I & I Editorial BoardI&I Editorial
Reading a weekend story in Campus Reform helped us see more clearly what we’ve been witnessing for decades. The political left is driven by an urge to supervise every aspect of our lives. It’s a corrosive impulse that shouldn’t be accepted anywhere in a free nation, let alone practiced. The backlash needs to begin now. If not, our liberty will eventually be overrun.
The story is from Michigan State University, which published an article claiming that video conferencing is full of “unconscious bias.” In it, MSU social science professor Amy Bonomi says:
Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference, and socioeconomic status. For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.
In other words, when left alone, managers and coworkers will say things or show things that the speech police — who exist to ensure that only one side controls the narrative — don’t approve of.
Nothing in recent times illustrates the left’s inclination to control as does its response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Democrats want to keep people and businesses locked down while Republicans, with some exceptions, want to free people and unleash commerce. Don’t think the Democratic governors, mayors, and unelected public health officials who have put the most restrictive limits in place aren’t enjoying the authority they’ve given themselves. It’s as if they’ve waited their entire lives for this moment to exercise raw power over the masses.
Where else do we see Democrats policing our society?
They want to have the authority to determine: how much we have left over after paying taxes (it should be the same for all because inequality); the kind of houses we should live in (they can’t be too big and they have to be powered by renewable energy); and the cars we can drive (gasoline and diesel automobiles must be abolished).
The left also wants to: eliminate private firearm ownership; force the entire nation into a government-run health care system; tell employers what they must pay their workers; oversee the internet through “net neutrality”; compel everyone to go to the polls via compulsory voting; set aside segregated “safe spaces” on college campuses; decide what kids eat in school (and, if it could, what they eat at home); determine what students can and cannot be exposed to in school; and, of course, command the economy.
In some places Democrats have successfully outlawed single-use plastic bags, plastic straws, and plastic utensils. We’ve also heard that there are Democrats who are in favor of limiting our choices in deodorants and footgear.
Naturally, those who would make the rules would be exempt from them. The inconsistencies and hypocrisy don’t matter, though, to those in control. Neither does the loss of liberty. Only if we’re vigilant, and more so than we’ve been, will we be able to limit the damage and have any hope of restoring that which has been lost.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Bob Maistros
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Since the violent Democrat convention in 1968 Chicago the Democrat political party has proven itself to be a faithless and dishonest partner in this Republic of The United States. Why are they allowed the patina of legitimacy? DNC means nothing but harm and ruin to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitutional Liberty. Why should We The People allow Democrats free gratis participation in the Republic they work so diligently to destroy? Democrats are sworn enemies of Life & Liberty. Why do we tolerate Democrat viciousness, violence and dishonesty?
The rulemakers must be exempted from their own rules. This is their sacrifice for the common good. How else would they know what is best for all unless they have experienced the full range for themselves. For example, Bernie Sanders knows that we need only two or three choices of toothpastes because he himself has tried several and finds only two or three that he likes. Why would anyone need more choices? He doesn’t know and therefore neither should you.
Wow, sometimes you read something on the Internet that goes beyond reverberating and resonating, it just hits home to the core! This editorial piece, is just so accurate and painful to absorb. The left is antisocial at its raw essence, and I advise people know what evil is about, because it is beyond out there, it is permeating every single aspect of American life!
Good luck, keep underestimating the enemy, they depend on your ignorance, lack of attention, and outright cluelessness until proven otherwise.
The Democrats are practicing Fascism
But, but, people keep voting for Democrats. I can’t figure that out.
I disagree with the premise that Democrats “want everything policed”. The statement is not evidentiary based and is an opinion. In our entire society most endeavors have to have a set of guidelines and rules because, as we have learned, without them there is always someone who will take advantage of a situation, one way or another. The element of fairness should always prevail and all should abide by the rules regardless of political standing. I realize this balance leads to some position being unhappy but without these guidelines we are left with chaos.
So if someone wants to take advantage of an opportunity, he is an evil opportunist and must be stopped?
So for example, let’s say that in my community there is a shortage of good places to eat, so I take advantage of that opportunity and found a restaurant. This means existing restaurants and grocery stores will do worse, because people go to my restaurant instead of going to inferior places, or cooking their own food.
You are saying that to protect those who are already there, I should not be allowed to start my restaurant, even though it would be an overall benefit to the community.
I must say that would create one awfully boring society. One I certainly wouldn’t want to live in!
Fairness? Who decides what”s fair? The Dems want to. They want equality in outcome, not just equality in opportunity.
The Republican president is literally trying to shut Twitter because they fact check his lies.
He attacks the free press on daily basis and want to shut them down because the report truths that hurt his feelings. But yeah the Dems are the danger to free speech.
Twitter itself is one big lie. Most of those tweeting don’t even exist. Bots of all kind are sending out messages that pretend to be from one private citizen. Russia and China have learned to game the system, especially with the Wuhan Flu. Trump has every right to go after Twitter since they have declared war on his free speech rights. You don’t like what he says, don’t read his tweets. Case closed.
You begin with the false premise that President Trump lies. THe fact that you don’t like what he tweets doesn’t mean that he is lying. Leftism is built on lies and therefore those who embrace leftism view actual truth as false.
You end with the false premise that President Trump attacks the free press. The “press” that you refer to is nothing more than the propaganda wing of the democrat party and is therefore not free. Leftist propaganda deserves to be attacked for the vile hate speech that it is.
You need to pull your head out of the democrat donkey’s rear end and take a breath of fresh air…
The democrats are nothing more and nothing less than out and out communists they don’t even deny it anymore.We are in for some tough times if they get control again and they will sooner or later.
The headline conflates “policed” with “controlled.” What Democrats control, they manipulate. But we all keep playing the game and helping them foist the illusion of fairness. Just like we help them foist the illusion one can change sexes. EVERYONE know’s its a sham…but we allow it to fly…
“it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”
No, it’s simply a fact that the overwhelming number of marriages are between opposite sex couples. It only stands to reason that the majority of wedding *pictures* will be of opposite sex ceremonies. What this smug dimwit is completely missing is that same sex couples are now free to marry as well. That is the very definition — indeed the only definition — of equality.
As a happily married gay man, I find her words vile and condescending and her presumption to speak on my behalf offensive, not a straight wedding picture in the background of someone’s Zoom chat. Are these SJWs so desperate to create ever more “triggers” that it’s come down to this?
Yes. They are.
The only thing that needs ‘policed’ is the DemonKRAP Party … and a few RINOS !!!!
The remarkable thing about the phenomenon described here is how many people think it’s quite all right. But then, there were millions of Russians who thought Stalin’s regime was quite all right, too.
I remember one fellow, name of Misha, who emigrated from the U.S.S.R. to the U.S. in the Sixties, who felt that way. I asked him once how he could approve a society in which everything was either compulsory or forbidden, and then come here, to a society premised on the exact opposite. In his opinion, it was all about adapting. Yes, the Stalin years were “difficult for some,” he said, but if you knew the right people and were on their good side, you could make out fairly well.
I don’t think Misha was terribly concerned about Russians who didn’t know the right people, or weren’t on their good side. He’d found a modus vivendi, and that was all that mattered…just as he’d found a modus vivendi here in America. Perhaps the same sort of “logic” applies to Americans who, whether passively or enthusiastically, have accepted the Left’s assertion of hegemony over every aspect of American life, speech, and conduct.
The problem of federal over-reach will be moot when we reduce the federal government to Courts and Defense alone, and leave the rest of governing to the States.