Zombies: How the Left Captured Academia, the Media, and Other Organizations
Recent studies have confirmed that American universities have become bigoted and biased against the expression of conservative views. One new study documents bias against the expression of conservative views among social and personality psychologists, including those at universities:
We find that respondents significantly underestimate the proportion of conservatives among their colleagues. … that conservatives fear negative consequences of revealing their political beliefs to their colleagues. Finally, we find that conservatives are right to do so. In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists admit that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents are, the more willing they are to discriminate.
Also note this passage, from the 2009 book The Politically Correct University:
Substantial anecdotal and quantitative evidence indicates that there is a decided leftist bent to colleges and universities, particularly the most prestigious institutions … Moreover, as several of the following contributions discuss, this political imbalance likely stems from practices within the academy that discourage conservatives from pursuing academic careers. … We maintain that the relative absence of conservative, libertarian, and neoliberal thinkers and thought from the academy is in part caused by discriminatory academic personnel practices.
And read this passage from “A Crisis of Competence,” a 2012 report for the Regents of the University of California by the California Association of Scholars:
This report is concerned with the corruption of the University of California by activist politics. … The condition we investigate is now a well-documented pathology of the modern university. … According to a recent (2007) Zogby poll, a majority (58%) of the public now believes that the problem of faculty political bias is a very serious one.
These are the very institutions that were to promote freedom of speech. How were they taken control of in the first place, to the point where the documented intolerance could be permitted?
Professor David Gelernter’s new book America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats) addresses the history behind the transformation of many universities to a system biased in favor of liberal views. He describes how leftist intellectuals were brought into the universities, and how the previous guardians of conservatism in these places bowed out. Gelernter observes that such views spread elsewhere from their new home in the university, including to the mainstream media.
Gelernter believes that the old conservative guard voluntarily stepped aside:
Intellectuals didn’t conspire to make the cultural revolution happen. They could not have forced the Great Reform if they had tried, because the WASP elite colleges were private institutions in the age before massive federal grants let the government sink its teeth in permanently. The reform happened because the WASP elite stepped aside. It was a remarkable event — either a heroic, self-effacing embrace of justice for its own sake, or an act of exhaustion.
But perhaps he is being too kind to the intellectuals. Is it possible that indeed there was a mechanism by which leftists forced out those who didn’t agree with them?
I propose that there may indeed be such a mechanism, and will make this case beginning with a quote from Gelernter himself:
Among intellectuals, the left-liberal religious faithful are often not merely pious but zealous, even fanatic. To conservatives, they seem irrational and intellectually unserious, unable to hold their own in political argument, often unwilling even to try — all too apt, when pressed, to slouch off in a sulk or flare up like a burnt-out lightbulb with no more watts to spare on you. There is a frazzled flash, a silence, then “let’s talk about something else.” Many conservatives have had the experience.
Gelernter is, perhaps, understating the case. Many conservatives have found that expressing their political views around friends and family can lead to harsh insults, to loss of friendships, and even to a weakening of family ties.
Here are two recent examples from my own experience. I have an email list of 50 close friends and relatives that had previously been used by another member of the list (not myself) for expression of political views. I sent out some pro-conservative viewpoints to this list. One response came back from a dear, life-long friend:
I figure that, at best, this [a view I had expressed] reflects a desperate wish that the economy and life are that simple. A more damning explanation — intellectual laziness. Worse than that — willful intent to distort for political gain.
This friend later emailed me to make sure we continued on terms of strong friendship — and I replied that indeed we do. On Facebook I have posted a number of views critical of Obama but devoid of insulting language. A friend of more than a decade responded:
Your posts and commentary are literally making me sick.
He has since “unfriended” me and failed to reply to a recent sociable email I sent him on a non-political subject. I would gladly continue to be on good terms with him, and have reached out to him with a friendly email as noted. The behavior exemplified by these two events is not generally the behavior of conservatives: conservatives believe in a free exchange of views; conservatives believe in public debate. This Alinsky-style behavior appears to be primarily in use among liberals.
Take this kind of behavior that conservatives encounter so often in our daily lives, the sudden rudeness and hostility from friends and even family in response to an expression of conservative views, and imagine that in the context of academia or a media organization –won’t the effect be to drive out those who have conservative views?
Perhaps conservatives have failed to realize that this hostility of liberals is not limited to the sphere of public debate. Conservatives, believing in a free exchange of views and in public debate, welcomed liberals into the universities, the media, and into other organizations as well. Liberals, hostile to a free exchange of views and hostile to public debate, then drove conservatives out.
This appears to explain how our universities and media first became not merely inclusive of liberal views, but also subsequently exclusive of conservative views.
While conservatives have been treating liberals’ insults and hostility as a mere inconvenience to public debate, it has also been a tool used by liberals to drive conservatives out of their places of business, their chosen professions. As Professor Gelernter recently observed on Powerline:
While conservatives worry about debt and taxes and huge problems abroad, the left is busy pulling the whole country out from under them. While conservatives fiddle around on the roof, robbers are rifling the house and stealing the children.
The rightful goal of the media is to permit the public to be aware of all facts relevant to public debate, including facts supportive of liberal views, conservative views, and any and all other views. When things have reached the point where, as Roger L. Simon points out, reporters are afraid of being fired should they report facts supportive of conservative views, then we have a “Zombie Media,” one no longer serving its rightful function. It has been taken over by a hostile organization, shows merely the semblance of life, and is in fact supporting a purpose inimical to that which it is properly expected to perform.
If we now understand how our media and universities first became bigoted and biased against conservatives, we can at long last begin to consider steps intended to affect a turning of the tide.
Our institutions of higher learning, and the law schools in particular, have been targets of leftist infiltration ever since the dawn of International Socialism. I also suspect that the ease with which leftists took over was not due to the complacency of conservatives, but because the Progressives had already been well established in academia before the Comintern galvanized socialist fifth columnists everywhere. The Progressives were temperamentally compatible with the Marxists, sharing the same megalomaniac, messianic, totalitarian urge to remake society, had the same disdain for custom and tradition, the same idolization of science, the same tendency to deify the state, and so they were welcomed as fellow anticonservatives. Today the only practical difference between Progressives and Marxists is their respective chosen means. Marxists still prefer explicit, direct, brute force control of industry by the state, while Progressives prefer the outwardly democratic and superficially lawful tactic of taxing and regulating business into abject submission. The end result is almost exactly the same. The bloody-handed Marxists at least have the virtue of being more honest about their intentions, which is why they are successful mostly in societies without democratic traditions. The Progressives, on the other hand, disguise their intentions, hiding behind sentimental rhetoric and using “the poor” and aggrieved minorities to sell an agenda that benefits no one but themselves.
The Progressive movement was indeed directed against the Socialist Party, the IWW, and the red specter, but its “Science” was that which supported ethnic ties and a disguised racialism. As for the penetration of the Communists into their ranks, blame the socially responsible capitalists who went over to Keynesian economics in 1942, and who succumbed to the Popular Front and the cult of the common man. Today, we are in a protofascist moment, owing to the statism shared by both progressives and communists, who will jam together individuals and groups with competing interests. I wrote about that here: Panning the audience, the viewer could see a new “people’s community” in the making. Weeping, loving the demaguery, despising the “one percent” and clamoring for a “fair share”. When persons with disparate interests are mashed together by the Leader and Big Government, we should tremble for the future of the Republic. I noted the incoherence of the Democratic base here: http://clarespark.com/2012/04/06/diagnosing-potus. Last night we witnessed a burgeoning “people’s community”–not volkisch, but mashed into unity with the scapegoat, the “jewified” Republican Party.
I just finished reading Gelertner’s book. I was interested that he does discuss the end of Jewish quotas in elite colleges in the 20s and 30s but does not address the 800-pound guerilla in the room — the co-incidence of large percentages of Jewish students and faculty at elite colleges and the imposition in those colleges of Leftist intellectual tyranny. Most students of American Leftism date the takeover of American colleges from the admission of the Frankfurt School refugees (all Jewish) from Germany — surely as big a long-term mistake as the Germans’ deportation of Lenin to Russia. Jews have been famous for avant garde Leftism in America and Europe for two centuries. We commonly identify Leftist bastions as Hollywood, the MSM, the college campus, philanthropic institutions, agitprop organizations such as the ACLU and SPLC, and big NE cities in general. Now, cross-reference these places with high-rate Jewish participation and face the truth.
“Why are Jews Liberals?” by Norman Podhoretz
Jacobite, that is antisemitic nonsense. You have written about Jews as if they are a race with cohesive interests. Not only that, they are the chief communists, you claim. What you don’t notice is that once a person (of any background) embraces communism, all particularist identities are left behind. As for rich persons of Jewish descent who are in the Democratic Party, they too are more interested in assimilated and pleasing country-club rich liberals than they are anything else. And it was progressive gentiles who institutionalized multiculturalism and adopted black nationalism to co-opt it. Had nothing whatsoever to do with any remnants of Judaism. For an example of cultural nationalism, which you should be criticizing, see http://clarespark.com/2012/02/09/glee-goes-la-raza/. And then think about Rosie Castro and her wonder boy.
You are right on. Academic left-wing fanaticism has nothing to do with Jewish influence (one wishes that it were so simple) but is a natural result of capitalism’s fatal flaw: producing an affluent society that can accommodate (support) non-entrepreneurial, non-productive elements who resent (hate) the society that made them possible. The losers, self-canonized moral exhibitionists, who cannot hack it in a market competitive milieu, justify their existence by attacking the culture that supports them.
The statement is false. Jewish identity does influence the embrace of Anti-Christianism which is part and parcel to Marxism….which seeks to destroy the status quo and Christianity.
It is of paramount importance that Jews recognize their hostility to Christendom, before the gates come crashing down on them once again.
Why are Jews Liberals? – Michael Medved
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/why-are-jews-liberals-a-symposium/
Wolpe & Sarna have interesting things to say as well.
