There is a certain fascinating aspect and predictability to the ways leftists, Democrats and Communists create solutions to difficult social problems that they often have also created. To resolve the growing, activist-multiplied problem the various shades of leftists inevitably proffer a “solution” that strengthens the government and the leftists, themselves… and on and on it goes. Freedom gets traded for a new level of “safety.” Only the rarest of elections changes this course.
We see this playing out in the sudden pandemic of trans-sexuality that has infected our schools, our governments, our colleges, even our medical establishments – including pediatrics, a form of medicine most of us have always trusted – and even some churches. It’s a worse pandemic than COVID was intended to be, bad as it was. It’s worse because there is no injection that will immunize the hearts and minds of the susceptible, nor is any pharmaceutical company working on one. No President has cleared the decks for a “Warp Speed” development of a cure for this new disease; various groups cannot agree on its origin: animals or a laboratory. It is grotesquely infectious, however, affecting many organs, starting with the brain.
Just like COVID, trans-genderism has attracted new streams of commerce, catering to the needs of the infected as well as the threatened. Some of these are drugs, so helpful to transitioners as they leave reality, and surgical procedures, even in pediatric departments at formerly trusted hospitals, but, not to be out-done, beer, sneakers and other products are making sure that “trannies” know where to buy whatever makes life worth living, including rapid delivery from Amazon Prime vans. We are no slouches when it comes to scraping a buck off of the mentally ill.
The psychiatry and psychology industries are getting the short straw, though. Lots of jurisdictions had long-ago made it illegal to treat sexual matters, no matter how confused, psychologically. Affirmation and the aforementioned drugs and surgeries, not to overlook deception of parents and grandparents, are the only accepted maltreatments. If parents and grandparents react badly to teachers and school policies that lie and mislead them about the children they raise and love AND ARE RELATED TO BY BIRTH, the leftists will send police and the FBI and others to harass and arrest them.
The widespread reactions to opposition to the trans-gender pandemic, are the basis of the new problem that cries out for a governmental solution… from the same leftist gaggle that created the original problem/pandemic. Pretty soon, state by state, legislation will be offered to “protect” the LGBTQ+ “community” from “Christian fascists” who wish to take away the “civil rights” of the deviant. Grotesquely, that “community” has attached itself to real civil rights problems that are based on inherent distinctions of race and birth – unchangeable things. Always seeking support, militant “civil rights” activists are happy to add sexual deviance to their reasons to protest and, now, to tear down. In their anti-historical foolishness, true civil rights activists are abetting the complete tear-down of society and culture that global communists have always wanted: the “solution.”
Most “trans” and other abnormal sexual claims are based on – wait for it – self-declarations. They are not based on empirical evidence of gay-ness or of needs to convert one’s body to one that has the appearance of the opposite sex. It’s all mental-emotional. This in no way belittles the intensity or “reality” of emotional worries, fears and other feelings that cause the sufferer to believe his or her body is the “wrong” one. The suffering person is suffering. How though, could enforceable laws be based on the utter lack of empirical evidence: nothing to show anyone, nothing a jury could review, nothing with the possibility of forensic discovery. How much worse it is when a trusted adult asks the questions 5, 8, 11-year-old children don’t have the wisdom to answer.
Tik-Tok and other kid-centric social media enhance the peer pressure to adopt the latest, most affirmative trend / fad, and it is largely out of sight of parents and other non-affirmative adults. After all, your teacher, for Heaven’s sake… well, not Heaven’s sake, certainly, but someplace’s sake, told you not to tell your parents that you really aren’t a girl and that your name is now Brad instead of Bonnie. Go ahead and send that video to your favorite classmate of how cool you look, dressed like a boy. What rot.
Evil trends have conspired to destroy humanity, especially in the United States. Separating children from their actual selves denies them the ability and opportunity to fulfill the responsibilities of their gender. The education of boys ought to be different in key ways from the education of girls. Each gender has its own preparation for adulthood. Boys and girls are equal under the law, but not equivalent in roles and in life. It’s not mysterious, but it is a crime socially, culturally and (should be) actually.
There is no reason to trust anyone who thinks the explosion in “trans-genderism” is good or valid. There’s no reason to trust medical institutions or personnel who accept minors for surgery for the purpose of “changing” gender. No reason to trust anyone who will feed puberty blockers or opposite- sex hormones to minors. No reason to trust anyone who will ruin the maturation and fertility of a minor human child. God save us.
For some weird reasons: forms of moral communism, basically, sexuality has become a major element of elementary education and the business of thousands of men and women formerly respected as educators. One wonders why there has been a virtual explosion of sexual deviance and why America tolerates it, let alone cements it in place with illogical legal protections. The so-called LGBTQ+ “community” has shifted from seeking safety and tolerance to rabid dominance of culture and communications, and a legally enforced “right” to convert children to deviance in schools and elsewhere. This abrupt, new trend is a sign of sickness in a culture.
Normalization of homosexuality was the beginning to a societal tolerance of deviant sexuality, but by itself, neither virulent nor threatening to our core morality. Gay marriage, however, provided the breech in legality such that virulent deviance could force itself upon schools, society and families. Proto-Communists in the schools and teachers’ unions, perceived gender confusion as an excellent tool for dividing society and weakening families: a key process to create totalitarian control of society. How diabolically clever to choose as an “enemy” the widespread grasp of truth. What is the most damaging effect of this subversion?
To answer that we need to establish some moral – and spiritual – ground rules. It seems Prudent to reflect on life, itself. It is fundamentally spiritual, in the majoritarian worldwide view. There are too many “miraculous” events, large and small, that define, save and divert the lives of too many people to attribute everything to “luck.” Even cultures that place great emphasis on “luck” are dependent on something “spiritual” – forms of super-natural forces.
At the same time as “spiritual” beliefs or assumptions are at work, society, itself, must function for the maximum number of people. That means food, safety, comfort, property and advancement. All require stability and widespread agreement on rights and wrongs: ethics, courtesies and laws. People had to cooperate in trusted and trusting ways. The integrity and primacy of family units are essential, as are the education and acculturation of children. Those who would disrupt – to the point of replacing the structure and strengths of – a successful society, recognize that disrupting families is the first and most effective step. To some significant degree, those are people who are anti-spiritual, and in the case of America, anti-Christian in virulent ways.
Human sexuality, in nearly all family units, represents the creation of children, who are the descendants of that family line. Grandparents are as keenly interested in that process as parents are. Whatever interferes with conception, childbirth and acculturation of children, is striking at the essence of social success and of hope… for the future, one of those “spiritual” aspects of life. To the disrupters, sexuality, in the soup of hypersexualization of “Western” civilization, became a weapon against American culture.
