Thread by @Doc_0

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. The greatest trick the Left ever pulled was convincing us "normal" doesn't exist. Obliterating the concept of healthy, normal life was a step toward creating obedient, programmable New Soviet Man.

There is nothing particularly difficult about perceiving "normality," and it's not an inherently oppressive concept. At the end of the 20th Century, advanced societies had a pretty good idea of "normal life," which brings health and success to the greatest number of people.

We had mountains of sociological data to back up our ideas of normality, which tracked fairly well with many long-standing traditions. This is no surprise, because long before scientific studies, countless generations learned through experience what works, and what doesn't.

We were tricked and bullied into turning against the concept of normality and pretending it was impossibly difficult to define. We were told it was oppressive to even think about normal vs. abnormal. Remember when "family values" was used as a sneering curse by the Left?

A healthy society makes plenty of room beyond its norms, with due respect for those who choose different paths, without abandoning the idea that a set of "best practices" are most beneficial to the greatest number of people. That's a crucial concept in a nation of millions.

Of course, as we've learned throughout the past decade of flaming-hot culture war, the Left doesn't REALLY dispute the concept of normality - they just want to redefine it, in ways that require the maximum use of compulsive force against the population.

Not since the heyday of the Puritans has America seen an ideology as rigid, repressive, and absolutely intolerant of deviance as the modern Left. They conceal some of this behind hedonism and sexual indulgences, but they don't really bother to hide it much anymore.

A healthy sense of tradition and positive social expectations centers society like a seaworthy ship, leaving plenty of room at the rails for those who live outside the norms. It's important to understand what civilization expects, and why, before deciding to live a different way.

Creative writing classes stress the importance of learning the rules of grammar before bending them for the sake of art. It's the difference between clever prose and unreadable gibberish. It is the same with the grammar of civilization itself.

Normality is especially important for young people. They're going mad today because they are not given healthy expectations to meet. This is not "liberating" for children - it's TERRIFYING. They float in a cultural void without the gravity and warmth of a sun to draw them in.

The pandemic lockdowns inflicted horrific damage on our children, but the stage was already set for disaster, because a generation was taught to discard the healthy norms that gave us generations of strong families and growth. We're not growing any more - we're dying off.

The old norms were based in biological reality. The new "norms" require the surgical modification of children to meet. It's not difficult to puzzle out which set of standards is healthier. It's not hard to see which one offers a brighter future.

Part of the Left's game was tricking people into thinking norms are oppressive - a constant message in pop culture, until the Left suddenly switched up and began programming mindless obedience to the New Norms - and equating them with religious fundamentalism.

But these are not purely religious concepts. Religion has long tended to promote healthy norms, but you can prove these are constructive ideals with pure reason and science. We were approaching a convergence of faith, tradition, and social science at the turn of the century.

Before the hard Left captured the Democrat Party and drove it to vicious insanity, a bipartisan understanding of healthy society was emerging. Try Googling the phrase "defining deviancy down" and prepare to be shocked at who coined it.

People, especially young people, instinctively want to know what's considered healthy and normal, what is expected of them. Even those who are not "normal" - and in some way, all of us are "abnormal" - long for some guidance, a sense of what is solid ground and what is quicksand.

It does great harm to deprive people of the accumulated wisdom of those who went before, who explored the terrain of human life and learned where many of the pitfalls are. It's cruel and dangerous to send children into a world without standards and values, especially today.

Of course unhealthy behavior, up to and including suicide, is on the rise among young people. They no longer hear the call of normality pulling them back from the brink. Instead they find social media groups urging them toward destruction, black holes pulling them down.

The Left sneered at rigid conformity, but the truth is that THEIR New Norms require more enforcers, unyielding speech codes, and constant indoctrination. Healthy norms have a way of selling themselves, when the results can be discussed honestly. /end