The first thing that Jews must do is realize/admit that they have a problem, before anything can be done to correct it. I dont see much admitting going on….just denials combined with pointing fingers at others who notice and charging them with Anti-Semitism…..like was done to Jacobin here, and no doubt will be done to me.
Let’s put it this way. Just as the Anti-Semite is drawn to Anti-Zionism, Anti-Israel activism like a moth drawn to a flame….so is the Jewish Anti-Christian drawn to Marxism in all it’s flavors that is hostile to Christendom.
Various forms of Marxism’s drive being the subversion, undermining, disempowering the Christian order. Jews are attracted to it, like moths to flame.
Clare Spark is right. Marxism is as anti-Jewish as it is anti-Christian. Jews are a diverse group with varied interests; the Jews who have been attracted to left-wing politics have generally been the ones who are least religious, least tied (and indeed often hostile) to Jewish tradition. The most religious Jews tend to be the most conservative politically. Far from being hostile to Christians, religious Jews today tend to see religious Christians as political allies. The kinds of Jews who read PJ Media are well aware of the political blindness of many of our correligionists, but there may not be much that we or anyone else can do about it, as anyone who has tried to talk a leftist out of his delusions will recognize.
Your immediate response to any criticism of Jewish involvement in liberal causes by accusations of “antisemitic nonsense” is in itself nonsense. For instance, to state that 75% of Jews vote Democrat is considered by progressives to be antisemitic. To state that 50% of all abortions are performed on black women is racist. To say that most murders are committed by blacks is racist. The fact is that there was a high percentage of Jewish involvement in the Communist Party. Much of the financing of the Bolshevik Revolution came from the American Jewish community, possibly as a counter to the antisemitic events in Nazi Germany. Up to the late 1940s Jews thrived under the Soviet Communists in Russia. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the Soviets started purging them from the party. The point is that American Jews are attracted to liberal causes. How much influence they had on academia is questionable, but certainly Jacobite is allowed his opinion without accusations of antisemitism. When one man, Rupert Murdock and his ownership of News Corp. is accused by liberals to have an excessively conservative influence on newsmaking, then why can’t it be stated that the entertainment or American news media is inordinately influenced by liberal Jews without charges of antisemitism. If you disagree then argue your point, don’t pull out the antisemitism card.
you forget what ben shapiro pointed out in his book, primetime propaganda, ie, the liberal progressive jewish huge contribution and direction of television and movies since the 60s that has destroyed our culture and furthered liberalism, secularism and respect for the evil main stream media, all under the guise of comedy and drama.
The German ‘deportation’ of Lenin was no mistake. It wasn’t a ‘deportation’ either. They deliberately sent him back to Russia and funded him (and others) to cause exactly the type of mayhem they did. Germany wanted Russia out of the War so that they didn’t have a war on two fronts.
Well said!
Maybe we could just start with firing squads in the quads; tee hee!! It is going to be a long, tough slog to make this change. I would use student loans as a prybar to begin with. Let the Universities sue-ignore all injunctions-and use the executive branch the way our current Neo-socialist is.
The following is food for thought, and demonstrates that leftism is the same wherever it implants itself – google- ‘Adina Kutnicki’ – links are bouncing back!
‘The Paradox and Pitfalls Of Liberal Democracies…In A Time of (im)Moral Relativism…The Havoc Wrought By Leftist Academia’ (8/21/12)
‘Leftism…Lethal To Jews & Their Overall Health’ (8/8/12)
‘Post Zionist Academics Further Israel’s Delegitimization’(6/22/12)
‘Leftist Dogma The Same World Over…Freedom Loving People, Beware’ (7/1/12).
I’m very thankful to Mr. Rubenfeld for this article. His description of how his friends react to any conservative views he airs are EXACTLY the actions a few friends of mine give me. It is like a closing off of the mind, even the soul. It is frightening, actually, esp when you know (or thought you knew) the other person well, and they in effect seem to transform before your eyes into an unthinking martinet.
I don’t think it would be an invocation of Godwin’s Law to suggest that I bet many German Jews (and other Germans who tried in some way to argue against or counter the rise of the Nazis) experienced the same phenomenon in the 1930s: a suffocation of freedom of thought and certainly YOUR freedom to express your thought. It’s a self-policing shut-down of your mind. And somehow, it is a group phenomenon in that it can happen to whole groups at a time, as well as to individuals.
We also definitely see this in the rise of dhimmitude in the West (see David Solway’s current column on Muslims in Canada re: dogs–simply unbelievable).
It’s all is scary as Hell and we’d better “write our Congressman” and support everyone (such as Michelle Bachmann) who is willing to stand up for true freedom.
As for me, I’ll send Mr. Rubenfeld’s column to some acquaintances and see if I get any response.
An Préachán
too many people are now greedy, evil, narcissistic, nihlists, too busy, duped by sunday church services, monied, dazed and confused by it all; all as a result of the destruction of our culture as pointed by david mamet and david gelernter. we may recognize it but it is probably too late to stop this juggernaut. too much water under the bridge and too long since the frankfurt school took over and the main stream media followed in lock step. enjoy life as best you can, but unless you are going to be an all out activist, turn the tv news off and plan your next vacation. its all over. the fat lady will sing and america will go down the tubes. where, i dont know but who cares. we are no smarter than the europeans and they sold out decades ago for all the gimmes and promises. we will all be 6 feet under. and our children dont have a clue and dont care as they are watching current tv and reruns of friends and seinfeld in between episodes of colbert, stewart, letterman, mahr et. al. my 34 year old son was just telling how good clintons speech at the dnc was last nite. i asked him if it made any difference to him that clinton was an adulterer, perjurier, sexual abuser of his employee lewinsky, had fellatio in the oval office, was disbarred and had the speech written for him by talented writers that could get 30K for one tv drama show??? i await his answer which will be liberal gibberwocky and nihilism. i think i am going to keep fidding. ah, springtime in paris!!!!
This insistence that the cultural revolution could not have been imposed from outside by Gelertner and others fails to understand the function of the accreditation agencies in American education. I suspect the professor knows this but like school board members he is forbidden from mentioning it to an outsider lest the accreditors threaten Yale. They are bullies and the primary poison delivery system changing American education, P-12 and higher ed. And now UNESCO has taken the US accreditation agencies and their sheltering of the Dewey ethos and blueprint and is pushing it worldwide. In fact it is what Accountability is all about. It is a compliance device for a political vision of education that has to do with changing culture by changing the noetic system itself.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/is-accreditation-the-enforcer-for-unescos-vision-of-solidarity/ is a post I wrote months ago explaining the accreditors function in higher ed. The Obama Administration’s adoption of the UN’s Bologna Process (no it’s not related to salami. The oldest university in Europe) and Arne Duncan’s decision to give the accreditors absolute control over who may participate in the student loan program means the private entities have total control over what goes on in higher ed. They are aiming to completely change the nature of higher ed in a story I have but have not had the time to write about yet. A prof still determined to lecture is why the accreditors are going to a continuous compliance system to keep ratcheting. The former 10 year intervals is simply inconsistent with changing the nature of education globally by 2015 and completely by 2020.
This article describes exactly my experiences with, among others, my best friend of more than 20 years. He doesn’t quit arguing, though, and head off in a sulk. On the contrary, I am the one who clams up, because whenever I make the mistake of uttering a single word re my political beliefs, it’s like I’ve opened a Pandora’s Box of Andrew Sullivanism/Bill Maherism, etc. His assumptions sound insane to me, as mine sound to him — but I can let it go and he can’t. Also, given my minority status as a conservative among our group of friends and acquaintances, it’s wisest to keep my mouth shut. I’ve gotten good at it, too. When my opinion is solicited, I tread carefully as I answer. If asked about my political leanings, I lie: I describe myself as an apolitical libertarian. I say “they all suck”, which I do believe, but I leave out that I think some suck a lot more than others.
I’m careful in this way for personal and professional reasons. Still in my prime earning years, soon I will be moving and will have to milk every connection I can to find work. Also, though I’ll be around old friends where I’m going, I’ll want to meet new people, too.
I know this self-muzzling is outrageous and awful, but I do what I gotta do.
The overriding reason the left lacks tolerance for dissent is very, very simple: On any given issue, a successful debate hinges on a command of facts. Thus, any reasonably articulate and well-informed conservative will generally trounce his opponent, often to the point of embarrassment. That the left has to resort to the loser strategies of Saul Alinsky speaks volumes about what confidence they have in their own ideas.
Re “On any given issue, a successful debate hinges on a command of facts. Thus, any reasonably articulate and well-informed conservative will generally trounce his opponent, often to the point of embarrassment.”
Much of the time this is true, but by no means is it always true. The problem is the entrenchment and general acceptance of the postmodern notion that there is no truth: my best friend is extraordinarily well-read, and has such an array of facts at his fingertips and is so sharp-minded, I can’t imagine anyone “trouncing” him. He just puts together facts and “facts” in such a manner, dismisses various bits of information, obfuscates regarding other information, and basically throws up so much smoke the argument becomes ridiculous. And he’s relentless. Talking to him about politics has become like torture to me. For the first five years post-9/11, we debated nonstop, then finally I said to him, “It’s like we’re speaking two different dialects of English, where a given word means one thing to me and another to you.” And that’s exactly so: We proceed from different foundations with regard to the most basic facts, and you need basic facts as premises to have meaningful debate. E.g., if what I see as an orange you see as a cantaloupe, how can we possibly discuss the best way to ripen it, how to peel it, and how to use it — how can we move on to discuss the best way to make jumbo shrimp with orange glaze (just for example; I imagine such a dish exists), if we can’t even agree there is an orange to begin with?
