Freedom to Associate With Whom We Choose – And Support Them!
By Richard Allen – January 6, 2025
The past decade has witnessed major assaults, not only to Freedom of Speech, but the Freedom to Associate with whomever we wish. There is not one specific event that can accurately explain the “Mob Rule” that has gripped the United States – and our Legal Institutions in Federal, State and Local Governments. But it’s clear that in the past 20 years since the George W. Bush Administration gave George Soros the green light to infiltrate Government, Media, Higher Education, Non-Government Organizations (NGO’s) and ultimately Corporate America, that the disease called “Wokeism” has flourished across America’s fruited plains. Why the Bush Administration – headed by a supposedly “compassionate conservative Republican” – allowed a “Marxist-Globalist” oligarch like George Soros such unlimited access, is a question best answered at another time and blog.
By 2009, Soros’ efforts had already yielded considerable influence, and he used that influence to elect the most inexperienced, unqualified “community organizer” (but a good talker), to the Presidency: Barack Obama! Over his eight years in office, Obama, devoid of any managerial or executive skills – proved that he was actually good at something, subversion! He rewired the U.S. Federal Government to promote and fund “Woke-Communist-Ideology” in every function of government. And with George Soros “strong-arming” every institution that accepted his monetary support, it had a major impact. In time, with Soros-Obama “Globalists” installed in critical positions, Corporate America saw the “handwriting on the wall” – “Support the Woke Cancel Culture Agenda, or be defeated in the marketplace!” There are many terms we could use to describe this “Cancel-Culture-Wokeism,” but I believe that it’s just another assault on the liberties delineated by our “Bill of Rights” at America’s founding almost 250 years ago. And while the Bill of Rights does not specifically state that we have a Right of Association, the First Amendment clearly implies that we do have the right to believe, freely assemble and hold individual beliefs – as long as they don’t infringe upon the beliefs of others. Laurence M. Vance, a columnist and policy advisor for the Future of Freedom Foundation, states it this way:
“The freedom of association simply means that a person has the right to associate, not with whomever he chooses, but with whoever is willing to associate with him. Inherent in the right to associate is the right not to associate. Any person has the right not to associate with whomever he chooses. In a free society, any person or group of persons has the right to associate with any other person or group of persons willing to associate with him or it on the basis of any standard and for any reason. And likewise, any person or group of persons has the right not to associate with any other person or group of persons on the basis of any standard and for any reason. It doesn’t matter whether a government bureaucrat or a person who was refused association believes that the actions of the refusing person or group are illogical, unreasonable, irrational, hateful, discriminatory, bigoted, or racist. What matters is freedom." [https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/does-the-first-amendment-protect-the-freedom-of-association/]
Laurence Vance’s explanation goes right to the heart of our problem. Those who are ideologically Marxist-Totalitarians, don’t believe in Freedom of Thought. They only believe in: A divine right to coerce you to do whatever they will, believe whatever they currently ascribe to, or associate with and fund only those whom they deem fit, according to their ideology! This explains why the Woke-Cancel-Culture has used government, media and corporate businesses to force their ideology on us – even if we are “unwilling to associate with them or their ideology!” Make no mistake, they are also working to brainwash an entire generation of young Americans to believe their faulty Marxist-Ideology, but when that fails – they will use all the power government has – to coerce you into obedience! This problem has been high-lighted by the “State-Controlled-Legacy-Media" and its relentless pursuit to shame anyone who disagrees with the latest ‘Woke Edicts’ they create. Cancel Culture is a relatively new term, based on the outcomes of “government sponsored coercion,” but it’s not a new concept. I think George Orwell first described it in his dystopian novel of the future world, 1984. “New-Speak” was the official effort by our Government “Big Brother” to change the meaning of words, and the values by which we judge them. Today, these deceptive words are called The Narrative. This allows “Big Brother” to deliberately misinform and deceive, and then to “Cancel” those who dissent or disagree with “Big Brother’s Narrative!
