Alan Keyes
Orlando exemplifies America's 2-front war
Both enemies 'pose an existential threat to our survival'
By Alan Keyes
[This is the second in a series of articles pondering the strategic significance of the Orlando massacre. The first appeared earlier this week.]
I use the word "nation" advisedly to refer to the people of the United States – defined by the common ground or territory on which we live, but also by the common ground of principle from which we derive the shared identity that unites us. It is the second ground, in particular, on which our nation's founders erected our institutions of government, given form by means of democratically republican constitutions, according to which our governments at every level wield powers delimited and delegated by the people, acting through officials they elect to represent their common and mutual commitment to secure the exercise of God-endowed right, in which they jointly and severally are engaged.
In this sense of the term, pretty much everything I write takes a national perspective – i.e., one intended to provide information, counsel, and advice to the people of the United States from their perspective as a sovereign people. This perspective is these days largely and systematically disdained on account of the elitist faction's anti-constitutional project to use the sham "two-party system" to impose one-faction dictatorship over the inhabitants of the United States.
At present, the United States of America faces what is probably the most difficult situation a nation has to endure. We are engaged in two formally undeclared wars, both of which pose an existential threat to our survival. One is a foreign-based threat, with serious capabilities within our own borders, typified at the moment by the Islamic jihadi ideology and global strategic aims of the organization commonly referred to as ISIS. The other is a strategic threat from powerful elitist forces both within and outside of our own country, who are at present seeking to culminate a decades-long offensive against our democratic, republican institutions.
As a matter of practical fact and strategic necessity, a controlling imperative in warfare is to know who the enemy is, what he is about, and what he has the intention and means to do about it. When battle lines are drawn with the enemy's forces on one side and our forces on the other, the imperative resolves itself with relative ease. Friendly forces can, for the most part, avoid coming into conflict with one another so long as different spheres of command and control are subject to operational rules and regulations that specify effective procedures for dealing with areas in which responsibilities overlap.
But in the two wars that presently beset the American people, the theaters of war do not just overlap, they largely coincide. We have friends abroad and enemies at home, and vice versa. We think of the threat from Islamic terrorism as "foreign" in origin. Those who see the threat from the elitist faction's dictatorial ambition usually regard it as a "domestic" political challenge. Yet the terrorists now appear to have an extensive cadre in our domestic territory, and the elitist faction has allies, ties, and perhaps its most important sources and lines of supply scattered all over the world.
We've been induced by sources of information the elitist faction controls to think of terrorism as a threat to our physical lives. Yet in ISIS and other such groups, it also obviously takes the form of an unrelenting ideological foe. Meanwhile, the political/ideological challenge posed by the elitist faction becomes an unavoidable preoccupation when dealing with some matters, such as the effort to erase the male/female distinction, and the imposition of homosexual marriage, abortion, and other matters contrary to God's endowment of unalienable right. These are issues that involve attacking the premises of the constitutional liberty that defines our national identity. Yet and still, the crippling attack on America's middle class (who are pivotally important to preserving the actual exercise of that liberty) has taken the form of a devastating assault on the economic wherewithal that in every way sustains every aspect of their physical lives.
Thus the two fronts of the war against our nation are not simply "foreign" or "domestic." Nor are they simply "ideological" or "physical." With respect to both our enemies, the two fronts entirely overlap. Much as the front line of the war with the terrorists obviously extends across every square inch of America's territory and to every one of its inhabitants and citizens, so the front line of the civil war against the tyrannical ambition of the elitist faction extends to every aspect of our nation's life and policy, at home and abroad, whether we are dealing with moral or material challenges.
Moreover, the threat from the jihadi terrorists is not just religious in nature, for it aims to overthrow our decent liberty and way of life. Nor is the threat from the anti-constitutionist elitist faction partisans just an effort to dissolve the moral character we derive from our common commitment to God-endowed right, for it obviously aims to secure our physical/material subjugation along the way. As its particulars emerge, it becomes increasingly clear that the Orlando massacre exemplifies the two-front war being waged against our nation. It clarifies the coincident and mutually reinforcing character of the two enemies we face.
With the amalgamated nature of our enemy thus brought into focus, we have reason to think through how the activities of our nation's foreign and domestic foes interweave to form the mesh intended to capture and subjugate our nation, punishing us in the process for our success in standing against tyrannical injustice, but also for abandoning the creed that inspired us to do so. As a nation, therefore, we stand where all-too-human beings all too often do – on the horns of the dilemma of good and evil that sometimes seems almost to define our nature.
Our situation, presently besieged, tends to harden our hearts, like Pharaoh's, against our only true hope. The way in which it arises contradicts the prideful slogans that vainly promise to "Make America Great Again." Instead, we must return to the creed that from the beginning gave our nation reason to exist – the creed of God's endowment, that let His Greatness shine. We must trust, as our flawed forbears did, in His promise to forgive us, even though we have again and again betrayed the cause that in every previous generation eventually filled our people with His Spirit of confidence and courage. It is the Spirit with which He spoke the Word of all Creation. It is the very breath of life that made, and may make us yet again, what God from the first intended for all humankind to be: mindful of right as He endows it, and therefore truly free.
