We Are in Need of Renaissance People

Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness, The Blade of Perseus 

The songwriter, actor, country/western singer, musician, U.S. Army veteran, helicopter pilot, accomplished rugby player and boxer, Rhodes scholar, Pomona College and University of Oxford degreed, and summa cum laude literature graduate, Kris Kristofferson, recently died at 88.

Americans may have known him best for writing smash hits like “Me and Bobby McGee” and “For the Good Times,” his wide-ranging, star-acting roles in A Star is Born and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, his numerous solo albums, especially with then-spouse and singer Rita Coolidge, and the country group super-quartet he formed with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson.

In other words, Kristofferson was a rare Renaissance man who could do it all in an age of increasingly narrow specialization and expertise.

At certain times throughout history at particular locales, we have seen such singular people from all walks of life.

Classical Athens produced polymaths like Aristotle—tutor to Alexander the Great, logician, student of music, art, and literature, educator, think-tank founder, biologist, philosopher, and scientist. Later Greeks like Archimedes and Ptolemy, as men of action, mastered six or seven disciplines and applied their abstract knowledge in ways that made life easier for those around them.

The late Roman Republic was another cauldron of multitalented geniuses. It produced the brilliant stylist, historian, politician, and consummate general Julius Caesar, as well as his republican archrival Cicero—politician, philosopher, orator, master stylist, lawyer, and provincial governor.

Turn-of-the-century Victorian Great Britain produced giants like Winston Churchill—prime minister, statesman, essayist, historian, orator, strategist, and wartime veteran. As Britain’s war leader, between May 10, 1940, and June 22, 1941, he, almost alone, resisted the Axis powers and prevented Adolf Hitler from winning the war.

But we associate the idea of a “Renaissance man” mostly with Florence, Italy, between the 15th and 16thcenturies. In that brief 100 years, the Florentine Republic hosted multi-talented geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci—master painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, engineer, and inventor—best known for the Mona Lisa and Last Supper.

The multifaceted talents of his younger contemporary Michelangelo were as astounding, whether defined by his iconic sculptures David and Pietà, his stunning painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or as the master architect of the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica.

The American Revolution was a similar embryo of Renaissance men. Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the most famous example of unchecked abstract and pragmatic genius displayed in almost every facet of late 18th– and early 19th-century life—main author of the Declaration of Independence, third U.S. President, founder of the University of Virginia, inventor, agronomist, architect, and diplomat.

But Benjamin Franklin may best approximate the model of the Florentine Renaissance holistic brilliance—journalist, publisher, printer, author, politician, diplomat, inventor, scientist, and philosopher.

Franklin’s life was one of perpetual motion and achievement. In one lifetime, he helped to draft the Constitution, invented everything from the lightning rod to bifocals, founded the American postal service, and successfully won over European countries to the nascent American cause. Theodore Roosevelt—president, historian, essayist, conservationist, naturalist combat veteran, battle leader, explorer, and cowboy—exemplified the idea of an American president as the master at almost everything else.

The history of our own contemporary Renaissance people often suggests that they are not fully appreciated until after their deaths—especially in the post-World War II era.

Why?

We have created a sophisticated modern society that is so compartmentalized by “professionals” and the credentialed that those who excel simultaneously in several disciplines are often castigated for “amateurism,” “spreading themselves too thinly,” “not staying in their lanes,” or not being degreed with the proper prerequisite letters—BA, BS, MA, PhD, MD, JD, or MBA—in the various fields that they master.

But specialization is the enemy of genius, as is the tyranny of credentialism.

Because the Renaissance figure is not perfect in every discipline he masters, we damn him for too much breadth and not enough depth—a dabbler rather than an expert—failing to realize that his successes in most genres he masters and redefines is precisely because he brings a vast corpus of unique insights and experience to his work that narrower specialists lack. The Greek poet Archilochus first delineated the contrast between the fox who “knows many things” and the hedgehog who “knows one—one big thing.” We have become a nation of elite hedgehogs, whose narrow expertise is not enriched by awareness of or interest in the wider human experience.

Renaissance people often live controversial lives and receive 360-degree incoming criticism, not surprising given the many fields in which they upstage specialists and question experts—and the sometimes overweening nature of their personalities that feel no reason to place boundaries and lanes on their geniuses and behavior or to temper their exuberances.

The best American example of the current age is the controversial Elon Musk, a truly Renaissance figure who has revolutionized at least half a dozen entire fields.

No one prior had broken the Big Three auto monopoly of GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

Musk did just that. He exploded all three companies’ dominance with his successful creation of the first viable electric vehicle, Tesla, whose comfort, drivability, reliability, safety, and power rivaled or exceeded the models of all his competitors.

His spin-off battery storage and solar panel companies allowed thousands of families to go off the grid and stay self-sufficient in power usage.

Musk’s revolutionary Starlink internet system—a mere five years old—provides global online service to over 100 countries. Through its some 7,000 satellites, Starlink brings internet service to remote residents far more effectively and cheaply than do their own governments. When natural disasters overwhelm utilities or war disrupts the normality of peace, all look to Musk to restore online reconnections to the outside world.

Musk, almost singlehandedly, transformed the U.S. space program from a NASA 60-year-old government monopoly to an arena of fervent private-public competition. His Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) created a rocket and spacecraft program that has kept the U.S. preeminent in space exploration and reliable satellite launches. When NASA and old aerospace companies falter, the government looks to Musk to bail them out.

Musk, at great personal cost, radically transformed the old Twitter—poorly managed, censorious of ideas and expressions not deemed progressive, and mired in scandal for partnering with the FBI to silence news deemed possibly injurious to Democratic candidates and left-wing campaigns.

