What Is Nihilism and How Will It Affect America?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns nihilism. An online dictionary defines nihilism as being “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless; extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.”

In his article published in The Daily Signal, Victor Davis Hanson discussed nihilism and connected it to the Democratic Party. 

Nihilism is the religion of the Left. Anarchy is now at the core of the new Democratic Party. If the Left wished radically to alter the demography of the U.S., it could have expanded legal immigration through legislation or the courts.

Instead, it simply erased the border and dynamited federal immigration law.

By fiat, nihilists ended the wall, and stopped detaining and deporting illegal aliens altogether. Or was it worse than that when candidate Joe Biden in September 2019 urged would-be illegal aliens to “surge” the border?

As a result, through laxity and entitlement incentives, 8 million illegal entrants have swarmed the southern border under the Biden administration.

They are swamping border towns, bankrupting big-city budgets, and infuriating even Democratic constituencies.

Hanson continued his article by saying that the “same nihilism applies to crime.” He reminded his readers that things were different in “the old days” when “liberals gave light sentences to criminals or reduced bail.” Today, “leftist prosecutors do not even seek bail. They hardly prosecute theft or random assaults.” This includes “Criminals [being] arrested and released [on] the same day.” Hanson then asks some questions that should make all of us consider the possible answers.

·         Is the nihilist plan to destroy the entire body of American jurisprudence, and to ensure “equity” [is] being victimized?

·         Is the woke idea that all Americans – inclusive of diverse Beverly Hills elites, Hollywood celebrities, or members of Congress alike – must share victim equity, and thus experience firsthand street robbery, carjacking, smash-and-grab, and home invasion?

Hanson continued with a discussion of how nihilists are destroying the United States by shutting down oil, natural gas, and other types of abundant energy.

The United States can produce annually more natural gas and oil than any nation on earth. It once pioneered nuclear power. It has vast coal reserves and sophisticated hydroelectric plants.

The old idea was to use these unmatched resources to transition gradually to other cleaner fuels such as hydrogen, fusion power, solar, and wind. That way consumers would still enjoy affordable energy. And the United States could remain independent of coercion by the oil-producing Middle East.

But that was not the nihilist way.

Instead, the Left deliberately cut back on pipelines, new energy leases, and fracking. It bragged of an upcoming ban on fossil fuels. In drought-stricken, energy-short California, the state is blowing up, not building new dams.

Hanson asked more questions about the agenda of the nihilist Left.

·         Is the nihilist agenda to punish with bankruptcy the energy-using middle class?

·         Is the hope that Americans will have to beg the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans, and Russians to pump more of the hated goo for our benefit so we would not have to dirty ourselves helping ourselves?

·         [Why did the Biden administration print trillions of dollars when “All economists advised not to increase the deficit, spike further consumer demand, and expand entitlements?” The result was “the worst, but entirely preventable, inflation in 40 years.” In addition, “Three years later prices on staples remain 30%-40% higher than when Biden took office. Mortgage rates tripled.]

·         [Why is nihilism “even more inexplicable and terrifying” abroad? He admitted that all “nations suffer military setbacks,” but “none in memory” have discarded “billions of dollars of weapons and hardware into the hands of the terrorist Taliban, or abandoning a $1 billion new embassy, and a huge, remodeled air base.”]

·         Why did the administration simply allow a huge Chinese spy balloon to float and photograph leisurely over the continental U.S.?

·         How could the U.S. military permit 135 rocket barrages by Iranian-supplied terrorists on American soldiers without a major and sustained response?

·         Is the point to humiliate our own troops? To destroy what is left of U.S. deterrence?

·         [Why is it necessary to deface or destroy statues and artwork “without deliberation or public input” and usually stealthily and at night?]

·         [Why did “thousands of students [swarm] their elite universities cheering on the violence” after Hamas terrorists massacred Israelis on October 7?]

·         [Why was the “nihilist, ghoulish beheading, torture, mutilation, mass rape, dismemberment, and necrophilia of unarmed, civilian Israeli elderly women, children, and infants” necessary, and why was it being cheered?]

Hanson summarized his article by comparing the current “epidemic of leftist nihilism” to “the 16^th-century European made wave of iconoclastic destruction of religious art.” He then asked another question, “Or is the better parallel the suicidal insanity that Mao Zedong unleashed during his cultural revolution of the 1960s?”

Hanson concluded, “The old politics of Right versus Left, and Republican opposed to Democrat have now given way to a new existential struggle: Americans must choose between civilization – or its destroyers.”

We are fighting a continuation of the war that we fought in our pre-earth lives. While living in the presence of Heavenly Father, we fought a war between good and evil. Those spirits who fought on the side of good were rewarded with an opportunity to come to earth to gain physical bodies and learn how to master them. This means that every mortal who ever has or who ever will live on earth fought on the side of good. We fought for liberty, freedom, and agency in heaven, and we are still fighting for those things here on earth.

Those who fought on the side of evil were cast down to earth without an opportunity to ever have a physical body. Those evil spirits influence mortals to continue the war against righteous people here on earth. So, the war between good and evil continues today, and millions of mortals have turned to the dark side. However, evil will fully end when Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, returns to earth and all evil people are destroyed.