This may be the greatest video to ever be posted on this site.
Just as an aside, Leftists and Democrats are the ones pushing “institutional racism,” as the below notes. Also note, I use “totalitarianism” in the sense of “total thought.” Which is a forced “homogenization” of thought… or, state instituted/forced “total thought.”
UPDATED VIDEO
This is an interview by Lex Fridman of Greg Lukianoff of F.I.R.E. (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression). The entire interview, “Greg Lukianoff: Cancel Culture, Deplatforming, Censorship & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #397,” can be seen HERE (I grab from around the 1:10:50 mark). There are a few universities/colleges involved in legal action in California, but The Renegade Institute for Liberty at Bakersfield College is one this is made for.
DEI stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” — all of which sounds fine, right? But materials put out by the state of California show that in this case, DEI translates to highly contested and controversial views. The state’s definitions say that the idea of “color blindness” “perpetuates… racial inequities,” and even the idea of “merit,” is “embedded in the ideology of Whiteness” and “upholds race-based structural inequality.” FIRE has filed a lawsuit on behalf of six California community college professors to halt new, systemwide regulations forcing professors to espouse and teach these politicized conceptions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The regulations are now in effect in the State Center Community College District, and FIRE’s clients have already been forced to change their syllabi and teaching materials, lest they face repercussions. (More info on the lawsuit @FIRE)
Here is an article from THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE that is worth reading in it’s entirety. It is titled: “First Amendment lawsuits challenge state’s DEI rules for community colleges” If you encounter a paywall, grab the URL from the link and put it into this “hopper: REMOVE PAYWALL.
California’s new community college rules sound simple enough: As of this year, all instructors must teach in a way that is culturally inclusive and must prove during employee evaluations that they respect and acknowledge students and colleagues of diverse backgrounds.
But what if an instructor holds so-called color-blind [more on this idea after article excerpt] views and prefers to ignore people’s race, ethnicity, gender or other physical and cultural characteristics as a personal philosophy? Or if an instructor disagrees entirely with the “anti-racism” and “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility lens” that state’s college officials now require?
Seven instructors from four community colleges in the Central Valley are now testing that cultural collision on constitutional grounds, saying their views could get them fired under the new rules. With the backing of national advocacy groups, the instructors are suing state and local college officials in federal court to have the regulations tossed.
The suits echo another federal lawsuit, filed in May against the University of California, in which a psychology professor hoping to work at UC Santa Cruz ran up against a UC requirement that applicants submit a statement supporting “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The applicant likened it to a “modern-day loyalty oath” of the kind discredited in the 1950s, when those who wouldn’t sign might be labeled communist subversives.
[….]
Another group, the Institute for Free Speech, filed a similar lawsuit on July 6 on behalf of Daymon Johnson, a history instructor at Bakersfield College in Kern County.
“Almost everything Professor Johnson teaches violates the new DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) requirements — not just by failing to advance the DEIA and anti-racist ideologies, but also by criticizing them,” the suit says, noting that compliance with the new rules would violate the instructor’s conscience and force him to surrender his academic freedom.
SEE MORE AT THE INSTITUTE FOR FREE SPEECH’S BLOG:
RPT is asking people to donate HERE.
In his U.S. History class this fall, for example, Johnson plans to have students read two books claiming to debunk the historian Howard Zinn’s work, which reveals less flattering versions of the American story, and the well-known 1619 Project, which digs deeply into the foundations of slavery.
His lawsuit contains a long list of things that the instructor “does not wish” to do. These include referring to transgender students by their preferred pronouns, acknowledging that social identities are diverse, and demonstrating “DEI and anti-racism practices” because he “rejects and even finds (them) abhorrent.”
Johnson is also a leader of the Renegade Institute for Liberty, a Bakersfield College group that opposes “political and ideological tyranny.” Its acronym is RIFL.
The suit claims that Johnson is already in the crosshairs of the college administration for his views and quotes a Kern college district trustee saying, in reference to employees holding anti-DEIA views: “They’re in that 5% that we have to continue to cull. Got them in my livestock operation and that’s why we put a rope on some of them and take them to the slaughterhouse.”
The Kern trustees did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit says that Bakersfield College already fired another instructor, who was Johnson’s predecessor at RIFL, and calls him “the first cullee.”
According to the suit, the person who oversaw the firing was the Kern district’s former chancellor, Sonya Christian, who has just become the chancellor of the California community colleges. With 116 schools and more than 2 million students enrolling each year, it’s the nation’s largest higher education system.
On Friday afternoon, state Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office filed a response to Johnson’s suit on behalf of Christian, arguing that the instructor has not only failed to show that he’s been harmed by the rules, but because of that, he also lacks standing to complain about them.
The response defends the diversity regulations and says the rules “do not restrict the free speech of any employee,” nor do they infringe on anyone’s academic freedom, “including Johnson’s.”
The system’s Board of Governors has the right to establish policies that “reflect its ideals and principles regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility,” the state argues.
A spokesperson for Christian said the college system has not yet responded in court to the more recent lawsuit and would not comment on it.
The new regulations require all 73 college districts to develop policies for evaluating employee performance and tenure eligibility in light of their “DEIA competencies.”
The rules follow a series of other DEIA guidance and messages from the chancellor’s office in recent years, and say that to ensure academic success, “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) and anti-racism remain at the heart of our work.”
The college system also posts a glossary of DEIA terms, which defines color blindness as a “racial ideology” that ignores “a large part of one’s identity and lived experience” and therefore “perpetuates existing racial inequities.”….
COLOR BLIND
Dennis Prager discusses a call about a gentleman disagreeing with his statement that he doesn’t see color, and others shouldn’t as well. After the discussion of the previous call, I include the call as well as the lead up to it.
MORE!
The Issue Is Values, Not Systemic Racism
Do you let your race, gender, or orientation define you? If you are on the left, everything is perceived through the lens of identity politics. Systemic racism is not the real issue plaguing America—it is our opposing values system. Dennis Prager offers some refreshing insight into how to heal our broken nation.
Should We Be Colorblind?
Nothing reveals the moral confusion of our time more than those who label the term “colorblind” racist. Who would want to see themselves in terms of their skin color? And what does a person’s skin color really say about who they are — their likes, dislikes, values, and so on?
Prager Notes The Left’s Proclivity Towards Racism
A girl is legally kidnapped in Santa Clarita by state authorities. The Left’s dogged emphasis on race, class, gender is destroying families, keeping them in poverty, and utterly failing our country’s motto, “out of many, one.” The Left has dumped out the melting pot and keeps us as divided as ever. This story is maddening!
Here is the what the main battle is over: “A battle over custody of a little girl who is 1/64th Choctaw has been in and out of the courts for three years now, and returns on Friday with a new appeal hearing” (ABC-7).
Keep in mind the racial science of NAZI Germany were concerned with a 1/16th racial mix… here we see the racial sciences of the Choctaw Nation and the State of California concerned over a 1/64th portion of heritage. Sick! Racist! Leftism!
ONE DROP RULE
More from the LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS Opinion Page:
Five hundred years ago, the Incas sacrificed children.
They removed children as young as six from their families, transported them with great ceremony to a mountain location, and left them to die of exposure.
Did they have the moral right to do it?
Some people think so. “To their credit,” wrote Kim MacQuarrie, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, anthropologist and author, “the Incas did their best to ensure the survival of their people and empire by paying close attention to nature and doing their best to use every means at their disposal, including human sacrifice, to gain control over it.”
There’s something seriously wrong with any kind of reasoning that places human sacrifice in the category of “doing their best.”
SEE MY: “Mayan, Incan and Aztec “Terrorism“
And there is something seriously wrong with what happened in Santa Clarita this week to a 6-year-old girl named Lexi and the foster family that has cared for her since she was 2.
Rusty and Summer Page tried for years to adopt Lexi but were blocked from doing so. The reason? The little girl has a tiny bit of Choctaw ancestry — just 1.5 percent — and under federal law the Choctaw Nation can decide her fate. The tribal authorities decided that Lexi will live in Utah with distant relatives. They issued this statement:
“The Choctaw Nation desires the best for this Choctaw child. The tribe’s values of faith, family and culture are what makes our tribal identity so important to us. Therefore we will continue to work to maintain these values and work toward the long-term best interest of this child.”
This is not human sacrifice, but it is closely related. It is collectivism, the opposite of individual rights.
Collectivism holds that an individual’s life belongs not to the individual, but to the group in which the individual is a member. Where other children would have the right to have a parent or guardian make decisions for them, Lexi’s future has been decided by group leaders seeking to preserve “tribal identity.”
On Monday, in a most disturbing scene, the 6-year-old was pulled weeping and frightened from the arms of her foster father on the driveway of the only stable home she has ever known.
Lexi is not the only child to be victimized by the enforcement of a federal law that, ironically, was intended to prevent children from being removed from their families.
In Arizona, a foster family’s adoption of a baby girl, who was placed with them at birth, is being blocked by the Gila River Indian Community, and the Navajo Nation is standing in the way of foster parents seeking to adopt a 5-year-old boy who has lived with them for four years.
The Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank based in Phoenix, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of these children and “others similarly situated” over this “separate and unequal treatment.”
The lawsuit argues that children of Native American ancestry are being unfairly denied their civil rights: “Alone among American children, their adoption and foster care placements are determined not in accord with their best interests but by their ethnicity, as a result of a well-intentioned but profoundly flawed and unconstitutional federal law, the Indian Child Welfare Act.”
The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978 in reaction to another government program, the Indian Adoption Project, which began in 1958 and continued until 1967.
The Indian Adoption Project was the result of an agreement between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League of America. It encouraged the removal of Indian children from their families on reservations so they could be adopted and “assimilate” into “mainstream society.” By the 1970s, between 25 and 35 percent of all Indian children nationwide had been removed from their homes, and 90 percent had been adopted by white families.
Outrage over the Indian Adoption Project led to the Indian Child Welfare Act. It requires social workers to make an extra effort to avoid removing Indian children from troubled homes, a greater effort than they would make for non-Indian children. When foster care or adoption becomes necessary, the law requires an active effort to place the child with an Indian family.
The Goldwater Institute says these requirements are discriminatory and harmful, making it harder to protect Indian children from abuse and neglect, and forcing longer waits for permanent homes.
The foster care system has many challenges and many heartbreaking stories. We don’t need laws that cause more pain. The Indian Child Welfare Act should go. Give the kids a break.
Susan Shelley is a San Fernando Valley author, a former television associate producer and twice a Republican candidate for the California Assembly.
The parents of a six-year-old girl taken from her family due to her Native American heritage speak out in a statement after officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services took their daughter, Lexi, away. Read more at SCV-NEWS.
George Will gets it right over at WA-PO:
Opinion | The Brutal Racial Politics Of The Indian Child Welfare Act
Lexi lived four of her first six years with a non-Native American California foster family, but because she is 1/64th Choctaw, tribal officials got her taken from the Californians and sent to live in Utah with a distant relative. On Friday, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear a challenge to the law that made this possible — the Indian Child Welfare Act, which endangers many young Native Americans. It also is a repudiation of the nation’s premise that rights are inherent in individuals, not groups.
In 1978, before “Native Americans” became the preferred designation for Indians, but when racial “identity” was beginning to become the toxic political concept it now is, Congress enhanced tribal rights. This violated, among other principles, those of federalism: Congress thereby reduced the right of states to enforce laws on child welfare. And it plunged government deeper into making distinctions solely on the basis of biological descent.
The ICWA, an early bow toward multiculturalism, buttressed tribal identities by strengthening tribal rights. For example, tribes can partially nullify states’ powers to intervene against tribal parents’ abuse endangering children. And the ICWA conferred rights on tribes, rights adjudicated in tribal courts, including the right to require Native American children be adopted by Native Americans.