His new X replacement is an unfettered platform for free expression. And the more the left abhors their loss of the monopolistic old Twitter’s ideological clearing house, and vows to flee X and start their own new left-wing, censorious Twitters, the more they stay on X.

Musk’s newest companies have now entered the convoluted, little-understood, radically competitive, and dangerous field of artificial intelligence (OpenAI) and the emerging discipline of bonding the natural brain to the electronic online world (Neuralink). To the degree Musk is successful, America will lead these areas of intense international rivalry that involve the gravest issues of national security and survival.

Overspecialization has helped make vulnerable and sometimes doomed complex top-down societies from the Mycenaeans to the Aztecs to the Soviets. A tiny credentialed and often incestuous elite manages the lives of a vast underclass whose daily lives are scripted by top-down master planners—as an autonomous and skeptical middle class disappears.

America is increasingly becoming a bifurcated, two-tiered society of a specialized government-corporate-media-political-credentialed class of degreed overseers and managers who attempt to micromanage an increasingly less well-educated, dependent underclass.

The overclass cult lacks sufficient common sense and pragmatic expertise outside their narrow areas of specialization to direct society, and the masses are often without the education, money, and power to challenge them or the esoteric complexity of their modern society. And the result is often disastrous, as we see everywhere, from the trivial to the existential—from our currently paralyzed state space station program and inability to build a floating pier in Gaza, to ineffectual and insensitive state responses to natural disasters like Hurricane Helene and an increasingly dangerously incompetent Secret Service.

Renaissance people provide a link to the proverbial people, as they master almost anything they attempt while keeping themselves attuned to the practical effect of their achievement among the people.

The Renaissance physicist Richard Feynman once explained to the entire nation why the Space Shuttle 1986 Challenger catastrophically imploded shortly after launch. A polymath Albert Einstein explained to America why it had to begin the Manhattan Project and beat Nazi Germany to the acquisition of an atomic bomb. Theodore Roosevelt used his expertise as a politician, conservationist, outdoorsman, explorer, and writer to help establish and preserve 230 million acres of public lands.

So, we should occasionally pause and reflect on the Kristoffersons and Musks in our midst. They play a vital role in enriching culture and civilization for the many without becoming part of the narrow few. And we owe these people, who belong to a rare and hallowed caste of the ages, for making our lives richer, more enjoyable, easier, and safer.

 

We Lose Total Control

 

“We Lose Total Control”

Clinton Continues Her Censorship Campaign on CNN

Jonathan Turley, jonathantruley,org

Hillary Clinton is continuing her global efforts to get countries, including the United States, to crackdown on opposing views. Clinton went on CNN to lament the continued resistance to censorship and to call upon Congress to limit free speech. In pushing her latest book, “Something Lost and Something Gained,” Clinton amplified on her warnings about the dangers of free speech. What is clear is that the gain of greater power for leaders like Clinton would be the loss of free speech for ordinary citizens. 

Clinton heralded the growing anti-free speech movement and noted that “there are people who are championing it, but it’s been a long and difficult road to getting anything done.” She is right, of course. As I discuss in my book, the challenge for anti-free speech champions like Clinton is that it is not easy to convince a free people to give up their freedom.

That is why figures like Clinton are going “old school” and turning to government or corporations to simply crackdown on citizens. One of the lowest moments came after Elon Musk bought Twitter on a pledge to restore free speech protections, Clinton called upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). This is a former democratic presidential nominee calling upon Europeans to force the censorship of Americans.

She was joined recently by another former democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, who called for government crackdowns on free speech.

Other democrats have praised Brazil for banning X. For her part, Clinton praised the anti-free speech efforts in California and New York and called for the rest of the country to replicate the approach of those states.

Clinton added a particularly illuminating line that said the quiet part out loud. This is all about power and the fear that she and others will “lose control” over speech:

“Whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content we lose total control and it’s not just the social and psychological effects it’s real harm, it’s child porn and threats of violence, things that are terribly dangerous.”

Clinton continues to offer a textbook example of the anti-free speech narrative. While seeking sweeping censorship for anything deemed disinformation, Clinton cites specific examples that are already barred under federal law like child porn.

Despite the amplified message on sites like CNN, most citizens may not be as aggrieved as Clinton that she and her allies could “lose total control” over the Internet. The greater fear is that she and her allies could regain control of social media. The Internet is the single greatest invention for free speech since the printing press. That is precisely why figures like Clinton are panicked over the inability to control it.

If citizens remain true to their values and this indispensable right, Clinton will hopefully continue to face “a long and difficult road to getting anything done” in limiting the free speech of her fellow citizens.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

Blow Up the Middle East War

 

How To Blow Up the Middle East War in Five Easy Steps

Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness 

When Joe Biden became president, the Middle East was calm. Now it is in the midst of a multifront war.

So quiet was the inheritance from the prior Trump administration that nearly three years later, on September 29, 2023—and just eight days before the October 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis—Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan could still brag that “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

So, what exactly happened to the inherited calm that led to the current nonstop chaos of the present?

In a word, theocratic Iran—the nexus of almost all current Middle East terrorism and conflict—was unleashed by Team Biden after having been neutered by the Trump administration.

The Biden-Harris administration adopted a 5-step revisionist protocol that appeased and encouraged Iran and its terrorist surrogates Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

The result was a near guarantee that something akin to the October 7 massacres would inevitably follow—along with a subsequent year of violence that has now engulfed the Middle East.

First, on the 2020 campaign trail, Biden damned long-time American ally Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.”

He overturned the policies of both the previous Obama and Trump administrations by siding with the Iranian-supplied terrorist Houthis in their war on Saudi Arabia.

