Conservatives in November will challenge an overreaching, overintrusive, overdrawn government supported by the mainstream media and all those who long to be wards of the state
The Magnificent Seven, now considered a classic Western, wasn't a hit when it was released in 1960. Based on Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, this allegorical tale was transplanted to the southern border of the American frontier and populated with a stellar cast of manly actors--Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Eli Wallach as the leader of the predatory bandit band that terrorizes a small Mexican village. In view of Hollywood’s enthusiasm for sequels and our current political situation, I believe the time is right for a remake.
In the original film, the peaceful farmers of the Mexican village are all hard-working and able to support themselves. For the remake, recast in the villagers’ roles would be the American middle class. They are self-reliant, industrious, and uncomplaining. They are the settlers, the providers, the builders of their community.
The villagers are regularly raided by the bandit Calvera and his gang of thieves. They take anything of value, from produce to poultry, leaving only enough to allow the villagers to subsist and produce more goods for the taking. The villagers are beyond the help of the law--Calvera makes the rules. When one villager suggests hiding a little extra from the raiders, another says, "Calvera never takes everything. He always leaves us something." Calvera would be played by Barack Obama in the new version, and the bandits by his administration's tax collectors, law makers and appointed czars. They prey upon the middle class, taking an ever greater share of their wealth while placing restrictions on how they produce it, what they can do with it, and how much of the proceeds they can keep.
The villagers realize they cannot permit their children to grow up under this brutal system, and decide that they must fight. They are not powerful enough to resist Calvera by themselves, so they hire seven gunfighters to rid them of the bandits. In the remake, those who decide to find champions would be the Tea Party, scouring the land for real conservatives to turn back the liberal tide.
The gunfighters are all loners, and each takes the job for his own reasons. They are warrior entrepreneurs, offering services that are valued by others. Some live by a strict personal code, others hope to make a profit, one just to make a name for himself. On a lawless frontier, they are the only hope against marauding bandits. The gunfighters are the GOP candidates, each one seeking the nomination for his or her own reasons, but all standing up to a confiscatory power that ordinary people cannot resist.
After being turned away in the first battle, Calvera does not relent. The gunfighters learn that Calvera and his band cannot support themselves. They can't afford to lose--the village's modest earnings are their sole means of survival. Similarly, the government knows it cannot exist without the wealth generated by the private sector. As the government has gone from a guarantor of our freedoms to a parasite on our earnings, its increasing size and appetite require ever greater sacrifices from the American people.
When it is clear that the bandits will not give up, some villagers lose heart and want to submit to Calvera's demands. They think it would be better to serve a cruel and capricious master than perish. These parts would be played by liberals who believe that only the government can ensure people's well-being, and no price is too high to pay. Ultimately, a majority faction in the village turns against the gunfighters, and sends them away, just as a majority of Americans embraced Obama and servitude to the government in 2008.
But the gunfighters don't give up. They regroup, ride back into town, and challenge the bandits. At first, it seems an impossible task--they are outnumbered and outgunned. But they are determined to defeat the bandits, knowing the odds are against them.
Likewise, conservatives in November will challenge an overreaching, overintrusive, overdrawn government supported by the mainstream media and all those who long to be wards of the state.
Will the villagers surrender their freedom and their livelihood to Calvera? Will they trust their lives and their children's futures to his promises to be fair and benevolent? Or will they join the gunfighters to rid themselves of their oppressors, though the price of freedom may be high?
I won’t give away the ending of the original. How the remake comes out is up to all of us.
