Culture Warrior

  That being said, the traditional warrior would be well advised to avoid personal attacks and over-the-top rhetoric. Sure, that kind of thing makes the savage running the “Savage Nation” on the radio millions, but irresponsible bomb-throwing doesn’t further the traditional cause. The traditionalist warrior should expect to be slimed and defamed and mocked, and should fight back with facts and rational argument. That takes courage and self-restraint. Believe me, I often want to deck those who attack me. That’s a natural reaction. But the effective warrior knows the battle will not be won in the mud or by losing control.

  As I mentioned in the beginning of this book, there is a difference between challenging people on their portrayal of the issues and attacking them by using defamation, rumormongering and name-calling. These are ad hominem (“to the man” in Latin) attacks. As a traditionalist who wants to win the fight, I try to avoid the personal stuff.

  Sometimes I make a mistake, but I know it’s a mistake. Win the debate on the issues; let the smear merchants do the guttersniping.

  So you can see that Americans who choose to fight in the culture war will not have an easy time of it. That, of course, is why so many potential warriors remain on the sidelines. In light of that situation, here’s one more suggestion to Americans of faith and for other traditionalists, too: There are thousands of good clergypeople in the United States who are trying to fight the good fight in the culture war. These people need your encouragement. The Christmas controversy proved that traditional causes can triumph if faith-based organizations mobilize. The companies and groups that sought to diminish displays of the Christmas season were crushed by the opposition. That’s how you win the culture war: Speak up clearly and often, then get ready to absorb the slings and flaming arrows. Summon up your courage and confront situations you believe are damaging to your country.

  By the very nature of its philosophy, traditionalism is on the defensive. We are defending the country we have, while the S-Ps are working for drastic change that would produce a country they want. In many situations this is a drawback, as it is easier to fight battles when you are charging. For example, a person who seems to oppose everything will not be the most popular person around the campfire. But someone who wants to take action to make things “better”…well, that’s the person who is admired, right?

  The S-P brain trust knows this and has developed a crafty strategy for marginalizing traditionalist forces in the court of public opinion. The presentation is almost masterly, but as with all S-P campaigns, it does have a crippling weakness. Read on.

  The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me, nothing.

  —THE S-P OATH (REFERENCE TO DEITY DELETED BY THE SUPREME COURT IN THE YEAR OF OUR NOTHING 2010)

  Read the following on page 110 of George Lakoff’s Elephant book and weep:

  Progressive thought is as American as apple pie [italics mine]. Progressives want political equality, good public schools, healthy children, care for the aged, police protection, family farms, air you can breathe, water you can drink, fish in our streams, forests you can hike in, songbirds and frogs, livable cities, ethical businesses, journalists who tell the truth, music and dance, poetry and art, and jobs that pay a living wage to everyone who works.

  Wow! Where do I sign up? That progressive vision is amazing, and what kind of a Visigoth barbarian would oppose it? I mean, who doesn’t want songbirds? What kind of a brutish cad would deny frogs to children? Get me George Soros on the phone immediately; I’ve got to apologize!

  Wait a minute, not so fast, overly impressionable culture warrior. After all, we’re not taking a political science class at Yale here. This book is real life, no spin, the true picture of what is actually happening in America. Lakoff is a propaganda genius; I’ll give him his due. But let’s examine his Edenic “vision” in a methodical, fact-based way.

  We’ll begin with one of the most successful S-P tactics: If you oppose their agenda, you are a bad person. A pro-life American is “anti–woman’s rights.” Against gay marriage? Well, you’re designated as homophobic and terminally bigoted. Support an aggressive strategy to fight terrorism? You’re labeled a warmonger; worse yet, if you take that stand but didn’t yourself serve in the military, you are smeared as a “chicken hawk.” Nice S-P strategy, right?

  But George Lakoff understands that the primary culture war battle in America is to win “hearts and minds.” He has no problem with the “defame and destroy” wing of the S-P movement, but his energies are more focused on the positive. Thus his “apple pie” list of S-P virtues.

  So let’s start our analysis with “political equality.” How can we oppose that? Talk about a traditional value! All Americans should have the right to vote and the right to speak their mind about politics without fear of harm. I believe that is guaranteed by the Constitution and there are legal remedies if violations of political equality occur. Am I wrong? So what is Comrade Lakoff talking about?

  To unmask the S-P agenda in this case, we go to the great state of Georgia, where the legislature recently passed a law requiring a voter to produce a valid ID before casting his or her ballot. The measure was aimed at stopping voter fraud—that is, people voting more than once—as well as voting by illegal aliens (“economic refugees” in S-P–speak). Everybody I know thought the Georgia law was reasonable.

  But guess who has opposed that ID law? Hello again, ACLU, we missed you in the last few pages. The S-P vanguard is challenging the legislation in court by arguing that it puts an “undue burden” on the poor. The ACLU asserts that some poor folks don’t have official identification papers and, even though Georgia will provide IDs free of charge, it is not fair to demand that a citizen get a valid ID. Does this make any sense to you?

