Whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we [the devils] make Liberalism the prime bogey.

This quote, taken from The Screwtape Letters (those quite literally infernal epistles recorded by C.S. Lewis), struck me as something very telling about the Left, and the current opposition to it. The Left, understood as that which throughout the ages leads men further from Salvation, has indeed created “Liberalism” (as understood in the form condemned by the Church), but it has also created Illiberalism (understood as a disordered hatred of Liberty, as opposed to Liberalism as a disordered love). Leftism is both Nationalist and Internationalist, without the Patriotism and ordered love of nationality that the Right has, nor the Right’s concern for the greater good of Mankind.

But is Leftism even Liberalism anymore? There is really something in the idea that those who oppose it are really fighting the war of yesteryear. Are those who denounce the wilder (and in a way nobler) anarchy of Liberalism, confident in its self destructive tendencies awaiting in passivity its causation of its own end, really fighting the Left, or its phantom? Are those who jubilantly herald the downfall of Globalism blind to the Nationalist anarchy that the world is swiftly falling into, which if unopposed will only end in the iron sway of tyranny? If indeed Liberalism was ever anything other than a mask, a ruse to distract its enemies into a false guard, to break our swords upon the shield while the dagger is aimed at our hearts.

The truth is I really believe that many men are ready to be slaves again, all those not corrupt enough to be tyrants or virtuous enough to resist, those who fight in the Guard of Christendom, or even simply struggle to live well. Take away the Freedom which limits men to just, good, and reasonable actions, and they will bow before whatever is strong enough to oppress them. This is the kind of power that corrupts, taken not given; autocracy, not imperium. Those who oppose the tyranny that hides behind the mask of Liberalism have no earthly chance of success, but that earthly success should not be our desire. Rather it should be that we ourselves live Rightly, whatever comes. If we have one consolation, it is that the mask of Liberalism is quickly slipping away, and we have no longer to struggle blindly with the phantasm of the age, but look the real evil plainly in its face.