Speaking of Flag Burning Deja-vu

There's some serious Deja-vu in the air this week, hitting some harder than others (looking at you Matt Walsh). I'm of course talking about the uproar over Trump's EO on Flag Burning this week (while also wondering why this has generated almost none), and with those reactions in mind, I went to read the EO in question, and was puzzled to find not only less than Trump had floated nearly 10 years ago ("...perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!"...") for flag burning (which I posted on at the time in Burning our Freedom of Speech in action, reproduced below) and which I still stand behind, but I was puzzled to find far less than the reactions claimed was there.

A friend of mine had the same reaction, and both of us are wondering where people are getting their positions and panic from?

Take a look for yourself, if you haven't already (hopefully you haven't been reacting to it, before reading it for yourself?), it's barely a page long: PROSECUTING BURNING OF THE AMERICAN FLAG.

What I see in the EO, is a couple of paragraphs of preferences, opinion, and historical anecdotes, some reasonable expectations for respectful behavior, and he then essentially tacks "American Flag" onto references to existing laws and codes regarding:

"...determines that an instance of American Flag desecration may violate an applicable State or local law, such as open burning restrictions, disorderly conduct laws, or destruction of property laws..."

, and:

"...To the maximum extent permitted by the Constitution, the Attorney General shall vigorously prosecute those who violate our laws..."[emphasis mine]

, etc., and goes on to specify impermissible conduct along those same lines for legal aliens (nothing that illegal aliens do is permissible) ... and that's about it.

To be clear, I'm not 'for' the EO, but I'm not seeing what's panic worthy and unconstitutional about it either. I'm also not seeing the '1 year in jail' that's being bandied about and denounced. Do you? For those of you who are outraged... could you maybe show me what you're outraged over? Please.

To be even more clear, as I explain in the post below, I do not agree with the 'Johnson v Texas' decision (links below) where SCOTUS ruled that flag burning was 'protected speech'; not because it bravely protects 'difficult' free speech, but because it actually erodes it, which I go into in the post below:

"...So again, my question isn't centered around the flag, or any other symbol, but upon the notion that the inclusion of the flag can somehow transform an overtly intimidating or destructive action, into protected speech, without benefit of actual speech or even an artistic representation of it. What I'm questioning, is, whether expanding the range of things protected under the freedom of speech so as to encompass such things as the violent destruction of symbols, strengthens our liberty, or corrupts and weakens the concept of it, and jeopardizes our ability to sustain and enjoy that very liberty that we're all supposedly so concerned in protecting...."

I'll direct your attention to "Three Washington State Teens Face Ten Years In Prison For Vandalizing Pride Mural", for reference.

Also, unlike the ever volatile Matt Walsh, who was A-Ok with flag burning 6 years ago, and is exceedingly opposed to it now (and excuses that by saying "I changed my mind"), my position remains the same as it was a decade ago, because the principles involved haven't changed.

I don't think I need to add much more than that to the matter, so without further ado, lets go back to the future (as a regard for first principles typically enables us to do):


Monday, December 12, 2016
Burning our Freedom of Speech in action
In light of all the uproar last week over Trump's questioning of whether burning the flag should perhaps be protected as 'freedom of speech', or not, I'll exercise my freedom of speech by questioning some common assumptions about what freedom of speech is, and isn't.

To get the easy part out of the way, here's Trump's tweet that started the latest round of 'discussion':

"Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!"

, now, even allowing for his 'perhaps', the notion of losing your citizenship over burning the American Flag, or being imprisoned for a year, is, IMHO, silly, and further sensationalizes a subject that is already too saturated with it. But, that being said, what we associate with the 'flag burning issue' is something that needs a lot more consideration than the two existing poles of 'Burn it!' and 'Revere it!', tend to permit, especially since the burning of the flag is the least important aspect of it, and more often than not, it is a distraction from what the real issue is: our Freedom of Speech... and the rest of the 1st Amendment.

As much as I disrespect those who disrespect our flag, it's not the burning of the flag that I have an issue with, from a legal standpoint at any rate. What I do have an issue with, is what has become one of those default 'givens' that we hear and have heard over and over, from all sides, for so long, and so often, that we no longer get around to seriously questioning it, and that 'given' is the idea that the action of destroying property in as inflammatory a means as possible, can be considered 'speech' - let alone constitutionally protected speech. For decades I've heard that position being asserted (from the Left, and now even from the Right), and while I've heard objections to it being ridiculed, I've rarely heard the assertion really being questioned, and it seems like maybe it's about time to begin doing just that.

Here's the text of the 1st Amdt:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Simply reading the text of it isn't enough though, you need some understanding of what the idea is, and why it was considered important to prevent the Govt from infringing upon it, before you go attributing your own preferred meaning to it. If it's been a few years since you've done anything of the sort, here are a few links worth reading, beginning with the ideas and debates that went into writing it, up to the case most often referred to in flag burning discussions, Texas v. Johnson:

• This links to the text of the 1st Amdt as well as a number of links to arguments, debates, cases, comments, speeches (especially Montesquieu's, John Marshall's , relating to the original debates over the Freedom of Speech (Madison introducing his draft to congress) and James Kent's commentaries, the right to peaceably assemble and to address your grievances to your government(related links), as well as regards Religion, that went into writing the 1st Amdt, and its implementation
• , and from the last of those, which is especially worth reading (all the way through) Justice Joseph Story's comments on what it was that the 1st Amendment secured the freedom of,,
• , and finally the text of the Texas v. Johnson case, and key cases it references and builds upon,

  • U.S. v. O'Brien,
  • W.V. State Board of Education v. Barnette,
  • Boos v. Barry
  • and Stromberg v.CA

In reading these cases and comments, and thinking about what is meant by 'Freedom of Speech', it seems to me that most of the judgments attributing the actual burning of flags (or draft cards, etc) to being a form of speech protected under 'freedom of speech', or to 'symbolic speech', are not only inappropriate, but they cheapen, degrade, and dangerously blur that concept of speech which the framers of the amendment were seeking to preserve and defend. The treatment of the action of burning objects as that were equivalent to speech, waters down and weakens our understanding of what Freedom of Speech is and was meant to be, which I think jeopardizes our hold on this fundamental right far more than even an authoritarian government ever could.

Examples of just that are easy to find in our recent news headlines, with masses of people
disregarding the rights of others as they press on with the intention to 'exercise their own rights', by obstructing the free movement of others, and battering or burning their persons, cars, stores, and neighborhoods in riotous actions which they then turn around and righteously justify as being 'peaceful protests' with comments such as,

'It's a small price to pay for exercising our 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech!'

Is it really?

Since we've accepted the idea that the destruction of property, when wrapped up in the flag, magically becomes constitutionally protected speech, how coincidental can such rioting in the streets be?

I suppose that I should probably now get a few things clear about what I'm not saying or questioning, or leaving out of my consideration - I'm not in any way calling into question the need for that foundational liberty of Freedom of Speech to be vigorously defended. The freedom of speech, the ability to express our ideas - even and especially offensive ones - is a vital component of any society that hopes to have, and preserve, the liberty of its people.

Neither am I questioning the importance of defending the right to political or artistic speech, whether impromptu speech, or as expressed in writing, spoken or performed on stage or on screen, or as in more symbolic forms, such as painting or sculpture, etc. Such measures which illustrate and convey ideas, despite how foul they might seem to me, they are, and should be, protected under the freedom of speech.

