Why Conservatives Worry: A Letter From A Reader

Sometimes, a reader expresses things so beautifully, I feel compelled to share:

I’m sixty-four, long-married, retired, and heartsick about my adopted country. I came from England as a boy. If I hadn’t been brought here by my American flyboy old man and my Brit mum I would have come over eventually anyway, I’m certain. As was the case with the late Bob Hope, nary a soul would suspect I’m Brit-born. No accent, no European mannerisms, American down to my argyles. No one had to ask me to enter military service when I left high school in ’62. I just went, joined the Air Force. The Viet Nam war was my last stop before my final discharge in early ’66. It was all good up ahead until Roe v. Wade. From that point on, the skids were greased, it seems. Liberals all over the landscape, like a plague. Maybe I just didn’t notice them all that much whilst I tried to build a life for myself and, later, for the two of us. I didn’t tune out the raging sixties, but I had missed a lot and I needed to get back in the game. You can imagine, I’m sure, what it was like being dropped onto a big state university campus after all those years away– to say nothing of being one of the very first returning Viet Nam vets. I felt like I’d just arrived from Mars.

There are a lot of things I rant about to my poor wife– CO2 claptrap, illegal immigration, political correctness, the failure of our schools, the insouciance of government, societal disintegration generally. I see cowardice everywhere. The case of our friend, Mark Steyn leaps to mind. When we have governmental tribunals to silence citizens –and non citizens alike!– (as in Canada and in Europe) totalitarianism is not far away. I am astonished that I see only shrugs over the possibility of International tribunals holding sway over Americans. I observe how clever liberals are at labeling people and then getting laws passed to silence their branded enemies. Yes, now they are truly Enemies of the State. Conservatives must continue to sound the alarm. Indeed, they must become more vocal. They cannot allow the high ground to be taken if they want to recognize their country in only a few decades hence. I wish that I could be positive and hopeful at this late stage of my life but, alas, I cannot. I see the rot, I see the indifference, I see the utter contempt for the things that made us a great country. I am stricken that I do not possess the blessing of a faith in something above us all. Somewhere along the way it was lost to me. But I live in the heartland, here in Minnesota. I listen to our nation’s heartbeat and, while I grieve for her, I sometimes pray to the god I no longer believe in to raise her up, to somehow save her. If we no longer have patriots holding their country’s flag to their breast, we will surely perish. We’re still better than too many think we are. This country was not built by cowards and naysayers. That so many reap the rich rewards of such a generous country yet mock her at every turn sickens me. I long to see evidence of the slightest humility in public forums. After all, we are really nothing, nothing at all. And we are here for but a few ticks out of all eternity. We should, I think, have at least a glimmer of what we’ve wrought before our passing. Why can’t we be humble now and then, and admit we simply do not know?

Yours Respectfully,

Mr. T. R. Paulson Twin Cities, MN

Conservatives see their own ceding ground every day and that has lead to discouragement. Meanwhile, the other side relentlessly pursues their agenda.

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