The End of Civil Debate

Some may argue that nothing really has changed in civil debate; the rules of engagement are what they have always been: one debates an opponent fairly in the civic arena only as a last resort.  The first try is to destroy the character, reputation and good intentions of that opponent by malicious slander such that the debate is avoided entirely, in that one's opponent is silenced by humiliation and public censure. 

 

Preempting any debate by annihilating an adversary's ethical appeal and getting him ousted from the marketplace of ideas has always been the preferred battle plan for those who want to control other people's lives, but don't want to chance a debate. There is no faster track to getting one's way without risk than to have an opponent blacklisted before the debate even begins... but this dishonorable gambit takes a cretin with the mind of a tyrant and the soul of a inquisitor.  

 

I would agree to a certain point that, as Solomon noted, "There is nothing new under the sun" and this includes the sordid maneuverings of those whose so-called civic duty is under the domination of evil intent.  Nevertheless, even though human nature never changes, never improves, and never reforms, it does find new ways to get evil deeds done more efficiently. Modern technology offers new and improved means of suppressing the ideas of others, and the resulting shift of fickle and shortsighted public opinion gives the impression that intolerance has gotten worse.  

 

I believe that it has worsened, but not because humankind has become more depraved — that isn't possible — but rather because tyrants and control freaks never rest in their pursuit of perfecting even more effective ways to sidestep the unsure testing lab of civil discourse and instead, preemptively destroy any opponent, thus removing all peril involved in a fair and open exchange of ideas.

 

Before moving on, let's talk about Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry was much more than a mere philosophical atheist; he was an ardent, zealous, proselytizing atheist, and his "United Federation of Planets" was his prophecy of utopia.  He held that humankind would continue to evolve morally and ethically until we earthlings studied war no more. Alas, Captain Kirk was regressive in this march to the humanist peaceable kingdom, in that he was forever going off the deep end and had to be restrained by Spock, who continuously admonished Kirk not to kill something. 

 

In the star date 2373, the Federation would involve 150 member planets, spread out over 8000 light years of the galaxy, and the seminal theme would be peace on earth,.. and Vulcan  —  wait,.. if the adjectival derivation is "Vulcan," shouldn't the nounal source be "Vulca"?  After all, earthlings come from earth, martians from Mars, Jovians from Jupiter,.. why does a Vulcan come from...Vulcan? And if the planet's name is Vulcan, wouldn't the adjective be "vulcanites"? The Star Trek writers are unclear on their syntax, perhaps confused by Roddenberry's flawed thesis: humans are essentially enlightened and transcendent beings who will ascend into perfection.

 

The homeworld of the Klingon Empire is also a member of the fedreation, but the memo never reached the high council about this peace stuff.  Some utopia! — many of the story lines in Star Trek are about war and conflict, most of it initiated, perpetrated, and exacerbated by the Star Trek crew, the prime directive, notwithstanding. Roddenberry was as mixed up on human nature as were the writers who didn't give a thought to either universal peace or adjectival derivations: there will be no evolution of humans into an extended Shangri La of peace-loving planets. We can't even pacify our own orb and never will. Roddenberry failed to see that pattern in 6,000 years of recorded history: war-worshipping earthlings make Romulans look like Quakers. 

 

The homeworld of the Earth Empire will always (until the Kingdom come) be engulfed in war, strife, racism, and intolerance: it is our sad but natural destiny. And if we ever get to another planet with salient life forms, we will kill them as soon as it is politically expedient. Further, well before any civil debate ensues on whether or not to kill them, we will destroy their ethical reputations  — to avoid any debate — by slurring them as haters (this is the all-purpose pejorative). We will label them haters of us earthlings, or to use the stilted syntax of the Star Trek writers, "haters of us earths," but I digress.

 

Humans are not evolving; they are getting shiftier and more effective in the dark arts of character assassination, and more technologically adept at bringing their depravity to full flower. That depravity is and has always been there.  The only thing that is evolving is new and improved opportunities in incivility, and this is where civic debate finds itself now: on the cusp of a new age of intolerance, pushed there by the two-headed demon of non-changing depravity and ever-changing methodology.

 

Where, in the political and cultural spectrum, is this new and vitamin-fortified intolerance burgeoning?  Surely, it must be on the right, with those intermarried, drooling, hatemongering Neanderthals who still cleave to all that religious superstition, and whose minds have turned to hot farina.  The right, according to the left, invented intolerance, therefore, any developments in the field rightly belongs to the those who have an eternal (or until they can all be killed) patent on the idea.

 

On the right, with all of those racist, jingoistic, xenophobic, homophobic cretins (all phobias are officially un-diagnosed).  This then is the logical place for a new world order of 21st c. intolerance: it will find its growth medium in the festering hatred of the religious right, right?  Wrong, say many leftists and liberals themselves, who have noted with alarm the new intolerance and have tracked it to their own camps.

 

Not all those on the left, by any means, have bowed the knee to Baal in a new brand of deadly intolerance. Those of goodwill, who still believe in the principles of diversity, free speech, religious freedom, and tolerance to opposing views, are lamenting the seismic shift rumbling from a large faultline on the left: that shift is to ever increasing vitriolic hatred of any deviation from the liberal credo.  Liberals have finally codified their doctrinal statement, and none may deviate at pain of death, literally, if possible.

 

The board of inquisition is now seated left of center, and all heretics will be brought before the inquisitors to be examined for wrong thinking, bad associations, cultural and political heresy, and most of all, for religious thought-crimes.  It is of course, the ultimate irony that today's inquisitors are looking for... who?.. hellish skeptics?... nay, rather the heavenly-minded religious to burn at the stake; only the un- and preferrably the anti-religious will be spared death. The deaths of the religious will be accomplished first by character assassination, and later, if impunity arrives from the State, by killing the body and whatever imaginary soul might be therein.    