Biden accused the kingdom of war crimes, warning it would “be held accountable” for its actions in Yemen. Biden-Harris took the murderous Houthis off the U.S. terrorist list.

Almost immediately followed continuous Houthi attacks on international shipping, Israel, and U.S. warships—rendering the Red Sea, the entryway to the Suez Canal, de facto closed to international maritime transit.

Worse still, by the time of the 2022 midterms, when spiraling gas prices threatened Democratic congressional majorities, Biden opportunistically flipped and implored Saudi Arabia to pump more oil to lower world prices before the November election. Appearing obnoxious and then obsequious to an old Middle East ally is a prescription for regional chaos.

Second, Biden-Harris nihilistically killed off the Trump administration’s “Abraham Accords.” That diplomatic breakthrough had proven a successful blueprint for moderate Arab nations to seek détente with Israel, ending decades of hostilities to unite against the common Middle East threat of Iran.

Third, Biden begged Iran to reenter the appeasing, so-called Iran Deal that virtually had ensured that Iran would eventually get the bomb.

Worse yet, it dropped oil sanctions against the theocracy, allowing a near-destitute Iran to recoup $100 billion in profits. And it greenlighted $6 billion in hostage ransoms to Tehran.

An enriched Tehran immediately sent billions of dollars in support and weapons to the anti-Western terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to attack Israel, Americans, and international shipping. Iran soon began partnering with China and Russia to form a new anti-American axis.

Biden-Harris also fled abruptly from Afghanistan, abandoning billions in weapons and American contractors. The humiliation thus virtually destroyed American deterrence in the Middle East, inciting enemies and endangering friends.

Fourth, Biden-Harris restored hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the West Bank and Gaza, but without any guarantees that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas would desist from their past serial terrorist acts.

In the case of Hamas, U.S. and Western “humanitarian aid” simply freed up more fungible dollars in Gaza to arm Hamas and to expand its subterranean tunnel complex essential to its October 7 massacres and hostage-taking.

Fifth, from the outset of the ensuing increased tensions, Biden-Harris began pressuring the Israelis to act “proportionally” in responding to the massacre of some 1,200 Israelis and nearly 20,000 missiles, rockets, and drones launched at their homeland from Iran, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Such straitjacketing of our closest Middle East friend further signaled the Iranian-backed terrorists that there was now “daylight” between the U.S. and its closest regional ally. That opportunity provided still further incentives for Iran to test just how far it could safely go in attacking Israel.

But why did Biden-Harris so foolishly ignite the Middle East?

In part, the administration naively tried to resurrect the old, discredited Obama administration notion of ‘creative tension’—of empowering a rogue Iran and its terrorists to play off Israel and the moderate Arab regimes, as a new sort of balance of power in the region.

In part, Biden-Harris was caving to increased anti-Semitism at home and the rise of powerful, pro-Palestinian groups on U.S. campuses and in critical swing Electoral College states.

In part, Biden-Harris was naïve and gullible. The two bought into the anti-Americanism and anti-Israel boilerplate of our enemies. So, they thought to make amends by seeing Iran and its terrorists as the moral equivalent of democratic, pro-American Israel.

Their malignant legacy is the current Middle East disaster.

Lawless Border Catastrophe by Kamala Harris

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Machiavelli’s Lessons for America

 

Machiavelli’s Lessons for America

David Lewis Schaefer, The American Mind 

Advice from Old Nick on how to strengthen our republic.

While Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince is commonly dismissed as a guidebook that teaches how purely self-interested rulers can attain or secure power through amoral means, such an interpretation is difficult to reconcile with a statement Machiavelli makes in his other major political work, the Discourses on Livy. There, he writes of his “natural desire to work” for the “common benefit”—not merely that of the rulers. And although the Discourses are explicitly devoted to the advancement of republicanism as distinguished from princely government, the modern philosopher most fully identified with the cause of democracy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, called The Prince “the book of republicans.” As Machiavelli explains in Chapter 15 of The Prince, his intent is “to write something useful to whoever understands it”—which means his advice is not solely, or perhaps primarily, for princes.

An attentive reading of The Prince will confirm not only Rousseau’s general claim, but the work’s relevance to understanding and remedying some of the major problems that confront the American republic today.

In the first paragraph of Chapter 3, Machiavelli identifies a fundamental problem rooted in human nature: the people’s natural utopianism, or their incapacity or unwillingness to accept the harsh facts of political life. In Chapter 2, he had maintained that unless a hereditary prince possesses “extraordinary vices” that make him hateful, a “reasonable” people should support him. Since they would be accustomed to his family’s rule, he would have less need to “offend” than a usurper would to maintain their obedience.

But at the start of Chapter 3, Machiavelli observes that contrary to this counsel of reason, the people are always disposed to “change their masters in the belief that they will fare better”—even though in this belief “they are deceived, because they see later by experience that they have done worse.” This is so because a prince who overthrows the existing order by violent means will find himself compelled to deal harshly with his subjects—even including his erstwhile supporters—in order to secure his power. But Machiavelli implies that the people never learn from this experience, since there are always aspects of being governed (no less under republics than principalities) such as paying taxes, enduring wars, or having freedoms restricted that the people will resent. Hence, they will continue to blame their problems on the folly or vice of whoever rules them at a given time, rather than seeing the prince as the product of the inherent necessities of political life.

This is by no means to say that Machiavelli is an archconservative who denies that any political changes can be for the better. But he points to the need for government to be founded explicitly on recognizing the harsh realities of political life, and making the people aware of these realities, lest they continue to be deceived by would-be rulers (republicans no less than monarchs) who take advantage of their gullibility. James Madison echoes this point in Federalist 51, where he explains why the Founders instituted a system of checks and balances in the Constitution, despite the claim of some Anti-Federalists that they amount to a needless complication, based on an unfairly low view of popular behavior.

