HATE SPEECH—AN AMERICAN TRADITION

One of the things I love about America is hate speech. In many countries, engaging in it will land you in prison, a gulag—or worse. But here in the US, you may be socially ostracized, and more recently sentenced to forced unemployment, but we’re still leagues above many of our despotic world neighbors, some of them Western allies.

Defining “hate speech” is the challenge. To the radical Left, it’s anything they disagree with, that doesn’t conform to the ideology and narrative of the day. And because on the far Left it’s subjective, inconsistent and ever-changing, the followers tend to eat their own with regularity; interestingly, the current Israeli crisis has created a rift in the ranks. Things that used to be common ground on the left and the right, such as the values of meritocracy, color-blindness, and objective sexual identity, are now cause for outrage and charges of racism, microaggression, and exclusion—hence, hate speech. Thus, the rationale for defending it—as tomorrow your views can be the new hate speech. And without disagreement and dissent, there is no discussion, and no seeking the truth, which often lurks somewhere in the middle, in that safe zone between Tyranny and Chaos.

The battle to reclaim this right to speak freely, especially for conservatives in the current climate with radical leftist ideology controlling the halls of power, has resulted in a casualty of the war against evil: the ability to call out and effectively fight it. With this spiritual paralysis, we become at best amoral, and at worst immoral. And the confusion surrounding free speech and hate speech dampens our ability to deal appropriately with the ubiquitous pro-Palestine/pro-Hamas public displays of unity. Where does the extent of freedom of speech end? Even Nazis have been permitted to publicly and peacefully march in support of their demonic beliefs. In the past, the bounds of this freedom were well defined, ending where calls for violence began. This no longer seems to apply. Cries of “kill the Jews” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, ” even when accompanied by actual acts of vandalism and assault have been insufficient to move the authorities to aggressive enforcement with imprisonment, deportation, or defunding, except in the most extraordinary circumstances. They’ve been weak, abdicating responsibility to individual agents, such as the now-awakened ex-benefactors of irresponsible universities that play a big role in the problem, instead resorting to appeasement and naively trying to defuse a situation well beyond the point of a diplomatic solution with “both side-ism,” with ludicrous exhortations of faux moral equivalency between the two sides.

If we can’t deal strongly with hate speech in the circumstances described above, it becomes almost impossible when dealing with less clear-cut circumstances. Take the recent TikTok posting of Osama bin Laden’s treatise on the rationale for 9-11 that triggered multiple online demonstrations of approbation by young people. Yes, they’re ignorant and have been programmed like others on the left to only understand the concept of oppressor vs victim, not of right vs wrong. But what’s to be done? The decision by the Chinese owners to remove the treatise in response to the blow-back seems, at first blush, to be reasonable. But is it? We’re not China, and we used to abhor censorship. And if bin Laden’s words hadn’t been publicized, the problem would have remained under the radar. Posting this written excrement didn’t create the issue, only unmasked it, and taking it down doesn’t solve it.

What about the recent kerfuffle regarding Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) response to the post “Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them”? He replied, “You have said the actual truth.” And the subsequent tweet in the thread declaring, “Everyone is allowed to be proud of their race, except for white people, because we’ve been brainwashed into believing that our history was some how ‘worse’ than other races. This false narrative must die,” followed by Musk’s response of “Yeah, this is super messed up. Time for this nonsense to end and shame ANYONE who perpetuates these lies!” This was roundly censured as antisemitism by the Anti-Defamation League. But is this really hate speech? I’m a Jew by birth but not religious practice and consider antisemitism as abhorrent as any form of racism, yet found myself agreeing with what I believe was the intent of Musk’s words: A large segment of the secular Jewish community, as opposed to the orthodox, or practicing Jewish community, has been a strong supporter of most of the far Left’s progressive policies. So “hate speech” is often a byproduct of a lack of clarity or misunderstanding. (Not surprisingly, a formal statement from the CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, followed, condemning antisemitism and discrimination.)

The bottom line is that there is no free speech without “hate” speech. But ignoring calls for violence to remain without consequence by people who do not share our American values and will never assimilate, especially those who are here either illegally or legally as non-citizens, is foolish and a sure recipe for societal collapse. I hope we’re smarter than that. There are some encouraging signs—i.e., the 300,000 person-strong march against antisemitism in Washington, DC.

It will be a long, hard journey, but good will win out. And that’s something to be truly grateful for this Thanksgiving.

SOCIETY’S DE(I)ATH WISH

The acronym DEI (I prefer DIE as it more accurately characterizes what it’s doing to our society) ostensibly stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, but this pervasive and pernicious program is more aptly defined as Division, Entitlement, and Inequality.

