George Rebane
[My ‘Farewell Unity’ commentary was also published in the 3apr21 Union (here). Its lengthy comment stream made clear again that most liberals had trouble understanding my proposition for finding common ground. Nevertheless, the piece has since then garnered considerable interest. This week the newspaper printed on separate days not one, not two, but three op-ed columns by liberals delivering most revealing critiques of the future Americas desired by both sides – ‘Path to unity in America’(13apr21) by Elliot Schneiderman, ‘A point of near unity’(15apr21) by Paul Hauck, and ‘Finding Unity in America’(16apr21) by Nory Fussel. When “retired scientist” Schneiderman took me to task, I responded with the piece below, prematurely, it turned out, since I was not aware of the subsequent op-eds by Hauck and Fussel. I address the latter two in the addendum to this post. Perhaps all this interest provides hope that the conversation toward unity, which I outline below, will start here or elsewhere. 20apr21 update - an edited form of this commentary was published here in the 20apr21 Union. More here.]
I was halfway heartened to read ‘left-leaning neighbor’ Elliot Schneiderman’s 12apr21 ‘Path to unity in America’ response to my 3ap21 ‘Farewell Unity’ column. It appears both of us support a future America that is persistently hailed by our Right, and seldom if ever described by our Left. In fact, Elliot takes exception to the neo-Marxist future that I describe, and the one to which the current administration and the Democrat leadership publicly subscribe. These disparate visions of America are well documented by the commentariats of both sides. Elliot writes -
George quite wrongly states that “our neighbors on the left work feverishly for” this Marxist global government world view. I’m on our country’s left and will have none of it, I don’t personally know a single American that would ascribe (sic) to it, and I am convinced that the vast majority of our country’s left do not ascribe (sic) to it.
This remarkable view from the Left is easily explained by the recorded half-century decline of our progressive schools that have assiduously omitted any mention of such historic realities. And it is easily confirmed through conversations with a sampling of your left-leaning neighbors, especially the ones cited by Elliot.
Apparently, Elliot neither understands nor can identify the nature of the road that leads to collectivist authoritarianism. Every policy which he and his support and vote for further weakens our current open-market capitalistic social order based on the Constitution bequeathed by our Founders. Those same policies have one common denominator - increasing the regulatory and tax burdens on the productive middle class while steadily ratcheting down our individual liberties. The direction of such roads to an inevitable leviathan state are well-known and long established.
And yet, it is remarkable that Elliot and his neighbors on the left appear totally blind to the course our country is embarked on. In his words, “Marxism is an extreme view held by the fringe far left”. However, the size of this fringe is considerable when one includes the stated and implemented policies of academe, entertainment, mainstream news, and well-funded leftwing institutions. It can only be characterized as ‘fringe’ under the program of recently-reminted semantics that today decorate all communications of a leftwing provenance. In these missives the Left has redefined previously understood and disparate terms such as ‘racist’, ‘infrastructure’, ‘husband’, ‘wife’, ‘equity’, ‘investment’, ‘assault rifle’, … - the growth of this newspeak is endless.
Among the majority of Democrats and the nation’s lightly read, the usage of these terms is the new norm in our daily diet of news and commentary. As observed in The Federalist, “Words can now literally be defined with their antonym. We are a hair’s width and an ounce of stupidity away from ‘war is peace, freedom is slavery.’”
What our Elliots seem to miss in its entirety is today’s long laundry list of Democrat initiatives intended for authoritarian Marxism. These range from demolishing our existing electorate by importing hundreds of thousands of illegal and unskilled aliens destined for grateful and politically compliant citizenship, to actively abolishing First Amendment rights on college campuses, in civil service, the media, and corporatist workplaces for anyone who does not hew to the progressive narrative. And to that add nationalizing loose election laws and partisan packing the Supreme Court.
California is the posterchild of what Elliot and his blindered left-leaning neighbors have done over the years to the world’s prime real estate. Where we were first in so many fields of human endeavor and enterprise, we are now solidly in the ranks of states like NY, NJ, CT, IL leading the country’s race to the bottom. California’s wealth creators are leaving in droves, to be replaced by the nation’s largest exploding cohort of transfer payment recipients.
To discover common ground that can return us to unity, I invite the good-hearted Elliots of the land to take a much closer look at the road they are now busy building. It does not lead in the direction that Elliot and his like-minded neighbors think it does.
