For those who have not read it, it’s not just about blood and guts and glory. It’s not fighting for the sake of fighting itself. It’s fighting out of the sake of necessity, when peace becomes no longer an option and how to win the battles once there is no other choice but to join them. Thus we find things in it like chapter two, verse two; “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
There are many of its principles that are also pretty handy for living life in the world today. I’ve seen versions of it adapted for running a business. There are versions of it that deal in political philosophy as well as political science. As well, and of course, there are modernized versions of it on how to win modern wars and battles.
The biggest take away as it applies to the subject of today’s blog post is from Chapter One, titled as “Laying Plans,” is verse number eighteen and nineteen which says, “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
Second to that is the entirety of Chapter Six which is aptly titled, “Weak Points and Strong.” The first and foremost part of it is verse two which says, “Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.”
Now these references make complete and obvious sense to someone studying tactics on a battlefield or strategy in war but they also make sense when fighting in the arena of ideas.
You would have thought General Patton insane in World War Two had he gone to General Rommel and politely asked him where he wanted to fight the next battle, what terms he wanted to fight on, then willingly complied with every one of Rommel’s wishes as to his own movements. These are the terms of battle on a battlefield during war.
So why is it that so many people who oppose political liberalism are so willing to do exactly the same thing when fighting in the arena of ideas?
If you can’t win on a battlefield by accepting the terms of the enemy why would you ever think that you could win in the arena of ideas by accepting the terms of the enemy?
If you want to restore America to its rightful constitutional rule you must never accept or forward the premise of the enemy.
Don’t fight them on their terms.
In the arena of ideas the terms of battle are the words that are being used. The words are your weapons. The words are also the enemy’s weapons. If you buy into the enemy’s words you buy into their use of their weapons against you.
What they are trying to do is get you to buy into their premise. As all warfare is based on deception they are trying to deceive as many people as they can. When you buy into their premise you are surrendering ground to them.
There are two old propaganda tricks that come most heavily into play in the arena of ideas. The first is to redefine the words so that they mean things that they really don’t. The second is what is called the “Big Lie,” which is the principle that if a person repeats a lie often enough it becomes accepted as the truth.
Any of their misdefined words that you accept can be looked on as ground surrendered. Any of their premises that you accept based on those words is a battle that you’ve lost. This is how they gain strength. This is how you lose strength.
All you’ve done is accept their terms of battle.
Don’t allow them to phrase the argument as “protecting a woman’s right to make her own choices regarding reproductive health care” when what you are really talking about is killing unborn babies.
When someone says “I’m for protecting a woman’s right to make her own choices regarding reproductive health care” and you answer with something like, “It’s not a woman’s right to make her own choices regarding reproductive health care when there is a fetus involved,” you are a fool and you will lose. You’ve immediately accepted the enemy’s conditions of battle with you. The trap has already closed upon you and you can anticipate a quick defeat at best and days of grinding your teeth in frustration at worst.
As with the propaganda tool of repeating a lie making it seem like the truth the opposite is also true; if you repeat the truth enough it destroys the lies. The way to handle it is to instantly refute their misdefinition of words. To reproduce is to have children, not kill them. Reproductive health care is defined as medical care for people who want to have children, not participate in the destruction of human life. It is irrefutable that it is a human and that it is alive. The ending of a human life against its will, outside of self defense, is murder. You should recognize the irony that if someone were to kill a mother who is pregnant and the baby dies as a result, that person could be charged with two counts of murder. Because politics are very obviously involved and the numbers of abortions over the years count into the tens of millions, this, by definition, makes it genocide.
Never allow them to deal with you in anything other than completely accurate terms.
If a liberal comes to you and says, “I don’t want to take your guns. I just want some common sense restrictions on military style assault weapons,” don’t engage them on those terms. First notice that they will never call them rights. They are weapons but there is no military on Earth that uses the weapons that they are trying to ban. They are common rifles and hand guns. They are not particularly powerful. They are not automatic, they are semi-automatic. Be clear on the difference. There is an axiom the military uses to decide what weapons a soldier will carry; the smallest that will reliably get the job done is what they use. The bullet fired from an AR-15 does not travel five times faster than a bullet from any other gun, contrary to what Biden says.
