As IF Times

After three years of fighting, the spotlight has returned to the ongoing war between Russia and The Ukraine.  With human losses on both sides continuing to mount along with the financial toll, a possible end to fighting is now at least on the horizon.

But even as some kind of détente is being negotiated, an even more serious war has emerged among players who were notionally ancillary to the actual conflict. What is surprising is that the conflict is now among heretofore allies in geopolitics.  Schisms have now appeared within the fraternity of the ‘Western nations’.

There is great umbrage in the West among those with dated notions of the East versus the West carried over from the alliances after the last Second World war, now 80 years past.  For these people, East is still the enemy and the West are the good guys.  They still think, better dead than Red. Any kind of détente between these two ideologies can never be accepted by the black and white mindset of those thus convinced.

If we consider the fundamental reason for the division between the East and the West, it is grounded in the vastly different political ideologies pursued by either side.  The East, principally Russia, are presented as authoritarian states without the benefit of free democratically held elections,  without freedoms of expression and the general constriction of individual freedom of movement.  They are widely perceived as surveillance states in which citizens are under constant watch and forbidden to criticize the government.   They are portrayed as bleak, sad places where people are kept in poverty and oppressed.  Though Putin is still the strongman of Russia, the nation is in fact a Christian one without the rampant religious related crime plaguing the West.  We don’t see the squalor in the large cities as we’ve become accustomed to in the advanced West.

Thus, it was with great furor among the heretofore champions of the Western nations, the UK, France and Germany among others, when they responded to what can only be described as a wake-up speech by Vice President J.D. Vance at a security conference in Munich. Vance boldly pointed out that the principles of civilization that made living in the West preferable over living in communist regimes such as Russia, had been abandoned by the erstwhile champions of freedom.

Ironically the very things for which Russia is criticized were being implemented upon their own domestic citizens.  The City of London has the 3^rd largest number of surveillance cameras in urban centers in the world. This statistic is even worse when you see that virtually all of the other ones in the top ten are in communist nations.  Russia doesn’t even appear on this list.

Why are these cameras necessary? The only reason is to monitor the explosion of crime that has taken place in London and other British cities over the past decade or so.  Who is responsible for all this crime?  What has changed in the past few years?

It’s certainly clear that in most European nations, the populations have changed significantly by the addition of immigrants from non-Western nations.  But to even suggest that there is any link between this and the uptick in crime is to risk being set upon by the national governments since this may be considered hateful speech.  Such was the gist of Vance’s speech: That the influx of so many immigrants that do not share and will never share the values of the West are endangering the very existence of Western culture.  As most are probably aware, even being seen to be practicing a silent Christian religious observation is considered an offense in today’s Britain.

Thus we have the reality of Western nations suppressing the opinions of those that would protest against the dilution and diminishment of their native societies.  They are threatened with censure at the least and imprisonment at the worst. After Vance’s speech, a German official labelled it as being unacceptable. The irony of not supporting freedom of speech, the foundation of Western societies was totally lost on him….as well as most of the EU nations.  We now have governments monitoring individual’s social posts for language deemed offensive. There is even a movement to ban the X platform from the UK if not Europe for its role in spreading hate speech.

Thus we have the many EU nations circling the wagons to defend ‘Western values”, which includes defending the Ukraine, but which they don’t defend in their own nations.  It’s lost on most EU leaders that they have become the totalitarian  society that they have always considered the enemy Russia to be.  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the US didn’t leave the West; the West left the US.

In the classic administration of a totalitarian regime, there wasn’t any doubt about what was expected of the poor citizens. Toe the line, do what those in charge tell you and don’t complain. Disobedience would expose you to dire consequences including persecution, imprisonment or permanent disappearance.

Typically, some guy, (and it’s always a comical figure) invariably dressed in military garb, issues and pronounces arbitrary edicts which are then carried out by the executive arms of the regime. Naturally, the media is on side as they convince the thankful citizens of their good fortune to live under such wise and benign rule. As long as the populace believes they are happy, they have no reason to question that things could be better.

