America’s Identity Crisis

(Opinion)

By Kimberly Hagen

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts (Transcript of President George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796)

Our democracy works when this nation has a fair balance of power and transparency, but from what we witnessed this election year was a travesty to modern American democracy. 

So as we stand here, looking down the barrel of what appears to be a very long legal battle, Americans are exhausted. Because this election year wasn’t just about the election nor who would be the “lesser of the two evils” and certainly not about America’s soul. You can sell yourself to the devil, you can only freely give yourself to God. 

It is about our identity.

The identity in our freedoms that have been bound so tightly by the blood of men and women who have died for it, that the devil himself would have to tear it apart.

I recently asked a friend of mine who served in the Marines what it meant to him to serve his country. 

America is the light in a world of darkness.  We all owe it to future generations to do something to make the country and in turn the world a better place. There are many ways to serve that are just as important and noble as the military. If we forget the sacrifices made by our forefathers we will no doubt have to relive them.

The United States of America is the longest standing representative republic in the world, and if your happiness is riding on if “your guy” wins the election, you will be nothing but constantly disappointed. Liberty does not come from man, it derives from the Creator. The maker of Heaven and Earth; the Alpha and the Omega; the First and the Last; the Beginning and the End. 

All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

For our friends who are on the other side of the nation’s identity crisis, I suggest you take a walk around a local military cemetery. If possible, may I suggest Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. Atop a hill sits the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The white marble sarcophagus depicts three carved Greek figures representing Peace, Victory, and Valor. Inscribed on the back of the Tomb are the words:

Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God

The guards are changed every hour, on the hour, from October 1 to March 31. From April 1 through September 30 another change is added to the half hour. The tomb is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. During nighttime hours the measured and precise step of the on duty sentinel remains unchanged into the daylight. The guard takes 21 steps and then pauses for 21 seconds after his about face to begin his return walk. The significance of ’21’ reflects the twenty-one gun salute, the highest honor given to any military or foreign dignitary. 

This is my message to my countrymen:

It is time to rise up. Rise up and show this nation what our forefathers died to protect. We need to not only speak our truth but to live it out in our everyday lives. Show the world the goodness and love that we learn, not from man, but from the teacher Himself, Jesus Christ.  The promise that he made when he died on that cross; bound by nails, and blood ran red, so that we can have real freedom. It is time to drink from the streams of liberty my friends and rediscover that source has, and always will be, God. 

In closing I leave you with Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.

 Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.

“For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

Riled By Politics: The Fate of the U.S. Supreme Court & The Constitution

(Special Report/Special Edition)

Politics had become the possession of a regime, not an establishment, and there was no role for him, unless he were somehow to create a new one.

– Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician, p. 233

Political discourse has turned acrimonious at the federal level. America’s constitutionally instituted branches are demonstrating immense wear against present social and economic pressures. The latest comes at the wake of Justice Ginsburg’s death this past Friday September 18, 2020 within months of the presidential primary election between incumbent President Donald John Trump and potential candidate elect Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Yet the U.S. government also faces internal uncertainty as the government grows far and wide beyond the Constitution and the rule of law.

He Said, She Said

Reported by the The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Fact Check, Joe Biden has blundered on multiple occasions since the passing of Justice Ginsburg¹:

• Biden falsely claimed that “there’s no court session between now and the end of this election.” The next Supreme Court session begins Oct. 5, nearly a full month before Election Day.
• Biden said, “I think the fastest justice ever confirmed was 47 days.” That’s false; since 1975, the shortest time from formal nomination to confirmation was 19 days. 
• Biden exaggerated when he said that 30% to 40% of Americans “will have voted by Oct. 1.” His campaign later told us he meant by Nov. 1 — two days before Election Day.
• He also wrongly claimed the Trump campaign asked him to release a list of potential Supreme Court picks “only after” Ginsburg’s passing. President Donald Trump and his campaign had called on Biden to produce such a list prior to her death.

