On rare occasions, an event or an individual will clearly and definitively illustrate what had before been a vague and somewhat blurry truth. Some may refer to this as an epiphany; others may call it a revelation. Whatever you might call it; it is a moment that reveals the honest truth about something that was unclear or debatable prior to the moment.
I believe that such a moment has occurred in the instance of
the ongoing developments between National Public Radio (NPR), its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Katherine Maher, and one of its (ex) editorial journalists, Uri Berliner. One of the things that I have always found
objectionable about the liberal/progressive body of thought and policy (in this case, very well represented by NPR) is their refusal to accept hard and
fast principles. To me, their approach
has always been, and continues to be, an effort to “talk it to death”. By that I
mean…instead of focusing on the facts of
the case and how settled legal law and accepted ethical/moral standards may
apply to those facts, they instead want to debate the veracity and meaning of those laws and standards in an effort to
somehow obfuscate the fundamental issue and thereby rationalize/justify their
desired outcome. And in the course of
this process, their contrived outcome
will always be of such a nature as to support some tenet or policy of the
liberal/progressive agenda.
They
do this with abortion when they exclusively
focus on the fact that abortion laws restrict the options (choice) an individual would have to acquire an abortion and then they
limit the debate to the subject of the right
to have an abortion. They never want to
discuss the plain and simple proposition that ending the life of a living human being in the person of the fetus
is an integral part of the issue.
They
have also done this most recently with the wave of anti-Semitic behavior that
is sweeping across the world and, most particularly, on
American college campuses. As
illustrated by recent House hearings where various Ivy League college
presidents gave testimony about the anti-Semitic events occurring under their
purview as administrators, they simply refuse to acknowledge plain and simple
facts when students and protesters engage in hateful or violent events at their
colleges. These events are without any doubt
directly aimed at Jewish people and
are motivated by pure hatred and spite. They literally tie themselves in knots trying
to somehow leave room for this type of behavior by skirting around obvious
truths and refusing to embrace universal and accepted standards of reasonable
behavior.
At
the end of the day, this type of approach to living aptly reflects a statement
made by Alexander Hamilton… “Those who
stand for nothing fall for everything”.
Our Constitution sets forth a clear and specific blueprint for how our
government and the freedoms of our citizenry are to be determined. We can debate and form the actual law; that
is why we have a Legislative Branch of government. We can study and decide on how we administer
that actual law; that is why we have a Judicial Branch of government. We can then approach the delicate proposition
of how the moral and ethical standards that we practice in our daily lives fit
within the framework of this actual law; that is why we have accepted morals
and standards. But that last
determination is the one that is decided through a consensus of majority thinking.
It is also reflected through sitting jurors and juries. It is not actual law, but rather accepted behavior. Some might refer to as decent living or common sense.
The
point here is that if one simply refuses to accept this consensus of majority
thinking and proposes to live untethered from accepted standards of decent living
and common sense, then one has the freedom to do or believe anything they
choose and justify it by their blurring of the lines between the actual law and
these accepted standards. It is a world
where every single occurrence is subject to a spontaneous debate about first, “is this a violation of actual law” and
secondly, “if not…then we must carefully
examine the right of an individual to engage in this type of action”. The problem here is that given the wisdom of
the previously-mentioned statement from Mr. Hamilton and simple rules of human
nature, if we have a society with no
accepted standards of morals and behavior, we have a recipe for chaos,
violence, and incivility. Does that
sound familiar these days?
A
common phrase (mantra) that flows
from the liberal/progressive body politic of our culture and society is that we
all must find our “own truth”. Under the guise of allowing people the
freedoms they deserve under the auspices of our Constitution, this type of
societal approach to living also gives individuals the right to basically do “anything they damn well please”. And then, in a maddening abuse of logic and
common sense, presents them with a platform and opportunity to justify and/or
rationalize the bizarre, damaging, and
irresponsible acts that occur within this type of thinking. Adding more incongruity to the incredible
stupidity of this approach to living is the fact that those who practice it
will oftentimes acknowledge upfront that the actions involved are bizarre, damaging, and irresponsible;
but will then advocate that we should nonetheless go through the debilitating process of officially
classifying them as bizarre,
damaging, and irresponsible because the individual involved had the right
to do it in the first place. In their universe of logic, even though the
actions were wrong…they were the acceptable
results of someone following their own
personal truth.
