Dinesh D’Souza Talks About America’s Changing Morality

Wednesday night, I got to meet one of my heroes of conservative thought, author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. As soon as I saw his picture on a New Jersey Family Policy Council mailer, I knew I just had to go. Luckily I was able to manage a ticket. I’ve been a fan of his since he put out his movie Obama’s America in 2012. Earlier this year he published The Big Lie, his current bestseller book about how the left has cleverly tied Nazi-ism and fascism to conservatism, instead of where they rightly belong, in the Left column as both were socialist entities.

His speech at the event though was more tailored to the crowd of right to life supporters. It was a little more broad than some of his more recent speeches given in support of his new book. It focused on how the Left has attempted, and largely succeeded, to realign America’s moral code away from values that come from outside, i.e. God and religion, to ones that comes from man, about witch D’Souza says: “The self becomes the adjudicator of morality.” The reason he gives for the Left being able create such a shift in American’s conception of morality was that progressives had three big “megaphones”: the news media, Hollywood, and academia. He came to the conclusion that in order to counter that message he had to create his own megaphone, so he decided to write books and go into filmmaking. He cited uber-progressive filmmaker Michael Moore as inspiration, not because he was so good, rather that if he (Moore) could do it, how hard could it be?

He also went on to talk about how Lincoln used a similar argument against slavery in the Lincoln/Douglass debates that the right to life community uses today against abortion. Democrat candidate Stephen Douglass’ pro-slavery stance according to D’Souza, was similar to the pro-choice argument being used by supporters of abortion today. Lincoln framed the slavery issue as a moral one, and as a moral issue there really is no choice– either slavery is moral nowhere or it is moral everywhere, be it in the north, the south, or one of the western territories. Douglass suggested that each state or territory should be allowed to choose whether or not slavery should be legal. It’s widely agreed now that Lincoln won that argument.

Another point D’Souza made to his audience of pro life activists is that the had more power as a group that they think they have. He recounted a story is professor told him about how a small, effete lion tamer could control a bigger, more powerful lion. The answer is that the lion tamer was able to convince the lion that he was the more powerful. The lion, believing this, could be made to do what the lion tamer wanted. Dinesh suggested to the members of the audience, that they were like the lion, and that they were really the ones with the power.

After the diner I got to meet Mr. D’Souza, that is to say I got him to autograph my copy of

The Big Lie, and thank him for the work his has done. His movies are good, and very informative. I consider them weapons to use in the ongoing Right vs. Left culture war. His book: The Big Lie Exposing the NAZI Roots of the American Left, especially for me has been a great resource for me and this Liberty Relearned blog. If you follow this site on Facebook, you’ve seen already several references and/or facts pulled from this book. Count on seeing more. The progressives have engaged in a decades-long campaign to create a false association of conservatism and the Republican Party with Nazi-ism and fascism. This is intellectual territory that the political and cultural right has lost and needs to regain from the left. Dinesh Sousa’s new book is a great resource that provides conservatives with the factual ammo they need to combat the fallacies being pushed by the other side. If you want to engage in this Cold Civil War, and want powerful facts to back up your argument, you should read his book.

-JP Mac