Democrats fervor over the potential SCOTUS nominee selected by President Trump as Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez take to the podium to announce their dismay that the President would dare to defy Justice Ginsburg’s last wish that no nominee be chosen until after the election²:

Senator Schumer: She was an amazing woman. So, the first reason we’re here is unity, and the second is to honor her legacy, to demand that her last wish be fulfilled by the Senate… But the third reason we’re here is the most important of all. So many people’s rights are at stake in this election. The right of people to health care. The President is pursuing a policy which would get rid of all protections for preexisting conditions, which would take healthcare away from 7 million people, and he will appoint a justice that will enact that in the Supreme court case that is due only a few weeks after election day. We are here to protect the rights of women, their rights to their own body, their rights to choose, their rights to healthcare, their rights to equality would all go down the drain if that wish were not realized. We’re here to protect the rights of working people.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: So, we need to make sure that we mobilize on an unprecedented scale to ensure that this vacancy is reserved for the next president. We must use every tool at our disposal, from everyday people, especially in swing states. We need everyday people to call on senators, to call on folks on the bubble to call Republican senators, to make sure that they hold this vacancy open. We must also commit to using every procedural tool available to us, to ensure that we buy ourselves the time necessary. We must commit to allowing and to considering and to utilizing every single procedural tool available to us, again, to buy that time. We need to make sure that we realize and fight this fight with the weight of every person who sacrificed for voting rights, every person who sacrificed their wellbeing and their lives to make sure that they could marry whomever they love, to make sure that they can live freely and safely in a workplace, to make sure that they can live in this country and make sure that dreamers can stay in this country, and that families can have the path to citizenship that they deserve.

Here for a complete transcript.

Strong claims considering that the U.S. Supreme Court is not a political institution that merely overturns politically “left” or “right” hot button issues such as abortion, healthcare, and voting rights anymore than the second amendment, religious freedom, or property rights. It is an institution of law and justice; a constitutional interpreter not a maker of statutory laws (though it does review congressional statutes and offer legal remedies per a Constitutional relationship), but nothing happens until a real living case is brought before the Court which has often gone through the rigors of a Federal or State Court and an Appellate Court. Even if a case makes it through the system, rarely does a case reach the Supreme Court for as few as 100 to 150 cases are heard each session out of the thousands of certiorari asking for the ear of the nation’s highest court. That’s real talk. Nothing political about its intended functionality. Egregiously what made this institution malfeasant are the political parties themselves.

In 1995 the Presidential Studies Quarterly published an article by attorney Michael A. Kahn titled, The Appointment of a Supreme Court Justice: A Political Process from Beginning to End.³ Kahn’s main argument was that the Supreme Court justices have always been appointed for political reasons throughout America’s developing history. Judge Robert Bork was not the first appointee to be denied by the Senate either:

In 1881, President Hayes’ nomination of Stanley Matthews met this fate; and, in 1930 Judge John Parker was rejected because his political views were unacceptable to the Senate. The Parker Senate fight was every bit as political and nasty as the Bork fight and the vote in the Senate was even closer.⁴

Hayes nominated Matthews on January 26, 1881 only for the Senate to never take action until President James A. Garfield renominated Matthews on May 12, 1881 who was confirmed by the Senate May 17 that same year.⁵ Although Matthews would only live eight more years, passing at the age of sixty-four, he did become a Supreme Court Justice unlike Judge Bork.

Robert Bork, nominated by President Reagan on July 31, 1987, nomination hearing took place in October 1987. Perhaps the most intellectually informative nomination hearing ever recorded, Bork openly explained his legal philosophy for the Senate. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who had been leading the front against Bork⁶ (very similar to AOC and Schumer today), during that hearing said:

In Robert Borks America there is no room at the inn for blacks and no place in the Constitution for women and in our America there should be no seat on the Supreme Court for Robert Bork.⁷

For a complete reading of Bork hearings.

For Part 1 and Part 2 of Day 1 of hearings by video.

