Huge Shout Out to Ladd Ehlinger!

Zilla put the call out for conservatives to stand against evil, and a number of folks have answered the call, joining Zilla's honor roll of moral right.

I've been off the grid, so I'm just now reading all the responses. Ladd Ehlinger responded at his blog with an entry, and I read that first and was moved to write without delay. See "When Flame Wars Spill Offline: Conservative Media Should Stand Up." And my comments there:

Ladd, we've engaged enough times by Twitter that I certainly consider you a friend. The battle is of one big piece. The collectivists go by many names, with the Democrat Party being the most familiar. From there you can go on down to real Marxist-Leninists, the folks so closely tied to the party in power today. Values-wise, they're all the same. Perhaps there are degrees, but it's the obliteration of the individual vis-a-vis the state that's the result. I'm going do a roundup of all the support I've received. I can't begin to thank you all enough. I've been on a high all day and I haven't come down yet. That strength from conservative solidarity is unconquerable, and I hope we sustain it!

The progressives mock and ridicule the notion of secular collectivism, but when I argue that the left's attacks on truth and honesty are "satanic," that's the referential understanding. Marxism is a secular religion. It is a belief system which seeks a totalizing dominion over truth and over those who claim a truth based on universal right. According to Leonidas Donskis, in Forms of Hatred: The Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature:

A world religion, a secular belief system, and a rival civilization, Marxism came into existence as a false secularization of consciousness. Marxism has always rested on a sort of secular demonology, splitting humanity into warring groups and demonizing what it took as agents of exploitation and social evil.

As a kind of secular Church, Marxism succeeded, in a historically unprecedented way, in satisfying the ideological, political, and psychological needs of marginalized and alienated intellectuals scattered around the world. It became the first secular Umma of intellectuals. Moreover, it provided its adherents, those secularly religious radicals and doctrinaires, with a sense of pride --- after all, Marxism made intellectuals a major force in history and a presence in all societies, Marxist and non-Marxist alike --- and also with a spiritual fatherland. Marxism designed the revolutionary-ascetic moral culture, which has always been at odds with all other modern systems of moralization, especially with the liberal and nationalist moral cultures.

Linkmaster Smith, at The Other McCain, responds to developments with a version of this, "They Truly Hate Liberty." But more formally is Lisa Graas, "Is American Power Blog Under Attack From Satan?" Both warn that conservatives, in fighting evil, must stay true to God. Conservatives must live good and decently, for then they will have even more strength to carry them forward. Here is my response to Lisa Graas:

Thanks Lisa. Your advice is welcomed. I live by Him in my actions. None of us are perfect, but I never waver from the truth in my dealings with people, I never bear false witness. I can thus claim a moral position that my opponents repeatedly have made frightening haste to abandon. At my blog I linked the series of workplace attacks I've endured, with a record there of the libelous allegations made against me. Even were these normal political and ideological differences, one must beware the forces of evil lurking about in all the lies. This is what I believe. And in that I believe in God, in that He would have me stand for truth and against the lies. And more, in that all politics for me is moral, I do good by Him if I push ahead for a political vision of goodness and right. Sometimes, I'm told, I might use more care to stay on the side of right. So, I'm working on it. I succumb to emotion at times. But in faith I find strength, for no one should be subject to these campaigns of destruction. Those endlessly and remorselessly working against me are secular demons who live not by His holiness, but by the opposite that attempts to pull the Christian warriors asunder.

Thanks again.

I will be updating and adding new posts --- with links to others blogging on this--- in appreciation for all the support. Please head over to Zilla's if you haven't already. She'll add your link to the honor roll.