Walls and Nooses

The declaration of a National Emergency by Donald Trump and the discovery that Jussie Smollett likely fabricated his story that he was assaulted by two white men in MAGA hats, appear to be two unrelated stories.  But they are not.  They are very much related and symptomatic of a society that is in a pathological state.

First, let me put on the table that I do not support Trump’s declaration of a National Emergency to fortify our border.  Allocating funds for such things properly rests with the legislature in our system.  Trump’s executive overreach will be challenged in the courts and once again, it will be a battle to be resolved by the judiciary, where it does not belong.  It will be recalled that Obama dealt with DACA, not through the legislature, but through an executive order (a Constitutional power that he earlier asserted that he did not have). The judiciary then refused to allow Donald Trump to reverse this executive action.  I am confident that the Founders never intended unilateral executive action to be permanent.  But here we are again, stuck with a dysfunctional tug of war between the executive and the judiciary because the legislature cannot or will not develop a rational approach to immigration and border security.

A friend of mine contends that a nation is comprised of three elements—border, language, and culture.  To those, I would add a third--- a coherent narrative.

This week, we saw clearly that two of these four elements came under attack.

We often see countries that have border disputes with their neighbors.  Pakistan and India.  Israel and the Palestinians.  China and India.  Greece and Turkey over Cyprus.  But we are having a fierce border dispute with ourselves.  The more radical wing of the Democratic party represented by Beto O’Rourke, AOC and Kirsten Gillibrand don’t want a border or enforcement of one at all.  That does not bode well for us as a nation.

The second element that is under siege is our nation’s narrative, and nothing captures it more than the fabrication put forward by Jussie Smollett.  The narrative that most of us adhere to is that the United States is “land of the free, home of the brave,”  that the U.S. is a beacon of freedom and a “land of opportunity.”  Yes, we suffered through the stain of slavery and Jim Crow, but the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act, along with various other anti-discrimination laws have wrung out much of racial inequality.  Racism, while it still exists, is relegated to isolated pockets.

The Left, especially the New Left, has a competing narrative.  It is advanced by people like Michael Eric Dyson, Ta Nehisi Coates, and broadcast loudly by outlets such as the New York Times.   That narrative assert that is we are fundamentally and deeply a racist, oppressive nation, and a colonial power that not only oppresses minorities at home but also exploits resources and peoples abroad.  The New York Times has gone so far as to publish op-eds that support blacks not wanting the be friends with white people and claiming unconscious racism even if a person does not manifest it (therefore it can NEVER be eradicated).

It turns out that real demonstrable racial animus has been difficult for the New Left to find, so we’ve been subject to fabricated stories beginning with the Duke lacrosse team scandal (since disproven). 

And immediately on the heels of the incident between Nathan Phillips and the teens at Covington in which the videotapes conclusively disproved Phillips’s story, Smollett made his claim that he was attacked in Chicago.  And just as they did just a few weeks earlier, the MSM and several politicians reflexively swallowed Smollett’s story whole, even though it sounded a little fishy from the start.  Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Rashida Tlaib, along with the MSM decried this “modern day lynching,” and, of course, part of the narrative was the MAGA hat.

The problem is that it never happened, just as “Hands up. Don’t shoot” never happened, and the harassment of a Native American by the Covington kids never happened. But the New Left is so wedded to its narrative of pervasive racism, that it sticks to it, even when incontrovertible evidence says otherwise.

These faked hate crimes (whether there should be such a designation is a separate argument) are arguably worse than actual hate crimes.  And it is not simply because they divert law enforcement resources.  Hate crimes injure a single person.  Fake hate crimes are aimed at tearing at the fabric of our entire country.  They are intended to destroy the narrative that we are a melting pot and a basically tolerant society.  They aim to exploit fabricated divisions by race, and make us suspicious of each other. 

Fortunately, those that perpetuated the lie of the Covington incident will be sued.  Smollett may be prosecuted for his lies.  We are beginning to see that there are consequences for doing this and that provides a little hope that destructive incidents like that can be deterred.

But It is troubling that of the four elements that make up a nation---- language, border, culture, and narrative, two were subject to a full frontal assault last week. 

Fairy Tales and Fraud

 The amount of media attention that the 29 year old barista turned freshman Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez has garnished since beating establishment Democrat Joe Crowley has been astonishing.  No other politician in memory has gotten as much exposure this quickly, with a gaggle of reporters hanging on every word, as AOC exhorts and pontificate America into revolutionary change, and hectors her opponents.   Her bold proposals include a 70% tax rate on the “tippy tops” and the elimination of ICE.   Her outlandish ideas have drawn responses from such figures as Alan Greenspan.   Her reasoning, rhetoric, and demeanor is more like a 12 year old than a 29 year old, yet here she is, confidently grabbing the bullhorn and telling America that she knows how to remake the American economy. 

