Three Miscellaneous Stories: Abortion, Northam's Yearbook, & Amelie Zhao

Let's launch this weekly post with some guest commentary from my BF regarding the proposed changes to Virginia's abortion laws (which fortunately failed to pass):

"Yes, Abortion is Murder. Thank You for Admitting as Much.

"First off, the disclaimer: This post is not about the abortion law in New York. I have yet to read the thing. No, this is a post about the law recently proposed in Virginia by Democrat Kathy Tran. (Ed. As it turns out, the New York law is even more extreme. And the celebration of its passage was absolutely vomit-inducing.) This, as we shall see, is proof that not only have supporters of abortion rights been lying to us since the days when states made their own rules about abortions, but this never was about a 'right to privacy,' it was never about 'healthcare,' and it was never about 'regulating women's bodies.' No, the argument in support of abortion rights is, and always has been, about avoiding responsibility. It is murder with the intent to remove an economic and physical requirement for raising another human being.

"Virginia governor Ralph Northam has stated that the bill would allow abortions while a woman was in labor and dilating. (Ed. Actually, Tran said this under questioning. Not that Northam's defense of the bill was any less reprehensible.) Here's the thing: There is no difference in the effect on a woman's body between delivering and aborting a baby at that point. Seriously. None.

"I'm not ignorant of the possible negative effects of pregnancy. I am aware that it hasn't been all that long since death due to complications of childbirth was the most common cause of death for women in this country. In my personal life, I watched my ex-wife (we were married at the time) hospitalized for pre-eclampsia after the birth of my daughter Cecilia. I saw how panicked the doctor was when she resisted getting treatment. I know what's at stake here.

"But when you're talking about aborting a viable baby at the point of birth you're not talking about healthcare. It would have done my ex no good if they had murdered my daughter before delivering her. The effects on her body would have been precisely the same. No, what you're talking about is a blatant dodge of parental responsibility.

"Barack Obama said it best: 'If one of my daughters made a mistake, I wouldn't want them punished with a baby.'

"He wasn't speaking of the cost to his daughters and their bodies. He wasn't talking about their health. He was talking about them avoiding the consequences of their actions.

"And that's what this really is. There is no difference between killing a child whose mother is in the process of delivering them and leaving that same child in a plastic bag in the hospital dumpster a day later. None.

"Here's my other favorite argument in favor of abortion:

"'Well, if I have my child, you don't want to give me welfare to raise it, or pay for its college, or..'

"And the other variant: 'It's cheaper for society to pay for an abortion than it is to pay for welfare to raise the child.'

"Once again, what you're talking about is not healthcare. They're not referencing a woman's right to her own body. They're talking about how they shouldn't have to pay for their own offspring and shouldn't be forced to raise the kids they created. That's what this really is.

"Under these circumstances, there is no difference between a mother getting an abortion and Rae Carruth's murder of his pregnant girlfriend. He killed her because he didn't want to pay child support. That is what these women are doing. They're murdering people over money. The fact that they're willing to abort children at the point of birth proves it. They've already carried the child to term. The incisions necessary to abort a child and perform a C-section are identical. The effect on the woman's body is identical.

"Are there reasons for a woman to avoid birth other than economic? Sure. I know a woman (who shall remain nameless) who is white. She was married to a white man. She got a black boyfriend and got pregnant with his child. There was not going to be a way to hide the fact that it was not her husband's child. She sought an abortion because she didn't want her husband to know what she had done. Ultimately, she did the right thing and had the child. I'm proud of her for doing the right thing and walking out of the clinic under the effects of the drugs they had given her before they were going to give her anesthesia.  For the record, she had a ride home. Someone had gone with her. That's a good thing too.

"The point of telling that story, though, is this: She was still trying to avoid the consequences of her actions. She knew what would happen if her husband found out she had been cheating. She did it anyway and then thought to hide evidence. Mob bosses order the murder of witnesses to crimes all the time. There is no difference.