“Gay” marriage was a move spurred by compassion. Once it had legal status, aggressive sex-weaponizers had a basis for demanding equal status in school settings: homosexuality now had to be taught along with heterosexuality, and not just about marriage. Heterosexuality is – and always has been – normalcy: mothers and fathers produce children; boys and girls are different in “normal,” predictable ways; growing up takes place in predictable, “normal” patterns with predictable responsibilities, that ought to respond to parental and societal expectations. The boundaries of ethics and law are equally recognized and predictable. Progress occurs as does advancement, in that individuals become more skilled, more valuable in the economies of families and communities… and nations, and more spiritual. Those formulas of cultural success are resilient, but only to a point. Feminism, a re-ordering of relationships between men and women, perhaps inadvertently, provided political power to legalize increasingly non-normal sexual practices. Gay marriage had opened the door a crack while a giant wedge of divisive realignment was poised, in the form of radical feminism, to jam it open to every form of deviant irresponsibility. Our culture has, so far, failed to recognize the danger lurking within the virulent move to get children to renounce their true selves – basically denying responsibilities inherent in their genders and roles in a healthy society. “Affirming” mental incongruities as more true than reality, has a very, very low rate of success. The web of lies we call “laws,” should be unraveled.
ELECTIONS
The majesty of United States’ citizenship is taught – if taught at all – through detraction and condemnation. Rare are the public, unionized schools where a deep understanding is gained by students, of the responsibilities imparted by our Constitution, Declaration and multiple other founding and originating documents and philosophies. Freedom is not a gift from our forefathers, except as a door to the future that we, American citizens are obligated to pass through as leaders for this world. We have the keys to progress, advancement and personal perfection in our hands; we have failed to implant it in the hearts of our children. For most of us, the closest we come to that responsibility is in our role as voters – authorized choosers of America’s leadership, authorized lenders of power to those we choose to hold it. That fundamental authority and power has been so corrupted as to be taken from us BY THE VERY PEOPLE we lend our nation’s representative powers to!
Some functions of democracy should not be computerized. The stealing of elections has become virtually part of the background humor of the United States, and it’s a part of history, most especially in large cities. The holding of public office in cities can, if manipulated successfully, provide great wealth and power over others. Those positions will be defended and fought-for. The rot of urban election theft has morphed, thanks to the mysterious wonders of computerized vote recording and tallying, into the theft of statewide and federal elections.
Voter lists are computerized and the printouts of those lists are available to official campaigns. So, too, are lists of deceased or moved-away voters, and those who are ineligible for other reasons. Fortunately for those who are willing to defraud the voting process, most of the ineligible voters are still listed among the names on the “voter” list. A moderately sly campaign functionary can arrange for persons to go to the polls and vote in the name of ineligible, but still listed, voters. It works, but is time consuming and risky. How fabulous to have a “pandemic” strike the nation during a federal election year! Resulting fears and medical ignorance (and mendacity) overrode legal and Constitutional strictures, enabling even more sly attorneys to win court cases allowing for “mail-in” ballots to “protect” voters from the scourge of COVID-19.
These mostly illegal changes under cover of a “national medical emergency,” were quickly stretched to allow ballot drop-boxes, official and unofficial, and then vote-harvesting from infirm voters, ostensibly. Sympathetic election officials allowed ever wider interpretations of “safety” and “every vote should count,” which included every ballot – licit and illicit. A handful of determined election fraudsters in mail-in states could, because of fellow-democrat fellow-travelers, sway tens and hundreds of thousands of invalid, but counted, “votes.” Even signature-match verification was disregarded in the interest of safety during a national medical emergency. Computers helped, of course, providing unmonitored curing of “erroneous” ballots with new electronic records. Damn the whole process.
Voting is the only sacrament in democracy. We have allowed one party, basically, to corrupt voting and vote-counting to its benefit. In 2020 these factors may have accounted for more than 8 million illicit votes. It changed history and the resulting President is changing history more every day… not in good ways, at all.
How can this Jin be pushed back into its cave? How can every election be trusted again? What are the steps? It requires a certain amount of automation, but no actual computerization and no internet connections to aggregation points or to state elections offices or to anywhere else.
First, hand-marked ballots, only. Fill in the ovals or squares and let a machine scan them and count them. A total is reported for each office. Count the handful of write-ins, and pack up the ballots with a bar-coded wrapper. A certified police officer transports that bundle to the single aggregation point near the state capitol. There, that bundle is unwrapped and fed through a certified machine identical to the one in East Podunk that generated the draft, on-site total. The stack is run through the second machine and the totals compared. If they are exactly alike, the total is reported as final.
If the totals don’t agree the ballots are inspected by hand while monitored by poll watchers. The stack is scanned again in a free-standing, non-networked machine. At some point there will be two identical totals and that number is reported. The total time to complete these steps might be 2 or 3 days, but the totals will be trustworthy. Everything else that has been interjected into this process is bogus and serves only the convenience of government – and the purposes of the leftist party. Absentee ballots should be only that, with significant reasons to avoid personally casting one’s ballot.
There should be no “early” voting, except, perhaps, for 2 or 3 days. That will facilitate convenience without encouraging voting in ignorance of much of what might be exposed by the campaigns. If the Post Office is to be involved in any significant way it should be to deliver registered ballots that must be signed-for by the requestor. Then, ON A SPECIFIC DAY prior to Election Day, and involving no mail delivery on that day – perhaps a Saturday – Postal route personnel can pick up the ballots at the addresses to which they were delivered. No wholesale mailings to untrustworthy “voting lists” and no ballot harvesting.
If we fail to secure our elections we fail to deserve the blessings of liberty.
BUDGETS
The term, “Budget” is not used in the Constitution. Budgeting for government spending, however, is vitally important – it’s the only way to set a standard for the key functions of the Congress: raising revenue and appropriating it for legitimate government expenditures. There are thousands of words in the U. S. Code relating to the President’s obligations to provide dozens of kinds and titles of data about programs and expenditures included in the President’s submitted budget. Sadly, about three-quarters of “the budget” is considered permanent or “entitlements” or both at once, and therefore unchangeable by the people’s representatives, despite having been created by those same worthies on behalf of those same people. Technically, EVERY element in the budget may be modified or removed. However, virtually every aspect of federal expenditure has its own advocacy group, mostly political. With Congress’ primary purposes being re-election and not the “people’s business,” no part of the budget that could have a negative impact politically, will be touched, except to increase it.