Arguing with those on the left — from party-line Democrats to nebulous leftists such as my friend — is in general maddening, but to suggest they’re all empty-headed ignoramuses who can’t debate conservatives without withering in 5 minutes couldn’t be more wrong. David Corn is a leftist, and he is very bright. Christopher Hitchens was for most of his life a Trotskyite, and he was of extraordinary intelligence and wit. Toward the end of his life he began to shift ideologically, but he still endorsed Obama in 2008 and could never connect the dots re the inherent moral and practical defects in leftist ideology and the inherent strengths, both practical and moral, of conservative principles.
How much dishonesty enters into the shaping of the debate on the left-wing side is also an issue, but the main thing is that, contrary to that famous quote about our not being entitled to our own facts, the postmodernists’ persistent influence and the relentless distortions and omissions by the MSM create a false reality in which we very much ARE entitled to our own facts. The most basic questions, “What happened?” and “What caused it to happen?”, become impossible to answer.
True enough, I agree with you. There are people with an impressive talent for the most convoluted layers of ‘word logic’ – the sort of verbal and mental gymnastics that can be improvised on the fly to draw another, completely contradictory picture five minutes later. And all the while be skillful enough to get away with it. Useless to argue with anybody whose “truth” is, as you stated well, just another up-for-grabs “entitlement”. Never thought of it quite like that, but it rings true.
It is also true, however, that most leftists, most people, remain none-the-less conscious, inside, of reality as an objective condition based on cold, hard facts. And the fear of having that reality hammered home is what makes the adolescent, truth-ignoring tactics of Saul Alinsky indispensable.
The heart of the mechanism is that left-liberals, who have awarded themselves the palm for superior wisdom and morality based solely on their political positions, feel perfectly justified in being vicious in debate and vindictive outside it. It’s for the Cause, don’t y’know.
Civilized persons generally won’t put up with such things. However, their most common reaction is to withdraw from all contention, on the grounds that nothing could make it worth enduring such indignities. This cedes the field to the vicious and vindictive, with results in academia, entertainment, and journalism we can all appreciate.
Fortunately, this effect is not terribly important in business and commerce, where the importance of being dollars-and-cents successful overrides all other considerations short of a propensity for physical assault. So conservatives predominate in those venues, while the Left totalitarianizes its demesnes ever more thoroughly, year after year.
Francis, you’ve captured the essence of “the great divide” (liberal academia, entertainment, journalism v. conservative/mixed-bag business) quite accurately.
Excepting that Affirmative Action gives the Left forcible entry into all businesses and organizations….via beholden minority identity politics grouops.
They are preferentially promoted as well, into positions of power. The Diversity Czar running the HR Department, becomes the facilitator of the Leftist takeover….and woe be to anybody who objects. They will need sensitivity training at minimum…leading to progressively more punitive actions, until termination.
Affirmative Action is a beautiful tactic for the destruction of the old order.
Yes, “affirmative action” / Preferential Treatment does allow leftists to rise within corporate structures…but the dollars-and-cents dynamic is still there. In the nature of things, it cannot be removed.
A company can’t survive on its diversity programs. Any company that overemphasizes non-profit-related considerations such as “diversity” or “affirmative action” swiftly sheds market share. If it doesn’t immediately thereafter correct course — and some don’t — it crashes and burns.
It’s been said that the most easily frightened of all entities is capital. No one, however determined, can keep capital where it fears to remain. That applies to mismanaged companies as well as to profligate governments.
I understand your point, however that point that you make is polluted by the Diversity Industry itself.
You lose contracts and business if you arent diverse enough, ie you lose marketshare. The bottom line is affected by the social pressure in the marketplace and helped to be driven in the marketplace by the promotion of minorities via Afirmative Action. Those new CEOs will choose to do business with the Diverse business. To get government contracts, having minority status gains access to minority only contracts.
The whole system is being rigged…..so as to diminish merit and quality….as drivers in the marketplace…to be replaced with diversity and green environmental concerns.
“…but the dollars-and-cents dynamic is still there. In the nature of things, it cannot be removed.”
Yes, it can be removed. Government has become such a significant participant in the economy that many businesses depend on doing business with the government or with businesses that are funded by government and thus government can easily punish businesses that don’t hew to its line and reward those who “coordinate,” to use the German notion, their actions with those of the government. Even where the business isn’t dependent on transfer payments, the government’s regulatory and law enforcement powers can easily bring a business to heel. For an example of the former, see Boeing’s accomodation with the IAM and for the latter see Gibson’s “settlement” with the US.
“They fear the Right because They have nothing Left.”
“Among intellectuals, the left-liberal religious faithful are often not merely pious but zealous, even fanatic.”
This gets to the heart of the matter. The American left (academic, media and political) is a Manifesto-thumping Marxist religion – evangelical and intolerant.
“The religious aspects of socialism may explain the extraordinary attraction of socialist doctrines and their capacity to inflame individuals and to inspire popular movements. It is precisely these aspects of socialism which cannot be explained when socialism is regarded as a political or economic category. Socialism’s pretensions to be a universal world view comprising and explaining everything also make it akin to religion. A characteristic of religion is socialism’s view of history not as a chaotic phenomenon but as an entity that has a goal, a meaning and a justification. In other words, both socialism and religion view history teleologically… Finally, socialism’s hostility toward traditional religion hardly contradicts this judgment–it may simply be a matter of animosity between rival religions… It is certainly true that socialism is hostile to religion. But is it possible to understand it as a consequence of atheism? Hardly, at least if we understand atheism as it is usually defined: as the loss of religious feeling… The term “atheism” is inappropriate for the description of people in the grip of socialist doctrines. It would be more correct to speak here not of “atheists” but of “God-haters,” not of “atheism” but of “theophobia.” Such, certainly, is the passionately hostile attitude of socialism toward religion. Thus, while socialism is certainly connected with the loss of religious feeling, it can hardly be reduced to it. The place formerly occupied by religion does not remain vacant; a new lodger appeared.” Igor Shafarevich
http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html
When I was younger, I was pissed off at religion because I felt judged by them. Now that I have actually met real people at real churches, rather than assuming they were all like the Westboro (fake) Baptists, I have learned that many of them are kind and welcoming, and the Christian religion acknowledges that we are all fallen creatures. Everyone has a speck in their eye to deal with. The leftists on the other hand, they do not acknowledge the speck in their own eyes, they are the perfect utopian vision, the end of the rainbow, and anyone who dissents is unacceptable. The intolerance I have witnessed from the left is worlds beyond the judgement I was worried about from the religious. There is no pot of gold at the end of the leftist rainbow, just tyranny and death to dissenters. If they don’t kill you outright they will starve you by pushing you out of your job.
Even on social issues there is a perception that leftists are more tolerant than the religious. That is not always the case. In the grocery store the other day my husband and I got separated. I was pushing the shopping cart with my baby on my hip when two snobby elite college girls sneered at me sarcastically “your mom must be proud”. Apparently this is the treatment single moms have to put up with in an elite college town. Every church I have ever attended has embraced single moms with open arms and love. A perfect example of leftist intolerance, or more specifically it is a particularly nasty strain of leftism. Planned Parenthood leftists are especially intolerant, almost to the point of being intolerant of motherhood at all.
Wedding ring?
I would venture a guess that the snark was not becuase they assumed her to be an unmarried mother, but that she chose to have a child (ergo did NOT choose abortion) at a early age.
In either case, would a good response be “She is; and so’s my husband!”?
It is not an exaggeration to say that liberalism is a political philosophy that, when all else fails as its resultant policies always do, will be delivered to you from the barrel of a gun. Conservatism with its lack of a history of failure, and by its own nature, has no need for such action and its advocates no need nor desire for a “jam it down your throat” mindset. Liberalism is the political philosophy of brutes. Examples? There are many. The complete destruction of the African-American community with the resultant “back to the plantation” reality for vast numbers would be simply one prime example of brutish liberal actions.
For the sake of all our children and grand-children, there is only one course of action left if we are to ensure any kind of a decent future for all of us in America.
The most intolerant people in the entire universe, the 20% minority left, must be exposed and defeated wherever found. Playing nice will not do.
Because whatever they touch or are in charge of will always!! come at the expense of something or someone else… whether it be our jobs, our security or our children. As soon as an institution reaches “critical mass” where leftists or leftist influence exeeds mainstream and common-sense thought, it becomes destructive and works against what our founding fathers fought so hard for.
What price are we willing to pay for our loved ones…?
Conservatives and mainstream Americans must not turn their backs on this evil, but confront it head on. For example; simply refuse to engage in political correctness, support school choice, get involved with your children and give to or become active with watchdog groups.
Most of all, pass the word and and go out and vote this November. And take a few like-minded friends with you, march to the polls… and then make a statement heard around the world.
Another successful tactic of the academic Left has been to dumb-down their students, making those students more susceptible to Left-wing propaganda and indoctrination. This tactic might backfire. The quality of young assistant professors in the humanities and social sciences is appallingly low. They have very little to profess.
I keep reading columns like this all over the place. The Age of Obama has seemed to draw the poisons to the surface and people are trying to figure out how we got to the place in the history of this country where really nasty people, many sociopathic and deranged are on the top of the heap. You are probably right in your conclusions. I figured it out long ago though. WE ARE LOSING BECAUSE WE ARE NOT THE SCHOOLYARD BULLIES. Don’t you find it ironic that the tactic used to shut everyone up by the left has now become another cause celeb for the left? That’s right people. Anti-bulling brought to you by…Saul Alinsky. There’s a simply solution really. It’s been there all along and it’s about time we honed our skills. Alinsky right back. At first it will seem awkward and many will have a hard time grasping the method of attack but practice makes perfect. Seriously, if you have people in your life that will not be “friends” with you because you are not left wing enough, do you really give a shit? The perils we are facing leave no room for juvenile stupidity anymore. I personally have dumped a couple of people I have known for a long time because their support for Obama and all things fascistic have SHOWN ME A SIDE OF THEIR CHARACTER I DON’T WANT TO KNOW. Plus I don’t want really stupid people for friends. You have a choice: do you want friends or do you want to take back and preserve the best country the world has ever known? Those on the left need to get the brunt of their tactics smashed back at them. And if you don’t like it, be prepared to be a LOSER for a very long time. Our country has an example that you might want to contemplate: our own Civil War. Brother against brother etc. Take a stand. And if you have any friends left after you do? They will really be worth it.
zombie’s closing thought is the challenge:
I’ve personally seen (been subjected to) the bullying same as you. I’ve got a door-slamming, wall-punching niece who has changed her middle name to “Hussein” and whose ear-splitting political rages strike people dumb. She spoils family Christmas like a dead reindeer. I’ve got a former childhood friend who gets all her news by logging onto her university website and reading uncritically the pronouncements of various commenters and mentors. Ironically for a university professor (which she is), she does not bother to fetch one iota of hard data. Her tantrums are a sight to behold and she has cut off friends she has known for decades because of their political views.
