Conservatives Must Stay on Offense

With all the attention given this year to the gay marriage issue, it is still evident that there is a culture war going on in this country. And, with thirteen states approving bans on gay marriage, score one for the conservative side. But, we must not rest on our laurels. We must stay on the offensive. (Liberals might find “offensive” to be a double entendre there, but I digress).

A culture war is not only a struggle of ideas. It is a battle between institutions. Ours vs. theirs. Each side’s institutions are well-entrenched, but the leaders on the Left are reeling. Their party is devastated and stunned. Some of their media bosses have been embarrassed. Their radio personalities are speaking into muted microphones. They have taken a hit. Now they must be taken down. If we lean on them now, they may be crippled for a generation, or more.

Among our conservative institutions are Rush Limbaugh and talk radio, Fox News, Drudge, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the Heritage Foundation. They have NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, billionaire George Soros, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, and on and on and they still lose. If we were them, we’d be frustrated too. But we’re not.

We must continue to defeat them. A series of election victories and the possibility of extending that for a generation present a bright opportunity for our cause. Sure, unity is a good thing, but the cries for unity from the Left are a false ruse. They’ve tried it before. And, when they sensed that bilateral accomplishments would mostly help the majority party, their true intents became evident. They showed that they would forsake all else for the good of the party, but not the country. That is a dangerous prospect.

Just read one post on the radical left-wing website Democratic Underground and you know who you’re dealing with. The hate and sheer vitriol that is spewed from these people is incredible. These people are the party faithful. This is their base. And oh yeah, they’re fans of Michael Moore. You know, that propagandist whose movie got distributed by Hezbollah…the guy whose movie premiere was attended by Tom Daschle and Terry McAuliffe…the guy who defended the Iraqi terrorists as “Minutemen”…the guy that endorsed Wesley Clark and then sat next to former President Jimmy Carter at the DNC.

They claim that we control the media, but the truth is, we have done more with less and, as a result, our ranks have grown. Or, maybe…the silent majority is no longer so silent. Perhaps the conservative citizenry has realized that they are “mainstream America” and they’re not going to let the liberals continue to define what is considered “mainstream”. The Left has sought to divide America, and for what?

Thirty-five years ago on November 3, 1969, President Nixon gave a speech to the American people. It is quite relevant to today. As America dealt with the difficulties of Vietnam, he sought to remind people of the importance of public support for a national effort and he made his appeal to what he termed the “silent majority.”

Two hundred years ago this nation was weak and poor. But even then, America was
the hope of millions in the world. Today we have become the strongest and
richest nation in the world. And the wheel of destiny has turned so that any
hope the world has for the survival of peace and freedom will be determined by
whether the American people have the moral stamina and the courage to meet the
challenge of free world leadership.

Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.

And so tonight -- to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans -- I ask for your support.

I pledged in my campaign for the presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge.

The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.

Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

President Bush, I think, has tried to do this as well, and on November 2, 2004, they gave him that support. Terrorism cannot defeat the United States. Only Americans can do that.