So who’s running the country? (8-5-24)

01:00 How much does it matter that the president is senile?
02:00 How exactly would America be better off if Biden was not senile?
03:00 Secret Service ineptitude
11:00 Jeff Zients is likely the most important person in the world for the past 18 months, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc2RmnRJzSE
22:00 Why aren’t people making specific empirical rational cases for Muslims immigration? For African immigration?
27:00 Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff impregnated the nanny and got her fired from her teaching job
28:00 Doug Emhoff affair, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=156781
30:00 Dow drops over a thousand points
35:00 Only 19.8% Muslims 16-74 are in full-time employment in the UK due to racism and Islamophobia
40:00 The Kamala Harris Chapter In Peter Schweizer’s 2020 Book – Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=156744
44:00 Trump, Harris Face Economy, Mideast Perils; VP Close | Mark Halperin, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B6KPNFM754
46:00 David Bahnsen, https://thebahnsengroup.com/
52:00 “Brits Are FED UP With The Assault On British Culture!” | Reform UK’s Ben Habib Slams UK Immigration, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htdsb5lT2wE
1:04:20 Riots: ‘If we PRETEND this is about the far-right, this will ESCALATE,’ warns Matt Goodwin, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqR_LfkD07E
1:19:00 Democrats fear Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff have not been properly vetted

Posted in America | Comments Off on So who’s running the country? (8-5-24)

The Under News: Democrats worry Kamala was never properly vetted

Either the Trump campaign has deliberately turned incompetent the past two weeks with their lack of a clear line of attack on Kamala Harris, or they have the material to blow up Kamala Harris’s presidential aspirations, and they’re waiting until after the Democratic convention to unleash it. I think the latter.

The most likely thing to sink her will be revelations about her corruption in California (her unwillingness to prosecute her donors and her husband’s clients).

Mark Halperin says today: “The question of the vetting of the vice-president herself. A point I’ve made here repeatedly: People assume that if you’ve run for state-wide office and run, that if you’ve been a senator or a vice-president, then you’ve been vetted at a level sufficient that there are no more surprises coming. We saw over the weekend that’s not true. Is there more information about her coming out? There’s deep concern at high levels of the Democratic party that there will be and there could be enormous implications.”

“As President Trump points out, it wasn’t that long ago when not just the press, but President Biden privately, President Obama privately, believed that she was not up to the task of beating Donald Trump.”

“This [VP conflict and perhaps the Doug Emhoff impregnating the nanny story and getting her fired] has opened up negativity. This has resurfaced doubts about her – doubts about her judgment and her ability to make tough decisions and dealing under pressure. The story about her husband over the weekend. The reality is that she has never been vetted at the level she’s being vetted now.”

“What has [Kamala] done that is as bad as what Donald Trump has done? Donald Trump is [a survivor]… The question in the minds of some Democrats is how is she going to handle the pressure, the spotlight, the tension, the focus on her personal life if additional things are revealed. One of the concerns that Democrats have had about her in the Biden White House is her ability to handle things under pressure.”

“This Doug Emhoff story could end up being nothing in this race and it could end up being everything.”

Posted in Kamala Harris | Comments Off on The Under News: Democrats worry Kamala was never properly vetted

The Emhoff Affair: Decoding Elite Morality (8-4-24)

01:00 Michael Doran: How the Biden/Harris Policies Are Endangering Israel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orIFvkIGhw4
03:00 Doug Emhoff affair, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=156781
19:30 Kamala Harris’ Attack Strategy on ‘Weird’ JD Vance and Trump, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaxqEgyKhS0
25:30 NBC: Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff highlights how men can help in the fight for abortion rights
39:00 CNN: Second gentleman Doug Emhoff on his Jewish heritage and fighting antisemitism
48:00 Covid and voting rule changes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b2rxBQDxIs
58:30 If Books Could Kill: Hillbilly Elegy, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-news-re-release-hillbilly-elegy/id1651876897?i=1000662457355
1:01:00 Israel waits for Iran’s attack
1:12:50 Kip joins to talk about dating Tens
1:32:00 Stephen J James joins to talk about the UK’s right-wing riots
1:54:00 Donna Jones expresses understanding of UK rioters, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-police-crime-commissioner-statement-riots-b2590879.html
2:24:00 Times: ‘There will be a knock on the door’ policing minister warns rioters after Southport stabbings
2:37:00 Times: Riot chaos across the country shows ‘dissatisfaction’ with the government
2:58:00 TalkTV: “People Like Starmer Brought The Riots To The UK” | Is Britain A Tinderbox?
3:06:45 Glib Medley joins
3:09:00 Daniel Penny will stand trial this fall in Jordan Neely’s subway chokehold death, judge rules, https://abc7ny.com/daniel-penny-jordan-neely-motion-denied-subway-chokehold-death/14548441/
3:44:00 TalkTV: “Riots By Local Muslim Population”
3:48:00 Islamic Terror, Revolutionary War and the Development of International Humanitarian Law, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155888

