Culture Warrior

by Bill O'Reilly

  God helps them that help themselves.

  —POOR RICHARD’S ALMANAC, 1736

  Way back in 1776, a committee that included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others decided to include the Latin words E Pluribus Unum on the first Great Seal of the United States. Actually, a man named Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere came up with the idea. I have no idea who that man was, but great name, right?

  The motto E Pluribus Unum means “From Many, One,” thereby reflecting the integration of the thirteen colonies into one country. Subsequently, the words took on a deeper meaning as immigrants from all over the world brought their talents and energy and desire for freedom to the United States, fueling its rapid rise in power and prosperity. Yes, it’s an old story that may have put you to sleep in high school. But it’s worth thinking about. The United States is the strongest nation the world has ever seen because so “Many” pulled together to create the “One.”

  But in today’s culture war, “From Many, One” no longer applies on the secular-progressive side. Their motto might be: “Where’s Mine?” (Ubi Est Meum?) Remember, the S-Ps believe that the government has an obligation to provide Americans with prosperity and happiness. This philosophy is, of course, in direct conflict with the vision of the Founding Fathers. They did not want government to provide, they wanted it to get out of our way. They imagined and designed a system whereby freedom and capitalism would give most Americans an opportunity to pursue happiness. What you did with that opportunity was up to you.

  Of course, it is certainly true that Americans born into poverty do not have the same opportunity as those born into wealth. There are also many other kinds of inequities (like innate intelligence) in play in America and everywhere else. In addition, as acknowledged earlier, the sad truth is that for more than two hundred years most black Americans were systematically deprived of the right to pursue happiness, and Native Americans were brutalized as America was being settled. Thus, the government today does owe African and Native Americans, and the poor in general, more attention and specific entitlement programs to help level the playing field. On that most traditionalists and S-Ps can agree.

  But the S-P notion that the U.S. government has the right to seize private property (which is exactly what the estate tax achieves, for example, but under stealth wording), or redistribute legally earned income from the affluent to the poor, runs counter to the founding spirit of America in every way.

  Look at the evidence. The United States became the strongest nation on earth because individuals working their butts off created a unified powerhouse. These individuals, from many different nations and backgrounds, bought into the idea of pursuing the American dream: That is, they chose to live an honest life that affords the individual and his/her family security and comfort backed by the freedom necessary for accomplishing these worthy goals. Americans fought and died for these principles. They are still fighting and dying today, liberating people from tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq. Any erosion of the American ideal, which the secular-progressives are attempting by championing the entitlement state, would drastically weaken the nation.

  Call me a crazy traditionalist, but I do not believe General George Soros could have defeated the Soviet Union or the Nazis or Tojo’s fanatical Japanese military. I don’t believe that Howard Dean could command respect in any armed conflict and, most likely, would appease all over the place to avoid one in the first place.

  Why do I believe so strongly that the secular-progressive movement is clueless as to how to deal with evil in the world? Simple. To them, as their leaders admit, evil doesn’t really exist. Evil is actually redirected personal pain. Evil is a cry for help and can be persuaded to be good through kindness and caring. Stalin, Mao, and Hitler would all have changed direction if only Barbra Streisand could have sung “People Who Need People” to them in her very meaningful way.

  Too harsh? No way.

  History has demonstrated time and time again that disciplined, just societies prevail, while weak, utopian systems crash and burn. Life is tough, and we all have to deal with that, not buy into fantasies that could get us killed. The world is, and always has been, a struggle between good and evil. The Bible and the stark reality of the world teach us that. But as we all know, the Bible is not on the secular-progressive recommended reading list.

  On the home front in America, traditional forces strongly believe that their hard-earned money is not the property of the government, to be distributed as largesse to others who, perhaps, are not willing to work to earn prosperity. On a personal note, I don’t want my money being given to substance abusers, for example. Why should my money allow them to continue leading lives of dissolution? I donate money to drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinics like The Doe Fund, but I strenuously object to welfare payments for substance abusers to buy more substance. I work hard for my money and I don’t want to support anyone who lives irresponsibly. Period.

  Traditionalists like me understand that taxes are needed to keep the country strong and safe and to maintain an infrastructure that benefits the many. But cradle-to-grave entitlements, embraced fervently by the S-P movement, are rejected by traditionalists who understand that they foster weakness and sap initiative.

  You only have to travel to Europe to see the difference that an entitlement culture makes. While the United States is a vibrant, creative, and exciting place, Europe today is largely stagnant. Workers there have little incentive to move ahead, because the rate of taxation is punishing and the governments guarantee a certain standard of living. In France, young people demonstrated for weeks because the government wanted a new law that would allow employers to actually fire them during the first two years of employment if they screwed up on a regular basis. But nooooo, we can’t have that! The French sense of entitlement basically says “You owe me prosperity, government. You owe me.” Where have we heard that before? Paging George Lakoff!

