In case you haven’t noticed Notamensa Newsletter has been quiet for the last couple of months. Based upon the events of the past year I decided to step back and take some time to re-evaluate my objectives for the newsletter and whether or not I needed to change direction. This has been a difficult time for us as individuals and for the country as a whole. We have suffered a loss of comity in the country, lost relationships and witnessed a degradation of trust in government and the media. Not the best of times. But I have decided to forge ahead. I decided this might be the perfect time for sharing and discussing ideas.
So in 2021 I have decided to lighten up a little but not shy away from difficult issues. I appreciate hearing from those of you who respond. That doesn’t happen nearly enough. Do not be afraid to voice your opinion. I have a pretty thick skin.
I left you in the middle of a discussion birthed by Joshua Mitchell in his book “American Awakening”. The book was first published in 2020 and I am betting that Professor Mitchell is already updating the book. The book is attempting to reconcile two worldviews as they relate to the mediation of transgression and justice in the world of identity politics. In his book Mitchell takes significant literary liberty in his use of the terms “transgressors” and “innocents”. I will try and clarify what I believe he is saying. The following is a response I received from one of my readers. Let’s call him Ulysses because that is his name. “Mike, I struggle with your Clarification Note about transgressors and innocents. I cannot see or imagine a god where not even a fetus or a newborn would qualify or be “seen” as an innocent. Just a thought to “stir your pot”, so to speak.”
Ulysses is certainly correct from a Christian Worldview. But Mitchell, a professed protestant, is couching his argument in moralistic terms. A transgression has been committed, some type of “moral” violation, but an innocent must be identified to stand as the sacrificial lamb. Racism is endemic so white males must be held accountable. This is the “slippery slope”. In the moral arena you and I get to determine guilt and innocence. In the spiritual, Christian, realm this is God’s determination to make.
Why is this even important? Well Mitchell’s whole premise is built upon the Woke’s introduction of identity politics and the resulting cancel culture. This has been building for years and we initially began to see it in academia with the cancellation of speakers who attempted to deliver a message that was determined “offensive” by students and/or administrators. By refusing to allow them to deliver their message their message was essentially being canceled. This pernicious ideology then progressed to professors losing their jobs. It ultimately digressed to the commercial world where you could actually be fired from your job for your Facebook posts or your Tweets.
Big Tech and Main Stream Media – Unhinged
The arbiters of these decisions are ordinary citizens unaccountable to any type of professional standards. Twitter was able to take down the President of the United States account because he failed to adhere to their arbitrary standards. Same with Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and others. It then escalated to these self-appointed moralists actually ruining independent companies. Twitter, Facebook and Amazon Web Services conspired to take Parler off the air and destroy the company. A nearly $1 billion business gone overnight.
We have now entered a new era. No one is safe any longer. You now have mainstream media and some in congress suggest that Trump supporters need to be “re-programmed” or “de-Ba’athitized”! Pretty scary stuff. You are no longer safe to use speech that was once part of the norm. I am not speaking here of racial or sexual slurs. These have always been socially verboten. I am referring to things as simple as using the incorrect pronoun. So if you cross some arbitrary moral boundary you must be punished. You could lose your ability to communicate across the internet. If your internet provider decides you have committed some unpardonable “sin” you could lose the ability to email or text. You would then be unable to apply for a job or communicate with your employer, your family or even your doctor. You could lose a job or political office for a public statement you made twenty years ago. You could even loose your membership in a club or other organization. You, a real-life person, can be canceled! This is why this is so important.
So for your transgression, even if you are not aware that you have transgressed, there is a price that needs to be paid. Today that transgressor is easily identified. It is white males; the Patriarchy. White males are now being canceled for being misogynists, racists, sexists and just plain abusers of power. They are being assigned to the dust heap of irrelevancy. But this will be short lived. Once white males are deemed to be totally impotent and not longer a threat there will need to be another group of innocents to be sacrificed. What is the next group? White women or maybe black men? The list is almost endless.
If you read about LGBTQ issues you will learn there is incredible tension between gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals and trans. This is a power struggle and each group is only one transgression away from being “canceled” or banned. Douglas Murray, a gay author and speaker, makes the point in his book “The Madness of Crowds Gender, Race and Identity” that contrary to popular belief gays and lesbians share little in common. They typically do not associate or hang out with one another socially. Neither group holds trans or bi-sexuals in high esteem. We are led to believe this is one cohesive group, but not so. Who is next to be trampled by this moralistic movement of intersectionality?
As a country we are continually being siloed. Sense of community is dissolving and our ability, or willingness, to communicate across ideological lines is suffering as a result. Until our government quits treating and validating every special interest group as victim’s we are looking at a dystopian spiral. I wish I had an answer for this but I do not. But I do know that our First Amendment rights are in jeopardy and this should give us all pause.
Hold on, rough road ahead.
Next up:
Beto goes mainstream
Will Red States go underground?
Will the sacrament of confession be the undoing of Catholicism?
Thanks Nancy. Particularly hard for all of us deplorables that shop at Walmart. What is next. Chili’s won’t let us eat there?
And now Biden putting transgenders back in the military. He did this based upon his equality pitch. Not sure how this will stop as the wealthy white people and middle class will all be disenfranchised down the road. Hang on tight!
Probably because the Pentagon has become as liberal as the rest of Washington. Thanks for reading.
This is excellent, Mike. I recently learned that Kohl’s and Bed, Bath & Beyond, two of my favorite stores, have dropped the My Pillow line because the owner of the company, Mike Lindell, was a Trump supporter. This is communism at its best: support the party line or you can’t do business in this country. This is NOT America, and I hope there will be a big backlash over this and other attempts to stifle freedom of speech.