Recently I've been very public about my desire to stand on the left get rid of Trump and then swing back to the right and push back on the wave of Marxist ideology rising up on our radical left. I think that is the real danger to our society although some believe it’s the overdrive for political correctness and wokeness of that same radical left. This cancel-culture is based on the deep movements in American Universities...safe spaces, trigger words, etc.. You can read about the issue and how it’s seemingly having not just an impact on us but an impact on other countries...in particular France. French intellectuals believe our American Universities could destroy their culture. Here is the article from the New York Times..
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threat-american-universities.html
Since France is far more socialist than we are, maybe I've missed the issue and am wrong. Is this the real issue and danger? Maybe? But in general isn't Europe more "woke" across the board. On the environment, on social issues, on taxes, on healthcare, on everything. I thought we lagged behind them? So how is it our American Universities are causing this problem for them? Is it simply because we've lost the ability to make off color jokes?
I agree, we are more sensitive to a lot of things. I had to say this on the soccer field on Sunday...we were playing soccer in the snow and the soccer ball would roll through deeper snow and start picking up snow covering like a snowman. Who doesn’t think that’s cute? One of my friends would stop playing (repeatedly) and pull out his camera to take pictures of the forming ball of snow. I said, "You can take the kid out of the playground but you can’t take the playground out of the kid". That phrase is based on a less socially acceptable cliché. Can I even say it? Even though it's as PC as I can think. But just the fact that I know it came from the old cliché, and I knew that old cliché, will the “Brain Police” that live inside of my head, now say I’ve said something wrong? Is that sufficient...or will cancel-culture crush those brain cells as well? And perhaps me for writing it down?
If that's what's really causing the unrest, the true issue, and why Trump lovers love Trump, is because under Trump you can say "Merry Christmas", you can laugh when someone slips and falls, you can tell off-color, sexist, and even racist jokes. This is clearly a 1st Amendment issue. And we’ve seen the right rising in defense of those pushed off social media for simply airing their thoughts and political beliefs. Although for the record, insurrection isn’t protected by the 1st Amendment. Nevertheless, we must make room for the remote idea that there were election irregularities...but at some point, after 60+ legal judgements, we must move on. We also have to be more precise in our wording...and less prone to reacting when we call a duck, a duck. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...and weighs as much as a duck…it’s a duck. Terrorists are terrorists, patriots are patriots. Patriots are those who cast off the bounds of tyranny for the greater good of all...both the left and the right...when in the course of human events it becomes necessary… Terrorists, on the other hand, are those who attempt to cast off their bounds for their own self interest. Let’s call the insurrectionists by their proper name. Words matter. Facts matter. Trump is a corrupt moron...whereas individuals with no foundation, guided by their own woke feelings, are just as moronic. I spell that word AOC.
I was recently reading G.K. Chesterton on a friends recommendation. Chesterton said, "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." The mistake progressives are making is seemingly the growing cancel-culture. How do we reverse it? I'm such a hypocrite and enjoy a good off-color joke as much as the next guy (or gal). And, seemingly, so to do many of my friends. So maybe...with nowhere else to go...since we can't tell dirty jokes, we can't tell sexist jokes, we can't tell racist jokes, we can't make jokes about disabilities, we can't trigger anyone, we have a hole in our collective brains. Human nature being what it is, we must fill that hole in our psyche. We are now filling it with deep trash from the internet. Whereas ten years ago, I might literally have posted a slightly off color joke on FB. (I hope not...they might still be there.) We are filling that void with conspiracy theories... I have compared Trump to Hitler and Hillary to the Anti-Christ. One of those is considered a conspiracy theory... The other is not. I'd like to get back to dirty jokes instead. Yet I will be corrected...I’m sure...by one side or the other.
If we want to pull back together as a country we have to forgive the occasional faux pas. Jokes are jokes, conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories, and radical ideology is radical ideology. Laughing at the stereotype contained in a joke is what makes it funny. It says you have a sense of humor, not that you are racist, sexist, or a radical. I return to GK Chesterton once again. In critique of the progressives, the idea that we can change the 70 million who voted for Trump, we cannot. Although 70 million voted for him, let’s just call it a bigger number, half of our country does not want to change what is not broken. And they are correct. What progressives are asking for is to throw them out...as we have thrown out Trump. Throwing out half the country is not possible. Having the other half of the country move to Canada is also not possible. Chesterton said, “It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby.” It’s time we ask for a new food. The good news, the new food we seek, has been with us all the time. It’s called the Constitution. We have a Bill of Rights. It protects all of us equally. Not just our own selfish interests. Let's get back to applying it to We the People. Not just those of us who are woke.
