{"id":44145,"date":"2025-12-09T01:05:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T01:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/?p=44145"},"modified":"2026-01-28T01:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:51:20","slug":"liberty-for-what-why-polarization-is-downstream-of-pluralism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/?p=44145","title":{"rendered":"Liberty, For What? Why Polarization is Downstream of Pluralism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Judgement of Paris by<\/em> Jacques-Cl\u00e9ment Wagrez<\/em> (1886)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has been uttered about the problem of political and social polarization in the United States; yet despite the recurrent discussions, no new insight is actually gained. Even after the assassination of Charlie Kirk made the fanaticism of the Left apparent for all to see, many \u201cconservatives\u201d still prefer to engage in debate with those who would applaud their death. The anointed voices of our limp-wristed institutions may well plead pathetically for tolerance and kindness in our \u201cdifficult times\u201d\u2014but to what end? Do they ever truly delve into the source of the division? Never.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicians and pundits alike superficially answer it by making pathetic appeals to a renewed faith in a hopelessly corrupt system, an \u201cexperiment in democracy\u201d which has ended in combining the three worst forms of government\u2014tyranny, oligarchy, and mob rule. How else can one explain the rampant disenfranchisement of our native stock through mass immigration, the nefarious lobbying racket in Washington D.C., and the empowerment of the feminist philistines who vote for the \u201cright\u201d to slaughter the unborn? Yet, the confessors of democracy urge us not to apostatize. They beg the public to not lose faith in \u201cour democracy\u201d, while in the next sentence\u2014or even in the same one\u2014they will praise its pluralism, its diversity<\/em>. A curious statement, indeed: why praise the pluralism of races, religions, cultures, and even \u201csexual identities\u201d in this country, but deny the dignity of pluralism to anti-democratic ideologies? Such schizophrenic statements evoke the sensationalist messaging of the Chinese Communist Party to its subjects\u2014without \u201cour democracy\u201d, there would be no America!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading between the lines of this absurd rhetoric, one observes a deeper problem: the lack of common standards in the United States. The politicians and pundits\u2019 appeal to unity around the principles of American democracy is worthless, because it will rightly be followed by this question: \u201cWhat are<\/em> those principles?\u201d To that question, these Washington\u2019s Witnesses will produce mutually exclusive answers, depending upon their interpretation of the tenets of the American civic religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This trouble ultimately derives from the conflict over the place of religion in American society that preceded and followed the Revolution. Since the colonies were dominated by a populace of self-identified Christians that shared no unity of church affiliation, this was to be expected. The exaltation of so-called \u201cEnlightenment\u201d values by the revolutionaries, however, would only further complicate the issue. Hence, the resulting discord surrounding the matter of religion was inevitable. While some founders, such as Thomas Jefferson<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and Thomas Paine, favored secularism, others such as Samuel Adams<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and Patrick Henry<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> favored Christian influence in social and political life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the First Amendment\u2019s prohibition against establishing any form of state religion at the national level (the individual states themselves being a different matter),<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Christian values have been intrinsically united to the American identity. Witness one statement among many which can be quoted on this subject that was offered by the famed nineteenth-century French observer Alexis de Tocqueville:<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n


…[T]he revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not permit them to violate the laws that oppose their designs; nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of their partisans if they were able to get over their own. Hitherto no one in the United States has dared to advance the maxim that everything is permissible for the interests of society, an impious adage which seems to have been invented in an age of freedom to shelter all future tyrants.<\/p>\n(De Tocqueville 305)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Thus the American conception of liberty was intrinsically connected to Christian social values; how far removed is this from the licentious understanding of today! Lamentably, it is evident that the \u201cimpious adage\u201d which Tocqueville mentions has indeed served to \u201cshelter all future tyrants”; we daily suffer under them. They have used the \u201cinterests of society\u201d to advance such abominations as abortion on demand, sodomitical sham marriages, and transvestite mutilation rituals. They have made the disgusting and the barbaric seem virtuous by moralizing to our people that it is in the \u201cinterests of society\u201d for these things to be tolerated\u2014and even celebrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what occurs when one speaks against these \u201cinterests\u201d? The possible consequences are many: shunning, mandatory \u201csensitivity training\u201d sessions, loss of employment, and public denouncement by means of the Internet are the most likely. It is then the case that secular humanistic political correctness has displaced Christian morality in the contemporary United States, and is enforced upon the people with an iron rigor. How then did Americans fall under this tyranny?