Yesterday I went down my Twitter feed and copied and pasted everything into a word processor file. There are quite a few things that the left is trying to push into being accepted premises that we need to watch out for.
The first is that the United States is a democracy. It isn’t. Never accept that it is. Article Four, Section Four of the Constitution defines the United States as a republic. Know the difference. If it were a democracy we would vote directly on national issues rather than having elected or appointed representatives vote on our behalf.
Then there are things like The Chips and Science Act. It’s supposed to “boost semiconductor manufacturing in the United States and lower the cost of products we use every day.” While that all sounds well and good, and even if it were true, which it isn’t, under the 10th Amendment it is none of the federal government’s business.
There is a complaint against Rand Paul that he voted against disaster relief for tornadoes and floods in his state of Kentucky. Again there is no federal authority for disaster relief in the Constitution either in Kentucky or Florida or anyplace else. It’s a violation of the 10th Amendment. More than that though was certainly that a larger portion of the bill included a bunch of spending having nothing to do with disaster relief. What they are not telling you is the real reason he voted against it.
There is a lot of bragging and criticism about what the current administration has done regarding the job market. Again this is none of the federal government’s business under the 10th Amendment.
There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government any authority to do anything regarding anybody’s health care at all, excepting those of its own employees. Medicaid and Medicare are both none of their business. Again it is a violation of the 10th Amendment.
If you feel inclined to praise the federal government for taking our money from us and sending it to support the Ukraine in their war against Russia you need to know that there is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes them to do this.
As much against drug use as I personally am there is nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government to do anything about marijuana or any other drug, excepting only the banning of the importation of them. There is plenty that the States can do though.
The federal government has zero constitutional authority over anything regarding energy, oil production or the production of nuclear power. The Department of Energy is flat out unconstitutional. As is anything having to do with what they laughingly call “clean energy.”
The federal government has no constitutional authority over education. Every time a republican president even nominates someone for this position, with or without congressional approval, he is buying into the premise of the liberal enemy.
“Made in America” is one that always annoys me. Not when companies in the United States say it. When the federal government says is. It’s not one damn bit of their business where someone makes something and where I choose to buy it from. Not even a little bit. US companies, you want my business? Make a better product at a better price. The stamp “made in USA” is not an excuse for a poorly made over priced product. Stop relying on the federal government to protect you.
The federal government has no business within your communities. They have no business with anything regarding the cost of insulin. National infrastructure, outside of roads for the Post Office, is unconstitutional and falls under the 10th Amendment. They have no authority to enact a minimum wage. It’s not any of the federal government’s business who marries who or why. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government to decide what wages should be or how much corporations should make in profit.
They have no business dealing with Social Security or anybody’s retirement. Additionally Social Security is an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme. If you did the same thing privately they would throw you in prison for fraud.
The 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th, 23rd, 24th and 26th Amendments all violate the 10th Amendment. The 14th was only passed through the worst example of political corruption and constitutional violations that I’ve ever heard of in my years of studying the history of the country and its politics. The federal government has no valid authority to decide who is free or not. They have no valid authority to decide who can vote or not. They have no valid authority to set the requirements for voting. These are all issues for State government to sort through for themselves.
Every single time somebody who calls himself a constitutional conservative goes along with any of this, in any way, he has given away his part of the battlefield to the people who are enemies of the country and Constitution. He has bought into the idea that the other side is right and has sold your personal liberty, as well as the liberty of the States, down the river.
The idea that the federal government is supposed to rule over us in all of these ways is the false premise that too many people have bought into to continue to exist as a free and civilized country.
We live in a country where it is assumed that presidents can rule with the power of kings, where the Supreme Court rules as an oligarchy and Congress is free to do whatever they want as long as they can call it by the morally ambiguous term, “general welfare.”
It’s no small wonder why there is so much trouble.
The Premise of the Enemy: Part One
The Premise of the Enemy: Part Two
The Premise of the Enemy: Part Three
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