"Imagine, a grown man too ignorant to believe in the Devil!" — R.A. Lafferty, Past Master
Category: 1984
But today there are reports that the British government has said that it will not offer asylum to Asia Bibi. The reason being “security concerns” — that weasel term now used by all officialdom whenever it needs one last reason to avoid doing the right thing.
Thanks to Douglas Murray, writing in the National Review, for explaining the term. I see university officials using it quite frequently.
Kevin Williamson remarks upon the poor sportsmanship of LGTBQQ* Portland Thorns soccer fans, and takes no prisoners:
One can understand Portland’s inconsolable rage. It’s a second-rate Seattle, which makes it, by extension, a fourth-rate (22) San Francisco. Which is to say: Austin without the sunshine and higher education and tacos. I’d be angry if I lived in Portland, too.
He lets the cat out of the bag about inclusion
There’s no logical reason that women’s sports should be an especially uncomfortable place for someone with traditionalist views about homosexuality. But the kulturkampf brigades will have only conformity, abject and absolute. That is part of the doctrine of “inclusion,” which, perversely enough, exists for the purpose of excluding certain people with unpopular political or religious opinions.
and clearly thinks Gay Pride has gotten too big for its britches (chaps? kilts? g-strings?)
It is not enough that gay people should be allowed to organize their own lives as they wish and to follow their interests and their pleasures where they will. You can decline to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but when they raise the rainbow banner, you’d damned well better stand up straight and salute.
Education and journalism schools get a solid, if glancing, blow as well. As the Big Bad Bloggers say, READ THE WHOLE THING.
* I prefer the near-anagram GQ-BLT, with every innuendo (which endo?) intended.
Tip from the Instapundit, one the the Biggest and Baddest.
So some woke Chino-American gets his knickers in a twist because a Caucasian young lady wore a cheongsam as a prom dress. But somehow, I don’t think he had a problem with something like this:
To me, women of color wearing Daisy Dukes is an especially un-woke cultural appropriation, since her TV brothers drove around in a car painted like this
By sv1ambo – 1969 Dodge Charger – General Lee, CC BY 2.0, Link
Is it just me? or has this whole “cultural appropriation” thing degenerated into a vicious farce perpetrated by spiteful little junior-high girls (of all ages and genders)?
Tip from Ed Driscoll writing at The Instapundit, who remarks “The entire corpus of Identity-politics ideology is just a new way to bully,” Jordan Peterson tweets, with “the additional twist of simultaneously claiming higher moral ground.”
So I guess it’s not just me.
My workplace has a new President; based on his periodic pronouncements I’ve started calling him President Diversity. Notre Dame’s Professor Patrick Deneen calls this The Ignoble Lie:
Meritocratic ideology disguises the ruling class’s own role in perpetuating inequality from itself, and even fosters a broader social ecology in which those who are not among the ruling class suffer an array of social and economic pathologies that are increasingly the defining feature of America’s underclass. Facing up to reality would require hard questions about the agenda underlying commitments to “diversity and inclusion.” Our stated commitment to “critical thinking” demands no less, but such questions are likely to be put down—at times violently—on contemporary campuses.
The Justice Department and the Census Bureau are engaged in a kerfuffle over the 2020 Census. It’s all about a question of citizenship: “What country are you a citizen of?” With the inevitable congressional reapportionment that occurs based on the Census, this is a question that many states really don’t want to know the answer to.
My take: the Census Bureau has been crying poor for years now. The Trump Administration should jawbone Congress into increasing the Bureau’s funding, but only if they ASK THE QUESTION (and report the answers).
Update: Now folks should really be worried. Combine citizenship data with Google location data (“we have ways to make you opt in”), and some dedicated data miners could find every Android-using illegal alien in the country.
Tips from the Instapundit, where the signal-to-noise ratio seems to be increasing lately.
Update: It has come to my attention that at least one other branch of the federal government already ASKS THE QUESTION, to wit, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives* E-Form 4473, Firearms Transaction Record has Questions 12 and 13:
In other words, you cannot exercise your 2nd Amendment right to own a firearm unless you ANSWER THE QUESTION.
* Or what I call a Redneck Hedge Fund.
Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Jennifer Percy describes Fear of the Federal Government in the Ranchlands of Oregon. Try though she might, her east coast acculturation won’t let her quite get into the heads of the folks in towns where she spent her childhood.
They visited Yellowstone Nation Park and saw, they said, two million acres of natural resources gone to waste. “At least one day a year,” Robin said, “we ought to be able to go in and take advantage.”
Emily thought the trees were too close together. “Didn’t look healthy,” she said, “because they don’t log.”
“And look at all those buffalo,” Robin said. “Can’t some of them be used for meat?”
“You wanted to eat them?” I said.
Why not Jennifer? American Indians do.
I tried to suggest a lack of understanding between rural and urban people, but Robin stopped me. “No,” she said. “We just want different things.” The statement was cold and clear. It suggested the end of reconciliation. “We don’t want you breathing down our back,” she said. “Bottom line is we don’t trust you. We don’t trust you to look out for our best interests. An in truth we don’t even know that you know how to. A lot of people were saying this was about saving the bunnies and butterflies, but that’s not what is is about.”
Robin sat over her empty plate. “It’s about getting people off the land,” she said. “It’s dark.”
Environmentalists with national influence have never been interested in reconciliation, but poor Jennifer won’t admit it.
Michael Tanner, writing for National Review online, attempts to answer the question “Why Is There So Much Government Hostility to Private Charity?” The answer is simple, once you understand this guy’s fundamental message
“Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
Tip from Bird Dog at Maggie’s Farm.
