A few days ago, I wrote about the cancel culture movement (*link appears at the end of this article). There seems to be some confusion between the leftist activist movement in our country and cancel culture. I see two distinct movements at work. On the one hand, cancel culture is used primarily as a vehicle for a group or groups of people to take down (cancel) public figures or businesses that offend them. They use social media to group shame those whom they wish to ostracize or to withdraw their support.
Sharply contrast this to leftist activists who seek to take down the United States government from within through various means like financing rioting, violence, destruction of property, and other lawlessness. Activist leftists use social media, too, but their end game is different. They desire to set up a new United States government rather than cancel individuals or businesses from the culture.
How did we get here? During the Enlightenment Period (1715-1789), there was a division between people who wanted to use religious principles as a governing foundation and those who wanted to replace religion with science and reason. In other words, take God out of the public square and employ man’s reason and science instead. This dichotomy of thought still exists today.
Our Founding Fathers concluded that power comes from God, not government. The idea that power came from God to the king, then to the commoners was unacceptable. The Founders studied ancient and contemporary writings about government. The Magna Carta, which sits in the National Archives alongside our organic founding documents, was one of these ancient writings.
Before that, you would only get whatever rights the king decided you should have. You could not gain redress of your grievances because the king had a sort of divine power and control over you. Contrast that way of governing with our Declaration of Independence, which states that our Creator endows you and me with certain unalienable rights. So, you are born with God-given rights like life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights can’t be taken away by human will. They come from God. The Declaration of Independence tells us that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” You and I are “the governed” in that sentence. We elect our government. They work for us.
At the root of all of the disruption and violence in the United States, today is the fundamental difference between those who believe that our rights come from a human’s will, and those who believe that our rights come from God. When God gives you your rights, you are accountable. Lawlessness is not accepted as usual, practical, or a means to get what you want. Instead, you engage in methods like voting, respectful debate, and peaceful protest. You can present the government with redress of your grievance, which is not in the form of explosives, insurrections, violence, or destruction. The government of the United States calls us to a higher standard rather than catering to our base impulses without regard for our neighbors.
Thinking through the current crises in our culture is Common Sense Civics and Citizenship.??
*https://www.facebook.com/commonsensecivics/posts/1295996680791800?__tn__=K-R
