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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
In the past year, we’ve witnessed the wholesale politicization of media, science, law and order, Big Tech, entertainment, public education in the grades and higher academia, professional sports, and culture.
This politicization is largely driven by a new ideology of identity (Woke or Leftist), i.e., “social justice” re race and ethnicity, SOGI=sexual orientation and gender identity, age, and class (group or collectivist mentality, especially “intersectionality,” not individualism, is the rule). It’s an ideology that rejects moral or objective truth and rationality, American ideals and patriotism, science, capitalism, and the traditional family.
This new ideology has pulled off a coup of immediate and immense cultural implications.
Ironically, the new ideology pushes victimhood re the offense du jour as its path to power, wielding cancel culture to silence opposition.
Reasonableness, appeals to historical evidence, science, or even rationality are passe.
It’s now nearly impossible to conduct a discussion or debate, based on reason or any respect for demonstrable evidence because feelings or “lived experience” or demography count more. This is apparent every day in what we still euphemistically call “the news.” Now someone might share what’s called “his truth” or “her truth,” but no objective determination of right or best or good or honorable can be made, unless of course it is the currently acceptable ideological narrative backed by the power of media.
The same is now the case for politicians: a lie or “alternative facts” are as useful as “the truth,” because no one knows, or seemingly cares, what that is. This is especially the case with race, sexuality/gender, and climate change, all on the current ideological holy list.
Politicians, celebrities, and corporations rush to virtue signal their “social justice” bona fides because they are deathly afraid of being labeled “not inclusive,” or worse “racist,” the ultimate all-purpose Scarlet Letter for anyone who dares question the logic or evidence behind the latest oppression story.
(I’m not saying racism does not exist. Of course, it does. I am suggesting that not every development every day is about race, even when two or more races are involved, nor is it necessarily about hate. This, too, exists, but the root cause is sin in the human heart across all races, ethnicities, and genders. If you think of social problems traceable to human depravity it is harder to make the leap that every ill, every crime, every negative development is somehow about the oppression of one race over another, particularly in what is, while not a perfect society, certainly one with lofty and timeless ideals and a track record moving toward liberty and justice for all.)
Big Tech rushes to censor anyone who dares to question government mask mandates and lockdowns or who discusses something like the merits of Hydroxychloroquine. And Big Tech labels as “misinformation” people’s post that question a lack of authorized police response or absence of prosecution of those who orchestrated race riots, which destroyed property and stymied businesses, largely based on false narratives about police. Similarly, Big Tech wielded its censorship power against politicians or stories, like the Hunter Biden laptop, that it considered unacceptable prior to the 2020 election.
Add to these trends, a pandemic that partisan politicians, stoked by media, have used to increase government intrusion via inconsistent “mandates” limiting civil liberties, closing businesses, schools, and churches, and more in the name of public health. These questionable and draconian lockdown orders decimated the American economy even as certain politicians, public health officials, and cultural elites ominously call for continuing restrictions, seemingly oblivious of, or at least not accountable for, the innumerable negative side-effects these pandemic orders generate, like social isolation and increases in depression and suicides, school children falling farther behind, and a surge in domestic abuse.
This ideology argues anti-racism as it advances a racist re-segregation. It argues tolerance while expressing bigotry toward religion and religious moral views. It promotes victimhood and oppression mentality in the name of “equity,” while in essence arguing government should grant special awards and status to certain groups. It preaches “trust the science” but ignores science re sexuality and gender. It used the pandemic to argue for vaccines based on race. It promotes freedom while pushing for ever-greater control, power, and the capacity to silence opposition. Virtually everything about this ideology is anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-freedom.
Meanwhile, the American public seems to have gone along to get along, apparently unaware of the singular changes afoot that threaten much that has been good in the American way of life.
The issue here is not simply assessing a given response to the pandemic. It’s not to deny the existence of racism or to suggest people embracing hybrid sexualities should be denied their civil liberties. It’s not to argue a partisan point or align with a given political leader.
The far greater issue is the long-term impact upon the ideals and aspirations of the American republic and whether it can continue to exist as a free and democratic society.
If the First Amendment can be willy-nilly set aside in the name of fear-mongered public safety—suppressing freedom of religion and assembly,
If freedom of speech can be trampled by Big Tech and some governments and universities because the ideas being expressed don’t fit an acceptable narrative,
If objective truth really does not matter as much as subjective, i.e., changeable, feelings,
If American culture does not have enough moral and rational belief and understanding that we no longer think there is a difference between men and women, even contrary to biology and DNA,
If demography matters more than truth or right and wrong or knowledge and expertise,
If the American people can no longer be trusted to make sensible decisions based upon accurate information to care for themselves,
And we need big government, oligarchs, elites, or ideological mobs to sustain us,
the United States of America is in trouble and may not have a future as a free and independent society.
If this sounds alarmist and exaggerated, how else would you describe the trends of Years 2020-2021 and how would you describe what’s next?
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
US Constitution, Amendment I
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
This is a public service announcement for all those who seem to have forgotten or want to ignore this remarkable statement, first of the "Bill of Rights" amending the US Constitution, approved September 1789 by the first Congress of the United States, finally ratified December 1791.
The First Amendment is the core essential ideal defining "America." And the First Amendment is one of the most momentous political statements ever written.
