Pro Lockdown Politicians Remain Stuck in March

Photo Credit: Dr. Kelly Victory https://twitter.com/drkellyvictory?lang=en

I believe the extended coronavirus lockdowns to be the single biggest public policy mistake made in our lifetime, if not ever, whose negative effects will be with us for years to come and in many ways we haven’t yet realized. So, yes, bear with me on yet another Covid post and the idiocy of politicians whose pandemic response has been little more than an exercise in raw power grabbing and political expediency.

It’s quite apparent, at least in blue states like mine, that controlling people and not the virus has become the driving force of those in charge and that any hope for responsible leadership has gone the way of the way of the dodo bird. Literally, as a bunch of dodos who you wouldn’t trust to bathe your dog are making enormous public policy decisions that negatively effect nearly every area of our lives.

Take California Governor Gavin Newsom, who likes to fancy himself as a follower of science and who recently moved the goalposts yet again released new county opening up guidelines, complete with pretty, colored coded charts so even us dumb subjects citizens can follow along.

Yes, you are reading the chart correctly. In order for a county to move in to yellow which is the most free stage, there must be less than 1 daily new case per 100k residents. The false positive rate of PCR testing alone will make impossible.

Two observations:

1. The governor is still using meaningless data on positive case counts to determine which stage counties are in 

2. California will not effectively be free until after a working vaccine is produced and distributed throughout the country which could be several years out, IF this even happens and IF our economy has not completely collapsed by then.

What the heck happened to using hospital capacity and deaths as the metric? No, really, I would like to know why the major shift on this? This is not not just moving goalposts, this is getting rid of them all together and replacing them with basketball nets.

And given that the majority of people testing positive will either be asymptomatic or suffer light-moderate flu like symptoms, why on earth is Governor Newsom using positive case counts as a means to drive policy?

On top of that, many PCR tests are just too sensitive and picking up small amounts of viral load that show a “positive” Covid result in people who are neither sick nor contagious. As this New York Times article states:

“In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found.“

It’s clear that policy decisions about shutting down businesses should not be based on positive Covid case counts, yet it’s the central focus of Governor Newsom’s so called science based re-opening plan.

And this continued sledgehammer approach of assuming everyone faces the same dire risk from Covid is absurd. So much needless fear mongering and suffering over a virus whose survival rate for most people is well above 99%.

In fact we know so much more about the virus than we did 5 months ago, such as:

• The bulk of people now testing positive are younger, healthy people who face a very small chance of dying from the virus.
• In fact if you are younger 70 and are not suffering from other underlying diseases, the threat from Covid is still minimal.
• Our T cells may be bringing us much closer to developing herd immunity than originally thought, both via new Covid infections and by past exposure to any coronavirus, including the common cold. Scientists also suspect this may answer why the virus affects some people very differently than others.
• There are good treatments available for severe such as Hydroxychloroquine, steroids, antibody blood plasma and antiviral drugs like Remdesivir.

Knowing all of this why are Governor Newsom and other pro lockdown politicians acting as if it’s still March? And why does the media keep spreading fear and panic?

The catastrophic effect of keeping economies suppressed are so well known that one cannot help but be cynical and assume Governor Newsom and others are purposely looking for ways to keep their states shut down for reasons that have nothing to do with the virus.

Could it be to make their state economies so horrible that federal monetary bailouts become inevitable which they can then use to paper over years of fiscal mismanagement? Or is it to make Trump look bad because the country will never truly recover economically without states like California and New York operating at full steam?

I honestly don’t know, except to say that I agree with Dennis Prager when he says The Lockdown Has Gone From a Mistake to a Crime. As per the article:

“I live in California, a state governed by that most dangerous of leaders: a fool with unlimited power. Despite the fact that California ranks 28th among the 50 states in deaths per million, Gov. Gavin Newsom has destroyed and continues to destroy tens of thousands of small businesses and untold numbers of livelihoods. His continuing to forbid — a half-year after the onset of the pandemic — indoor dining in restaurants is leading to a projected permanent closure of approximately 1 in every 3 restaurants in the state.“

Indeed. Most states are looking for ways to open up their economies while recognizing the delicate balance between public safety and keeping civil liberties intact. Gavin Newsom seems to be doing the opposite; keeping California shut down while tightening the screws of oppression on small business and remaining obtuse to the suffering of citizens.