AOC released her blueprint for her Green New Deal plan and within hours, several leading Democrats endorsed it.   After claiming that the world is going to end in 12 years due to climate change, her Green New Deal includes such radical ideas such as rebuilding every single building in the U.S.,  getting rid of cows (due to flatulence), building enough rail to make air travel unnecessary and providing guaranteed income for anyone unable or unwilling to work.   Under the Green New Deal, AOC envisions that of planes, trains and automobiles, Americans only get to keep one.  She brushes aside criticism with inane and senseless comments such as, “We have to invent things that haven’t been invented yet,” and “you just pay for it.”

Several Democratic leaders such as Cory Booker and Kamala Harris rushed to embrace the Green New Deal.  Liberal commentators such as Jessica Tarloff, could not defend ANY of its specifics but praised its “spirit.”

Republicans roundly ridiculed it, and even some sober Democrats distanced themselves from it.  Less filtered commentators were more blunt.  Ben Stein flatly opined, “She [AOC] doesn’t know her a**hole from her elbow.”

The advent of AOC echoes of another attractive young woman that burst onto the scene, with a bold “vision,” claiming she would change the world--- Elizabeth Holmes.   Like AOC, Holmes was pretty, energetic, brimming with confidence.   And like AOC, Holmes had charisma and charm.    Holmes was able to convince respected figures such as General Mattis, George Shultz, and a number of Walgreens executives of her entrepreneurial acumen.  Holmes and AOC both share an inflated sense of their own historical significance.  Carreyrou said of Holmes, “What Elizabeth had just said confirmed their armchair psychoanalysis of their boss: she saw herself as a world historical figure.  A modern day Marie Curie.”

Holmes dropped out of Stanford after her freshman year to start Theranos, and similar to AOC, had little real world experience and insufficient scientific background to undertake a truly rigorous scientific and engineering leadership role.   Like AOC, the MSM gushed over her.  So eager was the press to anoint this little starlet, all but one (John Carreyrou) failed to ask fundamental questions about the device’s efficacy.   The adoration of AOC is quite unprecedented, given her singular lack of achievement, yet Netflix is wiling to pay $10 million for a documentary on a woman whose New Green Deal would not be deemed substantive enough to win a grade school science project.

The profile and grandiose visions of these two women are hauntingly similar.

Holmes hurt a lot of people with her fraud—a vision that was unanchored by any reality:  investors, creditors, employees, and the reputations of some executives at Walgreens.  One employee even committed suicide as a result of her actions.   But the scale of the damage she wrought was limited.  Her investors lost $700 million and creditors a few hundred million more.  All her employees will eventually be re-employed.  AOC seeks to put at risk the entire U.S. economy, commandeering trillions of dollars of resources and the well-being of over 300 million people.

After the Theranos case, do we really want to wager Western Civilization on AOC’s vision and ability?

I leave you with a contrasting vision—that of Janis Powers.  Powers, a health care consultant, has just written an intriguing book, Health Care: Meet the American Dream, in which she proposes a major overhaul of the health care system that takes government and health insurance companies out of the business and replaces them with the Dream Plan, the cornerstone of which is the LHCP, an investment account used to pay for an individual’s health care. She envisions using genetic testing and other data points to assist in estimating the costs of an individual’s health care needs.

Powers supplements her plan with her podcasts (The Powers Report) that I highly recommend.  The undergirding of her approach, which she puts right out front in her first podcast, is her conviction that any successful transformation of the health care system must meet two criteria: (a) financial viability, and (2) behavioral incentive alignment.

I intend to re-read and study more closely Powers’s proposal.  But from the outset, Powers, unlike AOC is anchored in reality.  The two criteria that Powers puts forward in order to overhaul the health care system are completely absent in AOC’s Green New Deal.  And, unlike AOC, Powers has deep first hand experience in the health care delivery system.  AOC has limited experience and most of that has been in mixing and serving drinks, and not in energy or the economics of energy.  Powers does not take a fanciful approach, but rather a hard and realistic look and an enormously complex problem.

Is Powers’s proposal viable?  I don’t know, but it is worth examining.  It will require close scrutiny and modeling. I suspect it comes down to the math.  It is an ambitious and visionary approach, but unlike AOC’s Green New Deal, it is grounded in reality and spun out with specificity.

Powers understands that bold proposals are bounded by math (finance), science, and human nature.  If you don’t recognize those boundaries, it’s either fairy tale or fraud.

Slouching Toward Gosnell

This week, Chicago was gripped by the Polar Vortex, a jet stream of frigid air and wind that descended from Canada, plunging temperatures into the minus 20’s with midday highs not reaching zero.  For a couple of days, the city was nearly paralyzed.  Many businesses and institutions closed.  The trains ran on  reduced schedules and the rail companies set fire to tracks to warm them.  At the moment of contact, the frigid cold took your breath away.

