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Leftists Canceling and Cannibalizing Their Own

In their pursuit of replacing culture with anti-culture, the spanking new 21st Century culture Reformers are going to be very busy. Rather than nailing 95 theses on a church door, they’re going to tear down 950,000 monuments and place names honoring imperfect and altogether yucky colorless people and replace them I guess with the names of perfect colorful people. This provides yet more evidence of the silliness of Barack Obama’s out-of-context quote, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” It also provides evidence of the truth of Dr. Martin Luther King‘s use of the quote, first spoken by 19th Century pastor Theodore Parker:

Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated with [Christ’s] name. Yes, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Neither Theodore Parker nor Dr. King was making the point that history moves always and ineluctably toward justice. They were making the point that ultimately Christ will redeem history. Christ has already won. It’s interesting that leftists have adopted BCE and CE in order to no longer refer to Christ. No matter, Christ still wins.

In the meantime, the devil roams the earth lying and destroying.

Now, after decades of canceling conservatives through a thousand tiny cuts and an occasional deep slash, the Reformers smell all that yummy human blood and are mercilessly cannibalizing their own.

The cannibals at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art forced out their curator, Gary Garrels, “[c]onsidered one of the country’s most prominent curators,” for the sin of saying he “would not stop collecting work by white men lest the institution take part in ‘reverse discrimination.’” The cannibals leapt on him. First, he tried futilely to stop the attack by groveling, saying,

I want to offer my personal and sincere apology to every one of you. I realized almost as soon as I used the term ‘reverse discrimination’ that this is an offensive term and was an extremely poor choice of words on my part.

His groveling delayed their devouring by seconds. The Cannibal Reformers responded, yum yum eat ‘im up. He’s gone, baby, gone.

The Cannibal Reformers have been noshing on Lin-Manuel Miranda, the beloved leftist author of the beloved musical Hamilton, for being insufficiently Reformed.

Homosexual, slightly conservative and now former New York magazine writer Andrew Sullivan was nibbled on for writing in ways about the protests that “triggered” “sensitive junior editors.” He resigned before being eaten alive.

And on social media and in her former place of business, writer Bari Weiss, who describes herself as  “center left on most things … and … socially liberal,” was gnawed on mercilessly. When the Cannibal Reformers, with blood dripping from their ghoulish mouths, paused to catch their breath, Weiss fled and used her best weapon to try to stop the cannibalization. She wrote and posted a resignation letter that exposes the intolerant, bigoted, ideologically non-diverse work environment at the New York Times:

[T]he lessons that ought to have followed the [2016] election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. …

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist. … Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned. …  [S]ome coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are. …

[T]he truth is that intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times. … Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.

Weiss’s resignation echoes what leftist journalist Matt Taibbi wrote in June:

It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

I worked with such Robespierres and experienced firsthand their bigotry and hypocrisy at Deerfield High School on Chicago’s North Shore. Ironically, some of the most vicious bullies were those who most vigorously claimed to honor all voices and to value diversity even as they promoted only one set of assumptions on how to think about race, sex, and erotic attraction. All views with which district oppressors disagreed were designated “hateful” and  their imperious judgments justified silencing—through bullying if necessary—all dissenting voices. While proclaiming that everyone should “Speak” their “Truth,” they ostracized anyone who expressed truths they hated.

Seeing the cannibals eating their own, ethics (or panic) seized 153 men and women who work in journalism, academia, and the arts—mostly leftists—and penned an open letter in Harpers in which they “raise their voices against” the “new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.” The signatories include Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, Todd Gitlin, Garry Kasparov, Damon Linker, Steven Pinker, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Jonathan Rauch, J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, Randi Weingarten, Garry Wills, Matthew Yglesias, and Fareed Zakaria.

After first taking potshots at conservatives, as is their wont to do, they wrote this:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. … [C]ensoriousness is … spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters.

But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. … the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.

Some of the most bloodthirsty cancel culture cannibals live and move and have their anti-being in the “trans” cult, and when Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said men can’t be women, the Cannibal Reformers came for her with bared fangs and unsheathed drag queen talons. Fortunately, Rowling has an impenetrable armor made of gold bricks. Unfortunately, few Americans have such armor. Maybe AOC, Bernie, and Biden can provide some to each and every American—oh, and while they’re providing free stuff, I’d like my fair share: a Martha’s Vineyard mansion just like the Obamas’.

While this letter is a good start in undoing the damage done to the Republic by leftists, seeing the name of the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, undermines trust in the sincerity of the signatories in that teachers’ unions are at the forefront of leftist politicking, including using schools to advance their leftist ideology.

Not surprisingly, when the letter was published, the Cannibal Reformers lost what was left of their minds, beginning with Todd VanDerWerff, whose “trans” alter ego is “Emily VanDerWerff. To be clear in the miasmic ontological fog created by the noxious exhalations of the “trans” cult, “Emily” is a biological man—forever.

He, like Harper’s letter signatory Matthew Yglesias, is a writer at Vox, and VanDerWerff laughably claimed that upon seeing Yglesias’ signature near the signature of J.K. Rowling, he felt “less safe working at Vox.” And the Cannibal Reformers were off and terrorizing.

