Will Western Civilization survive the onslaught?

Why is the American Left so intent on destroying that which eventually liberated us from serfdom and slavery? Why do they oppose individual liberty?

Western Civilization (or Tradition) is set of cultural norms developed over the past 300 years in Western Europe and America, with roots in ancient Greece and Christianity – nowhere else. The core of Western Tradition is the “Enlightenment” belief in the sovereign individual – the assumption that a person has a Right to exist for his own sake, not merely to serve a government.

Individual sovereignty was embedded in our Declaration of Independence 250 years ago: “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is a simple statement of equality under the law, and the ability to choose one’s own course. Though not perfectly implemented, it remains humanity’s best shot at true civilization.

We must understand, however, that a “Right” is only the ability of an individual to take an action that cannot be infringed by other people or by the Government. To the contrary, Person A’s Rights cannot compel Person B to provide something to Person A (subsidies, welfare, healthcare, etc.). Wealth transfers are legalized extortion, not Rights.

The Western Tradition is underpinned by Enlightenment Principles:

— Self-reliance, personal responsibility, and individual justice.

— Private property and free exchange.

— Reason and scientific method.

— Freedom of (and from) religion; separation of church and state

— Nuclear family as the basis of societal organization

Socialist forms (Fascism, Communism, etc.) and the Welfare State stand in opposition to Enlightenment Principles.

Socialists openly try to destroy the nuclear family so they can indoctrinate children through the public education system – just like Hitler and Stalin did. In fact, destruction of the family was a priority topic at the 2025 conference of the Democratic Socialists of America in Chicago.

“Woke” is a strategy to de-moralize America using 5th Generation Warfare tactics – like Critical Race / Gender theory – to spawn bogus grievances against the Western Tradition through psychological operations and disinformation. Adherence to Woke ideology requires the individual to voluntarily surrender his sense of reason. The few moral failings of the West occurred precisely because we neglected Enlightenment Principles, not because we adhered to them.

Woke ideology divides people into identity groups (race, gender, etc.), then requires that people be judged according to those groups – not by their individual character. “Social Justice” assumes that one group is always oppressed, and the other is the oppressor. Hence “Social Justice” contradicts individual justice.

Woke ideology stabbed Martin Luther King in the back. A black man cannot be conservative without being called “Uncle Tom.” Woke assumes all white people are racist by birth, and are guilty of all the wrongs in the world in spite of ending slavery and other usurpations in the West, while the non-West continued it. Woke purposely ignores history, and attempts to forge their own pseudo-history like the 1619 Project.

Woke also denies the existence of reason and objective truth; it claims that people are entitled to their own truths – purposely conflating “truth” with “belief”. Hence a woman can be a man and a man can be a woman, and they can change their minds on a whim. Under Woke ideology, Math and Science are racist, and if a person wants to identify as a cat, then we are obliged to feed them Little Friskies and provide a litter box.

DEI is a Woke strategy that automatically assumes the white male to be an oppressor, while all other groups are somehow oppressed victims. DEI is absolutely contradictory to individual justice because it assigns guilt or innocence based on group identity rather than by an individual’s actions. DEI is just the Left’s version of Jim Crow.

Freedom of (or from) religion is a fundamental Western principle, whereas Woke ideology is officially anti-religion, and assumes the Socialist State is the sole source of moral authority. Conversely Islam requires everyone to become Muslim, or suffer the consequences (Koran), where the faith and the State are one-and-the-same (Caliphate). Hence, both Socialism and Islam deny individual Rights and freedom of conscience.

Ironically both the Woke socialists and the anti-democracy Islamists are in bed together sharing totalitarian and authoritarian values. But while the Woke crowd promotes LGBTQ ideology, the Islamists are throwing gays off rooftops for sport. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.

Western Principles offer opportunity to everyone, but we have been so open-minded that our brains fell out. Perhaps we thought the Woke mind-virus was just a passing fad, yet we’ve paid colleges trillions of dollars to destroy the minds of our young people with Woke indoctrination.

The West’s openness has been its Achilles Heel, and once our liberty is gone, it’s gone.

Scott Axelson resides in Jamestown while Michael Dee is a Silver Creek resident.