The Language of the Debate (8)

With respect to politics, the terms “left” and “right” have been in modern circulation since the French Revolution. Depending who is using them, the terms have traditionally been a cheap and easy way to describe the two sides in the conflicts between individualism and collectivism, liberty and authoritarianism, or conservatism and liberalism, bearing in mind that both sides exist on a spectrum.

That spectrum means terms like “far-right” and “far-left” had to be coined to designate the extremes of each position.

Real Battles and Mere Distractions

In a world where the real battle is between globalists and nationalists, terms like “left” and “right” also serve as a neat distraction from what is actually going on. Globalists especially find it helpful to frame every issue in terms of the battle between right and left, or between conservatives and liberals, in order to obscure the fact that the modern conservative is just a liberal moving a little slower than the left would like. In the US, Republicans and Democrats are two factions in a functional uniparty. In Canada, there is no broad-based right wing political party to speak of, not even in name. The closest we have to a “right wing” is the People’s Party of Canada, which presently holds exactly zero seats in Canada’s House of Commons.

Moderation is seen by many as a virtue, and the ability to compromise as a useful way to move decision-making forward. This means “far-anything” is generally perceived as a pejorative, which makes “far-right” the third most common insult the left hurls at Christians, right behind “racist” and “Nazi”.

What does “far-right” actually mean to the modern leftist? So glad you asked …

12. “Far-right”

How to Identify a Crazy Extremist

Twitter is a “right wing social network”, says The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel, and Elon Musk is not just right wing, but “a far-right activist”. Warzel’s clarity of thought and expression are typical leftist bafflegab: he uses “right” and “far-right” almost interchangeably in an apparent attempt to tar everyone who disagrees with him with the extremist brush.

So how does Elon Musk’s far-right extremism manifest itself? Apparently Musk: (1) opposes progressivism; (2) allows people on the right to express their views; (3) converses with Republican politicians; (4) allows people who have been deplatformed and demonetized elsewhere to post on Twitter; (5) reinstated banned Twitter accounts; (6) makes “anti-Semitic” remarks about George Soros; (7) approves of racist memes; and (8) uses language similar to the “alternative” right — or at least so alleges Warzel.

Lies and Misrepresentations

Some of these claims fail at the most cursory investigative level. Musk’s remarks about Soros do not mention his ethnicity. Not at all. The word “Jew” didn’t come out of his mouth. Musk simply said he believes Soros “hates humanity”, which is only anti-Semitic if you believe any negative comment about an individual Jew’s behavior is intended to reflect on all Jews. (Furthermore, most people have no idea Soros is Jewish; Wikipedia calls him “Hungarian-American”.)

Again, the “racist” meme in question is not remotely racist; it’s actually trenchant commentary on the media’s racist tendencies.

Other claims about Musk made by Warzel are misrepresentations. Musk’s reinstatement of banned Twitter accounts has been partial at best; Twitter continues to censor certain kinds of perfectly acceptable speech. The “far-right” politician Musk is conversing with is Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. If you aren’t allowed to have a conversation with the only viable current Republican alternative to Donald Trump, who can you have it with?

Railing at Tapioca

But even if we fail to correct Warzel for his misrepresentations and outright falsehoods, any working definition of “far-right” we might construct from his so-called evidence is so all-encompassing as to border on the absurd. It includes literally every genuine Christian I know. Warzel is railing at tapioca.

Who doesn’t oppose some aspect of the progressive agenda? Even believers who watch CNN or the CBC, are untroubled by the historical revisionism of productions like Hamilton or the NFL’s pandering to #BLM, vote Liberal or Democrat, virulently dislike Donald Trump and think the Ottawa trucker’s convoy and the January 6 sightseeing tour at the Capitol building qualify as insurrections find themselves drawing the line somewhere. Usually it’s at the prospect of defunding the police, or at drag queens publicly grooming their children or sharing a washroom with them, or at burning a city over racial grievances, or at calling organized shoplifting sprees “reparations”, or at kindergarten teachers telling their little boys all expressions of their inherent maleness are “toxic”. That’s not “far-right”. That’s about as moderate and mainstream as it gets.

What Christian believes all expressions of opinion with which the left disagrees should be censored? None of us, that’s who. Why would we accept someone else’s arbitrary and constantly changing standard of right and wrong? How does using the alleged “dog whistle” expressions of the “far-right” prove anything bad about a person? Most of us don’t even know what they are.

Elon Schmeelon

Hey, if I thought Elon Musk was actually far-right, I’d probably be a fan. In reality, he’s as centrist as Bud Light used to be. He’s about as dangerous and edgy as a plastic pocket protector. The man thinks there is a future in electric cars, loves big government, buys into the climate change narrative whole hog, and is far more censorious than he’s cracked up to be. His opposition to globalism is a “lite” version of the real thing at best. His companies pay for employees to get out-of-state abortions if they want them. And let’s not even get into his personal life. He’s basically a moral mushball who gets a kick out of trolling his haters and, like Donald Trump, takes full advantage of the fact that his immense riches insulate him from the financial impact of being disliked, so he can say whatever he feels like.

If a few of the things Elon feels like saying happily coincide with a Christian worldview, be assured it’s only because they are rare public expressions of rationality in an era where our intellectual elites and elected representatives have all but abandoned it.

In short, if Elon Musk is “far-right”, the term is now essentially content-free. It takes in everyone who is less than feverishly enthusiastic about burning Western civilization to the ground.