Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

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Category: Culture

Death of Trans Kid Unrelated to Minor School Scuffle

by | 0920, 24 Feb 24 | , | 24 Comments

This story has been interesting to watch unfold. The original narrative was that trans kid died after fight with other students in evil red-state Oklahoma. It was spun as an example of intolerance of trans people by redneck Republicans or something. Now we learn more… First, we learn that the trans kid was the aggressor.

In the video from the hospital the day of the altercation, Nex explains to an officer that the girls had been picking on them and their friends because of the way they dressed. Nex claims that in the bathroom the girls said “something like: why do they laugh like that,” referring to Nex and their friends.

“And so I went up there and I poured water on them, and then all three of them came at me,” Nex tells the officer while reclining in a hospital bed.

Not that a squirt of water justifies a physical attack, but Nex did transition the altercation from verbal to physical.

Next, when the mom called 911, she thought it might be a head injury from the fight that caused Nex’s eventual death. This is the narrative that the media ran with despite no other diagnosis other than raw speculation by an untrained observer.

In the 911 call on Feb. 8, Nex’s mother, Sue Benedict, expressed concern about a head injury as she described Nex’s symptoms.

The mother went on to politicize her kid’s death almost immediately and continues to politicize it to this day.

Nex’s mother told the Independent that the bullying Nex had faced came amid state legislative policies that targeted the transgender and nonbinary communities.

Later we learn that the autopsy revealed that the death was not the result of a head injury from the fight.

While the two-week-old warrant states that police were seeking evidence in a felony murder, the department has since said Benedict’s death was not a result of injuries suffered in the fight, based on the preliminary results of the autopsy.

 

The police department, which didn’t respond to multiple messages sent Friday, has said it won’t comment further on the teen’s cause of death until toxicology and other autopsy results are completed.

Now neither the police nor the family are commenting on the actual cause of death. The police are correct and should not comment until they know for sure. The family can be given some leeway in their grief, I suppose, but they continue to use their dead kid as part of the trans agenda.

What we do know for sure is that this kid got into a minor fight at school in which he was a mutual combatant and later died of unrelated causes. It is the adults who are elevating this kid’s tragic death to use in ideological warfare to advance trans ideology.

 

 

“Experts”

by | 1107, 19 Feb 24 | , | 6 Comments

These are the kind of things that make regular people roll their eyes when a story starts with “experts say.”

In a recent survey conducted by a panel of experts specializing in the American presidency, President Biden was ranked the 14th-best president, while his likely 2024 presidential opponent former President Trump found himself at the very bottom of the list.

 

[…]

 

Biden was placed ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. Former President Obama was ranked No. 7, eight spots higher than when the experts were polled last year.

Really? I would even put Obama ahead of Biden. Certainly Reagan and Grant. Wilson was a raving eugenist, but even he had some good qualities. Frankly, any ranking that doesn’t have Coolidge in the top 5 is invalid.

 

Church Shooter’s History of Mental Illness

by | 0928, 17 Feb 24 | , | 0 Comments

But it’s the guns…

The 2022 child-parent relationship lawsuit filed by Walli Carranza raises multiple concerns about Moreno, who at the time was referred to as Jeffrey. Carranza alleges Moreno was diagnosed multiple times with schizophrenia and had said she was not taking prescribed medications or following treatment recommendations made by her psychiatrist.

Walli Carranza said Moreno had “a history of constantly erratic, paranoid, stalking and mendacious behavior and was diagnosed as exhibiting Munchausen and Munchausen by proxy signs and symptoms.” Munchausen syndrome is when someone fakes illness, abuse or other hardship to gain sympathy or aid. By proxy means they took on someone else’s misfortune as their own.

[…]

“(Moreno) has been investigated four times by Child Protective Services for child abuse and neglect and was found by them to have intentionally harmed her child on at least two occasions,” the suit states.

Weapons and Antisemitic Paraphernalia Found at Church Shooter’s Home

by | 0920, 17 Feb 24 | , | 0 Comments

Uh huh.

Bulletproof vests, ammunition, plastic bottles filled with unknown substances, antisemitic books and a white mask that read “Free Gaza Trump” were pulled from the Conroe home of the suspected Lakewood Church shooter, records show.

