Dennis Prager goes over a recent Samantha Bee attack on Prager University. Her attack begins with the obligatory opening salvo on Fox News (AMERICAN THINKER), and then Bee proceeded to mock free speech, Christian values and Prager U celebrity guests such as Mike Rowe, before cautioning that PragerU is in danger of “legitimizing” conservative ideas (WESTERN JOURNAL) . In fact, she says PragerU is “actually dangerous”… something that may have been her ultimate downfall, because, as is the way, people on Twitter had some thoughts they were more than happy to share (see LOUDER w/CROWDER). All this has led to over $25,000 in donations raised more than $25,000 since Bee’s segment aired on Thursday (WESTERN JOURNAL: Ibid.) You may remember Samantha Bee as the paragon of virtue who once called Ivanka Trump a “feckless c**t” on national television, and another time mocked a young man’s supposed “Nazi haircut” before learning he was a brain cancer patient (LEGAL INSURRECTION). Instead of acknowledging the organization’s popular content and attempting to refute it with dialogue or logical arguments, the triggered host resorted to name-calling and toilet humor. Bee’s attack is a testament to PragerU’s growing influence (WASHINGTON EXAMINER).
Male/Female Differences
Sex Matters (Sean McDowell)
Are the differences between men and women biological or socially constructed? What do women want from a relationship? What do men want? Are they the same? Or are they much different? Sean McDowell, Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Biola University sorts it all out in this eye-opening video.
The Boy [Father] Crisis
Dennis Prager had Warren Farrell on his show today to speak about his recent book now in paperback, titled, “The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It“. I clipped some stats Dr. Farrell went through. Great stuff.
The Destruction of Women’s Sports No Big Deal… To the Left
A friend posted a picture of the back of my van, a sticker I print based off of him saying the “equal” sign looks like a “pause button” on a remote control:
Some interesting conversation ensued on his Facebook after this was posted. My main response is to the idea expressed by one person that this is not a big deal:
- How is this such a huge topic? The percentage of the population on the planet is significantly low(< 1%). No one deserves to be discriminated against-but your over stating calling it a Huge topic as a whole. The vast majority of the general public doesn’t even know a transgender person.
I wish to reprint ans add to my response to the original ideas for cataloging here at RPT. My general first point was to note a very recent article by tennis legend, Martina Navratilova….
Martina Navratilova earlier had commented about the issue being unfair. She was slammed, and said she would educate herself better. She went and studied the issue more and came back MORE convinced about her position. I think she is still wrong in part thinking that a removal of a sex organ of mutilation to the body changes her statement “A man builds up muscle and bone density, as well as a greater number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, from childhood,” —- BUT, even her position is anathema to the Democrat Party withing the past 5-years.
….Navratilova was chastised in December when she tweeted, “You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women,” but then apologized and said she would “educate myself better” after she was accused of being transphobic.
After doing the research, however, she said that if anything, “my views have strengthened.”
“To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organization is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires,” she said.
In a Tuesday article, Out Magazine called her a “TERF,” or trans-exclusionary radical feminist, and said her comments were “scientifically unsound,” while McKinnon told Reuters that the tennis legend “trades on age-old stereotypes and stigma against trans women.”
Martina Navratilova Has Decided to Pivot to TERF
— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) February 20, 2019
Gay Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova on Transgender Athletes: ‘It’s Insane and It’s Cheating’
— CNSNews.com (@cnsnews) February 19, 2019
Navratilova argued that it wasn’t enough to require reduced hormone levels, as many sports governing bodies have done in response to transgender athletes (CNS NEWS)
“A man builds up muscle and bone density, as well as a greater number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, from childhood,” she wrote. “Training increases the discrepancy. Indeed, if a male were to change gender in such a way as to eliminate any accumulated advantage, he would have to begin hormone treatment before puberty. For me, that is unthinkable.”
The 62-year-old Navratilova also blasted those who wield the “transphobe” label to silence critics, calling it “just another form of tyranny.”
