Move the Overton Window or Be Defenestrated Determined Minorities Control the Majority
Summary
Transcript
Got a rainbow colored collar. We could choose another dog. Nice collar. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I like it. So, what do you want to do for me? Gotta point it out. Find a tutor. Oh, chase our tail. Oh, I know. Let’s sniff. No, actually, I like to play with yarn. Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah. Or I like to clean my paws. Like this. You see, this video is an admission that these young children don’t understand the sex and gender thing.
Right. We gotta do it with puppet. Animal puppets. We could try to meow like that. It’s great fun. You should try it. Why not? Yeah. Let’s go. Excuse me, would you? I just. I have to go for a second. I’ll be right back. No problem. Miss Madison. Miss Madison. Oh, hey, Gulliver. You’re back. Did you find Barry? Yeah. We’ve got to talk. He seems like a nice guy.
Oh, great guy. Great guy. He thinks he’s a cat. He thinks he’s a cat? Yeah. He’s over there talking about yarn. Purring. Woof. And licking. Well, that’s okay, isn’t it? I think you should talk to him. About what? About being more like a dog. Gulliver, you’re really struggling with. It’s weird. It’s not weird, just different. I couldn’t ask Barry to change who he is. That was really sad.
Yeah. Okay. You get the idea about going into any more of this, that’s what they’re showing to young kids. And of course, the young kids have to. Let’s. Let’s put it at a level where young kings, of course, can kids who need to be talked to in that way, can they make decisions about something that is going to have. Going to affect them physically for the rest of their life? Of course they can’t.
That’s the absurdity of all this. There’s an interesting op Ed piece from Michael Clary. He said it’s going to take plain spoken courage to move the Overton window. And if we don’t control this Overton window, folks, we’re going to be thrown out of it. We’re going to be defenestrated. It’s interesting. The Overton window was something that’s developed by a guy at a libertarian think tank, the Mackinac center, back in the nineties, and his name was Joseph Overton.
He said that it’s public approval or public disapproval that really drives policy. The Overton window determines that some ideas are mainstream, but some other ideas are extreme. Ethics are not based on objective standards, but on a popularity contest. And the Overton window is fickle. 20 years ago, supporting gay marriage was an extreme position, but now it’s considered to be mainstream. The shift has been so dramatic that it’s considered extreme to oppose it.
Social pressure is its animating force. Another example is mutilating the genitals of children. This was once a barbaric practice that was only happening in third world countries. And we talk about women coming here that were islamic and female genital mutilation. Nobody talks about that anymore. People say that’s barbarous, but now look at what they’re doing today. It’s done in the suburbs and it’s covered by health insurance. When I was talking about the german minister of, I guess, spying on Germans, domestic intelligence, he said, well, we’re not really worried about crime and violence.
We’re worried about extremists. It. Right. We’re about those people who are outside of the Overton window. And that’s true. They are following the interesting people. As Michael Hayden said, they don’t have to see you as violent or criminal. You just have to be somebody who is going to be moving the culture, moving what people think. And then you become a person of interest, somebody that they want to shut down.
Labels are very powerful. Labels are how they do this. Labels are how they frequently move the Overton window. That’s why I say we got to reject those. Don’t call yourself red. You’re not a red state. Red’s always been the color of communism. That’s why they’re trying to use it, because their tactics are the tactics of communism. You know, instead of a struggle session or whatever. Well, we got woke, you know, Dei and that type.
But it’s all the marxist tactics. They just tried to relabel it and they try to make it look good. Right? So we call ourselves woke or woke. We won’t call you pro life. We will call you anti abortion rights and on and on. Most people want to be considered reasonable and moderate. So nobody wants to be labeled as an extremist, a radical, or an alarmist, right? Or racist.
That’s the other thing, right? You can be talking about climate. Oh, you’re racist, you’re white privilege and all the rest of this stuff. Shame can drive public opinion, leading people to self censor or to adapt their views so they’re not cast into outer darkness with the rest of the deplorables that was Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump during the pandemic. The non essential businesses and workers. Right. Which one is worse? Is it worse to be a deplorable or non essential? The Overton window is a sociological phenomenon.
No one directly controls it. The majority doesn’t move. The Overton window window moves the majority. The window itself is moved by whoever has the courage and the influence to move it in their direction. A motivated minority with a compelling message can make a difference. For example, for over a year now, pearl clutching and hand wringing regime evangelicals have policed the Overton window with warnings about how christian nationalism will destroy our gospel witness in the public square.
