On the Kerfuffle In Re: Jill Biden's Degree...

 ... I think something I wrote three years ago is the only appropriate response:

"Having a College Degree - Even a PhD - Is NOT the Same Thing as Being 'Educated'

Once upon a time, a college education at least tried to expose you to the very best that has been thought and said about the human condition and our place in the universe. It can be argued - validly - that the former 'canon' was in some respects too narrow, but it was still good that there were campus-wide standards and that every collegian was expected to meet them. Unfortunately, after the rise of the New Left, all the trappings of just this sort of liberal education were thrown right out the window. Granted, many colleges still have general education requirements, but even with these, one can still earn a bachelor's without ever taking a traditional course on our country's history, political structures, or literary heritage.

Now let's add on top of this the fact that, in recent decades, academia has grown ever more intolerant of dissenting opinion (to the point that students and professors are now demanding they be shielded from ideas and experiences they find even remotely upsetting) and what you get is a perfect storm of ignorance about the things that really matter when it comes to good leadership. Our elites basically know fuck-all about human nature and have no clue that their supposedly brilliant, forward-thinking, progressive ideas have often been tried before without success (and to be sure, I'm putting that very charitably).

Actually, the increasing political correctness of our universities (and all other spaces where our elites congregate) is a good example of just what I mean when I say that folks like Barro know jack about - well - people. People, in reality, are anti-fragile; by this, I mean that they thrive best when their lives are not without adversity. Young people especially need the opportunity to test their physical and cognitive limits, bump up against obstacles, and - both literally and metaphorically - hang upside down on the monkey-bars hands-free. But our elites have decided that risk of emotional and bodily injury must be stamped out completely -- and predictably, the people under their oh-so-compassionate charge have now been trained to be, essentially, mentally ill. Indeed, even among our young children, we're seeing a rise in the incidence of attention-deficit disorder, sensory integration disorder, and other maladies -- and at least one occupational therapist has argued convincingly that this is because our elites are micromanaging our children's play in the name of their great safety crusade.

And hell, I haven't even addressed the fact that not all degrees are created equal and that, in many fields, all that's required to earn a credential is the ability to sling bull with panache. The rot is so widespread in the humanities and the social sciences in particular that a lot of students in these concentrations who have real native talent have no chance to develop and hone their intellects. Why? Well, here's something else the elites don't understand about human nature: people may be anti-fragile, but many will choose the easy path if it's offered to them. If one can earn a degree and the associated social status that comes with it by skating through courses that require little effort or accountability, many students will embrace that option -- and among our elites, many people have. Ask me what it was like to be misrepresented by lazy journalists covering the pop-culture beat for more information.

One last point: The shadow curriculum of lower and higher education isn't just - or even mostly - about using your intellect to suss out the truth. There are fields of study out there - generally in the hard sciences - that do demand results, but as a teacher with over a decade of experience guiding students through the K-12 system and beyond, I also know there are numerous wholly non-academic expectations that stick to our educational enterprise like barnacles on a ship. Based on what's usually asked in a college admissions essay, our schools privilege sociable youngsters who are comfortable talking about themselves. They also privilege the obedient and the verbally adept. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with any of these traits (I've been identified as verbally adept myself - at least in writing), but this weeding process does overlook many legitimately brilliant Odds -- especially my rambunctious, scribbly boys.

TL;DR: You're going to have to do more to convince me of your fitness to lead the rest of us than to reference your 'college education.'

But even if you were a freakin' Einstein, with all the tangible intellectual achievements that entails, I'm still not going to grant you the license to judge me or to control my life. Which brings me to my third and final point:

You and Your Exclusive Clique Are Not Smarter Than EVERYONE Else

Remember that episode of The Simpsons years back in which the brainy folks of Springfield took control and tried to make their town more functional and efficient? Remember how this ended in disaster? I loved that episode because it conveyed a very important truth: Even a group of very, very smart people don't - and can't - know everything about a phenomenon as complex and unwieldy as a human culture or a human economy. That's why the outcomes of state economic planning range from stupid to downright horrific (see also: Venezuela). That's why, post-Sexual Revolution, we're faced with widespread unhappiness among women and equally widespread social pathology. 

Society is weird. There are many rules, traditions, and institutions lying around that, on the surface, don't seem to make sense. But those rules, traditions, and institutions cropped up for a reason. In many cases, they solved real dilemmas that our human ancestors encountered on their evolutionary journey out of the savanna. For instance, every culture previous to ours had strict codes to govern sexual conduct because, among other things, that was the only way to ensure that responsibility for the consequent children could be established. And, no matter how gosh-darned exceptional you are, you can't just take those codes apart without understanding and solving the problems they were meant to address.

So Barro and his ilk might be smarter than one working-class Trump supporter -- but are they smarter than all the Trump supporters and all the generations who lived before us combined? Not a chance! 

But, obviously, they think that they are -- and that's why many ordinary Americans rightfully hate their guts."

Fancy-pants degrees are often worthless. Jill Biden's certainly is. The senior honors thesis I wrote for my lowly BS is a more rigorous piece of scholarship than the garbage Mrs. Biden calls her "dissertation." I had to do multi-variable statistical analyses and a serious literature review -- neither of which I flubbed. Biden, on the other hand, passed despite making ridiculously basic errors in her arithmetic. Genuflect before her mighty sheep's skin? No, I don't think I will.

Note: This is my last post before the new year. I shall return on January 17, 2021!

I Can't Recommend The Glenn Show Enough

Glenn Loury's moral indignation here - and in his other podcasts - is glorious.

Irrational Fear of COVID-19 Is a Mark of Privilege...

... and/or maleducation. It's also incredibly damaging to genuine human flourishing.

Because of my severe overlapping autoimmune conditions, I'm on high-dose immunosuppressive medications that leave me especially vulnerable to respiratory disease. MamaGeek, meanwhile, is stuck with a good chunk of nonfunctional lung tissue thanks to earlier infections and occasionally has to use supplemental oxygen to get through the day. We both, therefore, fall into that limited class of folks who actually are at significant risk for serious complications or death from COVID-19.

Weirdly, though, we've both remained incredibly Zen about this pandemic. Do we think it's nothing? No. We're taking precautions that we feel are commonsensical for our unique circumstances -- the same precautions, by the way, we take whenever any potentially nasty virus starts making the rounds. But we're simply not wracked with crippling anxiety over the Kung Flu -- and frankly, we find the over-the-top fear of our affluent suburban neighbors (or the young people on the trash reality TV shows MG watches nightly to relax) so profoundly bizarre that we can't quite wrap our heads around it. "You're healthy," we think. "More than 99% of you would get over this just fine if you came down with it. What the hell are you panicking about? Why are you screaming 'you're going to kill us!' at unmasked strangers? Why are you informing on your neighbors like good little Stasi puppets?"

Well, early this morning, the following thought suddenly occurred to me: maybe the reason why MG and I have managed to stay calm (and can consequently assimilate incoming information about COVID-19 in a balanced, skeptical fashion) is that we're not healthy. I've been dealing with chronic illness since my early twenties; MG is in the same boat. We've therefore been reminded our entire adult lives that the human body is a finite, fragile, imperfect thing that can fail on you at any time. And not to toot our own horns, but I think that experience has gifted us with a certain sort of wisdom that, for almost all of human history, was basically universal.

To put it simply: historically, virtually all people understood that sickness and death were unavoidable. That's because historically, virtually all people - regardless of socioeconomic status - encountered plenty of both throughout their lives. Only a century ago, for instance, nearly a fifth of the children born in the US failed to survive beyond age 5. That's a lot of parents tragically burying their offspring. And then there are people still alive today - like MG - who remember measles and whooping cough outbreaks in the days before widespread vaccination -- and remember how absolutely miserable they were. Is life catastrophe contaminated by malevolence, as Dr. Jordan Peterson frequently observes? Generations not far removed from the present would say yes -- for very good reason. 

