A Dangerous Hypocrisy

There’s nothing newsworthy about hypocrisy in politics. It’s so common that I usually ignore it. However, the blatant hypocrisy over the recent unacceptable violence in DC is dangerous – it’s tearing our country apart – and it has to stop.

Liberals say the violence was all Trump’s fault. They’ve even decided to make a last-ditch effort at impeachment – even though it will likely come to nothing. But using the same argument, Congress needs to impeach their Democrat leadership as well.

Only a few media outlets have pointing out that the leftist politicians who either said nothing or, in some cases, even supported the left-wing violence so prevalent this past year, were encouraged this type of violence in the future. As Momma used to say, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” What many forget is that she also implied that what is bad for the goose is also bad for the gander.

All summer, rioters attacked federal buildings, destroyed private businesses, turned downtowns into war zones, and injured police, while liberal politicians and media turned a blind eye. Are we really that surprised when young protesters on the right think it’s OK to try the same thing.

The truth is that violent protests have no place in a free and fair democracy. The demonstrators in DC were just as wrong as the demonstrators over the summer who turned to violence supposedly to make a political point.

One talking head on TV reported with glee how the FBI would use the government’s full power to track down the violent DC demonstrators. This is as it should be. But where was the outrage last summer as our cities burned?

Does any thinking person believe that if ANTIFA had entered the Capital Building and had one of their unarmed members shot by police that CNN and the NY Times would not have made that their front-page story for weeks?  (And probably ignored the slain officer killed for just doing his job).

Yet, there were only two differences between the riots last summer and the DC riots. First, of course, was the location. The DC rioters attacked where the politicians work. You know, those same politicians who didn’t care when similar riots destroyed the businesses and property of ordinary folks. Now, however, heads must roll.

But even more importantly, these protestors made the mistake of declaring themselves Trump supporters – enough reason in itself to throw them in jail for many on the left.

The solution to this inexcusable violence on both sides of the political spectrum is simple but not easy. Politicians, the left and the right, need to treat violent protests with an equal amount of outrage. And the media needs to report on violence outside of DC just as aggressively as it has in DC.

If this doesn’t happen, the problem will only get worse.

Contrary to what some liberals seem to believe, the half of Americans that voted for conservative representatives this past election are not stupid. The blatant hypocrisy manifest over the DC riots will only pull our country further apart, and I am optimistic enough to still believe that that is not what the majority on the left want.

Why the left lost the election

https://valleynewmedia.com/why-the-left-lost-the-election/

This has been a passion filled election. If we can trust the media, over 71 million voted for Trump and about 75 million for Biden. Yet it was way too close to be called a mandate for either side.

However, there are some important take a ways that may give us all hope. While the Presidency is still being decided, there is no doubt (from the results of the House, Senate and local races) that Republicans carried the election.

I have been saying for months that the Senate was the critical race in this election. Regardless of who ends up as President, with a Supreme Court dedicated to the Constitution and a Senate majority to stop court packing and any other radical leftist policies, Republicans are in a pretty good position to keep the left in line.

Besides, many of Biden’s votes were actually anti-Trump votes. Those voters don’t love Biden. Generally, they don’t’ know or care much what his policies might be. His main purpose was to central look (or no look at all) to the Democratic platform. That way, the left could attack Trump without having to present anything better. Now that Biden has done that, he will likely be tossed on the dung heap of history – unless he does what the left tells him to do.

And why does the left hate Trump so much – because he stood in the way of their socialist/communist agenda. He picked Supreme Court Judges that would decide the law rather than create law. He reduced federal regulations that hindered free enterprise and gave the federal government more dictatorial power over private businesses. He stood up and mocked insane social policies that destroyed families, religion and set back 50 years of progress in race relations. 

Too often, black leadership has stoked racial animosity to keep themselves relevant and in power.  Combined with democratic policies that kept too many minorities on the plantation with a cradle to grave welfare system – one that breeds dependency and punishes any urge to think independently, and the left thought they had the minority vote all tied up.  

However, in this election, thanks at least in part to deregulation, job growth for minorities has skyrocketed, empowering many of the poorest in society escape dependency and find  power through independence and freedom. As I write this, Trump is on track to have the GOP’s best showing among minorities in decades.

However, a similar situation existed on the republican side. While Trump had his loyal supporters, even some fanatics, some voted for Trump because he was the only candidate available if you didn’t want socialism to win.

Regardless of who eventually serves as President, all eyes had better turn to Georgia and the final two Senate seats up for grabs.