[…]

Officers also found a book titled “All Remainers are Neo-Nazis.” It’s unclear what the book is referring to, but the term remainers is often used in the United Kingdom to describe people who voted for the country to stay in the European Union. Seven handmade poster signs were found in a trash can, but the warrant does not indicate what they said.

[…]

Conroe police have responded to more than 20 calls since 2019 tied to the address where Moreno lived, records show. The calls ranged in severity from neighbors reporting strange interactions with the woman to one who said Moreno tried to hit her with her vehicle.

Deadbeats Abound

by | 1641, 8 Feb 24 | , | 1 Comment

Loaning money to unemployed college kids has always been a high-risk endeavor. When the federal government guaranteed, and then took over, the loans, that risk was transferred to taxpayers against their will. Now this is what far too many deadbeat college grads and dropouts think about taxpayers. Selfish deadbeats.

Santos is “overwhelmed” by her student loan balance because she currently doesn’t have a job. She asked her TikTok viewers: “Are you guys paying your student loans back?”

 

Surprisingly, a significant number of people who commented admitted they aren’t paying their loans back. Some, like Santos, appear to have forgotten completely, while others have purposefully sent their loans to collections or ignored their payments altogether.

 

Many of those who commented said they haven’t started paying their student loans back because they can’t even afford their monthly payment.

Dearborn Residents React to WSJ Opinion Piece

by | 0929, 4 Feb 24 | , | 0 Comments

In a sane world, isn’t what Stalinsky wrote just common sense? You have a group of people who is celebrating the rape, kidnapping, and murder of Jews on October 7th and calling for genocide. Why wouldn’t we be concerned and keep a closer eye on them? If these were white Michiganders celebrating Nazi attacks in Europe, we wouldn’t hesitate.

The contentious article was written by Steven Stalinsky, who is a commentator on terrorism and has served as executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington DC, since 1999.

 

He warned in the story that Dearborn’s majority Arab population ought to be paid ‘close attention’ by counterterrorism agencies following October 7.

 

[…]

 

‘It’s 2024 and the WSJ still pushes out this type of garbage. Reckless. Bigoted. Islamophobic. Dearborn is one of the greatest American cities in our nation.’

 

According to census figures, Dearborn is roughly 54 percent Arab American, making it one of the most densely populated areas for Middle Eastern people in the US.

 

It is home to the largest Muslim population in the US per capita as well as the largest mosque in North America.

 

In the wake of the October 7 attacks on 1,000 Israeli citizens, protests erupted in Dearborn – supporting the Palestinian side.

 

[…]

 

‘President Biden, we say quite clearly: you are not welcome in our community.’

 

Zahr said to the crowd: ‘Are we going to forget?’ To which he received the roaring response: ‘No!’

 

The crowd chanted: ‘Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,’ ‘Genocide Joe’ and ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’

Madison DEI Alum Accused of Plagiarism

by | 0803, 31 Jan 24 | , | 2 Comments

Academia is riddled with lazy, mediocre, cheaters.

It’s not just Claudine Gay. Harvard University’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, appears to have plagiarized extensively in her academic work, lifting large portions of text without quotation marks and even taking credit for a study done by another scholar—her own husband—according to a complaint filed with the university on Monday and a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

The complaint makes 40 allegations of plagiarism that span the entirety of Charleston’s thin publication record. In her 2009 dissertation, submitted to the University of Michigan, Charleston quotes or paraphrases nearly a dozen scholars without proper attribution, the complaint alleges. And in her sole peer-reviewed journal article—coauthored with her husband, LaVar Charleston, in 2014—the couple recycle much of a 2012 study published by LaVar Charleston, the deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, framing the old material as new research.

 

Through that sleight of hand, Sherri Ann Charleston effectively took credit for her husband’s work. The 2014 paper, which was also coauthored with Jerlando Jackson, now the dean of Michigan State University’s College of Education, and appeared in the Journal of Negro Education, has the same methods, findings, and description of survey subjects as the 2012 study, which involved interviews with black computer science students and was first published by the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.

Outcome-based politics

by | 0720, 30 Jan 24 | , , | 1 Comment

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here you go:

Our system of government was purposefully constructed to make it difficult to impose policy without overwhelming support, thus requiring advocates to win adherents in the crucible of public debate. As Americans, we have always engaged in robust political debate for this purpose, but our politics are different than it once was. More dangerous. More consequential.