Our Cultural Marxist Moment

I can think of no better way to set a person up for failure, than to repeatedly tell them that everything wrong in their life is the fault of someone else and that making personal changes is pointless because the “system” is rigged against them.  

Common sense, yes? Honest self evaluation is a requirement for personal growth, but this won’t happen if a person sees no need to do this and in today’s world, why should they?  With the theory of  intersectionality having gone from something your weird aunt used to talk about after drinking too much wine to an accepted doctrine being actively pushed taught on college campuses across America, this is only natural.

Intersectionality is where skin color, gender and sexuality determine the level to which a person is oppressed, not by anything specific done to them and where consequences are divorced from individual actions.  Even worse, these labels also determine whether you yourself are an oppressor, based not on things you actually do, but on which group you belong to.

The saddest part of this is not the class of aggrieved and bitter people this creates,  but that it’s pretty unlikely they will ever grow fully in to the person they were meant to be.

Yet this intersectionality nonsense is precisely at the heart of victimhood our society marinates in and creates the perfect breeding ground for this surreal cultural Marxist moment we find ourselves in.  Pit citizen against citizen, create an “enemy” to blame for all of life’s woes and put an enlightened group in charge to save “you” from “them”.  It’s not surprising then that something like this results:

“Stolen land, stolen people” chants as protesters continue to shine lights into residences here in Portland along the march route #Portland #PortlandProtest pic.twitter.com/W4JlEt6xRY

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 22, 2020

It’s tempting to write this off as just one group of very misunderstood people acting foolish in one small part of the country. This isn’t just a one off however, it’s part of something much bigger more aggressive and hate filled. It’s hard to precisely define, but we all know, most of us anyway, it’s is not good.

According to this article from Commentary Magazine, we are in an active battle for the very survival of the country. Not a physical one with traditional battlefields and uniforms, but via massive psychological operations (PSYOPS), with propaganda, guilt manipulation and victim exploitation as key weapons.

From the article:

“The great unraveling at first consisted of riots and looting under the pretense of seeking justice for the recently killed George Floyd; the anarchist occupation of a section of Seattle; and a rash of accusations, confessions, and dismissals of individuals who showed insufficient fealty to the new anti-racist paradigm. At the time, extreme policy proposals, such as defunding municipal police departments, were subjects for popular discussion and debate. Everyday Americans swapped Black Lives Matter reading lists and strove, however misguidedly, to broaden their conception of racial inequity.

As of this writing, Portland, Oregon, has endured more than two months straight of anarchist violence directed at federal buildings and employees. In other cities—New York, Los Angeles, Richmond, Omaha, and Austin, to name a few—mob violence continues to erupt regularly, always connected to cries for justice and sometimes resulting in death.

Accelerating the general dissolution, police forces have been successfully hobbled in response to the killing of George Floyd, and the resulting spike in murder and violent crime shows no sign of abating. All the while, armchair lynch mobs have continued to claim the scalps of those who veer from or merely stumble on the path to social-justice enlightenment. It is the full-time job of any American with a public presence to bow down before the identity cult. Professional athletes have mutated overnight into a congeries of Kaepernicks. As for the public, 62 percent of all Americans, according to a poll by the CATO Institute, now say they’re afraid to voice their political views lest they be punished professionally.”

I have to admit I am part of that 62% at times, especially on anything race related. Not so much out of fear of being fired, but because I don’t want to be socially ostracized for having an “incorrect” view. I feel stupid for even saying such words as I never would have imagined even thinking this just 10 yeas ago.

So where does this all end? Certainly not well for conservatives if things continue as is, but what about traditional liberals who believe in freedom of expression, capitalism and law and order? What happens when they finally realize that they too are on the chopping block? For the Marxist anyone in power is part of and an enabler of an existing, oppressive system, even though they may not realize it.

In this outstanding article, The Challenge of Marxism, author Yoran Hazony predicts:

“We don’t know what will happen for certain. But based on the experience of recent years, we can venture a pretty good guess. Institutional liberalism lacks the resources to contend with this threat. Liberalism is being expelled from its former strongholds, and the hegemony of liberal ideas, as we have known it since the 1960s, will end. Anti-Marxist liberals are about to find themselves in much the same situation that has characterized conservatives, nationalists, and Christians for some time now: They are about to find themselves in the opposition.