Equal protection of the laws? Not under ICWA.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has asked, “Is it one drop of blood that triggers all these extraordinary rights?” Indeed, the primitive concept of racial “blood,” recast as DNA, triggers tribal rights and extinguishes a state’s right to protect many children’s rights. Sometimes with dire consequences.
In 2015, this column acquainted readers with Declan Stewart and Laurynn Whiteshield. Declan was 5 in 2007 when he was beaten to death by his mother’s live-in boyfriend. Oklahoma had removed him from his mother’s custody after he suffered a fractured skull and severe bruising between his testicles and rectum. But when the Cherokee Nation objected to his removal, Oklahoma, knowing that the ICWA favors tribal rights, relented. Beaten again, he died a month after returning to his mother.
From the age of 9 months until almost 3, Laurynn was in a North Dakota minister’s foster care. When the minister tried to adopt her, the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe invoked the ICWA, and Laurynn was sent to a reservation and the custody of her grandfather. Less than six weeks later she was dead, having been thrown down an embankment by the grandfather’s wife, who had a record of child abuse.
The ICWA requires that “Indian children” be placed with “Indian” foster families. Because the ICWA allows a child to be yanked from a non-Indian foster home — and from possible adoption — it discourages non-Native American adults from providing care, including early infant attachment, which is a foundation of healthy child development.
Born with fetal alcohol syndrome, Antonio Renova was 3 days old when he was taken from his biological parents, members of the Crow tribe, and put in foster care. Five years later, the biological parents, both on probation following felony convictions (the mother’s included child endangerment), obtained custody of Antonio through a Crow tribal court. He suffered beatings by his parents, who have been charged in his death.
Antonio was a casualty of the ICWA’s form of identity politics — the allocation of legal status and group entitlements based on biology. The ICWA has insinuated into law a “separate but equal” test regarding Native American children in jeopardy. It demotes “the best interests of the child” from the top priority; it makes a child’s relationship with a tribe supremely important.
The nation has abundant reasons to regret its mistreatment of Native Americans, and the ICWA was perhaps motivated by an impulse to show respect for Indigenous cultures. But the cost, in broken bodies and broken constitutional principles, has been exorbitant.
Today, the nation is reverting — in the name of “social justice” and “equity” understood as improved social outcomes for government-favored groups — to a retrograde emphasis on racial identities. So, the ICWA’s sacrifice of individual rights to group entitlements probably has a diminished power to shock. Come Friday, however, the Supreme Court should be shocked into hearing the arguments against the federal government usurpation, through the ICWA, of the states’ responsibility for protecting children in jeopardy, regardless of their biological ancestry.
CANADA VS. INDIA
So over the past couple weeks Canada has been in the news… enough so that I feel prompted to post on it. And the tow countries (India and Canada) have expelled diplomats of the issue. Here is more:
The WASHINGTON TIMES covers the story:
NEW DELHI — Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh independence advocate whose killing two months ago is at the center of a widening breach between India and Canada, was called a human rights activist by Sikh organizations and a terrorist by India’s government.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that his government was investigating “credible allegations” that Indian government agents were linked to the slaying on June 18 when Nijjar was gunned down outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia.
India has denied any role in the killing, calling the allegations absurd.
Nijjar was a prominent member of a movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, and at the time of his death was organizing an unofficial referendum among the Sikh diaspora with the organization Sikhs For Justice.
He also owned a plumbing business and served as president of a Sikh temple or gurdwara in suburban Vancouver. In a 2016 interview with the Vancouver Sun he responded dismissively to reports in Indian media that he was suspected of leading a terrorist cell.
“This is garbage – all the allegations. I am living here 20 years, right? Look at my record. There is nothing. I am a hard worker. I own my own business in the plumbing,” Nijjar told the newspaper.
Following his death, the World Sikh Organization of Canada called Nijjar an outspoken supporter of Khalistan who “often led peaceful protests against the violation of human rights actively taking place in India and in support of Khalistan.”
Nijjar was a wanted man in India, where authorities labeled him a terrorist in 2020.
In 2016, Indian media reported that he was suspected of masterminding a bombing in the Sikh-majority state of Punjab and training terrorists in a small city southeast of Vancouver. He denied the allegations.
India also filed a criminal case against Nijjar in 2020 for “conspiring to create an atmosphere of fear and lawlessness, and inciting people to rise in rebellion against the Government of India” when farmers, many from Punjab, camped out on the edges of New Delhi to protest controversial agriculture laws.
Last year, Indian authorities accused Nijjar of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest in India and announced a reward of about $16,000 for information leading to his arrest.
India has waged an at-times bloody struggle against the Sikh independence movement since the 1980s, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a raid to capture armed separatists taking refuge in a major Sikh temple.
The raid killed hundreds of people, and two of Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated her shortly after. In response, anti-Sikh riots took place across India in which members of the minority were dragged out of their homes and killed.
More recently, the Hindu nationalist-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cracked down on both non-Hindu rights movements and dissidents.
Canadian police said Nijjar was shot as he was leaving the car park of the Sikh temple where he served as president in British Columbia. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene.
After the killing, a lawyer and spokesperson for Sikhs For Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, said Nijjar had been a target of threats because of his activism. His killing was the second in two years of a prominent member of the Sikh community in Canada …..
One of the interviewees in the video above noted Canada’s parliament just coming back into session, which brings me to this next story.
A story of the Waffen-SS, WWII, and Ukraine.
CANADA VS Waffen-SS
Quite a few online personalities noted the story, here is one for instance:
? Zelensky Honors Literal Nazi ?
Meet Yaroslav Hunk.
Hunk is a Nazi who fought with the 14th division of the Waffen SS against the Russians in Ukraine in WWll
Hunk assisted in the systematic extermination of Ukraines Jewish population and installation of a Nazi dictator in… pic.twitter.com/3ctFoJ4rS7
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 24, 2023
What Benny and others have seemingly said is that this was a planned introduction and that the background of Yaroslav Hunk was known by Canadian officials. Even if Benny was not intimating it, it can be seen that way surely. The article Benny shared in his feed after the above intimation said this in their article ender:
A fellow “Facebooker” noted this article from NEWSWEEK discussing the issue:
Hunka, 98, was recognized by Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, as a “Ukrainian hero” who fought for the First Ukrainian Division. The speaker has since apologized for the blunder.
“We have here in the chamber today a Ukrainian-Canadian veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today, even at his age of 98,” Rota said before the Canadian parliament on September 22, after which Hunka was met with a round of applause, while Zelensky raised his fist.
Rota added, “He’s a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service. Thank you.”….
This ended up being an impromptu blunder that has brought some unawares of WWII history up to speed on this narrow piece of Ukrainian history. More on this in a moment, back to NEWSWEEK. After Newsweek catalogues the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies clarifying the man’s background, you had the official apology for the blunder released:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also present at the time of Hunka’s recognition. A statement issued by his office said “no advance notice was provided to the Prime Minister’s Office, nor the Ukrainian delegation, about the invitation or the recognition.”
[….]
Rota has issued a statement apologizing for his move to recognize Hunka.
“In my remarks following the address of the President of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so,” Rota said. “I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my action.”
This being a mistake is the more believable side of the coin, I mean, who would intentionally sink their political career by knowingly supporting a member of the SS controlled unit?
Here is more via the POLITICO:
Here is more on the history of this unit by FORWARD — and excellent article:
The Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation on Friday to a 98-year-old immigrant from Ukraine who fought in a Third Reich military formation accused of war crimes.
The elderly veteran, Yaroslav Hunka was honored during a session in which President Volodomyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the lawmakers to thank them for their support since Russia invaded his country, saying Canada has always been on “the bright side of history.” The Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota — who had compared Zelenskyy to Winston Churchill — recognized a “veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98.”
The assembly then rose to applaud a man in a khaki uniform standing on the balcony, who saluted, according to this screenshot from Canadian television.
The man was identified as Hunka by the Associated Press, which published a photograph showing Zelenskyy smiling and raising a fist during the ovation.
The AP caption described Hunka as having “fought with the First Ukrainian Division in World War II before later immigrating to Canada.” The First Ukrainian Division is another name for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the military wing of the Nazi Party; the unit was also called SS Galichina.
This is the same unit that is honored by controversial monuments in Canada, Australia, and, as the Forward recently exposed, the suburbs of Philadelphia and Detroit. Jewish groups have called for their removal.
After a Forward article in August that was followed by coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer, local television stations and other news outlets, the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia temporarily covered the monument located in a cemetery in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, pending discussions with local Jewish leaders. The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and regional branches of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League had expressed outrage about the monument.
FROM THAT ABOVE LINKED ARTICLE:
Two monuments to a Nazi military division with a record of war crimes have been hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Detroit. Both honor the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), commonly known as SS Galichina.
Formed in 1943, SS Galichina was a Ukrainian unit in the Waffen-SS — the combat branch of the SS (Schutzstaffel) wing of the Nazi Party. Such units “were heavily involved in the commission of the Holocaust through their participation in mass shootings, anti-partisan warfare, and in supplying guards for Nazi concentration camps,” according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and were “responsible for many other war crimes.”
Marches and monuments honoring SS Galichina in other nations including Canada have been condemned by Jewish organizations and the governments of Ukraine, Germany and Israel. The Forward has over the last three years documented more than 1,600 monuments, memorials and streets honoring Holocaust perpetrators and Third Reich collaborators in 30 countries.
Formed in 1943, SS Galichina was composed of recruits from the Galicia region in western Ukraine. The unit was armed and trained by the Nazis and commanded by German officers. In 1944, the division was visited by SS head Heinrich Himmler, who spoke of the soldiers’ willingness to slaughter Poles.”
Three months earlier, SS Galichina subunits perpetrated what is known as the Huta Pieniacka massacre, burning 500 to 1,000 Polish villagers alive.
During the Nuremberg Trials, the International Military Tribunal declared the Waffen-SS to be a criminal organization responsible for mass atrocities including the “persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor program, and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners.”
After the war, thousands of SS Galichina veterans were allowed to resettle in the West, around 2,000 of them in Canada. By then, the unit was universally known as the First Ukrainian Division.
A blog by an association of its veterans, called “Combatant News” in Ukrainian, includes an autobiographical entry by a Yaroslav Hunka that says he volunteered to join the division in 1943 and several photographs of him during the war. The captions say the pictures show Hunka during SS artillery training in Munich in December 1943 and in Neuhammer (now Świętoszów), Poland, the site of Himmler’s visit.
In posts to the blog dated 2011 and 2010, Hunka describes 1941 to 1943 as the happiest years of his life and compares the veterans of his unit, who were scattered across the world, to Jews.
Canada has two monuments to the unit, one in a Wayville, which is outside Toronto, the other in Edmonton. Canadian Jewish organizations have called for their removal. ….
By the way, at the beginning of this conflict I was of the mindset of Dennis Prager that Ukrainian Fascism was a Russian propaganda lie. I can also see the point made that maybe there is more truth to the matter than we are told. Maybe the safe way to say it is that Ukraine has many more Nazi’s that the United States, per capita.
But is this an “enemy of my enemy” situation? Yeah, probably:
Enemy Of The Enemy
In its existential struggle against Russian invaders, Ukraine, a pro-Western democracy, has elevated some problematic heroes with fascist origins. And its allies — including Jewish leaders and liberal politicians usually on guard against such forces — have largely downplayed or denied this phenomenon.
Here is a story by NBC NEWS I read a while back:
Of the many distortions manufactured by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify Russia’s assault on Ukraine, perhaps the most bizarre is his claim that the action was taken to “denazify” the country and its leadership. In making his case for entering his neighbor’s territory with armored tanks and fighter jets, Putin has stated that the move was undertaken “to protect people” who have been “subjected to bullying and genocide,” and that Russia “will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.”