With a $32 Trillion federal debt, a large fraction of the sub-chapters of the budget must be “touched,” cut or eliminated. They cannot all grow in every budget cycle, including payrolls, welfare entitlements pensions and other hot-button items. There is no reason to expect that the Congress as constituted and elected, is going to ever balance expenditures and revenues, let alone cut any one of them. The collapse of the U. S. economically is being led and accelerated by government debt and deficit spending. All processes of taxation and revenue accumulation have failed to enhance America’s economic strength of freedom, nor has it done very much to increase the prosperity of a majority of Americans. We feel like we’re becoming more wealthy, higher real estate prices and so forth, perhaps larger retirement funds, but our money is worth less every year and a lot of what we think we’ve gained is “balanced” by those trillions in debt. Most of us will not be ready when the decline becomes a rout.
Our wonderful – magical – Federal Reserve Bank was given vital power by Congress in 1913: to coin money and set the value thereof. Along with that sloughing off of Constitutional power, Congress also provided “the Fed” the magical power to loan money to the federal government, even when it doesn’t have money to actually lend. So, it lends air and charges interest on it. The federal government owes so much that it must borrow money to pay the interest on previous loans. That amounts to three-quarters of a trillion dollars this year. Only the most irresponsible presidential administration would run a greater-than-Trillion-dollar deficit in its budget in the face of this unprecedented indebtedness.
The history of the past 60 years has made the budget process of the U. S. federal government, an increasingly fraudulent exercise. The fraud is perpetrated upon the American people, in the main, but also on every holder of dollars in the world, as the value of each dollar slips downward, year by year… sometimes week-by-week.
Prudence would dictate a different course for our ship of state, but we won’t see that happen under Democrat control of the White House.
We, meaning the Exchange Club of Lawrence and the Andovers, and a bunch of wonderful volunteers and relatives thereof, installed the “Field of Honor” for the third time on the North Andover, Massachusetts Common, this past Saturday. It is a labor of love and patriotism and, in fact, a most serious community service, part of two of Exchange’s Four Pillars of Service. To do a lot of what a “full-calendar” Exchange Club wants to accomplish each year requires money, and mixed with our forms of service to our communities are some vital fund-raising events; the Field of Honor is a four-way winner on that calendar. With a single project we fulfill “Americanism,” we raise needed funds, we unify our Club and we provide “Community Service” for all of those who sponsor flags in memory of loved ones or in honor of them, who recognize first-responders, health-care workers, coaches, teachers and other personal “V.I.P.’s” in their lives.
Each sponsored flag has affixed a colorful, laminated “Tag” that names the honoree, field of service and heartfelt commentary by the sponsor about this very important person. The first time we “did” a Field of Honor we followed the lead of a nearby Exchange and tried to read all the dedications on the day of ceremony at the end of the Field’s term of display. We messed it up fairly well since we didn’t have a good database, but the hearing of one’s dedication was very important to the flag sponsors, a fact made abundantly clear to us by those who did not hear their own, or who missed the reading. That is when the nature of the service we were suddenly responsible to provide properly, became clear.
We’ve fixed that database problem. We’ve also fixed our lack of recognition among the communities we’ve served for, now, 75 years. Both our Club members and the Club, itself, can be identified with this beautifully visible display, now of three-week’s duration. But, the “Field” is still greater than the values already noted. It’s a unifier when Unity in these “United” States is under its greatest stress. This is the larger part of the story.
Dis-unity is the most potent weapon there is in the hands of an enemy of a democratic republic – a republic built on personal morality and personal responsibility and above and beneath all, FREEDOM. In the past dozen (or five-dozen) years, or so, we have witnessed the coalescing of “liberal,” socialistic tendencies toward dictatorial government, around the always-tender concerns about race and attendant hatreds. There is very little within the non-discussive discussions about race in the U. S. that involve truth. Among intentional, often political LIES about race or racism, exist often-repeated – shouted – non-truths that are based upon beliefs that are just not so. That is, many, mostly guilt-ridden liberals, repeat statements they believe are true, but the premises of which are false. They have no intention to lie, per se, but become greatly exercised as they parrot non-truths. We should stipulate some truths.
One – Different races are not limited compared to any other race in terms of ABILITY, only by BELIEFS. Within those beliefs are familial, parental and social expectations that are imprinted even before birth, as to what constitutes propriety and success for an individual.
Two – Mixing races together, including by force, as with slavery, ALWAYS carries the risk of continuing division because of conflicting BELIEFS, not because of mental or physical abilities. Humans are much more alike than not, despite oft-repeated untruths we may have grown up with. Diversity, in and of itself, is a weakening agent to the cohesiveness of a society, to a nation. Similarity is the great strengthener, and, when reinforced by diverse experiences, a tremendous strength to the United States nation. Diversity for its own sake is a source of social divisiveness, yet now governs our economic and social constructs, including valuations of one another as “sufficiently diverse” enough in our daily lives and actions. No nation can survive, no society can succeed if its interactions are biased toward the non-traditional beliefs of newcomers, rather than the newcomers being required to live by our traditional moral standards, no matter their personal beliefs.
Three – Shared morality is essential to social unity and to economic success. America’s economic success is based on fundamental honesty in contracts written and unwritten, from marriage to multi-year leases, commodity pricing and delivery, and in covenants between the people-formed governments and those governments, themselves, local state and federal. Together with honesty in contracting, our sense of – belief in – sacrifice for a better future for our children and for people unknown, made our phenomenal growth and wealth possible. Welcoming, or allowing establishment of, moralities alternative to the historical, traditional morality of a society, is a first step to social suicide. Americans, in our folly, are not merely tolerant of other beliefs, which is relatively harmless, but we fail to require all citizens to live by our own fundamental moral traditions. Indeed, we have managed to talk ourselves out of living by them.
Four – There are two genders: many feelings about one’s place and purpose and pursuit of happiness, but only two genders. That so much heat is generated over “trans-genderism” or “trans-sexuality” is based on those individuals who desire so much to believe in two contradictory ideas at the same time, that they will endure a host of suspicions and fears among “straight” populations. Others who desire acceptance of aberrant lifestyles, AND those who are mainly interested in the dissolution of the United States, seize upon those who believe in trans-genderism and employ their suffering – which is real – as a further wedge to separate the vast majority of Americans from their traditional morality. Sadly, ultra-progressive parents, themselves, are changing their own beliefs to accommodate the popularized mental incongruity that two diametrically opposed concepts may be true at the same time. Small children who claim to be other than their actual gender are encouraged in this incongruity even to the point of chemical – EVEN SURGICAL – modification of growth and maturation (with untold consequences, nearly all of which are negative). Supposed psychologists, scientists of a sort, including “child” psychologists, have bent their attitudes towards normality and no longer advise maintaining traditional roles for children until maturity. Most minors “grow out of” dyspohric fantasies. Unfortunately, a less and less morally constrained population has created political pressure sufficient to have draconian laws passed requiring society to accommodate these incongruities, to the direct affront of not only honesty, but of all traditional moral codes, including religious codes, and to our peril as a democratic republic, which, as noted, can function only amidst a population self-controlled by shared morality.
