Recalled To Life

REMEMBER “Recalled to Life?” It comes from A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens’ romance about the French Revolution. The phrase referred to Dr. Manette, imprisoned in the Bastille and now released.

For years Republicans and conservatives have felt a bit like they were imprisoned, or at least uncomfortably shackled.. The long withdrawing roar of the Bush administration and the cold-cock politics of the Democrats put decent, common-sense reform in the meat locker and sadly depressed Republican morale.

But now, in a short three weeks, the Obama administration has Recalled the conservative base to Life. In the lobbyist-fest of the Cabinet nominations, in the pork-fest of the stimulus bill, in the stealth repeal of welfare reform, we are reborn. Thank you, Mr. President, we needed that.

Now we know. There is no Hope. There is no Change. There is nothing to Believe In. It is back to business-as-usual. The Obama administration is giving the clearest signal you can give that the Democrats have not changed. In fact, they are beside themselves in pent-up frenzy after having to pretend throughout the Clinton era that they were really “new” Democrats who weren’t at all like the McGovern Democrats of the 1970s or the San Francisco Democrats of the 1980s who always “blamed America first.”

After years of patient message management and brilliant tactics the Democrats got the American people to believe that they were the party of the middle class and that the Democratic Party was a center-left party and that the Republicans were dominated by the right. You gotta say: they did a remarkable job with that message.

But now it looks like the Democrats under President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid are throwing off the cloak of invisibility. Underneath all that rhetoric they are liberal Democrats, and that means they believe in the neo-feudal welfare state and its huge patronage systems. They are building a land of great fiefs, vertical hierarchy, and a sea of helpless peasants.

Back in November, I voted for Barack Obama because I thought that, after four years of the Democrats in power, the American people would be ready for a Republican age of reform. Silly me. How wrong can you be?

It’s beginning to look as if the American people will be ready for Republican reform in about another month.

So I think I’ll take time this weekend to make my first contribution to Sarah Palin’s new PAC. Money, said Jesse Unruh, a California sate politician, is the mother’s milk of politics.

But isn’t this all too much too soon? Not really. Here’s the Four Step program I see in the months ahead.

Energize the base.
Start the money flowing.
Organize.
Start a conversation with the American people.

So let the games begin!

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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