Show transcript.

Podnotes AI generated show summary: I’m on standby for Iran’s potential attack on Israel and obsessively checking Twitter for updates. The latest is that an attack may happen tomorrow. A new perspective suggests the Biden administration doesn’t want Israel to retaliate against Hezbollah and Iran due to a deal made with progressives to support Joe Biden.

Iran funded Hamas’ October 7 massacre in Israel and supplied Hezbollah with missiles, causing thousands of Israelis to relocate from northern regions. Following Israel’s assassination of two key Iranian-backed leaders, we’re left wondering what comes next and how this reflects on U.S. foreign policy under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Michael Doran, a former official in George W. Bush’s administration, offered insight into the situation by drawing parallels with past political maneuvers within the Democratic Party – specifically when Obama influenced the primary elections favoring Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders.

The current energy policies are intertwined with foreign policy decisions regarding Iran due to America’s need for oil amidst restrictions on carbon energy projects globally imposed by the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, Doug Emhoff admitted to an affair with his nanny who became pregnant but did not have the baby; however, it’s unclear if she had an abortion or put up the child for adoption. Despite this knowledge beforehand, Kamala Harris highlighted abortion as a central issue in her campaign while putting Emhoff at its forefront – raising questions about their approach given his personal history conflicting with public advocacy.

In contrast to those who talk extensively about Jewish values without practicing them seriously like Orthodox Jews do quietly through actions rather than words; Steve Sailer speculates why then-Single Doug Emhoff was available despite being successful – because he impregnated his kids’ teacher/nanny which affected his first marriage outcome relatedly impacting Kamala Harris’ stance on abortion politics today.

Lastly, media coverage skews towards certain narratives while avoiding uncomfortable questions such as Shapiro potentially being sidelined as VP choice due to perceived anti-Semitism among Democrats compared to Republicans where outrage would ensue otherwise.

Doctors and nurses don’t have more moral authority on abortion than plumbers or landscapers. M has been discussing the impact of men’s actions with friends and his son, including those who impregnate women of lower status. For example, a teacher at Willow School in C city was fired for getting pregnant by a man she had an affair with.

Adam Smith noted in “The Wealth of Nations” that the upper classes can commit vices without severe consequences, unlike the lower class. Middle-class kids might experiment with rap music, sex, pornography, and drugs without ruining their lives; however, these same behaviors could be devastating for less privileged individuals.

Journalists delayed reporting on Doug Emhoff’s affair where he fathered a child with his nanny due to non-disclosure agreements protecting powerful individuals like him who push agendas such as abortion rights while personal misconduct remains hidden.

Multicultural societies enable elites to form alliances and maintain power. However, if people find common ground and unite, they might replace the elite. Sam Francis didn’t see himself as fringe but as a voice for a significant social movement in America, one that could awaken a united populace.

Donald Trump doesn’t often speak of such unity, but there’s an underlying belief in it among conservatives who value civil rights and reject liberal revolutions from the past 60 years. Conservatives believe in adhering to an external social order while liberals create meaning through individual autonomy; conservatives follow duty whereas liberals pursue happiness.

Amy Wax notes that rational liberals aren’t convinced by conservative concerns over societal erosion. To be right-wing is to conform to established morals and resist changes like same-sex marriage based on vague notions of unraveling society – notions which liberals dismiss as outdated.

A left-wing podcast called “If Books Could Kill” offers insightful critiques with humor even for those who disagree ideologically. They discuss J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy,” challenging its premise that cultural decay leads to poverty rather than economic factors alone.

