Article by Fletch Daniels in "The American Thinker":
Bill Maher recently played the role of a broken clock and stumbled upon a truth. He noted that America is potentially heading toward a civil war due to rising anger on both sides of the political aisle.
This
is a true sentiment, although he misdiagnoses the cause and
effect. Runaway hate, growing violence, and anti-American extremism on
the Left have triggered a rise in righteous anger on the right.
Should
President Donald Trump win re-election in 2020, everyone paying
attention believes that this will serve as a triggering event that will
result in a serious spasm of violence.
Maher
immediately followed up his call for ramping back the incendiary
language that now defines the political discourse by calling Republicans
the equivalent of hate-filled anti-intellectuals. His idea of offering
understanding of Republicans is to say that they are even more hateful
than stupid, people to perhaps be pitied instead of despised.
"I'm
going to try to stop because I have learned that the
anti-intellectualism on the right doesn't come primarily through
stupidity," said Maher. "It
comes from hate." He concluded by throwing around the usual leftist
language of pretending that somehow President Trump is uniquely
tyrannical.
A
hate-filled moron is always going to be a hate-filled moron. Maher
just proves that point in his world-class exercise in projection.
Leftists
are motivated almost exclusively by hate. It is almost always liberals
who sever family relations over politics. It is leftists who hate
their country and despise its flag. Almost all political violence is
emanating from the Left. Considering the slanderous demonization of all
Republicans as racist, misogynist, imperialist, homophobic
supremacists, this is not terribly surprising. Hate springs quite
naturally from liberals' noxious, racist, and anti-Christian worldview.
Projectionist Maher and his ilk naturally believe that hate is a conservative phenomenon.
But
the anti-intellectual charge is even more laughable, even if it is a
statement of faith on the Left. Maher didn't think he was saying
anything particularly controversial. But he has it backwards.
Conservatives
are not hostile to intellect or education. They are hostile to what
these terms have come to represent on the Left. Conservatives don't
believe that liberals actually display any real intellect, wisdom, or
logic. For their part, liberals spend most of their time proving them
right.
Liberals
believe that academic credentials, achieved through leftist
institutions, determine intellect. But, as universities have
transformed from places that instill knowledge into leftist propaganda
factories, those diplomas speak more to a person having the "right"
ideological thoughts to actually knowing anything meaningful.
Like the class of elementary school students in Billy Madison,
far too many university students are dumber for having listened to
indoctrinators disconnected from rational thought. It's quite the scam
for parents across the country. Scrimp and save to send your kids to
the "best" colleges only to have them returned as brainwashed and
hostile leftists.
Intellectualism
no longer bears any connection to actually displaying
intelligence. This is seen in the illogical positions regularly adopted
by the Left. Consider just a few:
Even
though a child is fully viable at 24 weeks in the womb and is clearly
alive long before that, every viable Democrat candidate thinks it is
logical to believe that our most helpless Americans can be brutally
killed at 40 weeks of age, or even beyond in the case of the
pro-infanticide crowd. Their position, besides being depraved and
immoral, is fully anti-science.
Every
attempt to instill a Marxist government in history has resulted in
tyranny and despair. But an increasing percentage of Democrats believe
that they will be the ones to finally get it right. These paragons of
tolerance admire history's worst despots and tyrants. Their position is
decidedly anti-history and anti-human.
One
of the leftists' marquee candidates, Elizabeth Warren, is proposing new
spending to the tune of over $125 trillion over the course of a decade
and claims she can achieve this society-destroying result without
raising taxes on the middle class. All of the candidates believe that
it is wise public policy to have open borders and offer rich and
expensive social services to anyone who walks across that border. Their
positions are anti-math, which is a rampant problem for nearly all
Democrats. They no longer even pretend to square the numbers on any of
their policy pronouncements.
Liberals
believe that it is perfectly natural for a man who is an average
athlete to wake up one morning, decide he is a woman, take a few drugs,
and dominate a woman's sport. This position is anti-science,
anti-woman, and anti-sane.
Liberals
believe that the biggest future threat to America is global warming and
that a poverty-ensuring $90-trillion Green New Deal that posits the
elimination of methane-producing cows is part of the answer. A couple
decades back, someone who would have suggested this even in jest would
have been deposited in a nice cushioned room for his own protection.
Liberals
are anti-intellectual across the board. They no longer believe in
studying any of the great works of literature to learn about humanity,
culture, and enduring values. Why read William Shakespeare, John
Milton, or Homer, all castigated as dead white guys, when you can catch
the latest Michael Moore flick or read some no-name new author with the
latest derivative tale about the evils of colonialism? Why study the
wisdom of America's founders in establishing a constitutional republic
when you can listen to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expound on the beauty of
socialism?
Why
study rational economics when you can tune in to the diatribes of a
Keynesian fool like Paul Krugman, who never saw a government spending
program he didn't love? For that matter, why study anything meaningful
when there are such great course offerings
available today as "The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender,
and Media" at Skidmore College or "Goldberg's Canon: Making Whoopi" at
Bates College?
Liberals
are the living incarnation of the old Sam Cooke classic. Don't know
much about history (or math, literature, or science). But we know
plenty about Whoopi and Miley. And what a wonderful world it will be if
you just put us in charge forever.
If
Bill Maher were a bit more aware, he would realize we do indeed have a
real challenge with intelligence, logic, and reason. But it is a
left-wing phenomenon, and it is intentional. Leftists have perverted
education and the concept of citizenship in the interest of establishing
their permanent political power. The last thing they want is a well
educated, informed, and moral citizenry, and we are reaping the results
of that.
My
hope is that we can continue to work out political differences through
the political process. But should we end up with the civil war that
Bill Maher fears, he will have been one of the contributors. He shows
no understanding of what has caused the current state of affairs in
America. If we do indeed travel this dark and terrible path, it will be
because of the destruction of intelligence, wisdom, and logic by the
Left, to be replaced by envy, greed, and tribalism.
