I saw a news headline that asked, “How did we get so far from Bush 41’s example of unity?”
Here’s the problem with unity. When people are unified, they agree on certain fundamental principles.
I want people who agree with me on the Constitution. Most of all, the Bill of Rights — the First and Second Amendments above all.
If someone does not agree with me on these points, then unity is sunk.
More and more, leftists and Democrats have come out explicitly against the Second Amendment. They’ve gone from, “Well, owning guns was not meant to apply to individuals” to, “Let’s just repeal the Second Amendment.” Either way, as proposals like gun confiscation gain momentum with Democrats, even in places like Georgia, we know that once Democrats are in charge again, the Second Amendment is either toast — or we have civil war.
Neither of those options make me feel unified.
Democrats have not yet, to my knowledge, come out for repealing the First Amendment. But it seems like that’s only a matter of time. “Look how Donald Trump became President. Without all this free speech, it could never have happened.” Even before Donald Trump, leftists and Democrats were talking about “hate speech”. It’s the language of Communists and fascists everywhere. Totalitarians rarely come out against speech. It’s speech they dislike they seek to outlaw. There’s always a rationalization. And today’s totalitarians-in-waiting call it “hate speech”.
The faulty concept “hate speech” puts the advocate of free speech in an intellectual double-bind. Either you come out for free speech over “hate speech”, which makes it look like you advocate “hate”. Or you give in and concede there have to be SOME restrictions on speech when it’s “hateful” enough. Hateful defined by whom? By a left-leaning Democrat or bureaucrat, of course. Just as it always is.
I would love to feel unified. But in order to feel unified, I need to find people who support the Bill of Rights, the First and Second Amendments most of all. Without those, everything else I love about living in freedom will soon be history.
In a society where one of the two major parties increasingly shows it could not care less about these precious freedoms, unity is becoming a more and more elusive prize. I wish it were different, but that’s how it is.
President George H.W. Bush caved on most issues. That’s not unity. That’s caving. “Read My Lips, No New Taxes” and then raising taxes — that’s caving. The leftist media establishment loves caving, but it’s not unity. “Unity” is the terminology of totalitarians. They call it unity when dissenters simply shut up.
Those of us who dissent must never, ever shut up.
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