Bored by Politics

(I'm swapping the political post with the geeky post this week, as I'm still working on reading one of the books getting the next set of recommendations ready.)

So: politics. Ugh. Is anyone else just really freakin' bored by it all?

I care a great deal about preserving our liberty. I want to keep my gun, practice my religion, and speak my mind without interference from tyrannical busybodies -- and I want all of you to have those freedoms too.

Further, as you may have noticed, I am also vexed by trends that threaten the integrity of artistic expression. I really, really hate that certain factions are demanding our entertainment be thoroughly predictable and/or anodyne. Fahrenheit 451 was a warning, not an instruction manual.

And yes: I see many problems in the world right now that require thoughtful, evidence-based solutions.

But the day-to-day news cycle? The impeachment theater? The clown college debates? Here, I have lost the ability to care. None of it, in my view, is serious. It's all shit-stirring and mugging for the camera -- and to be quite frank, I just don't feel like talking about any of it.

In the future, I'll try to post lengthier reflective essays on larger trends and my own principles -- but don't be surprised if I post something geeky on a "political" day instead. Because honestly? My field of fucks is barren.

America Is Not an Address

You are "American" in a legal sense if you were born here. You are also "American" in a legal sense if you've moved here from elsewhere and have become a citizen. But having a permanent residence within our borders is not what makes you truly American in a spiritual, philosophical sense. That requires acculturation -- the installation of a certain mental software.

Every nation has its own software. Occasionally, countries with common ancestors will share lines - even large chunks - of code, but even movement between cousins requires a long period of adjustment.

I live in a community of immigrants. 90% of my clients are immigrants. My bosses are both immigrants. Many of my friends and acquaintances are immigrants. Even those who've moved here from Western Europe - our cultural origin point - say they had to download a few new programs to assimilate.

Okay, enough with the tortured metaphor. My point here is that an American identity has to be cultivated. It can't just be assumed based on your physical location. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we'll actually get immigration right.

So what, precisely, is an American identity? Well, there's room for some debate on that subject, but in my opinion, there are a few things that are absolutely non-negotiable:

First of all, you must be broadly liberal. You must have faith that we can solve our problems through discourse and cooperation, not through force. This means accepting our institutional embrace of free speech, free markets, due process, the rule of law, and the like.

Second, you must be willing to work on setting old tribal animosities aside in order to, shall we say, get shit done. I'm not suggesting, of course, that America's own history in this regard is without blemish. Far from it. But we've traveled a generally upward trajectory ever since we declared the universality of human nature at our moment of becoming. You have to be willing to accompany us on this journey.

And speaking of the universality of human nature, you must also agree that all people have natural rights to their life, liberty and property. Read the Declaration of Independence. Read the Bill of Rights. Read them, love them, and live them.

There are people among us right now who reject some or all of these requirements -- including the members of the so-called "Squad" who've recently been the target of the president's ire. These young ladies (I think they're all younger than I, so "young ladies" it is) are "American" due to a technicality. Yes, it's stupid to tell them to go back to their own countries -- but given their ideological commitments, it's absolutely not out of bounds to question their Americanism. I insist on my right - on everyone's right - to do so loudly and repeatedly.

You can't be American if you hate everything we are.

Politics First. Then MCU.

(Feel free to scroll down to the bottom to skip the politics if you prefer!)

My Moral Foundations

Interesting. I outpace the average left-liberal on care and fairness and the average conservative on purity. I bet leftists would be surprised to hear the former after hearing some of my policy positions! But of course, being super-concerned about care and fairness does not mean I must adopt the left's prescriptions for social welfare and the like.

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The Elephant in the Room: The Current Abortion Debate

What I'm about to say here is probably going to make nobody happy, but what the hell:

I believe the only bright line between random cells and a unique human life is conception. Any other line we try to draw will have no scientific basis and, even more importantly, will introduce problematic philosophical propositions that will inevitably lead to the devaluing of other inconvenient persons if allowed to run to their logical conclusions.

I say this because I believe that's what the facts show -- not because I want to "control women's bodies." God, I hate that argument. As Dennis Prager has correctly pointed out, the pro-life movement as a whole is not telling women they can't drink or get tattoos or go bungie jumping -- all activities that involve the exercising of bodily autonomy. Hell, we're not even trying to legally control with whom you have sex -- though most of us would strongly encourage you to make that choice wisely and only once. We just believe the calculus changes once another human life is at stake. To put it simply, we just don't want babies to be killed for convenience's sake. That's it.

We understand there are hard cases, and we're willing to discuss those, but the hard cases are not what drives abortion demand. Irresponsibility is what does. Sorry: I know this is a harsh truth that our free-wheeling, "sexually liberated" society doesn't want to hear, but if you don't want a kid, the proper time to make that choice is before you have sex. It's gross to demand a right to kill another human being just to duck the consequences of your ill-considered actions.

As hard-line as I am on this issue, though, I'm still a political pragmatist -- and that's why I think the recently-passed Alabama law is a mistake at this time. As much as I agree with its moral underpinnings, our society is simply not ready for a near-total ban. We've been living by the codes of the sexual revolution for too long and need an extensive re-evangelization first.

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On the College Board's Proposed "Adversity Score"

As an SAT tutor, I obviously must comment on this bit of news. And upon reflection, I think I would be okay with such a metric under the following conditions:

First, immutable characteristics like gender and race must not be factored into such a score. The focus should be on economic disadvantage only.

Secondly, the adversity score should not be used with the SAT. Why? Because I don't want students to be admitted to university under lower standards for any reason. I think that sort of affirmative action results in mismatch and sets kids up to fail. Instead, the better course would be to use the adversity score with the PSAT 8/9 to identify younger disadvantaged students for talent development programs. That way, we can spend four or five years building up the academic foundations of these students so they can meet the same high standards demanded of their more advantaged peers.

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More Comments from Dad

BLUF - JUST SAY NO -- this time I have several short observations to share.

Please read to the end. I have a different BLATE at the end but it is an IMPORTANT NEW CONSERVATIVE thought to get to and to understand.

FIRST:

TRUMP is right to JUST SAY NO to complying with any further Democrat/Socialist/Communist harassment via hearings that are only to further media time from their propaganda arm (most mainstream TV and print media).

A blogger/author whom I admire says when the forces of evil (Democrat/Socialist) say or do something stupid - point it out and laugh at them. TRUMP's Twitter use is among the best efforts to point out the excesses and stupidity of his disloyal opposition. I and most people who are not brainwashed by media bias or our stupid party (Country Club Republicans) caterwauling about appropriate conduct (writers who never seem to notice or comment on Democrat/Communist inappropriate conduct) see through the stupidity. TRUMP fights back, and more power to him. If the Communist/Democrat controlled House ever comes up with a legitimate request for information, they won't need subpoena. TRUMP will deliver the legitimate info promptly.

Read more at Dad's new blog...