“This means that some brave liberals will soon be waging war on the very institutions they so recently controlled. They will try to build up alternative educational and media platforms in the shadow of the prestigious, wealthy, powerful institutions they have lost. Meanwhile, others will continue to work in the mainstream media, universities, tech companies, philanthropies, and government bureaucracy, learning to keep their liberalism to themselves and to let their colleagues believe that they too are Marxists—just as many conservatives learned long ago how to keep their conservatism to themselves and let their colleagues believe they are liberals.

This is the new reality that is emerging. There is blood in the water and the new Marxists will not rest content with their recent victories. In America, they will press their advantage and try to seize the Democratic Party. They will seek to reduce the Republican Party to a weak imitation of their own new ideology, or to ban it outright as a racist organization. And in other democratic countries, they will attempt to imitate their successes in America. No free nation will be spared this trial. So let us not avert our eyes and tell ourselves that this curse isn’t coming for us. Because it is coming for us.”

Personally I think things are going to get worse, a lot worse before any sense of normalcy returns, if it ever does. This will require liberals and conservatives standing together in opposition to mob rule, cancel culture, statue toppling, lawlessness and all the rest.

A robust defense of America is also needed and of her founding ideals and how things like the Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantee those gathering in the streets the right to peaceful assembly and due process for those inclined to burn buildings and loot stores.

Frankly, seeing as how the left and right in this country not only live in different realities but seem to be habituating on different planets, I’m not optimistic of any type of grand partnership occurring.

Chaos, riots, protests, looting, divisiveness, violence…..who exactly does this empower?

We are a Cancer and There is No Cure

The title of this post comes from the personal blog of former MSNBC producer Ariana Pekary, who quit recently over frustrations with the network’s obsession with ratings over informing the public and the serious negative effects this has had on the national discourse.  She believes this to be a systemic problem across the board with most mainstream news entities.

Shocking, I know!  Not really of course.  I’m sure many of you are fully aware of  the media’s long deathward spiral down the ratings toilet bowl in their never ending quest for eyeballs at the expense (and exhaustion) of the general public.  Take a partially true story, spin, tweak, edit and then spin again until the desired narrative comes about, then push it through the network channels and social media feeds until peak fear/outrage levels are reached.  Voila, instant ratings boost.

This got me thinking. Not so much about the horrid state of the news media, but on the simple fact that each day we have a variety of choices on which narratives to live by and that a thoughtful dissection on what they’re bringing to the table might be in order.

By narrative I mean the reality of what’s going on in the world and who is defining it.  For some it’s cable news, the internet or social media, for others it’s the daily paper or a favorite magazine with a cup of Joe ( my personal favorite, but who has the time!) and then of course there are those who avoid news all together.  For most of us it’s probably some combination of a few, but make no mistake, they all lay down tracks in our brains on what to concern ourselves with and why.

In this video,  a woman named Lorie Ladd goes deeper in to how our predefined labels about things can unconsciously create emotional knee jerk reactions that lead us to places of either fear or freedom.  “Oh that’s coming from FOX, I’m gonna respond this way, or oh that’s coming from CNN, I’m gonna respond this way.”  

While she gets a little too whooey hooey for me at times, she did get me thinking about ways I allow outside forces to mess with my emotions. We all do this and unless you live in a cave it can’t be helped. The important thing to do, according to Lorie, is to continually question what you’re listening/watching/reading and ask yourself, 

“How is this message making me feel and why am I choosing to believe a program, a system or a paradigm that is making me feel fear?”

Good questions!  While it’s important to be informed, it’s even more so to understand that the media is not our friend.   They employ reams of people whose jobs are to position “the news” in scary ways so headlines are clicked, people become fearful after reading the ensuing articles and then come back for more because the anxiety/outrage they now suffer from and the brain chemicals released from this drive a compulsive need to know more.

InsanityBytes 22 explains this well in her excellent post, The 12 Steps and Screaming Panic Porn:

“If you don’t know what Screaming Panic Porn is, it is click bait, it is propaganda designed to manipulate you into taking a peek, triggering an emotional response.  The mainstream media and advertisers are absolute experts at it, professionals. They know how to hook you.  They are wayyyy bigger and badder than you are.”

