From this we got the hippies, the yippies, underground comics, groups like the SLA and the Black Panthers, all sorts of pressure groups and social movements. These were mostly influenced and orchestrated by the left. In fact, leftists had a big hand in shaping a lot of those communities and they infiltrated academia, education, government, media. Over the years they effected a lot of change to our society.

You can judge for yourself how well that worked out. But you can’t deny they managed to get a lot of what they wanted. Except what resulted is a typical example of human irony.

The counter-culture wanted to be free of what they considered a constricting, conformist society. Yet what did they turn it into when they got old and assumed power? They created a society more restrictive and conformist than that “evil” repressive 50s culture they love to vilify. They have become the new scolds. They have ushered in an “Age of Unreason” where you have to do what they say or else. They tell us what we can eat, what we can say, what kind of car to drive, what kind of light bulbs to use, on and on. They lecture us about our “carbon footprint” and “sustainable lifestyle”. They claim that the government, which they have spent the last eight years railing against, can solve all our problems if we abdicate what’s left of our personal freedoms, without question.

The “establishment” these days is left wing. Look around, from the administration to most of the entertainers on TV, the message is left leaning despite the fact that the country is more right leaning. “The Man” is a leftie tyrant. You don’t dare speak against the system or be scorned by the media and all the yapping chihuahuas of the echo chamber.

The comics of late night and cable are a perfect example of this. They’ve become nothing more than palace eunuchs, simpering at the thought of offending the hive mind. They do not serve the same function of comics past. Johnny Carson at least lobbed mild jokes at presidents, Democrat and Republican, all in good fun. Now, today’s comics don’t find this administration something to laugh at, even though it is one of the richest targets for sarcasm in recent memory. You have a pompous, egoist of a president with almost no accomplishments to show for all his hubris. It’s funny enough on its own. Then you throw in the collection of crazies from Nancy Pelosi to the wacky czars. It’s low hanging fruit to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Can you count all their collective brain cells on one hand?

If the alleged comics of late night and cable have no imagination or guts, that’s where we come in. The new Counter Culture.

We, the artists who reject the politics of “the man,” the propaganda of the state. We artists, writers and creative people who are tired of being pushed around and told what to do. Those of us who think everything is going wrong and it’s got to stop. We are using our art, our work, to show the folly of the ways of the “establishment”. We’re finding plenty to mock and criticize. And we don’t need the approval of the “cool kids” who really aren’t. Not even remotely.

It’s not a conservative vs lefty argument. It’s freedom lovers verses the statists. It’s liberty vs tyranny.

The people have been sold out by those who never sought to give us freedom. They want to entrap the people in greater dependency on the state. They want to tax every person and business into the stone age. They want to regulate every aspect of people’s lives.

We say no. We reject that. “We” are those who are willing to speak out and ridicule the corrupt bureaucrats and their enablers, just as the counter-culturalists of the 60s mocked the “older generation,” we’re launching our own counter offensive to their propaganda. Our own critiques to their rhetoric.

The Age of Aquarius is over. We’re entering the Age of Libra. The age of Balance. No more tilting to the left!

Unlike the old guard entertainers who continue to shuck and jive for the state, we’re here to expose, reveal and satirize the endless tyranny being rammed down our throats. The real “change” is going to come from those us who have the guts to say NO.

We’re loud and we’re proud. We’re the new counter-culture!

Get ready, We’re coming.

The media and the Muckadoos on the Internet think that this is once again an example of “conservative hypocrisy.” I’ve seen no less than ten news segments dedicated to discussing whether or not the GOP needs to shift focus away from family values, religion and morality because even the standard bearers of the ideology can’t stay the course.’

Two things.  First off, if this is “conservative hypocrisy” isn’t every Democratic scandal involving money an example of “liberal hypocrisy?” The statist agenda is to take your money and have the government spend it because, supposedly, they can do it better and fairer than you can.  So when we indict a Democrat over bribes, theft, or kickbacks why don’t we talk about how that effects their agenda?  Shouldn’t the Rod Blagojevich scandal generate a full Anderson Cooper show about how the Democrats are going to proceed in telling us that they should take care of the cash when they are all a bunch of crooks?

Secondly, all these political scandals serve to hammer home a central point: politicians are a wacky bunch.  They are an odd form of sociopath.  Deluded, narcissistic, self-important wind bags who spend their lives seeking the ultimate freeloading government gig.  They are not to be trusted.  Government should be limited so we don’t allow these types of people: philanderers, tax cheats, alcoholics, drug addicts, con artists, pedophiles and thieves too much control over the people.

If your friend was under federal investigation for financial improprieties would you blindly lend him your ATM card and PIN number?  Would you trust the judgment of a friend who spent most of their time drunk or hopped up on prescription drugs?  Would you allow yourself to be lectured about your personal actions by someone who kept kiddie porn on their laptop?

There is an inherent fallacy to statist ideologies like communism and socialism.  For them to work, the people in the government must be beyond reproach.  They must be angels; wise sages who can put their own egos, wants and desires on the back burner to serve the common good.  Where are these benevolent deities?  Where are these Mother Theresa types to guide us and protect us?  They ain’t in Washington.

At some point, probably in the near future, a group of selfless people will seek political office. They won’t be career politicians, but fed up citizens who take it upon themselves to seek public office to truly make a difference.  You can bet the farm that these people won’t work to expand government control and taxation.  They will do the exact opposite.  They will dismantle the government, serve out their terms, then return to their real, honest jobs.

Let’s just hope the creeps don’t do too much damage until those people get there.