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Now Back to Squeeing Over the MCU

My brother and I aired a 90-minute ramble on Endgame and the MCU as a whole the other day (and yes, as the title indicates, there are spoilers):



More commentary on this conversation and other aspects of the MCU below the jump (because there may be spoilers here too):

Guest Posts from Dad

I'm currently mainlining the MCU in preparation for Endgame (which I'm planning to see late Tuesday night), so here is Dad again:

How to Get Married the RIGHT Way

This is a little late for a response to Sarah's blog on marriage. But I want to explain how my 40 year marriage is a different and more old-fashioned type of marriage.

As I figured out I probably wouldn't get thrown out of USNA (for Aptitude and Conduct, not grades) I decided I wanted a life partner to join me for the rest of my life after USNA.

In parallel, but not related, USNA integrated women into the Brigade. I was in charge of the Drama Club ticket office (back in the day Heinlein was a member) and wanted a girl to help answer the phone to show we were gender integrated. A plebette (probably bad that we called them that) was looking to help behind the scenes (she was, and still is, a talented costumer), so I asked her if she could help with the ticket office until costumes arrived. She said yes. We worked closely selling tickets for the first show (Caine Mutiny Court Martial), and as we spent several hours each afternoon answering the phone and filling mailed-in orders, I eventually realized she was a pearl of great price.

After a couple of months, I said "I think I love you" and gave her a quick, friendly kiss on the end of the nose. It worked because she returned a brief, but real lip kiss. Of course, any familiar relationship between a plebette and a Senior was very VERBOTEN. So we had to keep our feeling secret for the rest of the year. We spent time together on breaks and the occasional weekend day at her great aunt's home in Annapolis. She resigned after second semester ended (her calling was Fashion Design, so it wasn't a good fit for USNA). We came out of the closet for graduation week, got engaged that Christmas and the rest is history.

That long history is because "THE PAST IS PROLOGUE."

I decided I wanted a life partner, not just a sex partner, and in parallel, I wanted to show that the ticket office was gender integrated.

Our relationship progressed from working together, to friendship, to affection for a nice woman, to some romance at infrequent intervals (due to USNA rules and the pressures of the education and military training requirements), to courting (again long distance as I went to initial Nuclear Power training and Char went back to the U of Utah for a year and planned an August wedding).

That Christmas was the first on which I didn't go home; instead I went to SLC and got engaged. She came out to NY State to visit me during her spring break, but I didn't get to travel until after Nuclear Prototype training was done in early August. And this was before internet; we wrote snail mail daily and talked on the phone for hours once a week.

BOTTOM LINE AT THE END:

We were both not looking for a sex partner, but a life partner. We met, grew close as friends, developed a romance, made a commitment to "cleave to each other, forsaking all others", got married, then had our children. This is the old-fashioned way and our relationship is infinitely stronger than if we had met and moved in together.

Being a horny (but poor) sailor, once we were married we did enjoy a deep intimate relationship. Ad OBTW, I married a saint who knew she was marrying a Sailor with all that entails, but stuck with me anyway. I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL.

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On the Trump Train for 2020

I AM COMPLETELY HAPPY WITH PRESTDENT TRUMP'S PERFORMANCE DURING HIS FIRST TWO YEARS. I'd give him a second term in a heartbeat.

In the November 2016 election there were only 2 real candidates -- Trump and Clinton. A long time ago, Heinlein said, "Hold your nose and vote for the least bad candidate."

Clinton was personally and politically corrupt, unlikeable on a personal level as told by subordinates who worked for her, and was running on "4 more years of failed Socialism, but with a woman this time." Few specific new ideas.

Trump ran on the idea of reducing the Federal bureaucracy, both in people and regulations, making our partners in diplomacy pay a share of the costs of promoting Capitalism, staunch support for Democratic allies in the mid-east (now ONLY Israel), economic hard ball with China, military straight shooting with North Korea.

Compare the two. Clinton was thin gruel; Trump was a complete Federal Republic and Capitalist feast. The choice was easy.

After the first 2 years, despite a continuous quiet coup attempt by the deep state holdovers from the previous administration and the Democratic Party; and the quiet obstruction FROM "HIS OWN" PARTY, has accomplished much.

Leadership in Capitalist economic policy - removing some of the burdens of the administrative state, reducing taxes to RAISE TAX RECEIPTS to the government (a growing economy will do that) (and more $$$$ in my pocket); a firm line with China that has modified their behavior toward us; a strong hand towards North Korea that has caused the first signs of movement in 60 years; and many in the EEC recognizing change was coming and starting to move their ponderous state in the right direction.

If Trump wasn't reflexively opposed by the Democratic Party (still smarting over their humiliating loss from running an unlikeable harridan against an unapologetic Capitalist), a substantial minority of the Republican Stupid Party (still smarting over their primary losses to a complete, non-political newcomer - who was a Capitalist Businessman); and the hold-over deep state actively working against him, he could have accomplished much more. I don't care that he is a rude, vulgar, cis-normal male and rich enough to buy lots of stuff - including cheap women willing to sell sexual favors for cash.

I voted for him to return my country back to a Limited Government, Federal Republic based on the ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence, and organized to limit the power of the Federal Government by our Constitution. He should be, and is, providing leadership in the areas of Economic Policy, Foreign Relations with our allies AND enemies, and "Supporting and Defending the Constitution of the United States, and the Country Whose Course It Directs.**"

Trump is doing a good job were it counts.

(**From my Naval Officer's Oath on promotion)

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Biden's Lies on Charlottesville

I am reluctant to re-raise this series of events, but when a Democratic Presidential front-runner present a FALSE account of events, I have to relate the complete, unvarnished story has never been told in major media.

Over two years ago, an extremist fringe ultra-far right wing group went through all the admin paperwork drill to stage a march to demonstrate their opposition to the removal of monuments to historic leaders who are now known to be on the wrong side of righteousness, and therefore history.

Their march was to serve two purposes: FIRST - to show that the monuments, taken in the context of history, provide a valuable lesson on questioning the majority position on an idea; and SECOND - to goad the liberal left into a violent response.

A right wing thought leader has proposed when we hear about one of these marches we should gather as they march by; and point and laugh at them. They don't represent us, but do have a right to make fools of themselves.

The first goal was lost in the noise, at least partially because media didn't want to tell that part. The second goal worked too well. Violent radical left counter-protesters tried to disrupt the march, which was properly authorized by the administrative state and allowed by the FIRST AMENDMENT, using clubs and fists. An unstable and angry ultra-right wing fringe member drove through the crowd of violent counter protesters and killed one. For which he was tried and convicted of murder. (Good!)

But in the following two years there has been NO mention of the pre-planned violent, ultra-left wing (wish it was fringe but now see it as not) counter protest to prevent the FIRST AMENDMENT guaranteed ability to petition their local Government to address their grievances over plans to remove monuments to historical figures. WHY? I suspect it doesn't fit the meme that the right wing was the only violent group.

Bottom Line at the End (BLATE) - We need to JUST SAY NO when media bury an important part of the story and ensure the real, full story is told.

