America started a “great experiment” in human history, that being the ideas of individual freedom and limited government. All of history before this assumed that the individual was subservient to the tribe, and governments had nearly absolute power over people in the form of ruling kings and princes.
Today, as always, there are counter-revolutions against this great experiment in human liberty. In China it takes the form of communism on a Marxian foundation. To assure “unity” and “national greatness” China utilizes a vast surveillance state that watches, controls, arrest and imprisons or murders any and all who offer criticism, dissent or resistance.
In the Middle East, Muslim fanatics gravitated to the banner of the “Islamic State” with its totalitarian insistence of one true faith, one true theological doctrine, one true path to salvation. They call upon their followers to use fire and sword to establish that one true faith over all of humanity. Brutality and mass murder were the keys to the kingdom used by those of the Islamic State who arrogantly asserted knowing how to get to a heaven on earth.
In the West, and especially on American university and college campuses, and among a seemingly growing number of academics and intellectuals, is the claim that the founding American principles were all a ruse, a smoke screen, for the perpetuation of racism, gender oppression, and social exploitation.
Under the banner of “Identity politics” this assault on the freedoms of speech, and religion is already entrenched on the majority of campuses around the country. These thought control thugs shout down, intimidate and threaten or use physical violence against any and all who attempt to discuss ideas, policies or views inconsistent with or contrary to the latest totalitarians of mind.
Have we not seen all this before? From the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Communist, wherever they came to power, initiated their campaign of eradicating all traces of the “evil” and “bad” past by blowing up churches, and destroying architecture and images reflecting the dark era of capitalist exploitation that Marxism was relegating to the “dustbin of history.”
We have, as a nation, only two choices – liberty or slavery under tyranny. Vote wisely!
The ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights have forced people living in this country throughout the years to embrace the words of our Constitution, not only in ending slavery but in extending equal rights and protections under the law to all people residing within the boundaries of this great country.
Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution speaks of “rights” in terms of racial, gender, or social class “identity.” Both recognize only INDIVIDUALS, with individual rights before the law, protected by an impartial rule of law, above which are no individuals or special groups.
That people and politics often do not always reflect the ideas and ideals espoused should not come as too much of a surprise. But the purpose and role of those ideas and ideals is to serve as the benchmark of comparison from which to judge and evaluate the reality of men’s words and deeds. That individual human beings fall short does not detract from or suggest the hypocrisy or deceitful “smoke screen” of these ideas and ideals. You don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. It merely means that “the flesh is weak,” and we are all called upon to more fully practice what we preach.
The left in this country want to erase from the public discourse, from history itself, any discussion of the noble and historical ideals of individual liberty and rights, and Constitutional limited government by the linguistic sleight-of-hand of excluding them from the academic and public arena by labeling racists, sexists or homophobic, all in the name of identity politics.
Consider the recent hate crime legislation in Scotland that would police speech not only in the public square, on social media, or in the press, but in one’s own home. While Scotland’s not (yet) seeking to put anyone to death over wrong-speak, they’ve not only adopted a similar practice of policing speech, they’ve also broadened the offence. And not only are they willing to prosecute individuals who criticize Islam, but their sights are now set on critics of transgender ideology and those who espouse a biblical view of sexual morality.
Don’t think it could happen in the U.S.” According to an opinion piece in the Washington Post, “the intellectual underpinning of the First Amendment was engineered for a simpler era. The amendment rests on the notion that the truth will win out in what Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas called “the marketplace of ideas. On the Internet, truth is not optimized. On the Web, it’s not enough to battle falsehood with truth; the truth doesn’t always win. In the age of social media, the marketplace model doesn’t work.”
How else would you undermine the institutions that stand in your totalitarian way than to assert that they are to be condemned as racist and sexist rationales for an unjust society? And, therefore, not open for discourse or discussion, having been exiled from the debate over America’s political future.
The victory of identity politics in America will be the death of the idea and ideal of human liberty, with its respect for and a value to the individual human being who is not meant to be a slave in the hands of another version of the collectivist dream of tribalism and human sacrifice on the altar of one more utopian nightmare.
Source: An “Identity Politics” Victory Would Mean the End of Liberty by Richard M. Ebeling, The future of Freedom Foundation; Scot Govt: ‘Hate speech in homes must be prosecuted’, The Christian Institute; Why America needs a hate speech law, Washington Post
