I love … love. I’m actually a big mush. I cry at romcoms. I write love poems and songs. Love inspires me. The Beatles, of course, once famously wrote the song, “All you need is love.” I wish that were true. Honestly, love is awesome; it just doesn’t trump evil … not by itself. If you want a weapon for the war against evil and hate, it’s the culture stupid.
No war was ever won by love. No killer was ever brought to justice by love. Love has an amazing role to play in our lives, and yes, we need more of it. In a utopian society, right next to all the unicorns, all of mankind is living together in love. When you get the address of that encampment, send it to me.
If love were all you needed to combat evil, as recently suggested by former AG Loretta Lynch, why then did God arm his archangel Michael for battle? If God needs more than love to battle evil, so do we. Indeed, no matter the God to whom you pray, love was never enough to combat evil. Love and faith are not and have never been enough to stop the atrocities of man. We don’t live in an evil free society. We defeat evil on the battlefield by men and women who love liberty and their fellow man enough to fight.
We don’t, however, fight every war on evil with guns or bombs.
The hardest part of the war on evil is in our everyday decisions to be vigilant against it, and to demand a code of human decency and conduct that has a universally accepted floor. We can love people all we want, but it is the rule of law and their voluntary desire to be part of the civil society that is our first, best tool against evil. For those who cannot meet that floor, they must be shamed, shunned, or cast out of our civil society. If we do not destroy those we cast out, then we must drive them to or keep them at safe distance.
Evil should have no home in the United States of America, other than prisons and graveyards. It should have no fans, friends, supporters, or excuse-makers.
Making war on evil before it shows itself is mighty unpopular these days, as the civil society wants to be civil, tolerant, accepting, and yes … loving. We frown upon making “judgments” about who might be a threat. We even teach our kids, inexplicably, that such judgments are wrong, and that they offend our modern sensibilities. We lose our war on evil when pretend it does not exist, or we demand that it first show itself and claim our loved ones before we act.
Tolerance devoid of vigilance is a vice of the weak.
Ironically, the more we preach tolerance, acceptance, diversity, and love, the less safe the world has become in the face of an insidious evil that is sweeping the planet. We are not under attack from terror. We are under attack from evil, and terror is the tactic of its soldiers. We cannot defeat terror until we defeat terrorists.
I can be downright intolerant sometimes. Guess what? That’s good. The same lover of love about whom I write above is the same man who has complete disdain toward those who repudiate decency, civility, courtesy, the law, and the civil society. You have my tolerance, acceptance, respect, and even love, right up until you prove you don’t deserve it … or until you show me that you work with, associate with, pray with, hang out with, or excuse those who don’t deserve love, respect, or any form of tolerance.
The civil society requires tolerance. The cost of a civil society, however, is precision intolerance.
Being strong enough be intolerant of those who seek to destroy the civil society is the cost maintaining that society. If you don’t know the difference, you are at best a foot-solider in the army of indifference, and at worst a recruit for the forces of evil. All that evil needs to successfully germinate is to be planted in the rich soil of apathy.
Western culture is under withering attack.
It is under attack from the left in our institutions, and it is under attack from the forces of evil on our streets, in our night clubs, at our offices, on our bases, and in our concert halls. The American left is the unwitting dupes of radical, anti-American, despotic, 11th century, knuckle-draggers. The result is a creeping culture of terror, incivility, indecency, and the death of western values.
More troubling, the death of a healthy intolerance has provided fertilizer for the crop of evil.
Make no mistake; shifting demographics are having a catastrophic effect on the west. It is not an issue of “color” or even necessarily “religion.” It is an issue of culture, which includes innumerable factors. Patrick J. Buchanan’s “Death of the West,” foretold the fall of western culture through simple, easy, math. First-world, western cultures are aborting themselves to death, as replacement birth rates don’t meet death rates. In fact, even countries like Russia and Germany are on a death watch by century’s end. Japan is in the worst shape of any country.
It’s the culture stupid.
A country does not gain its status as a first-world country by geography. It is gains that status by its culture, education, job markets, production, infrastructure, rule of law and sophistication. When a country imports too many immigrants, it loses the ability to acculturate the new arrivals. Immigration done perfectly would net our country the positive benefits of other cultures, and add those positives to our common culture.
The hard left’s push for “diversity” often eschews acculturation, and wrongly preaches that all cultures are equal. They are not. When you combine too many immigrants to properly acculturate, and then your society moves away from principles of acculturation at the same time, you expedite the rapid change of your culture. Welcome to America … the uncivil, the intolerant, the entitled, and the angry.
