Category: ideological culture

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ideological culture media and media people social media

Horrors Made Visible

Nearly all major Democratic elected officials publicly expressed their sorrow over the death of Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Wednesday. They condemned the shooting and declared that political violence has no place in a democracy.

But to anyone who’s looked online at the cruel comments, jubilation, and sick jokes about the murder and about Mr. Kirk, the idea that Democrats are of one mind about the corrosiveness and injustice of killing ideological opponents just because you disagree with them falls to pieces. One popular thread included jokes of the sound the victim made after being shot in the neck, a lot of talk about Kirk’s gun control opposition (and the “irony” of him being shot), and the like — but when I went back to look, the posts had been taken down.

Thankfully (?), the UK’s Daily Mail collected some of the most egregious:

  • One wrote: ‘I don’t know I think getting killed by your favorite thing in the world is sweet. It [is] a nice gesture.’
  • Others mocked Mr. Kirk’s steadfast commitment to open debate and exchange of ideas: ‘Why didn’t Charlie Kirk just debate the bullet? he would have easily deflected.’
  • ‘Hollow Point USA,’ said another, parodying the organization Kirk devoted his life to.

People have always been like this, I remind myself: partisan hatred and mockery are as old as politics. Yet, on the Internet folks too often don’t even hesitate to shout their darkest thoughts as if they were gems of wit and righteousness. This leads to . . . well, “Violence leads to more violence,” as respectable Democrats said.

Too many activists and “influencers” seem heedless of the consequences of ideological brinksmanship, of taking the nastiness in their minds and spewing it to the masses.

It’s horrific, but maybe we, as individuals in a culture at a perilous moment in history, should acknowledge what horrors always hide in the dark. Now made visible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture

The Current Madness

Two disturbing murders are in the news and in divided-divisive discussion: that of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska and conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Murder was once a private matter, in the sense that the perpetrator, hoping not to get caught, does his or her horrific deed away from cameras and prying eyes. 

Public murder is different. The provocation in killing someone in full public view, with many witnesses, is almost inevitably terroristic in nature. And just so, many of the mass shootings and spree killings of recent years are indeed classified as terrorism.

The stabbing of the young white woman on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a black man in view of other commuters, does not seem quite political even if possibly racially motivated. The terror of it is there. But is the -ism? Did Decarlos Brown really do it to change opinion or policy (that is a major determinant of terrorism)? No. It was expressive.

Of racism or hateful madness — one or both.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk is more obviously terroristic. Mr. Kirk was speaking on a university campus fielding a question about the rise of violence by trans people. And then came the bullet ripping through his neck, in view of his wife and children as well as the audience.

Both persons detained by police earlier today have been released — so, as I write this, the evil person who assassinated Charlie, in what smacks of a professional hit, remains at large.

There is something additionally ugly and troubling here. Kirk was always open to debate and dialogue. He held no political power, but he had a voice — often that of reasonableness. This was a direct terroristic attack on free speech. 

Charlie Kirk’s. And yours.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people

Cultural Erasure

Cracker Barrel

Once upon a time, I didn’t think “culture war” issues were important. Give me liberty or — at least lower taxes and allow better representation in Washington.

But in recent years, as the left went woke and the right went MAGA, a number of cultural issues became . . . salient. Unavoidable. Key, even.

In “The Corporate Logo That Broke the Internet,” David French — late editor of National Review and now token rightist for The New York Times — defends the Cracker Barrel logo rebranding effort, where the image of an old man (Uncle Herschel, in Cracker Barrel lore) leaning against a barrel,” as French describes it, was removed.

Also removed? The tagline on the old logo: “Old Country Store.” All that was left was “Cracker Barrel” on a yellow field.

O, the uproar! And from the right! 

Mr. French thinks it all very stupid. “Right-wing activists did the same thing that they mocked the left for in the [Sydney] Sweeney [American Eagle ad] affair. They looked at a completely normal, innocuous marketing effort, deemed it to be deeply politically coded and then lashed out.”