So what to do? Expose it? YouTube it like mad? One problem is, liberals ADORE tantrum-throwers like Melissa Harris-Perry.
I hear CNN needs some new ideas. How about a reality show in which professionally groomed, well-spoken people go through gruesome elimination rounds to make it to . . . American Idea! There they engage in live debate with strict rules against interrupting, changing the subject, and shouting down the opponent. One topic per segment, audio and video clips as evidence allowed, glam judges who are professional athletes and entertainers (gotta get people watching somehow) critique the performances, television audience votes for the winners. I bet the liberal speakers, fresh from their echo chambers, would lose their tempers live on national television from time to time. Not sure what the prize would be, but cash seems good.
While that may be true sometimes. I have found that on the rare occasions I engage people about ideas (not candidates)and carefully explain conservative ideas to them that frequently they have never heard them before!
They don’t hear them in high school or college, maybe their parents were disinterested in politics, whatever. But, they often are shocked that there are good explanations why Liberal Shibboleths like minimum wage, raising taxes, regulating at high levels, etc., are wrong. And conversely, that many conservative ideas, free market, less regulation (and social conservatism as well) actually are historically and logically well founded.
Perfect…
You can choose SLAVERY,
(Often IMPOSED by “friends” who have enslaved themselves…)
or FREEDOM!
but remember….
for the SLAVES on the left…
VIOLENCE is always an option…
that is why they want to TAKE AWAY your guns!
Should we imitate them? Are they that effective?
For several decades prior to its adoption of Alinsky-style tactics in the 1960s, the left side of politics in the United States had gone from strength to strength. The only exception was when it took a temporary breather during the Eisenhower administration (when confiscatory income taxes and labor union membership were at their highest levels). Since then it has stalled. The anticipated next logical step of the 1970s, the Equal-Rights Amendment, never happened. The previously disorganized right was able to elect Reagan and was even able to roll back some left-wing victories during the Clinton administration.
I suspect one reason for the halt is that the “mushy middle” was annoyed enough at radical tactics that they abandoned their previous attitude of “grab from the rich.” If we get them annoyed they might go back.
In other words, maybe we shouldn’t be using “Rules for Radicals.”
I recently told my Facebook “friends” that I would immediately “unfriend” anyone posting any overtly political content of either or any stripe. I’ve realized that there is no room for debate there and I’m sick of the poop-pie in the face, all spin, extremely partisan style of politics that we have evolved into especially since arguing with most people on the left is pointless unless you enjoy being called stupid, racist and evil when you dare to disagree with them.
When the leaders of an organization fail in their main mission, they take up tangential missions. This is why American universities, offering a credential of diminishing value at rapidly increasing prices, is so serious about racial quotas and the natural environment: They stink at education. This is why the American Bar Association takes official positions on issues like tax funding for artworks, nuclear weapons, racial quotas in education, air pollution, illegal immigration and same-sex marriage: They stink at providing legal services to anybody who isn’t rich. This is why the California Assembly, faced with a fiscal crisis which threatens the state’s credit and which had been masked with fraudulent accounting for years, debated the legal rights of people who had had sex change surgery: They stink at budgeting. Fail at your main mission, declare victory in minor, irrelevant ones.
Just wait and watch what happens when California completely fails, as it most certainly will. Will the conservative and well-managed states accept being forced to run to their fiscal rescue via the federal government? With weenies at the helm like John Boehner we will no doubt will. It’s over if we do. The collapse of California will be a major test for conservative resolve. When this happens the liberals will flee like the cockroaches that they are and arrive in your community to start their failed processes all over again. If we conservatives maintain our “Mr. Nice Guy” accomodating attitude toward them we will have only ourselves to blame for the predictable results.
Leftist domination of the media,foundations, and academia is not accidental. For example, the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium was organized by the Tides Foundation and is quite effective in screening out conservatives from entry level jobs in academia. Similar networking organizations control staff hiring at most large foundations. Virtually all reporters hired by the msm are graduates of Soros- funded fellowships and internships. Want a grant from the NSF? Republicans need not apply. Any hint of conservatism is a career killer even in fields once thought of as apolitical. Sadly, most victims are in total denial.
I think this is an excellent essay, but I think the mechanism of the transition from a university in which almost all points of view were welcome into the current Owellian Groupthink is a bit more subtle than you suggest: it was classical liberalism, not the “old” conservatism that championed academic freedom and civility in the process.
What happened from the ’20s through the ’80s went more or less like this: classical liberals, shading into progressives, believed in the free marketplace of ideas even as they began to shift to the left. They initially welcomed the Marxists, but by the late ’30s for many, the late ’40s for others, it was sufficiently clear that the Marxists were totalitarians in the world of ideas and could not be trusted to run the universities, though they could be allowed in as long as they were willing to play by the rules.
Over time, as the classical liberals shaded and faded into New Deal liberals and ’50s/’60s liberals, they retained their commitment to academic freedom and respect for divergent viewpoints to a remarkable degree (though not completely, one should read James Burnham’s Suicide of the West) and conservative views were still heard.
As those ’50s/’60s liberals (many of whom were WWI vets and/or were trained in the pre-WWII university, and almost all of whom were committed to an almost Mill-ian view of academic freedom) trained up the next generation, they thought they were committed to the same kind of liberal values they were — at least as far as the university is concerned — even though their politics were more radical. And, many were in that sort of ‘transition’ generation of scholars trained in the ’60s and ’70s, but not all. The really radical and intolerant generation of lefties who now dominate the universities were mostly trained in the ’80s and the ’90s (and since) by that transition generation who did not take Mill’s marketplace of ideas seriously and for whom politics was becoming a far more totalitarian (in the sense of dominating everything in their lives) proposition, and they’re the ones who are the most hostile and who systematically try to eliminate conservatives and conservative thought from the academic world.
“Is it possible that indeed there was a mechanism by which leftists forced out those who didn’t agree with them?”
Their are few conservatives in a faculty lounge because they are filtered out/ black listed way before getting hired. I dated a grad student at main campus who taught some undergrad classes in 95′. She once mentioned that there was only 1 white male student in the whole of the OSU humanties department and he was gay. I asked if that was by coincedence or design to which she answered, “what do you think?”
The bias and little campus “games” have been around for a long time. The ed bubble cannot pop fast enough.
There is an interesting phenomenon I have noticed on FaceBook. Most of the family/friends I follow who are Conservative never write a thing about the election. Of the three people that I know support Obama–family members– two are very aggressive in their views. Their comments tend to be of the “Only stupid uninformed people vote Republican” variety. I suspect many people who disagree prefer silence at this point. After all, they will have an opportunity to speak clearly on Election Day.
That’s one technique the Left uses to even prevent debate: The pre-emptive ad hominem attack.
Even on ScienceBlogs and other forums supposedly devoted to discussing science, the Left just keeps launching gratuitous political attacks on Republicans, conservatives, Americans generally (whom they regard as a stupid backward lot), etc. The purpose is to make such people feel unwelcome, so they won’t stay very long.
Their comments tend to be of the “Only stupid uninformed people vote Republican” variety.
In making my own daily Facebook rounds of posts by my ‘friends’ (mostly acquired through mutual participation in musical activities), I see precisely that phenomenon. Belatedly, I’ve started a Word file of quotes from this cohorts of (mostly very intelligent) arts-minded acquaintences. It is staggering in its mindless derogation and hostility, more befitting a lynch mob than a conversation. There’s not one evidence-based argument presented, just a contest of ugly one-line assertions against those who commit the heresy of disagreement with leftist herd mentality.
you must be on my page, music & all – the invective from the leftists is relentless.
“I’ve started a Word file of quotes from this cohorts of (mostly very intelligent) arts-minded acquaintences. It is staggering in its mindless derogation and hostility, more befitting a lynch mob than a conversation.”
This same confused thought appears several times in this thread of comments. The fact is “very intelligent” people do not casually engage in mindless derogation and hostility. A person who thinks they do is not terribly intelligent himself.
“Conservatives, believing in a free exchange of views and in public debate, welcomed liberals into the universities, the media, and into other organizations as well. Liberals, hostile to a free exchange of views and hostile to public debate, then drove conservatives out.”
Precisely this mechanism is what happened.
Another formulation I see a lot: Conservatives think liberals are wrong; liberals think conservatives are evil. Both sides act in accordance with those beliefs.
Mr. Rubenfield, you are more geberous w your friends and family than I am. I am quite bitter about the effects of the far left policies on my impending retirement years, and I’ve decided I don’t care who I offend.The Democratic party today is in the control of rat bastard commies, RBC’s, and I am no longer timid about saying so. If folks don’t like it they should open their eyes and support different policies.
the left are evil envious sh!ts.
they can not stand to see others prosper.
conservatives don’t care what liberals do if they leave them alone. but liberals will not and can not leave others alone.
they are meddlesome egotistical sh!ts. and always will be. they are community organisers, they are unqualified to give advise so they take over institutions and force it on us all and steal the work and rewards (money and property) of others to accomplish their evil agenda.
