Once again, Hollywood showcased its complete lack of diversity in thought at the Oscars.
Of course, it’s a free country, and Hollywood is fine to keep its liberal streak going … just as conservatives can continue to decide whether they want to support new movies.
But it does suggest that there might be a lot of fine stories left untold and moral dilemmas left unexplored, because Hollywood limits itself to such a narrow mindset.
Here are three “highlights” from Sunday night’s 89th Academy Awards ceremony:
1. Actresses Emma Stone and Dakota Johnson wear their support for Planned Parenthood.
What’s lovelier than plugging the nation’s largest abortion provider?
2. Host Jimmy Kimmel takes aim at President Donald Trump.
If you are among the half of all voters who supported Trump for president, Kimmel wasn’t interested in winning your support. The late-night host made several cracks about Trump, including: “This broadcast is being watched live by millions of Americans and around the world in more than 225 countries that now hate us.”
“I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? That’s gone, thanks to him,” Kimmel also said.
3. Iranian filmmaker attacks the travel ban.
“My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of the other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.,” Asghar Farhadi, who didn’t attend the Oscars, said in a statement read out loud when his movie, “The Salesman,” won for best foreign language film.
“Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and ‘our enemies’ categories creates fears. A deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression,” Farhadi added in his statement, which got a warm reception from the audience.
Right—because of course, it’s crazy to hit pause on people from seven countries considered terrorism hot spots entering the United States. The only possible reason could be inhumanity, not a desire to protect the security of American citizens. (For more from the author of “Hollywood Liberal Groupthink on Display at Oscars” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/4764440136_3f75b62db4_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-02-26 21:34:282017-02-26 21:34:28Hollywood Liberal Groupthink on Display at Oscars
In his December 9th article “Has the Trumpian Revolution Begun?,” long-time conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan dared to say that, with the Trump presidency, “we may be entering a post-liberal era.” Could it be true?
According to Buchanan, “Liberalism appears to be a dying faith. America’s elites may still preach their trinity of values: diversity, democracy equality. But the majorities in America and Europe are demanding that the borders be secured and Third World immigrants kept out.”
But it is not just political liberalism whose demise Buchanan is tentatively predicting. He also suggests that moral and cultural liberalism could be on the wane as well. He writes, “As Hegel taught, in the dialectic of history the thesis calls into existence the antithesis. What we seem to be seeing is a rejection, and a counterreformation against the views and values that came out of the social and political revolutions of the 1960s.”
What? A counterreformation against the radical cultural shifts and moral changes that came out of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s, a revolution that birthed radical feminism, gay activism, and sexual anarchy?
For years we have been told that liberalism had triumphed and that conservative morality was a thing of the past.
For years we have been told that “progressivism” owned the future and that traditionalists were a dying breed, soon to be replaced irrevocably by a younger, enlightened generation.
Could it be that America’s future is not as set in stone as we have been told? Could it be that the Trumpian triumph is part of a much larger social and cultural shift?
On the one hand, it is clear that Trump’s victory, along with that of the Republican party, was not primarily driven by moral issues as much as it was driven by other national concerns. Americans didn’t like the way their country was going — politically, socially, economically — and they wanted to regain control.
They wanted a greater sense of security, a greater sense of strength — Trump’s line that “we never win anymore” certainly resonated with millions — and a greater sense of Americanism, meaning, they didn’t want to lose the unique qualities that, in their minds, have made America what it is over the decades and centuries.
And while white evangelicals also turned out in large numbers to vote for Trump because they were concerned about their religious freedoms and about the makeup of the Supreme Court, with pro-life issues front and center for many of these voters, it would be wrong to think that the election of Donald Trump represented some kind of moral imperative — unless we look at things from a little bit different angle.
A Different Angle
Let’s focus on LGBT issues for a moment. While Trump did make overturning Roe v. Wade a consistent part of his message, he did not make overturning the Obergefell decision a consistent part of his message, actually saying recently that same-sex “marriage” was the law of the land. And the fact that he featured openly gay PayPal founder Peter Thiel at the Republican National Convention and that Thiel is playing a key role in his transition team indicates that he is hardly an opponent of LGBT goals.
At the same time, the vote for Trump was a way for millions of Americans to say “enough is enough” to extreme political and social agendas — even if they were not singled out by name — and leading the way in those extreme agendas is LGBT activism.
In a remarkable interview conducted at New York City’s famous Stonewall Inn, where the gay revolution burst on the national scene in 1969, Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow about the Trump election and its potential effect on the LGBT movement.
As reported by the Advocate, Maddow “asked Lynch if Trump and his homophobic potential cabinet were a backlash to marriage equality, hate-crimes legislation, and open military service.”
They genuinely feared that many of the victories they had won during the last eight years under the Obama administration could be undone by the Trump administration, and they perceived the vote for Trump to be a vote against LGBT activism.
Could it be that they rightly sensed a larger cultural shift?
In their minds this is all grim and negative, but could it be that Americans have had it with a small minority — whoever that minority may be — imposing their will on the rest of the country? Could it be that many Americans are sick and tired of having their rights subsumed to the rights of a radical sub-section of the populace?
The operative word for Maddow and Lynch was “backlash,” and that for good reason.
Speaking to Fox’s Tucker Carlson, Tammy Bruce, the openly gay, staunchly conservative radio host, stated that leftists, whom she called fascists, “now want Christians to preemptively prove that they pay allegiance to conforming to secular society.” She pointed to the recent liberal attack on Chip and Joanna Gaines, the popular reality TV stars, simply because they attend a gospel-preaching, Bible-believing church, a church that does not believe in same-sex “marriage.”