JUST SAY IT early and often - The LEFT WING are more likely to be the violent fringe today (at least in the U.S.), and until they see adverse consequences for their actions they will continue to grow more violent and disruptive to a civil society.

Dad Again: No Collusion!

I'm a Trump skeptic - and initially, Dad was too - but I think he's right here. Being a petty dick is sub-optimal in a national leader, but it's not grounds for impeachment. In the formulation of Richard C. Meyer, we need to MoveOn.org and get down to the business of working out rational solutions to our very real problems.

In keeping with the blog philosophy of the late, great Jerry Pounelle, I don't intend to try and comment on breaking news, but...

THE MUELLER REPORT RESULTS and what they really said...

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: There was no collusion. There was no attempt to obstruct justice.

FIRST: There was no evidence of collusion between Trump, or any member of his election team, and the Russian government or state actors (or any foreign actors). What does this mean? There was no underlying criminal offense by Trump or his team. There WAS, and still is, an underlying criminal offense by high- and medium-level employees of the executive branch that were holdovers from the previous administration. The Trump Administration should have fired all of them on January 20, 2017. A bent trash can would serve better than people actively conspiring for years before, during, and after Trump clearly and cleanly won the Presidential election by winning THE MAJORITY OF VOTING CITIZENS IN THE MAJORITY OF THE FIFTY STATES. (I state it that way because that is what the Electoral College is supposed to do, and I personally don't trust California vote counting. How many non-citizens voted in California?)

SECOND: Mueller did not recommend prosecution of Trump for obstruction of justice. What does this mean? Mueller was, and is, a Democratic apparatchik. The best he could do was toss the turd back to the Democratic-controlled house for them to spin the report and use it for propaganda. There will NEVER be an impeachment. But the Democratic/Socialist party and their propaganda arm will beat the dead horse for years.

I personally like that Trump is thin skinned and hits back. He hated that the deep state was working against him and making up shit. He wanted them fired, and publicly said so. But it wasn't to "obstruct justice" because he knew there was no underlying crime, just a Democratic witch hunt -- and now we all know that too.

Repeating THE BOTTOM LINE: There never was any evidence of collusion; it was all a lie perpetuated by the media and Democratic operatives. There was no obstruction of justice; that was and remains a desperate lie by the media and Democratic operatives working to undermine the Trump Administration, both in and outside congress. HILLARY LOST FAIR AND SQUARE BECAUSE SHE WAS, AND REMAINS, AN UNLIKABLE CANDIDATE who ran on "HATE TRUMP and 4 more years of Obama". JUST IGNORE THE BRAYING OF THE DEMOCRATS AND MEDIA AND ENJOY TH REBIRTH OF A CONSTITUTIONALLY LIMITED FEDERAL REPUBLIC UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF A LEGALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT.

And in the spirit of this message, I'm going to exercise my rights as editor and append a video by the always-cogent Matt Christiansen:

Dad's Corner: JUST SAY NO (Again)

I was pretty busy this week, so I'm going to allow my father to take the floor today.

Liberals would like to move my country away from a Federal Republic of the Several States organized as a limited government and into a pure "Democracy" where the enlightened majority of "right thinking" people will set the laws for all of us.

I DISAGREE.

Changing the Constitution is a non-starter, as too many states would be effectively disenfranchised by the large, liberal states like New York and California and their foolhardy policies that are already wrecking their state's economies and causing smart people to flee. Let's NOT make those policies national so we can wreck the whole country's economy and so there is no where to flee to.

Too many of the smaller states would NEVER approve a constitutional amendment that effectively signs away their voice. Thus, the sneaky way the left is attempting the subversion of our Constitution is to get the individual states to assign their electoral college votes to the winner of the national majority vote. So far, fourteen states have already agreed to do this. (Including mostly Democratic (or Socialist) bastions like California.)

So far Virginia (my current home) and Pennsylvania (the state of my childhood) have not fallen for this. I want the citizens of the states I'm associated with to JUST SAY NO.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: the winner of the presidential election should be (and always has been) the individual who got the majority of votes of the citizens IN THE MAJORITY OF THE STATES*. The last two times the Republican "lost" the national popular vote, they lost overwhelmingly in California but "won" the net majority in the other 49 states. The "National Popular Vote" is a propaganda construct of the leftist (Socialist) elite and their propaganda arm and is correctly of no importance in a diverse country. That is why we have the electoral college.

We need the electoral college to prevent the tyranny of a CALIFORNIAN super-majority from controlling the other 49 states.

-- Spike Souders

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* Except for John Quincy Adams, who was elected by the Congress when no candidate won a majority of electoral votes (according to our constitutionally prescribed procedures).

Another Week That Was

A Civics Lesson

Quick question: In the late 1780's, when the US Constitution was written and ratified after lengthy argument, which state was the most populous? Children?

Yes, that's right, Sarah: my home state of Virginia. Virginia was enormously influential during this period; except for my boy John Adams, all of the first five presidents were Virginian. But for certain strictures (ahem), Virginia could've used its bigness and reputation to curb stomp little states like Rhode Island and Delaware and drive the entire country according to its interests. Given that Virginia was a slave state, how do you think that would've turned out?

Thank the holy God that the Framers had the wisdom to realize that a nation ruled by Virginia and its allies was less than ideal. Thank the holy God that they therefore created institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College to kneecap the tyrannical majority and force politicians to appeal to national - rather than regional - concerns.

Right now, roughly a fifth of the US population is rural. If we switch to a national popular vote - or dispense with the Senate - this minority will be effectively silenced. If you are among those agitating for the complete destruction of our republic, I beg you to reconsider. You would never treat any other minority of comparable (or even smaller) size in this manner.

Our federal system, with all of its weird complications and roadblocks, was born of careful deliberation and years of assiduous examination of human history. Forgive me, then, if I trust it more than the fanciful ideas of ill-educated Current Year politicians and activists who are pissed they lost an election.

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Regarding the Importance of Careful Deliberation...


The message of this video needs to be tattooed on certain people's eyeballs.
No, it's not admirable that New Zealand is rushing to confiscate guns, ban books, and squelch speech after Christchurch. It is, in fact, yet another terrifying demonstration of the importance of our Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

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In Other News: Dissatisfied Fans Are Not "Entitled Manbabies"

Last night, I saw another manifestation of this attitude in a Facebook group I follow, and to be quite blunt, I'm fucking sick of it. If you're a game developer, a comic book writer or artist, a genre film maker, or any other creator in pop geekdom, you are not some grand ah-teest who can spit on his audience and do whatever the hell he wants. Dial the arrogance way, way back, bucko. You are, effectively, a guy in a rubber mask screaming at a green screen like it's chasing him. And if you're working with an established IP - as many of you are - you're playing with something that, ultimately, is not yours to "fundamentally transform".