Hyperboles are not new to American politics from either political party. After the Courts famous conservative Justice Antonin Scalia passed away unexpectedly, President Obama was preparing to nominate Merrick Garland but Republican Senator Mitch McConnell responded with the “Biden Rule” going on to say:

The next justice could fundamentally alter the direction of the Supreme Court and have a profound impact on our country, so of course the American people should have a say in the Court’s direction…The American people may well elect a President who decides to nominate Judge Garland for Senate consideration. The next President may also nominate someone very different. Either way, our view is this: Give the people a voice in the filling of this vacancy.⁸

Whatever the reasoning the American people have little say in the nomination process if any at all. Nevertheless the political ploy worked in 2016 for Republicans who mirrored a consistent message that the nation was in dire straits, the American people had a voice, and the Senate must wait until after the election to selected a new Supreme Court justice.⁹

Professors Bryon J. Moraski and Charles R. Shipan published in the American Journal of Political Science, The Politics of Supreme Court Nominations: A Theory of Institutional Constraints and Choices (1999).¹⁰ In their 27 page study they demonstrate the varying limitations a President has in nominating their selected choice for the Supreme Court. Two limitations have historically prevented a nomination: 1) Ideologically the candidate is out of step with the Senate; or 2) The candidate is less-qualified.¹¹ Everything comes down to the attitude of the Senate, “Whether the Senate constrains the president, however, depends on the configuration of institutional preferences… there are three distinct regimes, and which variables affect the position of the nominee depends on which regime exists.”¹²

According to Moraski and Shipan there are three regimes: 1) Unconstrained President; 2) Semi-Constrained President; 3) Fully Constrained President.¹³ The President unsurprisingly has the most control under Category 1, Category 2 the Senate’s indifference has a greater impact, and in Category 3 the median of the Court affects the Senate’s decision-making.¹⁴ The Supreme Courts median was measured by the voting score on civil liberties from the Court’s previous term.¹⁵

During the 2018 nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, whom the Senate voted down political lines 51 yeas, 49 nays, President Trump was replacing the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy remained a conservative justice throughout his career while moving liberal overtime on big key issues (e.g. gay marriage) but hardly the moderate he was proclaimed to be.¹⁶ Kavanaugh has been portrayed as far-right and more recently a “man in the middle.”¹⁷ His track record shows a mild lean to the right while voting most consistently with Justice Roberts 95% of the time and Justice Breyer at 86%.¹⁸ A record that I suspect will continue, making Kavanaugh likely a Chief Justice in the making who, like Chief Justice Roberts, is concerned more about the institutional stability of the Court over their own ideological leanings.

The Regime

In Cicero’s time the regime was Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Licinius Crassus; military men set on taking Rome. While modern America is layered in partisan politics with Democrats moving further to the left and Republicans growing stagnant¹⁹ underneath is a real Deep State (not Trumps Deep State) but a nexus of Private-Public institutions including corporations, national security agencies, military networks, and financial powers all too big to fail due to their interconnectedness in maintaining a global economy.²⁰ As Nero fiddles while Rome burns the U.S. Supreme Court dwindles right along with the U.S. Constitution.

Perplexingly democrats have argued for decades against the rise of corporations in government while republicans rage against the increasing size of government; the politically left and right having written hundreds of books between them concerning the alarming demise of our government, our liberties, our constitution but neither party nor the ideologues seem willing to actually acknowledge the elephant in the room that is Deep State in its entirety. Wall Street to Main Street progressives voice all the while Amazon, Google, Facebook, and dozens of multinational corporations enforce “anti-racism” training, censor their workers and the public, and commoditize data, information, and knowledge of millions outside the purview of average Americans. While conservatives rail against the U.S. government for spying on every American they push for the next war with Iran, North Korea, or Russia. Granted both parties support war when it is politically savvy.

Crumbling beneath their feet is the very structure that provides them existence, hardly unaware rather perhaps most keen to the situation, the U.S. Supreme Court holds on tightly.

