Ideology & Acceptance or Inquiry & Freedom

In 2004, NCSU Emeritus History Professor R. Slatta created a chart that captures the contrasts between Ideology and Inquiry:

As one can see from the above, the characteristics of ideology and inquiry are mutually exclusive opposites.  Nonetheless, most of humanity entertain characteristics of each, as does society and its politicians.  Yet, while in different situations we may emphasize more of one or the other,  when one becomes exclusively dominant problems arise.

When ideology completely takes over and blots out critical thinking as well as the values and principles that allow us to navigate the opposing forms of behavior and thought, then we are in trouble – we lose the ability to navigate, to keep both in check as needed, and to understand when ideology rather than those core values are guiding us.

When a country’s politicians become ideologues rather than representatives and issue solvers, then our country is in severe peril.

Politicians have always stood for certain issue or policy positions.  Their attempts to resolve issues according to their preferred policy perspective has always required navigation between the ideological and the rational.  Yet underlying the persuasive acts in favor of their particular issue resolution, there was a touchstone built on the history, core values and beliefs of the country.  That touchstone allowed the partisan politicians to find ways of coming together to further the best interests of the country as well as to prevent them from becoming blinded by pure ideology.

Not so much today.  Today we have not partisan politicians but ideologues.  You can recognize them by their hypocrisy as well as the polarization they (usually intentionally) create.  When a partisan politician cares about his or her country, he or she will be willing to compromise positions for the good of the country.  But an ideologue is “someone who theorizes; an often blindly partisan advocate of a particular ideology.”  The typical ideologue is uncompromising and dogmatic.

The ideologue’s goal is to implant a particular ideology in everyone.  Yes, everyone.  That goal outweighs all else, including facts and rational thought and Truth.  The narrative becomes all important as the narrative is used to assimilate everyone into the ideologue’s ideology and to demean and create enemies of those who will not be swayed – those who choose to think for themselves. 

This is how today we so often see politicians and their followers to be inconsistent and hypocritical in their statements and actions, why the positions of the Left actually contradict many traditional liberal positions and values.  Ideologues do not have a solid issue position but rather a position that those who are not with them are always wrong (even if they hold a position that the ideologue has advocated for, the ideologue will now take the opposite stand). 

The ideologue politicians of today have lost sight of who and what a politician is.  They have lost sight of their role as simply a go-between for the people and their government.  Having lost sight of that touchstone built upon an understanding of our country, its values, and its democracy,  absolute and complete installation of their ideology has become their primary if not their only goal.  And their own power becomes imperative to them because they believe only they can keep the ideological order that they choose to implement.

What the successful ideologue ultimately does is destroy freedom.  If one is going to create and control a successful ideology then one must keep those whom one controls from thinking for themselves.  In the ideal ideological world, everyone must be the same in every way (the Left’s equity which is in no way equality).   Except of course those in power who make the decisions for everyone else.

That is not the structure upon which America was created and which has allowed her to become the great country that she has become.  That is the structure that will destroy America (and already is doing so as the ideologues gain more and more control). 

An ideologue is both more and less than a partisan.  More, because they are often more passionate and more persuasive, and even often receive more misplaced applause for their inability to bend and compromise.  Yet they are less than a partisan because their advocacy has no valid or constructive goal other than to advance their own ideology and power.

Ideologues exist on both sides of the political aisle.  Today, the rightist ideologues mostly push the traditional American ideology.  This is certainly far less dangerous to America than the progressive and socialist ideology of the Left, but it is not totally benign.

Anyone or group that pushes ideology rather than issue and problem solving is furthering an effort that avoids the individuality of thought.  It polarizes people until they become completely incapable of acting even in their own best interests let alone in the best interests of their community and country.  Worst of all, ideology destroys individual freedom.

Freedom requires thought, intellectual inquiry, critical thinking, creativity.  And these activities require freedom.  The ideologues would destroy both – the freedom and the activities upon which it thrives and which require freedom to thrive.  Ideology requires a uniformity void of individual thought and freedom.

America has created a place where Freedom and Intellectual Inquiry thrive.  This environment has allowed America to evolve and grow, to become a world power and a shining example to the rest of the world.  Right now, the ideologues on the Left are working to destroy all that. 

The Leftist ideology can be quite persuasive but, before giving in, the people of this country need to be sure they have exercised those skills of intellectual inquiry that we all possess.  Partisanship is a part of this country, but blind ideology is not.  The one helps us to grow, the other will kill us all.

Ostrich or Bolshevik?

I find it difficult to understand how many Americans still support President Biden and his Leftist agenda.  I guess they must be either ostriches or Bolsheviks.