"So honestly, thank you, abortion advocates. Now that you have openly admitted that abortion is about neither healthcare or a woman's right to her own body, we can have an open and honest discussion in this country. We can finally talk about the truth: It's all about the money, baby. It's all about a life free from consequences. Abortion isn't about Women's Rights or healthcare. It's about murdering children because they cost too much. Thank you for finally revealing your true though processes. You've been very helpful.

"And know this: There are those of who are not surprised by this. We always knew what it was about. And understand what I am about to tell you:

"I am the implacable enemy of all abortion advocates. I am the implacable enemy of all who commit abortions. I see your murders for what they are. I do not seek compromise or consensus. I seek the abolition of legalized murder in the United States. And no, I'm not interested in helping women who would get illegal abortions avoid the consequences of their actions either.  Stop murdering people. And stop lying about your motivations. We're not dumb enough to believe you." - Jim

(Ed. And to those who object to the sentiments above and insist that the proposed changes to Virginia's laws wouldn't allow abortion on demand at any time for any reason, changing the language from "the continuation of the pregnancy is likely to result in the death of the woman or substantially and irredeemably impair the mental or physical health of the woman" to "likely to result in the death of the woman or impair the mental or physical health of the woman" leaves the door wide open for just that very thing. Removing "substantially and irredeemably" means just about anything can justify even a third trimester abortion so long as one doctor - ONE - agrees to sign off on the procedure. If this had passed, it would've definitely been abused by the unscrupulous.)

*****

Now Let's Talk About Governor Northam's Yearbook Photo

I actually don't believe in torching a political career over an offensive photo taken more than thirty years ago. I hate this Culture of No Forgiveness - birthed by the Twitter Mob - in which all violators of the new social mores receive the same brutal punishment with no sense of proportion, no statute of limitations, and no possibility for parole (so to speak). I hate it, first of all, because I'm Christian and therefore believe everyone should be provided an avenue to redemption. But I also hate it because it flies in the face of our entire legal tradition. Does it make sense to give petty thieves and grand larcenists the same sentences? No? Then the guy who once, decades ago, stupidly donned blackface or a Klan hood to be edgy shouldn't be treated the same as the guy who's consistently expressed racist sentiments over many years up to and including the present day. In the former case, an apology is sufficient penance.

Of course, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Northam -- especially since he's now walking back his apology and denying that he's actually in that photo. And given that he's embraced the rhetoric of SJW "anti-racist" activism in the past, I must admit to enjoying a little schadenfreude watching him suffer the consequences of his own ideas. Definitely a banner story for Glenn Reynolds' "Annals of Leftwing Autophagy"!

*****

Meanwhile, in the World of Publishing...

… we have the unfortunate story of Amelie Zhao, who pulled her debut YA fantasy novel from her publisher's schedule after she was attacked by SJW's for her supposed "anti-black racism".

Obviously, I have not read Zhao's book - I'm not one of those YA "influencers" who gets access to ARC's - but based on her own explanations, it sounds like her intention was to portray slavery in Asia, not the Americas. No matter: the totalitarians went after her anyway because she didn't tackle slavery the "right" way.

According to the SJW Mean Girls, you see, a YA author should look like she stepped out of an advertisement for the United Colors of Benetton -- but she must think like everyone else. No going off the script. No bucking the strictures of the industry's "sensitivity" hucksters. No going out on a limb to tell an honest story that hasn't been filtered through dozens of political sieves until it has all the flavor of purified water. You will write the one novel the provincial radical left wants you to write or you will be declared one of the untermenschen.

Obviously, this whole affair pisses me off. As a matter of fact, Larry Correia's characteristically pungent post on the subject captures my feelings precisely. How dare these witches bully this poor author into abandoning her dream -- and how dare they keep this book from the rest of us! I say we let the publisher know that we won't stand for this censorship-through-intimidation. The pre-order page for Zhao's book is still up; go and make her a best-seller.

More School Board Nonsense

I'm not going to let go of this -- because it really pisses me off.

