To quote Doris Lessing in "The Golden Notebook" "Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born."
In the USA free speech has been supplanted by political correctness and dogma which then becomes ideology. People are paralyzed to say what they really think because it may be politically incorrect. Guts are very, very scarce.
Example: Global warming. It is now dogma for fact. There is still a lot of science that argues against it. However in schools and in public media it’s now a given, no room for debate. Dogma.
Doing everything we can do for the environment is good and right. Dogma. If overdoing it destroys this country and our economy and the future for our children, is it good? Meanwhile China wrecks everything we do twenty fold. Net, the world is not cleaner, we are just broke.
Diversity is good. Really? Is it always better than hiring the most qualified regardless of race or gender? Dogma. Never thought I would agree with Ms. Ferraro, but Obama would not be running if he were white.
Big Oil is bad. Really? Dogma. Who is big oil? In most of the world it’s a country– The Saudi Oil Company, Pemex, etc. Exxon/Mobil is owned by shareholders many of us own shares in pension plans.
We should always have open arms to peoples from foreign lands, that’s what made America great. Right? Dogma. Those people we talked about historically came through Ellis Island and learned our language and made it on their own. They didn’t sneak in, weren’t illegal, and didn’t bring their culture with them and expect us to embrace it. Plus, we weren’t short on natural resources and broke as a country then. Dogma, big difference.
It is our job to take freedom and liberty around the world and encourage others to follow our pattern. Right? Dogma. We aren’t getting it right at home anymore why not fix our own freedom and liberty before we export it.
The US is like Superman we must go wherever injustices are taking place and right all wrongs. Dogma. Let Darfur solve their own problems. We haven’t won too many wars lately and maybe we should stop fighting others battles.
The US will always be the world power. Dogma. Maybe we need to realize the biggest kid on the playground is China and stop lecturing them about Tibet. When you kick the biggest kid in the testicles you run the risk of getting your ass kicked. Ms. Rice spends all her time traveling around the world seeing how many friends she can buy.
Farmers are little businessmen who need our help. Right? Farming is big business owned by corporations and shareholders and congressmen and wall streeters. Dogma. Since we all buy this crap our government has once again raised farm subsidies to historical highs. You are paying record food prices and giving more of your tax dollars to farmers. Want to see another movie about a family being thrown off the farm and the furniture sold at auction?
In our system everyone should have a voice. Right? Dogma. Rampant democracy is what we have now. No one does anything. There are no true leaders and all we do is ask what people want.
Face it, we are no longer the home of the free and the land of the brave. Those brave enough to speak what they really believe run the risk of being fired or publicly embarrassed. Better to go along with the dogma. Freedom? If dogma takes over in the pervasive way it is, there will be precious few things anyone can feel free to do.
