As I See It

Homeless

In a 2017 essay in “First Things”, a Catholic magazine, the writer R.R. Reno related the following story, “…During a debate about immigration a young woman from France made an impassioned speech that opened my eyes to the deeper issues at stake in populism”.

“She told her listeners that she was middle-class and therefore could not afford to live in neighborhoods that had no Muslims as the rich French do. And she knows their ways which include a tradition of returning to Tunisia or Algeria during holidays to visit relatives. They are explicit, she said, in how they describe these trips. They are cherished opportunities to go ‘home’.

“At that moment her voice broke with emotion”.

“She asked, ‘if I lose France, where can I go?’”

In the last few years the Left has been advancing the message that “America is an Idea”.

At first glance this seems obvious, Freedom, Equality, Justice, all Ideas.

But my ancestors who came to Virginia in the early 1600’s weren’t driven by an idea, but a harsh reality.

They wanted to put as much distance between themselves and their enemies as possible.

The Secession from England was fought over concrete issues; taxes, the right to bear arms and defend themselves, the right to deny the government access to your property.

Yes, the Declaration and the Constitution are full of Ideas, but they are about concrete things unlike the French National motto; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, which have broader more ambiguous meanings.

But why would the Left prefer the ambiguous to the concrete?

Well for one thing they have always preferred the French Revolution, which by the way was a real revolution in that it violently overthrew an existing government and replaced it with another equally repressive one.

The American Revolution was actually not a revolution but a secession in that it did not topple the British government, it simply separated itself from that government and formed its own.

But most importantly for the Left, certain Ideas without fixed meaning like the French National Motto; Liberty can be stretched to mean liberty to do almost anything, Equality and Fraternity have the same plasticity.

Our so called “elites” on the Left, and to be perfectly fair, on the Right as well like to think that they live in the world of Ideas unlike the rest of us, the great unwashed masses who live in flyover country who must live in the real, concrete world.

The other benefit for our elite, Left and Right, globalists is that by making America an Idea it takes away ownership because no one can own an Idea.

But America is land, land is property, and who owns the land a concrete question.

It is a question that has developed into a fight, a fight that’s we in the Western United States know all too well.

But land isn’t the only property being contested.

My wages, earned by my work, is property as well.

And our elites, Left and Right, want us to subsidize the people who have invaded our homeland without our permission with the wages they have extorted from us.

They do all of this in the misguided belief that none of this will ever impact them.

But being globalists they have no allegiance to any Country, no attachment to a particular piece of land.

And they believe that their money, power, and position will insulate them from the ravages their policies create.

I’m not sure they’re right in their assumptions, but I’m absolutely clear that the rest of us aren’t.

And just as that young French woman asked, if we lose America where can we go?

And, perhaps just as important to the rest of the world, if we lose America where will the truly endangered go?

It’s a question the elites never consider.

Because the peoples that the elites are trying to replace us with come from countries, world-views, and political views that are not as tolerant and as welcoming as we are, something the rest of the Western World is learning.

So when you hear the elites talk about America as an Idea, go outside and look at your home, your land.

Are those Ideas or are they real things worth defending for yourself and your descendants?

I will end with another quote from Mr. Reno, the words in parentheses are mine.

“The West is reaching a dead end because our leadership class, socialized into and loyal to the post war consensus (of a one-world model), insist that we must be homeless-even as it shelters itself (in gated communities)”.