They don't care much about freedom anymore

Ragnar Gardarsson, Guest Author on Conservative Brew from Freedom Affairs

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass is to our children in our bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children´s children what it was like in the United States where men were free.”

– Ronald W. Reagan (1911 – 2004), 40th president of the United States of America.

Once upon a time, the quest for freedom was one of the great driving forces behind the development of Western Civilization. The kind of society, and the kind of struggle that Ronald Reagan captures in the quote above. Sadly, however, in many ways we are already now experiencing this gloomy, dystopian sunset. The acts of its eventual full realizations are upon us – its dissolutive ingredients are steadily and scrupulouslessly being implemented in our present society.

„Fight for“, „protect“ and „hand on to do the same“ are ideas and ways of life that have become alien to, and increasingly miscredited by large segments of the dominating media, cultural elites and even by the educational system. Most profoundly, we see the Left, in all its manyfold manifestations, as the prime catalysator for this sad development. The Left has always hated the old, bourgeois, Judeo – Christian, capitalist society and its institutions designed in order to create and sustain a working, representative, democratic, governmental system. Even though they often proclaim themselves as the knights and sword bearers of all sorts of liberating enterprises for the oppressed masses and protesting voices, that has just been a cover for their real agenda: To smash „the Old World“.

Freedom of conscience, of religion and of speech, which form one of the innermost backbones of Western Civilization, the kind of world which Ronald Reagan wanted to pass on to the coming generations, is merciless being swept aside by the Left. Today these freedoms count for less, or one might even say nothing, when the rights of various and proliferating social groups are on the agenda. In the beginning, they proclaimed that they ought to have, and got, the freedom to speak out for these groups. Now, however, that they have been assigned all sorts of rights, the freedom of others to say something else, to criticize, to differ, oppose or deny positive recognition, is being squashed relentlessly and mercilessly.

You see, the ambition of our forefathers, who thought of what it meant to be a free man, and who wanted to create a free society, did so in terms of something that would last for generations to come. Something that would be able to stand the test of time. It wasn’t just a sudden and spontaneous outburst of boundless escapism and untying of wild, unpredictable forces of nature with no sense of direction or purpose. It was a deliberate effort to create institutional frameworks that could uphold, protect and nourish a free society, and a set of values that corresponded and fostered the freedom sought after. It was a freedom under certain definable conditions, such as division of power, a system of peaceful transition of power, a representative parliamentary system in order to filter through and facilitate a broad, functioning range of views and opinions into the political system, a trustworthy rule of law in order to protect certain basic unalienable individual rights and a de facto free economic system based upon capitalistic enterprise, private property rights and a functioning market system. The correlation between such a dynamic political and economic system and the whole philosophy of freedom of conscience, of thought, expression, speech and religion is vital to any understanding of Western Civilization, and to understand the challenges it faces from the assaults of the Left. Without these vital freedoms, the „old society“, the old, bourgeois capitalist society that the Left always hates, will not prevail. That‘s why „freedom“ in itself doesn’t count for much by Lefties, mostly just as an instrumental path of airing more or less revolutionary doctrines against capitalism and the bourgeoise society.

There might even be a certain flaw to the whole premises of this article, that I might ascribe a bit too much freedom-loving sentiments to the Left, more than it actually deserves – after all, the Left never had any special favoritism towards free speech or any part of the whole grand scheme of freedom and a free society. The Marxist origins of most lefties‘ world view and philosophy unmistakably shines through, as their inability to protect and nurture free speech. Marxist doctrine actually clearly states that the democratic institutions, alongside the wide range principles of freedom and individual rights, are just a product of and by the old bourgeoisie, and are meant to facilitate the capitalist class system and, presumably, the continuing exploitation of the working class and the increasingly impoverished proletariat. Consequently, these constructions, including those „false“ principles of freedom, must to be teared down. Unfit for a true socialist society. I guess an even more fitting title to this article would be „They STILL don‘t care much about freedom“.

As a matter of fact, we are witnessing frightening cases of free speech oppression, widespread in the Western World. In USA, in Europe, in the Scandinavian countries, everywhere that the Left has been able to make an impact. Individuals, small businesses and organisations, even local governments, are being dragged into court or threatened lawsuits for speaking or upholding certain views or expressing things that seem to misalign with something that some groups have designated as absolute, unquestionable and non-negiotionable truths for all to obey and kneel for. People are being sacked mercilessly for not upholding this new orthodoxy, and even more people have been silenced for good, the fear of loosing their basic livelihood, a career, friends and networks, is often sufficient to drive home the goal of this oppression: No more free thought, and especially, no freedom of expression. Only what can be sanctioned and accepted by the ruling segments of the leftist media, cultural elites and intelligentsia must be tolerated. We call this „political correctness“.

More and more countries implement such PC-restrictions of free speech, create special police-departments to investigate and prosecute individuals, businesses and organisations who breach the official, correct line of thought. The European Union is gathering information on unfavorable writings and writers, and some countries ban the media to inform the public of crimes committed by other ethnic groups (Sweden), as an example. Quoting the Bible can cost you a lawsuit and street preachers are being arrested and convicted in the UK for hate speech. Teachers are being sacked from public schools for expressing Christian views in private blog-posts, and criticism of Islam can easily be interpreted as racism, which will get you a lawsuit too. Independent radio stations and media outlets are sued, dragged to court, suffer boycott campaigns and technical restrictions and crackdowns from official licensing offices, for airing criticism on important issues in society. All these new „rules“ are mostly vaguely defined and open to a great deal of interpretation, your actually don‘t really know when you break „the law“, or the political correctness. It‘s a double assault, both the rule of law, the clear and defined expression of what is the rule and what isn’t, and the freedom of thought and expression, is being tramped upon by the Left. It contradicts the whole basic idea of a free society when you prohibit the free and clear expression of different and opposing views, philosophies, religious views and political ideologies. Christianity, as an example, is a missionarian concept. Christians proselytize, it‘s their calling, passed on by the Saviour to his followers to spread the message. It is central to the Christian faith that there is freedom of speech and expression in society. But the Left wants to monopolize any sort of message-spreading. Only what it accepts as „kosher“, a sterilized political correct message, must be allowed in public discourse.

We must stand up against the Left‘s undemocratic and unconstitutional power grabbing. The Left‘s shortsighted erosion of our freedoms has no happy ending in store for us. Instead, we must restore what our forefathers passed on to us, and we must set those free who already now have been spellbound and oppressed by this gloomy political correctness. A flame of hope has been lit by the new Trump-administration i USA, that the newly elected president will be able to turn this dark and destructive machine off, and restore Ronald Reagan‘s vision of what is worth fighting for, protect and to pass on to the next generations. And it begins with us, to take back our freedom.