 

The difference seems to be that in ages past, both political parties adhered to a fundamental respect for the process and institutions of our nation. Imbued with legitimacy accorded by the Founders and the many years since their creation, there was near universal respect for our institutions and the process by which we confer the consent of the people upon the wielders of political power.

 

In recent years, the Democrats, and to a much lesser, but not negligible, extent, the Republicans, have jettisoned respect for, and adherence to, the process, institutions, and constitutional constraints of our system of government in favor of an outcome-based approach to obtaining and wielding political power. This has coincided with the growing Marxist faction of the Democratic Party wielding increasing power over the wilting traditional liberals. In this doctrine, the outcome justifies subverting, ignoring, or modifying the processes and institutions as required to achieve the outcome. Just as ancient and medieval princes justified their tyranny for the sake of necessity and the greater good, so, too, do our modern tyrants. Whether for the cause of security, climate change, COVID, or democracy (whatever that means), political objectives are elevated to the stature of existential causes to justify any action that leads to the desired outcome.

 

We see this infection reddening the organ and connecting tissues of all aspects of our government. In Wisconsin, we see it with the newly leftist Supreme Court. The settled process for reapportionment as prescribed by the state Constitution and long practiced by both parties is being abandoned by the court. The leftist justices and their adherents justify the action for the sake of “fairness” — as defined by them. To the leftists, the constitutional and long-established process for apportionment did not result in the outcome they wanted, so they are jettisoning the process to dictate their desired outcome.

 

When the United States Supreme Court ruled that President Biden lacked the constitutional or legal authority to arbitrarily absolve tens of thousand of debtors from their obligation to repay their student loans, thus thrusting that cost onto taxpayers, Biden simply ignored the order. Without making any effort to involve Congress or obtain the required authority, Biden has been illegally transferring billions of dollars of student debt to taxpayers. For Biden, the outcome of appeasing this constituency justifies ignoring the protestations of the coequal branch of government charged with adjudicating his actions.

 

Perhaps nowhere else do we see the destructive force of an outcome-based political system than at our southern border. Despite a constitutional responsibility and reams of laws empowering and funding the federal government to secure our federal borders from people illegally crossing them, President Biden has chosen to ignore that responsibility and use those resources to facilitate and accelerate the ingestion of millions of illegal aliens into our nation. The full resources of the federal government are being used to greet, provide resources for, and diffuse illegal aliens into the interior.

 

We know that this invasion is Biden’s intent because the border was all but secure at the end of the previous administration. Since then, the Congress has not passed any border or immigration legislation, yet the border is gaping open. It is estimated that well more than a million illegal aliens have been dispersed throughout our nation every year of Biden’s term. Biden’s intentional effort to flood communities with people he thinks will be more likely than not to vote for Democrats someday justifies unburdening himself from the confines of statute or Constitution.

 

Outcome-based politics always precedes tyranny. By abandoning the constitutional, legal, and traditional processes and institutional implements of power for the sake of necessity, we necessarily concentrate power and silence the moderating effect of opposition voices. The same slide preceded Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler — tyrants all, who stood astride the ashes of the republics they replaced. The slide can be reversed, but it becomes more difficult with each passing day.

The New Gun Voter

by | 2120, 26 Jan 24 | , | 0 Comments

Spot on. And it’s good to see Nik Clark on the interwebs.

It’s my observation most Republican legislators as well as political consultants who run campaigns for Republicans in Wisconsin think the “gun vote” is a bunch of Generation X and Baby Boomers who hunt, fish, and would likely be found at a Pheasants Forever or Ducks Unlimited banquet. This is a 1990-2010 understanding of “the gun vote” and is as dated as Scott Walker’s Kohl’s sweater vest. Because a majority of this demographic is already voting “R“, Madison Republicans think they already have “the gun vote” in the bag, much like Democrats assume “the black vote” is secured. They are both wrong. What is the “gun vote” in 2023?