Now with alarming rhetoric the nation once again is told that the future stands or falls on the nomination of a justice and of a president. At the RBG Vigil one speaker exclaimed that healthcare, economic rights, reproductive rights, women’s rights… everything is at stake this year.²¹ Yes, the election is important. No two candidates could be more different, the established parties hold very different visions for the United States. But the historical ignorance displayed by both sides of the political aisle is abysmal. Their partisan attitude damages an already weakened system.

Unless the old Washington establishment can muster enough of a push against the partisanship there is little hope that they will address the political mangling taking place in our nation today. Richard Allen Epstein, legal scholar and professor made famous by Biden during the nomination process of Clarence Thomas, has been warning for over a decade against the Administrative State that started to rise during Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. A “fourth branch” of government the administrative state today is a conglomerate of agencies that have their own laws, courts, powers, and authority. Congress pushed away their responsibility and the responsibility of the States by creating agency after agency. Epstein warns that the very rule of law itself is weakened by this structure:

As I have made clear on many occasions, I do not accept, even today, this vision of the administrative state. First, I do not think that it is possible to shield administrative agencies in highly sensitive areas from various forms of factional and political influence that have little or nothing to do with technical expertise. These risks are, if anything, increased once it is possible to select persons exclusively for their views on a single topic. Now all interested parties can hone in on single issues in selecting key administrative officials. Unlike the situation in choosing people for courts of general jurisdiction, these parties need not be slowed down by worrying whether their favored candidates on one issue will disappoint them on a second. Stated otherwise, expertise is an overrated virtue, while the risk of political capture by interest groups and the discord that faction produces is an underappreciated vice.²²

And in The Atlantic last year while promoting his new book, The Dubious Morality of Modern Administrative Law (2020), Epstein writes:

The administrative state, of course, is not unconstitutional in all its manifestations. The large and sophisticated corpus of 19th-century administrative law offers us a benchmark by which we can evaluate post–New Deal developments. The success of that body of law depended heavily on the limited mission that it was asked to discharge, given its deep respect for both the doctrine of federal enumerated powers and a relatively robust conception of property and contract rights. But the New Deal expansion of the constitutional order has failed, as I argue in my new book, The Dubious Morality of the Modern Administrative State. To understand the extent and character of that failure, look only to what administrative law now allows: excessive government discretion to implement vast statutory schemes, many of which impose overbroad controls in such critical areas as environmental, labor, and food and drug laws.²³

America’s fourth branch is now in line with its fifth branch, the National Security State²⁴ completing a globalized out of control Deep State. How can America’s constitutionally established third branch truly function when it and our nations founding document are overridden by a network larger and more powerful than ever intended? Reviewing Professor of International law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University Michael J. Glennon’s book, National Security and Double Government (2014), CATO Institute’s Gene Healy explains “that the national security state has become a runaway train and that presidential elections are contests that determine who gets to pretend he’s driving.”²⁵

Congress must put away the pettiness but that is too much to hope for at a time when the President can either do no wrong or no right; when radicals burn down cities in the name of a movement whose real aims are to overthrow an entire social structure rather than reform a broken system; when threats of adding more seats to the Court are made; and Cultural Marxism takes center stage.

Today America needs statesmen not men of the state. We can only pray that one will rise to the occasion.

Sources

¹ Gore, D’Angelo., Kiely, Eugene. (21 September, 2020). Biden’s False and Exaggerated Supreme Court Claims. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/09/bidens-false-and-exaggerated-supreme-court-claims/

² The Hill. (20 September, 2020). AOC says NOTHING IS OFF THE TABLE to ensure Supreme Court seat is filled by next president. YouTube. (Video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk2ba4LONXY&ab_channel=TheHill

³ Kahn, M. (1995). The Appointment of a Supreme Court Justice: A Political Process from Beginning to End. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 25(1), 25-41. Retrieved September 22, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27551374

⁴ Ibid, p. 26.

