“We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.” —Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
These two screen captures were curated by Colin Wright, an independent evolutionary biologist. These articles illustrate why I argue that academic publishing is dead. It’s why Wright left academic and established Reality’s Last Stand on Substack, a reality-based platform for the publishing of science and critique. It’s the same reason I established Freedom and Reason on WordPress. I wanted to establish a public platform for reality-based sociology. These platforms allow us to sidestep the gatekeepers who keep out reality-based knowledge while letting in the madness you see below.
Here’s the note. At this point, opinions that correspond to reality by those who advance the ideas of queer theory, and postmodernist nonsense generally, are correct only accidentally. Flat-earthers hold many reality-based positions. However, the flat-earthers did not arrive at their other opinions through the faculties of an objective mind. If they possessed such a mind, then they would not be flat-earthers. Therefore their judgment on all things are safely disregarded.
If readers remember that I am atheist (or are learning that right now), then they may be inclined to ask me whether I disregard the judgment of Christians, since their faith in God is not rational according to the strict rules of science. After all, regular readers will point out, I do classify queer theory as a neo or quasi religion. Indeed, I do, but there is a difference between queer theory and Christianity. Whereas Christianity is rooted in nonfalsifiable propositions—one cannot disprove the existence of God or angels—the central premise of queer theory, namely that gender is arbitrary, is falsifiable. Unlike the soul, gender is an observable thing. Either you have or the possess the potential to have big or small gametes. Either you have XX or XY chromosomes.
Gender is natural historical fact. In our species, it is binary and immutable. To believe that men can be or become women abandons reality in a way that believing in the soul doesn’t; it rests not only on faith belief but on the active disregarding of scientific truth—on verifiable belief. The existence of souls cannot be falsified by science. The existence of gender identity can and is falsified by science.
Here’s the hitch: As one can see from Wright’s curated screen captures, the flat-earthers not only populate the academic-industrial complex and the technocratic apparatus, they produce the “knowledge ” that finds its way into the textbooks and that informs law and policy. To be sure, the major expression of this, DEI, is waning, but the flat-earthers are finding news ways to subvert common sense. And we should not be too secure that DEI will go away entirely. I have written about the problem before, but this brief expose will suffice without sending you down that rabbit hole.
This brings us to the mission: Team Reality won the 2024 election big league. But that’s only the beginning. Our task and purpose is to uproot from our institutions the ideological weeds that are corrupting popular sense-making, the integrity of our republic, and the sanity of our children. We do this in the long haul by making the victory of 2024 a generational moment. We do what the progressives did when Roosevelt won the Presidency in 1932: a completely makeover on the Executive Branch. The Democrats put democracy on the ballot. Now Republicans need to make good on November’s popular reaffirmation of democracy.
Here’s the way we need to think about things going forward. Yes, it will involve distinguishing between Americans and unAmericans—between reality-based thought, law, and policy, on the one hand, and the flat-earthers on the other. The Republic is not a blank canvas. The manifestation of Paine’s beginning again is a monument that must be defending against the defacers. That moment has an inscription: the American Creed. The Creed is a set of fundamental ideals and principles believed to define the American national identity and culture. These ideals emphasize democratic-republicanism, equality, individualism, liberty, rationalism, secularism, and the rule of law. The Creed is rooted in the Enlightenment principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution and the Supreme Court decisions that affirm those principles.
Here are key tenets of the American Creed: Equality of opportunity. This is principle that all individuals should have the chance to succeed based on their effort and talent, rather than their birth or social status. Any policy that takes into account race, ethnicity, or religion must be banished. The only equity-based laws and policies allow concern sex-based rights, the safeguarding of children, and consideration for the disable. Liberty. Liberty is the commitment to individual freedoms, including freedom of conscience, the freedom speech and publishing, religious freedom, the freedom of association and assembly, and the right to pursue one’s own happiness in a manner that does not tread on the happiness of others. Democracy. Democracy is essentially faith in governance by the people and for the people, ensuring representation and accountability. In the United States, democracy is republicanism, which involves federalism (relative autonomy for the states), and the separation of powers. Rule of law. This is the principle that all individuals, regardless of their status, are subject to the same laws and moreover that justice shall be impartial.
Equality of opportunity disallows equality of outcome. Liberty disallows authoritarianism. Democracy disallows technocratic government. The rule of law disallows the arbitrary prosecution of the defenders of reality-based knowledge and policy. Preserving the Creed for future generations means defending reality-based knowledge and practice from the anti-Enlightenment project that seeks to subvert the foundation of human freedom. Control over knowledge production is therefore central to reclaiming and securing the rational Republic. Our Republic was founded by men of the Enlightenment. The anti-Enlightenment project is antithetical to reason and science. It is follows from logic that the anti-Enlightenment crowd—the flat-earthers pushing queer theory, critical race theory, and all the rest of it—is unAmerican. It is not reactionary to tag the enemies of reason and science as such. It is observing the reality of the situation.
* * *
This is the moment it was over for social democracy in America. It wasn’t the right that wrecked it. It was what is popularly known as the “far left,” i.e., woke progressivism, that wrecked it. This is the crowd that believes men can be or become women. This is the crowd that believes the living are guilty of the misdeeds of the dead. This is flat-eartherism as politics. There is no future in flat-eartherism except its drive to destroy genuinely populist movements. It’s as if transnational corporations stood up these faux leftwing “movements” to undermine working people. Oh wait—that’s exactly what happened. I have documented this on the pages of Freedom and Reason.
Bernie supporters should still be livid over this. I voted for him in the Primaries. I would have voted for him for President in 2016. The corporate state and its street-level thugs stopped that. However, every individual who believes in a nation that establishes the preconditions for self-actualization should be livid over what the identitarians have done and aim to continue doing to this country. These people are toxic. Their ideas are reactionary and regressive. There is nothing genuinely progressive about any of this. But it’s more than reactionary and regressive. It’s mental illness. The sane are leaving the so-called left in droves because of the cluster B personalities you see in this video. Nothing they have to say is useful for the pursuit of truth or for the good of the people because what they are saying is madness. They’re crazy and we have to get them away from power.
freedom and reason 