Have we passed the fork in the road?

A fork in the road:
We can't afford another wrong turn
By Ken McEntee
Active Voice

August 1, 1999

(Author’s note: In this article, written more than a year prior to the election of George W. Bush, I advocate support for “alternative” party candidates. I continue to advocate such support. But I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the complicity of our “news” media with the two major parties to thwart and discredit any competition has made it practically impossible for a third party to gain momentum. I now believe that our best chance to make a U-turn off the road to socialism is for Constitutional conservatives and advocates of limited government to take the Republican party back in a grassroots effort. It will not be easy.)


There is a fork in the road not far ahead.

The fork presents us with a decision perhaps as significant as any we have made since we began this great journey almost 225 years ago.

The fork is difficult to see, so rapidly are we traveling on this super highway toward socialism, servitude and elimination of the rights given to us by the Creator of the universe.

The fork is there, to be sure. But we need to look very closely to see the nearly-abandoned road that veers off from our nicely paved highway. That road at one time was our main thoroughfare. But, like the old mother road, Route 66, it is quickly becoming part of history at the expense of the convenient superhighway.

The surface of that old road is crumbling with time. Grass and weeds are poking through the cracks in the concrete and unkempt brush is growing over the pavement.

Down that road, beyond the neglected opening, lies a land of opportunity and prosperity for anybody who makes the effort to obtain it. There is a land there where people make their own decisions and are free to say what they please and think what they think.

It's a place where people are free to do what they want with their own land; where they can raise and educate their children the way they think it best; where they are allowed to protect themselves, their families and their property.

It's a land where people can produce or sell goods or services among one another without unwanted third party interference and are entitled to keep what they earn.

It isn't a fairy tale utopia and life isn't always easy there.

But it's a land where adults are grown up.

Grown up enough to realize that things of value are seldom easy.

Grown up enough to take responsibility for what they do, what they have and what they are.

It's a land created by visionaries who realized that we all possess certain human rights and freedoms that had historically been seized by leaders and governments which had no inherent right to seize them. It's a land created in part by farmers and tradesmen who had no formal education, yet were smart enough to understand basic principles of freedom and responsibility.

It's a land created by people of principle and integrity who would sooner die than live the lives of mindless puppets whose every action and thought is dictated to them by a conglomeration of self-appointed experts and masters.

It's a land that was well worked and protected by our ancestors who appreciated that there was no other place like it.

But the heirs to that land have become lazy and stupid. So lazy that they won't work to maintain the land they inherited. So consumed are they with the fruits of the land they have no time to plan the next harvest. That planning they entrust to somebody else - the masters who have plans for everything, including them.

As they travel into the future and the fork in the road draws closer, they have no idea where their socialist chauffer is driving. So lazy are they that they couldn't care less. So apathetic are they that they are allowing the road to freedom to be neglected by the same people they appointed to care for it.

That land they inherited guarantees them the freedom to not care. And the freedom to not think.

There are some of us in this crowded vehicle, who, as the fork comes into view, implore the driver to sway onto the battered road to our land of liberty. But the majority rules, even when the popular sentiment leads to suicide. So we are outnumbered.

Tragically, jumping out of the vehicle and running to freedom is not an option. We would surely be hunted down and arrested - or maybe killed as the penalty for our arrogant and unsocial behavior.

Our fellow passengers have allowed our masters to spend big money to care for the highway to socialism. The same masters who have taken great strides to make the road to the land of freedom as obscure, broken and as uncomfortable as possible have contracted with the popular media to chauffer us along the route they have chosen for us.

That we have been traveling on this highway to socialism is nothing new to those who bother to look out the window. The government has been increasingly serving as the surrogate parent of a society that won't grow up and take responsibility for nearly a half-century.

What is more dangerous now than ever before is that the speed at which we are traveling on the highway to socialism has increased while the apathy and ignorance of our fellow passengers is growing at an alarming rate.

They have been pacified with little bits of fools' gold by the masters who tell them to relax, we'll take care of everything.

Up ahead, at the fork, we can see two sets of guides waving us ahead - the democrats and the republicans.

There are other guides hidden in the overgrowth of the old crumbled road to the land of freedom, desperately waving our chauffer toward that road. But they are being pushed from view by the republicans and democrats while our chauffer obediently diverts our attention toward the "official" guides.

At various times along our long journey other guides that took the names of democrats and republicans adamantly directed us toward the old road.

