On the July/August issue:

The Great Unraveling

To the Editor:
Your editors’ letter “We Must Stop the Great Unraveling” is right on target in every respect (July/August).

Until I read your piece, I had not heard of the Kentucky governor’s racially tone-deaf proposal to provide coverage to one racial group and not others. When reading up on it further, I was stunned to see that the only question posed by the mainstream media was “How fast can you do it?”

Thank you for speaking out in defense of our nation and its best ideals.
Ralph Alderson
Sutherlin, Virginia

To the Editor:
I just wanted to thank you for your editors’ letter on the pervasive unrest in this country. I haven’t been a regular reader in the past, but I will be now. I am encouraged by your commitment to standing up to the mob. We need more bravery like that, or we will indeed lose our country and way of life as we know it. Those of us in the silent majority need to stop being silent.
Sara Krahenbuhl
Mapleton, Utah

To the Editor:
I agree in total with your piece, but I fear it is too late. Objections, evidence, logic, reason, arguments, and facts have been ruled inadmissible by the court of the mob. And this judgement is enforced by the media. If you bring up anything worth discussing, they waive it off. It is further evidence that you are a bad person, and the media will be sure to let everyone know.  The media will not stop fanning these flames because flames sell.

The public is not listening, except to easily digested and comfortable ideas. While we are told that “we need to have a discussion” about every topic, those who pander don’t want a discussion at all. Everyone is very comfortable with their views due to confirmation bias. Consider the case of biologist Brett Weinstein, who ran afoul of the powers that be at Evergreen State College. There was no dialogue, no discussion. It was just the Jerry Springer show, and it resulted in a tenured professor being shown the door.

As Jordan Peterson says, we cede territory to tyranny one tiny step at a time. The mob will just advance on you until you start to object. If you back up out of discomfort, they come at you again. We may now have ceded too much.
Chuck Cammock
Cleveland, Ohio

To the Editor:
I absolutely agree with your editorial. As a military-intelligence official for more than 20 years, and someone with a background in political science and history, I have been shocked to see a Cultural Revolution of sorts occurring in our very own country. Having served in other countries that were totalitarian in nature, such as Iraq and Panama, I know what the dictatorship structure looks like: commissars, fake news, propaganda, monuments erased, and so on. The parallels in our very own country are eerily similar. This needs to stop.
Martin Rodriguez
Houston, Texas

To the Editor:

Thank you for your strong words of encouragement and your call to arms. As the child of an immigrant mother who fled from behind what would become the Iron Curtain, I likewise stand against the great unraveling. Around 2006, my mother began voicing her fears that the U.S. was slowly moving down the path that she had fled, and her concerns continued to grow throughout the remaining years of her life.

Having traveled multiple times behind the Iron Curtain, I fully understand the lies being fed to the American public. The hypocritical cancel culture, doublespeak, and holier-than-thou ranting emanating from what used to be the left-of-center Democratic Party would make every totalitarian thug of the 20th century proud. Like the useful idiots of old, today’s leftist intelligentsia is blinded to the fact that they will be purged once they have served their purpose. In fact, this is already taking place in the form of attacks on those who are deemed not woke enough for the current in-crowd.

If we do not put a stop to this now, when will it end? Once we cross the threshold that I fear we are fast approaching, the only end is tyran-ny and the subjugation of the vast majority by a small cadre of apostles subservient to a messianic ruler.
D. Davies
Chicago, Illinois

To the Editor:
Thank you for having the courage and respect for the Bill of Rights to print your editorial. People once celebrated Voltaire’s axiom: “I may disagree with your ideas but will fight to the death for your right to express them.” The modern determination to ‘purge’ history of its vices is outrageous. Erasing the vices will, of necessity, also erase the virtues. Equally horrific is the campaign to destroy our artistic heritage, as was done elsewhere by the likes of Chairman Mao and the Taliban.
Augusta Devnet
Croton-on-Hudson, New York

To the Editor:
Thank you for your piece about stopping the great unraveling. I have lived in Minneapolis for 35 years and have seen it become a haven for progressive groupthink. Despite the horror of what happened to George Floyd, I know the police to be primarily good and decent. All Americans were troubled and upset about this killing. But the left has turned legitimate protest into violence. They continue to divide, where there was unity. They provoke where there is often agreement. They silence whenever there are other views. They intimidate, shame, and cancel conservatives. Traditional and social-media platforms have been the enablers of intersectional identity politics, and many with conservative views have left those platforms as a result.

