Tales Around The Campfire

“There was no Merlin, no sword firmly stuck in stone. There was no Camelot, a perfect place, where the best of human nature is exemplified.”

The old man, stirred the fire, rousing the flames, while collecting his thoughts.

“But we forgot … or chose to ignore the darker side of human nature. An even while directly attacking those agents who sought to destroy all which was good by more recognizable means, the World War in the middle of the last century for example, there were others who were far more subtle, who in taking incremental steps over decades achieved what their more demonstrative brothers could not. And once we allowed the cult of personality to be the single most important factor in whom was elected to the highest office in our land, it was only a matter of time.

In the end, it wasn’t any one “ism” which brought us to our knees. It was the killing off of a common will, a national moral identity. In order for our society, our culture to survive, there had to be at least some fundamental lines of societal right and wrong which were never to be crossed. But when answers arrived at by logic, past lessons learned, and reasoned discourse are at first ignored, then discouraged, and finally out and out banned. This was closely followed by using the same steps to remove open debate from all public venues. The end result is the death of a national will, there is only the will of those in power.

We had hoped the scales would balance back out, as they had in the past. That they would adjust, toward the center. Maybe even further to “the right”, so some attempt at returning to the original intent of the founding fathers could be re-established. This never happened.

So, the nation first became splintered. Succession became the rule of the day. Alaska, Texas, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina, Arizona, and Montana were the first to do so. There was a loose confederation of sorts. (But what took place soon after that, well, that’s a story for another time.) And unlike the first notable attempt, of North against South, this time it was – to put it simply – Constitutionalists against the “Antis”.”

“The Antis?” inquired one of the young men, sitting across from the old “teller of tales”.

“Yes, ‘Antis’. That was short for Anti-rule of law, Anti-constitution, Anti-religion … at least anti-Christian and or Hebrew. Let’s see, Anti conventional beliefs, like what used to be considered right and wrong. (Oh, they might agree on the face of it. But in the end, there was never any thought, idea, or solution which was considered to be either black or white. Only varying shades of gray.) Anti achievement, everyone became special … so in the end no one was. Anti- war, guns, violence of any sort, so only those who acted with violence as the first or only choice were left in charge. Anarchy or Fascism was where the Antis were headed, whether they admitted it or not.

We thought we could control or contain them. Perhaps if we had started many years or even decades sooner. Sadly, it was already too late, when we finally organized, rallied, and made an attempt to purge them from our midst. And through it all, we thought at least at some point, our system, our nation, our republic would survive … be we were wrong.”