But the Polar Vortex wasn’t the only thing that took my breath away this week.  Following on the heels of New York’s new abortion law, Virginia delegate Kathy Tran introduced a similar measure in that state that would permit an abortion until birth.  The video of her defense of the bill went viral and was as stunning as the blast of Chicago’s winter wind off the river and is available on YouTube:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0kC1B__CJ4)

Later, Virginia governor, Ralph Northam defended Tran and her bill in a radio interview and goes much further, suggesting that there may be instances where infanticide is permissible:

"When we talk about third trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physicians, more than one physician, by the way. [the proposed VA statute would reduce it to one]  And it's done in cases were there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that's nonviable.  So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor I can tell you exactly what would happen.  The infant would be delivered.  The infant would be kept comfortable.  The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.  So I think this was really blown out of proportion."

For most of my adult life, I have been "uncomfortably pro-choice."  In college, and a little bit beyond, I was pro-life.  Bernard Nathanson’s anti-abortion polemic, Aborting America, published in 1979 had a strong influence on me, and by my mid-twenties, I had known perhaps a half-dozen women that had had abortions and all but one had expressed deep regrets about having one.  But as I moved into my mid-twenties, I began to shift into libertarianism.   The basic problem was that I could never convince myself with any certainty that I knew the answer to the question of “when does life begin?”  My liberal friends seemed to know with certainty that life did not begin at conception and that it began somewhere down the path to birth.  My conservative friends knew with certainty that life began at conception.  I could never reach certainty in my mind in either direction.  My pro-life inclinations  conflicted with my libertarian instincts and libertarianism for the most part prevailed.   I bought into the “safe, legal, and rare” argument and the “our bodies, our choice” argument, and the libertarian view that “if you are anti-abortion, don’t get one.”

But I vastly underestimated Leftist Incrementalism.

But over the past few years, I also have spent a great deal of time and effort understanding the Holocaust, how it happened, who did it and how the world permitted such a thing.  I have attended several programs at the Illinois Holocaust Museum.  I have read Laurence Rees’s masterpiece, The Holocaust: A New History.   Some of my most widely read blog posts concerned the Holocaust or were film reviews of Holocaust related films (e.g. Son of Saul and Austerlitz).  Last year, I wrote an impassioned blog opposing the proposed Polish law which would have prohibited the use of the term “Polish Holocaust.” (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2018/03/polish-folly.html)  I began to understand the dehumanization of the Jews and other “undesirables” that the Nazis undertook that led to mass killings.  And they started with the mentally infirmed.

My shift in views have not come from my Catholic upbringing but rather my understanding of the Holocaust and from the New Left itself.   And now I understand how incorrect my position has been.

Until recently, the Left was careful to camouflage itself.  It covered itself in innocuous and libertarian language- "women's health " "women's choice," "safe, legal and rare."  It lured us in with the 3% Lie of Planned Parenthood. And it got people like me to take the bait.  How can a libertarian be against women's choice?

But the New Left has been exposed for where it is really going and what really goes on and the abject hideousness and inhumanity of it. There was the film of the National Abortion Federation with abortionists yukking it up about rolling eyeballs.  There was Michelle Wolfe sickly joking at the National Correspondents dinner with her liberal audience laughing and clapping like a bunch of trained seals, "He [Mike Pence] thinks abortion is murder.  Which first of all, don't knock it 'til you try it---and when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you've got to get that baby out of there."   There were the films of Planned Parenthood staff bargaining over the sale of baby parts.   There was Gosnell and now NY passing its law permitting abortion until birth and then cheering this “accomplishment” and celebrating it in the city with pink lights.

We began with "choice" and we ended with Michelle Wolfe,  rolling eyeballs and auctioning body parts.

If you want more to read on how dehumanization works, please see the films Austerlitz (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2017/04/austerlitz.html) and Son of Saul (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2016/02/son-of-saul.html) , both of which affected me greatly.  In Son of Saul, the Nazis referred to the corpses as "pieces" to disguise the ghastliness of what was actually going on.

My libertarian stance did not take into account the evils of Leftist Incrementalism.   First trimester and Safe, Legal and Rare were only the jumping off points.  And here we are now- up to the moment of  birth—and cheering about it.   Bet that the New York statute isn't the end point either.  It never is.  There is always a new frontier and new boundaries to push.  Now, under the proposed Virginia statute, I’m not certain that you could get a conviction on Kermit Gosnell.

So now it’s out in the open.  The same folks that abandoned anytime, anywhere inspections for the Iranian nuclear program have embraced anytime, anywhere abortions.  And the governor is on record suggesting that a post-birth abortion might also be an option.

If you like your baby, you can keep your baby.  But if you don’t, the Left is ok with that, too.

Just remember, the Nazi regime did not start with the ovens.

Child Warriors

I have had deep concerns about the fusion of Islamism and the New Left for some time.  The BDS movement, the election of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the refusal of mainstream Democrats and the Women’s March to categorically reject Louis Farrakhan have pointed to an implicit alliance between the New Left and Islamism.