  For those reasons and more, Europe has grown weak and frightened in the face of intense conflict, leaving it to America to protect them. And we do, even as the United States continues to grow economically and provide incredible opportunities for upward mobility (you are reading the words of the poster boy for U-M, by the way).

  It is actually laughable to hear the S-Ps moan about economic injustice in the United States when we all know there is a flood of immigrants, both legal and illegal, trying to get into America. Surely, if the American system was as bad as the S-Ps claim, people would not be coming such great distances and at great risk to get into this country. So you can either believe your eyes or believe the S-P socialist propaganda. Up to you.

  Sorry. Once again, I am applying real-world logic and facts to counter S-P propaganda. I’ve got to stop doing that. Don’t tell Howard Dean. He’ll call me another name. You see, loopy theory and delusional analysis are the twin pillars of the secular-progressive movement. Their theory, as we’ve seen over and over, essentially argues that every individual in this world is owed a certain lifestyle by the powers that be.

  So once again, out with E Pluribus, Unum. That phrase is simply not nurturing enough. The brand-new S-P motto is inclusive, caring, and pithy: Ubi Est Meum? “Where’s Mine?” If the S-Ps ever do take control of America, that phrase will ring loudly from sea to shining sea. Where Is Mine! I want it right now! And if I can’t get stuff for myself, I’ll take yours. I am owed prosperity even if I don’t want to earn it.

  Is that the kind of country in which you want to live? If so, France might be your next stop. By the way, the S-Ps love France. Says a lot about them. But then again, France is far away and many of us don’t really care about it. What we do care about is our neighborhoods. So let’s go there now.

  Control the children and you control the future.

  —THE ART OF CULTURE WAR, O’REILLY TZU

  It was just another day in the San Juan Islands village of Friday Harbor, Washington (population: 2,000) when Sheriff Bill Cumming got a call that an elderly woman had been mugged. Ap
parently, two young men had knocked the lady to the ground, grabbed her purse, and run off. Since Friday Harbor is not exactly South Central Los Angeles, the sheriff had a good idea that a local troublemaker named Oliver Christensen may have been involved. There were only a few hellions in the little town and Christensen immediately became a suspect.

  Sheriff Cumming also knew that Christensen, seventeen, was dating fourteen-year-old Lacey Dixon, a troubled young girl who lived at home with her single mother, Carmen Dixon. Doing what any good law-enforcement official would do, the sheriff called Mrs. Dixon and asked her to find out if her daughter had any knowledge of the crime.

  The next time Oliver Christensen called the Dixon house, Lacey took her cordless phone into her bedroom and shut the door. But, unbeknownst to the girl, her mother snapped on the speakerphone in the kitchen and was taking notes. Sure enough, Christensen bragged to the fourteen-year-old that he had hidden the elderly woman’s purse in some bushes.

  Based partially upon the information Carmen Dixon subsequently provided authorities and her testimony in court, Christensen was convicted by a jury of second-degree robbery and sentenced to a couple of years in state prison. Subsequently, his conviction was upheld by a Washington State Appeals Court, but then the big guns of the secular army were brought in.

  The ACLU, ignoring the actual crime, mounted an intense campaign to free Oliver Christensen based on the theory that Carmen Dixon had “violated” her daughter’s privacy by listening to her phone conversation. ACLU lead attorney Douglas Kunder was blunt: “I don’t think the state should be in the position of encouraging parents to act surreptitiously and eavesdrop on their children.”

  Disturbingly, the very liberal and secular Washington Supreme Court eventually sided with the ACLU and Christensen’s conviction was overturned. The court ruled that the fourteen-year-old’s privacy had, indeed, been violated and her mother had no legal right to the information she had gleaned from her daughter’s conversation with the assailant. Carmen Dixon was stunned and told the media: “It’s ridiculous! Kids have more rights than parents these days. My daughter was out of control, and that was the only way I could get information and keep track of her.”

  The prosecutor, Randall Gaylord, was also outraged: “I’m concerned that a fourteen-year-old’s right to privacy now trumps the parent’s right to be a parent.”

  Even the Associated Press, no bastion of traditional thought, began its news story on the court’s decision this way: “In a victory for rebellious teenagers, the state Supreme Court ruled that a mother violated Washington’s privacy law by eavesdropping on her daughter’s phone conversation.”

  The state of Washington did retry Christensen, this time without Carmen Dixon’s testimony. A jury again found him guilty, but he walked free after nine months in prison because the judge, Vickie Churchill, declined to give him more jail time. All of this skirmishing cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, and what did it really accomplish? Well, if you’re in the S-P corps, it accomplished a lot for your side.

  Remember, the ACLU is not an organization that does anything in a vacuum. The S-P spearhead knew exactly what it wanted to achieve when it marched into Carmen Dixon’s life: that is, a court ruling demonstrating that a parent has no right to supervise a child surreptitiously. For the secular-progressive movement to achieve its goals in America, it must undermine traditional parental authority and convince children there’s a brave new world out there that does not include being raised in the traditional way. The S-P goal is to diminish parental authority that, in the past, had been unquestioned.

