Voting Isn't Enough: An End To Silence?
Today I link two articles that address the problem of conservative silence. We hear often of a "silent majority." The term describes a real phenomenon in America, but it also describes a real problem for conservatives who seek to form a culture that embodies their values.
A majority that is afraid to speak its views in the public square is a serious problem for any society that is dedicated to the principle of representative government. In the past governments attempted to suppress speech that governments disapproved of. That type of speech suppression by the governing authorities is what our First Amendment was designed to eliminate. The idea behind the First Amendment was that a free marketplace of information and ideas would be the best way to combat harmful ideas.
Today we face a somewhat different problem. A hegemonistic cultural Establishment--yet one with close ties to political actors and instiututions--has obtained control over core institutions in our society: educational institutions, the greater part of the media, much of the executive governing institutions, as well as our public judical philosophy for the most part. They have done this in the name of a Leftist ideology that is allied to the political effort to "fundamentally transform" America and its constitutional order. And in support of that effort they actively seek to to suppress dissenting speech or the expression of ideas that oppose their own. This hegemonistic imperative is advanced as often as not by private actors rather than by the government, and when the government is involved the enforcement is often "subcontracted" to private actors who rely upon novel judicial interpretations to threaten employment and livelihood to enforce conformity.
And so I offer these two articles that address this unique problem that we face.
Donald Trump can’t stop the Left’s assaults on American institutions. Only the citizens who have had “enough” can do it. Voting isn’t enough .
Left unmentioned is that the elected representatives that conservatives vote for too often have been coopted by the Leftists who control our cultural institutions. Donald Trump's task would not be nearly so difficult but for the opposition of those who claim to be conservative but act against conservative principles. The reasons for this are complex, having to do with the difficulty many find in even articulating principled conservative ideas--so thorough has the cultural indoctrination become.
Recently, I read with great interest James Lindsay’s essay called “The Woke Breaking Point .” There, he invites his readers to ask friends and acquaintances “What would it take for you to say that the Woke movement has gone too far?” This, he suggests, is a way to help people keep themselves honest: if you consider in advance what state of affairs, specifically, would be “too far,” then you will be able to recognize better the excesses of the totalitarian Left and more ready to resist them at the point when it becomes absolutely necessary.
Reframing the question, he writes: “Ask. When is enough, enough?”
To his credit, Lindsay recognizes that posing this question is a tricky rhetorical gambit. “To get real about this, you shouldn’t expect this conversation to go well,” he writes. “It might, of course, depending on the relationship, but it’s very likely to be received defensively or with an assumption that you’ve lost your mind. So here’s some advice: don’t expect it to go well. Don’t expect them to come around. Don’t expect them to take you seriously. Just get the question out there where they have to think about it.”
The second article--Driving Conservatives Underground --addresses the goal of Leftist speech suppression: by suppressing the public expression of conservative ideas the Left hopes to instill a sense of defeat in the "silent majority" and to embolden the public expression of radical, culturally transformative ideas.
Cultural tyranny reigns in America, the last step before full-fledged political tyranny.
Lurking beneath the surface of virtue signaling leftists are tyrants seeking to exert their will over those they despise. The defining leftist culture enables them to ruthlessly use all the power at their disposal, both real and imagined, to enforce a single acceptable viewpoint on society.
In some geographic areas, this is more obvious than in others, but no area will ultimately be spared. This week, my wife volunteered during the Virginia Republican primary. As people came by the booth to get information on the candidates, she offered these Republican voters an opportunity to sign up for yard signs. Most whispered that they could never put something like that up in their neighborhood. ...
...
When people can’t put a bumper sticker for their preferred candidate on their car, they have suffered a loss of liberty. ...
Democrats in this country do not feel they need to hide their political allegiance or culturally approved viewpoints. Most never shut up about it, believing they are speaking truth to power, even as they bask in the approval of the corrupt and wicked power centers.
...
This is war and the left is playing to win. Anyone who doesn’t get that by now, to include most of the NeverTrumpers, is either irredeemably stupid or an active collaborator. Every pillar of cultural power in America, to include the unholy trinity of academia, the media, and government has declared cultural war on at least half the country. ...
... Americans are silent because the cultural tyrants ensure there is a price to pay for any peep of sane protest, which is also why Republicans voters are undercounted in polls.
The problem is that the silence enables the leftists to continue to drive the narrative and normalize ideas and behaviors that would have been considered unfathomable just a few short years ago while winning more converts, which shrinks that sane majority. It is their toxic ideas that are being force fed to every young person in America and we are paying a heavy price for that.
...
The culture war matters when you are living in a cultural tyranny. If you believe Andrew Breitbart, that politics is downstream of culture, we are getting dangerously close to losing everything, to include our liberty.