This is quite long but an excellent piece that states in clear terms how freedom loving believers in the constitution who dare to disagree with Ruling Class edicts are perceived. In a few words, we are dissidents. "We do not have the same voice as the ever-strengthening oppressor Ruling Class, and we do not have the same rights that they enjoy."
To be clear, the term Ruling Class is not meant to be pejorative. It best describes in 2 words the body of privileged Americans - both Republican and Democrat government officials/bureaucrats, the media, CEOs of the social media - who believe that government must control - and punish dissident behavior of citizens. Whether that be attending a Trump rally at the Capitol or objecting to universal mask wearing or objecting to open borders or discounting the effects of man made global warming - the list is long and growing by the day.
The most salient points of the article:
People are capable of sustaining individual liberty only for as long as they can be constrained by a system of law that suppresses and contains their true nature.
For those of us who still believe in and embrace the ideas of our founding, for those who believe that the individual and their liberty are of paramount importance and prime value, for those of us who believe that free market capitalism is the most moral and just system for organizing economic activity, we need to have an epiphany. We need to awaken to the reality that we are not a majority. We are not a vocal minority with the same rights as the majority. We are now dissidents. We do not have the same voice as our ever-strengthening oppressors, and we do not have the same rights that they enjoy.
Understandably, there has been a great deal of focus on the events that have happened since this past November 3. Probably half the country feels as though the reelection of President Trump was stolen through some combination of China, Dominion, corrupt state and local election officials, and overzealous volunteers. This treatise is not about the election. In fact, there is a way in which the election of November 2020 was completely irrelevant in terms of what has happened to transform the United States.
This conflict is between the people who get to sit at home in comfort during the Chinese coronavirus and the real men and women out there doing the work that needs to be done to keep the country fed, warmed, cooled, etc. This has led to a feeling of empowerment on the part of the Zoom/Skype class over those in the muscular class and feeds the inclination to control and subject.
All of these seemingly disparate elements have one unifying theme. They are all hostile to individual liberty and free market capitalism. The hostility to these twin towers of American exceptionalism was present and steadily increasing over the course of several generations. All the events of the past year did was to hasten their receding into the shadows and being replaced by groups of people wanting to make collective decisions for all, and with a group of citizens receptive to having them make those decisions.
That leaves those of us who still believe in both the ideas of individual liberty that are codified in our Constitution and in the virtue of free market capitalism as threats to the new order that has been forming.
That makes us dissidents.
The circle of large institutional partners are those players who are both large enough and wealthy enough to guarantee their influence. They are also players where their leaders (board members, C-suite members, public faces, etc.) are united in the desire to suppress both individual liberty and free market capitalism.
The circle of large institutional partners are those players who are both large enough and wealthy enough to guarantee their influence. They are also players where their leaders (board members, C-suite members, public faces, etc.) are united in the desire to suppress both individual liberty and free market capitalism (more on that seeming contradiction later).
Members of this institutional circle, which if drawn to scale would be quite large, include:
• Big tech companies
• Other large publicly traded companies, especially commercial banks
• Primary and secondary education units
• Colleges and universities
• Large media organizations
• Entertainment industry
These institutional groups are playing a significant role in reducing freedom. There is nothing about this that is new, just accelerated. For example, the attack on individuals versus the collective and the assault on capitalism on college campuses has been under way since the 1960s. The media’s hostility to the same ideas lagged behind universities as the educational system that produced them needed them to enter the workforce and take control of the various corporate and institutional cultures. This is true of other large companies and institutions, as well.
It is likely that you have friends who use their social media or who engage in coffee shop conversations (back when it was possible to meet in a coffee shop for conversations), who talk about people who believe in the individual liberty and free market capitalism as the proverbial “they”, “them”, and “those” people. Those same friends might look at you and say that, of course, they do not mean you personally. They reassure you that you are not like “those” other people whom they insult.
Either way, Americans have come to believe, rightly so, that their absolute rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are not to be afforded to them by the government. Government’s role is to protect those rights, not to grant them.
We have an advantage over those in the past in counteracting this because we have more tools available to us in the early stages to start the dissident process. The bad news is that the oppressors also have more tools at their disposal. The conclusion is that the process will be long and trying.
Said in terms for fellow Game of Thrones followers: Winter is coming. Don a warm jacket, pick up a megaphone or a keyboard, start thinking up questions, and be prepared for a good deal of darkness to precede the light.
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