by Mark Judge -
People who argue against reducio ad Hitlerum, the tendency to reduce every political argument to a Hitler comparison, usually have a good point. Welfare reform was not the Third Reich. Neither is environmentalism.

Yet in rejecting Hitler argument, people have forgotten an important aspect of totalitarianism: its pettiness, and how that pettiness can morph into greater forms of repression.

Many totalitarian states don’t start by shoving people into death camps. Most begin by micromanaging everyday life. This is why I fear liberalism so much.

For the past several decades the left hasn’t resembled Stalin liquidating millions — although pro-life people could make that case — but rather the nitpicking, control-freak oppression of a low-level bureaucrat in a new totalitarian regime. [Read more...]

by Steve McCann -
Much has been made of the precipitous decline in the level of discourse in the United States. Many attribute this to the coarsening of the language and the ever-widening gulf between the various factions in the political spectrum. However, these factors are a symptom of a current underlying and foundational dilemma: the inability of not only the general public, but nearly all of the so-called societal leaders and opinion-makers to generate an original thought, as well as a stubborn refusal to use reason and logic when confronted with irrefutable facts and arguments.

These traits can be explained, insofar as the general public is concerned, as the consequence of their subjection for the past forty years to a woeful and deliberately incomplete education bordering on indoctrination. However, this factor does not fully explain many of the so-called best and brightest falling into the same abyss and being unable to coherently expound on an original thought or concept. While this is true for a few on the conservative side of the political spectrum, it is overwhelmingly the case among those who self-identify as liberals or progressives. [Read more...]