Michael Anton on some “former friends”

 

It’s a long weekend read.  At American Greatness, Michael Anton takes a deep dive into the personal dynamics of political disagreement:   

The Dishonest and Dishonorable Disagreements
of Former Friends

Most of us, at some point or another, fall out with friends. It’s a painful and, perhaps, inevitable part of life. It’s especially disquieting when former friends turn on you suddenly and publicly, devoid of any goodwill, charity, or benefit of the doubt that one might think were warranted by years of amity. All this, however disagreeable, is at least “normal” in the sense that it has been going on forever—though it massively intensified in the Trump Derangement Era.  . . .

Mr Anton’s concluding thoughts are not encouraging.

Opinion is the element or medium of society. These people, and many others like them, work to constrain opinion in order to rule society, to mark off what can and cannot be said or thought. Their education should have taught them that this is a disaster for human freedom. The books they claim to love make this point forcefully. 

But more prosaically, they are incapable of any honest disagreement. It will be their way or the highway, and woe unto him who dissents. These are the same people who speak of unity and democracy, but their unity is Xerxes’ unity of the lash, and their “democracy” is them getting their way on every issue while telling you how evil you are for disagreeing. 

Just as I find it astonishing to be accused of anti-Americanism by longtime denigrators of America, I find it even more astonishing to be accused of divisiveness by people who casually throw around the term “Nazi.” Is the cause an utter lack of self-awareness? When I encounter genuine surprise that their hate is not reciprocated with love, I am tempted to think so. 

Or is it deliberate, intended to provoke, so that those provoked can be more effectively identified and crushed? This explanation also fits the observable facts. 

When even former friends of decades standing can’t civilly disagree, where are we as a country? Where are we heading? 

Nowhere good.

The full article is here.  I posted this for the same reason I’ve been linking to some of Dr Robert Malone’s columns:  you are not alone.

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