Tuesday.....International.....The Statist

In early 2001, my wife, son and I had the opportunity to visit London. Being a history buff, we took a train up to Cambridge University. Some scenes from my favorite movie Chariots of Fire were filmed there. I have to describe this scene from our visit...on the landing between the first and second floors of Emmanuel College was a statue of Buddha and above that was an oil painting of a Puritan. This surreal scene describes religious belief in England today and Tarantino could not have staged it any better. In the 1520s there was a pub in Cambridge on King's Lane called the White Horse Inn. Discussions would be held there on the happenings in Germany caused by Martin Luther, and those conversations reverberated throughout England. The building no longer exists but a blue plaque hangs on the current structure that says Site of the White Horse Inn.....A Birthplace of the Reformation in England. What you are seeing in the town hall meetings taking place across the country is not dissimilar to the events surrounding the conversations 500 years ago at this pub, only today they meet on the radio more than anywhere else. What has to be considered when contemplating the polarization of America is more than just different worldviews. Just about every issue of contention today is potentially tumultuous. You are going to hear the term statist more and more. Mark Levin describes a statist as, not a progressive or a liberal, but as those who want the people to surrender their liberties to the state and become totally dependent on it. The conservative sees the statist as weakening our national defense to a dangerous degree, one evidence being the cessation of contracts for the F-22. America has had complete air superiority since WWII and no American had died from an attack from an enemy aircraft in 50 years. This decision to stop the procurement of the world's top fighter aircraft will eventually see our air superiority disappear with it. The conservative sees the statist as mortgaging our economic future. He sees the government as telling us what to believe, to inform on our neighbors, to speak only when it is approved speech, to teach only that which supports the state and then wielding a heavy hand when we question their decisions. The conservative sees the Constitution gathering dust in a corner and the Bible relegated as subversive literature. If these decisions were emanating from a vast majority of the people, it would be one thing but, at the very least, America is split down the middle and this is not enough to change 233 years of American history to a system more akin to that of those who have been, more often than not, our enemies. America may have been awakened over the health care debate and if so, it will take more that the slick words on the teleprompter to put them back to sleep.