Bruce noted that the “great news” was that the attack on Chip and Joanna failed, also stating, “I think the election itself was a message about our rejecting of political correctness and the culture of intimidation.”
Precisely. And that is the heart of the matter.
Enough
It is not that tens of millions of Americans suddenly became homophobic or Islamophobic or xenophobic, as much as that tens of millions of Americans rejected the left’s “political correctness and the culture of intimidation.”
In fact, these three articles on National Review, written respectively in May, November, and December of this year, detail the progression well. First, by David French, “Identity Politics Are Ripping Us Apart”; next, by Kevin D. Williamson, “An End of Identity Liberalism?”; and then, by Kay Hymowitz, “Why Identity Politics Are Not All-American.”
Inevitably, at some point, the radical leftist agenda has always been doomed to fail, and there is now a push back against the left’s overplaying of its hand, which includes: forcing transgender activism into our children’s schools; declaring that phrases like “ladies and gentlemen” are transphobic and sexist; students at the University of Pennsylvania replacing “a hallway portrait of William Shakespeare with a photograph of lesbian activist Audre Lorde” — apparently Shakespeare was just too white and too male; and Oregon State University offering a course on “African American resistance to Trump.”
These radical agendas can only go so far before the people begin to push back, and that it is partly what happened with the recent elections.
Enough with the divisive ways of identity politics. Enough with the attack on traditional American values. Enough with the assault on our religious freedoms. Enough.
So, in that sense, yes, we are witnessing a larger moral and cultural backlash, even if some of these issues were not front and center in the Trump campaign. And to the extent we can make the case for a biblically-based, moral conservatism, one that treats everyone fairly but that recognizes that certain boundaries are healthy and good, we can turn the hearts of the younger generation as well as recapture the hearts of the older generation.
As my close colleagues and I have said for the last 15-plus years, on with the revolution. (For more from the author of “Are We Entering a Post-Liberal Era?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/o-GAY-RAINBOW-FLAG-facebook.jpg9991417Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-12-16 23:13:142016-12-16 23:13:14Are We Entering a Post-Liberal Era?
In a recent episode of my podcast The Renegade Republican, I lamented the fact that conservatives and liberals have a difficult time communicating with one another.
During my time in electoral politics, I often left a conversation with a liberal voter scratching my head and wondering where I went wrong. Often, it appeared as if the liberal and I weren’t even having the same conversation.
This got me thinking: Maybe we weren’t having the same conversation. As I mentally rewound many of these conversations and evaluated them, it became clear that when it came to discussing specific topics, I was talking about one thing, and the liberal was talking about something else. Here are some examples of what I experienced:
1. Health care
When discussing health care, conservatives are typically referring to the actual care of people’s health and well-being. Conservatives associate the health care debate with health care outcomes. In other words, is our country a place where people can actually choose their doctor, be seen in a timely manner, acquire needed medications, and able to make critical decisions about their health — free of government interference?
But, this isn’t what most liberals are talking about when they are debating “health care.” Liberals are typically discussing “coverage,” not actual health care. And this is where the communication gap originates.
Today’s liberals aren’t as much concerned with health outcomes — access to doctors and hospitals or choice of doctor or hospital — as they are with government edicts ensuring “coverage.” In other words, as long as the law can be used to say, “You’re covered,” even if the health care coverage is more expensive, more restrictive, and more bureaucratic, liberals think the debate is over and are therefore uninterested in additional dialogue.
2. Education
When discussing education, conservatives are typically referring to educational outcomes. Conservatives associate the word “education” with the acquisition of cognitive skills. In other words, are our kids learning anything? But this isn’t what most liberals are talking about when they are debating “education.”
Unfortunately, liberals often talk about government spending. And while no credible conservative doubts that money must be expended to educate children, the amount spent is not the primary determinant of the quality of the learning experience. We can’t have a sensible conversation if we conservatives are talking about the learning experience and the outcomes it provides, while liberals focus primarily on the government dollars provided.
3. Economy
Conservatives refer to policies that will grow the economy. We understand that both the value of a dollar and the likelihood that it will be used in a manner that adds to our national prosperity increase when when the earner gets to keep that dollar and chooses how to spend it .
In other words, are we growing more prosperous or not? But this isn’t what liberals are talking about when they debate about the economy. Liberals talk about who has the money — not how we multiply the value of our money through growth. Their viewpoint is evident; simply analyze their speech.
Next time you’re engaged in a debate with a liberal friend, count how many times he uses the terms “income inequality” or “income distribution” in comparison with the terms “economic freedom” or “free market.”
Conservatives avoid the term “income distribution” because income is not distributed; it is earned. And conservatives avoid the term “income inequality” because we are genuinely focused on how to make everyone more prosperous.
By the way, if you’re a liberal shaking your head while reading this, then you are proving my point. Your refusal to believe that conservatives care about everyone’s economic prosperity, educational outcomes, and health is prima facie evidence that the communications gap among liberals and conservatives is real. (For more from the author of “Why Liberals and Conservatives Can’t Communicate” please click HERE)
Rather than earnestly address the reasons Hillary Clinton lost the game she was playing, some in the Democratic Party are now simply trying to change the rules.
Following a series of creeds trying to tie the Electoral College to slavery in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory, multiple news outlets began reporting Tuesday that Clinton’s lead in the national popular vote has since passed the 1 million mark, adding to the furor of those who wish to see the republican institution of the Electoral College abolished in favor of a direct democratic vote.
On Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. (F, 4%) introduced a bill to abolish the Electoral College, calling it “an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society.”
“In my lifetime, I have seen two elections where the winner of the general election did not win the popular vote,” reads a statement from Sen. Boxer. “One person, one vote!”
Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., (F, 2%) concurred with Boxer on the Senate floor, saying that he’s “not seen anything like [what] we’re seeing today in America. A man who lost the popular vote by 2 million votes is now president-elect.”
This won’t happen. This shouldn’t happen. Ever.
Those upset by last week’s results can continue to clamor that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote all they like but this is nothing more than political pandering to, and by, disaffected voters.
Switching to a popular vote would require a constitutional amendment. In order to amend the Constitution, in its current form, the proposed bill would need the support of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress, and then be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.
Good luck with that.
Even in the event of a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the Senate and a 292 majority in the House, 75 percent of the states of this Union would never go for something that would disenfranchise their citizens to such a degree. (Alternatively, there is the yet-realized national convention for constitutional amendments, as well.)
Were the Electoral College be abolished, the only relevant states, nay, counties, whose voices would be heard at all would be those with dense populations. The concerns of our fellow citizens would be an afterthought behind the demands of the Acela corridor, California coast, Chicago, Seattle, and a handful of other urban locales. States without those population hubs need not apply, the concerns of their citizens need not be considered.
It makes complete sense that a California senator introduced the measure. Should it pass, her constituents would have a ridiculously lopsided voice in the way the rest of the 49 states are governed.
Put simply, the Electoral College is no less relevant in the 21st century than is the freedom of the press in the age of the 24-hour news cycle. This recent effort to change presidential elections is nothing short of a desperate messaging bill that would never pass, precisely for the reasons it exists.
Benjamin Franklin once famously told his fellow citizens in Philadelphia that America had “a Republic … if you can keep it.” The Electoral College is one of the means by which we do so. Senator Barbara Boxer calls the practice a “disaster for democracy,” and there is some merit to what she says. But we do not have a democracy.
Our system of government is a republic, one where the concerns of Manhattan, Chicago, and L.A. County do not get to railroad those of Kansas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, or Indiana. The Electoral College ensures that our commander in chief is responsive to the needs of the whole, not a privileged few population hubs. One where the votes of the rancher in Montana and the factory worker in Michigan are not railroaded by the cabals of college-educated elites on our coasts.
Ours is representative government, not mob rule.
Those upset by 2016’s results certainly have a very sympathetic base going forward. But again: Now is the time for Democrats to take a serious look in the mirror about why they lost (the Washington Examiner has some sound thoughts on the subject, as does CR’s Rob Eno) — not move the goal posts. (For more from the author of “Enemies of the Republic: Liberals Want to Abolish the Electoral College Because They Lost” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Vote_ASBS.png943915Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-16 23:00:222016-11-16 23:00:22Enemies of the Republic: Liberals Want to Abolish the Electoral College Because They Lost
I have an unusual reading habit for a young, conservative woman: I regularly peruse the very liberal feminist site Jezebel.
Why? Well, I’ve always felt it was important to try to understand where liberals are coming from, think about if there are chances for common ground, and try to be thoughtful and considerate about their own concerns when I write. And on the Jezebel site, which is part of the larger Gawker (of course, the original site is now gone) family, there is generally a robust comment section.
I figured there would be a lot of emotions over Donald Trump’s win in the presidential election. But I wildly underestimated the extent of the anger—and the actions people would be taking.
Commenters are talking about ending relationships with Trump voters—and not just on Facebook.
Just take this comment from someone using the handle “bess marvin, girl detective,” responding to a piece about liberal comedian Samantha Bee noting that a lot of white women had voted for Trump, and addressing “so-called progressive white Jezzies”:
So many comments over over the past few months shows that a lot of y’all don’t want to be liberated, you want to be liked. ‘My (insert relative, loved one here) is voting for Trump but he/she is the nicest, kindest person ever…’ REALLY? How about this? Your loved one or relative is an awful human being. How kind and nice are they that they would push aside everything Trump has said and done to pull the lever?
To which “LesPane” responded:
Some of us white folks did, and it didn’t matter. Some of us asked relatives to leave our houses, and it didn’t matter. Some of us told grandparents that they wouldn’t be see they grandkids again if they talked politics around them, and it didn’t matter.
Though we come from very different places, I’m not actually to blame for this. I understand and share your anger.
What?
Look, I’m no stranger to disagreeing with relatives about politics. And that’s partly why I was so shocked to read this. Sure, some are truly upset now in light of this election’s result (welcome to how some of us felt in 2008 and 2012!), and maybe people will take different actions in the end.
But right now, at least some liberals are considering literally ending ties with relatives—including not letting grandparents see their grandkids!—over a vote for Trump. And that’s not just these two commenters. On a different Jezebel post, commenters discussed unfriending people on Facebook who supported Trump. “ImmortalAgnes” wrote:
I also deleted everyone who supported Trump from FB. Thankfully, it wasn’t that many people. Unfortunately, it included my step-dad. I don’t think these people don’t get it – I think they don’t care. I think that to take rights from women, from people of color, from the LGBT+ community, from non-Christians is what they want.
I love my step-dad. But I cannot stand by and pretend like he didn’t just proudly support racism and misogyny. I will not be speaking to him. I will not be seeing him. It’s a hard thing for me, but in this case my values and principals are more important and I will not invite someone at war with those to be part of my life.
