Two Truths

“Everything faded into mist.  The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.

               -George Orwell, 1984

I look about me and think to myself that maybe, in today’s world, there is not one, but two truths that are trying to but cannot coexist.  At least, while likely not true for universal truths, it seems that people are willing to adjust their definition of daily truths to one that coincides with their wishes and desires.

We often like to say: look at the facts, the evidence, because it cannot lie.  And while that is true, it may not necessarily be the truth of our daily life.  For some, truth is absolute realism.  Picture a painting of a table on which stands a wilted bouquet of flowers.  That may be what indeed a photograph would capture at that moment. 

Now picture the same painting but with a glorious and bountiful bouquet of freshly blooming flowers.  The painter may be thinking that if he tends to his garden, that will be the bouquet that he can paint next week.  It does not exist today, but for him it absolutely exists in the future and hence is part of his truth today.

Early in the Soviet era writer Maxim Gorky counseled a young writer that it is not enough to say “I wrote the truth.”  Rather, the author must ask himself two questions:  Which truth? and Why?  At that time Gorky was referring to the truth of pre-revolutionary Russia versus the truth of what Russia was becoming.

Much the same may be going on in today’s America.  Those who would have America remain true to her core values and the Constitution see truth as the descriptions, facts, and evidence that are true to that America and the traditional beliefs/values of its population.  Those who are looking for great social change see truth in the picture they paint of what we can be and are becoming.  To them it is true that a person can choose their gender or shift it as they please, resulting in statements such as “men can become pregnant”, a statement which is factually and scientifically inaccurate and thus not a truth to the realists, but something which those trying to recreate a future see as a realistic future truth and hence a truth to them today.

Obviously, these opposing truths and many others cannot coexist.  Laws are affixed to one reality.  Opposing truths result in opposing laws or just anarchy.  Education – its needs, goals, and how to achieve them – is similarly at odds.  How one manages everything, from the food one puts on one’s plate to international relations, suffers.  The concept of opposing truths is currently on full display in the reactions to the terrorist attacks on Israel:  those whose truth is the factual history of the region are in opposition to those whose truth is the factually inaccurate but desired narrative that Israel is a guilty oppressor.

If the revolutionaries (and that is perhaps a good term for the progressive Left and its truth) prevail, then their narrative which is their truth, while not the reality of today, will become the reality of tomorrow.

That might not be so if we retain a pathway to current and past truths of this country and its values, accomplishments, and failures.  But if they are not retained, even if only as part of history, then they will be lost, and the revolutionary truths will be the only truths.

Interestingly, some would argue that part of the reason for the fall of Soviet Russia is that it retained and revered its prerevolutionary classics.   The works of the great Russian authors – Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov, etc. – retained a picture of the prerevolutionary reality and the values it conveyed, values that were in direct opposition to Communism.  At least some have traced the intellectual force behind Gorbachev’s glasnost to be the youthful reading of Russia’s great literature.  “The Bolsheviks did not realize that by having their children read Tolstoy…they were digging the grave of their revolution.” (Slezkine, The House of Government, quoted in Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty).

Perhaps today’s Progressive Left learned from that Bolshevik mistake.  Perhaps it is for that reason that they feel the need to cancel and destroy anything that represents the past and current truth of America and how they justify their openly asserted belief that free speech must be canceled.  If there is no other truth, then their revolutionary truth that is yet to be can become the only truth. 

The analogy is not completely misplaced because for the Progressive Left, the destruction and reimagining of America is as obsessive a cause as was the Russian revolution to the Bolsheviks.  As the Russian people discovered, when the revolutionary lie becomes the truth then the reality is not that of the glorious utopian vision, but a very ugly existence. 

But the Russian people had access to their past truth, a truth that was actually more real than that within which they lived.  If today’s Progressive Left Cancel Culture has its way, we and future generations will not have that access.  We will not know what else was and could have been, and our truth will be as hollow as the unachievable dream narratives of the Progressives.

Like Gorky we must ask: Which truth and Why?  The truth that has been America for 247 years, or the truth that the Progressive Left believes will become the new truth.  A vision is not a truth but a narrative dream.  America’s truth is fading into the mist.  We must not allow America’s truth to be erased and the Left’s revolutionary dream to become a nightmare of false truth.

(Image AI Generated in response to prompt “Two Truths in Opposition")

Biden Knows What He Is Doing, And He Is Doing It with Glee

Yes, Biden’s behavior clearly exhibits major signs of senility, but until he is removed from office via the 25^th Amendment or otherwise, he is responsible for what he is doing.  And what he is doing is upending the core principles that make America what it is.