Doug Wilson. Pastor Doug Wilson, considered a chief proponent of christian nationalism, though he prefers to speak of mere christendom, remains unmoved by the pressure to keep silent about Christ’s lordship over government. His affable demeanor, combined with his reasonable articulation of biblical principles, has earned him a significant following of ordinary christians who are hungry for bold leadership. That’s why Tucker Carlson had him on with the title for his interview.
Pastor Doug Wilson is the christian nationalist they warned you about. And so he says, to give another example, Dusty Devers was an obscure baptist pastor in Oklahoma who had the guts to defy the rhetorical overlords and move the window to the right. So what were his controversial views? He believes abortion is murder. Well, you know, so does. So does Bill Maurer. He’s just okay with it, right? And if somebody’s okay with it, he’s saying he believes abortion is murder and mothers who abort their children should be prosecuted as criminals, not treated as secondary victims.
Well, I disagree with that. I think some women are victims. I think some of them are criminals. You have to make that determination. I wouldn’t categorically say it one way or the other. I think some women just say, just like Bill Marron, they say, yeah, it’s murder, and I’m okay with it. He also believes pornography is a social disaster that destroys marriages and increases sex addiction and human trafficking and child exploitation.
Devers had the nerve to campaign precisely on these issues, and he won a state senate seat. He then had the gall to keep his campaign promise by introducing legislation to outlaw pornography and abolish abortion in his state. Predictably, the outrage machine fired up, he got a lot of derisive coverage from Rolling Stone magazine and Jimmy Fallon. Again, you have any state level activism, you’re going to get the eye of Sauron on you.
They understand that’s where things change. The press coverage was an unexpected gift. It forced a public debate that thrust his local message into the national debate. Videos of women smiling and dancing around and celebrating their abortions got a lot of traction and helped to underscore what he was saying, that these women are not victims. They’re celebrating the murder of their own children. Deaver’s strategy to go on the offense highlighted wicked practices and exposed as distractors for defending them.
Christians easily fall into the trap of letting the Overton window frame how issues are presented. For example, every discussion of homosexuality must include some reference to how homosexuals are made in God’s image, though no discussion of any other sin has such qualifications. In the past ten years or so, the Overton window has rapidly lurched much further to the left, pressuring christians into an ever accommodating posture. Yet the far left is typically among the most unstable, quick tempered, over sensitive, easily offended people in our society.
The threat of enduring angry outbursts from them is enough to cause many christians to get into a posture of appeasement and to cower in silence. But in the long term, what you’re doing is rewarding irrational behavior. No one wants to trigger an unpleasant scene, so we choose the seemingly sensible route of saying nothing and going along to get along. This strategy allows the Overton window to continue moving in ways that further suppress our public voice.
So sooner or later, we may find ourselves unable to speak at all. And so when you look at what happened at a school recently, you had kids who walked out to get attention because they were being bullied by kids who dressed up as furries. I guess they took that little video literally. The trans animals. Well, I think I’m a cat. Are they wearing a mask? Every day. But every time they go, they’re always just wearing a mask.
But the principal finally stirred up and banned those stuff. But they have every day. The principal doesn’t get to make them get in trouble. Yeah. All the principal says, just be kind, be nice. What’s the point of dressing up like a furry? So people can come at them and just look at them to think that they’re so cool. Okay. Are you guys gonna be in trouble for walking out of school today? Furries are wrong.
This is wrong. We should fish it up. Do your parents know you guys are out here? Yes. How else do they attack you guys. They bite us, they scratch us. Why are they spraying you with Febreze? Just because they’re dirty boxes. I heard that was just a rumor. No, it’s true. Is it something you’ve seen? Yeah. So we can’t talk or say anything to the furries or even look at them, but they can come look at us, and they can say stuff to us and touch us, and they can trouble.
Interesting. That sounds like a double standard to me. Yes. Okay, you guys stay on the sidewalk. Okay? Yeah. I think those kids are starting to learn the lesson, right? Experience is an expensive teacher, and they’re getting the experience. And so they’re tired of this tyranny. They’re tired of these crazy kids who are acting like spoiled brats, putting litter boxes in the girl’s bathroom. And of course, they bite them, scratch them and other things.
And then there’s this. This is a mother telling a tranny, sorry, you’re not coming in the bathroom where my girl is telling you, please do not lose women’s face. It makes them feel uncomfortable. My girls and the other women I am with are very comfortable with me in the bathroom. Right. Well, fortunately, I’m not your daughter. And my daughter is also not your daughter. That’s right. And she would feel very uncomfortable.
