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Nothing Is Ever Going Back to Normal
National Review — after previously offering that Drag Queen Story Hour was a “blessing of liberty” and railing against Florida Governor Ron de Santis for modest efforts at pushing back against the left — finds itself shocked… shocked … at the metastasizing phenomenon of leftists foisting drag shows (featuring men strutting pretending to be women as if women were clown-prostitutes) on children. “Oh, my heck!” they proclaim. “Who could have foreseen that if we indulged the left in their depravity they would push it even further?“
It’s understandable why (Bush) Republicans and (Atlantic) Conservatives would prefer not to fight the culture wars. It’s just not gentlemanly/ladylike to make a big fuss about leftists sexualizing children. It’s icky and Trumpy to confront the left about their cultural ambitions and their use of every lever of Government to promote them. And because they don’t want to fight, it’s very easy to succumb to denialism. “Yes, sure, there are a few crazies on the fringe of the left, but most of them don’t want to get gay with kids. And if we just calmed down and found some common ground we could get back to normal. Hey, why are those people over there making those kids shove cash in that transvestite’s thong?”
“In Defense of Political Escalation,” Abigail Shrier makes the eminently logical point that the left has no intention of ending the culture wars, or even a ceasefire.
Those waiting on the mythical pendulum to “swing back,” should stop holding their breath. The gender activists are True Believers, akin to jihadists: no amount of reasoning diminishes their resolve, no appeal to data brings them pause, no urge to consider the sanctity of American liberties will convince them to cool it.
While conservatives have been waiting for things to calm down and get back to normal, and fretting that “we oughtn’t do things that are at odds with our precious principles,” the left have seized not just Government power, but also academic power, media power, and even corporate power which they eagerly wield against anyone who dissents from Woke ideology.
If the woke continue to gain ground, where will we skeptics go to educate our children, transact commerce, find fair adjudication of our custody disputes? Where will we publish when not only the New York Times has a “gender director”—when every publication does?
That is the worry that likely motivates DeSantis, the first politician to “weaponize” the Florida tax code. He brought its hammer down on Disney to punish that one company for using its immense corporate coffers to lobby against parents’ rights in Florida. In principle, it’s a move I’m leery of. (And in the case of sending CPS after moms and dads who take their kids to drag shows, it’s a move I would oppose.)
But the gist of this stratagem—escalation—may be necessary. Indeed, it already seems to be working. Playing offense, even raising the stakes, may be the only means of achieving a much-needed truce. I’m out of better ideas. How about you?
Yeah, if there is another way to bring the culture back to plumb, I would be interested to hear it. But pundits writing hand-wringing articles in magazines that are only read by other pundits doesn’t seem like an effective solution to me.
And it’s not just the gender bending. The left will never give up on CRT. They will never give up on Climate Totalitarianism. They will never, despite John Cornyn’s delusions, give up on zero-tolerance gun control.
They don’t want to make a deal; they want our complete submission.
Published in Culture
Ok so there goes my hope for a rational good faith discussion.
Only a “Bernie Sanders” style leftist would ignore the actual arguments for name calling (see anyone can play this dumb game)
Decades of research and some basic common sense show that people respond to incentives and disincentives. You want people off welfare then give the help/incentives to do this. Give them no help, other than the theoretical hope that they will be better off in a few years, and they will not risk what they have. Very few people will watch their kids starve for their own personal political beliefs, exactly none will watch there kids starve for your political belief.
The argument that we need to help people to get off welfare used to be mainstream Republican, and frankly general political thought. It is the idea behind “welfare to work” style programs. I even went as far as to barrow heavily from National Reviews own, apparently communist, Keven Williamson. His idea that HE wrote was adjust the benefits to help these people move to get jobs. My issue was that this needed to be done first, not an after thought. The emphasis needs to be on getting policy makers to do the right thing and create a route for these poor people. The article was a little too much your life sucks do something, where it could have/should have been your life sucks here is how we can change that. It should have been a call to action to change the benefits as KW ultimately suggested not “just move”.
