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Watch What You Say, The New Liberal Power Elite Won’t Tolerate Dissent
New Geography ^ | 06/07/2014 | Joel Kotkin

Posted on 06/08/2014 7:32:56 AM PDT by amnestynone

In ways not seen since at least the McCarthy era, Americans are finding themselves increasingly constrained by a rising class—what I call the progressive Clerisy—that accepts no dissent from its basic tenets. Like the First Estate in pre-revolutionary France, the Clerisy increasingly exercises its power to constrain dissenting views, whether on politics, social attitudes or science.

An alliance of upper level bureaucrats and cultural elites, the Clerisy, for for all their concerns about inequality, have thrived, unlike most Americans, in recent years. They also enjoy strong relations with the power structure in Washington, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street.

As the modern clerisy has seen its own power grow, even while the middle class shrinks, it has used its influence to enforce a prescribed set of acceptable ideas. On everything from gender and sexual preference to climate change, those who dissent from the official pieties risk punishment.

This power has been seen recently in a host of cancellations of commencement speakers. Just in the past few months Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, and former UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, have been prevented from speaking by campus virtue squads whose sensibilities they had offended.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: correction; intolerence
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This from one of the hidden gems of the internet.
1 posted on 06/08/2014 7:32:56 AM PDT by amnestynone
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To: amnestynone

Just call them what they are, degenerate reprobates, and children of Satan.

That’s pretty much the truth.


2 posted on 06/08/2014 7:37:16 AM PDT by Bayard
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To: amnestynone

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dissent

I Thought ‘Dissent Is Patriotic’
by Dennis Prager
http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2009/08/11/i_thought_dissent_is_patriotic/page/full

Dissent & Patriotism
By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/165188/dissent-patriotism/jonah-goldberg


3 posted on 06/08/2014 7:40:49 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; We need a second party!)
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To: amnestynone

Yet more hand wringing from the newly aware Mr. Kotkin, one of the people who enabled all of this with his writing and activism in the last two decades.

We told you that you were wrong then Joel, and you laughed.

Who’s laughing now?


4 posted on 06/08/2014 7:42:18 AM PDT by Regulator
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To: amnestynone

ping


5 posted on 06/08/2014 7:46:29 AM PDT by Rich21IE
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To: amnestynone

The Clerisy, Can KISS MY HEMORRHOIDs!


6 posted on 06/08/2014 7:48:48 AM PDT by SandRat (Duty - Honor - Country! What else needs said?)
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To: amnestynone

I have reached the point in life that I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about I say. If they don’t like it, let them close their ears.


7 posted on 06/08/2014 7:53:02 AM PDT by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: amnestynone

Deprive them of power.


8 posted on 06/08/2014 8:05:52 AM PDT by depressed in 06 (America conceived in liberty, dies in slavery.)
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To: amnestynone

Virtue police bump for later......


9 posted on 06/08/2014 8:12:20 AM PDT by indthkr
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To: amnestynone

Where’s the little boy giving the middle finger?


10 posted on 06/08/2014 8:13:28 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; We need a second party!)
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To: amnestynone
Are the Liberals so insecure that they think four or more years of University indoctrination might be undone by a single speech from a conservative? That their tender ministrations from K-12 might be shredded and the lies exposed in a single commencement speech?

Well, they oughta be!

BS is BS, after all, and kids aren't as stupid as Liberals think.

11 posted on 06/08/2014 8:15:01 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: amnestynone
In ways not seen since at least the McCarthy era....

In ways not seen since at least the McCarthy STALIN era...

There, fixed it.

12 posted on 06/08/2014 8:18:36 AM PDT by P-Marlowe (There can be no Victory without a fight and no battle without wounds)
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To: Smokin' Joe

Yes I think that the liberals are that insecure. They can’t win debates on the issues of the day. So they resort to name calling and intimidation to shut people up.

