The banquet hall at the Capitol Plaza & Conference center was nearly full for the 6 pm speaking session featuring counter-woke firebrand Dr. James Lindsay and recent First Amendment champion Nick Merriweather. Drinks and somewhat lively conversation filled the air as concerned parties shared stories and ideas in anticipation of the evening’s presenters.
One Burlington resident spoke of her concerns for seeing her lovely city on the verge of being uninhabitable by someone with her political views. A mother of two, she shared stories of losing friends while gaining others as she spoke up about her political concerns. Though a libertarian and not a Trump supporter she found even that was enough to have friends cancel her from their inner circle. Carrying a degree in microbiology and molecular genetics she bemoaned the lack of science behind the mask mandates. Though an expert she has taken heat for speaking out against the futility of masks for stopping transmission of a highly contagious airborne virus. In her case the narrative proved stronger than the actual science.
Some familiar faces and some new ones gathered to the tables as the event hosts introduced new Republican Party senate hopefuls and other leaders of conservative Vermont politics. The esprit-de-corps was lively for an older dinner party crowd, and the evening began with solemn moments including a pledge of allegiance and prayer offered by John Klar.
James Lindsay is quickly becoming one of the most sought after speakers among conservative groups in the U.S. thanks largely to his expertise in understanding “woke” culture. His popular Youtube channel “The New Discourses” has nearly one hundred thousand subscribers, which some will tell you represents what they’ll allow not what he would actually have were Youtube not a woke corporation. Recent discoveries of Twitters number fudging give one pause. Lindsay is no doubt one of the scariest voices to the left, given he is a confessed liberal Democrat and college educator, not to mention an atheist who published the book “Why Everyone Is Wrong About God”. If He too is wrong about God I can’t help but to be amused by the fact they the Almighty may be trolling him by making him a defender of both Christianity and Christians post publishing. Such are the times.
Lindsay takes no time getting to the serious nature of the culture war. Referencing Antonio Gramsci’s “long march to the institutions” strategy he warns the woke goose-stepping is getting louder and more forceful by the day. His recent book Race Marxism exposes the roots of Critical Race Theory, as well as the other grievance theories such as queer theory and gender theory, as fundamentally Marxist. All of them have the dialectical model of oppressor v. oppressed first proffered by Marx, only his was among the classes. Lindsay points out the failure of the class dialectic led to Marxists like Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse to switch identities to the “ghetto” population and other societal outcasts, like homosexuals, feminists and the like. The more radical the more revolutionary is their reasoning.
He reminds the audience Marxism, despite its atheism, is a theology with all of the trappings of a religion. It has prophets (Gramsci, Paulo Freire), a savior (socialist man), a promised land (Utopia), scripture, liturgy, sacraments, and so on. This explains the obvious religious fervor, extremism and evangelism of the youth that is at the root of our current societal dysfunction. Lindsay’s warning is more dire than the last time he spoke for the Dartmouth Republicans. Though Americans are fundamentally in favor of freedom and a shared American dream, the crypto-communists have co-opted those values and used them strategically to take over institutions (banking, universities, tech) as well as Lindsay’s chief concern – pedagogy. The revolution they want can’t survive a battle among boomer and Gen X, but it can outlast them by indoctrinating our children, which they are doing and with haste.
Of course the funding is an issue too and here he explains such groups as Black Rock and the aptly named Vanguard are acquiring vast sums of wealth in the trillions of dollars while shaping a Marxist future with such things as their Chinese Communist Party inspired ESG scores and woke corporate grooming agenda via Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultants who are paid absurd amounts of money to effectively intimidate while codifying neo-Marxism among the workers.
The picture is bleak to those without the stomach of men such as Dr. Lindsay, however he won’t let anyone off the hook. The battle is at our door and you get one shot to win this, we are in the ninth inning and up to bat. This is not the time to go to the bathroom, get more popcorn and watch or get to your car to leave early. No – this is the time to fight back with everything you have including what little courage you can muster. It’s all hands on deck and playing for keeps.
There is a natural transition from that to Professor Merriweather who did in fact stand up and fight his own battle at Shawnee State. Accused essentially of harassment for not bowing to a student’s preferred pronouns. Merriweather expected his administration to know their constitution and support him but instead were intimidated by an unhinged college-aged person who lacked the stability of their own identity.
Professor Merriweather, a Bible believing Christian, stood firm on both Biblical truth and his faith as he sought the legal counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group with a 13-0 record at the Supreme Court, who padded their stats as they argued Merriweather’s first amendment right to not be compelled to speak were greater than the student’s right to not be offended.
The judge agreed, and Merriweather spent the bulk of his time reading the judge’s decision. Attacked by staff and faculty along the way, Merriweather maintained his reasoned position which the judge elucidated with the following logic. The student’s “I am offended” plea is subjective and therefore opens the door to militarizing speech in the hands of the professional victim class. Setting this precedent would open the door to compelled speech whereby complainants could require pacifists to support war, believers to reject God, and so on. Speech standards in line with the principles of the first amendment must be objectively sound. This extends beyond personal preference to the freedom enumerated up to and including speech that offends.
Both men are examples of the need to stand against this devilish enemy swirling in our streets, schools and even sanctuaries. Brothers in arms, Trevor Loudon, podcaster John Harris and Pastor Judd Saul recently released a documentary “Enemies Within the Church” that corroborate Dr. Lindsay’s work. We recommend you listen to as many of Lindsay’s podcasts and watch that film to get a clearer picture of just who has brought this fight to America, from without as well as within.