Democrat leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) promised this past Saturday that, “Now we take Georgia, and then we change the world.” 

Perhaps Schumer should have read Eleanor Byrd’s column last week.  More than 71 million Americans voted for Trump this last election and even if Biden eventually sits in the Oval Office, those folks are not going away. Beating Trump and then ignoring more than half the country might be real bad for democrats – and make that office pretty uncomfortable.

Systemic Racism and Violent Communities

CHARLOTTESVILLE, USA – August 12: White Supremacists and counter protestors clash at Emancipation Park where the White Nationalists are protesting the removal of the Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville, Va., USA on August 12, 2017. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

 

According to statistics compiled by an opinion writer in the Carroll County Times, nearly 50 percent of convicted murderers in the US are black. Blacks are also more likely to be involved in violent crimes as both perpetrators, and victims.

Most thinking people agree that much of this violence is due to the life situation too many African Americans find themselves in because of the misfortune of being poor, and too often born into a broken family.

But is the problem systemic racism or something else?

What one draws from these statistics often depends on their perspective and political agenda. The left wants more government and believe welfare works. They say the statistics support the need for government intervention.

On the right, people see personal responsibility as the cost of freedom. Those people interpret the exact same statistics as proof that there are problems inherent in the black community such as single parent homes and little encouragement toward education – things that only families and communities can fix.

Is their truth in both points of view? Maybe the destruction of the traditional family has created a sort of community level systemic racism – defined here as an environment unhealthy to success. While the government can help by ensuring quality education and safe streets, the community must also step up to create a culture that studies and history suggest will give children the best chance of success.

Both initiatives are happening – just not quickly. And the reason progress is so slow is because too many black leaders and politicians need the problems to justify their reach for power.

So instead they work on silencing reasonable voices.

PHASE ONE

Unfortunately for them, their true radical agenda is often unpopular with the majority. So instead, following the pattern of previous tyrants, they first come out in defense of ideas the majority can easily accept. The goal of this phase is to become the champion of the people and to firmly establish labels for anyone who opposes the plan. The labels must be demeaning, insulting, and embarrassing – labels such as bigot, racist, homophobe, transphobe etc.

Example of something the majority can easily agree to:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Result: Radicals become community leaders.

PHASE TWO

They conflate the original agreeable goal into something more in line with their true agenda.

Example: statement the 2020 goals from the Black Lives Matter Website.

BLM’s #WhatMatters2020 will focus on the following issues:

• Racial Injustice
• Police Brutality
• Criminal Justice Reform
• Black Immigration
• Economic Injustice
• LGBTQIA+ and Human Rights
• Environmental Conditions
• Voting Rights & Suppression
• Healthcare
• Government Corruption
• Education
• Commonsense Gun Laws

They accuse anyone who disagrees with their new goals of being a racist, regardless of whether you still support the original goal of MLK’s Dream.

With huge masses of uninformed, out of school and out of work young people looking for something to do, they can quickly punish the slightest infraction of their aggressive brand of political correctness.

Results: Statues get torn down, communities burn, and  Aunt Jemima gets taken off the syrup bottle – and no one complains out of fear of being labeled. Now, even folks who recognize that tearing down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant does nothing to further equality say nothing. It’s the new normal and seems easier and safer than fighting back against a rising tide of craziness.

Their power has grown.

PHASE THREE

To test and grow their power, leftist leaders now demand that silence is not enough, that only positive and public actions can truly demonstrate your dedication to the cause of Dr. King.

Example: Protestors demand that police officers and politicians take a knee before them to prove their support for ????

Results: Many take a knee. Practically every school in the nation announces new efforts to fight systemic racism. These various declarations prove (so the organizations believe) they are not racist. Yet even as they make these insincere gestures, they do nothing to address, or even talk about the real problems facing children in black communities.

Radicals no longer hide their power. Now, even the bastions of government take a knee to avoid the ultimate career-ending insult of being labeled racist. Everyone is afraid of losing their job or business if they speak out.

Sadly, this new won power is not used to better the situation in black communities. Instead, it is used to push a broader agenda. One that just happens to mirror, almost perfectly,  the agenda of the left and much of the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the dream of Martin Luther King goes unrealized and no one seems to care.

Kevin D. Williamson writing for National Review expressed his feeling about the current raft of worthless actions this way, “Forbes has announced a change in its in-house stylebook and will henceforth honor the woke convention of uppercase Black vs. lowercase white. And George Floyd is still dead. Jacob Frey is still mayor of Minneapolis. Medaria Arradondo is still the chief of police.

