A Fatal Contradiction at the Heart of Liberalism

Many young people believe that liberalism is all about sweetness and light.  Democrats so frequently tell them their mission is to rescue the downtrodden that they assume this is true.  In their inexperience, however, the young are easily seduced by honeyed words.  So, unfortunately, are many not so young.

These folks neglect an alarming contradiction at the heart of liberalism. Despite promises of compassion and kindness, in order to fulfill its promises this creed must resort to the opposite.  In the long run, it injures more people than it benefits.

Let’s begin with the liberal assault on government enforcement agencies. Those on the left tell us that the police are pigs.  These congenital toughs must therefore be reined in to prevent them from exercising an instinctive desire to abuse the weak.  After all, why do people become cops?  Isn’t it because they are inherently tyrants?

The same is said about members of the armed forces.  Why would they enter the military if they did not look forward to killing people?  That is why they are inclined to start wars.  This is the reason we must cut military budgets back as deeply as we dare. The money is obviously better spent on the poor.

Now liberals have the long knives out for ICE.  They are in the streets chanting for its abolition.  So far as they are concerned, its assignment is to harass innocent immigrants.  Desperately poor refuges from oppression are forced to look over their shoulders lest they be deported for no good reason.

Liberal dogma has it that once they purge the body politic of the repressive tendencies of capitalists and conservatives, we will finally be able to love one another the way we should.  As Barack Obama put it, we will at long last become each other’s keepers. Our inner sympathies will consequently come to the fore.

But as even three year olds know, there are bullies among us.  Just as Jean-Jacque Rousseau alleged, we humans have loving qualities.  But we also have a dark side.  The best among us can sometimes be selfish.  The kindest of us occasionally resort to coercion. 

Margaret Thatcher told us that the problem with socialism—which is the ultimate endpoint of liberalism—is that eventually we run out of other people’s money.  But let’s be specific.  By giving, giving, giving to the poor—and the bureaucrats—we invariably exhaust supposedly excess funds.

During the 1930’s, we saw what happens when we do.  First, the well-off stop investing because there is no reason to accumulate wealth if it will be confiscated.  Second, they conceal what they have.  In other words, they fight back.  And when they do, the economy goes into a nosedive.

Under these conditions, the only way for the government to gather every dime it desires is to engage in coercion.  Funds are seized; recalcitrant citizens are jailed; onerous regulations proliferate.  Instead of allowing people to reside in peace, strong-arm tactics are ramped up.

This is the opposite of what was promised, but the inevitable result of relying on the state to enforce equality.  We have seen this in actual socialist societies.  It was demonstrated in the Soviet Union’s Gulag; revealed in Communist China’s slaughter of ten’s of millions; and surfaced in East Germany’s secret police.

When enormous power is excessively concentrated, the temptation to engage in mistreatment is irresistible.  Government functionaries, who are accustomed to being obeyed, turn up the heat when challenged.  We recently witnessed this in organizations such as the IRS, the FBI, OSHA, and the EPA.

The point is that to do good—as they see it—they must do bad.  In order to protect the weak, they have to injure those with the power to resist.  In the end, we wind up with a clutch of tyrants presiding over a nation of cyphers.  This is not freedom, or love, or equality.  It is despotism.

Here then is the irony, and the contradiction, built into the soul of liberalism.  Although liberals consistently excoriate government enforcement agencies, they also depend upon them to administer their mandates.  Their vision of an entirely voluntary society is belied by this need to impose their schemes on unwilling subjects.

Oh yes, liberals deny this.  When they go too far, they back off and praise the police or military. Nevertheless, they always come back to the same old stand.  On the one hand, they regulate the liberty out of our society, while on the other they denounce those charged with maintaining law and order.

This inconsistency cannot work.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Roe v. Wade in Perspective

Before I begin, let me put my cards on the table.  Although I believe that Roe v. Wade was badly decided, I want abortion to remain legal.  As a conservative, I am convinced it should be restricted, but I do not wish to see it outlawed.

My reason for this is different than most.  Having worked as a helping professional for decades, I got to observe the damage perpetrated against unwanted children.  Many go through a lifetime of hell because of the rejection they experience from cradle to grave.

If this agony can be short-circuited before they are genuinely human, I consider it a form of mercy.  It not only relieves the distress of those who experience this mistreatment, but that of the many others upon whom they visit their anguish.

But let me get to my main point.  When I teach social change, I explain why abortion has become such a contentious issue.  There was a time, just a few hundred years ago, when no one was troubled by ending the lives of the unborn.  This was because their circumstances differed so greatly from ours.

Not until the last century could parents be certain that their children would grow to adulthood.  Before modern medicine, the problem was keeping the young alive, as opposed to having too many of them.  My favorite example was Queen Ann of England who, three centuries ago, had seventeen pregnancies, but not a single child who made it past the teens.

With industrialization also came the need to devote more resources to preparing children for complicated occupational demands.  Large families became a hindrance to significant achievement.  Children, who per force received less parental attention, were less motivated to strive for success.

Another lesson I impart to my students is that when social circumstances change, our values do as well.  These are renegotiated to adjust to unprecedented conditions.  Although many people believe that morality is unchangeable, history demonstrates that it is not.  Witness our changing attitudes towards dueling and gays.

In any event, our modified outlooks develop out of quarrelsome social dialogues. Typically what happens is that two sides of partisans propose inconsistent alternatives to a nettlesome problem.  Each is certain that it is in the right and therefore that the other is in league with the devil.