No, I interrupt. No, you interrupted me. Excuse me. Just call him out. Sorry. That’s. You’re not a woman. You’re not a mother. What a freak show it is. But this is what we’ve allowed because, look, people are finally standing up to this stuff in the same way. It took a very long time for people to stand up to fouchi and the rest of this nonsense. I’m not wearing a mask.
I’m not getting your jab. I’m not gonna stay in my house and all the rest of the stuff. People finally gotten to the point where they’re fed up with this. And as he points out, when a far left activist is invited to speak on a college campus, conservative students typically ignore it. They go on with their lives. They don’t riot or protest or do sit ins because we believe in free speech and we value responsible citizenry.
But the left doesn’t do that. They have outrage, mobs that show up. Even though the far left does not represent most of the population today, they exert outsized influence on the Overton window. Appeasing the left is easier than opposing them. Every mother of a toddler has been tempted to yield to his demands in a candy or grocery store to avoid embarrassing scenes. Wise mothers know that’s a losing strategy.
Rewarding bad behavior only leads to more of it. The far left controls the Overton window the same way. If a 50 year old man who’s been faithful employee for two decades at his company refuses to use preferred pronouns of the newly hired 23 year old dude wearing makeup and a dress, he knows that he will be the villain, the 50 year old long term employee. He’ll be reported to human resources.
He’ll be required to attend sensitivity training. But the rabid, immature left will continue shaping public opinion on a variety of issues, not because their ideas are better, but because everyone else appeases to them to avoid a scene. But we are not without options. The Overton window can move when a motivated minority is willing to joyfully endure the derision of the left long enough for their collective voices to be heard.
This is Michael Clary, and he says now he references Solzhenitsyn. He says they must be willing to live not by lies. As Solzhenitsyn said, plain spoken truth moves the public opinion. As reasonable views are articulated with clarity, force, courage, and joy. They must be prepared to endure reprisal from the left, which will surely come. Ordinary people may open up to persuasion as a variety of voices convincingly articulate reasonable positions.
When three or four become 20 or 30, they may think, well, this is starting to make sense. Difficult social problems will not be resolved as long as angry, irrational mobs control public discourse. The need of the hour is godly christian leaders stepping up to the microphone, plainly articulating positions that may seem laughable at first. Through persistence, they can keep issues alive long enough for people to get used to hearing them, then perhaps persuading enough of them in order to move the needle.
Clear headed christians have been bullied into silence for far too long. The Overton window shifts with public perception, starting with a few bold, articulate, prophetic voices that arrest the public’s attention. As a number of influential voices grow, the idea is they articulate, gain credibility. Their persistence creates a snowball effect that eventually persuades even greater numbers. And the cacophony of sober minded voices can give the public a roadmap for approaching difficult subjects.
We’ve seen this happen as people challenged the regime’s COVID narrative. In the early stages, the Overton window kept people silent and compliant. Anyone who questioned the narrative was considered to be a heartless buffoon who didn’t care about saving lives. Since then, however, the window has shifted in the opposite direction. And, you know, we had, as all that was happening, we had a lot of religious leaders that were shaming people as well.
People like Al Muller. You had Franklin Graham, you had the pope, you had all these different people out there doing the work of the administration and trying to keep that there. But those who are pushing masks and endless vaccine boosters now seem ridiculous because reasonable people have shown over and over again that the regime was lying. Now, Michael Cleary doesn’t say Trump, but it was the Trump regime.
It was the Trump regime that gave us the lockdowns and the masks, and it was the Trump regime that was lying. And folks, we don’t want to live my lies, and we don’t want to live by Trump’s lies either. Whoever you’re most worried about offending is the person who controls you. If the left is who you fear offending the most, they are your masters and you are their slaves.
Who are you not allowed to criticize? It says, fear God. Speak plainly. If we are slaves of who we are most afraid of offending, then may God be the one that we fear offending. If pleasing others is our driving energy, may God be the one that we most aim to please. God is not pleased by pandering, vague, man fearing sophistry. What pleases God is courageous. Men and women speaking plainly and humbly, bringing the sort of clarity that pierces hard hearts and builds up soft hearts.
Courage is the greatest threat to the regime, and it is contagious. Plain spoken courage is contagious, and it can move the Overton window. Well, that’s exactly right. That’s an excellent op ed piece by Mark Cleary. And we need to all understand that, you know, this is something that is going to be all of these issues that we face, and it has never been more so this way. A coordinated effort to make you feel isolated.
A coordinated effort to make you feel like you are the only one who understands what this is or thinks this way. A coordinated effort to push out lies and to shut down the truth, to shut down anything that pushes back against the regime. And so you got to have a backbone. You got to have, you got to understand who it is that you fear, who it is that you want to please, and then stick to that.
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