As I finished up this piece, A new story of racial violence came across the news. Apparently, a white Macy’s employee was beaten by a black customer who claimed he called him the “N” word. Store cameras seem to show that the insult never occurred. However, even if it did, what shook me most was the attitude of the perpetrators – and it goes straight to the heart of the question asked at the start of this essay. The brother of the man who beat the store employee, who was also at the scene, said of his brother’s reaction, “ In this age and time, he didn’t know what else to do. That was just his instinct.”

Insanity and the transgender child

I must have been around four or five-years-old the morning I decided I couldn’t walk.

There’s probably some scientific name for what was at the time nothing more than a kid’s overreaction to the very real fear of polio and the new vaccine in the news. Perhaps it had something to do with having a paraplegic in the home. Regardless, in my mind, at five-years-old, the paralysis was very real. To this day, I remember the frustration of trying to move legs that refused to budge.

Thankfully, my mother, recognizing the truth, fixed breakfast, put it on the table and told me it was ready whenever I was hungry. The paralysis didn’t last long. Closer to minutes than days. Food has always been a great motivator in my life.

I wonder how different my life might have been if instead of fixing my breakfast my Mother had carried me to the table. What if she had taken me to a doctor, who instead of telling me there was nothing wrong, gave me a wheelchair. None of this happened of course because back in the 50’s reality mattered.

Today, not so much. Some want us to believe that our sexuality is artificially created through association with family and friends. A quick peek in a human anatomy book proves that theory wrong. But even if it was so, how would it be bad to teach children to live in harmony with their physical nature? To do otherwise seems un-natural and potentially harmful. (Consider the astronomically high suicide rates, up to 50 percent, for young people suffering from gender confusion.)

Yet the craziness continues.

So when I saw this headline, “Court Rules That a Mom Can Transition Son into a Girl Against His Dad’s Wishes,” I got fired up … again.

The story tells about seven-year-old James Younger whose divorced Mother (a pediatrician no less) has decided that her son must be a girl because he wants to dress up like his TV hero (a girl) and his favorite movie is Frozen. According to the boy’s Father Jeff Younger, Anne Georgulas, the boy’s mother, started dressing him in girl’s clothes at age three, telling him monsters only eat boys and withholding affection if he didn’t act like a girl.

The court decision mentioned in the article apparently opens the door for little James’ Mother to begin puberty reversal treatments – a process known to cause sterilization. Thankfully, a second court has now decided the Father, does have parental rights to stop this madness.

When at his Father’s house James acts and plays like a boy, and, according to his Father, violently opposes having to wear girl’s clothes. When at his Mother’s house he plays and acts like a girl. Maybe he is simply behaving in a way that gets him the love of his parents.

This doesn’t even sound like gender dysphoria since James acts like a normal boy in normal situations. No, this is child abuse by someone who ought to know better. Even if James was confused (suffering from gender dysphoria) studies show that without treatment, nearly all (95 percent) of these children eventually grow comfortable with their birth gender.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not paranoid that transgenders are taking over the world. Transgendersim has been around for most of human history and will continue as long as we continue to treat mental illness as a choice. The transgender lifestyle is too destructive to individuals and society to ever be truly mainstream and even it’s current (dare I say) popularity, will soon subside.

Meanwhile, however, we cannot allow children’s lives to be destroyed by parents and doctors who are either too scared or too indoctrinated, to speak truth to insanity.

I have always cringed a little when I hear a parent say my child and I are best friends. Being your child’s best friend is fantastic as long as it is secondary to being their parent. This means teaching your child right and wrong and what is best in life, regardless of whether they “hate you” (temporarily) for doing so.

When it comes to parenting, I try not to be too judgmental. It is a hard job and we all make mistakes. But if the stories about James’ Mother are true, that is child abuse, plain and simple. And regardless of her possible “good intentions,” society should not allow a misled Mother to chemically or surgically destroy her child’s future in homage to an insane dedication to leftist gender theories.

If an adult wants to have transgender surgery or take hormones – go for it. While I feel it is validating a mental illness – adults are generally allowed to harm themselves. Children should be protected from such craziness because of the life-changing, unalterable effects. Our legislators need to support Virginia Health Boards, which have already banned conversion therapies for minors, by passing laws that impose legal penalties on those who provide hormone treatments or surgery for sex change purposes to minors.

To do less is simply … well, crazy!

