How Liberals Hijacked The Word “Extremist” To Scare Voters

How Liberals Hijacked The Word “Extremist” To Scare Voters   By Frank Camp

What is extremism? To most of us, the word extremism evokes images of Nazis, the KKK, radical Islamists, and other such groups that take their beliefs to the outermost edges. Because of the association between the word “extremist,” and acts of radical violence, the concept of taking an idea to its outer edges is generally viewed as dangerous or unnecessary. However, this is all a cultural concoction, based on fear. The word “extremist” has been hijacked, as well as the core concept of standing on one end of a spectrum of ideas.

I was watching CNN yesterday at the gym. Anderson Cooper was speaking with several guests about Ted Cruz’s 21 hour filibuster. One of the guests began to speak at length about how the American people have become afraid because the Republican Party has been hijacked by extremists. His tone suggested that he not only viewed Ted Cruz as an extremist, but that Cruz, by nature of being labeled as such, was inherently bad.

In his book The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,  Jonah Goldberg writes about how the word “extremist” has been painted as evil. He argues that centrists think themselves more sophisticated than so-called extremists. The following is an excerpt:

“There’s a certain Goldilocks bias to discussions of politics: If Papa Bear’s porridge is too hot and Mama Bear’s porridge is too cold, then Baby Bear’s is always just right. It must work the same way in politics, right? Centrists, moderates…independents: they all suffer from variants of this confusion. The ‘extreme’ Republicans argue 10. The ‘extreme’ Democrats argue for 0. Therefore the smart, sensible, reasonable position must be 5. Well, the Wahhabis want to kill all the gays and Jews. The Sufis don’t want to kill any gays or Jews. So the moderate, sensible position must be to kill just the gays, but not the Jews…the point is that sometimes the ‘extreme’ is 100 percent correct, while the centrist position is 100 percent wrong.”

Goldberg goes on to claim that self-titled “independents” are simply not paying attention. He argues—and I agree—that behind the faux sophistication of centrists lies a confusion and a slap-dash understanding of politics. The Democrats are great at labeling. They create slogans and campaign phrases designed to keep voters from actually thinking. In addition, they use the word “extremist” to demonize Conservatives. What does holding “extreme” views actually mean? According to Liberals, it means that Conservatives stand on the fringes, or outer edges of opinion, far away from the center, which—according to their made up rules—means that Conservative beliefs are far from “normal.” And if Conservatives aren’t normal, they must be weird, and probably wrong.

Using the center as the definition of normal or typical is completely arbitrary! First, the Democrats are certainly not in the center. Second, why is the center so sought after? There are valid reasons to take sides. Most issues have such stark differences that to have an opinion at all means taking a side. For example, you either believe abortion is murder, or you don’t. Where is the middle ground on that? You either believe in socialism or capitalism; they are not compatible. There are those who claim otherwise, but they are wrong. Those who attempt to meld bits and pieces from each philosophy into a cohesive whole have no idea how the world works. Centrism is naïveté at its height.

The word “extremist” has been hijacked by the Left to scare voters away from Conservatism. But when broken down, extremism simply means having an opinion. Labeling the center as “normal” is beyond arbitrary, it’s incorrect. Once we set aside the foolish idea that the center is political ground zero, extremism suddenly doesn’t mean much—and it doesn’t sound that scary.

The Left is neither Republican or Democrat - They are evil!

Why You Can't Argue With a Leftist

By Owen Benjamin, Prager University

If we do, we can disagree—even strongly disagree, and still have a productive discussion. We might even reach a compromise. But if we don’t share the same goals? Then what?

Then, rhetorically speaking, we’re at war. And only one side can win.

Let me explain.

My parents and brother lean more to the liberal side of the political spectrum than I do. We argue. We slightly nudge each other. We change opinions a little bit. And then we go back to Scrabble.

They were very upset when President Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accords. I was happy. We argued about it, but it was all good because we share the same goals.

We all want clean air and water for our children. We all want to develop clean energy; we want America’s economy to prosper; we want to be less reliant on fossil fuels.

