As the American political scene increasingly takes on the shape of an ideological war zone, we are witnessing the emergence of countless born again constitutionalists that are railing against business as usual in Washington. And it’s little wonder since both political parties seem to be engaged in speed trials on shredding the constitution, even as they compete for the hearts, minds and wallets of the voters.
The Libertarian Party has gained some valuable real estate in the shifting political landscape and is riding a modest but growing wave of support among the disenfranchised and disheartened electorate. It’s an offshoot partly of the Ron Paul Revolution, promising a restoration of America to its constitutional ideals and a return to the fundamental liberties embodied in our great constitution.
The question is, is this revolution real, or is it just more antics by political hacks scamming votes and bucks off the citizenry, as the nation continues to decline?
While the rhetoric from the new wave seems genuine, some the realities simply point to more shenanigans as usual.
In an article on Men’s News Daily “No Large Men‘s Groups?” September 22, 2009, Men’s Rights Activist, Angry Harry pointed to the problem of “self serving government” and how the political system benefits from profitable, woman-centered programs and ignores men’s programs because they are not so economically viable.
In response to Harry’s piece, Eric Dondero, publisher of The Libertarian Republican submitted the following comment.
“There are a handful of us bloggers on the right that do see a connection between the men’s rights agenda and the libertarian/conservative agenda. Not all of us have a closed ear to the concerns of the men‘s rights movement.”
Heartened by this statement, I went to the Libertarian Republican hoping to see some column space that supported Dondero’s claim and lent support to men’s initiatives, or that hopefully even acknowledged them.
I might as well have been looking for icebergs in Arizona.
In a review of the last two months of their archives there is no reference to men’s issues at all. A keyword search on the site yielded the following results, as of this writing.
Men’s rights- No returns
Fathers rights- No returns
VAWA- No returns
Family Court- Bingo! We have a winner!
Oh, but wait.
The single return for family court was an article supporting Fahtima Rifqa Bary, the seventeen year old girl from Gahanna, Ohio who told the world she ran away to Florida because her Father was going to murder her for converting to Christianity. It’s a claim that she maintains despite the fact that three separate law enforcement investigations found that no such threat ever existed, and despite the fact her father, the Muslim “extremist,” allowed her to be a high school cheerleader, dancing in shorts in front of cheering crowds, and knew about her Christian conversion a long time before she ran away.
By all reasonable indications, this is just another case of false allegation by a woman against a man, only with an Islamic twist. And it sheds about as much light on men’s issues as Ms. Magazine, except to the extent that we get yet another lesson that in the world of politics. Even with the libertarians, it’s still about the great partisan divide; about Muslim and Christian, conservative and liberal, right and left, but not right and wrong. And it sure as hell isn’t about constitutional values.
This problem pervades the Libertarian Party as much as it does Republicans and Democrats. And it is symptomatic of the political cowardice that infests the American body politic, libertarians included. They rail on about our loss of rights, but conspire to servile silence the moment the issues of men are raised, or worse, as in the Bary case, capitulate and abandon even the most fundamental respect for innocence until guilt is proven.
Perhaps they are just gagging on their own tea bags.
Right now this country is inhabited by millions of men that have been stripped of their property and assets, restricted in their movements, severed from their homes and children and forced into indentured servitude by family courts run amok. It is the greatest collective violation of civil rights since slavery itself, and none of these would be emulators of the founding fathers have the resolve to open their mouths and speak out about it.
Not one of them.
Instead, they have joined with the D’s and R’s, colluding to placate the implacable enemies of freedom that practice an all but unrestrained tyranny on men and boys. They cry foul at comparatively minor indignities but look the other way and whistle when the worst losses of liberty are mentioned.
They boisterously bash Biden for committing money to Amtrak, but become a mischief of church mice when the same man commits heinous attacks on the freedom of men in their own homes through acts like VAWA.
Our founding fathers risked imprisonment and death to unshackle us from the chains of tyranny. These men hide from opinion polls and angry wives. It is enough to make Thomas Payne scream, even in his current condition.
Harry had it right. One of the biggest reasons that men’s issues remain cloaked in the blackness of a great political void is because there isn’t a buck or an elected office or a cushy government job to be had from speaking up and doing something about it.
It will take real men to get the job done, but as anyone should be able to see by now, they won’t be men with an R or a D or even an L behind their name. Buying into the lesser of evils mentality of one party over the other is just a pipe dream for the hopelessly polemic; those with more interest in playing the game-as-usual than in the actual outcome.
But with time, men with more guts and less tendency to be cowed by disapproval will rise to this task. And when they do, they will do for the culture what most men won’t currently do for themselves.
The right thing.
.
