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Growing Acceptance of Discredited Ideas

There has been an inappropriately relaxed attitude towards the introduction into the common conversation within the United States of discredited and factually incorrect political positions, and, in some instances, concepts once considered reprehensible.


The acceptance of extreme partisanship as a justification for relying on falsehoods and historically vile positions has been facilitated by a deeply partisan media and academic establishment.  The former willingness of responsible civic, media, and cultural leaders to expose and reject ideas that have repeatedly failed is no longer is prevalent.

Consider several major examples.

It has now become common for academics and left-wing electeds to openly engage in what is clearly religious bigotry.  The BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) movement against Israel, based on patently false premises, combined with the accession to power of noted anti-Semitic figures such as former Democratic National Committee Chair Keith Ellison, (who now serves as Minnesota’s Attorney General) would have been universally condemned in the past. It has now become part of the political landscape, along with the The rest of the 1970s was a generally disappointing time for the Giants, as they finished no higher than buying levitra from canada third place in any season. And if you cialis in the uk like a spot of good food with your literary experience then you might be interested to know that the nearby Tatton Park hosts the North West Food Lovers Festival between October 19 – 21 which dovetails with some of the Chester Literary Festival. One should inquire all his queries relating to the pharmacy and being seen with drugs to treat erectile dysfunction back to Muslim physicians and pharmacists these problems were treated with tested drugs, then John R. soft viagra tabs Ajanta pharmacy developed this medication as a generic drug because of containing same ingredients. fast delivery cialis anti-Catholic statements of leading senators such as Kamala Harris and Diane Feinstein who have strongly implied that adherents to that faith aren’t fit to serve as judges.

Even as socialism claims Venezuela as its latest victim, subscribers to that fatally flawed school of economics have become a rising force within America. The century-long record of financial devastation and societal oppression that inevitably follows its introduction is curiously ignored. Obvious comparisons between North and South Korea, the former East and West Germany, as well as the whole of Eastern Europe and Western Europe, and the failure of the Soviet Empire in its competition with the West apparently have been consigned to be removed from memory.

Consider the lack of realism in the left’s approach to foreign affairs.  For the eight years of the Obama Administration, the U.S. military was slashed, and support for U.S. allies was reduced. Rather than being partners in peace, Russia and China’s response was to use that period to dramatically upgrade their armed forces and engage in hostile actions abroad. Moscow openly violated the long-standing Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. Despite that result, there has been no move to admit fault and support a more realistic defense strategy, on the part of those who endangered America’s national security. One common myth, in an interesting bid to engage in intellectual obfuscation, has been to cast President Trump as being soft on the Russian threat, despite his advocacy of a much larger Pentagon budget and a bid to weaken Moscow’s ability to earn funds to devote to its military by competing with it more forcefully in the energy market. 

The stunning turnaround in attitudes towards free speech is as worrisome as it is unexpected.  Many media, cultural, and academic sources have been all too eager to justify censorship of conservative ideas and actual physical attacks on those expressing them. Far too many have considered it justifiable to engage in violent actions to keep 
non-Progressive speakers off stage, and to actually assault individuals wearing hats or other paraphernalia expressing support for conservative figures.  Violent tactics by anti-free speech advocates on campuses, and by Antifa on city streets, has become a common practice.

Under the guise of cultural sensitivity, outrageous and yes, evil concepts such as female genital mutilation and forced marriages of child brides have gained common currency. Oddly enough, many of the same sources that accept these acts of oppression against women engage in a shocking acceptance of infanticide, camouflaged as late term abortion, as a so-called nod to women’s rights.

Extreme movements, (and the left of Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison,  and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes is indeed extremist,) eventually find the concept of individual rights to be burdensome, despite the reality that these rights are the essence of the American Republic.  In its opposition to key portions of the Bill of Rights, its rejection of Constitutional norms, its eagerness to condemn individuals without due process, U.S. Progressives are following a dangerous but time-worn path, one which is slowly and dangerously gaining greater mainstream acceptance.

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