The Antidote to ‘McCarthyism’ in NJ Schools is Soviet-Style Indoctrination, Says a CRT Advocate

Alan J. Steinberg served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. In a guest column for the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Steinberg claims that A new form of McCarthyism is taking cancerous root in the New Jersey body politic. 

“McCarthyism” refers to the U.S. Senate hearings of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s, which sought to root out Communist infiltrators in American culture and politics. The Communist fear was real, but the tactics ended up destroying the careers of many innocent people. Those tactics came to be called McCarthyism. 

The McCarthyism Steinberg refers to is a piece of legislation introduced into the New Jersey legislature by two Republicans that would ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in NJ public schools.* As Steinberg explains, the press release introducing this legislation, S4166

begins with the advocacy of a prohibition against public school teachers engaging in political, ideological or religious advocacy in their classrooms. This prohibition is the quintessence of McCarthyism.

Note the term “advocacy,” rather than balanced discussions of historically or culturally influential political, ideological or religious ideas. Steinberg explicitly calls for NJ’s public schools to engage in political, ideological or religious advocacy in their classrooms. That is not education. This is Soviet-style indoctrination, and it makes McCarthyism seem mild by comparison. Steinberg goes on: 

I[The press release] then continues with a blatant racist defamation of Critical Race Theory, insinuating that it includes the following two concepts: 1) one race or sex (Black) is inherently superior to another race or sex; and 2) an individual, by virtue of his or her race (White) or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.

That denial is shocking in light of the definition Steinberg advance for CRT:

CRT is most accurately defined by educators as the theory that racism is not just a product of bigoted individuals, but instead is systemic in the nation’s institutions, which function to maintain the dominance of white people in society. This definition of racism embedded in our societal and governmental system [sic], rather than a product of inherently evil white individuals per se is a total refutation of the mendacious claims of Testa and Pennacchio that CRT involves assertions of 1) Black superiority and privilege; and 2) inherent evils of white men and women.

I read the press release. I did not see “assertions of 1) Black superiority and privilege.” It doesn’t promote any kind of racial supremacy; in fact, the release explicitly opposes it. The assertion that racism is systemic and perpetuates “white dominance” is racist at its core and implies precisely that white men and women are, if not evil, then at least inherently racist. Steinberg, who doesn’t define “dominance,” let alone white dominance, offers, as proof of “systemic racism,” the following:

In order to understand a classic example of how a cultural bigoted influence morphs into a systemic racial barrier and distorted history, one need go no further than the case of William Archibald Dunning, a Columbia University professor whose false, fraudulent, and white supremacist “Dunning School,” was the dominant theory of Reconstruction taught in American universities during the first half of the 20th century. The essence of the Dunning School was the notion that the freedman, the African-American slave liberated immediately after the Civil War, was biologically inferior to the white person, incapable of self-government, undeserving of the right to vote, and thereby warranting segregation from whites.

The “race science” (or Scientific Racism) claim of African-American biological inferiority predated the Civil War, and was indeed borrowed from the old Confederate defense of slavery.** It was, most certainly, used to justify legalized segregation.*** But did all white people subscribe to that pseudo-scientific theory a century ago? No. That’s why it is no longer taught as fact (although it may be included in studies of the history of racism). How many white people today ascribe to that theory? Yet, Steinberg digs up that corrupt, long-debunked theory from the past not to argue against it, but to peddle it as proof of “white dominance.” This, even though believers of inherent black biological inferiority only exist on the nutty fringe of today’s America, if at all.

And this gets to the crux of the issue. A person’s ideas aren’t determined by skin color, as CRT asserts. Yet that is the implication in Steinberg’s definition of CRT. But this is the evil genius of collectivism. A person can level charges of racism against an entire group, while simultaneously claiming he is not calling any particular individual racist. So he can tar me as racist by association, but if I object, he asserts “It’s not about you.” Well, a group is made up of individuals. If it’s not about me, then it’s not about anybody, which nullifies the systemic racism premise. Such is the circular logic of CRT and related Critical Theories.