And over the past year, one aspect of this alliance has alarmed me- the willingness of the New Left to adopted the Islamist tactic of using children as combatants to further their cause.

Hamas often uses children rather effectively as a defensive measure.   They create terrible dilemmas for the Israelis by using them as human shields to launch rocket attacks from Gaza.  Palestinians routinely deploy children to fling rocks at and taunt the IDF.  Last year, a video of a 16 year old girl slapping and kicking an IDF soldier went viral.  Offensively, Hamas has deployed booby trapped balloons and kites with incendiaries to terrorize Israeli children in playgrounds.

The New Left has caught on.

The New Left has now escalated its battle on a number of fronts and is using children both offensively and defensively.  Almost as if it were pre-planned, the New Left has deployed a single spokeschild in each of the discrete areas that is of most importance to it--climate change, gun control, sexuality and the economics.  The reason is simple.  As Hamas has learned, it is folly to attack a child on rational grounds, with evidence and data.  Children argue exclusively by appealing to emotion, and they can ruthlessly attack pollical opponents and they can’t be hit back, even when their arguments run contrary to fact and, in some cases, the U.S. Constitution.

Greta Thunburg (climate change)
Greta Thunburg is a 16 year old Swedish climate change “activist.”  At 16, she is not old enough to be a real scientist, do any modeling or analyze any modeling, nor is she qualified to do any economic analysis.  Yet there she is on a podium at Davos, telling world economic leaders that she will hold them accountable if they do not bend to her will.  “I want you to panic…and act as if the house was on fire,” she implored.  With no facts, no data and no practical solutions to support her other than “emissions must halt now,” she blamed the Davos elite for making “unimaginable amounts of money.”  The organizers of Davos had plenty of choices to address this issue—scientists, economists, statisticians—but they chose to put a child with no qualifications whatsoever on the podium.

David Hogg (gun control)
In the immediate aftermath Beginning with the Parkland shooting, young Mr. Hogg was ubiquitous on cable and in social media.  Hogg went after everyone, relentlessly and in a most nasty, acid, and often fact free fashion.  He accused Republicans of being in the bag with the NRA, smeared Dana Loesch, and then Marco Rubio foolishly agreed to debate him.  We have since learned that Broward County Sheriff’s department failed miserably in its response as did the F.B.I. (the shooter should have been locked up long ago).  But no matter, the New Left had their young, untouchable gun control spokesperson, who was rewarded for his efforts by admission to Harvard, despite having boards scores well below its normal admission standards and despite having been rejected by a dozen or so less prestigious colleges.

Desmond (LGBT)

Fresh off its marriage equality victory in Obergefell v. Hodges in the Supreme Court, the LGBT activists never slowed down.  The next battlegrounds were bathrooms, the military and youth sports for transgenders.  With the Trump administration putting up resistance on those fronts, the LGBT activists pivoted to the next frontier—the sexualization of children.   The New York Times began to float op-eds that talked about how pedophiles were really born that way and how criminalization of it should be softened.  Then little cross dressing 11 year old Desmond made his debut on Good Morning America to a cheering crowd (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w5X4aD6mo8), followed soon thereafter by another pre-teen appearing with a nude male on social media.  Little Desmond is all over social media proclaiming that RuPaul is his hero and that RuPaul is the future.  In another era, the parents of both would have been arrested for child abuse. This is a deliberate and calculated attempt to connect pedophilia to the LGBT movement and to normalize it.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (Economics)

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or AOC is she is now known burst on to the scene by upsetting Democratic stalwart Joe Crowley in the primary and then winning the general election in a solidly blue New York district.  Ocasio-Cortez (or Occasionally Cortex as her detractors call her) is an unapologetic and strident socialist that, like David Hogg, is everywhere.   And, like Mr. Hogg, AOC has no inhibitions about taking potshots at the president and respected and seasoned politicians like Joe Lieberman.

Although she is 29 years old, she has no practical experience beyond waitressing.  Although she has an economics degree from Boston University, it is apparent that she is either lying or that she sleepwalked through basic econ.  Why do I have her on the list of child warriors even though she is 29 years old?   I have included her because she thinks, reasons, talks, acts and carries herself like a child, and not a fully functioning adult.  She complained that she couldn’t rent an apartment in D.C. because she didn’t have the money to do so before she started her job as congresswoman.  She refers to top earners as the “tippee tops.”  Just as a pre-teen would, she was broadcasting about her pajamas and skin care regimen over social media.