 

For the past 5 years, most attendees of our Milwaukee area classes are non-white, non-male. Women and minorities are the new face of concealed carry. Especially women. Ask anyone who works at a retail gun store for confirmation. Starting with the riots of 2020 and extending to today, the realization Milwaukee and Madison’s soft-on-crime criminal justice system treats law-abiding citizens like criminals and criminals like victims, and uses the streets as a jail, resulting in a flood of concern from urban and suburban women for their safety and ability to protect their children. Citizens are collateral damage in the democrat’s failed social-justice crime experiment. People who never before considered a firearm for personal protection have changed their minds.

 

This changing face of concealed carry presents an opportunity for Republicans to appeal to demographics that traditionally voted Democrat, but would likely consider a republican candidate who offered the real chance to make them safer. Elected Republicans ‘tough-on-crime’ policies are more symbolism than substance because local DAs and Judges drive the criminal justice system and can side-step new legislation. Elected Republicans CAN provide safety for urban and suburban voters by making concealed carry more attainable and more practicable.

Harvard Makes Excuses

by | 1857, 20 Jan 24 | , , | 0 Comments

They still haven’t acted appropriately and allow plagiarists and bigots to roam their halls.

Harvard’s account acknowledges that the university did not handle the review perfectly, suggesting that the university was in crisis as it faced an uproar over its handling of antisemitism on campus.

 

“These allegations arose in a time of unprecedented events and tension on campus and globally,” the report said. “We understand and acknowledge that many viewed our efforts as insufficiently transparent, raising questions regarding our process and standard of review.”

 

On Friday, Harvard also announced new rules to rein in student protests.

 

In a message just before the start of college classes Monday, Harvard said that demonstrations would not be permitted in classrooms, libraries, dormitories or dining halls without permission. Instead, protests are limited to “courtyards, quadrangles and other such spaces” and cannot block students from walking to class.

 

The clarification did not directly address the question raised at the congressional hearing that contributed to Gay’s resignation: whether protesters chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — which many supporters of Israel interpret as a call for wiping out Israel — would be against Harvard’s code of conduct.

The Scourge of Hamas

by | 2056, 19 Jan 24 | , | 0 Comments

I truly pray that this is, or becomes, the prevailing view of Gazans. I fear, however, that it is a tiny minority.

“We are displaced here in Rafah and before that [we were] in Khan Younis. We have no money and no home, the unstoppable wars between Hamas and Israel have destroyed our lives.”

A businessman called Mohammed agreed.

 

“We have lived under unjust rule for more than 16 years. Hamas imposed heavy taxes on us and now they have dragged us into a devastating war in which we lost our property, money and homes,” he told the BBC.

 

“I used to live in a good house and work in trade. Now what will we do? The crossings are closed, the company has been destroyed, and the house is not fit for habitation due to the destruction.

UW Requires Racist Reeducation

by | 1855, 18 Jan 24 | , , | 4 Comments

Wow. From WRN and WILL. Stunning racism at UW.

For example, the handout that was included with the WILL news release tells students, “As beneficiaries of racism and white privilege, you sometimes take a defensive posture even when you are not being individually blamed. You may personalize the remarks, not directed personally at you. It is the arrogance of your privilege that drags the focus back to whites.”

 

The handout repeatedly generalizes about whites, saying, “Whites are more willing and more comfortable decrying our oppression than scrutinizing our privilege.” It uses the term whites over and over again.

 

Read the handout here. One excerpt generalizes about white people’s beliefs about police and the court system.

 

Another excerpt is critical of conservative talk show legend Rush Limbaugh, telling students that quotes by him were “loaded with white people’s fear of people of color and what would happen if they gained ‘control.’ Embedded here is also the assumption that to be ‘pro-black’ (or any other color) is to be anti-white.”

 

The handout shared by WILL also contains this passage, “By saying we are not different, that you don’t see the color, you are also saying you don’t see your whiteness. This denies the people of colors’ experience of racism and your experience of privilege.” Another excerpt tells students, “To say people of color can be racist, denies the power imbalance inherent in racism.”

Tax me now!

by | 0752, 17 Jan 24 | , , | 0 Comments

This is such idiotic pandering.

More than 250 billionaires and millionaires on Wednesday reiterated their call on elected representatives of the world’s leading economies to introduce higher taxes on the very richest in society.

 

In an open letter to political leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the rich signatories said they wished to deliver a clear message: “Tax our extreme wealth.”