Until very recently, evidence of our inherent biological frailty stalked us all -- so we looked for meaning not in the mere preservation of our physical beings but in something else. We poured our hearts into building legacies -- mainly by building families and communities, but also by building businesses or creating art or diving into serious intellectual pursuits. And we realized that sometimes, those legacies mattered far more than living one more minute -- that staying alive at all costs was not always the correct choice because we were going to die eventually in any case.

Today, on the other hand, there are many extraordinarily fortunate people walking around who have not really had a significant brush with their own mortality - or with any of the other more terrible consequences of human embodiment - and have therefore deluded themselves into thinking they can conquer sickness and death through the force of their own wills. Throw a little sensationalist media coverage of COVID-19 their way, and yeah: hysteria results. The upshot? What MG and I have been boggling at all this time is a symptom of privilege. People who are well-off are more likely to fall to corona madness because they haven't really suffered and therefore have no means to put this one Chinese virus into perspective. 

(A couple hundred thousand are believed to have died of COVID-19 if you believe the mainstream numbers. How many have died of heart disease in 2020 as of November? More than twice as many. How many have died of cancer? Also more than twice as many. Why the draconian public health measures for one but not for the others? Why are COVID-19 deaths being lifted above all other deaths in importance and official concern?)  

Don't get me wrong: I think it's wonderful that in the past 100 years, we in the US have knocked child mortality down to less than 1%. I also think it's wonderful that our life expectancy has climbed to formerly unimaginable heights, that people are now surviving with illnesses that would've killed them decades ago, and that "premature" deaths are far, far less common than they once were. Modern medicine is a miracle; I certainly wouldn't want to dispense with it for the sake of teaching people wisdom. And luckily, I don't have to -- because no matter how advanced our science gets, it's highly unlikely that we will escape the wages of entropy entirely. If common bacteria can outsmart our most powerful antibiotics, it seems stupidly obvious to conclude that nature will always find a way to kick our arrogant asses at precisely the moment we think we've "won". 

Yes: in the developed world, our lives are more comfortable and more healthy than they have ever been -- but that doesn't change fundamental realities. Life is still a terminal condition. The sooner we recognize that, the better off we will be -- because from where I sit, the 2020 status quo - in which our political and media elite are inducing what amounts to mass pathological OCD in half the populace - is completely destroying what makes life worth living to begin with.  Re-read what I said about legacies above. That list, disturbingly, almost completely overlaps with the list of activities our leaders are seeking to ban (or at least severely curtail). And it's all for the sake of an idol -- a utopia in which COVID-19 kills no one else. 

No: this impossible quest cannot continue. People need to spend time with their extended families. People need to have the freedom to provide for themselves through the work of their own hands. People need to assemble in worship communities and pray to God. We can't go on living in sanitized, climate-controlled bubbles as atomized, socially-distanced individuals. Asking this of your fellow citizens is inhumane. 

I remarked in the beginning that both my mother and I are "at risk." Well, as a member of the "vulnerable" population, let me state here and now that I want the country to open up. I don't want people cowering in their homes on government assistance, victims of the soft tyranny of "if it saves just one life" . I've been taking responsibility for my own well-being for more than two decades now and certainly can continue to do so without calling down the force of the state as an ally. 

And I suspect many people in my position would say the same.

Book & Movie Recommendations, 11/28/20

What It Means to Be Human, O. Carter Snead

This book makes a fascinating - and, I think, correct - argument that our current laws governing abortion, assistive reproductive technology, and end-of-life decision-making are based on an impoverished vision of human nature that denies the unavoidable limits of our biology. The author points out that people are not - indeed, cannot - be fully autonomous, self-sufficient individuals throughout their entire life spans -- that, in fact, dependency is an indelible, universal feature of childhood, serious illness, and extreme old age. And he urges us to reconsider a jurisprudence that privileges the able, wholly-competent adult over everyone else.

In my view, Snead's observations regarding the truths of human existence have applications beyond what he covers in this volume. I couldn't help but think, for example, of the trans craze. Those who advocate for hasty "affirmative" therapy for gender dysphoria are also guilty of ignoring our embodiment -- and their extremism is likely causing life-long harm to thousands of vulnerable children. If this - and the consequences of our overall culture of death - concerns you as much as it concerns me, read What It Means to Be Human. Though Snead avoids making specific policy suggestions, he'll still provide you with the language necessary to combat the ideology that drives so much of our twisted bioethical discourse.

What Killed Michael Brown?

Those who are familiar with the works of Shelby Steele will find little in this documentary surprising. But this movie still stands as a useful, well-reasoned counterpoint to a dominant media narrative that seeks to relegate black Americans to the status of permanent victims and clients of the state. While acknowledging the tragedy of Michael Brown's death, Steele refuses to allow the "poetic truth" to obscure the facts: that Brown was not surrendering when he was shot; that, historically, black America made phenomenal strides despite the KKK and Jim Crow segregation; and that government "help" has generally done more harm than good.

Hillbilly Elegy

Trust me: the professional critics are full of BS on this one. Ron Howard's directing here is beautifully economical, the cast puts in strong performances, and the story told is faithful to the intent of the book on which the movie is based (which I read years ago and found very enlightening). Also, please note: From what I can tell after some research on YouTube and social media, J.D. Vance himself - and his family - are happy with how this project turned out. Shouldn't that matter more than the opinions of pinhead blue checks looking for more ways to kick the Deplorables? I certainly think so! So go and watch if you're looking for a family drama that deliberately keeps its sociological implications subtle and backgrounded in favor of the human and intimate. If you're one of my regular readers - and if the audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes are anything to go by - you probably won't be disappointed. 

This Wajahat Ali Schmuck "Tried" to Talk to Us

-- But Not Very Hard.

Yes, I know: everyone is bagging on this dude. But I just can't resist a fisk of my own because Ali is just so hilariously typical of his class: he knows absolutely nothing -- yet he still acts like a superior asshole.

73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. He doubled down on all his worst vices, and he was rewarded for it with 10 million more votes than he received in 2016.

Ali, I'm going to ask you what I've asked every Trump detractor: aside from his mean tweets, what "vices" are you referring to exactly? What has Trump done, concretely, that has had a material negative impact on anyone in the United States? Can you point to real-world harm, and can that harm be conclusively linked to a policy decision made by Trump's administration (and not, say, by his predecessors)? Because to be quite frank, we Trump supporters are beyond sick of the standard Orange Man Bad spiel. Why? Because said rhetoric is generally filled with assertions (like, for instance, that Trump is a white supremacist) that are never, ever proven.

The majority of people of color rejected his cruelty and vulgarity.

But interestingly, Trump got a bigger share of the minority vote than any other Republican candidate since the 1960's. I recommend you seriously reflect upon why that might have occurred. Could it have something to do with the fact that Trump has made serious moves towards enacting practical criminal justice reform? Could it be that Trump has backed policies - like opportunity zones and school choice - that open up tangible opportunities for "people of color" to pursue the American dream? Like I've said elsewhere on this blog, if I'm trapped in a burning building, I'd rather be rescued by a so-called "vulgarian" than soothed to death by a man with impeccable manners. Or, to put it another way: actions matter more than words.

But along with others who voted for Joe Biden, we are now being lectured by a chorus of voices including Pete Buttigieg and Ian Bremmer, to “reach out” to Trump voters and “empathize” with their pain.

See, this is the problem: you're walking in with the belief that the average Trump voter is some "privileged" white person who couldn't possibly have anything legitimate to complain about -- which means you've already decided you're not going to actually listen to what we Trump supporters have to say.