Without any experience in anything beyond pouring wine, she is aggressively pushing her agendas: Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a 70% tax rate.  When questioned about how she will finance it, she childlike brushes skepticism aside and says “you just pay for it.”  Her childlike beliefs are disconnected from any basis in reality, speaking of her proposed programs as a child talks about Santa Claus.  Even Left-friendly CNN could not get her to answer basic questions about how to finance all of her fantasies, yet she is undeterrable.  When questioned about her facts, she dismissively says that she is morally right, so her factual omissions and misrepresentations are forgivable.  She may be in her late 20’s, but her language, demeanor and ability to reason say that she is mentally and emotionally about 13 or 14  years old.

But then the New Left overreached.   It switched from defense to offense, and focuseda group of teenage boys from a Catholic high school.  In partnership with the mainstream media, it sought to demonize those boys and make them the target of attack.  And it worked… for a few hours.  Almost all of social media bought the narrative that these boys encircled poor old Native American Nathan Phillips and were taunting him based on his race and ethnicity.  Fired up by the MSM, the internet mob swarmed, slimed and doxxed the boys, who, among other things, receiving death threats. 

And it was all wrong.  The entire MSM reported the events precisely backwards-- NBC, NPR, CNN and the New York Times.  They lured the diocese into apologizing to Mr. Phillips (it later apologized to the kids).  It was the Covington kids that were being taunted by the Black Israelites and it was Nathan Phillips that got in their faces.  Scott Adams spun out his apology to the kids on Periscope after carefully reviewing the videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1DrAeUNPU0).   And quickly, people learned that ol’ Nate has a history of public rabble rousing and lied about his status as a Vietnam veteran.  It turns out that the boys did absolutely nothing wrong.  The howling internet mob reached peak absurdity when it pounced on young Mr. Sandmann for the dastardly deed of –get this-- smirking. 

The Covington episode will not be the last of its kind.  Until Covington, the New Left has primarily deployed children defensively.  Now we will see children become an intended target of the New Left. used a standard tactic here – Get in their faces, disrupt, hope to provoke a reaction, and if you don’t, make up a narrative.  But here, the boys of Covington were saved by technology.   The film didn’t lie and there was plenty of the whole episode to discredit ol’ Nate.  And the ability to check his background quickly further undermined his credibility.

And now, they will fight back.  Nick Sandmann, the lead boy in the photo has engaged one of the top libel lawyers in the country, and has assemble a team of several law firms.  They have announced that several lawsuits will be filed against multiple parties.  Winning these suits is not common.  Carol Burnett won against the National Enquirer.  Hulk Hogan drove Gawker into bankruptcy.  I cannot predict the outcome here, but the film of the incident is pretty clear and several versions were taken from several different perspectives.

Hamas taught the New Left the benefits of engaging children in combat.  Hamas understands that it cannot defeat the IDF conventionally, so it deploys children as a defensive measure…and attacks them as well.  The New Left likewise understands that its pet  positions are a minority position and are difficult to argue rationally – confiscatory taxes, government run health care, cessation of all emissions, gender fluidity.   All evidence (just look at Venezuela), practicality and common sense cuts against them.

So the New Left has resorted to asymmetric warfare.

One of my favorite gangster films is Scarface with Al Pacino.  Pacino played Tony Montana, a wash up from the Mariel boat lift who, through ruthlessness and ambition, climbs to the top of the Miami drug trade as an assassin and drug dealer. In the climactic scene, he is hired by a Colombian drug lord to put a hit on a government official that threatens to expose him.   When the government official gets in his car, he is unexpectedly joined by his kids and Montana cannot bring himself to blow up the car with the kids in it, and aborts his mission (which results in his undoing). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcQtUdZ5Afs).

 As amoral and vicious as Montana was, he had boundaries, at least some semblance of a moral code--- no wife, no kids.  He would not destroy children. 

The New Left has no such boundaries.

The Best A Man Can Get

If I didn't know better, I might think that these things were coordinated and sequenced.  First, an 11 year old boy in drag was celebrated on Good Morning America.  Then, the American Psychological Association (APA) released its statement on "traditional masculinity."  Almost immediately thereafter, Gillette released its new ad aimed at destroying the "boys will be boys" epithet and moralizing about male behavior, and although Gillette did not use the term "toxic masculinity" the MSM filled it in when it described the ad campaign.

What is going on here?

It amounts to a big push from the Left to normalize the pathological and make the normal pathological.  Under the guise of tolerance and equal rights, the Left is eating at the core of the characteristics that made our country great-- strength, independence, achievement oriented, enduring. Of course, there are instances in which some men act atrociously (but so do some women).  But the Left doesn't care about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  It really wants the baby thrown out.

I want to focus primarily on the APA statement and the Gillette ad.  While cheering on a young drag queen is part of this phenomena, I wish to treat this sickness and perversion in a separate post.

