Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

The choice between liberty and collectivism is the most dangerous ideological schism in America today. Marxists, because of their successful “long march through the institutions,” have gone from being almost illegal to actually gaining the upper hand. A lot of their success has come by denying their success; whenever someone raises an alarm about the attacks on liberty, collectivists either deny, deflect, or redefine liberty, but when the debate gets enough traction, they use more extreme tactics because renewed debate of the superiority of individual liberty over group-think threatens their eminent win.

In totalitarian states, dissenters are arrested to take them out of the social fabric, but in democracies the group attempts to marginalize specific individuals by indirect means, such as scorn, ridicule, and shunning; or directly via accusations of unsavory utterances, conduct, or associations. Whether any of the charges are true is irrelevant because they have control of the narrative, and you going on the defensive appears guilty and weak, while an angry response seems immature and unstable. Indeed, you must be extremely careful when responding to accusations; the best strategy is to not respond, or make a desultory or mocking comment. However, if you must reply to show strength or wrest control of the debate, an alternate strategy is to accuse the accuser of accusing: calling a bully a bully, a liar a liar, or a fool a fool. Unfortunately, even if you win, the attackers have successful stymied any debate about liberty.