Faith in Truth

Over the course of my life, I watched the Left evolve from a counter-culture phenomena into authoritarians. Along their journey, they necessarily deny self-evident truths.

When I was a kid, the Left engaged in discourse. I watched them on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line. All of the big libs showed up to engage Mr. Conservative. I learned that while groundless opinions are eventually destroyed, rational arguments and judgments are confirmed over time. I believed that for most of my life. Today, I’m not as sure.

In a new high school course on the Constitution during my junior year (1971), I remember disappointment when I found it dealt with scotus opinions on the Constitution rather than the leading lights of the Framing era. Even back then, and without knowing, I thirsted for first principles. Nonetheless, I took the class. I followed and understood the logic of 18^th and 19^th century scotus decisions as well as any high school student could, . . . until the class arrived at the New Deal. There, despite my best efforts, and those of my teacher, I couldn’t get my mind around the court’s expansion of the Constitution’s commerce clause. I thought, “gosh, these judges are a lot smarter than me.”

After high school, many of my college-age peers began to discount America. They felt that no culture could be better than another. Like them, I was taught that all things were relative, yet I couldn’t let go of Mr. Buckley’s appeal to rationality, to truths.

I was in my mid-twenties before I figured out a couple of things. First, my Lefty high school teacher had just completed her first year of law school, and needed funds to continue. Nothing wrong with that. Second, several of the New Deal scotus decisions were not rational; they were illogical opinions issued by judicial high priests, black-robed lawyers, but still, just lawyers. The profession of lawyers is advocacy, of arguing in the best interests of the party they represent. Today, after a career in advocating fuzzy social justice, why would a lawyer – now a judge, change his views? The point is not to confuse advocacy with rationality, with truth. The truth is often not found among a majority opinion of lawyers.

We conservatives found joy during the Reagan years. Didn’t it appear that the unhindered march of depressing progressivism was finally stopped? Didn’t the nation assume a positive attitude 180 degrees out from the Carter era? It seemed government was moving toward rationality, of not doing harm to society, but rather promoting it, promoting the general welfare.

By the early 90s, media jumped in with barely concealed support for progressives and hostility to conservatives. Reverse discrimination was a topic for discussion in those days. It didn’t stand to reason that a white or Japanese student should take a back seat in college admissions or hiring based on race. Since the mid-1980s, scotus forced local taxpayers to educate illegal alien children . . . in their native language. Today, these are accepted practices, and woe betide the rational dissenter who presents the truth of what these practices do to society.

Since then, the errors of Leftism accumulated in academia, media, and the democrat party, whose highest echelons enforce progressive absurdities. When one’s livelihood depends on mouthing the latest platitudes, platitudes will be mouthed. Black Lives, and none others matter. Such misdirected passions create zeal, yet nothing but turmoil can give stability to irrational zealots. It is why the Left must riot, for without riot and disorder, their movement and power ends.

After eight years of Obama’s promised transformation of society, and watching the irrationality, the damage done to society by social justice, globalism, open borders, and the intentional importation of people whose religion prevents them from becoming patriotic Americans, my faith that rational truth can overcome ignorance and purposeful self-destruction was sorely tested.

In recent posts I’ve harped on a test to determine the rationality, and hence, the Constitutionality of government actions, especially scotus decisions. No scotus finding of a new personal right may assault or harm the civil society. If it does, it isn’t a right. Republican government depends on this foundation, a civil society, a demos with shared outlooks and traditions.

A personal right to murder the next generation is irrational; it is no less deadly to society than an invading army which kills off equal millions of our countrymen. From this forty-four year-old assault on the senses, legalized murder of the unborn, has evolved legalized murder of adults. Sharia condones honor killings of family members. A father who murders his children or grandchildren incurs no penalty under islamic law. What is worse, and irrational, are American judges giving credence to islamic lawyers who demand 1^st Amendment protection for such murders.

While I still have faith in truth, I have no faith in a government whose values work in opposition to truth, and toward the ruin of our republic. If, as I learned from Mr. Buckley, that rational arguments and judgments are confirmed over time, it seems to me that little time remains. We are the many; our oppressors are the few. Government is the playground of politicians, but the Constitution is ours. Be proactive. Be a Re-Founder. Join Convention of States. Sign our COS Petition.