'Progressivism': The Modern Zeitgeist
As noted below, it is true that Leftists now rule the "Zeitgeist". They have comprehensively completed their long march though the institutions. But there is cause for hope. This has happened before. "Progressive" ideas and assumptions totally dominated public thinkig in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. But that did become unwound after WWII when the rise to prominence of the ghastly Soviets forced a new fear and a new realism on people. And starting from Ike and his narrow view of the role of government a new era of American prosperity began. But once the Soviets fell, fear of Leftism evaporated.
The results of that were perverse. Once Leftism was no longer something to fear, it became more readily accepted and its old hatreds once again gradually became fashionable. Leftist whining was taken increasingly seriously. And the constant Leftist discoveries of new "humanitarian" causes -- from "affirmative action" to transgendererism -- has given them a continuing voice and respectability in public affairs.
It is a disturbing thought but maybe we need another war to divert attention from the foolish to more serious matters. With the containment of Russia in Ukraine, however, that possibility has thankfully retreated to an extent. Russia has now been revealed as a paper tiger. So while China remains restrained we can at the moment continue to be frivolous about what matters. On past precedent, however, that frivolity may not be permanent. Taiwan may uproot our calm
To fully understand current events, it is critical to comprehend that every human is a product of their times, their present culture, their “zeitgeist”—the term I will use in this column. The word “zeitgeist” means “the spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the generally accepted ideas and beliefs of the time.” In every period of history, a certain model of thinking dominates the age, and everyone, to a greater or lesser degree, is influenced by it. It's impossible to totally separate ourselves from our “zeitgeist” because we are surrounded by it every day, we grow up learning it and absorbing it, it is the inescapable environment universally acknowledged and rarely questioned—even if it’s wrong. Here are a couple of examples of historical “zeitgeist” to illustrate what I mean.
Christopher Columbus and his “age” was certainly different from ours. We don’t approve of many things they did (they wouldn’t approve of much of what we do, either), and the Left is especially vociferous in their condemnation of Columbus and the early European explorers. But their “zeitgeist” was completely different from ours. They saw no dichotomy between converting the heathen and looting them of their gold. Such a dichotomy is abhorrent to us, but we didn’t grow up in their “zeitgeist.” Reading modern viewpoints and opinions back into history is not an acceptable way to judge and interpret previous generations.
Certainly, the people of Columbus’s age “sinned” and knew they were doing so, just as we do (or should). But to understand them, we must understand their “zeitgeist.” The Aztecs whom the Spaniards conquered were hardly exemplary. We should learn from, but not blanketly condemn them when their culture, education, and surroundings were totally unlike ours. Failing to even attempt to comprehend previous people’s thoughts is most unjust. The Left are masters at it.
Another example. I quote: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races...I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
Those words were spoken by Abraham Lincoln in 1858. While obviously repulsive to Americans today, it was the “zeitgeist” of Lincoln’s time. Indeed, Harvard University had done a study of human skull sizes and discovered that the average skull size of a black person was smaller than that of a white person’s. And, in Lincoln’s day (and even into the early 20th century), it was accepted that the bigger your brain, the smarter you were. Whites are superior to blacks because they have larger brains! “Science” proves it! Now today, we know that brain size has nothing to do with intelligence, but that was the “science” of Lincoln’s day, and he would have been “unscientific” to reject it. How can we condemn him if we truly understand the “zeitgeist” of his age? We can’t, and we shouldn’t. What we should do is try to understand and learn from it.
Rising above our “zeitgeist” is a most challenging accomplishment, and not even historians can do it perfectly. If we had lived in Columbus’s Spain (or Italy) in 1492, or Lincoln’s Illinois (a Northern state, mind you) in 1858, we would surely have believed the exact same things they did. Some people are occasionally able to “think outside the box” and see truth from an eternal, fixed perspective, but that is a very rare commodity among humans. By and large, we accept the “zeitgeist” of our age.