The homosexuals have been able to do this on the issue of homosexual marriage. The girl in the beauty pageant was subjected to a campaign of character assassination for having the audacity to say she thought marriage was a man and a woman.

The activists organized a boycott, which backfired, against Chick-Fil-A over the same issue. The intention was to have Chick-Fil-A serve as a warning to anyone else not to speak out against homosexual marriage.

The guy from Mozilla was compelled to resign because he supported the “wrong” side on the homosexual marriage issue in California. An issue which we freely voted on, which should have been an expression of how issues are decided in our republic, via a public vote and campaign, instead becomes a situation in which you better support the “right” side, per liberal criteria, or else you will not be allowed to earn a living.

And we have Paula Deen and the N word. We have a politically correct aristocracy who are deciding that certain words can’t be uttered by certain people in our society.

I’m sure there are other examples of this. Liberals can’t win over people to their side based on the issues themselves, so they resort to gutter tactics, ad hominem attacks, and attempts to deprive someone of their livelihood, so serve as a lesson to the next person who might step out of line and not be liberal lock stock and barrel.


13 posted on 06/08/2014 8:27:16 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego (et)
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To: All
More like campus anti-virtue squads if you ask me.
14 posted on 06/08/2014 8:35:36 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: sauropod

.


15 posted on 06/08/2014 8:57:02 AM PDT by sauropod (Fat Bottomed Girl: "What difference, at this point, does it make?")
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To: amnestynone

I have been comparing the media elite to the clergy for quite a few years. They want to be the arbiters of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, and they are very jealous of their power, hence their ongoing attacks on the credibility of Internet bloggers, their support for campaign finance laws, and their support for public disclosure of contributors to conservative causes. They want the power to purge and punish, to shame and destroy. And they will let mobs do their work for them when necessary, as in Wisconsin a few years ago. Can you imagine the media outcry if conservatives had behaved the way the anti-Walker people did?


16 posted on 06/08/2014 8:59:12 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: Dilbert San Diego

It truly is a fascinating time in which we live.

The “New Thought Police” aren’t actual police, yet.

Our culture, via the mass media and the countless institutions, have replaced the traditional “standard” for what is right, good, beautiful and mutually beneficial with their new standard, “NO STANDARD”.

The “No Standard” standard of the left rests on the embrace of uncertainty. To be certain of anything other than uncertainty is to be judgmental, racist, uncaring etc etc..

Once a public figure takes a position on a social issue there is no end to the number of “offended groups” that will rally in an effort to silence him.

No analysis necessary, no thought, just feelings. Feelings that don’t even need to be their own. They bend over backwards to show that they care even when what they propose ends up doing more harm. Their intentions are more important than the results.

When it comes to voting, I see things breaking down to a “false” fundamental perception.

Democrats will work tirelessly to; “Do something FOR you”.

Republicans will work tirelessly to; “Do something TO you”.


17 posted on 06/08/2014 9:13:43 AM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
Liberals can’t win over people to their side based on the issues themselves, so they resort to gutter tactics, ad hominem attacks, and attempts to deprive someone of their livelihood, so serve as a lesson to the next person who might step out of line and not be liberal lock stock and barrel.

Just 'kinder, gentler' Nazis.

We need to protest the protesters, counter attack, parry-riposte.

The vast majority of America is looking at the buck-naked liberal agenda, and no one dares speak up in opposition to the media fawning about its 'fabulous' wardrobe.

There is power in numbers, but it needs to be a group large enough to turn the tide without being beset by violence, intimidated by name calling, and unfortunately, probably better wear masks (Ronald Reagan, Guy Fawkes, whoever) to avoid being singled out later.

18 posted on 06/08/2014 9:36:16 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: NTHockey

I’m with you, brother.


19 posted on 06/08/2014 9:53:22 AM PDT by daler
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To: amnestynone

Nothing reveals the weakness and fear of the American left more than their intolerance of opposing ideas. Truth is their biggest enemy.


20 posted on 06/08/2014 10:31:16 AM PDT by pallis
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