A reader of that post named HAT referenced an also excellent article called Coronavirus is Serious, but Fear is Optional which gets in to the nitty gritty on how news copy is created (hint, not for our benefit) and why it only matters that you open the article, not that it’s accurate or informative.  It’s a great read all around, but this one line sums up the gist.

“When you read the news, you’re not actually becoming well- informed, you’re being emotionally exploited.”

I can think of no better example of this than the media’s hysterical coronavirus coverage,
with their daily drumbeat of positive case counts and continual showcasing of the saddest of sad outlier stories of  young, seemingly healthy people dying from it. No caveats on how daily stats are meaningless, no corrections made when numbers turn out to be wrong, 0 discussion on who really is dying in large numbers and no focus on recoveries, just one horror story after another. 

Yet this charts paint a very different picture.  Yes, case #’s have exploded (brown line) but daily deaths (black line) have remained relatively flat minus a few upticks in very localized hotspots.   

This second shows Covid death have trended downward dramatically since its April peak with details broken out by age, which tells us who this virus effects most and where  resources should be directed.

Yet color coded graphs and dry virology basics don’t sell very well, so the panic porn will continue until at least November 7th.

What’s to be done?  It’s important to be informed, but this involves work. Consume news but just enough to know what’s happening and question everything, especially if it’s triggering fear/outrage and is too comfortably in line with your thinking.

Just as important is to seek outlets that provide information but with the context needed to get the full picture.  This takes time but brings perspective, which helps to better pinpoint what’s truly  important amidst the daily barrage of garbage headlines thrown our way.

This leads to making rational decisions about how to or even if to respond to current events based on our personal assessment of things, not someone else’s whose agenda goes against our self interest.

Freedom over fear & empowerment over outrage leads to smart personal decisions made based on what works best for our own unique situations.  How quaint.

 

Done With Coronavirus Magical Thinking

The final straw came rather suddenly.

I’d just spent an hour navigating one way grocery aisles, doing my best not to get close to others, the wild eyed ones especially, as they can be unpredictable.  “No ma’am, I’m not trying to give you Covid, I merely want some tomatoes and your cart is in the way.”  Of course I can’t communicate this effectively with my stupid,  muzzle mask garbling the words and hiding my kind expression.

As I move up the now routine mile long checkout line I notice the cashier power washing the conveyer belt as if covered in raw sewage.  Wouldn’t it be ironic if conveyer belts soaked with sanitizer chemicals turned out to be more dangerous for us to put grocery items on than the Covid germs they are deployed to destroy?

So there I stood, rather appropriately on my red social distancing marker, while fiddling with my mask when something inside me broke.  I just can’t do this Coronavirus Kabuki Dance any longer.  The ever growing list of nonsensical mandates is to accomplish what, slowing the spread of infection?  Eliminating infections all together?

Has anyone on the planet ever gotten a virus from a contaminated grocery item?  And do people walking past each other really pose any kind of a threat?  Why would it make a difference if they’re going in the same direction or not? And if masks are so effective why bother with distancing at all?

Questions like that hurt my brain hurt, so I switch it off and put on my happy face for the cashier, hidden of course behind my mask.

On my way out, a nice young employee who surely was sporting a wide toothy grin behind his store branded mask gently informed me I was heading out the wrong exit, as this was for incoming patrons only and I needed to go to the other side of the store where the correct outgoing one was located.

Garnering every ounce of my being to stop myself from slapping the man to the ground, I mumbled an apology through gritted teeth as I turned to walk the other way, eyes spinning wildly above my now grossly wet mask.

Really, how long are we going to keep doing this?  Until a vaccine comes out?  Do people understand this might be never? Or, at the very earliest, perhaps January of 2021, plus the several added months needed to force it upon administer it to 300+million people? Quick, raise your hand if you’d like to be first in line to try an unproven vaccine that was rushed to market?

What’s really going on here? We’ve turned life completely upside down for a virus whose survival rate for most people is over 99%.  For those that do get sick, there are good treatments available and hospitals around the country have been reinforced to handle surges of critical cases.  We also know primarily who this virus effects most seriously, but instead of devoting resources and brain power towards protecting them, we get sledgehammer mandates that treat all of us as if we face the same risk.

