The other day, in the context of the gagging and grinding-into-the-dust of a dissenting Oregonian baker, I mentioned Tom Nichols’ observation about the difference between authoritarians and totalitarians: that the former only cares about what you do, while the latter must also control what you think. Totalitarians demand not only obedience, but conversion.
Mr. Nichols has since condensed his thoughts into a brief post, which is now making the rounds on the Right. An excerpt:
It is not enough for these Americans to say: “I have had my day in court and prevailed.’ In effect, they now add: “You do not have the right to hold a different opinion, even if you lose in the public arena. You may not hold on to your belief as a minority view, or even as a private thought. And if you persist and still disagree, I will attack you without quarter and set others on you to deprive you of your status in your profession, of your standing in your community, and even of your livelihood.’
…This attitude promises social warfare without end, because there is no peace to be had until the opposing side offers a sincere and unconditional surrender… For the new totalitarians, prevailing in the courts or at the ballot boxes isn’t enough if there’s still a suspicion that anyone, anywhere, might still be committing thoughtcrime.
We see this attitude in the remark made by BuzzFeed’s editor, Ben Smith, on the Supreme Court’s homosexual-marriage ruling:
“We firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides.”
We see the same attitude toward climate-change dissidents, whose letters and comments are now blocked by various mainstream media outlets (even as yet another distinguished scientist joins their ranks), and in the opportunistic pogrom against all symbols of the Confederacy, and against those Southerners who honor their Civil War dead. We saw it in the ruination of Brendan Eich and Jason Richwine, and we see it today in the ongoing effort to destroy Donald Trump for his willingness to speak frankly about illegal immigration.
(To his credit, Mr. Trump has not backed down at all — and his obduracy has won him grudging admiration from many, including me, who have always seen him as nothing more than a braggart, fop, and buffoon. He remains, of course, all of those things and more, but here he is saying what many scores of millions of Americans are thinking. The traditional American nation is dying by mass Third World immigration — no, make that “being murdered”, because the effect is intentional — and everybody knows it. Now, in the wake of a spate of horrifying crimes by sheltered illegal aliens, Mr. Trump’s remarks — as well as Ann Coulter’s impressively well-researched book on the topic — seem suddenly to have tapped into a reservoir of resentment among ordinary Americans at having been ignored by their own government for decades on this issue.)
Among the Zinn-soaked vanguard of this campaign, the belief that the nation itself is irremediably tainted by its wicked racial and economic history seems increasingly prevalent. Here, for example, is Vox’s Dylan Matthews (who is not, as far as I know, a crypto-reactionary monarchist) arguing that it would have been better all round if the American Revolution hadn’t happened at all. Perhaps we will soon see calls to ban not only the Battle Flag of the South, but the Stars and Stripes as well.
As Richard Fernandez wrote last week:
“We are now living through a great period of extinction, through an epoch of idea-death. Christianity, the nuclear family, individual initiative, the notion of country, the very idea of gender, even the primacy of survival are in the process being declared surplus to requirements. A thousand ideas, the bloom of the forest, are being bulldozed into the soil by those all too certain of themselves.”
21 Comments
Well.
Here’s the first one to to be “dugged up.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/memphis-nathan-bedford-forrest-remains
Moses Ezekial I figure to be next.
Anybody know what that old custom of digging up criminals during the Medieval Period was called? Given that I expect the Progs ain’t gonna be happy if these long dead guys gets to be reburied in *hallowed ground* – there’s got to be some other term aside from “Resurrected” as that would seem to me to have too close a connotation to something near Religious.
(Though I would admit to there being afoot in the Nation, something akin to a Witch-Frenzy.)
Don’t know it qualifies as a proper “Dispatch From The Front” could be purely a coincidence Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake appeared on FOX last evening.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-batts-fired-20150708-story.html
I wonder what Dylan Matthews thinks of India’s independence.
And/or Pakistan’s.
You are certainly correct to state that “ordinary Americans (have) been ignored by their own government” regarding illegal immigration. Roughly 60% of Americans favor a path to citizenship, with another 15-20% favoring legal status short of citizenship. A similar majority favors granting citizenship to illegals who go to college or join the military. Yet the government has been ignoring the consensus of ordinary Americans for years. Why is that?
It is similar to gun control, where 80% of Americans want a federal law which mandates universal background checks, yet the government ignores the clear desire of four fifths of ordinary Americans. Why do you suppose that is?
Again One Eyed Moon Glampers, I say I wasn’t asked (nor any of the hundred or so people I communicate with daily – some hundreds more if included are the individuals I speak to annually. [I’ve taken up the totally useless habit of asking, “Have you ever been asked to participate in a poll or survey?” just after the normal introductories – annoys the hell outta people I’m here to tell ya. “Why the heck you ask me that Mister JK?”] I’ve considered abandoning the practice but everytime I encounter this nonsense I figure it’s best to stay with it).
I did give up one “fairly recently adopted habit” … just after I’d popped the question about poll participation I asked, “How do you feel about universal background checks for for firearm acquisitions or sales?”