Nor am I in any way questioning the right to peaceably assemble, or to petition government for redress - or for that matter Religious Liberty, on the contrary, and to borrow a phrase, 'They must all hang together or we will surely all hang separately', and the reason I'm questioning this, is to strengthens these vital rights, by thinking them through.

One thing that I'm definitely not doing though, is questioning whether those actions which destroy the property of another, or doing so on someones property without their permission, actually is - that is not freedom of speech, it's simply vandalism, as well as an assault upon the political anchor of all of our liberties, property. Such pure vandalism and destruction of property warrants punishment in its own right, before any questions or rationalizations of 'speech' come into consideration. Destructive actions which violate the rights of others, are not conveying speech (BTW, when violent and destructive actions are committed for political purposes, doesn't that flirt with being categorized as terrorism?).

A clear distinction needs to be made between that of peaceably assembling, petitioning for redress of grievances, giving voice to your dissatisfaction with government, and the action of destroying another's property, and it is of vital importance that the difference be clear in the minds of We The People. That our Supreme Court has not been especially careful in in that area, IMHO, borders upon negligence, and has borne much poisonous fruit.

Special Effects are not Speech
So again, my question isn't centered around the flag, or any other symbol, but upon the notion that the inclusion of the flag can somehow transform an overtly intimidating or destructive action, into protected speech, without benefit of actual speech or even an artistic representation of it. What I'm questioning, is, whether expanding the range of things protected under the freedom of speech so as to encompass such things as the violent destruction of symbols, strengthens our liberty, or corrupts and weakens the concept of it, and jeopardizes our ability to sustain and enjoy that very liberty that we're all supposedly so concerned in protecting.

For instance, let's remove those things I consider objectionable from the action and see what we wind up with. Let's say a person bought and paid for the flag themselves, and either went to their own property, or secured permission to another's property for that purpose, and without any credible effort to incite violence, with no chanting or protests or rude behavior of any kind involved, they simply, calmly, and without saying a word, set the flag on fire.

Would that be an expression of 'freedom of speech'?

If you said 'yes', can you explain to me why?

What I'm wondering is, what is it that you think those flames are saying to you? Do they speak to you of objections? Protests? Displeasure? Hatred? And if so, with what? Foreign policy? Racism? The particular cotton and rayon blend that the flag was printed upon? A dislike of Americans or just for American policy? Explain to me how you know that those sly whispering flames aren't simply expressing a dislike of the IRS... or of Hollywood, or of any of those other 'reasons' I just mentioned?

If you just tried to put your feeling into speech, you probably found that the specific action of burning the flag is unable to communicate anything of relative certainty, unless it is accompanied by either hostile or reverent actions. And yet even the simplest speech, even dryly and robotically repeating the very chants cited in Texas v. Johnson 's "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you", repeating that without any emotion or inflection, or even silently printing that chant out in block letters and without the accompaniment of any visual effects at all, even then, those words clearly communicate an unambiguous dissatisfaction with America. Don't they?

Why does the former communicate no clear meaning on its own, while the later is clear under any circumstances?

The answer is that only one of them is actually a form of speech, and the other is nothing more than a theatrical prop for that speech, a visual special effect, a theatrical contrivance to emphasize an idea, but it is not an idea itself, and so as it contains no communicable idea on its own, it is devoid of the attributes of speech, which is what that portion of the 1st Amendment is there to protect, preserve and safeguard: our ability to entertain and meaningfully communicate ideas in art, discussion and debate.

And to go a step further, while people assume that burning the flag 'expresses displeasure', why are we so quick to flatly assume that it is expressing their dislike of the flag, or even of America? Because it's on fire? Since the point of arguing that such 'symbolic action' is protected speech, can you rightfully ignore that the custom of those who revere the flag, is to burn any flag that's been soiled, as an expression of their respect for the flag? Or to break it down to the ridiculous, do flaming birthday candles express displeasure of the candles, cake or who you're presenting them to? Does lighting off fireworks express our displeasure with America? Were the Vikings or American Indians expressing their displeasure for the dead, when they burn their bodies on a funeral pyre?

If the act of lighting the flag on fire, in and of itself, is 'speech', then isn't it a very strange and mute kind of speech that doesn't seem able to communicate any one particular kind of thing at all? It is confused or even mute, because burning the flag is an emphatic action, but it is not in itself, speech, or even a substitute for it. The 1st Amendment protects speech, not each persons indistinct and pre-verbal feelings of angst.

It is ridiculous to pretend that burning a symbol to ashes somehow gives off 'speech' - how, in the smoke? By way of some sort of chemical reaction? It is untenable. Those who run up and burn the flag are very likely doing it because they despise something about America, but in justifying such actions as speech, by stretching the concept of what constitutes speech to the point of setting a flag on fire, can that really 'speak' anything meaningful to us at all? To say that it can, seems ridiculous to me.

With the above in mind, take a look at the summary of the SCOTUS case of Texas v. Johnson :

"JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
After publicly burning an American flag as a means of political protest, Gregory Lee Johnson was convicted of desecrating a flag in violation of Texas law. This case presents the question whether his conviction is consistent with the First Amendment. We hold that it is not.
I
While the Republican National Convention was taking place in Dallas in 1984, respondent Johnson participated in a political demonstration dubbed the "Republican War Chest Tour." As explained in literature distributed by the demonstrators and in speeches made by them, the purpose of this event was to protest the policies of the Reagan administration and of certain Dallas-based corporations. The demonstrators marched through the Dallas streets, chanting political slogans and stopping at several corporate locations to stage "die-ins" intended to dramatize the consequences of nuclear war. On several occasions they spray-painted the walls of buildings and overturned potted plants, but Johnson himself took no part in such activities. He did, however, accept an American flag handed to him by a fellow protestor who had taken it from a flagpole outside one of the targeted buildings.

The demonstration ended in front of Dallas City Hall, where Johnson unfurled the American flag, doused it with kerosene, and set it on fire. While the flag burned, the protestors chanted: "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you.""

This portion of it, I'm in full agreement with, that the govt has no case or place in opposing:

"...While the Republican National Convention was taking place in Dallas in 1984, respondent Johnson participated in a political demonstration dubbed the "Republican War Chest Tour." As explained in literature distributed by the demonstrators and in speeches made by them, the purpose of this event was to protest the policies of the Reagan administration and of certain Dallas-based corporations. The demonstrators marched through the Dallas streets, chanting political slogans and stopping at several corporate locations to stage "die-ins" intended to dramatize the consequences of nuclear war...." and "...the protestors chanted: "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you."

If we assume the best case scenario about the manner in which protesters might have marched through the streets, that much warrants the protections of the 1st Amendment's to peaceably assemble, and somewhat less clearly, it can make a credible claim to the 1st Amendment's protection to petition their govt with grievances, and of course the Freedom of Speech.

But in this portion, however, I do not, and I do not see how anyone can make a credible and legitimate case for claiming to be consistent with a respect for Individual Rights under the Rule of Law, as it is nothing more than violent and destructive actions to the public peace, and to private property, which constitute an assault upon the rights of others:

"...On several occasions they spray-painted the walls of buildings and overturned potted plants, but Johnson himself took no part in such activities. He did, however, accept an American flag handed to him by a fellow protestor who had taken it from a flagpole outside one of the targeted buildings.

