Wow! You’ve thrown down the challenge. Good for you CF. For all the rational and thoughtful messaging coming from IDW contributors, there is definitely a disconnect and an aversion to taking action to confront all they know is abhorrent. It’s beyond disappointing. I look forward to more debates between you and IDW thinkers. The Jordan Peterson discussion was brilliant - after you threw out your challenge to him. Maybe McWhorter next?
Your example of McWhorter, whom I admire, reminds me of many friends and family who cling to the Democrat party. Some very good thinkers, but unable or unwilling to face the disconnect between their personal moral compass and the 180° differences with the Democrat party. It must be hard to admit, let alone confront , your own support /abdication of radical left ideologies that the Democrat leadership and supporting bureaucracy has created. Some seem to cling to one singular issue, like Pro-Choice, which drowns out all the other destructive positions of their party leadership.
My problem with his book was his belief that you can’t talk to the woke adherent because they can’t / won’t hear you so, don’t waste your time. While sometimes true, in masse that will not work and will lead to their continued march through our institutions.
This is the best thing polemic essay I've read/listened to in quite some time. It, along with the revelation in recent weeks that these growing and seemingly impenetrable DEI structures are largely Potemkin villages protected by paper tigers, gives me hope.
The problem with the IDW types is that they fundamentally believe that wokeism is simply just liberalism gone off the rails and their solution is to just turn the dial of liberalism back to the liberalism of the 80s and 90s. The problem with this solution is that wokeism and this obsession with gender/race is a result of liberalism, so it was always inevitable.
This is a crucial question: is wokeness the inevitable endpoint of liberalism? I'm not so sure, but I think it's a very important idea to consider. Has huge ramifications.
It's not. We lost real (classical) liberalism over the past 100 years. Liberalism requires that bad behavior/ideas (woke or otherwise) be punished by market forces. We no longer allow bad ideas/behavior to fail, instead we support and subsidize them. That's why woke flourished.
Many of the IDW are classical liberals who unfortunately believe in the myth of institutional neutrality. The truth about ideology within institutions is that there will always be a certain subset of values that are present within the institution that create a certain culture that pushes people in a certain direction (media, academia, etc.) The IDW types of the world didn’t have a problem in the past when it was their own values being pushed and being the cultural norm within the institutions, but now that the liberal revolution has gone too far they detest those same institutions (same principle applies to people such JK Rowling, Andrew Sullivan, and etc. who had no problem pushing left wing cultural revolutions when they supported them).
On a side note, I’m a fan of your work Mr. Rufo and I would highly suggest you sit down and talk to Auron MacIntyre/Curtis Yarvin and their views on institutional neutrality and the IDW characters.
If liberalism's descent to and wholesale rejection of "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" is non-negotiable with its most able defenders, then it seems to me that wokeness as an endpoint is a forgone conclusion.
Wokeness is an inevitability when you believe in blank slate and have given up on moderate reforms. 1990/2000s moderate liberalism still believed that moderate technocratic reforms would achieve desired end state.
Case in point, 90/00s liberalism declared that affirmative action would be unnecessary in 25 years because all of the racial achievement gaps would close by then. When it didn't things got radical.
It was the same thing with "class" and communism.
The fundamental problem is that blank slate isn't true and equality is impossible.
I think it's the result of "unchecked" liberalism. We need both conservative and liberal voices and the tension between the two to create a system that incorporates both and keeps either from overtaking the public square.
To riff off Marx, maybe this is "late stage liberalism." Maybe the paralysis Chris sees in the IDW is due to the internal contradictions inherent in its ideas.
The left's attitude is actually similar to Chris's: there's a problem - let's do something about it.
Of course the strategy is different. The basic strategy is "well, there are all these problems with inequality/oppression/exclusion. Problems that the classical liberals can't solve. We can solve them through undemocratic means by aggregating power in institutions, particularly educational ones." Of course it's dystopian, tyrannical social engineering at its core.
But it is "doing something" even though it's the wrong thing.
So what Chris is doing is not akin to classical liberalism, but more like what the Founding Fathers might have done transplanted to this situation: find what works to make a practical go of liberty for the foreseeable future. This is praxis, not theory.
The critics of liberalism are popularly called "liberals." Many of today's so-called "liberals" oppose liberalism to such an extreme degree that they have become illiberal, i.e., anti-liberal. I have written an article on my Substack to clear up the common confusion about liberal versus liberalism at https://2026.substack.com/p/liberal-vs-liberalism
The core idea of liberalism is the ability to choose your own way of life. It's assumed you will get neutrality in the law regardless where your were born or what form you were born. The implicit assumption is everyone is a blank slate in which they can create their own place in the world. This means the strictures of race, class, and sex has to be extinguished.
Liberalism is wrong, and it has always been wrong, but the strength of tradition and practicality has leveled its more radical presuppositions, until now.
Liberalism was massively useful when we transitioned from societies where 95%+ of the population were a rightless underclass to one with broad participation of the middle classes and the proper identification and unleashing of talented "new men".
Like everything else though it has diminishing returns and eventually works its way into negative ROI territory.
Exactly, wokeism (imo marxism repackaged with race war instead of class war) is worst in liberal strongholds: media, culture, academia, state bureaucracies. You cannot cut just a part of the cancer, you have to take it all out. I don't know why intellectuals always tend towards socialism and authoritarianism, it's almost like it's part of their genetic code!
Chris again you are right on the mark of where we need to be right now at this moment in time in America. I had this exact same debate with my sister last month.
We are libertarians and have been for over forty years. But. Over those years I have shifted my perspective, for practical purposes. I have come to realize that libertarianism not unlike Marxism is a utopian vision that will never be within reach.
I still have the philosophy of libertarianism in my heart,free markets, limited government and free social interactions.
The philosophy is not practical. And, today the threats against liberty are dire. It is has gone beyond philosophical discussions albeit how very important they are to problems we now face.
We have to become fearless and proudly make our arguments against Marxism known.
And just as important there are people across the world hoping we do fight for a free world.
I also believe in free markets, enterprise, innovation, and capitalism. But they must be balanced with faith, culture, family, and prudent limits. We are a little out of balance, in my opinion.
We're out of balance because we have nothing like a free market/capitalism. A reasonable ( not libertarian fantasy world) free market rewards culture, proper family and prudent limits (perhaps faith too).
We are a lot out of balance. This is the crux of the matter. Freedom and (self) restraint work together. You can’t have one without the other. Liberalism without “faith, culture, family, and prudent limits” (ie self restraint) will always drift toward Marxism/wokeism. As adults we ought to know this, except adults seem to have all but vanished.
I live in Florida so am quite aware of your political efforts. As a grassroots activist in the Republican Party of Florida I applaud your perspective and your dedication. And thank you so much for it
What the IDW had in common was mostly that they were intellectuals and academics. To start, you are self selecting people that neither understand politics (or the way the world really works for that matter) nor are willing to get their hands dirty. Plus, as public intellectuals, they cannot betray intellectual purity or they lose their standing. What Covid showed was that many of them (self described classical liberals or libertarians) never understood what liberty really meant, or just weren't that smart. That many still don't understand that you cannot have academic freedom under a DEI regime confirms that many just don't understand the world in which we are living. Lastly, true classical liberals and conservatives need to be allies in the fight against wokeness. Properly understood, our differences are minor and our goals nearly identical.
