I began writing this column the winter of 2006, so this marks my twelfth year of weekly deadlines.  When I re-read previous postings, I think they are dangerously redundant; a concern bouncing around my mind while running the streets of Laurel in today’s predawn darkness.  As I pondered this, it hit me; my columns seem redundant because the battle is redundant.  Individual skirmishes are flavored by the collectivist topping-of-the-month such as climate change, social justice, and income inequality, but the underlying conflict is always between good and evil; freedom and free stuff.

On the right are the liberty and limited government good guys advancing America’s founding principles as defined in our Constitution.  They recognize God as the origin of rights.  More than anything else, we patriots respectfully request you leave us alone, our wallets alone, our children alone, and our property alone.  We just want to be free.

On the left are the progressives, divided into the subcategories of either the ruling class or their minions.  Progressives worship big government as their true god and source of rights.  They believe all goodness is bequeathed from ivy-league bureaucrats collecting and redistributing the wealth of others…less a small handling fee to cover administrative costs.  Statists feel the little people are incapable of providing for themselves, so must be steered to a survivable, yet equal level of misery.  Progressivism originates from the Communist Manifesto and subtly, yet purposely, promotes dependency while destroying freedom, ambition and opportunity.  Once implemented their programs will stagnate our economy just as it has in Venezuela.  Left to the left, America’s unwashed will soon lie starving in the shade of subsidized solar panels waiting for their EBT cards to be delivered to their communal housing units.  The new America for which they fight is a Marxist dystopia and this brings me to my point.

America serves as the battlefield between two diametrically opposed forces and the victory of one only comes at the expense of the other.  Common ground is a leftist lie because compromise always advances the Marxist agenda.  It is short-sided to think I can put pen to paper for twelve years and stimulate victory in an ideological conflict which began in the early 1900s.  If I were to ever go to the sidelines, it would be temporary because I cannot sit back and watch evil forces destroy all that is great about America.  Liberty must prevail.