Like Rabid Dogs (or Communists)

 

Like rabid dogs the Democrats circle, each trying to outdo one another in their punishment of Conservatives and Trump supporters.  They are about as rational as rabid dogs.  (see for example my recent post on why there actually are no grounds for impeachment, but rational minds could and should agree on censure and be done with it.  LINK ) 

The scene in the capital and wherever the Left gathers (including on social media) reminds me of some old black and white movie where the mob, with pitchforks and torches, goes after the innocent that they perceive as evil.

But we don’t have to go to movies or other fiction to see what is going on.  History gives us a perfect picture. 

The Library of Congress in its Russian Archives has a number of documents that reveal the inner workings of the Soviet Union, including during and immediately after the revolution.  Here are some quotations from the Library's exhibition of those documents:

In the years immediately following their accession to power in 1917, the Bolsheviks took measures to prevent challenges to their new regime, beginning with eliminating political opposition. When the freely-elected Constituent Assembly did not acknowledge the primacy of the Bolshevik government, Vladimir Lenin dissolved it in January 1918. The Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, which protested the action, withdrew from the Bolshevik coalition in March, and its members were automatically branded enemies of the people. Numerous opposition groups posed military threats from various parts of the country, placing the survival of the revolution in jeopardy. Between 1918 and 1921, a state of civil war existed.

 

Bolshevik policy toward its detractors, and particularly toward articulate, intellectual criticism, hardened considerably. Suppression of newspapers, initially described as a temporary measure, became a permanent policy. Lenin considered the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) the center of a conspiracy against Bolshevik rule. In 1919, he began mass arrests of professors and scientists who had been Kadets, and deported Kadets, Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and Nationalists. The Bolshevik leadership sought rapidly to purge Russia of past leaders in order to build the future on a clean slate.

Having come to power in October 1917 . . . Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks spent the next few years struggling to maintain their rule against widespread popular opposition. They had overthrown the provisional democratic government and were inherently hostile to any form of popular participation in politics. In the name of the revolutionary cause, they employed ruthless methods to suppress real or perceived political enemies. The small, elite group of Bolshevik revolutionaries which formed the core of the newly established Communist Party dictatorship ruled by decree, enforced with terror.

 

This tradition of tight centralization, with decision-making concentrated at the highest party levels, reached new dimensions under Joseph Stalin. As many of these archival documents show, there was little input from below. The party elite determined the goals of the state and the means of achieving them in almost complete isolation from the people. They believed that the interests of the individual were to be sacrificed to those of the state, which was advancing a sacred social task. Stalin's “revolution from above” sought to build socialism by means of forced collectivization and industrialization, programs that entailed tremendous human suffering and loss of life.

 

Although this tragic episode in Soviet history at least had some economic purpose, the police terror inflicted upon the party and the population in the 1930s, in which millions of innocent people perished, had no rationale beyond assuring Stalin's absolute dominance. By the time the Great Terror ended, Stalin had subjected all aspects of Soviet society to strict party-state control, not tolerating even the slightest expression of local initiative, let alone political unorthodoxy.

 

These harsh measures alienated a large number of the intellectuals who had supported the overthrow of the tsarist order. The suppression of democratic institutions evoked strong protests from academics and artists, who felt betrayed in their idealistic belief that revolution would bring a free society. Writers who had emigrated shortly after the revolution published stinging attacks on the new government from abroad. As a result, further exit permits for artists were generally denied.

 

The disenchantment of the majority of intellectuals did not surprise Lenin, who saw the old Russian intelligentsia as a kind of rival to his “party of a new type,” which alone could bring revolutionary consciousness to the working class.

I think the above speaks for itself, or at least it does to anyone with a clear mind.  What we are seeing in the current days is an extreme, concerted, devoted, and fanatical effort by the Left to silence the voices of any opposition to them or their causes.  This has to remind anyone with even the smallest familiarity with history of not only the Russian revolution, but similar Leftist takeovers elsewhere. 

The above gives one an idea of the sort of progression that such silencing can take – towards complete suppression of the people by a power-hungry ruling class.  Do not think that it cannot happen in America.  The question is, will we let it?

"Have you volunteered?"

