarian regime; as did the National Socialist Revolution in Germany. It is instructive, in regard to the latter, that the original success there was via the ballot box; an obvious refutation of the myth, currently promoted both by the recognized American Left and the "Neocon" poseurs, that "Democracy" provides some sort of magic defense for human Liberty.
Liberty springs from the experiences of intelligent, confident individuals, unapologetic as to their own perceived potential, and willing to work with other intelligent and confident individuals, within a congenial community, to achieve and preserve it. Tyranny springs from the dependence of a people, or a large proportion of a people, on collective solutions even as to personal needs and individual problems; the resentment promoted by ideologically driven egalitarian movements, appealing to the mob or potential mob, often providing a spark to hasten the advent.
No one surveying the social dynamics in any major Western Nation, today, can be completely oblivious, either to tendencies to attempt a micromanagement of the affairs of individuals to an extent seldom seen, even under the most autocratic of ancient tyrannies; or to a breakdown in the intrinsic strength, both of ethnic and community identification. The cause of regimentation advances in proportion to a decline in the ability to resist; in the ability to rally others with a sense of perceived common interest, to say "no" to those who would micromanage. And while the greatest thrust in the direction of this deteriorating situation--from the standpoint of Libertarian values--may continue to come from the egalitarian ideologues; a grasping for perceived short-term advantage by Corporate business interests can not be ignored. Other issues will be involved, in other aspects of a developing reality. Yet for the purposes of understanding a Society careening towards tyranny, a Corporate bailout, or a community undermining immigration policy, intended to benefit Corporate interests at the expense of those of the rooted, achieving individual, or his family and community, are certainly part of an overall threat.
Neither the "bread and circuses" of classic Rome, nor Bismarck's German Welfare State (intended to defuse Socialist agitation), were conceived for egalitarian ends. Yet, in each case, they actually undermined the ability of the free and productive to preserve a traditional way of life, in their respective nations, by offering palliatives for discontent; while failing to grasp the significant dynamics involved in promoting a healthy society. While neither Imperial Rome nor Imperial Germany were known as "Libertarian," prior to the adoption of such palliatives; each had well rooted, intelligent high achievers, who could easily have moved in the direction of the Norman Barons, or the American Founding Fathers, in recognizing a better way to preserve their status and achievements. Indeed, the palliatives embraced, moved their respective societies away from the strengths of their respective traditions. America in the 20th Century has increasingly fallen into similar error--tragically compounded by the embrace of a mythological human "equality," which has never existed anywhere.
Note the multi-faceted effect of the mistaken path. It diminishes the motivations for success, even as it diminishes responsibility for failure, while building up a collectivist structure (Government), ever more susceptible to manipulation by tyrants. Yet more significant, philosophically, it substitutes a panoply of utilitarian concepts (notions such as "the greatest good for the greatest number," or that Government is the source of individual rights) for the moral concepts of a free society (i.e., that Government is set up to safeguard the primal rights of the individual, who remains responsible for his own life and fully accountable for his own conduct--neither of which being dependent upon the whims of other individuals or groups of individuals). Finally, this conceptual corruption of a people's mores takes place against a background where most principal "educational" institutions openly disparage the importance of ethnic continuity, embracing a denial of the most basic attribute of an enduring community or nation, the continuity of a people; the importance of kinship, shared history and lines of descent; a sense of duty to your own, from which effective resistance to tyranny may emerge.
Thus what in America, for prime example, was once sacred, becomes increasingly dependent upon those able to control the Central Government. In this social atmosphere, it may be only a short while before, given the "right" crisis, we produce our own Lenin, Mussolini or Hitler--or some innovation, of our own, in the long history of rule by tyrants. Perpetrators have come in many different styles. An American version need not feature a leader shouting and gesticulating from a balcony; or ranting about a "classless, casteless" nation with a "single will" from a podium to his uniformed automatons, seated rigidly in a great stadium; or standing stoically behind a stone wall, surveying an endless parade of his forces, carrying military arms and pictorial banners. More likely, we will be treated to televised pronouncements. Only the threat is clear in the fundamental shifts in public perceptions of political and social reality.
The motivation for this Web Site, as of the novel (below) from which it derives its name, is that the looming socio-political disaster may yet be averted. But in nine years of operation, the picture has continued to darken; the prospects for the free America of Washington and Jefferson, Adams and Madison, have continued to decline. While not hopeless--certainly the rallying of some of our youth to the Ron Paul candidacy is a hopeful sign--the hour is very late indeed.
To fully grasp the lateness of the hour--in a society coasting along on its past achievements, its affluent members smug in the belief that they will continue to prosper, and largely oblivious to social warning signs, which appear to affect only those in other circumstances--one must understand both changing demographics and the gathering momentum of deterioration in the social infrastructure. Consider the relative birth rates of those with IQs under 90 compared to those with IQs over 110; the refusal of politicians to make any distinction based upon a recognition of the actual inequality of man, while adopting ever more expensive programs, based upon the pretense of an equality of human potential. Consider how rapidly we evolved from the very notion of "political correctness"--little more than a bad joke in the early 1990s--to the present reality in America, where people get fired from jobs in academia or the media, for violating its now apparently sacred egalitarian shibboleths. Understand that such policies are based on fantasy, a pseudo-reality increasingly enforced by measures of thought control, absolutely antithetical to both Liberty and any healthy social order.