He contends that the protesting “voices never really explained how a plain logo with the restaurant’s name was woke,” yet the explanation is right before us, staring us in the face everywhere we go.

It was “woke” for corporations to remove beloved commercial icons such as Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben (now “Ben’s Original”), and “Mia,” the Land O’Lakes Indian maiden. In each of these logos the supposedly “offensive” and “stereotypical” images were removed ostensibly to avoid offending the easily offended. Leaving customers with blank, unoriginal, uninspiring and non-comforting signage.

Exactly what happened when the corporate bigwigs took out the iconography from the Cracker Barrel logo: All nostalgia liquidated.

Cultural erasure used to be a leftist theme, but thanks to today’s enlightened corporations, it has become universal, as the soullessness of modish symbology has become painfully obvious. 

Define woke as erasure in the name of non-erasure. Opposing erasure generally is the defense of culture. That’s not a manufactured “outrage,” or a form of “bullying,” as French asserts.

It’s just Common Sense! I’m Paul Jacob. 

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ideological culture international affairs

Iranian Revolutionary Climate

Iran, protests, climate change

I was once bitterly opposed to the climate change. One minute raining, then snowing, then desert sun. Enough already.

But now I see that we need the climate change to fight tyranny.

Not everyone agrees. Nina Bookout simply refuses to accept the latest super-sophisticated scientific reasoning about how widespread protests happening in Iran — ostensibly because of a theocracy that is stomping everybody — are secretly being motivated by the climate change!!!!!

You know it’s scientific if it’s in “Scientific” American, a lot smarter now that it has dumbed down its content in recent decades. 

But Bookout just won’t follow the “science.”

Scientific American says climate change is “among the environmental challenges facing Iran that helped spark protests in dozens of cities. . . . A severe drought, mismanaged water resources and dust storms diminished Iran’s economy in recent years.” 

Protests are happening most in places with “climate refugees.”

Bookout differs: “The Iranian people KNOW that billions of dollars was freighted to Iran on Obama’s say-so. Thus, for several years, the Iranian government has had financial resources available to help those impacted by the drought and the earthquakes. . . . Instead the Iranian government [have been using] their cash . . . to prop up Hamas, Hezbollah, terrorism in Syria, and build up their military. . . . The security forces aren’t attacking protestors because of climate change.”

I’m with Scientific American. Let us have climate change wherever autocrats oppress the people, so that people will resist this oppression.

Thank you for your help, climate change.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies

Too Virtuous to Win?

politicians

The Democrats lost a presidential election where the biggest issue, shared by both contenders, was The Other Side Is Off-putting, Icky and Crazy. 

Third Way, a think tank pushing for “moderate” policy, almost acknowledged this in a widely-shared memo: “For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.”

So it’s not without reason that Third Way suggests Democrats drop the “therapy-speak,” for example — words like privilege, violence (“as in ‘environmental violence’”), othering, etc. Also to be nixed? “Seminar room language,” featuring jargon like subverting norms, systems of oppression, heuristic, etc.

Then there’s the far-out lefty nonsense, like chest-feeding and Latinx, along with the “criminal-excusing phraseology” — elaborate euphemisms like incarcerated people.

The upshot? “Communicating in authentic ways that welcome rather than drive voters away would be a good start.”

Meanwhile, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin seems to think his party failed by trying too hard to persuade. 

“After six months as chair, I’ve learned that a lot of people, especially folks in DC, think they can change things by winning arguments,” Martin explained. “You know what winning the argument gets you? Maybe a nice round of applause and a few likes on Instagram. But the reality is, it doesn’t make life any better for any person. We have to stop settling on winning arguments with each other. We have to win elections.”

This is covered in an Epoch Times article that also shows the Democrat leader pressing the Too Virtuous to Win meme: “We cannot be the only party that plays by the rules anymore. We’ve gotta stand up and fight. We’re not gonna have a hand tied behind our backs anymore.”