Five – Derek Chauvin did not kill George Floyd. Oh, he was “convicted” of murder, much like Joe Biden having been certified as President. The Chauvin conviction was mere confirmation of what weak, jittery politicians had agreed with mobs to do. The nearly sainted George Floyd was on an express bus to an early death that day, before his antics even gained police attention. Chauvin, not the brightest bulb in the string, could have feigned great concern and demanded that people taking videos go find a doctor instead. He could have laid George’s big head on his lap and tried talking to him while they waited for the EMT’s. He’d still have his job, Minneapolis would still be a city, and dozens of businesses and thousands of jobs would still be supporting families in Minnesota. No, Chauvin didn’t kill Floyd, but he caused the deaths of many others and many more to come as idiotic, fearful, politicians attempt to buy favor from Communists and fascists by weakening police departments.
Six – To say that “black lives matter” is to state an obvious fact; all lives matter in a non-communist society: our morality informs us of the sacredness and sanctity of human life. To adhere to the “Black Lives Matter” organization as some sort of leaders in the mattering of black lives, however, is to put the lie to every aspect of the sanctity of black and every other life. More than in any other “advanced” culture, lives matter most under a system of freedom and personal worth. Religion has a lot to do with that, Christianity most of all in this Prudent view. To latch on to anti-Christians for leadership in this area of humanity, is utterly nonsensical. Misguided blacks, in fact, are at the forefront of DISCOUNTING the values of black lives! Let us count the ways.
Blacks are solidly Democratic in their politics, evidently expecting expansive government to make their lives better. Yet it is they who have the most to say about the betterment of their lives and the lives of all blacks. After 60 years of federalized welfare and the concurrent dissolution of the black family, wise blacks can readily describe the negative impact on black lives, a gift from Democrats. The incessant turning away from success by so many black youth, consumed in hatred for anything “white,” like educational excellence and personal merit, is also a product of political divisiveness employed by the great protectors of blacks: Democrats.
Just as was done in South Africa during apartheidt, unions have been strong promoters of unionization and minimum wage laws – the net effect of which have been to make it more comfortable to hire whites instead of blacks. Black youth, more likely to be lower-skilled, unfortunately, are denied their best marketable quality: willingness to work for less to get started up the ladders of success. We have made it illegal to work for less. Alternatives on the streets and gang associations where all the leaders are non-white, are made much more attractive to disaffected youth. Keeping blacks unskilled and inexperienced serves to make unionized jobs more white… just like in South Africa. Who are the strongest proponents of unionization and minimum wages? Democrats, who are trying their hardest to improve the lot of blacks, just ask them. Those are they who celebrate success of black Democrats while heaping scorn upon blacks of other political views. Black lives matter, so much.
President Joe Biden, race-baiter in chief… and great “unifier,” has authorized the flying of “Black Lives Matter” flags at American embassies around the world. It is a move so utterly offensive to so many, and so essentially diametric toward everything the United States has ever professed, fought-for or relied upon in its founding ideas and ideals, and so stupid, as to expose the rank folly of this man’s being president of this nation or of virtually any organization of alert humans. Nothing he does is to be trusted. Nothing he has done as president is pro-American… or anti-racist.
Seven – Education is the primary business of parents: not of the government at any level, or of teachers unions or of mediocrity contracts with arbitrary groups of teachers. Teachers are hired, fundamentally, to teach our children how to be honest, literate, knowledgeable about science, mathematics and the natural world, and knowledgeable about our culture and founding, governing principles. Educators need not teach religion, per se, but about religion as part of World History. Nor should they teach against it. They should teach common decency and respect for others, good manners and propriety in all things within the school campus/environment. Sports and other team functions and competitions are relevant for good health and good adjustment to the individual strengths and weaknesses of others. Exposure to the Arts is also essential for becoming well-rounded individuals, armed with some choices of direction to follow after the first 12 years of instruction. Elective courses should include “manual arts” and tool use, carpentry and basic trade skills. It is not the business of educators to expose minor children to unusual sexual practices or any sexual practices. The subject matter of any “Health” class should be vetted by the parents of children in the school system, else their children may not attend said class. Any school or “system” unwilling to collaborate with parents at that level about sexuality or any other area of controversy, perhaps with open petitioning by a certain percentage of parents, requiring such vetting, does not deserve access to students or to the tax monies that follow them.
Ideally, every school should be a Charter School, and every child should be expected to excel… and to behave.
Eight – The breaching of the Capitol Building on January 6th was not an insurrection. It was several things, but “insurrection” was not one of them. There was no attempt, or even hope, to overthrow the sitting government or our governing “system,” EXCEPT where said system was lying to the American people. The mealy-mouthed half-truths and outright lies tossed around in the hallowed halls of Congress, ostensibly to do “the people’s business” has become so offensive and off-target that people wanted to talk to their erstwhile “representatives” who were about to certify a most questionable election of one of the most crooked presidents-elect to ever reach that level. The actions of some who assaulted the building were clearly unrelated to the President’s words; those are they who entered the crowds at the Capitol and who had not attended the rally.
Capitol police, oddly, had not, despite advance notice for days, made any reasonable attempts to make such a breach difficult and, in fact, made the breach easier, even to helping people enter the building once the physical breaches had occurred. Offers of reinforcement from the Trump administration were refused because of “optics,” we’re told. Yet the entire period since the rather silly impacts of the vandalism and broken windows, has been nothing but “optics,” as conservatives and Trump voters, generally, have been branded as “white supremacists” and “terrorists” and greater threats to “democracy” than “9-11.” What hogwash. The greatest threat to “democracy” in the past several decades exists among those who engineered the 2020 Elections that led to certification of the electoral College votes that propelled Biden-Harris to be sworn in on January 20th. To say that the January 6th events were not a legitimate “protest” against perceived government mendacity is to rewrite history and word-meanings simultaneously. Long before the 2020 elections, sufficient reasons to protest the actions within the Capitol were accumulating: things like $27 Trillion in debts.
Breaching the Capitol was foolish, obviously, and illegal in its own right, from which a host of other crimes and misdemeanors flowed. The worst crime, committed by a Capitol Police officer, was the point-blank murder of Ashli Babbit, who was not assaulting any person or presenting a threat to the officer who shot her. Ms. Babbit was unarmed. Four months later we can finally identify the police officer at fault, despite video of the incident. He is a Trump-hater, reportedly, but not charged with this crime. Can we suppose that had the breach been the work of “BLM” that the entire congressional leadership would have taken a knee on their Communist behalf in the Rotunda? Fourteenth Amendment, anyone?
