If we allow this behavior to be acceptable now, what will the future hold? We already have racial animus, senseless crime, religious bigotry, class envy, and all of the other time-tested human ills. Now we’ve added Republicans are Nazis, white men are evil, trans is the new black, babies can be genderless, video game addictions, and be rude to people you disagree with. How far will it go if no one says, “Enough”?
People often ask Republicans how they can support Trump. I was a never-Trumper and I have no problem admitting that he has said and done some stupid and indefensible things. In answering that question, some simply like the fact that they have a fighter and they don’t care how he does it. For others, they are pleasantly surprised. From a policy standpoint, he’s more conservative than George W. Bush. As for his rhetoric, they take him seriously but not literally, while the Left takes him literally but not seriously.
I believe it’s good for Trump supporters to question their allegiance. This keeps them honest. But who keeps the Left honest? If I have to question myself whenever I agree with the president, when do liberals and independents have to question themselves? It is time for independents and liberals to ask themselves how long they’ll be able to support the Democratic Party.
Elected officials are calling to abolish ICE and encouraging the act of shaming people out of society. Those who call to abolish the police, borders, and profits are no longer on the fringes. Sticking with policy issues, the Left openly defies federal immigration laws and the co-chair of the Democratic Party is calling for a ‘Marshall Plan’ to build up Mexico’s economy. The Democrats are also electing socialists and calling everything racist and treasonous.
You can think Trump is bad and disagree with his policies, but on the bigger issue of culture, there’s no question who is doing the most harm. The Left is allowing pre-teens to choose their sex, endorsing pedophilia and infanticide, spreading hatred of whites, and pushing for illegals to vote.
For clarity sake, I would challenge any independent, classic liberal or never-Trumper to make a list of all of the media stories they find that are untrue or misleading, all of the economic policies they disagree with, and all of the cultural changes they think are too extreme, and link them to the Left or the Right. After doing this exercise they will discover that, without question, they associate the vast majority of these things to the Left. With that in mind, we will finish this journey by discussing ways to combat the dangerous agenda the Left is advancing ever so quickly.
• 8 •
Stemming the Tide
What a culture we live in, we are swimming in an ocean of information, and drowning in ignorance.
— Richard Paul Evans
The book to this point has been a detailed explanation of how we got here. We discussed the abundant examples of inequality throughout history: the horrendous social and legal obstacles that blacks and other minorities had to face, the necessary and moral fight many endured to gain equality for groups being discriminated against, and finally the unfortunate push for preference which contradicts the equality they say they want and many actually fought for. The remainder of the book will be about where we go from here.
Obviously, my target audience is not the Left. They are not only happy about the direction the culture is taking, they are pushing for it. But the message is not and should not be construed as a message for conservatives only. There are plenty of independents and liberals who may disagree with conservatives on a lot of policy issues but are not comfortable with where our culture is headed. This message is for anyone who loves America, because the decline has very little to do with policy. Here are some important points we need to understand and focus on to stop the downward spiral and to begin moving our culture back to the center.
THEY WANT SOCIALISM
It is important to understand the Left doesn’t want to just tinker with the edges, they want a different country. Up until now, it had been unpopular to say the things they believe and have an audience or run for office, so they kept their true feelings quiet. Conservatives were accused of over-the-top rhetoric for saying that Democrats want to make America a socialist country. Now prominent Democrats are starting to say it publicly.
Today, it is easy to find politicians who advocate reducing the size and scope of law enforcement, raising taxes, giving everyone a mandatory wage, banning all social restrictions, closing jails, free college, free healthcare, and more. Because of the cultural shift, more people than ever before believe that socialism is the answer , however, that number is nowhere near a majority. We need to present the two positions to the people and let them decide. The problem is when they are not honest about what they want, they sound like they just have the country’s best interest at heart. You, in turn, sound like you don’t want to help people.
Let’s be honest, socialism sounds good. Bernie Sanders became a folk hero of sorts espousing the utopia of socialism. In a fair election process, he would have been the Democrat nominee for president in 2016. In his campaign, he advocated for free college tuition, a living wage, social justice, sanctuary cities, and economic equality. In his America, everyone who needs help gets it, the government takes care of everything and it’s all free to 99% of us. If the 1% pays their ‘fair share,’ we can pay for everyone’s needs. Except we can’t.
Anyone who understands history knows that socialism has never worked. There have been many attempts, but they all ended poorly. If the society which tested socialism was lucky, they only experienced greater poverty and a few failed businesses. In the worst cases, millions died. Many proponents of socialism argue that it hasn’t been implemented properly and detractors wrongly use communism as a comparison and communism is different. While this is an over simplified explanation, it is the quickest and most discernable example of the minor difference between the two.
