Friends, the American Left is doing its best to silence all who oppose it, but they are limited by the U.S. Constitution, which grants all of us, even meanies, the right to free speech. Thank heavens for that! In Europe, by contrast, the right to free speech is limited by about a million caveats, and they grow more numerous by the day. Political correctness is strangling public discourse in Europe, as a result. We must not go down the euro-socialist path! Even our most cherished freedoms are not safe. That is the topic of my most recent article:
https://townhall.com/columnists/nicholaswaddy/2019/06/20/eurosocialism-portends-the-death-of-free-speech-n2548637
While you're at it, check out this encouraging news about U.S. companies moving their production facilities out of China. It's about time! Cost factors alone justify the move to places like Vietnam or India, but what's especially heartening is the trend for American companies to move their manufacturing back to the good ole USA. Credit President Trump? Oh no -- the media wouldn't dream of it.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/apple-black-decker-and-steve-madden-among-us-companies-moving-production-out-of-china-heres-the-full-list
Lastly, keep an eye on this story. The wheels are coming off the Democratic Party. And this is just the beginning! Things will get far uglier. I give Biden credit for not apologizing in this case. He has nothing to apologize for. Cory Booker really is the lowest of the low. A rank opportunist and race-baiter.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/19/biden-apology-segregation-race-1372576
Townhall article: The hypocrisy is something else, isn't it? Indeed, the left wants some sort of validation, of what, I really don't know. Just look at the crime issues in London and how free speech is squelched there. The left sure wants to have their protests, but the right or conservative parties are often targeted. And who will decide what is right or wrong? Well, I think that question has already been answered. We were discussing topics about toxic masculinity and feminism last night over dinner-I have to say we live in a very scary place that allows the politically correct crowd to tell us such things or try to correct us without facts. Reading further down in the article--I have always said that women ought to be very careful on the word "feminism" and the actions they take- "Equal rights" takes on a whole new meaning. I am not even sure women in general even know what they are fighting for anymore. I think women in general ought to recognize we are all made different--there are very different qualities between a man and a woman. Those stereotypes have become blurred through the years, thanks in part to the feminist movement (Oh no, I didn't say that, did I? grin) Honestly, both sides just need to knock it off and realize we are human beings--grant it in a patriarchal society--with distinct advantages or disadvantages to our sex/gender...see, those lines are even blurred now...(thanks in part to my college education-grin). By the way, I do care what a man thinks or feels--men were just bought up not to discuss their feelings and thanks to stereotyping, that is an issue (and shouldn't be). Wow, did you hit on it--point on--about the "inherent and biological differences ---yes, like you said, "In reality, though, this is not just a battle for conservatives. It is a battle for anyone who loves freedom and truth." Censoring free speech of any kind is not good, period (apologies for the rant--just bugs me to no end about squashing speech or banning books etc.). Very dangerous to do so, jmo, of course. I think the majority of us can have honest and open conversations without being offensive or political and not use name calling to do so. That goes for those silly ads that are aired. They are just ads/advertising for pete's sake (shaking my head)--just turn the volume off.
ReplyDeleteJack--before you say anything--here is the link for the China article, Apologies Dr. Waddy the original link wasn't working;
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/apple-black-decker-and-steve-madden-among-us-companies-moving-production-out-of-china-heres-the-full-list
I have no issue with companies moving out of China--about time.
As for the last article; grab the popcorn this should be/getting interesting. I agree with your thoughts of one Cory Booker. I think Beto aka Robert O'Rourke and Kamala Harris can be ranked with that as well...well...maybe they just go along with whatever is said, maybe not so much race baiting.
Huh. I don't know why my links aren't working, although when I delete the "s" from https:// all of a sudden it works.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I'm glad you agree that some differences between men and women are inherent. That statement alone would get me disinvited from a lot of U.S. colleges! Who knows -- it might get me arrested in Europe. Their loss! Ha ha. I concur that most people can still have a civil, rational conversation about these things. That's why "most people" need to wake up and see the Left for the totalitarian menace that it is...
As far as the ads go, it strikes me that it might be GOOD if a young girl saw an ad that suggested housewifery as a possibility. Women and girls shouldn't be pushed into any prescribed role. What's wrong with a little choice? (A lot, says the Left.)
Agreed: Booker, O'Rourke, and Harris will all throw gasoline on any fire, if it gets them a little airtime. All three are starting to get desperate for attention, and for good reason. They're in danger of being left behind.