Excellent video, so much to be discussed here. I agree that the IDW has splintered, and I think it was mostly intended to be a diverse collection of thinkers, and I still like most of them, although Sam Harris really went off the deep end, I really can't respect him anymore. The others I still like, Bari Weiss has a good substack although she's one of these 'radical centrists' imo, which gets to the problem you are discussing.
I know others have discussed it and your video does a better job than most of diagnosing it. But there's a strand in American politics where people will aim to rise above the political fray; claim they don't like either party, etc. And that's a fair thing to say, you can think both parties are bad. It's not unlikely. The thing that they seem to miss is how unlikely it is that they are bad in the EXACT same proportion. That's hard for me to think. So you have to choose which is less bad, even if you think both are bad. But these people I think derive their influence from trying to maintain an image of being above the fray. Not realizing that if you do that, you are simply cementing the status quo. You cannot change it with that mindset, as you ably point out.
It's fair to criticize both parties—neither are perfect—but one must ultimately rank-order them. Which do you think is better in comparison to the other? And if you're "anti-woke," there is only one rational answer to that question.
I oppose the woke cult because I am not interested in living under the tyranny of an authoritarian cult. The woke hive is a pseudo-religious cult and the right wing fundamentalist Christian movement is exactly the same thing with older roots. The Republican Party is so dependent upon the votes of the latter group that the vast majority of male Republican politicians have to preach the beliefs of the fundamentalist Baptist Church to get elected.
The founders of our country knew from personal experience what happens when countries establish an official state religion, and that is why they included the separation of church and state in the Bill of Rights. Conservatives talk constantly about the Second Amendment and more recently about the First, but somehow that part about the separation of church and state is never mentioned.
The main problem with this country seems to be that too many people are unwilling to mind their own business. This has always been true of religious zealots.
Those of us who have worked all of our lives to make sure that all Americans are protected by our Constitution are unwilling to reverse direction. But now the chief threat is to the Constitution itself, because neither the woke nor the conservative Christians are committed to preserving it. This situation is not new in the history of the West. In past struggles the solution was not found by switching religions, it was found by creating freedom from the constraints of oppressive belief systems.
So, I disagree with Mr. Rufo's statement that "..if you're 'anti-woke', there is only one rational answer.' " At the present time there is in my opinion no existing answer. I support Gov. DeSantis despite his stance against women's reproductive rights, but I do not in any way regard him as a safe option.
"The main problem with this country seems to be that too many people are unwilling to mind their own business. This has always been true of religious zealots. "
So true!!!
After returning to the USA from living overseas for many years, this observation has been quite glaring for me. From my view, for far too many, being an American means that you are a leader by default therefore can make judgements about how other individuals and groups of people live (this applies to a new born as well as a developing nation). Rather than enjoy their freedom, liberty and pursuit of happiness, they invert those values and impose their will on others thinking that is what it means to exercise American values. At the core of this behavior is fear. Fear of not making it into heaven on the religious right, and fear of not exacting justice on those that wronged them during childhood on the woke left.
Chris R does it, and we are doing it here on this forum. We Americans are trying much too hard to tell others how to live their lives instead of living our own lives in pursuit of happiness with freedom and liberty. This singular idea is what the the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are built upon. Chris R is aiming all his energy on the high priority target of education reform. We can right this ship if we can teach the next generation how to live in the world and to share what it is the founding fathers had in mind for all of humanity. Which is to mind one's own business and enjoy life...
"fear of not exacting justice on those that wronged them during childhood on the woke left." This analysis precisely names a feeling I did not quite know how to describe about woke activists being so at war with authority. Their bitter rage and hatred of authority feels too intense and personal to be about "Systemic Racism." Also, there is such an excessive emphasis on "Trauma," especially among Gen Z and younger people. In my state the schools are required by the board of education to focus on the alleged trauma of students to the point that the schools sound more like treatment centers for mentally ill children than educational institutions. (What the youngest teachers in the school think of as a "safe space for marginalized youth to heal their trauma").
I am not so sure that these young people have actually been as traumatized as they imagine they have been, or want to claim to be, but they may be suffering from digital neglect. Their parents spent multiple hours per day on screens, on social media, on games. The adolescents now spend much more than their parents did, on their phones, on games.
During the riots in the summer of 2020, I observed that, at least in my city, most of the rioters were young white people, and the elite Democrats who enabled them were typically white people from the upper middle class and higher. I have been wondering how many of the young activists are literally the children of the woke elite.
These children have also been deprived of hope by the twisted woke postmodern philosophy they are taught. I do share the feeling they communicate, that our country is in deep trouble. We all need an infusion of hope. I feel most hopeful when I focus on what I can do to change the devolution of our society. I like Mr. Rufo's Substack because of the action focus. I need to also start finding a direction.
Unable to mind one’s business? Religious zealots? Sounds like wokeism to me. And perhaps “separation of church and state” isn’t mentioned because it’s not in the Constitution.
Actually, the First Amendment specifies that the U.S. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The context of the writing of these words was that the American colonists had immigrated from countries in Europe that had state religions, in which people were prohibited from practicing other religions, and in most cases prohibited from teaching beliefs and practices of the prohibited religions. The people were typically also coerced into attending the state-approved churches in a number of different ways, including giving the state religion the exclusive authority to certify whether a marriage or a birth was legitimate.
The state religions were a primary or the primary support of the civic part of the governments. They provided validation for the right of kings to rule, and the moral justification for wars the kings wanted to wage, and they preached against uprisings against the government.
What is of importance to me in the present context of our country is that beliefs and lifestyles that are clearly and explicitly associated with a nameable set of religions not be imposed on citizens who are not members of that religion. When a group of people are permitted to use governmental means to force their beliefs on other citizens, that is the equivalent of a state religion, at least in part. Of equal importance to me is that a cult that refuses to name itself also not be permitted to impose its beliefs and practices on American citizens. I think that furthermore there should be a way to get the woke to declare themselves as a religion or a political entity for legal purposes.
It is apparent to me that when conservatives care about an issue they discuss it a lot on media. Second Amendment concerns are an example. The topic of Republican Party politicians making a public display of their conformity to the beliefs and practices of fundamentalist Christian denominations does not receive nearly as much air time on any media I watch or read. I would venture to say that I have never seen or read in mainstream media a probing discussion among conservatives about how those behaviors comply with the spirit of the First Amendment. Those discussions might occur, but apparently not all that often.
I didn't say that conservatives are against the Constitution. I said that the issue of separation of church and state isn't mentioned. Woke activists and some Progressive Democrats do explicitly attack the U. S. Constitution, and have proposed that it should be rewritten. Regarding what the conservatives have or have not said in defense of the Bill of Rights, I have mostly heard a lot of airing of concerns about losing Second Amendment rights. I support their defense of the Second Amendment. I wish there had been a lot more concern on the part of conservatives all along about First Amendment rights and for that matter, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. Regarding the latter two amendments, both Democrats and Republicans have been actively and persistently engaged in show trials on TV, but the Democrats have been far worse in recent years. And regarding free speech, President Trump created a major stir by both calling attention to the incursions on our rights by the woke, and by practicing free speech constantly. I regard his stated emphasis on this subject and his behavior as refreshingly new, and not at all typical of conservative politicians.
