We Hold These Truths to Be Convenient
Suddenly—and none too credibly—natural rights are all the rage on the Left
I suppose I should be pleased to see the fervor with which the progressive Left has now embraced the Bill of Rights, due process of law, the sanctity of judicial authority, et al. God loves a sinner come to His understanding, so to speak. But who can take this sudden conversion seriously? Not I, alas, for I possess a memory. I know, therefore, that for years and decades postmodern progressivism has been busily at work, undermining the philosophical and moral foundations of the things it currently professes to champion. Only now, in the time of the Trump Restoration, have the comrades raised their voices in defense of free speech, etc. And that’s a bit much; indeed, it triggers my gag reflex.
There are several things being asserted by progressives that anyone not blinded by ideological fanaticism knows to be quite untrue. One is that progressives are free speech absolutists. On behalf of pro-Palestinian campus activists, most of whom are supporters of terrorism and genocide, the comrades demand the most expansive interpretation of the First Amendment. But in the past and even now, they consistently and vociferously deny such latitude to those who oppose or even question the dogmas of progressivism. On and off campus, the heckler’s veto and threats of violence have been deployed against such heretics, often on the argument that opposing points of view make progressives feel “unsafe.” I trust there’s no need for me to document the countless occasions, going back years, when this has happened.
And progressivism’s hostility to free speech has academic support, for example the aforementioned theory of speech as violence. That is to say, it’s intellectually respectable in progressive circles to advance arguments like this:
Today, our free speech marketplace is often overwhelming, confusing, and even dangerous. Threats, misdirection, and lies abound. Online firestorms lead to offline violence. This Article argues that the way we conceptualize free speech and the free press are partly to blame: our metaphors are hurting us.
The primary metaphor courts have used for a century to describe free speech—the marketplace of ideas—has been linked to violence since its inception. Originating in a case about espionage and revolution, in a dissent written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, a thrice-injured Civil War veteran, the marketplace has been described as a space where competition and force order the rungs on a ladder climbing toward truth. Power and violence are at home in the speech marketplace. [Emphasis added.]
This was very much the attitude toward freedom of speech exhibited by the New York Times staffers who characterized an op-ed by a Republican United State Senator as “violence” that made them feel “unsafe.”
A second untruth is embodied in progressives’ recent and ongoing appeals to the principles of equal protection under law and due process. Those principles too receive short shrift when roles are reversed. To take one example, radical feminists demand that due process be suspended when a man is accused of sexually assault or sexual harassment. When women lodge such an accusation, no evidence need be proffered: Believe women, period. And the Obama and Biden administrations were happy to go along with this, pressuring higher education to adopt procedures that assumed a male student’s guilt in such cases, denying him the right to mount a defense. Due process? Equal protection? Don’t make me laugh. Those star chamber proceedings, adopted by numerous universities at the instigation of government and applauded by progressives, made a mockery of due process and equal protection.
And now, progressives assert in effect that due process and equal protection negate US immigration law. A foreigner residing in this country illegally cannot be deported, it seems, until his case has been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. This applies even to foreigners who belong to violent criminal gangs. And it also applies to foreigners with green cards or student visas who are antisemitic, anti-American, and have connections to genocidal terrorist entities like Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It took the events of October 7, 2023, to convert progressives into due-process absolutists—by supplying victims whom the comrades have no problem defending.
And third, regarding the strange new respect that progressives are exhibiting for the sanctity of the judiciary—who’s kidding whom? Not long ago, when the Supreme Court was ruling in a manner not to their liking, the comrades roundly denounced it for “going rogue,” and demanded “reforms” that would transform it into a third legislative branch, packed with progressive justices who could be relied upon to toe the party line. Donald Trump and MAGA are excoriated for adopting the attitude that the judges that he appointed should do his bidding. That’s a reflection of Trump’s capo dei capi persona and yes, it’s reprehensible. But progressives do exactly the same thing—and expect to be applauded for it.
The foregoing rant was touched off by a reply to a Note I posed on Substack. I’d reproduce it here, but in a display of passive-aggressiveness all too characteristic of online progressives, the individual concerned has blocked me. Suffice it to say that in defense of illegal immigrants and antisemitic foreigners, she quoted the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Well. That takes sanctimony and hypocrisy to the bloody limit.
The above passage constitutes a summary definition of the doctrine of natural rights, i.e. the claim that fundamental rights and liberties are an inherent component of the human condition, not some charter of rights granted by government. This is made plain by what follows the passage quoted above:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Government, therefore, is not empowered to grant or withhold rights as it pleases but is enjoined to defend the rights and liberties already possessed by the people. And this doctrine of natural rights is inimical to progressivism—which is, first and foremost, the party of government and the administrative state. While supposedly opposed to soulless consumerism, progressives see “the people” as passive consumers of such rights, liberties, and privileges as their overlords deign to hand out to them. The comrades have no more belief in the doctrine of natural rights than I have in the Flat Earth Theory. If they espouse it now, it’s no more than a matter of convenience.
I would not deny that in certain instances, the case of Maryland Family Man (and illegal immigrant, and wife beater, and probable criminal gang member) being one of them, that the Trump Administration has overstepped the bounds of legality and due process. But I reject the doctrine of cosmic due process being promoted by progressives at the moment. Illegal immigrants and foreign residents in America do have rights, but in many respects they’re significantly more limited than those afforded to American citizens.
Such principles as equal protection under law have been seized upon and grotesquely mutilated by progressives only because they want to stick it to the Ogre Trump. After all, they can hardly be squared with the core progressive doctrines of identity politics and intersectionality, which distribute rights and punishments based on one’s place in that ideological labyrinth. So pardon me if, with an indignant smile, I dismiss the present clamors of the progressive Left as transparently specious claptrap.
Another searing reveal of the comic irony that defines those who have just drifted further away from right and wrong. Thank you.
You’re a great writer.