Growing up, I often talked about my Islamic faith with my non-Muslim friends, and I like to think that might have helped to inoculate them from the Islamophobic propaganda and conspiracy theories that later become popular. So I assumed I could win over some Trump supporters whose frustrations and grievances had been manipulated by those intent on seeing people like me as invaders intent on replacing them.

Or - hear me out here - maybe Trump supporters aren't "manipulated" dumbos at all. Maybe they're privy to realities with which you, a member of the protected New York media class, have no meaningful contact. If you're a columnist at the New York Times, I feel pretty confident in guessing, for example, that you've never had to triple-secure your farm's copper wire to prevent it from getting stolen by roving criminals looking for a quick buck. And you've probably never dealt with the hassles of running a small business on a city street that doubles as a homeless encampment -- or running a small business in a state that's COVID-19-lockdown happy and is consequently strangling your ability to stay financially solvent. Maybe where you live, the fruits of the left-wing technocratic globalist enterprise have been all hunky-dory and cosmopolitan and fun -- but your experience has not been universal. And until you develop the humility to recognize that fact, well -- Trump supporters aren't going to be too impressed with your attempts to "talk."

So in late 2016, I told my speaking agency to book me for events in the states where Trump won. I wanted to talk to the people the media calls “real Americans” from the “heartland,” — which is of course America’s synonym for white people,

According to whom? Who actually says this? Because I gotta tell ya: the only people I see defining the "real American" in this manner are the (vanishingly rare) Richard Spencer types -- and leftists like you. Us normal, well-adjusted sorts, meanwhile, are willing to welcome as "American" anyone who's willing to work hard, play by the rules, and respect our classically liberal constitutional system.

My standard speech was about how to “build a multicultural coalition of the willing.” My message was that diverse communities, including white Trump supporters, could work together to create a future where all of our children would have an equal shot at the American dream. I assured the audiences that I was not their enemy. 

I reminded them that those who are now considered white, such as Irish Catholics, Eastern European Jews, Greeks and Italians, were once the boogeyman. I warned them that supporting white nationalism and Trump, in particular, would be self destructive, an act of self-immolation, that will neither help their families or America become great again.

So this is basically what you did: You walked into Trump-supporting communities assuming that the Americans living there were blinkered rubes whose "fears" of immigrant "boogeymen" were being stoked by "white nationalists" intent on leading folks astray. You then talked down to them from a podium, condescendingly laying out an argument against this cloud-cuckoo motivation you constructed in your own mind -- and then you sat back and waited for your audiences to see the light. Yeah: I can see why you didn't get a good response. You didn't reach out in good faith. You didn't have a genuine dialogue. You lectured, smugly telling these people things they probably didn't need to hear -- because, contrary to what your buddies at the Times have told you, 99% of us out here are decent and willing to live with all kinds so long as, once again, the rules are comprehensible and applicable to all.

And I listened. 

Ha!

Those in the audience who supported Trump came up to me and assured me they weren’t racist. They often said they’d enjoyed the talk, if not my politics. Still, not one told me they’d wavered in their support for him. Instead, they repeated conspiracy theories and Fox News talking points about “crooked Hillary.”

Your goal the entire time was to persuade some poor knuckleheads that they were wrong and your were right. Not surprisingly, said knuckleheads perceived this and argued back -- because that's what people do when you've primed them for debate instead of conversation. And I love how you casually dismiss their counter-narrative as "conspiracy theories" and "Fox News talking points" as if such judgments are self-evident. Did you ever bother to look into any of the things these Trump supporters were saying to you? Were you ever intellectually curious enough to read a right-wing site and research the truth or falsehood of the articles therein? Or did you simply take on faith that nothing from such sources could possibly be accurate?    

Others made comments like, “You’re a good, moderate Muslim. How come others aren’t like you?”

Okay: I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this happened maybe once or twice. And yes: I'm going to acknowledge that such a comment is equally as rude as your blanket supposition that all Trump supporters vote the way they do because they're afraid of immigrants. But son (yes, you're basically my age, but I'm going to call you "son" because your relative maturity level seems to warrant it), as much as it might pain you to hear it, offhand remarks like this aren't coming from the clear blue sky. Your co-religionists are over-represented among global terrorist groups -- and countries dominated by your co-religionists rank among the most repressive, illiberal regimes on the face of the planet. I know it sucks to have to reckon with that as an essentially assimilated American Muslim -- and I know that in a perfect world, you wouldn't be lumped with ISIS and Al Qaeda. But you can't simply ignore the facts on the ground if you really want to change people's mind about your faith. 

In Ohio, I spent 90 minutes on a drive to the airport with a retired Trump supporter. We were cordial to each other, we made jokes and we shared stories about our families. But neither of us changed our outlook. “They’ll never take my guns. Ever,” he told me, explaining that his Facebook feed was filled with articles about how Clinton and Democrats would kill the Second Amendment and steal his guns.

Given that Beto's "Hell yes, we're gonna take your AR-15's!" was met with distinct enthusiasm by a sizable segment of the Democratic base, this Trump supporter's concerns are not unfounded or overblown. Many on your side do want to take people's guns. That's a fact. So if you want to truly reach out to this particular voter, perhaps you should explain what you propose to do that will preserve the Second Amendment and not, in fact, placate your loony wing. Be willing to give some ground.

In 2017, I was invited by the Aspen Institute — which hosts a festival known for attracting the wealthy and powerful — to discuss racism in America. At a private dinner after the event, I was introduced to a donor who I learned was a Trump supporter. As soon as I said “white privilege,” she began shooting me passive aggressive quips about the virtues of meritocracy and hard work.

Because the "white privilege" discourse is absolute garbage and reveals you to be an unserious person. I'm sorry, but "privilege" is class-based, not race-based. That "invisible knapsack" Peggy McIntosh asked us to "unpack" years ago contained the "blessings" of the upper-class WASP's existence -- not the average white American's. Hell: in my view, that donor showed admirable restraint. To be honest, I probably would've been a lot more openly hostile. After all, as a teacher in a majority-minority community, I've watched this BS completely wreck the educations of generations of "black and brown" students by convincing them there's no sense in trying.

I’ve even tried and failed to have productive conversations with Muslims who voted for Trump. Some love him for the tax cuts.

Sounds like a rational, non-racist reason to like Trump to me.

Others listen only to Fox News, 

I double-dog-dare you to explain how the stuff that's presented on Fox is somehow more misleading than what's presented in sources you accept as "reliable". Because we Trump supporters can, to a man, cite personal experiences in which your favored media outlets have outright lied about us to advance a particular message at the expense of forthright journalism. As a "Sad Puppy" who was peripherally involved in the controversy surrounding the 2015 Hugo Awards (mostly as a blogger-advocate for greater political diversity in the science fiction fandom), for instance, I can confirm that nothing your mainstream media friends said about us at the time was even remotely correct. We weren't all "straight white men" (I'm a disabled, chronically-ill woman myself) -- and contra the claim that we just wanted to read the "same old stories" about "white men in rocket ships," the works we promoted for awards consideration were filled to brim with diverse characters (and were written by a diverse slate of authors). 

say “both sides” are the same, 

Well, yes, that's clearly wrong. I don't see Trump supporters burning down buildings or looting Targets.

or believe he hasn’t bombed Muslim countries. (They’re wrong.)

But Trump does in fact want to pull us out of those countries -- and has been stymied by an establishment that, oh by the way, recently admitted to lying to the president about the status of our ground forces in the Middle East. (And said establishment, for your information? They're all in for your pal Biden. If you want the bombing to stop, I think your vote might have been a fatal error.)

Many believe they are the “good immigrants,” as they chase whiteness and run away from Blackness, all the way to the suburbs. I can’t make people realize they have Black and brown skin and will never be accepted as white.

