September 28, 2020
Political polarization is not new but has been present since governments history has been recorded. What is troubling in our times in the vehemence that spills into the streets of opposing viewpoints. I judge civility in government has deteriorated since Newt Gingrich opposed Clinton's executive actions.. Even after the chad voter ballot problems in Florida finally adjudicated by the Supreme Court and accepted by Al Gore dialogue was given lip service between opposing parties. But now we have a divided government in which the house of Representative and the Senate cannot agree. An Executive Branch in which the heads of various departments clash with the civil servants in career positions in these departments, and the monitors appointed by congress are fired since they may cause the political appointee some trouble through unearthing problematic executive actions. Our judiciary is under stress since congress is now appointing only judges meeting criteria that is considered conservative by some or reactionary by others.
David French drew my attention to some of the issues describing them more cogently and worthy of consideration. His book review Divided We Fall
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/books/review/divided-we-fall-david-french.html?searchResultPosition=2
has gotten me to look at his other articles and debates with Sahrab Ahmari cause me to have some admiration for his views. He is highlighting our political and social discord as fueled by groups alienated so much from each other that reasonable behavior from each side amounts to strategizing ways to undermine each other without killing each other. We have groups feeling their very way of life is under attack so they must give up civil behavior and reasonable debate and dialogue but become very emotionally charged, offensive, and give no quarter so no compromising. French gives some good example worth considering. in 2018 he wrote an article about James Damore's lawsuit against Google. Damore wrote a memo on internal internet feeds to management and the company workers claiming that the Google attempts to address problems in hiring and retaining female employees was due to an "ideological echo chamber" environment. He made some references to biological differences between men and women and personality difference due to "biological" difference. He suggested some methods to address the problem which required more dialogue and changes in the company culture. Instead of some exploration of his point of view he was fired. Various experts and commentators joined the fray in response
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber#Course_of_events
Does Damore have a right to free speech in the work space? I'll leave it to the readers to sort through their preference. French writes"
Googlers may have special coding skills, but much of their discourse represents a special kind of pettiness, stupidity, and intolerance.
Well, the emperor has no clothes. Googlers may have special coding skills or may fit seamlessly in the company’s Googley culture, but it’s now plain that much of their discourse represents a special kind of pettiness, stupidity, and intolerance. It’s often fact-free, insulting, and narrow-minded. In other words, a Silicon Valley monoculture produces exactly the kind of discourse produced by monocultures everywhere. While there are certainly kind, courteous, and civil progressives at Google, the existence of the monoculture also enables the worst sorts of behavior."
The N.F.L. isn’t the government. It has the ability to craft the speech rules its owners want. So does Google. So does Mozilla. So does Yale. American citizens can shame whomever they want to shame.
But what should they do? Should they use their liberty to punish dissent? Or should a free people protect a culture of freedom?
In our polarized times, I’ve adopted a simple standard, a civil liberties corollary to the golden rule: Fight for the rights of others that you would like to exercise yourself. Do you want corporations obliterating speech the state can’t touch? Do you want the price of participation in public debate to include the fear of lost livelihoods? Then, by all means, support the N.F.L. Cheer Silicon Valley’s terminations. Join the boycotts and shame campaigns. Watch this country’s culture of liberty wither in front of your eyes.
The vice president tweeted news of the N.F.L.’s new policy and called it “#Winning.” He’s dead wrong. It diminishes the marketplace of ideas. It mocks the convictions of his fellow citizens. And it divides in the name of a false, coerced uniformity. Writing in the Barnette decision, Justice Jackson wisely observed, “As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be.”
"The N.F.L. should let players kneel. If it lets them kneel, it increases immeasurably the chances that when they do rise, they will rise with respect and joy, not fear and resentment. That’s the “winning” America needs."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opinion/conservatives-fail-the-nfls-free-speech-test.html
French brings up the Colorado case of Jack Philips the bake shop that refused to create and sell a wedding cake to David Mullens and Charlie Craig who were planning to celebrate their marriage union. The case wound up in the Supreme Court with a 7 to 2 decision in favor of Jack Phillips. To my view if Colorado at that time had only one bake shop within a reasonable distance which could meet the needs of the couple maybe the couple could have a better chance in their lawsuit. I can't get bent out of shape with this decision. French highlights our individual rights to speak, practice our religion and rituals, and associate with like minded people.
O.K. but French takes issue with any group including right wing proponents that plot, scheme, connive, and coerce to win favor with their point of view. French had a debate watched by conservative circle with Sohrab Ahmari last year. " French, an evangelical Christian who blends the language of civil liberties with scriptural admonitions, has an “earnest and insistently polite quality,” Ahmari wrote. “He believes that the institutions of a technocratic market society are neutral zones that should, in theory, accommodate both traditional Christianity and the libertine ways and paganized ideology of the other side.” But to Ahmari, a recent convert to Catholicism, conservative Christian values were under existential threat—and he wanted his side to dispense with the niceties of liberalism. Cultural conservatives, he wrote, should embrace Donald Trump’s scorched-earth approach to politics and “fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy.”
It’s one thing to attack Mr. Biden’s vote on the Iraq war. That was a Republican administration’s policy; it faced substantial Democratic opposition; and now even Republicans have largely rejected their own president’s great gamble. It’s another thing entirely to reject Democratic accomplishments of the recent past.
During the debate, I watched as Mr. Biden appeared genuinely and rightfully befuddled at the attacks on his record. But he was combating not only his own failures but the spirit of the present age. New orthodoxies form at the speed of Twitter. There is no respect for the wisdom of the past, and there is no understanding of the complexities of the challenges preceding generations faced. Success is taken entirely for granted, and failures are seen as a sign of moral defect. There is no grace, only judgment.
As the race rolls on, Mr. Biden’s best hope is that most Democrats have different memories and different priorities. Maybe a reason for his current polling dominance is that Democrats are proud of the policy successes of administrations past and grateful for his role in their success.
But Mr. Biden can’t coast on the fond memories of the Democratic middle. He has to better remind his voters why they hold him in such high regard. He helped them win. He played a key role in the party’s most significant achievements.
And what of his critics? Should they not understand that the forces of judgment they unleash now can be turned on them? The conventional wisdom of today will soon be deemed the backward thinking of yesterday, and then — perhaps — they will empathize with Mr. Biden’s incredulity that his successes are now deemed not just failures, but moral flaws.