Gleefully dismantling the Constitution

Biden and his administration admit that their attempted use of OSHA to enforce a vaccine mandate is a workaround the Constitution, essentially admitting that they know they do not have the Constitutional authority to create such a mandate.  Yet they do it anyway.

But this is not the first or only attempt on Biden’s part to circumvent the Constitution.  Biden admitted that it would be unconstitutional for him to have the CDC mandate an eviction moratorium, yet he did so anyway.  He has claimed total federal authority over states in regard to abortion by having his Attorney General file suit against the state of Texas.  Perhaps most egregious is his support for packing the Supreme Court – turning it into a political body and thus destroying the checks and balances between the three branches of government.  Those checks and balances are a critical piece of our Constitution and its protections of our rights.

Biden attempts to justify his failure to follow and uphold the Constitution by blaming things like the pandemic or Trump or the people who oppose his various policies, but these are all just smoke that cover his unprecedented and unpresidential power grab.

First, let’s remember that our country is based on the idea of limited federal government.  The Tenth Amendment provides that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  The Constitution explicitly grants each branch of the federal government a limited set of carefully defined enumerated powers, while reserving most other powers to the states.  Some clauses such as the Commerce Clause have been interpreted in a way that gives the federal government broader control over some issues, but the basic principle of a limited federal government has not changed.   

The federal government cannot exercise unlimited control over the states.  Not even in an alleged attempt to stop a pandemic. 

As an aside, it is hard to argue that the Biden OSHA mandate is realistically about protecting our health when all non-citizen border crossers (legal and illegal) are exempted, all employees of businesses with less than 100 workers are exempted, all retirees are exempted, all members of Congress and their staffs are exempted, and other exemptions continue to be revealed.  Moreover, Biden asserts that the intent is to protect the already vaccinated from the unvaccinated; one wonders: If such protection is necessary, then what is the purpose of a vaccination anyway?  The pandemic is nothing more than a cover for an unconstitutional power grab.

Biden took an oath to uphold the Constitution, yet he completely ignores and violates it.  He proudly acknowledges that he is doing so.  And while he destroys the very core of our democracy, he angrily attacks those who object as he sows and cultivates dissension and hatred.

Gleefully creating a country whose people are dependent on authoritative government

Along with seizing unconstitutional power, Biden’s authoritative regime seeks to create rules and programs that will establish a dependency of all of us on the federal government.  The problem with these socialist style programs, however, is that they are paid for by the people’s tax dollars which, in large part due to the dependence on the programs they are funding, often run out.

Marc Short, Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, stated, “I think if you look at the number of the amount of spending over the last year between the COVID tax relief, the infrastructure package and now this [3.5 trillion spending bill], you'll be talking about $12 trillion dollars, which in essence would be one hundred thousand dollars given to every family in America if you were to send direct payments.”

Think of that.  Think of the taxes, the debt, the money printing that will need to happen.  These bills and others in the works by the Left would govern your life from pre-birth to death and beyond.  The Left would have guaranteed incomes, guaranteed health, guaranteed childcare, guaranteed transportation, guaranteed housing, guaranteed meals, pretty much everything you might need or want guaranteed by the government. 

Of course, the quality or amount of each thing guaranteed is not guaranteed and will of necessity diminish with greater demand and/or fewer tax dollars.  And when you have given all your money to the government you will be forced to take whatever it is they choose to give you.

Beyond dependence on the government via a variety of “assistance” programs, the government creates more and more rules to govern every aspect of your life.  These rules will make all the decisions for you so that you do not have to.  The rules decide what you can and cannot do/say/eat/believe, etc.  They remove the difficult anxiety of some decision making and cause more than a few to think that they are just one regulation away from total bliss which only a big government, authoritarian “nanny state” can provide.

They will do this in the name of concern for your welfare, but what these “nanny state” rules really do is take away your key freedom of choice. 

In this country we have individual freedoms protected by our Constitution.  The concepts of individual liberty and personal responsibility are key to America’s greatness and her survival and are also the antithesis of big government.  Authoritarian regimes tell their citizens how and what they can think, do, believe.  In America we have the freedom to make those decisions for ourselves.

The pandemic (like any good crisis) has not gone to waste for the Left and the Biden administration.  This administration would have you confuse freedom with safety and happiness and keep you in a state of anxious fear.  Using uncertainty and fear they have been able to create a climate in which many are more willing to relinquish personal freedom for safety and certainty.  Those who do not are characterized and criticized as selfish.