“I’m relatively tough and was able to stand up for myself in my Twitter exchange with McKinnon, but I worry that others may be cowed into silence or submission,” she said…..
Now, here is my direct response to the above “what’s the big deal” quoted:
…it is a huge topic because the professional Left is taking that less than 1% and demanding the majority change their concept of gender by state force and rules in women’s sports. In other words, in only 5-years this has changed women’s sports dramatically. Can’t wait for the next decade [<sarcasm]. The Washington Times notes just how unfair this issue is in high school sports.
Transgender Sprinters Finish 1St, 2Nd At Connecticut Girls Indoor Track Championships
- “She” [Andraya Yearwood] recently finished second in the 55-meter dash at the state open indoor track championships. The winner, Terry Miller of Bloomfield High, is also transgender and set a girls state indoor record of 6.95 seconds. Yearwood finished in 7.01 seconds and the third-place competitor, who is not transgender [a girl*], finished in 7.23 seconds.
Parents spend time and money to have their girls compete to attain a level of competition to enter either the Olympics or get a scholarship at a prestigious college (or both). This is no longer the case. The professional Left is ruining women’s sports in the name of “equality.”
Remember, you either want liberty, or equality, but you cannot have both.
* CR Commented On My Friend’s Original Post (OP):
- There is so much wrong with your statement but your point I do agree with. A woman born in a male body should not be allowed to compete against a woman born in a female’s body. It’s not fair. I agree. I’m just not sure where the line should be drawn….
I try to help draw a line:
…it is simple to draw a line. If you have double X chromosomes, a vagina, a uterus, ovaries, menstrual periods and lactating breasts, you are a female. You should compete in female sports. If you dope (by taking estrogen to mask some male qualities) or were born with a penis and XY chromosomes, you should not compete in women’s sports.
Don’t be a racist and transphobic for attacking these two beautiful young Nubian queens who placed first and second in a high school track event.
I also expressed publicly a question many ask. That is, why do people simply support — uncritically — or promote actively these issues with little or no countering information to balance their knowledge of the issues? I always encourage people to be logically coherent and support these other “categories” of persons who “feel” someway about themselves:
Trans-Topics
- Transageism
- Transgender
- Transhuman
- Transmisogynist
- Transracial
- Transspecies
- Transterrestrial
- Trans-Multiracial
These are issue being muddied with the arguments put forward by those pushing “equality.” BUT MY QUESTION IS WHY? I think David Mamet* has a reasonable answer. It is the transferring of “Sainthood” to a growing secular culture. It gives people a sense of worth they think is beyond them… what use to be in the realm of faith, is now internalized. It offers a “metanarrative” for people to view the world. For instance, in a wonderful National Review article by Andy Ngo (last name sounds like “Noh”), he notes of Jussie Smollet’s bio line on his Twitter (the actor who faked a hate crime):
- “While I can only speculate as to Smollett’s motives, perhaps a clue can be found in his bioline on Twitter. Smollett writes: ‘I am simply here to help save the world’.” (NATIONAL REVIEW | See more on my site: Hate Crime Hoaxes In The Trump Era)
The hubris involved in a political movement that thinks through legislation it can change gender and weather patterns is legend. And it is really a transfer of Sainthood:
MAMET
* [David Mamet] …is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway 70s plays: The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His plays Race and The Penitent, respectively, opened on Broadway in 2009 and previewed off-Broadway in 2017.
Feature films that Mamet both wrote and directed include House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Heist (2001), and Redbelt (2008). His screenwriting credits include The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), The Verdict (1982), The Untouchables (1987), Hoffa (1992), Wag the Dog (1997), and Hannibal (2001). Mamet himself wrote the screenplay for the 1992 adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross, and wrote and directed the 1994 adaptation of his play Oleanna (1992). He was the executive producer and frequent writer for the TV show The Unit (2006–2009).