Ostriches, with their heads in the sand, are unaware of the obvious going on around them which include, but are certainly not limited to, the following examples: 

• Suppression of free speech –  Testifying at a House hearing yesterday our Attorney General acknowledged during questioning that he, the DOJ, and the President consulted only with the teacher’s union and then put forth the memo requested by the union that essentially condemns parents who speak up at a school board meeting in opposition to the union policies and especially to the teaching of the racist CRT. The idea that such concerned parents might be called domestic terrorists certainly has a chilling effect on their ability to speak out no matter how much the AG tries to talk his way around it.
• Intimidation and cancelling of ideas not aligned with the Left – Includes inconsistent application of laws, demands that people embrace – not just tolerate - ideas (including such things as gender fluidity or necessity of 2-year-olds wearing masks) that are not supported by science or other civil necessity.
• Loss of privacy – the White House, allegedly to prevent IRS fraud by the rich, wants to have access to bank accounts with any transaction of over $600. Most people who work and have paychecks deposited, or who pay a mortgage will have transactions of that amount on a monthly basis and hence have their personal financial transactions open for government inspection.
• Economic disasters – Job reports falling well below expectations, gas prices at a seven-year high, inflation at a 30-year high and continuing to rise, food prices up along with costs of housing, energy, and other essentials, interest rates likely to increase. The economy is failing, and the middle class are the ones who will suffer most from its failure.
• Supply chain problems – meanwhile the Secretary of Transportation is on leave since August and has not left a specified point person in charge.
• International standing – plummeting. The Afghanistan pullout was a complete embarrassment and a huge hit to America’s reputation. China outpacing us with development and successful test of a hypersonic missile (made in part using US technology).
• Military and law enforcement – Afghanistan. Disrespect for military and police; focus on inclusion and equity rather than readiness
• Coronavirus – Cases continue to rise. Mandates eviscerate the idea of personal choice when the science behind vaccine and covid is still being discovered. Meanwhile Biden policies and mandates result in firing of essential workers, leaving them without jobs, pensions, etc, and the people whom they serve without service.
• The border – Migrant encounters at the border are at a 21 year high. The Biden administration has effectively created open borders. Children are living in overcrowded cages and are flown around the country in the middle of the night. Drug and child trafficking are up. Single adult males account for about 2/3 of the crossings. Migrants are released into the interior with only a request that they return for a hearing. The President says he has been too busy to visit the border, yet he has taken any number of vacations.
• Corruption and lack of transparency – run rampant in this White House. Questions are not answered or are answered with falsehoods. Investigations of possible corruption or unethical behavior are suppressed. Even the Attorney General himself refused to have evaluated the ethics of his involvement in the threat to parents about opposing CRT at school boards despite his association via son-in-law with a firm that benefits significantly from schools using CRT.
• Biden and his administration – blame everyone else for the problems, refusing to take responsibility for anything. Biden ignores the idea of rule of law when he does such things as judge border agents guilty when accused of whipping illegal border crossers, even when the evidence shows it didn’t happen. The Administration becomes more and more authoritarian every day. And, like other authoritarian governments, while they make many rules to govern every aspect of citizen’s lives, those rules are not applied to themselves. Also, like most authoritarian governments, they are intent upon silencing any opposition to their policies and their power.

Or Bolshevik?  If you are aware of the above and the many other problematic and authoritarian activities of this administration, but continue to support Biden’s policies, then perhaps you are a Bolshevik. 

Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary Marxist current of political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".  It originally referred to Russian communists, but now the term is used more generally for those who support such views and policies.

I find it hard not to characterize most of the activity of Biden and the Left as intent upon overthrowing and totally changing what we call America.  Thus, those who support such activity can easily be termed Bolsheviks.

Actually, Russian President Vladimir Putin put it well earlier this week in a speech to the International Valdai Discussion Group in Sochi.  Whatever else you may think of Putin, as former KGB he understands revolution, communism, and communist suppression.  Here are some of the more relevant parts of his speech:

The advocates of so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags as we say, go right ahead. The only thing that I want to say now is that their prescriptions are not new at all. It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones – all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs.

 

This, I believe, should call to mind some of what we are witnessing now. Looking at what is happening in a number of Western countries, we are amazed to see the domestic practices, which we, fortunately, have left, I hope, in the distant past. The fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity, when the works of the great authors of the past – such as Shakespeare – are no longer taught at schools or universities, because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what colour or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

 

Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause, but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into ‘reverse discrimination’ that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin colour. . . .

 

In a number of Western countries, the debate over men’s and women’s rights has turned into a perfect phantasmagoria. Look, beware of going where the Bolsheviks once planned to go – not only communalising chickens, but also communalising women. One more step and you will be there.

