One
Armies of the Night
Me? A cold warrior? Well, yes—if that is how they wish to interpret my defense of values.
—MARGARET THATCHER
President Hernandez is unquestionably a woman of deeply held convictions. That should be obvious to anyone reading her address to the nation. But, because she is committed to the secular-progressive agenda, she sees America in a far different way than the Founding Fathers saw it, although she would never admit that.
The goals and philosophies that the President so enthusiastically stated are all in play right now in America, every one of them.
Let's recap:
• A sharing of the wealth by targeting the affluent for most of the government's revenue.
• Lax school discipline on American children to promote their so-called liberties.
• Naked hostility to religious values and their expression in public.
• A "one-world" approach to foreign relations that would prevent the U.S. government from imposing a policy that would benefit America first.
• A touchy-feely vision of our society that places individual self-expression and rights over self-sacrifice and adult responsibility.
No politician today would dare state this secular-progressive program openly, because the country is not ready for this agenda. But believe me: The vision articulated by President Hernandez is on the drawing board. The armies of secularism are rising and the public is largely unaware of what is taking place.
If you pay attention to the culture wars, it is clear who the shock troops are: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the vanguard, waging a war of legal maneuvers designed to ensure secular policies without having to go to the ballot box. In the past ten years, thousands of ACLU lawsuits have blitzed the legal system, almost all of them designed to promote progressive causes and banish traditional ones.
A few far-left billionaires finance the progressive shock troops—millions have poured into the ACLU war chest as well as into the pockets of Internet smear merchants who engage in character assassinations of perceived opponents.
The online character assassins also make good use of the mainstream print media, which are about three-quarters progressive, by my estimation. The level of ideological commitment of the leftist media varies. Leading the way, you have the most enthusiastic secular-progressives, the New York Times and other committed left-wing papers, but you also have legions of quieter S-P sympathizers. These mainstream media enablers provide aid and comfort for the frontline troops and are invaluable in getting their message out to an even wider audience.
Marching alongside the progressive print media are the Hollywood elite and a smattering of television people. They also help get the S-P message out and often marginalize the traditional opposition by mocking them or portraying them as wackos. Jon Stewart is a good example of someone who is not nutty left but who is clearly sympathetic to the S-P cause and who uses his nightly forum to promote it (admittedly, with a great sense of humor).
While some Hollywood people like Barbra Streisand and George Clooney are truly progressive fanatics, most of the liberal media figures are not in that category. They are more interested in themselves, in their personal success, than in some political jihad. However, they do enable the secular-progressives by failing to challenge their radical agenda while marginalizing any meaningful opposition that tries to block the road.
The ACLU, on the front lines, is extremely aggressive and well funded, as I have stated. That means they are serious people. On my programs, I have called this crew a "fascist organization" because they seek to impose their worldview on America—not by the popular vote, which is the way it is supposed to be done in a democracy, but by "gaming" the legal system. Because they know that they will never, ever achieve their goals on Election Day, their strategy is to rely on activist left-wing judges to bring about secular changes in our laws.
The most notorious example of this strategy is the gay-marriage ruling in Massachusetts. The ACLU helpfully pointed out to the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth that the state constitution had an apparent loophole: That is, the document failed to define marriage specifically as between one man and one woman. Presto! With the stroke of a pen, the liberal court wiped out more than three hundred years of legal traditional marriage going back to the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The ACLU was in ecstasy.
To this culture warrior, gay marriage is not a vital issue. I don't believe the republic will collapse if Larry marries Brendan. However, it is clear that most Americans want heterosexual marriage to maintain its special place in American society. And as long as gays are not penalized in the civil arena, I think the folks should make the call at the ballot box. Traditional marriage is widely seen as a societal stabilizer, and I believe that is true.
But if you are trying to secularize American society, gay marriage is a good place to start—thus the ACLU's fervor on this issue.
By the way, it is worth noting that Massachusetts is home ground for the ACLU. It is in this state where that organization volunteered to represent the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) pro bono in a civil case after a particularly brutal and (you would think) indefensible crime in Cambridge. I'll give you more details in the chapter on protecting children, but, briefly, a ten-year-old boy named Jeffrey Curley was raped and murdered by two men, who were caught and convicted. One of the killers had written in his diary that NAMBLA literature, which encourages adult rape of children, gave him some incentive to assault the boy. The killer has said he gained access to the NAMBLA material at the Boston Public Library. It was easy enough. He simply went there and punched up NAMBLA's Web site on a library computer.
Outraged as well as brokenhearted, the Curley family sought to avenge their young son and prevent any further heinous crimes by filing a $200 million federal lawsuit against NAMBLA. That gave the ACLU another chance to do what it often does: defend and promote harmful conduct based on a theoretical argument that any kind of censorship is bad. Think about it. What if Jeffrey Curley had been your child? Can you imagine the suffering and horror this boy had to undergo? And here comes the ACLU, guns blazing, ready to defend free of charge an organization that promotes the rape of children.
Too harsh? Not in my view. I have given you the no-spin truth. This is why I am fighting this culture war. This is why there is such conflict in America. Don't forget Jeffrey Curley—he is one of the main reasons the secular-progressives must be defeated. I truly believe the ACLU and its supporters are extremely dangerous. If these people win the culture war, the United States as we have known it for 230 years will cease to exist. This is the crux of the culture war: saving traditional America from those who want to change the country drastically—not by popular vote, but by judicial fiat.
Copyright © 2006 by Bill O'Reilly.
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Bill O'Reilly is the very embodiment of the idea of a Culture Warrior--and in this book he lives up to the title brilliantly, with all the brashness and forthrightness at his command. He sees that America is in the midst of a fierce culture war between those who embrace traditional values and those who want to change America into a "secular-progressive" country. This is a conflict that differs in many ways from the usual liberal/conservative divide, but it is no less heated, and the stakes are even higher. In Culture Warrior, Bill O'Reilly defines this war and analyzes the competing philosophies of the traditionalist and secular-progressive camps. He examines why the nation's motto "E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One") might change to "What About Me?"; dissects the forces driving the secular-progressive agenda in the media and behind the scenes, including George Soros, George Lakoff, and the ACLU; and dives into matters of race, education, and the war on terror. He also shows how the culture war has played out in such high-profile instances as The Passion of the Christ, Fahrenheit 9/11, the abuse epidemic (child and otherwise), and the embattled place of religion in public life--with special emphasis on the war against Christmas. Whatever controversies are roiling the nation, he fearlessly confronts them--and no one will be in the dark about which side he's on. Culture Warrior showcases Bill O'Reilly at his most eloquent and impassioned. He is an unrelenting fighter for the soul of America, and in this book he fights the good fight for the traditional values that have served this country so well for so long.