⁵ The Supreme Court Historical Society. Stanley Matthews, 1881-1889. https://supremecourthistory.org/timeline_matthews.html

⁶ Reston, James. (5 July, 1987). Washington; Kennedy And Bork. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/05/opinion/washington-kennedy-and-bork.html

⁷ ABC News. Kennedy Mounts Ideological Attack on Bork. (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvFLXFCJvJA&ab_channel=ABCNews

⁸ McConnell, Mitch. (16 March, 2016). McConnell On Supreme Court Nomination. Mitch McConnell Senate Majority Leader. https://www.republicanleader.senate.gov/newsroom/remarks/mcconnell-on-supreme-court-nomination

⁹ Desjardins, Lisa. (22 September, 2020). What every Republican senator has said about filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year. PBS News Hour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-every-republican-senator-has-said-about-filling-a-supreme-court-vacancy-in-an-election-year

¹⁰ Moraski, B., & Shipan, C. (1999). The Politics of Supreme Court Nominations: A Theory of Institutional Constraints and Choices. American Journal of Political Science, 43(4), 1069-1095. doi:10.2307/2991818

¹¹ Ibid, p. 1070

¹² Ibid, p. 1074

13 Ibid, p. 1075

¹⁴ Ibid, p. 1085

¹⁵ Ibid, p. 1079

¹⁶ DeVeaux, Amelia. (3 July, 2018). Justice Kennedy Wasn’t A Moderate. FiveThirtyEight. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/justice-kennedy-wasnt-a-moderate/

¹⁷ Stohr, Greg. (23 September, 2020). Kavanaugh Emerges as Man-in-the-Middle With Supreme Court Set to Shift Right. Bloomberg/Quint. https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/kavanaugh-emerges-as-unlikely-liberal-hope-for-court-swing-vote

¹⁸ Feldman, Adam. (3 April, 2019) Empirical SCOTUS: Is Kavanaugh as conservative as expected? SCOTUSblog. https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/04/empirical-scotus-is-kavanaugh-as-conservative-as-expected/

¹⁹ Richey, Edward K. (1 September, 2020). Welcome to the Party: America’s Established Political Parties By Race. Edward Kyle Richey. (Blog). Truth In Focus. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/09/01/welcome-to-the-party-americas-established-political-parties-by-race/

²⁰ Lofgren, Mike. (21 February, 2014). Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State. Moyers On Democracy. https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

²¹ Now This Politics. (19 September, 2020). RBG Vigil. (Video). Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/vb.908009612563863/2671486516401954/?type=2&theater

²² Epstein, Richard. (2008). Why the Modern Administrative State Is Inconsistent with the Rule of Law. New York University Journal of Law and Liberty, 491-515; 492 cite. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2355&context=journal_articles

²³ Epstein, Richard. (20 October, 2019) How Bad Constitutional Law Leads to Bad Economic Regulations. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-bad-constitutional-law-leads-bad-regulations/600280/

²⁴ Kaizen, Michael. (Fall 2017). The Rise of the Security State: From the Great War to Snowden. Dissent Magazine. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/world-war-i-aftermath-security-state-nsa

²⁵ Healy, Gene. (1 March, 2015). National Security State. (Book Review) National Security and Double Government By Michael J. Glennon. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/national-security-state

Get Woke or Get Broke: When Reason Fails to Stand

(Opinion)

(Note to my readers: Originally I intended this piece to be of the category, Special Report, meaning a stricter standard in how information is analyzed and cited. Essentially that standard requires greater in-depth study. While I personally believe what I wrote here today to be true and factual, it did not meet my standard of a Special Report. Therefore, I qualify this as an opinion piece.)

Classical Liberalism On Edge

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

— John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 3

Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do.

— Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. xix 

In the course of human history there have been principles worth abiding by when considering a deep, problematic societal concern that has and can continue to have great ramifications if it either remains unresolved or attempted to mitigate. Oftentimes issues of such magnitude fall within realms that provoke or placate the values and emotions of a populace. Justice, an essential value concerning human nature, is one of those realms. To better grasp such a realm, an acquisition of human institutions are required; those social institutions specifically include Faith, Tradition, Reason, and Imagination all of which can help an individual and society uncover values above and beyond themselves. Yet, what arises when these institutions dissolve, for whatever reason that may be, is a culture that moves away from interaction towards disengagement and then usurpation. Of all the institutions, reason is the most fragile and in a liberal democratic society, the failure to reason is the sign of a metaphysical collapse.

Classical liberal theory is a term to describe the belief in the rights of the individual, the freedom of markets, and private property. Within the context of the United States, the U.S. Constitution is a document representative of classical liberal thought though not entirely. Presently in the United States of America a climax has occurred on several ideological fronts. One such shift is the rise of woke culture from the far-left through its permeation into governments, corporations, universities, and other private-public institutions. No western post-industrial society is free from its wake.  

Wokeness Monster

Extensive analysis fills the web concerning critical theory, postmodernism, and cultural marxism. While additional analysis is necessary that is not the focus of this article. Therefore, a simple explanation will suffice concerning the meaning of Woke, Wokeness, or Woke Culture.

To be woke means a form of “awakening” to injustice particularly linked to racial injustices yet intersectional toward other oppressed minority/identity based groups e.g. trans/cisgender. Woke cultural markings have evolved into a dangerous ideology of critical, liberation, and social justice movements that developed ties to Marxism, Postmodernism, and other leftist identity based theories and organizations who oppose so-called Eurocentric or Westernized systems (e.g. Capitalism, Free Speech, Merit Base, Scientific Method, etc). To be presently woke means joining a collective that is centered on destroying entire westernized structures, not reforming them. And therein lies the problem.    

End of Discussion

Oversimplifying for the sake of a greater argument, it can be said that Christians and Conservatives, though fundamentally different, share a unique appreciation and understanding of the needs for the layout of faith, tradition, reason, and imagination. One based entirely on the faith in Jesus Christ and the other a philosophical movement in response to the French Revolution both seeking to challenge the hearts and minds of men in a sacred responsibility. Christians nor Conservatives are strangers to cultural critique including of liberal society (e.g. Capitalism or Free Speech) and upholding standards beyond the relative values of the day. As the conservative thinker Russell Kirk explained, “The pure democrat is the practical atheist; ignoring the divine nature of law and the divine establishment of spiritual hierarchy” (The Conservative Mind, p. 137). A synergy exists between the two over their respect for God and a moral law. However, neither fail to recognize liberalism’s overarching value to the world through their shared principles concerning human liberty, freedom, and rights. Both critique liberalism but never demanding the obliteration of classical liberal thought. In no fashion is that an attempt to whitewash history. Every side has its rabble that claim to uphold righteous values only to commit atrocities, however, as long as homo sapiens exist so shall their brutal behaviors. Historically Christianity, Liberalism, and Conservatism have peacefully coexisted despite their differences. 

Far from the spectrum of coexistence, woke ideals hold a Socialist-Marxist predisposition in uprooting systems by devaluing people who oppose them and belittling constructive debate that could possibly cultivate ideas across ideological lines. Almost a hundred years ago (98 to be exact) the economist and social theorist Ludwig von Mises published, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (1922), warning against socialism: 

According to the Marxist conception, one’s social condition determines one’s way of thought. His membership of a social class decides what views a writer will express. He is not able to grow out of his class or to free his thoughts from the prescriptions of his class interests. Thus the possibility of a general science which is valid for all men, whatever their class, is contested… Thus Marxism protects itself against all unwelcome criticism… Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand such tactics (pp. 18-19).

Those words ring equally true today. As I mentioned in Part 1 of my series Mob Rule, Mob Rules: 

Mob rule means a collective identity group must win. Mob rules serve the interests of that collective. Liberty and her institutions are being tested by this eruptive behavior, serving as a reminder that when pure rage is the predicate for judgement, tyranny is never far behind. What comes next will be decided by the public will for civility or lack thereof. Humanity itself may not only end up alone but alone with no way out. 