Mar 6, 2023·edited Mar 6, 2023Liked by Christopher F. Rufo
My favorite part of what you did here, was to make me rethink what I write about. I need to push "what to do" as opposed to simply pointing out what the problems are. Thanks Chris.
Great article - I totally agree. I am a fan of all those folks you mention. But one key thing I think you overlooked is the financial benefit that many of those thinker/writers now get from being independent i.e. publishing on Substack. Stoking outrage (without action) is a proven moneymaker in publishing. To a certain extent, these thinkers/writers have benefitted greatly without action. I see glimmers of leadership every now and then but then they fade back to criticism only. And why not? Once you have a growing monetized platform, it is very, very difficult to give that up to do proven and profitable process for something else. Kudos to you Mr. Rufo, for being a great thinker, writer and DO-ER! But please don't let your financial success on Substack make you go soft!
Yes, this is an interesting angle. But my assumption is that most people have their beliefs because they believe them, so I assume good faith until proven otherwise, rather than attribute beliefs immediately to financial incentives—although, of course, financial and audience incentives play a role for all of us. Not always easy to untangle.
I was thinking about this very point listening to a Michael Shellenberger podcast where he mentioned journalists being able to sustain independence through the techno-independent model and it immediately reminded me of portfolio managers whose portfolios grow to be quite large through successful management but who then come to realize that protecting the revenue stream attached to that success requires a change to winning by not losing and suddenly effectiveness is lost.
"It looks like choosing one of two political parties as your vehicle for political change and as a necessary operator in your theory of social, intellectual, cultural, and political change." I understand the necessity of using one of our two political parties (Republican) as a vehicle for change but given the nature of the vehicle there are risks associated with it. Trump in 2020 was desperate for something to bump him up in the polls and for that reason only he got a last-minute religious conversion and issued his executive order banning CRT in the federal government. Two Republican governors took your message to heart and proved they can win with it, but what did the GOP do in the midterms last year? You want to use the GOP as a vehicle for change, but the vehicle wants to use you for something else. The real fight in 2024 will be the Republican primaries.
Here is your PROBLEM. I can go along w/anti-DEI stuff from DeSantis. But will never give up my reproductive rights. So here I am, a willing anti-DEI voter, in the Majority on Reproductive Rights --- and you give me Ron DeSantis??!! That is the problem with your movement. Give us a Pro-Choice, Anti-DEI Republican. There is your winner. No need for your brain trust. That advice at no charge.
I think the Florida position on abortion—15-week ban—is politically moderate and in line with most European countries. I've personally grown more pro-life as I've gotten older, but a 15-ban is popular with most Americans.
I see recent news reports that he would sign a 6 week ban, no exceptions for rape and incest. A bridge to far for me to support this type of candidate. I hope you can influence him to moderate, or please, find a new candidate. Thank you.
What? Getting my info from Florida Newspapers and The Hill. He has to compete w/Mississippi, God help us. As I made clear, give me a solid pro choice candidate + sensible re: removing bad DEI policy. There is your 55% winner.
Yes, even Floridal newspapers and The Hill are usually trash.
You may not understand how the vast majority of political journalism works, so I will explain it: if you ever see unsubstantiated "reports" from anonymous sources about something that may or may not occur with an unknown probability at an undefined point in the future, please regard it with the same level of seriousness you would celeb gossip.
Stories get planted all the time to achieve various ends, most commonly in politics/government and business.
Think about it this way: Is DeSantis a dumb man? He is presidential material, and to prove his conservative bona fides he DeSantis passed the 15-week ban. 15-week bans are widely acceptable by most people in the US. What would he have to gain by pushing the subject further? You think he's going to tank his appeal to Independents and moderate Dems? He's a political beast, yes. But dumb, hell no.
I would bet money these are planted stories to make someone like YOU start to doubt him.
Politics is dirty and at times dangerous. Too many Americans make the mistake of believing they can take it all at face value.
Well, lots of politics and stories out there. How about you share your solid source for news?
I have a wide range of sources. My goodness, DeSantis has planned his ascent for decades. That is obvious. He will do whatever he needs to win. I am swing a voter. I suspect you are not. In DeSantis' administration, gone from 24 week ban to 15 week ban. Elections often hinge on swing voters. If he is lucky, Florida legislators will not put this on his desk. Or, maybe he worked it with them, not sign it to look "strong" in the face of pressure.
This article from the beginning of February reports that DeSantis encouraged the Florida legislature to come up with a 6 week ban, so that he could sign it. A 6 week ban is essentially a complete ban of abortions. Six weeks is usually the earliest women suspect they are pregnant, when they skip a period.
DeSantis is a moderate on reproductive rights as far as I understand. I believe Florida now has a longer allowance period than Europe (15 weeks in FL vs 13 weeks in Europe). I think this is the most reasonable approach on what is a contentious subject with valid arguments on both sides.
If you are in the camp that abortion should be allowed all the way through full term, then that is as much an extremism position as the no-abortion crowd. A republican candidate advocating for that is a sure loser.
Most Americans support protecting access to abortion with various limits on the age of the fetus. I personally support a limit of about 14 weeks of fetal age for elective abortions. Beyond that there are medical situations that should be resolved via consultation among the family and their medical care providers.
In response to the debates about abortion I have wandered into on Substack sites, I looked at some of the data on abortions on the CDC and the Guttmacher Institute site. I was concerned to see that there is a disproportionate number of women seeking abortions who are unmarried, living in poverty, with other children at home, and with lower than average years of education. A high percentage of the women are black. Planned Parenthood data on the Guttmacher site indicated that some of these women described a range of difficulties they had encountered when trying to get an abortion. Based on these reports it is clear to me that some women in lower socioeconomic circumstances do not have optimal resources for preventing unwanted pregnancies, and I think that this problem should be addressed via Medicaid and nonprofits like Planned Parenthood.
There IS NO consistent time-limit for abortions in Europe; they're all over the place, from being illegal in Poland except in cases of rape, incest or a risk to the health of the mother, to being legal for any reason for up to 28 weeks in Ukraine. It's legal to 24 weeks in the UK and Netherlands, to 20 weeks in Sweden and Iceland, etc.
"Reproductive rights" Well there is a right to LIFE ! Where does that start in your view of RIGHTS?
I make the comment because I believe you are talking about the right to an abortion that was struck down as Federal law and handed back to the invidudal States and their Citizens to solve. Which I believe hundreds of current Fedeal laws should be struck down and handed back to the States as was the intention of our founding documents IE The Constitution and it's intent.
The Constitution clearly states that the "right to life" applies to PERSONS. A zygote, blastocyst, embryo or early fetus is *not* considered a legal person. (If it were, pregnant women would be allowed to use the HOV lane, and people filing taxes could claim an embryo as a dependent.)
