OPINION:
It’s 2024, and we are living in schizophrenic times. Dickensian times: the best of times, yet the worst; times where we demand the truth while reveling in our lies; times of great material gain but of even greater moral loss; times of calling good evil and evil good; times of saying bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter; times of the “tolerant” not tolerating what they find intolerable.
These are times when Jews are shamed and shunned by those who claim to stand against ghettos, gulags and racism.
These are times when Blacks who dare to think for themselves are called Uncle Toms by White students chanting, “Down with White supremacy.”
These are times when those who claim to champion democracy openly work to upend the democratic process; times when cultural elites no longer even attempt to hide their disdain for the self-evident truths upon which our country was founded; times when freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and freedom in general are now considered products of Zionist colonialism that should be discarded and replaced by the whims of a racist mob so proud of its “anti-racism.”
These are times when universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, the purported birthplace of free speech, issue speech codes requiring faculty and students to stop using gender-specific pronouns and bow to the tortured grammatical nonsense of ze, zer, zi and zis.
These are times when students at schools such as Columbia University, whose motto is the Jewish psalm “In Thy light shall we see the light,” proudly vilify Jews and align with those who deny their holocaust, rape their women, behead their babies and call for the destruction of the millenniums-old Jewish state.
These are times when Karl Marx’s “useful idiots” promote intolerance under the banner of “tolerance” and fascism under the flag of “freedom.”
These are times when freedom means slavish adhesion to the dictates of the neo-Bolshevik state, and anyone who disagrees with its contrived notions of progress will be treated in the most barbarous fashion.
From our schools, where Third Reich antisemitism is now elevated to the status of virtue, to our places of work, where ordinary Americans can be put out of business for advocating the wrong causes in their private life, no place is safe from the vindictive rage and perpetual adolescence of this new Red Guard.
It is shameless duplicity.
It is self-refuting hypocrisy.
It is literal nonsense on parade.
Any schoolboy can see that these lemmings do not care about love, diversity, equity, inclusion or tolerance. Their slogans are little but window dressing for a brutal form of dominance that accepts no dissent. These self-styled advocates of “freedom and peace” are interested only in tyranny and power.
We see it in their angry red faces, shouting, “You must believe everything we believe!” No dissent. No differences. And no diversity. It is the rule of the gang — a worldview of unquestioned and unchallenged power. Their bumper sticker is “Conquest,” not “Coexistence.” They are interested only in lockstep compliance, not reasonable conversation or compromise.
To paraphrase Martin Niemoller: “First, they came for the Christian photographer, baker, and florist, and I said nothing because I did not bake cakes, sell flowers, or take pictures. Then they came for the conservative professor, and I said nothing because I did not teach at his college. Then they came for the Catholic coach and evangelical congressman, and I said nothing because I did not coach, nor was I in Congress. Then they came for the Jews, and I said nothing because I wasn’t a Jew. And, when they came for me, there was no one left to speak.”
I repeat: These are trying times, difficult times, Orwellian times, maybe even end-times. An end to manners, politeness, courtesy, dignity, and mutual respect. An end to tolerance under the banner of “tolerance.” An end to women’s rights under the banner of a delusional male’s rights. An end to children’s rights under the banner of “the right to abort children.” An end to adults under the banner of “adulting.”
Today, we find ourselves in a country that has lost its way, a country in which an infantilized cacophony of tweets and tantrums dominates the public sphere. This is a culture of yelling rather than listening, a society of demands rather than dignity. We live in a time of grown-up children, not adults who have actually grown up.
But fear not. As Mordecai said to Queen Esther some 2,500 years ago, “Who knows? Maybe you were made for such a time as this.”
“This is the lesson: Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in. … Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy” (Winston Churchill).
By God’s providence, this is our time. It is not a time to give in or give up.
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host.
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