THE COLUMN: Tent, Meet Camel

A little phrase I wrote some years back about the Left, in the guise of my character, "David Kahane," has managed to hang on across the time and space of the internet and has now become common wisdom on the Right: They never stop, they never sleep, they never quit. Which is to say, in their relentless quest to destabilize every society with which they come into contact, "progressives" move seamlessly from one provocation to the next, camels sticking their noses under every tent, mindless of the human and institutional debris they leave behind and eager to get on with attacking the next potential pile of rubble. This animating principle, by the way, is what is known as Critical Theory.

In my 2015 literary hand grenade, The Devil's Pleasure Palace, I explained the true meaning of neo-Marxist doctrine:

Critical Theory, which essentially holds that there is no received tenet of civilization that should not either be questioned (the slogan “question authority” originated with the Frankfurt School) or attacked. Our cultural totems, shibboleths, and taboos are declared either completely arbitrary or the result of a long-ago “conspiracy,” steadfastly maintained down through the ages—as degenerate modern feminism blames male “privilege” and other forms of imaginary oppression. If the feminists have an argument, it is with God, not men; but since few of them believe in God, it is upon men that they turn their harpy ire. In its purest form, which is to say its most malevolent form, Critical Theory is the very essence of satanism: rebellion for the sake of rebellion against an established order that has obtained for eons, and with no greater promise for the future than destruction.

Bye-bye Byzantium.

In other words, this is war, but on the basis of all current evidence, only one side is waging it in earnest, and with "pride." If there's one thing history tells us, it's that all things must pass. Times change, cities fall, empires crumble. As Shelley famously wrote: "Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away."

The besieged eventually give up against the battering rams of time and tide. In 1453 the impregnable walls of Constantinople, one of the holiest and most powerful cities of Christendom, fell when the exhausted Greek Byzantines could no longer defend the last vestige of the Roman Empire. Out of manpower, out of money, out of a will to live, they succumbed to Sultan Mehmed II and the Ottoman Turks, who wanted it more than they did. To say the Muslims have not improved it in the interim would be an understatement.

Who defends us now? In Joe Biden's America -- really, Barack Hussein Obama II's America, since it is Hussein's caravan of camels that is now afflicting us -- masked thugs wander freely around our streets, roaming bands of disaffected, white, ideological soy-boy thugs who act as the enforcers of cultural Marxist orthodoxy. Gyrating "queers" (their word, now rehabilitated by the house organ of Gay America, the New York Times) march half-naked through New York, shouting that they're coming for your children.

NYC Drag Marchers chant “we’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children” https://t.co/ucK1qM4fv5 pic.twitter.com/OhBguhWwZY

— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) June 24, 2023

Meanwhile, their more sedentary brethren take to the pages of Wikipedia to inform us, the victims of this evil philosophy, that:

The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which misrepresents the Frankfurt School as being responsible for modern progressive movements, identity politics, and political correctness. The conspiracy theory posits that there is an ongoing and intentional academic and intellectual effort to subvert Western society via a planned culture war that undermines the Christian values of traditionalist conservatism and seeks to replace them with culturally liberal values. The conspiracy theory of a Marxist culture war is promoted by right-wing politicians, fundamentalist religious leaders, political commentators in mainstream print and television media, and white supremacist terrorists,^[7] and has been described as "a foundational element of the alt-right worldview".^[8] Scholarly analysis of the conspiracy theory has concluded that it has no basis in fact.^[6][9]

Gotta love all those "scholarly" citations, leading to the triumphant conclusion that you should trust the cultural Marxists and their propagandists, not your lying eyes. Further, gratuitous accusations of "anti-Semitism" are generally the last refuge of a scoundrel, and as the sea of links in the paragraph above indicates, there's no scoundrel like an academic scoundrel. Especially when the Marxists' own website happily embraces the Frankfurters' intellectual and geographic patrimony: "a group of Marxist intellectuals in Germany in 1923, affiliated to the University of Frankfurt and independently of the Communist Party, which has been influential in the development of Marxist theory ever since. The founding of the Institut marked the beginning of a current of 'Marxism' divorced from the organised working class and Communist Parties, which over the decades merged with bourgeois ideology in academia." The website makes no mention of either their ethnicity or their religious affiliation. True to Leftist form, the article is "semi-protected" from unwanted editing or corrections until May, 2026.