In the case of abortion, these two factions are the pro-life and pro-choice parties.  One insists that all life is sacred; hence even a fertilized egg deserves to be protected. Meanwhile the other concentrates on the health of the mother and maintains that she has an absolute right to decide what happens to her body.

Generally speaking, the most active supporters in these debates tend toward the extremes.  For them, it is all or nothing.  Thus the radical pro-life folks eschew all abortion, even to save the life of the mother; whereas at the opposite pole, the militant pro-choicers champion abortion right up to the moment of birth.

Most onlookers, in contrast, are less extreme.  They are prepared to tolerate exceptions in both directions.  In fact, in the long run the more moderate positions usually prevail.  Those favoring them make less noise, but in the end compromise wins out over fanaticism.

My guess—and it is only a guess—is that the abortion controversy will be settled by an agreement that the procedure should be legal, yet rare. Instead of regarding it as a normal form of birth control, it will be deemed a last ditch option.

I also suspect that there will ultimately be divergent state restrictions.  This will enable communities with contradictory attitudes to adjust the laws as they see fit. If so, the coastal states are liable to be more permissive than those in the heartland.

Which brings me to the hullabaloo about confirming Brett Cavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  Liberals are screaming that this would mean the death of millions.  They insist that any tinkering with Roe v. Wade would result in the wholesale slaughter of vulnerable young women.

This, however, is a radical talking point.  It is intended to scare voters into siding with the pro-choice faction. The other side, of course, does the same when it trots out successful adults who might otherwise never have had a chance to live.

I suggest that it is the moderates who will be victorious.  Roe v. Wade will not be totally excised.   Yet it will probably be modified.  It could, for instance, be sent back to the states for their separate consideration.  The fact is that both sides of the argument are too strong for either to be totally defeated. Eventually, there will have to be some kind of truce.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Have Liberals Gone Crazy?

Several decades ago I worked at a psychiatric hospital.  My job as a counselor was to help our clients adjust to life outside the institution.  This meant that I had many long-term relationships with individuals suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

Many of these folks were deeply disturbed.  They had hallucinations, delusions, and/or periods of manic frenzy.  Still and all, despite the fact that they often lost touch with reality, the vast majority recognized that something was amiss.  To put this in the vernacular, they realized they were crazy.

Only a tiny fraction were in such denial that they believed themselves sane. Today as I look out at the political scene, a much larger proportion of liberals seem unaware that they have gone crazy.  They refuse to admit that they have become completely detached from basic facts.

The polite way of expressing this is that they have become “unhinged.” Their hysteria is such that they say and do things they never would have entertained a few short years ago. Irrespective of their assurances to the contrary, they routinely undermine the democratic values they are pledged to uphold.

Let me begin with the recent epidemic of incivility.  Although Chuck Schumer called upon folks like Maxine Waters to pull in their horns, mobs continue to surround and intimidate opposing politicians.  They call them vile names and insinuate “we know where you live.”

This is worse than an outrage.  It is a dagger to the heart of our body politic. Tragically, if it continues, our tradition of representative government will be imperiled.  There will, in fact, be generalized violence on our streets and carnage in the halls of congress.

As of now, conservatives have done little more than complain about the growing incivility.  They haven’t even identified it as the illegal intimidation, which it is. Meanwhile, millions of liberals regard this contemptible conduct as evidence of patriotism.  They insanely believe that it defends our shared values.

Yet where is this leading?  If conservative officials are routinely assaulted when they are in public, can it be long before there is pushback?  Will right wing mobs soon be accosting isolated liberals?  Will they too chant nasty epithets at their helpless victims?

But wouldn’t this provoke an escalation from the left?  And then a counter-escalation from the right?  Obviously this kind of tit for tat can get out of hand. It did in pre-Hitler Germany.  One of the reasons that the Austrian paperhanger became its chancellor was that Nazi and Communist hooligans were literally battling each other in the streets.

If liberals were the intellectuals they pretend to be, they would be aware of this danger.  They would not be making mealy-mouthed criticisms of Waters, but full-throated denunciations of her tactics.  To do less is a form of madness that cannot be left to pass unnoticed.

Equally senseless are the political maneuvers being perpetrated in congress and the media.  One would have thought that the consequences of Harry Reid eviscerating the filibuster would have opened some eyes.  Although it allowed Democrats to confirm controversial judicial candidates, it later permitted Republicans to do the same.

Rational people discern such things.  They peer into the future to avoid imminent pitfalls.  So why aren’t Schumer’s band of merry obstructionists mindful that in delaying approval of Trump officials they are inviting Republicans to do likewise under a Democratic administration?

If a violent political stalemate is possible in our restaurants and theaters, why isn’t it conceivable in the legislature?  A straw in the wind is that many of our representatives are no longer on speaking terms.  So what happens if they begin using actual weapons to silence the opposition?

As for the media, many mainstream reporters have long since abandoned journalism.  They have become political flacks who distort any fact and promote any fiction if it advances liberal causes.  This involves such shameful efforts as quashing the recent DOJ IG report.

What will be the conclusion when the public realizes it is being duped? Will voters pay attention to these journalists?  And if not, won’t this place many jobs in jeopardy?  In other words, reporters are apparently committing professional suicide—which is at least a touch crazy.