Do the fans want you to do the same thing over and over again? No: just to take one example, the principal critique I've seen of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is that it's a weaker copy of A New Hope that strips out all the struggle of the original story. In other words, what we hate about the film in question is that it lacked creativity and heart -- not that it failed to perfectly replicate something we've already seen. So go ahead: as long as you respect the history of the IP you're borrowing, you can - and should - tell an entirely new story. We love evolution; what we don't like is rupture. 1990's Star Trek? Good. Rian Johnson's Star Wars? Bad.

Do the fans want you to completely avoid political themes? No, this is another strawman. What we hate is inorganic, in-your-face politics that stacks the deck in favor of one worldview. What we hate is boring, predictable politics; we hate the thousands of "Orange Man Bad"/"America is -ist and -phobic" stories that all unfold in identical fashion and therefore are never insightful and never surprise. What we love are things like DS9's "In the Hands of the Prophets," which tackles the theme of science versus religion in a manner that respects (and reveals the flaws of) both sides.

Do the fans hate diversity? No: we hate toxic diversity.

I don't think fans have the right to completely control what creators do. I respect artistic freedom. But the vast majority of fans aren't asking for that power. What we're asking for is craft and professionalism. Within those boundaries, multitudes can exist.

Spare Me Your Lectures on Civility, Blue Checks

People on the right can be hostile and violent. So can people on the left. But here's the difference as I experience it: When a crazy Trump supporter with a rap sheet sends "bomb-like" packages to high profile Democrats, the mainstream conservative media personalities I follow have no trouble condemning him. When Trump says something stupid and insensitive after Charlottesville, those self-same mainstream conservatives call him out on it -- while also utterly disavowing the fringe racists whose actions led to a woman's death. But I have yet to see any mainsteam leftwing members of the press acknowledge the violence of their own side. Don Lemon and others of his class have never searched their souls on air and questioned whether their friends might share the blame. No, it's all Trump's fault; it's never theirs.

Trump is a symptom, not the disease. If you would talk to Trump supporters for two seconds, you would hear the myriad ways in which right-leaning folks have been harassed, blacklisted, defamed, and otherwise kicked around by leftists -- particularly in fields that have always leaned left, such as academia and the arts. And the frustrating thing? Until Trump, nobody went to bat for these people. Before Trump, the GOP was notoriously inept at defending the right from the charge that it was -ist and infected by -ism. The result? A massive ground-swell of resentment among people tired of being called things they manifestly were not. Take it from someone who, as a right-leaning writer, was watching this unfold in real time.

There were warning signs if you cared to see them. A few Republican primaries ago, Newt Gingrich surged in popularity the moment he attacked the press. I remember that distinctly. I also remember the excitement among conservatives in the early days of blogging. Finally - finally - we had a powerful tool to counter mainstream media bullshit. Indeed, for as long as I've been a conscious, politically-engaged conservative, I have seen hatred of the press on my side -- and in my opinion, that hatred is generally earned. No newsworthy event in which I've been a participant has been covered with even a modicum of accuracy; it's all been poorly researched, dishonest spin.

The upshot? Trump is not some unique boogie man who's broken our discourse by stoking hate. He's playing to what already exists. And yeah, okay, he shouldn't do that. As a president, he should be trying to unite us instead of encouraging the Great Untruth of Us-Versus-Them (thanks, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff). But to act like Trump is the sole inventor of "incivility" - to act like everything is just peachy except for Trump - is pish-posh. Admit that you have done something wrong, Mr. Lemon, and then we'll talk.

Is the USA Over?

Sarah Hoyt is probably going to smack me over the head for asking such a question, but I can't help but wonder: Is it time for a divorce? Should we just split the current US in two?

I can live with liberals. In many ways, I am a liberal -- at least in temperament. Though I have very firm opinions on what constitutes the "good life," I generally don't want the state to make my case for me via force of law. Additionally, old-style Democrats and I share many fundamental end goals. I want to alleviate poverty, narrow achievement gaps, help people who have fallen behind -- in essence, work towards a more egalitarian world. Old-style Democrats and I disagree on the type and quantity of the government intervention that is needed to achieve such a goal, but that's okay. Old-style Democrats and I can still discuss those differences and negotiate.

But the new left? The left that has swallowed today's Democrat Party? I can't negotiate with such people. How, pray tell, can I have a functional dialogue with anyone who denies that the truth - whatever it may be - is objective, universal, and accessible through empirical inquiry? How, pray tell, can I build workable public policy with anyone who believes I should be hounded out of society - or even locked up - for questioning the new left's consensus?

And that second question is not hyperbolic in the slightest. Recently, an unknown member of a campus LGBT group argued on Twitter that gulags are pretty great actually and should be used to punish anyone who opposes his/her/zir agenda. Meanwhile, this past week, a "professional" in the comics industry expressed shock that members of the Comicsgate community hadn't been jailed - yes, jailed - for criticizing minority creators. And what about the multiple conservative politicians whose private lives have been disrupted by screaming protestors who refuse to respect boundaries?

At best, they want us completely silenced and humiliated. At worst?

No, I can't "work with" those who are possessed by this diabolical ideology. And if I can't do that, I can't live in this country with them either. I can't live with people who crap all over due process just to indulge their bigotry and/or desire for revenge. I can't live with emotional abusers who accuse me and people like me of the nastiest things imaginable -- then gaslight us and tell us we're babies crying over nothing when, like normal human beings, we get pissed off. I can't live with anyone who flat out doesn't care about evidence, science, logic, or reason because their "lived experience" proves all.

Like Sarah Hoyt, I feel like I'm chained to a bunch of lunatics -- and I want to take a blow torch to that damned manacle. If there's another way to do this besides national dissolution, please tell me. Otherwise? What will be will be, and I won't be sad. In fact, I'll be dancing.

Because I'll finally be free.

In Which Bill Kristol Shows He's Tone-Deaf...

...and I go a little crazy on Twitter.

I woke up with a fever this morning, so I've been stuck at home all day spending far too much time on the internet. Seriously - a day on the net is crazy-making. I don't recommend it.

At any rate, as I was scrolling through my Twitter feed early this evening, I stumbled across the following:

"I'm confident we'll contain & transcend Trump. But the damage Trump's now doing to our national comity & civic fabric is genuinely alarming." - Bill Kristol

I'm not sure which country Kristol has been living in over the past few years -- but it sure as hell must be somewhere else because from where I sit, the damage to our national comity and civic fabric started well before the election of 2016. I replied:

"I'm sorry, sirs, but Trump is a symptom, not the source. I was #NeverTrump too. However..."

"... I still recognize that the bullying of the social justice left destroyed the comity of this nation long before Trump took the stage. 2/2"

And then I guess I was activated, because I kept going:

Why people are upset about athletes kneeling during the anthem: A thread

Jesus Christ, "principled conservatives": Take a page from Salena Zito's book and try to understand where Trump's base is coming from with this. My face can't take another palming.

Links of Interest: Economic Mobility, Unreliable Social Science, and More

How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive, Megan McArdle

None of the findings in this article surprise me. My mother's family is originally from Salt Lake City, and I have some first-hand experience with their "peculiar" society. Yes, the cultural homogeneity does help -- but as McArdle suggests, there are still many things here that are replicable if we could just rediscover our intestinal fortitude and start promoting a generally bourgeois life script.

