"The idea of a protected class leads inevitably to no end of evils. (e.g. LGBTQ). "

True. Historically, the protected class was children and they were protected for obvious reasons. In this timeline everything is upside down clown world where pedophiles and groomers and sick degenerates are protected and children sacrificed.

"When The USA’s forefathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, they said, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men (that is the generic word for people) are CREATED equal….” This means nobody is of more importance or less importance than any other person. "

I have a problem with this. Not only were they slave owners when they wrote it, but even if they didn't the egalitarianism doctrine has always proven to be a disaster in practice. Plus concept of created equal, is neither self evident, or factually true. Its an utopian idea. And when attempted to be made into reality, horrors follow.

Reminds me of what someone said. Liberalism delivered what it promised, but it was the opposite of what most expected.

“Liberalism has failed, not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself. It has failed because it has succeeded. As liberalism has become more fully itself, as its inner logic has become more evident and its self contradictions manifest, it has generated pathologies that are at once deformations of its claims, yet realizations of liberal ideology.

A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and of course expand liberty in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom.”

― Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)

Liberalism is a godless religion, but it is a religion nonetheless. And like all religions it carries within itself many contradictions. When kept America from falling apart in its first century and a half is not liberalism or constitution , its the civil religion and benefits of unique geopolitics.

American so called Civil Religion:

[newworldencyclopedia.org]

American civil religion is a term given to a shared set of certain fundamental beliefs, values, holidays, and rituals by those who live in the United States of America. These shared values and holidays are based upon, parallel to, but independent of the theological tenets of each specific denomination or religious belief. The notion of a civil religion originated in the United States due to its origins as a religiously diverse nation. From the Pilgrim founders and the other Puritan groups to the numerous other groups fleeing religious persecution, the American nation had a unique experience and developed a system that allowed for maximum freedom of religion for individuals and groups while allowing no one religious denomination to dominate. In this context, the nation developed a religious, primarily Protestant ethos and set of values based on religion but not overtly based on any one tradition.

The term was coined by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967. The article in which the term is coined, "Civil Religion in America," sparked one of the most controversial debates in United States sociology. Soon after the paper was published, the topic became the major focus at religious sociology conferences and numerous articles and books were written on the subject. The debate reached it peak with the American Bicentennial celebration in 1976.

The American civil religion emerged as a means to permit the creation of a distinct national set of values that was not tied to a specific confession. It permitted religion to play a fundamental role in shaping the moral vision of the country but in a way that removed theological concerns from the public arena.

Bellah and fellow scholar Martin E. Marty studied civil religion as a cultural phenomenon, attempting to identify the actual tenets of civil religion in the United States of America, or to study civil religion as a phenomenon of cultural anthropology. Marty wrote that Americans approved of "religion in general" without being particularly concerned about the content of that faith, and attempted to distinguish "priestly" and "prophetic" roles within the practice of American civil religion, which he preferred to call the "public theology."

Bellah wrote that civil religion was "an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the American nation." He identified the American War for independence, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement as three decisive historical events that impacted the content and imagery of civil religion in the United States. He also identified several modalities within U.S. civil religion related to the biblical categories of the priesthood, prophets, and wisdom tradition.

I suppose today we can add other influences. And this civil religion has a new rival or several of them. And its being tested again, but as times has progressed and generations passed, whatever Americans were back in 18th century is a distant memory. Today they are easy prey for new religions.

If Americans manage to keep the United States and re-connect with civil religion from the time of its founding, it will take a lot more effort and there is far less people ready to fight. Lets see if it can survive this time.

Indeed. I suppose that is the point for them. Normalization of all that should never be normal.

@Krunoslav

Yes, the world is being rapidly polarized into those who accept the constantly reengineered new “normal” and those who know the truth: right and wrong are written in stone.

@WorldSigh Yes. I hate to use the word "civil war" because like so many terms its way overused these days, but I must say that its hard to see how people with completely different world view and value systems where one is with no fixed morality and only see the world as power struggle and the other is trying to use institutions to preserve something. There can only be one, and as they say when you make conversation impossible , you make escalation inevitable. I mean how do you shake hands with a clench fist, to borrow another phrase.

“The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless.” ― Russell Kirk

“Kirk defined the ideologue as one who “thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature.” Unleashed during the most radical phase of the French Revolution, the spirit of ideology has metastasized over the past two centuries, wreaking horrors. Jacobinism, Anarchism, Marxism, Leninism, Fascism, Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism—all shared the fatal attraction to “political messianism”; all were “inverted religions.” Each of these ideologies preached a dogmatic approach to politics, economics, and culture. Each in its own way endeavored “to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines.” Thus did the ideologue promise “salvation in this world, hotly declaring that there exists no other realm of being.” ― Russell Kirk, The American Cause

“At the atomic level of the "New Liberalism" is a void of wilful ignorance surrounded by a nucleus of hypocrisy.” ― Dean Cavanagh, The Secret Life Of The Novel

“Socialists and Progressives confuse compassion and compulsion.”
― A.E. Samaan

“The growth of revolutionary fervour in individual participants and its spread to ever wider sections of the population must primarily be the result of struggle itself, not the distillation of thought or the prescription of correct ideology by others.” ― J. P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Volume I

“But it would be a mistake to assume that the liberal class was simply seduced by the Utopian promises of globalism. It was also seduced by careerism. Those who mouthed the right words, who did not challenge the structures being cemented into place by the corporate state, who assured the working class that the suffering was temporary and would be rectified in the new world order, were rewarded. They were given public platforms on television and in the political arena. They were held up to the wider society as experts, sages, and specialists. They became the class of wise men and women who were permitted to explain in public forums what was happening to us at home and abroad. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a cheer leader for the Iraq war and globalization, became the poster child for the new class of corporate mandarins. And although Friedman was disastrously wrong about the outcome of the occupation, as he was about the effects of globalization, he continues, with a handful of other apologists, to dominate the airwaves.” ― Chris Hedges, The Death of the Liberal Class

French Poet Paul Valery wrote:

“There are two ways to acquire the necessities of life:

1. To produce them or
2. To plunder them.

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”