Publius Returns

Squeezing Out the Heartland

America, as countries go, is a relatively young nation. It has been thought of as a last frontier, an expansive land grab, an Anglo/Protestant strong hold, and a nation of lasting liberty. Liberty is a strange word, one that takes not only getting used to but difficult to define. In many ways it is simply philosophical, in others it is pseudo-political. People see it differently, often depending on where they were born, where they live, their religious background, or what they do to sustain themselves and their families.

As the nation grew, more and more people gravitated to the cities. Both legal and illegal Immigrants head for or land in the city. The east and west coasts continued to grow, acting like magnets, drawing our youth into their clutches. People born there become dependent on and used to the asphalt trails, the concrete monoliths, the cutie pie parks and smart little places to eat, and, finally, they have no idea how to survive without them.

I was born in the country where people were farmers, ranchers, or those who serviced them. But farms and ranches can only sustain so many people. The youth are often forced out because the land can only be divided so many times until it can no longer provide enough income for families to survive. Some young people want to escape the land. It is either too difficult or too boring. The city offers excitement and opportunity.

When I was a young man, the growing, the caring for, the harvesting, the packaging, and the shipping of farm or ranching products took everyone in the community working together to be successful. Now, machines have taken over much of the work of several humans. The young have no work and no choices left to them but to move on. Small farmers are forced out as the more savvy entrepreneurs buy up their farms. They must move or spend their lives servicing the big guy for often less than minimum wage.

The Heartland is not just farmers and ranchers but welders and craftsmen and non-union labor and engineers and dentists and … and in a phrase, the nation’s most productive.

Many of the young from the interior of America see education as their salvation. That opinion is not without merit. As the country develops and keeps pace with society and their incessant demands for technology, military strength, material possessions, and services, people are drawn to the city, the universities, or end up sparring, sometimes savagely, to stay afloat within a wasteland of social misfortune.

In effect, the population of the interior of America shrinks as the cities grow. Those who live in the city begin to forget their origins and the frontier and the pioneer spirit that found America. And the education (system) they sought to better their lives leads not back to the Heartland but to the ideology of socialism, relativism, and the idea of some utopian fantasy world and away from the founding principles of our country.

In the last election for President of the United States, the winner’s votes came not from the Heartland, but from the city. They came not from the Anglo/Protestants, but from those who feel themselves disenfranchised by them. They came not from those who live off the land, but from the inner city minorities who cannot find work or who refuse to work. They came not from the land but from the interior of the universities whose professors have free reign to train our youth in the ideology of socialism, liberalism, and Marxism. They came not from those who toil to put bread and meat on our tables, but from those who entertain us with an ever increasing loss of moral direction. Some just wanted a change from the previous administration.

As corporations become larger, buying up or forcing out the little guy, the wealthy become more wealthy and the poor, poorer. Our new president offered a way out. He offered change. This change, as it turns out, is the redistribution of wealth. Of course the so called disenfranchised, the minorities, the labor unions, and the liberal left see this as the right, the virtuous, and the idealistic direction of change. And so they voted for him. And in doing so, they are effectively Squeezing Out the Heartland.

What is wrong with this logic? Is it fair, is it moral, is it not a disgrace to have the nation continue on a course of separation between the ever increasing depressed poor and the absurdly rich? And how can this be fixed? By bigger government, forced regulation, more powerful unions, increased taxation, and communist enclaves of course.

Squeezing out of the Heartland is also squeezing out not only our Christian heritage but Christianity itself. The move to secularism is accompanied by a move to less allegiance to our moral character. Our country is slipping away from us. Christians are suffering throughout the world simply because they are Christians. Africa south of the Sahara, Indonesia, parts of Pakistan, the whole of the Middle East, and many other countries are forcibly extricating or murdering Christians en masse. Our Christian brothers are becoming some of the most poverty stricken, depressed peoples on the planet. The depths of their faith mean certain death in many parts of the world, and yet, they refuse to deny their faith. As Jesus died on the cross, many find the strength to follow him.

How can we as Americans do less? But let’s be practical. History teaches us that the change the President pursues is not sustainable, efficient, or even prudent, to use a rather lame term. Humans, much less nations, do not thrive under either communism, secularism, theocracy, or the tyranny of forced regulation. Many call America the last great hope. They rely on us to not falter, to not give in, to not placate, to hold strong in the face of the absurdity of liberal platitudes that through the insidiousness of political correctness become law.

I wrote in a previous blog that the Tea Party movement is an “Old White People’s” movement. Does it not stand to reason why? Most of them are or were part of the Heartland; it is part of them, their character, their way of life, and most are Christians of strong faith. But this same spirit fills the hearts of most Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians as well. Most are Christians. Most are those who have worked hard for what they have. Unfortunately, people of different ethnic groups tend to their own. Thus, the forces against the administration and their actions do not seem as strong as they actually are.

In a phrase, the Heartland is awakening and fighting back. They see the trend of increasing government and know instinctively that it is wrong. They see the adulteration of the free market system and understand it as coercion against human nature. They see an apologetic foreign policy and are stunned by its misunderstanding of fact. They see their country being run and regulated by people who they did not elect to represent them. They see the corruption of the money changers who produce nothing, extracting wealth from the Heartland with tiny bits of incomprehensible paper.

The people of the Heartland are angry.

They see the Heartland being squeezed out. And, rightly so, they have come to take America back.

They are beginning to understand that denial has no survival value, and that all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

"..It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."--Samuel Adams