With socialism, those who have more are asked to give to those who have less. It is the epitome of my term negative equality. They don’t strive to find ways to raise up the working class, they will achieve equality by bringing the rich, and subsequently the middle class, down to the level of the working class. Communism, is simply involuntary socialism. When those in power ask you to give and you refuse, they come and take what they want by force. Voila, we’ve graduated to communism.
It will be interesting to see how the SJWs plan to enforce all of these new regulations if people resist. In order to make legislation compulsory, you need a police force but in addition to advocating for socialism, they also want to abolish the police. These two arguments are mutually exclusive.
Look up the history on many immigrants coming to America in the 20th century from Cuba, Poland, Germany, Russia, etc. They were middle class people who had everything taken from them when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis), and Fidel Castro’s Communist Party of Cuba came to power. All devolved into dictatorships. But the Left believes that we’ll be different.
Putting the ruthlessness and strong-arming aside for a moment, we simply don’t have the resources to make this work. This is where they think they have me cornered. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world and have an abundance of funds at our disposal. This, of course, is true. What they’re ignoring is the fact that the wealth in America is owned by individuals and while many are charitable, none give at the levels the Left would need them to in order to make everything free. No problem, the socialists have a solution: pass a law.
Sanders and his ilk want to cap CEO compensation to a percentage of the workers’ salaries. It sounds so benevolent that few focus on the insanity of it. You are saying that the government should limit how much a person can be compensated working at a company he or she created. I have never started a multi-million-dollar business, but I can imagine what level of creativity, sacrifice, and work goes into achieving that dream. The problem is most of us are selfish. We focus singularly on our own well-being. Since we cannot empathize with millionaires
, why would we care if the government took more than half of their money?
While working to limit CEO compensation on the one hand, the Democrats are trying to raise entry-level salaries as high as they can. They have organized marches to ‘fight for $15’ but Sanders and others are subtly demanding a livable wage. They won’t say what that wage is, but we know it’s not $15 per hour. To summarize, their idea of economic equality is to cut salaries on one end, raise salaries on the opposite end, all while they continue to push for higher taxes.
You may be thinking that in communism, the government controls the means of production. You are correct and this is one of the big reasons it fails. Government doesn’t produce anything and is not in a position to control anything. But if you look closely, the government is deeply involved in most corporations. They subsidize industries like farming, solar panels, and electric cars; they bail out private businesses like banks and car manufacturers; they fund government entities run by the states like Medicare and education; and they regulate industries like utilities, airlines, financial institutions, and telecommunications. This gives the government a massive level of control over companies. The politicians in turn are influenced by lobbyists. With all of these regulatory controls, the government is moving closer to controlling businesses, indirectly, even without the open call for socialism. Imagine how successful they’ll be when they’re open about it.
“Socialist revolution aims at liberating the productive forces. The changeover from individual to socialist, collective ownership in agriculture and handicrafts and from capitalist to socialist ownership in private industry and commerce is bound to bring about a tremendous liberation of the productive forces. Thus the social conditions are being created for a tremendous expansion of industrial and agricultural production.” – Mao Zedong
LEARN TO DECODE THEIR LANGUAGE
The Left has accused Republicans of using ‘code words’ for years. These words, they claim, are intended to be a wink and a nod to the conservative base, letting them know that they are really speaking ill of some minority group. An example of this would be a Republican saying, ‘poor people.’ This, in the Left’s minds, is an obvious reference to black people. This is a giant leap in their own minds and they have no way of proving intent. In most cases, if you replace poor with black it still doesn’t make the statement racist. Take the comment, “Poor people need to work more.” Even without the ‘code word,’ this statement is not racist. There is never a direct connection to the implication.
Conversely, the Left frequently operates in this manner, which is probably why they think the Republicans are doing the same. Their approach is less ‘code word’ and more ‘lie by omission.’ When addressing a hot button issue, they minimize the scope of change they desire to a palatable amount. They accept this small step knowing that the final goal is a few steps away. If you can get them to talk about what they want, they inevitably get to the truth. Here is a real-life example.
What if there was a constitutionally protected right that politicians made a concerted effort to block? They went to court to stop you from doing it. When they lost and were mandated to allow their constituents to exercise this right, they made it cost prohibitive when possible and limited the places in which the right can be exercised, making it even more difficult for those living in poor urban areas. All of this having a disparate impact on black and Hispanic citizens. Wouldn’t people be protesting?