June 20, 2016
[This is the second in a series of articles pondering the strategic significance of the Orlando massacre. The first appeared earlier this week.]
I use the word "nation" advisedly to refer to the people of the United States – defined by the common ground or territory on which we live, but also by the common ground of principle from which we derive the shared identity that unites us. It is the second ground, in particular, on which our nation's founders erected our institutions of government, given form by means of democratically republican constitutions, according to which our governments at every level wield powers delimited and delegated by the people, acting through officials they elect to represent their common and mutual commitment to secure the exercise of God-endowed right, in which they jointly and severally are engaged.
In this sense of the term, pretty much everything I write takes a national perspective – i.e., one intended to provide information, counsel, and advice to the people of the United States from their perspective as a sovereign people. This perspective is these days largely and systematically disdained on account of the elitist faction's anti-constitutional project to use the sham "two-party system" to impose one-faction dictatorship over the inhabitants of the United States.
At present, the United States of America faces what is probably the most difficult situation a nation has to endure. We are engaged in two formally undeclared wars, both of which pose an existential threat to our survival. One is a foreign-based threat, with serious capabilities within our own borders, typified at the moment by the Islamic jihadi ideology and global strategic aims of the organization commonly referred to as ISIS. The other is a strategic threat from powerful elitist forces both within and outside of our own country, who are at present seeking to culminate a decades-long offensive against our democratic, republican institutions.
As a matter of practical fact and strategic necessity, a controlling imperative in warfare is to know who the enemy is, what he is about, and what he has the intention and means to do about it. When battle lines are drawn with the enemy's forces on one side and our forces on the other, the imperative resolves itself with relative ease. Friendly forces can, for the most part, avoid coming into conflict with one another so long as different spheres of command and control are subject to operational rules and regulations that specify effective procedures for dealing with areas in which responsibilities overlap.
But in the two wars that presently beset the American people, the theaters of war do not just overlap, they largely coincide. We have friends abroad and enemies at home, and vice versa. We think of the threat from Islamic terrorism as "foreign" in origin. Those who see the threat from the elitist faction's dictatorial ambition usually regard it as a "domestic" political challenge. Yet the terrorists now appear to have an extensive cadre in our domestic territory, and the elitist faction has allies, ties, and perhaps its most important sources and lines of supply scattered all over the world.
We've been induced by sources of information the elitist faction controls to think of terrorism as a threat to our physical lives. Yet in ISIS and other such groups, it also obviously takes the form of an unrelenting ideological foe. Meanwhile, the political/ideological challenge posed by the elitist faction becomes an unavoidable preoccupation when dealing with some matters, such as the effort to erase the male/female distinction, and the imposition of homosexual marriage, abortion, and other matters contrary to God's endowment of unalienable right. These are issues that involve attacking the premises of the constitutional liberty that defines our national identity. Yet and still, the crippling attack on America's middle class (who are pivotally important to preserving the actual exercise of that liberty) has taken the form of a devastating assault on the economic wherewithal that in every way sustains every aspect of their physical lives.
Thus the two fronts of the war against our nation are not simply "foreign" or "domestic." Nor are they simply "ideological" or "physical." With respect to both our enemies, the two fronts entirely overlap. Much as the front line of the war with the terrorists obviously extends across every square inch of America's territory and to every one of its inhabitants and citizens, so the front line of the civil war against the tyrannical ambition of the elitist faction extends to every aspect of our nation's life and policy, at home and abroad, whether we are dealing with moral or material challenges.
Moreover, the threat from the jihadi terrorists is not just religious in nature, for it aims to overthrow our decent liberty and way of life. Nor is the threat from the anti-constitutionist elitist faction partisans just an effort to dissolve the moral character we derive from our common commitment to God-endowed right, for it obviously aims to secure our physical/material subjugation along the way. As its particulars emerge, it becomes increasingly clear that the Orlando massacre exemplifies the two-front war being waged against our nation. It clarifies the coincident and mutually reinforcing character of the two enemies we face.
With the amalgamated nature of our enemy thus brought into focus, we have reason to think through how the activities of our nation's foreign and domestic foes interweave to form the mesh intended to capture and subjugate our nation, punishing us in the process for our success in standing against tyrannical injustice, but also for abandoning the creed that inspired us to do so. As a nation, therefore, we stand where all-too-human beings all too often do – on the horns of the dilemma of good and evil that sometimes seems almost to define our nature.
Our situation, presently besieged, tends to harden our hearts, like Pharaoh's, against our only true hope. The way in which it arises contradicts the prideful slogans that vainly promise to "Make America Great Again." Instead, we must return to the creed that from the beginning gave our nation reason to exist – the creed of God's endowment, that let His Greatness shine. We must trust, as our flawed forbears did, in His promise to forgive us, even though we have again and again betrayed the cause that in every previous generation eventually filled our people with His Spirit of confidence and courage. It is the Spirit with which He spoke the Word of all Creation. It is the very breath of life that made, and may make us yet again, what God from the first intended for all humankind to be: mindful of right as He endows it, and therefore truly free.
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
