First up was the culture war.  One of the more popular forms (War on Christmas) is generally held in contempt by people with half a brain as it cycles through late every year.  It is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It's funny, though, to read it from the other side:

In 1999, Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, wrote in a public letter to his fellow social conservatives: "I believe that we probably have lost the culture war ... [I]n terms of society, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kinds of policies we believe are important." According to Weyrich, conservatives should admit that they are a moral minority in America and form their own counterculture, like "a band of hardy monks who preserved the culture while the surrounding society disintegrated."

Go right on ahead and do that, Paul.

The next phase of the recent battle was FDR's Legacy:

Having lost the culture wars by 2000, the counterrevolutionaries of the right persisted in their radical efforts to repeal the New Deal. The control of both the White House and Congress by Republicans from January 2001 to January 2007 (excepting the brief respite provided by Jim Jeffords) gave conservatives an even better chance to achieve their economic goals than they had experienced during the Reagan era of divided government. Buoyed by War on Terror hubris, aided by inflated Congressional majorities and a distracted public, the Republicans were able to get their counterrevolutionary anti-entitlement agenda on the docket at last -- and it died a miserable death.

Do you recall how quickly privatization talk died down after the 2004 reselections?  It was almost like the number geeks in the GOP were paying attention.

Shall we take a look at Strike 3?  It's a doozy:

The counterrevolution of the right against liberal internationalism failed around the same time, early in George W. Bush's second term. In Bush's first term, the neoconservatives, whose influence had been limited in the Reagan years, called the shots. They rejected international law as a trap and argued that only an American monopoly of brute power, not great power cooperation, could achieve peace. The theory of conservative lawyers is simple: If the United States does it, it's legal, and if the president does it, it's constitutional.

Which, of course, is bullshit and the American people know it:

Once again, the American people said no to the counterrevolution of the radical right. In the midterm elections of 2006, the voters tossed the Republican Party out of control of both houses of Congress. Since then, the remaining neocons in the administration have been purged or marginalized, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a pragmatic "paeloconservative" internationalist like Bush's father and James Baker, arrived to act as trustee in bankruptcy for the son's failed administration. The much-hyped "surge" in Iraq may have succeeded as a temporary tactic, but the right's global strategy is in tatters. By 2008, the catchphrases of the neoconservatives -- "unipolar moment," "regime change," "Pax Americana," "World War IV" -- all sounded quaint and retro, if not sinister. The right's counterrevolution in foreign policy has failed, as even Senator McCain, with his talk of multilateralism, recognizes now.

...and to some decently-trained ears, those catchphrases always had a sinister tint.

So...where does that leave us?  Right here, right now.

The defeat of the conservative counterrevolution should not inspire complacency among liberals and centrists. By rejecting the radical right, the American electorate has not endorsed bold new initiatives. The public has merely signaled its support of the older New Deal/Great Society/Civil Rights liberalism that the right sought to uproot.

I always giggle nervously whenever I head anyone talk about the Founding Fathers of these United States.  Odds are that they've found some quote from some writing by one of those guys that tangentally supports their insane vision and they're hitting everyone they can over the head with it.  I don't have a problem with that, really, because that's half the fun of being a blogger.

...and since I'm blogging, here's what I think.  I think that the Founding Fathers were some damned smart and self-aware people.  They looked at previous attempts at governance, looked at humanity and the greed and inhumanity it was capable of, and looked at their own farms to come to a fairly simple conclusion:  I like freedom and I like my stuff.  I wish I could keep my stuff and that annoying neighbor would keep his nose out of my business.  Oh, and I'm never having soldiers for houseguests again unless I want to.

So they debated, point by point, and argued about how to set up this new government.

The first try sucked.

Then they split the whole process into three parts, each with some power over the other.  They knew that it would never run perfectly but had a pretty good chance of surviving and adapting to next year and a few years after that.

Because it allowed for debate in a free market of ideas to be judged by the people.  The people  who bitch and moan and argue and scream at each other about every little thing that doesn't go the way that they want it to.  Theoretically, the will of the people eventually becomes the irresistible force of this nation.

And that will ALWAYS beat an immovable object.

Freedom wins because it is free to move past those conservative ideas that are rooted in some imaginary utopia of the mind living in the past.

That's the way it should be, at least.