When I decided to vote for Trump the first time I wrote that "in a contest between our thug and their thug I see no obligation to vote for theirs or to refrain from ours."
I don't know if the Republic can recover. But I have feared that for some time we are in a post-constitutional era in which reverence for process will be for losers. A measure of this will the extent to which violence becomes a tactic in election campaigns. If violence is perceived to be an essential tactic, both sides will practice it and the Republic will be gone.
Finally, for mere historic interest, I think the Democrats giving up on free speech goes all the way back to campaign finance laws. It started the Dems on a road to thinking about "fair speech" as in 'it's not fair if some people with money get more speech than others.' At first the Dems did not notice the conflict and continued to believe they believed in free speech. But the conflict between free and fair is real and the supporters of fair inevitably turn to government, cf socialism.
I think the campaign finance laws signified something slightly different than a concern about fairness, and even closer to your thesis. Democrats believe that history can only run in one direction, and that they are always on the side of "the people"; therefore they should always win elections. The fact that they do not always win proves that elections are corrupted, from which it follows that anything which influences voters, such as campaign spending, is by definition an improper influence. Note how this parallels the Trump supporters' belief that when he loses it proves that elections are rigged.
"Life is choosing, and the other choice will be to hand over the executive branch of the government, with all its gargantuan size and power, to a party that wants to, and thinks it has the right to, silence the opposition."
I think that is exactly right. That IS the other choice, and they have been up to this for longer than most of us realize. The "new left" of the 60's has marched through the political and cultural institutions much as they had planned, and applied their totalitarian mindset to each one of those institutions. They are arrayed against tree speech, the family, and religious faith. Our side should embrace those institutions and fearlessly protect them. They are the only way back.
“In 2018, Democrats supported free speech by a 57-40 margin, almost identical to the Republican view.”
Note the year and which party was in power to include the presidency. What this tells us is commiecrat voters don’t want the opposition to criticize their party when it is in power. They are completely tribal in their views of civil rights. Marx stated socialism is the precursor to communism and socialism is inherently fascist. Even if the republicans manage to win the White House take the senate and maintain their majority in the house I don’t see how this is fixed, because what about 2028? Yuri Bezmenov stated the only way you stop this process is stop the indoctrination in the schools, the demoralized are lost you can’t convince them that they are supporting an ideology that inevitably leads to genocide and mass murder on an industrial scale. I don’t see any real effort to stop this process in the government schools k thru post graduate and without that at best the entire nation becomes California at worst we become China.
Bezmenov called it, didn't he? He is often called prescient, but he wasn't. He was just articulating a methodical plan he'd been trained to execute, oblivious to most of us until recently. This hole we're in took decades to build, I fear it will take at least a decade to climb out.
A real quote from Karl Marx that I recently encountered for the first time: "The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism."
What especially struck me is the parallel between Marx's statement and Islam's division of the world into dar al-Islam (house of submission) and dar al-Harb (house of war).
When I decided to vote for Trump the first time I wrote that "in a contest between our thug and their thug I see no obligation to vote for theirs or to refrain from ours."
I don't know if the Republic can recover. But I have feared that for some time we are in a post-constitutional era in which reverence for process will be for losers. A measure of this will the extent to which violence becomes a tactic in election campaigns. If violence is perceived to be an essential tactic, both sides will practice it and the Republic will be gone.
Finally, for mere historic interest, I think the Democrats giving up on free speech goes all the way back to campaign finance laws. It started the Dems on a road to thinking about "fair speech" as in 'it's not fair if some people with money get more speech than others.' At first the Dems did not notice the conflict and continued to believe they believed in free speech. But the conflict between free and fair is real and the supporters of fair inevitably turn to government, cf socialism.
I think the campaign finance laws signified something slightly different than a concern about fairness, and even closer to your thesis. Democrats believe that history can only run in one direction, and that they are always on the side of "the people"; therefore they should always win elections. The fact that they do not always win proves that elections are corrupted, from which it follows that anything which influences voters, such as campaign spending, is by definition an improper influence. Note how this parallels the Trump supporters' belief that when he loses it proves that elections are rigged.
Love your writing
Thanks!
"Life is choosing, and the other choice will be to hand over the executive branch of the government, with all its gargantuan size and power, to a party that wants to, and thinks it has the right to, silence the opposition."
I think that is exactly right. That IS the other choice, and they have been up to this for longer than most of us realize. The "new left" of the 60's has marched through the political and cultural institutions much as they had planned, and applied their totalitarian mindset to each one of those institutions. They are arrayed against tree speech, the family, and religious faith. Our side should embrace those institutions and fearlessly protect them. They are the only way back.
“In 2018, Democrats supported free speech by a 57-40 margin, almost identical to the Republican view.”
Note the year and which party was in power to include the presidency. What this tells us is commiecrat voters don’t want the opposition to criticize their party when it is in power. They are completely tribal in their views of civil rights. Marx stated socialism is the precursor to communism and socialism is inherently fascist. Even if the republicans manage to win the White House take the senate and maintain their majority in the house I don’t see how this is fixed, because what about 2028? Yuri Bezmenov stated the only way you stop this process is stop the indoctrination in the schools, the demoralized are lost you can’t convince them that they are supporting an ideology that inevitably leads to genocide and mass murder on an industrial scale. I don’t see any real effort to stop this process in the government schools k thru post graduate and without that at best the entire nation becomes California at worst we become China.
Bezmenov called it, didn't he? He is often called prescient, but he wasn't. He was just articulating a methodical plan he'd been trained to execute, oblivious to most of us until recently. This hole we're in took decades to build, I fear it will take at least a decade to climb out.
A real quote from Karl Marx that I recently encountered for the first time: "The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism."
What especially struck me is the parallel between Marx's statement and Islam's division of the world into dar al-Islam (house of submission) and dar al-Harb (house of war).
Is "fascism" the right word? "Totalitarianism" is what comes to my mind.
Totalitarianism may be the more accurate word, but it feels so much like fascism.
"Fascism" may be exactly the right word, if one goes by the definition of fascism as the merger of state and corporate power.