I thought the accords were a bad deal for America. The best way to lower carbon emissions, in my opinion, is to let the free market and American ingenuity loose on the problem. They, in contrast, think the government needs to step in, fund the research, and keep the corporations in line.

Doesn’t matter, because we have the same goal: a healthy planet.

We also disagree on gun control. My brother is a little more with me, but my dad wants a lot more regulation because he wants fewer school shootings. So do I. So does my brother. But I believe if a potential killer knew he’d encounter teachers and administrators well-trained in the use of weapons, we’d have less shootings. Different solutions. Shared goal.

I’ve always thought that this is how America is supposed to work. Liberals and conservatives respectfully arguing over the best solution to a shared goal.

But now there’s a third party in the game: the left. And they’re changing the rules.

When I was growing up, the left was on the fringe. But now they’ve moved into the mainstream. They’ve pretty much taken over our educational system. They’re in the media. In corporate HR departments. And, more and more, sad to say, in the Democratic Party.

The left doesn’t share the same goals that liberals and conservatives do. They have a whole different set of goals.

Let me give you some examples.

Raising kids without a gender identity or encouraging them to question their sexual identity. This, to me, is a form of child abuse. I don’t care who’s doing it—parents, teachers, doctors. Their goal is not my goal.

Here’s another one: Demonizing white people and males for the world’s problems is not part of my value system. There is no shared goal in that.

I believe in merit and character over race. But now it’s cool to say that white males have done all the bad things in the world.

I have two little boys. I get angry just thinking about people telling them they’re responsible for racism and sexism—beautiful little children who just dance in the kitchen and smile. So that’s not a shared goal.

Here’s a third example: People can differ about how many legal immigrants America should allow into the country. But when it comes to whether America should have “open” borders—well, there is no shared goal there. A country with open borders ceases to be a distinct country. And I want America to remain America.

All these ideas—and I could give you a dozen more—are coming from the left. They want to turn the history of Western Civilization, of America—a history I’m very proud of—into a highlight reel of human errors. These ideas threaten everything I cherish—my family, my community, my country.

And what does the left offer in its place? Nothing constructive that I can see. What are their goals? Kids with no clear sexual identity; group-think based on race, gender, and class; no national pride or borders. Are you okay with that?

My issue is not with liberals like my brother and my dad and a lot of my friends. We can argue until the cows come home. My issue is with the left because we don’t share goals.

This war of goals isn’t coming. It’s here. You need to decide which side you’re on: the liberals’ and conservatives’ side, or the left’s.

Your future depends on it.

People that “love their government” because the government “cares for them” are wrong!

People that “love their government” because the government “cares for them” are wrong!

Government is a complex multifaceted institution. It operates by law and policy. It has not soul, no feelings and no heart. Institutions, like a block of wood, cannot have feelings or emotions; therefore, it cannot care. In simple terms it is a great machine that provides governance for a people and their land.

People can love their form of government in how it fulfills the values and principles the nation loves and cares about. However, the government will and cannot return that “emotion”. Caring is an emotion that only living beings can have. Not institutions. We can dare to say that even the people working inside a government don’t care for “you”. They don’t know you, they have a job to do and a life to live. This is their preoccupation, not caring for the individual.

The closest we can come to “caring” is a representative form of government. Even so, to say that individual cares about you, knows you and will commit to your individual needs is ludicrous. At any given moment any politician has people that like them as well as hate them. That, my friend, is the harsh reality.

So, do not expect any branch or political organization to “care” about you. It makes you appear to be childish and wishful at best. Thinking adults know that the government is, and it is the citizens duty to hold it accountable to do what is best for the country and its people. For that, we have the power of the vote. That is your currency. Not a wished upon notion that you are cared for.

“That is not who we are…” (U.S.) Then, who are we?

“That is not who we are…” (U.S.)

Then, who are we.....

It is of importance to know what one speaks, and not to mistake the American impulse for some narrow and impractical ideology. For intellectual development, the first necessity is to define one's terms. If we can enlarge the understanding of Americanism's first principles, we will have begun a reinvigoration of the America’s imagination. The great line of demarcation in modern politics.

