“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” (Sun Tzu, 544-496 BC)
Like another bearded provincial, Sun Tzu, who also knew something about hunting, Phil Robertson has revived what many conservatives have believed to be a lost craft, by making the art of the attack not only seem plausible, but simple.
And it’s all done with a math even a kid can count off on his fingers.
To understand what I’m saying here, you must first agree that we have been in a war with the Left for several years. Not a talking match or a spelling contest, but a war. And we’ve been losing. Though not his intention, Phil Robertson has indirectly pointed out why, and a way back.
While you may agree with me about this war, you may not agree with me that we have been fighting it almost entirely from a defensive position. And that defensive position has largely been from under our beds. Way under our beds, so safely ensconced that few if any of us have bothered to sally forth and actually take stock of the size, and quality, of this Enemy.
Let me explain.
In the immediate aftermath of Robertson’s explosive remarks in GQ about homosexuality only a few days ago, I visited as many web sites as I could, from the Left, (e.g., HuffPo, the major newspapers and magazine sites), some conservative sites via Drudge, and pop news sites such as Yahoo! News, which mostly tilt left-of-center. On Yahoo!, originally the stories were largely pro-GLAAD and A&E, and anti- the parochial redneck.
You know the drill. We’ve seen this play out several times. Just as it’s drawn up on the blackboard, the politically correct meme of homophobia was supposed to have stirred a massive outpouring of mock outrage, followed by an artillery barrage by all the network talking heads at CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS, at which time the Robertsons, knowing they were whipped, would come back with the same thousand points of genuflects every CEO since Lee Iacocca left GM has has had to perform. Often money is even donated to some gay rights foundation. At which time all the rest of conservativedom (us) would scamper back to the sanctuary of their beds where they could seek the mutual support of one another and once again commiserate about the unfairness of the control the Left has of the public highway.
In this process, the real story was supposed to be blotted out by the false meme of bigotry, homophobia, and religious intolerance.
But none of this happened.
That was Day 1-2. By Day 3, so overwhelming was the unexpected pro-Robertson popular response the national news feeds had to re-navigate a little closer to the center, trying to appear to be at least faking fairness. Instead of a slam-dunk case of homophobia the story had re-scripted to be a draw, and mostly about money and saved reputations (only one, actually, A&E’s). Since Day 3 then, the story has been “What will the Robertsons do-or-What will A&E do?” For instance, if the Roberstons leave the show, A&E will lose hundreds of millions, but so will the Robertsons; mutually assured destruction, an old Cold War meme. That’s not entirely true, but it does make for a good narrative to pass the time until some more hard news comes our way, probably after the New Year.
Personally I think both A&E and the gay groups need the extra time to think up new counter measures in this drama, since every premise they’ve employed so far has proved wrong. Their assumption seemed to be that the “Robertsons-the-capitalists” or Robertsons-the-TV-celebs” would trump the Robertsons-the-Christians, moralists, or whatever you want to call them. People who know the Robertsons already have a pretty good idea where this will all end. So they aren’t losing any sleep.
For some reason Phil Robertson, without so much as a word, signaled he didn’t care what the 800 people who watch Piers Morgan think about him, and for some inexplicable reason this finesse worked. Then other people lumbered out from under their beds, suddenly finding their voices, then suddenly realizing they outnumbered the Piers Morgan Fan Club by a way, way big margin.
So, have conservatives finally learned they’ve been hiding from mere shadows and phantoms all these years?
I can’t say. You see, although the comments in those left-leaning Yahoo! news stories were overwhelmingly in favor of Robertson, I found almost 90% of them were still defensive in nature. In other words, instead of crowing about a great victory unfolding before their very eyes over political correctness, our side has mostly continued its victimhood rant, bellyaching about the same thing they’ve been bellyaching about for the past five years, namely all those ugly names (bigots, homophobes) the Piers Morgan Fan Club had been calling them and the unfairness of it all, when Phil Robertson has made it clear those names don’t matter…if you want to beat them.
They speak as if we were still on defense. They don’t seem to know an attack when they see one. Worse, they don’t know a win when they see one. We should be kicking sand in their faces and spitting on their shoes by now.
Why?
Phil Robertson has simplified this war about as much as any man can. And he’s revealed the math that we outnumber the left generally 65-35, and on this particular political issue, closer to 80-20. That means their side is teensy-weensie tiny, but loud, while we are enormously big, but afraid to speak out. The greatest fear they have instilled in us these many years is the fear of speaking up.
For years, even decades, the Left has won by saying outrageous lies and claims, but never allowing themselves to be publicly confronted, face-to-face, with the truth. (More on this later.) So their lie is allowed to linger. This is a common tactic they’ve used for over a century.
