Don's Tuesday Column

      THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   7/25/2023

                 Small towns, hatred and freedom

In the novel, “1984,” by George Orwell, “Two Minutes Hate,” and “Hate Week,” are eerily relevant to American culture and politics. On Google: 1984’s “Two Minutes Hate serves as an effective tool to control the masses and instill loyalty to the Party… encouraging citizens to express their hate for enemies of the Party [which] reinforces the Party’s power over its citizens… Hate Week is a psychological operation designed to increase as much as possible the population’s hatred of the current enemy of the totalitarian Party….”

It explains much of the “progressive” or “woke” culture, working its way from politics to academia to the “Millennial” and “Gen Z” groups taking their places in society. Hatred, or wrath, one of the “seven deadly sins,” is a diabolical means to subvert the hearts and minds of a group, a culture or a nation. Throughout human history and its civilizations, man’s inability to resist the allure of hatred has been a motivating force for evil.

The hatred of Jews in Hitler’s Nazi Germany compares to the hatred of capitalists, the bourgeoise, kulak farmers and peasants—who were slaughtered by Soviet Communists on a scale exceeding that of the Jews under Hitler. Centuries of hatred against Christians fomented by Muslims produced slaughters rivaling the death toll of Communism’s march through Asia, Europe and elsewhere.

We are witnessing the rise of “Two minutes (or a Week) of Hate” as a default reaction by the left in America to any resistance to their “current thing,” be it the “sex change-alphabet” cult, or abortion/climate/race fanaticism, or anything related to Donald Trump’s Republicans. It usually spends itself out in about 72 hours, unless it can be transferred onto the “next thing,” or a new iteration of the “current thing,” or the “intersectionality” of all things the left uses to keep visceral emotions aroused, directed at enemies.

Witness this pattern in reactions to country singer Jason Aldean’s song and video, “Try That in a Small Town.” News footage shows the literal hatred that produces violence, riots, anti-cop and anti-American flag sentiments and actions—contrasted with the way small town values don’t tolerate such destructive hatred.

“Projection” by the usual left-wing suspects finds (mostly nonexistent) racism and faux hatred under every rock and in every expression of decent American values, values noticeably absent from urban violence, crime, riots, and the rationalizations justifying said social contagions.

I didn’t notice Black faces in “Small Town.” Those insisting that the music video contains “dog whistle” race-baiting are admitting they know darn well that the perpetrators are overwhelmingly young Black men, but want to lob accusations of racism at Aldean for simply using the images. I saw white faces of anti-cop haters spitting on police trying their best to maintain order amid violent chaos.

Those waving the “offended” flag should check their hypocritical double standards over their tacit acceptance of rap and hip hop lyrics rife with the “n-word,” misogyny, and crude sexual obsession and abuse. Just look up “WAP” by Black “artist” Cardi B. “WAP” stands for three words, only one of which, “Wet,” is printable in a family newspaper. The first four words are “Beat it up, n---a…,” a line no White singer could utter. Disgusting.

Jason Aldean’s lyrics, on the other hand, could be read by or to anyone: “Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk; Carjack an old lady at a red light; Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store; Ya think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya like.

“Cuss out a cop, spit in his face; Stomp on the flag and light it up; Yeah, ya think you’re tough; Well, try that in a small town; See how far ya make it down the road; Around here, we take care of our own; You cross the line, it won’t take long…” It’s time we stand up and cheer for righteous bravery; against the “fools” and their implicit support for social devastation; and for gun rights that back that up. “Small town” = Red Bluff.

“Free speech” is under attack. Not the easy, agreeable, acceptable speech approved by the governing class, and by leftists in elite culture—but speech expressing hard ideas disagreed with by those in power, speech deemed unacceptable or unpopular. Also, speech that undermines the preferred narratives and “conventional wisdom” approved of by those with courts, jail cells and guns.

Hence, the Biden administration is weighing in against a court decision that found government agencies of national security, health, and information propagation, were illegally working hand-in-glove, degrees-removed from social media, undermining freedoms our Constitution was formulated to protect.

Biden et al demand that media behemoths “cancel” and censor the thoughts and words that are forbidden—but cannot be directly suppressed—by the federal government. Speech related to vaccines, election fraud, corruption and despotic control of citizens’ freedom of expression, must be censored lest the people—the “democracy” so ironically revered by “progressives”—seize their representative chambers and rein in the abusers and their totalitarian machinations.