Traitorous

History may not be kind to us. George Will, a columnist with the Washington Post, made the statement in a piece published on ArcaMax, November 28, 2010:

"But looking up from the weeds at the clouds, McCarthy has a dismaying desire to bring a "futurist" to speak to the Republican caucus each week. This betrays an unconservative faith in prophets -- pursuing prophecy is a recipe for forfeiting the present -- and is a depressing reminder of Speaker Newt Gingrich's swoon about Alvin Toffler's books "Future Shock" and "The Third Wave." Gingrich said of himself, oxymoronically, "I am a conservative futurist." Fascination with clairvoyants is, however, symptomatic of an unconservative hankering to surf supposed "waves" of history, and to put government in the service of, and society in harness to, Big Ideas."

This is horrendous, but it illustrates perfectly the problem with conservatism in the United States today. Maybe the whole idea that there will be a future is depressing to conservatives. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there will be a future. We, every one of us, need to be aware what the possibilities are and prepare for them. I am not talking about cataclysm; simply trends. We cannot turn the clock back, it has been tried countless times in history. It does not work. Countries can be drowned in their conservatism. They die. History shows us that growing cultures use new ideas, and generate new ideas. This does not mean there aren’t any good ideas among the conservatives. There are. But if conservatism stops us from thinking, it will kill this country.

We are a country beset with problems. If we do not look at them clearly, we have no chance of solving them. Calling attention to these problems is not a traitorous act. It is simply reality. To ignore the problems, to deny their existence, to engage in willful ignorance is traitorous.