Today both parties enthusiastically wave us toward socialism. They conglomerate on opposite sides of the roadway to create the illusion that their directions are different. At times they even feign battle with each other, tossing mud back and forth across the street to the amusement of our fellow passengers who love a good argument.

With any luck, they say, maybe chairs will fly, like on that Springer show.

As we come to the fork in the road we will be asked by our chauffer whether we would like to follow the direction of the republicans or the democrats. But both will gladly lead us to the same place. The guidance from one group may get us there a little quicker than the other, but either way, we'll get there. The road to socialism leads nowhere else.

What about that other road? Who are those guys waving us toward that old abandoned street?

Don't worry about them, the chauffer tells us. They aren't real guides. They are all whackos, mean-spirited and bigoted charlatans. They aren't qualified to lead. Shut up and stop ruining our ride, our fellow passengers tell us. Why can't you just go along with anything?

And so it is that once again, as the elections of 2000 approach, our fellow passengers are being duped into a choice of two candidates. Both, of course, will guide us further down the superhighway to big government, tax and spend socialism. To some of our fellow passengers that's all well and good. They can't wait for their masters to solve all of their problems, tell them how to live and toss them the scraps from their precious china and silver platters for which they will be oh so grateful.

The undisguised liberal socialists aren't the biggest problem we face. We know they're out there. And they have the right to be out there.

The problem we face is that their supposed opponents, who at one time guarded with their lives the nearly-abandoned road to the land of liberty, are now leading us down the same path as the socialists. The leaders of the republican party have been successfully coopted by the international socialists who have no more allegience to this country than the secretary of the United Nations.

And with the help of our media chauffers, our fellow "conservative" passengers have become down-right giddy at the notion of George W. Bush being sworn into the White House a half a year before a single primary election takes place.

"That'll fix those Democrats," they say. "We're taking our country back. Double-ya is a good man. Rush Limbaugh said so and he's a good conservative."

And for too many of our fellow passengers, the propaganda articulated so authoritatively by the media blabbermouths is good enough for them. It's bad enough that the press, which is supposed to provide unbiased, neutral coverage of the news, is so obviously biased in favor of socialist candidates. But it's even worse that the media also provides an unquestioning public with conservative adversaries who are no more than spokesmen for the leadership of the coopted republican party.

Just listen to Sean Hannity, "conservative" radio and television host and commentator. Responding to charges that he is biased in favor of Bush, Hannity responded, "I like all of the Republican candidates. They are all good. I would gladly support whichever one wins the (presidential) nomination."

While many of the views Hannity expresses on TV and radio are sound and rational, how can any logical thinking person support ANY of the republican candidates equally when their philosophies are, in many cases, completely contradictory?

In just a single example, Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes have adamantly opposed U.S. involvement in Kosovo on the grounds that we have no business being there. Bush supported Bill Clinton's policies in Kosovo, following the tradition of his daddy, the man who publicly coined the phrase "New World Order."

Like daddy, former director of the CIA, Bush sees no problem with sending American pawns all over the world to fight, and possibly die, for reasons nobody can quite put a finger on.

And that example is no minor policy disagreement as more debate will rage in coming years about whether our military should be for-hire anytime some "rogue" leader bucks the world financial establishment.

But despite such completely diverse views on that issue - and there are many more as well - Hannity says he could support any of them?

Is it because it doesn't matter what the candidate thinks or does, as long as there is an "R" after his name? Or is it because Hannity and other "conservative" voices can make smug claims of objectivity because they know damn well that Bush has already been nominated by the coopted republican leadership?

Both of those are true, but it is the former that is being used to steer the public away from candidates who are not approved by the socialist establishment. The game is to stir up emotional loyalty from republican voters who fall in lockstep to get a republican in office to follow the most despicable character ever to occupy the White House.

The liberal democratic voters don't need to be fooled. They are convinced that the government has all the answers and the bigger it can get, the happier they are. And if we can get a world government, all the better. Then we will all be one nation and there would be no more wars and we would all love each other. You know, the kind of peaceful existence we've seen since the United Nations was established to prevent war, only better.