But Phil has turned this tactic back onto them. For years we have been afraid to speak out for fear the left would single us out and give us an earful of their awful name-calling. Remember a warning I gave you years ago, in Rules for Innocents, “They hate you because of who you are.” You can never outrun that. All you can do is change the rules of engagement, as Mr Robertson has done.
Phil Robertson shown you how to turn the tables, based on the simple fact that we have on our side, and always will have on our side, a weapon their side can never possess; Truth, with both a little and big T.
Rather than turning to confront them head-on, Phil brushes them aside as if they were sweat bees on a sticky summer’s day. He knows they are inconsequential, infinitesimally small, and that all they want is the acknowledgment they are more consequential than they are. He simply denies them that. He dismisses them as Obama would a poor man when a camera’s not around. He defeats them without fighting.
Phil Robertson spoke his truth as quietly as the Left speaks its “truth” belligerently, and has really said nothing else since, yet still has unleashed a whirlwind from millions who didn’t even know they had voices. They’ve now swamped the Left’s tiny voices as a tsunami would flip a john boat. Behold your natural power.
If we look at this as the first win in a long campaign instead of a lucky shot, we can drive a stake in the heart of the entire political correctness bastion. If they lose that, they lose almost everything, including the public highway. They will never shut up, this we know, but without saying so much as an “in yer face,” Phil Robertson has reduced them to talking to each other, and no one else, and try as they might, no one else will listen…without laughing. Once we all realize this is only noise from tiny people, and a tiny number of people, we can win.
All we have to do is follow Phil’s “rules on war.”
Mr Robertson’s (I’m older than he is) strategy is simple:
1) Never say anything you don’t mean and you’ll never have to apologize. Besides, it’s a sign of weakness. (John Wayne, Leroy Jethro Gibbs).
2) Stand by your words, even if it hurts as it sometimes may. Be prepared to pay a
price, but never retreat. They won’t always surrender, but neither will you. (See Sun Tzu, above.) So calculate ahead, but never be impulsive. Be sure you’re right, then go ahead. (Davy Crockett). You’ve never played the game until you’ve played for more than you can afford to lose. (Steve McQueen), but if you are right on all the right things, you can never lose. (Jesus)
3) Never misstate facts or lie and never get angry, for that makes you equal to them. It gives them an edge. You can never win a battle in which you’re angry. (Vinnie and Augie)
4) Know exactly what or who your targets are. Things, ideas, are better targets than people. Try not to personalize it. Defend Honor, Truth, God, Justice, Integrity, and attack lies, meanness, indifference, cowardice, and sin. This way they will personalize it instead of you, giving you the upper hand. The enemy will come out of the woodwork just to challenge you, only the first words out of their mouths will always be lies, for they have to distort what you said just to get a good running start. They can’t help it. Make them personalize it and they will lie, and you will win. (Vassar Bushmills)
In this current case, Phil’s target in the GQ article was not gays, nor was it even Political Correctness. It was sin as clearly laid out in the Bible, and sin has always been Phil’s main enemy. The others invited themselves in. It was their lies about this as the first words out of GLAAD’s mouth that has defeated them.
We are in a war, and Phil’s strategy of warfare works fine for me here, for it allows us all to become more engaged. Just understand, we are in a war, whether against Evil, sin, or tyranny, and we must engage it instead of having these hand-holding sessions under our beds.
The main enemy is Evil and as you know, I call him Lucifer, so seek him out. Just prepare yourselves for all the wondrous demons you’ll meet by doing so. It will be fun if you set you jaw right.
So, with all due respect to all the fine people who have been earning 6-to-7 figures the last several years telling us how bad the enemy Left is, and what it proposes to do to us: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Eric Erickson of RedState, Charles Krauthammer of Fox News just to name a few, they have their uses, I suppose. But what people need and want to know is how to engage the Enemy, to fight back, and Phil Robertson has shown us this one war strategy, and he was never paid a penny to do it. In fact, they say he risked it all. (see Steve McQueen, above.) Since so many are paid so much to tell us so little about how to actually go out and fight this Enemy, I have to ask, what will the preachers do if the Devil is saved? (Brother Dave Gardner).
Maybe we’re spending too much money for our bed covers?
Have rolled up news paper, will travel.
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VASSAR BUSHMILLS
Contact: vbushmills@yahoo.com
Publications: Famous Common People I Have Known and Other Essays
Donald Trump, the Common Man and the American Theology of Liberty
(Both books in Kindle format only, Publishers and agents welcome, as both need to revised)
Support: Yes, I’ve never been a nickel to write.
Donations can be made to vbushmills@thesandsinstitute.org via Paypal
