Recently, I have been involved in a number of exchanges in which I presented facts only to be told they are biased opinions. Interlocutors cited no evidence or even gave any specific examples of how what was said wasn’t accurate. They don’t have to do so any more since feeling has become truth and identity has become proof. To get them to understand that to make an argument one must have evidence, not just a personal feeling or can put a label on the person making the statement, is difficult.
Even being proven right by events doesn’t help. In April, many admitted that what people like myself were saying about the Egyptian revolution was true. Yet this prompted no reconsideration of basic beliefs or of the relative credibility of various “experts.”
Here’s the bottom line: No matter how bad the economic situation, leadership, or policies might be, a country can recover if the people and elite are able to define the real problems and the real solutions. If the connection with reality is lost, all hope is gone. That is one of the Middle East’s central problems. Increasingly, it seems to be Europe and America’s problem, too.
The way cults work is to isolate people from reality and bombard them with a single viewpoint. The victim is cut off from other influences by being told that they are evil and thus to be disregarded. In some ways, that is what’s been happening to America in recent years.
One weakness of this structure is that the arguments it makes and the claims puts forward are so ridiculous that if exposed to articulate and reasoned responses — often, even for a mere sixty-second period — it quickly collapses logically. Its strength is that it has such strong defenses against such exposure.
Another weakness is that the use of institutions for politically motivated exploitation must remain invisible. If someone understands that universities, mass media, and other trusted institutions have been distorted out of their historical, democratic, and American norms then that’s the beginning of seeing through deception.
Having lived outside the United States for most of the time during the last twenty years, and soon to leave again, I have seen America from near and far. To have seen it so transformed close up without having watched the daily “fundamental transformation” bewilders me. Yet people who have lived through every minute of this process also don’t seem to be able to explain it, or at least each explains what went wrong in a different way.
Many think nothing has changed; many more believe all the changes have been for the better.
It’s too early to count America out. The reality of its exceptionalism — yes, viewing America from outside makes that reality more evident — and its people’s strengths might well pull it out of this swamp.
Yet in thinking about the future I feel like the British military attache in Istanbul, whose letter home I once found in the archives. It was spring 1941, 70 years ago almost to the exact day. Nazi Germany was dominant in Europe and steadily marching forward.
“Every garden has a red Judas tree in it, and it’s a wonderful sight: even across the Bosphorus the Asiatic side is a blaze of red silhouetted against the black cypress trees of the vast cemeteries.” He had just hosted a successful cocktail party with every delicacy of food and plenty to drink. Anyone would think life was perfect.
Yet he thought this idyll would not last. Once the Germans rested a bit, he predicted:
I, too, have no doubt about the ultimate end. But, yes, it seems too far off.
What’s most scary in America today may be the deficit and it may be government policies, but for me the scariest thing is the way that traditional American pragmatism, an open-minded search for truth, the reliability of the media and of academia, has virtually disappeared in many cases.
While this certainly doesn’t apply to all schools, the indoctrination that I’ve seen in one elementary school shocked me. If you really hear what eleven-year-olds are saying to each other you’d be amazed: accusing each other of being racists at the drop of a hat; thinking man-made global warming is a threat to their personal survival into adulthood, viewing America as evil.
If that happens in an educational system — especially in universities — indoctrination means that the more “educated” someone is, the more “stupid” they become.
The decline of professional ethics — journalists are supposed to be accurate and fair despite their personal views; professors should seek truth wherever that leads them, be open-minded, and represent accurately sources and evidence — is staggering. Large numbers of ideas are practically barred from the mass media; silly concepts are put forward that have huge holes in them but are protected from scrutiny or criticism. Some people or movements are always ridiculed; others are always exalted.
There are hundreds of examples of how this works and I see it every day.
The fact that Israel’s public opinion and expert opinion can be totally misrepresented by the mass media from being anti-Obama, pro-Bibi to being pro-Obama, anti-Bibi is frightening. We are beyond the “slant” and into the total reversal of reality.
The fact that during months of massive discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood it has been virtually impossible to find in the public debate on the big media, in academia, etc. that this is a radical Islamist anti-American group that favors violence is terrifying.
I’m sure you could all add examples from domestic issues and other international stories.
Consider California, the traditional land of optimism and creativity (if also fantasy). In traveling there I found despair. The massive deficit is just being ignored, as is the way in which excessive regulation is driving people and enterprises out. A new governor is elected who typifies everything that’s wrong.
It’s as if America — the country that was always the most ready to face facts and treasure an open, fair discussion — has lost its grip on reality.
I realize, of course that there are many people, perhaps half of the population, who aren’t like that. They’ve found other sources of information and hold to their views. Among the elite, however, the people certain in their superiority and who genuinely are possessing more power, the situation is proportionately worse.
Increasingly a debate over facts and evidence has turned into a slander fest over the personal identity and supposed opinion of the speaker. Once someone has been identified as “conservative” or not thinking that Obama is great; once someone can be libelled as “racist” (i.e., if they criticize Obama in many cases); Islamophobic, etc., that person’s views are discounted completely.
Recently, I have been involved in a number of exchanges in which I presented facts only to be told they are biased opinions. Interlocutors cited no evidence or even gave any specific examples of how what was said wasn’t accurate. They don’t have to do so any more since feeling has become truth and identity has become proof. To get them to understand that to make an argument one must have evidence, not just a personal feeling or can put a label on the person making the statement, is difficult.
Even being proven right by events doesn’t help. In April, many admitted that what people like myself were saying about the Egyptian revolution was true. Yet this prompted no reconsideration of basic beliefs or of the relative credibility of various “experts.”
Here’s the bottom line: No matter how bad the economic situation, leadership, or policies might be, a country can recover if the people and elite are able to define the real problems and the real solutions. If the connection with reality is lost, all hope is gone. That is one of the Middle East’s central problems. Increasingly, it seems to be Europe and America’s problem, too.
The way cults work is to isolate people from reality and bombard them with a single viewpoint. The victim is cut off from other influences by being told that they are evil and thus to be disregarded. In some ways, that is what’s been happening to America in recent years.
