Commentary Magazine
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Across the United States, a great unraveling is in
progress. A rolling crime wave, under the guise of social activism, has left
city after American city shattered and smoldering. Armed anarchists seized
territory inside Seattle with the blessing of local government. In Minneapolis
and other cities, a campaign to enfeeble or eliminate the police has gained
full legitimacy. In Kentucky, the governor has vowed to provide free health
care only to one racial group. In the private sector, companies such as Uber
Eats have pledged their commitment to a policy of race-conscious discrimination
as well. And major media organs sanction all of the above as proper and good.
The unraveling goes further still. Social-justice mobs
have taken aim at freedom of expression, inventing new heresies daily and
ruining the lives of those who unwittingly give voice to them. Forced
confessions and language proscriptions are the order of the day. Poetry,
fiction, movies, and television shows—including children’s cartoons—are
canceled and excised from history. Indeed, all art and opinion are now subject
to the chopping block lest they prove insufficiently propagandistic.
To rewrite the present, the mob has rewritten the past.
They have forced upon us a distorted and grotesque version of American history.
With the support of corporations and education boards, school textbooks and
curricula tell of an unredeemable America founded not on the promise of human
liberty but human bondage. What’s more, this history discounts the
transformative progress on racial equality for which Americans—black and
white—have given their lives.
Through the violent politicization of all aspects of
American life, the mob aims to destroy the country as we know it and replace it
with a new one—an anti-America that trades speech for violence, police for
thought police, a free press for an indoctrination network, and the respect due
the citizen for the obeisance owed the mob.
There is one way to stop the unraveling: Refuse the mob.
We have seen again and again that the mob comes only for those who hope to
please it. And when it does, no amount of apology will save you. We stand
against the mob and all its aims. We stand against the chaos and violence, the
silencing of debate, the purging of heretics, the rewriting of history, and the
destruction of the greatest country in the world. We will defend the most
majestic achievement of humankind, the United States of America, against the
most ignoble impulse in human history, to tear down that which is good.
What we stand for:
·
A plurality of opinion in the public square. We
affirm that the right to voice a minority opinion is equal in every respect to
the right to voice a majority opinion. We therefore reject the public policing
of opinion in all its forms.
·
A full airing of available facts and data on all
topics. We welcome any impartial findings that may serve to advance discussion.
No objective facts are beyond the bounds of deliberation and debate.
·
A rejection of cancel culture and all it
entails. We renounce enemies lists, online/media mobs, and professional scalp
hunts.
·
Clear bright lines between speech and violence.
We affirm that speech, spoken or written, and no matter how egregious, is not
equivalent in any way to violence. Similarly, physical violence is not a mode
of speech.
·
An absolute rejection of political violence. We
affirm that lawless violence, even in the service of a just cause, is wrong—no
exceptions or excuses.
We hope you will join us.
The Editors
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