I didn't want to write about the election results without the benefit of perspective that comes once the event is in the past. Perhaps readers will still find this too negative, but I can't see how the 2012 election was anything but an unmitigated disaster for the up-to-now resurgent conservative movement that was just halted in its tracks after three years of stunning successes.

Some of us are hoping that this was a routine political setback and radio and TV waves are full of commentators trying to rally the defeated troops for another gallant attack in 2016. But as General Pickett responded to Robert E. Lee's order that he look after his shattered division: "General Lee, I have no division!"

While I'm on the subject of suicidal Civil War charges, another one springs to mind. In the movie Glory, Col. Robert Gould Shaw led a ragtag group of unpopular soldiers in a direct assault on a heavily fortified Confederate position. Shaw and his men courageously charged the fort, incurring heavy casualties. Shaw himself was cut down at the foot of the wall, but some of his men take up the flag, scale the walls, and rush into the breach, carried forward by pure momentum--right in front of a cannon that is pointed right at them. It fires, and the battle scene ends. We next see the bodies of the fallen being unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave before the movie ends.

Let's examine our casualties.

Counting the dead

Mitt Romney was not Tuesday night's only casualty. Not only did Republicans fail to capture the presidency, but we lost a chance to take over the Senate. In fact, we suffered major reversals. We lost Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts.  Rising star Mia Love is gone. Conservative heavy hitter Allen West is still MIA. Democrats in California captured a supermajority in the legislature, the first time in a century that's happened. The Tea Party tide that was invincible in 2010 looked to be invisible in 2012. Locally, Ventura County will now be represented in Congress by a Democrat for the first time in 70 years.

The seemingly impossible happened with ease for the other side. Jesse Jackson, Jr., sitting in a mental hospital, was reelected overwhelmingly. The despicable Alan Grayson is back, to literally add insult to injury. Barack Obama somehow completely avoided the Benghazi scandal and bad economy and waltzed to victory.

The most painful part of this is by all historical standards, we should have won and we should have won big.

Why we should have won

In any "normal" election, it would be insane to predict that a president would be reelected:

• During an economic downturn
• With sky-high unemployment
• With sky-high gas prices
• With a Vice-President that makes verbal miscues on a near-daily basis
• With a scandal worse than Watergate (Benghazi)
• With both his domestic and foreign policy falling apart just weeks before the election

Particularly when his opponent:

• Is a solid campaigner
• Is one of the cleanest men ever to run, with zero skeletons in his closet
• Is a respected businessman with a reputation of turning around failing organizations, which is seemingly tailor made to fix the problem we currently are facing
• Was a capable governor, with a history of working across the aisle
• Had the best debate performance in the history of televised debates
• Has centrist appeal

Well, I did. Back in 2011 I predicted that Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee and he would ultimately lose to Barack Obama, barring some miracle, for a few reasons. Oh, for the record, for a few weeks I thought that miracle might have occurred after his first debate performance and he might pull this off. I was wrong, and should have listened to my gut from a year earlier.

Why we were defeated

Let's be blunt. The main reason Romney lost is because half the country is dim, ignorant, or corrupted. Anyone in their right mind should have voted for this man, and I'm not saying it out of bitterness, ideology or partisanship.

Romney is a decent man who is a proven turnaround expert who could have really fixed our economic problems. He was a right leaning-centrist--not a "scary" right-winger. Even some liberal newspapers endorsed him for president four years after endorsing Obama.

But all of his credentials are meaningless to the dim, the ignorant, and the corrupted.

The dim are those that have the information to make decisions, they just choose poorly because they lack reasoning abilities. They vote on emotion and disregard facts that disagree with their hardened positions. They honestly believe they are right and are usually well-intentioned, but they are dead wrong.

The ignorant are those who simply choose not to arm themselves with information. They have no idea about history, economics, finance, geopolitics, government, or politics. They range from the completely uninformed--your typical college student or American Idol watcher. Or, they may be smart, engaged, and well read, but only on a narrow range of topics or ideas (i.e., those ideas that they already agree with).

Then there are the corrupted. They are so committed ideologically that they lose all sense of what is right and wrong, true and false. They will say anything to get elected, they will cover up their own party's shortcomings, and they will lie about the opposition without compunction.

Generally speaking, we lost this election because the corrupted led a successful coalition of the dim and ignorant. Obama's campaign painted Romney, a good man, in a terribly inaccurate light. They stooped low and brought Chicago politics at its worst to the national stage. While they talked about Big Bird, binders, and bayonets, Romney talked about real problems and real solutions.

As Rush Limbaugh put it, in a nation full of children, Santa Claus wins. I also heard on the radio someone say that a parent that is strict but does the right thing for his kids is always less popular to the children than the one who gives them whatever they ask for, even though it might be bad for them in the long run.