At the same time we’ve institutionalized fear and suspicion of others with policies that incentivize being scared of your neighbor for bad coronavirus behavior. Surely you’ve noticed people jostling to cross the street as you walk by, their panic palpable at being near someone outside their “circle”; someone, God forbid, who isn’t wearing a mask!  

A smile used to convey friendliness; now it’s considered a threat because if it can be seen that means that person is not wearing a mask, which is very bad coronavirus behavior.  On the flip side, wearing a mask prevents the internal wiring in others from properly determining  danger as someone approaches. A smile signals good will, but since it’s hidden, the brain defaults to high threat alert.

Facial masks are dehumanizing really and condition people to accept as ok a government mandate to hide a central part of their identity. Makes me wonder what else does this open the door for?

We also continually hear how important it is for people to keep their distance from others, which implies that human closeness is wrong and that participating in things where others will be present like church, going out to dinner and family gatherings is irresponsible.  We’ve basically taken away all the essential ingredients needed for healthy, human relationships to thrive.

I’m sorry but none of this is normal and I’m sick of pretending that it will make a difference in stopping the virus from doing what viruses always do, which is infect people until enough become immune and it runs out of viable hosts. Until this happens, whether through natural herd immunity or vaccine induced, we are going to have to learn how to do life with Covid-19.

And not this zombie like existence either, with many businesses still shut down, no concerts or sporting events, limited travel and a decimated performing arts industry.  It’s time to fully open things up and start living as human beings again.

Would this risk an increase Covid cases and deaths?  Yes, without a doubt, but living life devoid of all the things that make it pleasurable is merely existing, which is seriously damaging in ways we haven’t begun to scratch the surface on. 

We can still have some distancing policies in place and mask wearing where it makes sense, but on the whole people need to make their own decisions on how fully they would want to participate based on own their own personal health situations.  Gobs of stimulus money could also be diverted towards virus protection for those that need it.

We will never be allowed to do this though.  You can be sure that as infections  rise and calls to re-lock down the economy grow louder, government officials already drunk with power will do just that.  The fear of getting Covid and the continual drumbeat of panic by the media has created a learned helplessness in people which practically begs a strong government authority to take over.

How can I look at those driving alone with masks on and think otherwise?

Fear, isolation, suspicion of others, dwindling civil liberties, an increasingly strong and powerful state, high unemployment, sky rocketing suicide and addiction levels, unsustainable government debt; The virus I would argue is the least of our worries.

It’s our response to it that keeps me up at night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Wokes and Racists Agree

I promise, it’s worth the 1 minute 45 seconds of your time!

Gavin Newsom is Lying About Coronavirus Stats

 

California Governor Gavin Newsom added San Diego to his growing watchlist of counties that are required to clawback their re-openings due to increasing cases of COVID-19.  As of Tuesday, all bars, indoor dining establishments and entertainment areas like museums have closed as per Newsom’s directive. It was a brazenly obtuse move, a giant slap in the face to already struggling business owners who have really been doing their part to keep their places safe, clean and in compliance with the torrent of new, pandemic era regulations.

It’s also not following science.

First, keep in mind that COVID deaths as a percentage of California’s population is .0164325%. For San Diego it’s .00003076%

And yes new infections are up, somewhat dramatically so, as people have become more active and we are testing at enormous rates.  The good news is it’s mostly those in their 20s and 30’s whose COVID death rate is in the 0% range and who usually only experience mild to moderate flu like symptoms, if any.  Obviously there are tragic outliers but they are not the norm.

Even with older folks up to age 70, if you don’t suffer from a pre-existing condition that makes you more vulnerable to COVID, your chances of dying from it are small, akin to that of dying in a car accident.  As renown scientist Dr. John Ioannidis states in this article,

“The death rate in a given country depends a lot on the age-structure, who are the people infected, and how they are managed,” Ioannidis said. “For people younger than 45, the infection fatality rate is almost 0%. For 45 to 70, it is probably about 0.05-0.3%. For those above 70, it escalates substantially.”

The even better news is death numbers and ICU admissions, while on a recent upswing, as a whole have remained mostly flat. In fact in San Diego where we have 8,0000 hospital beds, there are only 162 COVID related hospitalizations and medical facilities throughout California are only at 8% capacity.  There are upticks, which I’ll get in to further down, but they have nothing to do with people enjoying a meal out with friends.

