After a long, hot week in which things only seem to be getting worse on the dual fronts of the Coronavirus and public discourse, I felt it was time to post the following article from the editors at Commentary Magazine.
I post this after the owner of a local café here in Omaha was forced to shut down due to harassment after racist Facebook posts from the son of the business owner came to light. This after the business stood in good stead with the community for 44 years and had already taken a financial loss from the ravages of COVID-19. While there can be no justification for racist posts from anyone of any age, the mob tactics used to bludgeon this business owner into submission are unacceptable.
This, along with the national trend of the toppling of public statues at the hands of the mob without any preceding public discussion is deeply troubling to me.
With that statement, here is the editorial. Their principles are my principles.
We Must Stop the Great Unraveling
Editors’ Commentary
by
The Editors
Across the United States, a great unraveling is in progress. A rolling crime wave, under the guise of social activism, has left city after American city
shattered and smoldering. Armed anarchists seized territory inside Seattle with the blessing of local government. In Minneapolis and other cities, a campaign
to enfeeble or eliminate the police has gained full legitimacy. In Kentucky, the governor has vowed to provide free health care only to one racial group.
In the private sector, companies such as Uber Eats have pledged their commitment to a policy of race-conscious discrimination as well. And major media
organs sanction all of the above as proper and good.
The unraveling goes further still. Social-justice mobs have taken aim at freedom of expression, inventing new heresies daily and ruining the lives of those
who unwittingly give voice to them. Forced confessions and language proscriptions are the order of the day. Poetry, fiction, movies, and television shows—including
children’s cartoons—are canceled and excised from history. Indeed, all art and opinion are now subject to the chopping block lest they prove insufficiently
propagandistic.
To rewrite the present, the mob has rewritten the past. They have forced upon us a distorted and grotesque version of American history. With the support
of corporations and education boards, school textbooks and curricula tell of an unredeemable America founded not on the promise of human liberty but human
bondage. What’s more, this history discounts the transformative progress on racial equality for which Americans—black and white—have given their lives.
Listen and Subscribe to the Commentary Podcast
—–
Through the violent politicization of all aspects of American life, the mob aims to destroy the country as we know it and replace it with a new one—an
anti-America that trades speech for violence, police for thought police, a free press for an indoctrination network, and the respect due the citizen for
the obeisance owed the mob.
There is one way to stop the unraveling: Refuse the mob. We have seen again and again that the mob comes only for those who hope to please it. And when
it does, no amount of apology will save you. We stand against the mob and all its aims. We stand against the chaos and violence, the silencing of debate,
the purging of heretics, the rewriting of history, and the destruction of the greatest country in the world. We will defend the most majestic achievement
of humankind, the United States of America, against the most ignoble impulse in human history, to tear down that which is good.
What we stand for:
list of 1 items
list of 1 items nesting level 1
• A plurality of opinion in the public square. We affirm that the right to voice a minority opinion is equal in every respect to the right to voice a majority
opinion. We therefore reject the public policing of opinion in all its forms.
list end nesting level 1
list end
list of 1 items
list of 1 items nesting level 1
• A full airing of available facts and data on all topics. We welcome any impartial findings that may serve to advance discussion. No objective facts are
beyond the bounds of deliberation and debate.
list end nesting level 1
list end
list of 1 items
list of 1 items nesting level 1
• A rejection of cancel culture and all it entails. We renounce enemies lists, online/media mobs, and professional scalp hunts.
list end nesting level 1
list end
list of 1 items
list of 1 items nesting level 1
• Clear bright lines between speech and violence. We affirm that speech, spoken or written, and no matter how egregious, is not equivalent in any way to
violence. Similarly, physical violence is not a mode of speech.
list end nesting level 1
list end
list of 1 items
list of 1 items nesting level 1
• An absolute rejection of political violence. We affirm that lawless violence, even in the service of a just cause, is wrong—no exceptions or excuses.
list end nesting level 1
list end
We hope you will join us.
The Editors
