…We must meet a vicious and distempered energy with a manly and rational vigor….
I am currently reading Russell Kirk’s wonderful short biography Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered. I highly recommend it as an introduction to the man considered the first of the modern conservatives and his philosophy.
After reading the following passage, from Mr. Burke’s Remarks On The Policy Of The Allies [1793] regarding how the allied nations should deal with Revolutionary France, it occurred to me that his advice applies to those of us who are fighting to restore our freedoms and liberties:
In all that we do, whether in the struggle or after it, it is necessary that we should constantly have in our eye the nature and character of the enemy we have to contend with. The Jacobin Revolution is carried on by men of no rank, of no consideration, of wild, savage minds, full of levity, arrogance, and presumption, without morals, without probity, without prudence. What have they, then, to supply their innumerable defects, and to make them terrible even to the firmest minds? One thing, and one thing only,—but that one thing is worth a thousand;—they have energy. In France, all things being put into an universal ferment, in the decomposition of society, no man comes forward but by his spirit of enterprise and the vigor of his mind. If we meet this dreadful and portentous energy, restrained by no consideration of God or man, that is always vigilant, always on the attack, that allows itself no repose, and suffers none to rest an hour with impunity,—if we meet this energy with poor commonplace proceeding, with trivial maxims, paltry old saws, with doubts, fears, and suspicions, with a languid, uncertain hesitation, with a formal, official spirit, which is turned aside by every obstacle from its purpose, and which never sees a difficulty but to yield to it, or at best to evade it,—down we go to the bottom of the abyss, and nothing short of Omnipotence can save us. We must meet a vicious and distempered energy with a manly and rational vigor. As virtue is limited in its resources, we are doubly bound to use all that in the circle drawn about us by our morals we are able to command.
Our foe, the Left In America, is brimming with the kind of energy Mr. Burke speaks of. They possess the energy of The Fanatic, The Zealout, convinced that he is the most noble creature on Earth — that he is ‘doing God’s Will’, as it were [actually, it's more like 'Moloch's will'] — and he is embarked on a ‘holy’ crusade. Such feelings get the adrenaline rushing through the courses of one’s veins at super speed and that produces a relentless, driving, maniacal energy. This is one the main reasons we experience the Left always on the attack, and from multiple angles.
Let me quote this part of the passage above again:
…—if we meet this energy with poor commonplace proceeding, with trivial maxims, paltry old saws, with doubts, fears, and suspicions, with a languid, uncertain hesitation, with a formal, official spirit, which is turned aside by every obstacle from its purpose, and which never sees a difficulty but to yield to it, or at best to evade it,—down we go to the bottom of the abyss, and nothing short of Omnipotence can save us….
This is exactly how the GOP and people like Karl Rove and Jennifer Rubin and the others of the ill ilk are confronting the Leftist Dynamo. Mr. Burke had to contend with people like them [PM Pitt The Younger on the Tory side and the Old Whigs on his own] and, in fact, these Remarks are directed straight at them. Eventually, these men did adopt Edmund Burke’s outlook and eventually Revolutionary and later Napoleonic France was defeated, but because of their refusal to adopt that outlook much earlier, the war dragged on for many years, with many lives lost, and Europe never recovered from the Revolutionary Cancer.
America is perhaps already far enough along that we will not be able to avoid a long and drawn-out conflict between the Left In America and those of us who are True Americans.
No matter whether we are or not, it is imperative that we heed Mr. Burke and act accordingly.