As the 14th Amendment clearly states, a person is a person *once they are born*. Read it for yourself:
"All persons BORN or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There was a question in my reply to Bee. Where does that start in your view of a right to life. I pose that question to you Mr. Robert H if you should care to answer and give us the knowledge you have . My reference to the Constitutuion was not meant to cover the question of abortion . I , and here it is again, stated that the question of abortion is now left to the States where it should be . The Constitution , I believe, does not give the Federal Gov. any of the powers that it has taken over the course of 200 + years . The Federal Gov. was given specific powers with any and all the rest of any powers to be were retained by the States and Citizens. Not to be taken by any means except a majority of States via Citizens Representatives and those Reps being voted into office
"The Constitution , I believe, does not give the Federal Gov. any of the powers that it has taken over the course of 200 + years . The Federal Gov. was given specific powers with any and all the rest of any powers to be were retained by the States and Citizens."
You are welcome to believe whatever you want, but the Legislature, Judiciary and Executive branches mostly disagree with that position for the past 200+ years, and increasingly so. And my guess is that there are plenty of inconsistencies in your position. Should the 2nd Amendment be a "states' rights" issue? If states wanted to ban the private possession of firearms, would you be fine with that, so long as it remained legal in *your* state? What about slavery? -or women's right to vote? -or polygamy?
Uniformity is necessary in many rights to prevent chaos, and prevent state legislatures and governors from getting up to mischief (see the debacles in the 2020 election, with some state legislatures and/or governors trying to present "alternative slates of electors" to the Congress).
The "states' rights" cause is an anachronism carried over from our Colonial past where say, Rhode Island could be a haven for religious nonconformists while Maryland had a Catholic majority. Pennsylvania could abolish slavery, and Virginia could be a haven for plantation owners working enslaved Africans to death. In 21st century America, the differences between states are trivial; cross the border between NY & NJ, WA & OR, or AZ & NM, and you won't even notice. So laws that vary between them just cause chaos. In Utah today, the age of consent is 16. Cross any of Utah's borders into a neighboring state, and it's 18. Think *that* hasn't been a cause of problems for quite a few people who believed they were doing something between consenting parties?!
Your position seems to be that the fed does have the power (rights) that I believe are not within their org. given positions via the Constitution. Your examples of , what you seem to be claiming I said they did not have those powers, are all covered under the Bill of rights . Which there fore are within the power of the fed to uphole and enforce. I never did express any one power the fed has taken that they are not entitled to. There are hundreds of laws enacted by the leg.s and signed by the Presidents that they are not entitled to. One major example has been the right to abortion . The fed via the supreme court took that right to say yes abortion is a right . It never was a fed s right to regulate abortion and now a Conservative majority of the supreme court struck down the fed.s taking control from the states over it. It is where it should be according to the Constitution . You can try and place it under any of the admendments , as they did, but it is not in the Constitution any place no matter how much you want to read it into any one of the admendments. There are other examples but you are a little bit of a waste of my time. Reply if you want but I shall move on . I will read what you have to post if you choose to . Thanks and have a nice day, week, month, year, life.
Maybe you shoulld get yourself a copy of the Federalist Papers and realy dig into the true meaning of the Constitution and Bill of Rights . You might have a little change of understanding of what is meant by Originality of the Constitution. Again have a nice day.
"Read it for yourself" . What an arrogrant person you must be. I have read the Constitution several times . I keep a copy , in fact several copies, handy . I have not made a effort to memorize it word for word. The Declaration of Independence is a good read . I have several copies of both at my desk. My opinion of a right to life is just that , my opinion. I made that clear when I said " I must add that I BELIEVE " not you must believe nor anyone else must believe . You arrogrant ____!
I must add also that I believe anyone willing to kill a baby before birth are evil except for the abortion of rape , incest and body & mental defects . Hard decisions for anyone to make in those case's but they should have the right to make it.
I'm not grasping how that's relevant. or somehow persuasive in supporting abortion.
Whether you had two children, or five ... and/ or aborted-killed others along the way is your personal history.
It is the barbaric practice of abortion - of killing children - that is on the table. You know, the human beings that had their future(s) of "personal autonomy" and "reproductive freedom" snuffed-out by their "mother."
If your version of personal autonomy this narrow-you are worse than Kendi and Hanna Nikole Jones combined. Your evangelism of personal truth-same as forcing DEI into education. Biblical bullying is not better than Marxist DEI. You can conduct YOURSELF in any way you see fit. My standing as a mother- -still impeccable.
BAM! Chris Rufo, you nailed it. I've been dismayed to see the "tap out" as you call it from so many great thinkers who seemed to be coming forward in our cause. These people consider themselves our intellectual "betters" - and they may well be. We need them now more than ever! Unfortnunately, we rank and file conservatives, God lovers, and even regular Republicans are just too low status in their world for them to publically line up with us. We put too much "stink" on them by association in the elite circles where they have dinner. The social fall, unfriending, (and ego deflation) is just too much for them to bear. I kind of get that. But they can no longer stand on the sidelines - not if they want freedom, liberty and a goverment ruling with the consent of the governed. I "left the left" and it was not easy for me to swallow my pride and admit I was wrong about things I banged on the table about. How must it be for them? Your piece lays it out perfectly. I'm increasing my support $. Keep up the great work.
Great and insightful analysis. I think many of us had almost given up that anyone would DO anything! The critique of what was happening was great, but something needed to be DONE.
I saw Rosey Grier on television as a little girl (born 1960) and it was a turning point for me. Here was this huge, pro football player working on his needlepoint. I had never seen a man doing needlepoint. I was a girl who was mostly interested in hands-on, typically male endeavors. I constantly had adults trying to correct me on what girls should be doing. Rosey taught me self-acceptance in that short tv piece. Why don't we present children with role models like RG? Perhaps there can be PSAs with men and women who do and don't conform to sex stereotypes. I can imagine 3 women in a PSA, one very feminine, one very butch and one neither very feminine or butch, but all getting along and talking to each other about being women. I can imagine 3 men, one a very effeminate male, one a very masculine tradesman and one man neither extreme, all talking to each other about their common maleness. I wrote RG (now a minister) on his webpage, asking him to step forward to help the children today to accept themselves. Telling children the T cult is bad is necessary, but we need the role models out there showing children to be self-accepting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0AZ_fKcWME
We need warriors like you, not pontificators like Harris. The left plays to win, we have to play that way too.
Amen. Take the fork in the road, and don't become impaled by indecision.
Wow! You’ve thrown down the challenge. Good for you CF. For all the rational and thoughtful messaging coming from IDW contributors, there is definitely a disconnect and an aversion to taking action to confront all they know is abhorrent. It’s beyond disappointing. I look forward to more debates between you and IDW thinkers. The Jordan Peterson discussion was brilliant - after you threw out your challenge to him. Maybe McWhorter next?
Your example of McWhorter, whom I admire, reminds me of many friends and family who cling to the Democrat party. Some very good thinkers, but unable or unwilling to face the disconnect between their personal moral compass and the 180° differences with the Democrat party. It must be hard to admit, let alone confront , your own support /abdication of radical left ideologies that the Democrat leadership and supporting bureaucracy has created. Some seem to cling to one singular issue, like Pro-Choice, which drowns out all the other destructive positions of their party leadership.
Thank you for being a warrior.
Yes, good idea. I would love to have a discussion with McWhorter about these issues. I admire him, even if I disagree with some of his points.