Wow. You're a racist prick. Wanting a good job and a home in the suburbs is not "whiteness"; it's a normal, functional human desire. And the fact that your Trump-supporting Muslim friends are, like everyone else, trying to forge comfortable, prosperous lives for themselves and (presumably) their children is not some indicator that they're denying their fundamental identity as Muslims. You have clearly drunk deeply from the critical race theory well, and it has poisoned your thinking to such a degree that you're now arguing with complete earnestness that "Black" and success are antonyms and urging your co-religionists to accept second-class status as the government's favored pets. For the love of God, please reassess. This new quasi-religion you're peddling is unbelievably insulting to anyone who's "black and brown" and possesses even a modicum of self-respect.

What was my reward? Listening to Trump’s base chant, “Send her back!” in reference to Representative Ilhan Omar, a black Muslim woman, who came to America as a refugee.

And subsequently spit on the country that gave her refuge by spewing openly anti-American rhetoric and pushing to undermine the very system that makes the US an attractive destination for the world's downtrodden. Ali, respect can't be a one-way street; it's not just to demand that we Americans give and give and give without getting any gratitude - or cultural buy-in - in return. 

I saw the Republican Party transform the McCloskeys into victims, even though the wealthy St. Louis couple illegally brandished firearms against peaceful BLM protesters.

Those BLM protesters knocked down a gate near the McCloskeys' property - and were linked ideologically to other groups responsible for the destruction of a number of downtown areas - but sure: they were "peaceful". See, this is another reason why we Trump supporters don't like you. Once again, you are flat out refusing to recognize realities we all can see with our deceiving eyes.

Their bellicosity was rewarded with a prime time slot at the Republican National Convention where they warned about “chaos” in the suburbs being invaded by people of color.

You're a God-damned liar. They never mentioned "people of color." Not once. They warned that Marxists and criminals were going to destroy the suburbs if the Democrats took power. You are the one equating "Marxist" and "criminal" with "person of color." You're the one, it seems, who's the racist. (But we already established that above, so -- I guess this is not a surprise.)

As they say, if you can hear the whistle, you're the dog.

We cannot help people who refuse to help themselves. Trump is an extension of their id, their culture, their values, their greed. He is their defender and savior. He is their blunt instrument. He is their destructive drug of choice.

You sure have a flare for the dramatic. Memes aside, most of us don't see Trump as any kind of over-the-top "savior." We simply see him as an effective leader who's willing to protect the freedoms we value against people like you who agitate for our erasure from the public square. (See below.)

Don’t waste your time reaching out to Trump voters like I did. Instead, invest your time organizing your community, registering new voters and supporting candidates who reflect progressive values that uplift everyone, not just those who wear MAGA hats, in local and state elections.

Ali, we Trump supporters don't back the president because we think he'll only help the MAGA crowd. We back the president because we believe, sincerely, that his policy proposals will bring real benefits to every American. Obviously, you disagree -- but that doesn't render our good intentions - or our arguments - nonexistent. Your disagreement cannot transmute thinking, well-meaning people into selfish brutes just because it's more convenient for you to see us that way.

Work also to protect Americans against lies and conspiracy theories churned out by the right wing media and political ecosystem. One step would be to continue pressuring social media giants like Twitter and Facebook to deplatform hatemongers, such as Steve Bannon, and censor disinformation. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

It's rich - it's truly rich - that your side has screamed for four years about the threat Trump poses to our democracy -- while embracing censorship as a progressive value. Given your faction's loosey-goosey relationship with the truth where the aforementioned McCloskey speech and other current events are concerned, you are, without a doubt, the last people I would trust to judge what counts as "disinformation." Dial the arrogance - and the incipient totalitarianism - way the eff back.

Just as in 2016, I don’t need Trump supporters to be humiliated to feel great again. I want them to have health insurance, decent paying jobs and security for their family.

Trump supporters want that for everyone too. We just disagree with you on the means. 

I do not want them to suffer, but I also refuse to spend any more time trying to understand and help the architects of my oppression.

You're a columnist for the New York Times. Yeah: you've really got it worse than those Trump supporters in the Rust Belt who've watched their communities collapse as your compatriots moved their manufacturing plants overseas. "Architects of my oppression"? What on God's green Earth are you blathering about?

I will move forward along with the majority who want progress, equality and justice for all Americans. If Trump supporters decide they want the same, they can always reach out to me. They know where to find me. Ahead of them.

If it's all the same to you, I think I'll just work towards progress, equality, and justice with people who aren't brain-damaged "social justice" cultists seeking to beat me into submission. Toodles!

Video: Associate Justice Alito's Keynote @ the National Lawyers Convention

Fast forward to timestamp 14:00 for the actual speech, in which Alito discusses recent attacks on our fundamental rights. The video is long -- but definitely worth a listen.

I Was Right. Now What?

Last week, I predicted - correctly, as it turns out - that the election would not go off without a hitch. I'm not going to gloat, though, because that was an obvious forecast for anyone with two eyes and at least one brain cell. We are a deeply divided nation, and the split appears to cut right down the middle. No one was going to triumph conclusively (no matter what idiot pollsters were claiming), margins were going to be razor thin, and yes, people were going to automatically question the results. Duh.

I don't know how many of the rumors of fuckery now flying around the nets are evidence-based, how many are misunderstandings, how many are clerical errors, etc. But I'm going to refrain from blaming folks on my side for being supremely skeptical that all of Biden's preliminary victories are legitimate for several reasons: 

First of all, the long-standing corruption of our urban political machines is an open secret; if you're up for a good time, look up Tammany Hall for some relevant context. Then follow that up with some research on the many documented cases of pants-on-head cheating that have been discovered and prosecuted through the years. Fraud is not imaginary; suspecting fraud is not automatically tantamount to believing a conspiracy theory.

Secondly, despite the aforementioned historical record, we don't have a safe, rational elections process in general. We simply don't. For years, the left has blocked measures designed to ensure potential voters' eligibility for stated reasons that, on their face, are ridiculous (you need an ID to get cigarettes, booze, and government aid, so no, it is not an unreasonable or "racist" act of "voter suppression" to demand an ID at the ballot box). And this year, of course, we also had loosey-goosey mail-in ballots (again based on a contrived, dishonest rationale; if people can go grocery shopping with masks and social distancing, they can vote in person using the same protective measures), which introduced a whole new level of uncertainty as to the legality of some of the submitted votes. 

Third - and probably the most important, if we're being perfectly honest - we're now in the fourth year of an overt campaign to destroy Donald Trump, his appointees, his associates, and his voter base -- a campaign that's been based wholly on exaggeration/spin at best and confirmed lies at worst. This has built up a profound - and valid - resentment among Trump supporters and further eroded our already low faith in our institutions, our media, and our political opponents.

I’m not saying there is, but you can’t pretend four years of lie after lie after lie meant to subvert the POTUS at every.single.turn will not be result with people believing you’re capable of anything when it comes to keeping a second term away from him.

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) November 5, 2020

So yeah: even if the presidential election isn't actually in the process of being stolen, you will see no National-Review-style judgment from me regarding the protests, the legal challenges, etc. -- and certainly no unctuous hand-wringing over Trump's supposed disrespect for The Process. I'm sorry, Democrats, but Mandel is right: it's your turn. If you'd been intellectually honest enough to recognize that a vote for Trump in 2016 might've been based on something other than Ist and Ism and had responded accordingly - namely, with a willingness to listen instead of a delusional, feral rage - we'd probably be in a better place now as a country. Alas, your own choices are now having consequences. Suck it up, buttercups.

Anyhoo, now that I've got that out of the way -- let's move on to the reflective, "now what?" portion of this post. How shall we proceed in light of the events of this week? What should we do -- beyond agitating for greater transparency and security in our elections and perhaps praying a novena for the continued survival of this nation?