Again: What? What are the rights that supposedly Trump is going to take away? We’ve been living in a country where, as The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway tweeted, “Obama did sue nuns over birth control for crying out loud,” where religious bakers and florists have been told they have to participate in same-sex weddings, where an African-American fire chief lost his job over a book he wrote about his religious beliefs that included passages on same-sex marriage, and yet, the real threat to rights is from Trump?
Now there are hundreds of comments on Jezebel, and certainly not every one went in the direction of ending all contact with Trump fans. “InCaseYouDidn’tKnowTheyCallMeTheJackal” wrote, “Bent, but not broken. I am still a proud American. I am still a proud feminist. I will still welcome debate with those who oppose my views.”
And, of course, this kind of anger is not just happening online. There have been protests in cities across the country.
In Los Angeles, “Protesters … set on fire a piñata depicting the head of the president-elect,” reported CNN.
“Police in riot gear struggled to hold back scores of protesters in some of the cities as protesters chanted ‘Not My President’ and ‘No Racist USA,’” reported USA Today.
Liberals, I’ve spent the past eight years seeing the implementation of policy after policy I’ve despised, whether through law or executive action. I certainly get that it’s not easy. But I hope you’ll do what I’ve done, via reading Jezebel and other sites and talking to those on the left: Try to listen to what Americans at a different spot on the political spectrum are saying. Think about what they’re feeling. Try to understand, no matter how morally heinous you think a particular policy is, why someone, even if you think misguidedly, believes otherwise.
Yes, sometimes you’ll get angry. Sometimes you’ll be sad. Sometimes you’ll be truly baffled as to how someone can be both kind and compassionate and hold a certain position.
As I said: It’s not easy.
But it’s worth doing. Hillary Clinton was right about one thing: We are “stronger together.” This is an emotional week. But I hope in the long run, we can have a vigorous, but civil, debate between liberals and conservatives in the Trump era—not a refusal by liberals to even talk to Trump voters. (For more from the author of “The Shocking Intolerance of Anti-Trump Liberals” please click HERE)
Conservative funnyman and expert liberal ignorance-exposer Steven Crowder took to the streets in a new video to find out what “common sense” gun control actually means.
Apparently, it involves less “common sense” and more “common I-have-no-clue-what-I’m-talking-about.”
Check it out:
Yikes. “Ignorance, thy name is Leftism,” indeed.
For more from Steven Crowder, visit Louder With Crowder. (For more from the author of “These Gun-Grabbing Liberals Are So Ignorant It Hurts!” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/beretta-906612_960_720.png620960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-10-24 23:36:402016-10-25 00:18:00These Gun-Grabbing Liberals Are So Ignorant It Hurts!
As the mantra of “Don’t discuss politics or religion” repeats like a drumbeat in your head, you settle on “How about that game?”
Your desperate search for the safest question to ask a colleague as you wait for the morning coffee to brew is understandable. But you can find a way.
If conservatives refrain from engaging in the narrative, we let the media and politicians (ahem, President Barack Obama) paint us as crazy people who cling to “guns or religion.”
That’s where this column comes in—a place to help you talk to the people in your life (think neighbors, co-workers, family, friends) about conservative issues.
Trust me, it’s possible.
While I will explore a wide variety of relevant topics in the weeks to come, I’d like to start with something basic and broad: the term “conservative.”
Connecting
If you look at The Heritage Foundation’s definition, you find that conservatism is five pillars: free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
So, there’s your answer, right? Just memorize and repeat when someone wants to know why you are conservative.
Wrong.
There is no faster way to kill a conversation than to categorize your perspective like it’s a to-do list.
When talking about any issue, you have to connect with the other person’s interests. And that starts by being a good listener.
If you find your colleague doesn’t give much insight into her ideology, ask questions. Find out what makes her tick by starting a conversation about her day at work or what’s going on in the news. It’s amazing how much you learn when you ask a question and then … stop talking.
Comment
Once you gain insight into what issues someone cares about, the real work begins. You now have a blueprint for how to approach the conversation in a way that resonates with him or her, not you.
For example, if you find that your colleague talks about how expensive it is to run her side business, the free enterprise pillar is a good area to explore. Now, you’re off to the races.
Here are a few strategies that work well:
1. Common Ground
Don’t underestimate the power of establishing common ground. Doing so makes you seem reasonable and can go a long way in diffusing any tension or unwillingness to hear you out. If you’re in agreement with someone on the goal, like his business succeeding, he is more likely to stick around and listen to your solution.
2. Examples
Don’t underestimate the power of relatable examples, which can help people visualize your point. Often, the conservative principles we talk about can seem very abstract. Examples put issues into context, especially when you can illustrate a point using a reference from their daily lives. For instance, if you want to promote free enterprise, talk about all the regulations their business currently faces and how there would be significantly fewer if free enterprise was more valued by our lawmakers.
3. Words
Finally, you have to use the right words. Don’t even think about using the term “free enterprise.” Instead, steal a page from the liberals’ playbook: use emotion to push an agenda. Own words like “fair” or “choice,” and statements like “you know better than a bureaucrat in D.C.” Using emotional language will set you up for success.
Before you think that attempting a conversation is hopeless because “you don’t know how liberal my co-workers are,” keep in mind that people will listen if you talk about issues that matter to them. If done well, it’s possible they won’t recognize that you are approaching the conversation from a conservative perspective.
Take millennials. You may think it’s hopeless to talk to that generation about free enterprise since so many view themselves as socialists. But when millennials are starting more businesses than the baby-boomer generation there’s reason to question their dedication to socialism (Do they really know what socialism is?) and an opportunity to use their entrepreneurism as a gateway to talking about free enterprise.
