Category: ideological culture

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education and schooling ideological culture

Destroying (& Saving) Debate

debate judges, clowns, communism, communists

“Before anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist,” confesses someone now judging high school debates.

Her name is Lila Lavender, and she won the 2019 national high school debate championship. But now she has Authority.

“I cannot check the revolutionary proletarian science at the door when I’m judging.”

Start of a resignation letter? 

Not on your life. Ms. Red — excuse me, Ms. Lavender added, “I will no longer evaluate and thus never vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions/arguments.”

She exalts totalitarianism, instead, and the deaths of over one hundred million people and counting. And feels quite comfortable doing so . . . in this terrible, evil country . . . in which somehow she judges debate.

She’s not exactly an aberration. High school debate has regressed “from a competition that rewards evidence and reasoning,” champion debater and coach James Fishbeck writes in The Free Press,“to one that punishes students for what they say and how they say it.”

He points to a listing of judges run by the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA), where many judges on their individual but public webpages acknowledge deciding winners and losers according to their own personal politics. 

“A black student I coached,” he recalls, “was told by the debate judge that he would have won his round, if he hadn’t condemned Black Lives Matter.”

One judge posted instructions that “if you are white, don’t run arguments with impacts that primarily affect POC [people of color]. These arguments should belong to the communities they affect.”

Another judge said “Referring to immigrants as ‘illegals’” would automatically lose one the debate.

While the NSDA insists that “Judges should decide the round as it is debated, not based on their personal beliefs,” Fishbeck complains they do nothing about judges who publicize their punishment of students on a political basis.

But James Fishbeck did something. He formed a new debate league, Incubate Debate, which this year has already hosted 18 debate tournaments. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly ideological culture too much government

Apocalypse California

Gavin Newsom, California, reparations, racism

The Democratic Party is a victim of its own success. Nowhere can we see that more clearly than in California.

Democrats have succeeded by pushing “victimhood,” gaining power by focusing on special groups, declaring them oppressed and offering compensation — though still never comes the day of full escape from the burden of this oppression.

Many stories of oppression are true.But no sized sliver of truth can guarantee that compensation attempts will redound to the liberation of the aggrieved.

California’s Democrats will face this soon.

Over slavery! And racism.

Never a slave state, California has been flirting, officially, with reparations. Several cities have “explored” the idea. An official “Reparations Task Force,” established by state law, has recommended a formal apology for slavery (in other states, over a hundred-and-fifty years ago). It’s also talking about giving away hundreds of billions of dollars in compensation to Black Californians, descendants of slaves or not. 

The task force is scheduled to make explicit and detailed recommendations —  on July 1.

Which puts Democrats on the spot.

Powerful Democrats such as Governor Gavin Newsom. Considered a rising presidential aspirant should the current 82-year-old decide not to run again, Newsom signed the law to officially look at reparations . . . but then seemed less than fond of the price-tag. More than twice the yearly state budget!

Now the governor is keeping his mouth shut awaiting the final report.

And, as George Skelton at the L.A. Times asks, then what? Well, that is when “the governor and lawmakers will need to emerge from cover, face the public and devise a better response.”

But up until July they can still pretend.

Then, Democrats will have to face the reparations issue squarely — and in the context of the complete failure of their state, the blame for which they cannot place upon Republicans, much less long-dead racist slave-owners.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture

No Laughing Matter

China, censorship, comedian, comedy

Without freedom of speech, the jester’s art can be perilous.

Chinese comedian Li Haoshi, who performs under the name House, recently did stand-up comedy at a Beijing club, after which, reports Reuters, “an audience member posted online a description of a joke he had made . . . describing it as demeaning to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).”

That went viral on Chinese social media.

“In the joke,” Reuters explains, “Li recounted seeing two stray dogs he had adopted chase a squirrel and said it had reminded him of the phrase ‘have a good work style, be able to fight and win battles,’ a slogan Chinese President Xi Jinping used in 2013 to praise the PLA’s work ethic.”