My problem with his book was his belief that you can’t talk to the woke adherent because they can’t / won’t hear you so, don’t waste your time. While sometimes true, in masse that will not work and will lead to their continued march through our institutions.
This is the best thing polemic essay I've read/listened to in quite some time. It, along with the revelation in recent weeks that these growing and seemingly impenetrable DEI structures are largely Potemkin villages protected by paper tigers, gives me hope.
Thank you!
The problem with the IDW types is that they fundamentally believe that wokeism is simply just liberalism gone off the rails and their solution is to just turn the dial of liberalism back to the liberalism of the 80s and 90s. The problem with this solution is that wokeism and this obsession with gender/race is a result of liberalism, so it was always inevitable.
This is a crucial question: is wokeness the inevitable endpoint of liberalism? I'm not so sure, but I think it's a very important idea to consider. Has huge ramifications.
It's not. We lost real (classical) liberalism over the past 100 years. Liberalism requires that bad behavior/ideas (woke or otherwise) be punished by market forces. We no longer allow bad ideas/behavior to fail, instead we support and subsidize them. That's why woke flourished.
Perhaps "classical liberalism" can only survive in a certain context and...
1) That context is not today
and/or
2) Classical liberalism canabalizes the context that makes it possible
Many of the IDW are classical liberals who unfortunately believe in the myth of institutional neutrality. The truth about ideology within institutions is that there will always be a certain subset of values that are present within the institution that create a certain culture that pushes people in a certain direction (media, academia, etc.) The IDW types of the world didn’t have a problem in the past when it was their own values being pushed and being the cultural norm within the institutions, but now that the liberal revolution has gone too far they detest those same institutions (same principle applies to people such JK Rowling, Andrew Sullivan, and etc. who had no problem pushing left wing cultural revolutions when they supported them).
On a side note, I’m a fan of your work Mr. Rufo and I would highly suggest you sit down and talk to Auron MacIntyre/Curtis Yarvin and their views on institutional neutrality and the IDW characters.
If liberalism's descent to and wholesale rejection of "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" is non-negotiable with its most able defenders, then it seems to me that wokeness as an endpoint is a forgone conclusion.
Wokeness is an inevitability when you believe in blank slate and have given up on moderate reforms. 1990/2000s moderate liberalism still believed that moderate technocratic reforms would achieve desired end state.
Case in point, 90/00s liberalism declared that affirmative action would be unnecessary in 25 years because all of the racial achievement gaps would close by then. When it didn't things got radical.
It was the same thing with "class" and communism.
The fundamental problem is that blank slate isn't true and equality is impossible.
I think it's the result of "unchecked" liberalism. We need both conservative and liberal voices and the tension between the two to create a system that incorporates both and keeps either from overtaking the public square.
To riff off Marx, maybe this is "late stage liberalism." Maybe the paralysis Chris sees in the IDW is due to the internal contradictions inherent in its ideas.
The left's attitude is actually similar to Chris's: there's a problem - let's do something about it.
Of course the strategy is different. The basic strategy is "well, there are all these problems with inequality/oppression/exclusion. Problems that the classical liberals can't solve. We can solve them through undemocratic means by aggregating power in institutions, particularly educational ones." Of course it's dystopian, tyrannical social engineering at its core.
But it is "doing something" even though it's the wrong thing.
So what Chris is doing is not akin to classical liberalism, but more like what the Founding Fathers might have done transplanted to this situation: find what works to make a practical go of liberty for the foreseeable future. This is praxis, not theory.
The critics of liberalism are popularly called "liberals." Many of today's so-called "liberals" oppose liberalism to such an extreme degree that they have become illiberal, i.e., anti-liberal. I have written an article on my Substack to clear up the common confusion about liberal versus liberalism at https://2026.substack.com/p/liberal-vs-liberalism
Not true. Gender Ideology is linked to CRT, neither are aligned with or conditions of liberalism.
The core idea of liberalism is the ability to choose your own way of life. It's assumed you will get neutrality in the law regardless where your were born or what form you were born. The implicit assumption is everyone is a blank slate in which they can create their own place in the world. This means the strictures of race, class, and sex has to be extinguished.
Liberalism is wrong, and it has always been wrong, but the strength of tradition and practicality has leveled its more radical presuppositions, until now.
I don't agree with your definition, or the black/white quality of logic.
Roger Scruton: Rousseau and the Origins of Liberalism: Study Guide https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1174&context=gov_fac_pubs
Liberalism was massively useful when we transitioned from societies where 95%+ of the population were a rightless underclass to one with broad participation of the middle classes and the proper identification and unleashing of talented "new men".
Like everything else though it has diminishing returns and eventually works its way into negative ROI territory.
Exactly, wokeism (imo marxism repackaged with race war instead of class war) is worst in liberal strongholds: media, culture, academia, state bureaucracies. You cannot cut just a part of the cancer, you have to take it all out. I don't know why intellectuals always tend towards socialism and authoritarianism, it's almost like it's part of their genetic code!
Chris again you are right on the mark of where we need to be right now at this moment in time in America. I had this exact same debate with my sister last month.
We are libertarians and have been for over forty years. But. Over those years I have shifted my perspective, for practical purposes. I have come to realize that libertarianism not unlike Marxism is a utopian vision that will never be within reach.
I still have the philosophy of libertarianism in my heart,free markets, limited government and free social interactions.
The philosophy is not practical. And, today the threats against liberty are dire. It is has gone beyond philosophical discussions albeit how very important they are to problems we now face.
We have to become fearless and proudly make our arguments against Marxism known.
And just as important there are people across the world hoping we do fight for a free world.
I also believe in free markets, enterprise, innovation, and capitalism. But they must be balanced with faith, culture, family, and prudent limits. We are a little out of balance, in my opinion.
We're out of balance because we have nothing like a free market/capitalism. A reasonable ( not libertarian fantasy world) free market rewards culture, proper family and prudent limits (perhaps faith too).
We are a lot out of balance. This is the crux of the matter. Freedom and (self) restraint work together. You can’t have one without the other. Liberalism without “faith, culture, family, and prudent limits” (ie self restraint) will always drift toward Marxism/wokeism. As adults we ought to know this, except adults seem to have all but vanished.
Faith? Novel solution. We just need to pray for more fishes and loaves, and we'll get it. Rufo has minted a whole new school of economics!
I live in Florida so am quite aware of your political efforts. As a grassroots activist in the Republican Party of Florida I applaud your perspective and your dedication. And thank you so much for it
You are the next gen, the idw was a start and you are leading the future.
What the IDW had in common was mostly that they were intellectuals and academics. To start, you are self selecting people that neither understand politics (or the way the world really works for that matter) nor are willing to get their hands dirty. Plus, as public intellectuals, they cannot betray intellectual purity or they lose their standing. What Covid showed was that many of them (self described classical liberals or libertarians) never understood what liberty really meant, or just weren't that smart. That many still don't understand that you cannot have academic freedom under a DEI regime confirms that many just don't understand the world in which we are living. Lastly, true classical liberals and conservatives need to be allies in the fight against wokeness. Properly understood, our differences are minor and our goals nearly identical.
This is going to become a much larger crunch as we go forward. DEI or no DEI? People will have to start putting their decisions out in public now.
