By Selwyn Duke
Is one man’s radical another man’s reasoned voice? You might suppose that could be the thinking in this relativistic age. But this certainly wasn’t the perspective of British journalist Douglas Murray while appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast last Thursday.
In fact, Murray called Rogan out on the show, saying he was platforming fringe voices peddling anti-historical views.
Continue reading "Douglas Murray to Joe Rogan: You’re Platforming RADICALS Who Mislead" »
Legendary president Ronald Reagan authored a “revolution,” seeking to shrink government, lower taxes, reduce regulations, and defeat the Soviet menace. He accomplished much governmentally, too, earning the ire of leftists who dubbed him “Ronald Ray-gun.” Yet in truth, he could do little about our cultural trajectory, and American society was notably more “politically correct” (i.e., Woke 1.0) when he left office in 1989 than when he’d entered it in ’81. It’s an old story: You can change who’s at the government’s helm, but who’s at the cultural “government’s” helm — that of academia, the media, and entertainment — remains the same.
(That is, unless you have an autocratic state playing cultural puppeteer.)
This said, one difference between the Reagan and Trump revolutions is that MAGA apparently has greater cultural focus. Despite this, though, and as during Reagan’s time, wokeness marches on. This is illustrated, too, by some recent stories, ones that in the ’80s would’ve been unheard of — or satire.
By Selwyn Duke
Here’s an interesting test if you have any young people in your life. Ask them to finish the following rhyme: “Sticks and stones may….”
A second question you can pose to the whippersnapper is: Is “hate speech” protected by the First Amendment? (And just hope they know what the First Amendment is.)
The “seasoned citizens,” as Rush Limbaugh used to say, among us will almost assuredly know that the rest of the rhyme goes, “break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” As for “hate speech,” there actually is no such classification under U.S. law. Yet there are Americans who believe otherwise — and that there’s no legally protected right to utter it.
The problem is worsening, too, with young people being the most skeptical about the First Amendment. What’s more, an alarming percentage of Americans actually believe the amendment should be rewritten.
Continue reading "Free-speech Support Declining in U.S. — With the Young Leading the Way" »
Image created with AI.
By Selwyn Duke
It was more than a decade ago now that I wrote about “Soviet Sweden.” The focus was that nation’s suicidal multicultural and immigrationist policies and suppression of free speech. Even if Sweden then “led” its continent in this regard, however, all of Western Europe exhibited the same cultural trajectory. And now, 11 years later, another writer notes, “The European Union is fast becoming the ‘politically correct’ reformulation of the old Soviet Union.”
Of course, many have made a similar observation — notably Vice President J.D. Vance. In his now legendary Munich speech last Friday, he criticized European governments for enforcing woke standards via free-speech suppression. In contrast, President Donald Trump is negotiating with Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, the Biden administration wouldn’t even talk to. It’s a striking turnaround, one that raises some questions.
With Russia being nationalism-oriented and Western Europe largely internationalist, are we now more culturally aligned with Moscow than the EU?
And how much can the U.S. (at least its MAGA portion) have in common with today’s uber-woke Western Europe?
Continue reading "Newer World Order? Is Trump’s U.S. Now Closer to Russia Than “Soviet” Europe?" »
By Selwyn Duke
Is it true that one man’s misinformation is another man’s salvation?
Or is it actually true that what man censors is sometimes God’s sublimity?
Author and university lecturer Nolan Higdon may not be pondering anything so ethereal. What he is sure of is that, as he wrote Sunday at Salon, the “war on fake news has backfired.” As to his meaning, his subtitle tells the tale and the Truth. To wit:
Continue reading "The Fakery That is the War on Fake News" »
By Selwyn Duke
As I had on many other occasions, in 2020 I warned of a “dystopia-delivering tech oligarchy.” I cited Dr. Robert Epstein, a liberal who’s the senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, and his studies on Big Tech influence. His findings were alarming, too. Big Tech, he warned, could shift 15 million votes toward a given presidential candidate at election time. That’s more than sufficient to swing a White House race, do note, especially given how close our elections now are.
Oddly enough, though, neither Joe Biden nor any other Democratic office holder complained about this tech “oligarchy” back then. Yet lo and behold, Biden has changed his tune. In fact, in his farewell speech Wednesday evening, he warned that a “tech” oligarchy was seizing control of America.
What explains this epiphany?
Well, an inveterate cynic might suppose he’s just upset that much of Big Tech has stopped censoring for Democrats.
By Selwyn Duke
With the election of Donald Trump, many Americans are hopeful that so-called wokeness will go the way of the dodo. Yet as recent warnings inform, such cultural change requires, well, a change in the culture (not just the politics). And perhaps helpful in this regard is considering what happens when a civilization continues down the rabbit hole of relativism. We have many such examples, too — they’re called foreign countries.
Continue reading "Town Fined 10K for Not Celebrating “Pride” Month — and Other Foreign Craziness" »
By Selwyn Duke
“But there’s no England now” is a famous lyric composed by songwriter and Kinks band member Dave Davies. One could wonder if he was aware of a certain irony, or if the given connection is actually by design. That is, the song containing the lyric was released in “1984,” which also is the title of the famous George Orwell story, set in Britain, that, sadly, well describes what the U.K. is becoming: a dystopian state where the police punish people for contradicting the regime’s ideology and de facto land seizures are on the table.
Continue reading "Britain, Land of Magna Carta, Is Slowly Becoming a Soviet State" »
By Selwyn Duke
Not long ago, France made abortion a “constitutional right.” Britain hasn’t followed suit, but it can’t because it doesn’t have a constitution. In a way, however, it’s going France one better (read: worse).
Its government has just convicted a veteran and father of two for praying silently near an abortion “clinic.”
The kicker: The court finding him guilty reasoned that his prayer constituted “disapproval of abortion.”
Apparently, prenatal infanticide is now considered a sacrament in Britain — while praying is a sin.
Continue reading "Thoughtcrime: UK Veteran Convicted for Praying SILENTLY Near Abortion Mill" »
(Image credit: Beatchoose/Wikimedia Commons)
By Selwyn Duke
We hear continual warnings from the Establishment and the Left (and the overlap there is profound) about “attacks on democracy.” Donald Trump, of course, is supposed to be a “threat to democracy.” Yet it all appears like projection. Why?
Because the self-proclaimed “defenders of democracy” are now aiming to destroy the only major extant social-media democracy: X (formerly Twitter).
Two recent stories epitomize this. The first involves an actual UK government plot to destroy X. The second revolves around a study blaming Elon Musk, X’s owner, for causing college professors’ departure from the platform. An article at The Independent on the matter actually calls it the “Twitter brain drain.” It’s yet another attack based on the supposition that it is freedom of speech that’s the social-media perversion. It’s inversion — of reality.
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