Dr. Waddy, I don't know why the links aren't working, either. When I look it up via Bing it works then. Then I just copy and paste the link here. PS. I've already been warned about my conservative viewpoint in a few classrooms (no tolerance for us conservatives-I've learned to keep my mouth shut as a professor docked me). Which in reality, I don't fancy myself as strictly as such, thanks for the laugh of the thought of being disinvited. Isn't that point of what we have been discussing? No tolerance whatsoever of a different point of view. Gosh forbid. Smiles
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy and Linda:Aside from a perhaps decisive political issue (and Linda, the issues you have encountered in class are utterly intolerable in a state taxpayer supported college. I have observed the same in my college, SUNY New Paltz, as an alumnus and have had little success in combating them. Federal court is perhaps the only resort. )And I will, NOW, follow up on your links.
ReplyDeleteUnfort. Jack, that is the sign of the times, sigh. There are just some professors (not you, Dr. Waddy, grin) who will not tolerate a difference of opinion from their own. I was docked a whole letter grade and when I approached the professor he owned up to it--I suppose I could of fought it, but honestly, it just wasn't worth it-it wouldn't affect my GPA. A very harsh lesson I learned.
DeleteLinda: I could not effect contact with your link on Chinese business practices. You know I admire the Chinese and I think them fully competitive opponents for us. The U.S. is, I think,a supremely combative force in international business and trade and equal to the Chinese challenge. So be it!
ReplyDeleteHmm...I do not know what is going on with the link... it says, "Page unavailable."
DeleteDr. Waddy and Linda: Recent Western European enactments of restriction on free speech generate a fascinating comparison discussion in the U.S. on what our Constitution allows. There have here been direct attacks on our freedom of speech and arms possession in open declarations of condemnation of these freedoms.
ReplyDeleteWe have in the U.S., unparalleled in all the world, an enjoyment of arms possession. Consequently, we stand ready to assert ourselves against the arrogant leftist elite!
Linda, the intolerance of the Left is becoming downright alarming. Note that it's much easier to silence your enemies when you re-label everything they say as "hate". You start with the KKK and the "Nazis," of course, and then work your way slowly down the list, until only the lefties will dare utter a word. These people know what they're doing! Anyway, as Jack says, it's shameful that anyone would be intimidated into self-censorship at a public institution of higher ed.
ReplyDeleteJack, you may be right that there's a link between our still robust right to free speech and our similarly strong right to bear arms. A government may think twice about muzzling a citizenry that can shoot back! I just thank my lucky stars that I live in one of the freest countries on earth. I daresay in many European countries a candidate like Trump might have been banned from the airwaves or even jailed. At least here in the US we "deplorables" have a fighting chance.
I do believe the subject of the right to bare arms will come to a full head sooner than later, Dr. Waddy. There are many news stories in regards to this subject. I quite agree, these people know what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy and Linda: Armed Americans have asserted themselves and will continue to do so, very effectively, against those who would blithely deny us a wide variety of Constitutionally confirmed rights. Through our NRA we support candidates and office holders faithful to conservative values and policies in many areas. No wonder an incipient leftist dictator like Cuomo enacts such malevolent opposition to an organization with many thousands of members among his own subjects.Our NRA has been monumentally successful in defending our Second Amendment in court and that galls the left no end, since they have often used the judiciary to advance their views free of troublesome legislative hassles.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not on campus anymore. It must be very difficult to deal with bigoted leftist administrators and faculty. A student has so very much at stake
Linda, I'm surprised any professor would admit to punishing a student for their conservative views. It's an easy enough thing to do on the sly, or even subconsciously, but it's risky to do it openly. Many professors just create an "unwelcoming" environment for people like us, and thus they achieve the ideological purity they seek. Where the conservatives go is an interesting question. "Safe spaces" like business programs or degrees more professionally oriented?
ReplyDeleteThe irony with NRA members, it seems to me, is that it's hard to imagine a group of people LESS likely to use firearms in anger, and yet they have the reputation of being gun-toting nutjobs. I believe it would take a lot to stir Americans to rise up in revolution, even against a demonstrably tyrannical regime. We seem like a pretty complacent lot to me. Still, from the Left's perspective, better safe than sorry. Once they've arrogated to themselves a government monopoly on the use of force, the sky's the limit in terms of transforming society. What they may not have counted on, however, is the fact that the police and military are overwhelmingly conservative. It seems to me, therefore, that if we ever have that "Civil War II" that Jack sometimes speaks of, it'll be over in minutes, and the good guys will win!