In Israel, tensions rise with potential attacks from Iran or proxies after cross-border strikes involving Hezbollah and Lebanon occur. As violence escalates with rockets reaching central Israel and casualties mount in Gaza due to airstrikes targeting Hamas facilities disguised as civilian buildings like hospitals and schools, protests break out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding peace negotiations.

Elites oppose Netanyahu’s government despite being affluent because they seek differentiation from the masses through unique moral perspectives—this creates tension between traditional values held by many Israelis and the progressive ideals promoted by their leaders.

Conservatives feel culturally oppressed not because they represent most people but because they believe they would without liberal elite influence eroding traditional values like sexual discipline—a challenge amplified within multicultural societies where alternatives are more visible.

Kip joins the show to discuss dating a Ten: I don’t recall her ever doing anything normal. She would do odd things, like covering me with a pillow in the living room, surrounded by people, and start touching me intimately. To her, that was love; it meant we had to rush to the bedroom immediately. That’s how she understood affection.

My only experience dating a 10 woman made me realize caution is needed when wishing for such relationships. They can be overwhelming unless you’re equally intense about intimacy – which isn’t ideal because interest often fades quickly even with attractive partners.

Luke: Women who are adventurous in bed tend to have chaotic lives outside of it too. There was one exception: a high-functioning executive who was wild in private yet successful professionally.

The idea that dysfunctional relationships reflect our own issues makes sense since we attract what we are. I’ve noticed this pattern throughout my life; I never ended up with someone more functional than myself because they’d see through me after just one date.

As for preferences, I’m torn between wanting an angelic mother for my kids and someone seductive for myself – but finding both traits in one person seems nearly impossible.

Stephen J. James joins the show to discuss the riots in the UK.

Addressing civil unrest related to immigration policies in the UK reveals deep-seated community frustrations and inequalities that could lead to government action or further escalations if not addressed properly.

Donna Jones, chair of the Hampshire Police Crime Commissioners, released a statement acknowledging political issues that need addressing. She removed it hours later. Despite poor writing, she highlighted citizens’ concerns that the government must address. However, Prime Minister insisted these are criminal acts to be stopped.

Jones holds significant influence and her public stance suggests elite support for rioters could grow. These aren’t fictional grievances; they’re based on real frustrations likely to prompt more elite voices like hers.

I’ve confirmed via DM and Google searches that Jones’s tweet was genuine. Many elites share her views but fear speaking out due to potential consequences. Eventually, civil pressures may give way to truth-telling as more join the cause if nothing changes.

Regarding football allegiances versus riot intensity, some argue once football season starts, riots will diminish since many British men prioritize their favorite clubs over politics or nationalism.

These riots feel different from previous ones; there’s an intense reaction from white communities not seen before in recent years. Live streams show violence by few but watched by many who support underlying reasons for unrest despite abhorring violence itself.

The BBC cut off a former detective chief superintendent mid-discussion about these events—mainstream media isn’t fully representing what’s happening on the ground.

Riots seem concentrated in northern areas facing deprivation and rapid demographic shifts post-COVID-19 which exacerbate local tensions around immigration and integration issues—a contrast with less affected southern regions.

Government decisions further fuel discontent: tax hikes announced alongside reduced winter allowances for elderly while funding security for mosques is perceived as preferential treatment towards immigrants over locals’ needs—an example of why people might see rioters as patriots acting out of desperation rather than malice.

Social platforms like Twitter have become key sources of information during such times despite risks of misinformation potentially stoked by foreign interests aiming at social destabilization within the UK—highlighting complex dynamics between free speech benefits and societal order challenges.

Keir Starmer: Our current priority is to address the criminal activities, ensuring those arrested face justice. Despite a tragic week marked by violence and public disorder nationwide, I commend the police for their exceptional work. The incidents have caused injuries among officers, who deserve our thoughts as they strive to maintain safety.

No, we haven’t lost control of the country. There’s been misinformation on social media that has fueled unrest following a stabbing incident in Southport. In response to far-right groups causing chaos across several cities and injuring officers, over 100 people have been detained.

The government believes immigration benefits the country by providing necessary workers and upholding human rights commitments. However, not everyone agrees with this liberal perspective.

Prime Minister Starmer has promised full support for police against extremists spreading hate. Dame Diana Johnson emphasized that all rioters would be held accountable regardless of background.

