American Inversion
The American left is building a culture based on fear and compliance by flipping traditional American traits and values on their heads.
It certainly seems the glorious people’s revolution promised by the progressives will require one little thing – a complete inversion of the values and traits traditionally admired by Americans.
As a child, traits and values like bravery, honesty, strength, resilience, determination, and independence were at the top of the list of things to which we should aspire. The radio and TV serials of the late 50’s and early 60’s (my Saturday afternoon staples) like Sky King, The Amazing Adventures of Superman, Tarzan, the Lone Ranger, reinforced these characteristics in simple, straightforward 30-minute vignettes.
Cartoons were, for the most part, based on the good vs. evil dichotomy where the good guy always won.
Movies from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s featured strong men (and women) as heroic, swashbuckling, yet often stoic and tragic figures who braved dangers and sacrificed of themselves to save the day for others. Computers and software were not part of the toolbox then, so the dangers were created in the minds of the audience rather than displayed for them on the screen. These movies required imagination and intellect rather than just visual participation and reaction. Rather than suspension of disbelief, those movies required an activation of belief.
But today, things have changed.
The pandemic has been an excuse to reverse all our veneration for those traditional traits and values.
Bravery has been replaced by cowardice. It certainly seems that if you are not afraid, you are not considered part of society. Certainly, it is not only me who has noticed how fear has become the central theme of the vaccine arguments – Biden’s Christmas message of a “winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated” is a simple example of inducing fear to accomplish a policy goal.
Honesty has gone the way of the dodo. Honesty has been replaced by official “science” and whatever you need to say or do to support the desires of the regime. The best examples of this are the denizens and pundit of the leftist mainstream media. They have resorted to full time production of propaganda and agitprop; any incident of honest reporting is purely accidental.
Strength? Forget it. Weakness and compliance are the order of the day. You are more likely to be praised for giving in and giving up than standing your ground. Stand your ground, state your beliefs and you will be cancelled – shunned, de-platformed and denied participation in society.
Getting back up after getting knocked down is resilience. Standing up in the face of a gale force wind and holding your position is something Americans have always done. Facing risks and bad time without giving up has always been an American trait – but today, we are supposed to just give in, retreat to our homes and hide behind the furniture because we aren’t strong enough.
Determination just gets you in trouble. You are supposed to bend like a reed in the wind, swaying and conforming to the ever-changing fad of the day. Just follow the “science” they say, without a shred of recognition of how many times “the science” has changed.
If you assert your independence, you are treated as a pariah because the protection of the collective is more valued than your own individual freedom. Get vaccinated to protect others, not yourself – because they have a newly created right not to be infected by a disease (wonder how far they are going to take this new “right”? Will people with the flu be required to quarantine?) Quoth Saint Anthony of Fauci, “…there comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.”
When these inversions are considered in light of the failures of their dire predictions that the resumption of collegiate and professional sporting events would become super-spreader events (they didn’t) and the totally unfounded fear the Omicron variant would prove to be a death sentence worthy of more lockdowns and restrictions (it is the weakest variant so far), rational people would be correct to wonder just what the hell is going on here.
Because there simply has to be more than a public health issue at work here.
Rest assured, there is.
Ronald Reagan, in his famous 1961 speech about socialized medicine, warned about the use of health issues to institute wider collectivist policies
This is all about weakening a people to pave a path to technocratic and authoritarian control over the population.
You can’t have technocracy when smart people make their own decisions. You can’t have authoritarianism while strong, independent, resilient people exist. You can’t have either when people are brave enough to stand in your way.
Many people recoil at the use of the word “communism”, but this is exactly where this inversion process is leading. Technocracy and authoritarian control have always been the main features of Marxist theory since day one.
The only real question is whether this current process is accidental, intentional or some opportunistic mix of both.
The answer to that question is largely moot, I suppose. Even accidentally stumbling toward a shared goal is the same as intentionally doing working toward it.
We know how to stop this process – it begins by reestablishing the veneration of traditional American traits and values.
I just completed reading “Killing Reagan” and was amazed how he stood against it. It all started in Hollywood when he was beginning his career. I wish he were still alive today!