If you haven't voted yet...

John C. Goodman explains Who's To Blame For Our Bitter Divide over at Townhall.com today. It is an interesting read, and I encourage gentle readers to go there and get a good education on the origin, purpose, and results of identity politics. Along the way, you will find that the real purpose of identity politics is specifically to divide people along tribal lines, set each tribe against the others, and reap the votes by promising to get revenge for perceived historic evils done to your tribe by others.

Identity politics divides us into tribes. It implicitly sets tribe against tribe. The divisions are created not by reason, but by emotion and resentment. Once tribal warfare begins, it takes on a mind of its own – under no one’s control. But let’s not forget how all this started.

The Democratic Party long ago ceased being the party of collectivist ideas. Today it is the party of identity collectivism. It’s what Ayn Rand once called “barnyard collectivism.” Further, identity politics not only engenders hateful divisiveness, it encourages violence and threatens the stability of our democratic institutions.

Goodman goes on to explain a tribal view of rights and responsibilities gives the aggrieved party greater rights and fewer responsibilities than the supposed oppressors. Whether we are taking about skin color, or feminists, or the LGBTQxtz crowd, the implication is that Democrats are going to repay, seek revenge, and right the historic wrongs of these aggrieved parties. And there are plenty of tribal hustlers out there making a living off of the perpetually aggrieved. Whether we are talking about the "Reverend" Al Sharpton and the "Reverend" Jesse Jackson, or the screetching harpies of the Feminazi movement, or the lawfare committed by LGBTQxyz against Christians who are trying to live their faith.

Goodman is correct that this must stop.  Was your great great grandfather held as a slave?  That is a tragedy for him no doubt.  But why is that a tragedy for you now?  The Lord works in mysterious ways, and there was a reason he put you here now, and I don't think its to make the white man pay.  Similarly, were you the queer kid who got picked on by the bullies in high school?  Not good, and no doubt you have resentments.  But have you never heard of Freddy Mercury and the super band Queen?  Mercury turned lemons into lemonade.  Maybe that would be a better way than to constantly carp, complain, and seek retribution for your resentments.

I have read somewhere that the United States produces one quarter of the worlds GDP. Think what we could accomplish if, instead of nursing grievances and making someone else pay, we put our minds to how we could improve the lives of others, while of course helping ourselves as well. That is after all the essence of a successful business.  Focus on making the others lives better.  Plant our feet in the here and now, because yesterday is a cancelled check, and tomorrow is a promissory note.  All we really have is today to make our lives meaningful.  Revenge may feel good, but it leaves one hollow.

I leave you with this:

There was a time when the liberal democrats endorsed traditional civil rights – believing that everyone should be equal before the law. Those days are gone. There was a day when our universities were dedicated to the unencumbered search for truth, wholeheartedly defending the right of people to express views with which they disagreed. Those days are also gone.

Here’s why this is dangerous. One step away from the belief that you have no right to express your ideas is the belief that you have no right to vote. One step away from the idea that you have no right to express your ideas in the polling booth is the belief that the people you vote for have no right to govern.

When lawfully elected governments are deposed in other countries it is almost always in the context of a claim that elected officials had no legitimate right to be elected in the first place.