Links - 24th November 2024 (2 - General Wokeness)

Shawn Mendes says he’s ‘just figuring his sexuality out’ in heartfelt statement
This is a big news story because...

White children playing Monopoly should be taught racial privilege - "Parents of white children should give them more money and allow them to spend less time in jail time when playing Monopoly to teach them about racial privilege, councils have advised. White players could also be given a 'head start on buying property' to convey their racial privilege while nursery rhymes such as Baa Baa Black Sheep should be avoided as they are 'steeped in white culture'. Called 'how to raise anti-racist children' the guidance was drawn up in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests for Barbie manufacturers Mattel and has since been shared by local councils in England. The document, co authored by a BBC education consultant, tells parents it will help them 'raise a new generation of allies with the tools needed to facilitate change'. It suggests talking about the issues when children are playing, adding activities such as 'bike riding, hiking, baking, story reading or playing with figures' were 'all good spaces for discussion'. The guidance says books and dolls which represent Black People are the most effective tools to use in role playing, storytelling and to provoke conversations... The document has been shared as a parenting resource by councils including in Southampton, Leicestershire County Council and in London."
Clearly rigging the game will make it more enjoyable

Lee Fang on X - "Dems can reform w/one easy step: abolish racism. I mean that seriously. Every racial caucus, every gender-segregated club, every id politics institution. There are hundreds of Dem mini-orgs defined by crude stereotypes that need to go. Be a party about ideas, not identity."
i/o on X - "The modern Democratic Party is the only political party in my lifetime that has EXPLICITLY supported and even celebrated policies and programs of OVERT institutional racism against certain groups (e.g., affirmative action, DEI, pay-outs, set-asides)."

Thread by @PaulAnleitner on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I don't study politics, but I do study culture, and here are some of the signs that a cultural shift has been brewing for years in America that most of the professional political analysts just completely missed.  Some of these may seem absurd, but hear me out. 🧵 We'll start with this one:
The Popular Success of Top Gun: Maverick
After the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests and rioting in 2020, it seemed to many in the intelligentsia that “culturally relevant” films needed to directly address DEI or systemic race issues to find wide appeal.  Top Gun: Maverick instead leaned heavily on classic modernist heroism themes, embodied by a white, male protagonist (Tom Cruise as Maverick) who is a traditional, rule-breaking figure dedicated to honor, duty, and meritocracy.  Maverick represented more traditional American values of meritocracy over aristocracy amid what was supposed to be a cultural revolution intended to set up a new inverted aristocracy.
The Mass Cultural Influence of "Anti-Woke" Comedians
While it seems that many of the political talking heads had no idea who Tony Hinchcliffe was until his Puerto Rico joke at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, Hinchcliffe's show "Kill Tony" is one of the most watched/listened to podcasts in America.  His show has sold out Madison Square Garden and other major arenas numerous times, and he is just one of many popular comedians of major cultural influence that completely subverts the traditional "legacy media" routes for fame and influence.  Hinchcliffe, Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and others have far more influence with everyday Americans (especially men) than the old comedic vanguard of Saturday Night Live. None of these guys would get along well with Franklin Graham or any of the older cultural bastions of the Republican party, but their total disdain for what became known as "wokism" and complete disregard for any sense of politically correct language appeals to many working-class men.
Major Corporations Making Cuts to DEI Programs
After 2020, major corporations made concerted efforts to increase funding and attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI).  By 2024, we began to see corporations making cuts to those same programs.  Only one candidate and party was running on being the anti-DEI option. If people were beginning to reject these initiatives, it would make some sense that their views would also be expressed at the ballot box.
Enrollment Surges at K-12 Christian Schools
If you talk to just about anyone who works in a private, Christian school, the post-COVID spike in enrollment has been unprecedented.  But it wasn't just that many Christian schools found ways to provide more in-person education during the COVID years, it was that many families who weren't even explicitly professing Christians were looking for educational environments that simply weren't teaching experimental, progressive ideologies on gender and sexuality.  It is hard for those in coastal, urban areas to understand how big of an issue has been for most families living in the heartland of America.
The Star Wars Wars
Since Disney's release of its divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2017, Star Wars has been embroiled in an online culture war. Silly as it may sound to some, Star Wars has become an important myth in our culture and challenges to mythos means challenges to cultural power and influence.  One faction of the Star Wars War wanted the storytelling to reflect more progressive, postmodern, and postcolonial values.  The most quintessential iteration of this vision for Star Wars was the recent series The Acolyte. The divide between professional reviewers and average fans was emblematic of the cultural divide between the intelligentsia and middle America.  The Acolyte was canceled, and all of its merchandise was scrubbed from Disney's online store. It appeared that this particular faction had lost the Star Wars War.
The Metamodern Resurgence of Creed
I talked about this ad nauseam last year when I became the guy who predicted the resurgence of Creed before it happened, so I won't repeat all my talking points here.  But you can't understand the metamodern shift unless you get "vibes."  Our cultural vibe shifted to Creed, so if you ask yourself which party seems to give the most pro-Creed vibes, it's a pretty easy answer.
Finally-  If you can learn to read culture as a student of cultural texts, you won't need political polls.  If you find this stuff interesting or helpful, feel free to follow.  🧵over."

