The Southern Vent: I am not a conservative

I’ve got news for you, folks. The blame game in natural disasters can go all around in a vicious circle if it pleases, but the god honest truth is that the blame rests in the societal and cultural shift we’ve seen in the last decades towards a welfare state. If I may wax philosophical but for a moment, I’ll return us in memory to the principles upon which this country was founded: freedom, honesty, HARD work ethic, national pride, and patriotism.

I’m not even talking about philosophies or ideals…I’m talking about the character qualities that formed the core of our nation’s people. I’m a firm believer in the concept that those qualities that forged the strength and iron will of our nation’s people have been slowly but surely weaned out of us. Formerly, we were a “crock pot” nation. We are now a “microwave” nation. We were fitted with patience, cunning, and the ability to wait things out. Now (and I even include myself in much of this analysis), we are a microwave oven nation. We want our pop – tarts immediately, we want direct deposit for our paychecks, we want the paper on the front porch every morning, we want a coffee maker that will make coffee on a timer so we don’t have to turn it on in the morning, and we want to be able to buy movie tickets online so that we don’t have to stand in line.

Formerly, we were an enterprising nation. We are now a nation outsourced all over the world. A wise politician in our country once said that our country was equally formed by the bravery of our soldiers, and the sweat and toil of the farmers who stayed home. That’s not at all to detract from our men and women of arms; it’s simply a recognition of the hard work that made us great. Now, many people spend four years in college learning how to outsource, delegate, sub contract, and automate. The internet is plagued with a plethora of get rich quick schemes…we even have seven minute abs.

Formerly, we were a nation without fear. When this nation was founded, boys grew up just waiting for the opportunity to join the military. It was an honor, a desire, to serve our country in uniform. Nathan Hale regretted that he had “but one life to give for his country.” Now, fear permeates even our armed forces and law enforcement, and men and women desert the armed forces and quit their jobs as law enforcement in droves. It seems the sons of Benedict Arnold have returned. Formerly, a man was shamed and placed in stocks who refused to work for his food and his family. Now, we pat him on the back, give him a government check, and send him home to watch TV. When these same people are unable to receive the government handouts, they resort to violence, shooting, and crime. I know it’s harsh, but it’s the cold hard truth. I’ve talked to enough high school aged young men who PLAN, not stumble upon, but plan to drop out of high school, find a single girl with a child and a welfare check, woo her, and move in.

For those of you who’s ire I’m beginning to raise, I have a question for you: that sorry excuse for a young man is taking your hard earned dollars through your tax money: where’s your pride in a job well done? Why don’t you care to keep the money you worked hard to make? We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare; we have abused power and called it politics; we have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition; we have become a generation of learners, not thinkers; we have become a generation of consumers, not producers; we have become a generation enslaved to a system who attempts to even the playing field and giving us everything we want, when we want it, and how we want it…on a silver platter.

We are no longer a nation of tested, tried, and true, enterprising, proud individuals. We are, and have become, a culture of egalitarian parasites. “In modern socialist theory, socialism is the pursuit of the goal of creating a democratic society that would form the backbone of an ideal welfare state.” That’s one dictionary’s definition of socialism. What did this “welfare state” bring us to, in one small example of the breakdown of the ideal American societal system? From the Washington Times: “Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on. “The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire…. “Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders. ” ‘These troops are…under my orders to restore order in the streets,’ she said. ‘They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.’ ”

That’s why we had to send in thousands of battlefield hardened troops in APCs to the streets of New Orleans. That’s why the stories reported brought news of violence, rioting, rape, and anger in conjunction with floods, wind, destruction, and devastation. That’s why there were some reports of cannibalism taking place in New Orleans. That’s why the news feeds have contained images that could be confused with movies such as Hotel Rwanda and Black Hawk Down. That’s why, according to early news reports, New Orleans had no plan for getting all the criminals out of the city. So, they just let many of them loose. That’s why Drudge later reported: “Even as Americans rally to make donations to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Internet is brimming with scams, come-ons and opportunistic pandering related to the relief effort in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — and in greater numbers and varieties than any past disaster, according to Thursday editions of the NEW YORK TIMES.

Florida’s attorney general has already filed a lawsuit against a man who mounted one of the earliest networks of Web sites — katrinahelp.com, katrinadonations.com and others — which purported to collect donations for victims of the storm. In Missouri, a much wider constellation of Internet domains — with names like parishdonations.com and katrinafamilies.com — displays pictures of the flood-ravaged south and drives traffic to a single site, InternetDonations.org, a nonprofit entity with apparent links to a white supremacist group.” That’s why, folks. Joseph Farah, in his article Why I Am Not a Conservative, speaks to this issue: “Conservatives, by definition, seek to conserve something from the past—institutions, cultural moores, values, political beliefs, traditions…No, it takes a radical agenda to defeat a radical agenda.

Conservatives have no stomach for fighting—the sort of fighting that it takes to restore real freedom in America. It’s not time for timidity or compromise. It’s not a time for defensiveness and conciliation. It’s time to take an offensive in this struggle. Was Washington a conservative? No. He was a revolutionary. He is known throughout the world—or was when people appreciated such concepts—as the “father of freedom.” Was Thomas Jefferson a conservative? No, he was a radical, a visionary. He wasn’t interested in preserving the status quo. Like his contemporaries, he risked everything to expand freedom, not just to preserve the limited freedoms that existed in his time…” “We can see these symptoms of materialism throughout our society, but the most visible one is the loss of courage. Our political leaders watch communism gobble up other nations, and they do nothing. They are afraid. People complain in private about the state of affairs, but will not speak out. They are afraid…” General Lewis B Walt

This being said, I will write to you from the perspective of one who lives and breaths this larger than life chess game we call politics, from the perspective of one who was raised on the fundamental principles this country was founded upon, from the perspective one of the few, perhaps, who still believes that patriotism rest secondarily only to devotion to one’s God and family.

I am, however, far from radical, as “pragmatic” seems to be an ever increasing part of the vocabulary that describes my personal, religious, and political beliefs. You will most of the time find me commenting on matters related to faith, family, and freedom; politics in the United States, or politics in the state of Georgia.

You’re welcome to contact me at smillican@gmail.com. I’d be honored to hear from you.


Seth Millican is a contributing writer for PurePolitics.com as well as other local and national news organizations. He resides in Macon, Georgia. He can be reached at smillican@gmail.com.