On its face, Putin’s smear is absurd, not least because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and has said that members of his family were killed during World War II. There is also no evidence of recent mass killings or ethnic purges taking place in Ukraine. Moreover, labeling enemies Nazis is a common political ploy in Russia, especially from a leader who favors disinformation campaigns and wants to stir up feelings of national vengeance against a WWII foe to justify conquest.
But even though Putin is engaging in propaganda, it’s also true that Ukraine has a genuine Nazi problem — both past and present. Putin’s destructive actions — among them the devastation of Jewish communities — make clear that he’s lying when he says his goal is to ensure anyone’s welfare. But important as it is to defend the yellow-and-blue flag against the Kremlin’s brutal aggression, it would be a dangerous oversight to deny Ukraine’s antisemitic history and collaboration with Hitler’s Nazis, as well as the latter-day embrace of neo-Nazi factions in some quarters.
On the eve of World War II, Ukraine was home to one the largest Jewish communities in Europe, with estimates as high as 2.7 million, a remarkable number considering the territory’s long record of antisemitism and pogroms. By the end, more than half would perish. When German troops took control of Kyiv in 1941, they were welcomed by “Heil Hitler” banners. Soon after, nearly 34,000 Jews — along with Roma and other “undesirables” — were rounded up and marched to fields outside the city on the pretext of resettlement only to be massacred in what became known as the “Holocaust by bullets.”
The Babyn Yar ravine continued to fill up as a mass grave for two years. With as many as 100,000 murdered there, it became one of the largest single killing sites of the Holocaust outside of Auschwitz and other death camps. Researchers have noted the key role locals played in fulfilling Nazi kill orders at the site.
Nowadays, Ukraine counts between 56,000 to 140,000 Jews, who enjoy freedoms and protections never imagined by their grandparents. That includes an updated law passed last month criminalizing antisemitic acts. Unfortunately, the law was intended to address a pronounced uptick in public displays of bigotry, including swastika-laden vandalism of synagogues and Jewish memorials, and eerie marches in Kyiv and other cities that celebrated the Waffen SS.
In another ominous development, Ukraine has in recent years erected a glut of statues honoring Ukrainian nationalists whose legacies are tainted by their indisputable record as Nazi proxies. The Forward newspaper cataloged some of these deplorables, including Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), whose followers acted as local militia members for the SS and German army. “Ukraine has several dozen monuments and scores of street names glorifying this Nazi collaborator, enough to require two separate Wikipedia pages,” the Forward wrote.
FROM THAT ABOVE LINKED ARTICLE:
L’viv and two other locales — 1.5 million Jews, a quarter of all Jews murdered in the Holocaust, came from Ukraine. Over the past six years, the country has been institutionalizing worship of the paramilitary Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which collaborated with the Nazis and aided in the slaughter of Jews, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which massacred thousands of Jews and 70,000-100,000 Poles. A major figure venerated in today’s Ukraine is Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), the Nazi collaborator who led a faction of OUN (called OUN-B); above are his statues in L’viv (left) and Ivano-Frankivsk (right). Many thanks to Per Anders Rudling, Tarik Cyril Amar and Jared McBride for their guidance on Ukrainian collaborators.
THAT BEING SAID, the leader of Ukraine is proud and vocal about his Jewish heritage:
… When Volodymyr Zelensky won his election in 2019, it meant that for the first time in Ukraine’s history, the country had a president and a prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, who were both Jewish and open about their Jewish background. For a time, Ukraine was the only country outside of Israel where the heads of state and government were Jewish. Yet neither promoted nor relied on ethnicity in their politics.
In fact, Tsyba, a childhood friend and now MP in Zelenksy’s Servant of the People party, says Zelensky rarely mentioned his Jewish background and it was not something people talked about. “It never mattered … There were a lot of Jewish people around yet there was no particular interest in who was who.”
Grandparents
Days before taking office in 2019, Zelensky put flowers on the grave of his Jewish grandfather, who fought the Nazis in World War II.
“[Simon] went through the whole war and remains forever in my memory one of those heroes who defended Ukraine from the Nazis. Thanks for the fact that the inhuman ideology of Nazism is forever a thing of the past. Thanks to those who fought against Nazism — and won.” …
So, while I agree that the Left in Canada is horrible, like they are here. They in no way support “Fascists” openly…. sorta (BREITBART):
See my posts:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has many political issues right now, from his suppression of the Freedom Convoys Covid protests to how the Canadian government froze bank accounts of those involved in the protest. But his problems do not include openly supporting historical Nazism.
He is a Lefty who was a horrible replacement for Stephen Harper, an awesome balance to Barack Obama to have North America hold the freedom line… but we are stuck with our Northern Neighbor’s choice till 2025. Hopefully the Canucks elect a “Pierre Poilievre” type.
One can only hope.
How psychological dysfunction has been embedded in our institutions.
You’re not imagining that the world has gone mad.
Healthy debate has been replaced by activist hysterics. Speech is declared violence, while violence is excused as speech. Masculinity is condemned as regressive, while men in skirts and heels are celebrated in the public square.
It’s easy to laugh at these outbursts as the ravings of a small but vocal minority, but the compromised health of our body politic is not a trivial concern. A strange, new pattern of psychological dysfunction has infiltrated our most prestigious institutions, our corporate bureaucracies, and the highest offices in the land.
In short, we’re sick. Our society is out of balance. We’ve been consumed by a cluster of disorder that appeals to our worst instincts and deranges our most important social functions.
We need to recover our sanity. But to do so, we must first know exactly what we’re dealing with: the emergence of a Cluster B Society.
ORIGINALLY POSTED IN 2013
LONG UPDATE:
This update will be placed at the top as it is key as you go through this post that the “negative [-] and positive [+] values” have changed since many of these stats came out. And note as well, that this means “Party” values/comparison “negative [-] and positive [+] values” have changed as well. Quite a bit:
GALLOP has more on the above:
Partisanship, Age Biggest Differentiators of Religiosity and Spirituality
The greatest variation in religious or spiritual beliefs is seen by party identification and age.
Among party groups, Republicans are the most likely to identify as religious, with 61% doing so, while 28% say they are spiritual. More independents say they are religious (44%) than spiritual (32%), while Democrats are about equally as likely to say they are spiritual (41%) as religious (37%).
Twenty-one percent of both Democrats and independents say they are neither religious nor spiritual, compared with 8% of Republicans.
BREITBART zeroes in a bit on this political change:
…Indeed, a Gallup poll from June 2022 found that belief in God has fallen the most in recent years among young adults and people on the left of the political spectrum.
“These groups show drops of ten or more percentage points comparing the 2022 figures to an average of the 2013-2017 polls,” that survey found. “Most other key subgroups have experienced at least a modest decline, although conservatives and married adults have had essentially no change.”
“The groups with the largest declines are also the groups that are currently least likely to believe in God, including liberals (62 percent), young adults (68 percent) and Democrats (72 percent). Belief in God is highest among political conservatives (94 percent) and Republicans (92 percent), reflecting that religiosity is a major determinant of political divisions in the U.S.,” the survey report continues.
Similarly, a Wall Street Journal poll released in March found that while 49 percent of respondents say, “I know God really exists, and I have no doubts about it,” only 39 percent say religion is “very important” to them….
As A PREVIOUS POST OF MINE notes as well, this religious trend affects Party Patriotism as well:
Republicans, Holding the Patriotic Line!
…Currently, 32% of Democrats — down from 43% in 2017 and 56% in 2013 — are extremely proud. The decline preceded the election of Donald Trump but has accelerated in the past year.
Less than half of independents, 42%, are also extremely proud. That is down slightly from 48% a year ago, and 50% in 2013.
As has typically been the case, Republicans are more inclined to say they are extremely proud to be Americans than are Democrats and independents. Seventy-four percent of Republicans are extremely proud, which is numerically the highest over the last five years….
(GALLUP)
This is the Democrat base… and influences Democratic politics. It BOOS GOD | ISRAEL being in the Democrat platform. It tries to get rid of God from the pledge (“Democrats and independents were more likely than Republicans to think the phrase should be taken out“). It tries to force religious people to pay for abortions. Here is BREITBART:
This Fourth of July, according to a recent Pew survey, 60% of full-spectrum “Solid Liberals” are not proud to be Americans.
The Pew Research survey found that just 40% of so-called Solid Liberals “often feel proud to be American” while “60% say that characterization does not fit them.”
According to the comprehensive survey, 69% of Solid Liberals are white, and 41% are under 40 years of age. They make up 15% of the general public and 17% of registered voters. Almost unanimously they love President Barack Obama – 84% approve Obama’s job performance, “with 51% approving very strongly.”
Among all Americans, Obama is considered to be the worst president since World War II, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll (2014).
In addition, 80% of this group believe that “racial discrimination is the main reason why many blacks can’t get ahead these days,” 87% think abortion should be legal in almost all circumstances, and 83% say “the government should do more to help the needy, even if it means going deeper into debt.”
Pew also found that 52% of Solid Liberals “have college degrees and 21% have graduate degrees” while “45% say if they could live anywhere they wanted, they would live in a city.” While 93% of Solid Liberals believe that “stricter” environmental regulations are worth the cost, only “12% say the description ‘hunter, fisher or sportsman’ fits them well, the lowest share of any typology group.”
(Click Graph To Enlarge)
Conservatives are significantly prouder to be Americans.
Pew’s survey found that “81% of Business Conservatives and 72% of Steadfast Conservatives say the phrase ‘often feel proud to be American’ describes them well.” Pew also concluded that the “feelings of pride in being American – and a belief that honor and duty are core values – are much more widespread among the two conservative groups than the other typology groups.”
END OF UPDATE
I found this title of an article very myopic, ill-considered. You will see what I mean as we get into it, but first, here is the title of the article, “Atheists Have Stronger Family Values Than Evangelical Christians.” Not only is the title ill-considered, but the arguments within the article are as well. Divorce, crime, and the like are mentioned in the article, and as we will see later, the 2009 info is a bit twisted… but I will deal with some other issues first. Here is the crux of the article:
The original findings about divorce among non-believers are borne out by a 2009 comparison of geographical regions by the U.S. Census Bureau: the Northeast, known as the home of educated liberals (both liberalism and high levels of education correlate with atheism), has the lowest divorce rate, while the Bible Belt has the highest.
The gap between what evangelicals preach about morality and what they do extends beyond their love lives. Federal Bureau of Prisons numbers show that Christians commit more crimes per person than atheists, who commit fewer than the followers of any religion.
(CONSERVAPEDIA has a wonderful “drilling down” on this)
Mind you I realize I am stomping around “The Ecological Fallacy,” but this is a powerful cumulative case that the above is not just wrong, but very wrong. Also note this will turn out to be a battle between committed Christians, nominal Christians and the secular person. In the end you will see that if you were to have your taxes done, you would want them done by a committed Christian. That aside, one should also note that histories biggest mass murderers are atheistic in their cosmology, but conservative Christians who understand the ENTIRETY of their faith, commit less crime than all others in these stats. For instance, Prager did a show on these findings that shows that people who only believe in heaven (universalism, e.g., liberal theology) commit more crimes than those who believe in both heaven and hell.
Heaven or Hell? The Sinners Crutch!
FROM VIDEO DESCRIPTION
In this “Ultimate Issues Hour,” Dennis Prager discusses “Ultimate Justice” (God’s justice and otherwise) and justice’s involvement/affect in/on behavior. A new study reveals that belief in hell [and heaven] predicted a lower crime rate; belief in heaven predicted more crimes. Dennis tackles this hard to explain — or is it — issue.