So what gives? Why is Gavin Newsom purposefully harming business owners and shaming constituents who are enjoying life again, while fear mongering over California’s rising new infections?

Part of this I believe is that he is desperate to distract attention from the COVID  nursing home slaughter that’s happening across the state and which his own reckless actions of PAYING NURSING HOMES TO ACCEPT COVID POSITIVE PATIENTS have contributed to.

As of this writing there have been 6,573 COVID deaths in California out of a population of 41 million people.  78% percent of those deaths were in people 65 and older and ALMOST HALF were in nursing homes and long term care facilities.

In San Diego the numbers are similar where almost half our 406 COVID deaths have occurred in long term care care facilities with little support from the government .  Asks Patricia McGinnis, founder of California’s Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, “We have all these so called elected leaders. Where the hell are they?” 

If you’re Governor Newsom, you’re busy hiding from your criminally insane COVID payment incentive. That the Governor introduced this program well after the COVID risks for this population were well known is unfathomable, that he continues it while shaming others over going to bars and restaurants is downright repugnant.

Another taboo topic is Mexico, which Newsom will not touch, because that would mean having to explain why San Diego’s numbers are being wildly skewed by thousands of sick people coming over the border from Mexico.

“It’s an unprecedented surge across the border,” says Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association.  People are literally calling 911 once they reach the U.S. border and then taken to San Diego and Imperial County hospitals.

SD County Coronavirus Cases 6/12

Really I can’t say I blame those coming here for treatment BUT, this doesn’t excuse the refusal from Governor Newsom to acknowledge this being the driving factor behind our surging numbers. And other counties too, as border city patients are being airlifted all across the state.

So in a nutshell, Governor Newsom is silent on COVID nursing home deaths and his role in this, downplaying the low COVID risks for healthy people, pushing a non-existent hospital capacity problem and ignoring border caseload stats to push a panic driven narrative that tightens the screws on his already unprecedented assault on civil liberties.

Oh, he’s also threatened to withhold up to 2.5 billion dollars in funding from counties who don’t abide his closure orders. and he’s deploying Orwellian themed Strike Teams to enforce his directives.

Again, the question is why?

Is it to make California’s economy so bad it necessitates a federal bailout that will delay the state’s pending bankrupt pension fund implosion until after he leaves office?  Or to keep people in such a pandemic frenzy that a mandatory and easily gamed mail in voting for the November election becomes reality?

Or is it simply that Gavin Newsom is like any other petty, wanna be dictator out there who craves power, enjoys controlling people and demands respect by the threat of law?

What an all around abysmal failure of leadership from Gavin Newsom.  California deserves better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Independence Day!

Today we celebrate America’s separation from British rule, formally ratified through the Declaration of Independence. It’s important to remember just how revolutionary this document was; both in laying out the ideals and principles of our nation’s new government and in justifying breaking off from the oppression of Great Britain.

It was the philosophical basis of a government that exercised power only by consent of the governed, which was truly a radical concept for this time! Shamelessly this did not include black Americans who were forced to live as slaves, owned by many political leaders of that time no less. But the sin of man is not a repudiation of our founding ideals, which eventually brought about the abolishment of slavery.

Frederick Douglass makes this point well in an impassioned speech called “What to the Slave is the 4th of July? After a biting biting critique of the hypocrisies of the holiday he ends with “I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.”

Most of human history to that point consisted of government ruling over its people with power always ceding to the wealthy and politically connected. The Declaration of Independence and its inspired creation, the Constitution, flipped this on its head and outlined the conditions of a free people whose rights and liberty are derived from God, not man. The founding fathers understood that for people to truly live well, the oppression of government must be tamed so the dignity and freedom of the human spirit can thrive.

So enjoy today’s festivities. Just don’t forget to share a toast in celebration of the freedoms we enjoy today because of the foresight and extreme sacrifices from those that came before us.

Cheers and Happy Independence Day!

Don’t All Black Lives Matter?

 

This video shows some very calm and rational black men and a woman trying to have a discussion with a mob that wants to tear down the Lincoln statue in D.C. As you can see things didn’t go very well.

It’s a bit disturbing how hysterical one of the protesters gets, as she hollers at someone who undoubtedly knows from personal experience more about white racism towards blacks than this pitifully confused creature could ever hope to. In fact it’s hard to watch as these brave men and women get sworn at and completely disrespected.  They probably thought explaining the importance of remembering our history and why Lincoln matters so much would help dial things down.