The creation of nation full of dependents has been in the works for a hundred years. Progressives have taken over the schools, the courts, the government and the media. People have no chance--they are indoctrinated in school, indoctrinated by the movies and TV shows they watch and the songs they listen to, by their unions, their friends, their newspapers and their politicians. They've lost their ability to think or never learned how in the first place.

How we were defeated

Back when I made my prediction a year ago that Romney would win the primary, I did so in the jaded understanding that the political establishment has rigged the game so that their guy will always win.

It's not like they are tearing up ballots or anything, but in a game of inches those that really know the game, possess key advantages, and know how to take advantage of them will almost always win.

Romney had zero grassroots support at that time. I viewed him as a liberal Republican masquerading as a conservative for the primary. There was really no such thing as a grassroots supporter who had signs on their lawn for him in those days. After all, he used to be pro-choice and gave Massachusetts Obamacare-lite. However, I also thought he had the best crossover appeal, which would help him, and us, in the general election.

He won the primary, and I realize he wasn't so much a moderate dressing up as a conservative as a conservative dressing up as a moderate.

But, I thought he would lose to Obama. I based it upon these reasons:

1. He was a solid but unspectacular candidate (i.e. he did not have mass appeal)
2. Obama would have a billion dollars to spend against him
3. The media would give Obama a billion dollars worth of free positive coverage for him and free negative attacks against his opponent.
4. If Romney managed to get close, they would resort to Chicago-style dirty tricks

What happened? Romney trudged along in a solid but unspectacular fashion. He was attacked from all sides by a corrupt media that ignored all of Obama's shortcomings and focused on meaningless things like he put his dog in a kennel on the roof of his car thirty years ago.

When terrorists overran our consulate in Benghazi on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 and killed our ambassador, the media covered for Obama. They even attacked Romney for issuing a statement about it too soon. We have a case where an ambassador was assassinated, the first to die in thirty years, and the president openly lied about what happened. He told us that the attacks--which, again, took place on SEPTEMBER 11TH, were merely a random riot over a video. The agents on the ground begged for backup but they was denied and they were killed, quite possibly from weapons we sold to the terrorists. Their parents blamed Obama for their deaths, but while we heard about Cindy Sheehan for who-knows-how-long, we heard nothing about these fathers and mothers. The New York Times, which ran Abu-Ghraib on over 50 consecutive front pages, didn't seem to care a lick about Benghazi. CBS News sat on a video of Obama denying the attack was terror related and quietly released it over the weekend before the election.

Instead, they attacked Romney.

Then there was the debate performance, which was the most lopsided victory in the last century, if not in American history. Romney's campaign had new life, and suddenly he pulled even with Obama.

But then, more dirty and petty tricks. Behind the scenes, the Democrats were busing people into polling places, taking advantage of new early voting rules. We heard about Big Bird, and bayonets, and binders. Things that would only appeal to the dim and the ignorant. They tried anything to stop his momentum.

But on the surface, it looked like he was on his way to finally win. I started to believe that my prediction was wrong.

Then, the hurricane happened.

What we lost

It's easy to get lost in the daily drama of politics and miss the big picture. Conservatives and Republicans are already looking ahead to 2016, as if there is always another chance.

But if we step back and look at America on the civilization scale, it's not so encouraging. It is said that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I've got news for you. Those that do know history are doomed to repeat it as well.

It's been understood since Plato's time that governments follow a recurring pattern. First, there is anarchy. Out of anarchy rises a strong man--a tribal leader, despot, or monarch. Over time, the aristocracy gains in power relative to the monarch, and an oligarchy or aristocracy forms. The wheel of history keeps turning, and the common citizens dilute power from the aristocracy. That's when democracies form. But they are violent and short-lived, inevitably resulting in anarchy, which starts the wheel all over again, since out of the ashes of anarchy rise a dictator. Power is again concentrated into the one, who gives way to the few, who give way to the many, who give it back to the one.

The genius of our Constitution is that it doesn't try to stop the wheel's inevitable rotation. It harnesses it and allows it to churn between the one (the President), the few (the Senate), and the many (the House). At certain times in American history, each section of government has wielded more power than the others, but the wheel turns without threatening the system as a whole.

Until now. We've become completely unmoored from that framework. The Constitution has been under assault for a century. Americans can perhaps be forgiven for not realizing that President Obama's election in 2008 signaled the beginning of the end for the Constitutional era in American history, given the excitement over his candidacy. But that excuse didn't exist in 2012. On November 6^th, a majority of the country knowingly gave its sanction to permanently untie this country from its charter document. We moved from the safety of a constitutional republic to the danger of the next phase of the wheel of history, like every other large civilization before us.

