There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.’

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/are-we-free-to-discuss-americas-real-problems/

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on December 12, 2017, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.

There is a lot of abstract talk these days on American college campuses about free speech and the values of free inquiry, with plenty of lip service being paid to expansive notions of free expression and the marketplace of ideas. What I’ve learned through my recent experience of writing a controversial op-ed is that most of this talk is not worth much. It is only when people are confronted with speech they don’t like that we see whether these abstractions are real to them. 

The op-ed, which I co-authored with Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego Law School, appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 9 under the title, “Paying the Price for the Breakdown of the Country’s Bourgeois Culture.” It began by listing some of the ills afflicting American society: 

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries. 

We then discussed the “cultural script”—a list of behavioral norms—that was almost universally endorsed between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s: 

Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime. 

These norms defined a concept of adult responsibility that was, we wrote, “a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains, and social coherence of that period.” The fact that the “bourgeois culture” these norms embodied has broken down since the 1960s, we argued, largely explains today’s social pathologies—and re-embracing that culture would go a long way toward addressing those pathologies. 

In what became perhaps the most controversial passage, we pointed out that cultures are not equal in terms of preparing people to be productive citizens in a modern technological society, and we gave some examples of cultures less suited to achieve this: 

The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants. 

The reactions to this piece raise the question of how unorthodox opinions should be dealt with in academia—and in American society at large.

It is well documented that American universities today, more than ever before, are dominated by academics on the left end of the political spectrum. How should these academics handle opinions that depart, even quite sharply, from their “politically correct” views? The proper response would be to engage in reasoned debate—to attempt to explain, using logic, evidence, facts, and substantive arguments, why those opinions are wrong. This kind of civil discourse is obviously important at law schools like mine, because law schools are dedicated to teaching students how to think about and argue all sides of a question. But academic institutions in general should also be places where people are free to think and reason about important questions that affect our society and our way of life—something not possible in today’s atmosphere of enforced orthodoxy. 

What those of us in academia should certainly not do is engage in unreasoned speech: hurling slurs and epithets, name-calling, vilification, and mindless labeling. Likewise we should not reject the views of others without providing reasoned arguments. Yet these once common standards of practice have been violated repeatedly at my own and at other academic institutions in recent years—and we increasingly see this trend in society as well.  

One might respond, of course, that unreasoned slurs and outright condemnations are also speech and must be defended. My recent experience has caused me to rethink this position. In debating others, we should have higher standards. Of course one has the right to hurl labels like “racist,” “sexist,” and “xenophobic” without good reason—but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do. Hurling such labels doesn’t enlighten, inform, edify, or educate. Indeed, it undermines these goals by discouraging or stifling dissent.

So what happened after our op-ed was published last August? A raft of letters, statements, and petitions from students and professors at my university and elsewhere condemned the piece as racist, white supremacist, hate speech, heteropatriarchial, xenophobic, etc. There were demands that I be removed from the classroom and from academic committees. None of these demands even purported to address our arguments in any serious or systematic way. 

A response published in the Daily Pennsylvanian, our school newspaper, and signed by five of my Penn Law School colleagues, charged us with the sin of praising the 1950s—a decade when racial discrimination was openly practiced and opportunities for women were limited. I do not agree with the contention that because a past era is marked by benighted attitudes and practices—attitudes and practices we had acknowledged in our op-ed!—it has nothing to teach us. But at least this response attempted to make an argument. 

Not so an open letter published in the Daily Pennsylvanian and signed by 33 of my colleagues. This letter quoted random passages from the op-ed and from a subsequent interview I gave to the school newspaper, condemned both, and categorically rejected all of my views. It then invited students, in effect, to monitor me and to report any “stereotyping and bias” they might experience or perceive. This letter contained no argument, no substance, no reasoning, no explanation whatsoever as to how our op-ed was in error.

We hear a lot of talk about role models—people to be emulated, who set a positive example for students and others. In my view, the 33 professors who signed this letter are anti-role models. To students and citizens alike I say: don’t emulate them in condemning people for their views without providing a reasoned argument. Reject their example. Not only are they failing to teach you the practice of civil discourse—the sine qua non of liberal education and of democracy—they are sending the message that civil discourse is unnecessary. As Jonathan Haidt of NYU wrote on September 2 on his website Heterodox Academy: “Every open letter you sign to condemn a colleague for his or her words brings us closer to a world in which academic disagreements are resolved by social force and political power, not by argumentation and persuasion.”