So, talk to a liberal today. Employ the strategies we just discussed and see if you can have a meaningful conversation about conservatism on her terms. Identify her interests, choose one of the five pillars that align with her interests, and use examples.
No pressure, but you may be the only conservative that tries to challenge her world view. And if we are going to preserve the American dream, it’s going to take all of us doing our part by first talking to the people we know. (For more from the author of “3 Ways to Talk About Conservatism With a Liberal” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Cafe-schwarzenberg-innen-viennaphoto-at.jpg501752Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-03 00:41:152016-08-03 00:41:153 Ways to Talk About Conservatism With a Liberal
A few months ago, while attending a political event, I listened to a former GOP legislator begin her speech this way, “Republicans don’t hate women and Republicans aren’t racists…” Upon hearing this, I was appalled. Although I don’t believe this lawmaker has any malicious intent, her opening set the table for her speech and made it seem as if standing for conservative principles meant something other than what it actually means. As conservatives, we don’t have anything to apologize for. We didn’t do this.
The destructive politics of division, frequently employed by the far-left, are legitimized when we play their game and render apologies for policies we not only had nothing to do with, but policies which we stand in direct opposition to. It’s time to put the far-left back on its heels and go on the offense. We need to immediately start holding them to account for the destruction they have caused and stop offering illogical apologies.
For example, we are enmeshed in the worst recovery from a recession in modern American history. President Obama will be the first president in American history to never reach three percent GDP growth in ANY year of his presidency. To our liberal friends reading this I ask, “Why do you think this is, and what conservative policy do you wish to blame?” I suspect they will not have an answer because there is no answer. The Obama income tax hikes, investment taxes and Obamacare taxes are all liberal wish-list items and have unquestionably dampened our economic spirits. I don’t care which sell out member of the GOP voted for or against these taxes because this is in no way a conservative idea. We stand for vibrant economic liberty and the lowest tax rates possible to support the constitutional role of government, not an ever-expanding welfare state which empties the wallets of hard-working Americans and expands the government’s wallet. There is nothing conservative about this and liberals, not conservatives, should apologize for causing the dreadful economic conditions we are currently experiencing.
Regarding healthcare, what conservative principle was responsible for the exploding costs, cancelled plans, and reduced access to doctors and hospitals? Obamacare created a system where community rating and guaranteed issue (two liberal fantasies because they involve price controls and big government mandates) took an already broken system and smashed the remnants into the ground. Conservatives believe in the awesome power of markets and economic liberty to discipline the human greed impulse. Conservatives rely on individual choice, not government mandates, to keep costs down and quality up. None of this happened in the design and implementation of Obamacare, which garnered exactly zero Republican votes when it passed. The far-left did this to our healthcare system, not conservatives. And the far-left should own it.
Finally, true conservatives are passionate advocates for education liberty. We support choice for parents so that they can remove their children from failing schools and place them in schools which will prepare them for a prosperous future. The far-left absolutely refuses to relinquish an iota of control over their public school monopoly and doesn’t appear to care who suffers because of it. What’s conservative about that? Nothing. If liberals want an apology then they should demand it from other liberals. They did this to our kids, not us.
We have a responsibility to speak truth to power and right now much power rests in the halls of academia and in the mainstream media. It is these institutions that readily embrace the deceptive liberal division politics game and make sure conservatives apologize for their fabricated role in it. I’m done with that, and you should be too. Turn the tables. Start demanding apologies from liberals for the destruction left behind after seven-plus years of Barack Obama and let’s see how they respond. (For more from the author of “Hey Conservatives, Stop Apologizing for the Failures of Liberalism” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/16047251189_7c3e2070b2_o.jpg23283492Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-06-02 01:31:412016-06-02 01:36:39Hey Conservatives, Stop Apologizing for the Failures of Liberalism
Few people abandon God because they are consciously seeking to stun their consciences. Instead, they cease to believe in Him because they have fallen out of love with Him. This can happen because of some event in their lives that fills them with bitterness and anger, which they blame on God and consider unforgivable. Maybe a parent abandons the family, or dies young in terrible pain. Perhaps a close friend or family member “comes out” as gay, and blames his personal torment on “Christian guilt.” Or some treasured, wholesome dream dies right before a believer’s eyes, and leaves an aching abscess at the center of his life. He decides, in moments of deep suffering and confusion, that “a good God wouldn’t allow this.” So either God isn’t real or He isn’t good.
The Trade-In Value of Faith
There is an immediate payoff for rejecting God and His word. Right off the bat, you lose your fear of eternal consequences for your actions. Instead of weighing on your conscience, they are almost unbearably light. You realize that the moral laws you’d once obeyed to keep up a healthy relationship with God mean nothing more than notes scrawled to the Tooth Fairy. Over time, the residual shame and guilt that once held you back drain away, as you discipline yourself to remember that they are irrational. You learn to feel guilty about guilt, to be ashamed of experiencing shame.
But you’re still not out of the woods, not completely free. You might continue to experience a sense that certain types of things are “fitting,” that some moral norms emerge from the nature of things themselves, even if they can’t be traced back to a Creator’s artistic intent. This ghost of divine order haunts your brave new worldview, whose benefits you have only just begun to enjoy: the fresh “freedom” of action, and the set of cool, secular friends whom you might previously have avoided. You share with these people a warm nuzzle of superiority to all those benighted believers hag-ridden by fear and guilt. You like hanging out with this new crowd, making fun of your old subculture and its provincial, backwater mores. (You stick a Darwin fish on the back of your Prius.) This new crowd dresses better and has more fun than those drags you met back in Young Life or Catholic school.