Well, this happened in Chicago and several other cities across the country. The right is gun ownership. Until they were forced to change by a Supreme Court ruling, it was against the law for any citizen of Chicago to own a handgun. After the ruling, government officials slowly came up with a law to allow gun ownership, but it was so restrictive that the courts made them scrap it and create a new one. As of this writing, there are no gun shops or shooting ranges within the city limits, although they’ve lost another lawsuit pertaining to this. All of this happened in spite of the fact that most on the Left say they simply want to ban ‘assault rifles’ and to have ‘sensible’ gun control laws. It’s ironic how they say they don’t want a gun ban, but they constantly suggest we implement the gun policy of Australia which was a gun ban. Classic leftist bait and switch.
With the retiring of Justice Anthony Kennedy, no topic has been debated more than abortion. Many on the left feel that Roe v. Wade will be overturned the day after a new Supreme Court justice is nominated. This is obviously extreme and premature, but it does speak to the Left’s views on abortion. As with other talking points, most politicians on the Left say they support ‘a woman’s right to choose.’ They often temper their comments by saying that there should be some limits and abortions should be rare; this, while attending rallies in support of people who demand ‘abortion on demand.’ They say ‘late-term’ abortion is an inaccurate term and very few people have them. However, how often they happen has nothing to do with whether or not someone thinks they should be legal or are morally acceptable.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton visited the View. Co-host Paula Faris was following up on a question Chuck Todd asked on Meet the Press about the rights of an unborn child. Here is that exchange:187
Ms. Faris: You said, ‘the unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.’ And my question is at what point does someone have constitutional rights? And are you saying that a child, on its due date, just hours before its delivery still has no constitutional rights?
Mrs. Clinton: Under our law, that is the case. I support Roe v. Wade because I think it is an important—an important statement about the importance of a woman making this most difficult decision with consultation by whom she chooses … and under the law, and certainly under that decision, that is the way we structure it.
It may be a stretch for conservatives like Ted Cruz to say that Mrs. Clinton supports abortion at this stage, but it is a greater leap to suggest that she doesn’t think a woman has a right to do it. In order to have an honest debate and settle the issue, the Left should speak about abortion like the Right speaks about guns. This is not what we get with the ‘safe, legal, and rare’ mantra they give us.
They also claim to support the 1st amendment, but they must not have read the entire thing because one of the rights mentioned in the 1st amendment is the freedom to exercise one’s religion. Everywhere we turn, the Left is trying to erode this right as discussed in the earlier chapter on religion. Yet, if you get them in an interview, they will tell you they support a given person’s religious rights, then give you a list of exceptions.
GIVE THEM THEIR ARGUMENT
As you’ve seen, my Logic Board approach is an effective and unique way to debate issues with the Left. This approach is great for two reasons. The first is that it is not antagonistic. There’s no need to call them names or tell them they’re wrong. This creates a comfortable environment for them to talk. This leads us to advantage number two: they eventually say what they mean. Many politicians and political pundits are masters of communication. They know how to request less and make you believe that is all they want. You have to force them to say what they really mean and arguing won’t get you there. This is where their opponents fail. Instead of hearing their ideas and saying, “You liberals are crazy!” it would be better to just probe a little. You’ll be surprised what you may learn.
To highlight this, let’s look at two examples: gun control and illegal immigration. The beauty here is that there’s no debate. You simply ask follow up questions until they reach an impasse. They will either admit their true desire is far more than their initial request or concede that their plan won’t work.
In a debate on gun control, the Left will start with the typical ‘I don’t want to ban guns, I only want sensible gun control’ rhetoric. The first step would be to have them define sensible gun control. Because they have little knowledge of the gun purchasing process, most of them will list a combination of controls that are already in place and things t
hat have a trace effect on gun crime, say private owner sales or gun show loopholes. To this you’d ask them how many times have they heard of a shooting and found that the suspect got his gun from a gun show? The likely answer is zero.
Next you ask them to set aside private sales and gun shows for the moment. Everything else they’ve mentioned is already in place, so you ask, “What else would you do?” Here it gets interesting. They produce a litany of ideas the Left has floated for years: a gun registry, mental illness checks, licenses to purchase bullets, the legal ability to hold gun manufacturers liable for shootings, mandating that guns remain unloaded, and a slew of additional taxes.
While there are serious constitutional and operational issues with many of these proposals, those are topics for an extended discussion. What’s important here is that implementing the above proposals is akin to a gun ban. Many people will find it cost prohibitive to own a gun. Some will lose their guns in the registration process. These consequences will disproportionally affect minority gun owners, making the moves racist by the Left’s definition.
Those who could afford it would say, ‘what’s the point’ if they have to keep it unloaded. No one wants mentally ill people to have a firearm, but who gets to determine who’s mentally ill? Is someone who suffered from mild depression after the loss of a loved one five years ago a security threat? I, for one, don’t want some bureaucratic panel deciding when people lose their rights.
We Want Equality Page 17