Mamet’s books include: The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business; THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE: ON THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICAN CULTURE (2011), a commentary on cultural and political issues; and Three War Stories (2013), a trio of novellas about the physical and psychological effects of war.
(WIKI)
QUOTE ONE
One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.
But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.
When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.
Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.
A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.
What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.
The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.
One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.
Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.
These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.
David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.
This next quote deals with “saint-hood”… but notes that people support it at others cost. When it happens to them, it isn’t fair.
QUOTE TWO
There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)
The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.
We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.
But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….
….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….
….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….
….I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro-prietor a bad business decision.)*
Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †
* No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”
† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.
David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.
THE BLAZE posts on this excellent response to a question at a Heritage Foundation seminar. MOONBATTERY says this of Dr. Cretella: “Dr. Cretella is President of the American College of Pediatricians. No doubt social engineers are out for her head.”
Everything the Left Touches is Harmed (Military Standards)
(Originally Posted December 2013)
This UPDATE comes by way of MOONBATTERY, and is followed by the an excerpt from the larger piece:
By necessity if not design, political correctness corrodes standards of value. That’s why its first victim is excellence. Those who draw attention to the corrosion are punished as thought criminals.
Progressives are in the process of reducing the military to a social engineering laboratory. It provides an example:
Two Army Green Berets are fighting for their military careers after being associated with an anonymous email that accused their commanders of lowering standards to enable more soldiers — particularly female — to graduate from its prestigious Q-course.
The anonymous email, signed, “A concerned Green Beret,” accused the leaders of the school of “moral cowardice” for lowering the standards…
The author of the email has already been punished. Now the Army is rooting out people who seem likely to agree with it….
Here is more information via BREITBART:, one can understand some of the disciplin, IN THAT, it became widely public. Here is a bit from the email that could have been more constructive… maybe?
- “[The school] has devolved into a cesspool of toxic, exploitive, biased and self-serving senior officers who are bolstered by submissive, sycophantic, and just-as-culpable enlisted leaders,” the email said. “They have doggedly succeeded in two things; furthering their careers, and ensuring that Special Forces [are] more prolific but dangerously less capable than ever before.”
However TRUE it may be… someone’s macheezmo was butt hurt. Here is more on the other two Green Barretes:
Now, the two additional Green Beret instructors, Sergeant First Class Micah J. Robertson, 33, and Sergeant First Class Michael Squires, 31, say they are being punished by association.
Robertson said in an interview that after the email was sent out, commanders put together a list of about seven suspects, including them. He said he believes they were suspected because they had previously brought up concerns during town halls with leaders that were held to solicit their feedback.
Both have been instructors since 2016, before Sonntag took command in June 2017, and say they have witnessed the changes.
“Although Micah and I had nothing to do with it, it spoke true to what’s happening in the regiment. This guy Sonntag, who’s basically the one who’s trying to screw us over — he’s trying to make his career about putting a female through the course,” Squires said. He added that he did not oppose women in Special Forces, but opposed lowering the standards.
“Not only doing that, he’s changed it to where the guys who are coming through the Q-course are not even the same quality of guys we had back in the day. Guys who should have been kicked out for several different things … As instructors, they took our power away.”
Both Robertson and Squires were also served with Article 15s related to the email, as well as to an online app they started building in September 2017 named Kayu, aimed at helping travelers and veterans with similar interests connect.
The Article 15 accused both men of using their positions as instructors “for the purposes of personal gain” by “sourcing information from students that had no relevance to training,” or having their students sign up for the app. Robertson called that “hogwash.”
[….]
Former Green Beret and Ultimate Fighting Champion superstar Tim Kennedy said Army recruitment challenges hit the Green Beret force especially hard.
“[For] Special Forces specifically, we are gonna have the biggest deficit of eligible… population, to select from,” he said on The Joe Rogan Experience on May 17. “You have to have a certain level of intelligence, a certain level of physicality, just to be eligible for Special Forces to pick you… that pool is the smallest that has ever been in history.”