The demonstration ended in front of Dallas City Hall, where Johnson unfurled the American flag, doused it with kerosene, and set it on fire. ..."

That is neither practicing nor respecting the right of the people to peaceably assemble, nor to petition their Government for a redress of grievances, nor does it intelligibly convey the reasons for doing so, which is what speech is, and is for - which is a point what Montesquieu was getting at in the link above, where he said,

"Words do not constitute an overt act; they remain only in idea."

, and conflating them with action, is dangerous to the defense of both. This passage,"While the flag burned," should be separated from '...the protestors chanted: "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you." by more than a comma; the later portion is the actual speech with which our liberty depends upon us to protect, while the former, 'while it burned' is nothing more than a special effect to highlight that speech which was spoken - and again, special effects are not themselves speech.

Burning the flag is an action, not speech, it's just you burning stuff while stomping your feet, and the more we move towards seeing them as one, the closer we come to putting our freedom of speech in real jeopardy. If you make emotional actions equivalent to speech, you not only encourage the notion that attacks upon persons can be permitted as 'expressing your freedom of speech', but you will eventually find, when things go too far, that actual speech will be curtailed, along with such violence, when people have finally had enough of it. You cannot conflate the two, without eventually putting both in great peril.

If you want to express your displeasure with America in a way that can claim the protections of our freedom of speech, and do so in a manner that doesn't impinge upon the those other measures protected under the 1st Amendment, then you need to be using words, or clear substitutes or symbols for them. And if you accompany those words with the action of a flaming flag, be aware that those flames only accent the speech, they are not speech itself. Burning the Flag, the symbol of America, is an action, not speech. It is not even properly symbolic, it's but the active and meaningless destruction of a meaningful symbol. At best such protesters are using destructive or intimidating actions to express FEELINGS! and LOUD NOISES!, but nothing that can be understood as speech.

What can't be understood or communicated, can't be said to be speech - feelings, yes, but not speech, and our 1st Amendment, thank God, does not protect your feelings. Only modern colleges attempt to do that.

Symbols speak for themselves - destroying them silences that speech, while expressing only your preference for destructive actions, over thoughtful speech
The flag is, of course, a symbol, and a particularly rich one, deep with meaning in its Stars and Stripes, symbolizing our defining principles of liberty under the Rule of Law established to limit the fearsome power of government, to the purpose of upholding and defending the lives, individual rights and property of its citizens, as citizens, who are regarded as equals before their laws.

We've already seen how poorly the action of burning a flag puts anything intelligible into speech, but does it do any better symbolically? What symbolic speech does the flag burner convey by destroying the symbol of our nation (or any other symbol, for that matter)? I'm not asking why they burn it, or for an evaluation of it, only for you to tell me what it says - can you?

Are they attempting to symbolically express their dislike for those particular men who fell short in living up to what our flag symbolizes? Or is it their dislike for the worthy ideals that some or many particular people fell short in defending? Are they symbolically criticizing those high ideals, or those who failed to live up to them? Does allowing any ambiguity in that distinction make any damn sense at all? On such an important question, the flag burners are, by their own actions, unfit to express their pre-conceptual angst, seemingly mute before it, unable to do anything but give vent to their emotions by destroying a symbol of elevated concepts and values which they apparently can't begin to understand or put into words themselves. In a very real sense (though perhaps not legally actionable), burning the flag, is itself an assault upon the spirit of the 1st Amendment, and by means of something other than what it stands in defense of.

Symbols are able to convey deep concepts and the highest thoughts of ordered speech, and it takes more than destroying those symbols to elevate such destruction to an equivalent level of thoughtful speech. Destroying the symbol of such thought does not itself create or convey thought, it only destroys it, symbolically, or actually. To take it to the extreme, in murdering Martin Luther King as the symbol of the Civil Rights movement, James Earl Ray did not express any ideas worthy of protecting, he did not communicate one iota of speech, point of arguments or words of eloquence, he merely murdered a greater man than he was. MLK is such a powerful symbol today, because he was supremely capable of eloquently communicating high ideas and arguments, through words, and through moving and meaningful symbols of liberty - and the 1st Amendment afforded him the protection of the law to do that, no matter how the Bull Connor's in Govt at the time desired to revoke his freedom to put those ideas into speech.

The destruction of symbols, living or inanimate, do not constitute speech, actual or symbolic, they only seek to put an end to such speech. Destructive actions such as that convey no more speech than a savages' incoherent howl.

By setting such a symbol as the American Flag on fire, people at best identify themselves as being incapable of freely expressing even a single criticism in words that others can understand - and they show no respect for the need to; they display themselves for all to see as better suited to the savage barbarity which the accepting of such actions as speech is most likely to engender and spread.

Burning the flag is not, and cannot be, speech - it is only a destructive action, nothing more. In certain contexts it may deserve to be protected; the 9th amdt affords enough unenumerated rights and powers to individuals, to secure and preserve legitimate means of protesting, and I'm sure that a clever lawyer could, and probably should, be be able to cite a defense for people who wish to add such theatrical emphasis to their speeches - if they can do so without violating the rights of their fellow citizens - but it still does not fall under the banner of the Freedom of Speech.

The question we should be asking ourselves now is not what Trump tweeted or how to punish anything other than arson, but questioning what it is that accepting such actions as speech does to our own understanding of what speech is. And we should question what must surely follow when such barbaric actions are elevated to the level of civilized speech, and unwisely defended on the same grounds, as if they were the same thing - such equivocations can't help but be dangerous to all of our liberty.

From out of the ashes
So if I'm correct in saying that neither vandalism nor violence, can be considered to be 'freedom of speech', what do you suppose it is that we've invited into our popular consciousness, by saying that such actions are the equivalent of speech? Doesn't making the claim that such actions are protected forms of speech, say that you have a constitutionally protected right to commit vandalism and violence? That seems as ridiculous as saying that 'peaceful protests' can involve forcibly prevent other people's freedom of movement in going about their lives, destroying public and private property, and rioting in the street.

I'm not attempting to elevate the flag to the status of a protected object (but aren't the flag burners actually attempting to surreptitiously do just that?), or to make burning it a taboo - if you want to burn the flag, buy one, take it to where you have the right to burn it, and burn it, gather around the flames and chant over it, broadcast it, stream it, do it however you'd like; flame away to your hearts content. I would not dream of forbidding that to you, and in fact I worry that attempting to extend government power to the preservation of such worthy symbols, does put the liberty it symbolizes in jeopardy.

In his dissent to the Johnson v. Texas case, Justice Rehnquist went into a long review of the origin and symbolism of the flag which I think is relevant only in so far as to establish that burning it is an intentionally provocative action, meant to provoke a reaction or to be suffered in silence, by those witnessing it,

"...In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), a unanimous Court said: "Allowing the broadest scope to the language and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or `fighting' words - those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality." Id., at 571-572...."[emphasis mine]

, and he notes what I partly agree with, and partly find fault with:

"... The result of the Texas statute is obviously to deny one in Johnson's frame of mind one of many means of "symbolic speech." Far from being a case of "one picture being worth a thousand words," flag burning is the equivalent of an inarticulate grunt or roar that, it seems fair to say, is most likely to be indulged in not to express any particular idea, but to antagonize others. Only five years ago we said in City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 812 (1984), that "the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to employ every conceivable method of communication at all times and in all places." The Texas statute deprived Johnson of only one rather inarticulate symbolic form of protest - a form of protest that was profoundly offensive to many - and left him with a full panoply of other symbols and every conceivable form of verbal expression to express his deep disapproval of national policy. Thus, in no way can it be said that Texas is punishing him because his hearers - or any other group of people - were profoundly opposed to the message that he sought to convey. Such opposition is no proper basis for restricting speech or expression under the First Amendment. It was Johnson's use of this particular symbol, and not the idea that he sought to convey by it or by his many other expressions, for which he was punished."