Greta and Global Warming

Greta Thunberg’s moment in the sun is already fading as the media turns toward the latest Trump/ Democrat fiasco. Greta, you may still recall, is the teenage girl touring the world berating everyone for not stopping climate change.

I feel sorry for her. Not because of her environmental passion, but for her paranoid fear and the way she is being exploited by the socialist left.

According to a profile in the Daily Beast, Greta Thunberg is autistic and has obsessive-compulsive disorder. She has nightmares about the impact of global warming on the planet, which she claims will end civilization as we know it in the next 12 years.

She is both troubled and misled.

“How dare you,” she told the UN. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood. For more than 30 years the science has been crystal-clear … The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50 percent chance of staying below… the risk of setting of irreversible chain reactions beyond human control … those numbers do not include … the aspects of equity and climate justice.”

Equity and climate justice? That’s socialist jargon. Poor Greta has been well schooled – at least in the politics, if not the science, of climate change.

And make no mistake, she is front-page news because of her value to socialist politicians, not because of her expertise in the science of climate change.

“Climate is not a separate issue,” says Senator Cory Booker. “It is the issue, the lens, through we must see everything that we do.”

Why is that Senator Booker? Could it be because you want to attach your unpopular socialist agenda to a popular desire to conserve our environment?

Senator Kamala Harris says, “It’s not a question of debating the science, it’s a question of taking on powerful interests, taking on the polluters, understanding that they have a profit motive to pollute.”

So, the issue is not science, it’s about finding a way to attack those who make money – and then expect to keep it.

I can understand why they might want to skip over the science. Over the past 10-15 years the “settled science” of man-made global warming has taken a real beating. They’ve discovered that global climate science is too complicated to be easily settled, especially after all the models used to make their outrageous predictions proved wrong.

Is climate change real? Of course. The earth’s surface is constantly either warming or cooling – and the full reasons why this happens is not fully understood. Does human produced CO2 effect global warming? The latest science says that if it does, the effect is lost in the significantly larger natural elements that clearly do affect global temperatures – like the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

And for the paranoids among us; only last year the IPCC admitted to having little to no evidence that climate change is producing extreme weather patterns.

Regardless, the liberal brain washing continues unabated, scaring the uninformed and treating predicted climate change disasters as fact. It may be the greatest purposeful fraud ever foisted on mankind.

And how does the left propose to save us from ourselves?

The answer, of course, is more government and less capitalism.

“We are a disease that is infecting our planet,” declared Jason Momoa (the star of the DC Universe film “Aquaman”) when he spoke to the UN on behalf of “all island nations.”

While he justifiably, hammered home the need for more care of our oceans and environment, he missed that by focusing on a fake apocalypse, we spend time and money that could be better used improving the environment for people around the world today.

Alex Epstein, an American author and energy theorist, points out that it’s the developed world, with access to clean available energy, that has clean water, clean air, and spends money caring for the environment. He writes, “Fossil fuels don’t take a naturally safe environment and make it dangerous. Fossil fuels empower us to take a naturally dangerous environment and make it cleaner and safer.

Yet during the climate change protest rallies last week, some protesters complained about society being too comfortable and the “dismal state of affairs” caused by capitalism. I wondered if the dismal state included the better food, the cleaner water, the safer homes, or the highest levels of personal security ever known in the history of mankind?

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center (a think tank dedicated to finding the most efficient ways to make life better for all) and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, and Prioritizing Development, a Cost-Benefit Analysis of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, recently wrote, “While some pundits continue, incorrectly, to insist that global warming is a made-up story, far more insist, also incorrectly, that we face an imminent climate crisis.”

He suggests that with the trillions the climate activists want to spend uselessly trying to keep the temperature from rising 1.5 degrees, we could practically fix the world’s problems with unclean water, famine, and most disease. Perhaps from the millions of brains saved in this effort will come the eventual answers to climate change.

But I still feel sorry for Greta, and all those that have fallen victim to this apparently very real paranoia of environmental anxiety – for that truly is a man-made disaster.

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Craziness

I was with some friends recently when the conversation turned to what each of us thought was the most pressing political problem of the day. I threw in my two cents for political tribalism, which, I pointed out, was destroying reasonable debate. “We need to start looking for common ground,” I said as I climbed down off my soap box.

Then another member of our group asked a question that made me think. Do I really want to find common ground with someone whose opinions are offensive, and who, lacking facts, just starts throwing insults?

He had a valid point.

I started looking at some of the more outrageous comments I have heard lately and wondered – Can you find common ground with someone who talks crazy?