And what is meant by “dominance.” By white dominance, CRT does not mean positions of oppressive legal power, which disappeared with the victories of the mid 20th century Civil Rights Movement. Steinberg’s concept of “dominance” means simply statistical disparities in white people’s representation in institutions. But, so what? Skin color doesn’t determine a person's qualification or moral standing. But according to CRT, skin color is everything, or at least primary. A white person can be judged “dominant” by virtue of his statistical place in society. And since white dominance equates to “systemic racism,” that hapless white person who believes he is simply doing his job mystically transmutes into a racist by implication, even if he neither holds bigotted views or takes bigoted actions. That is racism. That is CRT. Justice has no place in that worldview.

I, too, grew up in the 1950s (and 60s; I was born in 1949), when racism was culturally acceptable (though beginning to recede). I do not now, and have never, subscribed to the Dunning school theory. Yet, I’m lumped in with “white dominance,” another word for White Supremacy, and have been found guilty, by insinuation, of perpetuating systemic racism. Why? Because of my “white” skin color. My beliefs aren’t relevant to CRT activists. This kind of racial determinism leaves no room for reason and free will, both attributes of the individual.

Disecting Steinberg’s “correct” definition of CRT next to S4166’s definition makes clear that, far from refuting the Republicans’ definition, Steinberg pretty much confirms it. 

Steinberg concludes:

The teaching of Critical Race Theory in our public schools is an essential antidote to the racial poison of the Dunning School, which still has a lingering racist impact on American society. In my view, the teaching of Critical Race Theory in our public schools should not only be permitted — it should be MANDATED in order to extirpate the Dunning malignancy from the American societal and governmental context, once and for all.

So, as an antidote to the McCarthyism of banning CRT, Steinberg wants to mandate it. Call it what you like. But a CRT mandate is just the flip side of the same CRT ban coin. The state should neither ban or mandate CRT—or, more precisely, the ideas behind the theory. History should be taught accurately and objectively. And the only way to do that is to frame American history around the individualist principles of the Founding. Individualism is the only antidote to racism, or to any other manifestation of collectivism, such as “diversity”, “equity”, or “inclusion”—all of which require grouping people by skin color or some other irrelevant attribute, to the exclusion of individual character. CRT is the repudiation of the Declaration of Independence, along with fighters against genuine oppression who explicitly linked their fights to that Declaration’s principles, such as Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Emancipationist President Abraham Lincoln, Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, and Gay Rights leader Harvey Milk

Is the Dunning school a very bad idea? Absolutely. Are there other bad ideas floating around today, hiding in American institutions? If Steinberg thinks so, let’s examine them critically. But rather than tar all “white” people with guilt by racial association, Dunning-like ideas (or practices), if Steinberg can identify any “systemic” to American institutions today, should be refuted logically and morally and ended, the only way bad ideas can be refuted—by application of individualism. It’s interesting that Steinberg highlights a long-abandoned racist theory, Race Science, to “prove” systemic racism today. Where’s the proof of existing systemic racism?

CRT doesn’t refute racism. It can’t. Crt prioritizes race. At its core, CRT is rooted in the same premise as Dunning—collectivism and determinism. It is the re-mainstreaming of racism for crass political purposes. CRT frames everything around skin color. CRT leaves no room for reason, for free will, or for independent thinking individuals—or for individualism, the only genuine anti-racism. 

But, of course, critical thinking is not Steinberg’s goal. Will the principles of individual sovereignty over tribalism advanced from The Enlightenment and embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the antidote to racism, be taught alongside CRT? Or does Steinberg envision using public schools to “advocate” for his CRT position? By his own acknowledgement, his goal is to indoctrinate NJ K-12 students with his conception of the “correct” political, ideological, and religious ideas. Steinberg shows that the Republicans are essentially correct in their interpretation of CRT, even if they are wrong to want to ban it from public schools. You can’t kill bad ideas by banning them. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali shows, bad ideas can be smuggled in under any label. Bad ideas can only be countered with better ideas, not by burying them.