Central to Machiavelli’s argument, and its contemporary relevance, is the distinction he draws between “nominal” virtue—that is, actions that appear on the surface to be good—and its “effectual” form, that is, those that are genuinely beneficial. After introducing this distinction at the end of Chapter 16, he illustrates it in the following chapter by distinguishing between the nominal “mercy” practiced by the people of Florence (then a republic) toward a city they ruled, Pistoia, and the nominal “cruelty” practiced by the notorious prince Cesare Borgia over the province of Romagna. In order “to escape a name for cruelty,” Machiavelli observes, the Florentines avoided cracking down harshly on the city’s factional disputes, crime, and riots, with the result that Pistoia was “destroyed.” Thus, their nominal mercy toward lawbreakers was really effectual cruelty. (The parallel to the de-policing movement of recent years in the United States is obvious.)

By contrast, the cruel tyrant Cesare Borgia (in Machiavelli’s highly fictionalized portrait) “restored the Romagna, united it, and reduced it to peace and to faith.” He did so, as Machiavelli explains in Chapter 7, by hiring Remirro d’Orco, a “cruel and efficient” governor, to terrify the populace into law-abidingness through meting out harsh punishments for criminals. In other words, Cesare’s nominal cruelty was really effectual mercy.

Given the people’s natural aversion to the appearance of cruelty, Cesare had to mitigate any resultant hatred by blaming d’Orco for the nominal cruelty in a manner that might be difficult to replicate. Machiavelli thus recommends establishing an independent judiciary in Chapter 19, as was done by an unnamed founder of the French kingdom, as a “third judge” to resolve disputes between the aristocrats and the multitude by “favor[ing] the lesser side” without the king himself being blamed. Here one finds another anticipation of The Federalist’s account of the Constitution, specifically that the independent federal judiciary as outlined in Federalist 78 is a potential arbiter between the legislative and executive branches, as well as between the federal and state governments.

In the chapter preceding his treatment of nominal versus effectual mercy, Machiavelli makes another important distinction—this time between nominal and effectual “liberality,” or generosity on a prince’s part. As Aristotle had already observed in the Nicomachean Ethics, liberality is the most beloved of all the moral virtues because of the benefits that the donor’s recipients derive from it.

Pretending, however, that a ruler should practice this virtue in its literal or nominal sense is another matter. Machiavelli observes that while “it would be good to be held liberal,” nonetheless a ruler who practices liberality may not only fail to be recognized for it, but will ultimately incur “the infamy of its contrary.” The reason is that for a prince to acquire “a name for liberality,” he must ultimately “consume all his resources” and “burden the people extraordinarily” with taxes of all sorts. That will cause his subjects to hate him, offending the many who will have to pay higher taxes while “the few” benefit from his largesse. But when the prince finally recognizes this problem “and wants to draw back” from it, he immediately “incurs the infamy” of being a miser.

Machiavelli recommends a “solution” to this problem: a prince who wants to procure a popular reputation for liberality while avoiding its downside should rely on foreign conquests to finance it, as was done by rulers like “Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander.” In other words, the “effectual truth” of liberality turns out, as political theorist Clifford Orwin has pointed out, to be a kind of collective theft.

Machiavelli’s warning about the danger of government seeking a reputation for liberality has an obvious resonance in America today, beset by ever-growing deficits as the result of ever-growing government spending, especially in the form of the outrageously misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act.”

Indeed, during the current presidential campaign, both candidates have been competing to win votes through further costly government giveaways, ranging from the forgiveness of student loans and mortgage interest payments to subsidies for child care and home purchases and eliminating taxes on tips. While the Democratic candidate promises, unrealistically, to finance all her increased spending from taxes imposed only on people earning over $400,000 or on corporations, it is noteworthy that neither she nor her opponent mention America’s desperate need, in the face of growing threats from China, Iran, and Russia, for a substantial increase in the defense budget, another harsh reality that few voters are willing to face. Additionally, true reform of the country’s budget-busting entitlement programs remains an untouchable “third rail” of American politics, as President George W. Bush learned during his second term in office.

Even as the deficit increases due to the ever-growing gap between domestic spending and tax revenues, the real value of people’s earnings and savings continues to be taxed away, less visibly or “nominally,” but no less “effectually,” through inflation. But here it is relevant to consider the alternative that political philosophers inspired by Machiavelli—most notably, Locke, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith—proposed as a way to enable people to enjoy a continually increasing standard of living that does not depend on either foreign conquest or endless government handouts: emancipate the economy from governmental restrictions on people’s opportunity to improve their standard of living by abolishing regulations of prices, wages, and interest rates, along with high tariffs, as well as eliminating unnecessary regulations that obstruct business startups and erect high barriers to entry for various professions (such as what some states have imposed on hair braiding and interior decorating). With the liberation of peaceful, honest labor and investment motivated by acquisitiveness that’s not cabined by undue legal restraint and moral and religious opprobrium or envy—in other words, free enterprise—politics is no longer a zero-sum game, as it would be if based on conquest.

As economic historian Deirdre McCloskey has documented in the remarkable Bourgeois trilogy, the system of economic freedom indirectly encouraged by Machiavelli has engendered a monumental improvement in ordinary people’s standard of living in much of the world beginning in the early nineteenth century. Its benefits were made manifest more recently in the United States thanks to the economic booms that the country enjoyed under the tax reductions and reforms that Presidents Reagan and Trump enacted with the support of Congress.