Now we know what UNITY means

Joe Biden wowed at least some Americans with his calls for and promises of unity.  Unity is a nice word; something we can all applaud, right?

The problem here, like with many of the Democrat promises (think “hope and change”), is that it can mean different things to many people, and because it has not been further defined by the promisor, everyone simply assumes they know what it means.  But, as we learned, or should have learned, long ago, “to assume makes an ass out of you and me.”  More importantly, as anyone with even a slight familiarity with logic knows, building an argument on an assumption results in a faulty argument and a failure of the conclusion.

    What is Biden's "Unity"?

So, unity.  It is defined as: “the state of being united or joined as a whole.”  Note how this definition conveniently leaves out just whom it is that will be united.  I don’t know if Biden was consciously aware of that when he used the word without further clarification, but it is becoming clearer every day that his definition may have been different from that of many.

 “Unity” for Biden and the Left does not include opposing or diverse viewpoints; unity will be of, for, and by those on the Left.  The call is to silence all who disagree.  That is how we will be unified.  Silence or assimilation; either will work for the Biden approach.  That is why his speeches of late sound so divisive as he attacks those on the other side of the aisle, including calling well respected Republican senators Nazis, as Biden continues to use both the words and the approach of some of the most divisive regimes in history.

There are many on Biden’s “Unity” team.  It is not just Democrat politicians but also their hand-maidens in power – the mainstream media and big tech, including the powerful controllers of social media.  This “unity” team continues to call for hatred and punishment against any who do not fully agree with their views.  ABC news called for “cleansing” of the Republican party.  The social media wing of the team uses their power to censor and silence voices that do not agree with the views or message of the Left:  Twitter cancels Trump; Google bans Twitter’s competition Parlor; Facebook takes down the #WalkAway page.  This is just for starters.

Of course their job was made easier by the few crazies who last Wednesday turned a protest march to the Capital into an illegal entry therein.   Yes, it was horrid.  And yes, Trump had given a strong speech, but no stronger than many we have heard coming from the Left encouraging violence against voices on the Right, the police, and others they do not like or approve of. 

But, in typical "never let a crisis go to waste" mode, now the “unity” team can justify its “cleansing" because “violent words or words advocating violence” were uttered or found on the now banned accounts.  No mention of the fact that similar words of violence have been uttered or can be found on accounts of Leftist leaders, elected officials, as well as their many followers.  Maxine Waters comes immediately to mind, but there are many others, both official and not, that have for the last year or more continuously posted calls for violence against the President, against his supporters, against the police, against federal buildings, and many more.  Many such acts have been carried out by supporters of those accounts and their rhetoric.

    Selective silencing

Inciteful words are of course wrong regardless of who utters them.  Believing that strong rhetoric is an invitation to violent acts is stupid and wrong.  But the frightening point here is that the new Biden “unity” team condemns such words when they are spoken in opposition to the Left but justify those words when they support their own causes.  That is not unity; that is oppression.  It is a silencing of opposition, a typical tactic of tyrants.

And not only does it silence the current voices, but it puts people in fear of further speech.  Just look at how many Republicans in Congress who were prepared to assert objections as they had a legal right to do, instead gave apologies or conciliatory speeches as they cowered before the powerful silencers. Decent people on the Right, now more avidly seeking actual peace and unity in light of the actions of the few who breached the Capitol, have in effect silenced themselves so as not to appear to favor or approve of the violent acts.

What is happening here, at a frighteningly ground breaking speed, is that the new “Unity” is being put into place by those holding power; not just political power but economic and corporate power as well.  Opposing voices are being silenced or trained to get in line with the approved voice.  This is tyranny plain and simple.  And it is something that should frighten everyone because if we allow the powerful to silence someone else today, they could silence you or me tomorrow.

A quick review of the “approved” social media posts indicates that it is perfectly OK that the Media wing of the “unity” team (both news media and social media) censors not just allegedly violent language but entire sites that may have included some such language but that primarily simply post views contrary to those of the Left.  The justification is that the Media is not the government and therefore they can censor whomever they please. 

To a large extent that is true (though our constitutional rights have been found to apply to non-governmental entities when they are involved with or funded in part by the government).  But even if it were legal for these entities to selectively censor, that does not mean that we should ignore the effect it has not only on individual voices, but on the type of society that such silencing creates.