Excellent video, so much to be discussed here. I agree that the IDW has splintered, and I think it was mostly intended to be a diverse collection of thinkers, and I still like most of them, although Sam Harris really went off the deep end, I really can't respect him anymore. The others I still like, Bari Weiss has a good substack although she's one of these 'radical centrists' imo, which gets to the problem you are discussing.
I know others have discussed it and your video does a better job than most of diagnosing it. But there's a strand in American politics where people will aim to rise above the political fray; claim they don't like either party, etc. And that's a fair thing to say, you can think both parties are bad. It's not unlikely. The thing that they seem to miss is how unlikely it is that they are bad in the EXACT same proportion. That's hard for me to think. So you have to choose which is less bad, even if you think both are bad. But these people I think derive their influence from trying to maintain an image of being above the fray. Not realizing that if you do that, you are simply cementing the status quo. You cannot change it with that mindset, as you ably point out.
It's fair to criticize both parties—neither are perfect—but one must ultimately rank-order them. Which do you think is better in comparison to the other? And if you're "anti-woke," there is only one rational answer to that question.
Yes, absolutely. It seems like a straightforward thing, I don't understand how more people don't understand it.
I oppose the woke cult because I am not interested in living under the tyranny of an authoritarian cult. The woke hive is a pseudo-religious cult and the right wing fundamentalist Christian movement is exactly the same thing with older roots. The Republican Party is so dependent upon the votes of the latter group that the vast majority of male Republican politicians have to preach the beliefs of the fundamentalist Baptist Church to get elected.
The founders of our country knew from personal experience what happens when countries establish an official state religion, and that is why they included the separation of church and state in the Bill of Rights. Conservatives talk constantly about the Second Amendment and more recently about the First, but somehow that part about the separation of church and state is never mentioned.
The main problem with this country seems to be that too many people are unwilling to mind their own business. This has always been true of religious zealots.
Those of us who have worked all of our lives to make sure that all Americans are protected by our Constitution are unwilling to reverse direction. But now the chief threat is to the Constitution itself, because neither the woke nor the conservative Christians are committed to preserving it. This situation is not new in the history of the West. In past struggles the solution was not found by switching religions, it was found by creating freedom from the constraints of oppressive belief systems.
So, I disagree with Mr. Rufo's statement that "..if you're 'anti-woke', there is only one rational answer.' " At the present time there is in my opinion no existing answer. I support Gov. DeSantis despite his stance against women's reproductive rights, but I do not in any way regard him as a safe option.
"The main problem with this country seems to be that too many people are unwilling to mind their own business. This has always been true of religious zealots. "
So true!!!
After returning to the USA from living overseas for many years, this observation has been quite glaring for me. From my view, for far too many, being an American means that you are a leader by default therefore can make judgements about how other individuals and groups of people live (this applies to a new born as well as a developing nation). Rather than enjoy their freedom, liberty and pursuit of happiness, they invert those values and impose their will on others thinking that is what it means to exercise American values. At the core of this behavior is fear. Fear of not making it into heaven on the religious right, and fear of not exacting justice on those that wronged them during childhood on the woke left.
Chris R does it, and we are doing it here on this forum. We Americans are trying much too hard to tell others how to live their lives instead of living our own lives in pursuit of happiness with freedom and liberty. This singular idea is what the the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are built upon. Chris R is aiming all his energy on the high priority target of education reform. We can right this ship if we can teach the next generation how to live in the world and to share what it is the founding fathers had in mind for all of humanity. Which is to mind one's own business and enjoy life...
Thank you, I appreciate your response!
"fear of not exacting justice on those that wronged them during childhood on the woke left." This analysis precisely names a feeling I did not quite know how to describe about woke activists being so at war with authority. Their bitter rage and hatred of authority feels too intense and personal to be about "Systemic Racism." Also, there is such an excessive emphasis on "Trauma," especially among Gen Z and younger people. In my state the schools are required by the board of education to focus on the alleged trauma of students to the point that the schools sound more like treatment centers for mentally ill children than educational institutions. (What the youngest teachers in the school think of as a "safe space for marginalized youth to heal their trauma").
I am not so sure that these young people have actually been as traumatized as they imagine they have been, or want to claim to be, but they may be suffering from digital neglect. Their parents spent multiple hours per day on screens, on social media, on games. The adolescents now spend much more than their parents did, on their phones, on games.
During the riots in the summer of 2020, I observed that, at least in my city, most of the rioters were young white people, and the elite Democrats who enabled them were typically white people from the upper middle class and higher. I have been wondering how many of the young activists are literally the children of the woke elite.
These children have also been deprived of hope by the twisted woke postmodern philosophy they are taught. I do share the feeling they communicate, that our country is in deep trouble. We all need an infusion of hope. I feel most hopeful when I focus on what I can do to change the devolution of our society. I like Mr. Rufo's Substack because of the action focus. I need to also start finding a direction.
What a ludicrous comment. That's what he's fighting AGAINST! His opponents are trying to control speech and thought and censor dissenting viewpoints.
Unable to mind one’s business? Religious zealots? Sounds like wokeism to me. And perhaps “separation of church and state” isn’t mentioned because it’s not in the Constitution.
Actually, the First Amendment specifies that the U.S. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The context of the writing of these words was that the American colonists had immigrated from countries in Europe that had state religions, in which people were prohibited from practicing other religions, and in most cases prohibited from teaching beliefs and practices of the prohibited religions. The people were typically also coerced into attending the state-approved churches in a number of different ways, including giving the state religion the exclusive authority to certify whether a marriage or a birth was legitimate.
The state religions were a primary or the primary support of the civic part of the governments. They provided validation for the right of kings to rule, and the moral justification for wars the kings wanted to wage, and they preached against uprisings against the government.
What is of importance to me in the present context of our country is that beliefs and lifestyles that are clearly and explicitly associated with a nameable set of religions not be imposed on citizens who are not members of that religion. When a group of people are permitted to use governmental means to force their beliefs on other citizens, that is the equivalent of a state religion, at least in part. Of equal importance to me is that a cult that refuses to name itself also not be permitted to impose its beliefs and practices on American citizens. I think that furthermore there should be a way to get the woke to declare themselves as a religion or a political entity for legal purposes.
It is apparent to me that when conservatives care about an issue they discuss it a lot on media. Second Amendment concerns are an example. The topic of Republican Party politicians making a public display of their conformity to the beliefs and practices of fundamentalist Christian denominations does not receive nearly as much air time on any media I watch or read. I would venture to say that I have never seen or read in mainstream media a probing discussion among conservatives about how those behaviors comply with the spirit of the First Amendment. Those discussions might occur, but apparently not all that often.
I don't see much evidence that the conservatives are against the constitution. You'd have to provide evidence for that claim.