I sincerely hope the conservatives will stop this pandering before it is too late.
Modern liberals have become tyrants because they are in possession of superior rights secured by legal superiority. Modern liberals are tyrants because they are in legal possession of wrongful liberty. Wrongful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will with no limits, or within limits drawn around us by the inferior rights and legal inferiority of others. Tyranny (from the point of view of the tyrant) is unobstructed action according to the tyrant’s will with no limits, or within limits drawn around the tyrant by the inferior rights and legal inferiority of others; i.e.: tyrants possess wrongful liberty “to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.” Tyranny (from the point of view of a serf) is obstructed action according to someone else’s will (the tyrant’s will) within limits drawn around us by the superior rights and legal superiority of others.
Envision 1,000 people moving three dimensionally in the Superdome – each a unique individual – yet each naturally surrounded by an equally protective force field – equally protected in their life and labored-for property. Under equal rights each individual possesses maximum freedom of activity – maximum human liberty – maximum “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” As soon as any individual or group of individuals unjustly possess superior rights and superiority before law they become surrounded by larger protective force fields which, out of geometric necessity, unjustly reduces, in like measure, the freedom of activity – the liberty – of everyone else. Imagine a King or Prince, a Bishop or Imam, or the socialist Pigs of Animal Farm – “superior people” surrounded by force fields tens or hundreds or thousands of times larger than that of the “little people” – inferior creatures with restricted liberty – their activity obstructed within limits drawn around them by the superior rights and legal superiority of others.
Equal rights protected by equality before law is the essence of human liberty, and therfore the essence of our American Revolution.
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” Thomas Jefferson
“With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” Abraham Lincoln
….your essay highlights how the liberals (progressives really, liberal used to stand for something positive) have taken over language and the meaning of words. they pervert the true meaning in order to control peoples actions and more dangerous, their thoughts.
maybe you can see that in your writing.
I know some of what you wrote is satirical. but the progressives are not superior in anything, they are just more disingenuous and parasitic. they do not possess superior law they just take advantage of bad behaviour and dishonesty. they cheat and pervert law. that is not superior. it makes them thugs.
I was an undergrad from 89-93, attended a very progressive school (very naive, didn’t look beyond the academics when researching) and saw and experienced the campus Left’s fanaticism. It’s ironic that I entered school with no self-conscious politics but the Left insisted if “you’re not with them, you’re against them”, so frequently and stridently, it became true; today I’m cautiously pro-Right, but religiously anti-Left. I remember sharing these observations with older friends and family in the outside world, and being told by the Liberals among them, that it was all just kids being a little extreme because of their age, and in any event, the extremists were necessary to balance the extremists on the Right.
I’ve been playing with the idea that perhaps committed conservative need to go back to school and become teachers and professors, so in a generation or two, we can actually rebuild the U.S. with Americans. The thought has occurred we’ll probably need a “Wild Weasel” wave first. A group of independently comfortable applicants with good connections in the legal field to challenge the bias in programs admissions and agencies etc. From outside this wave would look like sociolegal Kamikazes.
An Alinsky-attack is recognizable even if you’ve only heard of it. Our local charitible non-profit invited a supposed sympathetic individual to a board meeting as a guest. He attacked everything we stood for, what we wrote in our by-laws, ridiculed our sense of accountability for grants – and then wanted to be elected as president of the board although he was not even a member of the board! It was a rattling experience. Took a little while to recover a sense of reality.
“… all too apt, when pressed, to slouch off in a sulk or flare up like a burnt-out lightbulb …”
Adolescence, anyone?
There are elements in our society which tend to insulate its members from the need to grow up. Affluence is one. The rise of victimhood as a status is another.
What do you expect when a Ayers or a Dohrn become accepted faculty members of Universities?
What do you expect when an Ayers influebcs an Annenberg project?
Read Vaclav Havel’s ‘The Anatomy of Hate’ or ‘The Power of the Powerless’. We have been silent in order to get along, to keep a job. He warned of this. If we stay silent, we will lose.
It has been noted elsewhere that people have begun to sort themselves along ideological lines. Conservatives want to live alongside others of like mind, and are apt to move for that reason.
As to academia, technology will eventually (if not sooner) make today’s college/university structure obsolete. People will create their own on-line degrees by choosing which virtual courses to attend. Since open conservatives won’t be allowed to attend leftist-dominated graduate and professional schools, they will form their own. In the end we’ll live in separate societies.
“In the end we’ll live in separate societies.”
I am not sure how that can happen when one takes into account that they must depend on us to fund their endeavors.
“Conservatives want to live alongside others of like mind, and are apt to move for that reason.”
My observation is a bit different. Conservatives just want to be left alone to persue their happiness despite differences of opinion. However that is impossible with the other group.
“In the end we’ll live in separate societies.”
Looking forward to the day we can live in serperate socities, however one group seems desperately dependent on the other (eg. watch California). It won’t end well.
This column and many of the comments gibe with my own experience from 1990-96, when I was in graduate English program, Peace Corps and later graduate education program. I had also worked as a newspaper reporter for three years prior to this time and a year running a small business.
I considered myself a very socially liberal, but still an old-style Democrat. Here’s what I found:
1. The Democratic Party was considered a reactionary, conservative party. Republicans were of course beyond the pale, akin to Neanderthals, and actually rarely discussed.
2. I was the victim of my own false-consensus bias: I over-estimated how much people agreed with my own values of free inquiry and respect for others’ points of view. To me, this tolerance was the essence of what it meant to be educated and liberal — you learned others’ points of view and listened to their arguments, and you embraced life experience and learned what worked, you got to know a variety of people, studied a variety of writers and critics, and you grew. Nope. All this was seen as pretenses for preserving my own white privilege.
3. Holding to virtually any middle-class standard of normality was considered reactionary. You could act middle class of course, but you couldn’t defend it without encountering suspicion.
4. At that time, there was a generational split between Baby Boomers who embraced leftist views and the older generation who didn’t. Guess who retired and gave up?
5. There was also a sense of oppression that many students felt — many leftist students thought Marxist critical theory was bullshit, but they never said so except quietly, they went along, and even they (and me) found ourselves corrupted by the thinking. The thinking was so ubiquitous you just found yourself absorbing it. Also, every English class of course includes some literary readings, and some critical works. The balance went insanely in favor of critical works. By the time I gave up in 1993, the next year’s course descriptions (which each individual professor’s list of works to be read) included only five or six novels across probably two dozen offered courses. It was all critical theory. They had not only chased out conservatives and liberals, they were chasing out the subject matter itself of the department.
6. Even the mildly dissenting students were willing to use diversity as a weapon. As a straight white male, I was subject to endless BS about gender-as-a-social construct and race-as-a-social construct. I was expected to grovel, which I didn’t do. (BTW, even the dissenting students tended to congregate toward taking the older professors’ graduate courses. This often led to the cancellation of the Baby Boomer leftist’s courses for lack of signups, infuriating them. That’s one reason that the old-style liberals had to be driven out.)
Basically, you couldn’t be liberal enough, and you were all but questioned about heretical thinking for something as mild as thinking that you shouldn’t be judged for being white and male. You had to be leftist. And to be leftist, you had to, in a sense, repudiate the values of the very people, often your family, who had gotten you where you were so far in life.
There is one last issue on the English department: Leftists can argue, and at least in universities, can argue very well. In an academic setting, you can’t just say, “Well, it’s common sense.” Defending common sense is not easy, and it’s easy for someone skilled in leftist question to make it sound like you don’t know what you are talking about, and are merely defending privilege and hidebound prejudice. There’s a strong ad hominem element to leftist thought, and it’s easy to end up on the defensive. You are presumed guilty.
It took me a long time after my academic pursuits to untie the intellectual knots I was in. There is a lot of truth to what Marxist critical theorists are selling, and just enough lies, mystification, and sleight-of-hand to make it extremely difficult to sort out why they are wrong. In the course of that sorting, it’s easy to miss the brutal power-plays leftists engage in because you don’t believe that leftists ultimately believe in power, not reason; they believe the ends justify the means, but they still hide the means as long as possible.
It was better in the Peace Corps — there’s a reality undergirding everything and if your head is in the clouds, you will get chewed to pieces. Most people were liberals, not leftists, and ended up with a split between behavior and thought.
In the grad education school, it was intellectually much worse. Merely thinking you had something to teach students was considered reactionary. Teaching content or even forms of thinking meant you were imposing your values on students. I had a long argument with a professor about compositional forms; he insisted that students needed to develop their own compositional forms and if I taught them traditional ones, I would be imposing a worldview upon them and killing the chance they had at developing their own. You needed to draw their own knowledge out of them and become an educational facilitator. It was nonsense, but in the education school at least, the education professors seemed less likely to play power games.
Anyway, them’s my thoughts.
IB Bill:
Thank you for stating more accurately and inclusively what I referred to in my first post. The statement about “not believing all the Left cared about was power” or words to that effect, is especially important. I chose to major in a different department because our English dept was so insanely PC, and I was one of the few straight, white, Jewish men present.
If they’re gone for what I believe, then good riddance to bad rubbish.
It was NOT the liberals that drove conservatives from the academy.
It was the rank cowardice of the conservatives to respond to brass knuckles with night-sticks and petulance with ass-kicking.
When logic doesn’t ring their bell, bring a gun to their knife fight.
It’s really very simple. Conservatives failed to discriminate against Leftists being attached to their principles and traditions and terrified of being ad hommed as McCarthyists, and then the Leftists commenced to discriminating against Conservatives at the earliest opportunity when they attained positions of power and critical mass within the institutions.
The same thing is going to happen with every minority identtity groups and especially with Hispanics in the US and Islamics in Europe.
Time to buck up.
