Former Attorney General William Barr gave a rather stark appraisal of the current politico-cultural moment, last Saturday.
Speaking at a Christian conference in Chicago, Bill Barr said that our “whole civilization” is “under sustained attack by increasingly secular forces.”
Certainly, the western tradition in which we live is “Judeo-Christian,” yet the explicitly religious aspect of our civilization is openly mocked and undermined by major progressive institutions. But is the civilization itself under attack?
Well, if you lean left you might say No.
To others, the “woke” mob that dominatesso many major organizations in America is foursquare against freedom of speech and religion, and by demanding ideological conformity on a number of issues like sexual identity and racial “equity,” seems determined to re-make society from the ground up, and have that work done under mob violence threat as well as corporate compliance and state command.
But especially interesting is what Barr said was the foundation for today’s secular revolutionaries: the public schools.
“The variety of American beliefs now makes a monopoly on education untenable,” Barr argued, as quoted by The Federalist. “You can’t finesse it anymore. You can’t pretend what’s being taught in schools is compatible with traditional religion, nor can you pretend schools are neutral any more.”
This radical a critique of government schooling is something I used to hear only from libertarians. Barr’s advocacy of school choice is not as cautious as Republicans would advance decades ago. His is an attack on government-run schools as such: the constitutional and existential crisis in American education requires,Barr said, a direct attack upon the government monopoly over the provision of education.
The culture war just ramped up a notch.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
—
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