How do you argue reasonably with a government agency, like the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, that is suing a shelter for battered women because they refused to take in a man late one night, who was drunk, had obviously been fighting, and who claimed to be transgendered. When the shelter tried to reason with the government commission, they were threatened with another suit because their explanation was discriminatory. Now, they are keeping their mouths shut.

How difficult is it, to speak reasonably to someone like Alyssa Milano, who recently claimed that without her two abortions, “… My life would be completely lacking all its great joys. I would never have been free to be myself – and that’s what this fight is all about: freedom.”

How do you reason with college students, like those at George Washington University who willingly signed a fake petition to ban “oppressive” white stick figures in walk signals? Those same students had recently signed a real petition calling for the replacement of George the Colonial (their sports mascot) because the negatively charged figure of colonials “glorifies the act of systemic oppression.”

Or how do you reasonably respond to CNN, who never questioned the comments of psychiatrist, Alan Francis, who during an on-air interview claimed that Trump may be responsible for many more millions of deaths than Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong.

While the CNN interviewer Brian Stelter, later agreed that he should’ve interrupted after that line, I wonder if he would have interrupted if a conservative had been on the air and said a similarly crazy thing.

But the media these days is not exactly known for its fair and balanced reporting.

When Pres Trump recently tweeted that some Baltimore neighborhoods were a rat-infested mess, he was immediately labeled a racist. Yet there was no mention, in most mainstream media outlets, that former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, an African American female, had complained of the same thing just last year. Nor was there any mention that Bernie Sanders in 2015, had compared a Baltimore neighborhood he was visiting to a Third World country.

Some, however, on both sides are starting to respond.

When former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell started rooting for a direct hit by Hurricane Dorian on Mara Lago in southern Florida because Donald Trump owns property there, Allen Covert, an American actor who has relatives living in the same area, tweeted, “you have sunk so low in your hatred that you have become worse then what you hate.”

In a podcast for The Daily Signal, Jeanne Safer, liberal author of the new book “I Love You, but I Hate Your Politics,” discusses how we can keep our friends and family despite political differences. She advises to “Never start any conversation with, ‘How could you possibly think … ‘” Safer explains, “even if you’re not shouting. Or, ‘Did you hear the obnoxious tweet or the stupid thing this person said?’ These are not conversation starters, they are insults. And your partner, the person you care about, will interpret them that way.”

 

Hardly anyone (except for media’s talking heads) talk politics anymore. Everyone is too afraid to be harshly labeled. That’s not good for democracy. However, we must speak up if we want reasonableness to prevail. If the only voices being heard coming from the far left and the far right, the gap will only widen. Already, the violence has started.

We need to keep talking, even when the opposition talks crazy.

Several years ago, I wrote in this publication, “Remember, however, in the give and take of free speech, “take” is half the equation. Along with being civil ourselves, let’s give passionate people the right occasionally to say dumb things. After all, if we can put up with a few harsh words, perhaps we can make it less likely for someone to throw sticks and stones.”

Punchbowl Shelter

 

 

The Emperor Has No Clothes!

Do you remember the story of the Emperor’s new clothes? In it, a couple of tailors convince the Emperor that for the right price they can weave clothing that is invisible to those who are incompetent, stupid or not fit for their position. Of course, it is all a lie, but the fear of being seen as unfit keeps the people silent – even as the Emperor strolls down the street getting a full body tan. Finally, a young boy, too innocent to know any better, cries out, “The Emperor is naked!”

I wonder sometimes if Hans Christian Anderson was not having a vision of our day when he wrote that story.

I was lucky enough this past weekend to attend an event sponsored by The Wesley Center for Constitutional Studies. The two speakers, Dr. Glenn Kimber, a nationally recognized Constitutional expert; and former U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain, Sam Zakhem, inspired me to look into the dangers (both physical and ideological) facing religion today.

I discovered that the recent violence against churches, synagogues, and mosques, while horrific, is only a symptom of an even more pernicious and lasting danger. According to Kimber and Zakhem, the founders considered religious freedom vital to liberty and constitutional democracy. Today, however, many see it as a crutch for the weak, one that only limits our freedom. And for the radical left (the tail currently wagging the political dog), religion is the primary obstacle to those who dream of a secular utopia.

In this war on religion, silencing the opposition is key, and right now, the left is winning.

One example is The Equality Act. This most recent leftist legislation would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the protected classes already under federal civil rights law.

