As an atheist, wokism looks exactly like a religion to me, in fact I'm 100% convinced of it, and I believe it can be proved in court and labeled as such to get it out of the public schools. I wish someone would take up this tactic. One thing missing in the discussion is that Philosophy (and Psychology) used to be taught in public schools, and it appears to have been eradicated sometime around the 60's. Not learning universally applicable philosophical principals, not knowing how to think in a logical manner (and valuing not being a hypocrite), and not knowing how our own brains work and how are brains work can be used against us via well known propaganda techniques is what I have observed to have resulted in the dumbification of America in general, which is a prerequisite for the current state of this total nonsense in our schools. I honestly don't care about what adults do or believe, but brainwashing other people's kids like this is really despicable and has to stop asap.
Wokism looks like a cult to me; not a true religion. Philosophy is taught in public schools only it's colored the red of communism or some other Marxist idea, don't you think? "to educate a mans mind and not his morals is to educate a menace to society"
I agree with you but my understanding is that the legal precedents around defining religion in the US are idiosyncratic and it would be really difficult to just declare any transcendent, unfalsifiable belief system (which wokism obviously is) a religion.
Re: education, public schools are graduating kids who can’t read or do basic math. Expecting them to teach critical thinking and logical fallacies would be great, but I’m not exactly optimistic on that front
I agree that it would be a difficult case to make and certain things would need to fall into place, however, I think it's worth a try, just like what DeSantis is doing is worth a try.
Chad, since you are an atheist, I am curious how you would feel about Chris' point that "the separation of church and state was not to eliminate faith from public life, but to enable a greater pluralism and a flourishing of faith in public life"? This would inevitably mean a greater role for religiously shaped morality in state policies. How would you feel about that? Could you live with an increased role or even a privileged position for some form of Christian morality, if that was the only way to end wokeness?
I'm asking because I suspect this to be the case. It is inevitable that the state will favor some truth claims over others. Even a secular, liberal state is not immune to this: the claim that all metaphysical truth claims are equal is, itself, an atheistic truth claim that none of them are actually true. So, a reinvigorated religious element in American society would, by definition, result in truth claims being asserted in the public square that you personally would disagree with. As someone who rejects all religious claims, how would you feel about that?
In short, I agree with Chris' point and have no problem with Christian morals being taught in school. They were definitely taught where I went to school, although it didn't mean that students followed them which is a whole other discussion. I don't view Christian morals as inherently Christian, and it need not be important where the morals originated. You can teach kids/people that it's wrong to steal because you're doing harm to another (among many other reasons) without having to reference religion or God in any way. Same goes for the golden rule, don't judge a book by its cover, don't judge the masses based on the actions of a few, all lives matter, having personal integrity, ect. Your question was a little wordy, but I think this is what you were getting at. If not, feel free to give me a specific example as I do better commenting on something specific.
It was. I think a lot of the moral teachings you see as universal are actually based on Judeo-Christian cultural inertia though. For example, it is not obvious that stealing is or should be wrong. Apes steal from each other all the time. For that matter, apes kill the weak routinely. If man is just a smart ape (no creator), why would his moral code be any different than theirs? Why wouldn't he be governed by the law of the jungle -- might makes right? I think any idea of universal / natural law requires a transcendental source of some kind (even if, as you might say, that source is a shared delusion.)
Thanks for the feedback though. I really appreciate the perspective of someone who is looking for a moral order of some kind even sans god.
Think of what was traditional math, science, literature, and social studies ( that are not rooted in the mantras of systemic racism, gender fluidity and climate change) were and the fact that America is a great nation t-Those concepts are non-begotiable for any non-woke curriculum
Public education is not the place for brainwashing of young minds on pseudo empathetic values as systemic racism,, gender fluidity and climate change and the suppression of the ability to think and make up one's mind and to be trained in the basic disciplines of a civilized human being
"Empathy" as ideological imperative. Always the shell game of interpreting a common-sense word like empathy (which hardly anybody opposes in its common-sense meaning) with an ideological meaning, then accusing anyone who refuses to comply/disagrees of being opposed to the common-sense meaning of the word.
There is a world of difference between showing empathy to a person's predicament as opposed to refusing to accept an ideological statement that is devoid of a factual predicate
Unfortunately now, they’ve argued loudly that the facts are the cornerstone of their oppression. Speaking in accordance to the facts is considered harassment. I’m thinking pronouns here for example. This is the tyranny of fear and the enforcement of silence built into DEI training and how corporate compliance is forced. You’ll lose your job over a pronoun, even though being factually correct. In my opinion, principled people have been quickly trapped, and quite literally are being forced to lie.
The collapse of civil society and education have coincided with the dramatic growth of central government. I would argue that government has crowded out civil society and must ultimately shrink if civil society is to flourish.
We need to both USE existing gov't and shrink it, and both can be done at the same time. Both are conservative ventures. The Department of Education, for example, offers nothing for conservatives. Eliminating it would badly damage the left while granting conservatives in red states more leeway to use state gov't to fight wokism (or even to delegate that task to localities).
Liberals have the courage to defund crucial services -- even the police. Why don't conservatives have the courage to defund useless, counterproductive entities like DoE?
I agree. I am a baby boomer and 76 years of age born right after the end of World War II. My father was a cartographer in the army and took a job with the Army Map Service in Washington DC. The parents of virtually every one of my friends in suburban Fairfax county were government workers. In the 50s, the government would be considered extremely small high standards of today. Even that there would be periodic so-called RIFs; reduction in force. That is layoffs of government workers. The next Republican President of the United States, must re-initiate major reductions in force of the entire federal bureaucracy, both in Washington DC, and throughout the United States. This president should also encourage governors and legislators of the states to initiate major reductions, and their state bureaucracies. Government workers must not have the kind of security. They currently have once hired. They are almost guaranteed lifetime, employment, and the Republican president must also share with the citizens the huge savings accrued to the people by these so-called reductions, in force or layoffs. This should be coupled with significant decreases in federal taxation, with encouragement to reduce state taxation as well. As noted by others on this thread department, such as the department of education should be completely eliminated, and there should be no department head who believes his or her department should be increased, rather, it should become smaller and highly efficient and user friendly. Strict standards of hiring and competency must be enforced. Although the above are more like mechanical changes in government, and not ideological, I believe the majority of Americans will realize the advantage of getting government out of their life on a daily basis. Currently the counties around Washington DC are the wealthiest in the entire nation. I’d like someone to explain to me why that should be so.
