Women and Children First

 Like most sane Americans, at this 245^th birthday, I worry a lot about the state of the union now.  A substantial minority has decided to displace Independence Day with Juneteenth (and don’t disingenuously tell me it’s not meant to be a displacement) and bump off 1776 and put 1619 in its stead.  Faux hyphenated historian Nikole Hannah-Jones was awarded tenure at UNC just for that work of revisionist and false narrative.

But the pathology that most concerns me is the obliteration of our society’s longstanding protections for women and children.   “Women and children first” was the cry on the Titanic and, ironically, is the name of the uber progressive bookstore in Chicago.   Sadly, the progressive movement has steamrolled those protections.  The gender-disoriented now come first.

With women, permitting biological males to compete with them in sports is simply absurd.  There are perhaps 300 high school boys that would eclipse Florence Griffith Joyner’s world record.  And now the Olympics are going to permit a biological male to compete with women in weightlifting.  In New Jersey, the family of a high school girl is suing the state because two athletes that were male just last year defeated her in her sprint event.  Girls and women fought hard under Title IX to have athletic opportunities and now they are being stripped away.

The Woke gender movement not only is destroying athletic opportunities, it’s flat out dangerous.  In athletics, the disparity in speed, strength and muscle mass in sports where there is contact will mean a greater likelihood of injury.    In other contexts, the risks are even greater.  In California, biological men can self-identify as women and get placed in women’s prisons.  A society that would put these vulnerable and already at-risk women at greater risk of sexual assault is one that is on the road to pathological breakdown.   The push to allow biological men in women’s restrooms is likewise wrong-headed and dangerous.   As a society, we have always offered special protections around womens’ privacy issues.  In addition, a restroom is an enclosed space in which an assault on a lone women is easier to perpetrate.   For adolescent girls that are self-conscious about their bodies anyway, permitting boys in their locker rooms and bathrooms is permitting a minority to tyrannize the majority.

With children, things are even worse.

With COVID19, the government is now pushing vaccination for children and adolescents despite the absence of any long term studies about its effects.  Bret Weinsten and Heather Heying have been lone voices raising alarm about this.  COVID19 carries very little risk for young people and the incidents of myocarditis that have popped up are enough to put the brakes on for young people.  We should not be exposing young people to unknown risks to protect old people.   In a healthy society, older people take risks so young people don’t have to.

Similarly, in Illinois, and many other places, kids lost an entire year of in person school, mostly due to stubborn teachers’ unions that adamantly refused to go back to work, even as COVID19 receded.  Many of these students will never make up the lost year.  In Illinois, it was even worse.   Governor Pritzker shut down high school sports in the fall, even though all adjacent states played a full season with no outbreaks.  Most obscenely, I saw soccer and lacrosse teams out practicing while fully masked.  These were the healthiest, lowest risk people in the population pool, yet were sentenced to be deprived of a full education, socialization and, in the case of athletes, entire seasons of play with no science behind it whatsoever.

We have made a policy choice to push risks on to young people and deprive young people of intellectual, emotional and physical development to protect older people.  That’s immoral, wrong, and a sign of a society in decline.  But it’s even worse.  Since February 2020, the national debt has increased by nearly $5 trillion.  Yes, government wonks all have rationales behind the gargantuan increase--- “stimulus” and all that.  But the fact remains that the economic slowdown was caused by deliberate government action which many believe was completely unnecessary.   And this debt burden will need to be borne by guess who? Young people.   It is a complete inversion of the American dream.  We work to secure a better future for the next generation.  Our policymakers have reversed it all.  We are stealing from them for current consumption.

The most egregious example of the failure to protect women was the breakdown at Michigan State that allowed the monster Larry Nasser to abuse so many women athletes.  Now we learn that the F.B.I. failed to alert law enforcement or take action against Nasser, thereby enabling him to continue to sexually abuse these girls.

So the university AND the F.B.I. both failed to protect them—two large bureaucracies whose primary mission is nurturing and protecting.   After reading the inspector general’s report, I wanted to scream out loud, “YOU HAD ONE JOB.”   This was done under the sanctimonious Jim Comey, whose book carries the obscenely title “A Higher Loyalty” and who now teaches a course in ethical leadership at William and Mary.   He should have been banished and shamed for allowing the catastrophe at Michigan State under his aegis.

Our society is tearing down basic protections for women and children.   Civilized societies put them first.