With such fear and then personal shaming the Left believes you will more willingly turn your freedom over to the government for their false promise of happiness in return.  But it doesn’t work that way.  When we relinquish our personal liberty, we relinquish who we are and instead leave it to an authoritarian government to define us.

While of course we need some government rules and regulations, we also need to retain our freedom and our responsibility so that we can continue to have a government of/for/by the people rather than a government of authoritarian control.

Biden clearly does not see it that way.  He gleefully would cow everyone into submission to his vision of whom you should be and how you should behave.  If you do not comply, he calls you selfish and pits the more compliant citizens against you (for example telling the vaccinated that those who have chosen not to be vaccinated, perhaps because of serious health reasons, are threatening the vaccinated even with murder).  Biden often equates his dissenters with terrorists.

Don’t fall for it.  Freedom may not be safe or easy or certain; it by necessity includes uncertainty and the anxiety that comes with being responsible for one’s own life choices, especially when those choices are not clear or easy.  But freedom allows you to be who you are rather than simply an animal confined within the cage of government control.

Gleefully putting American values last

Honor and exceptionalism are words that have often been used in conjunction with America.  “American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is inherently different from other nations. Its proponents argue that the values, political system, and historical development of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that the country is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage" (Seymour Martin Lipset).

While not perfect, America has generally been seen as the “good guys”, the country that stands for such things as human rights, individual liberties, honesty, and honor.  Biden seems to think all that is a joke. 

Within our country Biden is dismantling not only our Constitution but is also demeaning and destroying concepts such as personal liberty, personal responsibility, individual achievement, and equality (the fact that “equity” is the antithesis of “equality” has been the subject of previous posts).  He has destroyed jobs and is destroying the economy while inflation is out of control.  Despite his claims for unity, he puts divisive identity politics on steroids as he pits every group he can define against one another. 

But he is also destroying this country on the international stage.  He presents an administration of apology, weakness, and concession rather than one of pride and power.  And honor he gleefully trashed as he completely botched the Afghanistan withdrawal, then repeatedly lied about what he had done, and then ignored and left as essentially prisoners of war an undetermined number of civilian American citizens.  Honor be damned, Joe seems proud of what he has done.

Save America from Biden

It sure seems like Biden hates America; he is certainly doing everything he can to destroy it.   His power grabs are clearly authoritarian.  His diminishment of us puts us in danger internationally.  And he seems to immensely enjoy what he is doing.

As a leader he is a terrible example.  He cannot uphold his oath of office.  He lies about everything.  He laughs at America and its people and calls them names.  Yes, he seems to enjoy what he is doing.

It is hard for me to write this, because to cover all Biden’s un or anti-American behavior would take far too many pages for a blog post, and yet I know and fear that most Americans are in large part unaware of his actions and his lies due to the media’s protection and lack of negative coverage of him.  So we just let him go on with his dishonest and destructive behavior while those who are looking see America falling.

The blood of a dying America is on Biden’s hands, but also on all those who fail to see what is happening, who gladly turn over their rights and freedoms to a man who does not respect them but will simply use them for his own delight and power.

Biden knows exactly what he is doing, and he is doing it gleefully.  But do you know what he is doing, and do you care?

Feeling Like an Ex-Pat in My Own Country

 The term “ex-pat” is short for ex-patriot, an individual living and/or working in a country other than his or her country of citizenship, often temporarily and often for work reasons.  Ex-pats, while usually having chosen and enjoying their life abroad, still very much consider themselves citizens of their homeland and generally experience some level of homesickness for it.  They often get together with other expats from the same country to celebrate traditions of their homeland or otherwise enjoy aspects of their homeland that are missing in their current country of residence.

In today’s world I often feel like an ex-pat in my own country.  While many of my fellow citizens feel similarly, I am sure that many others are not really aware of the depth of irreversible change that is taking place, and which will leave us with not an improved America but with a very different country entirely. 

The progressive Left agenda is more than just some typical political posturing and gamesmanship.  Today’s progressive and socialist Left would like to see America as we know it completely dismantled and re-established as some sort of socialist utopia.  America is already changing its character and essence into a truly different place, and that is why many are feeling like homesick expats – strangers in a strange land homesick for their homeland.

I am not talking about some nostalgia for an America of yesteryear.  This is not a desire for an America that never changes or does not work to cure its deficiencies or constantly evolve.  Rather, it means a desire for exactly that America – the America with the core values that has allowed it to ever evolve forward, closer to the ideals of its founding and its Constitution, the ideals that have allowed it to be the beacon of freedom to the rest of the world for the past 245 years.

