A few years ago, I would have wanted to believe this essay. It is much more pleasant to think that good values created this country rather than a particular genetic mix.
Now I just think this values argument is silly. Culture is downstream from genes.
The United States of America would not have become the United States of America if its founders were predominantly Chinese or black or Arabs or Jews or Catholics or Japanese or Australian aborigines. It was the product of Anglo-Saxons, the same type of people who created the glorious countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and England.
One you have a political faction that is “conservative”, you have already lost. Your society is going to hell. Conservative values should be like the water fish swim in — taken for granted. When you are an Orthodox Jew and you practice Orthodox Judaism with other Orthodox Jews, nobody says, oh, what we’re doing and how we approach life is really conservative. You just take it for granted. Once you start thinking about whether or not you’re going to practice Orthodox Judaism, or if you are conservative in your practice or beliefs, you’re already halfway out the door.
There are many reasons why Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The four most-often cited reasons are the frustrations of white working-class Americans, a widespread revulsion against political correctness, disenchantment with the Republican establishment, and the unprecedented and unrivaled amount of time the media afforded Trump.
They are all valid.
But the single biggest reason is this: The majority of Republicans are not conservative.
Conservatives who opposed Trump kept arguing — indeed, provided unassailable proof — that Trump is not a conservative and has never been one. But the argument meant little or nothing to two types of Republicans: the majority of Trump voters who don’t care whether he is a conservative, and the smaller number of Trump voters who are conservative, but care about illegal immigration more than all other issues, including his many and obvious failings.
So, then, what happened to the majority of Republicans? Why aren’t they conservative?
The answer lies in America’s biggest — and scariest — problem: Most Americans no longer know what America stands for. For them, America has become just another country, a place located between Canada and Mexico.
But America was founded to be an idea, not another country. As former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put it: “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”
Why haven’t the past three generations of Americans known what America stands for?
The biggest reason is probably the influence of left-wing ideas.
Since its inception, the left has opposed the American idea, and for good reason. Everything the American idea represents undermines leftist ideas. And the left, unlike most Americans, has always understood that either the left is right, or America is right.
America stands for small government, a free economy (and therefore, capitalism), liberty (which therefore allows for its inevitable consequence: inequality), the melting pot ideal and a God-centered population rooted in Judeo-Christian values (so that a moral society is created by citizens exercising self-control rather than relying on the state to impose control).
Only America was founded on the idea of small government. But the left is based on big government.
America was founded on the principle that human rights come from the creator. For the left, rights come from the state.
America was founded on the belief that in order to maintain a small government, only a God-fearing people can ensure a decent country. The left opposes God-based religions, particularly Judeo-Christian religions. Secularism, as much as egalitarianism, is as at the core of leftism.
The American Revolution, unlike the French Revolution, placed liberty above equality. For the left, equality is more important than all else. That’s why so many American and European leftists have celebrated left-wing regimes, from Stalin to Mao to Guevara to Castro to Chavez, no matter how much the regimes squelched individual liberty. They all preached equality.
A friend says: “Prager continues to toe the Neo-Con, Republican establishment line, while promoting his own lament over “values.” Of course Prager wasn’t lamenting George W. Bush’s values when he launched the totally unnecessary war against Iraq. Never forget that Iraq was a secular nation before we attacked in the 13 years since, over 90% of Christians who had lived in Iraq since the initial spread of Christianity, have either been killed or fled the country. Where are Prager’s precious values when it comes to preserving Christianity in Iraq?
You may have noted that no where among the reasons that he provides for Trump’s success has been Trump’s position on illegal immigration and especially immigration from Mexico, something which Prager was exceedingly sympathetic to until recently.”
Luke: You have to give Prager credit for not supporting the invasion of Iraq in 2003, though once the US went in, he said we had to stay in and do the place right.