This is uploaded because of an article by a detective and Christian apologist that likewise deals head-on with these questions as well (J. Warner Wallace). Detective Wallace says, “Criminals who justify their actions with religious doctrines are typically woefully ignorant of (or purposefully distorting) these doctrines,” I concur. Having been in jail for almost a full year-and-a-half with three felonies, I know first hand the psychological crutch religion can play, rather than the Refiner’s Fire Christianity is meant to be (Zechariah 13:9, 1 Peter 1:7, Job 23:10, Isaiah 48:10).
I will add that “Liberalism,” wherever it is applied (politics, economics, faith, ethics, and the like), harms immeasurably the actions of those involved in it. Theology is no less hurt by this progressive matrix.
Just the latest example of this are those that are opposed to pro-lifers support of a bill that will stop late-term abortions. They can be heard chanting “hail Satan” in response to others singing “Amazing Grace.” As well as “fu*k the church!” The Democrats that once supported and made up John F. Kennedy’s base would not recognize the liberal Democratic party of today. Which is why Dennis says (as well as Reagan) that the Democratic Party left them, not the other way around.
See Detective Warner’s ministry: http://pleaseconvinceme.com/
But there are other parts of this article that interest me. It is this: “both liberalism and high levels of education correlate with atheism,” the far left site, Daily Kos, agrees as well. Higher education leads to a higher pay as well… this will become important in dismantling a popular myth. This fact disproves many mantras and myths that the political Left. So lets delve into my thoughts on this. And this begins the complexity of what “family values” are, and it is a myriad of positions. Okay, let us divide political positions firstly:
A Gallup Poll shows that 40% of Republicans say they attend church weekly. Twenty-one percent say they attend nearly weekly or monthly, and 38% say they seldom or rarely go to church.
Compare that to only 27% of Democrats who say they go to church every week, 20% who say they go monthly and 52% of Democrats who say they seldom or never go to church. These polls also show that Democrats are less religious than the average American, and Republicans are more religious. Consider this: Almost one in five Democrats identify with no religious faith compared to only one in 10 Republicans who feel that way. (CNN)
Keep in mind that when “Republicans” are mentioned below, they have a higher percentage serious Christians. Here we go. During the 2000 elections (I know these stats are old, but all of this holds true today) an interesting stat caught my attention:
Once in awhile stats are done to see which part of the country (which states in fact) give more to charity per-capita than other states. Do you know which of the top twenty states gives the most to charity? You got it, Bush country! Every single one of the red states in that top-twenty are the middle-income fly-over states. Guess how many red-states got the lower twenty of giving? Two. Eighteen States that were in the lowest giving ratio to charity were Gore states. This is even more interesting with a few recent poles. Just under 66-percent republicans go to church one-to-two times a week. Just fewer than 66-percent democrats do not even go to church once a week. DRAT those nasty religious / conservatives! (From a very old post from my BlogSpot days)
This is important for the conversation. According to the very left leaning Daily Kos, most atheists vote Democrat now, harkening back to the 2000 election stats above, what does this mean? They are selfish? Stingy? You decide.
BIDEN (Politico):
OBAMA (WaPo):
From GATEWAY PUNDIT:
Obama charitable contributions
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent, according to tax returns for those years released today by his campaign.
The Obamas increased the amount they gave to charity when their income rose in 2005 and 2006 after the Illinois senator published a bestselling book. The $137,622 they gave over those two years amounted to more than 5 percent of their $2.6 million income.
Romney charitable contributions
Tax year Taxable income Charitable donations Donations as % of income
Why bring up the Blue State and Red State divide and recent elections? Because is shown in every poll by Gallop (since this category was started), that Republicans are happier than Democrats ~ Giving and helping increase happiness, not dependence on government. Now, how bout church attendance, how does this strengthen family and thus family values?
We know that the left/right divide is an indicator of church attendance, how does regular church attendance break down into crime, and a healthy, happy life? Here are some indicators:
SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AGREE
(From a post entitled “Love“)
(Also see 52 REASONS TO GO TO CHURCH) These indicators are also mentions in a Heritage Foundation article, “Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability“
100) Moral Values of Theists vs. Atheists
The rise of the “New Atheism” has led to the claim by its major proponents that atheism is morally superior to theism and that the world would be better off if the entire population were composed only of atheists. A new study raises doubts about that claim. Do people need God to be good? Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, Chris Hedges’ American Fascists, Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation, and Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great all claim that theism (and Christianity in particular) is morally inferior to Atheism. Dawkins goes on to daim that religion is a form of child abuse that should not be taught to young children. However, a recent study by Reginald W. Bibby, Board of Governors Research Chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, Canada, shows that atheists rate several moral values less important than theists do.
Christians are far more likely than atheists to be part of groups that work hard to instill values about being good to other people, and having good relationships. The teachings of the Bible emphasize values such as honesty, love, forgiveness, patience, and generosity. Many of these values are not emphasized in social circles dominated by atheists. A survey of 1,600 Canadians asked them what their beliefs about God and what moral values were considered to be “very important.” The results of the survey are shown [TO THE RIGHT]:
Although the differences between theists and atheists in the importance of values such as honesty, politeness, and friendliness are generally small, moral values emphasized by religious beliefs, such as Christianity, including patience, forgiveness, and generosity exhibit major differences in attitudes (3O%+ differences between theists and atheists).
[FYI, while this book is helpful, I do not recommend this author] Gregory Lessing Garrett, No Apology Necessary Atheism Refuted Eternal Causal Intelligence Affirmed A Comprehensive Compendium of Intelligent Refutations to Atheism (Lulu . com [self-published] November 15, 2018.)
So we can see that the above are important factors in a healthy, stable, family which would have the highest percentage or chance in a family situation to create “family values.” What about divorce rates and the 2009 data. This is dealt with well at CHRISTIAN ACTION LEAGUE, and shows how Barna and the Government can miss-categorize whole swaths of people and their affiliations:
…Wright did his own research using the General Social Survey; a huge study conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, and found that folks who identify as Christians but rarely attend church have a divorce rate of 60 percent compared to 38 percent among people who attend church regularly. More generally, he found that Christians, similar to adherents of other traditional faiths, have a divorce rate of 42 percent compared with 50 percent among those without a religious affiliation.
And his is not the only research that is showing a link between strong faith and increased marriage stability.
University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project, concluded that “active conservative Protestants” who regularly attend church are 35 percent less likely to divorce than are those with no faith affiliation. He used the National Survey of Families and Households to make his analysis.
[….]
Glenn Stanton, the director for family formation studies at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo., has been writing articles to spread the truth about the lower divorce rate among practicing Christians.
“Couples who regularly practice any combination of serious religious behaviors and attitudes — attend church nearly every week, read their Bibles and spiritual materials regularly; pray privately and together; generally take their faith seriously, living not as perfect disciples, but serious disciples — enjoy significantly lower divorce rates that mere church members, the general public and unbelievers,” Stanton wrote in the Baptist Press early this year.
At issue in Barna’s studies is how he defined “Christian” and to what other groups he compared the “Christian” divorce rate. Apparently, his study compared what he termed “born-again” Christians — those who described their faith in terms of “personal commitment,” “accept as savior” and other evangelical, born-again language to three other groups, which included self-identified Christians who do not describe their faith with those terms, members of other, non-Christian religions and people of no religious beliefs.
Because his second group would have included many Catholics and mainline Protestants, Wright points out that Barna was, in many ways, “comparing Christians against Christians.” No wonder the rates were similar….
Only one of the top 25 donors to political 527 groups has given to a conservative organization, shedding further light on the huge disparity between Democrats and Republicans in this new fund-raising area. The top three 527 donors so far in the 2004 election cycle – Hollywood producer Steven Bing, Progressive Corp. chairman Peter Lewis and financier George Soros – have combined to give nearly $24 million to prominent liberal groups. They include Joint Victory Campaign 2004, America Coming Together, and MoveOn.org.
Dems the richest five senators?
Financial statements revealed the five richest members of the United States Senate are Democrats. The annual disclosure allows senators to represent their net worth inside a broad range.
Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is far ahead of his colleagues with $163 million, most of it coming from his wife’s inheritance of the Heinz fortune. The actual estimate is over $400 million.
Lagging behind is Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) at $111 million. The Wisconsin senator’s family owns a department store chain. Sen. John “Jay” Rockefeller (D-WV) comes in third with a personal fortune reported to be $81 million.
Former Goldman Sachs chairman Sen. John Corzine (D-NJ) weighs in at $71 million, with Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) rounding out the top five at $26.3 million. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) breaks the string of Democrat multimillionaires in sixth place at $26.1 million. Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Bill Frist (R-TN), John Edwards (D-NC), and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) complete the top ten.
Democrats are 10 of the top 15 richest senators.
In USA TODAY, David Kinnaman, Barna’s president, said that “the statistical differences reflect varied approaches, with Wright looking more at attendance and his research firm dwelling on theological commitments.” Duh! The bottom line seems to be that the more seriously couples take their faith, the less likely they are to get a divorce. That seems like a self-evident truth, but it appears there is also evidence for it. In other words, this is a nominal, vs. committed Christian vs. secular person battle.
I can go on-and-on, but lets shorten what we have learned, and it all revolves around this:
I realize that much of this can be classified broadly as “The Ecological Fallacy” — but it is an amassing of stats to show that in fact the committed Christian understands the totality of “family values” and commits to them more than the secular person.
1a) Those who attend church more are to be found in the Republican Party;
1b) Those who do not, the Democratic Party;
2a) Those in the Republican Party donate much more to charitable causes;
2b) Those in the Democratic Party, are much more stingy;
3a) Republicans earn less and give more;
3b) Democrats earn more and give less;
4a) Conservative Christians and Jews (people who believe in Heaven and Hell) commit less crimes;
4b) Liberal religious persons (universalists) have a higher rate of crime;
5a) Regular church attendees have a lower drug use rate;
5b) Irreligious persons have a higher rate;
6a) Moral “oughts” are answered in Christian theism (one “ought” not rape because it is absolutely, morally wrong);
6b) Moral “oughts” are merely current consensus of the most individuals, there is no absolute moral statement that can be made about rape;
7a) Republicans are happier than Democrats;
7b) Democrats are more depressed;
8a) The sex lives of married, religious persons is better/more fulfilling;
…According to psychotherapist and couples’ sex expert Esther Perel, marriage is when your sex life really begins…
8b) The sex lives of the irreligious person is less fulfilling;
9a) The conservative is more likely to reach orgasm [conservative woman I assume];
9b) The liberal woman is not;
10a) They are less likely to sleep around, which would also indicate lower STDs;
10b Democrats are more likely to have STDs through having more sex partners;
11a) Republicans are less likely (slightly, but this is so because of the committed Christians in the larger demographic) to have extra-marital affairs;
11b) Democrats more likely;
HAPPINESS IS A MORAL OBLIGATION
Forty-three percent of people who attend religious services weekly or more say they’re very happy, compared to 26 percent of those who go seldom or never. The Pew analysis does not answer the question of how religion, Republicanism and happiness might be related, however.
[….]
Most young people start out as naive, idealistic liberals. But as they get older, that changes. They get more conservative, usually because they grow up. But just imagine that you never get out of that liberal mindset. You go through your whole life trying to check people into a victim box, always feeling offended, always trying to right all of the wrongs in the world, and always blaming government for it. It’s no wonder you’d end up miserable when you get older! Going through your entire life feeling like that would make you a very angry, bitter, jealous, selfish person — and often, that describes aging liberals to a T.
All in all, being a Republican gives you a 7% edge in the happiness department, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a greater factor than race, ethnicity, or gender. And just a reminder — Republicans have the advantage across all class lines as well, from upper class to middle class to lower class. Lower class Republicans are happier than lower class Democrats. Middle class Republicans are happier than middle class Democrats. And upper class Republicans are happier than upper class Democrats.