This pose, that “our side” is too good and noble and rule-following is, of course, echoed among Republicans.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture

Rethinking What Safety Means

crime, safety, law, police, Washington D.C.

Joe Scarborough threw kindling onto the fire. 

In the context of President Trump calling up the National Guard to help police the streets of Washington, D.C. — “you’ll have more police and you’ll be so happy, ’cause you’d be safe” said Trump — Scarborough prompted Symone Sanders, a Democratic strategist, fellow MSNBC host, and wife of a former night mayor of the city, with cedar soaked in kerosene: “You don’t think more police makes streets safer?”

“No, Joe,” she said, helping Morning Joe viewers decipher her racial identity: “I’m a black woman in America.

“I do not always think that more police makes streets safer.” 

Before you have time to wonder whether she’s advancing the law of diminishing returns in criminology, she quickly goes on: “When you walk down the streets of Georgetown” — a predominantly wealthy and white D.C. neighborhood — “you don’t see a police officer on every corner but you don’t feel unsafe. So what is it about talking about places like South D.C., right, Ward Eight (if you will), that people say ‘we need more officers to make us safe’?

“I think we have to rethink what safety means in America.”

While adding more police officers to a peaceful society won’t likely decrease crime much, a violent community is another story. People in these communities need greater safety to live their lives. Without becoming a statistic. Law enforcement that is visible on the street can surely help.

But rethinking the meaning of “safety” won’t. 

So what’s burning?

Democratic hopes, maybe. We’ll see how Trump’s move to clean up the capital goes.

Yet, if he tries to use the National Guard in other cities without constitutional warrant, that’d go beyond mere policing, into police-state territory. 

Just don’t consult Democratic strategists for a “rethink” of such distinctions.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture international affairs

Art Caves to Power

Xi Jinping, China, Thailand, censorship, surveillance

The Chinese Embassy in Thailand has pressured the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre to censor an exhibit: to remove works dealing with China’s persecution of groups such as the Uyghurs and Tibetans. 

The exhibit’s curator notes an “irony”: the exhibit being censored is on the theme of censorship. Actually, it’s about more than that. Titled Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machinery of Authoritarian Solidarity, it’s an ambitious project, attempting “to reveal power in its entanglements, and to insist that art remains one of the last ungovernable territories of resistance.”

But the exhibit is held in the Kingdom of Thailand, not exactly known as a bastion of freedom and democracy. So it shocked no one when the gallery’s operators felt that they had no choice but to submit to China’s demand — in no small part because a financial sponsor and the Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had both accepted the diktat.

What happened is no isolated example of bad behavior — by China or by unresisting victims. Increasingly, we live in a world where the Chinese Communist Party tells us what can be said, what can be shown, what can be done.

Several years ago, a Marriott worker in Nebraska was fired after he or a colleague “liked” a pro-Tibet tweet using the Mariott social media account. The CCP exploded. Marriott has hotels in China. Marriott groveled.

Marco Rubio, then a U.S. Senator, said at the time that every week it seemed that another major company was shamelessly apologizing to the PRC for “some sort of ‘misstep’ related to Tibet . . . and other sensitive issues.”

It’s not just “art” that must learn to resist the governance of China  . . . before it’s too late.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture public opinion

Bad, Worse & Communist

Zohran Mamdani, New York City, corruption, socialism, communism

After four recent commentaries showing, without hyperbole, that Democratic Party mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is a flat-out seize-the-means-of-production communist, you might wonder why anyone could possibly vote for him. 

Well, elections are a choice. And New Yorkers have a plethora of lousy choices — especially the best-known politicians running against Mamdani. 

Take former Governor Andrew Cuomo — puh-leez! He finished second to Mamdani in last month’s Democratic mayoral primary but has vowed to stay in the race on the ballot line of his recently formed Fight & Deliver Party.

