Winning the Media War

The following is actually the notes from a speech I delivered earlier this year, once to a Tea Party group in Phoenix, once to a Republican group in Corvallis, Oregon. People seemed to appreciate the information. And recently I showed the notes to my friend, John Biver, who suggested I publish them. 

The Braveheart picture seem applicable: it is one of my two favorite movies and concerns the Scots winning, eventually, what seemed to be an unwinnable war.

So here goes!

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Winning the Media War

5 points 

  1. The definition of war
  2. Who or what are we fighting? History of the opponent
  3. How an army and nation should act in a time of war
  4. The weapons we can use
  5. A call to arms

 

1. First of all, do we REALLY believe we’re engaged in a war?

“A war is a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or groups within a nation or state.”

I submit that there is an ongoing war between those who espouse the Founders’ worldview and revere the Constitution, and those who OPPOSE the Founders’ precepts and would prefer to THROW OFF the constraints of the Constitution.

Since the time of President Wilson and John Dewey, the Progressives have been waging a war of words and ideas, a war intent on overthrowing the Constitutional foundation of America.

The Progressives began with education, then moved to broadcast media, and elsewhere throughout our culture.

And let’s not be fooled by the innocuous term “Progressive,” which was a more palatable word for Communist.

Progressive sounds harmless.

Much like the Progressives call to move “forward” sounds acceptable.

But what do they want to move forward from? And what to they want to move forward to?

Let’s consider John Dewey.

Dewey fashioned his theories of education after the Hegelians.

That term most likely rings a bell.

In 1847 the London Communist League (Marx and Engels) used Hegel’s theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism.

Hegel’s dialectic is the framework for guiding our thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead us to a predetermined solution.

Their solution being, of course, a totalitarian government that makes all decisions for those it rules over.

Dewey subscribed to both naturalist thought (think Darwin) and to Hegel’s Dialectic.

By the way, Common Core IS the contemporary version of Dewey’s dream:

  • Common Core does NOT teach critical thinking
  • Common Core does not teach phonics
  • Common core does teach control and group think

*A SIDE NOTE*

“Dialectic” in and of itself is not bad. It’s Hegel’s Dialectic that is the concern.

Classical Western education was based on the Trivium, from the Latin:

  • Tri meaning three
  • Via meaning road

The concept being that children had 3 stages of learning:

First Stage: Grammar
In this stage the young student has a natural affinity for storing up a tremendous amount of information on any number of things, from nursery rhymes to math facts, even Latin declensions, and recalling that information at will.

Most classicists would agree that this is best done by memorization.

How did most of us learn the alphabet?

Second Stage: Dialectic
The slightly older student’s abilities to reason are honed and sharpened, and everything is turned into an exercise in argumentation.

Third Stage: Rhetoric
Where self-discovery and expression are the paramount, and where cognitive abilities come into their full flower of maturity…we might call this the application stage

Dewey’s idea was to NOT cultivate learned and critical thinkers, versed in Western History, but rather compliant students who would merely parrot what the enlightened educators taught them.

All of this is coming to fruition with Common Core.

Now President Wilson…the second person in this dynamic duo of Socialism.

President Wilson is often called The Godfather of Liberalism…aka Progressivism.

Wilson helped to sow the first wave of Progressive reforms that would later be reaped under the Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Wilson believed that both the Declaration and the Constitution had to be understood anew through a Progressive lens.

What did Wilson say about the Declaration of Independence?

“the rhetorical introduction of the Declaration of Independence is the least part of it…. If you want to understand the real Declaration of Independence, do not repeat the preface.”

What is the preface?

Here is the section that Wilson found most objectionable:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth,

the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,

a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;

that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Woodrow Wilson had an objection to the separation of powers and an objection to the Founders’ understanding of government.

Wilson did NOT favor separation of powers, as the Founders had emphasized knowing full well the nature of man must be in check, but rather he favored a notion of separation of politics and ADMINISTRATION!

Wilson favored moving government away from popular consent and FORWARD into the hands of unelected “experts.”

The presidency, for Wilson, was a principal means by which the limits placed on government by the separation of powers and a too constraining Constitution could be transcended.

What does THAT sound like?

Who can you think of who is appointing a new Czar at every turn?

Who touts the word FORWARD at every opportunity?

Anyone?

Even Hillary Clinton made a point of saying that, rather than be described as a liberal, she preferred to be connected to Progressives from the early 20th Century.

AKA Dewey and Wilson.

Further, if government was not a necessary evil for the provision of national defense and basic infrastructure, but rather an intrinsically good means by which enlightened intellectuals would guide and mold society, then obviously a key amendment to eradicate is what?

Anyone?

What amendment is the teeth that enforces the whole of the Constitution?

Yes. The Second Amendment.

There were dissenters during the Constitutional debate, by the way, who believed a right to bear arms was unnecessary.

Surely Congress and elected public servants would never attempt to strip Americans of their right to bear arms?

They had just severed ties from the tyranny of King George and every colonist, every patriot, knew the importance of an armed populace.

Thankfully, the Bill of Rights was drafted by James Madison, and we have the Second Amendment.

The nation’s leading authority of and litigator on behalf of the Second Amendment, Stephen P. Halbrook told me last week that currently there are dozens, maybe scores, of civil challenges under the Second Amendment to various gun laws.

And hundreds of criminal cases, many frivolous, challenging the right of non-criminal citizens to bear arms.

2. So WHO are we battling against?

Answer: Those Progressives who seek to LIMIT the scope and authority of the Constitution.

3. What does a country or people look like or act like when at war?

What did America do during WWII?

With the second great war, Americans knew beyond a shadow of a doubt WHO the enemy was: Nazi Germany and the Axis powers and Imperial Japan.

And, as a united nation, Americans joined the war effort.

Office of Price Administration was established to ration supplies that were needed, and women nation-wide learned to make do.

Recipes like “Whacky Cake” that had no milk or eggs became all the rage.

To offset the food shortage, The Department of Agriculture urged Americans to plant their own vegetables. They were dubbed “Victory Gardens.”

At its peak in 1944, over 20 million victory gardens produced a phenomenal 8 million tons of food!

To supplement the raw materials essential for defense, Americans were asked to scour their garages and attics for scrap metal, rubber and paper.

With some ten million men at war, the solution to fill the jobs was both unexpected and obvious…WOMEN!

The poster image of the woman in overalls, wrench in hand, became the symbol of the new 1940’s woman. “Rosie the Riveter” became one of the most enduring icons of the WWII.

To free more men for combat, in May of 1942 Congress created the WAAC’s -Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

In September 1942, The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, WAFS, a division of the Army Air Force was created.

Those “Fly Girls” were delivered fighters, bombers and transport planes to military bases. During WWII, over 350,000 women donned military uniforms.

Another phenomena of WWII: even Hollywood was backing the war effort.

Legendary filmmakers John Ford, Frank Capra (It’s A Wonderful Life), William Wyler (Ben-Hur), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), and George Stevens (Giant) all joined in.

And what do troops do when at war?

I’m going to borrow some from the marines.com.

…recruits must have the heart—and the intestinal fortitude, the body—and the mind, the desire—and the ability. The recruits must pull together or fall apart. Win as one or all will fail.

Commitment doesn’t take breaks and it cannot be faked.

When other principles are tested, it’s courage that prevents them from crumbling.

Courage isn’t ignoring fear, but being stronger than fear.
Courage is the guardian of all other values.

It is there when times are toughest, when difficult decisions have to be made. It takes the form of mental, physical and ethical strength.