The APA has declared "traditional masculinity" to be harmful and pathological.  Traditional masculinity, according to the APA, is marked by "anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk and violence."  The APA strings out these attributes  and deprives them of any context, and assumes they are negatively correlated with masculinity.  Aside from the first (for which no data is provided), whether these traits are positive or negative is wholly dependent on context.  There is a time and place for each one and being a man means you know when it is appropriate to exhibit such attribute.  There is a time to be adventurous.  There is a time to take risk.   And, yes, if a thug is shoving an old lady front of you, trying to steal her purse, there is a time to be violent, and it is entirely appropriate to be that way.   Many of the attributes that the APA delineates in its statement are associated with healthy, progressing, exciting and ALIVE people.

Traditional masculinity, the APA asserts, is marked by "stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression-- is, on the whole, harmful."  Really?  What exactly does the APA find objectionable about the cool competence of  Chester "Sully" Sullenberger?  Or the competitiveness of Steven Jobs? Or the take-charge attitude of the New York firefighters on 9/11?  Each of those "masculine" attributes marked by something the APA as harmful was instrumental in achieving something great and sometimes saving lives.  Under those guidelines, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and George S. Patton were all pathological. 

Not to be outdone, corporate America jumped in.  Gillette introduced its preachy, virtue signaling "We Believe in the Best In Men" ad campaign, stereotyping male behavior and imploring, "It's been going on far too long.  We can't laugh it off.  Making the same old excuses."  The ad then throws in a snippet about sexual assault and sexual harassment as if it automatically follows that this impulse is an immutable aspect of male identity.  The words and imagery of the ad is unmistakable. 

Things may have changed since I studied marketing in business school.  In my class, we studied topics like market segmentation, product positioning, and ad campaigns that flattered the consumers in your target market or promised a sexier, slimmer, smarter, or more chic consumer.  It would have been unthinkable to propose an ad campaign to hector its target market or tell them how deficient they are.  But Gillette's ad doesn't say, "Our product will improve you," but rather that "You need to improve." 

And along with the stereotyping, Gillette opened itself up to charges of hypocrisy.  Within hours of the release of its ad, social media was filled with earlier ads of Gillette that objectified women-- one with beautiful young women in skin tight pants with "Gillette" prominently displayed across their backsides.

But aside from the stereotyping and hypocrisy, what is most disquieting about the APA and Gillette is that they both have taken it upon themselves to be the standard bearers of values.  The APA is supposed to be devoted to the promotion of mental health.  Gillette is supposed to sell shaving products.  Instead, each drifted out of its lane into roles that do not belong to them.

Who appointed them and why are they taking on this role?

In my view, it's because the Left has largely been successful at attacking, diminishing or dismantling the social structures that have been vital to the formation of men.  The family unit, especially the black family, is under siege.  A full quarter of men grow up in a single parent household.  Over 70% of African American births are to single women.  70% of teachers are women.  The Left has turned on football, another bastion of maleness.  The CTE hysteria has reduced participation rates in this activity that emphasizes teamwork, sacrifice, and accountability.  The Boy Scouts, another traditional structure for the formation of men and values has been attacked.  They finally caved in, took in girls and changed the name to "Scouts."  It may not make it anyway and is flirting with bankruptcy.  Organized religion, which the Left openly scorns has been another vehicle for teaching virtuous men.  With the erosion of these structures, others have attempted to fill the void.

But corporate America and the APA are ill equipped to fill this role.  Male virtue should not be taught by the marketing department at P & G.  And I certainly would not want the APA guidelines forming the core set of beliefs of my son.  I do not want an organization telling him there is something wrong with appropriate risk taking or competitiveness.  Now, you're intruding on my turf and I resent that. 

The misplaced stereotyping and false messaging from the APA and Gillette was revealed last week when a young state trooper was killed in an accident near my home.  Off duty officer Chris Lambert (an Iraq War veteran) stopped to help at the scene of a crash during a snowstorm when he was hit and killed by another car.  The family's statement to the press summarized his life, "he left this world in the way in which he lived: putting the well-being and happiness of those around him before his own."

Now THAT was a man- voluntarily putting himself in harm's way under dangerous conditions to protect others.

We really don't need Gillette or the APA or their cheerleaders in the APA lecturing us about fake and empty phrases like "toxic masculinity" or "the patriarchy."  We need to strengthen the structures that produce men like Officer Lambert and then celebrate them.   The reality is that men like Officer Lambert are actually quite the norm.  The Left isn't paying attention.

The New Kids In Town

The exchange this week between Joe Lieberman and Democratic rock star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was highly instructive.  The retired and moderate former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate said in an interview that he hopes that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was not the future of the Democratic party, that she is getting a lot of attention because she is “controversial” and “different”.  AOC as she is known by shorthand fired back in a tweet, “New party, who dis?”

The changing of the guard was on full display this week in the wooden and oddly staged response by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to Donald Trump’s address on border security.  The American Gothic memes immediately went viral.   Schumer looked like a tired, old undertaker with kidney stones and Pelosi’s odd, twisted expression told that her time has passed.  Folks like Elizabeth Warren increasingly look desperate and ridiculous as time on their political clock relentlessly ticks away.