I didn't say that conservatives are against the Constitution. I said that the issue of separation of church and state isn't mentioned. Woke activists and some Progressive Democrats do explicitly attack the U. S. Constitution, and have proposed that it should be rewritten. Regarding what the conservatives have or have not said in defense of the Bill of Rights, I have mostly heard a lot of airing of concerns about losing Second Amendment rights. I support their defense of the Second Amendment. I wish there had been a lot more concern on the part of conservatives all along about First Amendment rights and for that matter, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. Regarding the latter two amendments, both Democrats and Republicans have been actively and persistently engaged in show trials on TV, but the Democrats have been far worse in recent years. And regarding free speech, President Trump created a major stir by both calling attention to the incursions on our rights by the woke, and by practicing free speech constantly. I regard his stated emphasis on this subject and his behavior as refreshingly new, and not at all typical of conservative politicians.
My favorite part of what you did here, was to make me rethink what I write about. I need to push "what to do" as opposed to simply pointing out what the problems are. Thanks Chris.
Great article - I totally agree. I am a fan of all those folks you mention. But one key thing I think you overlooked is the financial benefit that many of those thinker/writers now get from being independent i.e. publishing on Substack. Stoking outrage (without action) is a proven moneymaker in publishing. To a certain extent, these thinkers/writers have benefitted greatly without action. I see glimmers of leadership every now and then but then they fade back to criticism only. And why not? Once you have a growing monetized platform, it is very, very difficult to give that up to do proven and profitable process for something else. Kudos to you Mr. Rufo, for being a great thinker, writer and DO-ER! But please don't let your financial success on Substack make you go soft!
Yes, this is an interesting angle. But my assumption is that most people have their beliefs because they believe them, so I assume good faith until proven otherwise, rather than attribute beliefs immediately to financial incentives—although, of course, financial and audience incentives play a role for all of us. Not always easy to untangle.
I was thinking about this very point listening to a Michael Shellenberger podcast where he mentioned journalists being able to sustain independence through the techno-independent model and it immediately reminded me of portfolio managers whose portfolios grow to be quite large through successful management but who then come to realize that protecting the revenue stream attached to that success requires a change to winning by not losing and suddenly effectiveness is lost.
"It looks like choosing one of two political parties as your vehicle for political change and as a necessary operator in your theory of social, intellectual, cultural, and political change." I understand the necessity of using one of our two political parties (Republican) as a vehicle for change but given the nature of the vehicle there are risks associated with it. Trump in 2020 was desperate for something to bump him up in the polls and for that reason only he got a last-minute religious conversion and issued his executive order banning CRT in the federal government. Two Republican governors took your message to heart and proved they can win with it, but what did the GOP do in the midterms last year? You want to use the GOP as a vehicle for change, but the vehicle wants to use you for something else. The real fight in 2024 will be the Republican primaries.
Yes, good point. Requires vigilance.
Precisely!
Here is your PROBLEM. I can go along w/anti-DEI stuff from DeSantis. But will never give up my reproductive rights. So here I am, a willing anti-DEI voter, in the Majority on Reproductive Rights --- and you give me Ron DeSantis??!! That is the problem with your movement. Give us a Pro-Choice, Anti-DEI Republican. There is your winner. No need for your brain trust. That advice at no charge.
I think the Florida position on abortion—15-week ban—is politically moderate and in line with most European countries. I've personally grown more pro-life as I've gotten older, but a 15-ban is popular with most Americans.
I see recent news reports that he would sign a 6 week ban, no exceptions for rape and incest. A bridge to far for me to support this type of candidate. I hope you can influence him to moderate, or please, find a new candidate. Thank you.
Well I see MSNBC has you all worked up
What? Getting my info from Florida Newspapers and The Hill. He has to compete w/Mississippi, God help us. As I made clear, give me a solid pro choice candidate + sensible re: removing bad DEI policy. There is your 55% winner.
Yes, even Floridal newspapers and The Hill are usually trash.
You may not understand how the vast majority of political journalism works, so I will explain it: if you ever see unsubstantiated "reports" from anonymous sources about something that may or may not occur with an unknown probability at an undefined point in the future, please regard it with the same level of seriousness you would celeb gossip.
Stories get planted all the time to achieve various ends, most commonly in politics/government and business.
Think about it this way: Is DeSantis a dumb man? He is presidential material, and to prove his conservative bona fides he DeSantis passed the 15-week ban. 15-week bans are widely acceptable by most people in the US. What would he have to gain by pushing the subject further? You think he's going to tank his appeal to Independents and moderate Dems? He's a political beast, yes. But dumb, hell no.
I would bet money these are planted stories to make someone like YOU start to doubt him.
Politics is dirty and at times dangerous. Too many Americans make the mistake of believing they can take it all at face value.
Well, lots of politics and stories out there. How about you share your solid source for news?
I have a wide range of sources. My goodness, DeSantis has planned his ascent for decades. That is obvious. He will do whatever he needs to win. I am swing a voter. I suspect you are not. In DeSantis' administration, gone from 24 week ban to 15 week ban. Elections often hinge on swing voters. If he is lucky, Florida legislators will not put this on his desk. Or, maybe he worked it with them, not sign it to look "strong" in the face of pressure.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/politics/2023/02/01/we-will-sign-florida-gov-desantis-champions-potential-6-week-abortion-bill/
This article from the beginning of February reports that DeSantis encouraged the Florida legislature to come up with a 6 week ban, so that he could sign it. A 6 week ban is essentially a complete ban of abortions. Six weeks is usually the earliest women suspect they are pregnant, when they skip a period.
Thanks for posting.
DeSantis is a moderate on reproductive rights as far as I understand. I believe Florida now has a longer allowance period than Europe (15 weeks in FL vs 13 weeks in Europe). I think this is the most reasonable approach on what is a contentious subject with valid arguments on both sides.
If you are in the camp that abortion should be allowed all the way through full term, then that is as much an extremism position as the no-abortion crowd. A republican candidate advocating for that is a sure loser.
Most Americans support protecting access to abortion with various limits on the age of the fetus. I personally support a limit of about 14 weeks of fetal age for elective abortions. Beyond that there are medical situations that should be resolved via consultation among the family and their medical care providers.
In response to the debates about abortion I have wandered into on Substack sites, I looked at some of the data on abortions on the CDC and the Guttmacher Institute site. I was concerned to see that there is a disproportionate number of women seeking abortions who are unmarried, living in poverty, with other children at home, and with lower than average years of education. A high percentage of the women are black. Planned Parenthood data on the Guttmacher site indicated that some of these women described a range of difficulties they had encountered when trying to get an abortion. Based on these reports it is clear to me that some women in lower socioeconomic circumstances do not have optimal resources for preventing unwanted pregnancies, and I think that this problem should be addressed via Medicaid and nonprofits like Planned Parenthood.
"15 weeks in FL vs 13 weeks in Europe"
What are you talking about?!
There IS NO consistent time-limit for abortions in Europe; they're all over the place, from being illegal in Poland except in cases of rape, incest or a risk to the health of the mother, to being legal for any reason for up to 28 weeks in Ukraine. It's legal to 24 weeks in the UK and Netherlands, to 20 weeks in Sweden and Iceland, etc.
“What am I talking about”. There is some variation, and yes Poland an outlier, but median is 12 weeks and average somewhere near 13 weeks.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Europe#Abortion_rules_per_country
Why don't you just have a baby? You'll save a fortune on cat food.
"Reproductive rights" Well there is a right to LIFE ! Where does that start in your view of RIGHTS?