One weakness of this structure is that the arguments it makes and the claims puts forward are so ridiculous that if exposed to articulate and reasoned responses — often, even for a mere sixty-second period — it quickly collapses logically. Its strength is that it has such strong defenses against such exposure.
Another weakness is that the use of institutions for politically motivated exploitation must remain invisible. If someone understands that universities, mass media, and other trusted institutions have been distorted out of their historical, democratic, and American norms then that’s the beginning of seeing through deception.
Basically, there are three ways that this system can be broken:
First, the power of ideas, which is why many perspectives are banned from campuses and mass media; distorted; and the places where they do appear discredited. Alternative ideas must have a way of reaching those who don’t already accept them.
Second, the power of experience, in which events show dominant ideas and policies don’t accurately interpret the situation and don’t work. Experience can bypass media and schools and other institutions but may also be mediated by them.
Third, elections, in which the number of people who think each way is actually counted, rather than merely “spun” by institutions controlled by the dominant ideology that is generated by a minority.
Having lived outside the United States for most of the time during the last twenty years, and soon to leave again, I have seen America from near and far. To have seen it so transformed close up without having watched the daily “fundamental transformation” bewilders me. Yet people who have lived through every minute of this process also don’t seem to be able to explain it, or at least each explains what went wrong in a different way.
Many think nothing has changed; many more believe all the changes have been for the better.
It’s too early to count America out. The reality of its exceptionalism — yes, viewing America from outside makes that reality more evident — and its people’s strengths might well pull it out of this swamp.
Yet in thinking about the future I feel like the British military attache in Istanbul, whose letter home I once found in the archives. It was spring 1941, 70 years ago almost to the exact day. Nazi Germany was dominant in Europe and steadily marching forward.
The city was deceptively serene and beautiful, he wrote:
“Every garden has a red Judas tree in it, and it’s a wonderful sight: even across the Bosphorus the Asiatic side is a blaze of red silhouetted against the black cypress trees of the vast cemeteries.” He had just hosted a successful cocktail party with every delicacy of food and plenty to drink. Anyone would think life was perfect.
Yet he thought this idyll would not last. Once the Germans rested a bit, he predicted:
“A smashing attack will be staged…. I think we have at least a month….I listened to Churchill’s broadcast last night, which didn’t hold out much comfort. I don’t mean that I have the slightest doubt about the ultimate end, but it does look a hell of a way off.”
I, too, have no doubt about the ultimate end. But, yes, it seems too far off.
You didn’t exactly mention where you visited, but don’t take California or any of our bi-costal metropolitan areas as somehow being representative of the current American experience–although, come to think of it, most of the media heads come from there.
Did you even read the article? He mentioned where he was, and he qualified his remarks, at least twice, by saying that about half of the population exhibits the described behavior. Stop being part of the problem.
Who are you, and why are you nic-jacking me?
NOW,
R
PJMedia Terms of Use:
“• Misrepresent yourself or represent yourself as another user of the Site and/or the Services.”
WAITING,
R
I don’t think you can judge a whole book (the U.S.) by the cover …in this case, California. It is unbalanced and unjust to do so.
I don’t think you can judge a whole book (California) by the cover …in this case, the coastal bastions of left-wing hypnotism. It is unbalanced and unjust to do so. California is a varied state, and once you get inland it’s much more like the American heartland.
Of course you are right about California plus Boston-DC. But I’m mainly talking about mass media, academia, and the highly publicized public debate, not what people are thinking. For the record I was in California, Iowa, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, Florida, Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and other places.
Leftists can NEVER face facts until something forces them to abandon their entire world view.
That’s an interesting read.
very much enjoy your writing, Mr Rubin. i hope you’ll continue to continue to contribute after you’ve left the country.
We are teaching future generations of children nothing less than that they are inheritors of the most evil, racist, bloodthirsty “empire” in all of history.
Take a look at the PBS Teachers website. Every week, they send out pre-packaged teaching units to thousands of teachers. Many of the lessons are pure politics, accusation, and bias.
As a student of totalitarian regimes, I’ve often wondered whether employees of state controlled media, eg, Pravda or Izvestia, were enthusiastic supporters of the regime, or went along with the party line just to keep their jobs or to avoid punishment. Having seen the MSM in action since the advent of Obama, the answer is clear: the press creates the cult of personality, feeds it, and keeps it going. No government rule or mandate caused the MSm to become slavish acolytes and servants of the Obama cult; the members of the press did it of their own free will. Just as editors of Pravda really believed in the Stalin cult, our MSM really believe s the Obama cult. If not for Fox TV, conservative talk radio and bloggers, the BHO cult of personality and Democratic party line would be overwhelmingly dominant. Thank God for the First Amendment!
The flight of independent thinkers to FOX news is no accident. The whole of the mass media has installed thought police and enforce dogma rigidly. If you cross the line you are out. It has only been the last ten years that FOX News offers a place to go.
I wish that we had another George Carlin who could publicize the media’s political limits the way George Carlin’s “Seven words you cannot say on TV” did the vocabulary limit.
We all know more than one of them:
-Integration is good and separate education is bad. No matter how badly the blacks need remedial help that they are not getting help learning to think. Just teaching chess in early grade school would make a difference.
-Black culture is not willfully ignorant.
-Countering Communists is just witch hunting. This despite the documents declassified after 50 years from the McCarthy era showing that McCarthy was 100% on the money and was dragged by Stalin’s agents of influence.
-McCarthyism is bad and Hollywood is not riddled with America hating communists.
-College Professors are not basically dishonest. I phrase it that way because commentators back to the nineteenth century have remarked that the word of a lady of the night is more trust worthy that that of a University professor. Robert Heinlein the Science Fiction author said the girls were vastly more honest.
-That Democrats and the Republicans are just alike.
-Men and Women are just a like and a woman can do anything that a man can. Thank God they have not tried Women not doing anything that a Man can’t. The ERA was as close as they came.
-That you can vote for a man without voting for his party and its platform.
The author is right that at least twenty percent of America is now a cult isolated from reality. With some additional percentage conditioned to never discuss the subjects of cult dogma.
