What’s Extreme?

November 26, 2023

Conservatives are used to being called “extreme.”

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Speaker Mike Johnson is ripped by liberal media for his “extreme Christian nationalist” views and for his belief in covenant marriage.  That is to say, Johnson believes that it is necessary to pare back progressive spending in face of ruinous government debt before the country is bankrupted, and in his personal life, he believes that marriage really is a matter of “’til death do us part.”  So that’s extreme?

Some intrepid reporter should ask Joe Biden to name one federal program that could be eliminated, not that he would receive an answer.  Not only does Biden refuse to eliminate a single program, but he refuses to reduce his ever-larger budget requests for nearly every program.

Job Corps is a good example of what should be eliminated in entirety.  Established in 1964, Job Corps has received a grade of “F” from the GAO every year of its existence.  And yet every year, its budget grows: in 2022, $1.755 billion compared to $1.701 billion in 2010.  The average cost per graduate (2017 figures) was well over $50,000 — and this for very basic job skills that could be acquired for free by working at McDonald’s or any number of businesses.  And yet Biden continues to request more money for Job Corps every year.

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Altogether, Biden requested $6 trillion in regular spending in FY2022 (and another $5 trillion in “emergency spending” over two years), and do liberal media consider this “extreme”?  Even the Washington Post, one of America’s most liberal newspapers, has concluded that “immense fraud” took place with Biden’s emergency spending, including billions claimed by Nigerians and other foreigners.  And all that government watchdog agencies can say is that they need more money while admitting that it is nearly impossible to recoup losses.

The federal debt has risen in less than three years under Biden from $21.6 trillion in January 2021 to nearly $34 trillion today, and yet this is not extreme?  The national debt is exploding, and there’s not one word from any Democrat leader as to how to cut spending.  Republicans have passed legislation to cut the rate of spending, but it will not go anywhere in the Senate.

Every homemaker knows how to budget spending, or should know.  You cannot spend what you don’t have.  The same discipline must be brought to government.  End deficit spending permanently, and begin paying off the national debt.

It’s not just fiscal control that is lacking.  According to the left, prohibiting abortion, even in the last trimester, is said to be “extreme.”  But it is not conservatives who are extreme on abortion; it is the left.  Not only do liberals allow millions of nearly complete and perfect human beings to die (nearly one million legal abortions in the U.S. in 2022 alone), but they encourage it through organizations that guide young women in their abortion decisions.  Aborting a child at any point in the pregnancy is extreme.  Attempting to preserve life, as conservatives do, is not.  This much should be obvious.

On its website, Planned Parenthood announces: “If you’re pregnant and thinking about abortion, you may have lots of questions.  We’re here to help.”  “Abortion rights” groups pretend they are supporting women and defending women’s rights.  The reality is that “helping” with abortion means ending a human life.

Support for abortion is an extreme position, and it has been deemed so for thousands of years.  It is not difficult to find numerous Bible verses defending the right to life and condemning murder in any form.  Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV) tells us: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”  Christians celebrate the Annunciation on March 25, the day when the angel Gabriel informed Mary that she would carry the baby Jesus, God incarnate from the moment of conception.  What if Mary had decided to seek an abortion?  It’s a chilling thought, and it illustrates just how extreme the casual acceptance of abortion has become.

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Plenty of extreme behavior surrounds the left’s response to Israel’s war against Hamas.  This month, 30 students walked out on Hillary Clinton’s lecture at Columbia, protesting Israel’s “extremist government.”  Faculty and administration at Columbia and Cornell, UPenn, and hundreds of other universities have refused to condemn pro-Hamas demonstrations.  In fact, a majority of college faculty agree with the present wave of anti-Israel demonstrations and may be promoting antisemitism on campus.  Are conservatives who support Israel extreme, or are liberals who support Hamas the real extremists?

On Oct. 11, Newsweek published a list of universities hosting pro-Palestinian demonstrations.  This listing barely scratches the surface of antisemitism on campus or in the U.S. media, government, and corporations.  These are not, for the most part, peaceful protests.  They are actions that threaten Jews and that loudly proclaim “from the river to the sea,” shorthand for the elimination of Israel as a nation.  Nor is the mood of these protests very peaceful.  On Nov. 15, “hundreds of ‘violent’ anti-Israel protesters clashed with police“ outside the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C.  Six Capitol Police officers were treated for injuries incurred at the hands of an estimated 150 protesters.

The DNC protest is just one of thousands of violent left-wing protests over the past few years, most of them directed at conservatives or conservative policies — though radicals have increasingly turned their sights on their own, whom they consider not radical enough.  The rise of progressive brown-shirts follows a familiar pattern of political extremism.  For decades, progressives have operated under the slogan “by any means necessary,” and the means have become more and more violent.  And yet the national media refuse to condemn this violence as “extreme.”

As we enter the election year of 2024, the left will attempt to portray Donald Trump as extreme.  During his first term, Trump did much to revive our sluggish economy, close the southern border, and defend our nation against its enemies.  Nothing that Trump did was extreme, but that won’t stop the left from portraying him as such.

It’s important to remember that progressives are extreme to the point of endangering our security, undermining our economy, and promoting social policies that kill and destroy.  As their name suggests, conservatives wish to conserve life, conserve law and order, conserve our economy, and conserve our democracy.  These are commonsense goals that most Americans support.  They are in no way extreme.

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Image: Chris Dodds via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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