Oftentimes, our society resembles a deeply dysfunctional marriage. “We will get along, as long as you’re like me and believe like me. Otherwise, we’re through!” Regarding marriage, Danny Silk once said, “The two shall become one flesh, and then we spend the rest of our time arguing over which one we will become!”
We’ve heard the clarion call to unity and healing of our nation from President Biden, and we’ve been told to “meet in the middle” from faux-farmer, Bruce Springsteen, in his epic-fail Jeep ad.
Meanwhile, what we’re actually witnessing is the powers that be and their ilk demonizing and canceling all dissenting voices.
This raises the question, just what do they mean when they speak of unity and healing?
I ask because trying to get unity by eliminating dissenting voices is actually called tyranny. Here’s what Arthur Milikh said about it in a video interview on “American Thought Leaders“:
“Tyranny is trying to tread into somebody’s mind, to distort, to deform it, to reflect what you think is good.”
Here’s what we’ve really learned so far from the left:
“Unity” means compliance. It means silencing the opposition.
“Healing our nation” means taking revenge on anyone associated with that “insurrectionist” president, Donald Trump. Of course, he was an insurrectionist because they said so.
“Disinformation” is defined as anything that disagrees with their narrative.
“Defending the Constitution” means trampling it underfoot, ignoring or denying those Constitutional rights given to us, and ruling by executive fiat rather than by congressional consensus.
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” (Orwell, 1984)
I’ve talked about the difference between liberals and leftists. Voltaire would be considered a classical liberal; Karl Marx would be the quintessential leftist. It would seem that the Democratic party has being taken over by the latter’s ideology.
Recently, we’ve seen Democratic leaders calling on cable companies to cancel conservative news channels like Fox, Newsmax, and OAN (see article here). But, by this standard (if we took political bias out of the equation), CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and all network news, should also be canceled for their own leftist version of daily disinformation.
As I posted here, Facebook— the new Thought Police—have canceled whole country’s news agencies, like Australia. This, after canceling the President of the United States.
This call for unity is actually quite insane when you think about it. It’s like an abusive husband telling his battered wife to just come home and shut up or else.
Later in the video, Milikh says this about why freedom of speech in the marketplace of ideas is so critically important.
“Because the opposite of me persuading you by reason is me forcing you, is me demanding that you believe me. And when you don’t I force you….It’s for these very reasons that the disappearance of the freedom of speech is so harmful…to take away political liberty, to take way the freedom of the mind, and to take away this capacity to be reasonable, to persuade and be persuaded, which is ultimately connected to our capacity to make political judgment too.”
Milikh makes a great point about why the free discourse of ideas is so important to maintaining a healthy culture, and the danger of not allowing it to take place.
“You’re practiced in reasoning, you’re practiced in thinking about things. And that prevents a people from falling in love with the impossible, with impossible hopes, impossible revolutionary hopes. You see, in America radical thoughts spring up frequently in the public square, but then they’re discussed and they become moderated, and if they’re bad ideas, they usually go away. The danger of restricting freedom of speech is that those radical ideas don’t go away. They’re actually ensconced in laws and institution and ingrained, and nobody can provide any rational opposition, no matter how reasonable that opposition would be.” *
Sound familiar? Not allowing rational discourse and opposition to ideas becomes like a cancer that metastasizes in society by radicalizing and polarizing it. We lose the ability to disagree like adults and find common ground, so people are forever stuck in their partisan echo chambers obsessively hating the people in the “other” partisan echo chambers.
I would use the the star-bellied Sneeches as an analogy, but apparently Dr. Seuss is getting canceled for being a racist now, too.
In his 2020 article, “Hate Speech and the New Tyranny Over the Mind,” Milikh said the following:
“In America, a powerful movement intent on outlawing “hate speech” continues to expand in institutional power and moral vigor with each passing year. Most Americans do not fully grasp what banning “hate speech” entails, or the political and intellectual stakes involved. Should “hate speech” be banned, America will no longer be a self-governing nation: Serious deliberation on the central political questions confronting the country would become impermissible. But the debate over “hate speech” ultimately exposes our nation’s deepest and perhaps irreconcilable moral divide: Are we a republic in which presumptively rational citizens rule themselves politically and where the freedom of the mind is protected—or are we a confederation of oppressed groups whose fragile identities must be honored and sheltered from criticism?”*
Milikh’s point is important: “hate speech” laws, wherever they’ve been enacted around the world, have actually prevented serious deliberation over issues.
He also poses a very good question at the end of the quote. And from what it looks like, there are some on the left who see us as “a confederation of oppressed groups whose fragile identities must be be honored and sheltered from criticism.”
This is why the radical left is either naively deluded or outright lying about wanting unity and healing for the nation. The only way we’ll ever get there is by allowing and even embracing a full and free discourse of ideas. You’re not forcing me to be you, and I’m not forcing you to be me. That also makes for a healthy marriage, by the way.
Here’s the video interview with Arthur Milikh. It’s a fascinating discussion and well worth taking the time to watch.
In My Father's House 
Hmmm…I’m thinking cancelling some of the news agencies might not be such a bad idea. If we got rid of the 24-hour news cycle, where the organizations are LOOKING for things to talk about, and go back to 3 half-hour news programs a day, we would take away a lot of the platform for so much of this nonsense. True, it would take away the conservative views as well, but that would mean those who WANT to stay informed would have to do the research themselves and not be spoon fed lies and nonsense. Gosh, I miss the 1980s. LOL
Canceling all 24-hour news channels would be a positive step for our society. When we realize that 24-hour news channels only exists to sell advertisement, and they do that best by keeping us glued to the TV by frightening us, making us angry, and keeping us divided, we see how the cancer spreads.