I've been thinking about this since the wee hours of Wednesday morning, and I've settled on the following: get ready to hold the Biden administration's feet to the damned fire. (Note to my regular, Trump-supporting readers: don't interpret this as a cuck-out. This is just me following my Eagle Scout father's example and preparing for the worst.) Because even if the American public does want President Biden for whatever reason, the down-ticket results make it crystal clear that that self-same public does not want the post-modern, neo-Marxist garbage that's going to try to hitch a ride on the dotard's coattails.

It is extraordinarily telling, for example, that in cobalt-blue California, Proposition 16 - which would've rescinded the 1996 statewide ban on race-based affirmative action in employment and school admissions - failed so decisively. A vote for Biden evidently doesn't translate into an endorsement of the leftist program for "racial justice" -- and we need to be aggressive in reminding Biden and his surrogates of that fact. Similarly, Trump's anti-socialism message did land with certain key constituencies even if the benefits may not have redounded upon Trump himself. So if a Biden White House starts toying with nude eels or other economically illiterate programs, we can hit these folks hard there too and be quite confident that the electorate will approve.

In any case, we can't let the left get away with crap like this: 

Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 6, 2020

No. Nothing in Tuesday's election results gives anyone a "mandate" for "reconciliation commissions," political discrimination, attacks on free speech and free association, or any other radical BS even if we assume the counts are completely above board. (PS: This is exactly the kind of crap that makes Trump supporters distrust and despise you, Democrats. FFS, Trump is not Hitler and we don't need new Nuremberg trials. STOP.) (PPS: Where do I sign up for AOC's list? Being targeted by that tyrannical little brat seems like it'd be a badge of honor.) I don't think I'm nearly as pessimistic as Sarah Hoyt when it comes to our near future as a republic, but -- she's right to encourage a general spirit of disobedience. Voters, I think, want a check on Biden's power. We should provide it in spades.

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Edited to add:

I really can't overstate how DISGUSTED I am right now with the left-wing chattering class. All the crying over the end of our supposed national nightmare is based on frank DELUSION, not reality. Period. (Thread >>)

— The Right Geek (@TheRightGeek) November 8, 2020

Sorry: I have prednisone-induced insomnia and I'm angry.

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Edited again to add someone else's work of absolute genius:

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Monday morning edit adding a thread discussing my terms for "peace":

I've vented quite a bit of anger over the past few days in re: the election. There IS one thing I want to make clear, though: there's a distinction in my head between the leftist chattering class/Twitter set and the ordinary liberal Biden voter.

— The Right Geek (@TheRightGeek) November 9, 2020

Vote Trump for a Moral, Just Society

By next Saturday, the election will be "over" (for certain values of "over"; I wholly expect insane legal wrangling to continue for weeks/months once the preliminary results are in). Thus, this post is officially my last pitch for President Donald J. Trump, blowhard and Cheeto extraordinaire.

To all America-loving voters: Everyone knows that Trump's personal moral character is questionable at best -- that he's no saint. But if Trump's history (or his Twitter feed) is what's stopping you from voting for the guy, I strongly, strongly urge you to reconsider your priorities. You had an excuse to hesitate in 2016 back when Trump's political commitments were in doubt; you don't have an excuse now.

Our choices here, as I see it, are pretty damned clear:

1. We can have an awkward, cringey commander-in-chief who obviously adores our country and, regardless of his flaws, will genuinely try to serve our interests and defend our foundational principles.
2. We can have a weak, ineffectual commander-in-chief who will absolutely be railroaded by elements in his own party who hate America - hate you - and wish to destroy her.

I'm sorry, but Biden does not have the wherewithal to beat back the successor ideology that's now threatening our constitutional order. The Democratic Party as a whole does not have that wherewithal because it's been captured by said ideology's adherents. And we need to beat back these adherents and their poisonous notions if we wish America to remain the imperfect but basically moral and just society we all know it is. This is priority number one. It should overshadow all other considerations.

What radical leftists want for us Americans has nothing to do with justice, either social or otherwise -- and if they take power via Joe Biden (because again, Biden will not be able to stop them), they absolutely will destroy everything that makes America good. This should not be in doubt if you're even remotely conversant with the nightly news. 

I have become increasingly convinced, for example, that social justice warriors will not be satisfied until a black guy can gut a cop in broad daylight in front of cameras and a dozen witnesses and yet still get off scot free. Why? At bottom, these activists see black people as purse puppies who should be permitted to run wild doing whatever they please with zero consequences because the "legacy of slavery" has rendered the poor dears sub-human and they consequently just can't help themselves. How else do you explain their absolute refusal to acknowledge that, oh, running at the cops with a knife will get you justifiably shot? How do you explain their absolute refusal to hold black people responsible for their own choices in general? Remember: according to the SJW left, expecting "people of color" to do something simple like showing up to work on time is in fact a manifestation of "white supremacy" that should be discouraged. Does that make sense to you? If not, you need to vote for Trump. Biden and the Democrats will let this critical race theory crap fester in our bureaucracies and our board rooms because so many of them actually buy what it's selling; Trump, on the other hand, has already acted to oppose it.

I have also become convinced that these same people seek to control everything I think, everything I say, and everything I do -- and that if they can't succeed in rendering me silent and compliant, they will do everything they can to make sure I starve instead. Do you like cancel culture? Are you comfortable with the power SJW's already have to completely destroy people's lives for the crime of - well - not being SJW's? Were you okay, for instance, with what happened to the Covington kids? To Justice Kavanaugh? And does it sit right with you that Silicon Valley execs are unilaterally deciding for all of us what constitutes "truth" when it comes to thorny political matters -- or the COVID-19 pandemic, for that matter? If not, you need to vote for Trump. We can't trust Biden to stop this cultural totalitarianism -- not because he supports it personally necessarily but because its his base that's driving it.

In my view - and I think in your view too if you're an average, decent American - a truly moral, just society fulfills the following two criteria at minimum:

1. It protects the natural rights (of life, liberty, and property) of each and every human being regardless of class, race, etc.
2. It ensures that the rules that govern it are predictable and evenly applied to all citizens.

Has America achieved these? Not completely; I think all good faith actors agree that there's definite room for improvement. But I believe - I think with good reason - that we've come closer to the ideal than any other polity. And I think we can make further strides towards greater justice and equality if we continue to abide by the classically liberal values that got us here. Freedom, readers! Freedom is the key. The ability to talk things out in a free marketplace of ideas has given us everything from modern science to the original civil rights movement. And the ability to exchange goods and services in a free economy, meanwhile, has given even poor slobs like me a standard of living that would be the envy of the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt or the kings of early-modern Europe. Freedom's record, in short, is sterling. 

But the fifth columnists lurking behind Biden don't want freedom. Indeed, they don't even want our society to fulfill the aforementioned nonnegotiables. For sure, they definitely don't want us all to abide by the same comprehensible laws and mores; on the contrary, they simply want to change who gets the "privilege" and who gets shafted. That's why they argue that race should be considered when it comes to, say, admitting students to prestigious schools: they want to ease the standards for their favorites and screw the rest (especially those damned Jews and Asians who have the temerity to succeed despite their difficult histories). So here's the essential question: do you think this path - a path that centers what divides us and uses it to pass out bennies to just a few - will actually result in a society that's more fair? If not, you need to vote for Trump.

Leftists have also openly declared that people don't have a natural right to keep the things they've acquired through their labor, stumping on public radio for the revolutionary virtues of looting. And while Biden himself likely doesn't embrace this fringe view, he and the other members of his party don't seem all that motivated to stamp it out with force. Indeed, they all seemed more offended by Trump's expressed desire to use federal troops to stop the rioting than by the actual rioting. Do you really want people like this in charge of our country? Do you really want to be led by politicians who just can't bring themselves to aggressively punish violent commies trying their best to burn our cities to the ground? If not, you need to vote for Trump.

