To My Fellow Classical Liberals

it's time to face the truth

Do you consider yourself: on the left but not a crazy Woke moron; a Democrat but not a fucking lunatic; or a classical liberal, not…whatever the word ‘liberal’ means, now?

If you’ve said yes, this is for you. I am going to try to shorten your journey to the place where I have, after a long personal struggle, reluctantly arrived. It’s uncomfortable, and a little scary, but the truth is always better than a comforting lie.

The sooner we all embrace the truth, the sooner we can mobilize and actually fix the problems. Here’s the truth. Take a deep breath. Let it out. Ready?

We Are the Conservatives Now.

Colin Wright made this cartoon awhile back.

I have looked at this cartoon at least a thousand times, trying to falsify it. I badly want it to not be true. “Right wing” as a synonym for bad, bigoted, dumb, uneducated, etc. — I’ve been in that frame of mind most of my life, and for good reasons.

I grew up in an extremely conservative, rural area of the southeastern US. My childhood influences were people who thought that “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” constituted an argument. I prepared myself for college, in part, by going to the children’s section of the library and finding books on evolution written for 8 year olds. (My childhood science “education” was the book of Genesis, so I had to start where I was.) The extremes of the right shaped my early life in terrible ways, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them.

The worst elements—especially the religious ones—on the right side of the political spectrum are dangerous, distasteful and embarrassing, and I really did not want to associate with them in any way, shape, form, or fashion.

Things Have Changed.

The left is no longer the side of live and let live; of let the gays structure their families however they want and visit each other in the hospital; of judging others on the “content of character, not color of skin,” of free speech and intellectual diversity, of a real marketplace of ideas.

The left is now on the side of advocating for minors to undergo puberty blocking drugs and even sex-reassignment surgeries, of only allowing citizens to run their businesses and keep their jobs at the whim of unelected bureaucrats, of “my body my choice” not applying when it comes to a non-sterilizing vaccine that doesn’t prevent transmission anyway. The left believes that it’s ok to have a “transition closet” at school where teachers invite children to disrobe and put on clothing of the other sex, and that schools should have action plans to hide a child’s gender transition from parents.

The left has elected officials, many of whom are being groomed to run for higher office, arguing for the elimination of student debt and previously arguing (or, for all I know, they still are) for the elimination of mortgage and rent payments. They regard private property rights as privileges they may deign to allow you, if they choose, but that you shouldn’t get used to.

The left is the side of privilege walks and mandatory DEI training. The left's stranglehold on education is why I had to read White Fragility three times, but the US founding documents zero times, to get my degree.

Simply put, the left no longer represents sane people of the mindset that was once called liberal.

We Have to Pick A Side. Now.

On April 19, 2022, the Washington Post doxxed the woman who runs the LibsofTikTok twitter account. They stooped to levels that surprised even me, pointing out that she is an Orthodox Jew while accusing her of “shaping” and “controlling” media coverage. They showed up at the homes of her family and published their anti-Semitic story despite knowing she’s the subject of serious and legitimate security threats.

Many of you will have seen the profoundly creepy video that she shared, of an English teacher telling his students, “I’m your parent now.” The article mentions that post but leaves out the declaration that the teacher is replacing the parents, characterizing it only as a video for kids “shunned by their parents,” expressing love for them. She also used the opportunity to take a slap at Glenn Greenwald, calling him an “online influencer” instead of a journalist.

The piece is a master class in everything that’s wrong with “journalism,” and that the Washington Post published it is even more evidence that our country no longer has anything resembling a functional media.

The thing that’s so appalling, to me, about this is that LoTT didn’t spend months doing boots-on-the-ground investigative reporting. She didn’t sneak hidden cameras into classrooms. All she did was boost the videos that these people voluntarily filmed and put on TikTok, sometimes with a comment of her own, sometimes not.

Why is this a two-handed shove towards picking a side, formally and officially?

Beyond Compelled Speech, and We Didn’t Even Notice

Many people, including Dr. Jordan Peterson, have made eloquent arguments against compelled speech. The government forcing you to say something, especially something you don’t believe, is an affront to human dignity.

This is far worse. We are now in a situation where merely amplifying what the Left says makes a person a moral criminal, deserving of harassment, violence, and anti-Semitic accusations, depending on the reaction the Leftist rhetoric gets. This is far more serious than it may seem at first. Realize, friends, that the reason for this treatment of LoTT is the reaction that those videos get from the public.

When she shows teachers proudly explaining how they confuse children about gender, force kids to go along with their pronoun nonsense, or implement the blatant falsehood of the gender unicorn in class, she is not creating content. She is amplifying content that the left’s foot soldiers in classrooms are proudly making and sharing. She is only a megaphone.

If the videos were broadly popular—if the account name was something neutral, like “Educators of TikTok” and the usual response was “Wow, this is great! I should stop homeschooling my kids because the public schools are doing the job I’m trying to do, only better!”—would it be acceptable to doxx the account holder?

The left has gone beyond compelled speech with this attack on LoTT. They have made each of us who pays attention, amplifies, or discusses their rhetoric, responsible for the reactions that their own rhetoric gets. If the reaction is bad, we are worthy of punishment and they will dispense the punishment at will.

I Know How Much This Sucks

It’s painful to admit that we are conservatives now, but it’s already true.

A wonderful story I read once has a character repeating, “What’s true is already so. Admitting it doesn’t make it worse.”

If you believe in freedom of speech, in the protection of children as a uniquely vulnerable class of humans, that an ideal society is one where skin color is as irrelevant as eye color, that tax dollars should probably not go to promoting medical experiments on minors, that informed consent in medical decisions is mandatory, that the government’s primary job is to protect your rights so you can do what you choose with your life—in what was, until a couple of years ago, basic common sense—then you are a conservative now.

The best thing you can do is join one of the conservative parties — Republican or Libertarian, at this point — and work to be an advocate for your values within it. Find the legitimately scary extreme and work to marginalize them. Learn from the lessons of how the left fringe took over the Democratic party and try to stop it from happening on the right.

Think about the issues that matter to you and what reasonable compromise with those more conservative than you, would look like.

For example: having been raped as both a child (but one who had started her period and was thus at risk of pregnancy) and adult, abortion rights are very important to me. Leaving this in the hands of the states is a compromise I can live with, and a battle I am willing to fight locally if it needs to be fought.

Think about what matters most to you and what kind of reasonable compromise you could live with, and go from there.

Conclusion

Trying desperately to remain on the left when they’ve gone this insane is very much like trying to stay in an abusive relationship because you and the guy who regularly blackens your eyes like the same books and movies.

It’s not worth it. You deserve better.

If you want to conserve what is best about America and not let the lunatics on the left destroy it, you are a conservative.

This is true. It’s been true for awhile. Barring radical unforseen changes, it will continue to be true.

Delaying your admission of it is only wasting time.