My way gets people help and hopefully ultimately actually reduces the number of people on welfare. Your apparent way of looking at things does not, and frankly is more likely to result in a socialist government. If they can not get help to get out of the rut their life is in, they will keep voting for more free stuff.
The dichotomy you point to is part of every Communist dictatorship’s crazy making agenda.
The manufactured debate over trans gendered issues has done one important thing: it has blocked from discussion the most important controversies our citizenry should be examining for the impossible-to-determine-to-the-satisfaction of the Marxist’s agenda items on the LGBTxyzKq-zipperFetish-lovers platform.
@heavywater
@painterjean
This interview with Colin Wright by Joe Rogan dissects the way that the over focus on the need for more consideration and more sensitivity on the gender and LGBT issues doe a good job of showing how crazy making this issue happens to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHE442ISkUU
The comments on this interview are well worth reading as well.
Only one out of two thousand people is truly “trans gendered.”
If this statistical reality was shoved in our face every day, rather than this manufactured crisis in “gender/sexual roles facing critical intolerance,” Americans could start focusing on the WEF/WHO/BillGates Agenda 2030.
But now Americans do have to focus on the issue. Even here in remote Lake County Calif, in kindergartner to 9 year old classrooms, should any child tell a teacher they would like to be a boy, if they are a girl, or vice versa, the child’s educational file will contain a provision that hormone blockers might need to be administered to the little kid ion the near future.
And this notation will not be brought to the attention of the child’s parents.
The aphorism is actually “cart before the horse.” Usually, the horse IS before the cart.
I thought conservatism was also/more about allowing jobs to spring up where people are. Remember, there used to be jobs where those people are. Why aren’t there jobs there now? If it’s because government got in the way, get it back OUT of the way.
And frankly if those jobs returned, they don’t need to pay as much for people who own their homes in a low-cost area, vs renting in San Francisco or what-have-you that some bureaucrats might want those people to relocate to.
Yeah you are right I screwed up that whole horse and cart thing.
Conservatism morphed out of its traditional stance of being about the worker.
It was the Republican Party who back in the 1880’s & 1890’s took out full page ads in newspapers in big cities which fully supporting worker strikes. In Chicago, it was Republicans who supported the Pullman strikes. The prty walked the talk – providing food to families where the husbands and fathers had gone to prison or to the hospital when the hired goons stopped the protests.
During the Eisenhower era, Ike took great care to ensure that the Federal budget allowed for a program of building the national highway system. That program created so many jobs in the construction trade that the money spread out throughout the economy.
End of part 1
Part Two
Now those system-changing attitudes of the 19th Century and of Eisenhower in the 1950’s are derided by a “New Republican Party.” Since the end of tariffs in the 1980’s, big money Republicans have been only concerned about using the China trade situation to the investor class’ benefit. Who cares if the textile workers were put out of work? Big investors made more money when textile businesses no longer paid union workers a semi-decent wage because foreign workers receive 47 cents an hour. Same thing for auto workers.
Oh how these Republicans bristle at the notion of any benefits and safety net for the middle class. Oh and please ignore how Corporate welfare programs dwarf the monies given to American citizens who have been suffering.
On top of that, it once was illegal to allow the Chinese to produce the computer chips that the American military needs for its weaponry programs! Not any more.
Additionally we see that shipping off the beef and chicken products which our farmers produce to be processed a world away might benefit the investor class. But now that many of us understand the idea of how major snags in the supply chain can mean a 400% inflation rise in 22 months – obviously there needs to be citizen strikes that dwarf the Pullman strikes of the 1890’s.
Yes, people respond to incentives and disincentives. That’s why millions of American actually do move to take jobs that pay better than the job they have.
KW was simply describing the behavior of people who don’t just sit at home hoping that the government is going to pamper them and instead decide to move to where the work is.
When government provides incentives for indolence, we get more indolence.
That seems high. Especially when “transgender” isn’t a thing. There are only two genders. All the rest is pseudoscience.
Since you have declared me a leftist, I will talk like one. Your “privilege” is showing.
