The New Barbarism (Conform…or else) | James Keena

This essay should be published in every digital & print forum possible. It is a perfect linguistic “picture” of the state of our society as we teeter precariously towards totalitarian rule. Read it and pass it on. Maybe it will cause a case for freedom to break out.

Examples of the New Barbarism in America abound. Politicians have been shot. Our cities were on fire during the summer riots. Anarchists blocked roads and took over entire sections of cities. Mobs stormed the Capitol building in Washington, which is now surrounded by barbed wire and thousands of troops. The Speaker of the House tore up the President’s State of the Union address on live television. State capitals were swarmed by armed citizens. Racial animus pervades the public forum as an entire race is being ritually convicted of guilt by historical association. We’ve been locked down for nearly a year by near-dictatorial politicians. Church services are limited. Business have been forced to close. Our kids can’t go to school. Leaders are prosecuting ordinary people for infractions that they themselves don’t comply with. Our social media platforms are banning or de-monetizing those who challenge the New Orthodoxy. Entire social media platforms that challenge the New Orthodoxy are being shut down. A President was impeached twice, and perhaps his body will be exhumed after his death for a third impeachment. People are being fired from their jobs and having their careers ruined for comments made outside of work. “Unwoke” influencers and politicians are being assaulted in public and harassed in their homes. Corporations are kneeling to the New Orthodoxy to avoid the threat of harassment or boycott. Businesses are refusing to deal with other businesses. Customers are refusing to deal with certain businesses. There are calls to confiscate the wealth of living people to atone for the sins of dead people. The police are being attacked and defunded. Our statues are being torn down. Our history is being rewritten. Books and other media are being banned. School curriculums are being re-engineered. Social media content is being censored. All of our communications are being spied upon by the surveillance state and its Big Tech accomplices. Some radicals in the Cancel Culture are even suggesting that those who resist the New Orthodoxy be “re-educated” and “de-programmed”.

We are not far removed from the intellectual intolerance of the Inquisition, from the guillotines of the Reign of Terror, from the bonfires of the witch hunts, from the surveillance state of McCarthyism, nor from the dire literary warnings of Orwell.

Classical liberalism embraces freedom from coercion at the expense of security; government as a protector of life, liberty, and property; self-responsibility and self-accountability; moral virtue in the form of owning the consequences of your actions; justice in the form of merit; wealth creation through effort, innovation, and investment; sovereignty of individuals protected by a Constitution; and freedom of thought, conscience, and speech.

Neo-Marxism embraces security at the expense of freedom; government as a tool for resolving class differences; responsibility for the collective rather than for the self; moral virtue in the form of self-sacrifice in favor of social interests; justice in the form of equity regardless of merit; wealth division through political allegiance rather than wealth creation; rights in the form of entitlements managed by a strong central government; and conformance of thought, conscience, and speech to the collective orthodoxy.