Politicians, bureaucrats, academics, journalists, CEOs, celebrities, and social activists now smugly advocating cancel culture against all who differ with them ignore history and flirt with a danger they apparently don’t comprehend.
Let them talk to people in North Korea, Iran, China. Let them ask immigrants why they sacrifice everything in an attempt to get to these shores.
Please God, let them not be seduced by power and open their eyes to the blessedness of freedom hard won but easily, and quickly, lost.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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Media is laser-focused on the election.
But I am far more concerned about certain cultural trends than I am about Biden winning the presidency and what Trump will do. These trends are not partisan as such but ideological, and they threaten the existence of the USA as a free country.
1-Suppression of freedom of speech.
2-Restriction of freedom of religion in the name of tolerance.
3-Interference with freedom of peaceful assembly, even in one’s residence, in the name of public safety.
4-Promotion of sexual progressivism, in the name of tolerance, ironically for all except those with a religious, moral conscience, and at the expense of social order.
5-Rejection of objective truth and rigorous rationality in science and politics, in favor of subjective feeling even irrationality.
6-Disavowal of historic, orthodox religion, specifically Christianity, and a growing embrace of DIY religion, a pastiche of “whatever” based largely on secular nihilism.
I wish these things were warnings, what-might-happen, but they are not. They’re happening now, promoted by “cultural elites” in universities and public schools, Big Tech, government, and journalism.
Ronald Reagan was right, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
So as not to bury the lead, let me state it outright—
First Amendment freedoms in the United States are under threat from the Left via Big Social Media, on university campuses, and in “news” rooms.
For the first time, I’ve had a video “age restricted” on YouTube. I got the notice this morning. What’s weird is that the video in question is 5-years-old, and also strange is it’s harmless. I took the video standing on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, panning the city while church bells rang on Palm Sunday. It’s beautiful and I was pleased at the time to be at the right place at that hour.
That’s it. No commentary. Somehow this is deemed not suitable for all viewers?
Some have said this is just bots or YouTube algorithms going awry. Maybe.
Some say this is another example of Big Social Media acting like Big Brother, censoring willy-nilly what it finds objectionable based upon a Leftist agenda, and at times with a seemingly anti-religious point of view.
But where there’s smoke there’s fire. Just ask Prager University, a conservative nonprofit organization that’s had several hundred of its videos blocked by YouTube.
“The legal battle by the organization co-founded by commentator and talk radio host Dennis Prager began in October 2017. Prager University, known as PragerU, filed a lawsuit against Google after YouTube placed more than 100 of its videos in “restricted” mode, flagging them as “dangerous” or “derogatory,” according to a press release from PragerU.
“'Restricted’ means that families that have a filter to avoid pornography and violence cannot see that video,” Prager told a Senate subcommittee in a July hearing.”
“PragerU said in the press release that it filed the suit because Google and YouTube have restricted 10% of its video content and “maintains that the organization’s videos have been restricted, not because they are explicit, vulgar or obscene in nature, or inappropriate for children in any way, but rather because they promote conservative ideas.”
“The videos categorized as restricted cover a range of topics, including the Ten Commandments, tolerance, climate change, free speech, and fake news, and tend to be three to five minutes in length.”
Religious conservatives have also been censored by YouTube and other Big Social Media.
“Social media sites continue to find new and imaginative ways to censor, ignore, or downplay opinions and facts that dissent from their failed worldview.” Public universities, sadly, are no better, and may in fact be worse.
I don’t know why my harmless little video was age restricted, but I don’t like it and don’t like the trend.
I am far more concerned about the anti-freedom trends I see in America than I am about COVID-19, Trump vs Biden, social unrest, and certainly climate change. Lose America’s First Amendment freedoms and you lose what since 1776 has been known as the United States of America.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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“Supreme Court denies Nevada church's appeal of attendance restriction amid coronavirus pandemic”
You can add Nevada alongside California, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, to name a few, as another state discriminating against churches, which is to say religion, in the name of public health. And in this latest instance the Supreme Court of the United States backed Nevada’s constitutionally overreaching state officials.
I’ve been pointing to state government overreach in the name of public health vis-a-vis a percentage of the population at risk short term, i.e., people who contract the coronavirus and need to take precautions.
And I’ve noted a rapidly growing threat to the First Amendment – not just religion but also the suppression of freedom of speech.
This brief “Wall Street Journal” piece, including an excellent short video herein, addresses the onslaught on freedom of speech we’re now seeing nearly every day, often not just from “protesters” but from the lips of foolish opportunistic politicians.
While the virus is serious and deserves reasonable response—I am not contending otherwise. I just don’t think medical and health evidence indicates the coronavirus pandemic, though clearly a virulent illness, is ultimately any more threatening than the flu or pneumonia. Certainly, it does not justify lockdowns, shuttering businesses and torpedoing economies, creating rampant unemployment and collateral suffering, all while forcing healthy people to quarantine themselves or otherwise live in hysteria.
That said, the demonstrably evident and increasing willingness of state and local political leaders to take actions, i.e. “executive orders,” undermining the first freedoms, including religion, speech, assembly, is a much greater plague that affects not just a portion of the population but 100% of the population now and future.
This is not a peripheral issue. It is not alarmist. The First Amendment has never been more threatened than it now is. If we lose what the First Amendment protects tyranny wins.
The First Amendment, the foundational and distinctive American ideal for all citizens has never been at greater risk.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.