The Fourth of July

> 8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom: That, as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that "no persons should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.

So you agree that it's an attempt to attack the founding principles.

> What I don't get is this newfound attempt to argue that what we once called the Great Experiment is immune from criticism, to portray the success of America as an inevitable result of the holy prophets who gave us the Constitution on stone tablets and not the work of men who made mistakes and learned from them.

Nobody is saying that the founding principles are "immune from criticism." But they are the bedrock on which our country is built. And they warrant more deference than the kind of arguments Parsa is making. Parsa's ad hominem is not a logically valid basis for criticizing the founders' principles regarding gun rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem. The founding principles deserve better than that.

Societies need shared principles. When I became a U.S. citizen, I took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution." What does that mean? To me, that means buying into the basic premises of our republic. Free speech, freedom of religion, protection of private property, equality before the law. And yes, also the right to bear arms. Those principles aren't immune from criticism, but to make society workable the burden for doing so must be high. A functioning society can't relitigate its founding principles with every routine policy debate. But that's exactly what Parsa's argument invites. If we shouldn't give full effect to the second amendment because many founders were slaveholders, we can cast aside every constitutional principle for the same reason. Federalism, private property, free speech--we get to relitigate everything on a blank slate.

Colin is a very popular figure in America, far more so than most politicians or news anchors, for example. Celebrities such as him have quite immense power to influence popular opinion, if they chose to.

If you have a look here at Google Trends, he's not quite as popular as 'the brand that defined brands' - Coca-Cola - but almost [1]. Right now he's in the same 'league' as Coke. That's a big deal.

He took a 'bold' statement some time ago and was a global lightning rod for the press, he's now a 'known' figure in many places even outside America.

When he 'took a knee' to take a stand against police brutality, there were some who took umbrage because he was standing against the flag, which is a national symbol, not really a symbol of policing. At the same time he courted obvious controversy, though in support of a legitimate cause, he could plausibly defend his actions as merely just antagonising against police brutality. I'm a little bit cynical, but it's definitely reasonable.

Culture wars ensue.

The debate, to the extent that it's about the nature of police fairness, or police aggression, or even possibly the nature of policing - is all within the framework of normal concern. It's big, but it's the kind of things nations deal with.

However - making a statement such as 'July 4ht is a Celebration of White Supremacy' is obviously a statement of a completely different order.

Colin is saying the National Celebration of the USA is a Celebration of White Supremacy - which implies very directly that the state is, promotes, and defines White Supremacy.

This rhetoric isn't really about 'police brutality' anymore - it's a fundamentally different way of perceiving America. And since he's not some random Tweeter - he has a huge following, a lot of people hugely sympathetic all over the world esp. in the press, and major brands that support his cause, namely Nike, Netflix, and probably others - his views will resonate.

That major industrial constituents, popular brands and sports figures, and most of the media apparatus are willing to go along with his statements, which as a reminder, cast America as state of 'White Supremacy' - definitely implies have 'existential' consequences for America.

FYI 'existential' as it relates to the very nature or 'existence' of a thing, in this case 'America'.

When Nike, CNN, and Netflix are 'ok' with 'July 4th is a Celebration of White Supremacy', we have evidence of a very broad movement by some to completely dismantle the nature of what America is. I believe it's mostly on the fringe, and that most people sympathetic to issues such as 'police brutality' are not really interested in a fundamentally new America, but nevertheless, their acquiescence to radical positions such as 'America is a state of White Supremacy' is obviously going to embolden more of this.

The rhetoric is all over the place including important institutions ostensibly defending Truth.

Near where I live, Concordia University has this new program to 'decolonize light' [2]. Yes, you read that correctly. Millions of dollars of tax money, at a respected institution to decolonize the very idea of light as in 'light waves' and 'physics' because the objective reality in which we use to try to understand the material world is 'Colonialist'.

So let's compare to the Colin scenario.

Having a Uni. program to try to get a better understanding of Aboriginal history and culture, and maybe to perceive how they thought about the world, is interesting. Controversial maybe, but definitely within the bounds of academic thought. This would be Colin 'taking a knee against police brutality'.

But starting a program to very literally put 'Aboriginal Wisdom' and their 'interpretation of light' on equal footing with what is just an objective, material view (and has nothing to do with 'Western' or 'Colonial) - is an existential challenge to the institution itself.

Concordia University is now promoting completely arbitrary 'make believe' as of equal merit to objective science, physics no less, obviously for political and social reasons, having nothing at all to do with any kind of Science, in any meaning of the word.

So an institution designed to help bring forth the Enlightenment, is now chartered to do literally the opposite: promoting made up rubbish as 'Truth'. I'm fully supportive of cultural and religious studies, in their place. But this would be like having the 'Biblical Study of Physics' as in 'How Noah's Ark Was Able To House All The World's Animals' - and post that up as 'Science' on par with 'Colonial Science'.

Finally, I will add as another little example, of which there are many: "Faith in Whiteness: Free Exercise of Religion as Racial Expression Khaled A. Beydoun*" [3]

So this is a deeply bigoted and racist rant, passed off as academic material, and published in a respected legal journal, that attempts to conflate the challenges of the justice system in the 1950's, with - you guessed it - White Supremacy.

Were 'respected' academic to point out that people of different racial backgrounds faced challenges in American courts, and by the way, courts all over the world, and that this is worthy of consideration - this would be like Colin 'taking a knee' to draw attention to some special cause.

But it's not. The racist author, who ironically labels himself an export on Islamophobia, writes mostly about a vague and evil concept of 'Whiteness' as the 'root cause' of the issues. In a paper with quite a number of references, he doesn't ever bother to try to define what 'Whiteness' really even is (other than that it's vile and evil), and of course, completely ignores the fact that racial inconsistency is not an American, or even 'White', phenom. And of course he doesn't bother to indicate that Justice Systems of European nations tend to actually have a considerable degree of integrity with respect to most other parts of the world. But that's nit-picking.

His treatise is not like 'taking a knee' or 'BLM', it's more akin to saying that 'America is a state of White Supremacy' - again, an 'existential' re-articulation of what the nation is. He is a tenured prof, this is published in a respected legal journal.

So there are a few examples of forces promoting a fundamentally different, antagonistic view of America, backed by highly 'legitimate' institutions, credentials, governments, major brands, popular figures, the press, and considerable budgets - all the while leveraging the goodwill of a lot of regular people who would be happy to support more classical progress, but who wouldn't otherwise agree with statements like 'America's National Holiday is a Celebration of White Supremacy'.

That almost nobody would agree with Colin's bigotry, and that obviously quite a substantial number would be truly offended, and that he faces absolutely no consequences, is a good measure of where the balance of popular power on such issues currently resides.

This is not about taking down Confederate Statues - that's a normal 'debate' if you want to call it that. It's about taking down George Washington, then Lincoln, the Flag, and everything else.

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=Colin%20Ka...

[2] http://decolonizinglight.com/

[3] https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-105-issue-4/faith-in-...