I was listening to a Bari Weiss podcast and she dropped the word “safetyism” (the context was discussing how to address overly aggressive COVID measures) which was frankly new to me. After some searching, I found that it was first coined in The Coddling of the American Mind. I had heard a great deal about the magazine article and subsequent book at the time. I never read them because the premise seemed obviously true to me.

Anyway, the authors’ definition of safetyism is “a culture or belief system in which safety (which includes “emotional safety”) has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.” I think the focus at the time was more on trigger warnings and supposed psychological effects rather than physical safety. However, at the moment I want to talk about physical safety.

While of course the refusal of people and institutions to even briefly consider whether there were trade-offs in dealing with COVID, I think that there is a pretty obvious progression of this faulty thinking. Going back to my military service, the safety office on Air Force bases was the subject of much derision. I remember the local safety NCO (northern Mississippi) posting a notice in the gym one morning that people shouldn’t run outside as the temperature would drop to 20 that day. I had arrived there from Grand Forks, ND, a month prior and told him that I’d be just fine, thank you very much.

Don’t get me wrong; safety observers play an important role in fire and other emergency services, but there is always the risk of sliding past prudent caution into full-blown ridiculousness. I was talking to a veteran incident manager about a big wildfire where they had to fire the safety manager after he demanded that firefighters had to wear their emergency shelters in the dining hall line.

I guess when safety measures jump the shark we can call them “Karenism.” (I’d love to think I just coined that but it was too easy).

A couple of other points.

I have noticed that every time I had to deal with a safety guy in the corporate world, their business cards had these multiple character certification acronyms after their names. I’m always immediately suspicious when someone feels the need to add these obscure certifications to their card. We used to joke in the military about how the shorter the office symbol, the more important you were, and this seems like the same principle in action.

HR is the manifestation of safetyism in corporate employment. HR will never tell a manager to take any risk to support corporate goals.

This is sort of a companion piece to my conversation on moving on past COVID. I guess the conclusion is that what’s going on isn’t some huge sea change. It’s the next step in something that’s been growing for decades. Which is very frightening.

The poll gap is enormous (13+ points R!). There are lots of reasons to not vote for Democrats.

But Republicans who want to be in the House and Senate need a simple, straightforward platform that Americans can vote for. Here is a list to kick off the discussion:

1. Don’t have more COVID lockdowns or mandates of any kind.

2. Maximize natural gas, oil, and nuclear power sources to lower the price at the pump and utility bills.

3. Support parental rights! Change the law to have the money only go to states and jurisdictions where parents have choice/charters/vouchers.

4. Send all departments out to the areas they govern. Drain the swamp by exporting it.

5. Change the law to fire all government employees who play politics or political favorites. No selective enforcement/targeting.

6. Support medical freedoms. No FDA approval should be needed for people to make their own decisions on experimental drugs.

7. Reduce governmental ownership of land. Mandate a max 10% federal ownership of the land of any state. Auction the rest off over the course of four years.

8. Finish the border wall.

Criticize! Add your own! Let’s see if we produce a decent Top 10 priorities list Republicans can rally around and implement.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said you don’t know your Irish until the world breaks your heart. Truer words were never spoken, at least to the ears of this Irishman.

Last week the lady featured, Ashling Murphy, finished teaching a class of primary students (kindergarten students), and as teachers do, she went for a run to wind down. The run was along a canal in the center of Ireland, outside the town of Tullamore in County Offaly, a place that I know well for personal reasons. She never returned to her pupils. On her run, she was murdered. She never came back to her school, but more importantly to her friends, boyfriend, and family, she never came home.

The Irish police have arrested a suspect, and given the way Irish law works, I will not comment on him. He is innocent until proven guilty, and I do not want to prejudice the case.

But like many in Ireland this past week, I can’t help but feel a loss. Many in Ireland feel it. The whole country was shocked by the events this past Wednesday, and whilst yes, the media machine has amplified her death, there’s no question that it is not all manufactured. I know for many Americans and those from more violent places, such words seem childish or out of perspective. But in Ireland, whilst we have many problems, and many ills, this was out of order. It seems a kind, nice woman, of the type every Irish person of good will knows, was robbed of her life and future by evil. One that’s left us feeling hollow.