Not exactly a ripsnorter, it is hardly biting satire, either — after all, Li steered clear of any mention of Winnie the Pooh.

But no matter. Next thing the funny man’s employer knew, “China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism Bureau said it would fine Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media Co 13.35 million yuan and confiscate 1.35 million yuan in ‘illegal gains’ from the firm.”

That’s a cool $2 million U.S. for the ever-so specific crime of “harming society.”

“In response to the fine, Xiaoguo Culture . . . said it had terminated Li’s contract,” and, for good measure if you are a totalitarian, Reuters adds that “Weibo appears to have banned him from posting to his account there.”

“We will never allow any company or individual [to] use the Chinese capital as a stage to wantonly slander the glorious image of the PLA,” declared China’s cultural ministry.

Suffice it to say, China isn’t currently known for its comedy. 

And won’t be until more people perform their own stand-up act.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture too much government

Public TV Vetoed

Public TV, television, state media, propaganda

One shouldn’t need the latest ratcheting-up of the culture wars to oppose what we call, in America, “public radio and TV.” Taxpayer-subsidized broadcast media is a bad idea. Period. Full stop.

Defund NPR. Defund PBS. No more state-run or -subsidized media.

And, thankfully, that point was made by Governor Kevin Stitt when he vetoed the Oklahoma legislature’s renewed funding for the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority. 

“OETA, to us, is an outdated system,” he told Fox News. “You know, the big, big question is why are we spending taxpayer dollars to prop up or compete with the private sector and run television stations?”

But he didn’t stop there. “And then when you go through all of the programing that’s happening and the indoctrination and over-sexualization of our children, it’s just really problematic, and it doesn’t line up with Oklahoma values.”

What this implies is that wasting taxpayer money on “public supported” media was fine with Republicans like Stitt. Until a really flagrant violation of their sensibilities.

Sure, the current gender and “critical race theory” nonsense that taxpayer-subsidized media pushes is beyond the pale.

But so is the smug establishment progressivism of “public media” culture more generally.

The whole point of taxes and government spending is to promote the general welfare, or so the standard theory runs. But there’s nothing “general” about the extreme sectarianism of “public radio and TV,” with less well-to-do taxpayers subsidizing the far wealthier public media audience.

It would have been far more inspiring had Governor Stitt dared oppose factional subsidies prior to the latest culture war strife. Indeed, maybe we wouldn’t be now enduring CRT and transgenderism and other aspects of cultural Marxism had conservatives actually stuck to republican principles long ago. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Biden Brazenness Against Religion

Joe Biden, Christians, Christianity, religion

April is the cruelest month, wrote T.S. Eliot, but he wasn’t referring to the Biden Administration’s ramped-up war on Christianity.

Mid-month, the administration barred Catholic priests of the Holy Name College Friary from providing “pastoral care” to servemembers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The government contract had been granted, instead, to Mack Global LLC, which the archdiocese characterizes as “a secular defense contracting firm that cannot fulfill the statement of work in the contract.”

Not convinced that this Daily Signal story amounts to “a war on Christianity”?

Well, try The Epoch Times. In “Christians Say Government Targets Them Because They Oppose Left-Wing Agenda,” Kevin Stocklin lists a number of federal government policies that favor left-wing politics over the social and political activism of Catholics and other Christians. 

Abortion activists, pro- and anti-, do occasionally engage in what might plausibly be called “terrorist” activities, but the FBI appears avid in hounding pro-life protesters, yet uninterested in doing any actual work to curb the string of “violent attacks, including assaults and firebombings, against pro-life individuals and institutions.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)’s “subpoena to the FBI earlier this month demanding information on its alleged program to surveil Catholics for ‘signs of radicalization,’” spurred Stocklin’s reporting about the government’s increasing conflict with Christianity.

Why see traditional Christians as enemies of the State? Because they are.

Potentially, at least.

In part, simply because those who worship God see a worshipful attitude towards the State as something akin to idolatry. And apparently vice versa. But sociologists such as Robert Nisbet regard religion as a countervailing power against ever-growing government.