A collection of news clips, photos, and interviews pieced together and edited; featuring a background soundtrack of sound bites from Aretha Franklin’s epic song, “Chain of Fools.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34vecSRFeg&feature=player_embedded
I have a question: Why?
Why does the Left insist on silencing opposition ?
Why has the Left engaged in a takeover of the Universities, the education system in its entirety, the media ?
What is the ultimate purpose ?
What do these Leftists gain by an overthrow of American democracy ?
Rubenfeld’s two ‘friends’ illustrate the two layers of Left-Liberal intolerance of Conservative ideas. The first ‘friend’ gave what to him was a thoughtful reply (though I must admit I don’t have a clue as to what he was saying). The second ‘friend’ gave a visceral reply – ‘your posts . . . are literally making me sick’.
The second ‘friend’ is an example of someone who is politically ignorant, who takes his position from his social exposure and from the media. That position takes its power from his network of associations. Undermine that position and his whole social being is threatened. Thus the visceral response: fight or flight.
The first ‘friend’ directs us to consider the leaders – the intellegentsia who formulate the policy and see to its dissemination. And my question is: what do they get to gain from the victory of their ideas.
I am reminded of a midrash about On son of Peleth, one of the followers of Korah, a cousin of Moses and Aaron who rebelled against the high priesthood of Aaron. When Moses summoned the rebels, On did not appear. It is said that his wife had said to him: “What have you to gain from this folly? Even if Korah wins, he will be the high priest and you will be subservient to him as you are to Moses and Aaron ?”
I ask again: What do they have to gain from the victory of their ideas ? For it is hard to believe that they themselves take seriously the mantras that their follower are taught to chant.
It’s a religious belief. They BELIEVE the only reason their magical-equality-granting and redistributing faith hasn’t worked is because not everyone in the world believes as they do. This is why it’s very important to capture the US, even though half the world or more is socialist-to-communist, and why they wish death to everyone who dissents. It’s very simple. They’re a faith — an anti-human one.
It’s not bigotry and oppression if left/liberal “progressives” do it, apparently.
My one reservation about this is the implication that this all happened recently, say, since the 60′s. If you read older authors, you can see that the rot started a lot earlier. Maybe the Left’s hold wasn’t so absolute as it is today, but they were clearly dominant throughout the 20th C.
If you read essays by, say, Waugh or Eliot, or especially, Chesterton, it’s remarkable how little has changed.
Are you a Free Citizen or a slaved citizen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4xV4MTnCdcfeature=youtu.be
Not to mention the DNC’s nasty “Government is the only thing we all belong to” video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=6gLa9Te8Blw
Just the other day I had to “un-friend” my own sister. After I posted on facebook that I planning to vote for Mitt Romney she started posting viscous ad hominem insults on my facebook wall, including encouraging mutual friends to shun me until I get psychological counseling. You see, not only am I now a conservative, but I was once was very liberal – and apostasy from the Left is for many an unforgivable sin which can sometime induce a deep vengeful rage against the apostate. I’ve lost other friends as well (only real Lefties, not normal people who happen to be Democrats) – some of whom I have known for decades. They usually pose first as “concerned”, then they become sanctimonious. Eventually they get angry, even insulted, when their attempts to bring you back into the fold fail. I’ve had people say things such as, “You know people talk about you. They worry. They don’t understand what’s happened”. It’s obnoxious. And the strange thing is, I rarely talk about politics with people in person. But one ‘wrong’ comment on facebook is all it takes to fall from grace.
Honestly, leaving the Left is like leaving a cult.
“Honestly, leaving the Left is like leaving a cult.”
It always was a cult. Came to that conclusion over a decade ago. Has anyone ever asked you once you were outed/identified, “why are you a conservative?”
I recently had to de-friend my only nephew, and my daughter and son-in-law had to do the same after his hostile and ignorant comments on our Facebook pages. A few weeks ago, I warned him, in the interest of family harmony, to stop posting on our pages. I suggested that the correct protocol would be for each of us to refrain from posting negative comments on each other’s pages. In other words, we would give each other the latitude to “rant ” on our own pages. He did not listen.
This, in microcosm, is what Obama, and the left have wrought, and why Obama is the most divisive president, certainly in modern American history, and probably in U.S. history generally. When government makes a major shift to control the lives of individuals who would prefer to be left alone, it causes those people to rise up to defend their rights. To put it in practical terms: if I like Cheerios and you like Grape-Nuts, we each can have our preference in the free market of the local supermarket. But if government decides we should all eat Cheerios, then we’re going to have to fight it out in the governmental sphere for our chosen cereal. This, in a nutshell (or cereal kernal) is why liberalism is wrong and free market conservatism is right. As long as government sticks to its assigned role under the Constitution (with its enumerated powers), we are fine. But once it oversteps its bounds and starts legislating, or regulating in areas, in which it should not tread, we are going to have societal discord.
The modern Democratic Party is anything but “liberal.” Liberal, after all, means to be FREE. As Jonah Goldberg explains in great detail in “Liberal Fascism,” the meaning of the term “liberal” changed fundamentally with the New Deal when it became a philosophy of welfare statism and coercive utopianism. The, now, classical liberalism became what we now call conservatism. Modern statist liberalism has gotten so out-of-control that we get airheaded law students who argue that sex change operations and condoms should be dispensed free of charge under government-mandated health insurance policies, while others pick up the tab.
“I now a conservative, but I was once was very liberal…”
“With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor [classic liberal - modern conservative]; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor [classic conservative - modern liberal].” Abraham Lincoln
Classic Conservatives & Modern Liberals
* Medieval Monarchy (Feudalism)
* Fascism
* Marxism
* Democratic (Marxist) Party
* RINOs (Crony Capitalist / Fascist)
Classic Liberals & Modern Conservatives
* American Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln
* Libertarians & Tea Party
* Real Republicans
What do Classic Conservatives and Modern Liberals have in common? What feature unites Medieval Feudalism with Modern Fascism and Marxism?
Answer: Collectivization of the people’s property into the hands of a few, where some men do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.
“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property… In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend… In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.” Karl Marx
“Private Property as conceived under the liberalistic economic order was a reversal of the true concept of property. This “private property” represented the right of the individual to manage and to speculate with inherited or acquired property as he pleased, without regard for the general interests… German socialism had to overcome this “private,” that is, unrestrained and irresponsible view of property. All property is common property. The owner is bound by the people and the Reich to the responsible management of his goods. His legal position is only justified when he satisfies this responsibility to the community.” Ernst Huber – Nazi Party Spokesman
What is the justification for the modern liberal’s desire for the abolition of private property – where some men do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor? What is the end result?
Answer: The justification is economic equality, but, in Orwellian fashion, the end result is economic inequality.
“It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called “abolition of private property” [Communist Manifesto] meant in effect the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before… In the years following the Revolution it [The Socialist Party of Oceania] was able to step into this commanding position almost un-opposed because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization… It had always been assumed that if the Capitalist Class were expropriated Socialism must follow; and unquestionably the Capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport, everything had been taken away from them; and since these things were no longer private property it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc [Socialist Principles of Oceania], which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist program with the result; foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.” George Orwell – 1984
Abraham Lincoln is out of place.
Abraham Lincoln is not out of place. Lincoln rightly stands beside our Founding Fathers because his view of human liberty corresponds exactly with that of Thomas Jefferson.
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual [to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor].” Thomas Jefferson
“With some the word liberty may mean for each man [equally] to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor [unobstructed action according to each man's will]; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor [which is the tyrant's will as it violates the right of the individual to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor].” Abraham Lincoln
Dude, Abraham Lincoln trampled on individual liberty, not the least by killing what he considered citizens of the United States with the US Military…by the hundreds of thousands. Life being essential to liberty. Or maybe you are big on the liberty of the grave, heh?
But besides that, he trampled the Constitution, free speech rights, the right of dissent, strikes were put down, military opened up to immigrant contract labor, threatened the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for his ruling on Habeas Corpus.
Abraham Lincoln is a military despot….a tyrant. You are sorely mistaken.
Jefferson Davis gave orders which resulted in killing citizens of the United States with the Confederate Military…by the hundreds of thousands, and he presided over the evil institution of human slavery. So, by similar reasoning it can be seen that Jefferson Davis was a military despot….a tyrant.
Before you arrived we were discussing the meaning of human liberty, and how Thomas Jefferson (himself a slave-owner by virtue of being born into the British-created system of North American slavery) and Abraham Lincoln held similar all-American definitions of human liberty. All men are sinners, including Davis, Lincoln and Jefferson, but that is not the issue here. Your ad-hominem attack on Abraham Lincoln is out of place because his thoughts on human liberty, as opposed to his (and everyone else’s) imperfection is the most important thing to consider.
Dude, Abraham Lincoln presided over the institution of slavery in the US, and was happy to see it continue, to preserve the Union. Furthermore his Emancipation Proclamation likewise was part and parcel to this, I wont free your slaves if you submit to Northern hegemony…and it made no mention of freeing the slaves in the Union slave states.
Furthermore, Jefferson as the President of the Confederate States of America, was not killing what he considered to be citizens of the Confederacy, but hostile imperialist invaders from a foreign sovereign.
All men are imperfect. Some more imperfect than others. Perhaps you would like next assault our ears and common decency with the virtues of Hitler.
I understand exactly how you feel. I have been “stoned” and shunned for the sin of apostasy. I really wish I could find a post cult support group to help me cope. At times I wish I could just close my eyes and go back to my state of ignorance. It was so much easier to be in the cool kids club. Now the best I can do is try to closet myself to get by in my radically left community and look forward to the day that I can move my family somewhere that I do not have to suffer being shunned and shamed and slandered.
Anon, you need to reach out and find some new friends! They are out there! Go for it, drop the sheep and meet some people that can think for themselves. They ARE out there.