CRT, DEI, and the whole postmodern Woke project is a collectivist assault on American Individualism and a reactionary repudiation of The Enlightenment. CRT, for its part, is nothing short of racist training of innocent children, who will be brainwashed into focussing on pygment, not character. CRT rejects the great moral revolution of the Enlightenment that prioritizes the individual over the group or the rulers. CRT, like collectivism more broadly, is an ideology by and for savages, not civilized human beings.

A better approach than banning CRT—the only way to settle the current fight over CRT in schools and more broadly the never-ending battles over what is taught in the tax-funded government schools, and how—is to defund the public schools, and separate education and state. I don’t mean “defund” in the same way as the defund the police movement, which mindlessly calls for stripping police departments of the funds they need to do their jobs. Defunding the public schools should be a grassroots choice, focussed on parents and children, who could be empowered individually to choose to divert their education tax dollars to educational alternatives. A good start to defending the public schools would be universal school choice through tax credits or Education Savings Accounts.  

Kudos to Senators Michael Testa and Joe Pennacchio for confronting and rejecting Critical Race Theory and its related primitive ideas of collectivism. Let’s build on their initiative by recommitting to the individualist Enlightenment ideals of the American Revolution.

* [Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is also known as DEI, for ““diversity, equity and inclusion”. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains, the collectivist, egalitarian, racist ideas of DEI are the same as under the CRT label.]

** [Race Science holds that the human race is actually a number of distinct races, some of which are genetically inferior or superior in intelligence. This is strictly a collectivist theory, focussed on racial averages. Even if it is true, which it is not, it’s irrelevant. A proper individualist orientation focuses on individual characteristics. A group average tells you nothing of any particular individual’s intelligence, and is thus useless in judging any particular individual. This is why individualism is the only antipode of any collectivist theory, including CRT.]

*** [The related “science” of eugenics was also an ideological progenitor and driver of German Nazism.]

Related Reading:

Biden’s Racist Education Trial Balloon

You Have to Read This Letter: A New York father pulls his daughter out of Brearley with a message to the whole school. Is the dam starting to break? Posted by Bari Weiss

I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated: “Children are afraid to challenge the repressive ideology that rules our school. That’s why I am.” A teacher at Grace Church High School in Manhattan. Posted by Bari Weiss

‘Anti-Racism’, or the re-Mainstreaming of Racism

The ‘1619 Project’ Fraud Begins its Poisonous Infiltration into American Politics

 

The Collectivist Left Appropriates an Inhumane Christian Doctrine to Obliterate Americanism

Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—by Craig Biddle

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay

Another Counter-Productive Attempt to Define Capitalism as Something it’s Obviously Not--Unselfish

Defenders of Capitalism never stop trying to deny that Capitalism is the system of self-interest, and that self-interest is its prime driving force—and the source of its great moral strength. In The Driving Force of Free Markets Is Empathy, Not Greed, Dr Rainer Zitelmann claims, “Only the entrepreneur who prioritizes other people’s needs can be successful. Empathy, the ability to recognize the desires and needs of others, is the true basis of capitalism—not unbridled greed and selfishness.”

Both capitalists and anti-capitalists frequently accuse capitalism of being a system driven by selfishness and greed. Capitalism’s defenders sometimes say: “By nature, man is selfish, which is why socialism will never work. Capitalism better reflects the fundamental characteristics of human nature.” Anti-capitalists claim that capitalism promotes the worst characteristics in man, especially greed.

But are greed and unbridled selfishness really the driving forces of capitalism? Human self-interest is one—not the only—driving force of all human action. But this has nothing to do with a particular economic system. Rather, it is an anthropological constant. In capitalism, however, this self-interest is curbed by the fact that only the entrepreneur who prioritizes other people’s needs can be successful.

Unfortunately, selfishness is never properly defined, just seems to be assumed to equate with treating others badly, rather than the end result of being rational. That’s what’s behind the idea that self-interest needs to be “curbed,” rather than to acknowledge that man needs a moral code to teach him to figure out what is in his self-interest and how to achieve it.

