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The Passive Conservative response to Big Tech censorship is reminiscent of the Star Trek episode about a simulated interplanetary war, in which designated casualties marched meekly into extermination booths. So much better, they reasoned, than fighting a messy REAL war!
Passive Conservatives accept rules written by the Left. A dignified march into the extermination booth, with a book of timeless principles clutched quietly to their chests, is the fitting end they accept.
What they don't understand is that if you don't actively and relentlessly fight on the frontiers of cultural and political battle to demand a role in writing the rules, those rules will always be written and re-written to guarantee your defeat.
The moribund forces of Passive Conservatism are like an army without reconnaissance, and largely without weapons. They have splendid uniforms and lovely banners inscribed with the words of great men long dead. They never try to choose the battleground or fire the first volley.
They hope for a great referee who will step in and place victory into their spotless hands by ruling the other side out of bounds. They wait for this rescue even as the Left bayonets the wounded around them and marches behind their lines to the next grisly battle.
The most deluded Passive Conservatives think that referee will be the media, which will one day awaken from its left-wing daydream to discover objective truth favors the conservatives and applaud them for remaining principled. "By Jove, you've been right all along!"
But far more common is the daydream of Moderates rising up to overthrow left-wing extremists and embrace the Passive Conservatives who stand there with arms quietly outstretched to embrace them. Nothing must EVER be said or done that might alienate the Moderates!
Meanwhile, the Left doesn't care about alienating the Moderates. It SUBJUGATES them. It uses every form of social engineering available, every drop of cultural and political power, every mob it can whip up, to drag the political center leftward.
The Left doesn't worry about winning arguments when it can simply silence opponents. The Left doesn't worry about scoring points when it can rewrite the rules and control the scoreboard. It doesn't worry about persuading adults when it can indoctrinate children.
Passive Conservatives are focused forever on process, while the Left cares only about the outcome. The Left doesn't care how many people have to suffer, or even die, to achieve its desired outcome. All collateral damage is acceptable in a righteous crusade to control history.
That single-minded determination and ferocity, coupled with its control over so many institutions, gives the Left an almost unchallenged ability to write and rewrite the rules. It doesn't even PRETEND to value the principled consistency Passive Conservatives place above all else.
That's how you end up with this gruesome Star Trek spectacle of self-described True Conservatives shuffling once again to the execution booth, having been informed they are casualties of a simulated battle to control free speech.
"The Rules say we can't fight back. We might be accused of hypocrisy, and that will frighten the Moderates away forever! Better to quietly accept a painless and sanitary end, and hope the survivors are allowed to keep running a few websites, maybe get a seat on the Sunday shows."
What's sorely missing among Passive Conservatives is the capacity to feel true *outrage* against the Left. They can summon it against other conservatives, but they can't make themselves righteously angry against the Left - which has a limitless supply of outrage.
Could you imagine Passive Conservatives ginning up the energy and organization to change the behavior of a single massive corporation or wavering politician? The very notion is laughable. They write editorials read primarily by each other. They don't organize protests.
That sort of thing is POPULISM, you see, and Passive Conservatives have sworn off populism forever. It is a resource permitted only to the Left, which uses it with wild abandon. The invisible Moderate cavalry will never ride up to save the Right if it touches a drop of Populism!
There is no strategy for victory, no clear sense of what to fight for, no great desire to change rules the other side refuses to obey. Just wait for the next casualty report after the Left declares its next victory and walk to your assigned execution booth. /end