Social media is the primary form of communication in this century.  It is how minorities and the oppressed communicate.  If we allow it to silence views with which it does not agree, we are allowing it to be the primary agent in silencing the oppressed.  Without a voice it is very difficult for the oppressed to do anything to end their oppression.  Rather, they are forced to assimilate into a world created by the oppressing power structure and to be subject to its every whim.

    The Individual vs. the Collective

What Biden’s form of “unity” is teaching us is that we are in a battle of the Individual vs. the (“you will be assimilated”) Collective. This is an existential battle about how one envisions the human race and the existence of that race.  Should Mankind be composed of individuals, each with unique and sometimes selfish thoughts, or should each human be just one part of a collective whole?

In a system made up of individuals, certain individual freedoms are essential to maintaining individuality.  These freedoms include the right to say, think, believe as one chooses subject of course to clear, narrow, and specific restrictions necessary for the good of their community.  Such freedoms allow each individual to use their own skills to be creative and innovative, often (whether so intended or not) for the good of all humanity.

Such freedoms are a danger to a collective system.  The breaking out of individual thoughts, even if beneficial, endangers the collective which must be made of group think if the group is to survive.  The collective requires that those who make it up be not self-determined but have every aspect of their existence determined by an outside power structure that decides what is best for the collective and how and what the members of that collective must think, act, and believe.

    We've seen this before

Such a collective model is not novel.  It is a key to building the socialist “utopia.”  It was always a key goal of the Russian revolution and Soviet Russia.  Based on some appealing words (not unlike “unity”), Communism sought a collective mind set that would allow a shared human experience which would be the same for everyone.  Suppression of the individual was an early hurdle for those revolutionaries as they worked to suppress the individualist peasants and mold them into good communists. 

The revolutionary goal also necessarily gave rise to severe censorship of not just speech but art and activity as well.  People were arrested, imprisoned, and even executed for speaking what was not approved.  And the shared experience was not the imagined utopia.  Nor was it shared by all:  those who decided what and who the collective would be, think, do, that is, those in power, had a life experience very different than those over whom they exercised their power.

Just as the communists worked to “train” people to act and think as those in power deemed proper, so we too are being trained by the “unity” team (both government and non-governmental but powerful), to speak and think in a way that will bring us Biden’s “unity.”  

If you follow or worse yet post on a social media account that is affiliated generally with “incorrect” views, you will be censored and silenced.  If you hold office and assert legal rights, but on behalf of the “wrong” person, you will be silenced, impeached, called a Nazi, and told to resign.  If you are a scientist or doctor who uses valid information to propose a dissenting view of COVID, its dangers, effectiveness of various safety measures, etc., then you will lose your license or your job.  A similar thing will happen if you are a respected scientist who uses valid means to predict effects of climate change that question the popular and approved view.  If you use a disapproved term (mother or daughter) in the House of Representatives, you will be sanctioned (even though the writer of that rule is allowed to and does use such terms). 

You may of course call for any and all punishment against those who disagree with the Biden “unity” team.  You may post calls for violence against them.  You may use racist or other epithets against them.  And if you are among the favored, you may do whatever you choose, just so long as you claim that you believe in “unity.”

    A faulty justification; how far will we let it go?

The odd thing is that the “unity” team claims to be doing all this in the interest of civil rights.  Yet one of the most necessary things for anyone advocating for civil rights is the ability to speak their mind.  For if one does not have a voice, then they have no rights at all. 

While it is apparent that the “unity” team has sufficient minions with power both in and out of government to begin to silence those they see as “un-unified,” the question is, can they actually assimilate those who retain independent thought so as to alter those thoughts into ones approved by the “unity” team?  I certainly hope not.  Because once people accept a voicelessness for any group, they must then be prepared to accept it for themselves when those in power or their whims change.

I for one am not looking forward to Biden’s “Unity.” It is a unity of hatred against those who are not like them, the “unity” team.  It is a divisive tactic to cement an ugly power while removing the power of the people, of the individual.   It is more and more looking like the beginnings of a very oppressive regime.