And I’ll say it again. It’s because of the difference in world view.
12a) Republicans over the last three decades have been reproducing more…
12b) Democrats abort more often and have less children through educational/career decisions
13a) Christians are more likely to have children and impact the world;
13b) Skeptics replace family with pleasure and travel.
“Since women that believe in God are less likely to have abortions, does that mean that natural selection will result in a greater number of believers than non-believers.” Assuming the validity of the “underlying instinct to survive and reproduce” then, out of the two positions (belief and non-belief) available for us to choose from which would better apply to being the most fit if the fittest is “an individual… [that] reproduces more successfully…”? The woman that believes in God is less likely to have abortions and more likely to have larger families than their secular counterparts. Does that mean that natural selection will result in a greater number of believers than non-believers?
Also,
FOOTNOTES
1. Vaughn R. A. Call and Tim B. Heaton, “Religious Influence on Marital Stability,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36, No. 3 (September 1997): 382-392.
2. Lisa D. Pearce and William G. Axinn, “The Impact of Family Religious Life on the Quality of Mother-Child Relations,” American Sociological Review 63, No. 6 (December 1998): 810-828.
3. Valerie King, “The Influence of Religion on Fathers’ Relationships with Their Children,” Journal of Marriage and Family 65, No. 2 (May 2003): 382-395.
4. Jerry Trusty and Richard E. Watts, “Relationship of High School Seniors’ Religious Perceptions and Behavior to Educational, Career, and Leisure Variables,” Counseling and Values 44, No. 1 (October 1999): 30-39.
5. Robert A. Hummer, Richard G. Rogers, Charles B. Nam, and Christopher G. Ellison, “Religious Involvement and U.S. Adult Mortality,” Demography 36, No. 2 (May 1999): 273-285.
6. William J. Strawbridge, Richard D. Cohen, Sarah J. Shema, and George A. Kaplan, “Frequent Attendance at Religious Services and Mortality over 28 Years,” American Journal of Public Health 87, No. 6 (June 1997): 957-961.
7. Matthew T. Loveland, David Sikkink, Daniel J. Myers, and Benjamin Radcliff, “Private Prayer and Civic Involvement,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44, No. 1 (March 2005): 1-14.
8. Arthur C. Brooks, Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide, (New York: Basic Books 2006), 31-52.
9. Michelle Frisco, Chandra Muller and Kyle Dodson, “Participation in Voluntary Youth-Serving Associations and Early Adult Voting Behavior,” Social Science Quarterly 85, No. 3 (September 2004): 660-676.
10. Justin Longenecker, Joseph McKinney, and Carlos Moore, “Religious Intensity, Evangelical Christianity, and Business Ethics: An Empirical Study,” Journal of Business Ethics 55, No. 4 (December 2004): 371- 384.
For these and other reasons not mentioned here I reject the study referenced at the beginning of this post. You can see from the above why this blog is called “Religio-Political Talk,” separating the values of religion from politics is an impossible task. As Wayne Grudem points out:
…Such “exclude religion” arguments are wrong because marriage is not a religion! When voters define marriage, they are not establishing a religion. In the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” the word “religion” refers to the church that people attend and support. “Religion” means being a Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Jew. It does not mean being married. These arguments try to make the word “religion” in the Constitution mean something different from what it has always meant.
These arguments also make the logical mistake of failing to distinguish the reasons for a law from the content of the law. There were religious reasons behind many of our laws, but these laws do not “establish” a religion. All major religions have teachings against stealing, but laws against stealing do not “establish a religion.” All religions have laws against murder, but laws against murder do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States and England was led by many Christians, based on their religious convictions, but laws abolishing slavery do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to end racial discrimination and segregation was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist pastor, who preached against racial injustice from the Bible. But laws against discrimination and segregation do not “establish a religion.”
If these “exclude religion” arguments succeed in court, they could soon be applied against evangelicals and Catholics who make “religious” arguments against abortion. Majority votes to protect unborn children could then be invalidated by saying these voters are “establishing a religion.” And, by such reasoning, all the votes of religious citizens for almost any issue could be found invalid by court decree! This would be the direct opposite of the kind of country the Founding Fathers established, and the direct opposite of what they meant by “free exercise” of religion in the First Amendment.
Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010], 31.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION:
“God never loses control of Himself, that’s what makes this so scary, it is so calculated, it is so right, it is so holy, it is so necessary.” – Steven Lawson
While many people prefer to avoid thinking about God’s wrath, the Bible does not hesitate to speak of it. God’s anger is used in Scripture as a warning to unbelievers and a reason for holy living for His people. Dr. Lawson examines the nature and need of God’s anger, as well as the many various ways that it is shown in Scripture.
Preachers must not be afraid to proclaim God’s righteous wrath against hell-deserving sinners. God has appointed a day when He will judge the world in righteousness.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy joins ‘Jesse Watters Primetime’ to discuss his phone conversation with a Washington Post reporter.
I Caught Wind That The Washington Post Was Writing A Hit Piece About Me And My Pizzafest So I Did What I Do. I Went on the Offensive
Edited this old post a tad today (09/22/2023)
JUMP TO…. QUESTION FROM SON’S FRIEND
This post deals with two questions at separate times asked of me explaining why marriage should be considered in it’s ideal form ~ heterosexual. This post deals only with laws of biology and natural law. It does not deal with states Constitutional opportunity to define marriage, or issues peripheral to what is my response to two honest questions proffered to me.
QUESTION
John, you asked a very constructive question in regards to marriage and sexuality, let me repeat your question here:
Keep in mind that you have caused me to search out better definitions and understandings with respect to our current conversation, so I am starting to build on past knowledge, and may only be able to answer you thoroughly in the future and not at this immediate time.
However, I believe I have come to terms with what it is that we are discussing, and I believe I can define “sexuality” in a way that you can take away from this conversation and say, “So this is where the crux of the debate lay on their side.”
Okay, let me start this long – arduous – definition of heterosexuality. First of all, the claim that the law ought to be morally neutral about marriage or anything else is itself a moral claim. As such, it is not morally neutral, nor can it rest on an appeal to moral neutrality. We are both debating a subject, and as such, both are using reference points, subject/object distinctions, and the like. We are far from being neutral and must admit we are trying to propose one mortal system over another. I am sure we are both agreed on this.
The CORE of the traditional view and understanding of marriage (remember that homosexuality has long been condemned as immoral by the natural law tradition of moral philosophy, as well as by Jewish and Christian teaching, not only that, it may have been recognized by past cultures, but never authorized… as the gay rights movement is asking for today):
Marriage is a two-in-one-flesh communion of persons that is consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type, whether or not they are reproductive in effect (or motivated, even in part, by a desire to reproduce). The bodily union of spouses in marital acts is the biological matrix of their marriage as a multi-level relationship: that is, a relationship that unites persons at the bodily, emotional, dispositional, and spiritual levels of the being.
Marriage, precisely as such a relationship, is naturally ordered to the good of procreation and to the nurturing and education of children) as well as to the good of spousal unity, and these goods are tightly bound together with a healthy society.
The distinctive unity of spouses is possible because human (like other mammalian) males and females, by mating, unite organically – in other words, they become a single reproductive principle. Although reproduction is a single act, in humans (and other mammals) the reproductive act is performed not by individual members of the species, but by a mated pair as an organic unit. Germaine Grisez has made this point:
“Though a male and a female are complete individuals with respect to other functions – for example, nutrition, sensation, and locomotion – with respect to reproduction they are only potential parts of a mated pair, which is the complete organism capable or reproducing sexually. Even if the mated pair is sterile, intercourse, provided it is the reproductive behavior characteristic of the species, makes the copulating male and female one organism. Masturbatory, sodomitical, or other sexual acts that are not reproductive in type cannot unite persons organically: that is, as a single reproductive principle. Therefore, such acts cannot be intelligibly engaged in for the sake of marital (i.e., one-flesh, bodily) unity as such. They cannot be marital acts!”
Rather, persons who perform such acts must be doing so for the sake of ends or goals that are extrinsic (definitions at the end) to themselves as bodily persons: Sexual satisfaction, or (perhaps) mutual sexual satisfaction, is sought as a means of releasing tension, or obtaining (and, sometimes, sharing) pleasure, either as an end in itself, or as a means to some other end, such as expressing affection, esteem, friendliness, etc. In any case, where one-flesh union cannot (or cannot rightly) be sought as an end-in-itself, sexual activity necessarily involves the instrumentalization of the bodies of those participating in such activity to extrinsic ends.
In marital acts, by contrast, the bodies of persons who unite biologically are not reduced to the status of mere instruments. Rather, the end, goal, and intelligible point of sexual union is the good of marriage itself. On this understanding, such union is not a merely instrumental good, i.e., a reason for action whose intelligibility as a reason depends on the other end. The central and justifying point of sex is not pleasure (or even the sharing of pleasure) per se, however much sexual pleasure is sought – rightly sought – as an aspect of the perfection of marital union; the point of sex, rather, is marriage itself. Considered as a bodily (“one-flesh”) union of persons consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type.
Because in marital acts sex is not instrumentalized, such acts are free of the self-alienating and dis-integrating qualities of masturbatory and sodomitical sex.
Unlike these and other nonmarital sex acts, marital acts effect no practical dualism which volitionally and, thus, existentially separates the body from conscious and desiring aspect of the self which inhabits and uses the body as its instrument. (On person-body dualism, its implications for ethics, and its philosophical untenability, see: John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, and Germaine Grisez, Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism [Oxford University Press; 1987], pp. 304-309.)
As John Finnis has observed, marital acts are truly unitive, and in no way self-alienating, because the bodily or biological aspect of human beings is “part of, and not merely an instrument of, their personal reality.”
But, one might ask, what about procreation? On the traditional view, isn’t sexual union of spouses instrumentalized to the goal of having children? It is true that Augustine was an influential proponent of something like this view, and there has always been a certain following for it among Christians. The strict Augustinian position was rejected, however, by the mainstream of philosophical and theological reflection from the late Middle Ages forward, and the understanding of sex and marriage that came to be embodied in the civil law of matrimony does not treat marriage as a merely instrumental good. Matrimonial law has traditionally understood marriage as consummated by, and only by, the reproductive-type acts of spouses; by contrast, the sterility of spouses – so long as they are capable of consummating their marriage by a reproductive-type act (and, thus, of achieving bodily – organic unity! This is why court annul a marriage that hasn’t reached this unity) – has never been treated as an impediment to marriage, even where sterility is certain and even certain to be permanent (as in the case of the marriage of a woman who has been through menopause or has undergone a hysterectomy).
According to the traditional understanding of marriage, then, it is the nature of marital acts as reproductive in type that makes it possible for such acts to be unitive in the distinctively marital way (“one-flesh”). And this type of unity is intrinsic, and not merely instrumental, value.
Thus, the unitive good of marriage provides a noninstrumental (and thus sufficient) reason for spouses to perform sexual acts of a type that consummates and actualizes their marriage. In performing marital acts, the spouses do not reduce themselves as bodily persons (or their marriage) to the status of means or instruments.
At the same time, where marriage is understood as a one-flesh union of persons, children who may be conceived in marital acts are understood not as an ends which are extrinsic to marriage (either in the strict Augustinian sense, or the modern liberal one), but, rather, as gifts which supervene on acts whose central justifying point is precisely the marital unity of the spouses. Such acts have unique meaning, value, and significance, as I have already suggested in this post, because they belong to the class of acts by which children come into being – what I have called “reproductive-type acts.” More precisely, these acts have their unique meaning, value, and significance because they belong to the only class of acts by which children can come into being, not as “products” which their parents choose to “make,” but, rather, as perfective participants in the organic community (i.e., the family) that is established by their parents’ marriage. It is thus that children are properly understood and treated – even in their conception – not as objects of the desire or will of their parents, but as subjects of justice (and inviolable human rights); not as property, but as persons.