The bias in the Media (I call them the Marxist Media) is the worst I have ever seen it. They hide stories that embarass Democrats. Yet they beat the drum relentlessly when Repubs make a faux pas (remember macaca). The leftists have conquered most of our institutions: Hollyweird, Education (secondary and colleges), the bureaucracy, and some of the churches. With George Soros and others with a lot of money, they buy a lot of access and agi-prop groups. The unions are totally in the tank for Democrats and the Demons have their corrupt voter registration drives that are conducted by ACORN. We are far, far down the road to a totalitarian system with the elites completely in control.
But, there are still a lot of older, white people who vote Democrat because they think the Demons are the party of the “little people”. They can not or do not want to see that progressive is just about the same as communist/marxist. I know because two of these people are my sisters. Nice, but blind. One said well, Bush spent money, too. When I asked how long the country was going to last with Trillion Dollar deficits, I can’t get a response.
We all have relatives like that. I have a twin brother and we’re totally opposite in our thinking. Deep South. We can’t even have a discussion about the current state of affairs. He’s a college educated liberal and thinks he’s much more intelligent than most people. He also grew up receiving money from our parents after we were adults, so he definitely believes in the welfare system. Completely amazing to me. They are so convinced that we (conservatives) are the root cause of the problem.
There are people in California who say the real problem is that Orange County still has Republicans in it. The harsh lesson for me, is that the lesson will never be learned. Never.
It hasn’t happened by random chance. A country transformed from a proud, confident, capable collection of energetic people into a fearful, dependent, envious and angry collection of disparate parts…all in 65 years…did not happen by random chance.
Yes, that’s right—the USA has things rwong which can be rectified by war, only. About 30yr ago, one of the oriental thinkers said that, America’s problem was that, the nation is producing too many criminals; since then, Larry Campbell—a B.C rep. and Chief of Police—has said so, and others have said so.
Well, can anyone else tell us the first place an invading army (except USA army and some few other) goes, upon entering a city? Yes, exactly, they go to the jails; and does anyone know why they go to the jails? Yes, that’s right—to kill all the prisoners; and, can anyone tell us why they kill all of the prisoners?
Well, too many jailbirds is just one USA problem which is to be dealt with, . . . and by the way, no so-called elite or any one else makes any one abort their child or in any other way demonstrate anti-social behavior—else, were Flip Wilson our prophet: “Da’ debil made me do it.”, . . .
Good article. You explain quite well how facts don’t count, and all that follows. One of the biggest issues I see is the indoctrination of kids – they’re being turned into generations of ill-educated manipulators and consumers of “social justice”. In a sick way I can understand why it is being done to them – government-dependent dullards are easier to manage, and beneficiaries of all this aren’t likely to challenge the golden goose. But don’t any of the “elites” believe the truth will out over time, making them a shunned set of failed leaders whose legacy will end up as case studies for decades to come? Nothing lasts forever, and this won’t either. I’d rather be in the right side of history.
“I’d rather be in the right side of history.”
There is no right or wrong side of history. There is only history. How you interpret history is a personal matter.
One of the things that people miss is that the left was organized btom outsice for the last hundred years. Before that they were driven by the left omvers of the Southern Confedrates up until and though Woodrow Wilson. After Wilson the Russians took over with money and covert orginizing talent here in the US as they were around the world. After 1960 Castro’s people moved into most of the positions. Lea Harvey Oswald was sleeper who was supposed to kill a General in Texas when directed to do so. Over all it is estimated that 100,000 draft dogers in the 1960′s traveled to and were trained in Cuba. The CIA identified $22 million that the Cubas were putting into thier subversion operations here. That was a hell of a lot more money in 1970 than it is today and they were providing services, refueling and over flight paths to drug dealers in exchange for cash already in the US.
That $22 million was what the Watergate Burglers were trying to track. The Communists were working through the Universities and just bought the Democrats.
Sterling example: this going on at a Philadelphia public school
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=23644
I share your sense of bewilderment.
” Our civilization is threatened today by those unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood. ”
* * * * * * *
” The rapid changes on both a technological and sociological level will result in a great social upheaval. The cataclysmic changes will result in considerable suffering, often referred to as the Hevlei Mashiah or Birthpangs of the Messiah. If the Messiah comes with miracles, these “birthpangs” may be avoided, but the great changes involved in his coming in the manner adopted by Maimonides may make these terrible travails inevitable.
Since in a period of such accelerated change parents and children will grow up in literally different worlds, traditions handed from father to son will be among the major casualties. The Talmud describes at length how there will be general dissatisfaction with the values of religion-in such a rapidly changing world, people will naturally be enamored with the new and dissatisfied with the old. Thus, the sages teach that neither parents nor the aged will be respected, the old will have to seek favors from the young, and a man’s household will become his enemies. Insolence will increase, people will no longer have respect, and none will offer reproof. Religious studies will be despised and used by nonbelievers to strengthen their cause, the government will become godless, academies will be places of indiscretion, and the religious will be denigrated.
In the generation when the Messiah comes, young men will insult the old, and old men will stand before the young [to give them honor]; daughters will rise up against their mothers, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law. The people shall be dog-faced, and a son will not be abashed in his father’s presence. It has been taught, R. Nehemiah said: In the generation of the Messiah’s coming impudence will increase, esteem be perverted. [Sanhedrin 97a]
The Wisdom of the learned will degenerate; fearers of sin will be despised; and the truth will be lacking. Youths will put old men to shame. [Sotah 49b]
Judaism will suffer greatly because of these upheavals. There is a tradition that the Jews will split up into various groups, each laying claim to the truth, as the Talmud says, “Our truth shall be divided into flocks” (Sanhedrin 97a). This will make it exceedingly difficult, almost impossible, to discern true Judaism from the false. This is the meaning of the prophecy, “Truth will fail” (Isaiah 59:15).
Maimonides, in his Epistle to Yemen even predicted that many will leave the fold of Judaism completely, without mali ciously intending to do harm to the Jewish people, and the nation shall suffer immensely as a result of their actions. This is how our sages interpret the prophecy, “The wicked shall do wickedly, and not understand” (Daniel 12:10)..