Alas, there are growing signs of a retreat from the policies of economic freedom in both parties: advocacy of tariff increases, taxing non-realized assets as “capital gains,” and government guarantees of “fair” prices and prosecution of “price gougers”—the latter two particularly reminiscent of the policies that kept medieval Europe poor (with the exception of kings and aristocrats) and added to the oppressive power of governments. As has often been observed, in modern-day politics the extremes tend to meet—witness the growing agreement between “NatCons” like J.D. Vance and admirers of socialism like his Democratic counterpart Tim Walz as well as Bernie Sanders.

Machiavelli is the rarely-recognized originator of the revolution in political philosophy that brought about the modern liberal, commercial republic, as Harvey Mansfield argues in Machiavelli’s Effectual Truth: Creating the Modern World. But the sometimes harsh lessons he taught—for example, reducing crime requires effective law enforcement rather than de-policing; preserving a nation’s freedom requires making military preparedness its top priority; excessive governmental “liberality” ultimately impoverishes a country (except for “the few” insiders); understanding that the “morality” of a policy goes beyond outward appearances (soaking the rich out of envy)—are ones that continually need to be relearned, since they sometimes go against people’s “instinctive” feelings, as well as the ambitions of demagogic leaders. The authors of the Constitution well understood these lessons, albeit through the medium of the Florentine’s more rhetorically restrained successors.

David Lewis Schaefer is Professor of Political Science at College of the Holy Cross

The American Mind is a publication of the Claremont Institute, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to restoring the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. Interested in supporting our work? Gifts to the Claremont Institute are tax-deductible.

Blanket Of Darkness Is Falling

 

A Blanket Of Darkness Is Falling Over The West

Armando Simón, Issues and Insights 

From Sweden and Germany, to Australia and New Zealand, to France and Finland, to America and Canada, to Armenia and Italy, to Britain and Ireland, a network of censorship has been developing and steadily solidifying. Censorship has even been imposed on scientists. Ironically, this blanket of darkness has occurred in those countries with the longest tradition of freedom, specifically of freedom of speech, assembly and of writing. Soon, the peoples of those countries will have to resort to samizdat.

When Musk took over Twitter and exposed the systematic censorship apparatus within the organization, he also revealed that part of the censorship was being carried out at the request of the Biden regime (Facebook likewise agreed to impose censorship). By doing so, he opened the window to what was, in fact, a governmental conspiracy to establish censorship, thereby ironically putting an end to the automatic dismissal of “conspiracy theories” for those persons who could not, or would not, connect the dots.

He also fired the vermin who were carrying out the censorship.

Leftists in the Biden regime were not happy. The White House is “keeping an eye” on Musk and X, and pseudo-President Biden has spoken out against Musk. In retaliation, the FTC was ordered to harass Musk. One would expect that the American media would support Musk, but the reverse is the case. Except for one.

By exposing to the light of day the existence this conspiratorial censorship and allowing X to become a truly free speech zone, he infuriated the totalitarian elites. He further infuriated the overseas elites that relied on censorship over their own countries in order to suppress views and facts anathema to their ideology. Recently, the EU bureaucrats demanded Elon Musk not to broadcast a simple conversation between him and Donald Trump. This was followed by the Brazilian regime going after X for revealing a conspiracy to institute censorship by the Supreme Court in that country and its demand to impose censorship of views and facts.

On top of that, Musk condemned the imposition of censorship in Canada.

And he continues to give the middle finger to the elites.

And leftists continue to argue that Musk be arrested for promoting free speech.

But this is not about Elon Musk. He is simply the most visible example of a sickening pattern of suppression occurring around the world. Musk is noteworthy because he is one of the few well-known individuals who consistently spits in the eye of the totalitarians and has the means to resist them.

But most inoffensive persons are not famous, nor do they have the substantial resources to prevent being crushed under the heel of these totalitarians, though many are brave and defiant while others grovel and apologize for having offended. And though I would dearly like to detail the victims’ plight (partly because their ordeal has been censored), I will instead shine the light on the politicians who demand censorship, using either euphemisms or obfuscating language.

I must momentarily digress. Coming from a scientific background, I retain an incurable habit of collecting data, and I am herewith presenting facts, aka, data. Now, data by its very nature is tedious, but absolutely vital in any endeavor. Why do so here? Because writing or speaking in sympathetic outlets, leftists have shamelessly denied that conspiracies exist, that further proclaimed electoral fraud is misinformation,that there is no racial discrimination against whites or Asians through affirmative action, illegal aliens don’t vote in elections, there is no media bias, that schools are not engaged in indoctrination or perversions, that Donald Trump was not shot but was staged, etc. My writing an equally grandiose essay disputing their denial can only lead to back and forth. But facts are facts. Data is data. And here is the data. It is a long, admittedly tedious, list of politicians urging the dictatorial suppression of free speech in one way or another.

American Politicians Advocating Censorship

It is an undeniable fact that all politicians brazenly demanding censorship, or imposing it, have been liberals (aka, Democrats, leftists, etc.). None has been conservative or libertarian. The data speaks for itself. In America, the Democratic Party is the party of censorship (among other things). And it is important to note that the Democratic Party of today is radically different from what it once was; it now champions totalitarianism, and the change has resulted in several traditional Democrats leaving the party.

It is also a fact that condemnation of these demands, or acts, of censorship has not taken place in the mainstream media, which I refer to as the hivemind.

• In 1974, Joe Biden boasted that politicians could do away with the First Amendment if they wanted to do so.

• Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren demanded that internet social media platforms impose censorship on criticism of presidential candidate Kamala Harris. She also demanded Amazon suppress the book “The Truth About COVID-19” by Drs. Mercola and Cummins.

• Rep. Frederica Wilson expressed her desire to censor and prosecute anyone who makes fun of Congress.

• Rep.  John Yarmuth called for banning teens from wearing MAGA caps.