If you are looking for a jealous god, the modern total State fills the bill.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture media and media people

Happier in the Moment?

gender affirming care

When I express worry about children and teens being put through what we used to call “sex change” procedures, the push-back often runs like this: 

  • this is not happening; 
  • you’re falling for a “moral panic”; 
  • stop listening to right-wing propaganda!

But consult this video.

One interviewee who performs sex-change surgery discusses the “informed consent” of 14-year-olds. This doctor acknowledges that many children who agree to puberty blockers and surgery — changing their bodies irreversibly — end up regretting it.

“We talk about it [with the kids] but most of the kids are nowhere in any kind of brain space to really talk about it in a serious way. That’s always bothered me,” he says. “But you know, we still want the kids to be happy. Happier in the moment, right?”

“It’s everything you have been told doesn’t happen,” says my friend David Strom in his report on the Project Veritas investigation (“Undercover video: puberty blockers at 8, surgery as young as 10 in New York”).

“It happens,” David writes. “Watch the doctors who do it explain that they do and that they are eager to do it to even pre-adolescent children. Even admitting that the ‘science isn’t really settled,’ but hey, we’ll do it if you want.”

We don’t let kids do everything that adults may do because we know that it takes time for human beings to mature. Adults, too, may regret having undergone hormone blocking and genital surgery. But adults have the best chance, a real chance, to decide responsibly.

Peer-pressured, doctor-pressured, even legislature-pressured, and perhaps very confused 14-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 10-year-olds . . . and 8-year-olds . . . don’t have the same chance to make an adult decision.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Queen’s Color Guard

Cleopatra, race, history

Does it matter that Netflix will premiere, on May 10, a “docudrama” depicting Cleopatra VII Philopator as black?

She was, after all, a direct descendent of a Macedonian general — and pal of Alexander the Great — “Ptolemy the Savior.” 

European, in other words. White.

Anthony Brian Logan, a conservative African-American YouTube commentator, notes Netflix’s woke race-swapping as habit, a trend — which he takes as a “meme” and a “joke” — with the most egregious recent example being Anne Bolyn being portrayed as a “sub-Saharan African woman.” Mr. Logan argues that this “is the equivalent of casting Tom Hanks to play Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Cannot we have movies “that make some kind of sense”?

The answer may be No; the reason, not at all mysterious. 

After all, race hustlers and ideologues have been spewing out misinformation about ancient Africa for a long time, trying to get ignorant, public-school-educated Americans to think of “the dark continent” as a place of one race.

I’m sure many people, reading the above, might wonder if the Ptolemies might not have inter-married native Egyptians. Well, the Egyptians weren’t sub-Saharan blacks, either. They were basically lighter-skinned Mediterranean types. 

But, as Anthony Brian Logan observes, previews of the upcoming series have darkened up some images, suggesting that the producers (one of whom is Will Smith’s notorious wife, Jada Pinkett Smith) may be messing with us. Nevertheless, the big issue remains the “underlying effort to try to change historical fact.”

“Who controls the past controls the future,” Orwell wrote. “Who controls the present controls the past.”

Race isn’t really the issue. It’s lying. For political reasons.

And yes, it matters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Down-Shifted Demographics

gerontocracy, depression, young people

Until recently, the most obvious demographic trend has been the “squaring of the curve”: more people were hitting an apparently natural limit in their eighties and nineties, rather than dying off in their forties, fifties, and sixties.

Now, however, longevity stats are showing a new feature. A graph in a fascinating article puts it like this: “Americans die earlier than the English across the income distribution, despite typically earning significantly more,” with the article quickly clarifying the specifics: “America’s mortality problem is driven primarily by deaths among the young.”

The most vulnerable members of traditional society are newborns and the aged. But now it’s those reaching their alleged prime: “one in 25 American five-year-olds today will not make it to their 40th birthday.”

Is it COVID? No. This trend is older than 2020, and remember, in the recent pandemic it was the aged, not the young, who experienced higher rates of morality.

