By TOM BURBAGE | REAL CLEAR DEFENSE
We are a nation somewhere between the proverbial “Red Skies.”
The warning signals have been sent. It remains to be seen if they are enough to clear the troubling skies or not. There is a historical resilience to our unique constitutional republic form of government that pulls our nation back from the brink in times of desperation. The fundamental roots run deep and have weathered the storms of time so far.
But there has been a long-term corrosion infecting those roots. We have a generational responsibility to preserve the America we inherited from earlier generations and leave a legacy for those that come behind.
All sailors have a healthy respect for corrosion. It can sink their ships and end their livelihood. Webster defines corrosion as the long-term gradual deterioration of materials in reaction to their environment. As a firm believer that the laws of nature are much more powerful than the laws of human logic, the analogy applies well to the political world we now find ourselves and our nation in.
In nature, the roots of corrosion take time and have many tentacles. In politics, these same tentacles have been allowed to run deep over the last few decades. Their slow deterioration of American ideals is now playing havoc with our ability to even recognize the America we were handed from our fathers and forefathers. The pillars of our constitutional republic are rusty and getting rustier.
When was the last time schools taught America’s core virtues and values in a classroom that also had an American flag in the corner? Who can list the fundamentals of our Constitution; three equal branches of government; free and fair elections; patriotism; Judeo-Christian fundamentals; government by the people? Does it really matter? The rust is getting thicker.
Galvanizing is another law of nature that provides a layer of protection for the impervious nature of rust. It also has a second definition “to cause someone to suddenly take action by shocking or exciting them in some way. The rust on our American Dream cannot be reversed without galvanizing a national willingness to preserve those virtues and values.
Sometimes rust creeps in and we don’t really notice it until we see a leak in the roof (or the hull of our sailor’s boat). Examples of creeping rust include indoctrinating our youth by gaining control of public schools and teachers unions. Manipulating opinions by controlling the news media and Hollywood. Corroding fundamental value systems by denigrating the role of the family and the church. Reducing parental rights and fundamentals by making transgenderism and sexual perversion seem normal, natural and healthy.
Once the rust becomes obvious, it spreads faster and has greater impact. Who can explain the rusting logic of dissolving borders which are clearly bankrupting social welfare systems and influencing free and fair election processes? Why are we allowing rust into our free and fair election processes under the guise of continuing questionable pandemic exceptions when we are clearly not in a pandemic.
Time to stop incentivizing rust and once and for all galvanize the American boat. It has a severely rusting hull. Take the time to understand the precipice our nation is on and understand that the only rust repellant is a strong vote for galvanizing the Constitution.
Hoping for a red sky at night soon.
Captain Tom Burbage (USN, ret.) is a Naval Academy graduate (class of ’69) and President of the Calvert Task Group.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
Great article.
A brilliant analysis. But corruption in the government and its policies are preceded by corruption in the culture. The tolerance of unbridled sexual morality, both hetero and homosexual, coupled with contraception and abortion, and a divorce rate AMONG CONSERVATIVES that equals the godless Left, destroys families and damages the psyche of children, is part and parcel of this corrosion.
The remedy is NOT in government’s domain, but in the failed churches of the Christian denominations. Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical, Fundamentalist. Of course there have been thin, reedy voices against this flow, but until we, as a group, make public and private reparation, God will likely not allow the political solution to solve this sinking ship.
Hope I’m wrong.
The government needs to be totaly replaced by normal people.
Rust never sleeps.
It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.
These left wing nit wits are nuts. If the conservatives loose this election everyone looses. And the loss of America will be the downfall of mankind. Every country on earth strives to be what we are. Free.
Agreed but please learn to spell “lose”, it detracts from your point otherwise.
The problem, as I see it is on both sides of the aisle and doesn’t rest solely on one sides shoulders.
Great and true article. Lot of work to do.
All of the points raised here are serious and critical. The most important is “three equal branches of government;” no longer is pertinent, there are 4 branches of government now, and the 4th is the most powerful, without any checks or meaningful oversight from the other 3.
This is the IC (Intelligence Complex of agencies) which was weaponized through the Patriot Act. It was the IC, that went after Trump on his 1st term, and which has taken Executive Office power to itself.
If the overwhelming odds arrayed against him are overcome and Trump is able to take office, he will need all the public support possible, to deconstruct the permanent government.
Brian, great point regarding the intelligence agencies. It seems that these agencies are always created out of fear of an external enemy. Truman rightly dissolved the OSS in 1945 but later embraced the creation of the C.I.A. due to fear of the Soviet Bloc and it’s tentacles that had already made deep inroads into American institutions. Truman believed that the agency would merely be an intelligence gathering apparatus and simply publish a “newspaper” for use by policy makers. Apparently it didn’t take long for the agency to go rouge however as it began doing covert operations even before Truman left office. Lord Acton’s statement about power corrupting has seldom been proven wrong and the network of spy agencies , (including the F.B.I) operating in America today are an affront to personal liberty and FREEDOM of every citizen.
The scary thing is that these agencies will not relinquish their power, especially so since it appears that they have political support from ranking members of both US political parties…(and or damaging information about these political leaders which surely would be leaked to the press if they tried to halt the agencies).
It’s not farfetched to believe the above.