Of course, some people will read this and tell me that I am scared over nothing. But no: I'd say I have a lot more evidence to point to regarding the left's dangerous intentions for me and mine than any Biden voter has for the supposed threats of a continued Trump presidency. Aside from one creepy rally in Charlottesville a few years ago, I haven't seen much action from this "radical right" that's supposedly riding on Trump's coattails and menacing us all. What I've seen is incident upon incident of leftists outright terrorizing their neighbors -- and a Democratic Party that's not getting in their way. If you've seen this too, you need to vote for Trump -- even if it makes you unpopular at suburban cocktail parties.

Substance Over Surface

Of all the things that drive my upcoming vote for Trump (which will be my first, recall; I voted 3rd party in 2016), perhaps the most important has been the left's complete loss of contact with anything resembling reality -- or even one God-damned moral principle. And you know what I think partially drives this evolution? The left's obsession with appearances.

With the left, it's all about the external. Take the exam school controversy I discussed last week, for example. Blacks, Hispanics, and Indigenous Americans are under-represented in top secondary schools, and that is a problem that needs to be addressed. But what does the left propose we do? Make the outcomes look equal by openly considering race in admissions and lowering the standards for these disadvantaged groups. These "anti-racist" activists offer nothing that will actually fix the root causes that drive the disparity, which include everything from widespread family breakdown, chronic (Democratic) mismanagement of urban school districts, incompetent teaching (including the promotion of curricula that abandon essential skills like, say, memorizing your multiplication tables), cultural pressures to avoid "acting white", and - yes, perhaps - lingering economic inequality that can be traced to past racist policies. (I'm willing to consider anything as long as you have the evidence.)

Or consider the San Diego Unified School District's decision to adopt an easier grading policy because Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students are over-represented among students who fail. According to this new policy, students will no longer be penalized for late assignments, poor attendance, or poor behavior; instead, they will be given essentially infinite chances to get their A's. Now: when it comes to learning outcomes, I happen to believe that mastery learning is the best approach -- that no student should be ushered on to the next level without demonstrating full proficiency on the previous step. Thus, I do think struggling students should get ample opportunity to review, revise, and remediate. At the same time, though, it is also important to teach teenaged students in particular proper work habits. In the adult world, everyone must properly manage his time, meet deadlines, and prioritize between competing responsibilities; if we don't prepare our students for this road, we are setting them up to fail later on. But does the left care about that? No. Once again, "anti-racists" are fixated on superficially burnishing the outcomes so everything appears equal; they have zero interest in doing anything hard (but genuinely helpful) like, oh, mentoring students in particularly difficult circumstances so they can meet ordinary expectations like turning their homework in on time.

Back in June, I wrote a little didactic tale in which the main character does something difficult and tangible to help a neighboring community in distress -- but because she fails to wear the correct symbol of concern (in this case, a blue scarf), she is attacked. My purpose there was quite overt: to point out the left's current defective modus operandi. According to the left, if you don't post that black square on Instagram, you're not fighting for "black lives." According to the left, if you're not perfectly proper in the language you use, you're a damned dirty racist who should be run out on a rail.

But when it comes to real-world successes -when it comes to truly changing things for the better - what people say matters very, very little; what matters much more is what people do. Think about it, and think hard. Who, in the end, is actually advancing the cause of racial equality: the gruff, unattractive, ethnic-joke-loving plumber and volunteer tutor who drills black kids in inner-city Detroit on their arithmetic -- or the impeccably-dressed suburban freelance journalist who writes long think-pieces on the inherent "violence" of "digital blackface" while sipping lattes in an upscale coffee shop? Anyone with two brain cells in his head realizes that the right answer is clearly the former.

So: 'Trump. Trump is the plumber. He's said a lot of cringe-worthy things (though the media, of course, have exponentially exaggerated these offenses against etiquette through open, brazen lying). But what has he done - what has he actually done - that merits the hysterical "racist/Nazi/fascist" labels that are heaped upon his head? I want receipts. I want evidence. And I don't want to hear about what he tweeted; I want to hear about policy and documented impacts. 

In the meantime, here's what I see: I see that before COVID, economic prospects were looking up for struggling minority communities thanks to Trump's economic policies. I see the Trump administration talking to people concerned about criminal justice reform. I see the Trump administration actually avoiding needless foreign wars while still offering a muscular defense of our interests. I see, in short, Trump working towards many of the stated goals of the left. Yet the left refuses to give Trump credit for any of his efforts in this vein -- because the guy is just so gauche. He's just so ugly and common and gross. He doesn't wear the blue scarf.

And here's what I also see: I see leftists bleating all the right phrases and sporting all the right totems -- while simultaneously promoting - or at least enabling - activity that has worsened prospects for our most vulnerable. I've said it before and I'll say it again: How does trashing an urban neighborhood help any of the people who live there? How does creating new food and pharmacy deserts benefit minority communities? Leftists can't offer real answers to these questions because for them, it's all about the performance of compassion -- not about making observable progress.

BLATE: My vote for Trump is a vote for substance over surface.

Our Exam Schools Have Done Nothing Wrong

I'm sure everyone wants me to talk about the ongoing social media censorship of the NY Post's little October surprise (which I'm going to link because you can't stop the signal). And yes -- said censorship does set a dangerous precedent, reinforces the continuing double standard in re: the treatment of Trump versus the treatment of his opponents, and is yet. one. more indication that our blue check elites are execrable sports who are totally in the tank for Biden and will go to any lengths to protect that sad figurehead from the consequences of his own corruption. But the thing is -- I don't think I have anything unique to say on that matter. So in lieu of bitching about the sins of Jack Dorsey, I'm going to continue to obsess about the ongoing, nationwide threat to exam schools like Lowell High School in San Francisco or Thomas Jefferson in suburban DC.

As I mentioned last week, "anti-racist" activists are working hard to destroy or dilute the entrance standards for exam schools because the demographic breakdowns of their incoming classes don't "represent" the demographics of their service areas. For example, Fairfax County in Virginia - from which the lion's share of TJ's students are selected - is roughly 61% white, 19.3% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 9.7% black -- but 73% of the students admitted to TJ's Class of 2024 were Asian. Yeah. You see the problem for people who assume, erroneously, that all sub-groups in society behave in exactly the same way, that all should therefore accrue the same end results, and that any violation of this is therefore proof positive of "systemic discrimination"?

But TJ's own stats reveal that different groups aren't behaving identically. Asian students not only were admitted to TJ in numbers out of proportion to their presence in the Northern Virginia population but also applied in numbers out of proportion to their presence in said population. Doesn't that matter? TJ can't enroll the invisible. It can only work with the student profiles it does see. And interest level isn't the only relevant variable in play. There's also the fact that Asian applicants to TJ, on average, have higher GPA's -- that, in fact, their credentials are simply better than those of their competitors (including their peers in the white majority, who are also radically under-represented in the class of 2024 at this supposedly "white supremacist" school).

So then the question we need to ask is: why? Why are Asian students more engaged in the TJ admissions process, and why are they performing better overall? The activists would have us believe that these students are simply buying their way into TJ with expensive test prep. One such activist recently compared Asian students to athletes who cheat in sports via performance enhancing drugs. But this is a crap argument - and vicious slander - for several reasons. Number one, if you are concerned about the uneven availability of test prep, the logical solution would be to expand free and/or discounted test prep options in the region for students who can demonstrate financial hardship -- not to drop the standards by jettisoning the test entirely. Number two, studying is not cheating! Studying can be made accessible to all, leads to genuine learning, and should come with real rewards. But most importantly, test prep doesn't really have that much of an effect. I have worked in test prep for fifteen years now (and may be risking my job here in sharing trade secrets), and while I personally have accomplished some relatively impressive score improvements with my students after hours and hours of focused skills remediation, I have never been able to get a student into a top school like TJ who wasn't already demonstrating far-above-grade-level academic mastery in other ways. NEVER. So even if these Asian kids are prepping, that doesn't mean they aren't in fact as gifted as they appear on record.