By sheer might of their police and military resources, it was fairly easy for these regimes to keep the masses in line in those days. Sure there were the occasional complainers and ‘intellectuals’ who spoke out, but they were marginalized by ridicule, kicked out of the country, or just sent to the state re-education centre to be convinced of the error of their opinions. Usually, these people were poets or writers, not real taxpayers anyway. With the increase of access to news and information, the suppression of reality was harder to maintain by these totalitarian regimes. Once they were able to see on TV that their neighbours in the next country over were wearing clothes that were not just shades of grey or green, the jig was up. It dawned upon them that hoarding toilet paper was not what people did in other countries. With the onset of the Internet, well, fugghedaboutit! It was pretty easy to see that khaki was not the new black.

Information, or more correctly, access to unfiltered information was a great liberator. If your guy in the peaked cap and sunglasses was telling you a whopper, you could easily google it, check it out and accuse him of having his pants on fire.

Truly strange then, are the events which are unfolding in the ‘Western’ world. Unarguably, we are the luckiest people on the earth, with access to most of the planet’s wealth, resources and technology. More importantly, we have unfettered access to information, education and to the free exchange of opinions and ideas.

At least in theory.

Notionally, in a ‘free’ society, you can do whatever you want. What we see happening today is the creeping tyranny of correctness. The difficulty is, there is not always the comical figure in the peaked cap that is the source of oppression. The sources are much more varied, but their methods are identical. If you do not agree with their point of view, you are a neanderthal/ignorant/hateful/irresponsible and of course, evil cretin.

Rather than engaging in civilized discussions of the merits or detriments of a given issue like an intellectual ping pong match, modern zealots now engage in hardball, over the top and in your face methods to draw attention to their just cause. Many years ago, the early green movement loved to create huge spectacles of their protests. Over time, chaining people to trees, attacking ships on the high seas, painting seals etc, actually got too expensive and recruiting zealots wasn’t always easy during the ski season.

The modern way to inflict opinions seem to revolve around a couple of popular techniques. Nudity is big. PETA is known for their attention getting campaigns of parading nude women (and it’s always women)to promote their agenda. Luckily for us, they haven’t convinced most of the women of THE VIEW to their cause. As recently as today, in our town, a small but vocal group of women wearing only underwear were protesting that we weren’t doing enough about, you guessed it, global warming. The irony of assembling inside a nice warm foyer while it was minus 2 degrees outside and snowing was apparently lost on them. How parading around around half naked would incite men to reduce global warming was befuddling to me. Heck if this is the kind of hardball protests we can expect, I think we should take our sweet time thinking of a solution.

Beyond the prurient amusement of these protests, the sadness of these events lie in the reality that someone or some group has convinced these young gals of the nobility/urgency of their actions. But whether boys or girls, youth is very impressionable during their school years. If the school tells ’em it’s so, well it must be so. In the case of global warming at least, it’s a stretch to believe that 18 to 22 year olds have discovered through rigorous scientific review that an imminent cataclysm facing mankind happens to be looming during their school years. Maybe they’re just more mature than I was at that age.

More likely, this notion was fed to them by a less than scrupulous education community who have fallen victim to group think. I wrote earlier of free unfiltered information and liberty. Sadly, kids are getting information, but it’s not unfiltered. The visibility of these kinds of public displays, reinforced by a compliant media, convince the average schlub that the issue must be a pressing one and that ‘everyone’ is onside. To question the veracity of these claims would make you an intellectual and social leper.

And that is the second part of the coercion. Media. The popular media must present as fact, the one sided view of a discussion. They take advantage of our proclivity to get our information in quick soundbites rather than thoughtful deliberation and study. Sadly many in our culture are convinced that the opinions of people who can sing or act for a living are those worth paying attention to. Come on! These people were a hit song removed from being your waiter at Dennys! Would you listen to them for their opinions on science? They believe that lawyers and politicians somehow have discovered the science that indisputably points to man made climate change.

We get coerced to the accepted view; makes it all the easier to convince us to fund the urgent cause. We do what they want. The goofball isn’t wearing a peaked cap and sunglasses this time, but someone’s pants are on fire.