Excellent presentation by Rod Dreher. A few thoughts:
- The Left always eats its own. A problem for the neo-Totalitarians is that the Left thrives on heresy hunting and is constantly turning on factional members who have a hard time keeping up with the constantly changing demands of their member groups.
- Normal people find much of the agenda of the contemporary Left bewildering and scary.
- The rise in violent crime is an electoral liability for the neo-Totalitarians which they have no answer to it because they live and will die by identity politics.
- Ants eventually figure out that they immensely outnumber the ruling grasshoppers.http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-1y-Acj0D8
- Deplatforming merely leads to the opposition creating new platforms.
- Soft totalitarianism ultimately will lead to violence and, at least in the US, the neo-Totalitarians swiftly will find that they do not have a monopoly on violence.
- Lies eventually run out of true believers to enforce them.
- Rigging elections ultimately leads to civil war.
- Demography is not on the side of the neo-Totalitarians.
- Freedom is a hardy plant.http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6UbYHCkoZs&t=40s
There’s no logical foundation for the Left; only the next “thing”.
First men could have sex together although they are not designed with the complementary parts to do so. Next they could get married, now we’re told men can get pregnant too.
At Instapundit, ““What the Democrats are referring to as democracy is anything but. They want elections to be taken over by the federal government. They want one-party rule. They are big fans of government control of the media and censorship.”
I’ll respectfully disagree with point 10 about a “hardy plant”. Seems to me people will easily give-up their freedom for comfort, pleasure & safety.
Quite right about eating their own. Goes back to Robespierre, Bukarin, Trotsky.
Seems to me people will easily give-up their freedom for comfort, pleasure & safety.*
… And if the people are sufficiently entertained, they might not even notice those freedoms being eroded away.
Ben, it has proven to be hardy in this country:
In 1843 twenty two year old Mellen Chamberlain, who would later be a legislator, a judge and chief librarian of Boston, interviewed 86 year old Captain Levi Preston, last surviving veteran of the battle of Concord:
Question: “Captain Preston, what made you go to the Concord fight?”
Answer: “What did I go for?”
Question: “Yes, my histories tell me that you men of the Revolution took up arms against intolerable oppressions. What were they?”
Answer: “Oppressions? I didn’t feel them.”
Question: “What, were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act?”
Answer: “No, I never saw one of those stamps, and always understood that Governor Bernard put them all in Castle William. I am certain I never paid a penny for one of them.”
Question: “Well, what about the tea tax?”
Answer: “Tea tax! I never drank a drop of the stuff: the boys threw it all overboard.”
Question: “I suppose you had been reading Harrington, Sidney, and Locke about the eternal principle of liberty?”
Answer: “Never heard of ’em. The only books we had were the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’ Psalms, and Hymns and the Almanac.”
Question: “Well, then, what was the matter?”
Answer: “Young man, what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”
The problem with the left is that they’re obsessed with control. They look at the right’s interest in a strong military and aggressive pursuit of fairness (in voting laws, SCOTUS appointments, etc.) and assume that we’re interested in control, when actually we’re interested in establishing fairness so the people can be free. Even when the left pursues something ostensibly liberal like sexual “tolerance”, they’re compelled to do it in a top-down way. They have to line people up and have their betters tell them to be liberal, then drag away any dissenters. They may say that they tolerate everything but intolerance, but they only showed up for the intoleration of their enemies, not for the toleration of their allies.
I’ll respectfully disagree with point 10 about a “hardy plant”. Seems to me people will easily give-up their freedom for comfort, pleasure & safety.
When and where?
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/05/emory-law-journal-accused-of-censorship-as-law-professors-withdraw-articles-in-protest/#more-182614
Another item for the file marked “Academe is the enemy of intellectual life”. And the tip of the spear is the lesser sort among the young
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/01/emory-law-journal-refuses-to-publish-scholarly-article-challenging-systemic-racism-finding-it-hurtful-and-unnecessarily-divisive/
Another discussion of this incident is here.
Don Link-The tyrants now in somewhat control, and now exercising some power, would do well to read accounts of the Reign Of Terror following the glorious French revolution; the totalitarians’ attempts to then impose a new state religion on the peons/serfs/peasants, minions, i.e. the people; and especially detailed accounts of the death of Robespierre. Each of the current rulers of the USA could easily meet Robespierre’s fate. I hope I live long enough to have a new Stalin disappear all the photos of Clintons, Soetoro, Pelosi, Schumer, Gates, Soros, Schiff, Squad, Mao, Fidel, Che, etc. Too late for Reid and some others. Guy, Texas
Art:
When and where?
