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If Fascist Germany a medium-sized modern European state could destabilize the globe in a matter of a few years,
and it took a world war to overcome the threat, what force on earth might restrain an America that may have
abandoned the rule of law an America with its vastly greater population, wealth, and land mass; its far more
sophisticated technology; its weapons systems; its already fully established global network of black-site secret
prisons, and its imperial reach?
If a democratic America, with working checks and balances, often exempts itself from international agreements if its
strategic interests don't coincide with international goals, would a United States led by a dictatorial regime be likely to
subdue in itself any level of aggression internationally, or restrain itself from any plunder of resources that it seeks,
simply because it was upsetting the rest of the world?
If we keep going down this road, the "end of America" could come, for each of us, in a different way, at a different
moment. Each of us might experience a different event that would force us to look back and think: "That is how it was
before and this is the way it is now"; when we each of us alone realizes we must yield a little further our memories of
a certain grace and fineness and courage that was alive in the world for a bit longer than 230 years.
Or else we can stop going down this road: We can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner
the Founders asked us to carry.
CONCLUSION
THE PATRIOT'S TASK
So it turns out we really are at war a long war, a global war, a war for our civilization. It is a war to save our
democracy. Each one of us needs to enlist. We have no one to spare.
We need citizens from across the political spectrum to carry forward the Founders' banner together. Everyone can see
this movement as expressing his or her most cherished values and will frame the effort according to his or her own
subculture and language. Progressives may see this "American awakening" as a liberation or, at the least, as a
campaign, while conservatives may well see the same movement as "conservative" in the truest sense a return to a
stewardship of the Founders' vision. Surely "liberty" as the Founders understood it eighteenth-century
Enlightenment liberty is the grounding of both classical conservative and classical liberal American values.
These diverse American citizens may even, in this movement, truly encounter their counterparts across the political
spectrum and learn to talk to each other once again directly, as neighbors, interlocutors, and fellow patriots.
New surveillance technologies mean that today's patriots have some housekeeping to do before they can move
forward effectively. This is not glamorous, but it is important to address.
Before I wrote this book, I asked an accountant to comb my tax returns, my employer records, and so on, and to
identify anything that could be used against me or distorted. This process of turning an "opposition research" eye on
oneself or one's organization before speaking out will have to become more common. If we are under surveillance as a
nation, citizens are freer if they have disclosed their secrets to loved ones and gone over their records with a critical
eye. Those in the public eye who are afraid to be forceful in opposition because of a secret they want to keep had
better talk to their families or their constituencies, or their lawyers and accountants, painful as that may be in the short
term. You can't fight this fight in earnest unless there is nothing left with which to blackmail you.
Some Americans, especially civil servants and members of the military, risk losing their jobs if they take up the patriot's
task and speak out, or they may even risk prosecution.
Most of the rest of us?
We must be willing to experience personal smears, and possibly the exposure of our secrets. Having accepted that, we
all need to act and speak with courage and passion: parents, teenagers, union members, corporate leaders; the
principled men and women of the military; the men and women of the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service who did not commit
their lives to advance values that are un-American; those of the police forces and the National Guard who did not sign
up for duty in order to suppress American rights. We need the powerful conservative Christian movement who may
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