In combining gay rights (a popular movement) with the rights of the transgendered, the radical right has been able to silence what should be common sense opposition to this law from both sides. Misplaced equality for transgendered males has already led to attacks on women in restrooms once reserved for biological females, and transgendered males are already beating women in female sporting events where their male bodies give them an advantage. By conflating transphobia with homophobia the left has dressed the Emperor in clothes that only those willing to be called stupid or incompetent cannot see.

Even so, people of reason even within the LGB community worry about the effects this law might have on women and children.

Unable to find a forum for their concerns on the left, some of those leftists asked The Heritage Foundation for help. On YouTube, The Inequality of the Equality Act: Concerns from the Left,” is a video of the resulting panel worth watching.

The first panelist, Jennifer Chavez, broke my heart as she told the stories of actual families and children whose lives have been destroyed when those they turned to for help with gender dysphoria were too afraid to suggest any politically incorrect interventions. This, even though most of these children who are deciding to change their gender forever are considered too young to vote or drink alcohol responsibly. Instead, the “expert” solutions involve chemically halting puberty and radical mastectomies for children as young as 13, even though studies show that without treatment, as high as 95 percent of these children eventually grow comfortable with their birth gender.

Kara Dansky, a feminist lawyer on the panel called the Equality Act an unmitigated disaster for women and girls and said that under its guidelines all sex-segregated spaces will disappear if gender identity becomes a protected class.

One member of the audience asked the panel if this was a monster built in the labs of academia. The entire panel agreed.

Camille Paglia, a well-known social commentator, self-avowed feminist and occasional leftist, equates this explosion of gender dysphoria to a fashion statement for those who feel alienated by today’s confusing society. She says that while most will not admit it – these type of problems are always present as great civilizations begin to unravel.

Yet much of society still rides the fence, watching the naked Emperor pass by, afraid to speak the obvious. It might be funny if it was not destroying the lives of so many young people and threatening the very fabric of our society.

The Equality act, as currently written, could force churches to employ transgendered males in their new after-school girls’ volleyball program. Religious schools might lose federal funding if their policies do not allow biological men to use the girl’s restroom. Faith based organizations may no longer be allowed to foster or adopt children, and business owners may lose their licenses if they refuse services that run contrary to their religious beliefs.

Dr. Kimber and Ambassador Zakhem, both agreed that the solution to the war on religion is to fight back, not because we hate the enemy, but because we love our country, our freedom and the principles that have made it great.

I agree. It is time to stand up and declare, like the child in the old story, “The Emperor is naked!”

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Partisanship: The Good, Bad and Ugly

THE GOOD

Nancy Pelosi says she opposes impeaching the President – at least for now. She says, “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country.”

She is exactly right. While Constitutional separation of powers can protect us (at least somewhat) from any bad president, only placing the good of the country above partisan politics will save us from the frightening divisiveness currently threatening our democracy.

According to one recent study, 42 percent of the people in each party view the opposition as ‘downright evil.’ Twenty percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans believe “we’d be better off as a country if large numbers of the opposing party in the public today just died.” Even more disturbing, a small but significant minority, 18 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of Republicans feel violence would be justified if the opposing party wins the 2020 election”

These statistics should scare us. Maybe they scared Pelosi.

THE BAD

Last week I read an article, where some on the liberal side of the aisle were claiming the recent education admissions scandal was proof of white racist privilege and should silence the critics of affirmative action. This is exactly the type of illogical jump that happens when politics are driven more by partisan dogma than thoughtful consideration.

It is uninformed and bias to equate black and poor. As the Institute for Family Studies recently reported, “The share of black men who are in the upper-income bracket rose from 13% in 1960 to 23% in 2016 … Moreover, poverty among black men has dropped dramatically over the same time, with the share of black men in poverty  falling from 41% to 18% since 1960.”  If the recent scandal proves anything about institutional bias, it shows that truly harmful bias is based more on social status than on skin color.

THE UGLY

Perhaps the ugliest part of hyper-partisanship is the way its most skilled practitioners use social media to destroy lives, end careers, tarnish reputations and silences thoughtful discussion. In a way, it is worse than just wishing your opponents would die since, in this case, actual harm is being done.

Today, the slightest politically incorrectness, intentional or not, can land you downrange in a free fire zone where the shooters are anonymous and can say and claim anything they think will hurt you – and they can do it with impunity. This misuse of an otherwise valuable communication tool is fracturing some college campuses into twitter-armed camps and suppressing speech for fear of unintentionally upsetting someone, anyone, and viciously being attacked for it.