It’s true that to succeed under Capitalism, the entrepreneur must consider or project the needs and wants of consumers. But that focus is a means to the end, not the end. The end--the driving force--is personal fulfillment—selfishness, properly understood as rational self-interest. But every coin has two sides. If the entrepreneur unselfishly “prioritizes other people’s needs,” then what does that make his consumers? According to Zitelmann’s standard, these consumers are geedy takers exploiting the good empathetic nature of the entrepreneur. 

This is nonsense. The consumer is primarily motivated by the same moral force as the entrepreneur, rational selfishness. By protecting every individual from force and fraud through individual rights, Capitalism prioritizes every person’s freedom to pursue his own happiness through trade. Trade is mutually beneficial self-interest in action. By protecting individual rights, Capitalism denies the ability to achieve one’s ends through coercion, predation, violence, fraud, or other criminal means. In this sense, Capitalism actually curbs, rather than promotes, “the worst characteristics in man.” But this is not meant to curb genuine self-interest, the pursuit of personal happiness. The great virtue of a system built on rational selfishness is that it protects everyone’s pursuit of happiness equally by denying to everyone the achievement of one’s goals by engaging in rights-violating actions. *

The happy consequence of this universal benevolent display of “greed” (which is never defined, either) is a system of general betterment without the sacrifice of anyone’s self-interests.

So we get another attempt to define capitalism as something that everybody knows it is not--unselfish. This is and always has been destructive. The underlying assumption that Zitelmann’s line of defense fosters is that Capitalism is at best a necessary evil. To save Capitalism, Capitalism’s defenders must proudly embrace its obvious moral root as a necessary good, making Capitalism itself a necessary good.

* [In fact, it is altruism that promotes the worst characteristics in man. Rational selfishness promotes mutual respect, universal benevolence, and peaceful coexistence. Altruism promotes universal predation as a moral ideal.]

Related Reading:

Why Capitalism is Selfish--and Why That’s Good

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

Capitalism and the Moral High Ground by Craig Biddle

Why Capitalism Needs a Moral Sanction

Happy New Year

 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The ‘Real Meaning of Christmas’: What Would Jesus Teach Today?

[This is a republication of my post of December 26, 2014]

In The Real Meaning of Christmas, Brian Regal, a fellow of the Kean University Center for History, Politics, and Policy, explained why Christmas should be celebrated by all people:

 

 

    [A] common refrain today . . . is the exaltation to "keep Christ in Christmas." This, I would suggest, is the much better argument than the "war on Christmas" angle. . . .

    Commercialization and atheists are the least of our problems here. Jesus said some of the simplest, yet most moving statements ever uttered: statements to inspire all human kind.

    Whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or Ufologist, one can’t help but be touched by the profound humanity of "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."

    He urged his followers to treat people as we would have them treat us. He rejected the pursuit of wealth and political power. He embraced the poor and the outcast, not Hollywood celebrities or mega-preachers. He said the meek would inherit the Earth. It’s unlikely he ever owned more than one set of clothes, let alone an assault rifle.

    Jesus did not say, "When I was hungry, you turned away from me," or "When I was sick, you cut my health care," or "When I was poor, you mocked me," or "When I was a stranger, you pulled a gun on me and stood your ground."

 

I have a different take on Christmas. Following is an expanded version of my posted comments:

 

I agree that Christmas is a holiday for all, but for a different reason. (I don't agree with Jesus's ethics.)

Christmas ceased being a religious holiday when Congress declared it a national holiday. A national religious holiday in a secular nation based on the separation of church and state is a contradiction in terms. Today, Christmas is a secular holiday by law, and everyone should feel free to observe it (or not) based on his own values. You want Christ in Christmas? More power to you. No Christ? Same sentiment. To each his own. To paraphrase Jesus, respect others' right to their values, just as you would have them respect your right to your values.

As to Jesus, the context of the time in which he "rejected the pursuit of wealth and political power" was one in which wealth was largely accumulated by thieving rulers. Poverty was the widespread norm, save for the politically powerful few, who took from the meager earnings of their subjects. The pursuit of wealth and political power were synonymous, so Jesus's position was perhaps understandable, if not justifiable.

