Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Darkness on the Edge of Town.  Although the lyrics don’t match up with my message, Springsteen’s title certainly addresses my point.  Our nation is in the midst of a creeping darkness that might very well envelope our collective way of life.  That darkness is the self-righteous, uber-hypocritical, and presumptuous nanny state philosophy of the Liberal Left in America. 

I am sixty three years old and the Democratic Party of my parents is dead.  The new Democratic Party is the Elizabeth Warren/Barrack Obama/Chuck Schumer/George Soros and Hillary Clinton club that totally embraces the nanny state philosophy of government, has had a good eight year run under Obama to plant its seeds in every aspect of our lives, and is on the verge of getting another eight years to bring that seeded crop to harvest.  I tell you right now that there will be many, many miserable blue collar and blue dog Democrats sick to their stomachs when those chickens come home to roost. The Liberal Left is a strange brew of poor minorities, super rich celebrities, upper crust socialites, and the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media.  Their leader, at this moment in history, is in the person of one Hillary Clinton; likely the next President.  And what might these ebbing shadows portend for those who are not considered part of the enlightened progressive segment of the population?  Let us consider what was, what is, and what might be.

The most visible evidence of this socialistic creeping is in the media.  It is clear that the right-leaning media in this country is no bastion of virtue; but their efforts at partisan support through journalistic pretensions are more often laid bare and straight forward.  Plain and simple, they are not quite as sophisticated in their methods as is the left.  Whether they try and fail to disguise their agenda or don’t try at all, the fruits of their propagandistic labor are pretty easy to spot.  Using the words of  The One, when you compare the Far Left to the Far Right in terms of Machiavellian abilities, the Far Right is definitely the "jayvee" team.  There is no doubt that there are many on the far right who are just as radical as those on the far left.  But the threat they carry to our society is not the nanny state.  They tend towards excesses of individual rights and smaller, yet more authoritarian, government.  On the other hand, the left will sell you salt and call it sugar.  If the Wikileaks chapters have shown us nothing else, they have bared the soul (or lack thereof) of the Democratic Party and the Liberal Left.  The 2016 Presidential Election has been the coming out party for the liberal mainstream media to throw all shame and pretense to the wind and use all of their resources to tilt the presidential race to suit their personal, political views.  The creep continues.

Obamacare is the Titanic of this nation’s health care fleet.  All the things that its critics pointed out prior to its unholy inception have come true in spades and, unfortunately, the worst is yet to come.  Anyone paying attention to the Left will understand that the goal all along was a government–run, single payer health care system.  Obamacare was nothing but a bridge to that primary goal and we are a good deal across that bridge at this point in time.  Hillary Clinton will do her best to get us the rest of the way across that bridge.  Think you will like a single payer, run-by-the-government healthcare system?...Ask the folks in Vermont and Colorado about it.  Obamacare has taken the finest medical industry (imperfect though it was) on the planet and destroyed it.  It has built a huge, paper wall between the doctors and their patients.  The creep continues.

Ask your banker what they think about Dodd-Frank; the left’s (with significant Republican support) panacea for the housing collapse.  Ask them if they enjoy all the layers upon layers of new regulations and all the acquisitions where the big banks devour the local banks?  Have we discovered that government can best run our checking and saving accounts rather than our local banks or have we been swallowed up into a giant, financial octopus where the rich get richer, some get entitlements, and you get….squat?   The creep continues.

Do you get sick of getting lectures on political correctness or social engineering with every step you take each day; everyone and everything telling you how you should live your life?  You can’t turn a corner without encountering some type of socially-conscious messaging.  Even sports talk shows now spend more time covering protests and bathroom issues than they do scores, schedules, and highlights.  The NFL wonders why their viewership is falling.  Could it be that folks would simply like to watch the game without being bombarded by activist protests, social commentary from the announcers, and stupid celebrations of routine plays?  The NCAA has even gotten into the game by cancelling games in North Carolina because they passed a law that requires males to use the men’s restroom and females to use the women’s restroom.  I bet there is a high school athletic program somewhere in your neighborhood that has experienced some type of social protest over the last year or so.   The creep continues.

You best be paying attention to what your kids and grandkids are learning at their schools.  Are they getting a well-rounded and practical education of reading, writing, and arithmetic or are they being groomed to be socially-conscious global citizens of tomorrow?  Who in your county controls the purchase (therefore the content) of the textbooks and is there a parental organization that has any input into the matter?  The colleges and universities of this country have long been bastions of liberal thought and that philosophy is working its way down through high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, and yes…even pre-schools.  The creep continues.