Sonntag himself acknowledged those challenges shortly after taking command. He said at a symposium in November 2017 that all three of the Army Special Operations regiments are facing serious challenges in “force structure changes, pipeline production, and recruiting.”
“We are currently not meeting our production numbers. The restructuring of the 85th [Civil Affairs] Brigade has created an imbalanced CA force structure. And our recruitment is down. If something doesn’t change soon, we will short the operational force drastically over the next five years,” he said.
Robertson said lowering standards in order to produce more Green Berets goes against a fundamental SOF truth that every Green Beret is taught….
I wanted to post some commentary on this issue, the first comes from a Marine posting some open thoughts on this “social engineering” grab by the Marines… joining the other branches in making it less safe on our front-lines in the name of Political-Correctness:
Didn’t see this coming Female Marines have received ample time (over a year) to prepare for this test which, oh by the way, still isn’t to the same standard that it is for males. Sure, they have to get the same bare minimum of 3 that males get. However, their max is 8 whereas mine is 20. So, on a maximum 300 point physical fitness test (PFT) where each of the 3 events (pull ups, crunches, 3 mile run) has the potential to give you 100 points, a female Marine only has to do 40% of the work I have to in order to get 100 points for her pull ups on her PFT. I call bogus. That enables her to be as competitive for promotion as me without having to do the work that I do. Not to mention that she can run her 3 miles in 21 minutes to receive 100 points for that while I have to run it in 18 minutes. If you’ve ever run a 5K, 3 minutes is an eternity between two runners.
Some of you will say “Well, that score is only part of what is looked at when considering promotion.” I will submit this to you. Every promotion board for E-6, E-7, and E-8/E-9 (this board is conducted jointly) in the Marine Corps has an after action review written for it. In every one of those after action reviews, the board members are asked “What is the first tie breaker between two Marines if there is one spot left in their MOS field to promote?” The answer is ALWAYS “Their PFT score.”
Now, some on this site will say that I am butt hurt because 3 females passed our infantry course. That is mentioned in the article. Not the case. When I know that 16 females began the course and only 3 passed, I’m not worried. Of the 16, 9 failed due to performance reasons. That leaves 7. Of those 7, 4 broke due to hip and knee problems. Those are the classic female breaking points that I’ve seen in most female injuries. Those occur very frequently at Parris Island as well. So, we have the 3 left. Now, for males, approximately 79% make it through infantry training. 10% of them are dropped for medical reasons. That leaves approximately 11% for performance/legal issues. For those of you who are Marines, it’s the classic, always spoken of, 10% that fail. Also of note, the females were required to carry each other during casualty evacuation, movement courses, etc. So, a female weighing 110lbs-140lbs is carrying around her equivalent weight while the males are slinging whichever casualty they see over their shoulder.
Again, I call bogus. I’m not a big fan of this social engineering crap. DADT was another issue. I wasn’t a supporter of that. It wasn’t performance based. A gay guy can fireman’s carry a casualty just as effectively (though the casualty may be uncomfortable) as a straight guy. But the vast majority of females cannot do the same. This is a performance thing for me. It is a logistical thing. It is a morale thing. Our military is the best in the world yet we want to mess with the very core of its competence. The members of it. I’m not a big fan.
Technicalities of Gender Differences in Injuries
The above graph comes from a 1998 journal article in The Royal Society of Medicine (you may enlarge the graph by clicking it). The below is from Runners Connect:
The risk of running injuries in women
From looking at the scientific literature, we can see that women indeed do, on the whole, get injured more often than men do. But the difference is not quite as drastic as popular wisdom might hold—a 2002 study of around two thousand patients at a Vancouver, Canada sports injury clinic found that women represented 54% of injuries, with men taking up the other 46%. But among some specific injuries, women are at significantly higher risk.
In particular, the following injuries are 50% more common in women than men:
- Patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS or “runner’s knee)
- Iliotibial band (IT band) syndrome
- Stress fractures
- Medial tibial stress syndrome (“shin splints”)
- Achilles tendonitis
- Plantar fasciitis
The LEFT loves to try and change, yes, even what nature has wrought!