"Red Rudi" coined the phrase "the long march through the institutions" but it was the basis for Antonio Gramsci's writings. Antonio Gramsci was the founder of the Italian Communist Party and was an associate of Vladimir Lenin. For the curious, the American professor who was a Marxist who spoke fondly of the Communist Manifesto, translated Gramsci's works into English, formed a Gramsci foundation and dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Gramsci was named Joseph Buttigieg. And, yes, he's the father of "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg. What a coinkydink.
If you have traditional values, you have to seriously think about where to live and educate your family . The Orthodox Jewish community realized decades ago that the best means of dealing with the secularizing trends in America was by living in strong communities with K-post graduate level Jewish and secular education, summer camps , encouragement of young marriages ,careful use of technology and avoidance of the worst excesses of contemporary pop culture. That kind of model may be of assistance together with educational models being developed by Hillsdale College and Mr. Rufo or in the lack of an alternative, homeschooling which may be the only available option but which has been shown to be a good educational model
Correct. Our first concern as parents is to raise our children in an environment that supports their flourishing. This might require us to make sacrifices along the lines of career, amenities, status, and other values. But it's worth it.
These days I am loathe to let a convo involving "Separation of Church and State" pass by without also noting some historical context that people divorce it from so they can employ it as a slogan:
1. Most colonies which became the first US states had established churches and/or religious tests for office when the Constitution was ratified, and these continued for decades after in some cases. So whatever you think "separation of church and state" means, it cannot mean "total, absolute mutual isolation of civil government and religion."
2. Following the point above, the 1st Amendment (which is the closest thing to the phrase "separation of church and state" in the actual language of the Constitution) was meant to keep the peace and avoid denominational warring between the newly christened states, which already had their own respective religious traditions and establishments. It was an expression of federalism, not an imposition of secularism.
3. You touch on this one a bit, but there was such an overwhelmingly Christian consensus underlying the design of the government that the intention and thrust of religious separation was never meant to adjudicate between, say, Marxism and Christianity. There was a baseline assumption of more overlap than not between the religious traditions present in America at the time. Such overlap is a distant memory in the postmodern era.
I struggle with the idea that some citizens believe freedom of religion means freedom from religion; so that my religious expression becomes their feeling of oppression. If I say God is good, I might be offending someone in earshot. It’s difficult to feel free when meaning is in the ear of the beholder and not in the intent of the speaker.
One of the vivid memories that I have of high school was my teacher’s explanation of why the First Amendment sanctioned continual government disrespect of religion. The main reason that I remember that is because the explanation seemed goofy to me. The explanation was that “respecting an establishment of religion” meant that no U.S. government at any level was allowed to have any respect for any aspect of religion. I failed to open a dictionary and see that “respecting” was a synonym for “about”.
Separation of church appears nowhere in the First Amendment, It is the judical interpretation applied to the clause of the First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of a church ala the Church of England.
It is always interesting to read your work, Christopher.
Re: the theological/political problem: Christianity among the populace provided a de-facto theology to the state, which has always been essentially atheist (deist). The state must have a theology, however - in fact, it always does. Atheism cannot serve that function - it is always essentially private (whether Epicurean or Machiavellian).
"Science" has been that (pseudo) theology, but cannot truly serve that function (being sub-lunary and merely addressing physical reality). The default has been private Christianity, which has now vaporized.
There is, as I know you understand, a void. Given our atheist/scientistic regime, which refuses religion, we are alone with that scientism, which cannot substitute for religion or fill the gap left by atheism. It is gnosticism which is arising in the void - in the public square - which traces back to the souls of the citizens. Gnosticism has - always has - a religious structure, and purports to provide wisdom or knowledge - gnosis - that true philosophy denies is possible.
We have lost the balance between religion, which addresses the mysteries at the endpoint of philosophy's enquiry into nature, and philosophy, which demands that its clear understandings of nature be respected by Faith.
Science is not a fundamental enquiry - it cannot and does not even propose to answer such questions. In fact, it does not even ask them - which is why true scientists refuse to discuss philosophical or religious questions as parts of science. Our lack of belief even in "nature" means that even the basis of science is evaporating in our understanding. We are left with magic, witchcraft, and pagan cosplay generally on one hand, and gnosticism-as-ideology on the other.
That is, we are left alone and afraid in the world, understanding nothing. Ideology begets fideism, not belief. The 20th C. shows this outcome, emphatically, and repeatedly. What we are witnessing is what we fear that we are witnessing - its happening, now.
Within the American system, state-level power and alternate institutions make sense. Ultimately, this leads to the problem of what to do about the Federal Government - the risk of totalitarian state violence - i.e. the imposition of ideological control via admin., tech., judiciary - and perhaps outright physical violence.
Dreaming of a true reunification means a restoration of belief. Such dreams are honorable, and worthy of respect. This has its short, medium and long-term aspects. One must know what such things should look like to bring them about.
Tommaso, I always appreciate your comments. Drop me a link to your Twitter handle if you use it; would like to follow you there as well.
Yes, the moral void is the problem—and woke ideology, whatever its faults, provides a solution that is compatible with the secular state. The more I think about these issues, the more I realize that Del Noce was a profound voice, many years ago, who spoke the truth about our predicament.
We are a bird flying with one wing—Science, without the other—Faith. Precarious situation.
You combine very serious enquiry with service to your country - a desperately needed combination.
I avoided Twitter for a long time, but have lately been reconsidering. I actually think that it would be a good fit for my species of comment - philosophical essays are major commitments, and I don't want to write at-length about everything worthy of attention. Sometimes an incisive comment is the best service to truth, and can be more valuable.
Thank you for your encouragement - I will let you know when I have it set up.
The institutional hegemony achieved by the Neo - Marxists has only borne the fruit of complete and total failure. Basically, they suck. Pretty obvious. The only question is how much damage will they do.
Right. This is where the phrase actually originated (not in out Constitution or the Bill of Rights), I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who corresponded with the Danbury Baptists and used it in his letter.
Yes, correct. Originally the letter was asking the government to stay out of church matters but it was twisted over the years to have the church stay out of government which is a grave misinterpretation of the correspondence.
Unfortunately, until very recently, the ACLU and SCOTUS following their advocacy, were employing the Jeffersonian interpretation of separation in a wide range of cases and issues to render the Free Exercise of Religion Clausae a clause with no real legal application and protection of free exercise of religion.
From the perspective of a Vietnamese, I am baffled by the American controversy surrounding school choice. In my country, we take it for granted that as long as you can afford it, you can send your kids to whatever school you find fitting for them. Unfortunately, due to the socialist nature of our polity, religious schools are banned there. But the idea of the state actively paying parents to send kids to schools of their choice is too good to be ignored, and I wish our country institutes that.