• Adam Schiff with other Democrats introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the “Citizens United” decision, which was a historical free-speech victory. On a different occasion in a hearing in the Capitol, testimony was heard about the Biden administration’s extensive censorship via surrogates. Schiff and other Democrats claimed there was no censorship, then tried to remove from the record testimony given, i.e., censorship. A report was finalized and published on the weaponization of the government against its citizens. The mainstream media ignored it.

• And not content with that, Schiff wants Google to suppress “misogynistic” content.

• David Chipman was Biden’s pick to head the ATF. In 2019, he stated, “The frustration is in the United States the freedom of speech and to say things is [sic] largely cannot be regulated.” Republicans blocked his nomination.

• The Biden administration told Facebook to suppress conservatives on its website, and Facebook complied. It also told the agency to suppress COVID memes, especially funny ones, and Tucker Carlson. Jokes were suppressed (historically speaking, in all totalitarian regimes comedy/humor is taboo). COCID “misinformation” was likewise suppressed — though in the end, the “misinformation” was correct. Prior to the above, the Biden campaign asked Facebook to take down ads from the Trump re-election campaign of 2020. Later in 2024, Zuckerberg expressed regret in participating in suppressing information.

• Closely related to the topic at hand, Rep. Sean Maloney stated that religious liberty is a “bogus term” that serves as a “pretext for discrimination.”

• Apparently taking a page from the UK censorship, Michigan Democrats passed a law that punishes anyone using “hate speech.”

• Minnesota’s and Tim Walz’s prosecutor, Keith Ellison, applauded Brazil’s censorship of X. He also demanded that Amazon stop selling books from politically incorrect organizations and individuals.

• NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher complained the First Amendment makes it “tricky” to censor “disinformation” and “the influence peddlers” who spread it.

• A Democrat in the White House came up with the idea of a Disinformation Ministry within the Department of Homeland Security, which was so obvious in-your-face-1984 it was immediately canceled.

• Hillary Clinton wants everyone who voted for Trump to be put in re-education camps where they will be trained to censor their minds. The CNN reporter interviewing her nodded in approval. In another interview, she condemned Facebook for not censoring more effectively. She appeared on MSNBC right after the second attempted assassination of Trump to spread the vile hate that led indirectly to the attempt. She also insisted that Americans who voice different views and facts from hers (aka, disinformation) should be put in jail.

• Huffington Post fired David Seaman for writing two articles questioning Hillary Clinton’s health. The articles were deleted.

• Congressional Democrats, particularly California Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, attempted to eliminate the weakest of the few conservative news outlets, One America News, for covering forbidden topics. But they did not stop there, they also went after Fox News. They wrote letters demanding advertisers stop funding these outlets with ads, thereby economically strangulating them out of existence.

• -Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., has expressed a desire to “regulate” (the euphemism liberals use for “censor”) all speech.

• Back to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg admitted the FBI pressured him to suppress any news of the pervert/traitor/drug addict Hunter Biden and his infamous laptop.

• Kamala Harris stated that Elon Musk should lose the privilege of free speech for allowing free speech.

• Al Gore complained that the fact people can choose of their own free will to get views and information from sources other than the approved ones is a threat to democracy.

• A Louisiana court case has shown that there is a consistent pattern of attempts by the Democratic administration to suppress viewpoints and facts.

• AOC took a break from condemning cows for farting long enough to imply in an interview that conservative speech should be banned because anything conservatives say is incitement to violence (which violence, mind you, has not occurred, unlike with Antifa, BLM, Act Up, etc.).

• Democratic mayors got together to compose an anti-free speech manifesto covered with syrupy sweet verbiage to disguise its intent. It specifically highlighted San Antonio Chick-fil-A hater Ron Nirenberg who passed laws against referring to COVID-19 as the Wuhan virus, ordering the local police to harass anyone who said those words. Anyway, Democrat states are passing laws attempting to hamstring internet communication.

• Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro — not Fidel Castro — introduced legislation in Congress forbidding anyone to refer to illegal aliens as “illegal aliens.” Which is what the Democrat city of New York did.

• Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, suggested banning Fox News from troops overseas. In other words, the troops should be subjected to censorship. Swalwell, meantime, was having a fling with a Chinese spy named, appropriately enough, Fang Fang.

• When Tucker Carlson obtained video footage of the January 6 intrusion of Congress and aired said footage (which contradicted part of the narrative) Sen. Schumer and others demanded Fox News to suppress it and/or fire Carlson. Carlson and Fox soon thereafter parted ways.

• CNN host Jake Tapper asked why doesn’t Facebook hire enough people to weed out the “Nazis” ahead of the 2024 election (in this context, “Nazis” refers to people trying to stop the onrushing totalitarian train and those who believe in freedom).

• Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced a bill that makes it a federal offense for white people to criticize blacks.

• “Rachel” Levine, a man pretending to be a woman, wants to eliminate any information that discourages children from sexual mutilation, preferring to instead promote it.

• Sen. Hirono wanted censorship of conservative outlets while claiming that there is no censorship of conservatives.

• Failed Democratic U.S. House candidate Pam Keith called the First Amendment, which protects freedom of assembly, worship, speech and press as a “cancer” in America.

• Vermont has seen several instances of suppressing messages, usually revolving around the sacred BLM and LGTBLMAO mob.

• House Democrats have expressed a desire to have “oversight” over Fox News editorials.

• Clinton’s former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, has written a book attacking free speech wrote an article for “The Guardian” damning Elon Musk for allowing free speech on X, and simultaneously called for Musk’s arrest.

• Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, well-known for putting tampons in schoolboys’ bathrooms, recently stated on this very issue, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, especially in our democracy.”