In Orwell’s future world, everyone was controlled by “Big Brother.” The masses of humanity were regimented into one universal consciousness called: “Group Think.” And it’s not only preventing your Freedom to Associate, it’s your Freedom to Think! There are so many things in which Orwell’s 1984 novel accurately predicted our present day, including the mindset of the dominant culture that controls the institutions of modern society and its unwillingness to discuss, debate or even entertain contrary opinions to its current ideology. It’s almost like “Big Brother” believes he has a divine “right to rule” and can’t be questioned by the peons below him on the hierarchy of power. When Orwell wrote in the 1940’s and 1950’s, he was amazed at the attitudes of intellectuals in the West who then embraced “censorship and cancellation” of ideas with which they disagree. Matthew Stewart, writing in Law & Liberty, an online publication states:
“ ‘If it means anything at all,’ Orwell avers (states), ‘freedom of expression means – the freedom to criticize and oppose.’ This is precisely what today’s purveyors of Cancel Culture cannot or will not recognize. One repeatedly reads nakedly self-contradictory statements issued by activists (including, sadly, college faculty and students) who state that, yes, of course they support freedom of speech, while in the same breath justifying their latest (often successful) effort to deplatform, disinvite, or disrupt.” [https://lawliberty.org/orwell-and-the-cancellation-of-culture/]
In the early 1940’s, Orwell was shocked attending a meeting to celebrate “Freedom of the Press” where not one person defended “Free Speech!” Rather, these intellectuals celebrated the “Soviet Purges” whereby dissenters were arrested, jailed and many executed as “Enemies of the State” – just for voicing opinions contrary to Communist Doctrine! Orwell realized that the seeds of “Censorship” and “Thought Crimes” were already present in the West. Again, Matthew Stewart in his article, “Orwell And the Cancellation of Culture” notes:
“Orwell notes the schizophrenic qualities that attach to obeisance to orthodoxy. In our present age, most of those committed to silencing others belong to a generation taught to be uniquely vigilant against bullying. Schools and the popular culture alike could seem obsessed with fighting against it, and yet the tactics used by activists to silence opposing views come straight from the bully playbook." [https://lawliberty.org/orwell-and-the-cancellation-of-culture/]
Let me mention two instances of “New-Speak” – followed by “Cancel-Censor-Culture” responses that have changed our world. Most “Cancel Culture Movements” that start as “narrative journalism” regarding insignificant events, are then blown into “a national outrage” by a manufactured response. First, fake news stories like the killing of a “stoned” Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by a Police officer who asked him to walk on the sidewalk and not in the middle of the street – all after robbing a local “mom and pop” store. Or the “so-called murder” of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. George Floyd, now sainted in bronze statues, actually died of an overdose after ingesting the whole stash of illegal drugs he was dealing, rather than get caught with them by the Police. Michael’s and George’s deaths were used to ignite “the War on our Police,” and catapult the Marxist Organization: BLM - Black Lives Matter, to $100 Million in “shakedown donations.” Today, many American Corporations have finally figured out they’ve been fleeced. If we had been allowed to dialogue, criticize and question the so-called “narrative,” it could have prevented damage – both to property and to our National Psyche! Second, the “Global Scamdemic” of 2020 was a most successful example of the “Cancel-Censor-Culture.” In hindsight we now know that Trump was right from day one: The Covid Pandemic was created by a Lab in Wuhan, China, leaking a deadly virus that our own Alphabet Agencies helped to create and fund – all to “gain function” making it more deadly to humans. And the “faux-vaccine” was created by many of the same people – prior to the lab leak. It’s a fact that Fauci lied, government agencies lied, reporters suppressed the facts, and then lied about the treatments: Lockdowns, social distancing, Ivermectin was “horse paste,” masks and heavy-handed firings – cancelling and squashing all dissent – all their actions turned out to be 100% wrong and evil!
This was not the “more perfect union” the United States was created to be! To Make America Great Again, we need to return to the Freedom to Think, Associate and Support those Ideals with which we agree. We’re certainly on a slippery slope right now – even with the re-election of Donald Trump – there are formidable forces wishing to enslave not just America, but the whole world. We Christians and Conservatives have to reinforce The Bill of Rights – but we must do it without succumbing to the same totalitarian behaviors of the “Woke Mob.” We believe in Freedom! We need to encourage dialogue, questions and discussions. Good ideas and policies will win out if there is truly a healthy and vigorous debate. Those who don’t want to debate – but only cancel and disenfranchise others with whom they disagree – must know their ideas are bad. Remember, “Mold grows in darkness, but Sunlight doesn’t kill a healthy organism.”
My prayer for like-minded people here in America – especially those who profess Faith in Jesus – is, that we would be bold enough to stand up for what is right. “Speaking the truth in Love” (Ephesians 4:15), we can return to those principles that made America a Great Place to live. It’s quite ironic, but in an Essay that Orwell wrote in 1946 entitled: “The Prevention of Literature,” he quoted an old Protestant hymn of faith: “Dare to Be A Daniel,” offering it as a remedy to the “Cancel Culture” that he saw on the horizon. He urged other writers to be courageous in standing for truth:
“Any writer or journalist who wants to retain his integrity finds himself thwarted by the general drift of society rather than by active persecution. The sort of things that are working against him are the concentration of the press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of monopoly on radio and the films, the unwillingness of the public to spend money on books . . . . . . Everything in our age conspires to turn the writer, and every other kind of artist as well, into a minor official, working on themes handed down from above and never telling what seems to him the whole of the truth. But in struggling against this fate he gets no help from his own side. . . In the past, at any rate throughout the Protestant centuries, the idea of rebellion and the idea of intellectual integrity were mixed up. A heretic--political, moral, religious, or aesthetic--was one who refused to outrage his own conscience. His outlook was
summed up in the words of the Revivalist hymn: ‘Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm, Dare to make it known!’ ” [https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/prevention/english/e_plit]
Soli Deo Gloria!