RUTHFULLY YOURS

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“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage,on imagination and an unbeatable determination to d0 the job at hand.” President Harry Truman Message to Congress       January 8, 194

 Public    debates, be they high school, college or Presidential, are aimed at diminishing one’s opponent and convincing the audience of one’s superior argument. It is rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Like political campaigns, its goal is to win. In contrast, debates in the classroom – at least in years past – and in legislative bodies – at least when no press is present – are to test one’s argument, to listen to one’s opponent. The purpose is to learn and to come to a consensus. When I was young, I argued with my father; only later did I realize I was trying to understand why he believed as he did.

In a polyglot society, such as the United States, individual identities are natural and differences in ideas are to be expected. The latter should be encouraged, for it is through respectful debate that common ground is found. On the other hand, the political exploitation of group identifications has caused a widening divide among an already fractionated people. Factionalism was a concern of the Founding Fathers. In “Federalist 10,” James Madison warned that it could lead to “…instability, injustice, and confusion…the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.”

Yet politicians today have found that splitting the electorate into manageable pieces makes it easier to campaign and win on specific issues. Thus, we have been divided into victims and assailants. This division makes the insulting assumption that certain races are incapable of competing on merit; so different standards are used for Asians, blacks, and whites in college admissions and jobs. We have been divided by cultural preferences, where gender is seen as a matter of choice, not biology. Dependency on government has come at the expense of individual responsibility and accountability; the concept of equal opportunity has been subordinated to a demand for equal outcomes, and the dignity of work seems an abandoned philosophy. Diversity and inclusion, the battle cry of the Woke, does not include diversity of ideas or the inclusion of those who dare challenge conventional thought.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/society/2023/02/hear-about-the-transurrection-no-of-course-not/

“If the much-denounced Jan 6 ‘insurrection’ by Trump supporters is the yardstick, this week’s invasion of the Oklahoma legislature by an angry, chanting mob should have been front-page news. Ah, but then these protesters were trans activists and rent-a-mob leftoids, so different standards must be applied.”
Insurrection! A violent insurgency has once again hit America, even as Joe Biden rose to the podium to deliver his State of the Union Address. Trespassing on government property and hurling racist chants, the mob of mostly white insurrectionists sought to disrupt constitutional government in the name of “individual autonomy” and “personal liberty”.

A mob of racist heterophobes (above) illegally occupied the Oklahoma State Capitol building Tuesday night in an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt Governor Kevin Stitt’s State of the State Address. Putting lives in danger, the transgender activists yelled “this is our house” and “trans lives matter”.

The first phrase has been widely condemned as a revolutionary slogan used by Trump-MAGA Republicans on January 6, 2021. The second phrase evokes the “all lives matter” bumper stickers that were widely condemned as racist in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.

Oklahoma is deep MAGA country. In the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump defeated  Joe Biden by a margin of 2-1, winning every single county in the state. Thus is comes as no
surprise to see white Oklahomans rising up in insurrection, culturally appropriating BLM rhetoric, and pursuing a self-proclaimed “freedom” agenda in defiance of democratic norms.

Strangely, neither the mainstream media in the United States nor Australia’s ABC have covered the insurrection. In fact, it seems that only one American television network (Fox News) has reported on it. Oh, and the Daily Mail.

The far-right Oklahoma insurrectionists object to pending legislation in the state that would insert big government into the lives of ordinary (?) people. Governor Stitt pointed out in his address that “minors can’t vote, can’t purchase alcohol, can’t purchase cigarettes”, implying that in line with these positions “we shouldn’t allow a minor to get a permanent gender altering surgery”.

He called for a ban on “all gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies on minors in the state”.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/how_the_administrative_state_subverts_the_constitution.html

The House of Representatives on February 2 passed a bill — H. Con. Res. 9 —  opposing the “implementation of socialist policies” and “denouncing socialism in all its forms.”  More than a hundred Democrats joined Republicans in a 327-86 vote on the bill, fittingly sponsored by Maria Salazar (R-Fla.), daughter of exiles from Fidel Castro’s Cuba.  Fittingly, too, the bill quoted President James Madison, the father of the Constitution, who wrote that the United States “was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed.”

How did we get to a state when it has become necessary to denounce socialism by legislation?  For indeed, this is an unprecedented time in America: an Axios and Momentive poll of June 2021 found that 51% of young adults (18–34 years) have a positive view of socialism; age groups 35–64 and 65+, too, showed slight upticks in those favoring socialism.

How did Marxist ideology gain ground in the proud home of individual liberty?  From a representative government beholden to “we the people” and committed to guarding our constitutional rights, how did we get to a government that tells citizens what they can and cannot do, all in the name of the public good?

Trust Us, a new film from the Pacific Legal Foundation, is an excellent chronicle of the socialist seduction of America over 100 years.  It traces the implementation of progressive policies from the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, who believed in proactive, expansive government, to the present-day regulatory environment, where unelected, unaccountable “experts” decide on everything from health care to privacy.

This technocracy is rooted in the fin de siècle fascination with the efficient running of giant corporations, particularly with Frederick Winslow Taylor’s “scientific management.”  Taylorism, which many scholars have described as “enlightened despotism,” came into favor in the late 19th century.  Extending the ideas he implemented in factories to government, Taylor believed that expert planning was superior to the instincts of the people and that “consent of the governed” should be supplanted by broad, centralized executive management.  Expert opinion was hubristically seen as superior to that of business-owners with generations of experience, which was dismissed with disdain.

Taylorism was a self-serving idea for progressives, who came to believe that their expert status was the driving force for improving society.  They dismissed the American ideal of the government as a servant of the people and were eager to limit individual rights, categorize people by intelligence and ability, break up jobs into their components, and regiment how they are carried out — all in the name of productivity.