The diversity it extols applies to skin color and sexual preference, not ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints. Under this rubric, Critical Race Theory has sprouted like weeds throughout the garden of color blindness that MLK had hoped and prayed for, and accounts for the astonishing lack of competence in even the upper echelons of power.. Children and adults alike are being assaulted by anti-white racism, words to the effect that minorities are kept down by white people who are inherently oppressors and repositories of “white privilege” (ironically, this has an element of truth, as the policies supported by the advocates of DEI indeed foster failure for their targeted groups, but more on that below). This toxic, immoral rhetoric has rekindled racial division that was at its nadir at the time President Obama took office. Polling data bear out the fact that blacks increasingly ascribe their failures to “get ahead” to systemic racism rather than personal agency. DEI has also more starkly divided the nation politically.

This brings us to Entitlement. In a misguided attempt to try to right historical malfeasance via a “two wrongs make a right” approach, as whiteness is demonized, blackness is extolled and given preferential treatment. Affirmative action, which may have arguably served as a useful band-aid in the waning Jim Crow years, has become a millstone around society’s neck, branding every successful black individual with the perception of lower achievement because of the reduced standards accepted for others of the same group, shamefully defined by the superficial characteristic of skin color. In a mind-boggling display of mental contortion, this bigotry of low expectations is regarded as “just,” not as the racism that it is. While one might think that rewarding reduced merit would not be a prescription for success, this destructive entitlement was yet deemed insufficient. These same supporters of affirmative action want to lower the bar with more intense virtue-signaling though reparations. In other words, paying people who have not personally suffered the pain of slavery or Jim Crow by those who never engaged in these abhorrent practices. To make the case for such an immoral policy, they double down on the “white privilege” oppressor-oppressed theme.

And finally, Inequality. To rationalize treating a minority preferentially, it’s not enough to demonize the other race. One must hold equity above equality. Disparate outcomes, a feature of existence, must be viewed as not only unacceptable, but attributable in its entirety to “systemic racism.” This allows the powers-that-be to exclude individual agency and personal accountability. Such a tack dangerously prevents policy-makers from understanding all of the variables contributing to the inequity du jour and precludes legislating in an effective manner, usually exacerbating rather than solving or ameliorating the problem. But perhaps that’s the point—a feature rather than a bug. Convincing the voter that something or someone other than than those in power is responsible for the problem and/or the failure to find a solution provides the necessary distraction to grow government and its associated welfare state even more in size and scope. The cover of widespread individual dependency enables them to double down on ineffectual or deleterious policies in a vicious circle, using equity as a club to perpetuate in the people an ever-growing comfort with, and expectation of, government entitlements. Larger government leads to more power for the elites. It also generates a multi-billion dollar swindle with DEI departments in educational institutions at all levels and through the government and corporate world, so there’s no small incentive for the DEI activists to preserve the scam. By perpetually “solving” (or more accurately, “stoking”) problems of their own making and promoting “equity by fiat” (i.e., at gunpoint), government drives the downward spiral of society we’re now seeing. But that’s inevitable when you elevate equity above equality.

In short, DEI is systemic immorality gussied up and sold as virtue—bottled extract of “lipstick on a pig”— hawked by traveling salesmen we’ve elected to positions of power. How sick will we have to get before we tar and feather them and run them out of town?

Postscript: Some of you astute readers may have noted that I excluded capitalization of the words “black” and “white” as it pertains to people, which has recently become the norm. This is intentional. I refuse to legitimize the notion of importance ascribed to skin color that undergirds the racist ideology of the Left.

THE LEFT—A REAL-LIFE SUPERVILLAIN

I spoke last time of the astonishing rapidity with which the Left realized its final ascent to power. In fact, this accomplishment was slow, deliberate, and ingenious. The Left is, in effect, the Lex Luther of politics.

Since the early days of mainstream progressivism of Woodrow Wilson in the US, the Left has recognized the importance of culture being upstream of politics, and has focused its attention accordingly. It inserted its doctrines, slowly and methodically, as in the parable of catching wild pigs by laying bait and putting up one fence at at time. It functioned at all levels of education, from top to bottom. It perverted the old values through films, books, and social media, recently gaining a stranglehold on mass communication. With the tool of white guilt, it paralyzed the immune system of the host, weakening it beyond recognition, and is now poised to make a final, venomous strike. Ideas that a scant 20 years ago were regarded as outlandish have now moved into the mainstream. They craftily leveraged the dissonance between the country’s founding values and its past reality to achieve unimagined success.