Back to the Field of Honor in North Andover: Exchange attempts to gather good people to a common purpose, much of which is helping, serving, others. Through scholarships, recognitions of excellence and of overcoming tough challenges, and through Americanism, we attempt to remind our fellow Americans of the qualities that are worth emulating, honoring and teaching. In our experience, people need that reminding; they need to remember or recognize and honor those who were raised with those vital qualities; people truly want the reminding: it affirms that the best of being an American is still true and worth emulating, including to whatever extent, in their own lives and in the lives of those around them.
To all those who, for whatever reason or untruth you are convinced of, teach our children, and who convey that America and its entire history and purpose is to be hated and discarded for a socialized, anti-Christian system that has failed wherever tried, stop! You have no right.
We have developed, in our vapid superficiality, a habit of judging politicians and one another on the basis of who our secular judges are, most particularly who are on the Supreme Court. What escapes most of us is that those judgments extend to ourselves.
President Trump has taken perhaps the best step in his first term in the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to our highest court. One can learn from the reactions to her new status… and likelihood that she will help decide the course of America’s future. The nation that became the United States was formed by religious people – mostly Christians and some Jews – men, and probably more importantly, women: their hands rocked the cradles.
While our comprehension of Biblical and other somewhat contemporaneous texts has certainly changed, the essential value of religious morality to the strength and success of the U. S. of A., can be denied only in ignorance. Ignorance, sadly, doesn’t inhibit that class of “deniers” to any great degree. In other words, a strong moral code, passed from generation to generation, is both crucial and comforting.
Enter Amy Coney Barrett, who has attracted vitriol – not political difference, vitriol – for what those somewhat aligned with her worldview can see no justification in the slightest. Where does it come from? How is it that half of the polity apparently distrusts or resents – if not hates – a thoroughly moral and honest person?
A large component of that vitriol comes from women. Those like Senators Diane Feinstein, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and the legendary Masi Hirono, are unable to avoid nonsensical, disdain-laden questions or comments that leads one to deduce, it is Prudent to say, that they not only hate her politically, but are, in fact, envious of her. But, envy aimed at what, exactly?
Moral rectitude. Females who have spent decades denying their crucial roles of both civilizing – moralizing – their men, and of keeping their children on a morally straight path as they (ostensibly) learn to become adults in charge of cultural norms applied to economics, commerce, production and defense of family and community, find themselves so uncomfortable with the responsibilities of woman-hood, that a woman who has no reason for such discomfort is to be deeply resented.
Inherently there is a threat to many women that Amy Barrett, and not they, will be a best example of American woman- and mother-hood. Even her college sorority has virtually disavowed her and her extraordinary success. The “sisterhood” apparently depends not on gender, a reactionary concept, but on the purity of one’s rejection of religious-based morals.
Barrett doesn’t waver; her moral pillar requires neither comparison nor negotiation. It need not be measured against fads or trends or popular opinion. Whether one shares her complete philosophy or not, he or she ought to have the wisdom to respect it… and her. That sort of respect has not been – and is not being – inculcated through the institutions of society that are its only source: parents (mothers AND fathers), churches and, as reinforcement, schools. Barrett exemplifies and makes real, the superiority of the two-parent, responsible family model… and it is frightening.
If a society wished, freely and collectively, to restore and strengthen the one form of foundational social engineering proven successful: two-parent, economically independent families, that society would formalize through government and every reinforcing institution, every possible encouragement of that structure. The question, automatically posed by the stark and living color example of Amy Coney Barrett’s family, to those who wonder about the future of the United States, is whether we have the collective sense to shift our policies toward her model of success?
We’ll have to cleanse our education and purge public schools of socialist teachers and administrators. We’ll have to teach our children all of American history, both bad and good, and pass along the best of our founding philosophy so that our next generations recognize how to repair, adjust correct, improve the application of those ideals to inevitable problems of complex civilization.
We’ll have to change our entire approach and process of delivering public assistance such that the worst tendencies of human nature are not rewarded, and the desire – or ability – to attain to better lives is rewarded. By itself, this change to public policy holds the greatest promise for the quality of life and continuation of the American dream for ourselves and all other nations who aspire to freedom and the end of poverty.
Trump has placed the American success model at center stage. One hopes those who feel badly or resentful can examine their own philosophies, perhaps to reform them.
It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. – Confucius
History has shown that political power gained through the marshaling of hate is usually hard to maintain, and always destructive – never constructive. The only path toward maintaining hate-based power is to identify a very large set of enemies whom hate-leaders can paint as hate-worthy, and more: threats to the peace and prosperity of the “oppressed” in-group said leaders wish to control. It is Prudent to recognize the “hate-ees” in order to defend against the hat-ers.
Despite being consistently accused by the leftist hate
leaders, of employing hate themselves, most of the hated are best described as
traditionalists. Let’s consider how the
process has developed. One large group
that is cast as hateful are those of us who believe strictly in the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution it spawned. By nearly direct implication that group is
nearly congruent with Christian, or Judeo-Christian belief structures. In other words, Biblical morality is at least
professed by most of those who also believe in the founding principles of the
United States. It’s no surprise, but
tangent to our point.
Since Roe v. Wade the power of litigation and crafty parsing
of words and phrases whose usage has obviously changed since the Federalist
Papers were written – a special aspect of redefining words and meanings to
control the argument – has well-served those who don’t believe in the moral
structure and personal responsibility imposed by “free will,” also called
“individual sovereignty.” Socialism
fills their wants, not a constitutional republic. Unfortunately the defense of tradition now
has two, new, giant weapons arrayed against it: 1) Social media; and, 2)
Ignorance.
Social media allow for near-instant sharing, or spreading, of ideas… not to be confused with truth, reality and intelligence. It spreads the last three, too, but those are not dangerous to honest people. But ideas – “memes” in the current parlance – can be shared very quickly without filters of contemplation, research or understanding, a perfect condition for hatreds. One person offended can rapidly become thousands and tens of thousands: a political force for the elected dishonest to take advantage of. Social media and the handiness of cell-phones and their video cameras do great and instant damage to public discourse and the once great “free press.” Further, it has provided for the concentration of information into the hands and biases of fewer than 100 people, of whom traditionalists – conservatives – are both suspicious and skeptical. No system of individual liberty can stand for long without the free flow, and publication, of ideas. An algorithm here, an algorithm there, and pretty soon we’re talking about real mind control. The thought-police are standing by. What will happen when governors are elected (thereby) who agree with defining conservative ideas and tradition, itself, as hate speech?