So many of what one often cites as characteristics of America and as those things which make her unique and great are being cancelled and replaced by very different characteristics.  Those new characteristics or values are encouraged by the Left along with their handmaidens the mainstream media and big corporations.  These changes are all interrelated and while each alone affects some aspect of America, when all become intertwined they eat out America’s heart and soul.

What is being cancelled and how is it being replaced? I have created two charts which only begin to suggest the changes that are occurring.  These charts suggest some of the characteristics of America and its people that are being cancelled – the characteristics of the America that I and other expats here are homesick for. 

Of course some, especially the woke Left and their minions, are thrilled to see these many changes.  Others of us are terrified as we see these many interrelated elements creating a new America, one without our traditional freedoms and values, one that will require an authoritarian structure for whom most of us will be required to relinquish our individuality as we essentially become its slaves. 

While the below charts only scratch the surface of the upheaval that is taking place in America, they perhaps give a sense of its extent.  America is not evolving or growing but being destroyed in order to serve some sort of reimagining by the Left (reimagining being the appropriate word here because this has all been imagined before – by every failed or failing socialist or Marxist regime that has ever existed). 

As I look about me and see a very different America emerging, I realize that I am an ex-pat in my own country.  The problem is, I did not choose to move here, I don't like it, and I cannot go home.

Individual and Societal Characteristics in America Today

Part 1:  Aspects that emanate from something external to the individual (e.g. inherent/constitutional rights, the State, the mob)
Being Cancelled	Being Encouraged	Examples/Effect of Change
Inherent Rights (rights that belong to the individual and cannot be taken by the State)	State granted rights (The state owns the right and can choose to grant it or how to grant it and can take it away)	E.g.: Entitlement programs or amount of those programs: housing & rent assistance, social services,
Rules that apply equally to all	Rules apply depending on the situation and who is involved	E.g: Leaders not following own rules; favored victim classes excused from what are legal violations for others
Regulated borders	Open borders; immigration laws not enforced	Loss of identifiable and unified country; no control over who enters and why
Choice	No Choice (in goods or beliefs)	E.g.: Certain points of view cannot be posted on social media, are disinvited from college campuses, are fired because of beliefs
Equality (Equal opportunity for all, but results might not be equal)	Equity (Equal results for all)	Requires some form of discrimination to achieve the desired result; the State (as opposed to the individual) determines what the result will be; eliminates motivation & competition
Uniqueness of Individual	Group identity	Causes dissention as groups are defined as victims or oppressors; labels people based on external characteristics
Rights require responsibility	Rights without responsibility	Entitlement and little motivation to work or to contribute to country, society or the greater good
Meritocracy	Mediocrity	Socialism.  Destroys the Individual and fulfillment of one’s abilities
Acknowledge and learn from history (good & bad)	Cancel and deny history	Judgmental; repeat old mistakes; denies respect, pride, understanding for how the country overcame negatives and for those who came before
Freedom of speech and thought	Cancel or limit & attack opposing ideas/theories/suggestions	Stymies the ability to progress with new ideas and innovations; does not allow challenges and suggestions that can improve theories
Decisions based on fact and logic	Decisions based on emotion and self interest	Irrational and inconsistent outcomes; often not best for the country as a whole or for the greater good

 

Individual and Societal Characteristics in America Today

Part 2:  Aspects that are internal to the individual and contribute to the individual’s values and approach to life
Being Cancelled	Being Encouraged	Examples/Effect of Change
Selflessness	Selfishness	Loss of belief in something greater than self; little respect for human life; no concern for the greater good
Faith in something beyond self	Self-gratification is prime consideration and glorification	While superficial appetites are gratified (e.g. gender fluidity, sexualization of women and children, legalization of traditional vices), there is an emptiness in the soul; decline of religion
Respect for elders and experts	Everyone is an expert, believing they are as knowledgeable as anyone on a subject and so can and should be able to run it	Hampers ability to learn because no belief that the one from whom one is learning is any more knowledgeable than the self (or their ability to Google)
Individual responsibility	Victimhood	Blaming others for one’s pain and predicament does not allow for personal growth, does not allow one to move forward as an individual
Rewarded for one’s own labor	All share in rewards even if they did not contribute	Contrary to the moral of the children’s store of The Little Red Hen, this encourages laziness and mediocrity
Self-reliance	Reliance on State	Diminishes the ability to take pride in and feel rewarded by one’s own accomplishments; creates dependency on State and underclass of those who are dependent
Acceptance of reality of imperfection with goal of every improving towards (unattainable) perfection	Belief in possibility of utopia	Everyone’s utopia is different and all utopias require authoritarianism
Critical thinking	Superficial solutions to problems while questions, deep thought demeaned	Without critical thinking individual cannot realize own true and full potential

 

 

Presiding over the Annihilation of Democracy

Apparently, Joe Biden doesn’t just want to annihilate America as we know it, but the Middle East as well.  Perhaps it’s all part of his new world order. 