Ironically, much of those unwanted cultural attributes come from the left and not just fringe alt-right groups. American streets have been teaming with riots, protestors and flag burners … virtually none are the small group of equally distasteful hard-right kooks. Many are the new left’s anti-American, Americans.
This brings us back to the critical issue at hand … which is how do we combat evil with more than love?
We must make public policy that protects and prioritizes our citizens and strengthens our common culture. We must stop mass, unchecked, illegal migration. We must create policies, laws, and an educational system to teach and respect our western values. Likewise, we must treat people based on their conduct, not their color or faith. More importantly, we must treat people based on that conduct irrespective of their color or faith. In short, we can’t be afraid to call out those who drive decency down, just because they may be in one group or another … one religion or another … or one color or another.
One tool, early in this process is love … but it is not the only tool for a civil society. God may command that I love my neighbor. In a secular society, the law doesn’t require that, nor can it. It requires a floor of acceptable and decent, law abiding conduct. Beyond that, however, is the expectations of a decent people and a civil society. The death of decency is a near epidemic in the US.
Let’s start honoring Dr. King by embracing his principle that we judge people by the content of their character. Let’s judge people on what they do and say, not who they appear to be, or to what group they belong. That has always been the failed but still aspirational goal of America. No one, including the historically disadvantaged or even minority religions can’t get a pass from the harsh and necessary judgment of civil society based on who they are, what color they may be, or too whom they pray.
With respect to those who want to come here to our country, we must have several, easy, threshold tests. First, do you want merely to come to America, or do you want to become an American? Those are two different concepts. Likewise, what skill, asset, or benefit do you bring that adds value to our country? We don’t need color for the sake of color … any color. We don’t need religion for the sake of religion … any religion. Nor do we need skilled laborers who, capable of doing a discreet job, still don’t share our common values. We need people who want to be like us and share our values.
What are those western values?
We want people who embrace liberty. We want people seeking economic opportunity. We want people who place the highest value on law and order and the civility of a civil society. We want people who understand that they can practice any faith or no faith, but that in the civil society we expect that liberty and the rule of law come first, only after family. We want a common community.
Those values are the first line of defense against evil in all its forms.
Sending troops to battle and dropping bombs from on high has become too easy. I don’t much like it as a means of diplomacy. I think the US military and her people are too important to be used to send messages. When called to fight and defend, we should, and we should do so to total victory. That is because sometimes, evil must be fought with overwhelming force.
Mostly, however, we need to fight evil with a vigilance in our culture and laws that prevents us from welcoming it here on our shores in the name of misguided tolerance. That requires smart, sophisticated, unafraid, public policy that embraces our values and requires that others meet them to join our family.
I have yet to see any modern, western democracy, fight for its own values and principles. Mr. Buchanan, once claimed America was losing a cultural war. He was correct. You can’t win a war you do not fight.
When terrorists strike and kill us, we can pray, mourn, wear ribbons, cry, and use as many hashtags as we want … but until we demand that those who live among us embrace our values, we are just cataloging a list of our dead. Soon, they will kill off the list-makers.
The war for western civilization has been on for decades … are you fighting for it?
Author: Richard Kelsey
Richard Kelsey is the Editor-in-Chief of Committed Conservative.
He is a trial Attorney and author of a #11 best-selling book on Amazon written on higher education, “Of Serfs and Lords: Why College Tuition is Creating a Debtor Class”
Rich is also the author of the new Murder-Mystery series, “The ABC’s of Murder,” book one is titled, “Adultery.”
Rich is a former Assistant Law School Dean and Law Professor. At Mason Law Kelsey conceived of, planned, and brought to fruition Mason’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, known as CPIP, drawing on his expertise as a former CEO of a technology company specializing in combating cyber-fraud.
In 2014 he was elected by the graduating class as the faculty speaker at their graduation.
He is a regular commentator on legal and political issues in print, radio and on TV. Rich has appeared on hundreds of stations as a legal expert or political commentator. He provided the legal analysis for all stages of the Bob McDonnell trial and appeal for numerous outlets including NPR and WMAL.
Rich also writes on occasion for the American Spectator and CNSNews.com.
In his free time, Rich is part of the baseball mafia of Northern Virginia, serving on numerous boards and as a little league and travel baseball coach.
His Twitter handle is @richkelsey.