  The real reason the S-Ps don’t want IDs at polling stations is that they would, indeed, eliminate the illegal alien vote, which is often cast for liberal, progressive candidates. Also, IDs would make it more difficult for people to be bused to polls out of their districts. This old-style machine-politics trick, unfortunately, happens quite often on Election Day. If I could get George Lakoff on The Factor, I’d ask him why his pals at the ACLU are so opposed to the government knowing exactly who is voting. After all, Lakoff says he wants “political equality,” and that’s what one vote per each legal American citizen achieves, does it not?

  Let’s march ahead to the concept of “good” public schools. How could anyone oppose those? All Americans want children to learn in the best way possible. But the S-P definition of a “good” public school may not be the same as yours and mine.

  The “No Child Left Behind Act” poured billions of dollars into America’s schools but, at the same time, instituted strict achievement standards—testing—to measure whether or not the school was succeeding in educating the kids. In other words, there is academic accountability to go along with the highest educational spending in America’s history.

  But progressives oppose standardized tests. They also don’t want teacher evaluations based upon the academic proficiency of the students they teach. Furthermore, as mentioned, the S-Ps oppose vouchers to help poor children attend private schools when their public schools are deficient, and they want students promoted even when they fail in their subjects.

  So doing even more of the math, this book does demand academic proficiency; what Lakoff and other progressive thinkers consider “good public schools” are places where teachers “nurture” rather than challenge children in the classroom. S-P schools would embrace the concept of “social promotion,” where kids move along from grade to grade even if they can’t read or do basic arithmetic. The S-P educational view features a system where each child is evaluated academically based on his or her “potential,” not his or her actual achievement.

  As a former teacher, I can tell you that the concept of “nurturing” is very nice, but it isn’t going to get the kid into Princeton or even into many state colleges. Most children are lazy and undisciplined—that is a given—and m
ust be taught to perform in a disciplined manner and develop a thinking process and marketable skills. Discipline and confidence are the key attributes for academic success and, indeed, success in life. We live in a very competitive society, and all the “nurturing” in the world is not going to get somebody a good job or help the young person succeed in it. Somebody tell Lakoff.

  Okay, by cutting through the S-P bull, you can already see that Lakoff’s “apple pie” list is not what it seems to be. So now on to the next item: “healthy children.” Again, who doesn’t want that? How can that worthy goal be distorted? Ahem.

  The S-P vision “healthy children” mantra goes way beyond supplying the kid with carrots and apples. In the secular-progressive world, the “healthy” child is one who enters the school system as early as possible, is shepherded through childhood by public school nannies, and indoctrinated with progressive values at a very early age.

  Rob Reiner, the actor-director, is the secular-progressive poster boy for this particular philosophy. Until he resigned in the winter of 2005, Reiner headed up the early-school programs in California. The organization he was a part of is called the California Children and Families Commission. To be fair, the commission does achieve much good, especially for little kids living in chaotic homes who are able to get preschooling free of charge. But Reiner ran into trouble by politicizing the program and running up huge expenses implementing it (including TV ads that promoted his progressive vision). So he had to quit, although expanded preschool ed is here to stay. And there is no question that the S-Ps are banking on progressive values being instilled into young minds during these early-school programs. That is the hidden agenda.

  Our pal Professor Lakoff next cites “care for aged.” Here he wants the government to pay all the bills for elderly Americans who have limited means. If you oppose that, of course, you are a monster. Universal support of the elderly is a major platform for the advocates of the entitlement society, and lots of senior citizens vote, do they not? So the S-Ps are trying to get on the fast track by targeting the very young and the very old.

  Fifth is police protection. If you don’t belong to the Crips, the Bloods, or al-Qaeda, you’re surely down (a “hood” expression) with wanting that. However, progressive policing is far different from traditional policing. As Walter Cronkite and Randy Cohen have aptly demonstrated in previous pages, the S-P theorists of justice define crime quite differently from the way traditionalists do. Remember the “restorative justice” philosophy we talked about? That is what the S-Ps want the police to buy into. The rights and well-being of the criminal must be considered by society if “true” justice is to be achieved.

  On the “family farms” issue, I think Lakoff and I might have finally found common soil. I like family farms, too. But I don’t want to pay for them, just as I don’t want to pay for somebody to run a clothing store. Nothing personal; it’s just that capitalism requires competition and independent initiative. Although he didn’t say it, I believe Lakoff would probably bill me for some agricultural project. As farmer McDonald might say: E-I-E-I ouch.

  The next helpings of “apple pie” slices are environmental. Lakoff and the S-Ps want clean air, water, forests, and mountains. And, yes, they really want lots of frogs and songbirds.

  Well, so do I. So there.

  The Lakoff list continues with livable cities and ethical businesses. Those are good things. I hope George can provide them without kneecapping the taxpayer. But, somehow, I suspect massive taxation would be attached to any plan involving cities that are “livable,” as opposed to cities that are full of the walking dead (for S-Ps, those are conservatives).

  As for ethical businesses, I believe George would like a massive government to directly oversee them. Perhaps Fidel Castro could consult on this project.

