By Michael Todd
As a country, political discourse has fractured our society into opposing factions, devoid of reasoning. Unfortunately, this is the effect of many years of sensationalist media pushing narratives meant to stoke fear to achieve political gain. Consequently, this has led to the destruction of monuments, rewriting history books, changing the definitions of words, and persecuting people under continually modified wrong speak classifications to facilitate the political appetite for control.
Afghanistan is a perfect example of what happens when tribes seek to control a population by destroying monuments, history books and persecuting those with differing ideological views. The Taliban eliminated all historical artifacts that didn’t facilitate their beliefs—effectively destroying Afghanistan’s cultural identity in the process. Calling the recent US trend of angry mobs destroying statues “inspiring but a bit amateur,” leaders of ISIS and the Taliban offered to send advisors to Antifa and other far-left groups on how to erase historical artifacts. ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi stated, “Destroying all art, culture, and history from previous eras is obviously constructive.” We beheaded statues with a sword.” The Taliban blew up ancient Buddhas with dynamite. “Tying a statue to a truck and dragging it down just doesn’t have the same dramatic effect.”Leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhunzada, applauded the mob for destroying Confederate monuments, monuments to an all-black Union Civil War regiment, and abolitionist leaders.”We were kind of confused at first since we thought these were supposed to be anti-racist protestors,” Akhunzada admitted. “But if they’re just into blowing shit up and cheering, we can get behind that.”
Tribal thinking has unsurprisingly become the norm: People identify with only the people they know. At best, having vague ideas about those they’ve never met and naturally feel more apprehensive than sympathetic toward them. It is foolish to call men and women of a group in which you do not associate racists when you know so little of their past and ideals.
But the idiocy of so-called present-day woke anti-racists goes even beyond that, for they are apt to single out people for attack due to unsubstantiated assumptions that other ideologies are fascists and racist. When someone within the tribe (political figure) implies that a particular group is predisposed to racist thought or violence, those within their tribe seek to destroy without justification and mercy. An example of this is the demolishing of statues and eradicating historical figures without understanding their significance within the Enlightenment age. This includes many abolitionists that were instrumental in outlawing slavery. The irony is lost on them because they are destroying those with the same ideology they supposedly subscribe. In a sense, woke values have become nothing more than a degraded parody of Enlightenment ideas.
What has happened in our society is alarming because people are willingly relinquishing their rights over the pretext that their ideological opponents are monsters. Those that have fallen for the narrative spun by media and politicians are eagerly celebrating censorship. What’s even more surprising is the support garnered for such actions by those making their living from the First Amendment(media).
Something everyone, including those freely celebrating social media platforms being taken down over erroneous accusations, needs to understand that at some point, the mob of manic hysteria stops differentiating from those supporting its rise and those it was created to banish. History is full of parallels, and more often than not, those parallels repeat with the mistakes committed by previous generations not willing to see past their arrogance. The same is true with the eroding of free speech in this country and the convinced masses readily believing those actions are moral and just. On the contrary, a government willing to suppress speech by continually reclassifying wrong speak to stifle dissension will continue to take until nothing is left. Once our right to dissent peacefully is removed, nothing is standing in the way of the government ransacking the rest of the rights and liberties we enjoy.