• Perpetual failure Beto O’Rourke referred to Breitbart News, Fox News, and Sinclair News as terrorist organizations for broadcasting or publishing news and views he did not approve of. At one time, there was a lot of hype over the man during his many runs for office, but as one sign pointed out, he was “A fake Mexican, but a real pendejo.” No matter. As consolation, he was immediately given a teaching job at Texas State University.

There are many, many more instances of liberals in America demanding censorship in one way or another while giving ample justifications for their desired oppression, whether the subject of contention is electoral fraud, the COVID farce, sexual mutilation, or illegal immigration. The most frequent acts of censorship are, ironically, in universities. I have collected hundreds and hundreds of such instances to perhaps be listed another time. Intellectuals have given convoluted arguments as to why voting is a danger to democracy.

As can be seen, the totalitarian virus has spread unchecked. It has spread to such a degree that some Americans are demanding the Constitution should be trashed, the Supreme Court has got to be purged, and, that elections are a threat to democracy. And, yes, they are Democrats.

Twenty years ago, if anyone had voiced a desire for dictatorial powers as the above, the repercussions would have been debilitating for the would-be commissar, but we have now been desensitized to such obscenities.

Fortunately, the Constitution was engineered to protect the public from people like the Democrats.

Armando Simón is a trilingual native of Cuba with degrees in history and psychology. He is the author of “When Evolution Stops,” “The U,” and “Goodbye America. It Was Great While it Lasted.”

Progressives Thrive on Deceit

 

Progressives Thrive on Deceit

Kenin M. Spivak, The American Mind 

Conservatives must know their enemy and respond accordingly.

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” – George Orwell, 1984

To remake America, progressives have centered on a strategy of rewriting history, distorting current events, changing language, and using false allegations of disinformation, malinformation (facts progressives believe are presented out of context), and racism to censor and suppress centrists and conservatives.

By undermining confidence in American values, progressives have considerably advanced their efforts. They have controlled the White House and at least one house of Congress for 12 of the last 16 years, and the Supreme Court for nearly all of the last 70 years. Almost all major media outlets and reporters are in lockstep with progressive goals, lies, and omissions. Most report only about events and views that benefit the progressive agenda, and mischaracterize or suppress news, information, and opinions that may impede it. Progressives also control most federal agencies, many state agencies, leading universities, school boards, professional organizations such as the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association, most leading think tanks, and many corporate boards.

As the COVID pandemic raged, progressives spoke hopefully of a new world order in which experts would tell us how to live. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, often refer to this chaos as the “rules-based international order.” They and other progressives, including Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, see the U.S. as just one among many countries. That is why they oppose immigration controls, support global compacts, subordinate the United States to the United Nations, and believe the U.S. can use economic or military power only when supported by an international coalition.

In a recent article for RealClearPolicy about progressives’ crude ad hominem attacks on conservatives, I explained that progressive dogma is a fierce, culturally Marxist philosophy that: (1) demands all policies, resources, and opportunities be allocated in accordance with a benighted view of oppressors and victims centered on race, sex, and sexual orientation; (2) believes children are wards of the state to be indoctrinated by educators, while physically cared for by parents; (3) represses religion for being what Karl Marx described as “the opium of the people;” and (4) places a green agenda, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and the rights of criminals above free speech and assembly, the judicial process, and rights of petition. Progressives deny that ISIS and Hamas are terrorists, oppose Israel’s right of defense because Jews are “oppressors,” and believe children may select irreversible gender reassignment surgery without parental consent.

To achieve their goals, progressives must overcome deeply held American beliefs in individual freedom, merit, hard work, and pride in their country.

Curricula based on The 1619 Project, which “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery…at the very center of the United States’ national narrative,” Critical Race Theory (CRT), which teaches that all whites are guilty of bias, and Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria (ESG), which features progressive doctrine on DEI, climate change, and workers’ rights, has been infused into K-12 schools through action civics.

The National Association of Scholars has identified at least 45 state-level education standards in 25 states that incorporate these radical expressions of anti-American animus. Departments of education, accreditation agencies, university administrations, professional licensing organizations, and teachers unions mandate ideological training and DEI goals, and then coerce compliance as a condition of employment, promotion, and appointment to governing boards. Last year, the State Department announced that it will condition promotions and raises on an employee’s loyalty to DEI.

Eliminating or distorting teaching about Western civilization, American exceptionalism, and liberty leaves students uninformed about America’s unique story. An Echelon Insights poll highlights the cumulative impact of this indoctrination. Sixty-six percent of high schoolers viewed the U.S. as exceptional and unique, compared to 47% of college students; 63% of high-schoolers were proud of the U.S., compared to 40% of college students; and 58% of high-schoolers were patriotic, compared to just 35% of college students.

Concurrently, progressives are remaking the acceptable lexicon. They corrupt language and norms to deprive us of the ability to express nuance and understand distinctions.

Leading institutions, including government agencies, professional organizations, and universities, proclaim that our language is replete with hidden racism and genderism that must be cleansed with a new vocabulary featuring ideologically-laden phrases. Among the words that trouble the American Medical Association are “disadvantaged,” “equality,” and “disparities.” The politically acceptable terms are “historically and intentionally excluded,” “equity,” and “inequities.” Similarly, “ex-con” or “felon” are to be replaced with “returning citizen” or “persons with a history of incarceration,” and “fairness” with “social justice.”

“Illegal alien,” the term used in federal law for those who enter the U.S. without proper visas or overstay their visas, first became “undocumented alien” and then “non-citizens,” who somehow deserve all benefits to which citizens are entitled.

