90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #2022

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

They Are Intolerant, Divisive, And Anti-Liberty — Call Them Leftists, Not Liberals

Freedom-loving Americans should not give leftists the power of being called ‘liberal.’ The term ‘leftist’ better describes their intolerance and desire to overthrow the established order.

Democrats have moved so far to the left in recent years that they should no longer be called “liberals,” unless the true liberals among them start to stand up to the leftists who have taken over. The term is misleading, giving the impression that Democrats support individual freedoms and accept people of different viewpoints, when increasingly they do not. The word “liberal” gives yet more power to those who seek to take more of our liberties.

Right-leaning publications often use the term “liberal” when “leftist” would be better. On the other hand, left-leaning newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times like to use the word “liberal” to describe their own illiberal political views. It obfuscates how Democrats and their media allies have become more extreme, supporting censorship, authoritarianism, and racial division: Twitter staff who denied conservatives their right to free speech and eagerly complied with censorship demands from the federal government were described by the Post as milquetoast “liberal employees.” MSNBC says those pushing the tyranny of wokeness are just naughty-sounding “liberal rascals.”

To see how so-called liberals view themselves, we can look at The New York Times review earlier this year of Michael Walzer’s book “What Does It Mean to Be Liberal?” The book concludes the word is “an adjective, describing a state of mind common to people who think of themselves as liberals: ‘open-minded, generous and tolerant,’” according to the review.

It’s almost laughable. Does “tolerant” describe people who try to “cancel” those of different views, shouting them down, encircling their homes, and calling them disparaging names? Is it “open-minded” to try to force people to use so-called preferred pronouns as part of a transgender agenda? Or to block or hide conservatives’ social media accounts? Crisis pregnancy centers have been firebombed. A Christian cake artist in Colorado is still defending his right not to make a cake that celebrates transgenderism. Conservative scholars have even been physically attacked on college campuses. Last week, students at Stanford University disrupted a conservative judge’s speech with heckling.

It’s correct that the dictionary defines “liberal” as “open-minded” and “broad-minded.” But that’s hardly the right word for people who do not tolerate conservatives’ views on Covid-19 policies, abortion, climate change, transgenderism, and much else — this despite the fact there’s a growing consensus that state-mandated lockdowns don’t work, and that plying children with cross-sex hormones and cutting off their body parts is bad for their physical and mental health.

Walzer notes that so-called liberals don’t always manage to achieve their aspirations to be open-minded and tolerant. The Times’ article acknowledges, “That’s the idea, anyway, but we live in a world in which the illiberal right — and increasingly the left — no longer accept difference as legitimate.” But the conflation here is a lie; the right isn’t pushing for censorship or shouting down campus speakers. And it’s not just a few extremists within the ranks but the leadership of the Democrats who are condoning intimidation tactics and destruction of property — Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer among them.

Democrats Headed Further Leftward

As the Times notes, the left is “increasingly” intolerant. Part of why “liberal” no longer works to describe Democrats is the party has moved leftward, as many have noted, including The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, comedian and commentator Bill Maher, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in her State of the Union response.

Since at least 2020, Noonan wrote, Democrats “have aligned with or allowed themselves to be associated with … the identity politics-wokeness regime. (It’s amazing we still don’t have an agreed upon word or phrase that fully captures this program.)” That regime consists of transgenderism, climate alarmism, and so-called anti-racism. “The Democrats are the party of the left. Progressive pathologies morph into Democratic ideologies, tagging the party as radical. Why do the Democrats allow...

Visage à trois #1326

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #985

Leave Them Kids Alone

'Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation'

A teacher testified before the Arizona state Senate education committee earlier this month and claimed that she and her colleagues knew better than parents what books belonged on school library shelves. "I have a master's degree," she said. "What do the parents have?" In the video, now widely circulated on Twitter, she continued, "The purpose of public education is not to teach only what parents want [students] to be taught. It is to teach them what society needs them to be taught."