Of course, there will he some Jews who remain true to their traditions. They will realize that they are witnessing the death throes of a degenerate old order and will not be drawn into it. But they will suffer all the more for this, and be dubbed fools for not conforming to the liberal ways of the premessianic age. This is the meaning of the prophecy (Isaiah 59:15), “He who departs from evil will be considered a fool” (Sanhedrin 97a).”
http://www.moshiach.com/topics/what/the-moshiach-in-our-time.php
I get an error 404 when trying to access the link.
http://moshiach.com/about-us/about-us.html
You are correct that Messiah is coming. Now, will you say to Him, “Baruch Haba b’Shem Adonai?” It amazes me how so many Rabbis can come to the correct conclusions about so many prophecies and still miss the obvious- like Daniel 9:26.
Contemporary liberalism is best understood as an attempt to revoke reality in favor of therapy — self-therapy for the liberals. In other words, they obsessively push things that make them feel better about themselves. Facts don’t count; only belief and feelings count. Our problem, and the world’s, is that these cultists have gotten almost total control of some very powerful institutions (including the White House), and that control will have to be reversed if we’re to survive.
It did happen by random chance and it’s called political correctness – the most diabolical ideology America’s ever seen.
The part that’s funny enough to make you cry is that it really started out as teen rebellion and maintains many of the earmarks of that kind of thinking today – PC rewards failure and punishes success and doles out morality along the same lines.
PC started with the Beat poets and the idea of rebelling against conformity and racism. It accomplished good things like fighting against Viet Nam but because it was a world view rather than a problem solving cause and effect phenomenon, the baby went out with the bath water. It gathered tenet and dogma along the way and environmentalism and anti-capitalism and now it’s a monster fully formed and with an army of dolts.
So, if your white for example, you occupy a default and permanent position as a racist and anything you oppose like being blamed for black crime or against immigration only “proves” this. That’s why Israel is “apartheid” though building barriers to stop people from being blown up while eating pizza is no more apartheid than trenches in WW I.
On the other hand, if you’re black or Arab, you can talk just like Joseph Goebbels and people listen rather than stop and say, “Hey, that’s hate speech”. And keep in mind, the President’s mentors by way of Trinity Church, Jeremiah Wright and James Cone come right out and disparage whites and Jews. Cornel West just did the Jew thing and no one called him out except insofar as he criticized Obama. No problem with the Jew thing. I know, I researched the crap out of the Cornel West dust up.
You all know the rest of the story – we’re screwed. White baseball leagues and Jim Crow are gone but they just make up new stuff like “white rage”, the “new confederacy”, the “New Jim Crow”, white privilege and racism 2.0.
Race is at the heart of political correctness because of the unfortunate confluence of the civil rights era with an immigration act at the same time that has inundated America and it was a large part of what the Beat Generation concerned themselves with.
Imperialism, colonialism, evil John Wayne, “Dances With Wolves”, the least educated being the “wisest” and the most educated “knowing” the least, it’s a world on its ear. In Superman comics it was the Bizarro world but now it’s not a comic but the 6 o’clock news.
Have you seen the show “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” Maybe its a 6th grader. Well, my point is America is not. Feed America some twitter or facebook candy and they are satisfied. Critical thinking is a thing of the past. Remember when good writing had to contain (who, what, when, where, how, and why)? When was that last time you saw that from the media. The truth is we are going down just like Sodom and Gomorrah. The whites, christians, jews, etc are just a convenient way for the media to mislead the dumbed down public. As for being a racist. If working for a living, supporting my family, giving my time and money to charity, treating all people with respect, and expecting my elected representatives to not be traitors, well then I am one. The question is why isn’t everyone?
I have asked myself this very question about 1.3 million times in the last 20 years. Ron Paul actually covered the insanity quite well in this clip-
Current conditions or just a bad dream
Logic and reasoning has fled America and actually a majority of the world. It has been replaced by instantaneous gratification and emotion.
It is almost illogical that the left hemisphere of the brain is where analytics is based and the right is emotion based, it is flip flopped in the political stance. The left attempts to use empathy and emotion to further their beliefs, the right uses logic and historical reference for theirs.
This too is another of the bizarro world realities of today.
Do we hear any analytics or logic when listening to a leftist? Of course not, they use attack and emotional response as their weapons. To the righty, we attempt to use logic and proofs as our weapons. Who seems to be winning the war in the debate?
I ask, why was Reagan so successful from the right? Was it his analytics and logic? Or was it his emotional drive that swept up the narrative?
Earlier I posted a link to a Ron Paul video, not because I back his ideas, but that speech was emotional and logical. The world and the US will fall into oblivion if those with the knowledge and the logic do not dig deeper to find what they are missing. The emotion. I ask you, why does the left attempt to control the language of the right? Why do they attempt to lambaste and attack anyone on the right that digs up that emotion? Because that is the left, that is their power. They have NO PROOF of their beliefs. Their beliefs always end in chaos or tyranny. That is why they use emotion, they have NOTHING else to contribute.
Example given, Debbie Wasserman Schultz actually stated that she could not understand why something being illegal was illegal. There was NO LOGIC, there was NO ANALYSIS. It was all based upon emotion and the belief that what she states was true.
Now, you have the Man Made Global Warming or Global Climate Disruption debate. This is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Have you EVER seen a debate in the last 20 years? I mean people from both sides being asked to go into a debate and present evidence and come to a conclusion? Of course not, that is NOT what that is about anyway. It is just another form of control parameters and creating a redistribution model. Heck, even the UN admits this in statements.
I just want to ask you, I have watched and read a lot of sci fi, do you think if the only man in the world being sane attempts to convince the entire world of insanity that he is sane, will he win the argument?
The power and influence of the current elite must end one way or another.
Don’t count Americans out yet, Rubin. We’re waking up. And we’re pissed.
And we are NOT going to take it anymore!
“Even being proven right by events doesn’t help. In April, many admitted that what people like myself were saying about the Egyptian revolution was true. Yet this prompted no reconsideration of basic beliefs or of the relative credibility of various “experts.”
