One of the left’s many irritating traits is its pedantic didacticism. Viewing themselves as morally and intellectually superior, they tend to view their lives as one long teachable moment to enlighten the rest of benighted humanity (i.e., non-leftists).

In so doing, however, they rarely take the time to educate themselves as to the inherent contradictions in their ideology, let alone endeavor to overcome the cognitive dissonance to hold such opposing ideas without feeling the need to reconcile them.

Consider the left’s chastisement that is oft leveled at dissenters from the preferred narrative: “You are not entitled to your own facts.” This is rich coming from this political tribe of postmodernists.

Creeping forth from the cesspool of Rousseau, who himself wrote in reaction and rejection to the Enlightenment, postmodernism is just one more justification of individual will and appetite employed to remove any Western civilizational claims and constraints upon licentiousness; and, unsurprisingly, a siren song that ultimately leads not to freedom but serfdom.

Per Britannica:

Postmodernism is largely a reaction against the intellectual assumptions and values of the modern period in the history of Western philosophy (roughly, the 17th through the 19th century). Indeed, many of the doctrines characteristically associated with postmodernism can fairly be described as the straightforward denial of general philosophical viewpoints that were taken for granted during the 18th-century Enlightenment, though they were not unique to that period.

Within this warped ideology of a fat and sassy political movement that has enough money to dabble in such folly, moral relativism, and the use of language through deconstruction and narrative engineering are critical (pun intended) to accomplishing their aims of recreating society in their preferred civilizational construct.

Postmodernists deny that there are aspects of reality that are objective; that there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false; that it is possible to have knowledge of such statements (objective knowledge); that it is possible for human beings to know some things with certainty; and that there are objective, or absolute, moral values. Reality, knowledge, and value are constructed by discourses; hence, they can vary with them. This means that the discourse of modern science, when considered apart from the evidential standards internal to it, has no greater purchase on the truth than do alternative perspectives, including (for example) astrology and witchcraft. Postmodernists sometimes characterize the evidential standards of science, including the use of reason and logic, as “Enlightenment rationality.”

In consequence, for those who boast about speaking “truth to power,” there is no truth, only power. Language, then, is deemed a crucial tool of the powerful imposing power upon the powerless in a society:

Part of the postmodern answer is that the prevailing discourses in any society reflect the interests and values, broadly speaking, of dominant or elite groups. Postmodernists disagree about the nature of this connection; whereas some apparently endorse the dictum of the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx that “the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class,” others are more circumspect. Inspired by the historical research of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, some postmodernists defend the comparatively nuanced view that what counts as knowledge in a given era is always influenced, in complex and subtle ways, by considerations of power. There are others, however, who are willing to go even further than Marx.

“Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your colloquialisms!” Today’s postmodern leftists regard themselves as chic for wrapping themselves in the threadbare “will and appetite” arguments of Rousseau that have lured radicals from Robespierre to Pol Pot. This is repackaged radicalism for the entitled and ignorant among us, whose disorder and ennui are periodically placated by ordering around other people—Postmodernism: The New Coke of ideologies.

So, you ask, why do relativists who do not believe in objective truth claim you are not entitled to your own facts?

It is a means of censoring dissent to impose their views upon others.

If “truth” is relative, subjectively posited, and dependent upon language, the political “discourse” must be tightly constricted to prevent alternate narratives expressed by the erstwhile dominant power structure within a society from surviving and reviving. Such is the essence of Herbert Marcuse’s “liberating tolerance,” as Roger Kimball noted in City Journal over two decades ago: “Back in the 1960s, then-famous Marxist philosopher and guru of radical students Herbert Marcuse advocated the Orwellian principle of ‘liberating tolerance’—‘intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the left….’”

We need not look far to find the bitter instances of such leftist liberating intolerance: their Russia-gate subversive smear campaign to undermine a duly elected president; the COVID cover-up of its origins and the coercion of entire populations to comply with its less than scientific public “health” directives; the outright lies about Hunter Biden’s laptop and President Biden’s mental competence, etc. All these deceits had been proclaimed as truths by the left, and despite all evidence, many are still firmly believed. Moreover, as for those who questioned these lies and were ultimately proven correct, the left had long ago claimed to have “debunked” these dissenting voices and dismissed them with the trope, “You are not entitled to your own facts.”

The cognitive dissonance of the postmodern left prevents them from recognizing both their hypocrisy and the ineluctable end of their ideology: authoritarianism or worse. In sum, they cannot recognize that they are what they claim to oppose—or, perhaps they do, which is why they unfairly and incessantly project it upon others?

Suffice to say, however, as an American with a God-given, constitutionally recognized, and protected right to free speech and the inherent right to the freedom of conscience, you are entitled to your own facts, because no person or institution has or can have the legitimate power to tell you what you must say or think in our free republic.

Thus, this is the case whether or not you actually believe in facts and are open-minded enough to critically think and revise said facts in the face of new evidence. Though that certainly helps improve the overall health of our free republic. For the benefit of the postmodern left, let us remind them that there is nothing more dangerous than a censor who seeks to control the language to control the minds of others, by any means at their disposal.

An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012. He served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and as a member of the Financial Services, Joint Economic, Budget, Small Business, and International Relations Committees. Not a lobbyist, he is also a contributor to Chronicles, a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars, and a co-host of “John Batchelor: Eye on the World” on CBS radio, among sundry media appearances.