Ignorance is mostly of history and of the lessons of
history, although ignorance of, say, climate science is also a large part of
how socialism has gained fresh currency among young people in the United
States, of all places. We the people,
who shucked off monarchy to establish freedom as a founding principle, are the last people on earth who should find
socialism attractive; socialism is the same
as monarchy, except that the party is the monarch, of which the chairman is
the King. What do children growing up in
the United States have to do with socialism?
Ignorance: the only soil in which socialism can grow.
Socialists, inherent enemies of individualism, not only purvey ignorance of history, they live on it like parasites. They play a long game, beginning with dominance of education – their barely employable graduates are the result, and they all seem to prefer socialism over free enterprise and private property. Bereft of ways to earn enough to live like people on TV… or down the street, they find it easy to blame traditionalists for their ill fortunes and to demand recompense for attempting to follow fortunate people’s rules. “Forgive my debt,” they say, and leading (following) politicians proclaim that ‘meme’ from the rooftops. If, as tradition and (un)common sense dictate, one disagrees with that demand, one is transformed into a hater and, probably, a racist… whatever “racist” even means, any longer.
Sexual traditionalists are also accused of bigotry, hatred,
homophobia and theocracy. Simply
declaring support for “traditional” marriage can cause boycotts of one’s
business and disavowal by political leaders and even by municipal governments,
such that one’s business may not locate a branch within a jurisdiction because
of “hate speech” by the owner. The facts
and truths associated with said “hate speech” have no bearing, as is often the
case with marshaled hatreds. It is not
the truth that stirs crowds and gangs – hatred motivates in the vacuum of
ignorance. By increasing ignorance,
certain people fertilize the soil where hatred grows.
All in all, the Prudent observer can conclude that those on the left end of the political spectrum are more involved than are rightists, with hate and accusations of hate. Inevitably, of late, attempts to engage leftists in substantive discussions of (pick one) immigration, education, health care, energy, climate, gender, religion, any of the Bill of Rights, trade, economics, the Constitution, America, Mexico, South America, colonialism, Democrats, Republicans, Trump, Obama, housing or farming, and a few other topics, results in accusations of (pick one) White Supremacy, Nazism, Fascism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, or hatred.
Those on the right, it appears, tend to laugh at much of the above, or shake their heads and lament the poor state of education that enables other Americans to believe the things professed. Conservatives and “traditionalists” are always on the defensive; leftist haters are always the attackers, and have the advantage. To what end?
And, finally, will traditionalists, defenders of the Constitution, propriety and reason, manage to hold back leftist destruction? Will we return to secure borders, for example? Will reality regain sway on college campuses? Will the federal budget ever be cut? Will “public” education be made to include appropriate American history content, reading of books, basic math and writing skills, possibly cursive writing (so that older documents may be read), and the Constitution? Will the subject and science of gender return to reality? Will honor, duty, commitment and personal responsibility return to primacy in interpersonal relationships? Will the administrative, largely hidden and secretive state apparatus be made more open and honest? Will the three branches of the federal government return to their Constitutional bounds and purviews? Will honesty be restored as the operating public and private philosophy? Will e pluribus unum regain its primacy as the true “American Dream?
Prudence attended graduation at a well-known college in Boston’s Fenway section recently. This particular school graduates no chemists, engineers, lawyers or business majors; no biologists, entomologists or astronomers; no materials scientists or agronomists or hydrologists, and no oceanographers.
Their purview is social work, and a healthy dose of “education.” That is, education B.S. degree-recipients who, I think, they hope will teach the next generation along the lines of ultra-liberals who have been taking over education aggressively for the past 75 years. Fortunately, they sometimes fail and a graduate escapes with her (mostly hers and wannabes, there) internal philosophy intact, her understanding of reality clear, and her intense desire to educate young kids, rather than indoctrinate them, ready to run. One such is Prudence’s only reason for attending.
Prudence’s eyes were opened, however, to the existence of this and other nests of socialist vipers, who churn out radical “change agents,” as were frequently referenced in the interminable speeches and last-second directives that made not a single reference to God, although the very last instructress managed to say, “… let the Divine …” which was amorphous enough to get through. That tiny reference was among the last dozen words of last-second directions to the posse of Bachelors and Masters ready to change America.
The otherwise clear, May, day began with breakfast – free food, so to speak, catered in to the College’s Brookline facility. Being observant was revelationary. The professors are constantly professing, we noticed. Tattoos, for example, profess attachment to the odd fascinations running rampant through society where women, sometimes grossly obese versions, have acres of “body art.” It’s a statement of inclusion… or a test. After all, if our campus is one of welcoming and inclusion and non-discrimination for students, then it must be for their instructors, too. See how it works?
There seemed to be a single statement being uttered by a large fraction of both staff and graduates: There is no weirdness on OUR campus – all are welcome. Prudence has no argument with the “welcom(ing)” part. In other words, if you are as different and as unusual as you can make yourself, come, attend our college – we’re just as unusual as you!
Every speech underscored the same concepts of challenging the status quo; the difficulty is, today, that the status quo, having grown fairly weird itself, requires ever more strangeness from those who wish to challenge it. This might explain, in part, the number of strange appearances of students, but it is unnerving to apply the same measure to staff and professors… at least it was to Prudence.
Sexuality is key to both protest and education, it seems. Prudence needn’t describe sexual appearances and apparent expressions as most are indescribable and likely wide of the target. But, unusual male-female iterations are more commonplace on college campuses than elsewhere in the world. Perhaps it’s simply because these are the age groups where “youthful” experimentation is most likely. Shouldn’t some adults guide these wandering – and wondering – children toward the most appropriate paths of action and belief?
Aren’t we intending to create new adults of our culture and social fabric? Or is it our purpose to indulge every strange, interruptive feeling and treat it as if it were as valid as reality? Reality is so restrictive: two genders… huh. Are we kidding? I mean, honestly!
Are there any lines a culture shouldn’t cross? It’s not a trick question. We used to decry drug use and numerous other forms of debasement. Why? Because it makes for a stronger, more nurturing society.
We used to require people to make their own way, no welfare and all the rest. It inadvertently made for stronger people and children. Problem free? Of course not. Too many fell through the “cracks,” as it were. Some level of social support was required for simple fairness TO CHILDREN, and civil kindness to the helpless.
We used to require universal education that reinforced moral lessons, some Biblical, without damaging ANYONE, reinforcing shame for bad actions and strengthening the consciences of individuals… and their basic honesty. These were good, strengthening-of-society kinds of structures. Phenomenally, we have succumbed not to foreign powers but to our own cleverness, talking ourselves out of our heritage, our very culture, and of shame, itself.
We are so smart.