An article by Zach Rausch and Jon Haidt suggests that the problem may loom beyond America, for their work shows that “The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic Is International,” and I don’t think it is at all out of bounds to take higher youth rates of suicidality, desperate recreational drug use, and expressed anxiety and despair — and skyrocketing transgender rates, too — as stressors related to increased death rates. 

It is vital to study these things, for their main conclusion is startling and a general sign of deep cultural decay: “Teen mental health plummeted across the Western world in the early 2010s, particularly for girls and particularly in the most individualistic nations.”

We should ask ourselves: could this be related to the rise of a gerontocracy?

A society run by old people for old people may have nasty inter-generational side effects.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights ideological culture

No Mystery, Just Confusion

woke, pc, woke culture

This week, two examples of “woke” political correctness shot across my visual field.

First, there was another classic 20th century writer bowdlerized by publishers and copyright holders so as not to offend the easily offended: Dame Agatha Christie.

As Robby Soave wrote in Reason, the great mystery writer has had her texts altered before, in the form of the title to her 1939 novel, And Then There Were None, which was originally published as Ten Little Indians. No, that’s not right. It was something far more offensive in America — but in U.S., one edition did use the less-offensive Ten Little Indians.

But now interior content of a much more innocuous sort has been changed. “A character in The Mysterious Affair at Styles who was referred to as a Jew — because, well, he is a Jew — is now just a person,” Soave explains. “And a servant identified as black no longer has a race at all.”

Nicety-mongering went much further in the second case, however, after the shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The young woman who murdered three students and three adults at the school, and was then herself shot dead, sported, online, the pronouns “he/him.” In between blaming Republicans and the talking heads of The Daily Wire for this trans-gendered person’s suicide-by-cop murder spree, some journalists couldn’t help but scold others for mis-gendering . . . him?

At least one report referred to the perpetrator (whose name I see no reason to publicize) as a “trans-woman,” though, in current lingo, she (“he”) was a “trans-man.”

It does get confusing — but as sad as it can get, there’s no mystery here. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture national politics & policies

Old Woke, Not New

SVB, Silicon Valley Bank, interest rates, collapse, FED

Last week’s collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank gets more interesting with each revelation. But one of them is probably not that it was “woke.”

Contrary to rumor, I see no real evidence that SVB gave millions to Black Lives Matter. The bank did pledge $50 million towards an internal program dubbed “Access to Innovation.” This, we are told, “sought to connect women, Black people, and Latinos with startup funding, networking, and leadership development in the venture capitalist ecosystem.” 

Sounds great in a press release, though what it has to do with making profits is a bit hard to determine. 

Very feel-good, not very bottom-line.

And that’s where the bank failed, on the bottom line. 

Its clientele was concentrated in one industry, which has been hit by rising interest rates. Thus stressed, it was exceptionally prone to “bank run” pressures. Its core asset class was long-term Treasury Bonds, whose value decreased with rising interest rates — and these were not hedged. 

As Forbes put it, “Whether it was fully or semi-deliberate, Silicon Valley Bank was betting heavily on interest rates not rising.”

An extremely bad bet.

But you can see why the bankers would make it, right? Why wouldn’t they expect the giveaway mentality of Zero Interest Rates Forever?

Their hopes dashed, they nevertheless turned to their friends . . . in power. The Biden Administration that failed to keep interest rates down then pledged to cover SVB’s clients — the super-rich corporations that true progressive Democrats pretend to hate for all their “profits” and “under-taxed” income — well above the FDIC-insured levels.* 

We may learn real data about the banks’ wokeness levels, rather than mere rumor, but the bedrock truth reveals itself as all-too-familiar: it’s all about monetary policy. 

That is, the “woke” ideas of a century ago, when the Progressives’ beloved Federal Reserve was created.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Like Signature Bank, which was closed on Sunday, the overwhelming bulk of SVB’s deposits were uninsured by FDIC. 

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