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It came about through the abandonment of Christian social morality for secular humanistic political correctness. This apostasy was no thief in the night; it was the culmination of the centuries\u2019 old contest between secularism and religiosity that fused Jefferson\u2019s ideal of the \u201cwall of separation\u201d with an extension of the Protestant principle of private judgment to justify the creation of an American la\u00efcit\u00e9<\/em>. Consequently, the previously Christian sense of liberty that had permeated American law and society was replaced with its revision, the libertine spirit of the nineteen-sixties. Perhaps no statement better encapsulates this a priori<\/em> redefinition than the following infamous words:<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n


At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.<\/p>\n(Planned Parenthood v. Casey<\/em>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Though it may sound profound at first, this \u201cheart of liberty\u201d falls apart upon further examination. For an attentive study of human nature indicates that most people simply lack the resolve to undertake the sort of intellectual quest that is necessary to \u201cdefine one\u2019s own concept\u201d of any of the listed criteria. How many have sailed calmly through the pages of the Holy Bible and the sacred texts of other faiths, and continued their soul-seeking voyage through all nine volumes of Copleston\u2019s A History of Philosophy<\/em>?And of these, how many came finally to the safe harbor of their own \u201cconcept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life\u201d through contemplating the great ideas contained within those works? The author of this article has met not even one such person\u2014and you, dear reader, have probably met no such person yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The promise of unfettered intellectual and spiritual freedom is a burden too great to bear for even the highly intelligent, let alone the mass of men. The latter choose to live unexamined lives, and use their \u201cfreedom\u201d to take the path of ease\u2014to adopt the morality of the American civic religion, which teaches the nineteen-sixties revision of liberty through the state-run public education system, which the Calvinist theologian Rushdoony rightly termed \u201cthe established church of these United States.\u201d<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Be not mistaken: like any organized faith, it has<\/em> doctrines. Though it emphasizes \u201cinclusion\u201d and \u201cdiversity\u201d, the generous latitudarianism of the public school only extends to those who share the same liberal egalitarian principles<\/em> as themselves. Accordingly, any viewpoint that falls outside of this worldview falls under their intolerance. Most of all they despise the traditional White Christian identity, hence they damn it as racist, sexist, antisemitic, homophobic, Islamophobic, colonialist, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In tandem with this vast system, the mass media merely composes a reinforcing mechanism for the people and a reeducation program for adults who were not available for the first round of their Americanist catechism lessons. Such powerful institutions are difficult to ignore and militate against for Americans, even if one is fortunate to have been insulated from these corroding powers by their parents. For in this \u201cdemocracy\u201d\u2014and in all democracies as Aristotle defined them\u2014if one does not follow the opinions of those demagogues who control the mob, then one is an enemy of \u201cthe people\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In theory<\/em>, therefore, the American people are free to choose their belief systems; in fact<\/em>, they are subtly pressured into adopting the morality of the state. Secular humanism has duped the American people; like Satan, its false prophets have promised them that \u201cyou shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil\u201d (Genesis 3:5)\u2014only to make them slaves of a new Babylon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with all hypocrisies\u2014no matter how subtle\u2014deceit essentially leads to the ruin of contradiction. Hence the collapse of Christian social values in favor of secular humanist libertinism has ended in the epistemic divorce of what American liberty even means<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreigners who would have been refused entry before the Hart-Keller Act have a \u201cright\u201d to migrate to the United States because this is liberty; <\/em>banks force homeowners into usurious mortgages because this is liberty;<\/em> mothers deliver their infants to the abortionist slaughterhouse because this is liberty<\/em>. These are the products of the libertine revision of liberty<\/em>. Yet the immigration quotas, strict usury limits, and the crime of abortion that were all enshrined in the laws before the turbulence