Grumpy Thoughts, 4th Edition

• I happen to think it's bad when a Republican politician assaults a reporter. I also happen to think it's bad when leftwing activists respond to the imminent speech of a controversial guest by breaking windows, lighting fires, and bashing potential attendees with bike locks. Unfortunately, there are a shockingly high number of people out there who seem incapable of holding both thoughts in their heads simultaneously. It's not okay to hit people you don't like unless they hit you first. And no, words are not violence and not grounds for a beating. Jesus H. Christ!
• Just in case I haven't made it clear before, I think the whole concept of "cultural appropriation" is bullshit. Like many leftwing enthusiasms (see my previous post), it posits a zero-sum game where one does not exist. If I use African mythology in one of my stories, that doesn't stop an African writer from doing the same. If I decide to open a Mexican restaurant, that doesn't mean a Mexican can't open his own. In neither scenario have I actually "stolen" anything; in a free market economy, the African or the Mexican are still 100% free to sell the products of their own cultures and reap the benefits even if I too am competing in that market. On the other hand, if we seal off each individual ethnicity in its own hermetic bubble, Africans and Mexicans will lose customers and, consequently, needed profits -- which will surely make things worse, not better, for those minority groups. How do I know this? Well, when was the last time you've heard of a fully segregated, supposedly "self-sufficient" community becoming wealthy and enjoying a first-world standard of living?
• The people who insist that traditional math is racist and/or sexist are making this female math teacher scream -- and aren't helping. Seriously, they aren't. Math is the language of science, and science is the reason we have airplanes, dishwashers, antibiotics, and every other modern-day convenience that has granted us more free time and longer, healthier lives. Do you really want to lock minorities and women out of STEM and the possibly lucrative careers therein? Because if you stick members of "disadvantaged" groups in mathematics courses that waste time on social justice politics, you will render them unable to study science for the rest of their lives. Want true racial and gender equality? Teach the tables, not critical theory. (Please, please, please teach the tables. I'm begging you. If you don't, only rich kids with tutors and/or extremely competitive parents will learn them.)
• Lastly, a general note to the left: Your double standards suck, and frankly, a lot of people are tired of abiding by them. If you don't police your own people and quit that shit, more and more folks on the right are going to start punching back. Trust me: I know people who are itching for an excuse to start crunching "commie skulls." Don't give it to them; you won't like the result.