What I agree with, is

"... flag burning is the equivalent of an inarticulate grunt or roar that, it seems fair to say, is most likely to be indulged in not to express any particular idea, but to antagonize others..."

That's spot on. Which leads to what I disagree with him on, and what I believe undercuts his case, that such actions can then be considered to be "symbolic speech" while at the same time, not be speech. It can be an action, a special effect, a provocation, but it is not symbolic or a symbol, it is only the destruction of a symbol, and should not, cannot be, considered to as speech - symbolic or otherwise. And while I thoroughly understand and agree that the Flag is properly loaded with symbolism, and that it plays a vital role in the hearts and minds of Americans, I do not believe that the govt can play a role in preserving or protecting it.

Govt can act on the secondary results of the burning of the flag, in that recognizing such actions as Johnson's were intentionally provocative ones, and were designed to arouse spiteful emotions, and therefore was an act of incitement, which is actionable, in terms of preserving the peace. But I do not think it can have a role in actively protecting our flag as a symbol of America, from Americans. Not because it isn't a vital symbol, and not because such a thing would be improper for govt to do, but because taking on such a role, for such a purpose, cannot adequately be defined and delimited, without giving the government such power as that role would inevitably turn towards preventing and silencing actual speech, in the name of the symbol of that liberty. Despite Rehnquist's criticism of an earlier court's comment, that the SCOTUS took,

'... its role as a Platonic guardian admonishing those responsible to public opinion as if they were truant schoolchildren has no similar place in our system of government...'

that is pretty much where a prudent evaluation of the matter must end up at.

While I sympathize with those who'd like to pass a law protecting the American Flag, the power that such a law would give to government would be impossible to contain, and would soon be used to destroy the liberties which that flag stands for. We cannot protect the flag through laws, but only by better understanding what it stands for, and by reasoning with, or speaking out against, those who'd put both flag and the understanding of it in peril.

Wrap Liberty up in the Rule of Law, not the Flag
To wrap it up, what I'm saying is that the idea that destroying a symbol can somehow transform provocative actions into speech, without benefit of actual speech, or even an artistic representation of it, is a danger to actual speech.

You could of course actually paint, speak, stage or film yourself destroying revered and symbolic objects, even including in your 'art' the burning of property, even dramatically punching a judge in the face, and get away with calling that artistic expression - in a theatrical setting. But the 'fourth wall' is a very real one, and if you step beyond it into 'real life' and physically walk up to someone and destroy their property or punch them in the face, you're not going to get away with calling that either political, artistic, or symbolic speech. It is only violence, and nothing more, and engaging in it carries you across the Fourth Wall from the theater of art, and into a Hobbesian theater of war of all against all; a warring on speech, on property, and so on Individual Rights and the Rule of Law.

What those who think of themselves as defenders of 'free speech' are doing, in redefining what speech is, is extremely dangerous. When a definition is stretched to the point of including that which it is clearly not, along with what is so essential to what it actually is, that is not strengthening the concept which such actions are hiding behind; you are not broadening the identity of speech by doing so, you are corrupting, weakening, and slowly destroying it where it really matters, as questions of 'what the meaning of 'is' is' operate like termites in our common understanding. By accepting broad and watered down redefinitions of what speech is, we've opened the door to tyrannical abuses of our core rights and liberties, by those who seek to dominate us through such actions, wrapped up in the flag as if they actually were instances of speech. The consequence of our having made such errors, are brutally visible in the popularity of the belief that riotous 'peaceful protests' should be tolerated because they have '1st amendment protections!', as one enthusiast described protesters marching through traffic, terrifying the car's occupants, damaging their vehicles, and smashing store windows as they passed.

A glorious symbol that is best protected in the hearts and minds of We The People

How free can Freedom of Speech be, when protecting the Freedom of Speech of some, entails infringing on, or ending the ability of others, to peacefully discuss  or act under such ideas? In our swallowing that position as being a legitimate one, I think we've swallowed a poison pill.

What seems apparent to me, is that by allowing what is not speech, to be protected as if it were speech, we are jeopardizing our Freedom of Speech by allowing the indiscriminate exercise of physical force and violence to mask itself as being speech, and in so doing makes the freedom of speech - and our liberty - that much less secure.

If anyone has an argument to show me where I'm going wrong here, I'd dearly appreciate your speaking up.

Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Jefferson, James Otis, and reflecting upon how dependent America is, upon Americans' understanding our Declaration of Independence

Three quick points before getting to my annual reposting of Calvin Coolidge's speech on the "Inspiration of our Declaration of Independence", and to the Declaration of Independence itself - the first, which I went into a little bit of detail here, is that the Declaration of Independence is the vehicle through which those who care about what is real and true are able to become one people, Americans, and that its inheritance is not one of blood, but of understanding their shared ideals. To affirm:

'... these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...'

, is your ticket into the American body-politic, it is your passport to recite the later phrases with the rest of us, so that 'We The People' are able to form a more perfect union because we do hold these truths to be self-evidently true. It is how we are made 'e Pluribus Unum - Out of many, One' people, and our diverse origins and differences are transformed into interesting footnotes to our lives, rather than defining - or dividing - features of them.

The second point, is that with the Supreme Court striking a blow against the encroachments upon our liberty by the Administrative State, things are looking better for the restoration and preservation of liberty, than they have in decades.

The third point, is that our independence wasn't begun on July 4th 1776, that was simply the end of the beginning. And in what has been more terrifyingly clear with the 2020s, perhaps especially in how 2025 is unfolding, is how central to America that the Declaration of Independence and the ideas that animate it is, to there being an America (the geographical location of our nation) with Americans (those who understand and revere the ideas that made America possible) in it, and for either of those to be able to continue on for long into the future.

I'm not talking about each person having a copy of it - the document itself is meaningless and useless without a people who understand it. The Declaration of Independence only came into being in the first place, because there was a people along the eastern seaboard who understood its meaning well before it was written. Thomas Jefferson later commented that he made no attempt to be innovative or 'revolutionary' when writing it, but only that he intended it "... to be an expression of the American mind..." - is it an expression of yours?

John Adams, in the first quotation below, recalled that in his opinion the American Revolution actually began in 1761, when James Otis spoke against the 'Writs of Assistance' to an assembled crowd, calling out a wealth of classical allusions and a sweeping summation of history and of legal gems, which roused all of his listeners through a torrent of eloquence so profound that Adams thought it had sparked the revolution 'then and there'. Otis too expressed only the common content and passions of "the American mind", and so I ask you, if a new James Otis were to speak to us like that today, how many people living here in America would recognize any of what he summarized or recognize why it was important? Would those modern listeners be more likely to be moved by his eloquence... or to shrug it away with a texted 'TLDR' ('Too Long Didn't Read')?

How likely is it that we can long have either America or Americans in it, without the Declaration of Independence being both known and understood by at least a majority of them? And how well can it be understood by a people who've been 'educated' out of any familiarity with that history, its important ideas, and a perspective that values profound truths eloquently expressed?

