Sticks in the Mud

Let everyone be happy, we have no problem with that; but they must not be allowed to overshadow traditional family values.

— Vladmir Putin

If, as neocon Robert Kagan claims, a second Trump Administration is a fait accompli, I will find myself three years from now in the shoes of the millions of democrats who stood idly by while Hitler's minority party took control of Germany.

You, on the other hand, may find yourself celebrating Trump's triumphant return, because—deep down—you're a Conservative. 

You're sick of our institutions pandering to Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Muslims, atheists, women, queers, and the disabled; and sick of Liberals, who egg on these legions of malcontents.

One hundred eighty years ago, the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson defined a Conservative as someone who believes that all change is deterioration. 

A Conservative, Emerson said, is the guy who's always always pleading for necessity; always apologizing for the way things are; always defending the castle; always stoning the prophets; always saying no. A Conservative is a Cassandra; a worrywart; a stick in the mud.  

A Conservative is also a fatalist, according to Emerson: he clutches to "facts," refusing to see there could be "better facts." To him, the world is a jungle, a shithole, a disease.

A Liberal, on the other hand, relishes change—and speaks and acts to bring change about. To her, the world is an experiment, an Eden, a dream.

And she doesn't care if her speech or acts offend or upset the applecart. 

She could give two shits.

A Conservative, Emerson said, is "neighborly, social and debonair;" a Liberal, "imperious, pretentious, and egotistical."

The Conservative minority of Americans today are sick of feather-brained Liberals, the "coastal elites" so happy and willing to upset the applecart, just so a handful of weaklings can feel good about themselves.

"Let everyone be happy," the minority says. "We have no problem with that—as long as you don't challenge family values."

The trouble lies not in Conservatives' views—many of which I share—but in their readiness to criminalize the speech and acts of antagonists.

That readiness leads to individual, mob, and police violence; to mass arrests and imprisonments; and to gulags, pogroms, work camps, and death camps—faster than you can shake a stick.

Even here, in the good old USA.