iamyesyouareno on X - "“Hey straight white men, pass the power!” Anti-White billboards seen across Britain were tax-funded. Complete absurdity."
Image mirror

Meme - Will Tanner @Will_Tanner_1: "The really troubling and worrisome thing is how widespread and normalized this sort of Radio Rwanda-style rhetoric is"
"Jemele Hill says 'white men' are the 'worst thing in America' "Maybe them being the worse thing in America for decades has its consequences.""

Meme - "WHY ARE PEOPLE USING EXAMPLES FROM FICTION FOR THE "WAR ON WOMEN" *Handmaid's Tale*
WHEN WE HAVE REAL LIFE EXAMPLES? *Women in Burqas*"

Jonatan Pallesen on X - "Perspective from Denmark: In 2024, a vote for Republicans is a vote for what makes the United States uniquely great.
1. Freedom of Speech. The U.S. has freedom of speech from the First Amendment. This strong protection is unusual throughout history and across the world. Even we liberal Danes do not have the same degree of freedom of speech.  Many Democrats today are against this right. For example, Tim Waltz has said that there is no freedom of speech for "hate speech" and "misinformation".   But freedom of speech is useless if it only applies to speech you agree with. And as we have seen, the terms hate speech and misinformation can be easily bend to include true statements that people find disagreeable.  Government-imposed censorship / "moderation" is against fundamental principles of the American project, and today Republicans are the stewards of the First Amendment.
2. Democratic control of immigration.  It's true that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants. But it is also true that a nation needs borders. If too many people immigrate too fast from culturally distant places, that will change the country too much, and you risk losing what makes U.S. uniquely great.  As it is, the voters have decided what they consider the correct balance. There are democratically decided rules for legal immigration.   But there should not on top of this be mass illegal immigration. This is changing the country too fast, against the will of the citizens.  Democrats have shown themselves to be far more supportive of / complacent about mass illegal immigration, both in their words and in results.
3.  Meritocracy   All men are created equal. The focus on individual merit is strong in the U.S., and is one of the things that has made the country great.   Today, the policies of Democrats do not treat people as equal. DEI policies explicitly discriminate against White people and Asians.  Incredibly, Kamala Harris has suggested campaign policies with descriptions of government transfers specifically to Blacks and Hispanics. While the immediate impact of these policies may not be significant, the principle is very important. It's a fundamentally un-American idea to give rewards based not only on merit, but on race or ethnicity."

wanye on X - "One of the best Adam Carolla rants of all time is the one where he talks about the NRA’s approach to gun regulation by analogy to smoking regulations. First they said the smokers had to have their own section and the smokers said, yeah, that seems reasonable. So they went into their own section. Then they said, no, we’re closing down the smoking section, you’ve gotta go smoke over at the bar. And the smokers said, OK, sure, I guess. And they went over to the bar. Then they said, no, actually, you have to smoke outside. We’ve made a little section for you. And again the smokers acquiesced. Then they came back to the smokers and said, you know, actually, we’re going to need you to move 25 feet down the block.  But the NRA just says, “fuck you” to the first request. We’re not gonna argue about the second request, because we’re never going to get to the second request. We’re gonna keep fighting about the first request for all time."
wanye on X - "This is, by the way, why it's extremely important that we keep the Electoral College. It's useful to keep the argument right there, centered right on the same silly debates we've been having since I was a kid, so that radicals aren't given an opportunity to move on to the next thing."