The tear down mob is not at all interested in reason however, they’re just out to throw temper tantrums and destroy stuff.

Here’s another one  if you can stomach it.  I could post several others but I think you get the idea.

People say they are for black lives, but then have no problem shaming and insulting black people standing right in front of them.  Don’t their lives matter too?

 

On Being a Victim

Citizen Tom has a smart post up called I am a Victim where he challenges our thinking by flipping the narrative on who we normally think of as one.  That got me thinking a bit about the word victim.

I was a negative person for much of my younger years.  Bitterness about this or that disadvantage distorted my way of thinking, leading to a victimhood mentality where perceived enemies or circumstances were always preventing me from doing or getting what I wanted.  It wasn’t until I decided to drop being bitter for better that I began to actively seek change, which opened the door to self examination and new ways of thinking about things.

This was extremely humbling but also extraordinarily freeing, as I discovered how much power I had simply by controlling my thoughts and reactions to situations. I also began to see how enslaved I was to other people’s opinions and how much in need I was for someone or something to validate me.  I wasn’t completely free of this and am still not in some ways, but just being aware of my issues was a huge paradigm shift for me and has helped immensely.

It also left an opening for God to work his way in to my heart, where I began to discover my true identity and worth through Him.  That was the beginning of the end of my petty little world of grievance.  Good riddance.

This is why, in the past anyway, this blog has focused a lot on victimhood mentality and the corrosive effects it has on a person’s thought process.  I’m not talking about suffering from depression or going through a rough patch, but when feelings of unfairness and being wronged are so internalized and absolute, that this becomes the kaleidoscope you view life through.

Not only are you building your own internal prison, one toxic thought layered upon another, you’re also morphing in to reality the very type of miserable life you’re trying to escape. Pride blocks the exits and a refusal to look within for answers seals them shut, creating a vicious and exhausting circle of blame, anger and denial.

Our society is steeped in victimhood mentality right now.  My concerns in the past have mainly focused on political groups manipulating young women in to believing they will never truly get ahead in life because America is inherently sexist.  As I wrote here”

“These movement leaders don’t give a whit about women really, only that their natural insecurities get exploited enough for them to believe the lie that a systemically sexist and controlling patriarchy is continually holding them back. Ironically that type of thinking really will keep someone from getting ahead, as it prevents self reflection and course correction. When blaming others becomes the default response to life’s inevitable hardships,  it becomes extremely difficult to make needed changes for growth.”

The black community of course has been targeted with these political grifters for eons, probably for longer and worse than with women and with more tragic results.  And just as my belief about sexism not being an internalized system in this country, I don’t believe black people suffer under systemic racism in today’s America.

Sexism and racism do exist of course and women and people of color face unique and sometimes brutal challenges from them, but in my opinion this comes from individual encounters with individual people.  While unfortunate, these bad players don’t define an entire gender or race. Isn’t that what we’re trying to get away from anyway?  Not attributing negative characteristics to people based on sex or skin color?

I’ll end with words from a previous post called Personal Freedom is a Choice.

“Since the beginning, man has always tried to control one another.  Some use physical force, some the power of government and others words that bring shame and fear.  The most devastatingly effective ones manipulate people in to imprisoning themselves by convincing them they are not worthy of living in freedom; that they were born a victim and will always be one. The “victim” then misses completely the awesome gift of life they have and their ability to forge and shape it as they please.”

It’s easy to forget the freedoms we have in America today.  We can pretty much do or say what we want but there are those that would have us forget this. They want us to believe we are being held back by some societal oppressor; an “ism” that forever prevents us from reaching our full potential.  With this view, everyone and everything becomes an oppressor, something to be offended by and fight against.

This is the worst type of bondage because it causes individuals to lose their ability to honestly look themselves and change where needed.  Ironically this only creates more victims while reducing liberty for all of us, as the government happily steps in as savior and increases its fat footprint over our lives.

Freedom is like the air that surrounds us; lifesaving but not noticeable until it’s taken away.  Pay attention America, before it’s too late.”

 

America is in Trouble

In March of 2019, I wrote a blog post called, Intersectionality and Radical Grace that could be written almost word for word today.  I’ve copied  and pasted it below as the issues it touches upon are still very relevant.  Unfortunately my optimism about things getting better have not proven true.  Things have only gotten worse, much worse in the 15 months that have passed.