The entertainment complex of America has traditionally been populated and controlled by liberal thought.  The social messages used to be rather subtle in most movies and television shows; but now those efforts by the enlightened writers, producers, and directors of Hollywood smack you in the face with every new scene.  Even the advertising that we see in media today shows us a picture of the way things ought to be; not the way things are.   They are selling lifestyle as much as they are selling product.  The creep continues.

I have always believed that the most powerful people in our government do not reside in Washington, DC, nor the White House, or on Wall Street.  They wear the black robes of federal judgeship and they have much more influence over our everyday lives than all the others combined.  Many of them are appointed for life, are essentially accountable to no one, and are radically activist in how they render their decisions.  Instead of enforcing the law the way it is written, they interpret the law in their own vision, based on the way they want things to be.  Most of these federal judges are liberal and the only firewall between them and your fundamental rights is a dysfunctional, politicized, and snail-slow reacting Supreme Court of the United States.  The creep continues.

It is eternally perplexing to me why any non-urban resident of these United States would support the Democratic Party.  That Party, its leadership and its candidates, has done nothing but purchase the soul of the middle class with their smarmy rhetoric and false promises.  Does the working man or woman in Arizona, New Hampshire, Michigan, Alabama, Texas, or Oregon think that any Democratic policy initiative will be directed towards their benefit and away from the urban centers of the American metropolis?  Loyalty is a cherished American value; but continued loyalty to leadership that treats you with disdain, lies to you constantly, and puts you on the shelf with impunity when your vote is not needed is…well, it just doesn’t make any sense. 

If the Liberal Left in America wants to live in a country based on socialist principles, then they should pack up their bags and move.  There are plenty of choices in Europe and elsewhere on this planet.  Instead, they take the easy way out; the way that requires no sacrifice on their part.  They prefer to change this country to their tastes; presuming to know better how we should live our lives than we know ourselves; transforming this great nation that was founded on individual rights and liberties into a socially-conscious playground for meddling and pompous adults.  There will always be a place in this country for compassion and sympathy for the less fortunate; but the Liberal Left takes these honest attributes that reside in each of us and twists them to the point where they are about two short steps from pure socialism.

Until rural Americans stop allowing themselves to be taken for granted by the liberal leadership of the Democratic Party and begin to take stock of which policies actually help them and their families, the creep will continue.  It is a fact that movies with heavy-handed social messaging will die quickly at the box office for lack of ticket sales.  Target Stores backed up quickly once its arrogant attitude about bathroom usage was rejected by a large segment of the public.  Their management did not have an epiphany overnight and decide that they were intruding into people’s private lives.  No; they saw decreased sales from lowered store traffic and decided they had better stick to retail.  There is a harsh reality that sometimes occurs which demands opposition and action rather than silence and appeasement.  The time may be rapidly approaching in this country where you will become either part of the problem by your non-action or part or the solution through your exercise of rights.  You don’t just vote at the ballot box; you vote loud and clear with your pocketbook.  Support the companies and vendors that present themselves in a manner you find acceptable and move on past the ones that try to tell you how to live your lives.  When presented with the choice, take the path that leads to a smaller and smarter government; one that is transparent, focused on its primary functions, and stays out of your bathrooms, bedrooms, and bank accounts.  Don’t walk through your life being a blind and uninformed disciple of a small cadre of people that look upon you as little more than an insect.  Examine YOUR world and YOUR job; talk with YOUR friends and YOUR family; and make those decisions in your life that will have some meaningful impact based on what is best for YOU and not on what you have been told by your Party’s leaders. 

If the creep continues, and in a very short time, this nation will be a poor excuse for what is was once was and the principles upon which it was founded.  You may not have a vote in Congress; you may not have a seat at the Federal Reserve; you may not comprehend how or why your medical insurance doesn’t work; but you damn well know how you’re your life is going.  You know how the lives of those you love and care for are going.  Stop the creeping nanny state philosophy that is flowing downward from our nation’s leaders.  Stop it with the decisions you make and the way you live your life.  Don’t give your vote away as if it were a trifle and don’t give your dollars away as if they belonged to someone else.  Whoever our next President turns out to be, our nation must turn.  We must stop the darkness on the edge of town or it will soon envelope our entire nation; permeating every nook and cranny of our lives with shadows and tentacles, thus destroying the essence of what our forefathers built and fought to preserve.  Our government can only take what we give to it or allow it to have and it will take, and take, with an insatiable appetite.  If we don’t change, our individual rights and liberties will be eroded to the point where one morning, you will be waking up in a place much more like Paris, France and much less like Des Moines, Iowa.