I was reminded of something Ann Coulter said…

Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position…Liberals mock Americans who love their country, calling them cowboys, warmongers, religious zealots, and jingoists. By contrast, America’s enemies are called “Uncle Joe,” “Fidel,” “agrarian reformers,” and practitioners of a “religion of peace.” Indeed, Communists and terrorists alike are said to be advocates of “peace.”

Liberals demand that the nation treat enemies like friends and friends like enemies. We must lift sanctions, cancel embargoes, pull out our troops, reason with our adversaries, and absolutely never wage war — unless the French say it’s okay. Any evidence that anyone seeks to harm America is stridently rejected as “no evidence.” Democratic senators, congressmen, and ex-presidents are always popping up in countries hostile to the United States — Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Iraq — hobnobbing with foreign despots who hate America. One year after Osama bin Laden staged a massive assault on America, a Democratic senator was praising bin Laden for his good work in building “day care centers.”
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Liberals want to be able to attack America without anyone making an issue of it. Patriotism is vitally important — but somehow impossible to measure. Liberals relentlessly oppose the military, the Pledge of Allegiance, the flag, and national defense. But if anyone calls them on it, they say he’s a kook and a nut. Citing the unpatriotic positions of liberals constitutes “McCarthyism.”
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Only questions about patriotism are disallowed — unless it is to say that liberals are the “real patriots.” Phil Donahue said the “real patriots” were people who aggressively opposed their own country’s war plans: “Are the protesters the real patriots?” It is at least counterintuitive to say that it is more patriotic to attack America than to defend it. Even Donahue couldn’t continue with such absurd logic, and quickly condemned patriotism as “the last refuge of scoundrels,” and warned: “Beware of patriotism.”

This is all much bigger than patriotism, or liberalism. In my time, I’ve learned to be wary of people who take pains to showcase their whatever-it-is-ness. This is really no different than what all those ladies out there say about big penises, and whatever icon manifests them. You know the refrain, I’m sure. The savvy damsel quickly infers that the expensive red car is symbolic not quite so much of a daunting phallic presence, but rather of a need to suggest the existence of one; it is “compensating for something.”

But the job of a lady on the prowl looking for a large serving of trouser meat, is a little more challenging than mine as I seek to avoid liberals who are “real patriots.” The guy with the oversize sneakers, or the expensive watch, or the big fancy car — will blend in somewhat with his competition, by allowing the lady to draw her own inferences about his giftedness. When it comes to the liberals treating their “patriotism” as Freudian projections, they are much more easily contrasted against others because they won’t allow anyone else to come to their own conclusions. The liberal simply is patriotic. As Ann points out, if you even so much as suggest otherwise you are Joe McCarthy.

Funny, isn’t it, how liberals accuse others of being “cowboys.” What does a cowboy do? He drives cattle toward a specific destination, by watching for any critters wandering anywhere else, and then creating a controlled commotion to bully the poor thing back in line. In politics, this is exactly what liberals do….the temptation arises to suggest this is all they do, and that wouldn’t be far from the truth. They allow the rest of us draw whatever conclusions we may, until it’s something contrary to the liberal’s liking — and then they bullcuse us of being…something.

Watch ’em awhile, and it isn’t hard to figure out: What they accuse people of being, really isn’t the point of the exercise, nor is who they’re accusing. The point is to cudgel us into wandering back in line.

Anyway, that’s a bit of a digression. The point here is what inspired me to dredge up that excerpt from Ann’s book. It was not, as you could be forgiven for imagining, the post previous.

I hope Gerard does not take exception to this. He, unlike me, is above throwing around the l-word helter-skelter in Ann Coulter’s well-known style…and he is certainly correct for being above that. There are people who do liberal things who aren’t really liberals. Yes, there are. Call ’em what you will. I call them “future liberals.” But I’m inclined to believe Gerard isn’t going to be nearly as receptive to being associated with Ms. Coulter as, let’s say, I would be.

Be that as it may, I was given cause to think about the book — specifically, this bit about Phil Donahue — late last night as I worked my way through his (reprinted) essay about Judas Iscariot.

We’ve long permitted greater and greater levels of betrayal in our society. We’ve codified them as law, policy and custom as far as the wishes of the individual are concerned. It is no longer sophisticated or fashionable to speak of selfishness as betrayal. That word is so harsh when, after all, we are only speaking of “differing needs,” aren’t we. When the betrayal of others is glossed over with phrases such as “I needed to be me,” or “I needed my space,” or “I needed more money,”or “We were just on different paths,” then the elevation of this disease of the soul from the betrayal of another into the larger realm of treason against all is only a question of degree.