Without question the radical left are not alone in their threat against a liberal order but they are defining the times as R.R. Reno wrote in his book, Return of the Strong Gods (2019):

Today’s technocratic ethos defines political legitimacy in terms of the weak gods of policy expertise, therapeutic delicacy when speaking of sensitive topics, and the rhetoric of diversity and other motifs of inclusion (p. 141). 

Catholics like Reno represent a necessary deflection against the left vs right attitudes of our time. Believers in the good, the beautiful, and the true recognize that there can be shared critiques without shared beliefs in radical, revolutionary uprisings found within Communism or Fascism. Catholicism has long promoted “social justice” issues including its claim that the idea itself comes from the book of Matt: 25:31-46. That claim, true or untrue, points to a long line of thinkers from the Apostle Matthew to Thomas Aquinas and onward, a line of pre-modern thinkers rather than modern thinkers like Karl Marx whom heretical christian groups have adopted; a movement rooted in gnosticism rather than Christian teaching. 

If those on the fringe would only listen and grasp that there are means to redemption, a shared bond in both the craving for justice and the rights of the individual—the Rawls-Nozick dichotomy—can be reached without destroying the very foundations that granted them their rights and privileges in the first place. Unfortunately, extremists have broken through in a trojan horse disguised as inclusiveness, diversity, equity, and universals (e.g. healthcare, housing, etc) on the back of a neoliberal order that momentarily makes even Socialism look promising by the untrained eye. They are not interested in listening, they are here to destroy.

Dr. James Lindsay, a physicist and mathematician from New Discourses, is one of the leading thinkers on critical theories and social justice practices including on why woke culture is anti-debate wrote:

The deeper, more significant aspect of this problem is that by participating in something like conversation or debate about scholarly, ethical, or other disagreements, not only do the radical Critical Social Justice scholars have to tacitly endorse the existing system, they also have to be willing to agree to participate in a system in which they truly believe they cannot win. This isn’t the same as saying they know they’d lose the debate because they know their methods are weak. It’s saying that they believe their tools are extremely good but not welcome in the currently dominant system, which is a different belief based on different assumptions. Again, their game is not our game, and they don’t want to play our game at all; they want to disrupt and dismantle it.

Fundamentally the critical ideological framework cannot coexist with our present rights, freedoms, and liberties; our culture is an anthemia to their ideals.  

What Happens Now?

Pessimism can easily set in when surveying the political landscape. There are no guarantees of success if that success means a complete and total reversal. Instead the pressures of life require those who oppose all forms of radicalization to be truthful and loving at a moment when anger and rage can easily persevere but only at great unnecessary costs. Reason will not work. Only the actions of a people who can rely on truth beyond reason, a movement beyond mere modern beliefs, and uphold eternal principles regardless of threat can withstand the revolutionary spirit filling the air. “Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10, ESV), that is the required spirit. Believers (and unbelievers) in God must testify truth and goodness through the acknowledgement of present hurts which no doubt exist within the black community and the latin community and the LGBTQ community. Again, there is a shared bond, a means to redemption beyond the ruin of an already broken world. Demands for justice need to be heard but never at the abandonment of truth, reality, and morality or it only becomes another form of injustice. 

Christians can lead in this through their understanding that while they may be alone, they are never truly alone and our calling is above ourselves. Conservatives can resonate in that understanding. And those beholden too Liberalism, especially classical liberal thinking, know what it means to sacrifice and stand against tyranny when it rises; prize an ideal beyond their present estate. All three prize liberty though in different forms but rooted in the greatest of ideals: Human Freedom. 

We must not become radicalized in response. Let their injustice show by speaking up for justice and speaking out against injustice; truth over untruth; reality above irreality; goodness over hate. Death by virtue versus radicalized ideals that seek to breakdown and destroy. Fight but with real love, not the fake dignity espoused by those who insult, deride, and traduce people no matter their origin.