Of course, the next retreat of the enemies of these exam schools is to claim that tests don't show merit for their favored groups -- usually because said tests are "racist". But sorry, cupcakes -- you're tangling with someone who, once again, has fifteen years of experience with standardized tests like the SHSAT, SAT, ACT, etc. I know how those tests are written. I know how these psychometricians twist themselves into pretzels trying to avoid cultural bias. I know how their questions are field-tested to ensure they are appropriate. These tests obviously are not the be-all and end-all of merit (which is why they're not considered in isolation at TJ or most anywhere else), but according to meta-analyses, they do nonetheless show something real and relevant to school admissions -- something that becomes apparent the instant you have a student who scored a 1250 on the SAT in the same class with a student who scored a 1450. So if Asians are doing extraordinarily well on the TJ admissions test and whites and blacks are doing less well, it is more likely this reflects the actual skills each group of students brings to the table and not some inherent "racist" quality of the test itself.

So no: don't shoot the messenger, you idiots. Think carefully about what the message might mean. As I stressed last time, it might mean that certain feeder schools are doing a piss-poor job educating their pupils -- which would be the fault of those schools and the leaders in charge of their district, not the top schools at the end of the pipeline. And I hate to say it, but it might also mean that certain families are doing a better job emphasizing the importance of education to their children than others. You are instantly called a bigot for even suggesting such a thing, but I can't ignore the evidence of my lying eyes. I'm not super expensive as a tutor (and in point of fact, my outfit offers financial aid). Most students around here can probably afford my rates. Yet there are definite racial trends in who shows up to ask for my help (Asians, West Indians, and African immigrants) and who simply doesn't (American blacks, whites, and Hispanics). If I can't even voice that out loud without being shouted down as a Nazi, then we have a serious, serious problem.

You can't keep treating certain people like children and expect to make any real progress when it comes to the so-called "diversity" of exam schools. You have to be frank. You have to tell all comers that getting into an exam school is not an entitlement. It requires hard work and an excellent grade-school education. And yes, you will need to make sacrifices in time and, yes, some money in order to earn your spot no matter who you are. As I keep saying, the local government should act to ensure that the opportunity to succeed academically is as evenly distributed as humanly possible, but when all is said and done, sitting around and waiting for the government to rescue you with set-asides because "muh oppression" and "representation" is the path of the loser and, if I may be so bold, the true cheat.

I understand why people want to get into places like TJ. They want the prestige. They want access to TJ's labs, internships, and excellent, unusual courses. And they think all of that will continue to exist even if TJ starts admitting students who are objectively less prepared for its strenuous curriculum. But the purpose of TJ is to serve students with documented high ability in science and math who would likely be bored at a base high school -- not to make people feel good about their secondary credentials or to make life superficially "fair". Forcing yourself into TJ through not-so-stealth quota games without earning your right to be there is essentially stealing from special ed kids (because high-ability kids are, in many ways, special ed). Better, instead, to work toward making sure instructional quality is excellent across your district -- for both high-ability and average students alike.

I'm Back!

So what the heck happened to me?

On September 3, I went to the local ER because I was feeling very unwell -- nausea, severe muscle weakness (including difficulty swallowing solid food), dehydration, etc. That afternoon, the hospital's routine work-up revealed an alarmingly high level of troponin in my blood, which most commonly indicates a heart attack or heart injury. Promptly, I was admitted to the ICU for 24 hours so that my cardiac function could be monitored more closely.

Over the next two weeks, I stayed in a general cardiac ward where I underwent two echoes and a cath (in addition to a bunch of other diagnostic scans and blood tests). These all revealed that my blood vessels were squeaky clean and my heart was pumping normally. At this point, the aforementioned local institution was stumped, so they transferred me to a larger teaching hospital where I could be seen by specialists in cardiology and rheumatology.

After a completely normal cardiac MRI at the new hospital, a primary heart problem was ruled out, and the focus turned to an autoimmune cause for my weakness and other signs/symptoms. Several tissue biopsies were conducted, and a feeding tube was inserted so I can still get nutrition while my throat muscles remain inflamed and weak. The results of the biopsies are still being reviewed by the big-time specialists at Johns Hopkins, but the suspicion at this point is that I have a mixed connective tissue disease. I am showing classic signs of dermatomyositis (an autoimmune disease of the skin and muscles), CREST Syndrome, and - of course - the rheumatoid arthritis I already knew I had.

I am now home from the hospital on high dose immunosuppressive medication. Over the next month of follow-up appointments, we're going to work on finding exactly the right combination of medical therapies that will - hopefully - restore function and allow me to, once again, lead my normal life.

TL; DR: My body essentially collapsed for reasons unknown, and I am still trying to bounce back.

I did keep up with the political landscape while I was in the hospital, though. Neither of the debates were, for me, especially enlightening. (Trump is not the smoothest, most polite public speaker? This is my shocked face.) And the responses to said debates were even less of a surprise. (Pence was "mansplaining"? Really? Stop making me hate my own gender, you absolute media assclowns.) 

And as for the other stories in the news? Yeah: they're making me even more inclined to crawl over fields of broken glass and swim through gator and shark infested pools to vote for Trump. 

Particularly of concern to me is an effort by Democratic, "antiracist" politicians in my own backyard to completely gut our prized STEM magnet because, damn it, too many ambitious Asian immigrants are getting in (and not enough blacks and Hispanics). My take on this controversy lines up with my take on affirmative action in general: look at the pipeline. Which elementary and middle schools are adequately preparing students for Magnet High School's entrance exam and rigorous academic expectations, and which schools aren't? Do a comprehensive analysis -- and then fix the schools that are underperforming so quality instruction is more justly distributed across the region. 

You see, as a teacher, I actually care about educating kids for real. Lowering the admissions standards for a top high school does not serve that goal. All that does is reinforce existing inequities; all that does is put lipstick on a pig. Unfortunately, more and more supposedly educated (mostly white) people around here have been captured by this season's delusional, cultish ideology-of-the-moment, which argues against all common sense that playing quota games to buff the numbers for Magnet High School (and other exam schools nationwide) is in fact to strike a blow against "systemic racism." Because black and Hispanic students can't in fact earn spots at this school in the traditional way if they're just given more opportunities to do so -- apparently. 

Wait, what does racism mean again? Sigh.

Anyway -- I should have a more normal post ready for you next week. Any prayers for my continued recovery are, of course, greatly appreciated.

Brief Hiatus Announcement

My annual trip to Dragon Con has been canceled this year, but I've decided to take my standard Labor Day break anyway in order to catch up on a few things. I shall return next Thursday. Don't burn the place down in the meantime! 

ETA 9/7: Oops! Actually, I'm in the hospital right now with myocarditis, so the hiatus may go on even longer. Many apologies!

Video: Correcting Myths Regarding the Founding

C. Bradley Thompson is always a must-watch!

Fisking That Infamous White Culture Infographic, END!

 Continued from here. (Or you can start at the beginning.)

Communication:

• The "King's English" rules

Back in the 18th century, the language of international diplomacy was French. Anyone who wanted to represent his country in the courts of Europe had to conduct his business in that language regardless of his own native tongue. Granted, this was a way that France asserted its dominance as a colonial power -- but there's no denying that the existence of a lingua franca increased efficiency in communication between foreign powers.