Here and now. Do you not remember them cancelling Easter Mass attendance? I don’t remember anyone rioting over it.
Don:
… it has proven to be hardy in this country:
But not by all … I’m sure you recognize these quotes … That they were spoken at all implies that they were spoken to someone:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
“He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.”
Ben is correct. There are people who will abandon their liberty for whatever reason. For the status quo, for profit, for leverage, for some semblance of normalcy … maybe just to avoid making waves.
Folks,
Both the academy and the media are enemies of the people and liberty.
The Founders knew the enemy of liberty is authoritarian, self-aware [that’s right think Terminator movies] government, which we have today.
Trump exposed it and he had to be destroyed.
But not by all … I’m sure you recognize these quotes … That they were spoken at all implies that they were spoken to someone:
Sam Adams and Ben Franklin were referring to the Loyalists, most of whom would have vociferously argued that they loved liberty as much as their adversaries. A good novel looking at the Revolution from the Loyalist point of view is Kenneth Roberts’ Oliver Wiswell. Our Revolution was many things and one of them was our first civil war.
A good novel looking at the Revolution from the Loyalist point of view is Kenneth Roberts’ Oliver Wiswell.
It’s a satisfactory novel. Kenneth Roberts might have benefited from a more antagonistic editor.
The protagonist ends up settling in New Brunswick, something only a single-digit share of the Tory population did.
most of whom would have vociferously argued that they loved liberty as much as their adversaries.*
Well, they could’ve argued it, but not convincingly (IMO 😉 ). Some were certainly willing to trade the liberty of self-governance for the convenience of their comfortable position. And that is also the case today. In my earlier example of the Church closing her doors during the holiest season of the year, the Bishops clearly weighed their cozy $500 M relationship with the government against their sworn obligation to provide the Sacraments and the money won. And, although many (on this site and elsewhere) voiced their disappointment, I didn’t hear about anyone storming the Cathedrals.
Cannot help but recall that Roberts portrays post-war Boston as a shabby mess, and accuses the colonial society of having thrown away their most productive and capable people. The economic historians over at the Maddison Project calculate that the U.S. had returned to pre-war levels of real income by 1800 and were at that time more affluent than any country of the world the Project could document with the exceptions of the Netherlands, the north Italian states, and Britain
I didn’t hear about anyone storming the Cathedrals.
Funny dat
Well, they could’ve argued it, but not convincingly
They wouldn’t have convinced me either, but they believed it. Thanks partially to their influence, and their United Loyalist descendants, Canada would become the first self governing dominion in the British Empire.
and accuses the colonial society of having thrown away their most productive and capable people.
Roberts makes an implausible attempt to make the American Revolution seem like the French Revolution. Having said that the Loyalists received short shrift, but wars of national survival are not known for kid glove treatment of enemies.
Having said that the Loyalists received short shrift, but wars of national survival are not known for kid glove treatment of enemies.
I don’t doubt that many were mistreated in real time. The thing is, Samuel Eliot Morrison offered the guess that there were about 250,000 people in loyalist families in the American colonies ca. 1776. This source (https://archives.gnb.ca/Exhibits/FortHavoc/html/ManuscriptLists.aspx?culture=en-CA) gives an estimate of the loyalist settlers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as around 27,000. It’s a reasonable inference that the vast majority of tory families repaired to their farms and businesses after the war, but Oliver Wiswell does not acknowledge that; the protagonist is exiled by an act of the legislature and his father’s house seized.
True about the cannabilistic left. But, somehow the evil they initiate seems to endure. France has been on a downward trajectory every since their glorious, equity revolution of the 19th century. I do think we might be outperforming them in the “giving your country away” category.
France has been on a downward trajectory every since their glorious, equity revolution of the 19th century.
Huh? The French Revolution was in the terminal years of the 18th century. That and the Napoleonic period had good points and bad points. One of the good points was sorting out the country’s land titles so that allodial rights to rustical land were assigned to the peasants rather than the seigneurs; another was the abolition of feudal dues.