The old dinosaur liberals are giving way to the next gen.   I believe that Mr. Lieberman is entirely incorrect.  This generation IS the future of the New Left and will, over time, take over the Democratic party.  The pretense is over and this generation is bringing a transparency that the old guard could not.  Now, it’s all going to be on the table, cards face up.

One of the better biographies of Barack Obama was The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick.  The title is the important piece.  In retrospect, Obama was a bridge to the New Left.  He was pretty careful to shade his views and carefully cultivated a moderate tone, even if his world view was not.  He was smart enough to know that the country would reject much of his agenda.  But his sympathies were clearly anti-business, anti-Israeli, pro-big government, lurching toward the nirvana of a command and control economy and a multicultural, borderless world based on a post-modern world view.  Black Lives Matter, the environmental totalitarians, and CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood always had a place at the dining table while Bibi ate alone downstairs.  But there is little doubt about his desire to “fundamentally transform America” despite his more moderate tone.

This generation doesn’t bother with the pretense and it’s a good thing.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

AOC as she is known was anointed very early by Tom Perez as the “future of the party.”  You should pay attention when people say things because they just might mean it.   AOC is young, pretty, energetic and brash.  Going from a barista to media darling in a matter of weeks, she is boldly laying out the agenda of the New Left.  She has adopted the worst attributes of Donald Trump—using social media to message, exaggerating facts and snidely hitting back at her political enemies, both inside the Democratic party and across the aisle.  And, like Trump, the mocking of her sorority girl assertions and style seems to fuel her image. 

Undeterred by challenges from the friendly crew at CNN, AOC is the perfect figure for the future.  A product of our left captured higher education system, she has increased her salary by about seven times by working for the government, has already violated workers comp regulations (laws and regs are for the little people), and has exaggerated and misled about her background.  But she is an above board socialist (unlike Obama) and fearlessly puts out markers for the New Left (70% marginal rates for “tippee tops,” “Medicare for all,” and “Green New Deal”). 

Those that don’t take her seriously and fail to recognize the danger will live to regret it.

Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib

Obama’s pro-Islamist, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish leanings were also camouflaged to a great degree, mostly because of his denials, but Omar and Tlaib have put their views out in the open.   Tlaib screeched “Impeach the m***f**cker” during her celebration party and a map in her office has a post-it with “Palestine” pasted over a map of Israel in her office.   She showed up in Palestinian garb for her swearing in ceremony while posting a tweet accusing Jews of having dual loyalties (Ms. Tlaib appears to be more interested in representing Palestinians than the constituents in her district).    If there is a substantive difference between having Tlaib in Congress and anti-Semite Linda Sarsour in Congress, I fail to see it.  They appear at the same functions like sorority sisters.

Likewise the first initiative taken by Ms. Omar was to change the House rules to permit the donning of that international symbol of women’s oppression -  the hijab.  Her twitter post “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel” tell you all you need to know about Ms. Omar.

Omar and Tlaib, like AOC are not aberrations.   They figure to have a prominent position with the New Left and the future Democratic party.  I will have more to say on this topic in future posts, but their ascendancy and affiliations are very troubling ….and their goals are very transparent.

And if that isn’t enough to give one pause, prominent Democrats appeared on stage with virulent anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin’s memorial service last summer.

There is lots of evidence to suggest that just as the New Left conflates legal and illegal immigration, it is evidencing an anti-Israeli posture, which is drifting into anti-Semitism.

Leana Wen

For years, Planned Parenthood sold itself as a “women’s health” organization and kept repeating the mantra that abortion services are only 3% of what it does.  Even WaPo admitted that the 3% figure was misleading.  Planned Parenthood does about 321,000 abortions per year, representing about half of U.S. abortions.   So Planned Parenthood is in other lines of business in the same sense that the Mob is in the olive oil business.  Worse, the undercover filmings of abortion professionals showed a callous disregard for abortion and evidenced that it was also in the baby parts wholesaling business.

Then, just this week, I saw an ad posted for a job at Planned Parenthood with the title “Director, Judicial Nominations.”   What in the world does that professional position have to do with women’s health?

New director Leana Wen tweeted out this week that ….”our core mission is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care.”

No more hiding behind the “it’s only 3%” talking point.  Wen is out in the open, leading with its lead product.   The reality is that Planned Parenthood’s core identity is abortion, selling baby parts and lobbying for fewer restrictions to do more of the same.

Sarah Jeong

Ms. Jeong obtained a highly sought after and prestigious position on the New York Times editorial board even after her highly racist and nasty Twitter posts were revealed, such as:

“oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men” and

“Dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants”

It is hard to imagine any white person being hired after having posted similar things about African Americans or Hispanics in any professional venue.   Yet the New York Times blithely washed it all away, rationalizing that she was simply responding to racist comments that were directed at her and that they were ancient history.  The directness of her tweets and obvious racism could not be whitewashed.  And it can only be concluded that the New York Times is happy to have someone who holds her views determining editorial content.   It is a well known truism that people like to hire people like them.