Parents were sidelined when, at the onset of the pandemic, they began raising concerns about the long-term impacts of school closures and mask mandates. After being branded as racist bigots for wanting schools to reopen—most infamously by the Chicago Teachers Union—we now know that half of American students are one grade level behind in at least one subject area because of school closures.

The silver lining of virtual learning was that it gave parents unprecedented access to their kids' classrooms. Parents began seeing just how far divisive race ideology had permeated, through "antiracist" math lessons, discussions on "whiteness" and race-based privilege and oppression, and history teachers telling students that America was founded on racism. Parents sounded the alarm bells, and they were again mocked for doing so. Such concepts, according to "the experts," are only taught in graduate school.

We know, to a much greater extent than in March 2020, that divisive ideas about race and gender are pervasive across our institutions—K-12 and higher education, medicine, the media. And in the face of endless pushback, three years later, moms and dads are still fighting because they know what's at stake: their children.

Karol Markowicz, a New York Post columnist, and Bethany Mandel, who writes a column for Fox News and edits children's books, rightly dedicate most of Stolen Youth to discussing how divisive race ideology—which they call "critical race theory" or "wokeism"—crept into public education and government responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

While parents were told to "listen to the science," racial justice protesters were applauded for gathering en masse because medical experts deemed that systemic racism posed a greater threat to public health than the coronavirus pandemic. Hypocritically, the authors note, the national focus on racial disparities completely excluded the challenges that students, including minority students, faced during pandemic lockdowns. Black and Hispanic students remained online for longer periods of time and sustained greater academic setbacks in math and reading early on in the pandemic. The push for "equity," even in schools, overlooked these students. Further, the "equitable" practices implemented in schools often hurt the very students they claimed to serve. Markowicz (who, in full disclosure, is a board member of my employer, Parents Defending Education) notes a case in Seattle Public Schools where a shift toward ethnic-studies-focused math education actually reduced performance rates for black students in the district. But those who wanted to reopen schools—and preserve quality education for all students—were the bad guys.

After witnessing what was happening in schools, parents and some reporters outside of the mainstream began uncovering divisive race and gender ideology in other institutions. The Disney corporation is a prime example. Last year, its executives admonished the passage of Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill, which banned classroom discussions about sexual orientation and "gender identity" in kindergarten through third grade. More disturbing was a subsequently released video in which a producer touted her "not-at-all-secret gay agenda," which included "adding queerness" in children's movies wherever she wanted, "and no one was trying to stop [her]."

Even worse, activists have embedded race and gender ideology into the field of medicine: Medical schools now require applicants to submit essays about their experiences with "implicit bias" or their dedication to social justice-focused political activities and "equitable patient care." America's future doctors are being selected because of their commitment to "equity," not for their academic abilities.

Throughout these chapters, Markowicz and Mandel draw numerous parallels between American leftists and the "thought police" under Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. But the shifts from divisive race ideology in schools to Hitler Youth, and from Scholastic's books to Mao's and Stalin's culture ministers, can be a bit abrupt. Noting relevant points in American history may have better served the reader than drawing broad parallels to history. Conservatives rightly hate when the left throws around terms like "Nazi" and "genocide." While this book doesn't go nearly as far, it's worth approaching historical comparisons with caution.

Rounding out Stolen Youth, Markowicz and Mandel lead the reader to the next frontier in the parental rights battle: transgender medicine. As recent revelations about the gender clinic at the St. Louis Children's Hospital indicate, the authors were right on target. Last month, Jamie Reed, a former staffer at the St. Louis gender clinic, blew the whistle on the untested and unsound treatments the transgender clinic provides for children—including puberty-blocking drugs and hormones. As Reed reported, and Markowicz echoes in the chapter, the experts entrusted to the care of children admit that, when it comes to pediatric transgender medicine, they "are building the plane while [they] are flying it." This is no way to...