In Liverpool and other cities affected by riots sparked after three girls were tragically killed in Southport last Monday, cleanup operations are underway. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper assured strong police action supported by courts ready to handle cases swiftly.

There’s widespread dissatisfaction with how concerns about immigration pressures are being addressed—or ignored—by those in power. The recent violence reflects deep-seated issues within society that require dialogue and systemic changes rather than suppression or dismissal of legitimate grievances regarding rapid societal shifts.

Immigration has been a sensitive topic since World War II, leading to suppressed discussions and eventually eruptive debates. The public needs accurate information about legal processes for immigration and the dangers of illegal entry. Political promises on immigration have been broken, fueling distrust in politics.

Recent violence in Southport, including three young girls’ deaths and riots at a mosque, shocked the nation. Journalist Matthew Syed visited Southport and found a community united against violence but also optimistic about rebuilding.

Amidst this turmoil, there’s debate over labeling rioters as far-right extremists versus acknowledging them as ordinary citizens reacting to overwhelming immigration changes. Some believe that addressing these underlying issues may require significant policy shifts.

Glib Medley joins: In New York City, despite challenges like homelessness and crime on subways, locals use street smarts to stay safe. Discussions about red-pilled topics are delicate but do occur among concerned citizens who feel their safety is compromised by current policies.

I used to enjoy listening to local music stations in the countryside, but when I moved to the city 10 years ago, radio faded from my life. Recently during Covid, I tuned back in only to find it repetitive and irrelevant.

I’ve been exploring podcasts and YouTube shows lately. Some help me sleep; others are just for good taste. My current focus is advanced yoga classes and walking about five or six miles a day with barefoot shoes – maybe I’ll get sponsored one day.

As for anger management, subway delays can be frustrating, but overall my temper is under control. When asked about Joe Biden’s civility signs before his election, it seemed clear beforehand but media coverage shifted drastically post-debate.

The liberal media lives in a bubble creating its own myths; politics becomes almost religious for some on the left. Kamala Harris doesn’t excite much buzz here despite her looks at 59; she’s carried by the media’s will rather than substance.

Regarding antisemitism discussions among Democrats versus Republicans: It’s ironic given how much Jewish support they receive financially yet there’s talk of whether America could handle a Jewish Vice President.

Personal growth into calmness over outrage likely came from ditching TV/radio and aging out of hormonal anger triggers. The pandemic stripped away rights we took for granted – that topic isn’t something I care to discuss though.

In New York City, violent anti-Semitic attacks seem mostly non-white on white crime while Antifa protests target businesses like real estate developers accused of gentrification using anti-Zionist rhetoric as cover.

Newspaper reading has declined in favor of eavesdropping insightful conversations in coffee shops where you learn more about society than mainstream news would reveal. Social media has cut into book reading although commuting reintroduced it somewhat; still better atmosphere reading than phone scrolling on subways where interactions are rare except occasional tourist encounters or brief exchanges with fellow passengers like complimenting a mother managing her child well amidst crowded conditions.

Back then, local radio filled my days with music until moving to the city made it fade away—until Covid brought me back briefly. Nowadays podcasts might send me off to sleep while yoga keeps me active—I walk miles daily hoping those comfy barefoot shoes earn

In Judaism, life is paramount and trumps all laws except three. In crises, Jewish teachings urge action to save lives. Amidst global unrest, like the recent turmoil in Sun Mh., it’s clear that violence undermines peaceful protests and gives authorities an excuse to dismiss genuine grievances.

The public has been ignored for too long. Kier’s speech failed to address this, blaming issues on the far right instead of acknowledging widespread discontent. The term “far right” loses meaning if overused; centrism shifts leftward while online platforms offer unfiltered perspectives absent from regulated UK media.

Brexit revealed citizens’ frustrations with wage suppression, sovereignty loss, and open borders—issues still unresolved eight years later. Government responses have seemed dismissive rather than receptive to these concerns.

Current immigration rates are altering UK demographics significantly—a concern not rooted in racism but in a desire for cultural preservation amidst rapid change. Middle-class detachment exacerbates tensions as they remain insulated from the impacts felt by less privileged communities facing service degradation across healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

These societal strains manifest violently at times—in London riots or community upheavals linked to international events—which can trace origins back to tolerated Pro Palestine Marches that set a precedent for unchecked protestation.

