The forces of rabid, fundamentalist secular liberalism reach even into tiny communities that you might be inclined to think are still safe harbors from political correctness.

Monument, Colorado is such a place. Class valedictorian Erica Corder had the effrontery to mention Jesus Christ in her graduation speech, following the example set by presidents from George Washington to George Bush, all of whom have mentioned Christ and Christianity in public speeches.

However, she was ordered to issue an apology for her "immature" comments and told that if she did not, she would not receive her graduation diploma.

Afraid that her college career could be placed in jeopardy, Miss Corder was blackmailed into issuing an apology for her remarks.

And so the thought police have now extended their reach into the high school level, and the new McCarthyites are now more than willing to punish those who deviate from secular orthodoxy by terminating their academic careers. You may be excused for thinking this has the ring of fascism.

Liberty Counsel is now representing her in a freedom of speech lawsuit against the school, and Miss Corder is pursuing the suit not just for herself but for "students in the future. I want to make sure they aren't afraid of saying what they believe, and I want the school district to know what they did was wrong."

The school is digging in its heels, and will "vigorously defend" its Inquisition-like punishment of Miss Corder and her exercise of freedom of speech and religion.

The lawsuit was filed after the family spent a year trying to persuade the district to clarify its policy with regard to graduation speeches.

Liberty Letters' Source: Idaho Values Alliance. Used with permission.

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… the advent of Jesus Christ upon earth was required to teach that all the members of the human race are by nature equal and alike. - Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy In America," 1835.

Liberty Letters Comment: Alexis de Tocqueville, who with a philosopher's and sometimes a prophet's pen understood so much about America and her destiny … understood this above all other realities: that the American miracle in liberty was the by-product of the best in Christianity … of men inspired to live, govern, learn, and prosper under the sway of the Higher Laws and perfect moral code of Jesus the Christ. And as to the equality of men before the judgment bar of God, did not Christ teach such things when he held up as examples to the Jews - the Good Samaritan, the Women at the Well, a Roman Centurion, and others outside of the House of Israel; as well as the poorest of widows, the repentant adulteress, and the boy born blind? And was this not his message when he rebuked those in Israel for failing to realize that "where much is given, much is required," nor to understand that their father was not Abraham (for they did not the works of Abraham), but the devil?  Indeed, it was Christ who taught us, and still teaches us to judge a person, or a group, by his fruits, not his genealogical line, nor the color of his skin, nor his sex. Alexis de Tocqueville knew this. Every early American school child knew this. But do we today?