Don't bother muttering against our schools, they have dropped the ball, intentionally, and they cannot be looked to for help in picking it back up. It's you who needs to do this, beginning with yourself, and counting on no one else to fill the contents of your own mind with what it has until now lacked. The internet is open to you, and I've provide the links you need here to get started. You and no one else are responsible, for America continuing to be populated with Americans... or at least with one (who can then tell another).

July 4th 1776, was the end of the beginning of America's Independence, it's up to you to ensure that July 4th 2025 isn't the beginning of its end. And to ensure that... you need to start back at the beginning. And where our independence began, according to a fellow that was in attendance at both events, John Adams, was when James Otis spoke against King George's 'Writs of Assistance' back in 1761, which as Adams recalled it,

",,,But Otis was a flame of fire! With a promptitude of Classical Allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events & dates, a profusion of Legal Authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous Eloquence he hurried away all before him. American Independence was then & there born. The seeds of Patriots & Heroes to defend the Non sine Diis Animosus Infans; to defend the Vigorous Youth were then & there sown. Every Man of an immense crouded Audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take Arms against Writs of Assistants. Then and there was the first scene of the first Act of opposition to the Arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the Child Independence was born. In fifteen years i.e. in 1776. he grew up to Manhood, & declared himself free.,,,"[emphasis mine]

I point that out, because it underlines the importance of what is perhaps most remarkable about what the Declaration of Independence's author, Thomas Jefferson, considered to be the least remarkable aspect of it - that he intended the Declaration as an expression of ideas that were familiar and commonly understood, by the majority of Americans, of that time, as Jefferson wrote to a friend in later years, about what it was meant to accomplish:

"Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c..."

That is why we are unique in the annals of human history, as being a nation founded upon ideas (those twits mouthing on about 'inherent American anti-intellectualism' can kiss my patriotic ass). And those common ideas, and their influence, continued to serve as strong guides for the later creation of our Constitution, can be easily found in even a cursory reading, between the charges of the Declaration of Independence against King George, and their reflection in our Constitution and the amendments to it, and ...

"To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World."

• 1st Amendment

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

• 2nd Amendment

"HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries."

• The first three articles of our Constitution, divides Govt into three branches, which prevent any one person or wing from attaining a monopoly of power over the others.

"HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance."

• This is what our Constitution was expressly designed to forbid, which unfortunately is what the pro-regressive Administrative State, was erected upon it to encourage (as was our politically instituted educational system) - proof that Laws that do not live in the hearts and minds of the people, cannot protect them against themselves

"HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures. HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power."

• Congress has control of organizing and funding the military budget, and while the Executive has command of the military, he can not do much, for long, without the further consent of the people's representatives, and in all ways, the military is under civil control.

"FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us"

• 3rd Amendment

"FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States"

• Article 3, Sections 2, Clause 3, as well as the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th Amendments of the Bill of Rights

"FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World"

• Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3

"FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

• Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3

"FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury"

• 5th and 6th Amendments (and more)

, and if you take the time to read both, you will find many, many, more points of harmony between the two.

But enough, onto Calvin Coolidge's speech, and a happy Independence Day to you all!

The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence
Given in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 5, 1926:

We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgment of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.

Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human
experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.

It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.

It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose they have become sanctified.

It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes which led to the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were largely economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which interfered with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose taxes which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to these laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.

We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them. The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.

While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.

This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.

When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history. One empire after another has arisen, only to crumble away as its constituent parts separated from each other and set up independent governments of their own. Such actions long ago became commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.

It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.

If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.

It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.

The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.

But if these truths to which the declaration refers have not before been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect upon our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been true. But the principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations before the advent of the French political philosophy that characterized the middle of the eighteenth century. In fact, they come from an earlier date. A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that:
The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people

The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance.

This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise, entitled "The Church's Quarrel Espoused," in 1710 which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.

While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his "best ideas of democracy" had been secured at church meetings.

That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and independent". It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, "Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man". Again, "The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth . . . ." And again, "For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine". And still again, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state". Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.

When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature's God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say "The people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven."

No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.

Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.

If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self government; the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that "Democracy is Christ's government". The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.

On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to present evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at home and the ever broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although these things are well known, their frequent consideration is an encouragement and an inspiration. But it is not results and effects so much as sources and causes that I believe it is even more necessary constantly to contemplate. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.

It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one might encroach upon the other. These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has been an ever broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.

Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.

No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.

***************
Happy Independence Day America! **************************

In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

North Carolina
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts
John Hancock

Maryland
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

Massachusetts
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire
Matthew Thornton

What the Right misses in current events, that the Wokesters (Left & Right) never do

I've watched several news cycles come and go since I started on this post, and what eventually caught my interest in it then, has been evident in each of the newer news cycles since then, and in most of the ones preceding it. This particular incident is from four or five news cycles back, where a woman named Shilow Hendrix was videoed on a playground calling a child, and the person videoing her, the 'n-word'. This was the one where the videographer promised to punish her by making it go viral on the internet, which it did, but in an unexpected wrinkle, wound up reaping her nearly a million dollars through online contributions to a Givesendgo account. I'd initially described my attitude towards that at the time as being 'rabidly uninterested' in it, but as I poked about in the responses to it, and noticed these features regularly persisting across our news cycles, it turns out that despite the event itself being a few cycles behind the 'news', it's still very timely.

The best and most level-headed point for point commentary on that 'event' itself, came from Isiah (though you may want to gird your ears, because Isiah, as he describes it, is commenting from that part of New York City that uses the F'word as a comma). One of the worst features of the issue is that the worst parts didn't come from the pro-regressive Wokesters of the Left & Right ('a turd by any other name would reek the same'), but from the reactions to it from those of the Left, Right, and Center, who've been trying and mostly failing, to be 'Based' in their responses to it.

What nudged me into writing this post, was the responses to James Lindsay's response, to Matt Walsh's response to the video, which is what got me to finally watch the original video. Regarding Lindsay's commentary, aside from a couple minor digs at Walsh in the latter half of the last paragraph that didn't seem necessary, I agreed with his points and with why he made them, as well as with his conclusion that while Walsh isn't 'Woke Right', several of his takes on the issue are wrong in both particulars and principles.

There were three particular issues in Walsh's commentary that caught my attention, the nature of which I recognized from other news cycles before and since. Which can be picked out in Walsh's:

1. ...opinion of what the 'actual issue' is and is not,
2. ...opinion of what contributing cash to unsavory people in difficult circumstances, will and will not accomplish
3. ...Miss Manners-like take on the proper usage of the 'n-word'.

1) The Issue is never about the issue...
The first part of that, begins at the 10.29 mark, where Walsh states what far too many people believe about issues such as this:

'...the most important parameter is that the person is white' [and] '...soley based upon...'

It's painful to still have to say this in 2025, but Race is not the issue. Despite all attempts to make it seem like the reason, Race and 'Whiteness', are not that. Not even when the issue is specifically about targeting 'white people' for the need to redress the systemic racism of their 'Whiteness'.

How can I say that "It's not about race!", when they actually say that it's about race? Easy. It's because their issues are never about what they claim to be about. You can see what I mean for yourself by asking yourself this:

• Do you see the Woke Left embracing Thomas Sowell on the basis of his race?
• Do you see the Woke Right embracing James Lindsay on the basis of his race?
• Do you think the Woke Left began vandalizing Tesla's because of their sudden hatred for the way Tesla manufactured their electric cars & trucks?