JK: you remind me of Pauline Kael, who expressed astonishment that Nixon could be elected President, because nobody she knew personally voted for him.
These survey results are from a wide variety of polls taken by a number of different pollsters. They are accurate to within a few percentage points. I think you can safely assume they are accurate.
So I can “safely assume” One Eyed Moon Glampers from the Nielsen ratings, you’re drinking your coffee from a The Factor coffee cup?
According to Pew, it’s 42% favoring “path to citizenship”, with another 26% only supporting some way of establishing permanent residence. All of this depends upon “certain requirements being met” — but of course how that will be done efficiently, and more importantly, accurately, for tens of millions of aliens who would need reliable birth, criminal, and medical records from their source countries is not made clear (because in practical terms, it can, and will, never be done, just as all those judicial reviews already supposed to be happening in enormous numbers of current deportation cases aren’t getting done).
As to your “why is that?”, perhaps it has to do with the fact that overwhelming majorities of poll respondents also insist that none of this should happen until the border has been secured. Yet Congress resolutely refuses to provide the funding for this that it has mandated on multiple occasions. (And to be clear, most Republicans in Congress are as little interested in controlling the flow of border-jumpers as Democrats are, albeit for different reasons.)
As far as Obama’s approach to all of this, his unilateral action gets terrible marks (with whites in particular disapproving 2 to 1).
The will of the people is that America not be flooded with invaders about whom we know nothing, other than the crushing effect they have on crime rates, low-income wages, public costs, and cultural disintegration once they are here. Do you for a minute suppose that if Americans had known in advance about the demographic changes that were in fact to be wrought wrought by the 1965
National SuicideImmigration Act, that they would have wished for them to happen? Do you imagine that most Americans think it a good thing to have admitted tens of millions of illegal Third World aliens to roam at large within our borders?As for background checks (which most gun buyers already have to submit to) — according to Rasmussen, a majority of Americans do NOT favor stricter gun laws. Support for tougher gun laws seems to be falling, not rising. (Which makes perfect sense, because, as I pointed out just recently, rates of legal gun ownership have no positive correlation with gun crime.)
And .. just to put an exclamation point on the efficacy of background checks
Aaron Alexis and Ed Snowden. And the standard for a TSC is much much more rigorous than what even the most ardent of legislators envision.
Again, I urge all of you to read Ann Coulter’s book, ¡Adios, America!.
Ms. Coulter, who is thoroughly detested for her brashness and utter lack of concern for PC pieties, has done meticulous and painstaking research to prepare this book, and in it she tells you what the MSM will not.
The Left cannot rebut the facts she presents — for the simple reason that they are facts — and so they attack her personally (why, it may even happen here). But like her or not, she is provoking, with this book, the “national conversation” we ought to be having, instead of the national lectures we’ve been getting from the mouthpieces of the Cathedral.
Go and buy a couple of copies: one to keep, and one to lend.
The Pew poll you cite reports that 72% of illegals “should have a way to live here legally” (and 68% for citizenship/legal residency – what the other 4% want is a mystery to me). Brookings places it at 79%. So let’s split the difference and posit that 75% of Americans think that illegals should be able to live here legally.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2014/06/10-americans-immigration-reform-2014-survey-panel-call-back
The Pew survey you cite also refutes your penultimate paragraph, stating that 51% “say immigrants today strengthen the country because of their hard work and talents.”
Your assertion that survey respondents believe that “none of this should happen until the border has been secured” is incorrect. The survey questions in the Pew and Brookings studies do not reference securing the border. (Let’s forget such pesky facts as the impossibility of securing a country which has 7,514 miles of land border and 95,000 miles of maritime border; that spending for border security has grown enormously and is greater than all other federal law enforcement combined; and that the number of illegals living here declined by one million from 2007 to 2012.)
The Rasmussen report you cite concerns Obama’s executive action, not illegal immigration per se. The issue of whether Obama acted within his authority to prioritize deportations is different from the issue of whether illegals should be given legal status and/or citizenship.
If you ask survey respondents whether they favor or oppose stricter gun control, the results cluster around 50/50. If you ask whether they favor universal background checks, the results are overwhelmingly in favor (e.g., “”Do you support or oppose requiring background checks for all gun buyers?” gets 92%, “Do you favor or oppose a federal law requiring background checks on all potential gun buyers?” gets 85-92%, etc.)
http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm
* * * *
Let’s review. Substantial majorities of Americans believe that illegals should be able to live here legally, just as substantial majorities of Americans believe that background checks should be required of all buyers, not just most buyers.
I recognize that you are passionately opposed to immigration and gun control. (Given the fact that you emigrated here from your land of birth, I am sure that you would make at least some exceptions. It’s fine when the immigrant is Sergey Brin, not so fine when it’s just some guy who just wants a better life for his family.)
However the fact is that those who share your opinion are not being ignored by the government, as you assert. Citing an article titled “Broad Public Support for Legal Status for Undocumented Immigrants” to support your position contradicts that position. If anyone is being ignored, it is those who have contrary views.