It is almost humorous watching, day-to-day, the mainstream media outlets and papers, most of them liberal and having championed the “popular revolutions”/”Arab Spring since day one now having to ever so slowly realize and write stories about Islamists gaining power in Egypt, violence against Coptic Christians, Al Quaeda in Libya, etc. They are turning there stories around, but it is painstakingly slow: why, even in today’s NYT there was an article about the Coptic Christians being attacked and the threat that Islmasists would “usurp the popular revolution”. I mean I understand how media outlets can be in the tank for candidates and certain domestic policy initiatives, but to be totally in the tank for a foreign revolution to the point where analyzation of foreign events is seriously undermined is taking the outlets viewpoints way to far.
Almost like Glenn Beck was prescient huh?
Or did he just apply historical reference, ala Iran and Jimma Cawta?
“While this certainly doesn’t apply to all schools, the indoctrination that I’ve seen in one elementary school shocked me.”
- One school in Vermont (and I’m sure there are hundreds others) actually ask the children whether they want to say the Pledge of Allegiance (the ones that do are drafted into the gym or cafeteria to all say it) and give them a choice between the Pledge and playing for a few more minutes. They herd all the patriotic kids out of the class because they do not want the other children who don’t want to say the Pledge to be “offended”.
- About two years ago stories broke about an ELEMENTARY school in Massachusetts handing out condoms to kids who weren’t even in their teens and without any parental permission or even notification.
- I visited relatives in California two years ago; my uncle talking about one of my cousin’s (not even 12 yet) teachers and sort of joking because they were gay and my cousin actually spoke up and said that sexual “orientation” was different for everyone or something. Uncle then told me that the teacher is very open about her personal life.
These examples are a little different than actual indoctrination in terms of curriculum and the like but still frightening.
No, those examples are EXACTLY the ‘actual indoctrination’ of which is spoken here. Indoctrination does not have to be a case of a teacher saying to students, ‘This is what you must believe’, it is by example and slanting viewpoints toward a belief. By being ‘open’ about her sexual preference and being a ‘role model’, she is indoctrinating the students not only to her sexual preference but into making it ‘desirable’. Give me a child from 2 until 10 and I’ll mold it’s little brain into what I want. The indoctrination is total from K-12 and through university and college. WE bought into the 60′s free thinkers ie: Hippies, bought their ‘love will conquer’ philosophy and sent them to teach our children not the 3 R’s but self esteem and that emotion trumps reason. More’s the pity.
“Man is not a rational animal; He is a rationalizing animal.” – Heinlein (Gulf)
Tyrants cannot come right out and tell you they plan to tyrannize you. They have to have your cooperation. A man with the heart of a slave will always seek the comfort of his chains. A man with the heart of a free man will always seek his freedom. (That’s why tyrants kill, btw. A free man can only be killed, not chained.)
These tyrants are particularly skilled at appealing to your base nature. They use emotion to get there. They could use logical arguments. It wouldn’t be as easy, but it could be done.
“Let’s face it. Most folks are just too ill-educated to vote. They also do not have sufficient spare time to keep up with the politics of the day. That is for those who are political junkies. So, there really does need to be some kind of specialist for politics, just as we have specialists in other fields. The time when the average citizen could understand the complexities of things has passed. The world has grown to be just too complex. We just need to have some criteria. Sadly, we NEED gatekeepers.”
In a way, that is also an emotional argument, as it appeals to one’s desire to be superior. People will always think that they will be part of that elite group. They, of course, will be very, very disappointed to find out otherwise.
I’m not saying the argument is correct. I am merely pointing out that one could make the argument. The counter-argument would be very weak. “We usually end up in the right place.” Really? How’s that working out for you?
Like Reagan, you have to combine emotion with your logic. People have to like you first, or they will not listen to you. “People do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Learn this hard rule. Say it every day. Mentally recite it before you open your mouth about anything, anything at all. People cannot handle harsh truths, unless you couch them gently.
Lefties portray themselves as the caring, good guys, and vilify the Right as the mean, bad guys. That’s how they win. They define what is good and bad. To beat them, we must beat them at their own game. It cannot be right versus wrong, because then we are moralizing and judging. It is about being the good guys. Show them that you care, that you are concerned. Do not attempt to be right. Be caring. Be very, very caring.
“People do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Make it your mantra.
Personally I think the differences between the Left and the Right, the delusional and the rational, are too vast to be overcome. I think the only way to save what we can of this country is to split it in half, or for the South to secede again and leave the insane Lefties to devolve into a pure socialist, totalitarian state. Just imagine where we’d be today without conservative opposition to the Liberal agenda. Do you want to spend the rest of your life fighting these people? The Lefty leadership are control freaks and the Lefty voters are either teat-suckling government handout addicts, guilt-wracked narcissists, or people who live to impose their will and vision of the world on the rest of us. For an example of the last group, see environmentalist.
http://www.redstate.com/derkrieger/2011/05/24/if-not-now-then-when-if-not-us-then-who/
1) The “public mind” can undergo rapid changes. After WWII, “uncle Joe” was transformed into the communist Stalin within a day or two. As another example, the unions prior to WWII refused to engage in this capitalist endeavor, only to change their minds when war started.One nuclear strike, either a dirty bomb or an EMP explosion in the upper atmosphere, might shift public opinion–a massive wake-up call.
2) Institutional structures that become irrelevant do not survive for very long. What generally happens is that as the elite progressive fail to deal with the problems, people abandon them and figure out their own way to survive. This can lead to a dark age, where much of Western knowledge and knowhow disappears as having to purpose.
3) While the US has the weight and a vast pool of powerful genes (skimming off the best of other cultures), the country I have my hopes pinned on is Israel. Small, yet dynamic, Israeli’s have good reason to focus on reality rather than a dream world: reality is knocking at their doorstep. A new intellectual center for the world?
A Canadian observer.
Thank you, Mr. Ruben for another spot-on piece.
For me, it was 9-11 that turned me completely around. I was already leaning that way, thanks to too many years in graduate school. If I had a dollar for every elitist, jargon-riddled, peer-reviewed article I have read over the long years of my collegiate captivity … What finally became crystal clear to me is that: 1) academes view “workers” as a pack of retards who could not possibly understand what “the system” is doing to them: and 2) the radical left is about one thing, and one thing only: Critique — that is, tearing down the ideas, practices, and theoretical advancements of “The Other” (i.e., the [surviving] academic right), while offering NOTHING in replacement. These people who now rule academia are a legion of lazy, resentful, gullible, mean-spirited, second-rate minds who would stab their own mothers in the back to win a propaganda point.
