Why Musk Should Follow JFK's Anti-Discrimination Formula

Elon Musk announced that 15 million Twitter followers voted 51.8% aye to let Trump back in, 48.2% nay. Narrow margin.

Musk then reported that 134M people saw this online poll. Under 6% of these voted to reinstate Trump. No mandate.

Musk, as is his right as owner, reinstated Trump for his own reasons (or whims). Not in deference to overwhelming popular sentiment.

Also, Musk's commentary was based on a false premise: Musk: "Vox populi, Vox Dei." "The voice of the people is the voice of God."

Not so.

Musk took a quote by the mathematician Alcuin, in a letter to the emperor Charlemagne dated 798 A.D., out of context. Alcuin advising "Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit."

Translation: "We should not listen to those who like to affirm that the voice of the people is the voice of God, for the tumult of the masses is truly close to madness."

Alcuin wasn't the only math wiz to find the masses mad. Sir Isaac Newton, pioneer of classical physics and accidental inventor of the classical gold standard, per the Second Memorandum Book of Joseph Spence, found in "Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men" (1820) ... quoting Lord Radnor: "When Sir Isaac Newton was asked about the continuance of the rising of South Sea stock? — He answered, 'that he could not calculate the madness of the people.'"

I deplore digital lynch mobs, those Woke Folk who attempt to ruin the lives and careers of people with whom they passionately disagree. Their self-righteousness, lack of due process, and outright efforts to cause harm to their adversaries is contrary to their pretension. They are vigilantes, not "social justice warriors."

Social justice means fighting prejudice, not indiscriminately fighting "discrimination." Being discriminating is a virtue.

The federal government's noble stance against invidious, meaning prejudicial, discrimination was pioneered in President John F. Kennedy's 1961 executive order 10925:

"WHEREAS discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin is contrary to the Constitutional principles and policies of the United States; and

"WHEREAS it is the plain and positive obligation of the United States Government to promote and ensure equal opportunity for all qualified persons, without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin …"

I admonish my fellow conservatives to fight harder for social justice. Meanwhile, the progressives' connivance in discrimination based on creed — religious intolerance — is as great an affront to social justice as racism.

Progressives destroy any claim to moral authority, undermine any claim to legitimacy, by invidiously discriminating against those with conservative creeds, such as by libeling as bigoted those who adhere to traditional sexual morality.

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines "creed" as "a set of beliefs or aims that guide someone's actions," and, moreover, as "a system of Christian or other religious belief."

President Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic American president, was amply familiar with credal discrimination from which Catholics then suffered. His prohibition of it is unlikely to have been accidental, or even casual. Respecting the creeds of others, even creeds with which we may disagree, (while giving, in the words of George Washington, "to bigotry no sanction") is essential to establishing real social justice.

The first clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares: "Congress Shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." The second: "or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ..."

The First Amendment restricts the Congress, a restriction later extended to the states. However, more broadly, as President Kennedy declared in the executive order, "discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin is contrary to the Constitutional principles and policies of the United States."

The cancel culture mob, contrary to "Constitutional principles and policies," is hostile to those of certain hallowed creeds. To use social coercion, such as a Twitter mob, to attempt to prohibit those of conservative faiths from having, teaching, and within their jurisdiction insisting upon, a serious moral code would reduce religion to anodyne platitudes, violently violating the Bill of Rights.

The Constitution guarantees Americans freedom to advocate their preferred moral codes. We are free to quit a congregation whose creed disagrees with ours. We are free to argue with those with whom we disagree.

That is very different from canceling our adversaries. Elon? I have advocated that you adopt the ABCs (Alexander/Benko/Collier) "Three Commons" for Twitter's moderation standard: common sense, common courtesy, and common decency.

Twitter is a private enterprise. You, as owner, can do as you wish and Twitter's advertisers will tolerate. That said, simple common decency requires us to adhere to JFK's formula: "discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin is contrary to the Constitutional principles and policies of the United States."

Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $94T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.