Psychology's Favorite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn't Up to the Job, Jesse Singal

"A pile of scholarly work, some of it published in top psychology journals and most of it ignored by the media, suggests that the IAT falls far short of the quality-control standards normally expected of psychological instruments. The IAT, this research suggests, is a noisy, unreliable measure that correlates far too weakly with any real-world outcomes to be used to predict individuals’ behavior — even the test’s creators have now admitted as such." This article is pretty technical but still worth a read if you care at all about the problems in social science.

Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century, Anne Case & Angus Deaton

This is a preliminary paper discussing an increase in mortality and morbidity in the white working class. Like the widening gaps between men and women when it comes to educational attainment, these are more findings that complicate the regressive left's narrative, which pits the so-called "privileged white male" against everyone else. As it turns out, that "privileged white male" has his own social problems to deal with -- especially if he doesn't have a college degree.

Screeching Harpies Claim Another Scalp, The Liberty Zone

Here, Nicki - in her inimitable style - excoriates feminist Naval Academy alumni for successfully forcing Jim Webb to decline an honor he was supposed to receive because once, back in 1979, he questioned whether women should be allowed to serve in combat. My mother was a member of the "first class" of 1980 and did in fact face resistance from her fellow midshipmen due to attitudes reflected in the essay at issue -- and yet I still find the screaming ridiculous. Even if Webb was utterly wrong and a total sexist at the time - and I'm not convinced that's the case - the fact remains that he eventually changed his mind. Are people just not allowed to be imperfect anymore?

Spare Me the Strong Female Character, Dawn Witzke

This blog post has generated a lot of discussion in my circles, so I think it's worth sharing here. As for my own personal feelings on the matter: SFC's are okay in my book as long as they are still recognizable as women and as people and are not promoted at the expense of strong men. Major Kira Nerys - my girl-crush since middle school - is a good example of an SFC done right. Yes, she does kick a lot of ass -- but she was trained from childhood to be that way and, athletic prowess aside, often succeeds through means other than pure physical strength (like, for instance, being so damned crazy that the enemy declines to call her bluff). Moreover, she's messed up; the consequences of being a child soldier leave her just on this side of being functional, which means she sometimes makes decisions that are frankly irrational and even dangerous. In other words, she's not always right, and she doesn't always win -- and I think that's the real key.

More Grumpy Thoughts

• So the net now informs me that finding clothes that fit is a "cis privilege." As a cis-female, that certainly comes as news to me. For years, I have had trouble finding pants that fit correctly -- and the less said about shoes, the better.
• Saying that finding clothes that fit is a "cis privilege" is like saying white people are privileged because "nude" hosiery and Band-aids "match their skin tone." Neither statement is true. I defy you to find any "nude" products that match this:
  
  
  
   
• If you recognize that a fetus is a human being with rights, there is no contradiction between being pro-life and advocating for small government. Sorry, Tomi Lahren.
• If this is a society in which fakers like Rachel Dolezal can appropriate a minority racial identity and, for a time, profit from it, this is not a "white supremacist" society. Is it a society in which certain lingering inequalities cut across racial lines? Yes -- but WHY? I think the answer to that question is far more complicated than race-obsessed ideologues care to admit -- and involves the "well-meaning" government to a substantial degree.
• "Sensitivity readers" are hucksters. I believe in doing the research and being as accurate as possible, but who gave these self-appointed gatekeepers the authority to speak for their entire gender/ethnicity/orientation? Once again, the publishing establishment is allowing a small group of militant activists to vitiate the individuality and agency of millions of other people -- and as a disabled woman, I won't stand for it.
• And since I've been watching some Star Trek lately: Data didn't need an emotion chip. The early seasons of TNG make it perfectly clear that he was human enough from the start. He was capable of missing crew-mates and appreciating friendships. He showed great compassion for others -- to the point of violating the letter of the Prime Directive in at least one instance. And his insatiable curiosity is, on its own, a profoundly human trait. The only thing the emotion chip did, in my opinion, was allow Brent Spiner to mug for the camera. It didn't add anything vital to the character.

And I think I'll leave it there for tonight. ;)

Dear Taste-Makers: You Are Not a "Deserving Elite"

If you follow the latest social media shit-storms at all, you may have heard of journalist Josh Barro. Recently, Barro joined the Legions of Infamy by chiding McDonald's for an anti-Trump tweet because, as everyone knows, "fat slobs with bad taste" are a key Trump-supporting demographic. That glob of condescending spittle was bad enough, but the tweet above - which I stole from Chris Arnade's glorious take-down of Barro's snobbery - is the statement that really made me see red. Why? Because Barro, like many mal-educated mid-wits, is misusing genuine sociological data to peddle a dangerous lie.

So let's break down everything that is wrong with this sentiment, shall we?

Good Private Judgment Does Not Automatically Lead to Good Public Leadership

It is in fact true that in highly-credentialed, high-income districts, we see better lifestyles. People in these zips are more likely to work out and eat right, for one. It is also true that in said top-performing zips, people are more careful with their money, are more likely to be involved in community organizations, are more likely to prioritize education while raising their children, and are more likely to live in healthy, two-parent households - all prudent, pro-social, and (dare I say) bourgeois choices that increase your and your children's chances of being upwardly mobile. (For more discussion regarding this data, I suggest the recent work of Charles Murray, particularly Coming Apart.) 

So do many of our elites in some sense "deserve" to be doing well? Sure -- but this does not mean they "deserve" to lord over the rest of us. Because here's the funny thing: They are doing all the right things, but they refuse to promote their bourgeois living as a national ideal. In other words, they don't preach what they practice. They may be living in stable families, sticking to household budgets, investing their money wisely in retirement accounts, and telling Johnny that yes, his homework is his first priority, but when they write their national columns or appear on national television, their message is always that family structure doesn't matter, that dysfunctional underclass sub-cultures are all "delightfully subversive," and that expecting people to prioritize when it comes to budgets both governmental and personal is inhumane and anti-poor. 

Bottom line? The elites have proven themselves to be completely incapable of uplifting folks at the bottom of the class pyramid, so I don't particularly care that they make good decisions when it comes to their personal lives. Honestly, sometimes I suspect that they're just trying to pull the ladder up behind them so they don't have to compete with us, the unwashed; it's more likely, though, that their vaunted education has let them down.

Having a College Degree - Even a PhD - Is NOT the Same Thing as Being "Educated"

Once upon a time, a college education at least tried to expose you to the very best that has been thought and said about the human condition and our place in the universe. It can be argued - validly - that the former "canon" was in some respects too narrow, but it was still good that there were campus-wide standards and that every collegian was expected to meet them. Unfortunately, after the rise of the New Left, all the trappings of just this sort of liberal education were thrown right out the window. Granted, many colleges still have general education requirements, but even with these, one can still earn a bachelor's without ever taking a traditional course on our country's history, political structures, or literary heritage.

