NOBULL NEWSLETTER
06/28/2025
I vs US
For many years, during the Obama and Biden administrations, many if not most of us who would describe ourselves as conservatives, especially the older ones among us, would openly state that “the world was upside down”. It was better during the first Trump administration but while we felt the ship was being righted, the effect of Obama’s policies still left us feeling like something was still amiss. Many people attempted to explain what was going wrong, but no one could explain the feeling of disorientation we were all feeling. Conservative pundits talked about the move toward socialism,
Marxism or even Communism but, while it “felt” like that to many of us, it was easily responded to by the Left as a ridiculous conspiracy theory because the policies did not adhere to the strict definition of these failed systems of government. And yet, the feeling persisted that we were moving in that direction. Were we crazy deplorables, people unwilling to move out of the dark ages and into a “better” progressive future? What were we responding to? What was upside down?
The principles upon which the U.S. was founded—liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness—are deeply intertwined with individuality. The Declaration of Independence asserts that individuals have inherent rights to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” emphasizing personal freedom to define one’s own path. The Constitution and Bill of Rights further protect individual liberties, such as freedom of speech, religion, and due process, creating a framework where people can express their unique identities and live according to their values.
Historically, collectivist ideologies like socialism, Marxism and Communism try to undermine the idea of individualism. Boundaries are essential for defining the self, as they delineate where one person’s autonomy ends and another’s begins. Eroding the notion of boundaries can subtly shift a culture toward collectivism simply by blurring boundaries of any kind without attacking individuality directly. The following 8 methods are frequently employed by the Left to erode individuality and promote collectivism:
1. SUPPRESSION OF FREE EXPRESSION: By limiting speech, press, or assembly (contrary to the U.S. First Amendment), such movements can stifle individual voices, pushing conformity.
2. REDEFINING RIGHTS: Collectivist movements reframe rights as collective entitlements, eroding the principle of equal individual rights enshrined in the U.S. Declaration and Constitution.
3. IMPOSITION AND MANIPULATION OF CUTURAL NARRATIVES: Through education, media, or social pressure, movements can promote narratives that devalue individual achievement, framing it as selfish or oppressive, while glorifying collective identity or goals
4. EXPANDING CENTRALIZED CONTROL: By expanding state or institutional power, such movements can reduce personal agency, as seen in historical examples like Soviet central planning, which dictated individual roles for the “greater good.”
5. REDEFINING BOUNDARIES AS BARRIERS: If a culture labels borders or boundaries selfish or exclusionary, it prioritizes group cohesion over self-definition. For example, dismissing personal privacy as “antisocial” or individual achievement as “elitist” can discourage people from asserting their unique identities.
6. SOCIAL PRESSURE AND CONFORMITY: By stigmatizing boundaries, such as the right to disagree or opt out of collective norms, a culture can foster conformity. This is seen in environments where dissent is equated with bigotry, subtly coercing individuals to align with groupthink. The U.S. First Amendment protects the right to individual expression, but cultural norms can override this if dissent is socially punished.
7. EROSION OF PERSONAL AGENCY: If boundaries like property rights, personal responsibility, or even psychological autonomy (e.g., the right to one’s own thoughts) are deemed inappropriate, individuals lose the ability to act as distinct agents. Historical collectivist movements, like those in Maoist China, often redefined personal boundaries as counterrevolutionary to enforce collective goals.
8. NORMALIZATION OF INTRUSION: A culture that normalizes overstepping boundaries—through surveillance, mandatory ideological conformity, or social expectations of constant availability—can erode the space for individuality. For instance, pervasive “call-out culture” or demands for ideological purity in some modern contexts can pressure individuals to suppress their unique perspectives.
Each of these methods reflect the progressive attempt to move the country from an emphasis on Individuality to Collectivism, from “I” to “US”. It is that attempt at stripping the people of the nation of their individuality that, in my opinion, made us all feel that the world was upside down. To turn a nation founded on the principles of individualism into a collectivist nation was an attempt to fundamentally transform America, as Barack Obama promised, and did turn the nation upside down.