“We are surprised that you have failed to answer a simple question that we have been asking for three years: when will you tax extreme wealth?” the letter said.

 

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

First, nothing stops these people from giving their money to government or privately funding things. They could help build roads, sponsor police departments, kick in for the welfare bill, or whatever. They are agents of choice.

Second, the reason that I oppose higher taxes – even if only target at the mega rich – is because that’s never where it stops. We have centuries of history of small, targeted taxes being expanded into the middle and lower classes. More government spending creates demand for more government spending that must be satiated.

Third, notice the comment, “unproductive private wealth.” Unless a rich person is hoarding cash in their mattresses, that wealth is not unproductive. In fact, concentrations of wealth are a necessary part of capitalism and vital to making capitalism work. You need concentrated wealth to invest in new ventures and innovation to progress the economy and raise the standard of living for everyone. There’s a word for when we give all of the money to government and allow the government to make those decisions: Communism. These people are Communists advocating for communism. The fact that they are rich only means that they expect to continue to ride atop a Communist society but with the violent power of government added to the power of their purses.

Jodie Foster Weighs in on Gen Z

by | 1826, 6 Jan 24 | | 1 Comment

She’s not wrong.

Speaking about Gen Z – a term generally used to describe those born during the late 1990s and early 2000s – Foster, 61, joked: “They’re really annoying – especially in the workplace.

“They’re like: ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10.30am.’

 

“Or, like, in emails, I’ll tell them this is all grammatically incorrect, did you not check your spelling?

 

“And they’re like, ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?'”

Speaking about the advice she’d give to young people in the industry, she said: “They need to learn how to relax, how to not think about it so much, how to come up with something that’s theirs.

Plagiarism For Me, Not for Thee

by | 0933, 3 Jan 24 | , | 15 Comments

Here we see the Marxist mindset in action. There was a time when plagiarism was considered objectively bad. It is cheating. It is stealing someone else’s work. But in this era, plagiarism is only bad when done by certain classes of people. Other classes of people are allowed to do it. Further, if you point out that a person who is a member of a protected class is committing plagiarism, then you are now a bigot who is “attacking” them.

Make no mistake. Gay is a racist cheater and Harvard loves her for it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education.

 

Claudine Gay’s resignation Tuesday followed weeks of mounting accusations that she lifted language from other scholars in her doctoral dissertation and journal articles. The allegations surfaced amid backlash over her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus.

 

The plagiarism allegations came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who sought to oust Gay and put her career under intense scrutiny in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. Her detractors charged that Gay — who has a Ph.D. in government, was a professor at Harvard and Stanford and headed Harvard’s largest division before being promoted — got the top job in large part because she is a Black woman.

Gay Makes Bank

by | 2104, 2 Jan 24 | , | 0 Comments

Just a reminder that Harvard has done absolutely nothing to combat the fact that they encourage terrible scholarship, bigotry, and cheating. Business as usual.

She won’t be leading the Crimson, but green shouldn’t be a problem.

 

Outgoing Harvard President Claudine Gay will still likely earn nearly $900,000 a year despite being forced to resign her position as the school’s top administrator.

 

Political Science professor Gay — who stepped down amid a tempest of allegations she did not do enough to combat antisemitism and academic plagiarism Tuesday — will now return to a position on the Cambridge, Mass., school’s faculty.

Happy New Year

by | 2236, 1 Jan 24 | | 1 Comment

Truly, I wish you all peace and contentment in 2024. It will be a tough year. I hope that I hold myself to the same standards as I project onto others.

God Bless.

Language prime tool for living life on shared terms

by | 0743, 30 Dec 23 | | 2 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. I probably had too much fun writing it. Here’s a part:

As the final light bleeds out of 2023 and we await the new year, the thought of writing about a contentious political issue is repugnant to me. Instead, let us take a brief departure from our usual conversation and muse about the medium in which we converse.

 

As an incurable bibliophile, I am also, naturally, a logophile. Our language, whether written or spoken, is central to the human condition and culture. Without language, communication between humans is rudimentary. It is through our language that we communicate complex ideas and emotions. It is through our written language that we accumulate and preserve the knowledge of humanity so that that knowledge can be expanded upon by future generations. Language is the bedrock of philosophy, science, religion, culture, business, entertainment, and our entire social construct.