  Destroying America

By now it must be obvious to anyone who is paying attention that President Biden’s domestic agenda is incredibly destructive to every core American principle and value.  He is not merely enlarging but is totally bloating the powers of the federal government, far beyond what even the broadest reading of our Constitution would allow.  The effect of that agenda is the loss of personal freedoms and of what were until now Constitutionally protected rights.  And, if HR-1, which Biden fully supports, is passed, the voice of the people via free, fair, and integrous elections will be seriously impaired if not lost.

Beyond the seemingly dictatorial government power grab, Biden’s agenda is destroying the American spirit.  He pays people to not work.  His policies destroy any reward or incentive for hard work, whether it is removal of AP classes to satisfy “equity” (while at the same time destroying any motivation for a student to excel), or the fact that one can now earn more on unemployment than being employed (encouraging dependence on the State for one’s survival while removing any suggestion of personal responsibility), or that companies that spent time and effort during the previous administration’s Warp Speed to develop Covid vaccines can now not patent those vaccines and thus earn the financial reward to which they, until now, would be entitled for their efforts (and let’s hope we don’t have another pandemic because the drive to innovate has essentially been quashed when the innovators must share the rewards of their efforts with those who sat back and did nothing). 

A core premise of our nation, at least prior to this administration, is equality.   We don’t always manage to get it right, but we have always strived for equal treatment of all.   As has been explained by myself and many others, equality is not equity.  Equality does not guarantee equal results, but it does give (or at least strives to give) all individuals the ability to go after that which they themselves want their life to be.  And, in an America that values tolerance, we respect goals that differ from our own.

There is a fairness to equality that is not present in equity.  Equity simply strives to have the same result for everyone.  There is no guarantee that result is arrived at fairly or that it is what the individual is seeking.  Equity actually requires significant inequality and discrimination as it provides extra benefits and rewards to some while denying benefits and rewards to others so that all will have the same result; a result determined not by the individual but by those in power.

What equity does is give us mediocrity and no incentive for an individual to strive to be the best that he or she can be.

Biden’s policies are also creating a suffocating weight around the neck of our country far greater than the weight of the Albatross on the Ancient Mariner.  The country’s debt was not good, but Biden makes it far worse with his stimulus and other giveaways, all of which he and the Left seek to make permanent and all of which must be paid for by taxpayers.  His policies are causing inflation.  His energy policies not only cause gas prices to rise, but also create rising costs for any product that is transported, whether by truck, train, or plane.  While Biden says he won’t raise taxes on the middle class, the burden of all his programs will be a far more serious strain on the middle class. 

President Biden also seems to have no respect for the rule of law.  Not only did he speak out in favor of one result prior to the jurors’ decision in the Chauvin case, he regularly inserts his opinion into legal issues without actual knowledge of the facts (for instance his erroneous statements about the Georgia voting law which continued even after Washington Post fact checkers had given him “4 Pinocchios”.)   

The Biden Administration is also breaking immigration law in any number of ways.  These include not enforcing border controls, keeping children locked up for days or even weeks in horrific and crowded conditions, releasing migrants into the interior of our country without a return court date, encouraging sanctuary cities (whose very purpose is to violate and disregard federal immigration law).

The upshot of the above, and actually of just about every action that the President takes, is to tear America apart and down.  If he is allowed to keep this up for 4 years (or even 2) he will have, in effect, annihilated the America that we know, the America that was a shining star to the world.

   Destroying Middle East Peace and/or Israel

Biden’s acts of destruction go beyond our borders.  Look at the Middle East, the place where the previous administration was able to do the impossible and negotiate 4 peace accords that were a major step in achieving a new understanding between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Since his inauguration, President Biden has essentially ignored Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu while pandering to Israel’s enemies.  He provided money as well as tacit support to Iran which emboldened Iran to provide missiles and other weapons of war to Hamas. 