We believe that four pillars of understanding are required to restore America to the course charted by the good and honorable men, who originally vindicated our Liberty and established the institutions now so severely compromised. We need action, based upon awareness (not necessarily on a mass scale, nor by ideologues, for Liberty was never born in such, but) among a substantial portion of the bright and capable, that:
1. The Constitution means now, what it meant when adopted. A compact among peoples (here sovereign States) must be interpreted according to the intentions of those who have mutually agreed to its terms, no less so than would be the case with a business contract between individual parties. The idea that politicians or jurists may twist Constitutional meaning, is as threatening to the preservation of individual liberty, as it is inconsistent with any concept of the "Rule of Law."
2. Our fundamental individual rights come not from Government, but are found as inherent attributes of our nature. The recognition of same--including their defining qualities--arises not in theory but in the interactive experiences of intelligent people, usually with a similar perspective and common mores.
3. There is no substitute for the social cohesion derived from identification with established communities, lines of descent: An appreciation of the fact that a nation is defined by a specific people--their ethnicity, biological and social heritage--not by the ideas of those connected with their Government at a particular moment in time.
4. A continuation of Liberty has always depended upon a willingness, on the part of its adherents, to fight for its survival. The only realistic chance to avoid either tyranny or great bloodshed, is in such perception of that willingness to fight, as might yet deter--even reverse--a course towards chaos and tyranny upon which our political societies have already embarked. This willingness must be widespread, or it may be merely suicidal. It must include not only thoughtful civilians, but many career military personnel, who must understand what their oath to defend the Constitution may actually come to require.
Once again, we must all come to a recognition that if we do not stand together for a right to pursue different courses, we may all find ourselves being programmed by others, much sooner than even the most pessimistic may expect.
Parts of this essay may appear to be simply rehashes of other articles, some quite recent, published here previously. This is no accident or mistake. We continuously seek to demonstrate different conceptual approaches to the same truths--useful illustrations of the wisdom in the Hindu fable of the blind men and the elephant--to help the young Conservative understand the importance of being able to approach a debate from the most advantageous facet in each encounter. Comments are always welcome. And please note our endorsement of Ron Paul below.
Conservative Debate Handbook>>
Introduction
Chapter One---A Simplified Overview of the Constitution
Chapter Two--The Right To Keep & Bear Arms
Chapter Three--Leftist Word Games & Religious Freedom
Chapter Four--James A. Reed of Missouri's Summary Of League Of Nations Debate
Chapter Five--The Rape Of Tolerance (How The Left Keeps Indians and Negroes Dependent)
Chapter Six--James A. Reed Address on the "Voice Of The World"--Case Against Disarmament
Chapter Seven--The Lies Of Socialism
Chapter Eight--The Feminist War On Love & Reason
Chapter Nine--The Moral Bases Of A Political Society
Chapter Ten--Universal Suffrage: Threat To Liberty, No Guarantee of Virtue
Chapter Eleven--The Battle Over Patterns Of Personal Identification
Chapter Twelve--The Political Spectrum
Chapter Thirteen--How To Recognize The Bigot In The Argument
Chapter Fourteen--Economics & Common Sense
Chapter Fifteen--Immigration & The American Future
Chapter Sixteen--Myths & Myth Makers In American "Higher" Education
Chapter Seventeen--Issues In The Debate Over Abortion
Chapter Eighteen--An American Foreign Policy
Chapter Nineteen--"Civil Rights" vs. A Free Society
Chapter Twenty--Medicare--Panacea Or Death Potion?
Chapter Twenty-One--The Semi-Autonomous Family
Chapter Twenty-Two--Perspective & Focus--A Closer Look
Chapter Twenty-Three--Notes On Method & Purpose
Chapter Twenty-Four--Senator James A. Reed Demonstrates Effective Use Of Irony & Satire
Chapter Twenty-Five--Democracy In The Third World, Destructive Egalitarian Myth
Chapter Twenty-Six--A "Progressive" Income Tax--Destructive Socialist Misnomer
Chapter Twenty-Seven--The Persuasive Use Of Images
Chapter Twenty-Eight--Public Schools: Issues & Reality; Education & Politics
Chapter Twenty-Nine--Cause & Effect, Avoiding Obvious Error
Chapter Last--Conservative Potpouri
Postscript--A Note Of Caution As To Other People's Motives
Long Term Issues In Kosovo:>>
American Foreign Policy At The Crossroads
"How The Welfare State Works!" A hard-hitting analysis of the Welfare State>>
Welfare State
To return the non-denominational reverence of the Fathers to the public schools>>
George Washington Thanksgiving Project
More relevant today than in 1796>>
George Washington's Farewell Address
A classic treatise on State & Federal Relations>>
John C. Calhoun's Fort Hill Address
No one more succinctly captured the absurdity of modern "Liberalism"
than Rudyard Kipling>>
"The Gods Of The Copybook Headings"
Kipling's "An Imperial Rescript"
The Absurdity of Feminism>>
Feminism Rebuked
Emotional bases for Modern "Liberalism" (Social Democracy), Communism and National Socialism>>
Compulsion For Uniformity
How the Left undermines the Jewish & by implication the Christian Faiths>>
Cult Of "The Holocaust"--Golden Calf Of The 20th Century
Edgar Allan Poe rebukes British Utilitarians>>
Poe vs. Bentham & Mill
Edgar Allan Poe's Essay on the art of Creative Writing>>
The Philosophy Of Composition
A Developing Resource>>
Our Literary Corner
Constitution of the United States of America>>
Constitution
Web Site Introductory Page>>
Site Gate
Our Archive Of Less Current Essays & Historic Documents>>
Site Archive
[In August, 2006, we were guest on the courageous Southern traditionalist radio talk show, "The Political Cesspool," out of Memphis. The subject: Deceptive tactics that Leftwing hate groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, use to attribute vile motives to decent, patriotic, liberty loving Americans. To better understand those who would take away your free heritage, visit program archive at The Political Cesspool.]
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