If we take the time to study antiquity, we learn that ancient man shared the same dreams and awareness as we do. We learn, perhaps surprisingly, that man possessed even that far back very sophisticated philosophical views. Greek philosopher Plato wrote a treatise on education named "Republic," in which he focused on the allegory of mankind living in darkness in a cave, and that education was the pathway to enlightenment, literally stepping out into the light with courage and wisdom.
For a long time, we believed firmly that education was the principle means by which society uplifted itself, advancing both in technological terms, but more importantly in spiritual and philosophical terms. In 1689, English philosopher John Locke published a canonic work titled, "Two Treatises of Government," in which he laid out the foundations of inalienable rights that all men had to "life, liberty, and property." Published when it was, it was a work that sent shockwaves through the body politic of a society still very much ruled by a monarchy, secure in its doctrine of divine right of kings to rule absolutely.
The Magna Carta may well have ushered in limits to divine rights, but when ordained in 1215, it was actually rather limited, especially since it reserved these nascent rights to merely the fellow nobles in English society, protecting them from the capricious avarices of the monarch. It was soon challenged by many, and eventually survived against violent challenge. But, at no time did the commoners enjoy any rights from it. Rights, such as they were, were assigned to the nobility alone.
Locke's philosophy established the concept that inalienable rights exist for all people. In 1776, philosopher Thomas Jefferson used Locke's views as the foundation for his immortal Declaration of Independence, but with wise counsel from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, successfully amended Locke's rights from life, liberty, and property, to something far more expansive: live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Authoritarianism cannot live in a society that calls itself a Constitutional Republic. Our laws are designed to protect liberty, not to advance any singular point of view and coerce citizens to accept it against their will. Our courts exist to settle natural conflicts of people in their exercise of liberty, not to pander to bias, and rule outside the structure of those laws. Academia exists to provide the pathway to enlightenment, not to enslave our youth to blind obedience to selfish agenda. Governments exist to secure the blessings of liberty, not to abandon their sacred duties and cowardly enable anarchists to set up illegal hegemony over citizens.
Imperfect as the history of America has been, through the failure of the Articles of the Confederation, to the initially stymied goals of the Constitution, and ultimately to the extreme tribulations of the Civil War, and the follow on challenges of the Klan and its destruction of the too brief period of emancipation, America has had at its behest a set of codified ideals, formally laying out the principles of liberty that can guide a diverse society on a path of genuine harmony.
When we have rejected liberty, America has faced its darkest moments. When it has embraced them, America enjoyed its greatest success. The only way a diverse society can exist in harmony is through individual self-determination, in a society determined not merely to acknowledge the inalienable rights of man, but to embrace and secure those rights.
Education, as Plato related, is the pathway to enlightenment, but only if education is reserved for moral principles centered on securing the blessings of liberty. Indoctrination can be substituted for education, and if systems calling themselves academia, choose instead to become centers of indoctrination, then academia ceases to be what Plato envisioned, and instead become instruments of tyranny.
As laid out in our Declaration of Independence, "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
So, what happens to municipal governments in America who are derelict in their duties to safeguard life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness? They must be abolished, and replaced with new government that secures those rights. The original Lockean concept of property may be more appropriate to the looting and general breakdown of law and order, ongoing in our cities right now, but the Jeffersonian view of "pursuit of happiness" implies that for people to be happy, they must be secure in their possessions. Indeed, the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution makes plain, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures, shall not be violated." What can be a greater violation than to see one's businesses, houses, papers, and property destroyed by angry mobs, with the local police being ordered to stand down and allow it to happen, or by a vengeful academia destroying educational dreams because it cannot embrace diversity of personal opinion!
It would be folly to argue of preserved pursuit of happiness, either a person who poured his life's work into building a business, to see it destroyed by a mob, or a student, who pursues dreams of academic success, having those efforts destroyed because he dares utter a word contrary to the new orthodoxy established on campus. In both cases, pursuit of happiness was destroyed.
We now witness the insane reality of a six-block area of downtown Seattle, Washington, taken over by a mob, who have brazenly established an illegal para-military force, engaged in illegal detention of citizens, and now harass and make demands at gunpoint for ad-hoc payments, all in gross violation of standing laws. The mayor of Seattle ordered the police in this district's precinct to abandon their posts, and allowed this mob to occupy and establish themselves as an illegal government over the local population, and has called this act moral. This is total breakdown of Constitutional order, a wholesale abandonment of core governmental duties.
Our institutions of higher learning have turned themselves into institutions of tyranny, with professors openly saying they will destroy the academic careers of any student who's name appears on lists of so-called "hate speech offenders," lists managed by nebulous groups, who've assigned to themselves an unchecked right to make such unilateral determinations. Professors who speak against these acts of demagoguery are attacked by their fellow academics, and pressured to resign their positions. Diversity of thought is being crushed as academia increasingly allies itself with authoritarianism.
Institutions sever business relationships with companies who's owners and CEO's dare to utter words that, regardless of their civility, temperament, or truth, runs even slightly counter to the rigid orthodoxy advanced by this cabal of academics. Today's academia isn't leading people into the light, they are driving them back into darkness!
Authoritarianism cannot live in a society that calls itself a Constitutional Republic. Our laws are designed to protect liberty, not to advance any singular point of view and coerce citizens to accept it against their will. Our courts exist to settle natural conflicts of people in their exercise of liberty, not to pander to bias, and rule outside the structure of those laws. Academia exists to provide the pathway to enlightenment, not to enslave our youth to blind obedience to selfish agenda. Governments exist to secure the blessings of liberty, not to abandon their sacred duties and cowardly enable anarchists to set up illegal hegemony over citizens.
We must stand bravely against these crazed people, who either remain ignorant of what liberty looks like, or have rejected it in blind pursuit of singular obsessions. What has happened in America over the last few weeks is a serious challenge to our way of life, but more importantly, a challenge to liberty, and a challenge that we must defeat.
-- Ken Stallings
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