This article is right on the money. My son has lost several friends because of their liberal take on politics. They called him names that I can’t use here. His paternal Jewish grandmother was mad at him because she voted for Obama and couldn’t understand why he was so adamantly opposed to Dems. He finally sat her down and showed her, via the computer, what was actually happening in the country because of liberal extremist policies. Once he did that she understood and hugged him for taking the time to explain it to her. Unfortunately not everyone is willing to listen to a conservative as his grandma was.
That story almost brings tears to my eyes. As you point out, it’s sadly a very rare person who is willing to listen and learn.
The answer of course, is to fight fire with fire. Facebook, as soon as you know they are a libtard… un-friend them. Planing a party, do not invite any libs, let them do their own party. Same for any family gathering, send that progressive retard who makes the scene packing and refuse to allow it around anymore. Show it the total disrespect it deserves, often and loud. Pretty soon it will stomp out and leave, all the while you loudly laugh at it.
Have a business… fire or do not hire the leftists scum.
Personally, I run my own small construction company. When I give a bid I check out things like the cars they own. If I see leftist bumper stickers… and especially if I see one of those fish with feet on it, I double my bid. S’prising how many of those bids I get. Also I do not hire libs and fire any who I mistakenly do hire. Usually though you do not find libs/democrats applying for a job which actually requires real work.
Bingo.
This is traditionally how it was done. Informal ostracization via freedom of association.
However Freedom of Association is no longer the law of the land, forced diversity and interaction are. Though you can get by with it, for a while at least.
Stick it, leftards…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Better than anything you… er, Marx… came up with.
Your post reminds of this nauseating retort from a likely source:
MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, vying with Al Sharpton & Touré [Neblett] for that network’s Racebaiter-in-Chief mantle, was disdainful of Paul Ryan’s Jeffersonian reference that “our rights come from Nature & God, not government.” She bitterly retorted that those remarks “were lovely coming from a wealthy white man.”
Welcome to The Age of Obama. Beware.
Typical Enlightenment theorizing. If the Founders hadn’t been well-schooled in history and experienced in real human society, it would’ve been a catastrophe. In the larger sense, ‘governments’ in the sense of civil society, are not instituted by men to do anything. This is the Social Contract fantasy, which has resulted in so many millions of dead. Human society is an organic entity, into which every individual human is born and to which he is socialized by his family and then by other authority figures. Society is a projection of innate, immutable, inherited Human Nature as manifested in every distinct human population. Communism is a theory of human society which teaches that human behavior is completely rational and subject to modification to any extent by the manipulation of the environment (under Marxism, the economy; under Gramsci, the culture). Marxism is pretty much dismissed nowadays, but Cultural Marxism is still going strong. Neither will work because Human Nature is not malleable. Libertarianism is even more delusional than Marxism; ignoring human society completely as a factor in human behavior.
how cute the way you summarize libertarianism. Yes, believing that a society is only free when its citizens are able to be wrong or make mistakes without Big Nanny riding to the rescue is delusional. So is letting adults make adult decisions.
Libertarianism hardly ignores human society; it just believes that govt is a poor means of controlling its every appetite and thought. We’re stupid enough to believe in this document drafted a couple of centuries ago by a bunch of white guys that thought people tended to be more free, more prosperous, and more happy without govt mandating the appropriate levels of freedom, prosperity, and happiness.
Slavery by Consent (The SIN)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=47jqtTMkZWc
Two points:
First, I fully agree with Fantom. We need to stop mouthing platitudes about the First Amendment, free speech and inquiry, etc. and start thinking in terms of “no, WE’LL tell YOU what you can say.” using any means necessary.
Second, the same situation exists in corporate America as well. Two years ago I interviewed for a job in another state for which I was a perfect match. The company paid for my trip and were very nice to me during my visit, but I never heard from them after. No doubt they Googled my name and discovered that I had been GOP chairman in my county. Oops, no go there.
So called conservatives can be just as fascist as the ‘Left’.
i.e. I was kicked off Free Republic (dot) com after I started asking questions and sharing what I found out about 9-11.
Hmmmmmm nobody can handle the truth :^(
(Yes, it was a false flag atttack)
Congratulations. You now understand the difference between “Conservatives” and “Obtuse Ideologues.” The dead screen names of thoughtful conservatives kicked off of FR for exercising common sense have been been piling up in cyberspace like cordwood since 1996. I doubt I’ve seen that websitr’s name pop up in credible conservative circles in almost a decade.
My wife once worked as a secretary for a woman at a government organization. She pulled that woman’s bacon out of the fire on several occasions. Once after she had saved her boss one more time the woman said to my wife, “You are a conservative, aren’t you?” My wife replied that yes, she was a conservative Republican. Her boss said, “I’m glad I didn’t know that when you interviewed for the job because I never would have hired you.”
Frankly, I don’t see how anyone can stand to be around liberals. I don’t have any liberal/leftist friends, and I don’t want any. I don’t communicate or have any dealings with any family who are liberals, either, but to be truthful I have very few family members stupid enough to be liberal. Thank God for that.
Why are you, why would anyone, wish to be “on good terms” with people who clearly hold you in contempt? The best part of Facebook is the “Unsubscribe from…” button that gives one refuge from those with whom dialogue is impossible.
I retain several liberal friends and we cheerfully agree to disagree. More strident friends of old who equate politics with personal are no longer wastes of my time. Friends do not treat you with hostility, they do not belittle your views as being lazy or stupid, and the best ones don’t try to convert you. Folks who cannot pass that small litmus test are not friends; they are people I used to know.
Thus confirming that leftists are not liberal. There’s no liberality in them.
The most difficult conundrum is what to properly call people who are liberal, who support the scientific methods in academia, who are willing to employ those with whom they disagree in matters of politics or religion. They’re certainly not “conservatives”. Conservatives are the folks who wanted to preserve monarchies and hierarchies, classes, stations, castes.
Levin and Limbaugh are quite liberal. Nasty Pelosi and Hairy Reid and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz are not.
Since my first acquaintance with American universities, back in the ‘sixties, I’ve wondered if, rather than by leftism or rightism, those institutions’ core beliefs may be determined by simple conformity. That would be conformity to whatever their inmates think is (or will be) society’s prevailing ideology. And this attitude is at least partly explained by every academician’s fervent wish to keep his job and not be forced to go out into the world and do real work. If there are exceptions, look for them in the hard sciences.
This is why I do not really believe that the spirit of free inquiry has ever been dominant in academia. Every institution is most intent on self-preservation, as are its inmates.
Consider German universities. During the Kaiser era the professors were more Kaiserlich than Wilhelm himself, cheering German aggression and the heroic marching of columns of raw student recruits into enemy machine guns. They were also hostile to the struggling Weimar Republic and favorable to Nazi ideas. In 1927 three-quarters of Prussian students voted to exclude Jews from student government. In 1931 60 percent of university undergraduates supported the Nazi program, twice its support among the electorate. That same year anti-Semitic riots erupted at universities all over Germany. Among the professors, of course, self-interest played a substantial part. Many hoped to be appointed to vacancies created by the expulsion, after Hitler came to power, of the many professors who were Jews or opponents of the new regime. Many also expected – and got – more funding and more jobs for “Germanic studies,” including prehistory, linguistics and folklore to dress up the Nazi beast. It’s tempting to suggest an analogy with today’s mania for women’s studies, black studies, gay studies, and other expensive time-wasters. In the meantime the exodus of mathematicians and physicists, who were disproportionately Jewish, destroyed Germany’s academic prominence in those areas. While Einstein, Oppenheimer and others gave America the nuclear bomb, Nazi physicists were theorizing about a mystical science called “German physics,” the societal value of which may perhaps have reached the level of Ebonics.
It makes sense, then, that the Nazis’ 1933 book burnings were attended by properly cap-and-gowned academic senates, and deans delivering approving orations. That the rather uncouth Nazis didn’t always reciprocate the academicians’ affections is true enough, but it doesn’t change the facts.
I could go on, but for more details I’d recommend the chapter on Universities in Richard Grunberger’s book “The 12-Year Reich, A Social History of Nazi Germany 1933-45.
If you’re looking for a good analogy from the animal kingdom, just google around for the story of the Micronesian Kingfisher and its (unnatural) nemesis, the Brown Tree Snake. We’re the (trusting) Kingfisher, folks. Either we learn to survive and thrive in the predatory environment that the USA has become, or else…
The author’s actions in seeking out his sulking Facebook friend is another reason. Why would one want to be friends with someone that acts like that? The liberal Facebook friend knows he can insult conservatives with impunity, they’ll always want to continue to send “sociable messages”. The liberal doesn’t suffer for his tantrum and the conservative will always try to “play fair” or “be the better person”. Even if the relationship deteriorates forever the liberal has the satisfaction that the conservative is still pursuing the relationship while the liberal is free to be rude without consequence. Time to start pushing back harder.
The Communists have never given up and they never will. We have forgotten how to recognize them and they have used that to infiltrate our political system. Long ago they turned the Democratic Party into a welfare party. With the election of the Communist, Obama, they have begun the task of marginalizing even their dependents in the Democratic Party. The complete takeover will occur if the Communist Party of America can convince the Democrats that losing their identity to the Communists would be preferable to losing an election or two to the Republicans. The minions in the news media are already crawling in the dirt and cannot be saved. But “We The People” have one last chance to stop them before they can complete their job. I hope our Creator has one more miracle left for the idea that people are born with “inalienable rights”. If he saves us this fall we should all recommit ourselves to avoid being brought this close to the brink of losing these rights again. Only afterward we will again have the luxury of arguing about the details of how we govern ourselves as free men and women. ABO2012
As a teacher in a school system known for its left-wing leadership, and attending a graduate school promoting social justice, I can attest to the reality that admitting to conservative or even libertarian views is professional suicide. I have witnessed what happens to teachers whom made their conservative views known. They are ostracized, passed-over , generally isolated and often driven out. I’m afraid to post political viewpoints on my facebook page, but my liberal friends and associates post their daily insults against anyone criticizing Obama. I would like to opportunity to exercise my freedom of speech without fear of professional and social punishment.