As I approach my eight decade, I look back on a society that paradoxically has become progressively more impolite and materialistic while simultaneously more socially responsible. Specifically, the real systemic misogyny and racism of the past began to finally be addressed in the 1960s with the civil rights movement, and by the time of the election of our first black president were virtually nonexistent. True, on the both fronts differences in outcomes remained, but sober analysis shows that a systemic, legally underpinned system of discrimination in modern America is hard to prove. Often, the people proclaiming victimhood are not only the most privileged in the country, but the world. Residual socioeconomic disparities along the lines of race and gender were actually receding and were reignited by the ideology of victimhood, which divided and harmed the most vulnerable by lowering expectations in the name of “fairness.” The Left saw this narrative, in concert with the powerful undercurrent of white guilt, as an opportunity. Division is always the means for implementing fundamental change. It worked in Venezuela as it’s worked throughout modern history, and it’s working here.

The present, predictable border crisis is neither accidental nor born of incompetence. Since Leftist policies inevitably lead to less freedom and more poverty for the masses (again, see Venezuela), the remaining contingent of liberals that have not fully succumbed to the ideology pose a threat to Leftist power. It’s possible that the fallout from implementing these flawed policies could result in a shift in power in the federal legislature in 2 years, and even in the White House in 4—so the timeline to secure power is short. In preparation, in addition to the massive influx of young, ideologically converted and uninformed voters being injected into the electorate, a massive infusion of illegal immigrants who can be counted to vote Democrat in return for government largess (already being dispensed), will assure unbroken, Leftist-controlled Democrat ascendency for generations to come. This will effectively and possibly irrevocably change the complexion of the country. The willingness to pack the Supreme Court, consider making Washington, DC a state, and abandon the filibuster, are consistent with their concept of a “living” Constitution, and highlight the direction a future US will take.

The transformation has been brilliant, the product of evil genius. Assuming there is still time, it will take a political Superman to counter it. This means leaders ready and willing to fight and a people not afraid to speak out. Or is the kryptonite of the word “racist” too powerful?

THE WORLD AFTER CAPITALISM

The current slow, inexorable drift toward progressivism, or “socialism light,” will end—eventually. As I (and Charles Krauthammer) have said, something unsustainable will continue until it can no longer be sustained. Based on our fiscal behavior, we may not get to see the full evolution and implosion, though. It took about 70 years for the Soviet Union to fall and I don’t think our quasi-capitalist economy will last long enough in light of current circumstances.

Even before the bust in 2007, however, I anticipated an inevitable drop in our standard of living. Ignoring the debt (something we’ve always been adept at), we still face the challenge of competing in a global economy with an uneven playing field. Americans have hard-fought rules that prohibit unfair practices and exploitation (i.e., minimum wage laws and safety standards to name a couple) that increase the cost of production here relative to the international workplace. While there has been some effort to discourage domestic consumption of goods from foreign “sweatshops,” it’s clear from the migration of jobs overseas that the benefits of  lower prices are being offset by fewer workers here earning enough to purchase them. I don’t see an easy way out of this conundrum until our standard of living falls and that of the international worker rises, a homogenization of wages, so to speak. And that will take time.

There is another elephant in the room. As a fan of science fiction, I often speculated on the effect technology would have on the economy. Already we’ve seen examples of consumer items that can be made cheaply and last for years—or decades—for a fraction of what it would cost to produce the technology they replace. A good example of this is the LED lightbulb. While the price hasn’t fallen enough for most of us to shell out the tens of dollars per bulb to replace our incandescents and fluorescents yet, it illustrates the principle. If you make something without built-in obsolescence, you either have to charge a lot of money, regardless of what the cost of production is after R&D and overhead are recouped, or you go out of business. And more and more of the manufacturing can be done robotically, so the employment opportunities keep diminishing. There may have to be an entirely new economic model to deal with this. A fascinating three-part article dealing with the interplay of technology and jobs can be found here.

I’ve also tried to speculate how this new economic model might be implemented. Perhaps the greater scope and number of service-related and software-related jobs would absorb some of the slack. Still, with less work and more free time, more leisure-, music- and art-related industries will crop up. The problem is figuring out how the distribution of wealth will be adjudicated. In unfettered capitalism it’s decided by the marketplace, a system that, eventually, reliably defines worth. It also has the benefit of conforming with the natural human desire to be rewarded proportionally to one’s effort (although arguably we’re in the current mess because too many have come to feel entitled to rewards for little or no effort). Socialism goes against the grain of human nature; hence its ultimate, inevitable failure as the takers outstrip the producers. The Star-Trek saga regales us with a world of plenty without money, but they never make it clear just how this worked. They imply a gratifying change in human behavior that, idealistic as it is, I don’t see coming in the next 400-600 years (sorry, Captain). Good and evil, the yin and yang of our nature, in the aggregate hasn’t really changed much over the past 10,000 years. We’ve just found ways to devise more efficient means to self-destruct.

