Nation on the Precipice

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." —Ian Fleming, Goldfinger (attributed as a Chicago saying)

Yet another comment of mine failed to get posted Saturday. I am always left wondering, was it just tech-eaten or moderated away? If the former, good luck fixing the bugs. If the latter, see, I like you guys and your site, and I sure don't want to post what's unwelcome, wasting my efforts and your time and dampening your Smithsonian-worthiness! [har] Not knowing is the worst part.

I note that for a long time there was just one comment on Saturday's open thread. This morning there are several (but not mine), including an earlier comment than the one which had been standing alone all day. Hm. There were no Friday comments all day, then late (and of course right after I mention Friday's lack of comments in my unposted Saturday message) a bunch of comments finally show up. Hm. Yes, I know you all have tech problems and also the moderators have lives and jobs and HillBuzz can't be your main thing, at least not yet. Still….

Broken links, belatedly- or never-posted messages (not just mine, evidently), paginated and javascript-managed comments making some hard to link to, and (personal problem) the huge overhead of the new site, which you worked so hard to set up, taking so long to download on our not-broadband rural connection... it's like HillBuzz's enemies broke it. I wasn't on the "old" HillBuzz long, and I do appreciate what you did (and why) in the tech changeover, but in these ways, like some others have said, I miss it.

Darlings, we can't keep meeting like this. Time for me to resume lurk mode, and let my self-consciousness circuits relax. (Overtaxed moderator lets out sigh of relief?) :)

Can't go without a parting shot, of course. But I'm not going to bother leaving it as a comment. Here, just for whoever's reading this:

A Mindful Webworker comments:

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I like the community of folks here. Running around on some other sites in recent days has made me appreciate this site all the more. I like the way the place is run. I really appreciate the links folks post here. Most of all I like the (ironically Democrat-inspired) will to action.

Before my father's untimely death in 1968, I once asked him how he became Republican National Committeeman from Oklahoma. Dad told me, it began with a get-out-the-vote campaign by the Republicans across our county which he initiated and led. Volunteers went door-to-door, handing out literature and repeating this message: "We want you to get out and vote. We encourage you to vote Republican, but however you vote, get out and vote!" The effect was so record-breakingly, headline-drawingly dramatic, it got the attention of the state Republicans, and he was tapped to do the same thing state-wide.

What he found as he moved into the state level, though, was what HillBuzzers know too well as Cocktail Party Republicans, RINOs not so much interested in winning, nor in principled government, as in the lucrative benefits to being even a lame-ass 2nd party. Dad did the unexpected. He came to make such a significant impact that the late, great honorable gentleman, Henry Bellmon became the first Republican governor since Statehood, and a formerly solidly Democrat fiefdom was utterly transformed from those days.

Dad and Ike at the 1960 Republican National Convention

Bellmon went on to serve as a US Senator before returning to the Governor's chair. There's a sad lesson to be found in Bellmon's biography, in his frustration at the impossible glacial mess of Washington DC politics after serving in an effective state government.

Life & Times of Henry Bellmon at Amazon.com

Bellmon is often credited for the state's turnaround. That's true, too, but not for nothing is there an entire chapter in his biography devoted to my behind-the-man Dad. It started with that get out the vote campaign, about the time I was born.

Hardly anything is as infuriating to me than those who don't vote because they think their vote won't have an impact, when more than half the people don't vote! I know it's sometimes frustrating. Here in the reddest of the red states, the main election is really the primary, just as it is in Chicago, because the election is pretty much a foregone conclusion. By the time a vote comes up, it's like it often seems already too late, things are decided. Still, not to vote at all seems not just un-American to me, but socially suicidal.

It's absolutely unpredictable what an impact it would make if even half the non-voters voted. Or as Dad's results demonstrated, maybe it is predictable, if the discouraged majority still love liberty and respect the Constitution. I have enjoyed the groundswell of those ordinary people inspired to take an interest in government, self-rule, by what they've come to see in recent years, and certainly not just because the current President is half-Swedish. I'll never forget the one woman I got to talking with in a doctor's waiting room, who was so enthused, so inspired by the grassroots movements, and so frustrated that she still couldn't get her relatives and neighbors to wake up. One by one. Slowly. Then it builds. Then it's a flood-tide that sweeps the country. That's what I hope will continue.

How to start a movement TED video at YouTube

I remember how the Hungarians and Czechs were crushed in their moments of hope, and only decades later did the Poles (quelle surprise!) finally break the Soviet Union. Pidgen history version to make the point, there is no divine protection in being on the right side. Jesus said, "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." He knew (and died because of) how the wolves devour. His words might ring empty, had he not also lived to the full what he commanded. Good people, be that canny, while remaining innocent!

When I see articles like this one at National Journal discussing "a showcase of five Republican presidential hopefuls, including Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and [Mitt] Romney" (and... #5?), I feel kind of sick and hopeless for my country and the very future of liberty on our world. In my life I have seen America sway back and forth from Eisenhower to Johnson to Nixon to Carter to Reagan to Clinton to Bush to Obama. (Yes, I skipped a few.) How could a country be so bipolar? In the end, like so many discouraged citizens, it looks like all the parties and politicians are ruinous.

We stand on a delicate precipice. We have a challenge greater than any faced in the 20th Century. We are opposed by well-organized, well-funded, and absolutely immoral enemies, allied only in their hatred of what really matters about this country. A third of the country is insane, a third is confused, so the remaining third face incredibly tough challenges.

Kevin, O HillBuzz Originator, my ragged cowboy hat is tipped to you and all those on both sides of this site, and all those across the nation taking action, being involved, employing tactics and strategies in canny fashion. I pray it will be enough.