“Zeitgeist” arises out of history, of course. It’s a process, not an event, and usually takes time to develop. Columbus and Cortez did not invent the dichotomy they lived in regarding converting the heathen and stealing their gold. If you think Lincoln’s words were bad, read his debate opponent, Stephen Douglas’s (a Democrat), sometime.
We haven’t arrived at our present “zeitgeist” in America overnight, either. Currently, most Americans’ thinking has become dominated by “progressive” ideology, and interestingly, a hypocrisy inherent in that thinking is to condemn anyone who lived before who might foil their political agenda—Columbus, America’s Founding Fathers, though rarely Lincoln, for rather obvious reasons.
Naturally, different cultures had/have different “zeitgeists”. Human or child sacrifice was an acceptable “zeitgeist” among the Aztecs and many other ancient “civilizations,” as was slavery, polygamy, war, and a few other currently frowned-upon customs. Our Leftist-driven “zeitgeist” has “progressed” from those practices to abortion on demand (no sense in waiting for the child to be born to sacrifice it), transgenderism, child mutilation, and, in China—the Left’s great model—mass murder, forced organ harvesting, and re-education camps.
Human inequality and racism are “zeitgeists” of nearly every culture in history and are evident today in the Left’s DEI program. Columbus’s (and Lincoln’s) “zeitgeist” accepted Jesus as God and Savior, and a world created by God, something our modern Leftist “zeitgeist” rejects in favor of Darwinian-based atheistic naturalism. Modern communication has shrunk the world, thus, much of Leftism is virtually universal now. Middle Eastern Muslims reject most of it, but they are barbarians, right?
Rising above our “zeitgeist” to see eternal truths is extremely challenging. Nobody does it perfectly. After all, doesn’t everybody have their own “truth” nowadays, as a recent modern “progressive” DEI-hire informed us?
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2024/04/29/progressivism-the-modern-zeitgeist-n2638406
**************************************************Meet the Lawyers Taking Big Government to the Supreme Court—And Winning
As the administrative state implements more regulations on Americans, a team of legal veterans has come together to fight the expansion of unelected government agency power.
Sometimes, they even win.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which consists of a team of 27 lawyers and support staff, including former judges, had four of the cases they litigated go before the Supreme Court in 2023. One case was decided in their favor, the remaining three are pending.
Founded by Columbia Law professor Philip Hamburger six years ago, the NCLA targets cases where they believe federal agencies have blatantly overstepped their authority or violated civil liberties..
“Normally, administrative power is understood as a separation of powers question, but it’s also a civil liberties problem because it dilutes our voting rights,” Mr. Hamburger told The Epoch Times. “We all get to vote, but the ability to make legislation is no longer in the hands of the people we elect.”
The U.S. Constitution vests Congress with law-making authority. However, government agencies are not only making laws today, he said, they also enforce those laws, then act as judge and jury over alleged violations. Taking a historical view on this issue, Mr. Hamburger argues that such administrative “absolutism” is not a new phenomenon, but merely a modern expression of absolute power once wielded by medieval kings.
The group’s clients include Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty, and Ms. Jill Hines, plaintiffs in the case of Murthy v. Missouri, which is currently before the Supreme Court. This case involves alleged violations of the doctors’ First Amendment rights by the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Surgeon General.
“It deprives us of the right to a jury; it deprives us of ordinary burdens of proof; it deprives us of having an unbiased judge,” he said. “We have ALJs and commissioners instead.”
ALJ’s are “executive judges for official and unofficial hearings of administrative disputes in the federal government,” according to a Cornell Law School definition.
“Administrative law judges are considered part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch, and ALJs are appointed by the heads of the executive agencies.”
In this way, Mr. Hamburger said, the administrative state has not only accumulated powers explicitly vested in other branches of government; it has consolidated within itself the power of all three branches.
Supreme Court Taking Notice
“In 2018, we started filing briefs at the Supreme Court and almost immediately we were having an effect on the discussions of administrative power,” Peggy Little, senior counsel at the NCLA, told The Epoch Times.
