Wise Advice: Anger Can Make You Stupid

It is right and proper to be angry right now. I am myself furious. Just the last month or so has been one heavy blow after another for the country I grew up in and love. This Iran deal, which appears to cede everything to Iran in return for nothing, empowering, enriching, and arming a power that has been the world leader in state sponsored terrorism. The inversion of religious freedom, which has gone from being a point of bipartisan agreement to the next target for elimination by the courts and activists. The assault on Southern culture and history, which went from a bipartisan agreement to do something to show love and respect for our fellow citizens in the wake of a vicious murder to the destruction and defacing of memorials to the dead and calls to sand-blast Stone Mountain. The way in which the two parties have colluded to sell out our sovereignty to foreign courts via the massive TPP and T-TIP deals. Failure theater from the Republican "opposition." Failure theater from the Left, too, where those trade deals are concerned. Of course the political class' absolute determination to foist "comprehensive immigration reform" on us, in spite of endless promises to focus on security. The clear proof, from Lois Lerner and the IRS to Hillary Clinton's emails, that the law will not be enforced to control the powerful. I could go on. These are just stories from the last few weeks. You know them as well as I do.

So yes, anger is right and appropriate. Andrew Klaven is right, though, that we cannot afford to be stupid. We need to be cunning. We need to think and act strategically. The ordinary means of politics have failed. Winning elections isn't enough. Opposition will have to take a new strength from other means -- legal means always, to be sure, but means of resistance to rather than cooperation with authority. This does not come naturally for many conservatives, whose hearts are loyal and who have good reason to think of many expressions of authority -- especially the military and police -- as beloved institutions involving many personal friends. I suggest we remember that this shift is necessary to protect them. It is to protect them from being asked to do things that are violations of their oath, but it is also just to protect them: Iran has already killed many of them, and our government is now acting to empower that nation further. It is in the interest of all our sheepdogs that we resist the current powers that be. We have to save the country from its government.

Here, then, is Klavan's advice, which I think good.

You want to win back your country? Here’s how. Fear nothing. Hate no one. Stick to principles. Unchecked borders are dangerous not because Mexicans are evil but because evil thrives when good men don’t stand guard. Poverty programs are misguided, not because the poor are undeserving criminals, but because dependency on government breeds dysfunction and more poverty. Guns save lives and protect liberty. Property rights guarantee liberty. Religious rights are essential to liberty. Without liberty we are equal only in misery.

These things are true. They’re true for white people and black people, male people and female people, straight people and gay people. We should support the smartest, most proven, most statesmanlike candidate who best represents those principles. And we should do it out of — dare I say the word? — love. Love for our neighbors, our fellow citizens, white and black, male and female, straight and gay.

“Perfect love casts out fear.”

We must proceed without fear, without hate, but with complete commitment and trust in the providence of heaven.