There is a new Scarlet Letter in this country.  It is not the letter “A” of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, sewn onto the clothing of protagonist Hester Prynne for her adulterous behavior in Puritan society.  Rather, it is the letter “B.”  It stands for Believer:  in God and the Bible; in the U.S. Constitution; in the Conservative principles and values which flow naturally from those sources.

There is nothing the Left would love to do more than sew a bright red “B” onto the clothing of every Believer.  Collectively, the Left is today’s Puritans, who see everyone’s flaws but their own.  Like the Puritans, they see themselves as guardians of society, whose beliefs are absolute and which others must adhere to, even if they do not share them.  To paraphrase a quote attributed to several different sources, they are “self-made, and worship their creator.”

Unlike the Puritans of history, however, these self-righteous folks do not believe in God, but in the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of the state, because they believe it knows better than we how we should live.  They do not believe in the Bible or the Judeo-Christian ethic, but in the scribbling of self-proclaimed intellectuals, those of “enlightened” thought who insist we were not created but are nothing more than a chance collection of atoms or an evolved something that crawled out of the primordial ooze.  They do not believe in the freedom given to humans by God as Creator and embodied in our Constitution, or in the political power “We the People” derive from that document, but in the authority of a self-anointed “elite” political class to control our lives.  They do not believe in the personal responsibility that is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian ethic – not to mention Conservative principles and values – except of course in the responsibility of the responsible to fund the whims and lives of the irresponsible.

They do believe we cling to our Bibles, our Constitution and our guns.  And so we do, not because we are “bitter” as they have charged, but because unlike the Left, we believe in things greater than ourselves:  God, family, country, human freedom.

Of course, believers in God and the Bible are not perfect.  We have the same human flaws as everyone else.  The Constitution is not perfect, although it is the most perfect ruling document ever devised by man.  Conservatism is not perfect, although it does encourage human achievement as opposed to the egalitarian mediocrity demanded by the Leftist mindset.

Our friends on the Left insist that with the guidance of the state – but stripped of any ability to make personal decisions – man can perfect himself and find heaven on earth.  Believers know man never can achieve perfection.  We have studied the Bible and human nature, not to mention history.  We understand human attempts to form a utopian society would create boredom at best and slavery at worst.  History clearly has shown the latter always is the result.

The Christian writer C. S. Lewis once said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”  That is the tyranny we currently face:  the tyranny of the Nanny State, of those who want tell us – for our own good, of course – what to think, how to speak, what to eat, which car to drive, which school to attend, which doctor to see, or whether we can see a doctor at all.

Believers must reject that tyranny completely.  We who believe in God, the Bible, the Constitution and Conservative principles and values must effectively sew a scarlet “B” onto our own clothing and wear it proudly.  And like the One we profess, we must declare our beliefs and demand of our Leftist opponents:  “Get thee behind me!”

Harry Beadle is a former news anchor for the CNN Radio Network.  You can read more of his essays at http://harrybeadle.com