I remember the halcyon undergraduate days in Chapel Hill, when we were all reading Marxist theory and singing along with the Beach Boys (talk about conflicting views of the world!).
That was when I first learned about the two-step dance designed to destroy Western Civilization: (1) Destabilize the institutions and (2) Foment violence in the streets.
General unease (destabilization) moves into fear and panic (violence in the streets); revolution, and a new, all-powerful, government emerges. I naively thought that could never happen here.
Well, fast-forward 50 years. Please name one institution not being systematically destabilized. And what on earth is going on in our streets? First: a quick inventory of our important institutions:
Medicine: Obamacare and all that goes with it. Regulations driving small practices out of business. Having a doctor who knows you and whom you know, for most, is a memory. The march toward impersonal homogenized bigness continues and accelerates. Destabilization is a gentle word to describe what has happened to medicine.
Courts: Kavanaugh confirmation.
Police: Policemen ambushed while sitting in their cars; no arrests. Remember Ferguson? A policeman shoots and kills a 300 lb. man high on drugs who was trying to take the officer’s gun while breaking the bones in his face. The officer gets a pink slip (along with his broken eye socket). Bricks to the head, lasers to the eyes, and orders from leftist politicians to stand down. And then there is the “defund the police” thing. Destabilizing law enforcement is a must for the left. It is related to step two (fomenting violence in the streets).
Nuclear Family: no-fault divorce, “sacred vows” reduced to meaninglessness, abortion, same-sex marriage, rampant co-habitation and bastardy — all this destabilizes the family unit.
Gender: Destabilization defined.
International Relations: empty threats, “lines in the sand,” abandoning our allies in Iraq to slaughter, making nice with murderous tyrants in Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Cuba, sending planeloads of cash to Iran while they are developing a nuclear weapon — which weapon they promise to use on our ally, Israel.
Destabilizing?
Military: Women and homosexuals in combat units, defunding, (the left is big on defunding the people whose job it is to keep the bad guys off the good guys), political preapproval required to fire on enemies, Benghazi, endless wars with no objective. Destabilizing?
Immigration: Millions and millions of illegal aliens who with no English, no skills, no appreciation of our history or culture, overwhelming our social safety net, public schools, emergency rooms and hospitals. Might this have a destabilizing effect on the fabric of our communities to say nothing of the legal immigration process?
Education: Speech codes, enforced intellectual homogeneity in faculty hiring, safe spaces, trigger warnings, persecution of anything non-PC, and even at my beautiful Carolina, Silent Sam is torn from his plinth in the night by masked criminals (who threw pre-placed frozen water bottles at the woefully outmanned campus police) only to have the administration later finish the job by removing the plinth with heavy equipment — again, at night. Is that the orderly and respectful debate that is the essence of education? No, but it is destabilizing.
Elections: Mail-in ballots, felons voting, illegal aliens registering, ballot harvesting, elections not decided for weeks or months after “election day;” here it comes — destabilization of the election process.
And what about the office of the Presidency? Is there anything that could be done that has not been done to destabilize that institution?
And, as for step (2), fomenting violence in the streets: Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Kenosha, Ferguson, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Washington, Raleigh — masked looters, arsonists and vandals screaming unrepeatable obscenities while our police officers are ordered by state and local officials to stand there, watch and take it. Fomenting violence in the streets — easy — just let violent mobs of thieves and arsonists run wild.
I would respectfully submit that once the police are successfully defunded, demoralized and neutered, the last bulwark against having the riots move into our neighborhoods is the Second Amendment. Arson, rapine and looting is much easier in residential neighborhood after homeowners are disarmed. Have you noticed that leftist politicians all seem committed to disarming the law-abiding citizen? That will take care of that last impediment to a helpless citizenry. Violence, anarchy and terror will follow with centralized power offered as a cure.
Constitution? What Constitution?
So, (1) destabilize institutions and (2) foment violence in the streets. I would humbly submit that if we remember those two steps, we can understand that what appears to be irrational, purposeless violence and destruction might not be irrational and purposeless after all. I heard it all 50 years ago in the shadow of the Old Well.