If there’s one thing your new friends have absolutely no time for, it’s the idea of natural law. They are all about natural foods and “green energy,” of course, about staying in some sort of harmony with biological nature. They will even engage in a kind of secular fasting, abstaining from GMOs, maybe even from animal products. But such disciplines and self-denial abruptly end at the gateways of central pleasures. That’s why the same ecologically conscious person who won’t drink milk from a “factory farm” will dabble in drugs or dose herself with birth control pills.
Relax. The sense that human actions are subject to some intrinsic order can be cured by regular meditation on the chaos and destructiveness seen in nature. Ignore the apparent patterns and epiphanies of beauty that beguile high-level scientists, and instead keep your mind fixed firmly on genetic deformities of lab rats, or the fact that some animals eat their young or indulge in incest. Keep up the horror you feel for chaos, suffering and death — but don’t ask yourself why you feel this way, where on earth you got the craving for perfection that no animals seem to experience. Pretty soon, you will think of order and beauty as accidental illusions in a universe full of noise. In such a world, how could it possibly matter where we mortals seek our fleeting pleasures? After all, we’re only human. …
At this point, you might think that you’ve yanked up by the roots every trace of the Father who betrayed you. But you would be wrong. You will still experience a sense that right and wrong do exist, and that you want to be good instead of evil. In fact, you’ll have all sorts of leftover expectations and prejudices from the Christian world you grew up in, and the stubborn remnants of Christian humanism in our culture. There is no point in trying to purge yourself completely of all of these, when instead you can adapt them, take the emptied-out church in your soul and rededicate it as a temple — a neat reversal of what the Christians did when they converted pagan Europe.
How to Become a Social Justice Superhero
You used to think that human life is sacred. Now you know that it’s merely “important.” You used to consider cruelty or lying sinful. Now you see them as “antisocial.” You once considered suffering the side-effect of sin, which could be transformed and harnessed into a means of sanctification. Now you know better, and realize that it isn’t sin but suffering that is the worst thing in the universe. It is the great Enemy, the Adversary against which you steel your soul. You must shun the occasions of suffering, and whenever you unwittingly stumble into it you must go to your spiritual father in therapy and repent.
You don’t want to cause any needless suffering to other people, either. We are all in this life together, and we ought to work cooperatively to minimize its grimness, to swathe ourselves in Styrofoam and blunt every corner with Nerf. The way to embrace goodness and remain what you desperately want to be — a “good person” whom others will like — is to join the fight against suffering, in whatever form it shows itself. The goal of all human life is the greatest number of comfortable, pleasant moments for the greatest number of people. And you can be part of advancing that holy cause, at minimal cost to yourself.
Now there are many, many reasons that people suffer. You could (theoretically) dedicate yourself to fighting against hunger, combating domestic violence, or teaching illiterate children how to read. And maybe you actually do a little along such lines. But those forms of suffering are stubborn and intractable. You could use up your whole life wrangling them and still not make a dent. So the more efficient thing to do is to contract them out to a higher power — the federal government, with its hundreds of billions of dollars and vast powers of coercion. You vote, and Tweet, and talk to advance those causes.`
You choose for your own direct involvement much more manageable forms of suffering, which in one sense are closer to hand. You remember all the pain which you endured at the hands of religion: the pleasures avoided, the moments of guilt and shame, all to please the mythical Father at whom you’re still fitfully angry. So yoke the firm embrace of doctrine, and its stern rejection of error, with other forms of intolerance — especially racial. Then note the violent emotions which religion can provoke, and how many churchgoers also are gun-owners. Next comb through half-remembered history and fix on the worst incidents of violence committed by self-professed Christians. Do this for long enough, and you can come to believe that Christian churches are the single greatest source of suffering in America. And you can do something about it — which isn’t terribly demanding, actually.
You can make a point of scorning Christian beliefs, of praising other religions such as Islam (no matter what they actually teach — they’re not the threat). You can fight for every movement that loosens the bonds of Christian faith on your fellow Americans. You will use whatever means your fellow progressives present you, including the power of the state, to lift the crushing yoke of the Cross from helpless victims of ancient superstition. If need be, you will force them to be free. That means supporting same sex marriage, legal abortion, and restrictions on every attempt by religious believers to practice their faith in public — within the annoying limits of that dull Constitutional relic, the First Amendment, which progressive students at Yale are petitioning to repeal.
In doing all this, you will impress your newfound friends, cement your place in a social order where faith is already shameful, and feel a deep sense of accomplishment for very minimal effort. It’s the cheapest grace on the market, a grace which flows abundantly, rushing in to fill that Jesus-shaped hole that’s still in your heart. (For more from the author of “The Utter Incoherence of Liberalism” please click HERE)
‘Wealth Transfer’ is justified and productive, i.e., ‘From Each According to Ability to Each According to Need’
‘Climate Change’ (AKA ‘Global Warming’) is ‘Man-Caused,’ which is ‘Settled Science’
‘Islam is an Abrahamic Religion,’ as well as a ‘Religion of Peace’
‘Multiculturalism’ strengthens America because all cultures are equal and ‘Diversity’ is necessary for ‘Social Fairness’
‘Institutional Racism’ is rampant in America based on ‘White Privilege’
‘Political Correctness’ is necessary to ensure ‘Civil Discourse’ that doesn’t marginalize the disadvantaged
Wealth Transfer
‘Wealth Transfer’ schemes, which have failed spectacularly from the Plymouth Colony near-starvation to the downfall of Soviet Union, have been erroneously validated and defended by the economically ignorant utopians based on ‘social justice’ and ‘economic development.’ The false premises underlying this deleterious, self-defeating economic proposition are ‘fairness’ and the baseless belief that providing economic security will ‘change human nature’ and inspire commitment to work for the common good of the community instead of personal gain. That neither of one of these premises has proved true has foreordained assured systemic collapses wherever ‘wealth transfer’ has been tried since Karl Marx codified ‘wealth transfer’ in the British Library based purely on theory, not empirical historical evidence.