I've worked with the students of Prince William County for the past decade as an after-school tutor; thus, I've seen with my own eyes where our tax money is not being spent. How can we call our schools "World Class" when my kids* are being assigned to chilly overflow trailers and are walking around with water-damaged, crumbling textbooks (if they're lucky)? How can we call our schools "World Class" when, relative to surrounding counties, we are chronically underpaying our teachers? How can we call ourselves "World Class" when, again relative to surrounding counties, we are under-performing on state and national exams? Except for a few struggling pockets, we are not a poor county; on the contrary, we are one of the richest counties in the nation. Our median household income is over $90,000 -- so, where, exactly, are we spending the fruits of our affluence? What's on the school board's priority list?

Well, I've just discovered what my school board representative considers to be critically important: diversity training. Yep: The witch who threatened the teachers of Godwin Middle School last week has put a proposal on the April 20 agenda for a multiple-day diversity training program that may cost our school district more than $2 million to implement. Now, to be fair, the proposal in question also offers one substantially cheaper alternative. But I ask you: Why should we spend any money on such a program? Where is the evidence that diversity training will improve how our teachers deliver instruction to our students?

I'll tell you: There's no evidence at all. Actually, the evidence that does exist suggests that diversity programs usually make things worse. Consider, for example, the university campus. If diversity programs actually worked as intended, the land of diversity offices and hectoring freshman orientation programs on social justice would be a utopian exemplar of tolerance and brotherhood. In reality, what we've seen is intensified disharmony and unrest. No: Training people to be hyper-aware of race/ethnicity/sexuality/class/etc. makes members of the majority angry and defensive and members of our various minority groups self-righteous, bellicose, and emotionally fragile. This is not a recipe for success - or peace - for anyone involved.

If the events of recent days have taught me anything, it's that any program approved by Diane Raulston will almost certainly conform to the Marxist crap-show that is currently running our college system into the ground. I want no part of that. I want my tax dollars spent in the classroom, not on Raulston's pet boondoggle. If I didn't work on Wednesday nights, I'd be stating that in person at the April 20 meeting; instead, I'll be looking for some willing local to read my letter into the record.  

(*Okay, they're not biologically mine, but I do feel responsible for them.)

This Week's Gallery of the Absurd

Ideology is a killer -- of flesh-and-blood people, yes, but also of critical thinking, civility, and honesty. Since last Wednesday, proof of this basic truth has accumulated apace.

Let's start first with the reaction to Dragon Con's press release regarding the Dragon Awards. I'm going to be optimistic here and guess that the silent majority is either neutral or positively inclined towards this development -- but it just wouldn't be fandom if there weren't a few obnoxious social justice warriors out there running their mouths and revealing exactly how ill-informed they are about DC and Southeast fandom in general.

I've attended DC annually since 2004 -- and from 2007 to 2015, I was also a member of its staff. Therefore, I'm in a good position to debunk a lot of this nonsense. So guys? DC is enormous. Over the past decade or so, it has expanded from two host hotels to five, and it now offers programming in almost forty different programming tracks, each staffed by its own director and six or more flunkies (on average). Additionally, it runs its own in-house news organ, takes over each host hotel's closed-circuit station for televised programming, and also requires a huge volunteer pool to run registration, Tech Ops, Sec Ops, disability services, VIP services, etc.

The result? DC is incredibly diverse. At one end of the con, you can see a burlesque show; at the other, you can visit a table run by Fans for Christ. At one end of the con, the Skeptics Track is questioning the credibility of supposed UFO sightings; at the other, the X-Track takes UFO sightings seriously. This is a con that accommodates LGBT and Christian groups under the same tent; thus, the very idea that one particular group of fans could dictate to DC what it can and can't do is absolutely ludicrous. Case in point:  Last year, my director (a Puppy-leaning neutral) wanted to host a discussion panel about the Hugos and the Puppies -- but was shot down by other staff members, who begged her not to step into that hornet's nest. Nope: DC is studied in its neutrality -- and that's precisely why I enjoy it.

Oh, and for those out there claiming that DC must be a "backwards hillbilly con" because it's held in Georgia: I dare you to experience DC after dark and then say that again. You are letting your anti-Southerner bigotry show, and it's not becoming.