A historical perspective of American behavior the generate the “Being American” principles.

·       Enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.

·       Two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul and the outer order of the commonwealth.

·       Custom, convention, and continuity. It is custom that enables people to live together peaceably

·       The principle of prescription. The sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time.

·       Guided by the principle of prudence. Chief among virtues.

·       The principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems.

·       Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerable ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order.

·       Freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic leveling is not economic progress.

·       Uphold voluntary community, as we oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily.

·       In the name of an abstract democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction--why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity. For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed.

·       Perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human Passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one's fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic.

·       A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web-of restraints upon will and appetite--these are  approved as instruments of freedom and order.

·       Not opposed to social improvement, although the people doubt whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The people know that any healthy society is influenced by two forces; its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that give us stability and continuity.

·       Change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of the whole; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host.

Child Deaths In the U.S.

Child Deaths In the U.S.

Who Are the Perpetrators?

Parents—acting alone or with another parent or individual—were responsible for 78 percent of child abuse or neglect fatalities. More than one-quarter (27 percent) of fatalities were perpetrated by the mother acting alone, 16.8 percent were perpetrated by the father acting alone, and 20.1 percent were perpetrated by the mother and father acting together. Nonparents (including kin and child care providers, among others) were responsible for 16.7 percent of child fatalities, and child fatalities with unknown perpetrator relationship data accounted for 5.3 percent of the total.

How Bad Is It?

Fatal child abuse may involve repeated abuse over a period of time, or it may involve a single, impulsive incident (e.g., drowning, suffocating, shaking a baby). In cases of fatal neglect, the child’s death does not result from anything the caregiver does; rather, it results from a caregiver’s failure to act. The neglect may be chronic (e.g., extended malnourishment) or acute (e.g., an infant who drowns after being left unsupervised in the bathtub).

74.6 percent of children who died from child maltreatment suffered neglect either alone or in combination with another maltreatment type, and 44.2 percent of children who died suffered physical abuse either alone or in combination with other maltreatment. Medical neglect either alone or in combination with another maltreatment type was reported in 5.7 percent of fatalities.

Summary

While the exact number of children affected is uncertain (reporting is erratic), child fatalities due to abuse or neglect remain a serious problem in the United States. Fatalities due to child maltreatment disproportionately affect young children and most often are caused by one or both of the child’s parents.

The 10 Myths of Socialism

The 10 Myths of Socialism

With the help of freedom-loving patriots from across the country, we must persuasively deliver the message that socialism is a failure to a whole generation of Americans who did not see the Wall come down and were not eye witnesses to the tyranny and oppression of socialism.

We must vigorously remind Americans that the free market system is the best way to create rewarding jobs and opportunity. Socialism is a bad idea. 

The passing of George Herbert Bush

The passing of George Herbert Bush

Like many in America, like I, mourn the passing of a leader and president of the United States that was among the last few living from the greatest generation in America. As I listened to the stories and personal experiences people spoke about, George Bush was truly a great man aside from his public service and being President of the United States.

As I watched and listened to the many radio, TV and written tributes to this man, I eventually had an unsettling thought. All this media attention to a great man that was more than just a great president, but one that had deep and abiding beliefs. Beliefs and principles that are publicly and constantly denigrated by the Left. What was I witnessing? What was the media doing and why?

We have all witnessed the vile mobs on the left that stand on the opposite side of the values and principles that were the very life of this great man! Not a peep from them, not a peep from the extremist among the politicians.

I could only imagine. Lives like his should be a model for many aspiring young people. Not what we have witnessed in recent years. Many have said that he “…the last of his kind….” I pray to God that is not true. My fervent prayer is there are many among us that are like George Bush that will rise up and be like him. Strong like him in disciplined moral strength and courage.

America cannot watch his passing and accept he was the last. No, we need to embrace the idea we need to step up to take his place. At least in his humanity, beliefs and values.

God Bless America