But the only thing worse than 24-hour news is social media, like Facebook and Twitter, or even worse, TikTok (metadata used by CCP), so we would also need to cancel the current crop of Big Tech. They make money the same way, only it’s much more insidious and dark.They keep us addicted and angry and divided by using algorithms, and then they weaponize our metadata against us, besides selling it to the highest bidder.
So, yes, the 80’s sound really good right now! But we do need to stay informed so we have to carefully choose how we take in news, realizing that there is no such thing as unbiased media that has no agenda, or who is not trying to manipulate us. We also need to fight against it in any way we can.
There is a glimmer of good news though. Wikipedia co-founder, Larry Sanger, who posted on his blog how Wikipedia has become badly biased toward the left, is now going to create an alternative site called, “The Encyclosphere” which will be a totally uncontrolled, unbiased search engine, pulling information from all the classic encyclopedias. It sounds promising! I know I will stop using Wikipedia as soon as it’s available.
Do you think we ever will have free speech again?
Only if we fight for it any way we can. As I told Lisa, there is a glimmer of hope. There are alternate forms of information sites and social media starting to rise up that are alternatives to the current platforms out there. We have people’s innate desire to be free on our side, which is why so many still flock to the US to escape socialist regimes. But we certainly won’t have free speech again if we remain passive about it.
The biggest challenge to free speech starts with our children. They don’t even know how to think for themselves and reason anymore. We need to teach our children how to think, not just what to think. We need to get on school boards and change public school curriculums and fight against the insane woke policies being introduced by those who are war with reality, or we need to take our kids out, because, as it is, they’re being indoctrinated in this form of tyranny every day.
Good stuff, Mel. In the video he mentioned wanting to “rid the world of evil.” Behind that is massive amounts of shame. So how do you “fix” your shame? By canceling, erasing, and destroying anything that triggers it. Oddly enough it is a kind of religious fanaticism and it is a bit scary because you aren’t dealing with facts and reason, you’re dealing with emotion and psychology, cultian behavior, mass psychosis, and spiritual forces.
You mentioned the “Sneetches,” something that adds to the concern is that people are being dehumanized, that our behavior towards the alleged “oppressors” is perceived as justified since they are labeled racist or Nazis or whatever bad guy we have decided to identify them as.
I know this sounds a bit trite, but the cure is honestly more Jesus, more repentance, more revival, more grace, because that’s the only way I know of to heal shame driven emotion and psychology and the situation is dire, urgent, we are at a tipping point here, now some 60 years into this inevitable march towards tyranny. As a human race, we are always on this inevitable march towards tyranny, that is the norm, it is really the grace of Jesus that is the wild card, and it is our belief in Him that leads us to create more just societies where some free speech can flourish.
Really good points here, IB. The Woke radical left really is a fanatical, cult-like, religion that’s at war with reality. They are anti-science, anti-biology and, ironically, the new bigots! Critical Race Theory and Identity politics is their racist theology, and books like “White Fragility” are their religious books.
It’s also a mass psychosis, as you mentioned. Trump Derangement Syndrome was just one case in point. Unfortunately, the most hysterical version of it was manifested by our leaders of the House of Representatives, obsessing over Trump for four years. He still lives in their heads rent-free! It is all about manipulating by shaming and protecting it through cancelation.
And, yes, Jesus is the answer. There’s nothing trite about it, because even if the most hardened atheist followed what He said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5-7), we would have a much healthier culture. And if we do accept His invitation, the fruit of the Spirit is nothing but good for society—love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. But, as His representatives, we need to do a much better job of representing Him, not becoming hysterical cultian fanatics ourselves, who want to cancel everyone who disagrees with us. As it’s been said, revival starts with us….or said another way, log removal starts here! 🙂
Good post and good video; you hit it on the nail in this post about the danger of “unity” without freedom of speech. Good 40 minute video discussion too! I like his point about freedom of speech is about freedom of your mind to think. Good connection
Amen, Jim. I thought the conversation was excellent, too. He really nails the tyranny of the mind that is happening in cancel culture today.
Agreed! Quite informative interview
Excellent post Mel. What we are experiencing in the west is creeping ‘soft’ totalitarianism which seeks to create a culture of conformity to a left-wing narrative. It is the teenage peer group mentality transferred into mainstream society. People want to be accepted, they want to ‘belong’ because they feel safe and comfortable in a group where everyone conforms to a particular political agenda. Totalitarianism creates a culture of fear in which refusal to conform leads to alienation, criticism and persecution. All of this is explored by Rod Dreher in his book ‘Live Not by Lies’ (2020) which I recommend to anyone interested in this phenomenon, particularly Christians who know that in time they will be subjected to more overt marginalisation and persecution. The lessons of history have not been passed on to the rising generation and this is already bearing fruit in politics and society.
You make some important points here. Socialism is very much like a cancer. For the first few years it’s undetectable, then a tumor appears, finally it metastasizes and destroys the whole culture. This is what happens whenever it’s allowed to spread.
“It is the teenage peer group mentality transferred into mainstream society.”
That’s a great analogy. What people are doing is trading their freedom for security, but the whole thing is an illusion because Socialism’s trajectory is always toward tyranny.
And on your point about our young generation not knowing history, it’s because it’s been censored by the left in education. Even Wikipedia has been taken over by the left (why co-founder, Larry Sanger, left Wikipedia) purposely leaving out the horrors of Socialism in the 20th Century, painting it as a positive alternative.
For these reasons, I will be doing a series of posts on why Socialism is evil and antithetical to a Christian worldview in the coming weeks.