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Old 12-09-2019, 10:16 AM
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Exclamation Rick Manning: When We Self-Censor On Politics & Religion, The Left Wins

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Rick Manning: When We Self-Censor on Politics and Religion, the Left Wins

To listen online: https://soundcloud.com/breitbart/bre...ecember-4-2019

By Robert Kraychik

Conservative self-censorship on themes of politics and religion aids the left’s push to eliminate Judeo-Christian ethics from America, said Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government and author of Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This Is Good News for America, in a Wednesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily.

Manning described a Judeo-Christian ethos as central to American values and as the foundation of an objective moral framework for the nation.

“Our DNA is a Judeo-Christian DNA. It’s built into the Constitution [and] the Declaration of Independence; all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” Manning remarked. “It’s part of the DNA of America, and when President Obama said we were a post-Christian country, he stated that almost as a triumph, and for the left it is, because here’s what it means: the underpinning of a certitude that there is, in fact, right, absolute truth, and everything else falls aside, that exists [within] a Judeo-Chistian ethos.

Manning warned of growing moral relativism in the wake of continual erosion of Judeo-Christian values across America

“It doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Manning said of the Judeo-Christian ethos. “So the concept of absolute truth underlies the rule of law, [and] it underlies the entirety of our civilization, and when you destroy the Judeo-Christian ethic, you destroy the rule of law and everything else becomes situational ethics, and what you see is, it’s okay to lie to accuse a Supreme Court nominee [of sexual impropriety] because the objective is to make sure that person isn’t confirmed. The ends justify the means. When we lose the Judeo-Christian ethos of our country, we lose the capacity to have objective [and] rational conversations between right and wrong.”

Marlow asked if the undermining of Judeo-Christian ethics is circumstantial or wrought by design.

“There is a concerted effort to destroy America,” noted Manning. “We’ve closed our eyes to it and allowed those who would destroy America to take over the institutions of America, and as a result, we wake up and we wonder, ‘Well, how the heck did this happen? How do we find ourselves with an Obama administration suing a school district in Illinois saying you have to let boys shower with girls or go in the girls’ locker room? When did we vote on that?’”

Manning added, “The left has been doing this over time and has developed a consensus in academia, and they just haven’t let the rest of us in on it. There is a concerted effort [to destroy America], but because there’s a concerted effort it is something we can attack and defeat.”

Conservative self-censorship on the subjects of politics and religion in order to avoid possible contentiousness in discussion amounts to withdrawal from the ideological battlespace, explained Manning.

“Because we’ve turned a blind eye, because we’ve said, ‘Oh, the things we can’t discuss are religion and politics,’ well, when you say you can’t discuss religion and politics, effectively, you say you can’t discuss anything that matters in the world,” stated Manning. “So consequently, we say you can’t discuss religion and politics in polite company, yet the other side does.”

Marlow reflected on those deliberately avoiding political or religious discussions around the Thanksgiving dinner table.

“I was thinking about this over Thanksgiving because I was at a house where we were discouraged from talking politics — which is fine for me because I talk politics all day every day, so I’m more than happy to have a day where we talk about other things — but overall, as this becomes a greater trend, I think this is very bad,” determined Marlow. “I think we’re all getting very soft to being able to handle criticism and [being able] to disagree civilly, which I think is a lost skill that used to be necessary and assumed, and now, basically, if anyone disagrees with you that is a microaggression, if not a macroaggression.”

Marlow continued, “I find all these [phenomena] to be certainly not good, and perhaps devastating for the future of the country if we’re going to control speech and forget how to disagree politely. I don’t like this stuff, and it’s becoming more and more commonplace.”

Manning described conservative self-censorship on matters of politics and religion as a surrender of critical analysis of such subjects to news media outlets.

“I think it’s important to remember that the speech they want to control and say you can’t engage in is the speech that they don’t control,” Manning said. “When I say ‘they’ I mean the major media and the elites who are sitting there and basically putting us through an inundation through all the entertainment that we consume of almost complete leftist agenda with little pushback.”

Manning went on, “They’re inundating us everyday with stuff throughout MSN headlines on MSN.com — they’re tilted left. Everything we see is tilted left, and as a result we can’t discuss it because that would be pushing back. We have to accept that norm. So yes, it’s a manipulation and it’s dangerous.”