Now let's add on top of this the fact that, in recent decades, academia has grown ever more intolerant of dissenting opinion (to the point that students and professors are now demanding they be shielded from ideas and experiences they find even remotely upsetting) and what you get is a perfect storm of ignorance about the things that really matter when it comes to good leadership. Our elites basically know fuck-all about human nature and have no clue that their supposedly brilliant, forward-thinking, progressive ideas have often been tried before without success (and to be sure, I'm putting that very charitably).

Actually, the increasing political correctness of our universities (and all other spaces where our elites congregate) is a good example of just what I mean when I say that folks like Barro know jack about - well - people. People, in reality, are anti-fragile; by this, I mean that they thrive best when their lives are not without adversity. Young people especially need the opportunity to test their physical and cognitive limits, bump up against obstacles, and - both literally and metaphorically - hang upside down on the monkey-bars hands-free. But our elites have decided that risk of emotional and bodily injury must be stamped out completely -- and predictably, the people under their oh-so-compassionate charge have now been trained to be, essentially, mentally ill. Indeed, even among our young children, we're seeing a rise in the incidence of attention-deficit disorder, sensory integration disorder, and other maladies -- and at least one occupational therapist has argued convincingly that this is because our elites are micromanaging our children's play in the name of their great safety crusade.

And hell, I haven't even addressed the fact that not all degrees are created equal and that, in many fields, all that's required to earn a credential is the ability to sling bull with panache. The rot is so widespread in the humanities and the social sciences in particular that a lot of students in these concentrations who have real native talent have no chance to develop and hone their intellects. Why? Well, here's something else the elites don't understand about human nature: people may be anti-fragile, but many will choose the easy path if it's offered to them. If one can earn a degree and the associated social status that comes with it by skating through courses that require little effort or accountability, many students will embrace that option -- and among our elites, many people have. Ask me what it was like to be misrepresented by lazy journalists covering the pop-culture beat for more information.

One last point: The shadow curriculum of lower and higher education isn't just - or even mostly - about using your intellect to suss out the truth. There are fields of study out there - generally in the hard sciences - that do demand results, but as a teacher with over a decade of experience guiding students through the K-12 system and beyond, I also know there are numerous wholly non-academic expectations that stick to our educational enterprise like barnacles on a ship. Based on what's usually asked in a college admissions essay, our schools privilege sociable youngsters who are comfortable talking about themselves. They also privilege the obedient and the verbally adept. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with any of these traits (I've been identified as verbally adept myself - at least in writing), but this weeding process does overlook many legitimately brilliant Odds -- especially my rambunctious, scribbly boys.

TL;DR: You're going to have to do more to convince me of your fitness to lead the rest of us than to reference your "college education."

But even if you were a freakin' Einstein, with all the tangible intellectual achievements that entails, I'm still not going to grant you the licence to judge me or to control my life. Which brings me to my third and final point:

You and Your Exclusive Clique Are Not Smarter Than EVERYONE Else

Remember that episode of The Simpsons years back in which the brainy folks of Springfield took control and tried to make their town more functional and efficient? Remember how this ended in disaster? I loved that episode because it conveyed a very important truth: Even a group of very, very smart people don't - and can't - know everything about a phenomenon as complex and unwieldy as a human culture or a human economy. That's why the outcomes of state economic planning range from stupid to downright horrific (see also: Venezuela). That's why, post-Sexual Revolution, we're faced with widespread unhappiness among women and equally widespread social pathology. 

Society is weird. There are many rules, traditions, and institutions lying around that, on the surface, don't seem to make sense. But those rules, traditions, and institutions cropped up for a reason. In many cases, they solved real dilemmas that our human ancestors encountered on their evolutionary journey out of the savanna. For instance, every culture previous to ours had strict codes to govern sexual conduct because, among other things, that was the only way to ensure that responsibility for the consequent children could be established. And, no matter how gosh-darned exceptional you are, you can't just take those codes apart without understanding and solving the problems they were meant to address.

So Barro and his ilk might be smarter than one working-class Trump supporter -- but are they smarter than all the Trump supporters and all the generations who lived before us combined? Not a chance! 

But, obviously, they think that they are -- and that's why many ordinary Americans rightfully hate their guts.

Grumpy Thoughts for the Evening

• If you believe free speech should be forcibly curtailed for certain people you don't like, then you must believe you have a total monopoly on the truth -- which means you're an arrogant putz.
• Look beneath the surface numbers. Just because a certain racial group performs less well on a teacher certification test does not automatically mean the test is racist and should be scrapped. It may mean public education in certain areas is utter shit for a host of complicated reasons that have very little to do with race.
• If you want gay characters in your movies, write your own stories. Don't try to colonize stories that already exist. I'm looking at you, Disney.
• Speaking of gay representation: Putting LGBT characters into everything ever is not actually representative of reality. Same-sex-attracted individuals represent 3.5% of the US population according to census data -- and "gender-nonconforming" folks represent an even smaller percentage. Ironically, by artificially inflating LGBT representation in popular media, you are making people MORE afraid of the "gay agenda" and its possible impact on the family. Back off.
• We're tired of the left's screeching about Russia, Trump's fascism, etc. Reality does not conform to your hysteria; if it did, many of you would already be in jail. Critique actual policy, not your fever dreams.
• Stop talking about "white privilege." It is 100% nonconstructive. No average American is going to accept that notion when the evidence before our lying eyes reveals that many working class whites are also disadvantaged by the system. Speak instead about the barriers that poor people face regardless of race. This will help everyone instead of just a few favored groups.

Anything else I should address? I'm in a bad mood and on a roll.

Have You Subscribed to Sargon of Akkad?

If not, you really should.

I'm so tired...

... and this presidential term has only just begun.

I was alive and politically aware during the post 9/11 W. Bush administration, and back then, I saw my fair share of leftwing nonsense. I vividly remember, for example, a young lady shrieking hysterically at me on a Boston street because I had the audacity to question the motives of an ANSWER-driven protest against the war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, mind you. Not the legitimately controversial war in Iraq. Believe me, Bush Derangement Syndrome was a real phenomenon and a toxic one. All the same, it doesn't hold a candle to what is happening now.

As I announced on a private post on Facebook recently, I'm officially over the schadenfreude. What was funny for the first couple weeks is now an aggravation. Some folks just need to shut up for a second and calm the hell down before someone gets killed.

So you don't like Trump. I get it. I didn't vote for him either. But you need to stop lying about what he's doing. That executive order on immigration, for example? That wasn't a "Muslim ban." Millions of Muslims were still classed as eligible to travel to the US, and my Muslim students - of which I have a fair number - were left completely unmolested. Trump's order was, in fact, a narrowly targeted - and time-limited - halt on migration from countries that are destabilized and consequently unable to vet their citizens.

And yes, we as Americans have the same fundamental right as the inhabitants of any other sovereign nation: the right to control whom we welcome to our shores. As much as I would like to embrace everybody, we must be prudent in the use of our resources or else end up helping no one.

