“I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation — from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.” — Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address, 1989

“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” — Proverbs 4:7

“Let me share with you the benefit of my wisdom, which is born of intelligence guided by experience.” — Rush Limbaugh, who used variations of that phrase almost every day on the air

Now Rush belongs to the ages. The heavens echo with laughter, no doubt, at the joy of it all. He has joined the other immortal warriors for liberty — and oh, it is splendid companionship.

Rush’s wisdom, and the wisdom of the ages, now belong to us. We can seize it all, we who love truth. The foundations of Western civilization, the best that has been thought and said and written, the distilled brilliance of the world’s great minds, the wise record of the Founders, our history, our birthright, is free to us for the embracing. We are the rightful heirs.

Here’s the thing. Our opponents, the enemies of freedom, have rejected all of it. This treasure store, the writings of Scripture, our miraculous Founding documents, all the goodness and bravery and generosity and kindness and sacrifice of this nation, the passed-down deep commonsense of millions of families, every bit of it is like sand in their teeth. They loathe everything about the truth and its adherents. And they especially despise any glowing embers of national faith found in phrases like “one nation under God” or “in God we trust.” To the left, those are fighting words.

Their loss. And a terrible loss it is.

As liberal elites discard the Western “canon” (that is, the classics of literature, arts, and philosophy that built our civilization), they are actually throwing away their ability to think, reason, persuade, and strategize. They are trashing their own political talent and attractiveness. The leftist dogma they substitute for the ideals of the Founding is just, well, stupid. Their socialism/Marxism/communism is shallow error. They are all slogans and tantrums. They are boring scolds, wrong about everything, all the time, and they have become nothing more than liars and brutes.

They may hold power for a time due to intimidation and corruption, but their ideology always ends the same way, every time it’s tried: self-destruction and collapse. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “Oft evil will shall evil mar.” In other words, bad people inevitably screw themselves. They overreach. Evil blows it.

Because we revere and grasp the wisdom of the Founders, we have a distinct advantage, in the long run. We have the tools to ultimately outmaneuver the left in every way. The left is canceling these giants for themselves — good! We have the legacy of greatness; they have the legacy of idiocy. We have the wise books. We have tested values and traditions imbued by strong families. We have freedom in our hearts. We have laughter and good cheer and enjoyment of life. We have prayer. We have the most powerful weapon — always underestimated by its enemies — faith in our Creator, whom we acknowledge and thank directly for the blessings of liberty.

All of which means, we outclass them on the ideological, political, and spiritual battlefield. We have them surrounded.

They know it. Why do you think they still have thousands of National Guard troops in the Capitol?

And this is important to remember. These same battles against totalitarianism have been fought — and won — before. Our conservative heroes are heroes precisely because they emerged victorious against the same anti-freedom enemy we’re fighting now.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher united in a powerful Western alliance to defeat Soviet communism. It was Reagan’s insight — a position held by practically no one else — that because communism was an immoral ideology, it would therefore collapse under its own corruption. In 1982, Reagan predicted that “the march of freedom and democracy” would “leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.” In 1983, Reagan said: “I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written.” Reagan was mocked mercilessly, and then the Soviet Union imploded.

George Washington and his ragtag Continental Army defeated tyrannical King George III and the British Empire, then the greatest military in the world. Abraham Lincoln defeated the Confederacy of Democrats and their monstrous evil slavery. Winston Churchill led an outmanned England to hold off Hitler’s Nazis in the Battle of Britain, a turning point in World War II.

In every one of these instances, the outcome was far from certain until later, when the weaknesses of the enemy were obvious only in retrospect. Reagan’s correct analysis of and strategy against communism must be studied carefully today. Our fight against the forces of Marxism must be on explicitly moral grounds; with full confidence in the clear moral superiority of our Constitutional principles.

In 1927, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Those who won our independence … valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.”

Courage. Indeed, that is the common trait among our heroes, happy warriors all. Rush cheerfully and fearlessly fought the left for over 30 years, and they never laid a glove on him. William F. Buckley, well, he defeated sciolistic liberal twits with his prodigious mind and Brobdingnagian vocabulary. These heroes relished the clash in the arena of ideas, never wavered, never backed down, never went squishy. And never “reached across the aisle.” (We’re looking at you, linguine-spined elected Republicans.)

The first step in protecting this legacy is to study it. It is an enormous inspiration to read the actual writings of the Founders. Rush always recommended The Federalist Papers. Of course, you can’t go wrong if you want to start with the “Rush Revere” series.

Steeping ourselves in the “spirit of 1776” of the American Revolution is its own reward. As Ronald Reagan said in 1988: “I have always believed that America is strongest and freest and happiest when it is truest to the wisdom of its Founders.” The left will continue to try to erase the Founders and all their works. Never acquiesce. We win that battle by seeking out original sources and learning them by heart.

President Trump closed his 2/4/20 State of the Union Address (after awarding Rush the Presidential Medal of Freedom) with a stirring call to remember our history:

We are Americans. We are pioneers. We are the pathfinders. We settled the New World, we built the modern world, and we changed history forever by embracing the eternal truth that everyone is made equal by the hand of Almighty God. America is the place where anything can happen. America is the place where anyone can rise. And here, on this land, on this soil, on this continent, the most incredible dreams come true. This nation is our canvas, and this country is our masterpiece. We look at tomorrow and see unlimited frontiers just waiting to be explored. Our brightest discoveries are not yet known. Our most thrilling stories are not yet told. Our grandest journeys are not yet made. The American Age, the American Epic, the American adventure has only just begun. Our spirit is still young, the sun is still rising, God’s grace is still shining, and, my fellow Americans, the best is yet to come.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, will forever remain our legacy of greatness.