The faux-academicism has all the desperate incompetence of "Dr." Jill Biden's jejune doctoral "dissertation/executive position paper" -- in the rigorous discipline of "education" no less -- and none of its unintentional, embarrassing humor. Read it and weep, as the saying goes.

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But the walls have fallen, the dams have burst, and there is no end in sight. In accordance with the late Robert Conquest's Third Law of Politics, we are now ruled by a cabal of our enemies. As they were in National Socialist Germany, the universities have become hotbeds of intolerant socialist orthodoxy. Thought-crime laws are being bruited world wide; the concept of "protected classes" makes a mockery of equality before the law. George Floyd, a obese, violent drug addict who died in police custody after the commission of a crime, has become a secular saint, the apotheosis of "blackness" to a generation that has no memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., much less the Harlem Renaissance. Whole cities have been sacrificed on his altar.

Hunter Biden, the louche crackhead sex-pest issue of the President's loins, skates on serious income-tax and firearm charges even as he and the demented paterfamilias of this crime family are being publicly accused, in Congress, of being the principals of multi-million-dollar international bribery racket, thanks to Joe's employment of the FBI as his personal police force and his corruption of the Justice Department. Merrick Garland, who ideally would be cast as Beria in a road-show production of Stalin's Henchmen of 1953 is the attorney general of the United States, perhaps soon to be facing impeachment. As the late Bob Dole wondered during his quixotic campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996: "Where's the outrage?"

Show me the man and I'll show you the crime.

Long gone, along with Americans' former personal independence and self-reliance. It's still hard to believe that the country of Paul Revere and John Dillinger went so sheepishly into the fascist pens of the Covid Hoax lockdowns, surrendering their First Amendment freedoms without a fight while the useless judicial branch under the effete John Roberts sat by and didn't even squeak. The Roberts Court -- thanks, George W. Bush! -- appears to believe it sits on Mars, far away from the hugger-mugger mess of representative democracy, with no patriotic duty to use at least its moral authority on the issues of the day before they wend their way through the crapulous intestines of the "justice system."

But the Covid hoax, which stripped bare the pretentious fools in the American and international health establishments and inured Americans to the sight of masked faces in public places, thus normalizing Antifa, was just the warmup. Like the lady in the old sex joke, Americans have shown who they are and now we're just haggling about the price. Because you just know what's coming next:

According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a climate lockdown would entail the government taking other actions aside from asking people to stay at home. Limiting private vehicle use, banning the consumption of red meat, imposing intense energy-saving actions, and putting an end to fossil fuel drilling, are all examples of potential measures to be taken during a climate lockdown.

The main goal of these actions would be to lower global emissions. As we get closer and closer to reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius — a milestone that would cause the effects of climate change to further worsen — scientists are emphasizing the importance and necessity of staying below this threshold.

As the manufactured hysteria over a non-existent problem continues to ramp up, further restrictions on your freedom of speech, movement, and thought are coming your way. As The Hill noted in a 2022 opinion piece, "special carbon taxes... could be imposed on companies, limiting driving or air miles, and extend to individual employees. Drive to work in a car? You get hit with the tax. Children could be impacted by climate lockdowns, too. Schools, especially those heavily influenced by teachers’ unions, could impose permanent online-only days. Anyone against such measures could be labeled a “climate denier” who stands against progress — or simply a “domestic terrorist.”

The pandemic proved to be the precedent of 21st century governance. The initial lockdowns were a desperate attempt to understand more about the virus and shut it down. In hindsight, the overreaction will simply provide a backdrop for the next major government overreach. If COVID could kill millions, imagine the powers the government will assume against a threat that could kill billions.

Political leaders have learned that fear prompts the public to accept dramatic curtailing of freedoms for vague promises of safety — they must realize the incredible power at their fingertips. COVID gave the government mouse a cookie, and power-hungry officials and bureaucrats can utilize the precedents of the past two years to institute a much longer, much more comprehensive lockdown.

They never stop, they never sleep, they never quit. As I said in this space recently, first posit a counter-factual, and then act upon it as if it were true. From Covid to "hate speech" to "climate change," the walls are closing in, enveloping you as a formerly free citizen in a prison of their device. You look out the barred windows: the lone and level sands stretch away, and all you can see in the distance are more camels, heading your way.