Murder, for example, now has shades of evil, some not so bad as to require equivalent sanction. Indeed, abortion-at-will, deemed “murder” by half of the nation, has amorphous codified status and taxation support! Suicide by drug overdose is a form of murder by drug-pusher, but we, the wealthiest, most sophisticated culture on earth, with more police forces per hectare than any other, has failed steadily for 60 years to clamp down firmly on drug commerce.
Now we are in a race to legalize ever purer and stronger pot despite its risks (there aren’t any, according to pot users) and to arm first responders with Narcan. We’re smarter than we even realized.
The largest “industry” in the United States is welfare of a thousand titles. Statists have found that the philosophies of the most rock-ribbed, self-made American stalwarts can be purchased with enough dependency, as recent “conservative” outcries against threats to Medicare makes clear.
The higher education “industry” is nothing if not opportunistic. With TRILLIONS of dollars flowing from the Federal and state levels, colleges have justified turning out an army of social workers to soak them up. Here and there people in need are truly helped, but the lion’s share of those dollars goes to the army of concerned, compassionate care-workers and, especially, to the army of administrators who make sure they are not wasting any money.
Somewhere, and here and there, are schools, churches and other institutions that respect and promote the concepts of self-reliance, absolute personal responsibility, honor and sublime integrity. They must struggle against an onslaught of socialist control of budgets and information. Is the ultimate success of the ultimate anti-God philosophy certain to overwhelm what made the U. S. great?
That future depends upon the ignorance of a majority of Americans. How smart did you say we are?
The latest issue of the National Geographic has a trans-sexual boy, a de facto girl, on the cover. The balance of the issue explores multiple examples of “trans” children, primarily, and how girls grow up and are often mis-treated (by our standards) around the world. Throughout are stories of the very rare instances of genetic mis-firings that yield unusual development of reproductive organs in humans, animals and insects. A survey is quoted that says “milennials” (in the West and U. S.) see “gender” as a spectrum rather than just male or female. Hmmph.
So there is no misunderstanding, this old stump is decidedly uncomfortable with the publicity afforded sexual incongruity. I don’t like the new rush to normalize exotic behaviors, which has proceeded with such politicized demonization of those not embracing it, as to make declarations of normalcy statements of gross intolerance and even of hate.
We are on the wrong track, it seems to me, to be denigrating and attacking very tolerant Judeo-Christian moral guidance (and institutions) and the essentially Judeo-Christian mores of Western societies and of the United States in particular, while affording equal, if not superior credence to the abject tolerance of non-believers and refuse-to-believe-ers. One group, attempting to adhere to socially-strengthening traditions while having compassion and tolerance for new conditions, desires and loves, is trying to maintain ideals about family, sexuality and moral purity. The other, mostly young, instantly connected and instantly knowledgeable (regardless of reality) is rushing toward license and the intentional destruction of all moral strictures. “It is their right,” some trumpet.
For purposes of the most tawdry and SHORT-LIVED political expediency, sexual oddities have received legal status that not only offends faithful Jews and Christians, but which force “straight” citizens (over 95% of us) to change our habits, practices and even beliefs, if we are to not be labeled “haters” for expressing our own condition! Within this twist of social norms are corrosive, acidic re-definitions of words, and IN-tolerance of normality.
Every Christian expression must be stricken from the public arena, for example. Christian beliefs that are the foundation of law and social norming, may no longer be uttered, EVEN WITHIN CHURCHES in some views, as they are deemed offensive to a tiny, tiny fraction of society who, not needing to have actually heard the scripture that they claim would have offended them, need only to hear that it was heard by others. Instant media sweeps across their non-judging (non-thinking) consciences and yields the “offense” they seem to seek and celebrate.
Perhaps the worst example of the dangers of codifying tolerance is the experience of Aaron and Melissa Klein whose Gresham, Oregon bakery was put out of business by a lesbian couple whose feelings were hurt when the Kleins refused to apply their artistry to a custom wedding cake for the upcoming nuptials of the same-sex couple. They did not refuse to bake a cake, nor to sell them one. On religious grounds they refused to decorate a cake that would assist in glorifying a wedding that contravened their faith.
Immediately the lesbian couple garnered widespread support against the “discrimination” and supposed hatred exhibited by the Kleins toward same-sex weddings and therefore anyone who favored or accepted such ceremonies. Next, they filed a complaint with the State of Oregon , which resulted in a fine of $135,000, payable to the “offended” couple, which was ultimately paid. The Kleins’ business was shuttered very quickly as hatred toward THEM yielded threats, picketing, slanders and public intimidation.
The offenses toward the Kleins, engendered by the “flash-hatred” of social media in favor of all things homosexual, were not defended against by any state laws. Indeed, the state took the side of two people whose feelings were ostensibly hurt, helping them in their campaign of hatred and destruction so as to put the Kleins out of business, and to punish them for refusing to employ their artistic abilities for the benefit of an event that their faith forbade.
In effect, this couple was told that they might live according to their (Christian) faith ONLY inside their home or their church, and that adherence to faith is not legal if one has a business. There are many examples of private citizens suffering severe economic punishment for merely expressing their faith with no related “illegal” actions!
We are in the realm of thought-policing. Free-thinkers (without moral anchor) like to compare everyone with whom they disagree to Hitler. No doubt the Kleins are among those so compared. But, it was Hitler who first imposed rules that faith may be expressed only in church. Delightful company, he.
Homosexuality and other sexual expressions have changed. No news flash there, but what does it mean? In many ways it is a frontal attack on religious belief and expression, but it is also an attack on free enterprise, Constitutional protections and the public covenant. AIDS was its greatest ally.
AIDS was spread almost exclusively from particular sex acts by men. It can infect both genders but it began with men doing unnatural – as in non-evolutionary – sex acts. And it was and is terrible.
Once it was identified and named, teams of researchers began seeking a cure and seeking voluminous funding from governments to expand the fight against AIDS. Within a couple of years AIDS had legal standing, virtually unique among diseases. Special non-discrimination provisions were added to our laws so that sufferers would not be ostracized and suddenly, everyone was feeling sorry for – and accommodating – homosexuals! Gays, queers, trannies, lesbians, dykes and butches were organized in ways and with successes, never achieved before.
It was great news when the first non-gay was infected because now AIDS was “everybody’s” threat and problem. Now, straights and gays were the SAME! No more could gay friends and co-workers coexist through tolerance or ignorance of their differences, now the path was celebration, equality, pin-point anti-discrimination, and marriage! Glory be to politics! Being recognized not for gender but for sexual practice was a new pathway to power, codified, publicized, made equal in education and made equal to religion. Soon it was not equality but dominance that was sought – and here it is.
Homosexuality is not an evolutionary trait. It occurs in nature but by definition cannot procreate and pass on more and more “successful” homosexual genes. Homosexuality, at least until the twentieth century, was never more than a tiny percentage of humanity because it is constantly dying out.
