Please bear with me here, because I’ll be drawing some analogies directly related to the November 2012 election.
We are most thrown out of our comfort zones when we are faced with circumstances beyond our control. Nothing exemplifies this more profoundly than people fighting cancer. Most of us have known them and loved them, or perhaps you’ve even been one of them.
Some have lived, some have died. Some fought long, and some succumbed early. We’ve seen their pain, their struggle, their doubt, their regret, their anger, and their unanswered questions about why they must walk this path, all bubbling to the surface; manifest in as many ways as there are people fighting to live.
Suffering along side the stricken are their loved ones. Perhaps you’ve been one of them, doing your best to stay strong and supportive in the fog of your own swirling emotion.
We’ve seen harsh treatments for the disease; treatments so horribly wracking the body that it is nearly unbearable to watch. We can hardly believe that doing such intentional destruction can be “medicine”, and yet, sometimes… sometimes. And there lies our hope. There and with God.
So we pray for recovery, comfort, strength, courage, miracles. And if those prayers seem to go unanswered and we must watch people continue to struggle, we stamp down our thoughts that perhaps it might be better for the person if their struggle ended, because our desire for them to live is so dominant that considering the alternative as being preferable seems unthinkable...
But hovering somewhere over our “bad” shoulder we hear a strong argument being made for those who are suffering who decide that the struggle is not worth the pain. They know their family needs them, and we can see that they love their sweet, God-given life. And yet, a part of us that we don’t gladly entertain has empathy for those who are reaching the end of their tolerance, accepting that they are going to exit this world regardless of their desire to live, and are coming to the conclusion that they can take no more.
So here’s the thing. The United States of America has an apparently terminal illness. She has been relentlessly attacked by the insidious, malignant cancer of Leftism. Not just since 2008, but for decades.
The symptoms? Utterly untenable debt and economic devastation due to an out of control federal government; eroding international influence, credibility, prosperity and power; cultural division and degradation, racial strife, and normalization of perversion; loss of defining national values; pervasive national self-doubt and self-loathing, loss of hope, loss of trust, and loss of perspective; crippling enslavement to entitlement; destructive social and economic engineering; eroding national, state, and individual sovereignty; progressive un-tethering from constitutional government; erosion of common law, contract law, and blind justice – replaced increasingly by bureaucratic or administrative edict and subjective justice; eroding economic liberty and freedom of association; overall loss of opportunity that comes from liberty; usurpation of property rights, and parental rights…
This list goes on, and we all know it in our guts. We can feel the deadly toll of this cancer in our national body. It threatens our beloved nation’s life.
This Leftist disease is killing the American Dream to the degree that a path to a better future for our progeny is not clear or even visible. We can make noises about a “shining city on a hill” and “land of the free, home of the brave”, and those are good noises – necessary, I would argue. But the reality is, the prognosis for our Motherland is dire, and the past is not the future. We are in a fight for America's life against the Leftist disease, and the treatment may kill the body as readily as the disease. And even if the treatment is successful, the body will never be the same again.
Some won’t want to hear this, but all of the symptoms of this Leftist cancer have happened in the presence of and sometimes with the aid of - or even at the hands of – Republicans. Hence our broad distrust of and disgust with the GOP. So we should all understand in our heart of hearts that electing Republicans is not a cure for this cancer. Rather, Republicans are like a destructive treatment that must be overcome so that the body can fight on to live another day – and perhaps if for another day, then for many lifetimes. The harsh medicine we are being offered: Electing Republicans like Mitt Romney – in effect “killing” Leftist cancer cells by removing them from the body, so that we – the antibodies – have another day, week, month, year, or term to do our desperate healing work.
So you see, We The People – not the GOP - are the antibodies against this Leftist malignancy. The GOP is only our chemo/radiation/surgery. The GOP is not a cure for Leftism, but it can give the body a fighting chance, IF we are strong enough and committed enough to fight against both the treatment AND the disease. We don't place our faith in the treatment, but in our body's ability to withstand the treatment and emerge healthy.
Now the crux of this piece: There are many conservatives who justifiably perceive that a Mitt Romney presidency and even a Republican congress have no hope of curing the cancer that has overtaken the American body. For us, the pain and disappointment has become so profound; the harsh realities of the disease and treatment so much to bear; that continuing faith in that remedy feels insane. We've seen our desperate 2010 lurch toward sanity squandered. We justifiably see that the cancer (Leftism) and the treatment (Republicans) are all but on par in their deadly effect to the body.
So we have a choice to make. And yes, it is the classic loathsome political choice between the lesser of two evils. In the face of being overtaken by a deadly and painful cancer we are at the end of our tolerance for both disease and treatment, and we are contemplating: “suicide” or “more treatment”. We can fight through the pain to live another day by supporting Republicans again, and hope that day leads to many more days, and some kind of positive future when we reclaim our nation. Or we can choose to end the fight for America’s monumental struggle to live, and stay home or vote 3rd party. The choice is that stark, and that real.
For those conservatives who say that they cannot and will not vote for Mitt Romney: I respect your commitment to principles, and I do not assume that you have arrived at your decision lightly. I respect the argument that says, “Continuing to repeat the same behavior expecting different results is insanity.”
But I want you to understand your decision in this context: You are choosing to do your part in ending the pain of the cancer by refusing the treatment. You are taking the choice way from your “family” - those who wish to see America take her harsh medicine in the hope of the body living to fight another day. You are deciding that it is your place to choose a self-determined death as being preferable and more dignified than this same old prolonged struggle, even though others would choose to stand and fight the disease for a while longer.
I respect and understand the pain that leads to your reasoning. But I want you to think of this: if it is you on that deathbed, and you choose to abandon the fight and take your own life, you will do so in a quick and painless manner. But if you choose to participate in withholding America’s medicine, there will be no quick painless death. There will be only prolonged agony, not just for you, but for everyone you love. You will be forced to watch as the American body you cherish goes through a malignant cell mutation unlike anything from your gravest nightmares, and the monster that emerges in the end will not die, and it will definitely not be to your liking.
So I encourage you now: Buck-up, citizen. Fighting for life in the face of death is indeed the courageous decision. Swallow your medicine, and vote Mitt Romney ‘12. Fight enthusiastically to eradicate the malignant Barack Hussein Obama cell from the body politic. Give us antibodies a fighting chance.
I’m going to take that harsh Mitt Romney medicine, even if I have to swallow it down with a stiff shot of bile.
HT: Libertas for sparking the idea
Cross-Posted @
RedState