influencers Archives - Messenger to the Thoughtful

“You are intolerant!” “Your words are triggering and encourage violence.” “You are killing people with your beliefs!” These are just a few of the phrases used by social media “influencers” to shut down free speech and reasonable debate. The same groups excoriate anyone defending the unborn and the aged, and they scream, “keep your laws off my body” as they desire abortion-on-demand, “gender-affirming care’ for children, and access to locker rooms and prisons for people for the opposite biological sex.

In other settings, we have Islamic radicals calling on democracies to punish any criticisms of their religion, and banning visual art concerning Mohammed. There are many locales in Western Europe and a few new ones in the USA where non-Muslims are unwelcome and subject to harassment.

There are also some fringe alt-right groups that peddle racism, theocracy, and xenophobia. A decade ago, a person said to me at a conference, “America went downhill once Ellis Island let in all those Eastern Europeans.” As I tried to recover from the shock, he doubled down and complained about every significant minority group of the last 200 years. I directly, firmly, and kindly said that this was racist and evil, and the opposite of America’s founding principles. I am still shaken by such blatant group hatreds.

What lies beneath all of these narratives is a historical inversion of the meaning of toleration. For context, let’s consider the historical trajectory of toleration, especially, but not exclusively in the West:

By 1700, after centuries of religious and political warfare, some states begin tolerating peaceful, non-conforming groups while still supporting a state religion.
By the 1800s, with the influence of the founders and framers of the USA, and some of the aspirations of other European thinkers, freedom of conscience and religion is seen as the first freedom and essential for human flourishing.
By the mid-1900s, most Western nations have removed all barriers to peaceful religious exercise and people of all faiths or none shared equal citizenship rights.
By 2000, even groups previously marginalized for their racial and sexual identities are now equals de jure (under the law), even while still pursuing de facto access and opportunities in society.

This is progress! Living peaceably with radically different worldviews, political opinions, and moral visions is what true liberty is all about.

Today, we see that extremist voices demand that toleration be redefined as celebration and anything less than agreement with their narratives and visions are reasons for cancellation, derision, and, in some cases, legal actions and physical violence.

We need to define toleration as the maturity to respect and cooperate with people that see the world very differently than we do.

If we get toleration right, public ethics can be approached thoughtfully as we decide the answers to these three questions:

What actions and values will we prohibit because they are inherently wrong and/or proven to be deleterious to a safe and sane world? Heretofore, most civilized lands have protected children from a variety of influences (alcohol, tobacco, drugs, exposure to pornography, and much more), that adults can peaceably pursue. We have also declared several actions verboten, rooted in the ethos of almost every civilization: murder, theft, physical violence, etc. The questions before us today are vital: will we protect children from work and sex slavery? Will we continue to demand that some things are only for adults? Can people of conscience together declare that some things are off-limits?
What actions and values will we permit in a very diverse society? We already agree that freedom of conscience/religion is the first freedom. Will we continue to protect free speech even when debate opponents are uncomfortable? Will we fearlessly seek the truth of matters or be censured by disinformation panels? Can we live with differences and not coerce celebration? I want everyone to share my Christian faith – voluntarily! And I will defend the right of my neighbors to build peaceably their religious communities, arrange their lives differently, and seek my conversion to their thinking.
Finally, what are we supposed to promote as a free and virtuous society? Will we support biological, blended, adoptive, and foster care families as the preeminent educators of children? Will we call on parents to take responsibility for their children and stay engaged financially and personally if possible? Will we foster personal agency and social responsibility, entrepreneurial creativity and the common good? Will we promote true toleration, aiming for hearts of love and respect for all people, while also protecting ourselves from genuine evil?

Friends, becoming thoughtful about these matters is not a luxury for a few. It is a moral necessity for future generations.

In all my advising, speaking, and writing I aim for kindness, thoughtfulness, and true toleration. Being able to debate with civility and find consensus where possible will always be my aim. Most people I speak with – of all faiths or none – want this world of peace and principled living. We often diverge on ideas and policies, but converge on creating contexts for courageous conversations.

The tragedy of our current era is that a minority of noisy and privileged “influencers” want to replace conversation with condemnation, debate with defamation, and evaluation of ideas with erasure from the public square. The amount of gaslighting and projection is deeply disturbing. Here are some examples.

A Florida education bill keeping sexualized material out of K-3^rd grade is condemned (by those who have not actually read the bill) as an attack on gay rights and violence toward transgender students. The absurdity of this is clear to anyone with a conscience, but fear keeps people from affirming that some things are better left to the family and delayed until adulthood.

Parents wanting curricular transparency are reviled as terrorists. Why are public educators afraid of people knowing what happens in a classroom? School choice is branded as defunding public education, classist, racist, and worse…even though it is minority families that need and want it the most.

Women’s athletics is being undermined by biological males. Even with a year or two of hormones, the physical advantages of males make a mockery of the progress of the last half-century.

For some, balancing a federal budget and evaluating spending is cause for violence in the streets. We can balance a budget and care for all important facets of government – it just takes courage, innovation, and a commitment to efficiency in service of the end users, not jobs for public workers.

We know better.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and a beacon of human rights, economic opportunity, technological innovation, and humanitarian concern. Yet she is libeled as evil, even “apartheid” because she wants peace and security. The number of anti-Jewish incidents in the West is 5X more than the purported “islamophobia” that captures attention.

Gender anarchy, the recruitment of vulnerable children to a lifetime of dependency on the state, the subversion of the biological family, and hatred toward any values deemed traditional are the new normal among the chattering classes.

We know better.

There is hope.

We know male and female identity are permanent realities for all but a miniscule percentage of the population. We also know that men and women display many similar traits and a wide spectrum of expression, personality, and interest. We need to help people get comfortable in their own skin and stop pretending they can be another gender/sex.

We know that class and race often bring conflict and that only humility, hope, and systems changes will open opportunity for all. The way forward is not printing money for reparations, but opening access for flourishing to all.

We know that traditional Christians and Jews are no threat to freedom. Their beliefs and values, however, are in stark contrast to the pagan-secular subjectivities that rule social media. Will we have the maturity to debate these ideas, or will elites insist on marginalization and persecution?

From our own family and personal budgets, we know that increasing debt only delays the reckoning ahead. If we managed our finances like federal and some state governments, we would all be in trouble!

We know better.

In Part Two, we will look to some principles that can build a better future. For this week, let’s commit to moral clarity, kindness, and thoughtfulness, aiming for conscientious consensus where possible. Our future depends on it.

Tags: influencers, Florida, gay rights, transgender, public education, athletics, federal budget, Israel, apartheid, gender