See what I mean? Although Race was the vehicle, it was not what drove the Hendrix video, just as it's not what's driving the current news cycle's evasion of the nature of Illegal Immigration (or of "regime change" in the Israel/Iran conflict), and it's frustrating to still be addressing this in 2025, as if people have forgotten Alinsky's dictum:

"The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution!"

, which was the case in the 70s when Alinsky made his point, as has been the case since the Fergusson riots of 2014 here in St. Louis and on through the George Floyd summer of 2020, and it has been the case that has persisted case in education for decades, as I pointed out in these posts on SEL, DEI, CRT in 2021:

Appearances are meant to be deceiving - and destructive
What we are led to believe by all of this, and by the media reporting on it, is that it's all about Race, all about *whiteness*, and all about *white supremacy*, but... believe it or not, it's not really about race. If your reaction is "They're talking about racism, they're calling me a racist, it feels a lot like it's about race... and I'm not going to tolerate it!", that's understandable, and you know what? They understand that that will be your reaction too. Think about that. My dear binary ladies and gents, when the enemy has gone to such great lengths to prepare the ground for you to fight them on, you’d be wise to think twice before fighting them there.

IOW: It's a trap! Seriously. Don’t go there. They go to great lengths to make this appear to be all about race, but it’s not about race, and no matter how many actual racists are involved - and there are many - Race is just the most convenient means of sowing dissension and causing division; the easiest means of putting people on edge; the easiest means of pitting people against each other; which is the easiest means of turning people's good intentions into the means of subduing them, so as to seize more of what this is all about: Power.

Don’t take the bait, don’t bother telling them that you’re not a racist or that they are; don’t tell them they’ve got you all wrong; because those are the very steps that they want you to take, as they will lead you smack dab into the kill zone that they’ve prepared for you...."

The power the Wokesters are pursuing, feeds upon division and discord, which requires suppressing their opponents ability to reason well. If you keep that perspective in mind, it becomes clear that Race is simply one of those issues (along with illegal aliens, gender, class, 1%, etc.,) that the pro-regressive Woke (Left & Right) know will be an effective means of stirring up anger & division amongst Americans, which is what they use to further their actual purposes - the revolution. And as the bewildered owners of Tesla cars & trucks can attest to - having gone from being treated as a kind of cool, virtuous, elite, to being attacked as the scum of society, to being all but forgotten about in the current news cycle - whatever the 'issue' of the moment actually is, is nothing more than what the Woke think will most effectively serve their purposes at that particular moment, and they can & will spin around on a dime the moment they feel the moment has changed.

You might well ask just how much value there is in knowing that 'the issue isn't the issue', when weighed against the real harm that real people suffer from bearing the brunt of the issue being raised. After all:

• Don't Tesla owners have very real cause for anger over the very real harm that's been done to them?
• Don't Tesla owners have a real basis for seeking satisfaction?

Yes, absolutely and undoubtedly. And sure, for the Tesla owners to know that they weren't the reason they were targeted, is unlikely to make them feel a whole lot better. But be that as it may, wouldn't it be at best mistaken, and at the very least foolish & destructive, to propose making it up to those Tesla owners, by vandalizing Ford, GM, Chrysler cars, penalizing their owners, and forcing them to yield to Tesla's in traffic, as if those owners and their Tesla's were the issue?

Just as that special treatment would do nothing but stoke the same flames of agitation & division which the Wokesters' were intending to enflame all along, treating 'Race' or 'Whiteness' as issues that justify singling the particular targets of the moment out for recompensation, would be far worse than merely pointless and counterproductive.

I understand want to approach the issue logically and make a straight forward response to it, but you need to remember that the fundamental requirement of a logical argument is that your premises be true, and when you attempt to form a logical response that's based upon a false premise that they fabricated to set you up with, it's not going to improve your position at all. When you rush into the argument that they've prepared for you, like Walsh does, with logic, facts, & charges locked & loaded for a clear cut reasonable argument to a point they tricked you into defending, you're going to find that you've brought the proverbial knife to a gunfight as they easily brush your facts, premises, and arguments aside in the most irrational manner possible, while subjecting you to being smeared with charges you won't be able to reasonably understand, and which will leave you with no means for arguing against them.

To repeat, when someone who considers you to be their enemy, carefully prepares a battleground to battle you upon, it is unwise to go meeting them on that ground at the time and place of their choosing!

To borrow a phrase... 'Wake Up!' (ahem).

By allowing yourself to be sucked into angrily treating these issues as anything other than a pretext for screwing our entire society over with, you and those you associate with, are likely to get sucked into helping them advance the Wokester's goals. Don't do that.

2) Ideological incentives trump economic incentives (which undermine your ability to act on what is right)
The 2nd issue I saw was Walsh's hot take on using the power of Economics to shape society closer to his heart (!), in that he believed Shiloh Hendrix getting rich off her crude behavior, would provide *us* with the incentive & means for cancelling Cancel Culture. That begins at the 14.08 mark:

'... effectively ended cancel culture... and I think that's right...', and that the '...only way to disincentivize that behavior is to reward the person who's being targeted...', and that '... the only thing that can stop them, the thing that can make them think twice about doing this again, is if they know that instead of getting their target cancelled, they might accidentally make them rich. And more importantly, even than the money ...they must know that their attempt to isolate, to ostracize somebody, will fail...'

, and that at 15.50

'...that for every person condemning the targeted person to more, will rally to their defense...', and at 16.20 '...with this case, that assumption has been flipped on its head, because now the mob knows, that making them famous, might help them, rather than hurt them, rather than the fame being punished, it's being rewarded...'

Sorry, but on two levels, one being how incentives work, and the other being what ideological people are incentivized by, I answer an emphatic no.

Reminder, 'economics' was Marx's means of destabilizing the West, and 'Capitalism' was the term he used to 'polarize it, freeze it' the Free Market with.

In the first case, treating cancel culture as an economic behavior, is at the very least mistaking the nature of economic incentives. Haven't we all seen the Wokester's get publicly skewered in backlashes that financially penalized them for their actions. That happened with the case of Nick Sandman, the Covington High School student targeted by media at the Washington monument, who won millions of dollars in settlements from the Washington Post, NBC, and CNN. It happened in Elon Musk's lawsuit against Media Matters, and Peter Theil/Hulk Hogan's suit against Gawker.

With such obvious economics disincentives involved, have the media changed? No? Gee... it's almost as if something else is motivating them...isn't it? Clearly such 'economic issues' are neither incentives or disincentives for their ideological behavior, but you can be assured that they will double down on continuing to go 'Forward!', if such setbacks mean guaranteeing even more public focus upon the same divisive ideological messages they're using to divide us with.

Of course the Wokesters (Left & Right) would prefer to see the person's life they targeted destroyed - that's in the nature of those who look first to Power - but for them that small bit of destruction is just a 'happy side-effect', of the more destructive revolution they seek. Whatever the issue may have been or soon will be, they are chosen for their ability to stir up publicity and division across society, and they have no meaning for them beyond that (hello: Nihilists!), but so long as their revolution is being served, such small setbacks of prosperity for those they targeted, will be taken in stride as little more than 'unfortunate' collateral damage, so long as it furthers the division & discord that the initial action was intended to ignite in the first place.

