By Hank Beckman -
As the Democrats try to expand their control over every aspect of political and social life in this country, conservatives need to be like General Lucius D. Clay.
Forget about trying to revisit the Reagan administration’s successes, or trying to find the equivalent of a McCain/Romney/Bush type Republican, politicians who babble incessantly about country over party, bipartisanship, and civil discourse with people prone to calling them Nazis.
Reagan governed in a different era with different concerns, and Romney and McCain types would sell out their grandmothers if they thought they could get some good press out of it. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are on an extended suck-up-to-liberals-tour as I write this.
No, what we need now is the hero of the Berlin Airlift who, while serving as the military governor of occupied West Germany in 1948, presided over the monumental achievement of supplying 2 million West Berliners with the essentials of life for nearly a year when the Soviets blocked access by rail, auto, and canal to the section of the city occupied by the Western Allies.
For his efforts, Clay was beloved in Berlin and became the first Western hero of the Cold War.
His role overseeing the airlift alone should earn him a larger place in history, but today’s conservatives should also be instructed by his performance as John Kennedy’s representative during the Berlin Crisis of 1961-62.
Again the Soviets were threatening the West with dire consequences if the Allies didn’t agree to relinquish their occupation roles in West Berlin and turn Berlin into a “free city,” into which the Western Allies had no access. The use of force was implied.
At the Vienna Conference of 1961, Nikita Khrushchev openly threatened President Kennedy with war if he didn’t agree to his demands, insisting that he would sign a separate peace treaty with the Germans that would end the Western Allies rights to occupation in the nation.
Most of JFK’s advisors urged him to find common ground with the Soviets. They insisted that negotiations would lead to concessions from both sides that would avoid a dreaded nuclear war. Even British Prime Minister Harold McMillan counseled Kennedy to make concessions to Khrushchev’s demands.
But as an aide to Clay, W.R Smyser, wrote in his 2009 book, “Kennedy and the Berlin Wall,” Clay advised Kennedy that every aggressive, harassing move by the Soviets or East Germans should draw an quick response from the West.
JFK listened to him.
So when the East German police harassed American travelers on the Autobahn, Clay arranged for military convoys to protect them; when the East Germans threatened to shoot anyone from West Berlin to come within a 100 feet of the newly-constructed Berlin Wall, Clay began more patrols along the Wall to discourage any violence; if East German police harassed Americans officials legally allowed in East Berlin, we’d respond by doing the same to Soviet or East German officials in West Berlin.
When the East Germans began harassing American officials at Checkpoint Charlie, Clay had American tanks move right to the border between the two sectors, forcing Khrushchev to respond by sending in Soviet tanks to save face for the East German leader who had instigated the harassment.
But Clay wouldn’t blink and only withdrew American tanks after the Soviets withdrew theirs. It was a significant setback for the Communists and a seminal moment in the Cold War. West Berliners—and the rest of the world—began to realize that, like many bullies, Khrushchev would back down if someone stood up to him.
Clay’s strategy was simple; respond immediately to any provocation from the Communists by making a move that would put Khrushchev in an uncomfortable position.
Or, as Smyser quoted him, “We have to make them sorry when they harass us.”
It worked. Khrushchev never did sign a separate treaty with the Germans, which would have effectively turned the entire country into a Soviet satellite, and West Berliners enjoyed continuous freedom and prosperity until the Berlin Wall came down almost three decades later.
In these perilous times for anyone who believes in limited government, traditional values, and the dignity of the individual, General Clay’s stand-up-to-the-bullies approach is exactly what’s needed to salvage our Republic.
Modern-day Democrats, in control of the national executive and legislative branches of government, are by any measure more radical than any party that has even come close to attaining power in this country’s history.
They are attempting to ram down the throats of the American people legislation that would give the federal government control of all elections, pack the Supreme Court, grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, and turn America into a balkanized nation where one race is always presumed to to be guilty of racism.
And the Democrats have the advantage of sympathetic allies in virtually every institution in the United States. Education, from K-12 to the university, media, Hollywood and the arts, corporations, labor unions, and most government bureaucracies are all dominated by leftist Democrats or people sympathetic to their multicultural message.
About the only thing they don’t control are the police and most police unions—and you might have noticed they’re working on that.
In every aspect of political/social dispute in this country, conservatives need to respond to harassment with actions and rhetoric of our own that makes the Left uncomfortable.
That means that in everyday life, political conversations will get personal and uncomfortable.
When some leftist tries to lay on you one of their talking points about “systemic racism,” calmly explain that systemic really means, “you can’t prove this BS, but you want me to believe you can.” If a friend wails that five people died during the Jan. 6 riot, remind them that the only person killed by a weapon that day was a protester killed by the government. Demand the data when someone refers to “rape culture” or blacks being hunted down in the street by police. And when some leftist tries to shut you up by telling you to check your privilege, advise them to “check this” while displaying an internationally recognized gesture.
As for legal and political actions to be taken, they should be obvious to anyone.
Lawsuits should be filed against corporations and units of government that try to push Critical Race Theory on their employees and citizens. I know that the concept of a hostile work environment is usually associated with issues of sexual harassment, but if telling people to act less white, as Coca Cola recently told its employees, doesn’t qualify as creating a hostile work place, the term has no meaning.
Education is an especially juicy target for litigious-minded conservatives. I’m no lawyer, but there has to be local, state, or federal statutes that are being violated daily by pushing CRT on our young, which basically means singling out white students as being privileged, bigoted, and intolerant simply by being white.
Start getting active locally. Attend school board meetings and let progressive school board members know in no uncertain terms that you will work against their reelections if they support CRT curriculum or the nonsense that is the 1619 Project.
If any school board members operate local businesses, make it clear that Chick-fil-A is not the only business in the country that can be subject to a boycott.
And don’t let yourself be restrained by the quixotic notion of civility and proper decorum in public discourse. Leave that to the CNN/Washington Post conservatives; they seem to think that the Left can be reasoned with.
The people we’re up against are the same people that accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting a woman no one can prove he was ever in the same room with, told lie after lie to the media about the Russia collusion hoax, and encouraged their shock troops to burn down American cities last summer—some even provided bail money for the thugs.
These are not people that can be appeased or reasoned with. Never back down from them and when a battle is joined, never give an inch.
When they harass us, make them sorry they did.
