I recently had a friend tell me that when a Leftist uses a captive audience to spread factually incorrect, perhaps even race-baiting rhetoric in a quasi-public forum for the express purpose of influencing opinions, that as a conservative I only have one job: to sit down and shut up.
Really?
On Friday my company's intranet site, which has daily articles written by a small internal staff of writers-- yes, even private (sort of; it's hard to tell in a Fascist economy) companies have full-time political propagandizers these days-- fell so far to the left that it landed right into Stalin's back yard, with a particularly egregious piece.
The seldom-used comments section became filled with factually-challenged emotional tripe from Leftists. For people like those who read this blog, it's easy to just laugh at the Left, especially since their tiny fold of feeble arguments are so eye-rollingly predictable and easy to short circuit-- but it's no laughing matter, because this kind of bilge sways peoples' views over time in a very real way!
If you wonder just how effectual this garbage is, just ask yourself exactly what conservatives have conserved over the past sixty years.
Conservatives have been losing the cultural wars for a long time, and even with the momentary pressure-release of Trump's election victory, a quick glance at the average Facebook feed, a short channel hop around the late night TV shows, a brief purview of practially any contemporary film or television show, or even an afternoon jaunt through the neighborhood indicates that conservatives' losses are mounting, not reversing.
After a long walk full of careful thought, I daringly and somewhat apprehensively did what the Leftists do without any consideration: I posted a comment to the article on the company's web site. Not because I think I'll change the Leftist's minds: rather, because the act of posing a challenge is inately important unto itself.
Years ago, I started challenging a friend in this way on Google Plus. After not even a month, he stopped posting political content to the site, and focused exclusively on Facebook-- where I wasn't a member-- instead. I think something about that lesson sank into my squishy gray matter without me being aware, only for it to resurface only this past week, as I sat staring at my work laptop's screen in dismay.
The other benefit is that in this way, conservatives will know that they're not alone, off in the wilderness of a world seemingly gone insane, where up is down, black is white, and wrong is right. Indeed, I had two people at work email me to say "thank you!" for having posted that comment. And other than the one friend mentioned above, every person I've run this scenario across has excitedly told me that I did the right thing.
To all conservatives and libertarians out there: stand up and be heard! If you don't pose the challenge, you'll have lost the battle before it's even started!