Vivek Ramaswamy on X - "A young Kamala Harris voter in Pennsylvania told me earlier today she can’t get ahead in America because of “systemic racism.” Here’s what I told her: the more you think of yourself as a victim, the more likely you are to become one."
Evil (Political) Scientist on X - "The meme is real: if you listen for a little over a minute you'll hear she doesn't actually understand the simple counterfactual question, "where would you rather live than America?" We shouldn't have to pretend to take these people seriously"

Thread by @Will_Tanner_1 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "What America must solve to restore its greatness is the outright anti-white hatred spewed by the near entirety of the left  Below, e.g., a Black Women For Harris leader spews hate that would sound radical coming from Mugabe  This Zimbabweification is ubiquitous and must end 🧵👇
In case you think the Mugabe comparison is overblown, below are examples of the sort of thing he said  Is that any different than Yale proudly inviting a black psychiatrist on campus to tell students she “had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any White person"?  I think not. Nor is it much different than the constant articles published in regime media about how awful white people are. And this sort of hate is far from being solely an American problem; the same is even true in England, the land ostensibly of the English  Below, a supposed Conservative, James Cleverly, attacks a British political party for ostensibly being composed of British people...as if it is wrong for Anglo-Saxons to rule the land of Anglo-Saxons  Of course, the only reason for such sentiment is hatred of whites. You saw the same thing in Scotland, with its former Prime Minister yelling about how much he hates that governmental positions in Scotland are filled by whites, Scots...in the land named for Scots  So, whether it's "conservatives" yelling about the presence of Angles in the government of Angleland or some bizarre, spiteful politician in Scotland screaming about Scots presence in the government of the Scots' Land, the hat the native population for being white
So, our whole lives, we're bombarded with Radio Rwanda-style hatred of the sort shown in the DEI meeting below. Whether it's Australians being lectured on how racist they are for carving civilization out of a barren continent, Americans being lectured constantly by their corporations and schools on why they're the devil himself because of their color, or English protesters being imprisoned for saying that England should be kept English, or South Africans being made the victims of unspeakable crimes the government doesn't even pretend to investigate, the Anglosphere members are bombarded with propaganda that is blatantly hostile to their very existence. And it should be noted that this isn't an exclusively Anglosphere problem, though that's what I tend to focus on. The continent gets its dose of it too. Importantly, the root of it is always the same. It's race communism
Whether farmland confiscation in Zimbabwe or DEI meetings in an American cubicle farm, the motivation is the same. They think "oppressors" (almost always normal white people) should suffer in the physical, spiritual, and economic realms, and that whatever value can be extracted from them should be handed to the "oppressed" (almost always blacks). This is why the Conservative Party feels comfortable denouncing British people for existing in Britain all while collaborating with Labor to turn England into a Paki-filled favela. It's why the Kamala campaign's main message is that white people are evil. It's why towns like Charloi, PA and villages in Germany are being flooded with violent migrants. It's why the anti-white racism of the sort @realJeremyCarl wrote about in "The Unprotected Class" is so common. It's race communism all the way down
But the key to solving all of that is in America. We, for better or worse, are the global hegemon. The British, French, Germans, all those suffering the ravages of race communism, are doing so because that's been the American position for decades... So, to solve the problem, to drive DEI out of businesses, make governments comfortable stopping violent migrants from invading their countries, and generally making national governments positive rather than hostile toward their native populations, the American race communism issue needs to be rooted out by its stems and roots
Doing that will be difficult, but @elonmusk's "Department of Government Efficiency" idea holds some promise. The only reason much of this exists is federal mandates and funding. Universities push it because they're cash-rich enough to do so; slash their funding and end federal student loans so that no one can afford to major in grievance study majors and then go on to push it. Corporate HR and financier ESG push it; slash all in the DOJ unwilling to go after that and investigate the ESG-pushing brokers for not doing their proper fiduciary duty and HR for anti-white, anti-male policies. The data is clear that these ESG companies are discriminating against white job seekers, which is illegal if always unpunished. Used the slimmed down and ideologically in line post-DOGE government to rake them over the coals for itAnd, of course, the big problem is government grants for or tolerance of NGOs that aid and abet the invasion, fund soft on crime prosecutors, back riots and rioters, and otherwise turn America into Zimbabwe. Cut the funding and unleash the state on them. The Open Societies Foundation, BlackRock, the university system, the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation, HIAS and the similar Lutheran + Catholic charities that abet the illegal immigrants, all of them are vectors of DEI and race communism, whether through ESG, affirmative action, or something else. Go after them with a vengeance. All hope isn't lost. As this South African notes, things are far better here than in South Africa or Zimbabwe; those are where race communism was fully carried out rather than only being in its nascent stages. But it is progressing. It is getting worse. We are racing towards Zimbabwe. It must be stopped and can be stopped; doing so will be difficult, but free the West and Anglosphere from the civilization-killer that is race communism"