I read were one college group was afraid to have a tequila themed birthday party because they were afraid that someone might accuse them of cultural appropriation, even though it was not called a Mexican party, and no one wore sombreros. Moreover, even if they get away with it today, what might happen in 20 years when tequila parties are called racist?

David French, writing for National Review, said that maybe we are giving to much credit to an Ivy League Diploma. He described his Harvard experience:

I was grateful for the opportunity but also feared that I wasn’t up for the academic or intellectual challenge. I quickly learned that I needn’t have worried. The problem wasn’t that we didn’t learn anything, but that our education was both deep and narrow. In torts, civil procedure, property, and criminal law we plunged into the depths of critical race theory and critical gender theory. I learned in great detail how common-law conceptions of contract rights harmed women and minorities and perpetuated the patriarchy. I learned very little about competing legal doctrines and traditions — when such ideas were brought up at all, they were presented as caricatures so they could be debunked. Make no mistake, I wanted to learn about critical-race theory, but I also wanted to better understand Blackstone. Why couldn’t I do both?

We should not value a diploma’s lineage more than learning. A good liberal arts education, where academic freedom is real, where all sides of an issue are subject to peaceful debate, where students are taught to think, and where history is studied in context is too rare today. However, if you can find it, it will beat a Harvard education hands down in real life value for its students.

Besides, what good is getting into an Ivy League School to someone like Lori Laughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli, who admitted on social media, “I don’t know how much school I’m going to attend. But I’m going to go in and talk to my deans and everyone and hope that I can try to balance it all. But I do want the experience of, like, game days, partying. I don’t really care about school.”

That’s just ugly.

CLICK

Do you hear it? That loud clicking? That is the sound of presidential power ratcheting up.

We have heard this same clicking sound during nearly every crisis our nation has faced since George Washington turned down his chance to be King. Usually, it is justified by a true emergency. However, as history shows, once the power ratchets up, it seldom retreats.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice,

Although the very concept of “emergency” suggests a temporary, short-term event, states of emergency last a long time, and they’re getting longer. Thirty-one of the 58 states of emergency declared since the National Emergencies Act [NEA] was passed are still in effect today. The average duration of declared emergencies is 9.6 years. Twenty-five emergencies have lasted 10 years or longer [with]  the longest-lasting, Blocking Iranian Government Property, being persistently renewed for 39 years.

Now, despite legislative action mostly in his favor, President Trump has declared an emergency on the southern border for the express purpose of freeing up money to build a wall he could not get funded (to the level he wanted) through proper channels.

Do not get me wrong, we need a wall.  But not at the cost of trashing the Constitution and the checks and balances that have kept us free from tyranny for over 200 years.

According to the Constitution, the decision on how to pay for federal expenditures is the exclusive responsibility of Congress. In this most recent crisis, the more important question is whether Trump’s extra-constitutional methods to fund the wall is more dangerous than the threatened influx of illegal aliens if we don’t build it.

I think they are.

Calling the border crisis a national emergency is disingenuous. It’s nothing more than a straw man created to build support for legislation unlikely to pass otherwise. Rahm Emanuel put it best a few years ago when he instructed his fellow politicians, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” I’ll add, even if you have to manufacture the crises.

The good news for Trump, however, is that there are no definitions in the NEA laying out the elements of a national emergency. However, common sense (and any dictionary) tells us that a national emergency, like any other emergency, ought to be unexpected, unusually dangerous, and require immediate attention to avoid catastrophic disaster.

Using this definition, it is hard to say illegal border crossings are unexpected since presidents and legislators have been looking for solutions for years. Legislative incompetence is not a National Emergency. And while the crisis has caused some dangerous situations, according to U.S. Customs, border crossings have been steadily decreasing since 2000. Arguably, the only thing that has changed is the recent political emphasis on immigration as both parties try to claim the high ground.

The NEA does not give any specific additional powers to the President. However, it opens up a broad range of additional powers across a broad range of other programs and regulations.

For example, the Brennan Center for Justice provides a list of additional powers the executive Branch gains when he declares a national emergency. It is 41 typewritten pages long.

The list includes emergency powers that enable the President to take over all U.S. citizen communications, an expedited ability to seize citizen property under eminent domain, and the ability to re-allocate funds from one government agency or department to another.

Most of these additional powers are reasonable in helping a sitting President react quickly during a time of severe crisis. However, they are also easily abused if the emergency declaration is just a smoke screen to bypass legislation the executive does not like.

Jonah Goldberg writing for National Review last week put it this way, “There is no national emergency now, but he steered himself into a political one. And neither he nor his cheerleaders can see the difference.”