What amazed me about 9-11 was how quickly and ferociously the Left in America mobilized to joint forces with their mentors in Europe to go after the American people and her uniformed defenders. That truly stunned, and offended me. It was the final straw. From that point on, this was about defending the America I grew up in. The CULTURE that I grew up in. All of the Christmases, and Easters, and Independence Days past. All that is good, and just, and heroic about my country.
And as America’s finest young men and women drew up to the line to put an end to Saddam Hussein, and his ilk, it finally came to me what Vietnam was truly all about: And this is it: when a free nation offers up its finest to accomplish a mission that the American people and their representatives in Washington believe to be righteous, necessary, and true, then the die has been cast and there is NO going back. When we entered Iraq we had the backing of 3/4ths of the American people (according to “the polls” of that day), and a nearly equal number of members of the U.S. Congress. The Rubicon had been crossed. Nothing but victory for our brave service people was now acceptable, and we, as a people would have to do everything in our power to back them, and thank them, and provide for them.
… But then the International Left (including America’s own MSM) went to work. Attacking, without pause, MY country, MY defenders, MY patriotism.
And now I am awake. And, Mr. Barry, I understand and agree with all your points.
Dear Mr. Rubin,
I, too, have been watching this slow motion train wreck for a long time – my first vote was for Barry Goldwater. I, too, am despairing.
However, I have great hope. This country has seen a few sea change movements – abolition, suffrage, abstinence and civil rights. These movements affected fundamental changes. The Tea Party movement appears to be one of these tsunamis. It formed seemingly instantaneously in every nook and cranny of the country. It has defied co-option and subversion. Smaller government!
It disdains the intellectually pretentious even though many of its adherents are quite well educated – doctor and engineer types. It is an older crowd, well acquainted with life’s trials. It is not passionate so much as grimly determined. It is a yeoman’s revolt. The last election saw the greatest change in government at all levels in 70 years. They’re looking ahead eagerly to the next round in 2012.
Regards,
Roy
Thank you, Mr. Lofquist, for your optimism and perspective. I needed that. I was born in 1962, and with the exceptions of the Reagan presidency and the 1994 and 2010 elections, it has seemed to me that the USA has been steadily and quickly crumbling from within during my lifetime. And, until the Tea Party, part of what has shocked me so much about this has been, “Where is the outrage?!” How could so many Americans passively watch their great country be destroyed from within? How could so many parents passively send their children to horrible Leftist-dominated public schools, and then to PC-dominated colleges and universities? How could so many Americans buy into the horrible gutter popular culture that has arisen the past few decades? How could so many far-left candidates such as Obama be elected to high office and now be considered part of the mainstream? Where are those so-called pitchforks? Well, the Tea Party is a great start, but I do believe that we have a long, long row to hoe.
In my workplaces in academia and other non-profit organizations during the last 25 years I have continually seen the evil power of Political Correctness at work. Some people still think that PC is a laughing matter, but it is dead serious. It destroys good careers, drastically lowers the quality of knowledge, learning and professions, and, as we saw at Fort Hood, it kills. I have tried to fight PC but to almost no avail, and I have been penalized severely in my jobs for speaking out. While for much of my working life I have been employed in “the ivory tower,” it has also seemed to me that most Americans out there have either given up and are willing to passively live with PC, or they are in accord with it. And as others have mentioned, we see how our children are becoming more indoctrinated in PC as time goes on. Considering the incredibly anti-American and anti-liberty beliefs of PC, this has made me very pessimistic.
Yet, as the Bible reminds us, we should always have hope. And history teaches that the truth always survives here and there, as it did through the Dark Ages. And whether or not we can win our battles, we need to make a stand for the truth. But I still often suspect that we are rushing headlong towards a Dark Age worse than the one between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Middle Ages.
Mr. Rubin….You said ["the scariest thing is the way that traditional American pragmatism, an open-minded search for truth..."]
Americans across the board have long lost their will and even the capacity to become ‘independently’ informed and apply ‘independent’ reasoning.
The masses follow (rely upon) the populist pundits snippet rhetoric and their biased publishings, the snippet rhetoric of adversarial seated politicians and of course the many political parties operatives….and lest we forget, the hearsay from other ‘common’ fellow citizens. SAD!!!!
Just count the thousands of politically oriented internets sites who have thousands, maybe millions, of comments that contain mater-of-fact comments that are void of any first-hand citations that they taken the time to read and digest, for their basis of fact on any given topic within the government and its legislation, regulations and or policies. Everybody feeds on hearsay from any number of sources to form their facts.
Imagine a nations dialog centered around the real facts regardless, of ones social and political leanings. Then and only then can, we as a nation, begin to have meaningful adversarial dialog!
For example! You’re now a legislator. You recieve thousands of emails, letters and calls ‘telling’ you to simply repeal the Affordable Care Act(PPACA) with no further notations. Well durn, that would be great prompting except, for that little thing called the Constitution and Congressional process once legislation is enacted or implemented. On the other hand, if millions of informed comments were received supporting the repealing of the Act under the Constitutions Commerce and General Welfare clauses, that would legitmately support legislative action upon the basis of something more than a biased whim. Likewise, it would give, maybe force, both sides motivation to have a good ole adversarial fight ‘centered’ around the constitution on behalf of the nations ‘informed’ peoples. It is soley the constitution for which will allow any legislation to stand or fall! When will the people wake up and learn this simple little fact? Simply biased ‘uninformed emotions’ void of relative and factual basis, won’t get you anywhere…except perhaps, in a spitting fight with your neighbor or somebody on PJM.!
“Americans across the board have long lost their will and even the capacity to become ‘independently’ informed and apply ‘independent’ reasoning.”
So you think that an arbitration panel that you intend tomake cost lowering decisions healthcare decisions is one that can accomplish anything if it has no power to bind people to their decisions; or if it can bind people to their decisions and is not accountable to government, you think it is somehow better than the Obamacare death panels; or, if it is accountable to government you think it isn’t somehow a part of government. You show us your independent information and reasoning, and either pick one of those three and show how it isn’t so bad, or explain how it really is.