* * * *
If I may answer my own question, I would do so with a lengthy but insightful excerpt from this week’s Economist. The article is not about immigration or guns – it’s about the marriage equality ruling last week – but pertains to both issues:
“America is a country that changes rapidly, governed by a set of national institutions with a bias towards inertia. A 50-year-old American was born into a world where some states had laws banning her from marrying a black man. Now she finds herself inhabiting one where she is allowed to marry a woman. In 2004 political consultants wondered whether John Kerry’s support of same-sex civil unions damaged his chances of becoming president; 11 years later, a rainbow was projected onto the White House to celebrate the court’s decision, and some pundits are wondering whether hostility to gay marriage will damage Republican chances in the next presidential election.
Views on gay marriage have shifted unusually quickly, but that is not an isolated example. In 2002 only 45% of Americans thought that having a baby outside marriage was morally acceptable, according to polling by Gallup. Now 61% do. Stem-cell research, one of the most controversial ethical questions during George W. Bush’s presidency, now has the backing of 64% of Americans. On climate change, where America has long been an outlier in the rich world, the country now looks less exceptional: 64% of adults support stricter limits on carbon emissions from power plants, according to polling by Pew, including half of all those who identify themselves as, or say they lean, Republican.
In another political system, these changes might result in new laws. In America’s, which combines the most energetic conservative movement found in any rich country with a proliferation of vetoes over federal legislation, they do not.”
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21656667-nine-judges-are-being-asked-compensate-political-stalemate-both-troubling
Oh, and by the way:
The distinguished scientist who joined the ranks of climate change deniers is a physicist, not a climatologist. (Would you ask a botanist his opinion on nephrology?). By his own admission, he is “not really terribly interested in global warming” and the “research” he did was “a day or so – half a day maybe on Google.” Needless to say, his erroneous and uninformed claims were quickly and easily refuted by scientists who actually have expertise in the subject:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ivar-giaever-nobel-physicist-climate-pseudoscientist.html
Hint: Daily Caller is not a news source.
The linked page says:
I dispute your claim that the number of illegals living here has decreased as you say.
Also, your focus on a path to citizenship for illegals already here misses the point; it merely reflects, in large part, a concession to the difficulty of solving an already-existing problem any other way, combined with a general, good-hearted emotional sympathy for those illegals who have in fact behaved well here (once you overlook their violating our laws to be here in the first place). The fact that this is so is shown by the emphasis on border security as a precondition for enacting any of this amnesty. Were the real facts about the burden illegal aliens impose on law enforcement, social services, public health, and crime victims not relentlessly suppressed in the media, I expect some of that sympathy would be tempered by a more realistic appraisal of the national interest.
Clearly there is some confusion in the background-check numbers, when people simultaneously say they don’t support stricter gun laws, then support a stricter gun law. As I said, most gun purchases already require Federal background checks anyway — and a majority of survey respondents don’t think background checks will reduce violent crime. (Another bizarre incongruity: why impose a burdensome restriction if it won’t do any good?)
Your litany of social change, with its pernicious and philosophically indefensible equation of interracial marriage with homosexual marriage, is merely descriptive, and has no normative content. Are we supposed to be happy, for example, that more and more people are indifferent to the problems caused by out-of-wedlock births? What you see as “progress” can also be seen, far more wisely, as decay.
As for what used to be called “global warming”: that a man is a physicist does not disqualify him from commenting on the work and methods of other scientists. When terrifying predictions are made in the name of “science”, and great calls to mobilize entire societies to costly and disruptive action are then based on these predictions, and then the predictions do not come true, there is ample basis for skepticism. As even the climate zealots themselves have admitted, there is much more in play here than “science”: particularly enormous political and economic interests. All of it is very much more like a religion than science should ever be.
Whatever the percentage
Well. If a pollster did care to robo-call my number (or however it is the pollsters keep managing to miss me) I’d say “Hell Yes!”
By maybe, checking in at a Consulate and filling out some paperwork being a good way to “live here legally” .. so I guess I’m in the majority?
Let’s review;
http://www.waspsnest.com/2013/03/23/compare-and-contrast-warmist-alarmism-of-2000-vs-snowbound-reality-of-2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/12/us-usa-confederate-ride-idUSKCN0PM11Q20150712
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-stone-mountain-georgia-naacp-20150714-story.html
Scorched-earth.
How do they expect this to end? Are they trying to provoke a new secession?
Scorched-earth indeed.
Except that, in the case specifically of Stone Mountain there’d only truly be the one way to take that down. And I think even the Progs recognize … at least the Great Ozys running the show from behind the Curtain … it’d be terrible PR.
There’d be no way to keep exultant videos off YouTube.
Too too Talibanesque … for now. Best to wait for another 5 to 4.
Yeah yeah I know .. I been reserving this post for links following “Dispatches from the [another sort of] Front”
But .. as it turned out it wasn’t actually Voltaire who said that notable and oft’times quoted quote so too I think this is precisely the post to place this;
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gawker-conde-nast-cfo-escort-809519