So when they see one of their targets like Shilow Hendrix getting a million dollars, which stirs up even more publicity, and stirs up still more division amongst the 'normies' over 'someone like her' benefitting from it, and they take the bait of feeling targeted for 'being white', and that leads them more deeply into 'economic thinking' - then since they are only reaping more of what they initially targeted her for, to begin with - what is there for the Wokesters not to like?!

But to think that someone else - vulgar or not - being economically rewarded or penalized could be even a way, let alone the only way, to deter the ideological fervor behind cancel culture, is to utterly and completely miss what 'this' is all about. On just the 'economics of it' alone, it entirely misreads what 'economic incentives' are - valid 'economic incentives' aren't about what another person receives, but what you personally seek to gain, or avoid losing. And because of the way such incentives actually do work, when people see that those who've been publicly cancelled, could be actually gaining money from Givesendgo dollars because they were targeted, what that's most likely to incentivize is others of similarly questionable character, seeking out similar situations (staged even) so that they can try to appeal to the 'Based' internet and fill up their own Givesendgo's with mega bucks (which seemed to have already happened. Go figure), which, of course, is likely to garner still more of the very same publicity, division, and discord, that the Wokesters sought to inflame us with in the first place.

More importantly, the 'economics' of what 'this' is all about, is that getting you to think about all such issue in economic terms, as Walsh advises, is fundamentally engaging in the act of putting utilitarian ends over doing what is right & best, which cancel culture and everything which makes it possible and probable, fundamentally depends upon your thinking!

Or to picture their words:

James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames
Everything the Woke Left does is in service to its revolution. Every issue it takes up is just a crowbar against the society they hate. This is why you get things like Queers for Palestine and these LA riots. It's also all strategic, which is why a weekend of protest comes next.

Getting you to not only go along with, but to engage in the farcical 'ethics' of 'the Ends justify the means' (which is exactly what the modern field of Economics hinges upon - see my extended post 'Exiting the wizards circle'), is a means of causing your ethical sense to collapse, which is a huge incentive - and primary goal - for them.

The notion of using 'economic incentives' which have no value for the Pro-Regressive Wokester's of the Left or Right (are you using Marx's definition of Value, or Bastiat's?), as a means to end Cancel Culture, can and will have no worthwhile outcome. The Woke are not economically motivated - economics is often their means but it's not their motive - what motivates them is their ideology, and while they will be radically inflamed when they see that those they've attacked are benefitting from that attack - that's not going to incentivize them to back off, it's going to rile them up into going further & faster forward.

IOW, like the Tesla's, the person or issue being attacked is not the target, the narrative & disturbances generated from that attack, is, because:

'The issue is never the issue, it is always the revolution!'

They attack whatever particulars present themselves as seeming useful in promoting their ideology and/or the beliefs that they're associating with them, as that's the best means of elevating their ability to cause further divisions, so as to intimidate the 'wrong people', and further their revolution.

So, sorry, but no, Capitalism is not going to solve society's faulty and failing ideology, it's only going to provide its enemies more of what they seek, while producing more fire for the revolution - which actually is the only 'problem of production' that they passionately desire to solve. And prescribing Capitalism to cure a philosophical cancer, is at best philosophical malpractice and economic incompetence, and there will be no cure forthcoming from such a misdiagnosis as that, and no benefits will follow from whatever additional 'cures' might be prescribed based upon them.

3) If you don't use The Master's Tools correctly, they will use them against you
The third point that I saw persisting across the news cycles, is visible in Walsh's 'Miss Manners' approach to the issue of the proper use of the 'n word'.

20.30 '...totally indefensible...' (one side can say n word, other can't) ...' and ''...if it's wrong to say the word, then it's wrong for anyone to say the word, then they need to not say it...'

They don't defend using the 'n' word, because that isn't their point in using it. Your reaction to their use of the 'n word' is the point of their actions, and here you are thinking that the best plan is to start using the 'n word' as a means of taking a principled stand? To what?! Do you really think that the way they use the 'n word' is the result of a logical or grammatical error on their part? Do you really think that your principled arguments and logical corrections, are going to... what, correct their accidental logical & grammatical errors, and somehow teach or shame them into the proper usage of improper language?!

Really?! Well... thank you Mr. Helper, but I think you need to pay a bit more attention to what they think about your principles and logic ('Ah! Ahh! AHHH!!!' 😎).

See, for instance (as I noted in this post), how Audre Lord gave their answer to that approach, a great many news cycle ago:

That strategic intent was perhaps most vividly illustrated by Audre Lorde, the Marxist, black, lesbian, feminist, activist (do you feel "the exasperated etc” in that listing?), whose infamous statement has become a rallying cry of what Deconstructionism is all about:

"the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

Get it?

• The Master's House that they want to dismantle (deconstruct) is the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian West.
• The Masters Tools which they've realized are of no use to them - and which they want to keep out of other people's hands as well, are Reason and Logic and the culture which values them.

Whenever their activist followers and functionaries do and say seemingly senseless, illogical, and unreasonable things, from demanding the use of ridiculous pronouns, to claims of being "non-binary!", or labeling you (meaning any Westerner of any color) as a 'White Supremacist', they're not doing so because they're fools, but because those illogical and unreasonable words and actions are the most suitable tools at hand in their Post-Modernist toolbelt, for them to utilize as 'the right tools for the job' of dismantling 'The Master's House', by producing reactions of discomfort and anger in you, which deconstructs its fundamental norms from within you.

Their 'unfairness' and irrationality are not a result of errors or inconsistencies, and they're not driven by the pursuit of the profit motive, what their actions are, are calculated attacks upon your Logos, and if you don't learn to shield yourself from them, instead of engaging with them (hello Trojan Horse), your mind is going to end up dead (say hello to the battlefield they've prepared for you to fight them upon).

Using the 'n word' is not about the word, it's about the attention it so easily inflames, so as to cause anxiety and division amongst Americans, in order to (wait for it...) further their revolution. And Walsh's plan to use such words to make a point and defend the language, is nothing more than accepting their engraved invitation to meet them on the battlefield at the time and place which they've very carefully chosen, for you to fight them upon.

Come on, do I need to say it again? 'Wake Up!' (sheesh).

'the issue is never the issue, it is always the revolution'!!!

Everything Woke (Left and Right) goes to sh*t
To think that the Pro-Regressive Woke (Left and Right) are going to act in accordance with the very reality they're revolting against, is foolish. Yet Walsh and most of the Right, fail to recognize that what they think of as being the reality-based perspective they're making their observations from, is not a perspective or conception of reality that the Wokesters are working from.

Your being offended by it, has no other effect than to further their goals. You are, as Stephen Coughlin puts it, reacting to the blast radius of the bombs that their dialectical airplane began dropping on you several news cycles ago, instead of looking upwards note to identify, target, and shoot down the plane that's dropping them (See his posts on the Dialectical Airplane, and xTweets on it being used to attack the Constitution).

If you take a moment to look at matters from a wider & higher perspective (which, BTW, is what modern schooling was designed from its start in the early 1800s to stop you from doing), it'll reveal that the goading particulars like 'whiteness' or 'white guilt' are little more than successful marketing campaigns for selling the woke Kool-Aid, and the 'normies' are putting their money down for it, hand over fist. See the threads on the subject from "Yuri Bezmenov's Ghost", and especially Melanie Bennet's (@finkledusty) excellent post: "Settlers, Colonizers, and the Politics of White Guilt"

"...When Indigenous activists say the land was never ceded, they are saying they did not agree to your presence. If the land was never given up, then you are on it without permission. And if you are there without permission, then you are, in their words, a settler, an uninvited guest, a colonizer. That language is not poetry. It is the language of eviction.