Misinformation fuels such unrest alongside selective outrage driven by geopolitical biases. Meanwhile, international law increasingly favors non-state actors over established nations when addressing conflicts—an imbalance needing urgent discussion by governments worldwide.

Posted in America, England, Iran, Israel | Comments Off on The Emhoff Affair: Decoding Elite Morality (8-4-24)

Harm Reduction

Wikipedia notes: “The harm principle holds that the actions of individuals should be limited only to prevent harm to other individuals.”

I’ve loved some of my cars and I’ve felt like they were an extension of me. Any harm to these vehicles felt like a harm to me.

Wikipedia notes:

Harm reduction, or harm minimization, refers to a range of intentional practices and public health policies designed to lessen the negative social and/or physical consequences associated with various human behaviors, both legal and illegal. Harm reduction is used to decrease negative consequences of recreational drug use and sexual activity without requiring abstinence, recognizing that those unable or unwilling to stop can still make positive change to protect themselves and others.

In his work in progress, Conservative Claims of Cultural Oppression: On the Nature and Origins of Conservaphobia, Rony Guldmann writes:

* Given that the symbolic realism is invariably intertwined with the biological functioning of a symbolic animal, liberalism’s efforts to mark off a sphere of “real” harm-tracking morality from the realm of airy cultural grievances is necessarily parochial, the product of an ethnocentrism that cannot recognize how liberals and conservatives partake of a shared humanity one side of which liberalism discounts.

* We now believe our freedom ends only at others’ noses. But pre-moderns saw things, and had to see things, very differently. That deviant conduct created no tangible harms and transpired out of sight was not dispositive because facially private misconduct was a transgression, not only against others’ sensibilities, but also against the order of things. Given that everyone’s place in this order depended on its continued sustenance, a transgression against it was a transgression against all.

* Steven Smith observes that the harm-principle—according to which the state may only regulate harmful as opposed to merely immoral conduct—has served as “a trusty weapon in the arsenal of liberalism.”22Though conservative defenders of liberty-restricting legislation have sometimes acceded to the principle’s premises and emphasized the harmful “secondary effects” of facially harmless conduct—e.g., pornography’s contribution to urban blight—these arguments have generally been ineffectual, and are also suspected as disingenuous rationalizations for moralistic motivations. Thus, in practice the harm-principle has nearly always yielded liberal prescriptions.

* Much of the legislation that liberals would veto under the harm-principle as unduly coercive can be defended as a response to the “psychic harm” and “communal harm” which the targeted conduct obviously causes. After all, “psychic distress is a kind of mental pain” and “is plainly something that people prefer to avoid.”24There is thus an obvious sense in which conduct that causes it—like the consumption or dissemination of pornography—is “harmful” and falls within the ambit of the harm-principle, irrespective of secondary effects. The same holds true of communal harm: “If people get satisfaction or happiness from living in a particular kind of community, then conduct that subverts that kind of community and thus reduces such happiness inflicts a kind of ‘harm.’

* The triumph of the harm principle is a merely rhetorical triumph, however. For liberals have by “sleight of hand” engaged in “rampant equivocation, trading on more ordinary senses of ‘harm’ for rhetorical purposes while importing technical or artificial conceptions of ‘harm’ in order to secure their desired conclusions.” They have “rigged” the concept of harm by exploiting its commonsense “subject-oriented” meaning—which includes psychic and communal harms—in order to establish the harm-principle’s commonsense rhetorical appeal while then narrowing its application to physical invasions of others’ autonomy when dealing with specific controversies, thus securing liberal outcomes. Liberals are thus “like people who insist that an issue should be resolved by democratic vote while working behind the scenes to disenfranchise groups who might be inclined to vote against their cause.” Their professions to the contrary notwithstanding, liberals do impose their values on others, because their tendentious conception of harm disguises the “quintessentially illiberal practice of treating some people’s ideas of the good life as less worthy,” concealing “how harm principle rhetoric actually works to obfuscate the deeper issues, to conceal real injuries, and to marginalize some conceptions of the good life.”

