Founded more than two centuries ago as a Constitutional Republic named "The United States of America", our citizens, particularly Constitutional Conservatives, increasingly refer to our nation as "a nation divided" or "two Americas". Even the left wing liberals agree that America has increasingly become a fiercely partisan, divided nation, particularly in the past 25 years.
In the Preamble to our Constitution, the framers replacing the Articles of Confederation stated their purposes: "a more perfect union." These great statesmen sought to accomplish this
Constitutional Republic with these specific ideals enshrined into reality: "establish Justice"; "ensure domestic tranquility"; "provide for the common defense"; "promote the general welfare"; "secure the blessings of liberty".
At that time and in the early years of our Constitutional Republic, our people and states were united behind the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. All were firmly grounded in centuries of Judeo-Christian traditions, values, morals and ethics as well as English Common Law referencing the Holy Bible. In fact, anyone who reads and studies the historical events, written documents and rhetorical utterances of late Colonial America, Revolutionary War America, and the Era of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, cannot honestly cast doubt that America was, in 1800, a Christian and united country.
While such brilliant statesman of the class of Jefferson and Washington did not foresee the gradual transition of rural, agrarian America over a span of 150 years into a nation of densely populated urban corridors and large cities of manufacturing, technology and services, they were gravely concerned about the character of future leaders and citizen vigilance. They knew that "angels do not govern men", and that "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom".
In the Book of Genesis in our Holy Bible, we who read it recall the building of the "Tower of Babel". While we cannot know for certain, Babel was evidently history's earliest recorded large city, with the familiar resulting problems associated with densely populated large urban areas in present-day America and around the world; they developed a "god-like superior attitude, self centered, materialistic, arrogant, narcissism". According to the Bible, God confused their language and scattered the people of Babel and their prideful "Tower of Babel" throughout the world, not willing at that time to allow this ancient example of urban population density-turned evil, to prevail.
"Fast-forward" to the present day in America, where we now have a long and misplaced admiration for such "gleaming and prosperous cities" as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Las Vegas, Houston, New Orleans, et. al. In late 2004, shortly after the G.O.P. victory and the re-election of Republican George W. Bush to a second term as President, a serious but irreverently satirical essay appeared in a small, "alternative" newspaper in Seattle called "The Stranger". The essay, was titled, "The Urban Archipelago", subtitled, "It's the Cities, Stupid!". The main thrust of the essay, essentially a strategy proposal for Democrats following the party's loss in the November 2004 elections, was that the party true voter base was the citizens and voters of our nation's large cities and urban corridors.
According to the authors of "The Urban Archipelago", the large urban areas were the home of most Democrat voters, and described as "islands of sanity, liberalism and compassion". They were further described as "sane and sensible" and have (among other things ) "strong gun-control laws, abortion clinics, crowds of people, dense urban housing, cultural and lifestyle diversity, legal marijuana, and higher taxes. "Seriously, how many Christians and Constitutional Conservatives truly believe this sounds like anything resembling "Utopia"? In fact, what they describe sounds very similar to the city of "Babel" from some 5,000 years ago, and their superior, arrogant posture sounds like the people who boasted and built the Tower of Babel!
The primary author of "The Urban Archipelago" is none other than Dan Savage, a homosexual and gay activist well known also as an advocate of pornography, including online pornography. He is equally well known for controversy and his inflammatory and hostile rhetoric as well as vehement political activism, against Christians, Conservatives, traditional morality, and hostility toward the small towns and rural areas in states both red and blue, known as the " American Heartland". He speaks about tolerance but practices intolerance. In " The Urban Archipelago ", Mr. Savage and co authors rant and rave "ad nauseam " against "red states, the Bible, rural and small town dwellers, family farms, Christianity, "idiotic faith", and "a sub-moronic, Faith-based approach to life." Much more recently, Mr. Savage furthered his public show of intolerance by profane and aggressive hostility toward the views of Christian students while speaking at a public high school about "gay rights."
The authors of "The Urban Archipelago", while making fun of "Red States, conservatives, and rural, small town America" and its people, are part of the snobbish, urbane elites from those urban areas, especially on the East and West Coasts, who derisively refer to the Heartland of America as "Flyover Country". In fact, the conservative "Red States" and largely rural and less urban areas in the middle of America, our "Heartland", is cherished by those of us who live here, but derided and even despised by the elite, left-wing, self styled "urbane" city dwellers from our large urban metropolises who "fly over" this wonderful heartland when commuting from, perhaps, San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
The authors of "The Urban Archipelago" and their smug, left-wing allies whose claim their large urban centers are so superior, fail to mention the alarmingly high rates of crime and violence (despite gun control laws); massive municipal debt despite heavy tax burdens; out-of-control gang violence; decaying infrastructure, abysmal public schools with staggering dropout rates; astonishingly high rates of poverty and people living on welfare, many with no aspirations to earn an honest living; children of single parent homes, the vast majority of whom were born out of wedlock; and whose population, characteristically, can be relied upon to vote for left-wing political candidates and the likes of Barack Hussein Obama for President.