I
will present to you a series of articles that chronologically set forth the
facts surrounding the NPR episode I mentioned in the opening paragraphs of this
piece. One of the central characters in
this chain of events is CEO Maher. One
of the links below will take you to a video of Ms. Maher speaking and
addressing, somewhat opaquely, the
controversial issue of NPR receiving tax dollar funding while pursuing the
liberal/progressive Weasel World
philosophy I have been writing about.
Read and listen carefully to her words.
See if you can detect that allegiance to a person’s “own truth” while diminishing the
journalistic obligation to actual truth, facts, fairness, and integrity. I don’t think I have ever witnessed anything
that more clearly demonstrates the left’s desire to weasel out of being tied to
any form or standard of acceptable behavior and thus having the freedom to do
anything you like…as long as it sounds or
feels good. This woman is the poster
child for the liberal/progressive community.
I
was raised under and heartily endorse the standard set forth by the famous
Democrat legislator and diplomat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said…“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but
not his own facts”. The
liberal/progressive wing of today’s Democrat Party obviously does not agree
with one of their most respected members.
They demand their right to their
own opinion, but then also require everyone else to adopt their version of the
facts. We sorely miss patriots and
statesmen like Moynihan in today’s American government and society.
The
truly frightening aspect of this approach is
not that they embrace this type of thinking; they undisputedly have the
right to do so and I have no problem with that.
The problem is that this
thinking is part and parcel of everything they do…from opinion to policy to governing…and they are dedicated to the proposition of foisting this type of
philosophy on everyone else. They
demand the right to think like this, but refuse to accept the right of others
to disagree with them. This facet of their creed is what makes them
truly dangerous for our nation and people.
It is an authoritarian ideal of government that is anathema to
our Constitution and the principles upon which this country was founded. You can judge for yourself.
https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244962042/npr-editor-uri-berliner-suspended-essay
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/04/npr-goes-full-gulag.php
Listen carefully to what this woman says... https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/04/the-other-shoe-drops-at-npr.php
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/katherine-maher-is-a-drone/
https://reason.com/2024/04/18/nprs-katherine-maher-is-not-taking-questions-about-her-tweets/
https://reason.com/2024/04/17/nprs-uri-berliner-has-shown-that-dei-is-about-punishing-heresy/
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/npr-embraces-its-own-bias/
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/04/15/should-npr-rely-on-listeners-rather-than-taxpayers-like-you/
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/defund-npr/
*****
Moving
onto other news of the day…
The
Biden /Obama Administration’s foreign
policy continues to roil the global security environment with their
nonsensical, chaotic, and illogical approach to world affairs…the Middle East
in particular. I repeat…these are very
dangerous times that we are living in and we have idiots running our government.
https://twitter.com/vdhanson/status/1779578220222054631
https://jewishworldreview.com/0424/hammer041924.php
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-regional-war-in-the-mideast-is-already-here/
https://nypost.com/2024/04/14/opinion/the-epic-fail-of-bidens-doctrine-vs-iran-no-consequences/
https://mrctv.org/blog/charles-kohlhaas/restraint-foreign-policy
https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/18/are-irans-nine-lives-nearing-an-end/
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/israel-iran-retaliation/2024/04/19/id/1161631/
Donald Trump is not a good man, but
his foreign policy made good sense.
Compare what is happening today in the Middle East with the environment
that existed under his Administration as president…
Here
are some more insane episodes from the
annals of our ongoing adventures in the national education system. People…local
communities must regain control of our schools. The future of our children and our nation is
at stake here.
https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/17/the-teachers-unions-are-more-political-than-ever/
The Democrat Party and their cabal
of liberal/progressive thinkers and institutions continue their legal and
political warfare against Donald Trump. Their obsession with this man and all things
related to him reflects a descent into political and legal insanity that I
don’t believe we have ever before witnessed.
The entity upon which our entire nation depends for equal justice and
freedoms has been politicized by the Biden Administration in an effort to
eliminate their chief political opponent and remain in power. Where does it all end and what will it all
lead to?
https://victorhanson.com/gaming-the-2024-campaign/
https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/14/the-battle-begins-trumps-trial-tests-american-justice/
In
closing…here are five quick observations
of our country and what its people and government are concerned with these days…things
that should make you go “hmmm”.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/importing-enemies-2/
https://americanmind.org/salvo/through-a-scope-backwards/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rehearsal-for-revolution/