You're asking us to deny the evidence of our supposedly lying eyes, but we can't do that. We know what has happened in Germany since Angela Merkel threw open her country's doors to all comers, and we know it's been a disaster. We know the Boston Marathon bombers were migrants, as were the perpetrators of other terrorist attacks on our soil. You can debate the effectiveness of Trump's order or criticize its implementation, but if you're in contact with reality at all, you KNOW safeguards are needed to protect the people - Muslim immigrants included - who are already here.

Another thing you need to stop doing? Objectifying yourselves. Here, I'm thinking of the ladies of the self-proclaimed Women's March in particular. I honestly don't know what you expected to accomplish by being intentionally vulgar, but I do know that I resent - deeply - your attempts to boil down a woman's interests to the state of her private parts. It's damnably difficult to vote with my vag; that's why I - along with most women of my acquaintance - vote with my mind.

But more than anything else, you need to stop forcing yourselves on your neighbors. The absolute worst way to get people to listen to your concerns is to scream at them and/or attempt to browbeat them into submission. And yet, you keep doubling down, hijacking every pursuit, no matter how apolitical, for the sake of your own ideological ends. Car forums? Local gardening clubs? Cooking groups on Facebook? These are not the places to air your fears about Trump. I'm sorry, but you need to have some sense of propriety.

At this point, I feel a bit like a broken record, so I think I'll stop here. Let me end, though, with a tidbit of adult wisdom: You can't control what other people think of you, nor can you coerce people into accepting you. The love and affirmation you evidently crave cannot be won via the muzzle of a gun. Forget this, and you get leaders like Trump - living, breathing rebellions against cultural totalitarianism. Why? Because people don't take kindly to being bullied into silence.

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar -- or with self-serving attempts to justify your own political violence. Punching Nazis? There's no way in hell I'm granting you that power -- especially since you do a shit job at identifying who the real Nazis actually are.

Oikophobia Pushes Me to Board the Trump Train (Reservedly)

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, my family is building a house on ten acres of pastureland in Rappahannock County, one of Virginia's most sparsely populated areas. As this planned rural retreat becomes a reality, I grow more and more excited. I look forward to embracing what my brother Matt and I refer to as "the good life": a life dominated by nature, by quiet, and by neighborliness. I look forward to getting to know the farmers, fruit growers, and small business owners in Amissville and nearby Little Washington -- folks who, by 17.8%, gave their county to Trump.

There will be downsides to this move. I will have to travel more to find work. Our cell phone service won't be as reliable, and the same goes for our television and internet. But one thing I'm certain I won't encounter, despite my family members' various disabilities, is disrespect or cruelty. I am confident of this because I have met many of my future of neighbors and have found them to be kind and friendly. I am confident of this because I've visited similar communities elsewhere in Trump's America and have found the people in those places to be equally decent and unassuming.

The folks in Trump's America are not perfect, of course; nobody is. They may have beliefs and opinions that you find irrational or downright repugnant. But does that mean they will round up all the foreigners, gays, and ethnic minorities and expel them as soon as they get the chance? Nope. Not even close.

In the wake of the election, it has amazed me how many unbelievably privileged leftists have attacked and denigrated Trump's America based on nothing but ignorance and stereotypes -- not to mention how many unbelievably privileged leftists have complained about being victimized.

Take, for example, Meryl Streep's extended whine at the Golden Globes, during which she had the gall to complain that "all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it. Hollywood, foreigners, and the press." For someone so downtrodden, Streep seems to be doing quite well. But beyond that, has she ever considered the possibility that two out of those three groups have done things that deserve our opprobrium?  Or that the third group - foreigners - are only resented if they arrive here illegally or demand that we abandon our classically liberal traditions?

The wealthy denizens of Hollywood cycle through relationships faster than shit flows through a goose. Apparently, fidelity and self-sacrifice are concepts foreign to many of these professional pretenders. Meanwhile, my own father, who's itching to move to Trump country as soon as possible, has stayed married to one woman for thirty-eight years despite trials that likely would end Hollywood's more ephemeral unions, including Mom's chronic illness and Dad's extended military-imposed absences from home. Who, do you think, do I admire more?

"So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts," Streep then claimed. But this too is total BS. If all of leftist Hollywood dropped off the face of the planet tomorrow, a lot of space would be freed up for Americans who've entertained the idea of pursuing film but have hesitated because of Hollywood's demonstrable hostility to non-leftist beliefs. And while it would take a while for the members of the new entertainment class to learn the craft, the industry would eventually be rebuilt -- and maybe this time, we would be treated to more truly original stories instead of endless reboots and tired left-wing agitprop.

I was also not impressed by Streep's pleas for empathy. I was not impressed because her entire speech was an exercise in abandoning empathy. She clearly has no idea what it feels like to be a working-class American who has to listen to rich people like her mock his tastes in entertainment and his overall lifestyle on a regular basis. And yes, working-class Americans have been endlessly insulted and harassed by their supposed "betters" for quite some time. As Mike Rowe once observed, if there's a plumber in a Hollywood production, he's showing butt-crack. If a reporter goes out to engage the working class, it is often to set a snare for some innocent Christian family with typical Christian beliefs about human sexuality -- a family who will then be subject to a media storm driven by coastals who don't actually know them as human beings and don't care about destroying their livelihood.

So, yes -- it was a dickish move for Trump to mock that reporter's disability (assuming that was in fact what he intended to do) - but I don't think the vast majority of his supporters like him because "he makes fun of the disabled." They like him because he made fun of a reporter - a member of the very aristoi that has persistently bullied them for not embracing "orthodoxy." While I don't normally condone revenge, I understand the impulse. And personally, I wish leftists in Hollywood and elsewhere would actually recognize their own culpability when it comes to how divided and angry our political landscape has become. Trump would not have been a viable candidate if the left had not spent the last eight years pushing its agenda to the point of absolute insanity and accusing the innocent of every social ill under the sun.

Seriously - who's actually going to respond appreciatively to crap like this:

Well, gee, that's the ticket! In order to get respect, I just need to stop being an evil asshole. Awesome. I'll get on that right now.

NOT.

Let's do a mini-fisk of this garbage, shall we?

...those towns have nothing going for them. No infrastructure, just a few bars and a terrible school system.

It's interesting you would mention school systems. I was exploring the results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress earlier today, and do you want to know what I discovered? When you account for important demographic characteristics like minority enrollment and free/reduced lunch rates, the Trump states perform at levels wholly comparable to the performance of the Clinton states. As it turns out, while there are very high performers among this election's blue states (clustered in New England, mainly), there are also very low performers as well. So I'm not buying that leftist-run school systems cannot also be terrible -- especially since I live very close to overwhelmingly leftist Washington DC and consequently hear a lot of news about the DC school system's disastrous academic results and overall incompetence.

And as for the lack of infrastructure -- well, I'll address that below.

So if you want jobs, clean up your act and make your town a place people like us want to live in. Add fiber internet.