Libertarian Republican opines on the topic as well:
…About 55 percent of female recruits tested at the end of boot camp were doing fewer than three pullups; only 1 percent of male recruits failed the test. Upper body strength critical for combat
Continuing:
The Marine Corps has been using it to test upper body strength for men for more than 40 years. And that upper body strength, they say, is necessary to serve in ground combat: to pull yourself out of a canal in Afghanistan, to climb over a mud wall, to carry an ammunition box.
Exit question – So, how many male Marines have to die in combat in order to satisfy the liberal PC affirmative action crazies before women in combat is repealed?
To which I respond, a maximum amount can never satisfy the Left, look at the MILLIONS killed by the progressive Left’s attack on the black African’s lives via the non-existent DDT scare!
As I do in these cases, I always like to post David Mamet’s depth on this topic. I say depth because as a lifelong liberal… he finally applied common sense to his views and you have the following:
There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)
The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government….
Another legislative act talked about in the shop after this conversation about polygamy took place, are politicians listening to environmental activists and legislating the regular light-bulb illegal. In January it will be officially against the law to sell most forms of the standard — incandescent — light-bulb (Breitbart). The idea is that if we use higher efficiency bulbs we will “save the planet” from those evil* fossil fuel emissions. (*I picture ‘blood’ dripping from the word as well as evil laughter off in the distance somewhere)
The problem? In every bulb that researchers tested they found that the protective coating around the light creating ‘phosphor’ was cracked, allowing dangerous ultraviolet rays to escape (RPT). You got it… through legislation, the power of government has made many people, in their own homes mind you, at a far greater risk for skin-cancer. A risk that this Irish-man knows all too well. What sounded good and altruistic, “saving the planet,” ironically has deadly consequences.
(RPT post on Polygamy)
We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.
But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….
….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….
….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….
…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government programs, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the proprietor a bad business decision.)*
Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men.✣
* No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”
✣ As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.
David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.
You see… the left loves to feel good. In doing so they ruin the quality of what they touch. From the lives of those who have contact with our first responders, to even composers looked at as the best in history:
Further poisoning musical judgment is the Left-wing value of diversity. In 2011, Anthony Tommasini, music critic of the New York Times, published his list of the ten greatest composers who ever lived. Absent from the list was Haydn, who Tommasini acknowledged was the father of the symphony, father of the string quartet, and father of the piano sonata. Indeed, one of the avant-garde’s most celebrated modern composers (and a justly celebrated conductor), Pierre Boulez, “thinks Haydn a greater composer than Mozart,” and one of the greatest pianists who ever lived, Glenn Gould, thought Haydn’s piano sonatas were superior to Mozart’s. So, why did the New York Times music critic omit Haydn? Because, he wrote, “If such a list is to be at all diverse and comprehensive, how could 4 of the 10 slots go to composers—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert—who worked in Vienna during, say, the 75 years from 1750 to 1825?” Diversity, not greatness, helped determine the New York Times list of the greatest ten composers. That is why Bartok, Debussy, and Stravinsky made the list but Haydn (and Handel) didn’t.
Dennis Prager, Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2012), 52-53
Professor Sommers & the Tyranny of Niceness
“The ideal of liberty and freely speaking your mind is so quintessentially American.”
FIRE Board of Advisors member Christina Hoff Sommers is no stranger to speaking her mind. As the author of books such as The War Against Boys and One Nation Under Therapy, Sommers has taken firm stances on many hot button issues.
But in FIRE’s latest video, Sommers argues that today’s students are afraid to express their own potentially controversial viewpoints. She believes students are enveloped within a cultural phenomenon she calls “the tyranny of niceness.” So concerned with not offending their peers’ beliefs, students are hesitant to take a stand for what they believe in.