Meanwhile, the "Fly Over Country" that the smug, left-wing urban elites and the self styled sophisticates of "The Urban Archipelago", ' fly over 'is the "American Heartland", as they casually travel from a decadent large city on one coast, to another decadent large city on the opposite coast. This is not to imply that there are not large numbers of good and reasonable people who are urban dwellers; certainly there are multitudes. Nor am I implying that there are not evil or unreasonable people who reside in our rural heartland; there are plenty such souls. However, my argument here lies with the statistical analysis of large numbers, which accurately portray the overall moral, political and religious leanings of "Flyover America" vs. that of "The Urban Archipelago."
In sharp contrast to the politically "Blue" (left-wing/liberal) "Urban Archipelago", the politically "Red" (constitutional conservative/libertarian) "Flyover America", our Heartland (and heart) of America, we have: low rates of crime and violence (in spite of high gun ownership); lower taxes and far less wasteful and corrupt spending; less government interference with our lives, liberties and freedoms; more self reliance and less welfare dependence; better public schools with far more orderly, respectful students and safer schools; we unashamedly attend Church, quote the Bible, and openly profess our Christian Faith; we unashamedly "cling to our guns and our religion." We do not care what President Barack Obama thinks about that. We will keep our guns and our Christianity, Mr. President!
We believe in the sacrament of traditional marriage, and dare anyone to tell us we cannot express that or any other belief protected by the Bill of Rights; we know it is our right as a Christian to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay "wedding"; we know a child has a human right to life from the moment of conception, and that illegal immigrants to America have no rights other than the right to be sent back where they came from; we know that the government in Washington, D.C. has usurped far too much illegal power, and has no right to tell us how to live our lives outside the limited powers originally granted under the Constitution. We also believe we have the responsibility to work for a living, the obligation to support our families, and the right to work without any interference from a labor union.
We own a lot of guns, for self defense, for hunting, and to defend ourselves from any agents of a lawless, America-loathing administration in Washington that might try declaring martial law and declaring the Chief Executive "President for Life". Of course, in elections the vast majority of us vote for conservatives and Republicans, and we believe that Mr. Obama's election as President is the single worst thing that has ever happened to our nation.
Personally, I was born and reared in a city of the "Urban Archipelago", and lived in another city for several years in early adult life. Most of my adult life has, by choice, been lived in "Flyover Country". For certain I can attest to feeling very blessed for having been given the opportunity to live the "small-town/rural life in Red State America". Clearly, it is a sad fact,culturally, politically and religiously, that we have become deeply, if not bitterly, divided into two different nations; two Americas. There are many, intelligent, reasonable and rational, common-sense Americans, who foresee this nation becoming uncompromisingly divided, Red vs. Blue, against each other, and that resolving that deep and bitter split may well require actions that were unthinkable only a generation ago.
It is a deeply felt belief of this writer, that if such founding fathers of America as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison or George Washington could set foot back on earth in America today, and tour "The Urban Archipelago" and "The Flyover Country", that there would be no hesitation whatever among them, to choose the latter, " Flyover Country ", as the American Republic they fought so dearly to bequeath to our generation. They would reel back in horror, at the unrecognizable cesspool found in large areas within the former, " Urban Archipelago ".
Clearly, these urban nightmares are modern-day versions of "Babel ", and, in certain places, "Sodom and Gomorrah."
How will this bitter divide between two Americas be resolved? By the emergence of a new, Constitutional Conservative political movement and/party? By a nationwide citizen revolt, rallying around our original Constitutional Principles and the State's Rights under the Tenth Amendment? Will our country divide into two separate nations, one Blue, Left-Wing, and decadent, immoral and disintegrating, the other, Red, Constitutionally Conservative, vibrant, growing and alive with individual liberty, freedom, opportunity and Exceptionalism?
If we continue down our present, self-destructive path with a President, administration and federal court system hell-bent on destroying all of America, and a so-called "Conservative" Congress which appears unwilling to lift so much as a whimper and a pinky finger to stop this nightmare, then surely some other reasonable and sane alternative future for America must be our imperative. Americans, will all the true Patriots who oppose the direction we are being taken by the current government in Washington, D.C., please stand up and be counted! Constitutional Conservatives, America is ours to lose, or to save. This is a decisive moment in our nation's history ! This is not " Flyover Country ", this is our America! Please, stand up, step forth, and accept your noble call to duty!
Dale Summitt
Trailblazing America
