The essay below was written by Ryan Painter, a prosecuting attorney for the State of Indiana.  While the essay violates several, if not all, of the Rules of The Only Orthodoxy, the Administration has decided to publish it as an excellent example of the sense of one side of the culture war in which this country and the world are embroiled, particularly the besieged outrage felt by social conservatives generally.  The Administration encourages posters to focus discussion not on the content of the essay itself, but rather on the the climax of culture-clash this essay demonstrates so clearly.

Obama is a suave salesman, peddling “hope” and “change.”  The problem–from my perspective–is that he doesn’t just propose a change from the Bush way of doing things, he proposes a change from the historical American way of doing things.  I feel as though the American public has become so entranced listening to Barry hawk “money for this and money for that,” that they’ve forgotten that it’s their money he’s spending. 

More importantly (or ominously), Barry and the Democratic goon squad licking their chops in the wings (e.g. Nancy Pelosi) will spend as much cultural capital on their policies as they will dollars, and impose a debt worse than anything denominated in greenbacks.  I’m only 30, and yet the America I see today is hard to recognize as the place of my youth.  I can’t imagine how my parents or grandparents must feel.  I’m not against change, when it’s warranted and leads to something positive.  But I am against change for change’s sake.  And, I am most definitely against change when it means the breakdown of the culture and way-of-life I’ve grown accustomed to. 

I worry that the socialism I see on the horizon will be long lasting and become institutionalized just like SS, Welfare, or Medicare.  I worry that the exploding number and cost of entitlements will sap what’s left of this nation’s vitality and drive, as it’s done in Europe.  I worry that the unique traditions of this country, forged from the struggles of our people and our history, will become diluted and warped by the foreign traditions of invading immigrants and Euro-centric elitists.  My girlfriend has shown me the PC anti-patriotic garbage that poses for teaching material in modern public schools, and I shudder to think of the effect it has on young people.  By contrast, India and China are brimming with hundreds of millions of well-educated, self confident young people who love their country, their culture, and believe–not without good cause–that the world is their oyster, that this century will be Asia’s century.  God that I were a Chinaman, I would be taught love of country rather than shame of country.

But China and India didn’t elect Barry Obama, we did.  This nation of chronic mortgagers has just bought into the biggest and possibly most disastrous mortgage of all, with an adjustable rate from Hell.  We’ve elected a man that will throw out the good with the bad in the name of unthinking, unrecognizing, discompassionate, inexorable CHANGE.  The relentless march of regulation, centralization, taxation, cultural relativism, redistribution, deficit spending, and entitlement–all the shameful and nasty drugs our nation has grown so addicted to–now seems unstoppable.  The federal government, already too damn powerful, threatens to intrude as never before in the ordinary lives of our people.

Consider:  Americans will write out their mortgage checks to Uncle Sam; local schools will get their marching orders from the Department of Mis-Education; radio stations will be “Pravda-ized,” made mouthpieces of Lefty babble in lieu of thoughtful conservative discourse; American industry, crippled by the economic downturn, is finding itself easy pickings for a predatory government eager to chain our companies to unions and then choke them with savage, punitive taxes; our Supreme Court, lackadaisical bulwark of the American Way that it has been over the years, will find itself sorely tested by a myriad of Lefty laws and regulations designed to meddle in people’s every day business and utterly dominate the day-to-day life of our nation; the Judeo-Christian tradition, bedrock of our national values and very existence as a nation, will find itself about as welcome in American political discourse as occultism–perhaps less so–while Lefty politicians [appease] the noisy Islamic minority and propose new and ever more insidious ways to defecate on our most sacred and deeply-felt beliefs; and the list grows on, limited only by the infernally clever imagination of the Lefty bunch.  The proud American man, a trusty and self reliant fellow, ferocious if roused but dutiful and generous otherwise, will find–is finding–himself brought to heel by chronic unemployment, over-taxation, government-sponsored besmirchment of his thoughts and ways on the vindictive alter of “cultural sensitivity,” and a paternalistic social system that seeks to strip him of his dignity and independence and shackle him–dehumanized and broken–to the business end of our corrupt entitlement “programs.” 

America, you’ve voted to abandon everything decent thing you ever stood for.  What comfort will it be to you, that we’ve replaced our proud national ethos of hard work and fair play, our can-do “don’t tread on me” philosophy, with a shabby welfare state and national schizophrenia?  Our leaders, spineless and fearful of their own shadows, have promised the security and comfort of a babe in the womb, and you bought in.  And to what heights of national grandeur can a child in the womb aspire?  Assuming, of course, that we don’t vote to abort ourselves….or have we already?  How very low are our dreams, how shallow our goals.  We had a good run, I suppose, 150 years of “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”  Patrick Henry is turning over in his grave; we had liberty, and we voted to give it back.  Not because of fear, or foreign pressure, or even civil discord, but because we no longer had the will or the discipline to defend it.  We foreclosed on Freedom and walked away.

I believed in America.  I believed in the American people.  I believed in the basic goodness of America, of its people, and even of its government.  I believed in American exceptionalism.  I believed there was a special place for us on this Earth, to protect what was good and teach right from wrong, to set an example and serve as a beacon of hope to the shiftless masses suffering under despots and tyrants.  Now we ourselves have elected one, in the form of a Party.  And I am heartbroken. 

On November 4, 2008, David Guipe and Matthew Schwartz, and millions of their fellows, roused briefly from their apathy by one last gasp of civic duty, went to the polls and voted for Barack Obama.  In that final tragic moment America voted to commit suicide.  America, R.I.P.  1776 - 2008.  We will never forget you.