The Left: Get out of the way and agree to be led

Well, that’s disappointing. I was just beginning to hope for deliverance via a benevolent, advanced alien race or the Rapture — whichever came first.

Sadly, though, as reported in the Daily Wire,  a new scientific paper, published by a researcher with a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience, a nanotechnology researcher, and a moral philosopher, says the probability is “substantial” that there is no intelligent life in the observable universe other than on Earth.

But I’m not feeling so unique at the moment. Currently, the stability of the American political climate hinges on the calming voices of the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and David Axelrod.

Which is to say we may be beyond hope, and perhaps an injection of common sense from a groovy alien race would be just what the doctor ordered. I mean, there’s “trust but verify,” and then there’s “so you’re saying there’s a chance.”

And as if there’s any doubt by now, we lean toward the one who is dumb and dumber last at the Steve Deace Show.

Whatever confidence I can possibly reserve for the possibility of three Democrats finally realizing that things have gone too far with the crazed Left, I am quickly reminded that the monster of their creation goes on, unimpressed and unthwarted by such rhetoric. For on the very day that such words of caution were sent into the political jetstream by the aforementioned Democrat leaders, it came to pass that journalism reliably stepped forward to put a bullet in them, courtesy of a New York Times op-ed.

The headline: “The Ignorant Do Not Have a Right to an Audience.”

From the get-go, we are clearly informed by philosophy professor Bryan Van Norden that “ignorant” should be read as “conservative” or “right-wing.” And if such a label is placed upon you, the good professor insists that you shouldn’t be given a platform to espouse your dreck in any capacity other than as basically a street preacher. Go ahead and yell your folly out on the corner to whatever rabble will entertain you, Van Norden says. But no more should you be granted a mass media platform.

This is the primary reason, among others, that the New York Times' philosopher du jour can’t be taken remotely seriously. The media, Hollywood, academia, the federal bureaucracy, etc. have already been overrun by the very thought police that Van Norden dreams about. If he doesn’t understand that, he is either stupid or virulently manipulative.

Beyond that, the primary reason Van Norden gives as the need for such militancy in policing the public consumption of bad ideas is elitist to its core: The public is dumb and can’t be relied upon for anything resembling common sense to adequately weigh and measure different notions of the truth.

So get out of the way and agree to be led, because we must avoid the “tyranny of the majority.”

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The standard Van Norden gives for who’s in and who’s out of the leadership sweepstakes is nothing but the brandishing of strawmen like, “I wish it were self-evident to everyone that we should not discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation, but the current vice president of the United States does not agree. I wish everyone knew that it is irrational to deny the evidence that there was a mass shooting in Sandy Hook, but a syndicated radio talk show host can make a career out of arguing for the contrary.”

So Mike Pence is equated, and not by accident, with the likes of InfoWars in order to label everyone in between as complicit in Van Norden’s list of crimes against the smart set. How neat and tidy. But then who is left? Those who think Laura Ingalls Wilder should wear a scarlet letter of bigotry instead of headline for a national book award? Or school boards like one in Wisconsin that recently approved teaching about gender ideology, sexually transmitted diseases, and homosexual parents as early as kindergarten?

If you are among those who agree with those shibboleths of the damned, the mantle of leadership is for you, according to this NYT op-ed. Not so shockingly, progressives like Van Norden really don’t care if they are coherent in the end, as long as it gives them the hegemony they desire. Their appeal for America to be ruled by an elite flies directly in the face of the founding ideals of this country, and they don’t even bat an eyelash.

To these progressives, only those joining them on the wrong side of history are permitted to live long and prosper.