Bobby Jindal

The former governor of Louisiana, and conservative political pundit, on August 16, 2021, narrated a Prager U video, What Unites Americans. Below are my notes on this video, which will be written out, and interspersed with my responses. Jindal: Our values and our history unite us as a people. Jindal notes that his Indian parents immigrated to the deep South and voluntarily and happily studied and absorbed American history and values as their own, becoming loyal, happy, contented Americans while still retaining their own ethnic identity, language, food and culture. My response: yes, Mark Levin and many conservatives have also noted that traditionally immigrants to America assimilated and identified with our main history and values, becoming proud, patriotic Americans. Jindal refers to his friend Dennis Prager, as counting two historic fathers for himself: Abraham, father of the Jews, and George Washington, father to the American people. Prager, like most older Americans, accepted that once assimilated into America, one became fully American, following the teachings of these two American historical fathers. Shared values and a shared history unified millions of immigrants like the Jindals; this was a regular immigrant transformation, and valuable one. My response: we need to restore our primary history, traditional values and our English language, the cultural umbrella under which new immigrants can assimilate while retaining their own language, religion and culture as significant but secondary influences upon their new American lives. Jindal refers two pre-Civil War abolitionist preacher, Theodore Parks as identifying three uniquely influential and American concepts that guided those living here and arriving here. Parks referred to this cultural narrative as The American Idea. The three concepts were: All people are created equal; all possess certain inalienable rights; all have the opportunity to develop their individual talents. These concepts held sway simultaneously and nicely sum up our cultural narrative. My response: This traditional cultural narrative was our narrative and should be our cultural springboard into the future. We must restore this narrative, and to live by it. Jindal: This one American set of values and historical vision have largely worked. People came here from all over and were united as Americans. They had it better here than almost anywhere. My response: I agree, and ethnicity and race are almost irrelevant in the land of individualists and future individuators. Jindal: Our founders ideals, once a source of shared pride, now are defamed by the Progressives as a source of shared shame. In schools, on campus, in the media and in corporations, this Leftist narrative is being advanced as truth. Americans always were and still are serving the interests of systemic racism and exploitation. My response: Mark Levin decries this new narrative as Neo-Marxist attacking American values. Jindal: The obvious and tragic consequences of the teaching of this new Anti-American narrative is obvious as America is now falling apart as the young and many adults no longer believe in America. We are told that the Founders are dismissed as slave-owners protecting their class interests, not championing the cause of liberty. We are told that the Southwest was stolen from Mexico. We are warned that free markets lead to worker exploitation, not their enrichment. New immigrant employees at seminars on inclusion, diversity and equity are alarmed to be told that their white peers, who treat them well, do secretly hate them. My response: I am slightly optimistic that the countervailing conservative push back against this false, vicious, defamatory Leftist narrative will suffice to expel its backers from position of power in government, academia, etc. Jindal: Americans are now told that to be born white is to be privileged, and to be born non-white is to be a victim. Americans are told that hard work, self-discipline and luck no longer and maybe never did allow you to transcend your past to make for a bright future. The Left denies this. My response: We must instruct the young and immigrants that skin color, ethnicity, group identity, or religious creed are interesting and valuable, but what really counts is the individual believing in America, in himself and is optimistic that hard work and self-application will still make the American Dream come true for him and his family. White people do not care to thwart his efforts, and nor do they care what is the color of his skin. Jindal: Group identity defines and pre-defines you. You cannot improve as an individual. If you are non-white only the government can save you, and lead to a better life for you. My response: Your group identity does not define you, unless in some sick, stymied way. Only as an individual can you find meaning, success, love, God and happiness. The government only pretends to save you, but they nab minorities and immigrants and dupe them into being dependent on governmental handouts and protection, depriving them of a chance to build a life on their own. Once enslaved, people never get free. Jindal: The way that we seek social improvements has now changed on how to improve things. Abolitionists in the 1850s and civil rights workers of the 1950s successfully appealed to America's conscience to right historical wrongs. My response: I agree. To seek to do reform peacefully, gradually, nonviolently and rationally by reaching out to the people to change their minds as a people--that is how to seek to gently, in a civilized way, seek to change public opinion, over time, that leads to improved public policy. Radicalized Leftists, though, are authoritarian revolutionaries, and they seek government fiat, court orders, lawsuits and restrictive laws mandating things limits on free speech and vaccine passports to compel public obedience, and to change public policy from the top down, not from the bottom up. Jindal: The Left now rejects appeals to the American conscience, now dismissed as inherently corrupt and unchangeable. If you do not fully buy into the Leftist plan for a new America, or just remain quiet, you will be punished for nonconformity because there is no free speech and silence will be enforced. My response: Jindal has their number, and these totalitarian zealots must be vigorously opposed right now, for they are sick, serious, dangerous, fanatics out to overthrow society and install their dictatorship of the proletariat. Jindal: Progressives used to champion free speech, even if it was hate speech. Now if a conservative asserts that there is only the reality of two biological sexes, or reject apocalyptic environmentalism, or support voters mandated to present personal ID before voting, then these conservatives run the risk of being banned from social media, the new town square, fired from their jobs or their reputation ruined. The Left sees this pattern as our new future. The Central Left are missing in action: these liberal moderates are silent, and it is unknown where they stand on Leftist excesses. My response: Jindal is right, and the world he describes is scary, and could lead to fascism or communism being the law of the land in America. Jindal: Conservatives counter that we have shortcomings but are always striving to become a more perfect union. We seek more freedom, more opportunity and more protection for our minorities occur here than anyplace on earth. My response: America is not Jerusalem on the hill, but it is much better than almost anywhere else on earth, and we have it pretty good here, so no revolutionaries need be heard here or heeded. I love America as it is, and let reforms go forward but peacefully, gradually and let the people decide to accept them or not voluntarily, and then they can order their politicians to make accepted changes only. Otherwise, the status quo prevails.