 

One of those self-critics is Christina Odone, the deputy editor for the left-leaning New Statesman. Exactly one year ago, she argued that "liberalism has become the new orthodoxy, and there is no room for religious believers to dissent."   Inquisitors love orthodoxy, as long as it is their own credo of course, and writhingly hate any opposing statement of faith, considering such divergent views to be intolerable, inhuman, sopped with hate, and worthy of the greatest punishment the inquisitors can get away with meting out.

 

Ms. Odone goes on to say:

 

"Let outsiders see the faithful as a vulnerable group persecuted by right-on and politically correct fanatics who don’t believe in free speech. Let them see believers pushed to the margins of society, in need of protection to survive. Banned, misrepresented, excluded – and all because of their religion?  Even the most hardbitten secularist and the most intolerant liberal should be offended by the kind of censorship people of faith are facing today.  If believers can awaken a sense of justice in those around them, they may have taken a first important step in reclaiming the west as an area where God is welcome."

 

In my essay, "Rage," I have quoted Damon Linker, senior editor of the heavily left-leaning The Week: he lamented that "liberalism seems to have an irrational animus against Christianity." Read that essay to further appreciate Linker's astonishment and discomfort with his own fellow-travelers' descent into inquisitional orthodoxy and unwavering intolerance.

 

Truth in advertisement demands that the next quote be identified as being from a conservative, but one who used to be a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, but is now converted, largely because of leftist intolerance and bigotry. The magazine, City Journal, called "the Bible of new urbanism," has commentary on social and cultural issues and is considered to be centrist.  Contributing editor, Harry Stein, in an article entitled, "The Intolerance of the Left: an interview with Harry Stein," was asked this question: "Why do so many leftists believe that political issues are black and white in nature and revolve around good versus evil?" Mr. Stein's answer is a look into the brain stem of the modern, intolerant, orthodox, leftist ideologue:

 

"Well, the obvious answer is that, since they speak almost exclusively to one another, this is all they hear...  For liberals, the left of center position on a vast range of issues – abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action, taxation, even national security – is not merely the correct position, it is the moral one. Which is to say, anyone who holds a contrary view is not simply mistaken, but morally flawed. There is no logic to this, of course, most liberals being wholly incapable of coherent arguments in behalf of their professed beliefs. Rather, they are articles of faith, sacraments in the religion of modern liberalism."

 

Another refugee that has fled screaming from the left bank is Danusha V. Gorska. His "Ten Reasons Why I Am No Longer a Leftist" is intriguing reading; I have added the website link below for any who wish to go and partake.  I will only remove one quote from the tenth of those ten reasons: "Hate." See below:

 

"I do have right-wing friends now and they do get angry and they do express that anger. But when I encounter unhinged, stratospheric vituperation, when I encounter detailed revenge fantasies in scatological and sadistic language, I know I've stumbled upon a left-wing website."  

 

See Gorska's "Ten Reasons" here:

 

But wait!.. is not one of the sacred mantras of the left a devotion to tolerenace and diversity?  Does not this side of the political and cultural spectrum fairly worship free expression of divergent ideas? Then whence all of this rage toward those who would dare dissent with the catechisms of the left?  Are we looking at classic hypocrisy here? (Read my essay of the exact meaning of hypocrisy)

 

There must be three sins committed to produce a hypocrite. Hatred spewed at someone for an act of liberty, namely, freedom of expression, but in an opposing view, would be that first sin. It is indeed an evil act.  It attacks free speech and introduces tyranny. The second sin is hiding or denying that first sin of hatred.  The leftist hater does this by recasting his hatred as enlightened vigilance in battling the hatreds of others (the enemy) in the interest of a better and more progressive society.  This is drivel, of course; the true motivations for "the battle" is to accumulate political power toward the ultimate end of killing your opponents with state-sponsored impunity. "The good of society" — or the good of anything — is never the motive; it is only the mask behind which haters work. 

 

But we need a third sin for the completion of hypocrisy: the hater, who has denied his hatred and redefined it as high transcendence, civic duty and good works, now must attack someone else for committing the same sins of hatred and false piety. Do the haters of the left do this? This is all they do! The gambit of choice of leftist haters is to accuse their stone enemies of, guess what, "hatred." This despicable attack comes as the true haters themselves are yet choking on the bile of their own hate-speech.  

 

The ploy is always the same: to reduce adversaries to such a low ethical state in the civic arena that no one will listen to a word from the mouth of "the enemy."  Thus all debate is preempted. The verbal battle is forfeited without discussion.  George Orwell would have loved it.  

 

The radical left is Big Brother-in-waiting; it is the corrupted pigs in Animal Farm. Liberalism is socialism in slow motion; socialism is another spelling of statism; and statism is incremental tyranny. The first casualty in the war to destroy individual freedoms is truth, and the second victim is free speech. The hate-mongering left of this nation is out to destroy individual freedoms, truth, and free speech, and the siege machine most in use today is the eradication of civil discourse by tarring all adversaries with malicious and false slander until all debate is silenced.  

 

Therefore, all who dissent from the liberal/leftist manifesto are automatically "haters," and enemies of society. There can be no debate with such misanthropes, therefore, the left, with no opposition, gets to define all "Truth": love is war;  hate is peace; and intolerance is tolerance. 

 

But,.. what's new? It has always been thus. Evil people are forever clamoring to gain full political and legal power over their perceived enemies so that they can punish them with death for their sins of dissent. If no God existed in the universe, one would spontaneously leap into existence for the expressed purpose of judging such a towering evil. A God does exist, however, and "He that sitteth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn..."  (Read the essay "Rage" for the rest of that story)

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Michael Roy