 

Zealots of these new approaches even go so far as to want to abolish these concepts altogether. Anyone who dares mention that men and women actually exist, which is a biological fact, risk being ostracised. “Parent number one” and “parent number two,” “'birthing parent” instead of “mother,” and “human milk” replacing “breastmilk” because it might upset the people who are unsure about their own gender. I repeat, this is nothing new; in the 1920s, the so-called Soviet Kulturtraegers also invented some newspeak believing they were creating a new consciousness and changing values that way. And, as I have already said, they made such a mess it still makes one shudder at times.

. . . .

Again, for us in Russia, these are not some speculative postulates, but lessons from our difficult and sometimes tragic history. The cost of ill-conceived social experiments is sometimes beyond estimation. Such actions can destroy not only the material, but also the spiritual foundations of human existence, leaving behind moral wreckage where nothing can be built to replace it for a long time.

I do encourage you to read the entire speech which can be found here:  LINK  

I wonder if in 1917 the Russian ostriches and Bolsheviks knew what they were in for in the “brave new world” they either were creating or allowing to happen via their indifference.  The Bolshevik dream gave them Stalin’s reign of terror and decades of living with hunger, hardship, and fear in the fully government-controlled society.  They lived without freedom until, even when communism fell, they found they had forgotten how to be free.

Our Bolsheviks actively work towards a complete reconfiguration of America.  But their touted new world is not a new idea and it is more frightening than enlightened.  Nonetheless, their actions and support for Leftist policy tells us this is what they indeed seek to create.

But our ostriches, with heads lost in the sand, are supporting this revolution as well.  If the ostriches would raise their heads and look around, they might see what is really happening and hopefully speak out against it.  Indifference is a vote and a win for the Left and ultimately for the tragedies and horrors that come with their new world order.

What’s In a Name?

The “Women’s March” took place this past weekend.  I wish they wouldn’t call it that.  It was not a march for women but a march for abortion rights.  It advertised itself as a “Rally for Abortion Justice.” It took clear political positions on both the Texas abortion law and on Roe v. Wade.  Whether women’s rights include abortion rights is a divisive political question and one cannot necessarily call a march for one a march for the other.

Calling this a “women’s march” implies that it represents and is for all women.  Yet it does not and is not.  Not all women think (or march) in lock step.  Women are individuals capable of their own thought and of a vast diversity of views.  That includes views about abortion.  If the march is going to take only one position on abortion, then it cannot possibly also be an all-inclusive “women’s march.”

               Reproductive Rights

The women’s march, like many who are pro-abortion, likes to couch its arguments in terms of women’s reproductive rights.  But they assume that all women agree on the definition of “reproductive rights” and that those rights must include the right to terminate a separate and unique individual that is, based upon basic human biology, implanted within a female womb for approximately 9 months of its life.   I am unaware of where, other than in the arguments of pro-abortionists, it has been unquestionably established that a woman unequivocally has the right to terminate the life of that other being, or, if she does, that the right is somehow part of her own reproductive rights.

“Reproduction” is defined as “the production of offspring by a sexual or asexual process” and is further explained as “the combination of reproductive cells from two individuals.”  Now, just on its face, “reproduction” does not include the termination of something already reproduced, so how exactly is abortion a part of a woman’s reproductive rights?

A woman’s capability of participating in the creation of a child certainly involves a woman’s reproductive health.  Reproductive health, or sexual health, denotes the health of a woman’s reproductive system during all her life stages.”  This is the woman’s reproductive system.  It has nothing to do with the separate life of the unborn child. 

               The Science

Current science tells us that from the moment of conception a unique individual exists with a specific and unique genetic structure that is different from the mother, the father, and all other individuals.  Science also tells us this unique individual is a human because of the chromosomal makeup and that this individual is a life form because its cells grow.

The American College of Pediatrics states: “The predominance of human biological research confirms that human life begins at conception—fertilization.  At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is one of form, not nature.”

               The “Right to Choose”

If the “right to choose” is to choose an abortion, then abortion is being equated with birth control.  But there is a key difference:  a woman who uses birth control is making a decision about her own body and her own reproductive health, including whether or not to put herself in a position where she might become pregnant; in contrast, a woman who chooses an abortion is making a choice not only about her own life but about the life of a separate and innocent human being.

Let’s look at some basic biology.  The female of our species becomes impregnated when the sperm of a male unites with the egg of the female.  This can occur via a sexual act or via some form of artificial insemination.  An adult female who engages in sexual activity with a male can understand that one of the consequences of that act is that she might become pregnant.  She can try to avoid this consequence by using various forms of birth control up to and including abstinence. 

So how does this fit in with the woman’s “right to choose”?  She certainly has the right to choose what to do with her own body, including her own reproductive system.  Putting aside such things as rape and incest which present separate questions in the abortion debate, a woman has the right to choose to engage in sex.  And, just as when we are faced with any choice, the woman has the responsibility to understand and accept the possible consequences of her actions, one of which is that she may find herself pregnant and responsible for a new and unique life for at least the approximately 9 months that it lives in her womb.