I have previously argued that liberals are in a state of panic. As their worldview crumbles, their heads fill with undigested mush.  So I say, if this isn’t a form of insanity, it surely comes close.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

My Side Right or Wrong

In my columns, I often refer to my Brooklyn youth.  I do so because this enables me to put things into perspective. Because my political awareness began as a deeply committed liberal, I am able to compare what I thought then with what I have learned since.

Back then I believed that conservatives were dunder-headed know-nothings. Had I been aware of how Barack Obama later characterized them as clinging to their guns and Bibles, I would have heartily agreed.  I would have added, however, that they were reflexive patriots who believed in their country—right or wrong. 

Since I knew how unjust capitalism was, these folks were obviously blind to America’s weaknesses.  They did not realize that the only sensible position was to be a citizen of the world. Liberals, who were much smarter, understood this.  They recognized that our side could be wrong.

But then I look around at today’s world.  While I admit that I do so as a conservative, it is plain to me that the “my side, right or wrong” mantle has been appropriated by the left. Without a doubt, it is now progressives who unthinkingly cling to the party line.

The current “resist” movement is such that it does not matter what Donald Trump does.  Whatever it may be, they are against it.  If he suddenly adopted their most sacred tenets, they would dismiss these too. This would not be a reasoned transformation, but a product of their hatred.

The evidence for this mounts daily.  Liberals are ideologues.  They have a fixed belief system that is impervious to unexpected facts.  They are also power hungry.  So sanctimonious have they become that they are certain the world cannot survive without their guidance.

Let us take the nomination of Brett Cavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Even before he was selected, liberals hysterically opposed him.  Because they believed that anyone Trump selected would move the court to the right, they had to portray him as an arch-villain.

Everyone in Washington understood their motivation.  Politically aware folks knew that cries about the sky falling were intended to frighten the politically naïve.  Ergo, liberals did not care whether what they said was true. Their knee-jerk reaction to was a partisan ploy, not a reasoned evaluation.

The same was the case with the frenzy about closing the border.  It too was based on an anti-Trump, anti conservative rage that had little to do with the equities of the situation.  The goal was to portray their adversaries as heard-hearted tyrants who had to be stopped from stripping babies out of their mother’s arms.

Yet when have liberals not depicted conservatives as hard-hearted scoundrels? The left has to be correct because the other side is so insufferably wrong.  This is why the good guys resort to clichés and talking points.  They must tar loathsome rightists with the evil reputation they have so richly earned.

Nonetheless this tactic does not involve thought.  It is as much a consequence of pre-programmed commitments as the mouthings of robotic fundamentalists.  All one has to do to verify this claim is witness the stereotyped slogans of the activists.  These conformists, like the Stalinists of yore, are prepared to chant whatever their masters signal.

For example, how many times have we been told that Trump put little children in cages?  This is a base canard.  It derives from a picture of children sleeping behind a chain-link fence taken during the Obama administration.  Still, once this was revealed, it made no difference to militants who were certain they were right, even though they were wrong.

The same thing happened when Trump was pressured into changing his policy so as to insist that little children not be removed from their parents.  The protesters did not miss a beat and continued to flay him for doing what he was no longer doing.  As I say, facts did not matter.

So now lets rap this up.  When I was a teenager, I was taught that liberals were intellectuals.  They were people who critically analyzed the shortcomings of our civilization and responsibly proposed alternatives.  Because they used their brains, they could see what needed fixing, as well as how to achieve this.

If this were ever accurate, it no longer is.  Liberals has substituted self-righteousness for sound reasoning.  They have become sanctimonious sheep who are convinced they are on a mission to save the rest of us.  Perhaps a little soul-searching is in order.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The FBI-Gate Cover-up

Not long ago I was speaking to a liberal friend.  He is a well-educated man with strong political convictions.  Nonetheless we had not spoken about the current political turmoil in some time. It was therefore with great relish that I listened to his interpretation of recent events.

What struck me was how incomplete his understanding was.  Although he is an avid student of social change, he had not acquainted himself with many issues.  He instead relied upon the commentators on MSNBC to keep him up to date.

Because he was so dependent upon this single source, he did not realize the degree to which it censors its offerings.  Indeed, the mainstream media in general are guilty of many sins of omission. It is not just what they say, but what they do not say, that skews the opinions of their consumers.

Thus when my friend and I began talking about the FBI-gate scandal, I found that he believed it was more limited than it is.  So far as he was concerned, it was all about the lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.  He did not realize how many others were deeply biased.

From his perspective the affair was about a few bad apples, not a systemic conspiracy.  As such, it could be rectified by removing the culprits.  There was no larger scandal and therefore no reason for a political uproar.  This was certainly not a constitutional crisis.

My friend did not perceive the FBI management’s actions as an attempt to protect Hillary from indictment or to frame Trump for a crime he did not commit.  What is more, he believed it unfair that the FBI was vilified.  According him, the conservative media were continually blaming the FBI as a whole.

I had to explain that figures such as Sean Hannity routinely denied any such intention.  My friend has no idea that this was the case because the authorities upon whom he relied said just the opposite.

Even more troubling was his opinion of the recent incivility.  He claimed this was coming from both sides of the aisle.  He thus cited things said on the social media to validate his case.  Conservatives were obviously as vulgar as liberals.

 He, of course, had a point.  It is amazing how nasty people can be on Twitter and Facebook.  But that is not where the political asymmetry manifests itself. It is in the streets and mainstream media that the radical penchant for verbal violence and intimidation becomes clear.

We don’t find conservatives harassing liberal politicians at restaurants and theaters.  Nor do we see them attacking prayer breakfasts or political offices.  This is a specialty of leftists who, along with Maxine Waters, believe they have a duty to make life miserable for those with whom they disagree.

In fact, these activists describe what they are doing as “protests.” As they see it, they are “speaking truth to power.”  They would never admit that they are threatening their adversaries.  But that is what they are doing and it is a crime.

All of this was outside my friend’s awareness.  Because it is not extensively covered in the media that inform his views, he assumed it did not exist.  Actually, since he is gentle soul, he would probably be scandalized by the extent of the gratuitous incivility. 

And so the bottom line is this, the media based cover-up of FBI-gate is working.  Many otherwise decent people never realize how egregious the anti-Trump misconduct has been.  They instead comfort themselves with the canard that the president started the downward spiral and therefore at fault.

Nevertheless, no democratic society can survive as a democracy when the publically available information is badly distorted.  Too many people are led astray and make decisions detrimental to their long-term interests.

Totalitarian leaders know this.  It is one of the reasons that upon taking power they seize the media.  They are acutely aware that if they control what people see and hear, they can shape what they think.

Once upon a time, in the dark days of Watergate, the conventional wisdom had it that the cover-up was worse than the crime.  And yet today, the solons of the media pride themselves on how effective their cover-up has been.  They sanctimoniously believe they are saving our society.

The reality, however, is that they are saving no one.  As my friend’s attitudes testify, they have been effective in squelching vital truths.  But the consequence of this is an ill-informed electorate, and that can be lethal to the integrity of a democratic republic.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University  

Deja VU: Part II

Last week I wrote about how the turmoil of the 1960’s has resurfaced. The protests, the vile language, and the in-your-face partisanship have returned with a vengeance.  So far the bombings have not occurred, but they may yet be in our future.

Today I wish to discuss echoes from the 1970’s.  Those troubled times also have eerie parallels to the current scene.  The Watergate era was one of the ugliest periods in our history, but we may have entered an even uglier one.

For many years, liberals have encouraged us to believe that Richard Nixon was an ogre who endangered our democratic institutions.  He has been put forward as the epitome of conservative villainy.  The idea is to present him as a warning of the risks of a Republican presidency.

But let’s take a closer look.  Although Nixon is associated with the Watergate break-in, he did not initiate it. The plan to burglarize the Democratic campaign headquarters was concocted by his underlings.  He did not get involved until the fiasco became public.

Some of Nixon’s handlers apparently felt that they needed an edge to defeat George McGovern.  It was so important that their boss continue to preside over public policy that any dirty trick was acceptable.  As they saw it, the fate of the nation hung in the balance.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago.  Now it was Hillary Clinton’s supporters who were convinced that they had to protect the country from a Republican victory.  Donald Trump was clearly an unhinged clown, and besides, preserving the progressive agenda was essential for our collective well-being.

Operatives in the FBI, the Department of Justice, and probably the CIA therefore decided that Hillary could not be indicted for sending sensitive messages from a private server.  Acknowledging that she did so might prevent her from being a viable candidate and that was unthinkable.

This required them to manipulate procedures, misinterpret the law, and suppress embarrassing materials, but that was small price to pay for our shared welfare.  That a former secretary of state destroyed thousands of subpoenaed emails was trivial in the light of this greater good.

Nixon’s missing eighteen minutes of oval office tapes had, of course, been a different matter.  They were a national disgrace that required someone to be sacrificed.  Nixon’s scatological language was likewise evidence of his unworthiness for office. 

An even bigger parallel between Watergate and now, however, is how slowly the evidence of misconduct trickled out.  Nowadays people are demanding an instant smoking gun.  Even the IG report documenting unremitting bias has not triggered a consensus on the nature of the malfeasance.

Back in the day, had it not been for Judge Sirica’s dogged determination to get to the bottom of the affair, it would not have moved to the front burner.  Only after his revelations did a senate committee take up the cudgels. Eventually, this body tore the scab off of the cover-up and exposed the unseemly details.

Nonetheless, there is a huge difference between then and now.  It is the current lack of cooperation of the political party at risk.  In the 70’s, most Republicans were initially reluctant to attack one of their own.  It was not until the evidence mounted that they stopped defending Nixon.

These days the Democrats are still firmly on the side of denying any wrongdoing.  Unlike yesteryears Republicans, they have not yet decided that anti-democratic shenanigans are against our joint interests.  Perhaps this is because the potential scope of the misconduct is so broad.

In any event, the biggest discrepancy between Watergate and FBIgate is the role of the media.  Back then journalists were in the forefront of investigating what happened.  Woodward and Bernstein became national heroes for their scoops.  So did their anonymous source—Deep Throat.

Today most reporters and editors are in the tank for anything anti-Trump.  They continuously play up whatever embarrasses him and underplay the transgressions of his critics.  As a consequence, uncomfortable news is suppressed and/or reinterpreted.

Sadly, never before has such a large slice of the media been implicated in so massive a cover-up.  Most of those involved are, no doubt, hoping this effort succeeds.  The goal is plainly to make certain the Democrats do not suffer the loss of reputation that befell the Republicans.

But I am not so sure.  Given how long it takes for the details of a massive scandal to emerge, it might be impossible to sweep everything under the rug.  If so, today’s cover-up artists will be unmasked.  Should this occur, their fall could be worse than Nixon’s.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Deja Vu All Over Again

Yogi Berra was right.  It is deja vu all over again.  What once has been has come around again.  Although it arrived in a slightly different package, it reanimated that which was long gone.  I am referring to our current political situation and how it recapitulates the strife of the 1960’s.

Because I am no longer young, I vividly remember the dissention roiling our country during the Johnson administration.  Agitation against the Viet Nam war, demonstrations in favor of civil rights, and campaigns for women’s liberation coalesced into a witch’s broth of anger and civil unrest.

Crowds thronged the streets shouting epithets at an unloved president. They demanded an immediate end to military actions and instant racial reforms.  If not, they threatened to burn down our cities.  The radicals—and many ordinary liberals—would accept nothing less than complete surrender.

This vehemence culminated at the Democratic national convention in Chicago. Thousands of protestors promised to shut down the event, but were held at bay by the police.  Despite a withering barrage of insults, these “pigs” enabled the nominating assembly to proceed.

Afterwards, its candidate, Hubert Humphrey, went down to an ignominious defeat.  He lost the presidential election to a Richard Nixon who had earlier been discounted as a political has-been.  The public at large was tired of a decade of incivility. People longed for more peaceful times.

But not the agitators.  They wanted a revolution.  Members of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) sought a socialist utopia. Meanwhile affiliates of the Black Panthers hated whites and proposed an African-American nation situated in Mississippi.  As for the feminists, they insisted on nothing less than androgyny. 

None of these folks regarded themselves as extremists.  None believed their vitriolic language or threats of violence were beyond the pale.  Their apparent animus was merely rhetoric.  This was there way of saving democracy from the deadening hand of traditional authority.

Doesn’t this sound familiar? Hasn’t a protest movement returned with a vengeance?  Isn’t our language being coarsened as a result?  Similarly, aren’t extreme proposals for social change again at center stage?  Indeed, classic socialism is back, while black separatism has been revived.

Furthermore, the current crew of activists is happy to denounce their opponents as Nazis and tyrants.  They also see nothing wrong with shouting them down in restaurants or picketing in front of their homes.  They are even prepared to shut down government programs, such as I.C.E.

What is more, some mainstream politicians defend this chaos. Like Hillary Clinton, they consider it justified.  Their hatred of Donald Trump is so great that they entertain visions of destroying our democratic traditions in the name of saving them.  As they see it, this villain cannot be allowed to govern.

And so they resist.  They resist in the streets.  They resist in the halls of congress.  They resist when friends and relatives dare support their foe.  Civil conversations are therefore gone.  Accommodations with the devil are likewise unthinkable.  All that remains is throwing one’s body into the fray and physically preventing the bad guys from prevailing.

There can be no doubt that this is a reprise of 60’s radicalism. After all, it is equally vociferous, equally socialistic, and equally self-righteous.  As importantly, it is equally crude, naïve, and mean spirited. Just because people believe they are preordained for victory does not ensure good sense or common decency.

We must remember that democracy is grounded in compromise.  It can only exist where a majority of citizens are willing to accommodate folks with whom they differ.  Otherwise they will send their adversaries to the barricades. Why?  Because people who have no hope often resort to desperate measures.

This is the reason democratic elections must be honored.  It is also why civility is essential.  If the winners are not allowed to govern or if uncongenial opinions are savagely mocked, the possibility of a redress of grievances is denied.  In other words, democracy takes self-control.  However great the temptation, intransient hostility must be eschewed.

Ironically, over the top activism tends to be its own worst enemy. We saw this in the 60’s when the silent majority threw the liberals out of office.  These voters were offended by the vitriol of the peace, civil rights, and feminist movements.  

Will this reaction also be reprised?  Will a growing contingent of Americans grow tired of radical agitation and rally around Donald Trump?  This is possible.  Liberals should thus be wary of unleashing a rejoinder that condemns them to the political wilderness.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Weaponizing Morality: A Liberal Specialty

When, as a recent college grad I worked for the New York City Department of Welfare, I confronted a disappointing reality.  I learned that morality could be used as a weapon that undercut moral aims.  Instead of doing good, it often did the opposite.

At one point, my fellow caseworkers decided to go on strike. They legitimately felt underpaid so they voted to walk out.  As their colleague, I knew they were motivated by money, but that is not what they told the public.  The purported reason for their action was to help our clients.

Time and again, people put a moral face on selfish conduct.  They seek to manipulate outsiders by appealing to their internalized commitments.  In the welfare case, the goal was to use sympathy for the poor to attract allies. In other instances, guilt is elicited to motivate a less desirable response.

 I should have understood this beforehand.  Having previously been exposed to both Jewish and Catholic guilt, I knew how compelling these could be.  My own mother was an expert in getting me to stop clamoring for treats by making me feel egocentric.

In any event, we are currently in the midst of a moral emergency. With liberals and conservatives at dagger points, each side reaches for the weapons in which it places the most confidence.  For liberals, who pride themselves on their compassion, guilt, shame, and moral outrage come readily to hand.

The obvious example is the current hysteria over dealing with illegal immigrants.  Modifications in the policy of separating parents from their children became a flashpoint in the culture wars.  Suddenly those involved in policing our southern border became Nazis and goons.

Now it must be admitted that splitting families apart is an unpleasant affair.  No doubt some children are traumatized.  But is this more devastating to their psyches than the trip they endured in getting to our doorstep?  The answer is not self-evident.

So how does it help to call the detention centers concentration camps? Can comparing them to Auschwitz advance our understanding of the best correctives?  Of course not!  But that was never the intent.  The goal was always to make those in favor of regulated borders experience guilt and shame.

The same applies to labeling president Trump a cruel con man.  This in no way elicited his cooperation in negotiating a reasonable settlement.  That, however, was never the objective either.  It was always to paint him as a villain whose moral opinions carry no weight.

But why did this escalation in the intensity of a longstanding dispute occur?  The reason is clear.  It is because liberals felt at a moral disadvantage.  They needed a diversion from the recent gains made by their archenemy. If Trump received too much credit for his successes, their relative standing might suffer.

Hence when the economy began to heat up, it was time to change the subject. Likewise when it seemed possible North Korea could be denuclearized, the public attention could not be allowed to linger on this.  It might make the president look like a good guy.

Nevertheless, most in need of a distraction was the growing FBI scandal. The more information that came out; the more this smelled like an incipient coup d’état.  The DOJ’s IG report made it plain that a cabal of left-leaning agents were determined to control the outcome of a democratic election.

This was strong stuff.  If it were perceived that liberalism is associated with an attack on our political traditions, it could prove fatal to the prospects of the Democratic Party. It could be hurt as badly as the Republicans were in the wake of Watergate.

Something had to be done.  It was therefore time to bring out the big guns.  Despite charges of hypocrisy and opportunism, supercharged moralism was summoned to the rescue.  Only it held the potential for neutralizing the advantages of the other side.

But where does this leave the rest of us?  In this attempt by partisans to score moral points, we have been submerged in a sea of lies and obscenities.  As a result, our communal atmosphere has been poisoned.  This is not conducive to genuine problem solving.

Not even my Jewish mother would approve of this exercise in moralistic malpractice.  So let us cool the rhetoric and abstain from vain posturing.  Being good is grounded in doing good, not in pretending to be morally superior.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Dilemma of Honorable Liberals

There are many honorable liberals.  Indeed there are many, many honorable liberals.  Actually, more than a few of them are in my own family. Nonetheless, these folks are in a terrible bind.  How do they retain their decency when so many partisans on their side of the political aisle have jumped the shark?

Honorable people are truth tellers.  They care about other human beings, not  just in the abstract, but in everyday life.  Honorable people avoid being gratuitously mean.  They do not seek to hurt those with whom they disagree. To the contrary, they keep an open mind.

Nowadays this does not describe the left-leaning liberals who have taken center stage.  The zealots we see on TV or shouting at Trump officials in restaurants are not nice people. They may think of themselves as compassionate intellectuals, but they are neither kindhearted individuals nor penetrating thinkers.

To begin with, they are serial liars.  Almost every other vitriolic accusation coming out of their mouths is an egregious misstatement of the truth.  It has gotten to the point that they are not even embarrassed by their mendacity.  When caught in a whooper, they immediately move on to a bigger and brasher one.

Take the canard that the Donald Trump ripped a small crying girl from her immigrant mother’s arms.  Timemagazine even had the temerity to juxtapose the heartless president towering over his alleged victim.  “See,” this doctored cover picture shouted, “what a vile wretch our chief executive is!”

Except that the child had not been separated from her mother and was crying because it was late at night and she was tired.  But did the Timeeditors apologize?  No, they did not.  Their attitude was essentially that their contrived picture might not be literally accurate, but it depicted a deeper reality.

The same cavalier attitude was on display with widely circulated photos of immigrant children sleeping in what were described as “cages.”  When it came out that these images were from the Obama era, it made no difference to the disseminators of this purported horror. Trump still got blamed.

In other words, liberals intent on pillorying our current president were indifferent to easily verified facts.  What mattered to them is whether they could arouse indignation in poorly informed voters.

Equally appalling has been the slide into unremitting vulgarity. Obscenities have become the norm. The F-bomb is bounced around as if it were as neutral as mashed potatoes.  Many practitioners of this verbal assassination game seem to believe it is a charming exercise in candor.

This is an unprecedented level of vitriol.  It has coarsened the public arena and made it more difficult for people to hold civil conversations.  But perhaps this is the intent.  Perhaps the idea is to silence anyone who disagrees with the radicals.

Which brings me back to the dilemma of honorable liberals.  Are they to join this chorus of rude deception or are they to stand up against it?  They know that if they criticize their progressive brethren, they will be drummed out of the fraternity.  Liberals are a jealous company.  They do not suffer apostates lightly. 

So are decent people to remain equally vulgar and as oblivious to facts or are they to risk ostracism?  Will they have the courage to deal with uncongenial realities or will they retreat into a crowded bunker of comparably distressed liberals?

Because liberalism is a God that has failed, many of its ideological loyalists cannot see through the curtain of lies protecting it.  They are consequently blind to what does not fit their preconceptions.  That is why they are unable to recognize obvious instances of duplicity.

Their inability to acknowledge the crudeness of their tactics essentially stems from a hysterical desire to deny egregious mistakes.  If they are loud enough and despicable enough they can perhaps deflect attention away from their follies.  This way they can salvage their critically endangered self-esteem.

 The problem with this approach is that the more successes Trump has the more passionate they must become.  Unfortunately there may be a breaking point.  The cognitive dissonance between their view of themselves as unusually nice and thoughtful and the reality of their boorishness will be difficult to sustain.

So, as I say, honorable liberals are in a bind.  Whatever they choose to do, discomfort awaits them. If they continue to defend the indefensible, their unconscious will torture them.  But if they face the loss of their illusions, confusion and a moral crisis loom on the horizon.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

An Existential Crisis on the Left

Who does not want to be a good person?  Certainly, very few of us.  Perhaps some sociopaths on the fringe don’t care, but the rest of us—including the overwhelming number of both liberals and conservatives—count ourselves among the good guys.

This has created an existential crisis for those on the left. The better that Donald Trump does, the more this disconfirms their cherished beliefs.  It puts them in the unenviable position of defending policies that have negative consequences, while simultaneously attacking those that help people.

The fact is the liberalism is dying.  (See my book Post-Liberalism.)  Over the last several decades most of its initiatives have had disappointing results.  Whether in the economy, education, crime, race relations, family stability, or health, its central prescriptions have failed miserably.

But liberals cannot admit this.  To do so would endanger their self-image as compassionate intellectuals. As a result, they do more than engage in denial.  They double down on their failures and drift to ever more extreme positions.

Let me explain.  Many of our moral beliefs are tied to our ideological commitments.  Both our religious and political convictions help us identify what is good as opposed to bad.  These creeds essentially supply us with a moral compass.  They therefore provide the foundation for our world-views—including our own moral worth.

The point is that the moral worth of liberals is under attack.  They know better than anyone that their exalted view of themselves is in jeopardy.  This can be very disorienting.  It leaves them without a strategy for deciding how best to conduct themselves.

And so there is a violent counter-reaction.  First of all they deny that anything is wrong.  They have plainly made no mistakes.  It is those other guys—the bad guys, the conservatives—who are responsible for every problem to which flesh is heir.  The monster in chief, of course, is Donald Trump.

Next comes tripling down on programs that have been tried and found wanting.  A case in point is ObamaCare.  It did not improve the nation’s health or lower costs, so lets nationalize the system entirely.  Why not install an extravagantly expensive MediCare for everyone?

Or how about college for everyone?  We have already lowered the standards of higher education, so why not send them to the sub-basement by making school free to all?  Young voters love this, and hey, won’t this be a giant step toward universal equality.

This inclination toward obsolete solutions is not just a matter of intensified advocacy of long held policies; it also entails pushing them to extremes.  Liberals have long accused conservatives of being extremists, but the veil has fallen. In order to promote their ideals, they have had to reveal their immoderate parameters.

The new-found legitimacy of socialism is a prime example. Once liberals eschewed this label like the plague.  They knew that it exposed their innermost connections with communism. Now they don’t care that neither of these “isms” have worked anytime, anywhere.  They don’t even care about their sorry record of atrocities.

The latest wrinkle in this march to pseudo-idealized extremism is the campaign to close down ICE.  Despite periodic denials that Democrats want open borders, it has become obvious they do. After all, without enforcement agents how do you have a border?

One other indicator of how panicked liberals are is the escalation in incivility.  Their language was always coarser than conservatives, but now it has jumped the rails. The same goes for approving of assaults on opposition politicos.  In the past, this was avoided because it was understood that this sort of nihilism was detrimental to democratic practices.

Let’s put this in perspective.  Never before have we seen the liberal media so relentlessly vile in covering an incumbent president.  Never before have we witnessed ordinary liberals as disrespectful of friends who differ with their political views.

To borrow an over-used Obamaism, this is unprecedented. Something like it occurred during the run-up to the civil war, but today’s family hostilities are on an unparalleled scale.

Maybe it is time for liberals to look inward.  Once they realize that the current public clamor emanates from their own hearts and minds, they can address the source of their dismay—without projecting it onto others.

Extremism in defense of broken ideas will help no one.  If liberals really want to be good people, they need the courage to reevaluate what is authentically good.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Not Bias, But a Coup d'etat

The Department of Justice’s IG Report is finally out.  It was scathing.  Although many on the left are describing it as a nothing-burger that absolved the FBI of bias, they are wrong.  The data made public corroborated my suspicion that we are enduring the worst scandal of my lifetime.

Hitherto the Watergate affair held the pride of place.  It, however, has been totally eclipsed.  To see why, let us examine Richard Nixon’s sins. What exactly did he do to merit being driven from office?

Watergate started with a burglary.  This was intended to gather information about the Democratic electoral strategy so as to help the Republicans.  Only after it was discovered did Nixon become involved.  At this point, he orchestrated a cover-up to protect himself and his associates.

Compare this with the current shenanigans.  He have endured an extensive effort to deny Donald Trump the presidency and then expel him from office.  It centered in the FBI, but its tendrils extended into the Department of Justice, the CIA, and probably the White House.

We now know that a host of individuals—who hated Trump—conspired to vacate his claim to the Oval Office.  To maintain that they were biased, is a massive understatement.  These folks intended nothing less than a coup-d’état. Because they considered Trump unqualified, they felt vindicated in protecting Hillary Clinton and framing him.

A coup is an effort to circumvent legal practices and forcibly insert a desired sovereign.  Although we associate these takeovers with Banana Republics, those at the highest levels of the FBI and CIA sought exactly the same thing.  Their putsch was poorly coordinated, but the objective was identical.

In fabricating Russian collusion where it did not exist, then manufacturing imaginary obstruction of justice, the goal was impeachment. Fictional high crimes and misdemeanors were intended to undo the election.  Liberalism would therefore prevail—obviously as the God’s intended. 