Below are some of the ways the collectivism movement on the Left attempted to transform America:
In Universities around the country, they protested and prevented speakers who disagreed with the leftist narratives.
In on-line forums, they silenced dissenting voices, censorship which they referred to as “content moderation”.
At town hall meetings, they shouted down speakers and prevented them from speaking.
They redefined the meaning of certain words or phrases by shaming and punishing their original usage as some sort of -ism or -phobia. That’s how “riots” became “mostly peaceful protests”, how “castration”, “equality” became “equity”, “castration” and “breast removal” became “gender affirming care”, and how “gender” became a choice rather than a biological fact.
They replaced objective truth with relative truth. They advocated for “no truth” or “my truth”, morality became moral relativism and situational ethics.
While each of these tactics is clothed as greater individual freedom of expression and diversity of opinions, in fact they blur the boundaries between reality and narrative, between objectivity based on evidence and subjectivity based on opinion, between civility and mob rule. Each sacrifices individual belief at the altar of collective opinion.
ObamaCare was as close as Democrats could come to a national healthcare plan, claiming that all people are entitled to quality health care to be paid for by the collective.
Proposals for increased minimum wage, not tied to merit. Similarly, proposals for every person, regardless of effort or performance, to earn a “living wage”, abstractly defined as a fixed wage for everyone that is sufficient to live a life free from worry about (the very subjectively defined) “basics of living”.
Abortions, labeled as women’s healthcare, paid for by Medicaid and other taxpayer sources, making it a collective enterprise rather than an individual choice.
Equality replaced by “equity”, an insidious concept aimed at eliminating individual differences in skills, ability, capacity for delaying gratification.
Barack Obama’s blatant effort to impose a collective narrative on individual achievement and entrepreneurship with his declaration: “You didn’t build that”. He asserted that people who built businesses availed themselves of public works, like roads and bridges, overlooking the fact that many people had access to those public works who built nothing.
Diversity was redefined to mean that non-white people in a predominantly white society were all the same in bringing a diverse set of opinions or views, overlooking the fact that individual diversity WITHIN groups is greater that diversity of opinion BETWEEN groups.
Redefinition of INCLUSIVENESS, referring to the inappropriateness of excluding from personal association any person or group with whose values one might disagree. This idea overlooks the fact that every value is, to some extent exclusive: generosity excludes greed, bravery excludes cowardice, civility excludes rudeness. In the end, the requirement for inclusion of everyone violates the individual right of freedom of association. In addition, the acceptance of all values means no values at all.
Systemic responsibility has been used to replace personal responsibility and accountability. Under the collectivist view of responsibility, no one is responsible for their actions but rather the fault lies with the injustice of society.
Division of individuals into arbitrary categories like “oppressor” and “victim” attempts to pretend that everyone is a member of a collective and as such gives up their right to individual differences and a flattening of all differences.
National borders have been represented as exclusionary and barriers to freedom of movement.
Clear boundaries between male and female are labeled exclusionary. The attempt to blur the boundaries between male and female are intended to eliminate one of if not the most important boundary in establishing individual identity.
Transgenderism and the idea that, under the guise of personal freedom, individuals should have the right to choose whatever sex they want to be or whatever race they want to be is an attempt to convert immutable truth to relative truth.
Rules and laws are boundaries. Wherever and whenever a rule or law agrees with the collective narrative or can be interpreted as such, it is agreed with. But rules or laws that support individualism are interpreted as barriers to freedom; the freedom to do as one pleases. In a society, the freedom to do as one pleases without consideration of the freedoms of other individuals is nothing less than anarchy. Consequently, with regard to the ultimate legal framework of our nation, there is a constat debate between whether the Constitution says what it means (originalist view) or whether it says what it might mean as interpreted by those who wish to change the meaning (living document view).
Similarly, the antagonism of the collectivists toward religion in general and Christianity in particular applies here. Religion establishes a moral boundary. Judeo-Christian religion is based on the notion of free will, where freedom is combined with responsibility for the choices made and a clear distinction is made between the individual and the choices they make.
Clearly there have been many more so add your “favorites" to the list. Remember, it is you individuality is America’s greatest asset.