In one case, SEC v. Cochran, which Ms. Little led, appellate courts took the side of the SEC. This case challenged the lifetime tenure of ALJs, who act as judges for federal agencies.
“”We battled that for five years, and we had six circuit courts of appeals against us,” she said. “We got to the Supreme Court and we won unanimously.”
Ms. Little said she is optimistic that the tide of expanding agency power can be turned back.
“I think we are in a very important time for rethinking how our government should operate,” Ms. Little said, “and restoring the separation of powers and guardrails on agency power, that limit it to what Congress has actually empowered the agency to do, not what the agency itself thinks would be a good idea.”
Mr. Hamburger said the NCLA has several advantages when arguing their cases.
“We have the truth on our side, and I think the justices understand that,” he said. “Second, we take the Constitution seriously, while many agencies view it as a minor impediment to what they want to do in regulation.”
In addition, “the administrative state has changed,” he said..
“It isn’t like the 1930s where it was just an addition to the law; it is now the primary mode of controlling us,” he said. “It may eventually unravel our republic.”
*************************************************
Judge Rules That the Transgender Care Policies in These States Are 'Discriminatory'
In recent years, many states have passed laws surrounding the transgender agenda. This includes laws restricting transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports, laws regarding which restrooms transgender students can use in public schools, and transgender health care coverage.
Predictably, left-wing activists push back on policies like these.
On Monday, a federal appeals court ruled that West Virginia and North Carolina’s refusal to cover certain health care for transgender people with government-sponsored health insurance is discriminatory.
According to the Associated Press, the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 8-6 in the case. The case involved the coverage of so-called “gender-affirming care” by North Carolina’s state employee health plan and the coverage of irreversible sex reassignment surgery by West Virginia Medicaid.
“The coverage exclusions facially discriminate on the basis of sex and gender identity, and are not substantially related to an important government interest,” Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the majority opinion. Reportedly, Gregory was first appointed by former President Bill Clinton and re-appointed by former President George W. Bush.
The case is likely headed to the Supreme Court, as West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey told the outlet that his office plans to appeal the decision (via AP):
During oral arguments in September, at least two judges said it’s likely the case will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Both states appealed separate lower court rulings that found the denial of gender-affirming care to be discriminatory and unconstitutional. Two panels of three Fourth Circuit judges heard arguments in both cases last year before deciding to intertwine the two cases and see them presented before the full court.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court struck down a West Virginia law that protected female athletes from male athletes who think they are women, which Townhall covered. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to halt the law, which prevents so-called “transgender” athletes from competing on teams that align with their “gender identity” in the state’s public schools and colleges.
Shortly after, several middle school girls were forced to compete against the biological male who thinks he’s a woman who was at the center of the case. In response, the girls boycotted the competition, which Townhall also covered.
************************************************
Rules for Republicans
For Republicans to win in November, there are certain rules that will broaden the party appeal and hopefully bring victory at all levels of government.
Nothing can compete with Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the effective playbook for the Democratic Party and its supporters for decades. Only recently did pro-Hamas protesters prevent travelers from getting to O’Hare Airport. Alinsky himself led similar activity, including having his people take up all of the bathroom stalls in the airport, so that travelers could not use the bathroom and thus make their lives miserable—until he got what he wanted.
With a majority saying that the US is going in the wrong direction and that America’s best days are behind her, the Republicans have an opportunity for a Reagan or Nixon level blowout against a president who regularly fights and loses to his teleprompter. Certain positions appeal well beyond traditional or even new Republican voters.
The Inviolability of Property Rights.
Freedom, pursuit of happiness, wealth—they are all meaningless if one is not certain in his or her ironclad right to property. In both personal and business spheres, property rights are being abused. Think of shoplifting—places like California have legalized stealing. How can I run a business if I cannot prevent people from stealing my merchandise? How can I make a profit if the police and the local government do not support my right to protect my store and its contents?