So true! Gone is the ability to pray in school or use the Bible as reference. I have another question regarding your talk. You mentioned that we are a democracy. Is that what you believe or is calling us a Republic too foreign to your audience ?
There are many threads that need to be teased apart here. I'll try. While I support school choice I'm tempted to give James Lindsay's POV some oxygen. If I can steelman him: the secondary bureaucracies that control credentialling or produce a credentialled class are so strong that most of the new schools will be de facto government/Neomarxist in structure. The best way to truncate statist wokism is to homeschool.
The Rufo/Desantis model of legally challenging intitutional wokism through courts has, if I'm reading the tweets correctly, failed to produce any institutional change in government run K-12 education (and will continue to fail?)
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1648500533316173831 'Lawsuits not viable. ' This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct: Opposing CRT in education could not be achieved within the instutions through forced legal reform but must be done relentlessly by parents themselves being overwhelmingly invested in education. Homeschooling being the antipod to public education.
So on one hand we have a bifurcation model and ideological reform is ground up parents rights activism, and on the other we have a top down court ordered legal reform, the later, if I'm understanding correctly, is proving to be legally diffuse/ineffective.
Are we going to continue putting our eggs in both baskets hoping to establish a legal/ideological detente in public institutions or are we going to invest more heavily in the Deanglis/Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) model?
I think I understand the synpsis in the OP. But we seem to be conceding that secularists won and can't be legally defeated even if we prove in courts that CRT is racism, judges don't mind anti-white or anti-asian racism.
Looking for clarification and this isn't my full time wheelhouse so please use kid gloves.
"This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct."
No, precisely the opposite. They argued that no new legislation was required to stop critical race theory-style scapegoating and discrimination. They said "just file a civil rights lawsuit using existing law." But that has proved insufficient—these are new, specific problems that require new, specific legislation to guide public education instruction. They were, and continue to be, dead wrong on this issue—and their diversion has proven to be exactly that: a diversion.
I think I misunderstood the tweet exchange you had with Lindsay. You seemed to admit the lawsuits filed challenging CRT in schools failed. Is that because the laws weren't robust/specific or because the courts didn't care ?!
The French/Kmele argument was that parents should file lawsuits using the Civil Rights Act and First Amendment provisions (existing law). My argument was that these laws were insufficient and not specific to the problem, which has been confirmed by the first round of lawsuits. This is why I've encouraged red states to pass specific anti-CRT laws.
Academics I know at colleges in Florida/Texas are upset by the new anti-DIE laws. On one hand, some are worried they'll be less competitive for federal grants since DIE is required for those grants (woke takeover of NIH is nearing completion, NSF was lost a decade plus ago, but has less money).
Hopefully if these laws pass, the state AGs will prep to sue the Feds (NIH/NSF/USDA/etc) if federal funding drops over the laws-- ideally they find a black female scientist with a compelling project who fails to get funding due to any prospective pushback, and use her case for this. The optics would be fantastic.
On the other hand, one key strength of these pending laws not present in prior ones is that they incentivize the rabid bureaucrats to flip anti-DIE. This will kill it institutionally. Administrators want that sweet, sweet state $$, so they'll appear to comply with any law if it gets them the $$. As long as the wokies are quiet with their proselytizing, the admin will leave them in peace. But the rabid bureaucrats who believe their noble gatekeeping/risk-aversion is all that keeps the university from being defunded will flip out over DIE activity. Then all it takes is anti-DIE people in the departments ratting out the DIE activities to the rabid bureaucrats.
Ok. Thanks. I'm still confused about what you were conceding in the argument with Lindsay. Regardless of the French/Foster position, I think what you were saying about the expensive and ineffective lawsuits was confusing. Also in the OP you seemed to indicate the DeAngelis model works most effectively creating parallel institutions, as opposed to moderating the existing ones. I can't be the only one confused about the dichotomy. At any rate thank you for clarifying
The problem is that the current progressive secular agenda is akin to religion but cannot be labeled as such. As a result, it can easily infiltrate public institutions without much challenge. In reality, its beliefs methods and demands for loyalty are more akin to religious fanaticism than most currently practices religions.
On parents making a difference - there are not enough parents who understand just how much their children are being subverted in schools. Even those who care hear too many diverging messages because the far left also controls most of the media outlets.
Lucy, it's true that many (most?) parents don't understand the degree of subversion in schools (public and, unfortunately, private as well). But we don't need a majority of parents onboard today to prevail. A significant minority, getting it right with various school ventures (HS, coops, micros), is all we really need. That minority can grow quickly and put the bad guys on their back foot.
The wokesters need a monopoly to win; we don't. Good and true ideas vanquish false, bad ideas in a lopsided way, maybe ten to one. Homeschoolers went from nothing to a significant minority totally on their own dime. Shifting funds from wokesters to real educators could have compounding results, relatively quickly. There's hope.
The home is primary, but we also need the school and the society to work with parents to transmit values. During the week, kids spend as much time at school as with their parents once they're in elementary school—those institutions have an obligation to help parents shape their children into good moral citizens.
No, homes are inadequate to keep those values alive now that there are significant government and NGO forces working to destroy them. Many schools are teaching that the US is not worthy of pride and that citizens should assign no value to being an American citizen.
I have two teenagers and, I will be honest, I am fighting an uphill battle to counter what they hear at school, on social media, and from friends, not to mention the rebellious stage/age that automatically disqualifies me as authority.
The solution is not to infuse Christianity into government. This would be akin to the very sin we accuse the radical left of – attempting to dismantle America’s long standing foundational principles. Instead, conservatives should work on: (1) a parallel system of lower and higher educational institutions (especially on the college level) that aren’t infused with radical agendas (school choice programs are excellent for that, as you point out); (2) continue fighting the welfare state which is largely responsible for deterioration of traditional family values; and (3) limit the growth of administrative agencies which consist of unelected officials implementing laws according to their personal agenda.
The problem is that state education is more or less a monopoly—90% of children in the US attend government schools. Conservatives cannot build a "parallel system" to this in a considerable way; they have to use the power of the legislature, which establishes the curriculum and funds the institutions with tax dollars, to shape education according to good ends.
Yes, but America’s foundational principles included Christian involvement in government. Many of the original states had established religions. Even Thomas Jefferson agreed to provide federal funds to a religious organization that ministered to an indigenous tribe.
