September 30, 2022
by Alexis Goodman
The world is in an uproar over politics once again, and this time it’s because they are looking at a shattered glass ceiling. Italy looks to appoint their first ever female Prime Minister, and normally that would be enough to deserve more liberal-leaning praise and adoration. Unfortunately, despite Giorgia Meloni’s capabilities, they seem unwilling to deliver such flattery due to her ‘extreme’ views and have already labeled her a fascist. Who knew that being a vehement supporter of religion, motherhood, and family would trigger such negative emotion.
A clip starring Meloni is circulating the internet platforms, even being popular enough to be shut down by Youtube for a short time. In this clip, Meloni addresses the World Congress of Families in 2019, giving a speech that has essentially set those who desire to see families diminished on fire. She stated:
“Why is the family an enemy? Why is the family so frightening? There is a single answer to all these questions. Because it defines us. Because it is our identity. Because everything that defines us is now an enemy for those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be perfect consumer slaves. And so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity. I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No. I must be Citizen X, Gender X, Parent 1, Parent 2. I must be a number. Because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators. The perfect consumer.”
Such a standpoint like the one above, albeit not new, is no longer fashionable in today’s world. Words like hers are threatening to the socially constructed safe zones we have placed sporadically across the country.
In conjunction to her words, a dictator once said, “What luck for rulers that men do not think.” Adolf Hitler was not far off the mark with this comment. Strip the people of thought, identity, and encourage confusion, and you fatten the sheep for slaughter. You create a dictator’s dream population, one devoid of individualism and eager for instruction.
As we see our pronouns being scrambled, the rise of cancel culture, Christianity being ridiculed, babies reduced to ‘fetuses’ or ‘clumps of cells’, and the basic biology of men and women thrown out the window, we see the exodus of society from common sense and freedom of thought.
How Giorgia Meloni will perform at the front of Italy’s government remains to be seen, but I don’t see any harm in implementing a little more God, a little more motherhood, a little more family, and a little more pride in your country. I don’t know when being a supporter of these causes became a fascist move, but in recent years we have come to love redefining things.
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Alexis Goodman was raised on a ranch in Dadeville, Missouri. She loves spending time with her husband, reading, hiking mountains, and learning new hobbies. She is currently a student at Brigham Young University-Idaho, where she is working to get a degree in Political Science with an emphasis on American Government.