* Amy Wax observes that rationalistic liberals are unmoved and unimpressed by social conservatives’ “[v]ague premonitions of erosion or unraveling” of the social order, which they dismiss as “an inadequate basis for resisting changes that satisfy immediate needs and urgent desires.” And this is because they understand these vague premonitions as symptoms of a lingering pre-modern sensibility, which cannot be allowed interfere with modern “fulfillment.” Hence Justice Blackmun’s dissent in Bowers v. Hardwick, where he argued that homosexuality in and of itself “involves no real interference with the rights of others, for the mere knowledge that other individuals do not adhere to one’s value system cannot be a legally cognizable interest.” This is how moral opposition to homosexuality must be conceived within a strategic perspective—as mere Hobbesian “annoyance” rather than some disequilibrium in the order of things. Thus understood, the desire to regulate others’ unobtrusive personal conduct out of concern for the “moral fiber of society” is a disingenuous gambit to arrogate state power in the service of merely personal preferences.

* If the desire to place a crèche on public property is a purely symbolic aspiration, then so too is the desire to remove it.

* What some women will dismiss as harmless sexual innuendo acknowledging the basic fact of animal attraction may be experienced by feminists as a denial of their personhood, a degrading fall from the lofty heights of that personhood into merely animal passions.

* [Dan Kahan writes in The Cognitively Illiberal State:] “We moderns are no less disposed to believe that moral transgressions threaten societal harm. This perception is not, as is conventionally supposed, a product of superstition or unreasoning faith in authority. Rather it is the predictable consequence of the limited state of any individual’s experience with natural and social causation, and the role that cultural commitments inevitably play in helping to compensate for this incompleteness in knowledge. What truly distinguishes ours from the premodern condition in this sense is not the advent of modern science; it is the multiplication of cultural worldviews, competition among which has generated historically unprecedented conflict over how to protect society from harm at the very same time that science has progressively enlarged our understandings of how our world works.”

Posted in Conservatives | Comments Off on Harm Reduction

Feminism vs Tradition

In his work in progress, Conservative Claims of Cultural Oppression: On the Nature and Origins of Conservaphobia, Rony Guldmann writes:

* For liberals’ concern with “substantive” equality inevitably draws them into the ambit of leftism, at which point they become no less willing to deploy state power to meddle with a wide array of social practices. Given that the “various maldistributions ”which concern liberals are only another name for what leftists call “social powers,” what get sold as limited correctives to isolated “kinks in the system” always harbor the seeds of leftist totalitarianism. Liberals claim to demand only a “level playing field.” But since there will always be another hither to undetected “maldistribution” waiting to be “discovered” by the anointed, liberalism must inevitably devolve into leftism, which is why conservatives often speak of “left-liberalism” or employ “liberalism” and “the left” interchangeably.

* Alan Kors writes that “[d]espite the talk of ‘celebrating’ diversity, colleges and universities do not, in fact, mean the celebration, deep study, and appreciation of evangelical, fundamentalist, Protestant culture; nor of traditionalist Catholic culture; nor of the gender roles of Orthodox Jewish or of Shiite Islamic culture; nor of black American Pentacostal culture; nor of assimilation; nor of the white, rural South. These are not ‘multicultural.’”86Just like diversity, “sensitivity” is a facially universalistic ideal that is unobjectionable in the abstract. But Kors observes that universities’ solicitude for diverse group identities does not extend to those who reject the dominant dispensation. Campus speech codes protect the sensibilities of left-wing students, but they allow these same students to label conservative blacks “Uncle Toms” and label anti-feminist women “mall chicks.” Students who believe homosexuality is sinful can be charged with harassing their gay and lesbian cohorts. But pro-choice students who surround a silent pro-life vigil and chant “Racist, sexist, antigay born-again bigots go away” are seen as engaged in protected speech. Liberals ask us to put ourselves in the shoes of the less fortunate, so Kors proposes the following thought-experiment:

“Imagine secular, skeptical, or leftist faculty and students confronted by a religious harassment code that prohibited “denigration” of evangelical or Catholic beliefs, or that made the classroom or campus a space where evangelical or Catholic students must be protected against feeling “intimidated,” offended,” or, by their own subjective experience, victims of a “hostile environment. Imagine a university of patriotic “loyalty oaths” where leftists were deemed responsible for the tens of millions of victims of communism, and where free minds were prohibited from creating a hostile environment for patriots, or from offending that “minority” of individuals who are descended from Korean or Vietnam War veterans. Imagine, as well, that for every “case” that became public, there were scores or hundreds of cases in which the “offender” or “victimizer,” desperate to preserve a job or gain a degree, accepted a confidential plea bargain that included a semester’s or a year’s reeducation in “religious sensitivity” or “patriotic sensitivity” seminars run by the university’s “Evangelical Center, “Patriotic Center,” or “Office of Religious and Patriotic Compliance.”

