American Renewal: In the Presence of Our Enemies

American Renewal: In the Presence of Our Enemies
Venezuelan citizens cross the Simon Bolivar international bridge from San Antonio del Tachira in Venezuela to Norte de Santander province of Colombia on February 10, 2018. (GEORGE CASTELLANOS/AFP/Getty Images)
David Prentice
2/15/2019
Updated:
2/17/2019
Commentary

Ronald Reagan once made a humorous statement about the left: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

What today’s left has come to believe, however, is much different than in the days of Reagan—it’s far worse.

What they want, in almost all cases, is contrary to the spirit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of goodness. If they win, what they will unleash on the United States will be the same thing they have done elsewhere, Venezuela being their newest paradise found—or, more truthfully, paradise lost.
Losing our cold civil war isn’t just a matter of different governance, a different lifestyle, or a different opinion. It’s really a matter of choosing life or death.

Venezuela

In 2017, I wrote about what happened in Venezuela. The most salient point: “Venezuela was once the most prosperous country in South America. It is now one of the poorer nations in the world. Food is hard to find, toilet paper is scarce, and civilization as the citizenry once knew it is gone.”  
Venezuela got there because leftists promised a better life for all. They promised the evil capitalists would be punished and that their citizens would all be better off. They promised free health care. They promised free education. They promised free everything. Venezuela chose poorly. It chose to believe the siren song of their future workers’ paradise. It knows now.
We all should know.  
And like the fool choosing the wrong cup in the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” Venezuela died a horrible death. It lost all the greatness of Western civilization. Its people have little left, having virtually lost everything, and now are mired in simply trying to survive each day. The thing Venezuela lost the most was common decency—the decency to pursue higher goals, the decency to pursue goodness for people’s lives.
When it comes to the left, it can’t be said strongly enough: If they win, we, our children, and our grandchildren will be ravaged like Venezuela. Like Russia was. Like China was. Like every socialist paradise the left has ever set up.
We would fail as a nation. We would be reduced to a snarling mob. The reign of terror that was unleashed during the French Revolution would be nothing compared to what would happen here.
Like I said, this isn’t simply a different kind of governance: It’s a matter of choosing life or death. Choosing not to fight the left is to choose death. Choosing to allow the left to cast its spell is to choose poorly.

Promises

“Medicare for all” is the new slogan. Sounds great, yes? Why, let’s give it a try. After all, we could have a health care system as good as that in England, or Cuba for that matter. Didn’t Michael Moore try to tell us Cuba had the best health care ever? Oh right, only the powerful elite gets to use it, the party leaders. And England? God help you if you are visiting and get sick over there. It’s sort of like what the Veterans Affairs system was here; you die waiting in line.  
Let me suggest when you hear this promise that you ridicule it. Laugh at it, scorn it, make them be known as fools. They can be free to speak lies, but we should be free to heap scorn on them with the truth, the truth being that they already ruined a major portion of our health care with the Affordable Care Act. If they get another crack at it, the Cuban system awaits: Health care only for the Kamala Harrises, the Elizabeth Warrens, the Cory Bookers, or whoever else demagogues their way to power. And they’ll keep promising you more, as you get less. They will destroy the system for all. Bank on it.
And now, the promise of a “green” life for all. Ain’t it grand? No more fossil fuels; we’ll have safe wind, safe solar, and safe spaces. No more polluting airplanes, just clean high-speed trains. All our homes and businesses will be centers of non-polluting energy. Paradise for all. Once again, it’s not just what they know is not so; what they want to do is flat-out deadly for us all.
We here in the Midwest are living in the throes of the current polar vortex. Let me remind you of something you all should know: Take away fossil fuels here, and we would have deaths along the lines of what the Plague brought. Greenness is a seriously demented promise. And if you think they won’t mandate that we stop using fossil fuels to prevent their ridiculously wrong (and pathetic) theory of global warming destroying the planet, I have a bridge to sell you.
After all, this is only the ninth or 10th time we were supposed to all die from their ecological pronouncements. Yep, that’s right. I first read it from a group known as the Club of Rome, which said we would all be hapless, dead, or starving by the 1990s. Al Gore has only postponed his deadline a couple of times now. Oh, and that claim that snowfall would be a thing of the past? I can tell you while looking out my window, that’s not true. But they’ll tell you with a smile that’s just “weather,” not climate. Or that 97 percent of all scientists say the science is settled. Neither of which is true. Once again, what they know isn’t just not so, their lies are damnably dangerous to everyone.
We need to step up our game here. Too many people believe the baloney the left is spouting about fossil fuels ruining our planet. They’re outright falsehoods, like their solutions. Just ask the French “yellow vests” what will happen if you buckle to this nonsense. The gas costs of Obama’s nightmare $4 per gallon would double. They would trade the fruit of civilization for a bowl of narratives.  
As for me, I like knowing I have heat. I like knowing we can live a good life. I like knowing we have an incredible civilization that has brought more to every person living here than once thought possible for kings. I don’t like knowing the left wants to take it away by lies, deceit, and promises to a gullible electorate.

Fearless Passion

We need to step up our game. We need to realize who our enemies are—meaning the radical left—and what they will bring after promising us paradise to gain power: Venezuela. What is of paramount importance is to realize how on the edge we are right now. If we fail to destroy the left through the ballot box, we will be on a quick path to a third-world existence.
Let me introduce a construct that I call the Gideon Brigades. The story told describes Gideon’s army as being selected for their intensity. Gideon was instructed by God to pick the soldiers who demonstrated their passion when drinking water from a river. A small force—yet fearless and faith-filled—they would conquer because of these qualities. In this civil war of today, we are going to need this kind of fearlessness, faith, and passion—traits that the late Andrew Breitbart demonstrated. We are standing on a precipice; the war is in the balance. We are finally fighting back, and for the first time in decades, we are beginning to win.
The left is beginning to fail; they are showing themselves as the party that owns the paths to death. They want to practice infanticide as you watch, to make us a self-loathing people, and to ruin the economic engine that has done the world such good. They must be defeated.
As leftist masks come off, we need to choose wisely. We need to understand that there is a consequence to losing this war. For now, as we teeter on the edge, we need to become, join, or simply ally with the Gideon Brigades—unrelenting passion, faith, and fearlessness until the left is defeated.
It’s genuinely a matter of life and death.   
David Prentice is a writer and novelist from the Midwest.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.