Dec 16, 2018 5 min read

Two weeks ago, in the first part of this column, I noted that liberals have great disdain for the First Amendment. I noted that liberals believe that the “free speech” guaranteed by the First Amendment should be “equal speech.” I noted that suppressing truth is not a problem for liberals because it is the ends that count, and the ends justify the means. I observed that liberals oppose the concept of freedom of religion and pursue instead freedom from religion, thus creating a clearer path to their secular ends. Finally, I concluded that liberals promote larger government with power concentrated in the ruling elite whose power grows as government becomes larger.

George Orwell’s novel “1984” describes the dystopian government of Oceania that has moved to totalitarianism where all power and all authority are vested in the state. This government regulates every aspect of life and society. The symbolic head of this totalitarian state is referred to as “Big Brother.” Big Brother and the “Inner Party” (less than 2 percent of the population) direct government through propaganda, economic suppression and intimidation. Truth is virtually unknown, as it is not necessary to Big Brother’s plan.

It is not hard to imagine the government envisioned by today’s liberals as a precursor to Oceania. In the increasingly radical liberal view, more and more power accretes to the government, and it is increasingly the party elite and the courts that run the show.

The vile and disgusting battle that liberals waged against the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh is ample evidence that the liberals see the courts as an integral part of their plan and are apoplectic at the prospect of a Supreme Court justice who will oppose their ultra-liberal socialist agenda and will not let a detail like truth stand in the way of their battle. This was a warmup. Watch the battle over the next 90 federal Jjudges, and possibly another Supreme Court justice, to be confirmed.

The extreme liberal lack of concern about means was further evidenced in the midterm election where moderate Democrats were jettisoned for extreme Democratic Socialists. Multiple elections evidenced shameless ballot box manipulation. The import of illegal immigrants as a Democrat voter pool is in high gear.

Indeed, it is not hard to substantiate that the liberal left is completely devoid of veracity and moral values. Honesty has no place in the quest for the ends that characterize the liberal political view.

Given the current trajectory, this cold civil war is unlikely to end well.

It is always possible, but not probable, that one side will somehow convince a large majority of Americans that their version of the Constitution is superior and win the war at the ballot box. Because this is not happening systemically, as noted previously, liberals are showing increasing propensity to try and win the battle of the ballot box by illegal methods and to import the missing majority of voters. This will only lead to increasing energy on the conservative side and a wider divide. If the conservatives win, the liberals will lapse into another childish meltdown in a manner similar to that following the Trump election and precipitate an even wider divide. This is a lose-lose situation and an improbable scenario.

It is possible, but even less probable, that the two sides might come to some accommodation and live in uneasy balance. The cold civil war is probably much too far along for this to occur. For accommodation, there must be common ground, and right now there is none visible. Some national crisis might create temporary common ground and a temporary accommodation, but attitudes are now generational and unlikely to change quickly.

On the remotely plausible end of things, it is possible that we could return to a true and vigorous federalism, as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution, and allow states to actually govern themselves. This presupposes that many of today’s big issues like health care, the drug epidemic and immigration could be denationalized and that traditional federalism could be revived. This implies that “Big Brother” and the national elite would be willing to surrender broad power, which is hard to imagine because surrender of power, once achieved, is seldom witnessed in the political world.

If none of the preceding solutions proves possible, that leaves two very distasteful possibilities.

The first is splitting into two countries, each based on one of the two forms of politics, “Normal” and “Regime.” This is highly unlikely, as the most radical liberal elements of Regime government are concentrated on the opposite coasts and a few cities in between presenting a cartographic challenge, and we know that trying to divide anything equitably leads to further contention, hostility and divide, which very possibly leads to the final, and least desirable solution, turning the cold civil war into a hot civil war.

We seem to be approaching a sort of tipping point where one of these roads will be taken because status quo in a dynamic situation is not possible. Which will it be? The achievement of a stable majority understanding of which Constitution we will follow? An uneasy accommodation of two divergent views? A revived federalism? A splitting of the country? Or hot civil war?

There are not a lot of other choices, and the longer the current disintegration of the republic continues and the further apart the poles move, the more likely the latter two scenarios become.

Dave Ball is vice chairman of the Washington County Republican Party and a Peters Township councilman.