*****

Meanwhile, on Facebook, people are once again claiming that political correctness is all about "politeness." Hah! Don't make me laugh. What's polite about hounding people out of their jobs? What's polite about storming into a school library and disrupting other students' study time? What's polite about blocking traffic at a town's sole entry point and potentially preventing access to a regional hospital? What's polite about rioting and burning down local businesses because a judicial proceeding didn't go your way? If the news stories of the past year - and my own experiences - have taught me anything, it's that the politically correct are perhaps the rudest people in existence.

*****

Speaking of the rudeness of the left, a local story came across my desk this weekend that sadly unearthed a tyrannical SJW here in my own back yard.

Earlier this year, a controversy erupted over the naming of a brand new elementary school. One group was pushing for the school to be named after a local firefighter who died in the line of duty a few years ago; another group was pushing for the school to be named for a local philanthropist. The trouble? The firefighter was white and the philanthropist is black -- and while the neighborhood impacted favored the firefighter, according to the leftist members of our school board, "it's high time we name a school after an African American."

OK -- fair enough. I actually don't object to that idea. Indeed, it should be pretty easy to accommodate both of the factions in play. A number of our schools - particularly out in the western half of our county - are over-crowded and overflowing into makeshift trailers, so the chances that more new schools will be built in the near future approach one. The firefighter and the philanthropist can both get their own schools with minimum fuss.

But nope: This logical solution completely escaped our school board, who decided last month in a zero-hour "compromise" to name the new elementary school for the firefighter and rename an existing decades-old middle school in my district for the philanthropist. The reasoning provided? The middle school's original namesake was a part of the "massive resistance" movement in Virginia that erupted in response to federal orders to desegregate the public schools.

Le sigh. Okay, I'm not going to defend Mills Godwin's early viewpoint on segregation. He was 100% in the wrong, and the damage the "massive resistance" movement wrought was real and heartbreaking. But the man's story doesn't end there. Godwin did not stick with the racist Byrd machine forever; in fact, he redirected his loyalties and ultimately became the Virginia governor who established our community college system, an achievement that has arguably helped low-income and minority students access higher education in the decades since.

I've mentioned this before, but I mislike this new zeal to scrub all the dirt off our history in the name of "racial sensitivity." I mislike it precisely because it ignores nuance and context. Let's be real here: Racism was so overwhelmingly common in Virginia before our current era that just about any Virginian politician who lived before, say, 1960, probably harbored what we would consider to be horribly offensive racial sentiments. So where, exactly, is this crusade going to stop?  It may feel oh so good to sandblast these folks off our buildings and monuments, but it is also profoundly ahistorical and, dare I say it, unjust. Historical Virginians did not see the world through our eyes; thus, it's unfair to declare them unpersons because they failed to align with our viewpoints. Recognizing that people like Godwin were disastrously mistaken on one issue does not require that we utterly erase whatever good they did from the narrative. People are just not that simple.

Now let's fast-forward: At last week's school board meeting, the middle school's renaming was challenged by a few sympathetic members of the school board at the request of locals who share my apprehension and teachers at the school in question. The teachers in particular rightly feel that the school board has ignored their true needs, and they stepped forward to question whether money should be spent to change their school's name when the students in their community - many of whom are poor and do not speak English as a native language - desperately need more SPED teachers, more ESL teachers, more classroom space, and fresh curricular materials. All they did, in other words, was advocate for our county's most vulnerable pupils -- but in response, my own school board representative threatened their jobs.

Yes, you heard me correctly: After the period for citizen comment, this supposed "educator" told the aforementioned dissenting teachers that she'd be "watching them" for the next three years because, in her ideologically addled mind, they're clearly not qualified to teach "students of color." What the blue bloody hell? These teachers never said that Godwin was right about segregation -- nor did they opine that a school should not be named for a black man. They were simply trying to point out their difficult day-to-day reality -- and for their trouble, they now have to watch their backs?

This is lunacy. I don't care how you feel about Godwin's name; attempting to intimidate your opponents into silence is neither professional nor right. But it is, of course, what the aspiring fascists of the social justice left want to do to all of us who fail to parrot their radical creed.