Hamas is an admitted terrorist organization whose goal, stated in its own charter, is to “obliterate” Israel.  Styling themselves as some sort of victim class, Hamas has begun firing rockets against Israel.

We all know that our current administration loves any victim class and will bend over backwards to support the alleged victims against their perceived oppressors.  So, rather than condemn the terrorist aggression, Biden calls upon Israel to stop defending itself and cease fire.  There is absolutely no condemnation of Hamas, no acknowledgement of its mission to destroy Israel along with all Jews, not even a nod to Israel’s right to protect its own people.  

Israel’s army is superior to Hamas, and that seems to be a reason to condemn Israel.  Perhaps Biden would like to see equity between the armies of Israel and Hamas, but such equity would probably destroy Israel.  Israel is the most humane of any armed force:  it always provides a warning of upcoming strikes when planning to strike an area where civilians may be present.  Hamas on the other hand uses civilians and especially children to shield their rocket launchers and other weapons. 

But the Left is anti-Israel, and as with everything else, Biden is either strongly Leftist or caves to the Left.  So, today, he demanded a "significant de-escalation" by Israel.  No call for Hamas to disarm.  No acknowledgement that Hamas is the aggressor.  No recognition of Israel’s need to protect its own people.  No grief over the suffering or death of the Jews.

Thankfully, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a leader who cares about his country and its citizens whom he is bound to protect rather than one or another cause du jour.  He stated that “Israel will push ahead to return the calm and security to the citizens of Israel."  That is his job, and President Biden should acknowledge the right of our longtime ally and only democracy in that region to protect itself from terrorist attack.

But Biden does not.  In the interest of pleasing the Left he seems willing to see Israel destroyed along with America.  He seems to care nothing for the people of America or our longtime ally Israel.  He seems to care nothing for democracy or freedom. 

What’s next, the world? If Biden and his far-Left policies continue, democracy will be destroyed not only in America, but in the entire world.  And then, where will those seeking freedom and the right to exercise their inherent, inalienable, and God-given rights go?

Anger and Hate are NOT the Voice of America

The Democrats are consumed by anger and hate.  Anger seems to be all they know; hate is all they can do. 

This became fully apparent following the 2016 election when they did not get the prize to which they thought they were entitled, but their hatred was there before.  Hillary was not the first to disparage those who she and other Democrats felt were somehow beneath them. Beyond her basket of deplorables we can remember Obama and his supporters dismissing middle American values as if they were something left over from the dark ages.

But, once Donald Trump was elected President, the Democrats’ anger and hatred have become overwhelming.  The Democrats are unable to understand even the possibility that the people could elect someone other than them when they are so confident that they are smarter and better than the rest of us and therefore should be given power over us.  So, since that is an impossibility, since the end result – their lack of power – is in their minds clearly incorrect, then they will use any means to correct that end while at the same time feeding their insatiable anger.

So, we had (still have) Russia-gate, proven to be a witch hunt; we have had (still have) attempts to find one or another scandal, still unsuccessful; we continually have name calling (racist, white supremacist, Nazi, etc.) without evidence of the epithet; we have daily spin on everything the President does to make it seem somehow negative or, if impossible to create a negative spin then credit is given to any and everyone other than the President. 

The anger and hatred are not directed exclusively at the President.  Any and all of his supporters are fair game.  Not just those who work within his administration, but the common person on the street who seems to be a supporter of the President or his policies is a possible target for the Democrats’ hate.  Those who are still brave enough to exercise their free speech rights and do such things as wear a MAGA hat do so with the knowledge that they may be the target of both verbal and physical abuse.  This, of course, is a certain way to chill if not completely silence such speech which the Democrats do not want to hear.  (The fact that this so clearly reveals their lack of respect for the founding principles of this country along with our Constitution is a topic for another post).

The anger and hatred consume the Democrats in Congress as they demand hearing after hearing on lost causes in their attempt to remove the President from office.  It consumes all the 2020 Democrat candidates as the focus of debates and stump speeches is to verbally condemn Trump – that is, Trump the man, because it is hard to condemn his policies which are all benefiting this country and its citizens.  But it is, indeed, the man that they hate because, though not one of them, he was able to fairly and honestly beat them in an election that they still believe they were entitled to win.