It’s not a far fetched “belief”, our multitude of intelligence agencies are corrupted, and they are primarily deployed against a free thinking and sovereign American public.
They are completely incompetent as far as foreign intelligence gathering. None of the narratives they’ve used to create enemies to justify endless foreign meddling have proven accurate.
None of the foreign meddling has resulted in solving problems, only destroyed nations, societies, creation of actual enemies and heaps of dead civilian bodies, including thousands of dead American servicemen.
All the while bankrupting our country and destroying any vestige of a thriving “market” based and competitive economy.
The Senate SSCI provides theoretical oversight. Yet the senators from “both” parties are fully compromised and rubber stamp constant approval for IC activities.
No one in government is ever held accountable for the catastrophic failures of the Arab Spring mayhem, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Ukraine projects. Ever.
They are crudely effective against domestic political opposition, and creating domestic terror groups like BLM and Antifa. Fostering unrest and riots to destabilize society.
The organized and subsidized transport of millions of unvetted foreign immigrants into our country will certainly result in domestic acts of terror, at the opportune time of the ICs’ choosing.
The solutions will include further limiting our rights to travel, freely speak, work and firearm possession. Censoring and deplatforming sources for real news and communication between citizens will become far worse.
We’ve gone so far down the wrong path I feel there’s no return. We’ve suffered cultural rot for decades now. Our work ethic has been greatly diminished and we’re being stripped of all means to produce goods to essentially survive. Will we have an outright collapse and quickly sink or just slowly rust away on the beach? We’ll see.
The sky isn’t falling – the exact opposite is true.
Never have I been more hopeful about our country’s salvation than I am now.
The MSM is totally discredited by the masses.
We actually have alternative news sources – that one can find some semblance of the truth – on any issue.
In the modern era never has the disgust of the populace, towards our governing politicians, ever been so strong.
BigPharma, the Fed, CDC, FDA, bullcrap wars, free trade, open borders, transmania, globalism – is rotting for all to see.
And NOW.
We have a man – in the vein of Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt – that is for EVERYTHING the globalists/neocons/progressives/establishment repub’s/establishment demo’s – detest.
We have the republican party switching from the likes of George, Jeb, McCain, Romney, McConnell – which was an elistist, country club volvo driving party – to a party of populism, blue collar, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, police and fire, unions, low tax, common sense environmental regulation, tariffs, free trade, controlled borders, and Nationalism.
Never have we been stronger militarily.
we are 5% of the world’s population and we have the largest economy – the US dollar isn’t going anywhere – I’d bet on America before I would China and the BRICS.
We have our entrepreneurial spirit to invent the majority of all the new technology.
Gun Rights have never been stronger.
TRUMP for King! (that was ajoke LIbTards and TDS folks…)
We are a democratic republic with a declaration of independence that makes true that we are a nation.
Constitutional rights are secondary to the health and well being of the nation.
Summarize; Mutterings of insurrection and civil war are contrary to the health of the USA and must be quelled when seen as a threat. The church has no part of the business of the nation.
Republican President Lincoln made sure illegally seceded states (rust) were brought back in line.
Example; Jan. 6th insurrectionists were arrested, charged, prosecuted, found guilty and sentenced to lengthly terms.
Only the lefties believe that we have a democrat republic. Lol
Was Lincoln a lefty?
I’m a righty 😉
Conservatives in America have a Constitutional Republic. 😉
It is true the North won the Uncivil War and we all know history is written by the victors. Maybe it was a good thing that our country stayed together. However, you have one FACT wrong–there were no “illegally seceded states”. The states joined together voluntarily and they should have been able to leave voluntarily. (What was illegal was firing on our own citizens!) Secession had even been considered by a couple of northern states for various reasons years earlier. All you have to do is follow the money. BTW, I’m not from the south but I am a history buff. Lots of things are not being taught about our past.
Appreciate your bringing this up. There were 13 sovereign states who each agreed to join the others to form a Federal Republic.
There was no clause that excluded any one, or all to dissolve membership in the union.
The war was between the elite, ruling class. Less than 5% of Southern Whites owned slaves, while more than 90% of Free Blacks owned slaves.
The Northern elite industrialists treated the mass of workers worse than slaves, and without any housing, food or retirement provision. An actual slave was very valuable, whereas the White immigrant factory workers had no value, or loss when they died or were maimed. They were simply replaced with new immigrants from the urban ghettos.
The battle line Southern soldiers were not fighting and dying to retain the property creating human wealth of their aristocrats.
Yes, it’s better the Republic was retained cohesive, but from a legal perspective, seceeding was a legal right.
And yes, we remain 50 Sovereign states, not 50 provinces of an all powerful central government. The mass of legislation creating an administrative federal state is unconstitutional.
Unfortunately, Alaska was set up on a colonial model, our state constitution is a monstrosity.
There are 5 branches of government; each described separately in the constitution. 1) We the people, per the preamble are the sovereigns of this nation. 2) Executive; being the president and administration over the federal bureaucracy, law enforcement and foreign relations. 3) Legislative; being congress that passes laws and appropriates money from the federal budget. 4) Judiciary, the judicial and court systems appointed by the Executive and Legislative branches to provide impartial judgement as to law. 5) Free Press, described and protected by the 1st Amendment to serve as a check and balance to the others; it is occasionally called the “4th estate” in error.
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