I share some traits with this lady that perhaps have added to the pain. Like her I am a teacher, like her I enjoy my work with students, and like her I go to mass regularly. Ashling was, like me, a practicing Catholic, which is unusual in modern Ireland. So obviously, there is some projection going on in my emotions. Nonetheless, she seemed like such a woman in deed as well as looks. First to her school every morning, aiding the students with music (she was an Irish traditional musician), teaching all ages outside of school, and just being a natural aid to living in modern Ireland. She was a sportswoman and a woman of fashion too, but nobody’s perfect (I kid, I kid … ).

But now her life is over. It seems so final. So cruel. So despairing. Not the act of evil that I can get as a history teacher, but the nature of the loss. But this article is about her, not me.

Her funeral was last Tuesday. As expected, a massive crowd attended. The Irish do funerals well. There was a bishop who spoke at the mass, and the taoiseach (Irish prime minister), Micheál Martin, attended, along with several ministers and the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. More importantly, each of Ashling’s 23 students from her first class did a guard of honour. Each carried a rose and a picture of her and told her to fly high in the sky. A testament to their innocence, the majority did not cry, but remained brave as the body entered St. Brigid’s Church Mountbolus, County Offaly.

In my school, we had a minute of silence for her. Never had I felt such emotion. I’ve been in schools where students or teachers passed away, but I never felt it as deep as this. I found myself choking up a bit. Perhaps I am a weakling, or just soft. But maybe it testifies to my humanity. I don’t know. Anyway, this is not my day.

Please, Ricochet members, would you say a prayer for Ashling Murphy? Pray for her friends, family, and boyfriend. They need it. When a friend passed a few years ago, many of you did so. I wrote this at the time, my favourite biblical verse, and I stand by it to this day. Let not evil win. Pray for her soul and its entry to heaven.

“A light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.” – John 1:5

In an effort to explain to people why he does not hold press conferences, Joe Biden held a press conference yesterday.  It went about as one might expect. For example, he was asked if he thought that the school closings might be a political problem for him. Yes or no might have sufficed, but Mr. Biden proved his detractors wrong about his intellect by delving into the issue a bit more deeply:

Oh, I think it could be, but I hope to God that they’re — that — look, maybe I’m kidding myself, but as time goes on, the voter who is just trying to figure out, as I said, how to take care of their family, put three squares on the table, stay safe, able to pay their mortgage or their rent, et cetera, has — is becoming much more informed on the motives of some of the political players and some of the — and the political parties. And I think that they are not going to be as susceptible to believing some of the outlandish things that have been said and continue to be said.

You know, every — every president, not necessarily in the first 12 months, but every president in the first couple of years — almost every president, excuse me, of the last presidents — at least four of them — have had polling numbers that are 44 percent favorable.

So, it’s this idea that — but you all — not you all — but now it is, “Well, Biden is at — one poll showed him at 33 percent. The average is 44 — 44, 45 percent. One polled him at 49 percent.”

I mean, the idea that — the American public are trying to sift their way through what’s real and what’s fake. And I don’t think as — I’ve never seen a time when the political coverage — the choice of what political coverage a voter looks to has as much impact on as what they believe; they go to get reinforced in their views, whether it’s MSNBC or whether it’s Fox or whatever.

I mean — and one of the things I find fascinating that’s happening — and you all are dealing with it every day — and it will impact on how things move — is that a lot of the speculation in the polling data shows that the — that the cables are heading south; they’re losing viewership. You know?

Well, Fox is okay for a while, but it’s not gated. And a lot of the rest are predicted to be not very much in the mix in the next four to five years. I don’t know whether that’s true or not.

But I do know that we have sort of put everybody in — put themselves in certain alleys. And they’ve decided that, you know, how many people who watch MSNBC also watch Fox, other than a politician trying to find out what’s going on in both places? How many people —

Again, I’m no expert in any of this. But the fact is, I think you have to acknowledge that what gets covered now is necessarily a little bit different than what gets covered in the past.

I’ve had a couple — well, I shouldn’t get into this.