of the sixties clearly indicate the Christian sense of liberty. Thus the spirit of the laws is roughly divided between two ages: the Republic before 1965 and the Republic after 1965. While American conservatives ought to defend the former spirit, they often end in conserving the latter. The American liberals, on the other hand, are unequivocal\u2014they do not flinch from the jihad of imposing the former spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when conservatives do<\/em> attempt to conserve the older spirit, this further reveals the rupture. If\u2014as famously happened less than a decade ago\u2014liberals and conservatives both cite the same constitution to assault or defend a man who, on the basis of his Christian values, refuses to bake a wedding cake for two sodomites, does this not indicate the incoherence of the Americanist creed? It has suffered the same fate as Protestantism: unity in name only. The constitution is the Scripture of the American civic religion, and liberty its grace; thus Dryden\u2019s critique of the Anglican church rightly applies:<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

As long as words a diff\u2019rent sense will bear,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And each may be his own Interpreter,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our ai\u2019ry faith will no foundation find<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word\u2019s a weathercock for ev\u2019ry wind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bear<\/em>, the Fox<\/em>, the Wolfe <\/em>by turns prevail,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most in pow\u2019r supplies the present gale.<\/p>\n
(I. 462-467)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Americanist state can be analogized to a high church and the faithful common people its low church. Among and inside these realms doctrinal wars are waged to maintain or overthrow the post-1965 regime. This is a crisis of legitimacy; the Americanist state, as the established Church of England before it, is forced to battle dissenters from within and outside its fold while attempting to preserve a consistent body of teaching. Understandably, this conflict is made all the more arduous given that both these governments were born of usurpations that justified themselves on the principle of private interpretation or the liberty of conscience\u2014two principles that are really one and the same. It was this relativism that was weaponized into an unstable unity, a rallying cry to topple the sane liberty of Christian order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American civic religion has therefore destroyed American liberty by means of its \u201cwall of separation\u201d between Church and State. For this vaunted separation ends with the State claiming absolute moral authority for itself. Thus, the State becomes<\/em> the Church\u2014a detestable tyranny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Must Americans then wander in the darkness, with no true light to guide them? No! There is indeed a shining city on the hill\u2014and that city is Eternal Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is the one font of civilization and religion. In her alone there is both the heritage of the universal empire and the perpetual work of the universal Church. This is not to argue, however, that one ought to follow the impostors in the Vatican because these new pharisees have created a new church. They have made their authority void because they have betrayed the Catholic religion in favor of the same ambiguities that have ruptured both Protestantism and Americanism. Hence the internecine arguments over matters of faith within their Roman Protestant Church that had been considered long settled before the so-called Second Vatican Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the genuine Catholic Church, the present crisis is one of many. She has weathered other storms. In doctrine, she has survived the terrible revolts of Arius and Luther; in morals, she has overcome the scandal of the pornocracy and the piratical swindling of the simoniacs. Even if one does not have faith, one must admit that for any institution to endure such crises is simply extraordinary, especially over a period of nearly two thousand years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God is Truth; He cannot contradict Himself. Read St. Paul: \u201cOne Lord, one faith, one baptism\u201d (Ephesians 4:5). All these are preserved in the authentic Roman rite, and are expressed by the traditional Catholic doctrines and principles which have, though in obscurity, have continued down to our time. It is this spiritual unity that formed Europe out of the collapse of the Western Empire, and it is this same unity that will provide the necessary weltanschauung<\/em> to reform the West. For unlike the American civic religion, it is this Catholic unity that is capable of reforming itself<\/em> when its principles are attacked from within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E pluribus unum?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[28,37,31,8,22,10,36],"class_list":["post-44145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-america","tag-culture","tag-education","tag-faith","tag-history","tag-philosophy","tag-politics"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44145"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51322,"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44145\/revisions\/51322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmenidean.is\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}