The American Dream of “equality” is replaced by “equity.” Instead of seeking fair opportunities, we are to seek outcomes in which so-called marginalized minorities receive benefits at least in proportion to their percentage of the relevant population. According to Ibram X. Kendi, if a person embraces DEI and allocates opportunities by race, he is “anti-racist;” otherwise, he is racist. Whites cannot be the victims of racism, because only members of marginalized minorities can be victims. Over the last several years, dictionary definitions of racism have been stealth edited to conform to this new paradigm.

“Infrastructure” has always meant roads, buildings, bridges, and the like. But progressives have implausibly expanded that term to include paid leave, child care, and caregiving. They falsely described the Biden-Harris $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as an emergency COVID stimulus plan, even though 90% of the plan had nothing to do with COVID.

Contrary to the Associated Press’s adoption in 2015 of “they” as a singular pronoun, there are only two biological sexes, and an individual has never been a “they.” Just 0.6% of Americans identify as transgender. Yet, insisting there are only two sexes is now hate speech. Multiple professors have sued to retain the right to properly address their students. Columbia University threatens to terminate employees who don’t bow to the fiction that there are multiple genders, and the Biden-Harris Administration allows an “x” to be used as a gender on a passport.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s selection of three conservative Supreme Court justices, progressives advocated court packing by increasing the number of justices. They justified doing so by falsely asserting that Trump’s selection of justices based on their political leanings also was court packing. Dictionary.com changed its definition of court packing to “the practice of changing the number or composition of judges on a court, making it more favorable to particular goals or ideologies, and typically involving an increase in the number of seats on the court.” Here, “typically” supplants “always,” which is the threshold condition of court packing. Selecting justices based on their views is not court packing—it is what all presidents do. This is not mere semantics. This is a ploy intended to overcome the opposition of majorities of voters in both parties.

As progressives erase and change language, history, and values to create a foundation to change America’s way of life, they also corruptly fabricate, suppress, and misrepresent recent and current events to confuse voters, shield accountability for their failures, and disparage their opponents. The following is a list of recent political hoaxes promoted by progressive elected officials, bureaucrats, and major national media (my thanks to Breitbart News for identifying many of these):

• Russia Collusion Hoax
• Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is Russian Disinformation Hoax
• Biden Is Not Cognitively Impaired Hoax
• The Biden-Harris Administration Is Not Censoring Social Media Hoax
• Biden Is Not a Crook Hoax
• Project 2025 Hoax
• Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax
• Jussie Smollett Hoax
• Covington KKK Kids Hoax
• Very Fine People Hoax
• Drinking Bleach Hoax
• Seven-Hour Gap Hoax
• Russian Bounties to Taliban Hoax
• Trump Trashes Troops Hoax
• Policemen Killed on January 6 Protest Hoax
• Rittenhouse Hoax
• Eating While Black Hoax
• Border Agents Whipping Illegals Hoax
• NASCAR Noose Hoax
• The Georgia Jim Crow 2.0 Hoax
• COVID Lab Leak Theory Is Racist Hoax
• Biden Will Never Ban Gas Stoves Hoax
• COVID Deaths are Overcounted Is a Conspiracy Theory Hoax
• Mass Graves of Native Children in Canada Hoax
• Hamas Hospital Hoax
• The Alfa Bank Hoax

Hiding Biden’s cognitive impairment took dozens, if not hundreds, of staff, family, elected officials, and reporters. That hoax was revealed only when replacing Biden became imperative to defeat Trump. In lockstep, the progressive media complex abandoned its cover-up of Biden’s impairment and called for his replacement.

Harris’s and Tim Walz’s campaign became the second act of this hoax. With few exceptions, they refuse to discuss their records or beliefs, and falsely claim to have changed both. They willfully misstate Trump’s positions and falsely attribute to him sponsorship of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 (yet another hoax, as even USA Today and CNN have acknowledged).

A complicit media purports to fact check Trump, but seldom checks Harris or Walz. During the candidates’ debate last week, ABC’s moderators checked Trump in real time on six occasions (at least two of which were wrong), but never checked Harris, who repeatedly made false statements. Since then, a few mainstream media outlets have acknowledged some of Harris’s misstatements, though most give her the benefit of the doubt while blasting Trump for every imprecision or contentious assertion.

When the New Yorker’s fact checker, Susan Glasser, was caught pretending that Harris had never spoken in favor of taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for illegal aliens, rather than correct her article, she claimed that she intended to question “the political advisability of bringing up these things in a national debate.”

As Harris runs from her record, the media often scolds Republicans for pointing that out, or for tying her to the Biden-Harris Administration. That went too far even for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who explained that Harris has been a full partner in administration policies. And, last week, The New Republic reported that “much” of the new issues section on the Harris-Walz campaign website was lifted from Biden’s campaign website.

Though conservatives may win an occasional battle, there should be no illusions about the power and effectiveness of progressive deceptions, or the arc of recent history. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, and the strong consumer opposition to Bud Light’s woke capitalism, opponents of DEI won a few battles, but DEI is simply going underground with a name change. Some states have rolled back genital mutilation of children, men in girls’ sports, and CRT in schools, while other states and the Biden-Harris Administration have gone in the other direction.

More than 90 corporate leaders have endorsed Harris—who strongly supports DEI, reparations, increasing corporate taxes, taxing unearned income, censorship, and the full range of progressive policies. If she wins, the pendulum will swing strongly to progressive victories, as America moves ever-closer to an Orwellian dystopia.

Any conservative who believes that progressives have ethical limits is naive. If conservatives have any hope of changing course, Republicans will need to win the presidency, control of both houses of Congress, gubernatorial elections, and state legislatures. To do so in November, and then to keep winning, conservatives must understand the ruthlessness and entrenched power of progressives, and must respond with equal or superior tactics. Marquess of Queensberry rules won’t do.