Again, I wish Blogger had a like button, grin. Dr. Waddy, Don't be surprised---"they" are no longer hiding--so it seems. Times have changed. I agree on your thought about the 2nd amendment/NRA. I would hope the good guys would win, grin. I often wonder though, if the/our government would turn on the people? Just a thought--a scary one at that.
DeleteLinda and Dr. Waddy: I accessed the article about businesses moving out of China. I don't doubt for a minute that that tendency will eventually garner a response from China. The Chinese are consummate entrepreneurs and a canny businessman like the President understands that mind set. Either President Coolidge or Hoover said "the business of America is business" and though that was sorely tested in the Depression, it held: (eg. businessman Henry Kaiser building all those liberty ships when they were most needed, not to mention post war prosperity). Maybe today we should say "the business of America SHOULD be business" but it still holds true that enterprise free of all but very well thought out and not contemptuous regulation is the path to material prosperity. And anyone who disdains that happy condition ought to acquire extensive experience of the alternative. Material want is the soil (but not the seed) of murderous over-idealism and presumptuous disregard for and misinterpretation of history's stark lessons. I think China and the U.S. will arrive (through a perhaps prolix process which history shows suits the Chinese "just fine") at a modus operandi and a modus vivendi advantageous to them both because of gutsy President Trump's unwillingness to be messed with or to see his country done that wrong.Dr. waddy: I'll continue in another comment because I can't trust this computer.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy:Great point about the police and the military being mostly conservative. I've read much about this and have witnessed it first hand in private and public conversations with three WNY County Sheriffs. New York's gun laws are not yet generally confiscatory but the response to them from upstate greatly encourages me. A breaking point is strongly suggested. In Canada, their overall gun registration regime encountered disabling noncooperation and has, I understand, been effectively abandoned.
ReplyDeleteCivil War II: I think it already rages in a political sense and, especially on the part of the left, a no holds barred conviction of their unreproachable righteousness but it has not yet reached corporal consequences. Though the left would, without misgivings, enact corporal sanctions to all who resist its totalitarian decrees if it thought they would succeed, an armed real America stands insolently in their way and they know it! We do not expect we would have to use our arms but our confidence in our Constitutional right to do so sustains us!
Good point(s) Jack, smiles.
ReplyDeleteJack, I continue to expect a deal with China to be struck sooner or later. In fact, the unpleasantness in Hong Kong makes that even more likely. China will want to shore up its economy and its international reputation before tackling any domestic discontent. The last thing the Chicoms want is for matters to spiral out of control...
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about law enforcement professionals refusing to enforce any law. That's the same behavior that we see in sanctuary cities and on the Left in a systemic fashion, so we shouldn't necessarily celebrate similar behavior in our own ranks. When law enforcement has judicial cover for non-enforcement, that's a different matter, of course.
Jack, you're right that both sides are girding themselves morally and rhetorically for a pitched struggle -- that is, they shower undisguised contempt on their enemies, whom they see as an existential threat. Those are attitudes that can lead to civil war, surely. The question is: how much of it is hot air, and how much do the true believers believe their own rhetoric?
Linda and Dr. Waddy; Linda, I didn't pay enough attention to what you said about being openly docked a grade for your conservative views. I think the same thing happened to me at UB 40 years ago, though the prof. didn't freely admit it. That blithe admission took some crust on the part of the your prof.I also did not consider it worth it to contest. Many leftists sincerely believe that conservative views are beyond the pale, deserving neither of intellectual respect or consequent consideration.Far too many of them think our views morally reprehensible too. That motivates them to think such behavior as you and I have experienced at their presumptuous hands to be justifiable.That is Marxist hooey. Principled and scrupulously balanced dialogue would show that such views are unseemly and illogical in scholarly professionals. Objective examinations of the views of conservatives, both contemporary and historical, are supported by empirical evidence and solid exposition sufficient to warrant them serious consideration in any classroom.Conservative views have, in practice, garnered very extensive support and consequence.Those in the American academy who reject this out of hand disgrace themselves.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: In considering whether resistance to law(with all that means to those who cherish democracy and the rule of law) can ever be creditably considered, especially when law enforcement officials propose it,we raise several questions. First, due to our federal polity and government, some local officials have cited U.S. Constitutional and/or Federal statutory or judicial concerns. Strictly speaking, it is usually assumed that the subordinate carries out direction from the superior and then uses established procedures for objection. But in law enforcement this can have very significant immediate consequences for the citizen (eg. confiscation of one's arms and resultant vulnerability or unjust, even temporary, inability to exercise a Constitutional right). It may be with a view to the massive noncooperation with Canada's gun registration regime that American officials tasked with carrying out such as Cuomo's arguably outspoken incipiently totalitarian intentions(eventual confiscation) that some Sheriffs are inspired to express intention to resist. I do not doubt that some of them manifest the visceral courage to countenance the possible consequences. Are they right? Your reference to sanctuary cities is highly germane. I would suggest that in our Constitution the Sheriffs derive more legal authority than do those like DeBlasio and Newsome who seek to undermine the legal and historical foundation of our country. They oppose duly established federal law; the Sheriffs do not, in my opinion, because they refer to the ultimate Constitutional bedrock.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: I would add: confiscation of one's firearms may well subject one to shame and fearful rejection by one's peers and neighbors, due in large part to media determination to portray the armed citizen as reckless and probably criminal. In WNY TV,it is very possible that this prejudgement may be broadcast.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more that any professor who punishes a student for his or her ideology or party preference is a disgrace to the academy. I personally find it distasteful that any educator would use his position to advance or impose an agenda, but on the other hand I understand that an open dialogue can flow in both directions. But I take your point, Jack, that it's especially irksome that conservatism is being suppressed, when conservatism is time-tested and empirical. Plus, a lot of the allegedly freakish, fascistic ideas that are now proscribed -- notions like traditional marriage, or racially-blind admissions policies, or enforcement of immigration laws -- were mainstream, not so long ago. May they be so again!