Most conservatives and libertarians would be chagrined to see the boldness and radicalism of the New Left.  I am not.   I am actually pleased to see it.  It is refreshingly honest for a change.   AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Leana Wen and Sarah Jeong are the New Left.  The New Left has proclaimed that “the future is female” and, indeed, this is what it looks like.  There is no more camouflaging, obfuscating, or misdirecting.   They are quite open about their positions and affiliations and are being quite transparent. They are the leaders of the New Left and are laying down their markers.

Now, choose your future.

Confessions

I do New Year resolutions.  I write them down and look at them at the end of the year.  In 2018, I actually nailed or at least came close on a number of them (one of which being to do 52 blog posts no matter what). 

This year, two of my resolutions are to listen more carefully to people with different political leanings, and critically examine my own judgments, especially when they have been incorrect.

As to the second, I want to work harder at identifying where I have taken a wrong turn and why.  One of my intellectual heroes is Eugene Fama.   When anomalies turn up in his models, he changes his theories and upends his models. 

So, here are my top 3:

1.      Mitt Romney.  I supported Mitt in the 2012 election, not because I was enthusiastic about him, but I was pretty much uniformly opposed to Barack Obama’s policies.  Yet Mitt’s “47%” comment, “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent on government, who believe they are victims….These are people who pay no income tax…and so my job is not to worry about these people”  was politically suicidal and foreshadowed Hillary’s Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” comment.  Mitt ran a terrible campaign, could not connect with the common person,  and now we see the real Mitt, publishing an op-ed lambasting Trump’s character just months after asking for Trump’s support.  Romney will never be president and should not be.  The op-ed triggered a backlash that apparently caught Romney by surprised and he ended up training to explain himself—which is why he is not president.  He was always explaining.

      Romney’s op-ed could have been written by any of the Trump bashing columnists at the New York Times.  Except for one small paragraph in which he conceded that “not all of the president’s policies have been misguided” and ended with the usual litany of accusations hurled by CNN, MSNBC, WaPo or the NYT, “I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest, or destructive to democratic institutions.”  He did not have Nancy Pelosi, Corey Booker or Rashidi Tlaib in mind when he wrote those words.  It was a mistake to support Romney, and if Romney tries to primary Trump, count me with the 47% that will not vote for him.

2.      The Iraq War.  Yes, I bought it and the rationale for it.  9/11 and Saddam’s cat and mouse game persuaded me that he was likely to have a WMD program and there was little doubt that he would seek eventually seek retribution against the U.S. if he did.  Desert Storm’s success convinced me that it would be a quick war and that we would be able to impose some sort of democratic, if imperfect regime there.  I failed to recall that we were best off when Iraq and Iran were too busy beating the heck out of each other to bother with us or Israel much.  Not only did we not get the results we wanted, our foes were no longer scared of us.  We taught them how to turn an amazing 100 hour techno war into a long stalemate.  It was a costly venture that cost us moral authority and prestige along with thousands dead and wounded.   As I posted a couple of weeks ago, despite the response from conservatives and liberals alike, getting our military presence out of the Middle East entirely is not an irrational policy choice on Trump’s part.  The Iraq and Afghanistan engagements taught us the limits of military solutions (apparently a lesson not learned by Hillary Clinton as she pushed to depose Gaddafi.

3.      China.  I wasn’t alone in this one.  I was indoctrinated in the benefits of free trade, and I still adhere to that view.  And generally, the numbers support a free trade regimen.  Since Nixon’s opening with China, world poverty has declined from 44% to less than 10% today.  As with the Iraq War, the premise that as China grew richer, a middle class would emerge and demand more individual freedom turned out to be false.  As late as the fall of 2016, even Eugene Fama was convinced of that.   In fact, the reverse has happened.  Xi became president for life.  The regime is committing terrible human rights abuses against the Uighers and is now threatening Taiwan.  I will have a full blog post or two later in the year on China, but suffice it to say that our hopes that China would evolve into a more liberal and more democratic state have not been realized.  In fact, it’s going in the other direction.

       Last summer when I had lunch with economic historian Deirdre McCloskey, she said of the tariffs imposed on China, “It’s just stupid.”  And from her point of view, a purely economic one, she is correct.  But this is a narrow view, I believe.  I heard University of Chicago political science professor John Mersheimer speak last summer.   Once sentence stuck with me—“You do not want China to become rich.” 

I will have more to say on China in later blog posts, but China is NOT a normal trading partner.  While reasonable minds can disagree with whether the tariffs Trump has leveled are the correct tactic, but previous administrations have not gotten their attention.

Those, I think, were the bigger ones.  I’m sure there were smaller ones and there will be more in the future, but owning up to the ones you do make will hopefully improve your batting average in the future.