Authorities work to find the source of racist texts sent to Black people nationwide after the election. Here’s what we know - "Federal and state authorities are working to find the origins of racist text messages sent to Black people across the country referencing slavery and telling them they were “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.”"
Satirising left wing hysteria is bad

Frank DeScushin on X - "A study has debunked the narrative that black babies die more with white doctors due to the white doctors' racism. Turns out the black babies the white doctors treated had much lower birth weights. Even when debunking the lie, The Economist says it's understandable people believed it  No, that's not understandable. The fact society blindly accepts lies meant to smear Whites as racist without evidence is the problem. It needs to be eradicated, not accepted as part of life."

Jonatan Pallesen on X - "Four years ago, an incendiary study was published claiming that Black babies were more likely to die when cared for by White doctors compared to Black doctors — multiple times more likely even. The finding was always likely to be a statistical artifact, as I and others pointed out on Twitter.  But that didn't stop it from being reported widely and uncritically across the news media. In fact, it turned out as we had guessed, that the risk level was different before the doctor care started, and this is where the difference stemmed from. This could be seen with something as simple as looking at the birth weight. (Borjas and Verbruggen, 2024.) So the scientific record has now been corrected. But the woke academia-media milieu has done it's damage nonetheless. Most people will only have seen the news reports of original study. And for many of them, it will continue to be thought of as a scientific fact that affirms woke ideology.  It is really quite an incredible claim if you think about it. What would the mechanism be? That White doctors care far less about Black babies, and let them die avoidable deaths? This is a gross worldview. As the Guardian suggests: "Unconscious racism among white doctors towards black women and their babies may also be at play."   The study was also used in the Supreme Court, where Ketanji Brown Jackson used it to argue in favor of affirmative action. This is an example of woke academia and news media promoting racial strife and division through fake science. It's important to push back against this."
Noah Smith 🐇 on X - "A viral fake fact that lots of people believed because it suited the fashionable politics of the day, and which people will now realize was always fake because it suits the fashionable politics of the day"

Meme - "When you finally convert to Islam so you can oppress homosexuals and females without fear of being cancelled by liberals"
Muslim Thanos: "A small price to pay for salvation."