https://image.cagle.com/117413/750/117413.png

I’m withholding judgment on the legal merits of Damore’s claim until I see Google’s response (the law should be broadly protective of employers’ rights to freedom of association), but the evidence he provides is damning indeed — and it’s not just damning because it raises legal concerns about Google’s behavior. The cultural implications are profound. For a generation the American public has been conditioned to think of Silicon Valley as a special place where American ingenuity is at its apex. Silicon Valley billionaires have enjoyed special status, and the men and women who work creating the apps and devices that have changed our nation are often seen as a breed apart, America’s best and brightest. They’re the lovable nerds who enrich all our lives.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/01/james-damores-google-lawsuit-exposes-companys-intolerance/

In another article Free Speech Test The National Football League instituted a policy with a fine attached saying that the team members will stand at the national anthem if they are in the field or else stay in the locker room. Subsequently they have allowed the team members to kneel with bended knee a behavior that got Colin Kaepernick fired. The controversy was about the The Flag. So again I ask my readers to decide your position regarding this issues First Amendment right to free expression of speech or work place dictates threatening firing or other penalties. French points out "One of the most compelling expressions of America’s constitutional values is contained in Justice Robert Jackson’s 1943 majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. At the height of World War II, two sisters, both Jehovah’s Witnesses, challenged the state’s mandate that they salute the flag in school. America was locked in a struggle for its very existence. The outcome was in doubt. National unity was essential. But even in the darkest days of war, the court wrote liberating words that echo in legal history: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

"Make no mistake, I want football players to stand for the anthem. I want them to respect the flag. As a veteran of the war in Iraq, I’ve saluted that flag in foreign lands and deployed with it proudly on my uniform. But as much as I love the flag, I love liberty even more.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/david-french-sohrab-ahmari-and-the-battle-for-the-future-of-conservatism

French wrote an article entitle Joe Biden is Learning Liberals are Eating Their Own in the New York Times during the time of the debates for the nomination in the Democratic Party. "From the crime bill to immigration to health care, Mr. Biden is facing attacks for his role in policies that Democrats can argue in good faith worked. Crime rates went down; Mr. Obama staved off a crisis on the southern border while protecting hundreds of thousands of Dreamers from deportation; and after Obamacare was put in place, the number of Americans without health insurance fell to an all-time low.

The arrogance of the present scoffs at these Democratic achievements. Instead, it declares that crime rates would have fallen even without Democratic toughness, that our nation’s immigration challenges would have been eased without conventional law enforcement, and that our health care system is so broken that Obama’s signature legislative achievement must be completely undone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/opinion/debate-joe-biden.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer

So French's recent book expands on these views suggesting that the hostile

political environment and civil discord can lead to the dissolution of the union of states. Joshua Keating in Slate Magazine argues that the divides are not between states but more to do with communities that are more conservative versus liberal defined as regions. Our demographics show us that we are surrounded by groups that may be different in culture and life style, beliefs, and customs so disentangling from them is impossible and being at war does not make any sense so let's find better ways of pursuing our happiness without trampling on each other.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/david-french-divided-we-fall-review-secession-hmm.html

Leonard