But the rise of modern capitalistic, free market individual liberty unleashed productive work and win-win, mutually beneficial trade as the path to wealth. People pursue wealth, not by theft, but by creating wealth and then exchanging value for value, simultaneously enriching both themselves and others. The rise of the free market economy separated the pursuit of wealth (economics) from political power. As the Declaration of Independence states, the purpose of government was set to protect individual rights, not the power of parasitical rulers to enrich themselves at the expense of the average man. What would Jesus say to that? Would he understand the difference between the pursuit of wealth by legalized theft, and the pursuit of wealth by work? Hopefully. But his 2000 year-old ethical ideology is not applicable to a free market economy, to the extent that we have one.

Of course, political power can still be an avenue for pursuing wealth by theft, as is the case with the modern redistributionist welfare state. Regal implies that Jesus would endorse this legalized theft with his statement "When I was sick, you cut my health care"—a slap at those who oppose government handouts paid for by forcibly taking from someone who earned it. Jesus certainly preached the morality of what we know today to be socialism; self-sacrifice for the needs of others. But remember the context. Would he endorse the modern union of wealth pursuit and political power—forced transfer of wealth from those who earned it to those who didn't—over voluntary giving? 

The blind, dogmatic adherence to Jesus's 2000 year-old ethical ideology is resurrecting that ancient evil; the pursuit of wealth through political power. It's time to modernize our ethics. What would Jesus preach today if he observed the broad-based prosperity created by self-interested, reason-guided labor (productive work) and trade? What would he think when he observed "poor" people living in comparative luxury vs. the "rich" rulers of his day, as is the case in the semi-free industrialized nations? 

We need a new ethics. In the modern world of wealth creation, should Christmas be about the worship of poverty? No. It should celebrate the rise from poverty made possible by the liberty to selfishly and rationally pursue one's own happiness by one's own efforts. By all means, lend a helping hand to someone in need, if it's consistent with your values and personal circumstances. That doesn't require a holiday to justify. Christmas should be a celebration of the good things in our lives, including our life-enhancing material achievements and the free exercise of spiritual values like rationality, productiveness, honesty, and pride that made those achievements possible. Spirituality and good will toward one's fellow man are not the exclusive monopoly of religion.

This Christmas season, I'll celebrate family, food, cheery decorations, and the wonderful commercialization—the symbol of freedom of production and trade—that enriches all of our lives. Earned spiritual and material enrichment go hand in hand.

 

Related Reading:

What is Capitalism?—Ayn Rand

Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society 

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Berstein

The Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty—Craig Biddle

The Declaration of Independence

Books- Understanding Rational Selfishness

Christmas the Secular, Christmas the American

Can non-Christians celebrate Christmas? Many do, and why not? I’m an atheist and I have no problem celebrating Christmas, even though it has no religious significance for me.

Christmas is a religious holiday for many, signifying the birth of the Christian icon Jesus. But as an American holiday, Christmas is and, by our own Constitution, a secular holiday. That makes it a holiday for everyone. People are free to celebrate Christmas according to any meaning they choose.

But this goes beyond the Constitution. I am indebted to philosopher Ayn Rand for showing that, philosophically, Christmas can’t be strictly a Christian holiday. In answer to the question of whether it is appropriate for an atheist to celebrate Christmas, Rand observed:

Yes, of course. A national holiday, in this country, cannot have an exclusively religious meaning. The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property… of the Christian religion.

This makes perfect sense. Neither Christianity nor any particular religion can have an exclusive claim on morality. “Good will toward men” is not a monopoly of Christianity.

I am also indebted to the framers of the U.S. Constitution. As the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." In 1870, Congress made Christmas a national holiday. This means that anyone who claims, as one NJ letter-to-the-editor wrote, that Without Jesus Christ you can't have Christmas, that person is repudiating the U.S. Constitution. A national religious holiday in a secular nation founded on the principle of separation of church and state (religious/conscientious freedom) is a logical impossibility. Since to have a secular government means to have one that is neutral with regards to the fundamental conscientious beliefs of all of its citizens, an American national holiday by definition cannot be religious.