The press, of course, is a part of this parade of hate.  Indeed, the Democrat politicians, not to mention their supporters, often seem to be nothing more than the lap dogs of the press.  Thus, when the NYT prints a bogus story intended to dredge up again the bogus allegations against Justice Kavanaugh, even without a thought the Democrats jump and begin a new campaign of hate against the Justice.  (And, this is no less horrific than the first campaign which was intended to ruin a man’s life along with that of his family simply because he was not one of them.  For detailed thoughts on this disgusting attack on the man and our country’s values the first time, see my earlier posts from September and October 2018, most of which address aspects of the Kavanaugh hearings. Here are a few links: LINK 1, LINK2, LINK3, LINK4,  LINK5, LINK6, LINK7, LINK8,  LINK9,  LINK10.)

This is all terribly pathetic, and one wants to dismiss this behavior as simply that of spoiled children who did not get their way, for that is all that it really is.  But one cannot do that, because in this instance the children throwing the temper fit have enough power in their hands that they can truly use that fit to destroy our country and our way of life.

That destruction has already begun.  As noted above, the strength of our First Amendment rights is being diminished.  People are berated into keeping silent if they do not spout the words and beliefs that the Democrats demand.  The Second Amendment is not even acknowledged as a right when Democrats believe they can simply create an absolute ban on all arms.  Our whole electoral process is not respected by the Democrats when every time they do not win they believe they can simply attack the result along with the winner in any and every way possible hoping to get somehow the result that they want.

When the strategy is silence the opposition, take away their rights, remove those with whom you disagree by political force rather than political process, ignore facts that are inconvenient or restructure them to support your narrative and your claim to power, then we are moving away from our Democratic Republic and toward some sort of Totalitarian system in which the people have little say in their own lives.

It is sad that the spoiled Democrats are willing to give up what makes this country great in return for holding and expanding their own power.  It is sad that the Democrats believe that they have a right to do this, based on their seeming belief that they are somehow superior to the rest of us.  The Democrats did not get the prize they wanted in 2016, but their behavior since then is proof positive that they do not deserve it.

While the Democrats seem to have chosen to be fully consumed by their anger and hate, we as a country do not need to let it consume us as well.  We do not need to accept their ugly allegations about the President, his policies, his supporters; instead we can understand that these are nothing more than their temper weapons designed to gratify their anger and give them the power they crave. 

The elected Democrats are not doing the peoples work but their own work – the sole goal being to eliminate all opposition to their power.  The media is their partner in this means justify the ends campaign.  We do not have to join in.  Their rhetoric may be persuasive, but that does not make it right or true.  We can believe it and go like sheep to the slaughter of all that our country stands for, or we can refuse to be a part.  We can continue to stand for the principles of this country that are not those of anger and hate but of fairness and justice and rule of law, of freedom and liberty, and of a voice for all the people.

Indoctrination (and the survival of a society)

The word indoctrination has a negative connotation, and while that connotation is often appropriate to the use of the word, it is not always so. 

We tend to see indoctrination as akin to brainwashing, and sometimes it is, but actually, the word indoctrinate simply means to teach. (It comes from the Latin root docere, to teach, which provides the “doc” in the word.  This root is shared by words such as docent, doctrine, and document).

Indoctrinate means to teach someone a set of basic fundamentals, ideas, or attitudes.  The teaching usually occurs via some sort of persistent and repetitive teaching.  While it can include doing so with a partisan view that does not allow for questioning of those basics, one can also indoctrinate without a demand for unquestioning acceptance and with an encouragement of critical thinking about them. 

In essence, when your elementary school teacher made you learn your multiplication tables by repeating them over and over, and telling you there was but one answer to 2 x 2 or 2 x 6, she was indoctrinating you with the basic fundamentals of multiplication.  These basic fundamentals are essential to a deeper understanding of and a progression in math.

I would argue that every parent by necessity indoctrinates their children with certain necessities of that family’s way of life.  Certain basic hygiene, eating, safety, and other behaviors are instilled in children from the time of their birth. Children learn that certain behaviors are expected of them in the home and later as they venture out of the home.  Some are necessary for survival; others to be a functioning part of the family unit.  If certain rules of interaction within the family were not shared (indoctrinated) via the parent-child relationship, then the family would likely be less peaceful and lose some of its stability and cohesion. 

I would argue that the same is true within societal groups and communities.  Without a certain amount of shared ideas and attitudes, a stable group will become unstable and eventually lose that which has tied the members of the group together.  The indoctrination of these basic ideas and attitudes are implicit in parent-child relationships but are more overt within larger groups.

Humans are social animals and are shaped not only by their parents but also by a larger cultural context of the society in which they live.  It is certain shared basic concepts, instilled within the children of a particular society at an early age, that allows the society to hold together and effectively work as a unit for the good of its people.