The key reason for Mamdani’s victory? Voter revulsion with Mr. Cuomo. After serving ten years as governor and announcing he would seek a fourth four-year term, Cuomo was rocked by sexual harassment allegations (including “attempts to silence victims”). Facing “almost certain removal from office” by the state legislature, he resigned in 2021. 

“To Mr. Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace,” responded Mamdani to Cuomo in a televised debate. “I have never cut Medicaid. I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority]. I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records. And I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo.” 

Mamdani’s other major opponent is the incumbent, Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last year on five felony counts, including conspiracy to receive campaign contributions from foreign nationals, soliciting and accepting a bribe, and wire fraud. Though Trump’s Department of Justice dropped the prosecution, or maybe partly because of that, Adams is a pariah among the city’s supermajority of Democratic voters.

The problem is staring us in the face: When the choice is between communism and corruption, communism stands a better chance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling ideological culture

Ugly Surge

antisemitism, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, education, schools

Is the ugly surge of antisemitism in the United States — whether homegrown or imported or both — now infecting primary school education?

According to a lawsuit filed against a school in Northern Virginia, an 11-year-old girl was subjected to repeated antisemitic harassment after the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel.

The bullying grew worse, the accusation goes further, after the proprietor of the school, Kenneth Nysmith, allegedly hung a Palestinian flag in the school gym.

When the parents complained, Nysmith initially told them that their daughter needed to “toughen up.” Then the student and her two siblings were summarily expelled from the school without prior notice or real explanation.

The suit alleges that the three Jewish children were expelled because their parents had objected to “the school’s unwillingness to respond to anti-Semitic harassment of their 11-year-old daughter. The school had allowed anti-Semitism to take root in her class — in, for example, [a] picture of a social studies class project depicting the attributes of a ‘strong historical leader’” — featuring the face of Adolf Hitler.

Right up there with other strong historical leaders, such as Tamerlane, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot.

With allegations so over the top, we probably should proceed with care. But it turns out that the 11-year-old was not the one who first told her parents about how she was being treated. In February, a concerned classmate asked his mother to call one of the parents, Brian Vazquez. “With Mr. Vazquez on speakerphone, the classmate described a disturbing pattern of harassment and bullying.”

The lawsuit calls for an investigation of the school, an order that the school enforce its nondiscrimination policies and eliminate its hostile environment, damages, and other remedies.

We will see how the legal battle proceeds. This is a private school, which has a right to “educate” in its own way. However, the school must follow its own rules.

And, if these allegations are accurate, I hope the school will soon experience another aspect of being private: going out of business. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture property rights too much government

The Big Decommodification

Mamdani, New York City, public housing, socialism, communism

Tired of that rundown shack you live in — for which each month you must cough up the rent money or a mortgage payment? No doubt, you’re chomping at the bit for the chance to move into clean, spectacular, state-of-the-art government housing.

Well, you’re in luck! That is, if you live in New York City.

You see, on Tuesday evening, Sean Hannity informed his Fox News audience that Zohran Mamdani, the Democrats’ mayoral nominee, has a “plan to slowly eliminate home ownership in New York City.”

“If we want to end the housing crisis, the solution has to be moving toward the full decommodification of housing,” Mamdani declares in a 2021 video for the Gravel Institute. “In other words, moving away from the status quo, in which most people access housing by purchasing it on the market.”

He says, “We’ll have to go beyond the market.”

That “has to be” the solution? Why? Because Mamdani’s socialist/communist dogma dictates that government should be the provider of all shelter? The “decommodification” must be “full” and complete. No private home can be permitted to be bought or sold . . . or lived in anymore.

Surely that would solve our problems.

The democratic socialist suggests that the government “gradually buy up housing on the private market and convert it to community ownership,” urging the city to “fully commit to a new era of social housing . . . using our wealth to build beautiful, high-quality social housing projects that offer good homes and strong communities to everyone.”

Yes, taxpayers, get ready to invest in the sparkling future of public housing. Cabrini-Green here we all come! 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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