 

To know language is to understand a culture. Anyone who has learned a new language knows that it cannot be truly learned without understanding the culture that generated it. Language is replete with nuance and subtleties that are manifestations of how the language evolved. That is why some languages have words that others do not. The language is a reflection of, and creator of, the culture.

 

Language is full of nuance that is often transitory to the time in which it exists. Language evolves with the culture and new concepts come to the fore and others are abandoned to history. One of the reasons that I love to read old books is because it is reading parallel stories — the story that is the subject of the text and the story told in the language of the time in which it was written.

 

I find joy in reading or hearing a word that our common language has orphaned. Don’t tell my editor, but I have written entire columns for the singular purpose of having an excuse to use a rediscovered word. Sometimes a word perfectly captures the concept that one is trying to convey.

 

For example, this Christmas season, I have too often felt “crapulous.” Why weigh down a sentence explaining that I feel crummy because I ate too much when I could just say I feel crapulous? It is a perfectly descriptive word for the feeling being expressed.

 

As one who closely follows the actions of politicians, I witness far too many snollygosters and cockalorums who are too rigid in their old mumpsimus. I wish it were not so, but politics is often a rhetorical brabble. Our politics have been infected with a high degree of proditomania, but thankfully we have evolved away from settling disputes with a holmgang.

 

New words are entering our lexicon all the time. Some of them flare for a few years while others cement themselves into everyday use. “Hangry” perfectly describes a state of irrational anger driven by hunger, although it is curious that it evolved at a time of unbelievable historical affluence when real hunger is utterly foreign to most Americans. We get “MacGyver” as a verb from the television show and “padawan” from the Star Wars franchise.

 

The world of technology brings us the NPC (non-player character) as a pejorative and something worth sharing is grammable. While quiet quitting is something that remote work on a mass scale has enabled, it might also be caused by doomscrolling. It is also very common during March Madness as people spend their time engaged in bracketology.

 

Still, while I enjoy the evolution of our common language and appreciate its dynamism, this Christmas season affronted me with a development that I cannot abide. The ubiquitous use of the word “gift” is unconscionable. One did not “gift” something to someone. They “gave” to them. One was not “gifted” something. One was “given” it. “Gift” is the noun. In very rare and specific situations, “gift” can be a transitive verb. “Give” is the verb. “Given” is the adjective. There is no need to use “gift” in all circumstances related to the free transfer of goods or services. We already have appropriate words for all scenarios. Please use them appropriately.

 

Happy new year, everyone. May the new year bring you all joy and peace.

Endowed by our creator

by | 0914, 29 Dec 23 | , , | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last Saturday.

As Christmastime envelops our nation in warmth and the faint scent of peppermint, I am reminded about how much it is a part of our shared American culture. As a Christian, I celebrate Christmas as the traditional birthday of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But the secular celebration of the Christmas season, imbued with family gatherings, the exchange of gifts, a shared soundtrack, movies, parades, sweet things, and sweet people, has become a distinctly American cultural touch-point that binds together families and communities.

 

Every group of people — whether it be a family, business, or a nation — has a culture whether they intend to have one or not. The United States is a very large country with beautifully diverse regional and local cultures, but there are several distinctly American common cultural elements that thread through our society. Those common cultural elements are waning in the face of neglect and intentional destruction.

 

The American culture is derived from our founding ethos rooted in European and American Enlightenment philosophy and frontier expansionism. It is a culture that celebrates the individual as a divine creation in which natural rights are innate and inalienable. This respect and adoration for the individual underpins much of American culture.

 

Because individuals are the foundational element of American culture, we created a system of government based on self-governance where individuals elect our leaders. Americans are reflexively anti-authoritarian because any concentration of power is a threat to the power of the individual.

 

Our respect for the individual explains Americans’ instinctive support for human rights. When each and every human is respected and honored as a unique and cherished individual, it is impossible to not support and respect the natural human rights of each individual. Those rights include, but are not limited to, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Individual rights are the reason we have property and the rule of law. The right of an individual person to own the fruits of their own labor rejects the notion of collective ownership. The rule of law exists to provide a predictable and rigorous framework that protects individuals from the power of governments and other individuals who seek to deprive them of the free exercise of their natural rights and the disposition of their property.