The same is true of the "King's English" in the United States. That there is a commonly accepted grammar in which we conduct cross-subgroup communication allows us to understand each other more easily. This doesn't mean, of course, that we should denigrate local dialects as somehow inferior or indicative of a lesser intelligence. But if we jettison any standardization in our academic/public writing, the result will likely be frustrating and confusing for all participants in our discourse.

(Notice, reader, that the people who created this infographic did in fact use the "King's English" to convey their nonsense ideas. If the "King's English" is so oppressive and has no practical use whatsoever, then why didn't these folks write this in AAVE or some other woke-favored dialect instead? Yeah: don't hold your breath waiting for a straight answer.)

The hidden "issue" this bullet addresses is code-switching. Code-switching refers to the fact that Americans who speak non-standard dialects must learn and use the aforementioned "King's English" in order to participate in wider society. These activists erroneously believe that code-switching is something only speakers of AAVE have to do -- that the code-switching expectation therefore uniquely oppresses black people. But of course, white people who speak deep Southern or Appalachian dialects also discover they must code-switch to be taken seriously. My AP US History teacher back in nineteen-mumble-mumble, for example, spoke the "King's English" while at the lectern -- but, he told us, every time he went back home to rural West Virginia, the way he spoke radically changed. "Here, I'm Mike. Back home, I'm Maaaahk."

No: the "King's English" thing is not racism. It might be classism. But it might also be a necessary evil in a complex, pluralistic society.

• Written tradition

Well, yeah? Western culture has had writing for thousands of years, so we're naturally going to have a written tradition. I think that's true of every society that has ever developed writing, white or no.

This bullet, of course, comes from the activists' conviction that oral tradition has been unfairly ignored in favor of documentary proof. The problem, though, is that - at least as far as I know - they have yet to present a case in which the conclusions of an oral tradition were more reliable than those of our written one. I do know of cases in which oral tradition has aided our understanding of more tangible evidence -- which is why it shouldn't be completely dismissed out of hand. But I suspect the reason why these people champion oral tradition and decry the written is that the former is far more protean than words on parchment -- which suits their history-erasing agenda most beautifully.

Writing is a technology like other technology. Just as gas-powered vehicles essentially superseded horse-drawn carriages, writing superseded the oral wherever it appeared. This is not a sign of some nefarious racist conspiracy; it simply happened because the peoples who adopted writing took note of its numerous advantages.

Quick question: are we now to cancel to cancel Sequoyah because he invented a written language for the Cherokee Nation? Or should we, in fact, recognize the truth? Sequoyah was a Native American patriot who thought "talking leaves" would actually help his people and advance their interests. He was no more a "white supremacist" than the Chinese who invented kanji -- or the Korean emperor who invented the hangul alphabet.

• Avoid conflict, intimacy
• Don't show emotion
• Don't discuss personal life

But wait: wasn't extroversion also a sign of "white supremacy"? Like I suggested in the previous post, these people are so stupid, they don't even realize when they're straight-up contradicting themselves. It would be hilarious if they weren't so powerful and so unbelievably threatening.

• Be polite

Yep. There it is. The mask is off. These radical leftists want the freedom to bully others without being called on it. But of course, being "polite" is not the same as being a pushover. You can be very firm in defending your rights and your beliefs without resorting to online or street harassment. Bringing about a more just world does not require you hound people in restaurants and intimidate them into raising black power fists. It does not require that you dog-pile people on Twitter, call them filthy names, and attempt to drive them to destitution or suicide for saying the "wrong" thing.

Politeness is the glue that holds all societies together. Demanding it is not plot to suppress the "marginalized."

---

Whew! At last, I'm finished with this monster!

So what's the BLATE, as my late father used to write? These activists are uneducated, parochial hooligans who know nothing of world history, human evolution, or normal patterns of technological development but are nonetheless very, very certain that things like time-keeping are white plots to keep the black man down. They are also condescending gits who, fundamentally, think black people are somehow unable to learn math, science, and academic English grammar and therefore need to have separate spaces in which none of that knowledge is required for advancement. And in the end, they are losers who wish to justify their rudeness, their failure, and their laziness by dressing it up in the language of social progress -- while also denying simultaneously that forward-thinking is beneficial and that progress is possible.

They are, in short, evil, brain-dead grifters who should be dismissed with extreme prejudice -- and mockery.

My Epoch Times Contest Entry:

Why I Love America

I love America because of Iron Man.

Wait! Before you put this little missive down and seek out an entry with a little more “gravitas,” allow me to explain. For you see, I do believe, sincerely, that Iron Man is emblematic of what is great about America — and I believe, in this essay, that I can conclusively present my case.

Iron Man - who first appeared in the pages of Marvel’s Tales of Suspense in 1963 at the height of the so-called “Silver Age of Comics” - was the brainchild of four New Yorkers who, essentially, wanted to stretch themselves by creating an “unlikely” superhero whose backstory fell well outside their usual comfort zone. In what way was the Golden Avenger a challenge? Tony Stark – the man inside the Iron Man armor – was a defense contractor, a wealthy industrialist, and a man-about-town who embodied everything Marvel’s generally left-leaning readership was ideologically inclined to despise. “I thought it would be fun,” Stan Lee once remarked, “to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him.” And did Lee and his compatriots succeed in this endeavor? Yes! While Iron Man has never been a leader when it comes to comic book sales, he has nonetheless endured for almost sixty years and - thanks mostly to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - has become a globally famous icon.

So how exactly does Iron Man embody what makes America exceptional?

Let us first consider biography. Iron Man’s creators – Lee, Larry Lieber (Lee’s younger brother), Jack Kirby, and Don Heck – all hailed from working class backgrounds. None of these men grew up in fancy digs or attended tony art schools. Each had to climb his way up the societal ladder through hard work, determination, and vision. Yet in America, Lee and the rest ultimately found their paths to prosperity — because in America, even the children of poor urban immigrants can rise.

Consider too what it says about America that a fellow can make it big by selling cheaply printed – and admittedly melodramatic – four-color fantasies. Such a seemingly ridiculous occupation can only exist in a place that is free. To put it another way, the fecundity and ever-present joy behind Iron Man and his fellow Silver Age superheroes have as their necessary antecedent a culture that values open artistic expression and economic liberty. The Soviet Union of the same era could not have created Iron Man — and neither could Maoist China.

But the most important reason why Iron Man perfectly exemplifies America’s singular personality is the broad-mindedness that animated his origin. As noted above, his creators did not settle for crafting heroes with whom they could readily identify. Instead, they deliberately sought to understand the Other — and in the process, they imbued Iron Man with a profound and genuinely moving humanity that transcended his externals. Even a well-to-do “playboy” who seems to have it all, the comics said, can still struggle with chronic illness, alcoholism, and a gnawing, desperate loneliness. Even a well-to-do “playboy,” the comics argued, can have a heart. In the earliest Iron Man comics, no space is given for Marxist diatribes about the evils of the rich; there is only recognition of the universal travails of all mankind. If that’s not a terrific illustration of the American soul, I don’t know what is.

Unfortunately, there is a significant faction in the America of 2020 that wants to do away with the special “American-ness” that made Iron Man great in his original incarnation. This faction wants to limit what we may write and draw, wall off former avenues of advancement and restrict our taste for risk and enterprise, stick us in homogeneous ghettos based on our immutable characteristics, and sow conflict between the supposedly “privileged” and the “marginalized” for the purpose of effectuating revolution. And sadly, this faction now commands the heights of the entertainment industry, including the editorial staff of Marvel Comics. I suppose that’s one unconscious reason why I keep reading and re-reading the old Silver and Bronze Age Iron Man issues; in a way, I suppose I’m trying to remind myself what precisely, as a classical liberal, I value most.