Excerpts from Robert P. George, The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis.
Glossary
Extrinsic (Random House Webster CD-Rom) – all are relevant.
1. Not essential or inherent; not a basic part or quality; extraneous: facts that are extrinsic to the matter under discussion.
2. Being outside a thing; outward or external; operating or coming from without: extrinsic influences.
3. Anatomy. (of certain muscles, nerves, etc.) originating outside the anatomical limits of a part.
Intrinsic (Random House Webster CD-Rom) – all are relevant.
1. Belonging to a thing by its very nature: the intrinsic value of a gold ring.
2. Anatomy. (of certain muscles, nerves, etc.) Belonging to or lying within a given part.
A QUESTION POSED TO ME YEARS
AGO BY ONE OF MY SON’S FRIEND:
QUESTION
The homosexual man or woman is just as much a sinner as you or me. We all need Christ. To touch on the hell issue first, I believe hell is a testament to free-will, and dignity as well. C.S. Lewis mentioned that hell is locked from the inside. The only thing separating mankind from God is a belief in the finished work on the Cross. By choice people reject their Creator, they choose their path, God never imposes it. Many who are saved are not immediately pure in action, nor will they ever be. Sometimes people take decades to work through their faults (counseling, prayer, reading God’s Word, etc), so just like the person who may cheat on his wife regularly, when he comes to a saving knowledge of God, he will be challenged to change his ways and seek counseling and prayer and reference from God’s Word. The same with a gay man or woman. If they truly have a saving knowledge of God, they will be challenged by the Holy Spirit to seek biblical guidance in their life, and like many others, they will turn away from their homosexual lifestyles.
However, there is a “created order,” or, even a natural order (if you do not believe in God). My argument for heterosexual (between a man and a woman) unions is usable both by the atheist (non believer in God) and the theist (a believer in God – in the Judeo-Christian sense). Here is the crux of the matter in regards to “nature’s order:”
“…take gold as an example, it has inherent in its nature intrinsic qualities that make it expensive: good conductor of electricity, rare, never tarnishes, ease of use (moldability), and the like. The male and female have the potential to become a single biological organism, or single organic unit, or principle. Two essentially becoming one. The male and female, then, have inherent to their nature intrinsic qualities that two mated males or two mated females never actualize in their courtship… nor can they ever. The potential stays just that, potential, never being realized…..
“….Think of a being or animal or even an insect that reproduces, not by mating, but by some act performed by individuals. Imagine that for these same beings, movement and digestion is performed not by individuals, but only by the complementary pairs that unite for this purpose. Would anyone acquainted with such beings have difficulty understanding that in respect to movement and digestion, the organism is a united pair, or an organic unity? They thus become an entirely new organism when joined together — fulfilling what was only ‘potential’ when apart”
So you see, the two heterosexual organisms that join in a sexual union cease being two separate organisms for a short time and become one organism capable of reproduction. This is what the state and the church are sealing in a marriage, this intrinsic union. The homosexual couple can never achieve this union, so “natures order” has endowed the heterosexual union with an intrinsic quality that other relationships do not have or could never attain. Both the atheist and theist can argue from this point, because either we were created this way or we evolved this way. Either way, nature has imposed on the sexual union being discussed.
Also, I do not think it is wholly genetic. I believe choice is involved as well as violence. For instance, take this thought from a pro-choice, lesbian woman, Tammy Bruce:
“…. and now all manner of sexual perversion enjoys the protection and support of once what was a legitimate civil-rights effort for decent people. The real slippery slope has been the one leading into the Left’s moral vacuum. It is a singular attitude that prohibits any judgment about obvious moral decay because of the paranoid belief that judgment of any sort would destroy the gay lifestyle, whatever that is…. I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite represents the most serious problem facing our culture today…. Here come the elephant again: Almost without exception, the gay men I know (and that’s too many to count) have a story of some kind of sexual trauma or abuse in their childhood — molestation by a parent or an authority figure, or seduction as an adolescent at the hands of an adult. The gay community must face the truth and see sexual molestation of an adolescent for the abuse it is,* instead of the ‘coming-of-age’ experience many [gays] regard it as being. Until then, the Gay Elite will continue to promote a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and suicide by AIDS.”
* By the age of 18 or 19 years, three quarters of American youth, regardless of their sexual orientation, have had sexual relations with another person. Gay males are more likely than heterosexual males to become sexually active at a younger age (12.7 vs. 15.7 years) and to have had multiple sexual partners. The ages at the time of the first sexual experience with another person are closer for lesbians and heterosexual females (15.4 vs. 16.2 years).
What she is basically saying is that there are emotional reasons, usually trauma, or circumstances that push these young boys into the choices they make in regards to their sexuality. For instance, one of my co-workers is a homosexual man. He is a wonderful guy; I would invite him to my wedding if I could go back in time. He is very open about his past, he was “initiated” into the homosexual lifestyle by a grown black man when he was 14. In other words, he was raped. Whether he feels now that he consented, or the person was a family friend or complete stranger. This act of sex with a minor by a grown man is rape. And this rape, at an age where boys are having surges of hormones and confused about a lot of things is what Tammy Bruce was speaking to. It is a psychological trauma that if not dealt with has traumatic results in one’s life. This sometimes works its way into sexual matters. There are many homosexual people, Al Rantel (790am 6pm to 9pm), to name a more popular one, that believe marriage should be kept between a man and a woman. Tammy Bruce wants it, but she, like most Republicans, want the states to decide, and not the Supreme Court.
Also, in 1993, the biggest march by the “gay” community (Elite gay community) on Washington was held, and they had this as part of their platform:
Obviously the Elite gay community Tammy Bruce spoke of [made up of Leftist Progressives] knows which age is best for “recruiting,” e.g., traumatizing.More can be said on all the above issues, but my book is not yet written. I will post three quotes from Tammy Bruce (a pro-choice lesbian):
Even if one does not necessarily accept the institutional structure of “organized religion,” the “Judeo-Christian ethic and the personal standards it encourages do not impinge on the quality of life, but enhance it. They also give one a basic moral template that is not relative,” which is why the legal positivists of the Left are so threatened by the Natural Law aspect of the Judeo-Christian ethic. (Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values [Roseville: Prima, 2003], 35.)
…these problems don’t remain personal and private. The drive, especially since this issue is associated with the word “gay rights,” is to make sure your worldview reflects theirs. To counter this effort, we must demand that the medical and psychiatric community take off their PC blinders and treat these people responsibly. If we don’t, the next thing you know, your child will be taking a “tolerance” class explaining how “transexuality” is just another “lifestyle choice”…. After all, it is the only way malignant narcissists will ever feel normal, healthy, and acceptable: by remaking society – children – in their image (Ibid., 92, 206)
The below are two non-Biblical arguments presented in video form.
In the above video just past the 2:38 mark, the below point is made, the strongest point of the video:
Culture has a right to redefine marriage.
Spousal rights and marital traditions have changed. However, marriage has always been between males and females because of the unique function they perform in society.
Marriage can’t be a social construction because cultures emerge when humans reproduce.
This means that cultures cannot be the constructors of the marriages that make culture possible in the first place. Bricks make the building, not the building the bricks. Culture does not construct marriage. Marriage and family construct culture.
The above is a favored video of mine. The point about police work and other jobs in society and later how the government doesn’t discriminate against other professions when it promotes police work. Great, useable point.
And, if this were to be characterized as “Biblical,” so what? This thinking fails to distinguish the reasons for a law from the content of the law:
…Such “exclude religion” arguments are wrong because marriage is not a religion! When voters define marriage, they are not establishing a religion. In the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” the word “religion” refers to the church that people attend and support. “Religion” means being a Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Jew. It does not mean being married. These arguments try to make the word “religion” in the Constitution mean something different from what it has always meant.
These arguments also make the logical mistake of failing to distinguish the reasons for a law from the content of the law. There were religious reasons behind many of our laws, but these laws do not “establish” a religion. All major religions have teachings against stealing, but laws against stealing do not “establish a religion.” All religions have laws against murder, but laws against murder do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States and England was led by many Christians, based on their religious convictions, but laws abolishing slavery do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to end racial discrimination and segregation was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist pastor, who preached against racial injustice from the Bible. But laws against discrimination and segregation do not “establish a religion.”
If these “exclude religion” arguments succeed in court, they could soon be applied against evangelicals and Catholics who make “religious” arguments against abortion. Majority votes to protect unborn children could then be invalidated by saying these voters are “establishing a religion.” And, by such reasoning, all the votes of religious citizens for almost any issue could be found invalid by court decree! This would be the direct opposite of the kind of country the Founding Fathers established, and the direct opposite of what they meant by “free exercise” of religion in the First Amendment.
Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010], 31.
As well as what legal changes have been wrought by the Judeo-Christian worldview that has been positive for societies all over this world:
Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); outlawing the brutal battles-to-the-death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); outlawing the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); instituting prison reforms such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); stopping the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians as well as among other nations; outlawing pedophilia; granting of property rights and other protections to women; banning polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women’s feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public schools in Germany (in the sixteenth century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries.
During the history of the church, Christians have had a decisive influence in opposing and often abolishing slavery in the Roman Empire, in Ireland, and in most of Europe (though Schmidt frankly notes that a minority of “erring” Christian teachers have supported slavery in various centuries). In England, William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, led the successful effort to abolish the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British Empire by 1840.
In the United States, though there were vocal defenders of slavery among Christians in the South, they were vastly outnumbered by the many Christians who were ardent abolitionists, speaking, writing, and agitating constantly for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Schmidt notes that two-thirds of the American abolitionists in the mid-1830s were Christian clergymen, and he gives numerous examples of the strong Christian commitment of several of the most influential of the antislavery crusaders, including Elijah Lovejoy (the first abolitionist martyr), Lyman Beecher, Edward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), Charles Finney, Charles T. Torrey, Theodore Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, “and others too numerous to mention.” The American civil rights movement that resulted in the outlawing of racial segregation and discrimination was led by Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian pastor, and supported by many Christian churches and groups.
There was also strong influence from Christian ideas and influential Christians in the formulation of the Magna Carta in England (1215) and of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787) in the United States. These are three of the most significant documents in the history of governments on the earth, and all three show the marks of significant Christian influence in the foundational ideas of how governments should function.
Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010], 49-50.
Doug Mainwaring speaks at the “March for Marriage: March 26, 2013”
There are so many fallacies about race that it would be hard to say which is the most ridiculous. However, one fallacy behind many other fallacies is the notion that there is something unusual about different races being unequally represented in various institutions, careers or at different income or achievement levels.
Yet some racial or ethnic minorities have owned or directed more than half of whole industries in many nations. These have included the Chinese in Malaysia, Lebanese in West Africa, Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, Britons in Argentina, Indians in Fiji, Jews in Poland, and Spaniards in Chile — among many others.
Not only different racial and ethnic groups, but whole nations and civilizations, have had very different achievements for centuries. China in the 15th century was more advanced than any country in Europe. Eventually Europeans overtook the Chinese — and there is no evidence of changes in the genes of either of them.
Among the many reasons for different levels of achievement is something as simple as age. The median age in Germany and Japan is over 40, while the median age in Afghanistan and Yemen is under 20. Even if the people in all four of these countries had the same mental potential, the same history, the same culture — and the countries themselves had the same geographic features — the fact that people in some countries have 20 years more experience than people in other countries would still be enough to make equal economic and other outcomes virtually impossible.
Add the fact that different races evolved in different geographic settings, presenting very different opportunities and constraints on their development, and the same conclusion follows. Yet the idea that differences in outcomes are odd, if not sinister, has been repeated mindlessly from street corner demagogues to the august chambers of the Supreme Court.