In fact, what we today call Christmas originally didn't have any connection to Jesus at all, writes Onkar Ghate in U.S.News & World Report:

Before Christians co-opted the holiday in the fourth century (there is no reason to believe Jesus was born in December), it was a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, of the days beginning to grow longer. The Northern European tradition of bringing evergreens indoors, for instance, was a reminder that life and production were soon to return to the now frozen earth.

The Romans celebrated the Winter Solstice with the holiday Saturnalia. In Northern Europe, the holiday was called Yule.

Indeed, as philosopher Leonard Peikoff observes over at Capitalism Magazine, the leading secular Christmas symbol - Santa Claus - actually contradicts some standard Christian tenets:

Santa Claus is a thoroughly American invention. ... In 1822, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem about a visit from St. Nick. It was Moore (and a few other New Yorkers) who invented St. Nick's physical appearance and personality, came up with the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, comes down the chimney, stuffs toys in the kids' stockings, then goes back to the North Pole.

...Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice -- Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones.

When Congress declared Christmas a National Holiday, in 1870, Christmas ceased being a strictly religious observance and became a secular holiday. A legal religious holiday in a nation dedicated to freedom of religion and conscience is a contradiction. (The Founders used the terms “religion” and conscience” interchangeably. They understood religious freedom to include the freedom not to believe in or practice any religion—in effect, not just freedom of religion, but freedom from religion as well.) Being a national legal holiday, Christmas can have non-religious, non-Christian meaning just as validly as a Christian meaning. It’s a matter of individual preference. Otherwise, what’s the point of freedom of conscience?

So, regardless of your personal beliefs, go ahead and enjoy Christmas on your own terms.

On that note, let me extend to everyone a hearty wish for a joyous, safe, and thoroughly non-contradictory…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Related Reading:

How the Welfare State Stole Christmas, by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins

Don't Need Christ to Celebrate Christmas

Why Christmas Should be More Commercial—Leonard Peikoff

The Real Meaning of Christmas: What Would Jesus Teach Today?

A ‘War on Christmas?’ No: A War on non-Christians

Conservatives’ Christianization of Christmas and the Left’s Multiculturalism Are Both Un-American

David Greenberg of Rutgers posted a guest editorial in the New Jersey Star-Ledger just before Christmas 2017 lamenting the battle over holiday greetings. He writes, in part, in an article titled ‘“How Christmas Became a Political Hot Potato” published in the print edition [but not, to my knowledge, online] on December 23:

The holiday season is here again, and as a break from arguing about sexual harassment, we can all look forward to a lovely spell of denouncing and unfriending one another over which holiday greetings to use.

With Donald Trump as president, we can be sure that no cultural scab will go unpicked. After all, among his many pioneering achievements, Trump is our first president to win the White House— at least in part — on a pledge to roll back the freedom to say “Happy Holidays.”

“I’m a good Christian,” he insisted on the campaign trail. “If I become president, we’re gonna be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ at every store. ... You can leave ‘Happy holidays’ at the corner.”

How on Earth did such an innocent gesture become so politically charged?

Of course, the Christian Right has been railing about “Happy Holidays” for a long time. It’s part of their campaign to fight an imagined “War on Christmas” and to lecture us to “keep Christ in Christmas.” But Greenberg makes the point that valid point Christmas has become increasingly secular:

The secular consensus gained strength in the 1960s and ’70s, as the Supreme Court ruled prayer in public schools to be unconstitutional and otherwise reinforced the traditional wall between church and state.

As recently as a few years ago, Trump bade his fellow Americans “a wonderful holiday” and “happy holiday season” — precisely the sort of inclusive messaging that he would assail as a candidate. 