The problem is that shame, a vestigial thing in many shrunken souls, persists, and shame must be driven out of the soul if the secular is to thrive. Both betrayal and treason are still weighted down by a lingering sense of shame within at the same time they are made safe from the onus of blame without. Both are permitted by our cults of personal freedom and “sensible” selfishness, but both are formed of dark matter and not easily expunged from one’s soul no matter how reduced it may have become.
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Now our traitors to God and Country have found a sheaf of rags that “prove” that the greatest treason was really “all good;” that Judas was really the greatest friend Jesus ever had and was, with a kiss, doing him the greatest favor ever done.

Treason, done with the kiss of “my personal freedom,” proves that you do not really hate your country, you love it. You are, in the final analysis, your country’s best friend. In these “new” old tales about Jesus we read that Judas betrayed the Son of God because Jesus told him to do it. Really? Or did his betrayal come, not from any request that may or may not have been made, but from humanity’s persistant lust to sin freely and without even the thin penalty of remorse? Was this final treason done because this sin had been secretly blessed by God, or for the sheer dark thrill of asserting the self at the expense of life in the light?

“I betrayed my friend, because he gave me the freedom to do so. Feel my love for him.”

“I betrayed my country because it gave me the freedom to do so. Feel my love for it.”

That’s as much teasing as I care to do. You really need to go read it from top to bottom.

I close with a note of irony; I can’t possibly be the only person who has noticed what follows. I remember six and a half years ago, as America’s “goodwill” was being sopped up like an odious discharge of something vile all over a nice clean linoleum floor — when the flag pins began to inspire partisan rancor. Remember that? That’s when the talking points came out. That’s when we started to hear bits and pieces like Mr. Donahue’s, about “real patriots”…always doing non-patriotic things.

Every little thing that would help America, even in tiny, almost insignificant ways, would inspire a debate. And the debate always closed with — you shouldn’t be doing that. It started with wearing a lapel pin to show your pride, and your resolve that we’d get through this. When the attacks were fresh, and through the Anthrax scare, ongoing.

Our liberals said the flag pins were empty symbols. To attach it to my analogy about the guy with the little penis driving an enormous car to suggest the opposite — they bullcused that the flag pins were exactly that, to bully us into taking them off.

It worked.

The irony is, that because it worked…flag pins, today, have meaning that they did not have six and a half years ago. Back then the adornment had an attribute of costlessness; if you wore one, the argument that it meant next-to-nothing had some weight, because you weren’t deprived of any opportunity that would be open to you if you left the pin at home.

Now, that’s different. There’s a handy social club of “No Star Belly Sneeches” who can’t ever be seen with a flag pin. Draw your own conclusions as to why — except they won’t allow you to, of course. You are to regard them as “the real patriots” or else you are a “McCarthyist.” As Gerard points out, they want props for being the greatest friends this country has ever known…while not really doing too much that substantially benefits the country, and indeed, shouting-down and bullying-around anybody they catch doing things that significantly benefit the country.

Poor Obama doesn’t know what to do about it.

I find this reassuring, in it’s own way. With the Republican party’s nomination of a virtual-democrat, and with the democrats’ nomination of the one who arguably is one of the most hardcore-liberal among them if not the most hardcore-liberal…I have found it unavoidable to wonder if perhaps Gerard’s modern-day Judases have achieved majority representation in our electorate.

But if Obama sought to win election based on their votes and their votes alone, there’d be no confusion about what to do, now would there? The man seeks to confuse. This much is undeniable. And not so much of an indictment, really; he is a politician. But politicians obfuscate when they must. It bears a cost for them. And I don’t think Obama has become quite so much like Bill Clinton that he does it for sport…not yet anyway…

Obama knows things I don’t about who’s doing the voting. He should. He pays enough for this kind of knowledge. And he must have some facts that tell him that while Gerard’s Judases are firmly in his camp, their numbers are not quite so high that they’ll put him over the top. They must fall far short of this. There must be data that say the Judases, loud as they may be, number weakly.

America has an enemy. His name is Barack Obama. He seeks to prevail through confusion; confusion that costs him a-plenty.

What do you do when your enemy is forced to do something that costs him a lot? You do what you can to make it even more expensive. Exorbitant. Blisteringly so.

That’s what we need to do now.