As luck would have it, the first week of the show’s run concluded on Sunday September 10th. The next morning, I slept in, then awoke to find an answering machine message from my wife, who’d driven off to a breakfast date. “Turn on the TV,” her breathless voice said. “New York City has been bombed.” I spent the rest of the day, like most of the country, glued to my set, unable to believe what I was seeing or hearing.

1776 was, as scheduled, dark that night, and the management cancelled the following night’s performance. America was in a state of shock. On Wednesday the 13th, we re-opened. The theater was packed but the reaction from the crowd was strangely muted. The laughs which usually accompanied the comic by-play between Franklin and John Adams were missing. But as the show concluded, the bells rang and the actors froze in the famous patriotic tableau, cheers and audible sobs erupted. People actually cried out, “God bless America.” The performers remained on stage after the curtain calls and asked for donations for the Firemen’s Relief Fund. In the five days following 9-11, in our smallish theater in Los Angeles, we raised just under twenty five thousand dollars. People were dying to do something… anything… to help. The president went on the tube and urged us to go about our lives as if nothing had happened; the people felt otherwise.

The patriotic fervor lasted for the best part of a year. Every ball game opened with “God Bless America.” It was a terrifying but in many ways exhilarating time. I’d lived through World War II and hadn’t been able to wait to join the army as soon as I turned 18. I’d loved my country then and I loved it still. But, as we all know, the euphoria didn’t last. Patriotic feelings waned and blame-America became fashionable again. “War Is Not the Answer” stickers bloomed on the bumpers of Saabs and Volvos, replacing the small American flags which had briefly flown from cars across the country.

In ‘08, Barrack Obama was famously elected president. Even though I’d supported McCain and dreaded what I feared Barrack might do, I felt a surge of elation when the networks announced he’d won. I really hadn’t thought the U.S. would go for an African-American for a decade or so. The elation didn’t last, as Obama kept one after another of his campaign promises. The millions of centrists and disgruntled conservatives who’d swallowed hard, joined the left and voted Democrat began to wonder about what they’d wrought. Rush Limbaugh’s ratings soared; so did those of Fox News. 

And so did the ratings of Mark Levin. When my friend Larry Elder had been taken off the air suddenly some months ago, the innocent victim of the collapse of a bankrupt radio syndicate, he’d been replaced, here in L. A. by Mr. Levin. I’d heard of him, of course, hadn’t read his best-seller “Men In Black.” I tuned in, resentful at first on behalf of poor Larry but was soon hooked by Levin’s wit and erudition. 

Nothing prepared me, though, for the brilliance of his new book, “Liberty and Tyranny.” The title is taken from a quote of Abraham Lincoln’s, which he features on the book’s back cover. What knocked me out though, was the sub-title: “A Conservative Manifesto.” I’d never heard the word used apart from Marx’s Communist Manifesto. (Well, there was the Uni-bomber.) 

Levin’s book is the equivalent of a popular college course in conservatism. Strict adherence to the Founding Fathers’ words are necessary, in his view, to be able to call oneself an genuine conservative. He has withering scorn for neo-conservatives, whom he regards as wolves in sheep’s clothing. His word for the liberal is Statist, a term he uses over and over until it begins to sound like an ugly epithet. “The state will take care of me,” is the mantra of the leftist, as Levin describes him, but as a bronco once broken discovers, there’s a heavy price to be paid. 

The book is divided into sections: In On Prudence and Progress, he begs conservatives to be wary of the sort of imprudent change the Statist insists upon. “For the Statist,” Levin writes, “liberty is not a blessing but the enemy. (The Statist) believes it is not possible to achieve Utopia if individuals are free to go their own way.” In On Faith And The Founding, he asserts that the founding fathers clearly believed in Natural Law as divined by God.  In On The Constitution, he declares that the Constitution is not “a living, breathing document” that may be altered at will, but a set of immutable laws to be strictly adhered to.

On Federalism deals with states’ rights vs federal intervention. I learned something I hadn’t known here: in the nineteenth century, northern states had laws on their books which created legal obstacles to the deportation of escaped slaves back to the south. The federal Supreme Court sought to rule these laws unconstitutional. It also held, in Dred Scott in 1857, that no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen. 

In On The Free Market, Levin quotes Abraham Lincoln: “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”

From On The Welfare State: “Barbara Wagner… was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer. Her doctors recommended a specific drug… However, Barbara is a resident of Oregon… the state refused Barbara’s request for the drug, since it does not cover drugs that are meant to prolong the life of individuals with advanced cancer… But Oregon also has legalized assisted suicide and in an unsigned letter from the state, Barbara was informed that the health plan would pay to cover the costs of a doctor to help her kill herself.”

Enviro-Statism (global warming). Here, Levin quotes a list of calamities predicted in news reports which hilariously include: Antarctic ice growing, Antarctic ice melting, Atlantic Ocean less salty, Atlantic Ocean saltier, crocodile sex (?) and itchier poison ivy. This reminded me of a Harvard Lampoon send-up of how various publications would handle the end of the world. Washington Post headline: WORLD ENDS TOMORROW: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.

Levin concludes his book with an epilogue: A Conservative manifesto. “So distant is America today from its founding principles,” he writes, “that it is difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government… If the bulk of the people reject the civil society for the Statist’s Utopia, preferring subjugation to citizenship, then the end is near…”

Like Tom Paine before him, Levin is a brilliant pamphleteer. Anyone who wants a thorough understanding of the difference between right and left in this country needs to read this book. A college credit should come with it.

Orson Bean’s new book, M@il For Mikey, is published by Barricade Books