Different societies have always held different doctrines, fundamentals, and traditions.  It is these things which both set them apart from other societies and hold them together as one.  In the first century BCE, the Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus is alleged to have said “what is food to one, to others is bitter poison.” 

Those doctrines, fundamentals, basics of any society must be conveyed to new generations in order for the society to work.  We often think of this as some sort of necessary “socialization,” a word that generally has a better connotation than indoctrination.  Yet, the repeated teaching and practice of a society’s fundamentals is, indeed, indoctrination.  Regardless of label, the point is, that to maintain social order within any given society there must be some teaching and instilling of the basic doctrines of that society.

These basics are often conveyed via such things as:  shared holidays and manner of celebrating them; shared foods; shared folk songs, traditions, dances; shared games; etc.  Some are more substantive:  shared knowledge of the society’s history; shared basic values of how one will treat other citizens of the society and how the society will be governed.  The key is that the teaching of the basics of things such as these, the indoctrination of them into the society’s children, are necessary to make the group within that society feel that they share a history and a future with their group and hence will unite, working together to maintain and improve that society.

Elementary schools in this country used to teach American folk songs and folk stories from our history.  Children grew up knowing and having these stories and rhythms in common.   For many these national fundamentals were accompanied by fundamentals of their own smaller groups – a region of the country, their cultural heritage, their individual family practices.  While some of the traditions of smaller, included groups might vary, all Americans also had certain American traditions and values in common. 

Because we used to truly be a melting pot, we celebrated holidays in common, though with ethnic variations based on our ancestry.  We had civics classes that taught us about our form of government.  We learned American history, our accomplishments and our failures.   

This was all a form of indoctrination, but, because it was also accompanied by instruction that America protects diverse viewpoints and the ability to speak them, we were not being brainwashed that there was only one acceptable view.  Instead, just as the math teacher who teaches the multiplication tables as facts also teaches that these can be used in creative and diverse ways, children used to learn certain foundations and history of our country while also being taught that these foundations allowed them to have their own views and use their mind and their creativity to better themselves and the country which they share with those both like and different from them.

We no longer have that in America.  America has always been a multicultural society, but it is no longer a melting pot.   That is, immigrants have always come to America with their cultural heritage, but upon arriving have also desired and been able to assimilate into American culture while still maintaining that heritage.  Americans, in addition to other fundamentals of American culture, were indoctrinated with the fundamental concept of respecting others with differing viewpoints and different heritages than one’s own. 

In entering the American melting pot, all joined in those basic fundamentals that are shared by all Americans and which make up the fundamentals of American society;  by so doing, America while rich and diverse culturally, has maintained its identity as one united country.

But, now, no one is taught (yes, indoctrinated) in those basic fundamentals.  In today’s multicultural America, the cultures no longer mix; they have little other than their basic humanity to share and hold them together as one society.  Those American fundamentals that children used to learn in school are no longer taught for fear of offending someone or some ethnic or cultural group, or simply because one group objects to celebrations that do not belong to their own group.   There is no willingness to assimilate. There is no tolerance for diversity within a greater and cohesive whole.

We no longer have a melting pot that unites us all; instead we have a completely unmixed salad where each culture or identity group maintains its own complete and unique identity within the land of America but without any joining together in the fundamentals that have always made America a unique and united society.

It is easier to hate a country that you have never learned to love.  Note, I am talking about the country itself and not whichever politician or political party happens to be in power at any given moment.  Throughout their history, Americans have always exercised their First Amendment rights to protest various activities and policies of those in power.  But, the difference today is that along with such protests there seems, on the part of many, to be a genuine hate against the country itself.

Without basic fundamental commonalities, a society loses its cohesiveness.  It falls apart into separate societies; those societies can sometimes live peacefully side by side but can also just as easily slip into warring factions. 

America has been and will always be multiracial and multicultural.  The question is, are we willing to include some teaching – some indoctrination - of all our citizens in basic fundamentals that will hold us together as one, or are we going to allow every different group to maintain its own and separate fundamental doctrines while objecting to those of others so that we lose our cohesiveness as one nation and instead devolve into separate and  competing tribes?

We must not be afraid to indoctrinate our children with those American fundamentals that allow them to hold a pride and an identity in America as their country.   Those fundamentals may evolve, even change as they have done over our history, but they are necessary to creating the melting pot, the glue that holds us together as one people.  Indoctrination is not always a bad word and it is a necessary piece of any successful nation.