Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Open Threat of Draconian Tactics
Cancel culture is real. Huge, powerful social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are censoring peoples’ posts and comments. They call it ‘fact-checking’ and will remove posts they don’t like. In some cases, they suspend the author from their platform or even cancel their membership completely. How many people will they have to cancel? Probably not many. Just the open threat of such draconian tactics will likely be enough to shut down dissenting voices. People will just start to go along. It’s easier.
Democrats used to call us Republicans. Then, they called us ‘Trump supporters.’ Then, they started accusing President Trump of being a racist vicious white supremacist, every day, every day, every day – for four years. Then, they started calling anyone who doesn’t publicly denounce Trump a ‘white supremacist.’ If you support someone that we call a white supremacist, then you are a white supremacist. So we went from being called Republicans to being called white supremacists in just a few years. Eh, sticks and stones, right? Well, no:
President Biden recently appointed Lloyd Austin to be Secretary of Defense, who says his first course of action will be to purge the military of white supremacists: “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.” So how many people will be kicked out of the military for being Republicans (or, as we are now referred to, white supremacists)? Probably not many. Just the open threat of such draconian tactics will likely be enough to shut down dissenting voices. People will just start to go along. It’s easier. And then, the Democrat party control of the military will be complete, for all intents and purposes.
Some students applying to colleges have had their admission offers revoked because it became known that they were conservative Republican Trump supporters white supremacists. Once admitted to college, if a rumor gets out that a student is not a committed leftist, their life can be made very difficult, and many of them choose to simply drop out of college – the social stigma can be just brutal. How many students will they have to actually kick off campus? Probably not many. Just the open threat of such draconian tactics will likely be enough to shut down dissenting voices. People will just start to go along. It’s easier.
After the most recent election, Democrats control the Presidency, with a razor-thin margin of victory. And their president is not a forceful, brilliant, charismatic leader who can build popular support. Their president is Joe Biden. He barely won, and he’s not likely to even finish his first term. His weakness is obvious even to other Democrats.
They also control both houses of Congress, but by razor-thin margins. And they could lose control of both houses of Congress in the next election, which is only a little over a year and a half away.
My point is that while Democrats do control government right now, their position would appear to be tenuous. Their hold on power is weak and would appear likely to change soon.
So why is it that their hold on power appears so overwhelmingly dominant?
Because dissent has been removed. Remember Hillary Clinton saying that ‘dissent is the highest form of patriotism?’ Well, not now. There are very, very few remaining dissenting voices on social media, in the military, or in our educational system.
And the government didn’t even have to ban free speech. It just happened, with a little help from their friends.
You can still express your independent thoughts. But you don’t really want to do that, do you? Just go along. It’s easier. If you might think for some reason that the Democrats aren’t as ruthless as they may seem, go check out the Capitol building sometime. Or, at least, look at it from a distance.
Add in the obvious changes in elections recently, and what do you have?
Well, you can’t speak your mind, and you can’t vote for change. Well, you can, of course. But you don’t really want to do that, do you? Just go along. It’s easier.
So why do such razor-thin electoral margins result in power that looks so dominant and unchallengeable?
Because it’s no longer just the government that conservatives and patriots must contend with.
How does a weak president like Joe Biden establish a leftist tyranny? Does he ruthlessly utilize draconian tactics?
No, just the open threat of draconian tactics from government, and most other powerful organizations from social media to the educational establishment. All in lockstep, all at the same time.
That should be sufficient.
Published in General
One of my female coworkers used to say, “If it’s bad, it’s gotta be Stad!”
A dark post from the good Doctor. One ray of light, perhaps: The Navy may be at less risk of a woke takeover than society writ large. A saving grace for the military is a centuries long aversion to partisan politics. Aside from mandated lectures on how it is a really, really bad thing to be a white supremacist, there aren’t that many practical avenues for spreading the religion of woke through the ranks. How many of my shipmates are Republicans? I have almost no idea because we hardly ever discuss politics. Politics are divisive and I really need people to just focus on their jobs. My experience over many years is that is how Navy units operate.
There will be some leftist whackos in the Pentagon, but it won’t be so easy to change a culture spread across
fourfive services (Go Space Force!) distributed around the globe with a culture of keeping politics at arm’s length.Not too worried about political commissars conducting virtue screening at the recruiting stations, either. Such a small percentage of young Americans are actually qualified for military service (fitness, education, intelligence, criminal records, etc.) that recruiters would never make their quotas if political correctness was a requirement for entry.
Could be wrong, but I’ll withhold judgment for a bit. I will get VERY worried if the Uniform Code of Military Justice is updated with words like intersectionality, privilege, race theory, etc.
I am 61, I work in a PC industry, our youngest is 13. I hold my ground on philosophical points of view but I don’t talk politics.
Oh, and the city I live in went 75% for Biden.
And I’m completely sympathetic to people who don’t feel comfortable expressing controversial (whether they should be considered so or not) opinions at work, or where they might impact their livelihood. We have to eat, after all.
I do think the situation is serious enough that we should generally be willing to risk causing offense in social settings — at least for those who, like me, have a near-perfect separation between their social and professional circles.
I will bring up policy points in social situations. It is interesting to see the struggle when I bring up the wonderful deregulation under Trump, which I believe underpinned the Trump economy. Beyond “harumphs,” the most substantive response I’ve got is questioning the social cost of deregulation. But they could not follow up on specific examples (I was ready with my favorite, the awful Waters of the US regulation).
I hope you’re right @sailor1986 but one ominous development that I’ve seen is that the Air Force has instituted an “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” that will, among other things, “…focus specifically on assessing racial disparity in military discipline…and tracking administrative discipline data…”.
Now, who knows what that means and how it will affect UCMJ? Personally, I will be very disturbed if I start hearing of meetings between this office and the Air Force JAG. (I’ve already posted concerning my prior experiences with that part of the Air Force.) Just how much bad behavior are they prepared to ignore so that their “numbers” improve? Maybe let slide a few positive “Golden Flow” results? Maybe forgive a couple of UAs? I just don’t like the way this cr*p is going.
As for the other branches, I wouldn’t get too smug. THIS is coming to your neighborhoods. NO branch will be immune…
“You cannot vote for change when the outcome can be easily “protected”. You cannot go to the courts for redress as the Frenchians would have you do”.
Exactly. Even though JFK was speaking about other countries, what he said could just as easily apply to this Republic: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Now, 75 million Americans are not interested in a “revolution” per se, but we want our traditions, opinions and culture respected; not denigrated by the “elites” who are trashing us at every opportunity. They will keep pushing until we push back. We may as well face up to reality, now…
Objective reality is a racist white construct.