The American people must wake-up soon and understand that the ever-increasing ‘wealth transfers’ into social welfare programs come at the critical costs of depriving the economy of growth capital and national security of necessary funding. This wake-up call should come without difficulty because it should be common sense, but instead ‘wealth transfer’ has had a narcotic-coma effect on the American body politic.
Climate Change/Global Warming
The climate has been changing constantly and drastically, warming and cooling, for the entire 4.5 billion years of earth’s geologic history, while the earliest evidence of human life on earth goes back just 1.8 million years. Therefore, since man has only been present for just the most miniscule portion of earth’s existence, liberals fail to account for the causes of the constant ‘climate change/global warming’ during more than 99% of earth’s being. This deliberate exclusion of the 4.5 billion years of documented ‘climate change/global warming’ from examination or explanation is justified by liberals because anthropogenic ‘climate change/global warming’ is ‘settled science.’ So, the obvious question that the true believing climate changers/global warmists evade answering like the plague is: Since there was radical climate change and global warming/cooling for 99% of the world’s geologic history before man even set foot on the planet, how do liberals scientifically examine and prove that any change of the climate is just not a continuation of the the climatic forces that have always occasioned change? In other words, what is the proof that man has suddenly become more powerful than the forces of the universe and preempted them? Since ‘Greenland’ was obviously originally named ‘Greenland’ because it was verdant landscape, what caused the tremendous climatic change at that north latitude because the change from temperate to arctic long predated mankind’s introduction of industrial quantities of carbon into the atmosphere?
Unfortunately, instead of the sciences of historical geology and climatology that contradict their unproven and unprovable climate beliefs, liberals accept as gospel the ‘settled science’ pronounced by the ‘world renown climatologists’ Barack Hussein Obama, Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., and John Forbes Kerry. The liberal inexplicable, unquestioning acceptance of man-caused ‘climate change/global warming’ should not even be tolerated in a 7th grade science class, but nevertheless allegedly educated liberal people are ‘true climate change/global warming believers’! A large segment of the liberal American people has apparently lost the ability to reason logically. Again, a wake-up call is desperately needed.
The Abrahamic Muslim Religion of Peace
It is Islamic dogma that Islam is a ‘religion’ that traces its roots to the Jewish and Christian patriarch Abraham through Abraham’s son Ishmael, who was born of Abraham’s Egyptian slave concubine Hagar. Ishmael’s birth would have occurred circa 2000 B.C. Then in 610 A.D. Mohammad began to concoct the dogma with which he crafted a ‘religion’ that he used to attract, reward, and disciple a mafia-like tribe of cut-throat, desert brigands. So after more than 2,600 years, and with no tangible evidence or even verbal tradition, Mohammad alone in a cave conceived the linkage of Islam’s religious lineage to Abraham in order to tie Islam to the already well-established and respected religions of the Middle East, Judaism and Christianity, for credibility. Mohammad used that credibility to inspire his gang of marauders, which employed pillage, rape, and murder to sustain their ‘religion’ and to recruit more and more new followers to the plunder gained from their caravan raiding banditry.
The entire theology of Islam was purportedly imparted periodically (as Mohammad needed) from Allah to Mohammad through the Angel Gabriel when Mohammad was alone in a cave or alone in other solitary settings. These ‘Allah-dictated revelations’ were supposedly committed to memory by Mohammad and later spewed out to his followers in order to give divine authority to Mohammad’s decisions. Since the ‘Allah-dictated revelations’ were situational and made on-the-fly, there were frequent contradictions from situation to situation. When Mohammad was confronted with these contradictions, he went into solitude, allegedly consulted with Allah and Gabriel, and returned with dictums from Allah to pacify the followers and to explain why the Allah ‘god’ changes his mind.
Quran 2:106 – “We [Allah] do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?”
Quran 13:39: “Allah eliminates what He wills or confirms, and with Him is the Mother of the Book.”
Quran16:101: “And when We substitute a verse in place of a verse – and Allah is most knowing of what He sends down – they say, “You, [O Muhammad], are but an inventor [of lies].” But most of them do not know.”
These three Quranic verses (suras) explain the ‘Law of Abrogation’ that became necessary when the followers of Muhammad realized that Allah’s instructions were conflicting or inconsistent, so purportedly Allah told Muhammad to tell the Muslims that Allah had changed his mind and was just giving the followers better instructions that replaced earlier instructions or suras.
While the theology of Judaism and Christianity evolved from Moses, a long line of prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, the theology of Islam rests solely on the word of Mohammad, Allah’s one and exclusive prophet. Rather than divine inspiration as the basis of Islamic theology, Islam is decidedly anthropogenic in origin. The difference is apparent time and again, for instance, when the Christian Bible’s instructions to Christians are compared and contrasted with the Islamic Quran’s instructions to Muslims. Perhaps no example of the difference of the divine versus the human is clearer than treatment of one’s enemies. Jesus counselled his followers:
Matthew 5:43-45: 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
While according to Mohammad, Allah counselled his followers:
Quran 8:12 [Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, “I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip.”
