The American Un-Civil War
By Hayes Gahagan
The American Un-Civil War is a current-day battle for the heart and soul of our Republic, a battle that is raging across political, economic and social lines between politically correct pluralistic multi-cultural globally-warmed collectivists and self-governing individualists.
This un-civil conflict in world views is between: those who believe there is an objective reference point for truth outside the mind of man, one that sets an external standard for the administration of justice and correct human behavior, where the individual is the sovereign ruler of the state and nation under the Rule of Law; and those who believe that truth is relative, existing only in the mind of man, where right is might, and raw political power determines who gets what, when and where without regard for individual rights.
Collectivism is characterized by unlimited government, a controlled economy and the loss of individual rights. Enlightened self-government is characterized by limited government, free markets and individual liberty in matters of speech, assembly and religion to name a few.
The Republic of the United States of America is based on long-held spiritual and intellectual principles and traditions of enlightened self-government. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are rooted and grounded in Creator-endowed inalienable rights of the individual, among them life and liberty. Our heritage of intellectual, economic, and religious freedom for the individual is one of the greatest achievements of Western Civilization.
We are now engaged in an un-civil war where the “collective” is challenging the freedom of the individual as well as the existence of a transcendent God whose Law is above all cultures and who endows all human beings with inalienable rights. As we approach 2012, the question is whether the individual will survive in a free society or if individual freedom will be consumed by un-civil tyrannical structures of a collectivist god-state.
E Pluribus Unum — “Out of Many, One” is the motto on the Seal of the United States of America. Yet today, in the name of freeing multiple oppressed groups, hyphenated-Americanism has served only to fracture and segregate the idea of “One Nation Under God Indivisible With Liberty And Justice For All.”
The bottom line is we can live free and prosper under a constitutional representative form of government, a Republic of the people, by the people and for the people through our elected representatives, where the individual is sovereign, the State is not. It’s only when we fail to understand and operate our representative form of government and its corresponding free enterprise economic system correctly that We The People allow a counterfeit, non-representative, administrative, bureaucratic, collectivist form of government and its corresponding collectivist economic system to operate in its place, one that will lead to injustice, bankruptcy, and tyranny if not checked by individual action.
Hayes Gahagan of Presque Isle is a former state senator from Aroostook County and a member of the Republican State Committee.
