I hardly ever cross-post material between the Redister and here.  But I'd like to share the piece I wrote this weekend and humbly suggest this new rallying cry.

 “Carthage Must Be Destroyed.”  During the Third Punic War, the Roman statesman, Cato the Elder, was said to have inserted this phrase into every public speech he gave, regardless of whether he was speaking of the war with Carthage.  Thus, the Latin phrase, Carthago Delenda Est has come down through the ages to be synonymous with the repetitive insistence on something.

I'd like to propose dusting it off and polishing it up a bit and returning to its more literal meaning.  In this case, by Carthage, I mean the modern conservative movement in America.  For the sake of our future, it must be defeated, razed to the ground and salt sown on the earth.

This christianist, know-nothing movement must be defeated at the polls.  Failing that, right-thinking Americans of all political stripes must resist them with all the means at their disposal for as long as necessary to hound them back into the ideological desert from which they sprang.  Their obviously unqualified and crazy candidates must be called out as such. Their lies and made up facts must be shown to be the utter shams they are and mercilessly mocked.  The idea that “honest simplicity” masquerading as abject ignorance is a virtue must be rejected.

This won't be easy. Dogma dies hard.  This will be a long, hard slog.  But the stakes really couldn't be higher.  This will be the ultimate form of political warfare, no quarter asked, none given.  If any liberals doubt that this is the case, know this: Republicans already believe this and their actions are based on it.  They believe they are engaged in a battle of Good versus Evil. In that kind of fight, only Total War will do.  

Of course I am speaking of metaphorical war.  But this is a battle nonetheless.  It is a battle for the heart and soul of the American electorate.  We seek a victory of tolerance over bigotry, sanity over fear, facts over fantasy, knowledge over ignorance.

Total war for moderation.  I know it sounds absurd.  But this is what we have been reduced to.  So my happy warriors, say it loud and say it proud, Carthago Delenda Est.

 Read the whole post at the Des Moines Register.