Some conservatives think there is still time to save the country. They don't realize that this was our last chance. Demographics are turning against us. The mass importation of illegal immigrants and their children have changed the complexity of the nation. That in itself is not a bad thing--we've always been a melting pot of cultures. However, while white people had no problem voting for a nonwhite president, nonwhite people seem to have a hard time voting for a white candidate.

In 2008, about half of white people voted for a black president. Those that opposed him did so not on his race, but on his radical left-wing ideology. However, blacks supported him nine to one. Hispanics two to one. After four years of failed policies, whites turned away from him but blacks and Hispanics barely flinched, showing that many of them clearly support him because of the color of his skin.

Nonwhites will soon be the majority. And in elections where a one percentage point increase in Democratic voters may net a candidate a 300 electoral-point victory, the fact that nonwhites, at least at this point, seem to be susceptible to Democratic lies that all white conservatives are racists and all nonwhite conservatives are "Uncle Toms," spells doom for traditional conservatism.

But, even with the realization that the combined weight of human nature and human history are against us, there was still room for hope, and it rested with God.

I've probably written thousands of posts by now. I might have mentioned God maybe one time, even though I'm religious. The reason for that exclusion is that my mission was to persuade people with reason. Faith has nothing to do with reason. By definition, it's employed only when reason does not exist. Therefore, I determined that religious arguments for anything political aren't persuasive to people who don't share my religious beliefs.

But, you might be sensing that this post is not meant to be persuasive. It's a description on how we lost the country and why there is no turning back. There is no need to attempt to convince the masses anymore to turn away from this path, since that is now proven to be impossible.

During the last stage of the 2012 election, conservatives had a good feeling. By some miracle, it started to look like God was intervening on our behalf--on behalf of the United States, the country that best embodied the Christian ethic. He blessed us in the past, and we became the most powerful and most generous nation that ever existed, ushering in a Pax Americana that benefited the entire world.

If enough of us got together and prayed and fasted, God would save us from this social and economic descent. We could not turn back the wheel of history, but He could--if He wanted.

If a once-in-a-century freak superstorm hit 900 miles off the eastern seaboard a week before the election and swept Mitt Romney into office, we'd see it as divine intervention. How should we interpret it if it swept Obama back into office?

During the first debate, Romney somehow made the sitting president look less presidential than he did. That's what turned the tide in his favor. He was on his way to win. The sudden ealization among Americans that he would be a more effective commander-in-chief is what allowed Romney to catch up to Obama. Obama looked petty, small, and weak.  Overnight, people became more comfortable with the thought of Romney in the Oval Office instead.

Then the hurricane hit. Obama was given a chance to show that he too can look presidential. His biggest weakness was eliminated, and he barely clung to victory.

Can you blame God for turning against us? We've turned against Him. We've given up his gift of freedom for material goods. We've systematically executed tens of millions of the most innocent among us. We're worse than the Nazis.

We had a chance to prosper even though history, demographic shifts, social shifts, human nature, and human history all spell our demise. But we don't have any chance if we aren't on God's side.

Acceptance

There is peace in finally letting go. When a loved one is dying from a long-term affliction, there is pain and sadness and struggle as you hold out for some hope that they might be cured. When they finally die, there is peace knowing that you did all you could and it's time to move on.

I am at peace.

Other conservatives are already looking toward the next election. They are more torn up about Tuesday's election results than I am.

One fellow conservative told me I'm giving up.

That's not true. Just because I've lost hope of winning doesn't mean I'm going to stop fighting. The prospect of winning is not a prerequisite for doing what's right.

What now?

There is a debate on the Right about what to do now. Some say we need to have more moderate candidates. What do you think Romney (and McCain, and Bush, and Bush the Elder) were? Scott Brown was about as liberal as a Republican could be and he still lost. Even as great as Reagan was, everything he did was dismantled starting with the next president.

No, moderation is a waste of time. By adopting some progressive policies it only gives the progressives a way to blame Republicans for what went wrong. George W. Bush spent money like a progressive. Look at the exit polls and see how many voters were still blaming Republicans for the economic situation four years later.

Romney is the embodiment of everything the moderation advocates always ask for--a good candidate, and someone who can work across the aisle to get things done. Look where that got him. And if this election were held in 2016 or beyond with the coming demographic shifts, he would have lost in landslide.

I suspect the Republican establishment will see the writing on the wall and attempt to sell out real republican principles for good.

The best thing to do is to be the alternative party. Not the junior partner in a huge progressive government. Be outside the government. Be ideologically pure. Let the Progressives continue to drive the country into the toilet, all by their onesies. When the people have enough, they'll turn back to us like the British did to Winston Churchill.

