One Man with Courage Makes a Majority

Most people are naturally drawn to a crowd. Good or evil, right or wrong, it's always easier to be part of the majority. The election strategies of the past generations in the West has been for the winning party to seem to represent the majority, a trick done by staying on the right side of the polls, managing the media and putting out the message to the public that insures you stand with the majority.

And with that approach the bold style of leadership that once characterized the West has all but faded away. We no longer want boldness, we demand mediocrity, and time and time again we get it. We want to avoid making waves. We want to be on the right side of the mob, and so very often we are. The mass mob that invaded Washington D.C. to anoint a leader who stood for no clear set of policies or understandable agenda, were the product of the crowd. The faceless crowd worshiping a man whose face was everywhere, and whose ideas were nowhere, was the perfect testament to how the democracy of ideas had become supplanted by the democracy of the lowest common denominator.

Today to take a stand is to invite controversy. The safest way to succeed is to repeat what others are saying. To find a leader and follow him. To be anything but on the safe side of the moderates is to invite the wrath of people who dread nothing so much as taking a stand.

And so increasingly the good guys stand alone.

The countries that are encircled by terrorism, whether it's Columbia or Israel, whether it's Marxist terrorism or Islamist terrorism, they are now on the wrong side of an administration whose reigning figure had mentors who were Marxist terrorists and Islamists. This administration had contacts with both the Narcoterrorists and the Islamofascists, and intends to reward both.

Cuba's failed Marxist regime, on the verge of Democracy, too is set to receive a boost from Obama, that will work to build US ties, and begin the flow of American trade with Cuba, that will help sustain the brutal dictatorship, and perpetuate its campaign to enslave other Latin American countries into Marxist dictatorships, as they have done to Venezuela and Ecuador.

Those governments who resist terrorism will be the ones branded as terrorist states, as human rights violators, and evildoers. As states outside the "consensus" of the human rights community. As enemies of the UN crowd, the backslapping, head chopping collection of tyrants and thugs. As extremist countries who refuse to bow to terrorism.

Individually too, the good guys stand alone.

The agenda directed out of Washington and the EU, and carried on by numberless organizations will be to intimidate and silence dissenting views at home. The charge, as always, will be accusations of extremism. And there of course is no defense.

A statement made or an association with someone else who is in the process of being denounced ... and you can be denounced as an extremist, while everyone is duly warned not to associate with you. It can happen to members of parliament or just individuals who have spoken their mind. The verdict comes down, the denunciation process is spread across a series of forums, and the persecution begins.

This of course is a cheap mimicry of the old Soviet process that began with denounciation and concluded with a one way trip to the Gulag. There are no Gulags now, but in Europe there are prisons, and in America there is the dead silence of being shunned as a non-person. An extremist.

The enemy's best weapon is the crowd. The crowd fears most being outside of that comforting packed mass of bodies. And the right and the anti-jihadi movement has its own crowds as well. To be outside the crowd on your own is a scary thing. And so even without the gulags and the prisons to back it up, the threat of being called an extremist is a scary thing.

But what does being called an extremist really mean? There are extremists who believe all sorts of things that are evil. But it's perfectly possible to be specific in condemning their beliefs. The general charge of extremism is aimed at the fear of being distanced from the crowd. To be an "extremist" is to be apart from the majority, and that is a very frightening thing indeed.

We are in the twilight of the era of free speech. While there may be free speech for the fanatics of the left, for the maddened Imams who preach death from every Mosque in London and Paris... there is to be none for their critics. Those who oppose them are to be silenced and shunned. Imprisoned if need be. The crowd has spoken. Or rather the crowd has been spoken to.

But consensus is not truth, and to be with the crowd is to be more often wrong, than right. The greatest danger for those who have the truth on their side and are willing to speak up for it, is factionalism. Is to be constantly split down and on the hunt for "extremists". If the left will have its way, we would spend the day doing nothing more than chasing our own tails and denouncing them for their extremist views.

When Obama seeks to split Republicans into moderates and extremists, he is playing that game. When the "extremist hunt" targets European parties, that game is still being played. When the anti-jihadist blogsphere is full of denunciations and counter-denunciations over claims of extremism, we chase our own tail to no end or purpose.

We are not the members of the crowd. We do not sit in front of the television all day nodding passively along as the talking heads deliver their carefully worded profundities, urging us not to worry, and go along with our leaders. We are those who know something is wrong and speak out against it. And that makes us a threat.

When the crowd abdicates its responsibility and intelligence, one man or woman with courage makes a majority. In that absence, we become the majority, because we dare to speak out. Just as a true assembly of nations is an assemblage of civilized nations who refuse to bow to terrorism, so too the true majority rests in those individuals defending their countries by warning them of the cliff ahead.

The most frightening thing to the shepherds of the crowd, is that the crowd will wake up and realize that they are being marched off a cliff. The bullhorn, the alarm clock, even the whisper that may wake them up must be denounced and made forbidden. Their challenge is to reach the cliff at which point it will be too late to do anything. Our challenge is to reach them before that happens.