I learned about racism, slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, and the Trail of Tears in my K-12 education. I never learned about the Holodomor, Cultural Revolution, and 100 million dead from global communism. American schools haven’t “whitewashed” history; they’ve “redwashed” it.

Christopher F. Rufo @realchrisrufo
Tweeted on May 24, 2021
[Via daughter Jaime.

It’s been a long time since I looked at school history book but I suspect this is a valid point.—Joe]

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

Karl Popper
1945
The Open Society and Its Enemies
[See also Paradox of tolerance.—Joe]

That is where we are: politics in America is the literally religious-type quest for power – and for nothing else at all. We are way past (I say years past) the times when effective, enduring compromise was possible. It is not.

I do not see any way to reverse this. I am reminded of a disease I read of some time ago, that once it becomes symptomatic, it is too late to treat it. I think that politically that is where we are now. It seems clear to me that we no longer live in the “United” States of America, and I see no way to regain that.

The question is whether the United States will survive in its present form, or will some kind of dissolution come to pass. Personally, I am not optimistic.

Sensing Online
March 22, 2021
The Priesthood of Politicism Offers Only Damnation
[I’m probably more optimistic than this. But a good case can be made for a pessimistic outcome as well.—Joe]

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law.
They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking
than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the
211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the
United States Handicapper General.

Kurt Vonnegut
October 1961
Harrison Bergeron
[I had read this short story sometime long ago but I can’t really say when. A private post on Facebook caused me to go looking for it.

While the story has elements of truth in the trajectory predicted I don’t think this is in our future. I expect before things go much further something more like a USSR dystopia or a forceful reset to something resembling a meritocracy is far more likely. And I expect to see the outcome long before 2081.

But still, it puts into words the unarticulated fears many of us have.—Joe]