The attacks on Marjorie Greene should trouble everyone. There has been a chorus of calls, including from Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, that Greene be punished. For what, exactly? Certainly not for anything she’s done as a congresswoman. She hasn’t been in office long enough to assemble any legislative achievements.
Her offenses are simply what she thinks, but since when have Americans been punished for thought crimes? It’s appalling that so many call for it.
Some of Greene’s beliefs are strange, but so are the beliefs of many others. Is it any more bizarre to believe that a space laser may be responsible for wildfires, than to believe that men can become women? If doing harm is used as the standard, how many people have been harmed by Q-ANON’S odd jokes compared to how many lives have been ruined by the grotesque delusions of gender fluidity and critical race theory? It’s incredible that conservatives are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists” even as the Left march in lock-step in support of demonstrably nonsensical social dogma. When did self-awareness die?
Some say Greene should be removed because she is not qualified to hold office, but who’s to make that determination? Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Grassley are well into senility. Biden has trouble stringing words together into a coherent sentence, but does that mean they should all be barred from holding office? I had thought that Americans got to decide their representatives, not a cabal of career politicians or a media lynch mob.
Some say that people should not be permitted their choice of leaders, citing that Hitler was elected. So? A strong adherence to constitutional law and legislators willing to actually execute their responsibilities will contain any budding dictator. The real danger of despotism lies with legislators ceding their power to an imperial presidency through things like the War Powers Act, abetting executive orders and the empowerment of the administrative state.
I’m regularly “reminded” that “diversity is our strength.” Doesn’t that include a diversity of thought? Far from condemning Greene, we should value her contributions. Certainly, we should challenge her beliefs, just as we should challenge all beliefs, especially our own. It is sometimes even useful to employ science in the assessment, although science is only a methodology, not an arbiter of truth. Certainly, there is a desperate need to remind people of the difference between “subjective” and “objective,” a distinction few people today can even recognize. But then, in an era in which “male” and “female,” the most natural and obvious of distinctions, are being obscured, perhaps such confusion shouldn’t be surprising.
Some wish “disinformation” to be banned, but what metric should be used to determine “disinformation” and who is to be the arbiter? Should it be CNN, which asserts that something can be completely true, but still be “disinformation?” Should it be the New York Times, which laughably opines that people should confine themselves to “authoritative” sources like Wikipedia and the first page of a Google search?
Progressive pundits lament that people presented with a variety of information, or exposed to unconventional views, may reach “wrong conclusions,” but that isn’t a new fear. In the Middle Ages, people were discouraged from reading the Bible, lest they be led astray by the devil, and in the USSR, all media were subjected to party review to ensure that they led people to the “correct” interpretation. The current progressive drive to ban “disinformation” has a long, if disreputable, tradition. “Hate speech” laws and bans on “disinformation” have become modern versions of anti-blasphemy edicts.
That’s unsurprising when progressives cling to their social dogma with the unquestioning zeal one would only expect from a religious fanatic — or a naïve child: America is systematically racist; all people succeed if society is equitable; white people are privileged; gender is fluid; conceived children are not actually people. None of these claims can bear close scrutiny. Science, objective data and even common sense can easily refute them. Yet, many people are convinced that they’re not only true, but that no honest, intelligent person would, could, or even should be allowed to question them. The lies are taught in our schools and governments pass laws propagating them. In some venues, simply describing reality has become prosecutable.
In this atmosphere, we desperately need people like Marjorie Greene and others who will brazenly question the most popular “truths.” Sometimes she’s silly, but the gods often speak through jesters to reveal the foolishness of kings.
John Blasiak is a resident of Greenfield. Thoughtful comments are always welcome at henrycarlyle@outlook.com