What Crusaders for Liberty Are Up Against

If you were setting out to organize a crusade to “restore the American Republic” or some such, you would need to know what sort of people you are trying to enlist in your movement. I have drawn up two short lists to assist you.

Fourteen things in which many Americans have an interest: shirking on the job; getting high; getting drunk; overeating; bad movies with lots of CGI and explosions; football and many other sports; God-awful “music”; gossip about celebrities and their weight, wardrobes, and divorces; gossip about rich people and European aristocrats; fighting with their spouses; trouble with their kids; paying the bills; getting on disability, welfare of some sort, or collecting social security payments; ways to avoid paying for their own medical care.

Fourteen things in which few Americans have an interest: liberty; growth of the state; abuse of state power; out-of-control police; sending millions of young blacks to prison, many for victimless crimes; impending financial breakdown of the welfare state; U.S. imperialism, except to root for it; aggressive U.S. wars, except to root for them; excessive government debt; excessive personal debt; living beyond their means; vulgarity that pervades popular culture; people’s general shamelessness on TV and elsewhere in public; saddling future generations with bills for current government outlays.

(The foregoing observations were prompted by Karen Kwiatkowski’s article describing her recent campaign for a Republican congressional nomination.)