RUTHFULLY YOURS

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The word liberal reminds one of Humpty Dumpty’s proclamation. It means different things to different people. The word is polysemous. To the Left it means big government, which actively supports social change. To the Right it refers to less government interference, the endorsement of individual rights, civil liberties, and free markets. The word stems from the Latin, liber, meaning free or unimpeded. In Lewis Carroll’s story, the word that caused the skirmish was glory, when used as a verb. “They’ve a temper – some of them, particularly verbs,” Humpty Dumpty says to a puzzled Alice. The word liberal is not temperamental (at least as far as I know), but it can self-camouflage, to ambush the unsuspecting.

Over the years, the Left has usurped the word. so that for most the word refers to those who prefer a large role for government in their lives, while conservatives have become deplorables, birthers, conspirators, or just plain racists or right-wing nuts. We on the right should seize the word back. In his 1953 book The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk wrote of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), of how he defended the liberties of Englishmen against their king and of Americans against king and parliament. He defended those liberties not because they were innovations, “…but because they were ancient prerogatives, guaranteed by immemorial usage. Burke was liberal because he was conservative.” (Highlights mine.)

It is amusing to consider how the definition of liberal has morphed over time, so that today’s social liberals consider themselves the sole owners of the word, “even as,” Daniel Henninger wrote in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, “they surrender to the state an array of long assumed freedoms – of opinion, speech, and privacy.” Classical liberals believe that such rights, along with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” are natural; they are God-given. The purpose of government is to secure and ensure those rights, not to dictate social behavior. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/a_call_from_alexander_hamilton.html

In light of the dismaying set of events that has put our country at great risk, it is intriguing to read the words of Alexander Hamilton to George Clinton dated February 13, 1778.  Written from Valley Forge immediately after his arrival at headquarters, Hamilton expressed his deep concern about the “degeneracy of representation in the great council of America.”

Hamilton notes that each day Americans “see and feel, that there is not so much wisdom in a certain body, as there ought to be, and as the success of our affairs absolutely demands.”

Many members of it are no doubt men in every respect, fit for the trust, but this cannot be said of it as a body. Folly, caprice, a want of foresight, comprehension and dignity, characterise the general tenor of their actions.

Of relevant concern to 21st century Americans is Hamilton’s assertion that

Their conduct with respect to the army especially is feeble, indecisive and improvident — insomuch, that we are reduced to a more terrible situation than you can conceive.

Furthermore, “[this] has produced such carelessness and indifference to the service, as is subversive of every officer-like quality.”

Consider how the current American military brass is betraying the United States by “embracing leftist racism and anti-Americanism.  Their radicalism is pushing conservatives out of the armed forces while undermining unit cohesion and troop morale.”  Critical Race Theory (CRT) has infiltrated the military and dividing members of the armed forces into opposing camps of ‘oppressors’ and ‘oppressed’ [.]” 

Defense Secretary­­­­­­­­ Lloyd Austin is an advocate of anti-American views and has required CRT and the 1619 Project as part of the military training programs.

Moreover, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has worked to “divide and weaken the military by bringing the Black Lives Matter curriculum of anti-white and anti-American hate into its ranks.”

In 2020, Admiral Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations vowed to eliminate “systemic racism.” 

Although Marxism is the animating feature of the above, Alexander Hamilton’s words highlight that “they have disgusted the army by repeated instances of the most whimsical favouritism in their promotions; and by an absurd prodigality of rank to foreigners and to the meanest staff of the army. They have not been able to summon resolution enough to withstand the impudent importunity and vain boasting of foreign pretenders [.]”

https://thespectator.com/topic/need-know-joe-biden-classified-documents/

We are still in the early stages of discovering what the documents discovered in Joe Biden’s office at the University of Pennsylvania contain and how highly they were classified, so we don’t yet know how dangerous the violation was. But there are things to keep in mind as the story unfolds.

1. Biden’s lawyers did him a huge favor by instructing him not to ask about the documents

It’s the last stand of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Still, as one tabloid used to proclaim,“Inquiring minds want to know.” In particular, we want to know how sensitive the material really was (overclassification is a problem in Washington) and where the documents were held between the time Biden left the vice presidency and the time the Penn Biden Center opened.

2. Biden might pay a political price for staying mum about possessing the documents improperly

But that price will be considerably diminished because the “neutral” press doesn’t want to hurt a Democrat. The public has observed that bias for years, eroding their trust in the press.

3. Pay no attention to the Department of Justice’s failure to leak anything about the documents’ discovery before the November election

It would not have affected any votes. The Republicans screwed up that election all by themselves. What the DoJ’s silence does tell us is that the department doesn’t leak much when disclosures could hurt Democrats. When they could hurt Republicans, the department is a sieve.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/12/equity-is-not-the-same-as-fairness/

This is the second piece in our series about modern idolatry, also known as secular religion. It discusses the elevation of equity – the principle of outcomes forced to conform to racial and ethnic demographics – to a moral imperative that has penetrated the highest levels of academia, business, and government. It hides behind high-minded platitudes but is at its core a tool for corruptly accruing and wielding economic and political power.

For a start, the main tenet of the Church of Equity is “righteous” reverse discrimination as a way to attain certain outcomes, a seeming contradiction to civil rights and equality under the law. Non-believers are subjected to denunciation as racists and may even lose their livelihoods if they work in an environment that has been intimidated into submission to the faith. Their missionaries are the legions of zealots dedicated to defending and promoting what we call IED – inclusion, equity, and diversity – on college campuses, in companies, and throughout government. Equity is not a benign religion.

Equity has gained traction less for its moral underpinnings than the lure of promised benefits to those who feel underrepresented or inadequately rewarded. People instinctively prefer to be led by others like themselves – the natural affinity for tribalism – and, unsurprisingly, are suspicious if their peers seem to be less successful than members of other tribes. Equity’s focus on demographic entitlement provides the illusion of representative leadership and economic fairness while it discounts considerations of ability, character, and achievement.

But there is good reason to question the elevation of equity. For example, in determining outcomes, why should innate characteristics of race or ethnicity displace other equally innate characteristics such as intelligence and motivation? Why should a record of hard work and achievements be subjugated to an entitlement? Polls show a large majority of people disagree with allocating outcomes by race, in part because they consider individual achievement and merit to be requisites to upward mobility.