The first rule of any Marxist revolution is that rules are fine if they advance the cause or cripple opponents. The rules can be discarded the minute they get in the way.
That’s the way America’s Marxists, socialists and many liberals operate when it comes to the Constitution, especially the First Amendment.
Here’s the relevant portion: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”
When they are legalizing obscenity and destroying community standards, the Left’s attorneys, spearheaded by the ACLU, take a “no-exceptions” view. What America’s founders intended as protections for ideas becomes for the ACLU a get-out-of-jail-free card for pornographers, terrorists and even for men who possess child pornography. How dare anyone, anywhere, restrict speech? Why, that would be unconstitutional.
Which brings us to today, where the Left is actively suppressing constitutionally protected speech they don’t like. What began on campuses has spread to society at large. Ask the folks at Chick-fil-A if you don’t believe me. The ACLU is not beating a path to their door to help.
The Left has also redefined civil rights, warping the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended Jim Crow laws. Moving beyond immutable characteristics such as race, color, national origin and sex, the Left has expanded it to include something entirely different – volitional behavior with enormous moral implications. Civil rights laws containing “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” now pose a dangerous threat to civil liberties, and much of the media are more than fine with that.
America’s newsrooms are full of people who honestly believe that America needs to be taken down and replaced with a socialist, pansexual, atheist regime that brooks no dissent. Studies abound about the media’s leftist bias, but all you have to do is turn on CNN or pick up a major newspaper to see the daily drumbeat against the Left’s main enemies: the family and the church.
When the workers of the world failed to unite and trigger an economic upheaval in the 20th Century, the Left adopted a different strategy. Communist theorists Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School saw that a cultural revolution, including educational indoctrination and media propaganda, could weaken society and lead to political revolution.
That’s why the Left embraces pornography, abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and now transgenderism. It all works against a family-based culture whose members are far less likely to fall for the Left’s promises of “free stuff.”
Strong families produce strong, independent people. As families weaken, so does the church, where people learn a different Gospel from that of Karl Marx. By wrecking families, you can wreck churches, a twofer for the Left.
One of the Left’s most effective tactics is to coin new meanings and then use them to stigmatize opposition. That’s why abortion became “choice.” Homosexuality became “gay.” Smut became “porn” and then “erotica.” Normalcy became “hate.” Voter ID laws became “voter suppression.” Border security became “racism.”
The Equality Act, which the Democrats passed in the House on May 17, is a motherlode of politically correct usage for persecuting Christians and others who will not go along with the Left’s ever-shifting sexual regime. It is patently unconstitutional, not that they care.
The courts are black-robed enablers in this lurch to the left. Culturally corrosive Supreme Court justices discovered a constitutional “right” to abortion in 1973 and then a “right” to brideless or groomless marriages in 2015.
This creation of “marriage equality” turned proponents of natural marriage into – what else? – bigots who despise equality. Should “haters” have the same constitutional rights as everyone else? Ask anyone on the street. Of course not.
The propaganda can be astoundingly overt. The president emeritus of a 220-year-old Catholic prep school wrote a letter in the alumnae magazine urging inclusion of same-sex union announcements – a direct rebuke of church teaching. So, the Washington Post’s headline on the runover page reads: “Nun Chooses Love Over Church Doctrine.” Thus, 2,000 years of church teaching about love and marriage is simply hate.
If this litany of leftist schemes brings you down, remember that Jesus Christ told us that the world would bring tribulation, but to “be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” The most loving, compassionate thing a Christian can do is not to encourage sinful behavior but to share the good news about a Savior who forgives any repentant soul’s sins and can regenerate heart and soul.
How did so much of the media become dominated by a Marxist mindset? Easy. They weed out anyone who thinks otherwise. And they have a steady supply of young journalists fresh from campuses where Marxist professors ply their trade.
It’s time to tune out the fake news, the fake law and the fake academics, and, as Bob Dylan penned (by way of Jesus in Rev. 3:2), “wake up and strengthen the things that remain.”
That means bypassing the Marxists’ rewrite of the Constitution and applying the real document’s timeless framework of liberty to our current situation.
Robert Knight is a Townhall contributor. This is adapted from remarks on May 20, 2019, at the National Press Club at a briefing hosted by STAND Against Communism.