Terror attack here. Terror attack there.

Criminals coddled. Parents and patriots targeted.

There is a culture war raging. A war for the country’s soul. A war to determine who we really are and what we’ll soon become. And if all that came before and led us to this point has been in vain.

A war to determine if government of, by, and for the people will perish from the Earth. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, that is not hyperbole.

Will the United States maintain — and perhaps even enhance — some of its founding principles?

Or will it inexorably morph into another failed Marxist entity and become an unusually large third world nation … to the detriment of everyone to come, and the desecration of all those who sacrificed to ensure her freedom and prosperity?

Let us hope and pray this looming conflict is not a shooting war, but one that can be fought and won verbally. This is not an impossibility, as evidenced by the Cold War.

And, though the Revolutionary War necessarily was a violent shooting one, it was enormously influenced by some of history’s best writing, composed by authors such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. Writing that stated our case, steeled our spines, and soothed our souls.

That kind of writing -- that kind of persuasiveness — is sorely lacking today. No one expects another ‘Declaration of Independence’ or ‘Common Sense’ to appear anytime soon.

The same can be said of the Federalist Papers. But where is the passion, the commitment, the dedication, the courage, and the resolve amongst today’s conservatives?

What we need are people competent enough to launch a logical, cohesive -- yet monumental -- verbal broadside, with words strung together as if fired from a Hedgehog rocket launcher. And that shoot off the page and explode in readers’ minds. Complete with a breathtaking grand finale.

When this stupendous, all-out lingual assault is over, it should leave its intended victims rendered (figuratively) lifeless on the ground, unable to muster a cogent reply.
Mark Steyn can do this. The late P.J. O’Rourke could, too. But precious few other writers, before or since, have both the courage and the talent to pull it off.

Instead, as I have often noted here, Republicans (not a synonym for conservatives) too often reflexively ‘turtle’ and snatch defeat from the jaws of near certain victory. This is embarrassing and repugnant, but they continue to do it anyway.

I’ll close with a quote from Thomas Paine:

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Amen. Seems like common sense.

Image: NYPL public domain archive, via Picryl