If an “Office of Religious and Patriotic Compliance” sounds sinister and totalitarian, we might instead envision a new regime of diversity training that encourages incoming college freshmen to examine their conservaphobic prejudices and overcome these to the extent possible in a conservaphobic culture. The goal would not be political indoctrination. This conservative-friendly diversity training wouldn’t call on liberal students to become conservative any more than standard diversity training calls on straight students to become gay. They need only explore their latent fears and biases in order to create a more tolerant atmosphere for all students. But liberals will not accept even this moderate solution. And this demonstrates to conservatives that they are unwilling to play by the same rules to which they hold others.

* radical feminists can treat the “social construction of gender” as established fact, and need not contend with the neuroscientists across campus who study the biological hard-wiring of sex differences. These scientists are not members of “the relevant discipline.” …unlike liberal academics, Christian fundamentalists do not have the privilege of exalting their own echo chambers as respected academic disciplines. Fundamentalists who ignore what scientists say about the evolution of human beings in general are disdained as anti-intellectual. But feminists who ignore what scientists say about the evolution of sex differences in particular are just being professional. Unlike fundamentalists, feminists have been culturally credentialed to disguise their hero-systems as disciplinary rigor. Having embraced the ethos of disengaged self-control and self-reflexivity, they have been credentialed as “the knowing, the knowledgeable, the reflexive and insightful,” and so they are allowed to invent their own intellectual rules.

* progressives have “undermined manliness, feminized your culture, elevated fretful safety and excessive caution into virtues instead of weaknesses.”106Following Lakoff, liberals will diagnose the conservative invocation of manliness as yet another symptom of Strict Father morality, for which strict gender differentiation and masculine strength are how one defends “Moral Order” against a threatening world. The Strict Father model, says Lakoff, “takes as background the view that life is difficult and that the world is fundamentally dangerous.” And as liberals see it, this background view is really a pretext for conservative authoritarianism, which is sold to the public as a solution to dangers that liberals in their fretful safety and excessive caution refuse to confront. By contrast, conservatives see manliness as an anti-authoritarian impulse, a force that disrupts rather than upholds established convention. Harvey Mansfield writes that whereas rational control “wants our lives to be bound by rules,” manliness “is dissatisfied with whatever is merely legal or conventional.” Whilst rational control “wants peace, discounts risk, and prefers role models to heroes,” manliness “favors war, likes risk, and admires heroes,” Manliness “seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk.” It “tends to be insistent and intolerant,” just as it is “steadfast…taking a stand, not surrendering, not allowing oneself to be determined by one’s context, not being adaptive or flexible.” Manliness must “must prove itself and do so before an audience.” It seeks “to be theatrical, welcomes drama, and wants your attention.” By contrast, rational control “prefers routine and doesn’t like getting excited” and therefore aims to keep manliness “unemployed by means of measures that encourage or compel behavior intended to be lacking in drama.” Manliness so conceived is the very antithesis of the buffered distance, a visceral rejection of its “ordering impulses.” It is most fundamentally a protest against the rationalizing forces of the modern world, against the peculiarly courtly rationality, which is what has made us “adaptive and flexible.” The liberal culture is unmanly because it is hostile, not only to actual contests of swords, but also to the entire range of virtues and identities which these once embodied—which is what the conservative celebration of manliness aims to resuscitate. Rather than pursuing the “new form of invulnerability” promised by the buffered distance, manliness embraces the vulnerability of the pre-modern dispensation, our exposure to the “anti-structure” that relativizes and destabilizes the conventional social world, revealing the precariousness of all merely human designs. As relative pre-moderns, conservatives are attuned to anti-structure—the inherent flux and fragility of all mortal things—as liberals are not, and this is why they think themselves more manly. This conception of manliness is part of what animates conservatives’ embrace of the free market, whose association with conservatism is not as obvious as it seems… These elements include the chaos, unpredictability, and insecurity of the pre-modern condition of porous selves opened out to anti-structure. These are what enable manliness and the anarchic will of free men. And it is these discounted values that imbue untrammeled laissez-faire with its existential resonance for conservatives. Laissez-faire symbolizes the anti-structure denied by the disciplines and repressions of the buffered identity, affirming our submersion in forces we do not control, our openness to powers that transcend our will and upset our designs. Liberals reject this openness as the relic of a barbarian past of less fortunate peoples, which they in their superior enlightenment have overcome.. Cold War conservatives looked upon the Soviet Union and the welfare state as “the ultimate symbols of cold Enlightenment rationalism,” by contrast with which the free market stood as “the embodiment of the romantic counter-Enlightenment.”