I make the comment because I believe you are talking about the right to an abortion that was struck down as Federal law and handed back to the invidudal States and their Citizens to solve. Which I believe hundreds of current Fedeal laws should be struck down and handed back to the States as was the intention of our founding documents IE The Constitution and it's intent.
"there is a right to LIFE!"
The Constitution clearly states that the "right to life" applies to PERSONS. A zygote, blastocyst, embryo or early fetus is *not* considered a legal person. (If it were, pregnant women would be allowed to use the HOV lane, and people filing taxes could claim an embryo as a dependent.)
As the 14th Amendment clearly states, a person is a person *once they are born*. Read it for yourself:
"All persons BORN or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There was a question in my reply to Bee. Where does that start in your view of a right to life. I pose that question to you Mr. Robert H if you should care to answer and give us the knowledge you have . My reference to the Constitutuion was not meant to cover the question of abortion . I , and here it is again, stated that the question of abortion is now left to the States where it should be . The Constitution , I believe, does not give the Federal Gov. any of the powers that it has taken over the course of 200 + years . The Federal Gov. was given specific powers with any and all the rest of any powers to be were retained by the States and Citizens. Not to be taken by any means except a majority of States via Citizens Representatives and those Reps being voted into office
"The Constitution , I believe, does not give the Federal Gov. any of the powers that it has taken over the course of 200 + years . The Federal Gov. was given specific powers with any and all the rest of any powers to be were retained by the States and Citizens."
You are welcome to believe whatever you want, but the Legislature, Judiciary and Executive branches mostly disagree with that position for the past 200+ years, and increasingly so. And my guess is that there are plenty of inconsistencies in your position. Should the 2nd Amendment be a "states' rights" issue? If states wanted to ban the private possession of firearms, would you be fine with that, so long as it remained legal in *your* state? What about slavery? -or women's right to vote? -or polygamy?
Uniformity is necessary in many rights to prevent chaos, and prevent state legislatures and governors from getting up to mischief (see the debacles in the 2020 election, with some state legislatures and/or governors trying to present "alternative slates of electors" to the Congress).
The "states' rights" cause is an anachronism carried over from our Colonial past where say, Rhode Island could be a haven for religious nonconformists while Maryland had a Catholic majority. Pennsylvania could abolish slavery, and Virginia could be a haven for plantation owners working enslaved Africans to death. In 21st century America, the differences between states are trivial; cross the border between NY & NJ, WA & OR, or AZ & NM, and you won't even notice. So laws that vary between them just cause chaos. In Utah today, the age of consent is 16. Cross any of Utah's borders into a neighboring state, and it's 18. Think *that* hasn't been a cause of problems for quite a few people who believed they were doing something between consenting parties?!
Your position seems to be that the fed does have the power (rights) that I believe are not within their org. given positions via the Constitution. Your examples of , what you seem to be claiming I said they did not have those powers, are all covered under the Bill of rights . Which there fore are within the power of the fed to uphole and enforce. I never did express any one power the fed has taken that they are not entitled to. There are hundreds of laws enacted by the leg.s and signed by the Presidents that they are not entitled to. One major example has been the right to abortion . The fed via the supreme court took that right to say yes abortion is a right . It never was a fed s right to regulate abortion and now a Conservative majority of the supreme court struck down the fed.s taking control from the states over it. It is where it should be according to the Constitution . You can try and place it under any of the admendments , as they did, but it is not in the Constitution any place no matter how much you want to read it into any one of the admendments. There are other examples but you are a little bit of a waste of my time. Reply if you want but I shall move on . I will read what you have to post if you choose to . Thanks and have a nice day, week, month, year, life.
Maybe you shoulld get yourself a copy of the Federalist Papers and realy dig into the true meaning of the Constitution and Bill of Rights . You might have a little change of understanding of what is meant by Originality of the Constitution. Again have a nice day.
"Read it for yourself" . What an arrogrant person you must be. I have read the Constitution several times . I keep a copy , in fact several copies, handy . I have not made a effort to memorize it word for word. The Declaration of Independence is a good read . I have several copies of both at my desk. My opinion of a right to life is just that , my opinion. I made that clear when I said " I must add that I BELIEVE " not you must believe nor anyone else must believe . You arrogrant ____!
I must add also that I believe anyone willing to kill a baby before birth are evil except for the abortion of rape , incest and body & mental defects . Hard decisions for anyone to make in those case's but they should have the right to make it.
Please watch the movies Gosnell and Unplanned - and reread the Ten Commandments - then report back to us.
>>"... in the Majority on Reproductive Rights"
The polls show your "majority" may be gone, and certainly is slipping away.
"Reproductive Rights" is a DEI-level euphemism attempting to mask the reality of abortion.
Reporting now. Birthed and raised 2 children. My standing is impeccable.
I'm not grasping how that's relevant. or somehow persuasive in supporting abortion.
Whether you had two children, or five ... and/ or aborted-killed others along the way is your personal history.
It is the barbaric practice of abortion - of killing children - that is on the table. You know, the human beings that had their future(s) of "personal autonomy" and "reproductive freedom" snuffed-out by their "mother."
Then-you are hopeless. Good luck to you.
If your version of personal autonomy this narrow-you are worse than Kendi and Hanna Nikole Jones combined. Your evangelism of personal truth-same as forcing DEI into education. Biblical bullying is not better than Marxist DEI. You can conduct YOURSELF in any way you see fit. My standing as a mother- -still impeccable.
BAM! Chris Rufo, you nailed it. I've been dismayed to see the "tap out" as you call it from so many great thinkers who seemed to be coming forward in our cause. These people consider themselves our intellectual "betters" - and they may well be. We need them now more than ever! Unfortnunately, we rank and file conservatives, God lovers, and even regular Republicans are just too low status in their world for them to publically line up with us. We put too much "stink" on them by association in the elite circles where they have dinner. The social fall, unfriending, (and ego deflation) is just too much for them to bear. I kind of get that. But they can no longer stand on the sidelines - not if they want freedom, liberty and a goverment ruling with the consent of the governed. I "left the left" and it was not easy for me to swallow my pride and admit I was wrong about things I banged on the table about. How must it be for them? Your piece lays it out perfectly. I'm increasing my support $. Keep up the great work.
Great and insightful analysis. I think many of us had almost given up that anyone would DO anything! The critique of what was happening was great, but something needed to be DONE.
I saw Rosey Grier on television as a little girl (born 1960) and it was a turning point for me. Here was this huge, pro football player working on his needlepoint. I had never seen a man doing needlepoint. I was a girl who was mostly interested in hands-on, typically male endeavors. I constantly had adults trying to correct me on what girls should be doing. Rosey taught me self-acceptance in that short tv piece. Why don't we present children with role models like RG? Perhaps there can be PSAs with men and women who do and don't conform to sex stereotypes. I can imagine 3 women in a PSA, one very feminine, one very butch and one neither very feminine or butch, but all getting along and talking to each other about being women. I can imagine 3 men, one a very effeminate male, one a very masculine tradesman and one man neither extreme, all talking to each other about their common maleness. I wrote RG (now a minister) on his webpage, asking him to step forward to help the children today to accept themselves. Telling children the T cult is bad is necessary, but we need the role models out there showing children to be self-accepting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0AZ_fKcWME