Mollie Hemingway Calls for Courage and Defiance in the Face of Bullying and Establishment Weakness

She was awarded the Bradley Prize last night.

She gave this speech, which called out the Establishment quislings who were in fact present in the room.

My brother skipped a grade, so he was small for his age when three other junior high school boys stole something from him and roughed him up one Friday after school.

My dad asked my despairing brother how he felt about it. He said he was angry and wanted to get his property back.

Dad explained that if he didn’t handle it, the bullies would never stop. He had my brother describe the boys and asked if he thought he could take on the biggest one.

That weekend, dad and a neighbor taught my brother some moves and strategy. After the first period on Monday, my brother confronted his attacker and won the ensuing fight.

Today, everyday Americans are being bullied by a hard-left minority that unfortunately has taken over and controls most of the agenda-setting institutions in our country. As someone who works in the media space, I know what it is like to be a lonely voice taking on many of these powerful people.

I learned several things from my brother's improbable victory.

First off, as Pat Buchanan wrote, "Courage is contagious, Defiance can lead to a recovery of will." It is inspiring to see someone who chooses to risk his well-being for a higher good.

We live in a time when people act like stating one’s sexual preferences or whatever pronouns they're using this week is courageous. I prefer David Azerrad's definition that courage is the "Bold and principled defiance of the lies of the age."

The conservative establishment, its politicians, and its media, don't lack ideas or people. But too many of its leaders do lack determination and endurance and fearlessness. The people can tell. As it is said, "Men don't follow titles, they follow courage."

The conservative movement in D.C. has too often been engaged in insincere opposition to progressivism's march through America's institutions, both public and private. It has seemed mostly interested in negotiating terms of surrender or managing defeat than preserving the republic. It has stood athwart history impotently suggesting that progressives slow down. Michael Malice has therefore derided conservatism as just "Progressivism with a speed limit." Institutional conservatism and its alleged leaders have too frequently accepted the propaganda press's treatment of conservatives as second-class citizens.

Huh, I wonder what neoliberal anti-conservative establishment grifter organizations she might have in mind.

For conservatism to mean anything now, it has to be about rejecting this rigged system. Don't just say "stop." Our duty is to not to say "stop" but then bend the knee in cowardice when the mob comes. That brings even more harm to our more vulnerable neighbors and does nothing to prevent the destruction of the country.

It's not comfortable for conservatives who value order and civility to even think or speak this way. But the fact is that many Americans are alienated from and no longer feel at home in their own country. The moral climate has been degraded as the left has taken over every single one of the powerful institutions in the country and is actively pushing people to lead a life of godlessness, barrenness, selfishness, gluttony, and addiction to outrage and dopamine.

All of a sudden, the conservative project is not a conservative one, so much as a counter-revolutionary one.

That's the first half of the speech. The second half is at the link to The Federalist.

Below, some defiance comes to even New York City.

posted by Ace at 01:03 PM

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