It is gratifying to note that the reader comments on the open letter were overwhelmingly critical. The letter has “no counterevidence,” one reader wrote, “no rebuttal to [Wax’s] arguments, just an assertion that she’s wrong. . . . This is embarrassing.” Another wrote: “This letter is an exercise in self-righteous virtue-signaling that utterly fails to deal with the argument so cogently presented by Wax and Alexander. . . . Note to parents, if you want your daughter or son to learn to address an argument, do not send them to Penn Law.”

Shortly after the op-ed appeared, I ran into a colleague I hadn’t seen for a while and asked how his summer was going. He said he’d had a terrible summer, and in saying it he looked so serious I thought someone had died. He then explained that the reason his summer had been ruined was my op-ed, and he accused me of attacking and causing damage to the university, the students, and the faculty. One of my left-leaning friends at Yale Law School found this story funny—who would have guessed an op-ed could ruin someone’s summer? But beyond the absurdity, note the choice of words: “attack” and “damage” are words one uses with one’s enemies, not colleagues or fellow citizens. At the very least, they are not words that encourage the expression of unpopular ideas. They reflect a spirit hostile to such ideas—indeed, a spirit that might seek to punish the expression of such ideas. 

I had a similar conversation with a deputy dean. She had been unable to sign the open letter because of her official position, but she defended it as having been necessary. It needed to be written to get my attention, she told me, so that I would rethink what I had written and understand the hurt I had inflicted and the damage I had done, so that I wouldn’t do it again. The message was clear: cease the heresy.

Only half of my colleagues in the law school signed the open letter. One who didn’t sent me a thoughtful and lawyerly email explaining how and why she disagreed with particular points in the op-ed. We had an amicable email exchange, from which I learned a lot—some of her points stick with me—and we remain cordial colleagues. That is how things should work.

Of the 33 who signed the letter, only one came to talk to me about it—and I am grateful for that. About three minutes into our conversation, he admitted that he didn’t categorically reject everything in the op-ed. Bourgeois values aren’t really so bad, he conceded, nor are all cultures equally worthy. Given that those were the main points of the op-ed, I asked him why he had signed the letter. His answer was that he didn’t like my saying, in my interview with the Daily Pennsylvanian, that the tendency of global migrants to flock to white European countries indicates the superiority of some cultures. This struck him as “code,” he said, for Nazism. 

Well, let me state for the record that I don’t endorse Nazism! 

Furthermore, the charge that a statement is “code” for something else, or a “dog whistle” of some kind—we frequently hear this charge leveled, even against people who are stating demonstrable facts—is unanswerable. It is like accusing a speaker of causing emotional injury or feelings of marginalization. Using this kind of language, which students have learned to do all too well, is intended to bring discussion and debate to a stop—to silence speech deemed unacceptable. 

As Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, we can make words mean whatever we want them to mean. And who decides what is code for something else or what qualifies as a dog whistle? Those in power, of course—which in academia means the Left. 

My 33 colleagues might have believed they were protecting students from being injured by harmful opinions, but they were doing those students no favors. Students need the opposite of protection from diverse arguments and points of view. They need exposure to them. This exposure will teach them how to think. As John Stuart Mill said, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” 

I have received more than 1,000 emails from around the country in the months since the op-ed was published—mostly supportive, some critical, and for the most part thoughtful and respectful. Many expressed the thought, “You said what we are thinking but are afraid to say”—a sad commentary on the state of civil discourse in our society. Many urged me not to back down, cower, or apologize. And I agree with them that dissenters apologize far too often.

Democracy thrives on talk and debate, and it is not for the faint of heart. I read things every day in the media and hear things every day at my job that I find exasperating and insulting, including falsehoods and half-truths about people who are my friends. Offense and upset go with the territory; they are part and parcel of an open society. We should be teaching our young people to get used to these things, but instead we are teaching them the opposite.

Disliking, avoiding, and shunning people who don’t share our politics is not good for our country. We live together, and we need to solve our problems together. It is also always possible that people we disagree with have something to offer, something to contribute, something to teach us. We ignore this at our peril. As Heather Mac Donald wrote in National Review on August 29: “What if the progressive analysis of inequality is wrong . . . and a cultural analysis is closest to the truth? If confronting the need to change behavior is punishable ‘hate speech,’ then it is hard to see how the country can resolve its social problems.” In other words, we are at risk of being led astray by received opinion.

