The One Great Thing!

Andrew Klavan talks about it on his Daily Wire podcasts, but he also writes about it in PJ Media!

The real issue is this: do we want to preserve American liberty and the constitutional machinery that maintains that liberty — or not?

Any two people who agreed that liberty is the central American good and worth preserving could argue productively. We could compromise on redistribution as long as we both acknowledged how essential private property is to freedom. We could make adjustments in gun control if we both understood that an armed populace is our last defense against tyranny. We could easily confirm Supreme Court justices if we acknowledged that their role was not to make law but to ensure laws are in keeping with the Constitution. We could debate anything as long as we both agreed to our right to speak.

But the moment I know I am talking to a socialist — who believes my work, my time, and thus my life belong to the state — the moment I know I am talking to a leftist — who will not concede my right to self-defense — the moment I know I am talking to a cheat willing to have our founding document rewritten from the bench — the moment I know I’m with a censor who thinks it’s fine to silence me whether on social media or in the news media or through the courts — I will not give one bloody inch. Because, in that case, each concession becomes another step to the eradication of the one political asset I hold most dear: my freedom.

That is where we find ourselves. To my mind, our news media, our academies, the corporate culture of Silicon Valley, and the Democrat Party have all lost the plot of American liberty. They believe in socialism. They believe in a disarmed populace. They believe in ruling through the judiciary. And they believe in censorship of ideas they don’t like.

Under that circumstance, they can catch Donald Trump paying hush money to the entire Rockettes chorus line. They can shed their crocodile tears over every shooting victim on earth. They can whine about Merrick Garland all the want. And they can curse me out and shut me down on every media vehicle they own. I will not surrender to them even a little.

Until we can agree on the One Great Thing — that Americans should be free — we can’t agree on anything. And we are doomed to repeat the same conversations again and again.

Read more here.