Here is the post:

There was a  fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal written by Robert L. Woodson Sr.  The title, Even the Fiercest Social-Justice Warrior Should Learn Mercy, sums up well the author’s goal, which is to get today’s racial grievance mongers to stop focusing so much on righting wrongs from the past and instead employ the radical grace championed by Mr. Woodson and others during civil rights era struggles against real entrenched societal oppression and horrific acts of racial violence.

He writes:

“As a veteran of the civil-rights movement, I remember how our most effective weapon against bigotry, hatred and oppression was radical grace. If social activists want to mimic us, let them follow in this direction rather than demand the elevation of their particular tribal interests above all others. Activists’ focus on group identity and past wrongs fuels anger and resentment, deepening divisions instead of erasing them. The only antidote to the growing conflict is for black America to take back its historical victories against injustice from those repurposing them as ammunition for an anti-American agenda.”

At this point you might be asking what does a what does a middle aged white girl from the burbs know about black racism?  Nothing of course.  I would never pretend to understand what it’s like as a black person to be discriminated against, nor am I denying that racism exists today.

What I do know a lot about unfortunately is what Mr. Woodson alludes to in that last sentence about people perverting once noble causes and “repurposing them as ammunition for an anti-American agenda.”  Anyone paying attention to today’s culture wars can clearly see that is the norm for social justice groups claiming to be fighting for the oppressed, but who are in reality pushing political agendas that have nothing to do with helping anyone but the people in power that run these groups.

The Women’s March is a fine example of this.  It promotes itself as a champion of women’s interests and empowerment, yet it’s really about getting progressive candidates in to office to enact a far left agenda that I believe is harmful to women and squelches empowerment.  At their core, the Women’s March and other grievance movements run counter to our Founding Fathers insistence that all men area created equal and that individual rights take precedence over those of the collective.

How so?  By their adherence to intersectionality-the belief that societal oppression intersects among various tribes whose powerlessness is based on the the number of victim points they have.   A transgender, black woman under this system garners more sympathy than a white gay man who only has 1 grievance box checked to her 3. There’s no accounting for a person’s unique background and character traits and no individuality, just balkanized groups assigned different spots on the hierarchy ladder of oppression .

Intersectionality has become a religion to its followers.  It’s a cancer that encourages people to make assumptions about others based on race, sexual orientation and gender. It’s identity politics on steroids, which I’ve written about before here, here and here and it’s turning the progress we’ve made on racial discrimination and women’s empowerment on its head.

It’s a growing threat too because what was once contained to quirky liberal arts colleges, has spread like wildfire to the broader culture, as indoctrinated students graduated and moved on to positions of power in corporations and government. It’s a big reason why we live in a state of constant outrage, where people feel traumatized over the slightest of things and receive cultural validation for it if they belong to the “correct” tribe.

There is little grace in this and no mercy at all for the accused; no room for discussion, and absolutely no forgiveness for an honest mistake made.  Societal chaos and divisiveness continue to grow and individual freedom shrinks as the power of the state gets called upon to “right” so many “wrongs.”

This does nothing for the truly oppressed, the poor and those that have been dealt  crappy life cards.  Chaining them them to a victimhood mentality of course only makes things worse, but no matter because it increases the constituency of the modern day grievance industry.  The collateral damage of ruined, stunted lives is less important then the increased power and status gained by the movement.

It’s unclear where this will all lead.  I’m hoping the asininity of intersectionality becomes the achilles heal that eventually kills it.  As more and more groups claim victimhood status and the grievances become pettier and more absurd,  a chain reaction  of “eating their own” seems to be kicking in.  The favored group of today becomes the micro aggressor of tomorrow and gets booted from the club.  We can only hope the collapse comes soon.

In the meantime we could do worse than to study Robert Woodson’s ideas on forgiveness and self reflection as a path to empowerment and changed lives. As he says:

“This is a model for anyone seriously interested in erasing injustice and promoting equality. Nobody grows when activists are intolerant of others’ flaws or demand the end of careers because of past wrongs. Emphasizing past evil—let alone manufacturing racial attacks to satiate the media’s appetite—inflames anger on both sides. Let us wisely choose grace instead.”