The American way is to conduct free and open debate in a civil manner. We should return to doing that on our college campuses and in our society at large.

Each illegal alien is cutting the power of your vote in half. Gerrymandering is happening as a result of illegal immigration and sanctuary policies.

Congressional voting districts are apportioned every 10 years using census data. Census data is based on the total residents in congressional districts. It is NOT based on the number of citizens. Also, the number of electors in the Electoral College is decided by that same apportionment method.

Democrats fight against inclusion of questions in the census about citizenship, immigration status, etc. And they resist voter ID regulations. And they resist employment ID verification like e-verify. And they resist changes to laws and executive orders and bureacracy policies that would stop federal benefits going ilegally to illegal aliens. Those same Democrats support questions about gender identity and race. But they do not want a count of illegal aliens. They are Gerrymandering the vote.

A question for those philosophers, string-theory physicists, alternate reality psychologists and any experts who theorize realities different from these empirical things we sense with our various senses:

If this is a dream, what would I wake to?

Reference: “The Passions of the Soul”, a treatise by Descartes.

The above is translated by Google Chrome from the original German language version which is found here. https://www.achgut.com/artikel/sind_die_klimadaten_manipuliert#When:15:45:00Z

Honor is not what it’s been cracked up to be for the last several millennia.  Honor is a tool, if not THE tool of feudalism.

Honor is a manipulation of the natural, genetically inbred loyalty to family.

Honor is a tool of servatude, a tool of slavery.

For example, what would the world be like today with the blessing of the millions of souls from both sides who died “for King and country” in World War I?

Pray tell.

Relax.

Breathe deep.  They almost had us.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-16/haiti-official-who-exposed-clinton-foundation-found-dead

You almost had us.  But you had to be in control.  We figured it out.  You might be in control from time to time.  But no one’s in control all the the time.  Technique will not let you go until you serve it.

That’s how you design any religion.

Humanity will regress until reform-minded muslims shut down their imams and their violent, domineering brothers and sisters. No one can do it for them. They, not the rest of us, must hunt down and eliminate ISIS, taliban, al qaida, muslim brothers, hamas, hezbollah, quds, etc. We cannot do it for them. Jihadis have been indoctrinated since birth, there’s little hope to convert them. But, it’s worth a try in safe circumstances. Keep in mind that they will readily kill you, or their mother, or sister, or brother or their child if these relatives were to convert. Apostasy is a death sentence according to their indoctrination. And 400 years ago that was true in some other belief systems. Technology/technocracy is not progress. Progress is moving from an eye for an eye … to love.

This well documented article is re-posted here as a prime example of your government working against citizens.

Former FBI Director, now special prosecutor Robert Mueller, worked with Lois Lerner of the IRS to target Tea Party members and conservatives prior to the 2012 presidential elections.  This article explains that.

I am guessing that President Trump is giving Mueller enough rope to hang himself in front of Congress and the American people.

Just when you thought the Deep State swamp couldn’t get any murkier and the stench any more repugnant, we are reminded by Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton in a Feb. 13 tweet of how Robert Mueller’s FBI worked with Lois Lerner’s IRS to target Tea Party and other groups in the run-up to the Obama re-election campaign:

@JudicialWatch lawsuit uncovered how Mueller’s FBI worked with Lois Lerner’s IRS to try to prosecute the very groups Obama IRS was suppressing. Another reason I don’t trust Mr. Mueller – or the FBI!

The treasure trove of documents detailing the weaponizing of powerful government agencies, including Mueller’s FBI, by the Obama administration to target the Tea Party was obtained by Judicial Watch as a result of court orders stemming from Freedom of Information Act lawsuits after the political targeting of the Tea Party:

Judicial Watch today released new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents that include an official “DOJ Recap” report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.