At a personal level, in 1969, at the US Naval Academy, I, along with every other Midshipmen, was required to attend religious services. I used the option of being in a church party that attended a church in Annapolis. But the majority of Midshipmen lined up in formation in Tecumseh Court and marched to the Naval Academy Chapel. Their were two formations, an early one for Catholics, and a later formation for the Protestant non-denominational service. I had a Jewish friend, but I don’t know what he did. At the time we had classes on Saturday mornings.
A few years later, some court determined that mandatory chapel at our military academies was unconstitutional.
But government always makes truth claims. A secular, liberal government makes among the strongest truth claims, since the liberal notion that "all truth claims must be privatized" is itself an atheistic (or at least agnostic) claim that none of them are true.
So since government is going to assert a truth claim of some kind, would you prefer that claim be explicitly atheistic (and likely woke) or would you prefer that claim be based in some form of Judeo-Christian philosophy?
Judeo-Christian values inescapably played a role in the establishment of the US. However, explicitly non-religious rights are not at all likely to be woke. In fact the woke philosophy of today cuts directly against the philosophical "truth claims" of our funding fathers. I would like for our government to adhere to American founding principles that were propounded by political philosophers, not religious leaders, including:
that men have natural rights of life, liberty and property and the function of the government is to protect these
that legitimate government is in a social contract with a democratic society and has limited powers
that government must be established with separation of powers that provide checks and balances...
Unfortunately those claims "all men are created equal and endowed with rights" are premised on Man having a creator, which is a theological truth claim. Sans a creator, you're just a smart ape, and apes don't have rights. Patrick Deneen summarized this best in Why Liberalism Failed. Enlightenment liberalism relies on a monotheistic framework while simultaneously undermining the same.
To that end, wokeness actually fills a gaping (and intentional) hole in liberalism -- how to define right and wrong. Enlightenment liberalism avoids religious conflict by effectively privatizing morality, but no society can exist without some shared definition of "right" and "wrong". 1700 years of Judeo-Christian cultural inertia masked this hole for a couple of centuries, but we've burned through that now. Finally the 60's postmodernists detonated a truck bomb into the middle of that void and we've been living the the moral carnage even since.
I am a post-liberal because I think privatizing morality doesn't work; any such society implodes into anarchy or tribalism. I don't know what the answer is (yet), but we need some commonly agreed framework for deciding "right" and "wrong" or we will descend into a conflict between the woke and the ethno-nationalists (which are really just 2 sides of the same coin.)
Brian, I appreciate your pov, but it’ll be hard for us to convince one another in this forum. I think that non-religious people can be moral and religious people can be immoral. In the end, the only thing that matters in establishing a government is reliance on man’s fallibility and selfishness. Therefore - democracy, federalism, checks and balances, equality and free speech are iconic American principles adopted to safeguard the system from authoritarian takeover. If you want religious leaders, you can elect them. Our current problems with wokism stem not from lack of religion in government, but from the failure of private religious and charitable communities and families to give young people a feeling of purpose. The progressives worked diligently to fill that void and dominate educational institutions and the media, while the conservatives were still listening to talk radio. Lack of campaign finance reform, loyalty tests in both sides of the aisle and corruption is where the government is failing us. At this point, what we need is to build a coalition of religious and fiscal conservatives, libertarians, rational thinking atheists, patriotic immigrants and anyone else who is willing to stand up against the indoctrination of the radical left.
Careful with those “ruthless purge” ideas, lest you be mistaken for a Comrade 😉
Seriously, I appreciate where you’re coming from. That is why I am pushing the idea of alternatives to the current educational institutions. We need to give former liberal, centrist and conservative parents alternatives (especially in the Northeast) that teach about the fundamental American rights, economics that does not vilify capitalism, and actual critical thinking skills. Also, there is a real opportunity now for unifying groups that don’t agree on many issues but are equally opposed to progressive radicalism. Instead of our own brand of authoritarianism, we should put our differences temporarily aside and build political coalitions around one issue - stop the radicals from destroying a great country from within.
Kicking the dedicated termites out of the foundation beams of our institutions is not like the murders and show trials carried out by Stalin or Pol Pot
One important fact about the “separation of church and state” is that the phrase is not in the Constitution. The First Amendment includes the requirement that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. That was a prohibition against the federal government making any laws about an establishment of religion. The federal government could not make a law about an establishment of a national religion. Also, the federal government could not make any laws that might affect a religious establishment that existed in any state. The federal government could not make a law that would disestablish a state-established religion. Likewise, the federal government could not make a law that would establish a religion in any state. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, there were many states with established religions. Those established religions were never challenged by the federal government. Each state, over time, individually chose to disestablish its state religion.
On the other hand, the “free exercise” provision prohibited the federal government from interfering with anyone’s free exercise of religion. The Constitutional prohibitions were directed at Congress, because few people recognized the danger of the Court system usurping legislative powers.
Ironically, one of the Founders who appreciated the dangers of judicial usurpation was Thomas Jefferson, whose private opinion was used later by the Supreme Court to begin the destruction of religious liberty with unconstitutional dictates. That was another “long march”
This strikes me as similar to the larger approach/view espoused by Giorigia Miloni, no? Regardless, I think this is the correct way forward. It's a matter of finding the right balance between governmental oversight & individual liberty.
I'm not sure about Meloni, as I haven't been following closely. Unfortunately, it seems that the Italian political system is almost impervious to reform.
As an atheist, wokism looks exactly like a religion to me, in fact I'm 100% convinced of it, and I believe it can be proved in court and labeled as such to get it out of the public schools. I wish someone would take up this tactic. One thing missing in the discussion is that Philosophy (and Psychology) used to be taught in public schools, and it appears to have been eradicated sometime around the 60's. Not learning universally applicable philosophical principals, not knowing how to think in a logical manner (and valuing not being a hypocrite), and not knowing how our own brains work and how are brains work can be used against us via well known propaganda techniques is what I have observed to have resulted in the dumbification of America in general, which is a prerequisite for the current state of this total nonsense in our schools. I honestly don't care about what adults do or believe, but brainwashing other people's kids like this is really despicable and has to stop asap.
Wokism looks like a cult to me; not a true religion. Philosophy is taught in public schools only it's colored the red of communism or some other Marxist idea, don't you think? "to educate a mans mind and not his morals is to educate a menace to society"
I agree with you but my understanding is that the legal precedents around defining religion in the US are idiosyncratic and it would be really difficult to just declare any transcendent, unfalsifiable belief system (which wokism obviously is) a religion.
Re: education, public schools are graduating kids who can’t read or do basic math. Expecting them to teach critical thinking and logical fallacies would be great, but I’m not exactly optimistic on that front
Wokism basically evolved to not not look enough like a religion that it could get around America's separation of church and state.