What has happened? Homosexuality has gained a social value, and, therefore, political value and power.
Non-heterosexuality (NHS) is not normal in that it is unable to reproduce, which is to say, it cannot strengthen the gene pool. This is not to say it does not occur. Even some animals display same-sex courtship activity, but whatever motivates such action, it will not “enter” the genetic stream.
This was the case for all of human history until quite recently. We can look back from our new ethical platform and say that it was terrible to treat NHS people so poorly. Today, except for Islam, most social systems have decided to accept NHS at varying degrees of ignore-ance, tolerance or “equality.” Muslims kill homosexuals. They kill lots of other groups they don’t agree with, also, but they are just about the last belief structure that applies torture and death to NHS’s. In most cases, then, homosexuality is now tolerated. In our cloudy enlightenments America and Europe not only tolerate it, we give it “equal” status with heterosexuality. That is, NHS’s can now “marry” some one not of the opposite gender. However, they are not really “equal,” because they have also gained legal protections that restrict only heterosexuals.
Indeed, the diaphanous basis for enacting laws that benefit only NHS people is constitutionally questionable, to say the least.
Lately the battle lines are between the tiny, tiny number of self-identified “trans-gender” NHS people. These are they who claim – and perhaps believe – that their “identity” and their bodies don’t match. For those not suffering the same way this is not only hard to empathize with, it is hard to tolerate in its outward expression. We are adapting, little by little, largely through force of the new political power connected to all things sexually deviant – deviant in the sense that they are not evolutionarily functional, only socially.
“Transsexuals” want to utilize facilities where clothing comes off, based on what they believe about their bodies. Removing one’s clothing is a basic sexual act in western society. It is also a necessity in order to relieve one’s self, bodily, or to bathe or to replace soiled clothing with fresh. For transsexuals, these things cannot be separated. Their perceived “gender” is the determinant of their rights and necessities, evidently with no compartmentalization.
Social norms require that our sexual beings be limited, which is to say, mostly private. We celebrate the events in the creation of families, from marriage to pregnancy to birth and on and on. Families are the keystone to our civilization. They are strengthened by shared restrictions on sexual activity, and destroyed by sexual abandon, debauchery, adultery and so forth. That destruction hurts our children and their upbringing and maturation, things that society – all of us – want to see happen. These norms – and our children – are under assault.
Ultra-feminism has a role in all this, as does liberalism generally, which gains through group identities and group victim-hood. First, feminism has distorted the roles of men and boys. It wants softness, less manliness, sensitivity. It demands that rambunctious boys be corralled and defined by female control.
Feminism has changed ratios of success and achievement in education, business, politics and medicine. At the same time it has equalized sexual abandon and destructive habituation. Most of all it has confused the roles of men and women in the key functions of love, romance, marriage, family and child-rearing. Politics, feminist-driven, has enabled and profits from this demand for both victim-hood and dominance. Manhood is retreating.
Non-heterosexuality is growing socially, not genetically. It has become simultaneously acceptable – celebrated! – and less-threatening to bond with another man or woman than to undergo the rigors and risks of heterosexual courtship and responsibility. Almost like gang initiation and in-group recognition or status, “coming out” removes one from fulfilling roles that accept the burdens and risks of society and family and love of, and sacrifice for, a true spouse. And, we have the full force of government – right down to first grade and earlier – punishing heterosexual expression when it isn’t even sexual.
We bring up children amidst all of this and (feminist-driven and politically protected) unfettered abortion of unwanted babies, and then marvel at their growing reactions as they choose to couple purely for fun, hetero or homo – responsibility be damned.
The arenas in which men fulfill male responsibilities and accept risks are shrinking, even in the military. Every form of sexual aberrance now has “rights” that all institutions in society (religions included, except Islam, apparently) must accommodate, if not promote. The destruction of culture and social strength that is racing to an end we pretend won’t come, is all of our faults. Shame on us and shame on the professions and politicians that enable it, rationalize it, give it classy names and ride the waves of new unfairnesses for their personal gains.
***
One would think that personal feelings could not be a premise for codification. There is no empirical evidence of feelings and as a result, any “law” based upon them cannot be enforced equally for all. A good example might be separation of bathroom and shower facilities based on gender. In keeping with the protection of females from feral males, and with the protection of children from pederasts, restricting access to “boys’ rooms” and “girls’ rooms” has been one of the most fundamental and successful social norms since civilization got organized… and crowded.
Indeed, as mass communications became increasingly sexualized in both words and images, and with heightened mingling of young men and women in schools, jobs and elsewhere, the removal of clothing became more and more of a point of risk for unwanted sexual contact with people unrelated to one’s family, and unknown in proclivities. The segregation of bathroom facilities – and other places of disrobing, even partially – is increasingly important, not less.
The fears of individuals – particularly females – about being assaulted in places of compromise or of temptation, are valid. The rights of those offended or just unnerved by the presence of someone other than one’s own gender, are equally valid, and codified in law! But, somehow, such laws are being over-ridden in the interest of… what? Celebration of mental incongruities.
The syndromes, or popularly-honored sexualities that have been named by psychiatrists as if to impart patinas of reality, are little more than mental distortions. This is not to say they aren’t deeply felt and troubling for those who feel them. They don’t derive from the wrong number of genes; these people are not genetic oddities. They are odd in habit and have, they claim, deep feelings. For whatever emotional, mental reasons these are feelings that express through sexuality and deserve, I think, sympathy.
It is impossible for heterosexuals to empathize with someone who feels like his or her gender is a mistake. But, we should be kind; we should be completely civil; we should not denigrate or mock or chastise that person. He or she is human and deserves to exercise inherent human rights.
A proper question is whether we are being kind when we facilitate self-mutilation in a most fallible attempt to re-order the flesh to please the mind. Suicide rates would argue the negative.
What is the legal status of a gay or lesbian person who elects – chooses – to live a straight life. It happens all the time. People who have lived “straight” for even decades, decide to “go gay” at some point. That happens, too. In BOTH instances, the change is not genetic, it’s self-declared. Yet when he or she has decided to be gay or lesbian, he or she is protected by unusually strict anti-discrimination laws… laws so severe that “straight” people accused of such discrimination can be ruined socially and financially with the aid of government police powers. That is, when straight they are at great risk for persecution under laws that apply only to heterosexuals. Is there no definition under the 14th amendment?
As we move farther and farther away from the fundamental rights protected (ostensibly) by the Constitution, we get mired in the soft police-statism of creating rights that may only be enjoyed by taking rights away from others! To paraphrase a great mind’s observation: “The road to fascism is paved with good intentions.”