“What [students] are supposed to be doing is developing ideas and challenging them, learning how to debate,” says Sommers. “We have a generation of kids who can’t argue. They think that will create tension or there’s something wrong with it. Well, if you can’t argue, you can’t think.”
F.I.R.E. has a FaceBook (https://www.facebook.com/thefireorg), a YouTube account, as well as a Twitter account.
Education is the same… the dumbing down of children in the pursuit of “fairness” and “equality” is one of these examples that harms our children’s future. First a commentary about high-school, with a video as an example of the harm done to higher education by the PC crowd ruining education:
It has been no secret that we are having an educational crisis in the United States. Public schools are doing worse and worse, unable to compete with private schools, homeschooled children, and for that matter the rest of the world. Some suggest that this is on purpose. By dumbing down our children we are preparing the future generations for more easily accepting authoritarian control by leftist systems of governance.
We are raising young people in our public schools that are illiterate. We are cramming them with bad information from experimental teaching techniques, political correctness, and liberal philosophies so that they will be good, obedient citizens. Informed voters think for themselves, and seek freedom. A dumbed down population is always eager to depend on the government overlords. Mind-numbed followers don’t ask questions.
History is our students’ worst subject. They can’t even answer the simplest questions about history in regards to the Revolutionary War, World War II, or the Korean War. The fault partly lies in the fact that history textbooks are poorly written, and partly because they are not being taught the information in the first place. I remember when my nephew came to me upset because in his History Class they skipped the chapter about the U.S. Constitution. When he inquired why, the teacher explained to him that the class was limited in time and had to skip unnecessary lessons.
In addition to skipping over important parts of history, new history uses political correctness, and caters to pop culture and particular groups in an effort to appease the same groups the leftist political wing-nuts are also trying to appease. As a result, the generations of students that come out of our schools don’t know our past, and as the old dictum goes, he who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it.
Educational malpractice in the public schools is not only a problem presented by liberal democrats and Marxists that have infiltrated our educational system, but is also the fault of bone-headed, and unconstitutional, legislation like the “No Child Left Behind” Act. The law that was Bush 43’s baby, despite its good intentions, worsened our education system, took the emphasis away from knowing our history, and of course was unconstitutional just like the Education Department. The federal government has no authority over education in this country. That is a local issue, and for good reason.
The problem is, the local systems have been so influenced by federal dictate that they have also become a part of the madness that is dumbing down America. An example revealed itself recently in Florida schools where, because only 27% of the students were able to pass a fourth grade state written exam, the Florida Department of Education lowered the performance level standard. The decision was made by a four-three vote, reasoning that the kids did so poorly because the test was too hard.
Yes, I just defended that our schools belong in local hands, and here we are with a state board doing stupid things too. Understand, though, that is because of the federal, and hard left, influence.
- The Dumbing Down of America – Human Events
- Liberalism and the Dumbing Down of America – American Thinker
- Florida Lowers Passing Grade for State Writing Exam After Over 70 Percent of Fourth Graders Fail – Fox News
See also FIRE’s list of “10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech: 2013”
Gillette’s War On Masculinity (Video Responses)
You can watch the original HERE.
- PIERS MORGAN: I’m sick of this war on masculinity. Gillette have just cut their own throat
- AMERICAN GREATNESS: The takeaway from Gillette’s sloppy and hackneyed characterizations is that “the best a man can be” is a clean-shaven hall monitor. No woman wants him. No man wants to be him. Sad!
Great video of Piers Morgan being sensible (hat-tip to THE GUARDIAN):
NATIONAL REVIEW notes,
Earlier this week I wrote an extended essay defending traditional masculinity from a frontal attack by the American Psychological Association. The APA has drafted new guidelines for psychological practice with men and boys that declared “traditional masculinity” to be harmful. According to the guidelines, “traditional masculinity ideology” has been show to “limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict, and negatively influence mental and physical health.”