I agree that it would be a difficult case to make and certain things would need to fall into place, however, I think it's worth a try, just like what DeSantis is doing is worth a try.
Chad, since you are an atheist, I am curious how you would feel about Chris' point that "the separation of church and state was not to eliminate faith from public life, but to enable a greater pluralism and a flourishing of faith in public life"? This would inevitably mean a greater role for religiously shaped morality in state policies. How would you feel about that? Could you live with an increased role or even a privileged position for some form of Christian morality, if that was the only way to end wokeness?
I'm asking because I suspect this to be the case. It is inevitable that the state will favor some truth claims over others. Even a secular, liberal state is not immune to this: the claim that all metaphysical truth claims are equal is, itself, an atheistic truth claim that none of them are actually true. So, a reinvigorated religious element in American society would, by definition, result in truth claims being asserted in the public square that you personally would disagree with. As someone who rejects all religious claims, how would you feel about that?
In short, I agree with Chris' point and have no problem with Christian morals being taught in school. They were definitely taught where I went to school, although it didn't mean that students followed them which is a whole other discussion. I don't view Christian morals as inherently Christian, and it need not be important where the morals originated. You can teach kids/people that it's wrong to steal because you're doing harm to another (among many other reasons) without having to reference religion or God in any way. Same goes for the golden rule, don't judge a book by its cover, don't judge the masses based on the actions of a few, all lives matter, having personal integrity, ect. Your question was a little wordy, but I think this is what you were getting at. If not, feel free to give me a specific example as I do better commenting on something specific.
It was. I think a lot of the moral teachings you see as universal are actually based on Judeo-Christian cultural inertia though. For example, it is not obvious that stealing is or should be wrong. Apes steal from each other all the time. For that matter, apes kill the weak routinely. If man is just a smart ape (no creator), why would his moral code be any different than theirs? Why wouldn't he be governed by the law of the jungle -- might makes right? I think any idea of universal / natural law requires a transcendental source of some kind (even if, as you might say, that source is a shared delusion.)
Thanks for the feedback though. I really appreciate the perspective of someone who is looking for a moral order of some kind even sans god.
For the betterment of this thread, I'm going to pretend you didn't just say any of that nonsense.
Every family that opts out of the public schools is sending a statement that they reject the mantras of the woke world.
I want to, and I want resources to do so, got any? Curricula especially
Is home-schooling an option? Involvement with teachers, PTA and school boards.....
Across many subjects (chemistry, finance, math...), The Life of Fred books are phenomenal. Stanley Schmidt is a genius of the first order:
https://www.christianbook.com/page/homeschool/math/life-of-fred?utm_source=bing&kw=life%20of%20fred&mt=e&dv=c&event=PPCSRC&p=1020037&cb_src=bing&cb_typ=search&cb_cmp=70217457&cb_adg=1989140382&cb_kyw=life%20of%20fred&msclkid=57e5fe35467a1cd7eb6f9a74ccbb09ba&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Homeschool&utm_term=life%20of%20fred&utm_content=life%20of%20fred
Got you covered on business, econ, and entrepreneurship (full disclosure: it's my company): https://www.middleschoolmba.com
Think of what was traditional math, science, literature, and social studies ( that are not rooted in the mantras of systemic racism, gender fluidity and climate change) were and the fact that America is a great nation t-Those concepts are non-begotiable for any non-woke curriculum
Public education is not the place for brainwashing of young minds on pseudo empathetic values as systemic racism,, gender fluidity and climate change and the suppression of the ability to think and make up one's mind and to be trained in the basic disciplines of a civilized human being
"Empathy" as ideological imperative. Always the shell game of interpreting a common-sense word like empathy (which hardly anybody opposes in its common-sense meaning) with an ideological meaning, then accusing anyone who refuses to comply/disagrees of being opposed to the common-sense meaning of the word.
Every time.
There is a world of difference between showing empathy to a person's predicament as opposed to refusing to accept an ideological statement that is devoid of a factual predicate
Unfortunately now, they’ve argued loudly that the facts are the cornerstone of their oppression. Speaking in accordance to the facts is considered harassment. I’m thinking pronouns here for example. This is the tyranny of fear and the enforcement of silence built into DEI training and how corporate compliance is forced. You’ll lose your job over a pronoun, even though being factually correct. In my opinion, principled people have been quickly trapped, and quite literally are being forced to lie.
This essay should be required reading for all high school students. Thank you Christopher.
The collapse of civil society and education have coincided with the dramatic growth of central government. I would argue that government has crowded out civil society and must ultimately shrink if civil society is to flourish.
We need to both USE existing gov't and shrink it, and both can be done at the same time. Both are conservative ventures. The Department of Education, for example, offers nothing for conservatives. Eliminating it would badly damage the left while granting conservatives in red states more leeway to use state gov't to fight wokism (or even to delegate that task to localities).
Liberals have the courage to defund crucial services -- even the police. Why don't conservatives have the courage to defund useless, counterproductive entities like DoE?
"We need to both USE existing gov't and shrink it, and both can be done at the same time." I agree with this completely. Well said.
I agree. I am a baby boomer and 76 years of age born right after the end of World War II. My father was a cartographer in the army and took a job with the Army Map Service in Washington DC. The parents of virtually every one of my friends in suburban Fairfax county were government workers. In the 50s, the government would be considered extremely small high standards of today. Even that there would be periodic so-called RIFs; reduction in force. That is layoffs of government workers. The next Republican President of the United States, must re-initiate major reductions in force of the entire federal bureaucracy, both in Washington DC, and throughout the United States. This president should also encourage governors and legislators of the states to initiate major reductions, and their state bureaucracies. Government workers must not have the kind of security. They currently have once hired. They are almost guaranteed lifetime, employment, and the Republican president must also share with the citizens the huge savings accrued to the people by these so-called reductions, in force or layoffs. This should be coupled with significant decreases in federal taxation, with encouragement to reduce state taxation as well. As noted by others on this thread department, such as the department of education should be completely eliminated, and there should be no department head who believes his or her department should be increased, rather, it should become smaller and highly efficient and user friendly. Strict standards of hiring and competency must be enforced. Although the above are more like mechanical changes in government, and not ideological, I believe the majority of Americans will realize the advantage of getting government out of their life on a daily basis. Currently the counties around Washington DC are the wealthiest in the entire nation. I’d like someone to explain to me why that should be so.
"Red Rudi" coined the phrase "the long march through the institutions" but it was the basis for Antonio Gramsci's writings. Antonio Gramsci was the founder of the Italian Communist Party and was an associate of Vladimir Lenin. For the curious, the American professor who was a Marxist who spoke fondly of the Communist Manifesto, translated Gramsci's works into English, formed a Gramsci foundation and dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Gramsci was named Joseph Buttigieg. And, yes, he's the father of "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg. What a coinkydink.
If you have traditional values, you have to seriously think about where to live and educate your family . The Orthodox Jewish community realized decades ago that the best means of dealing with the secularizing trends in America was by living in strong communities with K-post graduate level Jewish and secular education, summer camps , encouragement of young marriages ,careful use of technology and avoidance of the worst excesses of contemporary pop culture. That kind of model may be of assistance together with educational models being developed by Hillsdale College and Mr. Rufo or in the lack of an alternative, homeschooling which may be the only available option but which has been shown to be a good educational model
Correct. Our first concern as parents is to raise our children in an environment that supports their flourishing. This might require us to make sacrifices along the lines of career, amenities, status, and other values. But it's worth it.
These days I am loathe to let a convo involving "Separation of Church and State" pass by without also noting some historical context that people divorce it from so they can employ it as a slogan:
1. Most colonies which became the first US states had established churches and/or religious tests for office when the Constitution was ratified, and these continued for decades after in some cases. So whatever you think "separation of church and state" means, it cannot mean "total, absolute mutual isolation of civil government and religion."
2. Following the point above, the 1st Amendment (which is the closest thing to the phrase "separation of church and state" in the actual language of the Constitution) was meant to keep the peace and avoid denominational warring between the newly christened states, which already had their own respective religious traditions and establishments. It was an expression of federalism, not an imposition of secularism.
3. You touch on this one a bit, but there was such an overwhelmingly Christian consensus underlying the design of the government that the intention and thrust of religious separation was never meant to adjudicate between, say, Marxism and Christianity. There was a baseline assumption of more overlap than not between the religious traditions present in America at the time. Such overlap is a distant memory in the postmodern era.
The 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights also provides some context
I struggle with the idea that some citizens believe freedom of religion means freedom from religion; so that my religious expression becomes their feeling of oppression. If I say God is good, I might be offending someone in earshot. It’s difficult to feel free when meaning is in the ear of the beholder and not in the intent of the speaker.
Those frightened people are taking the anti-God “long march” on the next step. They are actually pretty powerful now.
Good summary!
One of the vivid memories that I have of high school was my teacher’s explanation of why the First Amendment sanctioned continual government disrespect of religion. The main reason that I remember that is because the explanation seemed goofy to me. The explanation was that “respecting an establishment of religion” meant that no U.S. government at any level was allowed to have any respect for any aspect of religion. I failed to open a dictionary and see that “respecting” was a synonym for “about”.
Yikes! Hope the same teacher wasn't in charge of the English lessons.
He was a good teacher. He was trying to fit the square peg of the SCOTUS usurpation into the round hole of the actual words of the First Amendment.
Separation of church appears nowhere in the First Amendment, It is the judical interpretation applied to the clause of the First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of a church ala the Church of England.
Also, people were afraid that the federal government would interfere with their right to establish a religion within their state
It is always interesting to read your work, Christopher.
Re: the theological/political problem: Christianity among the populace provided a de-facto theology to the state, which has always been essentially atheist (deist). The state must have a theology, however - in fact, it always does. Atheism cannot serve that function - it is always essentially private (whether Epicurean or Machiavellian).
"Science" has been that (pseudo) theology, but cannot truly serve that function (being sub-lunary and merely addressing physical reality). The default has been private Christianity, which has now vaporized.
There is, as I know you understand, a void. Given our atheist/scientistic regime, which refuses religion, we are alone with that scientism, which cannot substitute for religion or fill the gap left by atheism. It is gnosticism which is arising in the void - in the public square - which traces back to the souls of the citizens. Gnosticism has - always has - a religious structure, and purports to provide wisdom or knowledge - gnosis - that true philosophy denies is possible.
We have lost the balance between religion, which addresses the mysteries at the endpoint of philosophy's enquiry into nature, and philosophy, which demands that its clear understandings of nature be respected by Faith.
Science is not a fundamental enquiry - it cannot and does not even propose to answer such questions. In fact, it does not even ask them - which is why true scientists refuse to discuss philosophical or religious questions as parts of science. Our lack of belief even in "nature" means that even the basis of science is evaporating in our understanding. We are left with magic, witchcraft, and pagan cosplay generally on one hand, and gnosticism-as-ideology on the other.
That is, we are left alone and afraid in the world, understanding nothing. Ideology begets fideism, not belief. The 20th C. shows this outcome, emphatically, and repeatedly. What we are witnessing is what we fear that we are witnessing - its happening, now.
Within the American system, state-level power and alternate institutions make sense. Ultimately, this leads to the problem of what to do about the Federal Government - the risk of totalitarian state violence - i.e. the imposition of ideological control via admin., tech., judiciary - and perhaps outright physical violence.
Dreaming of a true reunification means a restoration of belief. Such dreams are honorable, and worthy of respect. This has its short, medium and long-term aspects. One must know what such things should look like to bring them about.
Tommaso, I always appreciate your comments. Drop me a link to your Twitter handle if you use it; would like to follow you there as well.
Yes, the moral void is the problem—and woke ideology, whatever its faults, provides a solution that is compatible with the secular state. The more I think about these issues, the more I realize that Del Noce was a profound voice, many years ago, who spoke the truth about our predicament.
We are a bird flying with one wing—Science, without the other—Faith. Precarious situation.
You combine very serious enquiry with service to your country - a desperately needed combination.
I avoided Twitter for a long time, but have lately been reconsidering. I actually think that it would be a good fit for my species of comment - philosophical essays are major commitments, and I don't want to write at-length about everything worthy of attention. Sometimes an incisive comment is the best service to truth, and can be more valuable.
Thank you for your encouragement - I will let you know when I have it set up.
A Presto, Sg.
Great!
Science can explain what but is incapable of explaining why
The fact/value problem, which only arises because we expect too much of science - which does what it does very well.
Science can only provide mechanistic analysis and solutions but is incapable of providing an answer to why certain events happen
Yes, and all science must be constantly questioned
And question itself!
The institutional hegemony achieved by the Neo - Marxists has only borne the fruit of complete and total failure. Basically, they suck. Pretty obvious. The only question is how much damage will they do.
Have you ever heard the Danbury Church decision? Explains how separation came about & how it was misinterpreted.
Right. This is where the phrase actually originated (not in out Constitution or the Bill of Rights), I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who corresponded with the Danbury Baptists and used it in his letter.
Yes, correct. Originally the letter was asking the government to stay out of church matters but it was twisted over the years to have the church stay out of government which is a grave misinterpretation of the correspondence.
Important distinction!
Unfortunately, until very recently, the ACLU and SCOTUS following their advocacy, were employing the Jeffersonian interpretation of separation in a wide range of cases and issues to render the Free Exercise of Religion Clausae a clause with no real legal application and protection of free exercise of religion.
Interesting. Thank you (and to Mr. Hoyle).
From the perspective of a Vietnamese, I am baffled by the American controversy surrounding school choice. In my country, we take it for granted that as long as you can afford it, you can send your kids to whatever school you find fitting for them. Unfortunately, due to the socialist nature of our polity, religious schools are banned there. But the idea of the state actively paying parents to send kids to schools of their choice is too good to be ignored, and I wish our country institutes that.
Interesting, thanks for the comment, Chuong!
So true! Gone is the ability to pray in school or use the Bible as reference. I have another question regarding your talk. You mentioned that we are a democracy. Is that what you believe or is calling us a Republic too foreign to your audience ?
Yes, technically we are a constitutional republic, but "democracy" is a shorthand, used by Tocqueville and others.
There are many threads that need to be teased apart here. I'll try. While I support school choice I'm tempted to give James Lindsay's POV some oxygen. If I can steelman him: the secondary bureaucracies that control credentialling or produce a credentialled class are so strong that most of the new schools will be de facto government/Neomarxist in structure. The best way to truncate statist wokism is to homeschool.
The Rufo/Desantis model of legally challenging intitutional wokism through courts has, if I'm reading the tweets correctly, failed to produce any institutional change in government run K-12 education (and will continue to fail?)
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1648500533316173831 'Lawsuits not viable. ' This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct: Opposing CRT in education could not be achieved within the instutions through forced legal reform but must be done relentlessly by parents themselves being overwhelmingly invested in education. Homeschooling being the antipod to public education.
So on one hand we have a bifurcation model and ideological reform is ground up parents rights activism, and on the other we have a top down court ordered legal reform, the later, if I'm understanding correctly, is proving to be legally diffuse/ineffective.
Are we going to continue putting our eggs in both baskets hoping to establish a legal/ideological detente in public institutions or are we going to invest more heavily in the Deanglis/Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) model?
I think I understand the synpsis in the OP. But we seem to be conceding that secularists won and can't be legally defeated even if we prove in courts that CRT is racism, judges don't mind anti-white or anti-asian racism.
Looking for clarification and this isn't my full time wheelhouse so please use kid gloves.
Respectfully,
"This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct."
No, precisely the opposite. They argued that no new legislation was required to stop critical race theory-style scapegoating and discrimination. They said "just file a civil rights lawsuit using existing law." But that has proved insufficient—these are new, specific problems that require new, specific legislation to guide public education instruction. They were, and continue to be, dead wrong on this issue—and their diversion has proven to be exactly that: a diversion.
I think I misunderstood the tweet exchange you had with Lindsay. You seemed to admit the lawsuits filed challenging CRT in schools failed. Is that because the laws weren't robust/specific or because the courts didn't care ?!
The French/Kmele argument was that parents should file lawsuits using the Civil Rights Act and First Amendment provisions (existing law). My argument was that these laws were insufficient and not specific to the problem, which has been confirmed by the first round of lawsuits. This is why I've encouraged red states to pass specific anti-CRT laws.
Academics I know at colleges in Florida/Texas are upset by the new anti-DIE laws. On one hand, some are worried they'll be less competitive for federal grants since DIE is required for those grants (woke takeover of NIH is nearing completion, NSF was lost a decade plus ago, but has less money).
Hopefully if these laws pass, the state AGs will prep to sue the Feds (NIH/NSF/USDA/etc) if federal funding drops over the laws-- ideally they find a black female scientist with a compelling project who fails to get funding due to any prospective pushback, and use her case for this. The optics would be fantastic.
On the other hand, one key strength of these pending laws not present in prior ones is that they incentivize the rabid bureaucrats to flip anti-DIE. This will kill it institutionally. Administrators want that sweet, sweet state $$, so they'll appear to comply with any law if it gets them the $$. As long as the wokies are quiet with their proselytizing, the admin will leave them in peace. But the rabid bureaucrats who believe their noble gatekeeping/risk-aversion is all that keeps the university from being defunded will flip out over DIE activity. Then all it takes is anti-DIE people in the departments ratting out the DIE activities to the rabid bureaucrats.
Ok. Thanks. I'm still confused about what you were conceding in the argument with Lindsay. Regardless of the French/Foster position, I think what you were saying about the expensive and ineffective lawsuits was confusing. Also in the OP you seemed to indicate the DeAngelis model works most effectively creating parallel institutions, as opposed to moderating the existing ones. I can't be the only one confused about the dichotomy. At any rate thank you for clarifying
The problem is that the current progressive secular agenda is akin to religion but cannot be labeled as such. As a result, it can easily infiltrate public institutions without much challenge. In reality, its beliefs methods and demands for loyalty are more akin to religious fanaticism than most currently practices religions.
On parents making a difference - there are not enough parents who understand just how much their children are being subverted in schools. Even those who care hear too many diverging messages because the far left also controls most of the media outlets.
Lucy, it's true that many (most?) parents don't understand the degree of subversion in schools (public and, unfortunately, private as well). But we don't need a majority of parents onboard today to prevail. A significant minority, getting it right with various school ventures (HS, coops, micros), is all we really need. That minority can grow quickly and put the bad guys on their back foot.
The wokesters need a monopoly to win; we don't. Good and true ideas vanquish false, bad ideas in a lopsided way, maybe ten to one. Homeschoolers went from nothing to a significant minority totally on their own dime. Shifting funds from wokesters to real educators could have compounding results, relatively quickly. There's hope.
Thank you for giving hope 😊
Yes, and a lot of parents were indoctrinated as children and in college
The home is the place for the transmission of moral values and pride and gratitude in being an American citizen,
The home is primary, but we also need the school and the society to work with parents to transmit values. During the week, kids spend as much time at school as with their parents once they're in elementary school—those institutions have an obligation to help parents shape their children into good moral citizens.
No, homes are inadequate to keep those values alive now that there are significant government and NGO forces working to destroy them. Many schools are teaching that the US is not worthy of pride and that citizens should assign no value to being an American citizen.
That's why the home has to work in tandem with a school that reinforces its values.
I have two teenagers and, I will be honest, I am fighting an uphill battle to counter what they hear at school, on social media, and from friends, not to mention the rebellious stage/age that automatically disqualifies me as authority.