Tommy…..your following me around pasting your [off-topic] drivel is disrespectful of the author of topic and the commenting contributors at large.
60 years of relative peace and prosperity makes realism an unnecessary burden. Going to war to take out an Iranian nuke factory, not having something you want immediately, admitting that the suave President is, at best, a knave; are not pleasant concepts so why bother with them. Contemporary America can function fine without having to face such un-pleasantries.
Does anyone have any proof to the contrary?
Next question; when do the bills become due? Probably not in our lifetime.
Of course your assumption of “probably not in our lifetime” assumes the age of the listener and his likely longevity not to mention the slope of the decline to the Gotterdammerung. All of these factors are relative to where you sit.
For me a civil war could mess up my planned retirement to say nothing of effecting my 401K distributions.
There’s a superstition that Jews are at the center of things, and that as the Jews go, so goes the world.
The episode of mass delusion — or whatever — that elected a hostile Obama with a relatively modest 53 percent majority of the popular vote, was notable for its Jewish majority of almost 4 to 1.
In light of said superstition, that would be a portent of doom. But, superstition or not, I’d be very much concerned for my fellow Jews if our vote in 2012 is anything like what it was in 2008.
Once upon a time the Democratic Party was home to people with diverse views, but people like Scoop Jackson would be unwelcome there now. If a Democrat office holder has conservative inclinations that person had better not voice them openly. And this ideological lock step has gone hand in hand with the party’s moral corruption. Dems might eagerly and confidently point to Nixon as the archetypal crime boss politician, but he was a piker compared to many dems, Bill Clinton in particular. If a Republican President had been impeached you can bet he would not be anyone’s idea of an elder statesman.
Maybe a lot of the heightened intellectual bias of the media and academia is to cover for Obama. There is a lot of evidence that dems are terrified about what his loss in next year’s election will do to their party. They know that he has the potential, in that event, to pull a narcissistic Gotterdammerung. Will go super Bill Clinton and merely empty the jails of all those ‘political’ prisoners? Or will he mime Jimmy Carter and spend most of his time overseas addressing US ‘crimes?’ Or, will Obama be Obama and do something unexpected? Faced with even a theoretical possibly of the O going bananas over next year’s election defeat it’s almost understandable why dems could care less about facts and the truth.
Les Hardie said
“If not for Fox TV, conservative talk radio and bloggers, the BHO cult of personality and Democratic party line would be overwhelmingly dominant”
In the UK we do not even have the miniscule resistance of a Fox TV or conservative talk radio. If you do not believe that Obama is the greatest politican who ever lived (and that is EXACTLY the description of him offered by a political pundit during his visit last week) then you are considered a ‘racist’ and/or a ‘freak’.
Would you mind describing the “political pundit” who thinks Barack Obama is the greatest politican who ever lived a little bit. I find it scary that at this point in this ride on the Obama Ship of Fools parade that anyone of stature still thinks he is competent, never mind “the greatest politican who ever lived”.
Take a look at the coverage of the Obamas’ recent visit to the UK by the supposedly conservative Telegraph. You’ll see examples of supposedly adult writers who still feel that Chris-Matthews-style tingle up their legs at the thought of Barack or Moochelle in their fair islands. It was disgusting.
This really struck home. I too have been living for 20 years overseas, and the America I see is exactly as you have described. Even the “sensible” people have lost reason. The elite and the government absolutely terrify me.
I have been telling people for years that China and Asia will rule the next century, less because I am sure of it than because I hope to wake a few people up.
Well, forget that. What I see reflected in China, India, Vietnam and other Asian countries is an unqualified desire to improve their lives. It’s reflected in the politics, the education and the populace. They are looking upward. Meanwhile, America gazes at its navel looking for imperfections and whining about illusory “fairness.” They are, of course, looking downward. That alone is enough to tell me which region will be ruling in 50 years. Forget about economics and military power, because that’s all predicated on whether the culture is looking up or down. And innocence will indeed be drowned. I wish it weren’t so.
It is time to rethink “Globalism”. You can’t be truly a free man or women if you have to know “someone in Government” to earn your living. When I was born in the early 1950s it was possible for anyone to find work in many parts of a large and growing private sector. What is missing now is that the Democrats/Progressive are killing off the businesses of the independent small businessmen and women. And they are doing it with the full throated cooperation of the large corporations. The governments at all levels are tying up innovation and efficiency with regulations and paperwork that make it close to impossible to innovate and create new businesses. The large corporations smack their lips at the benefits of eliminating competition and being able to hire workers at the wages they want to pay. It is fascism pure and simple and until we find a way to bring real jobs back to this country we will continue to watch our children become subservient to their masters
Call it Perverted Onus. The West is soaked in it,on the right as well as on the left.
It’s near impossible to bring about and keep the Illliberal mind focused on the topic(s) at hand, supplementing said conversation with reasoned, lucid and concise facts to a discussion.
Most times I have to stop the nonsensical ‘bloodletting’-mind-like discussion stating, ‘Let’s agree to disagree’.
Discussing and providing EVIDENCE, books and testimonials by respected, PRIVATE SECTOR EMPLOYED Scientists, Engineers and Professors regarding the fiction of ‘fraccing dangers’, ‘AGW’, ‘benefits of government funded/citizens taxed for public education’, ‘legit and honest green technologies and involved companies’, ‘needs for federally owned/wildlife protection acts’ etc., etc.,
For emotion will ALWAYS trump the Illiberal mind. There is little/no wiggle room or coming to an accord/consideration for your take or stand.
It’s truly disappointing. For dialog and eventual median should be the goal.
As a professor, the most disturbing change I find in students is their willingness to accept things that they know to be lies.
When I was student (in the 1970s), we were certainly lied to by various political operators and media, but once facts exposed a lie, we would start reassessing the message and the messenger.
Now students are likely to admit the message was a lie, but then they will defend the lie as making “a valid point”. Their basic premise seems to be that if facts don’t back up a certain set of beliefs, it is noble to use fabrications to defend them. That is, if the ideological premise is “true”, the known lie that supports it is also “true”.
With the digital age, the students’ concept of theft has also softened a great deal, but that’s for another post.