Voting Against ‘Wokeness’ Is Not Single-Issue Voting—It’s Every-Issue Voting - "For some voters, a single issue—such as immigration, abortion, or free speech—determines their choice. Increasingly, however, many Americans are also considering their stance on “wokeness”—a term often used to describe the perceived excesses of Critical Social Justice ideology, which encompasses Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and Postcolonialism—as a potential deciding factor.  In 2021, at a rally in Cullman, Alabama, Donald Trump famously quipped that “everything woke turns to shit,” and that it’s “a shortcut to losing everything you have.” Similarly, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has expressed vehement opposition to wokeness—“Woke needs to die”—and has even signed the Stop WOKE Act, which prohibited the teaching of certain activist concepts surrounding race and gender in schools and businesses. Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 presidential candidate, centered much of his campaign on opposing wokeness, even authoring a book in 2021 titled Woke, Inc. Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. Critics often dismiss voters primarily motivated by a disdain for wokeness as narrow-minded or overly engaged in the culture wars. For instance, earlier this week, neuroscientist and noted Trump critic Sam Harris, during a debate with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, labeled these people as “low information voters.” He argued, “[T]here are many people for whom wokeness and far-left identity politics has become a single issue around which they’re going to react.” But is Harris’ characterization of these people as “single issue” voters accurate?  The answer is no, because the reality is that wokeness is multifaceted, and voting to oppose it does not equate to a “single issue” stance like voting based solely on abortion access or climate change policy. The adverse impacts of wokeness are neither peripheral nor trivial. Contrary to portrayals by some on the left, wokeness extends beyond mere debates over bathroom access or children’s library books. It poses a profound threat to a wide range of fundamental values cherished by many Americans. This is because wokeness is a totalizing worldview—a lens through which nearly every policy area, from science and medicine to education and social issues, is viewed and scrutinized. Consequently, a voter primarily driven by opposition to wokeness is closer to an “every-issue” voter than a “single-issue” voter. Woke concepts like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are used to reshape policies at every level. This worldview challenges some of our most fundamental and valued beliefs, such as equality under the law and valuing individual merit over group identity. Instead of honoring individual achievement, “equity” demands that all disparities—whether in the workplace, the classroom, or the justice system—be eliminated to produce equal outcomes. This is routinely accomplished through preferential treatment based on race, sex, and other identities that comprise the intersectional stack. This represents a perfect reversal of Martin Luther King Jr.’s timeless ethical guidance to judge people “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Elevating group identity over the individual not only fuels racial tensions but also undermines both King’s Dream and the American Dream.  The negative impact of policies rooted in the woke concept of “equity” is profound and not always immediately obvious. Consider the Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act, signed into law by Governor Tim Walz, Vice President Harris’ running mate, in response to activists’ complaints about racial disparities in the child-welfare system. How is this statistically equal racial outcome achieved, you ask? By making it more challenging to remove black children from abusive and unsafe environments. Such actions have resulted in a rise in the proportion of black child maltreatment deaths. To echo the thoughts of Thomas Sowell, woke equity appears more focused on sounding good than on being effective. The First Amendment—our fundamental right to free speech—is a primary target of woke ideology... voting against wokeness is not about opposing diversity but about defending open debate and merit-based achievement. The catastrophic impact of Queer Theory on science and medicine cannot be overstated. Queer Theory contends that reality is merely a construct devised by the powerful to sustain their dominance, positioning itself in stark opposition to scientific principles. It insists that all natural categories, even fundamental biological distinctions such as male and female, must be “queered” out of existence to achieve liberation. This ideology has transformed reality into a farcical Monty Python sketch, where men claim to be women and demand to be treated as such in every conceivable context, including sports, prisons, and sex-segregated public spaces. The influence of Queer Theory on medicine has led to the widespread acceptance of pseudoscientific concepts like the “sex spectrum” and an innate “gender identity” or “brain sex” that purportedly can be misaligned with one’s physical body. These views are used to justify interventions like halting the puberty of confused and troubled children, followed by administering sterilizing cross-sex hormones and conducting extreme and irreversible “gender-affirming” surgeries.  As a scientist committed to the truth, addressing the spread of this harmful pseudoscience and protecting children from permanent bodily harm is a major concern. Wokeness extends its reach further through Postcolonialism, which reduces all geopolitical events to a binary of oppressor versus oppressed, typically based on perceived colonial status. Nowhere is this more glaring than in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas... wokeness gets more rabid during a Trump presidency for the same reason the possessed girl’s head in The Exorcist started spinning and spewing vomit when the priests began the exorcism process. The woke ideologues possessing our institutions will not relinquish their power voluntarily, and will go absolutely bonkers in the process of losing it. Nevertheless, this should not deter us from initiating the exorcism process. Ultimately, opposing wokeness means upholding fundamental principles cherished by many Americans: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, scientific integrity, and women’s sex-based rights. To dismiss opposition to wokeness as a “single issue” trivializes the magnitude of the ideological shift at stake and its destructive nature on everything it touches. Voting against wokeness is not single-issue voting—it’s voting to protect nearly every issue that matters."