(AEI)
‘Equality’ has become the prevailing dogma among the intelligentsia. Every institution in society is trying to push for ‘equality’ in terms of equal outcomes or equal representation for disparate groups. And it is automatically assumed that the only reason for unequal outcomes must be discrimination. Thomas Sowell explains why the whole notion of ‘equality’ is a myth, and what the proponents of ‘equality’ get wrong. This is an excerpt from the book ‘The Thomas Sowell Reader’.
(All these numbers have increased A LOT since Doc Williams made this) Walter Williams critiques The War on Poverty, Schooling and more. However, rather than considering the intentions surrounding certain programs, Williams analyzes the success of the programs according to results, and leaves us wondering, are Free Markets preferable in combating America’s hardships?
2 of My Uploads
Armstrong and Getty discuss the fad of equity, and bring in some audio of Kmele Foster on the Bill Maher show.
Some interesting commentary on “equity”
This is a large “Sploosh” as a Part Three to the question of Trump’s ability to be on the ballot for the 2024 election. In my Part Two dated Sept 7th, based on a great couple readings that: “I see nothing in the 14th Amendment including the President or Vice President in the outcome. In fact, I see language excluding them.” (Also Part One is worth reading through as well.)
The guy who popularized the article noted by the #NeverTrumpers and the Left is the co-founder of The Federalist Society, Steven Calabresi. And when he came out in support of by a couple Federalist legal scholars [as well as some Leftist scholars], the Left and said #NeverTrumpers were quick to memorialize it:
THE NATIONAL PULSE nails it with this link fested post!
Steven Calabresi – the law professor who co-founded the conservative Federalist Society legal organization – has conceded that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not in fact bar former President Donald Trump from the presidential ballot, despite claiming in a much-hyped op-ed from August that this was the case.
The Northwestern University law professor had been an outspoken proponent of the legal theory that Trump was barred from running for office on the grounds that he incited an insurrection on January 6th, 2021 – in violation of a Civil War era constitutional provision. It’s an initially floated by law professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, with Calabresi quickly popularizing it.
[….]
The three men were originally in agreement that “an officer of the United States” included individuals elected as either President or Vice-President. However, Calabresi now says he believes that the President and Vice-President are not, due to “a technicality in the drafting of the disqualification clause of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment”, “officers” – that term being reserved for positions appointed by the President, rather than the President himself.
Additionally he concedes the events of January 6th do not constitute an ‘insurrection’. Calabresi credits former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey with changing his mind.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan has already rejected calls to disqualify Trump, via the 14th Amendment, from the state’s ballot.
The VOLOKH CONSPIRACY notes the change of mind: “Calabresi now agrees with Tillman that the President is not an “Officer of the United States.” And YAHOO NEWS also notes that last week professor Calabresi made an about-face
So I wanted to help out the #NeverTrumpers and pre-empt their correcting themselves:
Here is the WALL STREET JOURNAL “quick clip” by Professor Calabresi:
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s op-ed “Was Trump ‘an Officer of the United States’?” (Sept. 8) has caused me to change my mind about an argument that I have had with Prof. Seth Barrett Tillman for 25 years. Mr. Mukasey is right: Looked at in the context of the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment, the president is neither an “officer of the United States,” nor, obviously, a “member of Congress.” That must be why the Constitution prescribes a separate oath for the president.
As a result, former President Donald Trump isn’t covered by the Disqualification Clause, and he is eligible to be on the ballot in the 2024 presidential election. I am correcting the public record on this important issue by sending you this letter.
Prof. Steven G. Calabresi
Northwestern Law School
VOLOKH continues:
Here is key point from that WALL STREET JOURNAL article:
Was Trump ‘an Officer of the United States’?
A careful look at the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause shows that it doesn’t apply to him.
….A good deal of attention has focused thus far on whether the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an “insurrection or rebellion” and, if so, whether Mr. Trump “engaged” in it. Those questions, however, need not be answered until two preliminary questions of law are addressed: Is the presidency an “office . . . under the United States,” and was the presidential oath Mr. Trump swore on Jan. 20, 2016, to support the Constitution taken “as an officer of the United States”?
The latter question is easier. The use of the term “officer of the United States” in other constitutional provisions shows that it refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones. In U.S. v. Mouat (1888), the Supreme Court ruled that “unless a person in the service of the government . . . holds his place by virtue of an appointment . . ., he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.” Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated the point in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010): “The people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United States.’ ”
Article VI of the Constitution provides that senators and representatives “and all executive and judicial Officers . . . of the United States” take an oath to support the Constitution. But the presidential oath is separately provided for at the end of Article II, Section 1, which would be superfluous if the president’s oath were required by the general language in Article VI. Mr. Trump took an oath as president pursuant to Article II, not as an officer pursuant to Article VI. Because the Insurrection Clause applies only to those who have taken an oath “as an officer of the United States,” he can’t be barred by that clause from serving in any capacity.
As for the former question, the language disqualifying a rebel from holding “any office . . . under the United States” follows the language disqualifying the rebel from office as “Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President.” If “any office . . . under the United States” is broad enough to cover the president, it is certainly broad enough to cover senators, representatives and perhaps electors. Such a reading would make reference to those specific offices superfluous.
[….]
As for the former question, the language disqualifying a rebel from holding “any office . . . under the United States” follows the language disqualifying the rebel from office as “Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President.” If “any office . . . under the United States” is broad enough to cover the president, it is certainly broad enough to cover senators, representatives and perhaps electors. Such a reading would make reference to those specific offices superfluous.
Is it plausible that the authors of the 14th Amendment specified senators, representatives and electors but meant to include the presidency and vice presidency under the general term “any office . . . under the United States”? Note that the term is “any office,” not “any other office,” which implies that the positions listed before it aren’t “offices under the United States,” because they are elected not appointed.
But that conclusion is uncertain. The phrase “office under the United States” appears four other times in the body of the Constitution, at least two of which—one barring officeholders from accepting a foreign title or emolument, and one barring anyone impeached and convicted from holding such an office—may well apply to an elected official, including the president. Also, if a holder of an “office under the United States” meant the same thing as “Officer of the United States,” why weren’t the same words used to specify it?
That may be puzzling, but as applied to Mr. Trump it is irrelevant, because—again—he didn’t take and thus didn’t violate an oath as an “Officer of the United States,” and so cannot be barred by the 14th Amendment from seeking re-election.
Even a criminal conviction wouldn’t bar him from seeking and winning the presidency. The Constitution specifies only that a person seeking that office be at least 35, a natural-born citizen and a 14-year U.S. resident. If Mr. Trump is to be kept from office, it will have to be done the old-fashioned way, the way it was done in 2020—by defeating him in an election.
Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general, 2007-09, and as a U.S. district judge, 1988-2006.
This Is Why The Left Dominates In All Academic Institutions Around The World | Thomas Sowell
In this video, Thomas Sowell explains why the Left dominates all academic institutions around the world.
This is an old video, but someone just posted it on a Facebook group — what follows is my Facebook response as well as additional thoughts. Here is the video that prompted the below:
On the surface I can understand how someone would FEEL this describes reality. But our body politic is more complex than the above video would like to prescribe as reality. In fact, the video sets up a straw man [something that does not exist], and then attacks it as if it were the case.
Here is my response on Facebook:
FACEBOOK RESPONSE
Hey, I know our system is corrupted… but the video notes at around the 30-second mark:
I am sorry. That idea is explaining an ideal Democracy, which our Founders wholeheartedly rejected.
It reminds me of a call of a young black man into the Larry Elder Show where Larry was getting clarification [if he had misheard the young man], or, confirmation [if he had heard the man correctly].
Larry mentioned that “Ferguson is 57% black. What percentage of the arrest should be black people?
The caller responded: “57.”
Larry goes on to make an analogy about the NBA being a majority black players and asks – rhetorically – why the NBA isn’t 70% white? He answers himself by saying that the NBA is based on merit…
Similarly, Larry notes, arrests are based on crime. Not race. Arrests are merit based. So the PERCENTAGES don’t always match population.
Just like in a Republic. You have three forms of “checks and balances” that are supposed to be based in the Constitutional limiting of federal government powers and metering out state control over what is not clearly enumerated for the federal government to act on.
THIS has become corrupted over time, granted, but the “exact percentage” of something “becoming law” [in this video] does not reflect at all – all the variabilities in the struggle to pass something. The Founders didn’t want it easy like 60% says “a” therefore “a” should happen or become law.
In a pure Democracy however, the percentages would match. This video is made during a time where the Dems were [and still believe] pushing for the Electoral College to be abolished. This would effectively be a main driver to getting us to a pure Democracy. Something no one should want:
James Madison (fourth President, co-author of the Federalist Papers and the “father” of the Constitution) – “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general; been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
John Adams (American political philosopher, first vice President and second President) – “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration) – “A simple democracy… is one of the greatest of evils.”
Fisher Ames (American political thinker and leader of the federalists [he entered Harvard at twelve and graduated by sixteen], author of the House language for the First Amendment) – “A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will provide an eruption and carry desolation in their way.´ / “The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.”
Governor Morris(signer and penman of the Constitution) – “We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate… as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism…. Democracy! Savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.”
John Quincy Adams (sixth President, son of John Adams [see above]) – “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”
Noah Webster (American educator and journalist as well as publishing the first dictionary) – “In democracy… there are commonly tumults and disorders….. therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.”
John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence) – “Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”
Zephaniah Swift (author of America’s first legal text) – “It may generally be remarked that the more a government [or state] resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.”
Take note that as well Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution reads:
Not “republican,” as one “political party, the GOP,” but as a “form” of government. So what is an example of the corruption of the “Consent of the Governed”?
[….]
Having discussed issues FOR YEARS with those on the other side of the aisle, I knew the response would still be similar to the caller into the Larry Elder Show. There is a “disconnect” on the Left that just doesn’t pick up simple underlying ideas. Here is the response as well as me responding…
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…END OF MY FB RESPONSE… adding more info for my reader.
An important phrase in my mind’s eye is the phrase, “Consent of the Governed.” That is found in the Declaration of Independence. Here is an excerpt of the idea/phrase via the Declaration of Independence:
Here are two large excerpts about this from THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION that I wish to share so the reader understands that the topic isn’t as “neat and tidy, or, simple” as the OP video makes it out to be with simple percentages.
[CONSENT]
…Part of the reason for the Constitution’s enduring strength is that it is the complement of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration provided the philosophical basis for a government that exercises legitimate power by “the consent of the governed,” and it defined the conditions of a free people, whose rights and liberty are derived from their Creator. The Constitution delineated the structure of government and the rules for its operation, consistent with the creed of human liberty proclaimed in the Declaration.
Justice Joseph Story, in his Familiar Exposition of the Constitution (1840), described our Founding document in these terms:
We shall treat [our Constitution], not as a mere compact, or league, or confederacy, existing at the mere will of any one or more of the States, during their good pleasure; but, (as it purports on its face to be) as a Constitution of Government, framed and adopted by the people of the United States, and obligatory upon all the States, until it is altered, amended, or abolished by the people, in the manner pointed out in the instrument itself.
By the diffusion of power–horizontally among the three separate branches of the federal government, and vertically in the allocation of power between the central government and the states–the Constitution’s Framers devised a structure of government strong enough to ensure the nation’s future strength and prosperity but without sufficient power to threaten the liberty of the people.
The Constitution and the government it establishes “has a just claim to [our] confidence and respect,” George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address (1796), because it is “the offspring of our choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing, within itself, a provision for its own amendment.”
The Constitution was born in crisis, when the very existence of the new United States was in jeopardy. The Framers understood the gravity of their task. As Alexander Hamilton noted in the general introduction to The Federalist,
[A]fter an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, [the people] are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the Union, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.
