Well, I’m back on terra firma and yesterday morning went for a run on land where I could feel my legs getting used to being on solid ground. The final sessions this past Saturday of the National Review post-election cruise were very insightful. They dealt with the topics of PC, progressivism on college campuses, and conservatism’s future. One of the key points consistent throughout was the concept of language being redefined. And so I pondered that point and as I did my four-mile run on Sunday many thoughts came to mind.
I immediately considered the quote often (mis-)attributed to George Orwell, “in a universe of deceit, truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
Think about what has been happening in our America. We speak of liberalism but is it really the true definition of liberalism as intended by John Locke? That of course is classical liberalism, which promoted the rights of the individual — life, liberty, and property. It was Locke’s theory of classical liberalism and the concept of natural law and the social contract theory, which defined the relationship between the governed and government. However, today’s post-modern liberalism is a complete redefinition and does not advance the rights of the individual but rather focuses on the manipulation of collective groups.
American author, Upton Sinclair, (best known for his 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle) who twice (unsuccessfully) ran for Congress on the Socialist ticket and (also unsuccessfully) ran for the governorship of California as a Democrat in 1934 said “The American People will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label…There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.”
It is the careful covert redefinition of language that can ensnare an entire nation and in turn affect the entire political landscape.
Somewhere, tucked away behind closed doors, there are those working on redefining America. Take for example constitutional conservatism — closely aligned with classical liberalism – which is redefined as extreme, and those who advocate those associated principles — limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual sovereignty, free market/free enterprise economy, and strong national defense — as extremists. It is the same label given to Islamic terrorists, because for some reason we have redefined Islamo-fascism, jihadism, and terrorism into something we can find more accommodating to our sensibilities: extremists. We recently wrote about how it seems the chosen remedy to defeat ISIS is to simply call it by a different name. Then again, we don’t have wars or combat engagements any more — we have overseas contingency operations. We don’t have Islamic jihadist or terrorist attacks in America — we have “man-caused disasters.” An attacker can stand on a table shouting “Allahu Akhbar” while gunning down American soldiers and civilians and we redefine it as “workplace violence.”
Who are the folks in these hidden rooms who are redefining America? They’re the ones feeding us acceptable adjectives – with complete hypocrisy. They tell us what is inflammatory rhetoric or incendiary speech, but for some odd reason the redefinition does not equally apply.
Criticize the actions or policies of the president and you’re referred to as “racist” – but no such labels are given to those who criticize black conservatives, because we’ve been redefined as “not really black.” And so it goes for other minority groups who don’t fit the new redefinition — or as Greg Gutfeld calls them, the “Not Cool.”
But then again, what is cool? Once upon a time the pursuit of happiness, a hard work ethic and striving to create a better life for yourself and your family was cool. We now know the once indomitable American entrepreneurial spirit has been redefined and dismissed, since “you didn’t build that” is the new definition of American entrepreneurship.
Now it seems being a part of a redefined American “dependency society” or a welfare nanny-state is cool. Then again, even having a family is no longer cool and those folks in that far away room have redefined what a family is — through their impact on culture and the media. Family is no longer a female mother, a male father, and children — it’s whatever those who have redefined America want it to be – as in California where marriage licenses must by law now list Spouse 1 and Spouse 2 rather than husband and wife. And if you don’t acquiesce to the redefinition of family — indeed marriage – well, you’re not cool and will be viewed as archaic and unacceptable to the “mainstream” — as redefined by the people in that far away room.
As family, marriage and life itself are redefined, so are individual rights. If as a business owner you have certain beliefs contrary to the redefinition of America – whether you’re a photographer in New Mexico or a baker in Oregon — the government will use force, coercion, and intimidation to make you accept the redefinition. Even in the case of respecting life, the issue of terminating life has been redefined as women’s reproductive health rights — which we all would define as finding cures for ovarian, cervical, uterine, and breast cancers or eradicating fibroid tumors. But the people redefining America don’t want to talk about killing unborn babies — they prefer a more “nuanced” redefinition.
The hypocrisy is blatantly obvious because an innocent life has no voice — as redefined — but a criminal who has violated the rules and laws of society has a voice, according to those who redefine America. The same ones who say we cannot legislate morality — well, we have laws that delineate right from wrong, a fundamental responsibility of government.
And what of that most fundamental governmental responsibility — providing for our common defense? Well, it seems what is honorable is being redefined as well. We imprison the men we deploy into combat zones to defend us while we free the unlawful enemy combatants against whom they fight — because we have redefined who is a greater threat.
It is honorable service to those redefining America to desert your post in a combat zone while abandoning Americans to die in a distant land and lying about it — well, “what difference at this point does it make?” We deploy troops to fight a virus, but to those redefining America, we cannot put “boots on the ground” to fight an enemy that has declared war against America and is beheading Americans — but after all it is just a man-caused workplace violence disaster. And now we send troops wearing boots walking on the ground into combat zones in a non-combat role telling them to not engage in combat — oops, sorry, “overseas contingency operations.”
Perhaps this is all a bit too deep but that’s just what the folks in the far away room redefining America want from you. They don’t want you to pay attention to what is happening. As a matter of fact, they’re busy following Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals number 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)”
These “redefiners” like to make people toxic and cut them off from any alliances — their favorite ploy. Which is why we need highly principled men and women who have no fear. We must embody the motto of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division — “Currahee” — which in Cherokee means “stands alone.”
In World War II when those “Battling Bastards of Bastogne” were asked by the Germans — isolated, freezing, cut off, surrounded — to surrender, the response was “nuts.”
Don’t surrender to the redefinition of America and its fundamental transformation. Tell the people in the far away room and all of their followers, “nuts!”
No comments:
Post a Comment