Meme - memetic_sisyphus @memeticsisyphus: "Her argument is logical. Hierarchy and oppression are bad, children have very little say in their lives therefore they are oppressed, or at the very least the bottom of a hierarchy. The error is not in her conclusion, that children must be free of this oppression, but in her premise: hierarchy is bad.   Hierarchy is good, children need guidance. They shouldn’t be in control of their lives, it’s parent’s duty to prepare them for adulthood where they can control their own lives."
madeline lane-mckinley 🍉🍉🍉 @la_louve_rouge_: "Revising, crying, and revising some more."
"Solidarity with Children. An Essay Against Adult Supremacy"

Meme - pagliacci the hated 🌝 @Slatzism: "amazing to think that almost every wider “culture war” issue can be accurately condensed into “people who think it’s okay to smell like shit” vs “people who don’t think it’s okay to smell like shit”"
kyla (he/it) @SoftAn...: "unironically true tho but thats too nuanced/ woke for twitter"
gloop: "Scrolled too far in TikTok search"
"Unpopular opinion: forcing your child to shower is child abvse"
Keywords: forcing your child to shower is child abuse

Meme - Frank DeScushin @FrankDeScushin: "Anti-racism is based on the simplistic thinking that outcome differences mean oppression. It blames Whites and exonerates others of responsibility. It calls for making Whites uncomfortable which anti-racists enjoy. In other words, anti-racism fits Newsweek's definition of a cult."
"How to Deprogram the Cult of Donald Trump I Opinion
He appeals to simplistic, half-baked thinking. Immature thinking that blames others and denies personal responsibility is appealing. It means rules don't apply and you can do as you please. If you lose an election, insist it was stolen and incite an insurrection.
He provides pleasure in being a provocateur. Perpetually putting your thumb in the face of those who don't agree with you is enjoyable. Retaliation feels good. Reconciliation and coming to terms with vexing or enraging issues is hard work. The perpetual provocateur never has to face this."

Chanel Pfahl 🇨🇦 on X - "Imagine you have a 7 year old kid. A sweet, innocent being learning to make sense of the world.   You send them to school to get an "education."  Instead, their teacher happens to be more interested in creating little minions who echo their own worldview/beliefs.  None of their normal colleagues can speak up or they will get fired.  The school board encourages the brainwashing just as they’ve been ordered to by the Ministry of Ed.  And then there’s you, probably left in the dark while your child’s perspective on the world is warped entirely to reflect that of their teacher’s.  Are you paying attention yet?  Pictures all from the same grade 3 classroom. (See thread.)"

David Mitchell on a new history of England’s monarchy

David Mitchell on a new history of England’s monarchy | HistoryExtra

"'I've always found it interesting, the fact that Roman civilization was in, let's let's call it in superficial capitalistic terms quite advanced. They had a lot of the things that we've been enjoying since the rise of the West like you know running water and central heating and rules about not everyone being armed as they walk around the place. And it, you know it seems on a superficial level to have been quite well organized and comparatively nice for a time… and then that Empire collapses and things aren't as nice… know we've been obsessed with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire for a long time but it's really, it really is interesting that it collapsed and left such a void and left in modern terms such economic collapse collapse. in population, collapse of infrastructure and one of the places it hit hardest was this island, the bit of you know the southern part of Great Britain… 

One of the forms of rhetoric I find most irritating is when people say oh come on it's 2023 you can't behave like that. As if the fact that it's later means that people are behaving better. That's, that's not how things go. Sometimes we go through a period where people's behavior improves and sometimes it gets worse. Sometimes life gets easier and sometimes it gets harder. Broadly speaking there's a technological advance but still that's only broadly speaking. So many of the things the Romans could do were then forgotten for centuries. Central heating often cited. You had central heating in the 4th century and it didn't really come back until the 19th…  

I think [the Dark Ages] quite, seems like quite a good label for the, you know the bit just after the Romans have gone. Certainly in England and I supect in other parts of Western Europe. I don't think you can label that period of history globally with that term but it's it seems quite evocative of the sort of economic and societal collapse that, that was endured in this part of the world then...  