Keep in mind, many Democrats are only against this action because it is not their man in the White House. For now, they can only dream of the day they regain the presidency and they can use this new power established through Republican precedent.

Meanwhile, the power of the president and the importance of the presidential election ratchet up and the Congress becomes even less relevant. If you are counting on the Supreme Court to save us – do not hold your breath. The Court’s historic reluctance to limit executive emergency powers is what got us here in the first place.

So lobby for the wall, write your legislators, but be cautious about supporting a plan that abandons the Constitution just to check off a campaign promise. We will all regret it when the next President decides that gun violence, the new green deal, or any other liberal cause is suddenly a national emergency.

 

The real reason for the continuing shutdown

As of this writing, parts of the government are still shut down. The media tells us the problem is disagreement over funding for a border wall. Excuse me if I call foul, but that’s crap. The truth is, the wall is a smoke screen covering a liberal “never-trump” strategy. It’s a dangerous and destructive game.

In 2006, Congressional Democrats agreed to $1.4 billion for 700 miles of fencing along the southern border. In 2013, every Senate Democrat voted to authorize $7.5 billion for an additional 700 miles. So today, when Democrats are willing to shut down the government over an expenditure they previously supported – one that only represents .0998 percent of the total federal budget – their argument that the wall is immoral or a waste of money rings hollow.

Besides, common sense tells us that walls have always made for good neighbors. Consider the border wall built south of San Diego to stop crime and illegals from crossing over from one of the highest crime centers in the world – Tijuana. Even Politico and NPR have written about its effectiveness.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who today calls the proposed wall immorality, still built a barrier around her multimillion-dollar property in Napa Valley. People do this, as Trump pointed out, not, “…because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.”

No, this fight is more about the next election and a feverish attempt by Democrats to stop any policy Trump proposes – good or bad. In the end, however, it hurts their party and more importantly, the country.

I recently had a cousin post on Facebook the following she had copied from a friend:

“Here’s why we want Trump. Yes, he’s a bit of a jerk; yes he’s an egomaniac, but we don’t care. The country is a mess because politicians suck, the Republicans and Democrats can be two-faced and gutless, and illegals are everywhere. We want it all fixed … and Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want.”

In an article this month in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger examines why Trump supporters are so persistent. He used this example from a letter he received, “When I see long-hoped-for ‘Resistance’ to those nutburgers [liberals] from Trump—which I did not see from Nixon, Ford, Bush 41 or Bush 43—I am unalterably supportive. Flawed vessel or not, it’s not the man, it’s the resistance that binds us to him.”

I have been one of the biggest whiners about Trump’s un-presidential character. However, like the writers above, I can put up with a certain amount of un-presidentialness as long as his policies support the Constitution and defend American citizens. Unlike Pelosi, at least Trump does not place imagined constitutional rights of non-citizens above the needs of those who the government is established to protect.

Frightened by the far left’s hijacking of the Democratic party, more and more average Americans are moving defensively right and hunkering down.

That is not good for our country.

It’s scary when the left bashes Karen Pence (wife of the Vice President) for simply teaching at a Christian school. And it’s scary when leftists try to derail the nomination of Neomi Rao (Trump’s nominee to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals) because she did in college what modern college students should be doing and argued difficult issues. (She just made the mistake of arguing from the conservative side).

It’s scary when liberal pundits turn to identity politics to cut off debate when they see they are losing as Areva Martin (CNN political analyst) recently did when debating David Webb (radio show host). She accused him of white privilege – before realizing he was African American.

Conservatives, of all races, are tired of being called racists, homophobes, deniers or religious kooks by people who nothing about them – and seem to have no desire to learn.

In relating the Martin/Webb story for National Review,  Kevin Williamson wrote, “I’ve heard Charles C. W. Cooke dismissed as a fundamentalist Christian (he’s an atheist) and Guy Benson denounced as a homophobe (he’s gay). I have even heard myself denounced as a sellout self-hating black man (I’m white). We have been the beneficiaries of Voltaire’s prayer: “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”

Remember Democrats, what goes around comes around. Republicans got Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court because Democrat Harry Reid ended the Senate Filibuster Rule for confirming Federal Judges. The Democrat “never Trump” attitude will only lead to greater hyper-partisanship for the next president. While this is a problem for both parties, maybe Democrats can help end it here. All it takes is loving your country more than your politics. If Democrats can’t do that – they shouldn’t be surprised when Trump wins a second term.

Punchbowl Shelter