Several important themes permeated the completed draft of the Constitution. The first, reflecting the mandate of the Declaration of Independence, was the recognition that the ultimate authority of a legitimate government depends on the consent of a free people. Thomas Jefferson had set forth the basic principle in his famous formulation:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That “all men are created equal” means that they are equally endowed with unalienable rights. Nature does not single out who is to govern and who is to be governed; there is no divine right of kings. Nor are rights a matter of legal privilege or the benevolence of some ruling class. Fundamental rights exist by nature, prior to government and conventional laws. It is because these individual rights are left unsecured that governments are instituted among men.
Consent is the means by which equality is made politically operable and whereby arbitrary power is thwarted. The natural standard for judging if a government is legitimate is whether that government rests on the consent of the governed. Any political powers not derived from the consent of the governed are, by the laws of nature, illegitimate and hence unjust.
The “consent of the governed” stands in contrast to “the will of the majority,” a view more current in European democracies. The “consent of the governed” describes a situation where the people are self-governing in their communities, religions, and social institutions, and into which the government may intrude only with the people’s consent. There exists between the people and limited government a vast social space in which men and women, in their individual and corporate capacities, may exercise their self-governing liberty. In Europe, the “will of the majority” signals an idea that all decisions are ultimately political and are routed through the government. Thus, limited government is not just a desirable objective; it is the essential bedrock of the American polity.
[CHECKS AND BALANCES]
A second fundamental element of the Constitution is the concept of checks and balances. As James Madison famously wrote in The Federalist No. 51,
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place oblige it to controul itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind necessity of auxiliary precautions.
These “auxiliary precautions” constitute the improved science of politics offered by the Framers and form the basis of their “Republican remedy for the diseases most incident to Republican Government” (The Federalist No. 10).
The “diseases most incident to Republican Government” were basically two: democratic tyranny and democratic ineptitude The first was the problem of majority faction, the abuse of minority or individual rights by an “interested and overbearing” majority. The second was the problem of making a democratic form of government efficient and effective. The goal was limited but energetic government. The constitutional object was, as the late constitutional scholar Herbert Storing said, “a design of government with the powers to act and a structure to make it act wisely and responsibly.”
The particulars of the Framers’ political science were catalogued by Madison’s celebrated collaborator in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton. Those particulars included such devices as representation, bicameralism, independent courts of law, and the “regular distribution of powers into distinct departments;’ as Hamilton put it in The Federalist No. 9; these were “means, and powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.”
Central to their institutional scheme was the principle of separation of powers. As Madison bluntly put it in The Federalist No. 47, the “preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct,” for, as he also wrote, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Madison described in The Federalist No. 51 how structure and human nature could be marshaled to protect liberty:
[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.
Thus, the separation of powers frustrates designs for power and at the same time creates an incentive to collaborate and cooperate, lessening conflict and concretizing a practical community of interest among political leaders.
Equally important to the constitutional design was the concept of federalism. At the Constitutional Convention there was great concern that an overreaction to the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation might produce a tendency toward a single centralized and all-powerful national government. The resolution to such fears was, as Madison described it in The Federalist, a government that was neither wholly federal nor wholly national but a composite of the two. A half-century later, Alexis de Tocqueville would celebrate democracy in America as precisely the result of the political vitality spawned by this “incomplete” national government.
The institutional design was to divide sovereignty between two different levels of political entities, the nation and the states. This would prevent an unhealthy concentration of power in a single government. It would provide, as Madison said in The Federalist No. 51, a “double security. .. to the rights of the people.” Federalism, along with separation of powers, the Framers thought, would be the basic principled matrix of American constitutional liberty. “The different governments;’ Madison concluded, “will controul each other; at the same time that each will be controulled by itself.”
But institutional restraints on power were not all that federalism was about. There was also a deeper understanding–in fact, a far richer understanding–of why federalism mattered. When the delegates at Philadelphia convened in May 1787 to revise the ineffective Articles of Confederation, it was a foregone conclusion that the basic debate would concern the proper role of the states. Those who favored a diminution of state power, the Nationalists, saw unfettered state sovereignty under the Articles as the problem; not only did it allow the states to undermine congressional efforts to govern, it also rendered individual rights insecure in the hands of “interested and overbearing majorities.” Indeed, Madison, defending the Nationalists’ constitutional handiwork, went so far as to suggest in The Federalist No. 51 that only by way of a “judicious modification” of the federal principle was the new Constitution able to remedy the defects of popular, republican government.
The view of those who doubted the political efficacy of the new Constitution was that good popular government depended quite as much on a political community that would promote civic or public virtue as on a set of institutional devices designed to check the selfish impulses of the majority As Herbert Storing has shown, this concern for community and civic virtue tempered and tamed somewhat the Nationalists’ tendency toward simply a large nation. Their reservations, as Storing put it, echo still through our political history.[1]
It is this understanding, that federalism can contribute to a sense of political community and hence to a kind of public spirit, that is too often ignored in our public discussions about federalism. But in a sense, it is this understanding that makes the American experiment in popular government truly the novel undertaking the Framers thought it to be.
At bottom, in the space left by a limited central government, the people could rule themselves by their own moral and social values, and call on local political institutions to assist them. Where the people, through the Constitution, did consent for the central government to have a role, that role would similarly be guided by the people’s sense of what was valuable and good as articulated through the political institutions of the central government. Thus, at its deepest level popular government means a structure of government that rests not only on the consent of the governed, but also on a structure of government wherein the views of the people and their civic associations can be expressed and translated into public law and public policy, subject, of course, to the limits established by the Constitution. Through deliberation, debate, and compromise, a public consensus is formed about what constitutes the public good. It is this consensus on fundamental principles that knits individuals into a community of citizens. And it is the liberty to determine the morality of a community that is an important part of our liberty protected by the Constitution.
The Constitution is our most fundamental law. It is, in its own words, “the supreme Law of the Land.” Its translation into the legal rules under which we live occurs through the actions of all government entities, federal and state. The entity we know as “constitutional law” is the creation not only of the decisions of the Supreme Court, but also of the various Congresses and of the President.
Yet it is the court system, particularly the decisions of the Supreme Court, that most observers identify as providing the basic corpus of “constitutional law.” This body of law, this judicial handiwork, is, in a fundamental way, unique in our scheme, for the Court is charged routinely, day in and day out, with the awesome task of addressing some of the most basic and most enduring political questions that face our nation. The answers the Court gives are very important to the stability of the law so necessary for good government. But as constitutional historian Charles Warren once noted, what is most important to remember is that “however the Court may interpret the provisions of the Constitution, it is still the Constitution which is the law, not the decisions of the Court.”[2]
By this, of course, Warren did not mean that a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court lacks the character of binding law. He meant that the Constitution remains the Constitution and that observers of the Court may fairly consider whether a particular Supreme Court decision was right or wrong. There remains in the country a vibrant and healthy debate among the members of the Supreme Court, as articulated in its opinions, and between the Court and academics, politicians, columnists and commentators, and the people generally, on whether the Court has correctly understood and applied the fundamental law of the Constitution. We have seen throughout our history that when the Supreme Court greatly misconstrues the Constitution, generations of mischief may follow. The result is that, of its own accord or through the mechanism of the appointment process, the Supreme Court may come to revisit some of its doctrines and try, once again, to adjust its pronouncements to the commands of the Constitution.
This recognition of the distinction between constitutional law and the Constitution itself produces the conclusion that constitutional decisions, including those of the Supreme Court, need not be seen as the last words in constitutional construction. A correlative point is that constitutional interpretation is not the business of courts alone but is also, and properly, the business of all branches of government. Each of the three coordinate branches of government created and empowered by the Constitution–the executive and legislative no less than the judicial–has a duty to interpret the Constitution in the performance of its official functions. In fact, every official takes a solemn oath precisely to that effect. Chief Justice John Marshall, in Marbury v. Madison (1803), noted that the Constitution is a limitation on judicial power as well as on that of the executive and legislative branches. He reiterated that view in McCullough v. Maryland (1819) when he cautioned judges never to forget it is a constitution they are expounding.
The Constitution–the original document of 1787 plus its amendments–is and must be understood to be the standard against which all laws, policies, and interpretations should be measured. It is our fundamental law because it represents the settled and deliberate will of the people, against which the actions of government officials must be squared. In the end, the continued success and viability of our democratic Republic depends on our fidelity to, and the faithful exposition and interpretation of, this Constitution, our great charter of liberty.
[1] Herbert J. Storing, “The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” in Joseph M. Bessette, ed., Toward a More Perfect Union: Writings of Herbert J. Storing (Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press, 1995).
[2] Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1922-1924), 3 vols., 470-471.
ALL this plays a role in us getting laws.
As an example of how “judicial activism” changes an outcome of a vote that a stae has a right to vote on (BECUASE the enumerated powers in the Constitution were not clear and thus the states get to decide):
So a slight majority of California voters voted to say marriage is between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote. One federal judge [Judge Vaughn Walker — himself a gay man] overturned the will of the California people. I think this judge was acting in an “activist” manner, but there is a way to overrule his decision legally… and the percentages to do so were not present, plus the Supreme Court wrongly interfered in this as well — like with Roe v. Wade.
The above is all arguable of course between out varying views of politics — that is not the point.
The POINT IS that this dynamic interferes with “simple math/percentages” idea of those that wish to have a pure democracy.
By way of another point showing the complexity of outcomes not being easily “mathematized,” take the 9th Circuit Upper Court. In 2012, The U.S Supreme Court reversed 86% of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that it reviewed. WOW. That is a clear sign of something going on — like Judicial activism. (And this was the time-period where the Supreme Court was more left leaning than now.)
Now however, the Court has moved less from a “the Constitution is a living and breathing document” idea (the progressives view); to a more originalist idea based in president and the authors intent (a conservative view).
So the outcome of the judicial case regarding such cases like Proposition 8 may end up being much different when in front of the upper courts.
How do you quantify something like that into percentages or fractions?
HINT: You can’t.
So, I noted way up in my Facebook comment that I agree that our form of government is corrupt. I did give an example in my Facebook response that I did not include above — that I will here. And while this example deals with just one aspect, you can apply this to both sides of the aisle in their attempt to distort the will of the people in proper representation in order to aquire power and privilege.
More on this from around the time it was released at REASON.ORG’s post. Here is the video description:
America’s public education system is failing. We’re spending more money on education but not getting better results for our children.
That’s because the machine that runs the K-12 education system isn’t designed to produce better schools. It’s designed to produce more money for unions and more donations for politicians.
For decades, teachers’ unions have been among our nation’s largest political donors. As Reason Foundation’s Lisa Snell has noted, the National Education Association (NEA) alone spent $40 million on the 2010 election cycle (source: http://reason.org/news/printer/big-ed…. As the country’s largest teachers union, the NEA is only one cog in the infernal machine that robs parents of their tax dollars and students of their futures.
Students, teachers, parents, and hardworking Americans are all victims of this political machine–a system that takes money out of taxpayers’ wallets and gives it to union bosses, who put it in the pockets of politicians.
Our kids deserve better.
(With all that in play in the above video… how does that make mathematical equations in outcomes of voting an easy course of action?)
An example of how the corruption in education distorts the will of the people. In a recent survey, 79% of Black parents supported vouchers, 74% supported charter schools, and 78% supported open enrollment. Roughly three in four Black parents (78%) support education savings accounts, which are becoming increasingly popular across the country. This percentage is much higher even than the national average of two-thirds (67%).
You would think that we would already have school choice, however, through the bedfellows of interest groups, unions, and Big-Government (Crony Capitalism, or, Crony Corporatism) — we have outcomes that stifle choice.
All that is debatable as well… but again: