Nations can be assessed by their people’s belief in liberty, or the degree to which its politics support it.[1] Dating as far back as the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215,[2] societal progress was measured by its increased diffusion of power, which moved away from centralized authorities such as monarchs and into the hands of the public through democratic representation. Despite the progress, there have been periods – and nations – that offered liberty to greater and lesser degrees. This movement has not seen uninterrupted expansion, but liberty has clearly increased throughout the world. The United States, often seen as a beacon for hope and opportunity, has been no exception. One could easily view the course of American history as one which consistently finds the forces of oppression and liberty building and colliding in dramatic fashion as the agents of change press forward against the old guard.
This even predates the formation of the United States. Indeed, America was born of these forces. A review of the writings immediately preceding the American Revolution clearly reveal that the conflict itself resulted from colonists’ expressed concerns over the increasing British presence in North America and King George III’s dismissal of his subjects’ interests, despite warning signs.[3] The Civil War was a conflict resulting from two competing visions for the future of a nation, one united and free from the expansion of slavery, one more loosely affiliated while retaining slavery.[4] World War II transcended internal domestic threats to include the international – a coalition of free nations vs. those that embraced fascism, the Allies and Axis powers respectively.[5] In each case, liberty won the day, but not without enduring oppressions and subjugation at the hands of the empowered – taxation without representation in the 18th Century, the bondage of one third of its citizens in the 19th Century, the domestic tyranny and warmongering of fascism in the 20th Century.
Herein lie a pattern, and we would do well to observe it now in the 21st Century, less we should suffer the more perilous fates of cataclysms past. Few historians would disagree that these three wars are the most pivotal national entanglements in America’s history. They are its most formative wars with the most consequential of outcomes. Each resulted from long-standing grievances, injustices, and anger that were largely fueled by emerging philosophies – Enlightenment,[6] Transcendentalism[7] and Progressivism – each projecting its values through politics that would lead movements to considerably restructure society with dominating new premises – Self-rule, Abolition and Social Insurance.
Sometimes lost in history is that each movement was met with fierce debate well before war erupted. Though much disputed to this day, some have even estimated that only a third of colonists supported war against England while a third remained loyal to the crown and the remaining third were neutral.[8] The Civil War, largely geographical in its political origins, experienced a more obvious divide with Southern states beginning the process of secession with the mere election of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. Ahead of secession and setting the tone, however, were the spirited Lincoln – Douglas debates[9] and the violent beating of the anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner in the United States Senate Chamber by the pro-slavery Representative Preston Brooks.[10] Although Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and handling of World War II is most commonly viewed favorably by modern historians – and at the very least, as a symbol of a leader willing to take action to assist a struggling population – America was fiercely divided on his efforts to enlist the nation into war, which was met by the original isolationist America First movement. [11] Through discourse and debate, through resulting war, each period saw the nation reborn from the ashes of conflagration. And in each rebirth, it thrived monumentally, seeing its greatest periods of expansion and growth.
Once More Unto the Breach
Tensions have been boiling in America for the last half century, beginning with a 1960s counterculture movement that saw young people establishing combines separated from society, abandoning traditional Western morals and protesting the physical and sociological violence of war and racism,[12] an emerging philosophy that led to its academic expression, Postmodernism,[13] which, in turn, gave rise to ideas such as critical race theory[14] and intersectionality,[15] political philosophies that redefine the power structure, rejecting the more conventional thinking in favor of a highly critical assessment of America’s past. And from academia, these beliefs have graduated into various professional fields including government, industry, technology and the press – the levers of power and influence.
In each of the preceding centuries’ major crises, the argument for change was predicated on the urgent need to remedy an intolerable sin or injustice. Today’s progressives, or democratic-socialists, are making that very claim, and – justified or not – their professions are driving the growing divide in American society. At its highest levels, the increasing conflict and intransigence in American politics has reached a point where an influential House Representative would accuse a sitting Senator – after the Senator agreed with her – of ‘trying to get her killed’[16] and the Speaker, with the Capitol surrounded by the National Guard, declared “the enemy is within the House of Representatives.”[17]
Calls for change and their passionate, frequently hyperbolic, decries have always been met with a degree of resistance, a natural manifestation of what psychologists refer to as cognitive and psychological inertia, or the status-quo bias. And the greater the call for change, the greater the resistance. But there is an interesting dichotomy developing this time around.
Whereas, from the American perspective, the Revolution, Civil War and World War II were all rooted in righting a wrong by preventing the proliferation of measurable and undisputed forms of oppression, events that would see earned power used to expand liberty to varying degrees, this modern cold civil war[18] is developing into one where the proponents for change have championed elements of oppression as the solution, rather than the obstacle, to a free nation. And rather than diffusing the power of the elites, it is diffusing the power of its citizens.
Although an argument could be made that the 20th Century Progressives offered oppressive solutions in the forms of wealth redistribution through the 16th Amendment’s (1913) national income tax, compulsory military service with the Selective Service Act (1917) and prohibition of alcohol with the 18th Amendment (1919), these events, though precursors to the New Deal era, predate the height of the social insurance movement by decades.
In uncharted territory, America is now on a collision course with itself. There are two centuries-old trends in play. Does the nation continue with that which saw emerging philosophies produce systemic change to society, or does it continue with the one that shows liberty triumphing over tyranny? Then again, how do we define oppression anymore?
Unlike several crises that Americans’ experienced over the last century, which were often driven by market forces, sometimes almost entirely economic in origin, such as the Great Depression and the Great Recession, this new experience extends well beyond the economic, absorbing socio-political society in the process. Developing for years, accelerated by empowered government officials during the Coronavirus crisis, it is becoming increasingly tangible to Americans yearning to breathe free, but history will remember…
…The Great Suppression.
(This is the introduction to a forthcoming series of articles examining what The Offence will be referring to as The Great Suppression.)
[1] Ian Vasquez and Fred McMahon, Human Freedom Index: 2020, (Cato Institute, 2021)
[2] Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, Magna Carta: What is it – and why is it still important today? (Independent, 2015)
[3] Bernard Bailyn The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, (1967)
[4] Editors, Civil War, (History.com)
[5] The Origins Of World War II, 1929 – 1939, (Britannica.com)
[6] Enlightenment, (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017)
[7] Transcendentalism, (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019)
[8] The American Revolution and the Minority Myth, William F. Marina, (Independent Institute, 1975)
[9] Fergus M. Bordewich, How Lincoln Bested Douglas in Their Famous Debates, (Smithsonian Magazine, 2008)
[10] The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner, (United States Senate)
[11] Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939 – 1941, (2013)
[12] Counterculture of the 1960s, (Wikipedia)
[13] Postmodernism, (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015)
[14] Chris Demaske, Critical Race Theory, (The First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009)
[15] Jane Coaston, The intersectionality wars, (Vox, 2019)
[16] Matthew Impelli, AOC Accuses Ted Cruz of ‘Almost’ Having Her ‘Murdered” After He Agrees With Her on Robinhood, (Newsweek, 2021)
[17] Rebecca Kaplan, Nancy Pelosi: “The enemy is within” the House of Representatives, (CBS, 2020)
[18] Grace Kay, A majority of Americans surveyed believe the US is in the midst of a ‘cold’ civil war, (Business Insider, 2021)
The Offence 