The newly obtained records also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress. Records also detail how the Obama IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing 1.25 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit social 501(c)(4) welfare groups – or nearly every 501(c)(4) in the United States – as part of its prosecution effort. According to a letter from then-House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, “This revelation likely means that the IRS – including possibly Lois Lerner – violated federal tax law by transmitting this information to the Justice Department.”

https://lockerdome.com/lad/9371484590420070?pubid=ld-8832-1542&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com&rid=www.facebook.com&width=500

The documents were produced subsequent to court orders in two Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits: Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:14-cv-01956) and Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice https://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-doj-01239-public-integrity-irs/ (No. 1:14-cv-01239).

The new IRS documents include a October 11, 2010 “DOJ Recap” memo sent by IRS Exempt Organizations Tax Law Specialist Siri Buller to Lerner and other top IRS officials explaining an October 8 meeting with representatives from the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and “one representative from the FBI” to discuss the possible criminal prosecution of nonprofit organizations for alleged political activity:

On October 8, 2010, Lois Lerner, Joe Urban [IRS Technical Advisor, TEGE], Judy Kindell [top aide to Lerner], Justin Lowe [Technical Advisor to the Commissioner of Tax-Exempt and Government Entities], and Siri Buller met with the section chief and other attorneys from the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, and one representative from the FBI, to discuss recent attention to the political activity of exempt organizations.

That attention involved harassment and intimidation of conservative groups opposed to Obamacare in particular and big government in general.  The irony is that the same Robert Mueller now investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election cooperated with Lois Lerner and the IRS to intervene on President Obama’s behalf in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election.  As Investor’s Business Daily editorialized, Tea Party activist Catherine Engelbrecht was a prime target of this effort at political suppression:

Shortly after Engelbrecht founded True the Vote, which trains election volunteers to help root out voter fraud, and King Street Patriots, a group with ideals similar to the Tea Party, and sought tax-exempt status from the IRS in July 2010 for both groups, she was hit by an onslaught of federal harassment.

After seeing nary a government official in two decades of operation, Engelbrecht and her equipment manufacturing company suddenly had the pleasure of six FBI domestic terrorism inquiries, an IRS visit, two IRS business audits, two IRS personal audits and inspections by both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Engelbrecht’s persecution by the IRS and FBI was also detailed by Breitbart.com:

Engelbrecht’s troubling saga was originally reported by Breitbart News’ Brandon Darby.

Engelbrecht’s application with the IRS for non-profit status allegedly triggered aggressive audits of one of her family’s personal businesses as well.  The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) began a series of inquiries about her and her group; the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) began demanding to see her family’s firearms in surprise audits of her and her husband’s small gun dealership – which had done less than $200 in sales; OSHA (Occupational Safety Hazards Administration) began a surprise audit of their small family manufacturing business; and the EPA-affiliated TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environment Quality) did a surprise visit and audit due to “a complaint being called in.”

The Democratic Party of Texas filed a lawsuit against her, as did an ACORN affiliated group.  Both the FBI and the BATF continued to poke around her life, the lives of people in her Tea Party group, and her businesses.

This latest reminder or Mueller’s long history of supporting or protecting Democrats and their agenda comes just as it is revealed that another member of the Democratic elite was recently added to his star chamber staff of Democratic donors and Hillary sycophants:

An attorney on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team was a writer for HuffPost, The Daily Caller News Foundation has found.

Aaron Zelinsky, a self-described Democrat, wrote nearly 50 articles as a contributor for the liberal news outlet from 2009 to 2014.

“I’m a Democrat,” he wrote in November 2012.

A review of his articles shows that he supported President Barack Obama’s efforts to close Guantanamo Bay, opposed President George W. Bush’s policy on torture [sic], wrote in defense of gun control and argued for government-imposed limits on how much corporate executives can earn.

“Now is the time to begin enacting a progressive political agenda through the ballot box,” he wrote in a 2009 article on gay marriage [sic].

Zelinsky, who joined the Russia probe in June 2017, is not among the nine attorneys to have made federal donations.  But state records reveal a $100 donation he made to a Democratic committee in his home state of Connecticut in 2014, a couple months before he joined the Justice Department as a prosecutor.

Maybe Mueller can explain his efforts to interfere in the 2012 presidential election in cooperation with Lois Lerner and the IRS.  Or maybe he agrees with former IRS chief John Koskinen, who once famously said he and the IRS obeyed the law whenever they could. Maybe that should include Mueller and his FBI.  Maybe we need a special counsel to investigate the special counsel.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/mueller_worked_with_lerner_to_target_tea_party.html

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February 17, 2018