We are in exile. We've lost at the national, state, and even the local level. Retreat back to your core principles. Turn back to faith. Stop worrying about election results and temporal things. Focus on fundamentals. Get your life in order. If you can't govern yourself, how can you criticize those that govern you? Get your family in order. After all, the family is the first form of government. Our political future is with our children and their children. We probably won't see traditional conservatism rise again in our lifetimes. Our children might. Make sure you teach them how to think independently. Expose them to Christianity. The rest will fall into place in their lives, or their childrens' lives. Keep a record of these times and make sure the philosophy of our Founders gets passed to them, so that when they are ready they'll have a blueprint of how to rebuild America.

The title of this post is Aftermath. No, that doesn't mean mathematics that is done after an event, although that's what people understand it to mean now. Aftermath is grass that grows after blades from earlier in the season are cut down--aftermath is the next generation.

Of course, if the progressives get what they want unopposed, we may lose the freedom to take the country back, even if we raise new generations of patriots. By then, hopefully enough of them will be back on God's side. And don't forget the Platonic Wheel of History will always keep turning, and thought despots will gain power they'll eventually lose it to the few and to the many.

We'll be ready.

As for this blog, it now ceases to be a vehicle for persuasion. It will now be a living history--a witness to the transition of America into its "Late Republic" phase, to be preserved for my children and grandchildren, like a public journal. Perhaps it will be inconvenient for those in power and I'll be attacked even more, or my writings will not be allowed on certain publications.

No, I'm not giving up. I'll find strength in the fact that when someone attacks a man unjustly, he creates friends for him. I'll find comfort knowing that if my children see me struck down for doing what's right, they'll be lifelong recruits to the cause of freedom.

Perhaps there is hope after all...

People suck, a liberal friend once told me.

We don't agree on much, but we agree on that. In fact, I think that's the genesis of all political problems. Anyone who cares about public policy starts with the premise that people suck--after all, if people didn't suck we wouldn't have all these problems, would we?

James Madison said it slightly more eloquently when he said, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

Our disagreements immediately begin once we start discussing what do we do now that we've established men aren't angels.

Should government outlaw the "wrong" choices people make, like some of the more repressive regimes in Iran or North Korea? Should it just allow people to sort it out themselves, as a libertarian would have it do? Should it "nudge" us into doing what's right by making it easy to do what's good and difficult to choose what's bad?

This is a fundamental question, and how you answer it greatly impacts where you fall on the political spectrum.

The archetypical person on the right might say that government should not limit choices, but punish bad choices after-the-fact, and only those choices that directly harm another, such as stealing or murder. A religious conservative might pare back choices a bit by prohibiting gay marriage. A mainstream Republican will empower the government with a robust military to expand its influence overseas, while a Ron Paul libertarian will scale it back and withdraw inside our own borders. Should you fail in this society, there may be at best a basic public safety net but a widespread private charity system that can provide targeted assistance so long as the recipients don't abuse it too much. In general, you can choose success or failure with your actions. Government is a necessary evil that merely protects us from criminals and enemies abroad. The people inside it are greedy, so we pit them against each other to ensure that no one group gets too much power.

On the other side of the political spectrum are liberals, progressives, socialists, and communists. To one degree or another, they believe that government is not a necessary evil, but a great tool to be used to achieve social justice. The United States, they believe, has a long and sordid history of abusing one group of non-white male peoples after another, and it's not fair those groups have been repressed for so long. The problem especially lies with the typical uneducated American, who is systematically manipulated by the evil one percent of rich capitalists into voting for them and buying their products. Enlightened people, like teachers, bureaucrats, scientists, psychologists, lawyers, writers, and artists have evolved to understand what is necessary for the common good. Those that haven't evolved need to have their choices either removed, as a Stalinist would say, corrected with better information, a mainstream Democrat might say, or engineered by a choice architect, as President Obama's Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein would say.

The problem, as the Matrix's Neo comes to understand, is choice.

If you give people the freedom to choose, they will inevitably choose poorly sometimes if not most of the time, leading to problems for the individual and the group.

So what do we do? What is the solution, if there even is one?

The first step is to describe the dilemma, which is what few do but what is attempted here. It's pointless to argue about small issues like tax rates and DADT without knowing where we really differ. We won't ever agree. It's as if we're cooking together and arguing over what ingredients to use before deciding what dish to make, or even what meal we're eating. That's a waste of time.

In this essay, we can--continuing with the cooking analogy--agree on the problem. We're hungry and we want to eat something. Or, if you'd rather, we agree that people suck. Now what.

Do we limit their choices in the hopes that people's plights will improve or do we give them the freedom to choose with the caveat that they must live with their choices? That's what it boils down to. That's where the debate needs to be.