But the nature not — the nature of the way things get covered — and this is my observation over the years I’ve been involved in public life — changed. And it’s changed because of everything from a thing called the Internet. It’s changed because of the way in which we have self-identified perspectives based on what channel you turn on, what — what network you look at — not network, but what cable you look at. And it’s — it’s never quite been like that.

Anyway.

I did not vote for Mr. Biden.  But I’m sure that those who did vote for him are thinking, “Thank goodness we finally have someone in the White House who is not a crazy unpredictable fool like Donald Trump.”  They must be relieved.

On the other hand, there are some critics who use answers like the one above to suggest that Mr. Biden must have some form of dementia.  I think those critics are way off base.

Is this answer less coherent than his speeches from 40-50 years ago? Of course not. You never know what Mr. Biden is going to say. And neither does Mr. Biden. He never has.

It’s possible that he has some form of dementia. Hard to say. But I’m convinced that this is just how his brain works, even on a good day.  He’s always been like this.  He would have struggled with a regular job, like a truck driver or a factory worker.  I don’t think he could have managed that.  Can you imagine him keeping track of a logbook or a time card?  He would have needed help to deal with details like that.

He excelled in politics through a lack of ethics, not through a powerful intellect.

This is not disease or old age.  This is just who Joe Biden is.  It’s who he’s always been.  Just ask Clarence Thomas, who didn’t understand many of Mr. Biden’s questions during his hearings.  Mr. Biden graduated 76th out of 85 students at Syracuse Law School, after having been kicked out for plagiarism.  Mr. Thomas is one of the great legal minds of our era.  Mr. Thomas had no idea what Mr. Biden was talking about.  Because most of Biden’s questions sounded like his answer above.

After Jimmy Carter’s spectacular failures 45 years ago, his leftist supporters suggested that perhaps the world was sufficiently complex that the Presidency was too complicated for one man to manage.  Even after Ronald Reagan proved them wrong, those leftists just couldn’t see that the problem with Jimmy Carter was not his intellect, but his leftism.

Dwelling on Mr. Biden’s supposed dementia is a mistake.

First of all, it may not be true.  It’s not at all clear that he is worse off intellectually than he was 50 years ago.

But more importantly, the problem with Mr. Biden is not his cognitive difficulties, but his leftism.

Did Ronald Reagan have early Alzheimer’s disease during his term as president?  Perhaps.  But he governed as a conservative, and conservatism works, so it was ok.  He lost his memory – not his judgment.  Even in a weakened state, Mr. Reagan would not have opened our borders, doubled our money supply, shut down our energy production, retreated from Afghanistan, defunded the police, allowed our history to be destroyed, promoted gender and race conflicts, and so on.  He might have needed help with his daily schedule.  He didn’t need help with reality.  He was a conservative.

If he had been a leftist like Carter, he would have failed like Carter.  If he had been a leftist like Biden, he would have failed like Biden.

But he wasn’t a leftist.  So he succeeded.  Even though he may have suffered from the same disease as Mr. Biden might be suffering from.  The disease doesn’t matter as much as their ideology.  A secretary can tell you when your next meeting is.  But if the president really believes that you can keep printing money until inflation stops, then there is no cure for that.  Leftism is a metastatic disease with no known cure.  Just ask Californians.  Or, now, Texans (having been over-run by Californians).  Or Venezuelans.  Or Cubans.  Or anyone that has been touched by leftism.

Did Mr. Reagan suffer from dementia during his presidency?  I’m not sure.  Does Mr. Biden?  I’m not sure.  But honestly, I don’t care.

Mr. Biden suffers from leftism.  And now, so do we.

Dementia is not the problem.  Leftism is.  It doesn’t matter who the president is, or how smart they are.  The person doesn’t matter.  Their age doesn’t matter.  Where they went to college doesn’t matter.

Leftism matters.

Leftism is destructive.  Regardless of who is promoting it.

Let’s stay focused on the real problem, here…

When Joe Biden was touting his achievements and daring his listeners to name a single president who did more in his first year, I immediately mentally listed FDR, LBJ, Reagan.. and then thought it might be easier to list presidents worse than Biden.  The only one who really stands out as a rival is the hapless James Buchanan and when you do a detailed comparison it is scary.  It took Buchanan four years to leave the country in the worse shape possible and Joe has been at it for only one year.

Be afraid.