Has it occurred to you that fiber internet costs money? That a municipality has to convince the purveyors of fiber internet that building such infrastructure there will be worth the risk? That people can't just install fiber internet themselves and need the cooperation of a corporation that sells the tech? What you are doing here is blaming less advantaged people possessing limited resources for not living the way you live. It's tantamount to looking down on the people who lived in mid-20th century Appalachia for not having indoor toilets. "Clean up your act, hillbillies. Stop crapping in outhouses."

Make it a point to elect a progressive city council and commit to not being bigots.

"Stop thinking the way you think and start thinking the way I think, you racist-y racists!" Well, there's only one legitimate response to that:

We especially don't want to live in states where the majority of residents are still voting for things that are against their own interests just because they don't want brown people to thrive.

Because you, madam, are better qualified to decide what is in the best interest of the working class than the members of the working class themselves? Honestly, this particular sentence pisses me off more than anything else she's said so far; it perfectly encapsulates the left's repeatedly-debunked-by-history belief that distant technocrats know better than the locals what must be done to improve their lives. I'm sorry, but fuck you. You are not there. You clearly don't know their true motivations or what they're actually going through. You, therefore, don't have the requisite on-the-ground knowledge to make decisions on their behalf.

As I suggested in the title of this post, I'm now on the Trump train, and leftists like Streep and Byerley are the reason I'm here. I still don't like the guy - and I plan to watch him like a hawk over the next four to eight years - but I'd rather throw in my lot with Trump's supporters than with the snobbish jerks who think they're superior to the rest of us.

A Few Final Remarks on Hamiltongate

Before I launch into some more discussion of the Hamilton incident last Friday, I'd like to share another fantastic song from the show as a gesture of good faith.


Listen to the respect with which Manuel-Miranda treats Washington. Here, our first president is portrayed, without irony, as a hero who voluntarily steps down from his seat of power, consequently teaching us that America's institutions were crafted to transcend and outlast the fame of any one person. Such a number implicitly rebukes cults of personality and leader worship -- one message among many in this show that are undeniably timely.

The text of Hamilton also does something that I think is vitally important in this age of identity politics: It invites people of very different backgrounds to embrace American heroes, American ideas, and an American identity as their own. Too often, the social justice left discourages its favored groups from finding any inspiration from our history, effectively segregating minority populations from the American heritage entirely. Whether accidentally or no, this only enhances people's sense of "otherness" and existential discomfort. Manuel-Miranda's approach, on the other hand, is much healthier; instead of dismissing Alexander Hamilton and his contemporaries as "dead, white males" whose biographies have nothing to offer to Americans of color, he shows how our Founders' struggles and triumphs are universally edifying.

Which brings me to one reason why the now infamous Friday night curtain call still rankles. To echo Robert Pondiscio's remarks in the New York Daily News, the cast members didn't let Manuel-Miranda's art speak for itself. Or, to put it another way, they assumed that Pence was so incredibly dense - so lacking in any sort of human feeling - that he would fail to grasp the pro-diversity message described above without having it explicitly spelled out in simple words.

Further, the speech wasn't delivered in a vacuum. Context matters. Intonation matters. Truth matters. Several writers and commentators whom I respect greatly have dramatically missed the boat by focusing on the superficial mildness of the words and not on the event in toto. Consider, for example, the audience in attendance: a crowd of overwhelmingly liberal Manhattanites who are already convinced Trump and Pence represent a threat to their rights despite much evidence that flatly contradicts their views. These are people whose smug sense of superiority didn't need to be strengthened or legitimized -- yet Dixon (and presumably the rest of the cast, who allowed Dixon to speak on their behalf) went ahead and flattered these folks anyway. I'm sorry, but to those of us who don't live in that particular milieu, that was gross as hell and needed to be called out.

Consider too where they were. Dixon was not just a private citizen addressing a politician; he was also, essentially, an employee of a business talking to a paying customer. And if you've ever worked customer service, you know you always put your personal opinions aside at the moment of a business transaction. Nobody here is questioning anyone's right to dissent; what many of us do question is the appropriateness of the time and place. Dixon and the other cast members could've invited Pence back stage for a private conversation later; if making their concerns heard was their only motivation, such a conversation would've succeeded brilliantly. But when Dixon tells the audience to film his remarks and spread them far and wide on social media, an additional - and more problematic - motivation becomes strikingly apparent. This wasn't just about exercising one's right to question our incoming executives; this was also one giant virtue signal meant, once again, to congratulate an already unaccountably arrogant group of people on their supposed "right thinking." And quite frankly, we conservatives are sick to death of listening to these Pharisees endlessly trumpet how great they all are when their actions don't justify their pride.

I'm happy that Pence was not offended and responded to the speech with equanimity and grace -- but that does not mean we should set aside this incident's troubling undertones or refrain from critiquing the people involved.

Oh, and by the way: Trump doesn't actually believe in safe spaces -- at least, not in the leftist sense. Haven't you figured out yet that the soon-to-be Cheeto 'n Chief is the ultimate troll?

And with that, I'm going to head out for my Thanksgiving break. I shall return next Wednesday with a post (or two) on the beauty of Constitutional federalism. I hope all of you have a peaceful holiday in the meantime!

Shut Up and Sing

(Or, in this case, rap about the national debt.)

I was planning to write a long post/civics lesson today about the federal system and why, despite being designed over 200 years ago, it is still perfectly suited to our current age. But then this happened...


... and it struck a nerve.

It struck a nerve because I've been a huge booster of Hamilton to skeptical relatives, acquaintances, and readers; indeed, I've shared favorite songs from the show on this blog on two separate occasions. I also spent eight hours round trip on a cramped and uncomfortable bus to see this show in New York because I simply couldn't wait for the inevitable tour stop in DC.

I think Hamilton richly deserves its eleven Tony Awards. It is, right now, my go-to example when I try to explain the difference between art that genuinely stretches the boundaries and art that merely postures and celebrates ugliness. In the show itself, there is no present-day political grandstanding; while Manuel-Miranda does take artistic licenses, he is honest about Hamilton's personal flaws and treats his other primary subject - America itself - with respect -- and even an infectious joy. There are mentions of slavery - because, given the period, how can you avoid it - but overall, Hamilton is brimming with the faith that all Americans - even "orphan immigrants" - can "rise up" and make an impact if they work hard enough.

Hamilton has amazing - and fundamentally conservative - things to say about the American idea. Unfortunately, the performers behind it had to go ahead and muck it up, thereby guaranteeing that many of my right-leaning friends will avoid the show from this day forward.

Why - why - do you always do this, leftists? When people go out to see a Broadway show - or any artistic performance, really - they are not looking to be hectored. They want to enjoy your talent, not listen to your presumptuous speeches. You, of course, have every right to express consternation over the prospect of a Trump presidency, but do it on your own time. It is neither appropriate nor fair to subject a paying audience to your supposed "protest."

To steal from Laura Ingraham, just shut up and sing.

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.)