It seems there isn’t a news cycle which goes by without someone “making history” these days. Everyone and everything is making history everywhere at all times, apparently. It’s hard to pinpoint when this trend started, but the “historic” election of Barack Obama certainly brought the fascination with history-creation into vogue. Now it seems that a story isn’t worth covering unless some history has been made. What is behind this trend? Why the fascination with making history? Does the predictive power of potential importance really imply worth and meaning?
History was apparently made during two significant events recently. The first was Oregon becoming the 18th state to recognize so-called gay marriage. This change was achieved by adherence to the same playbook which has brought so-called gay marriage advocates success over the past year: they brought a case against the state, challenging the constitutionality of a so-called gay marriage ban, and found themselves arguing the case in front of a highly-sympathetic federal judge. Much like the judge who ruled on Proposition 8 in California, Judge Michael McShane found himself in a situation where he could grant a ruling from which he stood to reap the benefits. Judge McShane is himself in a same-sex relationship and could not resist the opportunity to make history by overturning the will of the people, as it had been expressed via the legislative process.
In 2004, Oregonians had voted overwhelmingly to define marriage as being solely between a man and a woman. This had never been rescinded by subsequent legislation, despite claims that a majority of the state now supports so-called gay marriage. For some reason, the judge was not forced to recuse himself in this case, despite his own subjective position on the matter. Would a self-professing Christian judge be allowed to overturn a ban on teaching intelligent design in the public school classrooms? One can almost hear liberal pinheads popping in angst over the thought of such history in the making.
The second significant history-making event recently was the crowning of Towson University’s debate team during the 2014 Cross Examination Debate Association National Championship. The topic was the War Powers Resolution, which Towson’s team used as an opportunity to launch into a jarring cacophony littered with racist slurs and college-speak. (Just the mention of “otherness” provokes the desire to stop by the student union for a pick-up drum circle, amiright?) The debate performance was unpalatable and awful, yet the Towson team walked away with the trophy in what was called by one reporter—wait for it—an “historic victory”.
Why this fascination with making history? It’s clear that progressives and social do-gooders get a tangible thrill up the leg from being a part of history in the making. So much so that they look for opportunities to recreate the feeling by forcing radical change on the rest of us in increasingly drastic ways; much the same way a junkie isn’t born overnight but moves from an occasional joint to popping pills to quivering in line at the methadone clinic, always moving in search of a higher high. They got such a buzz from foisting the first Marxist President on the rest of us that they’ve had to look for more drastic means to “make history”.
“Override the political wishes of the citizenry, while bypassing the legislative reform process? HECK YEAH! Roll out those rainbow limos, it’s so-called wedding time!!!”
“What do you mean, why are we rewarding a slur-ridden, incoherent screed with the National Debate Championship?!? Because it will be HISTORIC! Duh…”
And let’s not neglect to highlight a favorite nuance of progressives here. By putting these unnatural abrogations of the rule of law in the context of history-being-made, they are subliminally implying that this is a one-way street. History cannot be un-made and so, if they are truly making history by forcing the acceptance of their worldview, they are planting the theme of inevitability and immutable change in our minds. To quote network television, they hope that this is now “the new normal”.
Progressives have been using this technique for ages, attempting to draw us into knocking down one social foundation after another, always in the name of progress and history. This has been readily apparent in the admonitions surrounding the global warming debate. If the “science is settled” and the “debate is over” then we should get straight to the business of buying government Yugo’s and tugging a forelock in Algore’s general direction.
What Oregonian matrimony and Towson U’s championship demonstrate is that for leftists, feeling good is better than doing good. It feels good to give someone something they don’t deserve. But the very act of bestowing undeserved favor on the unworthy necessarily creates injustice. God is able to bestow salvation on the unworthy because He placed the resultant injustice of the act upon His Son, Who carried it willingly. The difference being that when man does it, he usually seeks to ignore the injustice or define it away.
Towson University wins the championship despite turning in a terrible performance. This is unjust and unless the adjudicating body acknowledges the injustice and atones for it, the injustice is allowed to thrive and grow, until the criteria of merit is so unbalanced and unrecognizable that the very definitions of
“good” and “bad” in debate performances are meaningless.
None of this is lost on those who are making it so. It is, in fact, their goal. They seek to strip our cultural institutions of all meaning so that we are left rudderless and vulnerable to their reprogramming. Sadly, the feel-good sheeple are more than willing to carry the water to their own drowning.
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