Women can understand these things.  They are capable of making an informed decision about their own body and the consequences that engaging in sex may have upon that body and their lifestyle.  But that right does not necessarily extend to the right to make life or death decisions for the unborn child.

One either does or does not accept that women can make choices and handle consequences.  One who does not accept that has very little respect for women.

I do not believe women are so helpless or naïve that they cannot make a decision pre-abortion (and pre-sex) that would negate any need for an abortion.  Those who agree that women are strong and capable of making clear choices related to their own reproductive health and see abortion as nonetheless a necessary option are equating abortion with birth control.

But abortion is not just another form of birth control.  It is the termination of a separate human life.  An innocent life.  We usually call that murder.  A woman can choose what to put into her own body – food, medicine, a man’s penis.  But on what basis can this right extend to killing a separate individual that her own choices and human biology placed within her womb for the first months of its life? 

It is both hypocritical and demeaning to believe that a woman’s choice over her own body prior to impregnation is insufficient yet she must be given the choice of life or death for a new, separate, and unique individual that her own choices have placed in her care.

               It’s About the Unborn Child

If one be fair and honest one would acknowledge that this march, like the abortion debate generally, is not about women but is about the unborn.

Abortion is the termination of a human life.  Pro-abortionists would rather you not focus on that.  Hence the refocusing on “women’s rights.”  

Some women may believe that a woman whose choice resulted in her pregnancy should nonetheless be able to escape those consequences by killing the life inside her.  It is their right to hold that view and to argue that women should have that right.  But other women disagree.  Hence, the pro-abortion march is not a “women’s” march at all, but a march about the rights or lack thereof of an unborn child.

That new and unique life seems to get lost in the pro-abortion rhetoric.  It is an innocent human.  Who speaks for it?  Why do pro-abortionists believe it should be the woman alone who perhaps finds spending 9 months nurturing that new life to be inconvenient?  Who gives her the right to choose whether that new and innocent life lives or dies? (And by the way, this new life might very well be a female – a woman for whose rights a “women’s” march should be advocating.)

Science tells us that from conception there is a new human.  A human entitled to a healthy environment in which to grow.  For nine months that environment constitutes the womb.  That is the new human’s home until after birth when that human also has the right to continue to grow and develop.  The question is, why does the woman have the right to remove this living growing human from the only environment in which it can survive just because that environment happens to be within her female biology?

A Guardian ad Litem is often appointed in cases involving the rights and care of children or incapacitated individuals who cannot speak for themselves.  The Guardian’s job is to represent and speak for the child or the incapacitated, to look out for their best interests.  In the question of abortion, the mother (along with perhaps the father, doctor, or others) is asserting her desire and her rights – the actions that are in the mother’s best interest.  But where is the Guardian who will speak for the rights and life of the unborn child that the mother seeks to kill?  Who will speak for the best interests of the child?

 Not a Women’s March

The female of the species joins with a male in the reproductive act.  Human biology dictates that it is the female that carries a new child during the first nine months of its life.  Abortion is a way of ending that life.  While all women have the same role in those first 9 months of a child’s life, they do not all agree on the question of abortion, or the rights of the unborn child.

Certainly, some women can and do advocate for abortion along with abortion funding.  Some advocate for such rights up to and even shortly after birth.  Others would put more limitations on abortions.  

But many other women are anti-abortion.  And, like the pro-abortion advocates, those against abortion have varying views.  Some are against all abortion, some would allow or even favor it for cases of rape, incest, maternal health, or similar exceptions and some would only limit it after a certain time period in the pregnancy. 

Some women prefer to follow religious teachings, something that also varies among religions and denominations.  Some prefer to follow current science which tells us that the fetus is a unique human living in vitro.  Not all women see abortion as some form of birth control affecting only a woman’s reproductive system.

Women hold many diverse views about abortion.  If the Women’s March were really that – a women’s march and not a pro-abortion march, all the views would be welcome and represented.  It would acknowledge that women are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and that their ability to do so results in a number of diverse views about abortion.

The Women’s March is not that.  It is a Pro-Abortion March.  Perhaps the marchers believe they can be more successful in their cause if they claim it is for women.  But it is not.  If anything, it is anti the very equality of women that they would proclaim.  The rights advocated by the pro-abortionists both exclude and go beyond “women’s” rights while excluding consideration of the rights of the unborn child. 

The label “Women’s March” serves as a cover for the far more difficult issue of the rights of the unborn.  So please, stop calling it the “Women’s March.”  Be brave and honest enough to call it what it is:  a denial of the science that abortion is indeed the killing of a new and unique human being.