ReplyDeleteJack, your exploration of the legal and moral responsibilities of a typical Sheriff is a thought-provoking one. Appealing to the "higher law" of the U.S. Constitution is understandable, of course, but I fear that, if every officer of the law interprets the Constitution for himself, we won't be a nation of laws for very long. Keep in mind too that many of our Sheriffs are elected in blue counties, and they would like nothing more than to conjure half of our statute book out of existence, and no doubt they think the Constitution (in their head) justifies it. Honestly, there is no good resolution to this issue, because, regardless of to whom we give the ultimate say over our laws, they will be subject to error. As you point out, though, sometimes a law, even if it is a law, and even if it is upheld by the highest authorities, ought to be flouted, because one finds it morally despicable. I respect those who violate unjust laws in the full knowledge that they will be punished. There's a time and a place for that, surely, just as most of the time, and in most places, people ought to obey the law.
Dr. Waddy: In my experience as a prison librarian I often encountered individuals who sought to gain what they wished by charging me , sometimes formally, with violation of their Constitutional rights. That engendered in me some concern for irresponsible and , frankly, ignorant citation of such concerns. So, I think your criticism to be a well founded caution. The arguable arrogation of those tasked solely to carry out the law but inclined to interpret it, is a very legitimate concern .But do you think many of our counties are blue? Apparently virtually all upstate county legislatures denounced the "Safe Act". Of course Andrew Cuomo's response was that those possessed of such views did not belong in "his" state.
ReplyDeleteJack, you're right that the vast majority of counties are red. A huge number of Americans, though, perhaps even a majority, live in counties that are blue. A very sizeable plurality live in counties where the Republican Party is a token opposition. If the officials leading THOSE counties became unmoored from the Constitution, as it is still (vaguely) upheld by the courts, the results would be horrific. But, as you say, maybe this is inevitable, and maybe all we can do is save the "real America" from the inferno.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: I would guess you would agree the Constitution has shown itself to be arguably a presciently, very well debated and thought out and consequently durable political exposition and resultant source of historically tested and blessed stability (excepting, I agree, our Civil War).
ReplyDeleteSuch as the modern American left, I think, see it simply as a largely anachronistic phenomenom, peculiar and appropriate to its times,but for which it is imperative we apply modern "enlightened" standards. I would suggest the founding fathers anticipated such presumptuousness (though they could not have foreseen its Marxist form). They were a fortuitous and exalted bunch, credited by the Enlightenment and its early blessings.
Jack, I do esteem the Constitution highly, yes. On the other hand, I think our founders were prescient enough to realize that no document, in itself, is a stout defense of the people's liberties. Even the best institutions can be corrupted, whether that corruption is financial, moral, or otherwise. My sense is that the founders even expected that our polity, despite its ingenious design, would have a limited shelf life. I would have to agree. I would argue, in fact, that, given the tortuous reimagining that our Constitution has undergone since FDR's day, it no longer governs our political system, in any meaningful sense. That is, we've already gone thoroughly off the rails. Returning to constitutional first principles would certainly be desirable, therefore, but until we get our values and priorities sorted out, in an even broader sense, we might as well accept that this isn't the country the founders had in mind. Far from it.
ReplyDelete