One of the more heartening trends in the conservative movement in recent times has been an increased willingness to openly and unwaveringly call to account those who deliberately engage in seeking the destruction of America's time-honored values.
This refreshing boldness is epitomized by a string of excellent books that have been penned by an emerging group of dynamic, conservative women, including Ann Coulter's Slander and Treason, and Mona Charen's Useful Idiots.
The latest is Laura Ingraham's new book Shut up and Sing. In its pages, Miss Ingraham-a nationally syndicated radio host who frequently appears in print and on television-continues the female conservatives' offensive against liberals who have incessantly, treacherously, and loudly advocated policies that would have almost invariably aided those seeking America's demise, both at home and abroad.
Simply put, these extreme leftists (whom Ms. Ingraham refers to as the 'elites') are mortal enemies of all that America has come to represent.
She defines 'elites' as those who believe themselves morally and intellectually superior to the vast majority of Americans, and who are openly contemptuous of traditional American virtues-such as faith in God, patriotism, and self-reliance-which they are intent on destroying.
The book's title is derived from the fact that many of the most virulent proponents of this anti-Americanism spring from the entertainment world-predominantly actors and singers-who, while properly to be admired for their artistic talents, become shrill and tiresome when they begin holding forth on areas clearly out of their depth, such as foreign and diplomatic policy.
According to Miss Ingraham, this, combined with their "unfailingly arrogant, invariably patronizing" tone, prompts a great many Americans to throw up their hands and shout Shut up and Sing! to would-be geopolitical analysts such as Barbra Streisand or the Dixie Chicks.
A very fitting title, to be sure.
On the other hand, if one were to view things from the perspective of the so-called 'elites', an alternative title may be Shut up and Genuflect!, a not-to-subtle allusion to their conviction that because everyday citizens are clearly incapable of managing their lives, they should just bow to their 'betters' and consider themselves fortunate.
Instances of such unbridled presumption abound throughout the book, and cover the entire spectrum of foreign and domestic concerns.
For example, Miss Ingraham calls hostility to religion the "great divide between elites and average Americans" because elites "can't stand the idea that there is someone greater, someone more important, or someone more powerful than themselves." That 'someone,' of course, is God, whom they proceeded to "fire," and attempted to replace with their own religion-featuring themselves as the Deity.
Miss Ingraham writes that the elites love this new sect, because it validates all their desires, justifies all their actions, and allows them to worship themselves in peace. Very much, it seems, like today's Episcopal Church.
Of course, she points out that, because the public is apparently not yet sophisticated enough to grasp the need for jettisoning its religious faith, the elites grudgingly concede that it may continue to exist-on the condition that it's kept "strictly private, so that the elites don't have to see it, or even come in contact with it."
In other words, religion is fine, as long as it isn't practiced.
With God being thus nicely disposed of (in their vivid imaginations, anyway), Miss Ingraham states that the elites then feel free to do things that would tend to give someone who practiced Judeo-Christian ethics certain misgivings-such as rationalizing the acts of the most vile mass murderers in history.
Beginning with such past luminaries as H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw, whose statements espoused the genocidal mindset that came to characterize the barbaric atrocities of Hitler's Germany, and Walter Duranty, whose New York Times dispatches ignored the mass murder prevailing in Stalinist Russia, Miss Ingraham traces the elites' proclivities toward overlooking horrific crimes against humanity right through to the present day.
The grisly excursion concludes with a properly scathing indictment of those who just can't bring themselves to stop branding the United States (and the essential national security policies of George W. Bush) as "terrorist," "fascist," or "imperialist" long enough to realize the enormous magnitude of the outrages perpetrated by Saddam Hussein's regime against the Iraqi people-even when confronted with the mass graves of thousands of innocent victims!
That elites can actually compare President Bush to Saddam and prefer Saddam is really all that needs to be said about these people.
On other fronts, the obligatory rebukes of the shameless apologists for the woefully underperforming American public school system, and the monumental hypocrites at American Universities who preach 'tolerance' and 'diversity' while enacting 'speech codes' to silence anyone who dares to deviate from accepted political orthodoxy makes sobering-albeit entertaining and enlightening-reading.
Finally, Miss Ingraham takes issue with what she terms "capitalist elites," particularly in the area of immigration policy. While there is room for debate on some of the issues she raises here, her contention that providing government services and mass amnesty for illegal aliens, and the failure to require the cultural assimilation of those who are admitted are undermining the fabric and security of the nation is certainly well-founded.
On balance, she presents a very optimistic view, stating that "the elites are either losing or on shaky ground" on most issues, and that "in a democracy, bad ideas and destructive policies can only survive so long."
Still, in light of the inroads the leftist agenda has been making through the activism of unaccountable judges and bureaucrats, the issue is far from settled.
To win, conservatives must, as Miss Ingraham exhorts, "refuse to be intimidated by liberal name-calling," and continually make the case for conservative ideas as the best prescriptions for the country, particularly to the black and Hispanic constituencies who would undoubtedly support them in far greater numbers were the case for them to be more emphatically and effectively made.
This would in turn produce a sizable Republican majority that could defeat filibusters, advance constitutional amendments, or do anything else necessary to defeat the elites' agenda.
Then perhaps, they might finally Shut up and sing!
To purchase Shut Up and Sing, click here.