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Democracy in America, vol.2, p.8
AT different periods dogmatical belief is more or less abundant. It arises in different ways, and it may change its object or its form; but under no circumstances will dogmatical belief cease to exist, or, in other words, men will never cease to entertain some implicit opinions without trying them by actual discussion. If everyone undertook to form his own opinions and to seek for truth by isolated paths struck out by himself alone, it is not to be supposed that any considerable number of men would ever unite in any common belief. But obviously without such common belief no society can prosper—say rather no society can subsist; for without ideas held in common, there is no common action, and without common action, there may still be men, but there is no social body. In order that society should exist, and, a fortiori, that a society should prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied and held together by certain predominant ideas; and this cannot be the case, unless each of them sometimes draws his opinions from the common source, and consents to accept certain matters of belief at the hands of the community.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.9 - p.10
If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that dogmatical belief is not less indispensable to him in order to live alone, than it is to enable him to co-operate with his fellow-creatures. If man were forced to demonstrate to himself all the truths of which he makes daily use, his task would never end. He would exhaust his strength in preparatory exercises, without advancing beyond them. As, from the shortness of his life, he has not the time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the capacity, to accomplish this, he is reduced to take upon trust a number of facts and opinions which he has not had either the time or the power to verify himself, but which men of greater ability have sought out, or which the world adopts. On this groundwork he raises for himself the structure of his own thoughts; nor is he led to proceed in this manner by choice so much as he is constrained by the inflexible law of his condition. There is no philosopher of such great parts in the world, but that he believes a million of things on the faith of other people, and supposes a great many more truths than he demonstrates. This is not only necessary but desirable. A man who should undertake to inquire into everything for himself, could devote to each thing but little time and attention. His task would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which would prevent him from penetrating to the depth of any truth, or of grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect would be at once independent and powerless. He must therefore make his choice from amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must adopt many opinions without discussion, in order to search the better into that smaller number which he sets apart for investigation. It is true that whoever receives an opinion on the word of another, does so far enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude which allows him to make a good use of freedom.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.10
A principle of authority must then always occur, under all circumstances, in some part or other of the moral and intellectual world. Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has. The independence of individual minds may be greater, or it may be less: unbounded it cannot be. Thus the question is, not to know whether any intellectual authority exists in the ages of democracy, but simply where it resides and by what standard it is to be measured.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.10 - p.11
I have shown in the preceding chapter how the equality of conditions leads men to entertain a sort of instinctive incredulity of the supernatural, and a very lofty and often exaggerated opinion of the human understanding. The men who live at a period of social equality are not therefore easily led to place that intellectual authority to which they bow either beyond or above humanity. They commonly seek for the sources of truth in themselves, or in those who are like themselves. This would be enough to prove that at such periods no new religion could be established, and that all schemes for such a purpose would be not only impious but absurd and irrational. It may be foreseen that a democratic people will not easily give credence to divine missions; that they will turn modern prophets to a ready jest; and they that will seek to discover the chief arbiter of their belief within, and not beyond, the limits of their kind.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.11
When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in condition, there are some individuals invested with all the power of superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, whilst the multitude is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these aristocratic periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their opinions by the superior standard of a person or a class of persons, whilst they are averse to recognize the infallibility of the mass of the people.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.11
The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the citizens are drawn to the common level of an equal and similar condition, the less prone does each man become to place implicit faith in a certain man or a certain class of men. But his readiness to believe the multitude increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. Not only is common opinion the only guide which private judgment retains amongst a democratic people, but amongst such a people it possesses a power infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere. At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.11
When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater number. The public has therefore among a democratic people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.12
In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. Everybody there adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics, without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we look to it very narrowly, it will be perceived that religion herself holds her sway there, much less as a doctrine of revelation than as a commonly received opinion. The fact that the political laws of the Americans are such that the majority rules the community with sovereign sway, materially increases the power which that majority naturally exercises over the mind. For nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom in the person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the majority in the United States doubtless augments the influence which public opinion would obtain without it over the mind of each member of the community; but the foundations of that influence do not rest upon it. They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in the more or less popular institutions which men living under that condition may give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic people governed by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but it will always be extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are governed in the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its ministering prophet.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.12 - p.13
Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur that it may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the action of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to the greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other inclined to prohibit him from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a democratic social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.13
If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new dress for servitude. There is—and I cannot repeat it too often—there is in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom as a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by the arms of a million of men. - Alexis de Toqueville

Liberty Letters Comment: Extremes in Democracy and Equality and Libertarianism bring about the danger de Toqueville prophetically warns about, that there is a dark side to some approaches to freedom. On the one hand, were we to not rely upon commonly held ideas taught and accepted in the public sphere, we would all be starting over anew … constantly - a fools errand. On the other hand, over-reliance and belief in the democratic principle as a religion of sorts, creates a crushing reliance upon "the majority" view of things (or in our day, perhaps the media orchestrated majority view, which may in fact not be the majority view) that becomes both unwritten and legislated law. One thinks of political correctness, academic accreditation, fierce intolerance in various "science" journals for opposing point of view. Thus, controls of the majority become oppressive, and thus in the information age looms the danger and reality of a nation of students and citizens who no longer know how to think, to reason, to judge, for lack of training, opportunity, and for fear.

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Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken it. I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to announce the new blessings which the principle of equality promises to mankind, but that few would dare to point out from afar the dangers with which it threatens them. To those perils therefore I have turned my chief attention, and believing that I had discovered them clearly, I have not had the cowardice to leave them untold.

I trust that my readers will find in this Second Part that impartiality which seems to have been remarked in the former work. Placed as I am in the midst of the conflicting opinions between which we are divided, I have endeavored to suppress within me for a time the favorable sympathies or the adverse emotions with which each of them inspires me. If those who read this book can find a single sentence intended to flatter any of the great parties which have agitated my country, or any of those petty factions which now harass and weaken it, let such readers raise their voices to accuse me. - Alexis de Toqueville, "Democracy In America, Volume II."

Liberty Letters Comment: Which are we? The party coward focused on the blessings of being a Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian, or that statesmen who searches out and stands by right and wrong, good and better, and has vision enough to be more concerned with the long view than expediency and the "crisis" of the moment?

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