Minneapolis has been unraveling for some time. It is ahead of the rest of the country in this regard.

The lockdown made things worse for us once the violent riots and looting started. With all of our churches closed, there was absolutely no place for citizens to go to vent their anger and protest following Floyd’s death. And the weeks and months of isolation stoked the anger and violence.
Rick Dischinger
Minneapolis, Minnesota

To the Editor:
Thank you for your common sense, courage, and honest observations. I pray for you and your publication to continue to stand firm amid the chaos and the attempted erasure of American history. The blind hate and bullying toward anyone who doesn’t go along with the mob is horrendous and cruel. Some people bow down and apologize for their offenses, real or imagined. This must stop. Instead, be kind and treat all people with respect and honesty.
Nan Hanbury
Lutz, Florida

To the Editor:
Thank you so much for your concise and eloquent synopsis of the current destructive malaise that is afflicting our great nation. Every word of your editorial is true, and I agree wholeheartedly with every point you have made. It gives me hope to know that there are still voices of reason that will not bow to the mob.

It frightens me and breaks my heart to see the United States, my beloved country, destroyed from within. It is about time that the silent minority of Constitution-loving, free-thinking, law-abiding citizens speak up and be heard. Together, with God’s help, we can stop the great unraveling. 
Sue E. Cruz
Address withheld

To the Editor:
I have subscribed to Commentary for more years than I recollect and read it as far back as the 1960s, when I was in high school.  This editorial is a cogent response to the current situation, which is an attempt to destroy our society and liberal democracy itself. It is a superb expression of what journalism should stand for not just during this time but in all times. God save America.
Paul Jones
Chandler, Arizona

One Cheer for TikTok

To the Editor:
As a longtime Rob Long reader with a daughter who now talks about TikTok, I very much needed his heartening primer on the social-media platform (“The Soft Power of TikTok,” July/August). With all the depressing news these days, Long’s article made me extremely hopeful for my daughter’s generation. Additionally, I’m going to score major mom points when I allow her to get TikTok.
Alison Morris
Lexington, Kentucky

A Dangerous Environment for Conservatives

To the Editor:
Once again, my friend and colleague Steven Hayward has performed an extraordinary service to Berkeley, to academic institutions throughout America, and also to the American public (“How I Ran Afoul of Campus Cancel Culture,” July/August). His scholarship is of the highest quality, and to have his work challenged based on nothing more than innuendo and slander is terribly sad.

As someone who started my public-policy life in the area of environmental policy, I sympathize completely with Hayward, particularly as I was asked by the Interior Department in 1979 to fix the then horribly poor implementation of the very first legislation regulating surface coal mining.

At the time, the environmental extremists had taken over the energy business—one coal-mining inspector shut down one of the largest coal-mining companies in West Virginia because the mining company had failed to spray-paint a large number of very large boulders it had removed from the ground while mining. The inspector claimed that the law required the replacement of the overburden to approximately the same condition as originally found. And the rocks weren’t green, so she shut the mine down.

Even worse, the Carter administration shut down almost all energy initiatives from the Interior Department, a prelude to what has become the global-warming racket—started in large part by the United Nations Environment Program in the 1990s.

This is ironic because that is where I worked from 1973 to 1975 while studying at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs. And with the UNEP office of energy and environment, I helped do a 1975 study of alternative energy options in the face of the oil embargo and soaring oil prices, and examined the issue of greenhouse gases.

Our conclusion? The demand for energy required a policy of all energy production including fossil fuels, renewables, and nuclear. And all could be done in an environmentally sound way.

Tragically our UNEP boss, Maurice Strong, later pushed for the UN-adopted Kyoto framework that has now so distorted our energy policy and laws.

Steven Hayward is a courageous soul trying to fight such distortions of public policy. My hat is off to him.
Peter Huessy
Potomac, Maryland