There is no dispute that Rubin is correct. And, he is not alone in his assessment. He may be surprised to know that there are many who have seen this happening AND tried to warn the country. For the most part, they have been summarily ignored.
The REAL question is not, “Is this happening?”, but “WHY is this happening?”. Rubin offers no answers here, or solutions. But, there is an answer.
The cause of this decline is spiritual, or rather the lack thereof. And, it will not be improved until people turn back to God! This is something that will not happen in Europe or among the “elites” of government and academia in this country; but it MAY happen in other parts of American society.
There is much power here, which is why so many new college graduates learn, to their dismay, that their educations have not prepared them for their occupations, and that they have a great deal of real learning to do.
BUT…
In the political realm, there are other considerations. Governments have unique powers: to distort measurements, to prevent the measurement of unfavorable indicia or deflect attention from them, and to argue that “many factors” played into the creation of a calamity (even if their predictions of a splendid outcome were absolutely confident). Government worshippers — left-liberals, mainly — will never, ever accept the odium for a policy-caused catastrophe.
(There has been a single prominent domestic example of this on the conservative side: the War on Drugs. And yes, a couple of our foreign “nation building” efforts have proved to be misconceived. But by and large, this sort of absolute self-exculpation is a characteristic of the left-liberal.)
Thomas Sowell pinned it in his book The Vision Of The Anointed. The left-liberal mindset assumes that merely to hold those views is an indication of superior wisdom and morality. That’s quite a barrier against admitting to a mistake.
talk radio is where it’s at. i myself have moved to another country (New Zealand) – please don’t come here it’s now chockful of American escapees all chasing the same few jobs. people still have down-to-earth common sense here, it’s like America was back before the madness struck…
i still listen to talk radio via the internet: Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Savage although the latter is hard to catch on the internet.
i don’t think America will make a comeback anymore: if 300 million plus another (I estimate) 40 to 50 million undocumented people are willing to tolerate and unable to do something about the monster now shxtting all over the white house and country,destroying one alliance with a country each and every day, then there is little hope…
I hate to break it to most of you, but almost everyone HAS already taken the bait that IS changing the world with the “social justice/save the earth” drum beat and fog. Evolutionism.
All the things that conservatives love to rail against are fueled by belief in evolution (note: Molecules-to-Man Evolution and Natural Selection DO NOT mean the same thing. How has this escaped you? Please, research it.)
Such belief has major consequences for even a logical mind’s consideration in how to evaluate morality. Morality becomes subjective and relative with Evolution – there becomes no way to display your morality is correct, except when you are winning materially, which is significant because any entity that survives suddenly becomes by default morally justified.
(This includes Objectivism – and it’s funny too, because Ann Rand tried to prove a Negative, her philosophy, in Atlas Shrugged when we are left to suppose her heroes world is without flaws, because when they pulled out of the outside world it collapses. That’s the proof apparently. She conjures up a fantasy world instead repleat with masters of the universe for all industries and thought and calls it a day. A little too easy, in my opinion.)
…Understand that what makes a morality correct is a creed and behavior that displays its superiority even when inferior materially.
Conservatives are not immune to certain reprecussions of holding onto this belief of everything “evolving” into higher forms either, albeit they do resist a certain collectivist thinking – which actually isn’t the enemy. So, because everyone is knawing at the same bit, conservatives, who knaw less than libs are sinking sinking as the world turns.
You see, the belief in Evolution necessarily puts man in the position to TRY and control the universe. I believe that if not for the Left’s zeal for change the Republicans would just as willingly accept and transform society into a New World Order, only in their image.
kb your post is a mess. I can’t figure out if you are arguing that old Christian preacher’s straw man that there is no morality without God.
The possibility of proving a negative only disappears if your solution set is unlimited. Evaluating a limited set it is entirely possible to prove a negative. Ayn Rand was comparing alternative societies and did speed up the social evolution but you can not look around at where America and Europe have gone in the last fifty years and argue that she had her directions wrong.
As far as I know morality is never superior in itself.
There are moral stands that are clearly inferior. Plato’s idea of only educating elites in the Republic made the middle ages poorer.
The Confusion ideal of making the best of the station to which you are born and not trying to improve your station in life probably cut a thousand years of progress off of China.
The Bible is such mishmash that extracting good from it is always a project and is dependent on the church.
Extracting good is impossible from the Quran of the opposite problem. It injects evil with the very first commandment to kill any Muslim abandoning Islam.
Maybe, so (regarding what you wrote about proving a negative with a finite series), but that was a digression. The point is this: that in any Evolutionary worldview there is no way to distinguish a true morality from merely the creed of those who survive. Hence, there is no truth, but relative truth in this worldview. So, ALL moralities are equally, and hypothetically true in Evolutionary paradigms, thus negating themselves and ALL becoming… not truth.
Biblical Creationism doesn’t fit with an Evolutionary worldview and is exempt from this self-destruction.
In order to have a free and open debate, you have to have a free and open
press. Once upon a time, every city had a Democrat paper and a Republican
paper. Today there are six liberal bias news channels to one conservative
bias. Apart from the Washington Times, the overwhelming majority of daily
papers are liberal. Very Liberal. The left controls “most” eduacation at
all levels. Dialogue requires equals that both sides recognize as equals.
Excellent article Mr. Rubin, but you seem to have overlooked the institutional change behind the observed decline: The demolishion of the schools by the public employee unions.
Avitar,if you want to live in 7th century Islam that’s your business, but don’t push it us Christian’s. This is a Christian nation contrary to our Muslim President’s lie’s.
Mr. Rubin,
Thank you for this brilliant post. I devoured every word.
I suppose I am a bit of a Negative Nell here but, I don’t think sanity will ultimately prevail. I believe this Global Goliath has put America (as well as the entire world) into a death spiral.
I believe, and have always believed, that our schools and universities have been the socialist and extremist breeding grounds for this current insanity. Extreme left wing educators must be purged from the system if we are ever to reclaim our country.
I, and millions of other non-koolaid drinkers will never bow down to Baal.
I grew up in a dictatorship in Easter Europe, so I could read between the lines, but here are almost no lines to read between.
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