This ain’t John McCain’s logrolling senatorial club any more. This is a deadly serious attempt to realize the vision of the 1960s and to fundamentally transform the United [Servile] States of America. This is the fusion of Communist dogma, high ideals, gangster tactics, and a stunning amount of self-loathing. For the first time in history, the patrician class is deliberately selling its own country down the river just to prove a point: that, yes, we can! This country stinks and we won’t be happy until we’ve forced you to admit it. ~ David Kahane

During the campaign season, I was continually mystified by how ignorant McCain was about what precisely was going on. Given virtually any opportunity to hit back -- HARD!!! -- he refused, especially during the debates (see some of my reactions here, here and here). I don't know how many times McCain reassured us of his ability to reach across the aisle and blah, blah, blah. But it wasn't too long before I realized what was wrong with McCain: He was thinking in terms of politics, which is about governing a society, rather than revolution, which is about transforming it. There is a difference: In governing, that which is governed is left substantially unchanged by the act of governing; but in transforming, the whole idea is to alter society. Obama, no one seemed to notice (despite what he said, repeatedly), was not campaigning to govern; he was campaigning to transform, by which I mean not fix, repair, or correct, but rather, alter or even abolish. Destroy.

In governing, it makes total sense to reach across aisles, make friends, roast marshmallows and sing camp-fire songs and, when seeking office, to boast of one's abilities to do so as an important qualification. But one cannot resist revolution (i.e., transformation) in that way. It may be distasteful to say so, especially if one's hope is to govern, but the fact is transformation, and resistance to it, must be played by different rules than apply in politics. McCain either never figured that out, or he wanted transformation as well, but only to a lesser extent, or more slowly. McCain should have been resisting a revolutionary, but he never realized it. How else to explain his saying, “My friends, you have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency.” Pardon me while I spew chunks. He would have been right, if Obama's presidency were going to be about governing. But why should McCain have thought so? Because he never understood what was going on. Through inattention he never understood his opponent's motives, or his goals. He really thought the campaign was about politics, how to govern. When one wants to govern (and is campaigning for office against one who wants to revolutionize) the campaign, though it preserve the outward appearance of government office-seeking, is really combat.

One cannot have failed to notice that the left have never cared to govern what they find. They seek to transform, and then only, to govern -- forever -- what remains after they have transformed -- altered or abolished. This, explains David Kahane, is why the left have never recognized a duty to -- how to put this -- play fair. There is no fair in a revolution. There is win or lose. Playing fair is how the other side loses. Thus saith the fourth rule for radicals: "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules." We should stop living up to the rule book:

If [we] had any sense, [we] would start using [their] tactics against [them]. After all, [we] have a few lawyers on [our] side. Sue [them]. File frivolous ethics complaints against all [their] elected officials until, like Sarah [Palin], they go broke from defending themselves. (David Paterson would be a good place to start.) Challenge the constitutionality of BO²’s legion of fill-in-the-blank czars — none of whom have to be confirmed, or even pass a security check. (Come to think of it, neither did Barry.) Let slip [our] own journalistic dogs of war, assuming [we] have any, to find Barry’s birth certificate, his college transcripts, whether he applied to Occidental as a foreign student, and on which passport he traveled in 1981 to Pakistan with his friend Wahid Hamid, for starters.

[...]

What [we]...need...is a Rules for Radical Conservatives to explain what [we’re] up against and teach [us] how to compete before it’s too late.

Some people probably still think Republicans/Conservatives should be above all that type of activity, should play fair. Of course we should live up to our own book of rules, otherwise we become the enemy. But such rubbish overlooks what the "rule book" is for. If the rule book outlines how the game of campaigning for office is played and your opponent really isn't campaigning for office, but rather engaging in revolution (no matter how civil the appearance), then the game for which the rule book exists is no longer being played. The game has been changed from hide-and-seek to seek-and-destroy. You can keep playing hide-and-seek if you like, but your opponent is still going to be playing seek-and-destroy. Your chances, I think, are not so good, unless your opponent never finds you. Good luck with that.

Look at it this way, if you step into the boxing ring expecting a boxing match and your opponent discards his gloves and pulls a knife, or even a gun, you need a different rule book. If you insist on boxing, you're a dumb ass who deserves exactly what's about to happen to you, if only because you won't mount the appropriate type of defense. Moreover, you shouldn't even be playing defense in that situation anyway, moron.

Yes, people should play fair -- if we were still talking politics, if we were talking simply of governance. But we are not; that ship sailed long ago.