George Rebane
My original ‘Quo tendimus?’ piece (here) was published in the 20apr21 Union (here) retitled ‘Where exactly are we headed?’, I guess, to make it more accessible to the newspaper’s readership who are classed not capable of googling the original Latin. The article immediately drew the vitriol, ire, and personal invective from a long list of local liberals, not one of them having understood the thrust of my offer of a new approach for finding common ground which may help us start back on the road to unity. None showed the ability or propensity to discuss the presented ideas.
They all exhibited what has become the common denominator for the worldview of the nation’s main street Left (aka Democrats). None of them are aware of the ideological sentiments of the political leadership that today dictate the Democrats’ policies in economics, education, foreign policy, workplace, environment, … . Citing the names of such thought leaders and identifying example pro-Marxist policies for these light readers is like water off a duck – these cannot serve as substance for them because they know not how such policies have historically ushered in socialist autocracies.
So they accuse me, and anyone else with a similar portfolio, as providing no backing for our characterizing the Left’s desired destination for social order and the government required to implement and maintain it. The short of it is that a conversation with them cannot be started even at this low level of reason. One must take these unwilling people back to a grade school that no longer exists and the return to which would be a gargantuan task. (Here is how one parent of one of today’s exclusive woke grade schools reacted with an eloquence which was totally lost on the school’s leftwing administration. H/T to reader.)
And yet, the road forward that we can travel together must be selected through a process such as I have outlined. The argument is simple. Once again, identify your destination social orders, attempt to compromise on one that you both would tolerate. At this point you can begin sorting out the kind of public policies that would bring about and maintain such a social order. If you are still fortunate to agree on a feasible set of those, only then can you select a road that you can walk together toward your mutually agreed on destination. And until then you can do nothing other than continue drawing apart as you shout epithets at each other across the widening chasm.
Our liberal and more zealous progressives understand none of this. While they quack like socialists, walk like socialists, they all still consider being labeled a socialist as some kind of petty political name-calling. They simply resent being identified as collectivists, which messaging is carefully managed by the Democrat Party and its lamestream media. The bottom line here is that these people still consider themselves to be middle roaders, as they promote and support all the trappings of a collectivist leviathan government. Hence, the ongoing futility of searching for common ground that must preamble unity.
On a totally separate matter, I continue to note the reaction and participation of local conservatives cum Republicans in such debates. These people are chronically absent from the public forum’s political frays that are a necessary feature of democratic republics, especially as constituted by peoples of diverse cultural backgrounds and practices. Our local Republican Party does literally nothing to support those few of us locals who daily engage in the national debate with collectivists, those who want to fundamentally transform America. The rightwingers are absent from the fray, year after year spending time in cliquish enclaves, echoing their sentiments to each other, while hoping that somehow the great political outdoors will discover their number and cloistered apologetics, and spontaneously morph into good constitutional conservatives.
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