Op-Ed: Truth is not violence

"Freedom is the ability to say two plus two equals four.” What George Orwell meant is that only free people can speak truth. When an all-powerful ideology decree that two plus two is a mere social construct, then every person must lie if they wish to avoid the lash.

Our Founders fought to build a society where everyone could speak, act and live authentically according to the dictates of conscience. They fought so we wouldn't have to. As the axiom goes, there are four "boxes" that we can use in defense of freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box and the ammunition box — to be used in that order.

I decry equally all who leap to violence when there are so many other ways to defend liberty. Antifa thugs, BLM rioters and Jan. 6 interlopers are only the latest examples of those who have so little faith in the quality of their own ideas that they express themselves through violence and intimidation instead of eloquence and reason.

These latter-day Sturmabteilungen (Nazi Brownshirts) reveal their moral cowardice by their chosen methods. No one should give credence to strutting bullies whose fast fists speak volumes about their pathetic natures.

Individual goons can be as bad as those who are organized. The real problem with what Jussie Smollett did was that he faked the kind of attack that can really happen to anyone that offends the sensibilities of hooligans.

I deplore violence, unless it is in self-defense or in a last-ditch defense of our Constitution, after all else has been tried and failed. No one who indulges in it without true cause should be spared prosecution to the fullest extent of the law!

But, silence is not violence. Hurt feelings are not evidence of assault. We used to say that sticks and stones might break our bones, but names will never hurt us. Today, hyperbolic language and hypersensitive self-interest have taken us far from this common sense into the realms of thought-crime.

We are now told that reality must be denied for the sake of a powerful LBGTQ+ faction. Humans are sexually dimorphic. Men and women are different. Sex and gender are not fluidly mutable optional social constructs; they are biological realities as much a part of our humanity as is our mortality.

As biochemical machines, men and women are much more different from one another than are members of different races. Vikings and Pygmies of the same sex have more in common with one another than do men and women.

Our brain and body chemistry, muscular and skeletal structure, bone density and psychological propensities diverge because we are built for different purposes. Women's bodies have evolved to bear children, and men's evolved to protect and provide for them.

Yes, our consciences, natures and choices should matter more than our bodies. However, the liberty to live authentically need not result in an utter break from reality. Ideologues now assert that there is no objective distinction between men and women or between a person's self-identity and their biological actuality.

The gains achieved by women over the past half-century are being destroyed in the name of LBGTQ+ rights. The innocence of childhood is being violated by a premature sexualization intended to normalize gender fluidity.

Demands are made for faith and family to give way before this new orthodoxy or be decried as oppressive. Anyone who refuses to go along with this is seen to be engaging in phobic hatred.

Each of us should refuse to be emotionally blackmailed. No one's well-being should require us to lie. Dissent is not destruction. 2+2=4!

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In Maine and then Idaho, Ralph K. Ginorio has taught the history of Western Civilization to high school students for nearly a quarter century. He is an “out-of-the-closet” Conservative educator with experience in special education, public schools and charter schools, grades 6-12. He has lived in Coeur d’Alene since 2014. Email: rginorio@cdapress.com