Leftist stormtroopers unaccustomed to pushback kicked up a Twitter storm, and fearing for their professional lives, a handful of Harper’s letter signatories bailed. Three days later, a racist counter letter appeared, griping that many of the Harper’s letter signatories were “white, wealthy, and endowed with massive platforms.” Of course many were wealthy and endowed with massive platforms because only those with wealth and massive platforms can survive the Cannibal Reformers’ Purges.

What we need now is massive pushback against ideological Robespierres, storm troopers, and Cannibal Reformers. Don’t let their tactics intimidate you. Don’t be manipulated. Don’t be deceived. Don’t hold your fire. And don’t send your kids to their re-education camps.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Leftists-Canceling-and-Cannibalizing-Their-Own_audio.mp3


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The Overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Possibility of Cultural Change

Within hours of Justice Kennedy announcing his imminent retirement, voices on the left began announcing the imminent overturning of Roe v. Wade.

David Cole, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “If Donald Trump, who has promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, picks someone who is anti-choice, the future of Roe v. Wade is very much in question.”

More emphatically, Slate magazine ran a story with the headline, “The End of Roe,” declaring, “Anthony Kennedy’s retirement ensures the Supreme Court will allow states to outlaw abortion.”

And CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin tweeted, “Anthony Kennedy is retiring. Abortion will be illegal in twenty states in 18 months. #SCOTUS.”

During his appearance on CNN, he added that there was “just no doubt” that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, stating, “Roe v. Wade is doomed. It is gone because Donald Trump won the election and because he’s going to have the chance to appoint two Supreme Court justices.”

As stated succinctly in a tweet from Planned Parenthood Action, “With Kennedy retiring, the right to access abortion in this country is on the line. #SaveSCOTUS.”

May all these fears and warnings prove true! May we see Roe v. Wade overturned speedily, in our time. And may the many women who struggle with their pregnancies find new hope and learn that there are better alternatives than abortion.

Of course, it is too early to proclaim the end of Roe v. Wade. And for more than 55 million babies who have already lost their lives, this is too little, too late.

But, based on his performance to date, it is highly likely, if not almost certain, that President Trump will nominate a solid, pro-life justice. And it is then very likely that Roe v. Wade would be overturned in the years ahead.

This would be beyond historic. It would be unprecedented. It would mark the first time that the court made a radical, anti-life turn only to reverse course decades later. And it would mark a major turning point in the cultural life of our nation, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade seemed like an impossible dream for years.

Although I was almost entirely unaware of the battle for life in 1973 (I was 18 at the time and I don’t remember hearing a word about abortion in my church), older colleagues have told me how bleak things appeared at that time. They have even related that pro-lifers were more despised back than those who hold to traditional family values are today. That’s saying something!

Back in 1973, after the Roe v. Wade ruling, pro-life forces were in disarray. Yet, Nina Martin reported in the New Republic in 2014, they quickly mounted “a push for a constitutional amendment affirming that life begins at conception.”  But, she explains, “that first effort fizzled, and it’s only in recent years that a new wave of pro-life activists—many of them born after Roe and educated in fundamentalist Christian settings—have once again seized on personhood as a way not just of weakening Roe, but of overturning it. In state after state, they have been pushing to have their beliefs enshrined in policy.”

So, according to Martin, a lot of the recent success in opposing Roe v. Wade is due to the efforts of conservative Christians born after 1973. In other words, they were born after abortion on demand was considered a settled issue in America. After the battle for the unborn was apparently lost. After our side was told to throw in the towel.

But that was not the end of the story. As Austin Ruse noted, “Social conservatives point out that the number of young people opposed to abortion used to be equally bleak among the young but is now trending their way.”

What makes Ruse’s point especially poignant is that he made this comment in a short article documenting the rising acceptance of same-sex relationships among young Republicans. In light of that, he suggested that, “All this leaves open the possibility that Republican opposition to same-sex marriage may fade with time.”

That’s exactly what was expected with regard to the battle for life in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade. The die has been cast. The verdict has been rendered. The older, conservative opposition will soon die out. As for the generations that follow, abortion on demand will be the law of the land, unopposed and largely, if not universally, embraced.

And this, of course, is what we are told unceasingly with regard to same-sex “marriage,” almost word for word. Why couldn’t we see a cultural reversal there as well?

Today, we stand on the precipice of undoing the monstrous injustice of Roe v. Wade. Who’s to say we won’t live to see the reversal of Obgergefell vs. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court’s overreaching decision to redefine marriage?

It is for good reason that CNN is already writing about, “What Anthony Kennedy’s retirement means for abortion, same-sex marriage, affirmative action and the future of the Supreme Court.”

And Vox opines that “a Court without Kennedy is substantially more likely to: Overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states (and maybe the federal government too) to ban most or all abortions. . . . Rule in favor of religious challenges to anti-discrimination law, and perhaps, in an extreme case, reverse some past Supreme Court rulings on gay rights.”

All this sounds totally within reach today. And it could hinge on the next appointee to the Court. Let’s pray for God’s mercy on our nation, for the continuing turning of hearts towards life, and for righteous justices to adjudicate in our courts.


This article was originally published at Townhall.com