So we see the cowardice of the average conservative. The left takes politics seriously, most conservatives are yellow dogs, running from every fight. No one will fight, for those who will not fight for themselves.
Conservatives, frankly, are disgusting. May this present generation of false conservatives die off, quickly, so that real men and women, who fear the Lord but not the enemy, can take up the battle! Die, please, so that we can forget, that you were ever a fellow citizen.
“I can not praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.” John Milton
I’m seeing a lot of myths. The truth is that you need to understand Marx in order to understand the Left, and not just communism, but his whole theory of “class-consciousness.”
The really crucial thing is that Marx completely rejected intellectual liberalism. So-called “conservatives” are part of the Western, liberal tradition that starts from the premise that there are objective rules of reason and logic, and truth can be arrived at via informed discussion, debate, and investigation. Marx rejected all of that and asserted that *all* thinking, including the laws of reason, was merely the projection of class-consciousness, the intellectual attempt of a class to justify and advance its own interests. What we know as Western liberalism was identified by Marx as “bourgeois thinking” which had to be defeated not by superior reason or evidence, but the rising up of the proletarian class and the destruction of the bourgeois.
Most leftists haven’t read Marx, but their worldview is thoroughly informed by him. They don’t see arguments with conservatives as “debates,” they see them as moral struggles. When a leftist disagrees with a conservative, the conservative thinks, “The leftist disagrees with me; I will prove him wrong,” which is a liberal way of thinking. The leftist says, “The conservative is trying to suppress the poor and the minority with the evil lies of the rich; he must be destroyed,” which is the Marxist way of thinking.
So of course, once leftists got into the academy, they sought to expel and destroy non-lefitsts. They don’t see anything else as even possible.
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality.” Karl Marx
The academic experience aside, I have experienced exactly the same thing with a liberal ex-friend as Prof. Gelertner describes about half-way through this article. He could not tolerate my attempts at logically discussing Republican candidates; all he could do was call them names using vile invective, repeating the innuendo and lies in the liberal faction and finally expunging me from his email correspondence. In the last missive he even bragged about having expunged four or five other “former friends” for the same reason.
Sorry about the name error; Prof. Gelernter.
Liberals, hostile to a free exchange of views and hostile to public debate, then drove conservatives out. This appears to explain how our universities and media first became not merely inclusive of liberal views, but also subsequently exclusive of conservative views.
I don’t think there were ever very many political conservatives (read: classic liberals) in academia and the media in the past. Rather, I think the struggle over the last 70 years or so has been between those whom today we would call moderates (the late Senator Pat Moynihan, for example), and Marxists who were willing to advocate murder and mayhem to get what they want (Frances Fox Piven and Brian Leiter are typical examples).
Having a failed terrorist like William Ayers honored as a distinguished and respected professor makes as much sense as making Dr. Joseph Mengele the head of the American Medical Association. Yet that is exactly what has happened in academia. And note the media’s glowing approval of the violent, anti-Semitic Occupy Wall Street movement and the misogynist ravings of “comedians” like Kathy Griffin and Bill Maher. It seems that in academia and the media there is a growing thirst for violence that can only be slaked by spilling real human blood.
Funny you should mention Bill Ayres. There was quite a stink raised at University of Nebraska, Lincoln a few years ago when the teachers college, formally known as the College of Education and Human Sciences (whatever Human Sciences are), invited the infamous Ayres to speak at some function on campus. The ensuing backlash against Ayres and the gall to invite him to the UNL campus finally resulted in the teachers college uninviting Ayres. The excuse give was that it was an error in judgment. It was an error in judgment all right. The teachers college faculty seemed to believe that no one would care if a self-acknowledged terrorist, communist, and hater of America came to the campus, much less object to it.
“While conservatives worry about debt and taxes and huge problems abroad, the left is busy pulling the whole country out from under them. While conservatives fiddle around on the roof, robbers are rifling the house and stealing the children.”
Absolutely, stealing the children. At least two generations have received a college indoctrination in leftist dogma rather than the liberal arts education their parents paid for. I’ve seen it.
Liberalism is a giant con game perpetrated by the elite few for the purpose of attaining POWER. Like all cons, it is based on lies believed by the docile and gullible (dupes or marks). Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini all came to power because of the sheer number of “useful idiots”. It’s not your money that’s at risk, it’s your FREEDOM.
Does anyone remember the situation in the academic world in the 1950s? As I recall, many Marxists were purged from their academic posts.
What was the conservative response to this?
Doug 1943
You’re probably referring to the “McCarthy era” when there were still American politicans who were willing to resist creeping totalitarianism.
My answer: Probably applause. That’s what should be happening now.
Our disadvantage has always been a true belief in freedom of speech–something leftists are unencumbered by. It would never occur to me to intimidate people because of their political beliefs. But then, it would also never occur to me to indoctrinate a classroom full of students. In college I had a few leftist professors who tried very hard to sell me on Marxism. I never had a professor who tried to sell me on capitalism.
I think it’s important to remember that “the left” is made up of two distinct types of people. The True Believer ideologues, and the “useful idiots” (for want of a better term).
The True Believers oppose capitalism because competition and property rights are at the heart of it. They oppose competition because of their own feelings of inadequacy. They don’t want to compete for the things they feel desperate to have–status and comfort. By committing to the Marxist view of life and society, they feel that all these things can be had on the cheap–by mouthing the accepted memes of the cult. They oppose property because their inability to compete means that any possessions they ever have must, of necessity, be confiscated from others.
Their distain for all other rights (of other people, of course) is an expression of their need to control their economic and social environment– something they, again, feel powerless to achieve through their own talents and efforts.
The useful idiots, on the other hand, are generally Christian in their views, but are weak in their faith. In their own way, they feel inadequate as well, but rather, inadequate as Christians. Feeling unable to live up to the standards of virtue defined in scripture, they seek a sense of their own virtue and righteousness through sympathy and support for socialist “charity”. That is, all forms of government welfare, the cost of which they feel insulated from, since the money necessary will be extracted from “the evil rich”. Thus, salvation, and self-righteousness, attained on the cheap.
Read Skousen’s “The Naked Communist”.
Best primer out there on why the left is the way it is.
It is a terrible mistake to see elite WASPs as conservatives. It is a myth. They were progressives and there isn’t a nickels worth of difference between any statists and the progressives were statists, grown from radical Republicans post Civil War, by and large they were Puritans who lost their religion but remained cultural Puritans. There is no way to grapple with where we are today until we ger rid of these mythology.
Thanks for the article! Speaking of zombies and democrats . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fv5I2rmtuU
I am honored by these thoughtful and informative comments. I learned a lot from them, including, per Josh S., that Marx “…asserted that *all* thinking, including the laws of reason, was merely the projection of class-consciousness, the intellectual attempt of a class to justify and advance its own interests. ”
Many comments reflect what appears to be a growing consensus that we must learn to stop tolerating intolerance of conservatives.
Those who are intolerant self-identify when they use rude and insulting language; when they refuse to hire or promote on the basis of political views; etc. We as a society easily identify cases where people have used such behavior — or even a remote semblance of such behavior — to implement intolerance of people based on skin color. And we as a society punish such intolerance.
Now these same methods can perhaps be applied to intolerance of conservatives. We may be able to identify cases where such behavior is used to implement intolerance of conservatives. We can publicize and seek to raise public consciousness about such cases. We can focus on the human cost of hardship and loss of income to the conservatives suffering from such behavior. We can seek appropriate consequences for those who are responsible for such behavior.
This may be one of many possible ways forward.
It would be great if we could turn the tables on the left, using their discriminatory tactics on them. Unfortunately, we have already lost the high ground in education, the media and all our other important institutions. We have no leverage against the leftist “captains” of those industries. The only people on the left who are vulnerable to our counter attack are the nobodies, the dupes, the “zombies” if you will. And if conservative revenge became an issue, the leftists in congress and the judiciary would quickly put “guilty-until-proven-innocent” legal barriers up against it, as they have with laws dealing with racial discrimination. And you can be sure those laws will be applied unequally when conservatives are the target.
I think a better, though more difficult, tactic would be to establish parallel, competing conservative institutions. Fox is just a beginning in the media world, as are vouchers and home schooling in K-12 education. This model needs to be expanded into higher education as well. Hillsdale College is the only example of this that I know of, but there may be more.
If the government then, somehow, spikes these efforts, then talk of secession should be taken more seriously.
I think you make excellent points. The parallel competing conservative institutions plan is excellent.
At the same time, an all-of-the-above approach may be suitable. Yes, we would have an uphill battle to raise awareness of intolerance of conservatives. But all similar efforts had to start somewhere, and it was initially an uphill battle for all of them. And of course, we owe it to ourselves to call attention to this indefensible behavior that is so bad for our nation and for all conservatives. Also, we can also expect some support from Fox; from Drudge; and from sites such as PJMedia and other top conservative sites, which have very high traffic. All in all, perhaps we wouldn’t quite be starting from zero.
fox, oreilly, et. al. are a sellout. its over. breitbart died, rush is getting old and is a loudmouth blowhard. we need breitbart back, william buckely and some class. nowhere to be found. the left will continue to roll over us as they have in europe for decades. and thats the way it is.
@dan, I can guarantee that if you give up you will accomplish nothing.
An old high school chum of mine unfriend me when he discovered I wasn’t a leftist. He accused me of being close minded right before he did that.
Please, Americans – Check your public school curriculum. How many history classes are there? How many enviro classes that teach disgregard or disdain for humanity over animals and planet?
Environmentalism has become the leading religion in public school curriculum. It requires pub schools to teach Kindergartners to feel guilt for abusing nature. Through grade 12 students will be tested on their understanding of how evil fossil fuels are.
What is the solution?
Well, “The Walking Dead” shows one way!