Reblogged:Victimization Fails to Enlighten

[Gus Van Horn blog]

Near the tail end of a column about a ridiculous boycott of In-N-Out, a California fast-food institution, comes worrisome news:

By placing Bible verses on their packaging, these guys don't "censor" Ayn Rand -- or anyone else. (Image via Wikipedia.)

It's the ultimate irony of the information age that censorship has made a roaring comeback from the bad old days of Woodrow Wilson and Joe McCarthy. A recent Economist-YouGov poll reported a chilling 45 percent of Republicans said the government should be able to shut down media outlets for "inaccuracies or bias," while American colleges and universities, once the citadels of tolerance, have become islands of intolerance. The silencing of differing opinions is an unhappy meal Americans of every political stripe should find hard to swallow. [bold added]

As Michelle Malkin recently reminded us, conservatives been all but shut out of media for a long time. But apparently, many have forgotten both how to work around such obstacles and any suspicion of improper government -- or fear for what might happen should the Democrats find themselves in charge again. In other words, the left has succeeded not only in silencing opposition for a long time, but gotten people way too comfortable with government prescriptions for everything. The end result is that alarming numbers of people consider government (a) able and (b) trustworthy enough to ensure "fairness," whatever that means, by running businesses and ordering individuals around.

Those are exactly the opposite of what the government is supposed to be doing.

-- CAV

Link to Original

[Nicky]

Well, that is Trump's position. I doubt it was the position of these Republican voters before Trump entered politics, and it's unlikely that it will stay their position after he leaves. These people are simply followers, who cannot think for themselves, but are able to identify with a group (Republicans, because it's a far more white group than the other one, and, in the absence of abstract thinking, they need a concrete, obvious trigger for their affiliation...skin color works well for this), and take on the ideas of the loudest voice within it.

I don't see much chance that this point of view will remain the loudest voice in the Republican Party, once Trump is gone. At that point, these followers will simply follow the next person to become the loudest voice...likely someone far more principled than Trump (who is the first, and hopefully last, entirely amoral President of the United States).

Edited September 5, 2018 by Nicky