Ambassadors of that other country we share borders with. The smiling mask slips to reveal the evil underneath. "Gott mit uns?" Which god is that?

"There is abroad in our land the growing thought that America is now in fact two countries sharing a common border and (mostly) a common language but divided along the answer to this question: DOES THE GOVERNMENT SERVE THE PEOPLE OR DO THE PEOPLE SERVE THE GOVERNMENT? . . . This is not a question whose answer can be finessed, compromised or negotiated. It is either one or the other. It is either the answer of individual liberty or that of the collectivist Borg. It cannot be both or part of either. For our part we would be happy just to be left alone. But the collectivist impulse – the tyrannical appetite – cannot be readily denied by its practitioners. It is an addiction for which there is no easy 12-Step Program. And those who possess this insatiable appetite for other people's liberty, property and lives can only be deterred by the compelling and credible counter-argument that such appetites come with personal consequences for them – consisting at the least of a bad case of indigestion and, if necessary, broken teeth. -- Mike Vanderboegh, speech at the Alamo, 19 October 2013.

"Democrats are More Bothered by the Second Amendment than Socialism." It should be noted that socialism in its various collectivist permutations is the prime killer ideology of all time, by more than one reckoning stacking up more bodies in the 20th Century alone than all of the religious wars ever fought. The columnist notes:

So, to recap, opposing capitalism doesn’t bother modern Democrat primary voters one whit. On the other hand, having even the smallest amount of respect for the Second Amendment is a political death sentence. I bring this up because for all that people talk about the way that Washington has changed and for all that people moan about how Obama has overstepped his executive authority (and he has), it’s equally important to understand that Washington is merely reflecting the fact that America has changed.

Not merely "changed," but developed into two distinct countries, one of which will continue and the other assigned to the dustbin of history according to the will of God and the actions (or inactions) of those who claim to be on His side. In any case, given the fundamental differences of world view, the argument will not be settled without the violence of bloody civil war. If history teaches us anything, it is clear on that. Readers will also recall Vanderboegh's Dictum of Collectivism:

"A socialist is a communist who has not yet found his AK-47 or the will to use it, whereas a communist is a socialist who has found his AK-47 and the determination to kill you with it to get what he wants. The difference is merely one of timing and opportunity." -- Mike Vanderboegh.

"Gott mit uns" (God is with us) was a phrase commonly used on arms, armor and field equipment such as belt buckles in the German military from the German Empire to the end of the Third Reich. The Russian Empire used it as well, in World War I, and combatants on both sides slaughtered each other in the millions, each ironically invoking the same deity, each convinced that God was on THEIR side and not their enemy's. The real question was and is not whether God is on our side but rather are we on His?

The domestic enemies of liberty in this country in this century have made it plain that beyond the same kind of meaningless lip service that the Nazis gave the phrase (witness Nancy Pelosi's claimed Catholicism), their gods are not the God of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David and Christ but rather (and variously) Gaia, or Satan, or the child-destroying Moloch, or Baal of the "sacred orgies" or Man himself alone as in Humanism and Collectivism.

Yet this should not, by simple process of elimination, be accepted as proof that we are on God's side. I refer you to my recent post, regarding the Oregon massacre and the evil in the mirror. Let us make sure in whose service we fight, lest we all become Matthew Arnold's "ignorant armies clashing by night."

The coat of arms of the Prussian state, 1933.