 

The respect for the sovereignty of the individual and respect for individual natural rights is the very heart of liberty and our American love of liberty. What is liberty if not the love of individuals being free to conduct themselves as they wish without interference from their fellow humans? When one individual’s exercise of liberty threatens another’s, we surrender our personal violent power to the necessary evil of government to resolve the conflict through the rule of law.

 

It is our American love of the individual that breathes life into our culture of tolerance, multiculturalism, and respect for others. “Live and let live” has long been core to the American ethic. We have long striven for the ideal of equality and liberty where individuals of every race, creed, and religion are brothers and sisters in one family that we call “America.”

 

America’s historic respect for individuals is being assaulted. For over a generation, our schools have been contaminated with philosophies of collectivism, intersectionality, and neo-Marxism. These philosophies reject the sovereignty of the individual in favor of bundling people into groups of oppressors and oppressed, favored and unfavored, good and bad. In these philosophies, concepts like the rule of law, self-governance, and individual liberty are rendered obsolete and replaced with authoritarianism whereby chosen people rule by right in order to correct the perceived wrongs of history and any means are justified by the righteous ends.

 

If we fully lose our American culture of individualism, we will lose the philosophical support structure upon which our system of government, rule of law, and personal liberties are based. We already see it happening as collectivists are perfectly willing to erase our border, celebrate the raping and murder of Jews, arbitrarily transfer the earned wealth of millions to a few, and weaponize the judicial system to punish people who are members of the “wrong” group.

 

It is not too late, but it is getting close. I pray that everyone has a restful Christmas season to connect with family and friends as the beautiful individual people they are. Next year will be a pivotal year in the history of our nation.

Endowed by our creator

by | 0648, 23 Dec 23 | , , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. For the next two weeks it will be running on Saturday instead of Tuesday because of the holidays. Here’s a part:

Every group of people — whether it be a family, business, or a nation — has a culture whether they intend to have one or not. The United States is a very large country with beautifully diverse regional and local cultures, but there are several distinctly American common cultural elements that thread through our society. Those common cultural elements are waning in the face of neglect and intentional destruction.

 

The American culture is derived from our founding ethos rooted in European and American Enlightenment philosophy and frontier expansionism. It is a culture that celebrates the individual as a divine creation in which natural rights are innate and inalienable. This respect and adoration for the individual underpins much of American culture.

 

Because individuals are the foundational element of American culture, we created a system of government based on self-governance where individuals elect our leaders. Americans are reflexively anti-authoritarian because any concentration of power is a threat to the power of the individual.

 

Our respect for the individual explains Americans’ instinctive support for human rights. When each and every human is respected and honored as a unique and cherished individual, it is impossible to not support and respect the natural human rights of each individual. Those rights include, but are not limited to, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Individual rights are the reason we have property and the rule of law. The right of an individual person to own the fruits of their own labor rejects the notion of collective ownership. The rule of law exists to provide a predictable and rigorous framework that protects individuals from the power of governments and other individuals who seek to deprive them of the free exercise of their natural rights and the disposition of their property.

 

The respect for the sovereignty of the individual and respect for individual natural rights is the very heart of liberty and our American love of liberty. What is liberty if not the love of individuals being free to conduct themselves as they wish without interference from their fellow humans? When one individual’s exercise of liberty threatens another’s, we surrender our personal violent power to the necessary evil of government to resolve the conflict through the rule of law.

 

It is our American love of the individual that breathes life into our culture of tolerance, multiculturalism, and respect for others. “Live and let live” has long been core to the American ethic. We have long striven for the ideal of equality and liberty where individuals of every race, creed, and religion are brothers and sisters in one family that we call “America.”

 

America’s historic respect for individuals is being assaulted. For over a generation, our schools have been contaminated with philosophies of collectivism, intersectionality, and neo-Marxism. These philosophies reject the sovereignty of the individual in favor of bundling people into groups of oppressors and oppressed, favored and unfavored, good and bad. In these philosophies, concepts like the rule of law, self-governance, and individual liberty are rendered obsolete and replaced with authoritarianism whereby chosen people rule by right in order to correct the perceived wrongs of history and any means are justified by the righteous ends.

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