The Great Divide Between Left and Right Could Destroy America

According to legend, there was once a boy who while walking to school saw a leak in a wall and put his finger in the leak to stop it. He was concerned about being late to school, but eventually others came by and he got help to fix the leak.

The wall today is what is at stake. The flood pressing on the wall causing increasing leaks is secular humanism, liberalism, and false pretenses. The boy is a collective of people who see what is happening to our country (people like Glenn Beck and the people at TheBlaze, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh among others). The others that come by to help are embodied in people like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Trey Gowdy, and Dr. Ben Carson among others.

I include myself in the group of people who see what is happening in our country, with obviously much less influence and exposure in our society. The waters pressing on the wall is very large and perhaps will overpower the ability of the wall to hold the waters back, even with help.

In other words, the millions of people that support and want to see our country ‘fundamentally transformed’ are seemingly as fervent in their desire to prevail, as are the millions of people that want to see our country return to its roots and embrace what those traditions produced.

So the question becomes, should the wall be repaired?  People like myself, and millions of others, would respond with a thundering YES!

However, there are also millions that do not want the wall to be repaired, they want it to be torn down. This second group does not love what America was or how it got to be where it is today. They want to take those successes and mold it like Play Doh into their own view of how things ought to be.

Millions of people are trying to destroy the wall - powerful people helping to stop repairing the wall, and to the victor goes America. The stakes are very high.

There is no middle ground between two sides sometimes. In divorce court these are called irreconcilable differences. When there is no gray, only black and white, the answers consequently become stark as well.

Liberalism and conservatism are irreconcilable. Liberalism is the water pressing on the wall, and liberalism is trying to stop those that want to maintain and fortify the wall. Conservatism has noticed the leak and has sounded the alarm about the impending destruction of the wall, and some have responded and are trying to help prevent the wall’s destruction.

What is the wall then? I have identified the two sides of the wall, but what is the wall?

The wall could be called common sense. But then that idea would be attacked because relativists would accuse me of being culturally insensitive since what I think is common sense may not be common sense to other diverse groups.

The wall could be called morality. But again I would be attacked because the humanists and atheists would accuse me of using Judeo-Christian concepts of morality rather than a diverse opinion.

The wall could be called political correctness. But I would be attacked for being racist, because if I don’t support political correctness I must be against it and therefore a bigot, and a homophobe.

If we can't even define what it is we are trying to fortify and repair, how can we prevail?

Liberals do not operate with the same moral framework as most conservatives. It’s the ideology I am referring to, not each individual within these two opposing philosophies.  There are irreconcilable differences between these two philosophies.

The same generation that proudly attended Woodstock and protested the war in Vietnam is now the generation in power in American politics. They that resoundingly rejected their parents’ values and beliefs are now trying to press their own values and beliefs on the rest of us. The same generation that was called ‘counter cultural’, has now seen that same counter culture become mainstream. Somehow, it is now more counter cultural to be conservative and of faith than to be godless and liberal. Did their revolution succeed?

Even if I can’t define the wall precisely for everyone that wants to maintain and fortify the wall. But I can say that we all know that the wall is worth preserving. The fight is worth fighting. The wall has been there since our victory in the Revolutionary War. The wall has been strengthened and weakened over the years. But, until now, it has not been as seriously threatened as it was during the Civil War.

The wall is in jeopardy.

The recent vitriol displayed during this budget fight and debt ceiling are proof of the deep philosophical differences between the two prevailing, competing ideologies in America. Beyond Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, there is a wall that is leaking and may or may not break and be destroyed.

The wall that has maintained our republic through all of our history is in jeopardy of being torn down as it was in the Civil War. Civil war is not inevitable, but it is increasingly becoming imaginable.

The Civil War was devastating to the country, but it was also liberating. The cataclysm allowed for necessary change, and in the end, the wall was rebuilt and the country pressed on.

Now, the wall is at its breaking point with two intractable sides with irreconcilable differences. Perhaps the future of the wall will be decided in 2014 or 2016, but what is certain is that in order for the wall to be maintained there must be some successful effort.

Barack Obama told his supporters that change had come to America, and that he would fundamentally transform America. This is a campaign promise he has kept. Whether or not this transformation will last or not is what is at stake.

And the wall holding back this fundamental transformation is cracking. Either the country will proceed to be fundamentally transformed beyond what can be repaired or there will be a successful maintenance and fortification of the wall.

Featured Photo Credit: AP

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