FFRF is the acronym for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I am committed to the principle of secularism, which means as much freedom from religion as it means freedom of religion, so I am predisposed to support the FFRF. I oppose the flying of the Christian flag in public spaces. I oppose exposing children to Christian Nationalist propaganda. But if this and other groups are going to make the case against compulsory Christianity, as I have (see, e.g., Rise of the Domestic Clerical Fascist and the Specter of Christian Nationalism), and more broadly the imposition of religious and quasi religious faiths on citizens in their daily lives, as I have (see, e.g., The Tyranny of Narrowing the Range of Acceptable Opinion), and in the subversion of our civilization (see Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s essay “We Have Been Subverted” published yesterday in the Free Press), then they need to use credible sources. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is not a credible source.
I have penned several essays about the SPLC over the years (see Southern Poverty Law Center Defames Parents Invested in Safeguarding Children; The Irony of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Authoritarian Desire; Good Riddance: Teacher Fired for Indoctrinating Fifth Graders). However, as I demonstrated in my previous essay on Freedom and Reason, How to Detect a Ruling Class, if you want to understand an organization like the SPLC and wonder how it remains credible in the eyes of organizations like the FFRF when it goes after parents trying to free public schools from propagandistic materials and ideological curricula pushing gender and race ideology, just flip the scenario, by which I mean, take the other side. Flipping scenarios allow one to identify the principle at hand and expose the double standard at work. It’s a check on ideological thinking, a check desperately needed at a time where the target of progressive ideology is the very foundations of free conscience and thought.
Suppose a movement where Christian nationalist flags are hung on school walls and raised on campus flag poles. Suppose teachers, the desk and walls of their classrooms festooned with crosses and images of Jesus, encouraging students to ask them about their Christian faith. Imagine social and emotional learning circles in which each child is encouraged to talk about their faith, and those children identifying as Christian celebrated and love bombed. Imagine the classrooms and libraries full of Christian nationalist literature, with teachers assigning the text. Imagine story hours organized around Christian nationalist themes with clergy reading books to children. Liberals and progressives alike are horrified at the thought of such a situation—but for very different reasons, which I will come to in a moment.
Now suppose a right wing organization (give it whatever name you fancy) puts on its list of “extremists” an organized group of concerned parents who want the flags taken down, teachers to impart information and skills from a politically and ideologically neutral standpoint, children not made to feel ostracized because they don’t share the teacher’s faith, which is personal and involves family life not public education, to not be labeled a bigot for their deeply-held beliefs, libraries with materials designed to impart knowledge, not to groom children for induction in the Christian Nationalist movement, or even the desire to be a Christian (since not all families are and it is none of the teacher’s business), and public libraries that are open to people of all faiths—and to those with no faith at all (like me my entire life).
Does this right wing organization have any credibility in judging extremism? No, of course not. The organization is itself extremist! By labeling those who desire nothing more that the First Amendment rights of their family to be respected, the organization I have asked you to suppose is defending the imposition on children a political and ideological movement whose ubiquity already signals that Christian Nationalism has captured public schools and libraries. I don’t have to ask you to suppose the imposition on children of a political and ideological movement whose ubiquity already signals that it has captured not only public schools and libraries but public spaces everywhere. It’s June, an entire month devoted to Pride, the ideology of the LGBTQ movement, which puts central to its contemporary manifestations the neo-religion of gender ideology.
I will ask you suppose one more thing: an entire month devoted to Christian Nationalism. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Even harder to imagine the Democrat mayor of Green Bay raising the Christian flag in a ceremony flanked by Christians, right? If you saw such a thing you would try to wake yourself from the fever dream. It must be a dream. A nightmare! But if such a month did exist, and if those flag were raised, and if thousands of Christians marched in the streets of America, thrusting crosses and thumping bibles, proselytizing bystanders, it’s not at all hard to imagine the violent protests the Christian nationalists would meet in the street. Nor—if you know me—would if be hard to predict what I would be doing. I wouldn’t be marching in the Christian parade, because I am not a Christian, albeit I would defend the rights of Christians to peaceably assembly and express their opinion. I would not be among the progressive mob; their rantings and ravings representing nothing more than contemptible expressions of hypocrisy—their violent actions thuggery. I would instead be extolling the virtues of civil and human rights in the principled pages of Freedom and Reason.
I noted a moment ago that for very different reasons liberals and progressives alike are horrified at the thought of the such a situation. The liberal is horrified because the principles of free conscience, speech, and association are violated when any political or ideological agenda is shoved down the throats of children. Many of today’s conservatives have moved towards liberalism seeking the protection of principle because they have no power and modern conservatism is substantially liberal anyway (free market, limited government, private property). The progressive is horrified not because the principles of free conscience, speech, and association are being violated but because he, like the Christian extremist, has his own agenda he wants to shove down the throats of children. The progressive puts power over principle, appealing to principle only insofar as it creates room for its negation. This is because progressivism is corporatist not republican. Islam is like this, too. These are fascistic desires.
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I cite above Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s essay “We Have Been Subverted.” I wanted to add a note here acknowledging that most of this argument I can be found on my blog (although I don’t like this term “cultural Marxism” because progressivism is not any form of Marxism). This is not to say that Ali cribbed her argument from my blog (although I would be flattered if she had). Rather it is to say that the facts and observations Ali makes are obvious—or would be obvious in a world unmolested the hegemony of the crazy ideas we refer to collectively as progressivism. Audiences are told that people like me have been red pilled, sucked into a vortex of extremism by algorithm. In my case, it’s mostly academics and their brainwashed acolytes who say this. During a recent intervention (I may post more about this soon), my views were described as “heterodox.” The assumption there is really telling. This is how bubblized the “folx” are at the university.
In reality the academy—along with the culture industry, the mainstream media, the Democratic Party—is the bubble of extremism. Not radical, mind you (I’m radical), extremist. Not because the bubble is at odds with what most people understand about the world, which is of course true, and common sense counts for a whole lot, but because it is fundamentally at odds with truth and principle. If the university were concerned about the principled pursuit of the truth, there would be no interventions except in cases where teacher denied students their right to articulate relevant positions at variance with those the teacher falsely believes represents the orthodoxy.
Think about it (here’s where common sense helps): the university is a place where there are people who not only state that men can be women, but a place where correcting that false statement can inspire a petition to get your fired and the university—which assumes as an official stance the truth of the falsehood, even putting its employees through training sessions to press it into their heads—won’t trouble itself to affirm in the moment its commitment to free speech and academic freedom. This example, which I am not alone in suffering, testifies to the subversion Ali writes about. The deck of her op-ed is essential to grasp (emphasis in original):“What is at stake in our ability to see the threat plainly? Nothing less than the preservation of our way of life.”
freedom and reason 