  Now we come to “journalists who tell the truth.” Uh-oh. This could be bad news for me, since Lakoff is on record as condemning everything that has ever happened on the Fox Newschannel. Something tells me ol’ George does not believe I am an honest correspondent. How desperately misguided the professor is.

  But if George Lakoff could ever force American journalists to tell the truth, I might even send a donation to the ACLU. That is, if he actually starts where the problem truly lies, maybe with the nutty radical-left S-P bastion Air America. Good luck, George, and when you’re through with them, check out NPR.

  The Lakoff list winds down with “music and dance, poetry and art.” As before, it’s clear he wants you and me to pay for that wonderful vision in which we’d all be doing the tango and painting socially commendable murals. I wonder what ol’ George thought of that art exhibition in the New York City–financed Brooklyn Museum that featured the Virgin Mary covered with dung? His ACLU buddies had no problem with it. Freedom of expression, you know. And I helped finance that sacrilege with my tax dollars.

  As for poetry, well, how about this next incident? While serving as the poet laureate of New Jersey, Amiri Baraka wrote a verse blaming the Jews for the attack on 9/11. Taxpayers provided Baraka’s hateful forum. Why? Why do regular folks have to pick up the tab for nutty “artists”? There’s plenty of room for artistic expression in the private sector, is there not? What say you, George Lakoff?

  Finally, for the last piece of Lakoff’s apple pie, we are served with “jobs that pay a living wage to everyone who works.” Pardon me, but isn’t this right out of the Mao playbook? Just who determines what that wage should be? Not the actual employer, not on your life. Some government official would decide what Wal-Mart should pay its stock people, and the ruling S-P class would make the calls on “income inequality.” This is called “socialism.” Right, George?

  So there you have it. In the end, that once-sweet apple pie list of great things for America might have a bit of a sour downside if you really analyze what’s going on. The menu looks appetizing; the actual meal is quite something else. It is my job as a media culture warrior to sift through the ingredients. That is why you’re reading this book.

  For all the songbirds and frogs and healthy kids and happy seniors, there would be a huge central apparatus that would have to implement and monitor those things—an impersonal authority that would be extremely powerful and expensive. George Orwell figured that out long ago in his Animal Farm, and so did Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, two books that are required reading for the traditional warrior officer corps.

  And, after finishing that reading assignment, you’ll know for certain that the S-P vision of George Lakoff is, indeed, a brave new world.

  Whenever any form of government becomes destructive…it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

  —HUEY NEWTON, FOUNDER OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

  Roger Ailes is the president of Fox News and a humorous guy. He has been known to attend cocktail parties in Manhattan, a bastion of secular-progressive thought, and when an S-P person sounds off about the dismal state of the United States, Ailes will sometimes loudly respond: “Why do you hate America?”

  That’s a room silencer if there ever was one.

  There is nothing worse you can do to a devoted S-P acolyte than imply that he or she is unpatriotic. I mean, the actor Richard Dreyfuss recently did about twenty minutes on that in front of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He was appalled that some conservatives questioned his love of country: For the record, my name was mentioned in the diatribe.

  But, of course, I never questioned Dreyfuss’s patriotism or anything else about the man (except, perhaps, his agreeing to play a character named Duddy Kravitz).

  In fact, Richard Dreyfuss is absolutely correct in asserting there is no place for personal, rhetorical attacks that charge lack of patriotism. It is flat-out wrong to question the loyalty of any American unless there is rock-solid proof that the person is trying to damage the country. In my opinion, Dreyfuss is doing nothing of the sort.

  Remember, there are varying degrees of S-P behavior. Some secular-progressives, perhaps including the actor, are
sincerely committed to improving the United States. They are generally reasonable folks who are simply misguided in their beliefs. Others, however, are fanatics who genuinely believe America is a wicked country that must be reformed in any way possible short of violence in the streets (there are very few S-P Huey Newtons). That is what the Soros crowd believes, and they are currently leading the secular-progressive movement.

  So it does happen that members of the two opposing forces, secular-progressives and traditionalists, can similarly love and respect their country but also disagree as to how the country should be run. That situation can lead to lively debate and, sometimes, to an exchange of valid points. Sadly, however, those interactions are as rare as tax-cut proposals from the S-P side. Hatred is far more common on the culture war battlefield than détente.

  Norman Mailer, an S-P warrior who defines the issues at stake in the culture war in the clearest terms.

  A good example of a useful face-off between polar opposites was my interview with Norman Mailer in March 2006. One of America’s great writers, Mailer doesn’t hate America but does find it seriously flawed—as you know, a core secular-progressive tenet. But Mailer separates himself from the S-P garrison because he sees its weakness: selfishness and relativism. Remember, if you are a relativist there are no universal truths for you—no judgments about absolute rights or wrongs. Norman Mailer makes judgments all day long.

  Along with his son, Mailer wrote The Big Empty, a book in which he expounded on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On The Radio Factor, I quizzed him about his essential beliefs and found him conflicted. Most S-Ps are not conflicted, they are dead certain they are right. But, at age eighty-two, Mailer isn’t quite so sure anymore that he has the answers.