So, in the world after capitalism, I haven’t a clue as to what will grow in its place. Perhaps some hybrid that will better fit a changing world. The only certainty is that there will be hard workers struggling to keep what they earn and thieves and socialists (in some view two sides of the same coin) trying to take what they don’t.

There’s a certain comfort in predictability, isn’t there?

THE BAD PARENT

I’ve had conversations with parties of opposing views that seem to think a job is a job, whether it be in the public or the private sector. After all, what’s the difference between someone getting a paycheck for a service provided through government employment and that same service through a company in the private sector?

Plenty.

The government, by virtue of its ability to legislate, shields itself from market forces, rather than operating within them. It can, for a while, manipulate the marketplace by printing, borrowing, and stealing (legally, of course, through fees and taxes). Hence the inflated retirement benefits that are driving all our governments at all levels to the brink of bankruptcy. We’re like one big, bloated General Motors, with the exception that no one exists to bail us out if (and I fear it’s when) we fail. Many people have become so used to these ploys that have seemed so successful or decades that they think it can go on forever. They also point to the corruption in the private sector as justification for growing the government slice of the economy, failing to recognize that crony capitalism that aids and abets this bad behavior is government-mediated. How many people in the street really know that the Dodd-Frank legislation, 800 pages of directions for more regulations, defines the big banks as “systemic” and therefore “too big to fail,” providing them with government (read: taxpayer) guarantees? This enables them to borrow at lower rates than their small brethren, giving them the edge they need to perpetuate the precarious status quo. Almost all governmental good intentions have toxic unintended consequences.

The marketplace can be a cruel mistress, but left to its own devices it is self-correcting. Governments can’t beat it. Delaying a tremor only leads to an earthquake down the line. That’s not to say that bad behavior shouldn’t be monitored and punished. Government policy, however, goes well beyond this, trying to manipulate market forces and pick winners and losers. The only real losers, ultimately, are the American people.

Currently, the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over how to deal with the upcoming “fiscal cliff.” In a bygone era the ruling class placed politics above the public good, but were loathe to admit it. In this new, progressive society, they revel in it. To wit: Zerlina Maxwell, a Democratic strategist, has suggested that Republicans put forth their idea for the entitlement cuts, as Democrats have already put their piece, the tax rate increases, on the table. This seems to parallel the president’s approach to date in his dealings with the legislature. The administration taxes the top one percent, a populist move (that generates little revenue), and requires the Republicans to do the heavy lifting—define the unpopular entitlement cuts that must happen if any hope of reversing the economic decline and paying off the burgeoning debt is to occur. This is a politically unbeatable “good parent/bad parent” strategy for the Democrats. One tells the child he can watch TV and play on the X-box and the other makes him eat his broccoli and clean his room. Bad parenting, it seems, wins votes.

It just doesn’t pay the bills.

A MENAGERIE OF THOUGHTS

Now that the election’s behind us we know that the net ideology of the voting public has changed. The pundits tell us it’s a demographic shift, and they are probably right. To me it was truly astonishing that more than half the country’s electorate looks at the same abysmal economic performance and is convinced that no change in leadership is needed. Considering Romney’s clearly superior credentials in the area we’re most in dire need of fixing—the economy—it surprised me even more.

In speaking to my liberal friends (yes, I do have them) they paint a picture of a Republican party that is frighteningly Neanderthal with respect to social issues. That belief, in association with a woeful lack of understanding of the seriousness of the economy’s failings (in my opinion) led them to reenlist Obama. But I believe that another, less cerebral motivation brought many others to the polls—the addiction to government handouts. I don’t think that the majority that reelected the once and future president are laggards; there are now just enough to move us from a net center-right to a center-left nation. The old saw about democracy being two wolves and a sheep meeting to decide what’s for dinner is coming to pass.

The term democracy has been bandied about so much that people forget we’re supposed to be a democratic republic. It was not our Founding Fathers’ intention to create a democracy—they recognized that democracy slowly morphs into socialism which, history has taught us (or has tried to), slowly morphs into nonexistence. Producers will only work harder for non-producers for a finite period.

Most liberals are neither lazy nor of evil intent, just as most conservatives are not really heartless Neanderthal money-mongers. And now the left has another four years of a standard-bearer who will continue to make promises and raise taxes in an earnest but ineffectual quest to “give everyone a fair chance.” But the land of opportunity wasn’t built on a foundation of equality of outcome, only equality of opportunity.

I hope we don’t strangle the goose lays the golden egg in a noose of good intentions.