Millions of people who have something, have the ability to move for a better job. If you have nothing how are you getting to a new city, where will you live, with no address how will you get a job, what do your kids eat while you are looking for work.
Yeah, so instead of government providing incentive for indolence, I have suggested (much like KW ultimately did) that government provide incentive to end indolence. You seem to have a big problem with my (and KWs) idea. So what do you have to offer beyond “just move”. Cause barring and awful lot of proof to the opposite “just move” seems to be the status quo and continued “indolence”
Government creates the problem by regulating local employers out of business, and then “we” blame the unemployed people for not uprooting their lives to go to the next Big Place?
So, your solution is to grow the welfare state?
Or, maybe stop interfering with jobs that used to exist in those places.
Well, I guess it’s too late to prevent the export of jobs to China, right?
I really don’t know what to say here. The hard core Republican position of “welfare to work“ is growing the welfare state?
Kevin Willaimson who wrote the just move piece conceded that modification to the welfare system to help with moving may be needed. Is it truly your position that KW wants to grow the welfare state, I mean really?
Changing the system from life long payments not to work to allow payments to move for a new job is somehow growing the welfare state?
At this point I don’t think you are reading anything I write. You just want to ignore actual arguments to call me a leftist and misstated my position to growing the welfare state.
Well, remember, if the people own a home where they are now, but have to rent wherever they go and it’s likely a place where the rent is pretty high; how could they do it if they don’t get MORE money, at least for a while? Which sounds like growing the welfare state.
Any welfare reform will take 20 years to soak in. The end in sight is that children will grow up learning and knowing that there is no automatic money coming in from the government if you get pregnant out of wedlock. It will take 18 years and 9 months from the time the welfare reform takes effect until girls realize that there is no free meals for her and her children.
A reminder:
This picture needs to change.
It might be more effective for boys/men to know that they’ll be paying support for at least 18 years.
And their age shouldn’t matter. One problem these days is teenage boys getting teenage girls pregnant, and pretty much knowing that they won’t have to pay for it.
But then again, neither do the girls.
It would be better to have the fear of illegitimacy and of supporting a child without a court order for the rest of your life, and fear of begetting a child who will never live with his father. I’m tired of compromising on culture and framing the myriad troubles as economic and legal.
One problem is, seems like you have to be willing to take babies away from them. Either that or be willing to let the babies live in squalor or perhaps not even live at all.
I’ve long believed that having something like Skid Row serves a valuable purpose: an example of how NOT to live. But it takes more determination than I think many people have these days.
Well, rereading it, I did wonder where I came up with 18 years and 9 months. It’s really a lot faster than that. Abortion and infanticide aside, and without promoting foster care, if welfare were eliminated tomorrow, it would take a year for friends and younger sisters to see the problem: Who’s going to pay for baby food and diapers?
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about this, and it’s been a long day today, but I’m sure there could be ways of seeing that in the first few years, infants are fed and financially and emotionally supported while the mothers are supported less and less. This wouldn’t be happening in the dark, but as a PSA-supported and advertised program. The welfare benefits would be cut back for every new birth, say 1-2% per month. It’s good to be open-handed, but it’s not good to make it pay well to be an unwed mother deciding to have child after child in large part because there is no financial risk or downside.
Heck, they could even give a one year warning that child subsidies would be cut in a year’s time. But it’s got to stop. And the only way to really get it to stop is by removing the social and financial incentives.
Double heck. Maybe make welfare payments contingent upon having a married father living in the household. I don’t know the specifics, but incentives have to be removed, and this means allowing disincentives.
Somehow I don’t think you’d get very far with cutting benefits for existing single mothers, even over time. One reason they do it is because, as you say, they may have nothing else. They didn’t bother with school, etc.
Maybe I didn’t phrase it right. And I still haven’t got anything solid. Existing government-dependent children could stay on welfare. All new children would be on gradually decreasing benefits. It would take no more than 20 years. More like 5 or 10 for grandfathered in children to grown out of the welfare state.
Of course education would have to be fixed, too.