But some of the conservative voters, who don't buy into big government, need to be duped. There are still some out there who aren't ready to give the country away. There are still those who are tired of local matters being dictated by Washington. Tired of trade policies that create incentives for corporations to close up shop and relocate in other countries. Tired of our military, which was created for national defense, being used to strongarm those who don't march in lockstep with the internationalists. Tired of being reminded how mean they are when they expect freeloaders to work as hard as they do and when they want to keep more of their earnings to benefit their own families. Tired of over-educated pinheads trying to rework the Constitution to take away the rights we were born with. Tired of needing approval to do things that are nobody's damn business.

There are still some people out there who have not missed how the republican leaders have let Clinton off the hook for seven years for crimes that go far, far beyond playing with a staff intern and lying about it. Treason is usually penalized by death. With Clinton, it's swept under the rug.

Not all Americans are blind to the little game the masters of both parties are playing.

And that's where the "conservative" commentators come in.

We hear Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Hannity and a host of others espouse their philosophies of limited government, personal freedom and responsibility. They complain about all of the same things listed in the earlier paragraph, appealing to the people who truly want to get off the road to socialism.

Then, when push comes to shove, they commence to criticizing candidates who want to push a real conservative agenda and play up the virtues of fakes with names like Bush, Dole and Kemp who are endorsed by the big-wig republican leadership.

With more and more interest in independent parties, there is hope that there are still enough thinking people left in the country to steer us against the forces of the media and the establishment parties onto that busted up road the masters are trying so hard to destroy.

The independent party movement may be the biggest problem right now for the democratic and republican establishments. And it is probably the only chance we will have of reclaiming our country.

Every day Limbaugh tries to convince his listeners not to vote for independent or third-party candidates. It's a wasted vote, he says, because an independent candidate like, say, Bob Smith, or Pat Buchanan, can't win and will only take votes away from the republican candidate (Bush) and put Al Gore or Bill Bradley in the White House.

In other words, it's better to elect the internationalist Bush, whose policies would, in reality, differ little from Gore's on important issues, because he's a republican.

That's the trick that is being played on the public.

It's bad enough when the politicians dupe the people. It's worse when the media gets into the act. People depend on the media for information, but what they are getting is a public relations campaign for George Bush. Does anybody wonder why?

In response to criticism that the national media is jamming Bush down the public's throat a half-year before primary season, "conservative" blabbermouths counter that the press is only covering Bush because he has the most support - according to polls.

They obviously are placing the cart before the horse. The reason Bush has so much supposed support is that the media is treating him as though he has already won. He's the guy everybody hears about day after day after day. And the idiot public doesn't need much encouragement to jump on the bandwagon.

Remember that after the war with Iraq Colin Powell was being floated by the media out of the blue as a bonafide presidential candidate. Polls reportedly showed Powell to have a huge amount of support. The joke was how quickly the public jumped on the Powell bandwagon despite knowing absolutely nothing about his political views.

An even bigger joke was that Powell was being trotted out as a Republican when many of his views are nearly as liberal as Gore's are.

It is that ability of the media to manipulate a population of sheep that makes the upcoming election so critical. We've already elected as president one "republican" Bush who had his hand in our wallets while we were reading his lips.

The premature coronation of his kid could signal a nail in the coffin. The public has been duped before. Consider the joke who the republicans put up against Clinton last time around. But never has a presidential candidate been elected before the elections began.

It's time to call the bluff of Limbaugh and the other "conservative" propagandists. Don't be fooled into accepting another establishment republican candidate when there are other parties and independents that have an agenda of real Constitutional conservatism. If it splits the party and gives the election to Gore or Bradley, as repulsive as that would be, how much worse would it be than allowing Bush to continue the republican deception?

That is tough to say, considering Gore is about as repulsive a candidate as ever stood up in a presidential election. At least one can see where Clinton, maybe the greatest and sleaziest pure politician ever, could fool people into voting for him. Gore is a flat out idiot that should fool nobody. Even some liberals are tired of his act and could nominate Bill Bradley instead.

The time has come when we have to decide whether we are going to play to win or play to not lose.

Taking the offensive and getting out from under sleazy control of the republican and democratic establishment may be our last shot at saving our country. Unfortunately, it doesn't take a lot of observation to see that the odds are stacked against us.

There are too many passengers on the road who are too easy to dupe or who just don't give a damn. Optimistically, though, remember that it was a small minority of colonists who supported independence from England 223 years ago.

Amazing things can happen when you are on the right side.

The above is taken from the August 1999 issue of Active Voice, a free speech publication Of the People, By the People, For the People.