The same is true for the individual. Stories of squatters are horrific. That people cannot easily throw out such thieves and in some cases are required to continue paying electricity and water is ridiculous. Laws are needed that give property owners the upper hand in any case of squatting. In a normal world, the owner of a home would bring some brutes with him and throw the squatters out and sue the latter for whatever damage they did.
We do not live in a normal world. With that said, Republicans need to push the idea that property is an extension of an individual and is subject to protection from theft or illegal seizure. When shoplifting brings with it jail time, the problem will become much smaller.
A Controlled Southern Border.
There is no greater issue of internal concern than the completely open border. From drugs to criminals to potential terrorists, the open southern US border is a disaster. Communities far and wide have been negatively impacted by illegal aliens taking up space (airports in Chicago, Boston and elsewhere), resources (New York is spending billions on them), and causing social disruptions. The vast majority of Americans want the border controlled. Period. Republicans need to make a controlled border the centerpiece of their platform. It’s a winning issue and it stands in stark juxtaposition to the Biden administration’s open border and lack of enforcement of existing US immigration laws (and even fighting Arizona and Texas in their attempts to close the border in their states).
On some issues, the US has become a “2% Society”—where the interests of some small percentage of the population outweigh the concerns of the majority of Americans. Trans and crime are two such subjects. A woman might work years to win the big race, only to have a guy with a beard zip by her to take the gold. Criminals are being released, even in cases of serious crime, and the population has to fear being carjacked, stabbed, punched, or pushed in front of a train. These are winning issues for Republicans.
Trans. Ban all trans procedures and puberty blockers for children under 18.
While we allow adults to smoke themselves to death or drink their livers away, we do not allow children the same privileges. Children must be protected from charlatans in the schools and hospitals who are willing to perform Mengle-like surgeries on them. At the adult end, pass laws requiring at least one division of sports for biological women only. Americans have a very strong sense of fairness, and the women and girls need to compete without guys who have personal issues.
Crime.
There is no perfect position on crime but if you have to err, then do so on the side of the police. After Ferguson and George Floyd, the police are in retreat. They do not have the support of their superiors or the political echelon to do their jobs. The government must throw its weight behind policing, so that the 98% of Americans who are not involved in crime can enjoy their lives. The FBI needs to be restructured so that we do not have political investigations like the fake “Russian collusion” Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Taxes.
Lower corporate and personal taxes lead to greater economic activity and increased personal wealth. Lowering taxes will spur job growth and further economic activity. Let Republicans be the party of the workers and small business. Let Republicans be the antithesis of the tax-and-spend liberals favored by the Silicon Valley billionaires.
Tame the Universities.
Post 10/7, universities have shown themselves to be hotbeds not only to antisemitism but also to rampant anti-Americanism. Universities survive on the billions that federal agencies dole out for R & D. These funds must be conditioned on the universities being useful for America’s future. When reading General Leslie Groves' Now It Can Be Told, I was amazed at the extraordinary contribution of American universities to the successful Manhattan Project. They readily provided top professors, research facilities, key materials, manpower, and even their presidents as James Conant (Harvard) and Vannevar Bush (MIT) were key drivers to success. Federal funding has to be conditioned on universities being pro-American institutions. If they want to be funded and directed by China and Gulf Arab states and push anti-America agendas, then the federal government should drop funding such institutions.
Abortion.
It can also be a winning issue. While many conservatives were angered by Donald Trump suggesting that each state pass its own law, the former president realizes that California is not Tennessee. Win elections and enact laws; first, you have to win.
The American Project needs work. Republicans can put forth platforms that appeal to Americans of all backgrounds and political identification. Liberal New Yorkers also want to be able to walk in Central Park without preparing a last will and testament before leaving home. Republicans can win in the Fall. They need a winning message and they need to follow through on their promises.
https://townhall.com/columnists/alanjosephbauer/2024/04/29/rules-for-republicans-n2638329
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
***************************************