The Land Back movement is a political engine that lurks behind these acknowledgements. Its premise is simple: land taken, or unceded, must be returned. The implication, however, is far from simple. If the goal is to restore land to its rightful owners, then those currently living on it have a problem. You cannot be both a permanent citizen and a temporary trespasser. If you tell people for long enough that the land they occupy was stolen, and that they have no rightful claim to it, you should not be surprised when they begin to believe it. And once they believe it, you should not be surprised when Land Back activists begin to act on their demands.

The idea that land belongs inherently to a particular racial or ethnic group is not a new one. In another time and place, it was called "blood and soil." The Nazis used the concept to fuse national identity to ancestral land, arguing that a people and their territory were bound by bloodline. Outsiders had no place in this worldview because they did not share the sacred connection to the soil. Land was not just property. It was the vessel of cultural survival. The Land Back movement, while vastly different in moral tone and historical context, mirrors this framework in structure. It binds land to identity, and identity to legitimacy. The result is a form of ethno-territorial politics...."

While the Woke Left style the concept as "Land Back Movement", the Woke Right style the very same concept as "Heritage American" to do the very same thing. What We The People need to realize, is that both flavors of Woke benefit from whichever way the coin toss of affordance-based narratives (authentic/other, Sex/Genders, Rich/Poor, White/POC) turns out. They are all a means of nudging the populace into the same activist Praxis, and all of their 'competing' aims are used to halt objective thought in those who stop and react to them, so as to instill in the sense in everyone that only recourse we have for deciding our fates are contests of power (AKA: The Revolution).

Left or Right: "...the most intolerant faction will eventually enforce a rigid orthodoxy on its environment " if allowed the chance...".

The fact that Matt Walsh and so many others still fall for the current issues of the moment being all about the same old pretexts of race, economics, language (which are but the same old pro-regressive (Woke) concepts & theories in new clothing), is nothing but a win for both sides of the Wokester's coin being flipped, and a loss for the realist perspective which they imagine they are upholding. Big time. The mayhem of the moment are consequences, not causes. The anti-reality framework of the Pro-Regressive Woke (Left & Right), is what they use to instill, invoke, and utilize the 'benefits' of the chaos we experience from their issues, and our falling for it - pro or con - helps them to fan the flames of their revolution.

Steal their Motte and bomb their Bailey
If you want to fight back against the Pro-Regressive Woke (Left & Right), you first have to decline to be enraged by their provocations, and instead identify the Classical American Liberal principles that they're trying to avoid and subvert (and yes, you need to be familiar with them, to recognize them), in order to strip them of their rhetorical defenses and ability to attack you.

Without going into the details here (which you can find all the details of here and here), what you want to do is to steal their Motte and bomb their Bailey - their Bailey being the wild charges they rush around attacking you with, such as either 'We're being systemically oppressed by your whiteness!' or 'Whiteness is under attack!', and the Motte being the more reasonable sounding defense which they retreat to when called on the ridiculousness of their tactics, with something like 'We're just trying to be fair.'

It's important to realize that when you fail to look beyond their distractions and take the 'Race!' bait, you help generate the rhetorical energy they need to strengthen their evasions of the principle(s) that you should be relying upon. It's also essential to realize that your beliefs are the source of the 'strength' of their arguments; they absolutely rely upon your having only a vague sense of what is just and fair (and even less familiarity with the principles they try to make you evade), so as to employ Alinsky's 'use their own virtues/rules against them' tactic against you, so as to demand a concession from you (whether in support of DEI or 'Heritage American' policies) as a demonstration of your commitment to 'fairness', which unbeknownst to you is but a veiled attack upon the principle that could have saved you from it.

But if you can manage to step out of the perspective of whichever narrative they've generated, and identify the principle that they're aiming at subverting & distracting you from (which in the case of the 'Race' narrative, whether Woke Left or Woke Right, is that of the equality of individual rights before objective laws of justice), you'll find that their own narratives will provide you the means of unraveling them.

To do so, you need only reframe their narrative in such a way as to put the spotlight back onto what they're trying so desperately to stop you from engaging with, by feeding a completely negative version of it back to them, which brings it to the forefront of discussion. By combining that with clearly withdrawing your support from what they are expecting you to stand up for - fairness and justice - you force them to hold to their own rules (their claim that truth isn't objective and Power is all that matters), which with no support from you to prop them up, will force them to face up to their own pathetic reliance upon what you stand for - and that effectively flips their script.

NOTE: I'm not suggesting anything like using Alinsky's or Gramsci's rules, but only that you withdraw from them the aid of what you believe to be true, which is the only real strength they can count on, and the only strength that their system ever had! IOW: Shrug!

That may sound like a lot, but the explanation is way longer than the application of it needs to be, which can be as simple as something like:

"Well... if objective truth is an illusion and Power is what society uses to say what is right & wrong, and 'we' have the power, then why should we see a problem with systemic racism?

"If 'we' have the power, and everything is about power, doesn't that means that crushing the weaker folk, is the 'right' thing to do?"
[You need to realize that this is what they want power over you, to do to you]

, and then to bring their walls down, ask them to give you a good reason (which they will resist, see "The Master's Tools" above) why 'they' shouldn't be imposed upon with every bit of power you can bring against them?... and say nothing more as you watch them try to squirm around the need to use or mention concepts such as objectivity, individual rights, an objective Rule of Law, and equal justice for all.

This highlights the fact that in a power oriented system that has no concept of fairness (something that's only possible to one that respects what's real and true, and people are able to comprehend), anyone complaining of being oppressed by a greater power through 'systemic racism', is counting on you who believes in Truth over Power, to insist that they be treated fairly. If you withdraw that expectation of support, then the only defense they can give, is one that depends upon a classical Western understanding of what is real and true, along with a respect for individual rights under a justifiable rule of law, and doing so destroys their entire modernist position.

And adding insult to injury, any additional response they might try to make, implicitly counts upon everyone's ability to recognize, and communicate, and understand, what is objectively true (which, it's worth noting, affects them like garlic, crosses, and holy water, affects a vampire).

Personally, I think that it'd be best if we stopped helping them to get away with such narratives. How about you?

Stop the cycle
To close, I do not think that Matt Walsh is Woke (yet, though the adjacency that he's maintaining to those who are Woke Right, puts him on unsteady ground), but his & so many other people's reactions which mistake secondary effects for primary causes, become issues that further the revolution that the Woke (Left & Right) seek. Denying the existence of the Woke Right, which does exist and is using the issue every bit as much as the Woke Left is, for their shared goals of furthering the divisions needed for revolution - is blinding ourselves to half of the reality of what's going on.

Every time we fall for identifying any of their particular issues of the current news cycle, as being about anything other than their ongoing revolution, we enable them to use our issues to pour further fuel on the flames of their revolution. The incentives they seek are not to be found in monetary gains or losses, or in winning debates, but in the divisions & disruptions they think are needed to tear down the Master's house - and again, you need look no further than how the controversies of Matt Walsh, Shiloh Hendrix, and advice on using the 'n word', are furthering their revolution on all sides of 'The Right'.

We should stop doing that. In every news cycle