The Four Big Lies

 

You ask yourself, “How did I get here?”
Once In a Lifetime

-David Byrne, Talking Heads.

I asked one of my old history professors, Daniel Pipes, a speculative question.  If medical science extended his life long enough to write a new edition of William H. McNeill’s seminal work, The Rise of the West, to mark its 100^th anniversary (2063) what would the preface say?

The West is not doing well at the moment.  Every day, it seems, brings another bit of news that suggests that we are being torn apart, that the liberal society founded on the precepts of the Enlightenment is coming apart.  We don’t yet know the ultimate outcome but it’s clear that the West is experiencing its most challenging crisis since WWII and in America, since the Civil War.  I would entertain other factor, but I would posit the rapid and accelerating decline of the West on The Four Big Lies, some of which I was lured into believing.  I will put these out on the table and invite others to offer more. In subsequent posts, I will expand on these falsehoods.

Chy-na

This is the Big One.  The free market gurus and corporate America peddled this one for years.  As recently as four years ago, I heard Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama proclaim it in person—If we have open trade with China, a prosperous middle class will emerge, demand more freedoms from the Chinese regime, AND THEY WOULD BECOME MORE LIKE US.  This view will turn out to be the most disastrous judgment in the history of Western Civilization.

What we got was precisely the opposite.  Our relationship was never really reciprocal- it was abusive.  China never gave us the access to their markets that we gave China.  China stripped out our industrial base, caused a collapse of our middle class and the attendant social ills, stole our intellectual property, hacked into our systems, crushed democracy in Hong Kong and now openly threatens a free Taiwan.  Xi Jinping altered their constitution to become president for life and obstructed and covered up the disastrous outbreak of COVID19.

The most insulting part of this is that they didn’t become more like us.  We became more like them.  Our freedoms have been greatly eroded.  The tacit partnership between Big Tech and Big Government has tremendously weakened the 1^st Amendment and created a surveillance state.  Worse, the Democrats seized power and are well on their way to executing on a plan to create a one party system (see, e.g. HR-1).

If we fight them there, we won’t have to fight them here.

This was the mantra of George Bush and largely continued under Obama.  The Forever Wars.

This had its origin in the Gulf War of 1991.   The U.S. led coalition, with its Cold War enabled military routed the world’s 3^rd largest army with a dazzling display of advanced technology, air power and a very disciplined volunteer force in 100 days with light casualties.  The ghosts of Vietnam had finally been exorcised.

Ironically, the war went too well and subsequent presidents were tempted to use the military with less restrained and with hard to defend purposes.  The initial black eye was the loss of 18 Rangers in chaotic Somalia.   Then there was the Cole incident. 

The failure of 9/11 allowed a handful of zealots to inflict incredible damage to the U.S. and we followed it with an 18 year war in which we could not subdue an early 20^th century force in Afghanistan.  While I can see how we got drawn into Afghanistan, George Bush and Dick Cheney led us into a costly misadventure in Iraq (which our friends, the French tried to talk us out of and were called cowards in return).  We lost people, money, and international prestige over this debacle with no real gain. 

An underestimated cost of the overuse of our military is that every time we engage someone, our adversaries are watching us, studying our tactics and our technology and planning accordingly.  We continue to act as if the juggernaut military of 1991 still exists.  It does not.  It is now too busy training in Critical Race Theory, and integrating women and transgenders to be a feared fighting force.

Systemic Racism

The notion of “systemic racism” has permeated throughout our governmental and academic institutions.    Ibram Kendi and Robin DiAngelo are its chief hawkers of this unsubstantiated and destructive idea, and it is now being preached as gospel in the armed forces.  It is being packaged and sold as an extension of the Civil Rights Movement, outed by author James Lindsey as The Big Lie.  Bret Weinstein proclaimed that Kendi’s “Anti-racism” was sophistry in his last podcast.  John McWhorter  launched a brilliant attack on “antiracism” in the excerpt from his upcoming book, The Elect: Neoracists Posing as Antiracists and their Threat to a Progressive America. 

(John McWhorter: The Neoracists - Persuasion)

The problem is that systemic racism doesn’t exist.  There is scant evidence to support it.  In point of fact, the “systems” mostly flow in the other direction.  Colleges and corporate America have been recognizing racial preferences for years.   Both institutions have materially lowered the bar and set aside positions for African American for a long, long time.   Yet Kendi and DiAngelo have been remarkably successful in getting the nation to spin in circles and adopt their religion.  Chief Diversity Officer jobs are a top position at many institutions (ironically, almost none held by whites).   Nearly all companies and universities now require “implicit bias” training.  Why send people off to the re-education camps when they show up voluntarily to hear this as part of their work or education?

Systemic racism is like Bigfoot.  Lots of people are convinced that it exists, when we know that it was largely extinguished over 50 years ago.  Yet people like Kendi have convince a large number of people that racism is everywhere. You just have to look hard enough. And keep looking.   I urge you to listen to James Lindsey’s Podcast, “NO! Critical Race Theory Does Not Continue the Civil Rights Movement!

NO! Critical Race Theory Does NOT Continue the Civil Rights Movement - New Discourses

Still, the faux religion of CRT is shredding the cohesiveness of our society and I fear that it will lead to its ultimate dissolution if it is not stopped soon.  I am not encouraged at the moment.  Remember, it took 50 years to prove the famous Patterson film clip of Bigfoot as a fraud.

15 days to flatten the curve.

Yes, we just passed the first anniversary of 15 Days to Flatten the Curve.  We actually flattened the economy and many of the basic rights guaranteed under our Constitution.   Next to our embrace of China, our policy response to COVID19 will be seen by historians as a hideous and grave error.  It has led to the crushing of thousands of businesses and the disruption of all of our lives.  But the worst effect has been on the lives of our children and on our liberties.   Politicians learned that they could invoke the fear of a microbe and brush away the Bill of Rights.   Poof! Almost all of our guaranteed freedoms gone and mostly sanctioned by a feckless Roberts Supreme Court.  Our Constitution is now fluttering in tatters in the wind.   Our youth has, and will continue to bear the brunt of the damage—an entire year without in person school, normal activities and socialization taken from them, and an unsustainable amount of debt piled on their backs to pay back out of their earnings in the future.  Youth suicides are predictably spiking as so many are choosing death over the future our cruel politicians have constructed for them.

The confluence of these 4 Big Lies are, in large part, responsible for the place we find ourselves in.  I am not entirely pessimistic, but I am a realist.  The West is facing its darkest days since Nazism swept across Europe.  We will need leadership, strength and courage to overcome, and we need to muster it soon.