As Americans discuss terms of today’s “Great Reset,” they realize that the new normal comes with entirely new rules, ethics, and regulations.  There are also new definitions of life, liberty and happiness.  But is the current “Great Reset” a major sea change, or merely an adjustment to the truly great reset which occurred in the 19th century, when American parents complied with government demands to expose their children to a compulsory school curriculum?  Educator Victor Davis Hanson has just released a concise and prescient list of Ten Rules which are changing America.  Each of these consequential ideas were systematically introduced to the culture in America’s government mandated school curriculum throughout the 20th century.  In 2021, all these destructive ideas are at play simultaneously.  Dr. Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics, agrarianism and military history.

There are 10 new ideas that are changing America, maybe permanently.

1) Money is a construct. 

It can be created from thin air. Annual deficits and aggregate national debt no longer matter much.

Prior presidents ran up huge annual deficits, but at least there were some concessions that the money was real and had to be paid back. Not now. As we near $30 trillion in national debt and 110 percent of annual GDP, our elites either believe permanent zero interest rates make the cascading obligation irrelevant, or the larger the debt, the more likely we will be forced to address needed income redistribution.

2) Laws are not necessarily binding anymore. 

Joe Biden took an oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” But he has willfully rendered federal immigration laws null and void. Some rioters are prosecuted for violating federal laws, others not so much. Arrests, prosecutions, and trials are all fluid. Ideology governs when a law is still considered a law.

Crime rates do not necessarily matter. If someone is carjacked, assaulted, or shot, it can be understood to be as much the victim’s fault as the perpetrator’s. Either the victim was too lax, uncaring, and insensitive, or he provoked his attacker. How useful the crime is to the larger agendas of the left determines whether a victim is really a victim, and the victimizer really a victimizer.

3) Racialism is now acceptable. 

We are defined first by our ethnicity or religion, and only secondarily—if at all—by an American commonality. The explicit exclusion of whites from college dorms, safe spaces, and federal aid programs is now noncontroversial. It is unspoken payback for perceived past sins, or a type of “good” racism. Falsely being called a racist makes one more guilty than falsely calling someone else a racist.

4) The immigrant is mostly preferable to the citizen. 

The newcomer, unlike the host, is not stained by the sins of America’s founding and history. Most citizens currently must follow quarantine rules and social distancing, stay out of school and obey all the laws.

Yet those entering the United States illegally need not follow such apparently superfluous COVID-19 rules. Their children should be immediately schooled without worry of quarantine. Immigrants need not worry about their illegal entry or residence in America. Our elites believe illegal entrants more closely resemble the “founders” than do legal citizens, about half of whom they consider irredeemable.

5) Most Americans should be treated as we would treat little children. 

They cannot be asked to provide an ID to vote. “Noble lies” by our elites about COVID-19 rules are necessary to protect “Neanderthals” from themselves.

Americans deserve relief from the stress of grades, standardized testing, and normative rules of school behavior. They still are clueless about why it is good for them to pay far more for their gasoline, heating, and air conditioning.

6) Hypocrisy is passé. 

Virtue-signaling is alive. Climate change activists fly on private jets. Social justice warriors live in gated communities. Multibillionaire elitists pose as victims of sexism, racism, and homophobia. The elite need these exemptions to help the helpless. It is what you say to lesser others about how to live, not how you yourself live, that matters.

7) Ignoring or perpetuating homelessness is preferable to ending it. 

It is more humane to let thousands of homeless people live, eat, defecate, and use drugs on public streets and sidewalks than it is to green-light affordable housing, mandate hospitalization for the mentally ill, and create sufficient public shelter areas.

8) McCarthyism is good. 

Destroying lives and careers for incorrect thoughts saves more lives and careers. Cancel culture and the Twitter Reign of Terror provide needed deterrence.

Now that Americans know they are one wrong word, act, or look away from losing their livelihoods, they are more careful and will behave in a more enlightened fashion. The social media guillotine is the humane, scientific tool of the woke.

9) Ignorance is preferable to knowledge. 

Neither statue-toppling, nor name-changing, nor the 1619 Project require any evidence or historical knowledge. Heroes of the past were simple constructs. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees reflect credentials, not knowledge. The brand, not what created it, is all that matters.

10) Wokeness is the new religion, growing faster and larger than Christianity. 

Its priesthood outnumbers the clergy and exercises far more power. Silicon Valley is the new Vatican, and Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter are the new gospels.

RELEVANT QUOTATIONS FOR THE WEEK

‘This is a major aspect of compulsory training for citizenship in America and around the world. "We take your kids away from you at age six. Suck it up. We will teach them whatever we choose. Suck it up. We won't protect them from bullies. Suck it up. If you complain in writing, we will expel your kid, not the bullies. Suck it up."’ Dr.Gary North

“Dr. Michael Yeadon, a former Vice President and Chief Science Officer for Pfizer, spoke with great urgency to America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) late last week warning that the drive to inject the largest possible portion of the population with experimental COVID-19 vaccines is “madness,” involves “evil,” includes “crimes against humanity” and may have the intention of “massive-scale depopulation.””  -- America’s Frontline Doctors

“[We] Russians are as much Asiatics as European. The mistake of our policy for the past two centuries has been to make the people of Europe believe that we are true Europeans. We have served Europe too well, we have taken too great a part in her domestic quarrels (…) We have bowed ourselves like slaves before the Europeans and have only gained their hatred and contempt. It is time to turn away from ungrateful Europe. Our future is in Asia. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1881

“Paul says that the Romans were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Romans 6: 3-4). In the first instance, it proclaims death.  [Christians] preach and counsel people into the grave. And their greatest problem is that people don't believe it.  They don't believe they are dead.  They don't believe they are rotting corpses.  They don't believe they are as bad as that.  But the crucifixion of Jesus means they are actually worse than they think.”  - Toby Sumpter

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.”  – Jesus Christ, John 5:24-27