The point of the speaker was to say this practice was called distraction, and it is the root meaning of that word.

Recently, I heard a grisly description of the long-ago practice of torturing (often killing) people by strapping each leg and arm to a horse and then sending the horses in separate directions. Tearing people asunder. It sounds horrible.

Well, yeah. That would be distracting.

It got me to thinking (dangerous). This is also a description of what the left has been doing to all our institutions for decades. Leftists want to tear asunder our country by tearing apart each and every institution that made it work. Recently, in the past decade or so, they have been succeeding in their, um, distraction.

Look at what they have torn apart. It's more than distracting; it's staggering.

Our university system is a shadow of itself. That was the plan: take over the university system, and make it in the image of their leftist heroes. Make the youth of America believe insane things that aren't true or helpful. Deconstruct, and make them hate their own culture.

Wow, were they successful.

That education remake has gone farther, down into our K-12 public schools, and into many private schools as well. Not as advanced there yet, but the daily pulling apart is doing its work. Witness the recent "woke" teens from Florida's shooting.

Our media. Sean Hannity said it back in 2007: journalism is dead. It always had bias, but it's now become nothing more than a broadsheet for the far left, an instrument to pretend leftist propaganda is actual "news" that instructs us. If you think of journalists as Democrats with bylines, you are correct, and that's mainly what the American public needs to see. It's an institution torn apart.

Hollywood. Movies used to have heroes who loved America and her underpinnings. Sure, you had the occasional leftist screed, but more often than not, the silver screen once gave a hat tip to our institutions and way of life. No more. Gross violence, sleazy sex, all sorts of ugly corruption has invaded Hollywood. It's even in all their movies now! Mission accomplished.

Our judicial system. Look what the left has done. This past year, it's safe to say, has shown just how far the left has gone in destroying the judiciary. Leftist judges with no pretense of adhering to the law now make insane proclamations from the bench on more than a weekly basis. Reading what the laws actually say, any modicum of common sense tells you they are inserting their very own political and juvenile ideas for the rule of law. They want it torn apart. And they are getting close to their endgame of gumming up the works via judicial nullification.

Our government bureaucracies. Sure, there are some employees who are still good. But look at what happened at the IRS. And the FBI. The DOJ. The EPA. The left went into every one and, to one degree or another, tore them apart.

Corporate America. Way too many SJW principles adhered to, while the business then loses market share, slowly tearing itself apart. Look at the NFL, Delta Airlines, the Oscars – heck, even Olympic athletes. As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, "get woke, go broke."

Lord knows where the practices of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and all the leftist crazies that drive those companies are going to bring us. Many are clueless, rich social outcasts who think the way to finally be cool is to join the left. The scariest bunch of people inhabit these most powerful and wealthy companies. They are using their power to obstruct free expression and the free exchange of ideas. They are gutting their own companies and don't know it. And to think, their slogan was once "Don't be evil." As if the left has never been evil.

This list is the tip of the iceberg.

Jordan Peterson names these villains neo-Marxist postmodernists. In one of his lectures, he describes university undergrads as floating down a river, holding onto the many pieces of their culture floating around them just to keep their heads up. The university professoriate then proceeds to destroy, piece by piece, everything that keeps them above water. Then it sends them into the middle of the ocean. With nothing.

Peterson says, "And they [neo-Marxists] know exactly what they are doing."

They are tearing apart our culture, tearing apart each institution one by one.

Why?

So many reasons. Power, mainly. They can inhabit the chaos. Like King Louis, l'état would be they. Their love of controlling others would fulfill its dream with their ascension to undisputed royalty. And like the Clintons, they would get rich having accomplished nothing good. Most are simply ignorant. They have no clue what they are doing, but it feels so good when they do it. It brings them adulation and fame, the opposite sex likes them, and the ultimate aphrodisiac of power owned.

In that corruption, somewhere is a willingness to sacrifice an entire civilization, to tear apart each of our institutions one at a time, to cast an entire generation to the ocean without life rafts. It's a calculation they made. Some may carry a few ideals of their past, but most cynically play-act their virtue for votes. It's a well practiced playbook. The left willingly submits its values to be corrupted, in the hopes of getting people to vote for its candidates so they can aggrandize power.

In the case of their voters, they willingly submit themselves to believing that their leaders' ideas are virtuous, and all the destruction is because the right won't let them succeed. It's so hard for them to believe that their representatives would con them. They simply will not open their eyes to the corruption of the Clintons and Obamas.

The brainwashing of the leftist voter may be the most injurious thing the left has done. In the long run, if we cannot convince enough of them of the truth about their recent leadership, the left may finally win its long, hard fight to destroy the American culture it has come to hate so much.

What I have described has been happening for decades: purposeful undermining of our institutions to gain power. They make up evil constructs about race, white privilege, business greed, degrading the traditional family, males, the Judeo/Christian impulse, sex. The left is willingly all over this deconstruction.

To those of you who do not see this as a purposeful take-down of our culture for the aggrandizement of a limited few, for and by the leftist elite: Please wake up.

It's happening.

To those on the left who will begin to see: Begin by leaving your party. Rethink where you want to go, and please do so thoughtfully, and with eyes opened. Realize that you live in a great country, with institutions that can help you thrive.

To those on the right who believe that this is all politics as usual and want to roll along with it: I urge you to think about what this means: "They know exactly what they are doing."

Yes, it's that sinister. They have no shame.

To the Bush family, the NeverTrumps, and the rest of the phony right, please come to your senses, fight this cold civil war effectively with us, or just go away.

To those who see: Fight the good fight. Press on. Never give up; never, ever give up. There are fine principles we can win on. We can still be the last, best hope of mankind. Freedom and real progress can prevail. But it takes vigilance. And time. And developed character. We are winning, and we will prevail.

Or we can continue to be distracted.

Image: likeaduck via Flickr.