[Addendum] In his response, Mr Hauck, the “self-described, unreconstructed 1960s liberal”, claims to embrace in its entirety our return to the same America (see above) that has been the goal of conservatives for some years now. But then he curiously goes off the rails when he characterizes my description of the Left’s pursuit of their own future America as a “broad brush, entirely fictional” caricature that “gratuitously demonizes” the Left. He readily admits that a global collectivist government must needs come about through the exercise of “malign motives and evil intent”. Yet it is this exact kind of government that embodies all the desiderata spelled out by the Democratic Party, and its now-dominant left wing. This assessment is corroborated by fellow local liberal Nory Fussel in her column.
As we read Nory Fussel's critique cum proposal for her brave new world, America included, therein she also embraces the ‘city-on-the-hill’ future, but rejects my description of the Left’s destination, about which she writes – “He then went on to define some nefarious and overarching socialist global government comprised of elitists and strong men, qualities he assigned to ‘the Left.’” She then promptly proceeds to describe the world order she desires, with social benefits and restrictions galore, one that can only be brought about by nothing less than the kind of nefarious and overarching socialist global government she has rejected, after it does away with “winner-takes-all capitalism”.
Thereafter, her ideal government would have the power to “foster a cultural mindset of moderation and enough-for-all, the basic minimum income would be complemented by a maximum wage law. Taxation on extreme wealth would temper the elitism of a billionaire class, yet those who would naturally excel would be free to do so.” Apparently, she is totally innocent of previous outcomes from governments ‘fostering’ these nostrums, and of how humans have responded under the munificent diktats of such governments that have sought to impose “a positive and unified social ethos”.
Nevertheless, there may be some progress here in our understanding the workings of a liberal mind. They like the conservatives’ shining city on the hill, so long as it is brought about by a government capable of effectively fostering and imposing, or as I described, “a strong and over-arching global government run by elites” in which “peace is maintained through tightly regulated principles of equity used to enforce equal outcomes for all classes regardless of their contributions to the common weal. In such a world, Marxist collectivism is the guiding principle for correct thought and public policy – ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’” She confirms her rationale for embracing socialism – “Old-schoolers will cluck and clamor, ‘Why, that’s socialism!’ Consider that without social needs fulfilled, without a positive and unified social ethos, the individual can become dangerous, easily misled, even violent, as we witnessed on Jan. 6.”
All three of these progressive worthies appear to be deluded by their focus on and consideration of each separate wealth redistribution program in isolation. They never connect the dots to see what such an integrated amalgam of social engineering on a national scale requires of governments and portends for a society. As we have maintained over the years, their fundamental error arises from their gross ignorance of human psychology and behavior. Today’s cities are tragic examples of such gross ignorance. Liberals have always been surprised how the public responds to the implementation of their socially just and equitable programs.
So, job one in the proposed search for common ground is still to affirm the respective desiderata for America’s future government and social order. Having memorialized that, and always keeping it in focus, we embark on job two, which is to examine what government controls, social contract, and altruistic social behaviors will be required to give rise to and maintain each of these blessed lands.
I fear that here our biggest hurdle will be identical to that which foiled the communist elites of the USSR (and other totalitarian collectives), namely, the requirement for individuals to ascend new heights of altruistic behavior and levels of satisfaction upon which the smooth functioning of all large (beyond the family) collectives depend. And to do all that with the patience and perseverance through the inevitable period of regime change and adjustment during which the fallacies, foibles, and failures of large, poorly formed bureaucracies make themselves felt in every niche and corner of the new social order. During this interval of deprivation, with never a visible end in sight, the more clever individuals will soon start gaming the system, all to the envy of those slow of mind and foot. Inevitably, this will bring down the wrath of the state with the declaration that the incarcerations and executions will stop as soon as public morals reassert themselves and compliance is restored.
For us in America, this hurdle is doubly high because our neighbors of the Left have no clue about the course of such events; their progressive public education has taught them to believe that exactly the opposite will come to pass, with happy dancing in the streets as greedy capitalism is abolished, dissenting voices silenced, and socially just equity is established. Nevertheless, to avoid a potentially violent Great Divide, such a conversation is a must.
Quo tendimus? Good question. Dr. Rebane knows what it looks like when we get there, and I believe we are on the path of destruction. The slow moving train-wreck has picked up velocity.
A CRY FROM THE HEART AGAINST ROT IN EDUCATION
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/a-cry-from-the-heart-against-rot-in-education.php
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 17 April 2021 at 09:48 AM