When ‘unity’ really means fall in line
The country is on the edge. Racially charged protests, critical of law enforcement and sometimes violent, continue to dominate headlines.
Droves of Central Americans continue to flee north, overwhelming our porous southern border, flouting our immigration laws.
More bodies fall in bloody massacres courtesy of pathetic, misanthropic gunmen.
Major cities report spikes in violent crimes and levels of personal animus between neighbors continues to escalate.
The assault on our senses is constant.
The left's response is “unity,” meaning a unity of thought, their thoughts. Fall in line or risk ostracization.
Seemingly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the major communication outlets, in conjunction with powerful social media platforms, selectively share information deemed worthy to move the herd. On most platforms, negative stories aimed at Democrats are either homogenized or eliminated entirely.
Recently, the combination of Facebook and Twitter has either squelched or limited access to major news stories involving Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, Hunter Biden, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The tech giants claim the censorship falls under the guise of slowing the spread of potentially false information; however, they rarely give any tangible, credible details on how those decisions are made.
All information and news should be disseminated objectively, without partisan restrictions, but that dream is now an impossibility. The most powerful and influential people on the planet control the media's content and therefore control almost 100% of what you see. CNN is owned by Warner Media that in turn is owned by AT&T. NBC News is owned by Comcast, ABC by Disney, CBS by Viacom, Fox by the Murdoch family, and the Washington Post is owned by the world's richest man, Amazon's Jeff Bezos.
Fox and talk radio align with the right and the rest are owned by the left.
If the narrative doesn't fit the agenda, the description is altered.
The media get their cue from the political hierarchy, or vice versa, and deliver the message to the American people. “Get your shots. Wear your mask. You're a racist. God is dead. Fear global warming. Follow the science. Success and wealth are sinful. Police are evil.”
If you speak out against this dispatched narrative, you're labeled a pariah. For example, not running to the front of the line to get your vaccine because you question the mechanism and methods of its development. Your caution is mocked. You're dubbed a heretic, an anti-science/anti-vaxxing lunatic.
America's divisions are constantly fanned by the cultural and political elite.
During CNN's “Cuomo Primetime,” Chris Cuomo said that police and gun reform won't happen until, “White people's kids start getting killed. Shootings, gun laws, access to weapons. Oh, I know when they'll change…(when) your kids start getting killed. White people's kids start getting killed.”
And then there's U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who, while marching in Brooklyn Center, Minn., said, “We've got to get more confrontational. We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business. The way to get in control is not to allow them to win. You've got to take the power.”
Both Waters and Cuomo have the right to pontificate on their soapboxes, but actions have consequences. Rarely, if ever, are liberals held accountable. If Derek Chauvin had been found innocent, and Minneapolis was laid to waste by protesters, would Waters have been held even remotely responsible?
On the other hand, if I go on the radio tomorrow and champion an uprising by quoting Thomas Jefferson — “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” — I will be labeled a white supremacist or a violent anarchist. I have been.
What exactly did Donald Trump say that got him impeached that was any more criminal than the words spoken by Waters?
Unity. What exactly is unifying about insisting that protesters be confrontational or pining that white kids should be the next to die?
When Biden stands in front of this nation on April 28, it will mark 98 days since he placed his hands on the Douay-Rheims Bible and swore an allegiance to protect and serve the Constitution. I expect he will again frame his speech with the ambition of American unity.
Yet it is diversity that has always been the liberals' go-to phrase to define American strength. So, it's somewhat ironic that after reclaiming the national political spotlight, the Democrats insist on a force-fed mantra of counterfeit unity.
Diversity of thought is now Orwellian.
My choice is freedom over the bended knee of false consensus. Tyrants — Hitler, Castro, Stalin — demanded unity.