Disagreement vs. Destruction

Honest disagreement is good.  It leads to innovation and betterment.  But when disagreement is discarded for destruction, then a line is crossed.  This is the New Left.  From this launching point Democrats and liberals are on a quest to delegitimize the president.  They hate the man and are infuriated they are not in power.  Accordingly, personal destruction of the president, the economy, and nation are acceptable collateral damage to insure their “values” are restored.

But none of this is new.  We write in our book, Vigilance The Price of Liberty, about Herbert Marcuse, a political theorist, who many considered the Father of the “New Left” that originated in the colleges and campus protests in the 1960s.

In the Marcuse 1965 essay “Repressive Tolerance”, he argues that tolerance does not apply to right-wing political movements. Said in the context of the First Amendment, you have a right to only the speech that supports my views and all other speech is banned. Marcuse writes of his term “liberating tolerance”:  Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left [emphasis added]. . . They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc.

Marcuse is a dark figure to liberty, and the Democrats who embrace his contention and sophistry risk facing further voter wraith in 2018. 

President Trump is no hero, but he does represent a diversion from the politics that have encrusted the country for the past 16 years.  Trump is no breath of fresh air, but he does represent an optimism that prosperity will return by removing many of the shackles of government taxes and regulation.

The Democrats, liberals, and media allies should do three things:

1. accept the results that liberals have been removed from elected office in the majority of the federal and state governments based on the results of their governing not their messaging,
2. challenge Republicans with reasoned and fact based policy, and
3. come forth to compromise not with the attitude “it is my way or nothing”, but recognizing a minority party can only influence, not control.

With this we may be able to return to disagreement that can support our nation, rather than a path of destruction.