From Jerusalem to London to Lubbock: The Global War on Conservatism

From Jerusalem to London to Lubbock: The Global War on Conservatism

It is difficult to see how the future of Texas looks like the present of London; it is difficult to see how the future of London looks like the present of Jerusalem. Nonetheless, in the battle for Western civilization, all three locations exist along the same timeline, the same continuum. That is because all three hotspots symbolize fronts in the same conflict. It is only a matter of time before Jerusalem becomes London, and London becomes Lubbock.

The front lines of the war for civilization are in the Middle East, where the only free market, liberty-loving country in the region is the Jewish State, Israel. And that state is faced with the prospect of Muslim destruction from abroad and cowardice-based destruction from within. While Israel stares down the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, a chaos-ridden Syria, and an increasingly Islamist wave washing over its neighbors, its domestic politics represent a continued battle between socialism and capitalism.

In London, the hearth of Western civilization has quickly cooled into a disastrous multicultural Ice Age threatening the very identity of the nation. London has become a place where a British soldier can be macheted to death in broad daylight by a Muslim fanatic. Along with increasing Islamic extremism at home combined with an unwillingness to confront it, London faces the prospect of bankruptcy economically as its consensus socialism drags down its once-world-beating economy.

And in Texas, the heart of American conservatism, the threat grows. The left has targeted Texas as the newest American battleground state, rightly believing that should Texas fall, American conservatism will fall along with it.

The global left is on the move. And the American left is leading the way in that movement.

In Jerusalem, America’s morally pusillanimous approach to the fate of its ally, Israel, has put the Jewish State in mortal danger. As author George Gilder has written, Israel provides a crystallized study in moral clarity: “Israel defines a line of demarcation. On one side, marshaled at the United Nations and in universities around the globe, are those who see capitalism as a zero-sum game in which success comes at the expense of the poor and the environment: every gain for one party comes at the cost of another. On the other side are those who see the genius and the good fortune of some as a source of wealth and opportunity for all.” Gilder called this choice The Israel Test.

Over the past several years, America has failed the Israel Test. American diplomats have repeatedly undercut Israel’s moral authority while simultaneously upholding that of Israel’s enemies. Just weeks ago, Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Israel with global boycotts should a peace deal fail to materialize with the terrorist Palestinian governments of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; that followed hard on comments last year in which Kerry threatened that Israel would be subjected to another Intifada if it did not capitulate to Palestinian Arab demands. During her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was no better: she specifically singled out Israel for supposed sexism thanks to its religious buses being segregated by gender, while simultaneously ignoring the entire Muslim world’s reprehensible treatment of women. President Obama himself has attributed the legitimacy of the Jewish State not to its historic identity as Jewish territory, but to the Holocaust.

And of course, the Obama administration has actively taken sides against Israel during the so-called Arab Spring. It was the Obama administration that forced Israel to apologize to Turkey after Turkey sent a terrorist flotilla to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. It was the United States that leaked Israeli national security information repeatedly to forestall an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. It was the Obama administration that cut a faux deal with the Iranians that will not disarm Iran of its nuclear capabilities, and will in fact accelerate their nuclear development. It was the Obama administration that set a nonsensical red line in Syria, threatened action, and then turned over the fate of Syria to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. And, of course, it was the United States that backed the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and his replacement with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The left has chosen the side of evil in the foremost moral battle of our day – and the Obama administration has tacitly and actively supported that side. For the most part, the American public has simply ignored that conflict altogether.

Closer to home, the American left has championed failing leftist Britain as a model for the United States, particularly with regard to health care. Donald Berwick, Obama’s former Medicare and Medicaid czar, once championed Great Britain’s failing system as the height of morality. “You could have let an unaccountable system play out in the darkness of private enterprise instead of accepting that a politically accountable system must act in the harsh and, admittedly, sometimes very unfair, daylight of the press, public debate, and political campaigning….You could have protected the wealthy and the well, instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker, and that any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must – must – redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate.” He continued, “Excellent health care is, by definition, redistribution.”

At the same time, the Obama administration has attempted to undercut the historic British influence in international affairs. As Nile Gardiner of The Telegraph (UK) has pointed out, the Obama administration has repeatedly sided against Britain and with the far-left Argentinian regime over the Falkland Islands; Obama’s team has blasted Britain for not engaging more with the European Union, with the US ambassador to London, Louis Susman, stating that “all key issues must run through Europe”; the Obama administration put its “boot on the throat” of British Petroleum, threatening the pensions and incomes of thousands of British citizens.

And, of course, the American left hates Texas. The left despises Texas, with its stellar record of job growth; Texas, with its strong support for traditional marriage and the sanctity of life; Texas, the root of the conservative tree. Should the left succeed in its attempt to turn Texas purple, America could turn permanently blue.

These are the front lines in America’s battle for its soul: a tiny state fighting for liberty against an implacable foe abroad; a crumbling empire chained to a failing economic system and undercut by its own support for multiculturalism; the tip of the spear of a strong conservative America. Conservatism has been on the defense across the globe. It is time for it to go on the offense. The battleground has been identified. Now it remains to fight.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.

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