Free Association

Submitted by Jean L. Martin (M.A., M.S.S.W.) (United States), Sep 25, 2002 at 09:58

So many things came to mind as I read Daniel's description of Fonte's writing here - and that sent me on a quest to read the whole article. My antiquated technology prevented that, but I was able to read an attenuated version on a less technologically advanced site. The things that popped up as I read Daniel's article are still running around in my brain, trying to form a coherent gestalt. There was Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" and Francis Fukayama's "The End of History" and "The Great Disruption", and lesser lights in the intellectual world - Balint Vazsonyi's "The Battle for America's Soul", in which he pointed out some of the same things Daniel pointed out - the "group rights" and "victimization" ideology, the attenuation of freedom of speech through "speech codes" and "political correctness", the weakening of the guarantee of private property (the foundation of our prosperity), legislation from the (judiciary) bench, education as "propaganda", the denial of the existence of "good/evil" or "right/wrong" - which Vazsonyi traced back to Bolshevism and Fascism. Then Vazsonyi asks the pertinent question - "How could decent, ordinary Americans take their cue from precedents they reject and abhor on a conscious level?"

And, proceeding from that, up popped the remembrance of a list of 45 stated goals of international Communism, circa 1962 - and I remembered that most of these goals were related to all of the above, and more - especially the goals of gaining control of one or both political parties, gaining control of the schools and institutions of higher learning, and the discrediting of America's founding principles and documents as well as traditional values. It's absolutely eerie to see how far these goals have been advanced over the last four decades, and it is also frightening. That's why I like both of the names given to this development - "Transnational progressivism" and "Bureaucratic Leftism" - they describe what is taking place, one on the international level, and the other within the national "debate".

Finally, up popped the evolutionary doctrine of the survival of the fittest, and the reassertion of American foundational values and moral principles as contained in President Bush's new document on foreign policy presented last week to the Congress.

Conclusion? I'd stick to what has made America what it is today - what has survived (and thrived) for the two-plus centuries of our existence as a national entity. If new ideas fit within that context, well and good. If not, I'd probably reject them without further consideration.

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