Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Sarah Palin at Beck’s “Love Leviathan” rally

Yesterday, I wrote that Beck’s rally at the Lincoln shrine was a snare and delusion; instead of a call to restore liberty by downsizing the central government, it cheered on the aggressive, unrestrained use of force at home and abroad under the fig leaf of promoting civil rights.

Sarah Palin’s speech at that rally confirms my view. Here’s a partial transcript:

Abraham Lincoln once spoke of the mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land. And for over two hundred years, those mystic chords have bound us in gratitude to those who are willing to sacrifice, to restrain evil, to protect God-given liberty, to sacrifice all in defense of our country.

They fought for its freedom at Bunker Hill, they fought for its survival at Gettysburg and for the ideals on which it stands – liberty and justice for all – on a thousand battlefields far from home.

“Fought for its survival at Gettysburg”? H. L. Mencken debunked that lie decades ago.

In other words, if we are to believe the Beck-Palin view of history, Leviathan is the source of all good, and those who oppose it deserve to be crushed. If you’re a patriotic American in the Beck-Palin mold, you understand that citizen surveillance, reconstruction at home, and militarism abroad are noble endeavors we must support with our blood and treasure.