I ran across this quote from Voltaire the other day, and it got me thinking:
“Whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God-given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God-given sense of justice in your heart.”
That’s a very insightful statement. It’s also an apt description of today’s Democrat Party and the neo-Marxist left. Let’s examine the Left’s agenda.
ABORTION - It is absurd to suggest that the pre-born baby in the womb is not an innocent human being deserving of life. That’s how all of us came into this world. But once someone accepts the absurdity that a baby is not fully human with any rights we are obligated to respect, then the atrocity of abortion on demand and tens of millions of innocent lives lost becomes easy to accept.
By the way, Roe v. Wade was based on the same “logic” as the racist Dred Scott decision allowing slavery - that some human beings have no rights and can be treated as property or disposed of at whim.
“GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE” - It is absurd to suggest that someone can be born in the “wrong body,” experience the “wrong puberty,” or that “men can get pregnant.” There is nothing “affirming” about transgender procedures. They are gender-denying. They deny biological reality and the best interests of the child.
What other mental disorders do we “affirm” instead of treating appropriately? It is not “affirming” or compassionate to encourage a child’s delusions and lie to them, saying, “Sure, Johnny, you can be Joanne.”
If your teenage daughter barely weighed 100 pounds but constantly insisted she was fat, would you affirm her delusion? Would it be compassionate to rush to get her gastric bypass surgery? Of course not! That would be absurd.
But once someone accepts the absurd idea that boys can be girls, then the atrocity of subjecting confused children to sterilizing drugs and dangerous and unnecessary mutilating surgeries becomes easy to accept, even when there is no reliable “science” behind such barbaric and bizarre ideas.
THE GREEN NEW DEAL - It is absurd to suggest that we can and should abandon the very energy sources that created the Industrial Revolution, modern medical breakthroughs, tremendous technological innovations, and the incredible luxuries and necessities of modern life. The concept of “net zero emissions” or decarbonizing the entire economy is absurd and impossible.
One study estimated the potential cost of “net zero” at $275 trillion. That’s more than 10 times America’s GDP. Meeting that target would require spending at least $3.5 trillion a year for the foreseeable future just on the “green transition.” That’s approximately half of the entire federal budget, or 80% of America’s total tax revenue last year.
We know the climate changes. Historical records are very clear about that. But what people really need to understand is that the dire predictions of climate alarmists have been consistently wrong.
Are you willing to give up flying and your SUV to fight climate change? Are you willing to give up living comfortably in the summer and winter?
Are you willing to give up beef for beans and bugs or steaks for snakes, all because some bureaucrats, no matter how many times they have been wrong before, now claim to know the earth’s ideal temperature?
Barack Obama said his climate change agenda would cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket.” His energy secretary wanted gas to cost $10 a gallon. Joe Biden says climate change is a greater threat to humanity than nuclear weapons. Does any of that sound reasonable to you?
But once someone accepts the absurd idea that government bureaucrats can control the climate and weather, then the atrocities of massive job losses, lower standards of living, and the loss of freedom become easy to accept.
OPEN BORDERS - It’s absurd to suggest that a country should not secure its borders. Without secure borders, we have no idea who is coming into the country.
How many of the millions of illegal aliens crossing Joe Biden’s open borders are criminals or terrorists? How many of the tens of thousands of Chinese aliens crossing the border are spies? How many illegal aliens are coming from countries that despise our values?
But once someone accepts the absurdity of open borders, it becomes easy to accept the atrocities of compromised national security and horrific violence against innocent American citizens.
ANTI-SEMITISM & ANTI-ZIONISM - It’s absurd to suggest that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. You cannot be for Jews if you are against the only Jewish state on the planet. There are dozens of Muslim nations. Why can’t there be one Jewish state? Why should America help create another radical Islamist country, carved out of Judea and Samaria, called “Palestine”?
Sadly, there is growing anti-Semitism in America today. The only thing that explains why attacks on Jews jumped 360% AFTER the October 7th massacre is anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitism should be denounced wherever it raises its ugly head. The explosion of anti-Semitism on the so-called “progressive left” is particularly dangerous precisely because progressives have disproportionate control of higher education, the media, and the culture.
The leftist Women’s March was infected with anti-Semitism. Many left-wing activists are openly anti-Semitic. After the October 7th massacre by Hamas terrorists, many left-wing Hollywood celebrities criticized Israel. We’ve seen mass protests in liberal big city streets and rioting on our left-wing college campuses by rabid Hamas sympathizers.
There are also hundreds of anti-Israel activists inside the government (here, here, and here) who are dictating policy. That’s why the Biden White House has been pressuring Israel to stop fighting before Hamas has been destroyed. That’s why it is withholding weapons from our ally Israel.
Unbelievably, the Biden White House actually invited radical pro-Hamas Islamists to help draft their anti-Semitism strategy!
But once someone accepts the absurd notions that Israel has no right to exist and that Jews are “oppressive colonizers,” it becomes easy to chant calls for genocide and accept the atrocities of anti-Semitic violence.
Voltaire’s quote about absurdities leading to atrocities is precisely how the world’s worst totalitarian states operated, whether it was Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, or Mao’s communist China. People were forced to believe the regime’s propaganda, and they were forced to lie by repeating it.
A baby in the womb is a human being.
Men cannot become women.
Government mandates and socialist policies are not the solution to climate change.
Borders define nations, and you can’t have a country without secure borders.
Jerusalem has only ever been the capital of a Jewish state. Anti-Semitism is evil and led to the Holocaust.
Never allow the neo-Marxist left to force you to lie. Never allow the neo-Marxist left to force you to accept absurdities.
Gary L. Bauer, former chief domestic policy adviser to President Reagan and a Trump-appointee to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, serves as president of American Values, chairman of Campaign for Working Families PAC, and senior vice president of public policy for the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