Once this conspiracy started to unravel, a massive cover-up went into overdrive.  Not merely the perpetrators, but other denizens of the deep state, the media, and the public subscribed to the effort.  Lies were told, facts obscured, and ancillary accusations made.

Never before has there been such an extensive scheme to hide the truth. What makes this so scandalous is that not only high-level government officials, but mainstream news outlets and ordinary citizens participated in undermining the foundations of our democracy.

Democracies cannot function if the integrity of the electoral process is damaged.  Unless the losing parties step aside to allow the winners to govern, the will of the people is frustrated.  Plainly, for this delicate system to survive, the losers need to contain their anger and await the next electoral cycle.

The liberals in the FBI, however, decided that they knew better. They dismissed the desires of their fellow citizens as irrelevant.  Because many voters were ill-informed idiots, they did not have the right to decide. This was more than bias.  It was an assault on our democratic traditions.

What made this fiasco doubly horrible is that the press joined the conspiracy.  During the Watergate era, journalists prided themselves on investigative reporting. Today they take pleasure in invective and dissimulation.  Important stories are intentionally misrepresented and far-fetched accusations conjured from thin air.

What made it triply horrible is that millions of Americans also jumped aboard.  Like most usurpers, these progressives persuaded themselves that they were saving the nation by annihilating those who threatened it.  They never realized that in condoning a coup, they constituted a bigger threat.

Richard Nixon, in covering up for his underlings, violated his oath of office.  He failed to uphold the constitution.  But what James Comey, and his band of miscreants, did was far worse.  They not only took the law into their own hands, they jeopardized the fate of the nation.

Nixon was accused of precipitating a constitution crisis.  In fact, he merely misgoverned.  Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok, in contrast, occasioned an authentic constitutional crisis.  Hence, if their attempted coup is not a calamity, I don’t know what is.  And if millions of Americans fail to recognize this, it is an appalling tragedy.

Bias is unfortunate.  But ignoring evidence of an incipient revolution is suicidal.  This is not a game!  The enemy is within our gates.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Defining Deviance Further Down

In the 1990’s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined a phrase that is still with us.  A sociologist and U.S. senator, he looked askance at the growing tendency to lower our moral standards.  Since his day things have gotten worse, with new lows recorded annually.

Our latest dive toward the bottom was revealed in the reaction to an off-hand comment by Rudy Giuliani.  He publicly affirmed that he did not have a positive opinion of the porn star Stormy Daniels.  Her profession, not merely her antipathy toward Donald Trump, was cited to make his case.

Almost immediately a howl of protests went up.  Left-leaning analysts demanded an apology.  How could Rudy so insult a woman?  Here she was, unusually accomplished in her occupation, and he had the temerity to attack her.  This was clearly bias.

But I ask you, since when did being a porn star become honorable? Is prostitution similarly praiseworthy? Will fathers soon start encouraging their daughters to become whores?  This work, after all, is well paying and affords plenty of leisure.

Are we really to believe that every kind of activity is equally respectable?  Is having sex with a multitude of strangers laudatory—assuming the performer has the appropriate political views?  Is attacking president Trump so admirable that it confers dignity on every aspect of a person’s life?

Were this so, there would not be a dime’s worth of difference between Daniels and Nikki Haley.  Having sex in front of cameras and representing the United Stated in the United Nations would be of equal value.  Why then put in the effort to achieve the latter when it is so much easier to do the former?

One of the most insane dictums emanated from liberals is that everyone deserves unconditional positive regard.  No matter how they behave, all merit the same respect.  Whether they are angels of devils, identical levels of admiration are warranted.

Those who make this assertion do not realize that morality must be encouraged if it is to be honored.  Because it is often simpler to tell lies than unpleasant truths, from childhood onward we are urged to be honest.  Accordingly, a failure to promote morality is basically the equivalent of promoting vice.

Unconditional positive regard is supposed to save people from feeling guilty about misbehaving.  This purportedly helps them maintain their self-esteem by never threatening their self–images.  Being critical, on the other hand, could depress them, thereby destroying their ability to lead successful lives.

It thus follows that what we need is sea-to-sea happy talk.  If everyone is to be truly equal; if no one is to feel less worthy, destructive evaluations must be banished.  Besides, boosting folk’s egos by telling them how wonderful they are encourages them to live up to higher standards.

Wait.  Does anyone believe this?  Does continually telling people that they are terrific inspire them to do better? Let’s be serious: why would they bother? If striking out is just as meritorious as hitting a home run, why spend hours of practice to improve one’s swing?

When it comes to morality, an incentive to do good is essential.  Prostitution, murder and theft will always be with us.  Nevertheless, they will be more common if we take a neutral attitude toward every form of conduct.

Once we told our children that they should follow the lead of George Washington and never tell a lie.  This, to be sure, was based on an unrealistic idealization.  Yet should we take the opposite tack and ask young people to admire Daniels because she is a “star”?  If so, our families—and nation—are likely to disintegrate.

When lying is praised because it promotes the policies we favor; when violating the law is ignored because it protects people we admire, we are on a slippery slope.  If we do not call a halt to this slide into moral oblivion, we will pay a terrible price.

As for me, I am prepared to call Daniels a “slut.”  I know this is not nice. Indeed, it is intended to be harsh. While others may wish to pretend that sexual promiscuity is on a par with sexual fidelity, I must demur.  If this makes my detractors angry, I am prepared to endure their outrage.

Defending our moral standards is worth it!   Actually, it is long past time that we make valid distinctions.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University