Op-Ed: Thanks to Polarization, Americans Can Distinguish Between Good and Evil
Imagine being the quarterback of a football team and the opposing team comes onto the field wearing the exact uniform you and your team are wearing.
The style and colors are identical to your team’s uniforms. The officials tell you this is the new norm. All teams must wear the same uniforms because we don’t want anyone to feel left out and winning isn’t all that important anyway. Besides, different uniforms are divisive and force the fans to pick a side.
Until the late 19th century, wars were fought between opposing sides wearing uniforms that clearly distinguished one side from the other.
They fought in ranks, one line behind the other, advancing across the battlefield firing at each other, the soldiers in the front rank suffering the greatest casualties. As they fell, soldiers in the second rank stepped forward to fill the gap until they fell, and so on.
As the two sides came together, the orderly lines became confused in hand-to-hand fighting, but in the chaos, the uniforms served to distinguish one warring faction from the other. The distinctions between competing sides were well-drawn.
There was no question as to who was friend or foe, so you simply lopped off the head of the guy not wearing your army’s uniform.
Life is easier and simpler when we can differentiate good from bad, beautiful from ugly, moral from immoral, just from unjust, clean from dirty, honest from dishonest, right from wrong, normal from perverse.
Ideally, every member of society is a moral, honest, clean, upright person. That condition, however, has never been and will never be the real world, so in a civilized society, it’s vital to be able to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys.
In football games and in battle, uniforms are important. But in ideological and political wars, the warring sides are distinguished not by appearance, but by what they espouse and do. To obfuscate the real issues, the authoritarian side will always try to appear to be the freedom side.
Mindless journalists and members of Congress continually talk of the United States as a divided nation and pontificate about how that’s a bad thing.
Divisions in American society are the result of incessant lobbying by the media and politicians. America is a divided country. All countries are.
Historically, divisions within countries and between countries are the result of one side seeking to impose its will on another side. That is certainly the case today in America.
By the end of the 18th century, America was a strongly divided nation. There were those who were comfortable being ruled by King George III. Independent thinkers, however, tired of being under the foot of authoritarian rule. The result was the American Revolution and the creation of America as a united, independent nation founded on the principles of moral conduct and the rule of law.
History is replete with examples of nations divided between those who lust for power over other peoples’ lives and those who want to be left alone to raise families in safety, peace and freedom.
Power seekers inevitably start out with high-sounding reasons for why people should give up little bits of their freedom to get something, seemingly for nothing. Then gradually, the suggestions become demands for larger bits of their freedom. Then the demands become codified in law. Before they realize it, citizens are spending their lifeblood, time and energy to pay taxes that go to support the power holders devoted to perpetuating and increasing their power.
History has shown that once the struggle between rule and freedom reaches a certain level, once it becomes obvious to sufficient numbers of the citizenry, resistance builds and opposition develops.
The outcome of the coming struggle is dependent on the extent to which the power holders have insinuated their sycophants into state institutions — government agencies, the military, the intelligence apparatus and police forces.
Because populations fail to understand how truly thin the veil of authoritarian power is, most struggles end favoring the power seekers. The millions of citizens who first disbelieve what is happening become frozen in the headlights, too timid to pry their freedom from the hands of the power-holding elitists who are, in fact, in the extreme minority.
Narcissistic power-holding elitists come to believe they are smarter, brighter, better educated, richer, stronger and braver. They come to believe that, as the result of their self-identified high attributes, they have a Nietzschean right (if not obligation) to rule the rest of humanity — of course to their own enrichment.
The current struggle in America today is between a relatively small number of criminal-minded politicians and the American people.
The left acknowledges the American electorate has become increasingly conservative in its political outlook over the past five decades. Until now, what has been lacking is a dynamic personality to expose the realities of those looking to impose authoritarian rule.
The most vulnerable point in a struggle for power is that point at which the power-seekers must move to consolidate their power. That’s the point at which they isolate overt opposition, demonize that opposition and physically liquidate the opposition. The 20th century is replete with examples: Russia, China, Cuba, Romania, Albania, Germany, Czechoslovakia and a dozen more.
The leftist rioters of today’s insurrection have severely miscalculated.
They mistakenly led themselves to believe their own publicity, that Obama’s election and re-election proved they had sufficient control to enlist federal resources against the American people and that they could protect themselves by preventing information flow to the deluded and drugged general population.
The one factor overlooked in their calculus was the arrival of that dynamic personality — a personality who, by shining the light of public attention on their insidious plans, could enlist the support of millions of people in a movement against them.
Clearly, the left miscalculated. They never dreamed a patriotic, unpolished, woman-chasing buffoon could ever win the nomination but, when he won the primaries, they became concerned. When he waged an aggressive campaign against their hand-selected candidate and won the presidency, they became horrified.
Nearly 100 years of leftist dreams were placed in jeopardy by the election of this clown — Donald Trump. What to do?
Having for decades successfully fuzzed up the distinctions between conservatives and liberals, patriots and traitors, the last thing they needed was someone who would actually define the lines of division.
Suddenly, the Democratic establishment is confronted with this outsider who insists on telling it as he sees it. Gone are the hackneyed labels of “liberal,” “progressive,” and “socialist.”
Trump essentially said, “To hell with that. I’ll call them the deep state.”
The coronavirus pandemic and widespread riots in 2020 have wreaked incredible destruction on the country and its people. But there is good news in it all: the American people are awakening to reality.
As they become polarized, even the most brain-numbed Americans can now make the distinction between leftists and true American patriots, the divide between the productive elements in society and the destructionists.
Gone are the days of obfuscation of moral principles by media morons, telling the electorate that what a person does in his or her personal life has no bearing on their ability to perform in elective office.
Today, everyone knows the substance of the Clintons’ political legacy. They abused their positions and the public trust just as surely as they abused those around them. The Clinton history is being written and it isn’t going to be pretty.
Polarization is defined as “division into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs.” We should never fall for the left’s paean that the country is divided and that’s a bad thing.
Polarization is a good thing, and it’s never occurred at a more propitious time. The American people must distinguish between the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the builders and the destructionists, peace and nihilism, truth and dishonesty — and act courageously to preserve America.
We must throw the liars out of office, whether they be Democrats or Republicans. We must resist the temptation to believe the smears and come to the defense of good Americans who believe and uphold America’s Constitution.
We must be willing to stand courageously and forthrightly in the face of the destroying mob. Choices are before us. Be part of the polarized.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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