[22.b.3] Government to Forced Equity or Conserve Individual Liberty

We can also detect a widening ideological split in the United States.  Social activists fed the grievances of identity groups in order to legitimate their demand for power exercised in bigger government.  On the other hand, the New Right that supported Reagan advocated limited government and wanted to conserve the values of family, patriotism, and individual equality before the law. 

[22.j.4] Western Individualism is at Stake

Shelby Steele suggests that identity groups claiming victimization Western values have a right to power.  But the problem: the more people identify with their victimization, they are less able move forward as individuals in a society freer and more full of opportunity than ever before.  Failure, in other words, becomes the fault of someone else.

[22.j.5] CRT

At the root of the multi-hgeaded hydra is cultural Marxism.  By its own admission, Critical Race Theory aims to bring left-wing (Marxist) dialog into all disccussionfo race and instroduce race in to leftist talk.*   Both Booker T. Washington  and Martin Luther King believed in the American dream but CRT rejects as “white” or “racist” concepts such as merit advancement, representative government, capitalism, law enforcement and color-blind equality.   CRT believes that rates of crime, disease, and lower educationional attainment among marginalized populations was caused by race subordination.  CRT’s anti-racist ideology calls on followers to rip down Western society’s structure and rebuild it with race as the only consideration.  

CRT, so stuck on race as the sole explanation for literally everything, rejects the notion that the choices people make have anything to do with the quality of their life.

* Kimberlé Crenshaw, editor, et. al., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement (1996), xxii.

[22.k.1] Low Energy

In the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump described front-runner Jeb Bush as a "low energy" candidate.

[22.L.2] A First

North Korea

[22.L.4] Trump Warns Enemies of U.S.

Trump awoke the United States to the threat of China.  He defeated ISIS and refused to mollify the ayatollahs of Iran.  

[22.L.5] Stronger Energy Position

Oil and 1949

[22.L.6] The Middle East

Abraham Accords 

[22.m.4] Debt a Weakness

Read text page 421.

[22.m.5] Be Positive and Have Faith

I believe that the "idiot delusion of the exceptional now" means it wrong to think that the challenges and disappointments we face today are unique.  Today's challenges are not unique, and by thinking they are we might forget to look at our country's past and find faith and strength from the people who came before us.  What do you think?