Since late May, the United States has been convulsed by a cultural revolution unlike any seen in its recent history. Statues have been toppled, often without any logic or consistent grievance. Institutions have been renamed, again without coherent consistency.
Christian iconography has been a common target. Television shows have been taken off the air; particular corporations boycotted; professional sports recalibrated into social activist spectacles.
If there is any common denominator to this madness, it is apparently that the past was toxic, and erasing it in the present will make for a more just and united future.
For example, because of the glorification of the imperialist and spoiler of native paradise Christopher Columbus, his statue in Chicago must be removed nocturnally by the order of the mayor—in order to restore peace of mind, social justice, and calm. That act of iconoclasm will rectify things in the present, and thus there will not be another 500 annual homicides in Chicago.
But once names are replaced and commemoration destroyed, what exactly follows the erased?
Anarchy Is the Replacement
Mao and Stalin had their pictures put up everywhere—while making the prior czars and the warlords amateurs in the arithmetic of genocide. The revolutionary Castro Brothers and Muammar Gaddafi turned the streets of Havana and Tripoli into Disney-like ads for their persons. So did Saddam Hussein—as thousands were rounded up and murdered.
Will the founders of Black Lives Matter demand such statues for themselves?
In truth, the iconoclasts and revolutionaries are guided by an informal set of chaotic rules that ensures their movement must remain anarchical and nihilist. They cannot really replace what they have destroyed—at least according to their own ad hoc rules of political correctness. And after over two months of constant protests, we know what those protocols are.
One, we do not judge famous people by weighing their bad and good deeds. One sin—with or without confession—condemns you to politically incorrect Hell. One bad characteristic—especially supposed racism—cancels whatever good one otherwise accomplished.
Liberals idolize President Woodrow Wilson for his progressive politics and one-world utopian foreign policy. But because Wilson was also by our standards an inveterate racist, he is now canceled.
Global pacifist Mahatma Gandhi is also out, because in his earlier incarnation as a South African barrister he said and wrote things that now are deemed racist. George Washington may have been unique in terms of his superior morality and achievements, especially in comparison with other slave-holders. But as a slave-holder, his virtue does not matter; and so Washington is relegated to the toxic column, lumped together with any otherwise criminal-minded person who also owned slaves.
Two, the revolutionaries are morally censorious but selective in their outrage. They despise Christopher Columbus but are more than happy to live in a Westernized America. They do not eschew it for other indigenous areas that are less contaminated by supposedly toxic Western capitalism and constitutional government. They claim they despise the corporate state, but can’t leave home without their corporate mass-produced smartphones. The selfie, not the clenched fist, is the new emblem of the revolution.
Three, there are no statutes of limitations. One insensitive remark in one’s youth, one errant and regrettable deed in the past, will be ferreted out by the social media and internet lynch mob to cancel present lives and livelihoods. The #MeToo movement reached back to then high-schooler Brett Kavanaugh’s late teens to claim falsely that he was a sexual assaulter in efforts to stop a conservative trending Supreme Court. Such is the new standard.
These informal rules explain perhaps why when statues go down, none go back up.
There can be no heroes only the flawless state that will decide what clothes are made and what food is grown and what housing is built. They will decide where you live your fair share. They will decide your job, pay everything one size fits none, you are to be a cog in the government machine no opinion, no choice no privacy or life of your own.
Did Chicago get peaceful after the Columbus statue was removed? Did that solve ANYTHING?
Italian-Americans, apparently, don’t get to have a culture. But, any leftist “icon” has but to say, “Oh, that? I’m sorry.” and all is forgiven. For, in reality, the left does not take racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia or mass murder all that seriously. In fact, if it is done to promote a leftist agenda, such as the racist genocide of abortion, then it can be easily forgiven. Racism is just fine if it is directed at the proper political enemy committed by a leftist. Sexual abuse is OK if the desperate last hope of the Democrats commits it. Murder is OK if someone that held a non-liberal view was murdered. Political terror is acceptable as long as it is leftist political terror (of course, what other kind is there?).
The only solid, irrefutable principles the left has is hypocrisy. There is no limit or end to it.
Sooooo who are these snowflakke, millennium, marxist heros???? can any one them read?? one can only imagine an illiterate marxist meeting with a state prime minister, or presence in a international treaty or negotiation?? so if the negotiations do not conform to their mentality, are they going to riot in that country-Russia? what these little assholes do not understand is that most foreign government will not stand for this type of behavior. maybe some of these rioters should riot in N. Korea or iran.
-as Curtis Lemay stated: kill enough and the rioting will stop. none of these rioters expect to die.