  This is a strategy—mentally separate children from their parents—that has been practiced by totalitarian governments all throughout history. In Nazi Germany, there was the Hitler Youth. Chairman Mao created the Children’s Corps in Red China. Stalin and Castro rewarded children who spied on their parents. That’s the blueprint. If you want to change a country’s culture and traditions, children must first abandon them and embrace a new vision. Hello, secular-progressivism in the USA. I’m not saying these people are little Adolfs; I am saying they have adopted some totalitarian tactics in their strategies.

  Another factor in the S-P vision for our kids is the development of sexual awareness at an early age. This strategy encourages children to mimic adult behavior and forge relationships outside the home. Thus, children separate themselves from parental influence earlier in life and are less likely to embrace the old-school values of their parents.

  Here’s a pretty amazing example of what I’m talking about. A few years ago in Los Angeles County, the Palmdale School District came up with an “educational” survey for students ages seven to ten. As part of that survey, the kids were asked to rate the following activities according to how often they experienced the thought or emotion:

  • Touching my private parts too much.

  • Thinking about having sex.

  • Thinking about touching other people’s private parts.

  • Thinking about sex when I don’t want to.

  • Washing myself because I feel dirty inside.

  Remember, these questions were put to kids as young as seven years old! Do you think about having sex? What the heck is going on?

  Outraged, a group of Palmdale parents asked that exact question. But because school officials dodged and weaved, they couldn’t get any answers. So the parents sued the district in federal court. The issue went all the way up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most liberal federal court in U.S. history. Predictably, the court ruled against the parents.

  Judge Stephen Reinhardt, whose wife, Ramona Ripston, is the executive director of the ACLU in Southern California (can you believe this?), wrote the unanimous opinion, which stated that parents of public school children have no fundamental right to be the exclusive provider of sexual information to their children. Reinhardt was direct: “Parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject to their students in any forum or manner they select.”

  Consider the implications. By that reasoning, a school could conceivably bring in a dominatrix to describe the glories of S&M to first-graders and parents would have no recourse. But Reinhardt wasn’t through. This incredible pinhead went on to write: “No such specific (parental) right can be found in the deep roots of the nation’s history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty.”

  This kind of intellectual gibberish is part of the S-P manifesto, which even denies that, throughout American history, parents have traditionally had full discretion in matters of sexual disclosure to their children. Think about it: The S-Ps are now saying that the government should be allowed to introduce your kid to sexual matters even if you, the parent, object! Whatever the authorities choose, in whatever form, and in pursuit of whichever point of view is acceptable to the courts! Benjamin Franklin would have had these people caned.

  Obviously, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is firmly in the secular camp. You may remember that it was this very crew that ruled the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance were un-Constitutional. That ruling, thank God, was thrown out and, indeed, the Ninth has been overturned about 75 percent of the time by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to Cal Law, California’s legal news source. Even so, the fact that a powerful judicial body like this believes parents should have virtually no say in what their young children see and hear about sex in the public school system is beyond chilling.

  Of course, parents who do not want their seven-year-olds asked if they “thought about having sex” were shocked. Their lawsuit against the school district was based on the belief that they had been “deprived of their right to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs.” Silly them, thinking parents have a right to bring up their own kids according to a specific belief system.

  You will not be surprised to learn t
hat the initial sex survey ruling propelled waves of joy throughout the S-P ranks. Parental authority had been radically diminished by a federal court, and as noted, that is a primary secular-progressive goal. Our S-P pal George Lakoff puts it bluntly: “Children are shaped by their communities.” The emphasis on the word “communities” is provided by Lakoff, himself, on page 90 of his Elephant book.

  The S-P strategy with respect to children is not subtle. You can’t achieve a brave new world without tearing down the bad old world. In order to change the thinking of America, you have to sweep out traditional Judeo-Christian values and replace them with radical secular-progressive values. If the public schools buy into the S-P agenda, which many of them do, then children will be exposed to another way of thinking apart from what their parents believe. Thus, the public schools have become a major battleground in the culture war, and hostilities are heating up.

  Professor Lakoff has reinforced his S-P vision of education with this definition on how the government should set up the learning apparatus: “A vibrant, well-funded, and expanding public education system, with the highest standards for every child and school, where teachers nurture children’s minds and often the children themselves, and where children are taught the truth about their nation—its wonders and its blemishes.”

  This pointed advice underscores my point: The S-P movement wants more authority for teachers and administrators and less for parents. Since most colleges are now firmly in the S-P camp, and colleges train the teachers of your children, just do the math. In addition (sorry), the secular-progressives are adamantly against vouchers for poor kids that would allow them the option of attending private schools. Why? Easy question. Most private schools would never even consider a sex survey for second-graders because that would be an intrusion on parental authority. In general, moreover, private schools pose a grave threat to the S-Ps because many of them reject secularism and teach traditional values. Public schools, however, are quite a different story. As mentioned, more and more of them are becoming S-P friendly.