It's difficult and they'll pretend that they don't hear you, but they're still listening. Keep strong!
The solution is not to infuse Christianity into government. This would be akin to the very sin we accuse the radical left of – attempting to dismantle America’s long standing foundational principles. Instead, conservatives should work on: (1) a parallel system of lower and higher educational institutions (especially on the college level) that aren’t infused with radical agendas (school choice programs are excellent for that, as you point out); (2) continue fighting the welfare state which is largely responsible for deterioration of traditional family values; and (3) limit the growth of administrative agencies which consist of unelected officials implementing laws according to their personal agenda.
The problem is that state education is more or less a monopoly—90% of children in the US attend government schools. Conservatives cannot build a "parallel system" to this in a considerable way; they have to use the power of the legislature, which establishes the curriculum and funds the institutions with tax dollars, to shape education according to good ends.
Yes, but America’s foundational principles included Christian involvement in government. Many of the original states had established religions. Even Thomas Jefferson agreed to provide federal funds to a religious organization that ministered to an indigenous tribe.
At a personal level, in 1969, at the US Naval Academy, I, along with every other Midshipmen, was required to attend religious services. I used the option of being in a church party that attended a church in Annapolis. But the majority of Midshipmen lined up in formation in Tecumseh Court and marched to the Naval Academy Chapel. Their were two formations, an early one for Catholics, and a later formation for the Protestant non-denominational service. I had a Jewish friend, but I don’t know what he did. At the time we had classes on Saturday mornings.
A few years later, some court determined that mandatory chapel at our military academies was unconstitutional.
But government always makes truth claims. A secular, liberal government makes among the strongest truth claims, since the liberal notion that "all truth claims must be privatized" is itself an atheistic (or at least agnostic) claim that none of them are true.
So since government is going to assert a truth claim of some kind, would you prefer that claim be explicitly atheistic (and likely woke) or would you prefer that claim be based in some form of Judeo-Christian philosophy?
Judeo-Christian values inescapably played a role in the establishment of the US. However, explicitly non-religious rights are not at all likely to be woke. In fact the woke philosophy of today cuts directly against the philosophical "truth claims" of our funding fathers. I would like for our government to adhere to American founding principles that were propounded by political philosophers, not religious leaders, including:
that men have natural rights of life, liberty and property and the function of the government is to protect these
that legitimate government is in a social contract with a democratic society and has limited powers
that government must be established with separation of powers that provide checks and balances...
Unfortunately those claims "all men are created equal and endowed with rights" are premised on Man having a creator, which is a theological truth claim. Sans a creator, you're just a smart ape, and apes don't have rights. Patrick Deneen summarized this best in Why Liberalism Failed. Enlightenment liberalism relies on a monotheistic framework while simultaneously undermining the same.
To that end, wokeness actually fills a gaping (and intentional) hole in liberalism -- how to define right and wrong. Enlightenment liberalism avoids religious conflict by effectively privatizing morality, but no society can exist without some shared definition of "right" and "wrong". 1700 years of Judeo-Christian cultural inertia masked this hole for a couple of centuries, but we've burned through that now. Finally the 60's postmodernists detonated a truck bomb into the middle of that void and we've been living the the moral carnage even since.
I am a post-liberal because I think privatizing morality doesn't work; any such society implodes into anarchy or tribalism. I don't know what the answer is (yet), but we need some commonly agreed framework for deciding "right" and "wrong" or we will descend into a conflict between the woke and the ethno-nationalists (which are really just 2 sides of the same coin.)
Brian, I appreciate your pov, but it’ll be hard for us to convince one another in this forum. I think that non-religious people can be moral and religious people can be immoral. In the end, the only thing that matters in establishing a government is reliance on man’s fallibility and selfishness. Therefore - democracy, federalism, checks and balances, equality and free speech are iconic American principles adopted to safeguard the system from authoritarian takeover. If you want religious leaders, you can elect them. Our current problems with wokism stem not from lack of religion in government, but from the failure of private religious and charitable communities and families to give young people a feeling of purpose. The progressives worked diligently to fill that void and dominate educational institutions and the media, while the conservatives were still listening to talk radio. Lack of campaign finance reform, loyalty tests in both sides of the aisle and corruption is where the government is failing us. At this point, what we need is to build a coalition of religious and fiscal conservatives, libertarians, rational thinking atheists, patriotic immigrants and anyone else who is willing to stand up against the indoctrination of the radical left.
Ironically, on all of that, you and I agree 100%.
Careful with those “ruthless purge” ideas, lest you be mistaken for a Comrade 😉
Seriously, I appreciate where you’re coming from. That is why I am pushing the idea of alternatives to the current educational institutions. We need to give former liberal, centrist and conservative parents alternatives (especially in the Northeast) that teach about the fundamental American rights, economics that does not vilify capitalism, and actual critical thinking skills. Also, there is a real opportunity now for unifying groups that don’t agree on many issues but are equally opposed to progressive radicalism. Instead of our own brand of authoritarianism, we should put our differences temporarily aside and build political coalitions around one issue - stop the radicals from destroying a great country from within.
Kicking the dedicated termites out of the foundation beams of our institutions is not like the murders and show trials carried out by Stalin or Pol Pot
One important fact about the “separation of church and state” is that the phrase is not in the Constitution. The First Amendment includes the requirement that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. That was a prohibition against the federal government making any laws about an establishment of religion. The federal government could not make a law about an establishment of a national religion. Also, the federal government could not make any laws that might affect a religious establishment that existed in any state. The federal government could not make a law that would disestablish a state-established religion. Likewise, the federal government could not make a law that would establish a religion in any state. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, there were many states with established religions. Those established religions were never challenged by the federal government. Each state, over time, individually chose to disestablish its state religion.
On the other hand, the “free exercise” provision prohibited the federal government from interfering with anyone’s free exercise of religion. The Constitutional prohibitions were directed at Congress, because few people recognized the danger of the Court system usurping legislative powers.
Ironically, one of the Founders who appreciated the dangers of judicial usurpation was Thomas Jefferson, whose private opinion was used later by the Supreme Court to begin the destruction of religious liberty with unconstitutional dictates. That was another “long march”
The problem is that the growth of the state has crowded out the functions of civil society, including religious institutions.
This strikes me as similar to the larger approach/view espoused by Giorigia Miloni, no? Regardless, I think this is the correct way forward. It's a matter of finding the right balance between governmental oversight & individual liberty.
I'm not sure about Meloni, as I haven't been following closely. Unfortunately, it seems that the Italian political system is almost impervious to reform.