It is at this point that the Islamic dogma proclaiming Abrahamic roots of Islam completely falls apart. One needn’t be a religious theologian or a member of Mensa to comprehend that ‘a god’ cannot be the same ‘deity’ when that ‘divine source’ issues completely contradictory instructions to followers on how to behave regarding one’s enemies in exactly the same circumstances. In order to deter non-Muslims in the U.S. and Europe from discovering and discussing that Islam is an anthropocentrically conceived religious cult rather than the claimed Abrahamic religion, the concept of ‘Islamophobia’ was invented to prevent examination of tell-tail evidence like the ‘Law of Abrogation’ and the obvious disparities between the theology of the God of Abraham and the theology of the god of Mohammad. For instance, to even quote verbatim from the Quran in order to illustrate the contradictions of Islam is immediately decried as ‘Islamophobic’ by Muslims and the liberal defenders of Islam!
The reason why it is imperative to discredit ‘Islamophobia” and rip off the Abrahamic mask from Islam is because the alleged common origin of the religions has provided Muslims with entrée into Western Civilization to conduct stealth jihad undermining Western societies from within. Americans must demand that political, religious, and social leaders educate themselves about the Islamic enemy and begin to formulate national security, religious, and social policies that realistically deal with the existential threat of Islam.
Multiculturalism/Diversity’s Debilitating Effects On America
‘Multiculturalism’ is a social weapon conceived by the Cultural Marxist ‘Frankfurt School’ to undermine and destroy Western societies because, in order for a new Marxist culture to take root (see ‘wealth transfer’ above), the existing Western cultural must be destroyed. Under the multicultural rubric that all cultures are equal, Cultural Marxism is attacking:
the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism.
Liberal Democrats have used ‘multiculturalism’ to defend their ‘open border/ illegal alien amnesty’ policies by accusing their rational opponents of ‘bigoted, hateful racism’ for disagreeing with the Democrat stratagem to import a large, low-information, low-skilled population that will become a permanent, welfare-dependent Democrat Party voting constituency. For liberals, ‘multiculturalism’ is all about changing U.S. voting demographics in their favor. The Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass to support its big government welfare.
An equally deleterious conceptual social weapon for undermining Western societies along with ‘multiculturalism’ is ‘diversity.’ The alleged purpose of mandating ‘diversity’ throughout the U.S. and the wider Western world is ‘social fairness’ to give all people equal access to the public arena. However, ‘diversity’ of skin color and/or gender is essentially used as a diversion to preclude ‘diversity’ of opinions, specifically conservative opinion is excluded from idea forums by the liberal forces of so-called ‘diversity.’
The pretenses of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘diversity’ must be challenged and exposed as false each time they are employed to undermine Western culture and exclude conservative ideas from the public forum.
‘Institutional Racism’ born of ‘White Privilege’
‘Institutional racism’ and ‘white privilege’ are two more deleterious conceptual social weapons that have no basis in fact, but they are constantly given lip-service by the forces of liberalism working against traditional America. Barack Obama as president, along with Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch as attorneys general, whose positions at the top of the U.S. Government should make those charges preposterous, but instead these three individuals fed the ‘institutional racism’ and ‘white privilege’ narratives during the ‘Skip Gates’/ ‘Trevon Martin’/ ‘Ferguson’/ ‘Baltimore’ fiascos. Growing from those fiascos the baseless ‘hands up-don’t shoot’ and ‘black lives matter’ memes perpetuate the groundless ‘institutional racism’ and ‘white privilege’ charges.
When three blacks have held the two most important U.S. law enforcement positions for six plus years, one would think that common sense would smash the ‘institutional racism’ and ‘white privilege’ slander, but liberals repudiate common sense whenever common sense invalidates their unsubstantiated, venomous agitprop. Since liberals are obviously immune to common sense, discrediting the ‘institutional racism’ and ‘white privilege’ calumnies will be difficult, so all the practical forces of traditional America can do is to continually proclaim the truth and do the right thing, while directing their common sense message to those Americans that are not low-information, knee-jerk liberals.
‘Political Correctness’ is necessary to ensure ‘Civil Discourse’ that doesn’t marginalize the disadvantaged
‘Political correctness’ is the Cultural Marxist social weapon that makes possible the widespread, unquestioning acceptance of ‘wealth transfer,’ ‘climate change/global warming,’ ‘Abrahamic Muslim religion of peace,’ ‘multiculturalism/diversity,’ and ‘Institutional racism/white privilege.’ ‘Political correctness’ in the U.S. today is self-censorship that is eerily reminiscent of the politically-sterilized life described in George Orwell’s ‘1984.’ The effect of ‘political correctness’ is that:
genuine moral discourse on difficult social issues can become impossible when the risks of upsetting some portion of one’s audience are too great. Reliance on euphemism and platitude should be expected in this strategic climate.
When a problem cannot be honestly and correctly identified, resolution of the problem is impossible.
Conclusion
Since ‘political correctness’ self-censorship is the fundamental reason why all of the liberal lies are succeeding in undermining America, it is the first obstacle that must be removed. Not until honest discourse is returned to the American political, intellectual, religious, and social idea-marketplaces can Americans break the liberal death-grips of ‘wealth transfer,’ ‘climate change/global warming,’ ‘Abrahamic Muslim religion of peace,’ ‘multiculturalism/diversity,’ ‘Institutional racism/white privilege’ and ‘political correctness’ that are inhibiting America’s progress by stifling or misdirecting national efforts. (For more from the author of “The Liberal Lies Undermining America” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-12-09 00:26:312016-04-11 10:55:20The Liberal Lies Undermining America
