The rise of the Right is the fault of the Center

... for pandering to the Militant Left.

Since they again forgot to invite me to Davos, here’s my view on the single greatest threat facing the world economy today.

William Butler Yeats said: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” But the same poem holds a more profound thought: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

In the past half-century, a conviction-lacking Center has pandered to the passionately-intense Left in almost every manner imaginable. This has led to a reactionary rightist shift in country after country, with no counter-trend in sight.

Proverbial “bleeding hearts” have long been more concerned with the rights of criminals than the more fundamental right of the average citizen to feel secure. The guilty are exonerated or slapped on the wrist. The numbers of innocent victims multiply, and the more people yearn for decisive law-and-order autocrats.

With felony-theft thresholds at $300-$2,500, many US states have legalized shoplifting, seemingly hoping that eliminating punishment will deter crime. This habituates the less-advantaged to criminality, and benefits drug lords. It harms the average shopper and small retailers. How centrist is that?

Elite university presidents won’t condemn “incitement to Jewish genocide” because (paraphrased) “it isn’t hate unless directed at individuals.” The salient point is not the obvious one that these persons are clueless, but rather that they are spineless, unwilling to stand for an actual practical cause. Hired by pandering boards, they hire pandering politically-correct professors, teach students by example the art of waffling, and directly or indirectly influence much of American thinking in print and broadcast media, publishing, science and the arts. They epitomize how a Spineless Center has been hijacked by the Passionate Left. No wonder electorates yearn for personalities who are actually FOR something, even lies.

Many online forms now ask if your personal pronoun is it, he/she or they. Liberal morons are in effect demanding that you declare your sexual preference – which should be no one’s business but yours, shouldn’t it? “Prefer not to answer” is an answer. This tangled logic of the Left leads to the Rightist reaction that “God made us Man or Woman, and don’t make me re-learn grammar and vocabulary every time a tail wants to wag the dog, and some parts of the dog are stupid enough to allow it.”

Parents everywhere have been frightened into believing that any discipline is abuse – from spanking to stern lecture to time-out. The gap between real child abuse and acceptable parenting is vast, but the Militant Left isn’t satisfied with anything but total parental capitulation. The result is two generations of humans many of whom have no notion of social contract, and who accordingly need to learn from CNN that it is “poor airplane etiquette” to place bare feet on the armrest in front.

Cancel-culturists giddy with power have cowed companies, institutions and prominent individuals into the same gutlessness as everyone else in the Center. They cancel ad campaigns, re-write or delete history and mouth hypocritical apologies – killing the very freedom of speech that the Left claims to espouse.

In some parts of the world, more-or-less-Centrist political parties make deals that place whole countries under the swing-vote control of fringe factions whose aims often include dismemberment of the countries themselves.

A Spineless Center has allowed itself to be hijacked by the Passionate Left.

The Center needs to develop the conviction that Yeats pointedly said it lacks. The Center needs a backbone. And it needs to find the Center again.

Yes to human rights, but No to one person’s rights outweighing everyone else’s. And this idea should run from physical violence all the way up to playing loud music and not bathing.

Yes to free speech, but No to burning flags or Korans, no to cancel culture, and No to incitements to violence or insurrection.

Yes to respect for gender identity, but No to snooping what that identity is, and No to forcing everyone to walk on eggshells lest a very small minority be offended because he wasn’t called it.

Yes to protecting children from physically or emotionally abusive parents, but No to shaming parents (and school teachers) into abdicating their obligation to teach children society’s norms, which include both rights and obligations.

Yes to healthy political diversity. But No to secessionists and separatists. Instead of spinelessly groveling to their every whim, give them what they want. Accept their EU or Brazilian Federation resignation, and cast them adrift. Take away their national ID cards and passports, give them some land and say goodbye. In the long run, this will be less costly and painful than constant appeasement. Quebec, Flanders and Catalunya, be careful what you wish for.

Yes to immigration. But No to the uncontrolled acceptance of foreigners who won’t or can’t assimilate. No to immigrants who didn’t come here (wherever here is) to share our ideals, but to abuse our hospitality.