Conservative self-censorship in political and religious discussions allows left-wing and partisan Democrat news media and academia to control Americans’ understandings of such subjects, concluded Manning.
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Old 12-09-2019, 10:37 AM
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Arrow The Importance Of Listening To Both Sides Of An Argument

The Importance Of Listening To Both Sides Of An Argument
By: Mckenna Schueler University of South Florida
RE: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/imp...sides-argument

When it comes to arguments I'm passionate about, my automatic reaction in the face of the opposition is to flee. Scroll past it, exit the tab or fast-walk past that mess.

Listening to an opposing side of an argument can be very uncomfortable, especially if it's one that touches on something very personal to you or is being argued in an aggressive manner. Enough to make you not want to look into it at all.

But then why is it important to force yourself to investigate where the opposition is coming from?

Biased Arguments Risk a Loss of Credibility

I'm biased, you're biased. No need to deny it. But there are times and places it is not necessarily in your best interest to allow your bias to present itself like some flashing neon sign. Depending on the forum in which you're expressing your argument—Twitter, a liberal/conservative news site, your chemistry class—your bias has the power to either garner support from those who already agree with you or earn disdain from those who are already looking for a reason to invalidate whatever it is you're saying.

Obviously that's a problem. You want to be taken seriously. Even in satirical argumentative pieces, I would venture to think there's at least some small hope that the audience will extract some morsel of truth from what may otherwise just consider itself a humor piece.

When it comes to these issues that you feel passionate about, if you want to be taken seriously you need to be informed on both sides of the issue, or the gray area in-between if relevant. That doesn't mean you need to Google every news piece commenting on whether trigger warnings should be implemented in university classrooms or not, but it's a good idea to figure out the primary points being expressed from each side.

It Can Strengthen Your Argument

Or it may lead you to modifying your argument some, either because you've realized you weren't expressing something clearly enough, or you weren't aware of all the facts.

The danger of reading extremely biased articles, or listening to a biased speaker, is the chance of being fed misinformation. Unfortunately, not everyone is honorable enough to not use whatever mischievous tactic they can to get others to follow them.

Furthermore, if this did happen and you went on to cite their misinformation to support your own argument, it would lessen your credibility as well as reassert the unreliability of theirs. This is only if the source isn't trying to address both sides themselves. They, as well as you, don't need to agree with both sides or remain objective in their stance on the matter, but cherry-picking things that only work to strengthen your side of the argument can actually hurt it.

However, if you read rebuttals, or listen to people who have just as much stock in their oppositional argument that you have in yours, you can gain new perspective. You can see where the opposition is coming from and modify it to strengthen your own argument in a way that can better address your points.

Once you take the time to assess the points of people who think differently than you, if you decide afterwards that you're still satisfied with your argument as it is, the information is still useful. An instance could occur where someone tries to criticize you for not knowing what you're talking about, and if they do, then you'll be able to say that you have actually read up on both sides of the argument and/or other resources, and therefore do know what you're talking about. Depending on the person, they may not care much, but forcing yourself to still pay attention to that information does matter.

Facing the Discomfort Will Become Easier

There may be times you're not in the right head-space to face the nay-sayers, the "haters," or any other name for the opposition. Not every person asserting their argument online or even in person does so respectfully—and I use "respectfully" loosely in this case, meaning no death threats, slurs or other personal attacks.

There are days I may post something controversial online, or text someone something that I'm not sure how they'll react to, and afterward decide to wait some time before looking at any replies. Maybe you've had a long day and don't want to face any trolls who have replied to your tweet about feminism or the 2016 presidential election.

We've all been there—sometimes we need to take a breather. Letting yourself decompress might actually save you from responding to them in an aggressive or angry way that you'll regret later on. I mean, you won't always regret it, but especially if this is an offline deal, not every response can be edited or deleted.

Arguments aren't just one-sided, as much as we might sometimes wish they were. If they were only made up of one side, it would be so much easier to win. But such is life, and facing perspectives different from your own is a part of that; even if you feel other perspectives are harmful and perpetuate hateful ideals that you can't even try to understand on a personal level.

You can hope that everyone will come to see things the way you do, but until then, give 'em hell by proving that you've got the knowledge to back yourself up and rid them of any leverage they might have been prepared to place on your assumed ignorance.
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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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