This is true. I would add that, since Christmas was made a legal holiday by both the Federal and state Governments, it is by definition a secular holiday. How can a religious holiday be a legal holiday in a nation dedicated to the separation of religion and state? It can’t—not without violating the constitutional protection of religious freedom and freedom of conscience. This issue went before U.S. District Court in Ganulin v. United States, in which the Court ruled that the recognition of Christmas as a legal holiday for purposes of a paid day off did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because “the Christmas holiday has become largely secularized” and that the government was “doing no more than recognizing the cultural significance of the holiday.” The attempt by any political leader to Christianize Christmas is therefor un-American. People are free to celebrate the Christmas season in any way they like, with or without Christ, with or without religion, and with or without the greeting “Merry Christmas”. That’s America.

But the Left’s “solution” to the Christian Right’s pushback against “Happy Holidays” is at least as bad, if not worse. Greenberg goes on:

As the Republican Party adopted a right-wing populism on cultural issues, it was only a matter of time before this delicate balance was upset. The country grew polarized.

Democrats championed multiculturalism and drew on their civil libertarian bona fides to paint themselves as the natural home for Muslims, Hindus and members of other religions whose ranks were swelling. On the right, Christian leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson led evangelicals into the political fray, forming a bedrock of a new GOP coalition.

Multiculturalism is a rejection of American culture, which is rooted in individualism. 

More precisely, multiculturalism obliterates the very idea that America has its own culture. It rejects the idea that all people are created equal by virtue of our common humanity as beings possessing the capacity for reason, for which it follows that every single one of us should be judged on the content of our character, not our race, cultural background, national origin, or other insignificant attribute. Under a veneer of “inclusiveness”, multiculturalism sneaks in collectivism by tribalizing America into racial, cultural, or ethnic group identities, undercutting American culture and the individual rights that automatically flow from that individualist culture. The corollary of this is to undercut the principle of inalienable individual rights, held equally by all individuals, and protected equally at all times by government under the law—and to switch the concept of rights from the individual to the group, paving the way for government to favor some groups over others at the expense of political equality.

Whether the religious conservatives’ attempt to Christianize the secular end-of-year Christmas season is a reaction to the Left’s multiculturalism, or the other way around, both are an attack on Americanism. I reject both viewpoints. America is neither a Christian nation nor a multicultural nation. It is an American nation—a nation of the Enlightenment including the values of reason, individualism, freedom of conscience, and free market capitalism. 

Related Reading:

A ‘War on Christmas?’ No: A War on non-Christians

Move Over, ‘Happy Holidays’: Starbucks’ Cup Opens a New Front in the ‘War on Christmas’

Christmas: A Holiday for All

"Learning Experience", or Anti-Americanism?

Political Contributions vs. Kickbacks

 This meme has popped up on the Facebook pages of a couple of friends:

Here is my comment to both:

Trash the First Amendment and privacy rights? Terrible idea. Absent evidence of criminal activity, the government shouldn't be "watching" the monetary affairs of law abiding citizens, whether they're spending their money on a car, a charitable donation, a mortgage payment, or to support a political candidate or cause they believe in. How about just NOT monitor bank accounts, and get those who support the idea out of office?

One friend equated political contrabutions to criminal activity:

Mike.

It annoys me is this won’t apply to certain people in politics who get $100k or high kickbacks under the table . But our $600 transactions needs to be watched?

My question is who is watching and monitoring the ones watching everyone else who makes a transaction higher than $600.

I repied:

Bill, we need to be precise. Political contributions are not kickbacks. Kickbacks, bribery, and the like are already illegal under anti-corruption laws. My point is, absent evidence of criminal activity, the government shouldn't be "watching" the monetary affairs of law abiding citizens.

Freedom of speech is under attack by both today's Left and Right. We need to call the attacks out and defend the First Amendment whenever it comes under attack, even if it means challenging a friend.

Related Reading:  

The Real 'Big Money' in Politics By James D. Agresti for Intellecual Takeout

In 2017, the federal government spent a total of $2,677 billion on social programs that transfer money from some people to others. This is 418 times greater than all federal campaign spending and lobbying.

Left-leaning politicians and media personalities—from Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders to Bill Moyers and Carl Bernstein—frequently decry “big money” in politics. These ideological allies also lobby for laws to muzzle the political speech of others, while they simultaneously employ the largest amounts and arguably the most influential forms of money in politics.