* Feminism is a struggle, not by all women against male patriarchs, but by an elite minority of powerful women against a majority of women who never felt compromised by traditional gender roles.

* Feminists now dismiss traditional gender roles as arbitrary. But it was feminists who first engineered these perceptions by enforcing a regime of coerced androgyny. The feminization of men, writes Graglia, was among “the seeds from which women’s discontent grew and which blossomed into the women’s movement.” Absent the support and encouragement of a masculine man, women naturally became disenchanted with a traditional female role—feminism’s ultimate objective. Their dissatisfaction here wasn’t just there waiting to be named by those who courageously spoke truth to power. Rather, it had to be created in order to socially vindicate the self-image of an elite minority of women. To this end, feminists have waged a largely victorious “war against the housewife,” employing any means necessary to denigrate her character, intelligence, and social status.

* While feminism claims to have liberated women from antiquated sexual ideologies that formerly subordinated them to patriarchy, it has in the process instituted a new sexual ideology that subordinates them to feminism itself, reconfiguring gender relations in order to socially vindicate feminist identities and discredit others. Women could never have been drawn into the feminist fold were they not first deracinated of their femininity, which is what feminism pursued. By cultivating a dissatisfaction it could then promise to relieve, feminism turned itself into a self-fulfilling prophesy, concealing all the manipulations by which it finally earned the grudging assent of women.

* what purports to be autonomous self-determination is in fact one historically constructed understanding of human agency among others. The “inner base area” of the buffered identity isn’t something that was lying there all along, albeit concealed underneath various collectivizing illusions, but the product of specific social forces which have conditioned the human organism into its present self-reflexivity. The buffered identity is an imposition for whose sake our “default” human dispositions must be tamed and disciplined. This affect show we see feminism. The subtraction account casts feminism as a revolt against the historical repression of female agency. But the mutation counter-narrative locates feminism as among the forces that created female agency (as understood by feminism). For feminism is merely another extension of modern liberalism’s disciplinary agenda. It was feminism that molded women into the ethos of disengaged self-control and self-reflexivity, repressing the “lax and disorganized folkways” of traditional femininity, integrating them into the extended chains of social interdependence presupposed by the buffered distance and symbolized by the careerwoman. Feminism claims to upholds respect for women’s personhood. But as John Gray notes, personhood is not the essence of humanity, but merely one of its masks. Persons “are only humans who have donned the mask that has been handed down in Europe over the past few generations, and taken it for their face.”

* gender feminists’ motivation is powerfully enhanced by the “faith that they are privy to revolutionary insights into the nature of knowledge and society.” This “inspires them with a missionary fervor unmatched by any other group in the contemporary academy.”110“An exhilarating feeling of momentousness,” she notes, “routinely surfaces at gender feminist gatherings,” as feminist theorists invoke Copernicus and Darwin to symbolize the importance of their own discoveries, basking in the “exhilaration of feeling themselves in the vanguard of a new consciousness.” Feminists are seeking to express, not merely a set of doctrines one might or might not accept, but, more fundamentally, a consciousness one might or might not attain. They understand themselves, not only as liberated from traditional expectations and stereotypes, but furthermore as special participants in a privileged epistemic and spiritual dispensation that affords them a special lucidity unavailable to women who stubbornly resist feminism.

* Indian practices “related to food, sex, clothing, and gender relations were almost always judged to be moral issues, not social conventions.” Unlike their American counterparts, Indian children did not assign any special status to harm-tracking morality or distinguish it from mutable social convention. For them, “the social order is a moral order.” These children “were not figuring out morality for themselves, based on the bedrock certainty that harm is bad.” Instead, they showed that “almost any practice could be loaded up with moral force.”

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