Bari Weiss: You Are the Last Line of Defense

My speech at the Federalist Society’s Barbara K. Olson Memorial lecture.

https://www.thefp.com/p/you-are-the-last-line-of-defense

Tonight, I’d like to talk about the war of ideas and of conviction and of will that faces us as Americans. I want to talk about the stakes of that war. About how we must wage it—fearlessly and relentlessly—if we seek to build a world fit for our children, and if we want to save America itself.

Over the past two decades, I saw this inverted worldview swallow all of the crucial sense-making institutions of American life. It started with the universities. Then it moved beyond the quad to cultural institutions—including some I knew well, like The New York Times—as well as every major museum, philanthropy, and media company. It’s taken root at nearly every major corporation. It’s inside our high schools and our elementary schools.

And it’s come for the law itself. This is something that will not come as a surprise to the Federalist Society. When you see federal judges shouted down at Stanford, you are seeing this ideology. When you see people screaming outside of the homes of certain Supreme Court justices—causing them to need round-the-clock security—you are seeing its logic.

The takeover of American institutions by this ideology is so comprehensive that it’s now almost hard for many people to notice it—because it is everywhere.

So what do we do?

First: look. We must recover our ability to look and to discern accordingly. We must look past the sloganeering and the propaganda and take a hard look at what’s in front of our eyes.

Second: we—you—must enforce the law.

The wave of elected so-called “progressive prosecutors” has proven to be an immensely terrible thing for law and order in cities across America. It turns out that choosing not to enforce the law doesn’t reduce crime. It promotes it.

Third: no more double standards on speech.

Public universities are constitutionally forbidden from imposing content-based restrictions on free speech. And yet, that’s precisely what they’ve been doing.

Fourth, accept that you are the last line of defense and fight, fight, fight.

There is no place like this country. And there is no second America to run to if this one fails.

So let’s get up. Get up and fight for our future. This is the fight of—and for—our lives.