Yet as our culture grows more disdainful of traditional masculinity, men and boys are hardly flourishing. As I note in my piece, while a powerful male elite unquestionably continues to dominate upper echelons of corporate America, the government, and the military, millions of men are falling behind in school, they’re committing suicide at alarming rates, and their median wages (though higher lately) are lower than they were a generation ago.
In fact, the assault on traditional masculinity — while liberating to men who don’t fit traditional norms — is itself harmful to the millions of young men who seek to be physically and mentally tough, to rise to challenges, and demonstrate leadership under pressure. The assault on traditional masculinity is an assault on their very natures…..
REMEMBER, While I like their rants (Paul Watson, Mark Dice, and others) and these commentaries hold much truth in them, I do wish to caution you… he is part of Info Wars/Prison Planet network of yahoos, a crazy conspiracy arm of Alex Jones shite. Also, I bet if I talked to him he would reveal some pretty-crazy conspiratorial beliefs that would naturally undermine and be at-odds-with some of his rants. Just to be clear, I do not endorse these people or orgs.
Some of these videos are with a hat-tip to MOONBATTERY: “Vlogger Responses to Ultra-Woke Gillette Ad” — keep in mind just because I post he below videos doesn’t mean I agree with everything said in them. Language Warning as well:
As usual, BLUE COLLAR LOGIC lays down the law. Gillette jumps into the toxic masculinity debate and gets it wrong:
Feminist Promises vs. Married Life
MORE…
Another Example, Via MAIL ONLINE:
…I never expected to find myself in agreement with Ann Widdecombe on anything, yet I realised when she said last week that her most profound regret is never having had children, that we have something very important in common.
Like her, I didn’t plan it this way; I made no choice to be childless. Like so many other women of my generation, born in the Sixties when the fashionable wisdom was that women should postpone marriage and motherhood to forge careers, I left it [“it” ~ the bad thinking of the sixties and what “feminism” was telling women] too late to have a family. I always assumed it would happen at some stage, but I never gave it the focus it needed.
As a 20-something woman with the world at her feet, I chose to interpret feminism’s gift as the right to education and a career. Were I offering advice now to the young woman I was then, I would say: ‘If you want to marry and have children in your 20s, that is just as valid a choice as building a career. Don’t be afraid to make up your own mind.’…
(h/t to GAYPATRIOT):
Catherine Deveny an “outspoken atheist and feminist” who, like Chelsea Manning, writes for the far left publication The Guardian. Here’s what she thinks of marriage (probably because her personal life is a train wreck.)
How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense
Michael Medved interviews Mona Charen about her new book, “Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense” (see here AMAZON page). She discusses the deleterious FX that feminism has had both on females and the male/female relationship. Good interview for perspectives on progressive feminism of the Left.
Women ARE More Emotion… And?
In an almost “reality is better than fiction” moment, feminists in the West are outraged (emotional) that the idea of women being more emotional is even considered with a grain of salt. Dennis Prager uses some recent articles/stories to show the outrage from the Left to the ideas of difference and their attempt to make totalitarianism (total thought) the norm. I liken it to people saying “Islam is a violent religion,” and Muslims being soo offended that they murder people to prove it isn’t. I thank GOD my wife is more emotional that I with my kids… I would HATE for “two me’s” to raise them.
The Emasculated Scandinavian Man | “Utopia”
Dennis starts out the “Male/Female Hour” with a reading from the book by Michael Booth entitled, “The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia.” At some point he will have the author on his show, which I will upload as well. One commentator on my Facebook noted: “One week of Russian soldiers occupying Swedish cities, and the historic gender roles will suddenly be back in favor.”
What Happens When Google Disagrees With You?
Is Google open to a diverse array of viewpoints? Or is it an ideological echo chamber? Just ask former Google software engineer James Damore. He was fired for disagreeing with Google’s (left-wing) orthodoxy. In this video, James shares his story.
Gun Rights Are Women’s Rights
The right to bear arms isn’t just a constitutional issue — it’s a women’s rights issue. Author and commentator Katie Pavlich explains why guns are the great equalizer between men and women.