For eight years, conservatives were simply not allowed to criticize even political miscalculations so obvious even Barack Obama eventually had to admit he was wrong (ex: federal relations with local police departments, heightened racial divisions, shovel ready projects, the ISIS “junior varsity team“, Russian political machinations, and the simple math undermining the budgetary feasibility of ObamaCare). For the duration of his political term, any criticism of Obama was met with counter accusations of racism and partisan politics.

As the Obama’s second term came to a close, it was clear that the hunger for change was in the air, as Americans left, right, and center were growing weary of the political dysfunction that had America in a death grip. We needed a new president, that was honest, knew what he was talking about, not be constantly wrong about practically everything, and would listen to Americans without hiding behind counter accusations and silencing tactics that exacerbated partisan divisions in an already bitterly divided nation.

What we got was Donald Trump, an celebrity billionaire whose fame and fortune was made on being so fantastically thin skinned, he makes Obama look positively stoic. Where Obama would make the occasional snide broad brush remark or dismissive rhetoric when talking about media and political opposition that had been critical of him, Donald Trump resorts to petty insults and naked vileness on a direct and personal level, totally unfiltered and without even the illusion of polish or decorum, as likely to insult even people he desperately needs on his side to push his agenda.

And if you even try to criticize Donald Trump or his policies, the response from his supporters can only be described as full throttled insanity.

“The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.”
-Thomas Jefferson-

Our nation has begun to collapse under the weight of political egos protected from political scrutiny because of the small mindedness of their electorate. Some blame this impending failure is the result of our national culture becoming too diluted, trying to be too many things to too many people (IE: multiculturalism). Others accuse the national character itself for the polarization of the body politic, itself designed to abandon certain people to the fringes of society (IE: racism). Then there are too many who believe the American experiment with self rule and moral equality was a farce to begin with, happily jeering it toward its seemingly inevitable demise (IE: fascism).

Even though each of these opinions are based on specks of isolated truth, they each precipitate from the same ignorance and prejudice bred by the same myopic thinking that is at the heart of America’s rapidly metastasizing demise. These malcontents believe that because their opinions, by their own desperately ignorant standards, are “correct“, and everyone else’s opinions, by those same desperately ignorant standards, are “incorrect” that the opinions of others do not matter. This isn’t rational nor is it consistent with the principles that our nation was founded upon.

What were those principles? First and foremost among our founding principles, not only should those who dissent speak up, they should speak up even if they are mistaken. If they should believe so strongly in their cause of dissent that they must do so through force of arms, then they must do so through force of arms. That was the position of no less than Thomas Jefferson. Second, that the necessary and proper response of both the government and society is to quell the rebellion, and then make peace hear our the causes of the dissent, adapting society and rule of law consistent with natural law to deal with the grievances of the dissenters.

Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
-Thomas Jefferson-

Our government has been too long unresponsive to the voices of dissent, seeking instead to ignore or marginalize dissenters. Under Obama, dissenters were castigated as racists, partisans, or even simply evil. Under Trump, dissenters are dismissed as being insufficiently patriotic, anti-white, or simply ignorant. Meanwhile, the bulk of their political support comes from uneducated, low skilled, and economically obsolete workers, who blindly support the very policies that sustain the economic conditions that obsoleted them in the first place (IE: federal wage controls, corporatist economic policies, enforced collective bargaining, costly regulations of labor intensive industries, etc.).

This toxic mutual intolerance has divided our nation into three societies, each behaving as though the other two don’t exist, let alone matter. On one side, you have the collectivist cult of the Left, informed by their stream of consciousness political rhetoric that rationalizes its endless failures by acknowledging other political positions only long enough to blame them. On the other, you have the nationalist cult of Trumpism, fueled by their “righteous indignation” at being marginalized under Obama, believing that they are entitled to do the same to anyone that doesn’t agree with them.

And then you have the actually marginalized segment of rational Americans, who actually try to listen to what the other side is saying long enough to seek solutions consistent with their political philosophies. Only irrational radicals (like the Occupy terrorists, pretending to represent the majority, with shouts of “We are the 99%!” or the small minded nationalist thugs who tolerate and enable those who would dare to shout “Blood and soil!” on US soil) believe all opinions of their political opponents are prima facie without merit.

If you are reading this, then you are very likely in this last group. You, like me, often feel almost oppressive anxiety as you watch America’s once pluralistic society deteriorate into tyrannical partisanship, as radicals of both the “left” and the “right” bully rationalist conscripts into thought conformity. I remind you of your one duty: resist. Do not succumb to their “binary choice“, and cleave instead to the founding principle of pluralism. Fight for not only your rights, but also the rights of those with whom you disagree.

Whatever happens, we must do what is right. Whatever happens, we must carry the torch of pluralism into the eras to come.

 

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Liberty is For The Win!