Historians don't like the term the Anarchy being used about the Civil War that happened between Steven and Matilda. And again I sort of think I think that's quite it's quite a good term for it...  

Some of the most disastrous monarchs are the ones that most completely believe in their right to rule because then essentially they feel they can do no wrong…  in a way it was our, our most ineffective kings that ushered in constitutional change. So perhaps we should be most grateful to John and his son Henry III who because of their various levels of incompetence triggered both Magna Carta and then Parliament. But when there's a good King on the throne people don't tend to feel the need to reign him in with sort of constitutional innovation ... 

Richard the Lionheart… he's basically, he's French. There's a big posh French family the Plantagenets and what he wants to do is control areas of France, give the king of France a rough ride and go on crusade, those are his priorities. One of his many many assets is that he happens to be king of England. And as far as he's concerned that asset is just there to be milked for cash to pay for a crusade to go and you know, fund more islamophobic violence. And that's who he is and he's never pretended to be anything else. And it is very clear at the time. He was hardly in England, so uninterested by it was he. He was just there to get resources out of it. But unfortunately for his reputation, the fact that his badge, the Three Lions has been adopted by England, and he has this name Lionheart which sounds all sort of English is because of the Lions’ association with England, which if you think about it is bonkers, there are no lions in England apart from in the zoo, but he he sort of gets condemned as a hypocrite for having projected all this Englishness down the ages when in fact he was all French and wanting to go to the Holy Land, and I think that's rather unfair on him. And it's it's interesting that the Three Lions on his badge, some people think represent not England, but one of those lions is England, one of them is Normandy and the other one is Aquitaine. So it may be that the Three Lions on the England football shirt, two thirds of them represent areas of France'... 

‘Can we trace a moment in this story where real doubt started to creep in about the power of monarchy? Was there a moment at which the public at large started to question it?’ 

‘I think so, I mean I don't know about the public at large because we know so little about most of the lives of the people at that time, but the the people whose views come down to us, who were largely quite privileged people. I think you can see that there's a real sea change in the reign of Richard II. And that's not the beginning of his reign when there's the what's called The Peasants Revolt when there's huge uprising which has almost sort of socialist undertones really. But even in that uprising, where they hate gentlemen, they hate aristocrats, they still believe in kingship. They think the king is badly advised. But later in Richard II's reign you feel that the Parliament and the aristocracy are absolutely at their wits’ end. And you know previous bad kings they've reigned in as I said with Parliament and Magna Carta and they just think nah this this isn't going to work, we've got to get rid of of him. And they do get rid of him despite the fact that he's undoubtedly the rightful King. 

And for me the uh institution of kingship, of of monarchy never quite recovers from there. They've got rid of one king and they know that no King has to be there. They don't have to resort to constitutional innovation anymore, they can just get rid of the king and have someone different. And that's hugely destabilizing. And so you've got Henry IV who is the usurper, he comes in and has a very very wobbly reign. Then you have Henry VI. And now Henry the V is obviously a great operator and so his reign goes beautifully. But he's an anomaly. And when he dies young and he's not even a toddler, his baby Henry VI inherits the throne, then we go into a period of unprecedented instability. Because Henry VI is obviously initially a minor but no better when he's grown up, he's just no good. And so all those notions of getting rid of him uh start entering people's minds again. In a way they just hadn't done before, they got rid of Richard II. 

And then we have the Wars of the Roses which which essentially create huge violence and instability until the Tudors take charge. And the Tudors, ah, their claim to the throne is so sketchy, their very existence is basically an admission that, well, kind of anyone could be king, let's just hope for a bit of stability and relative competence from them. So yes I think the the magical notion of kingship is kind of shot by then, for most people. But then as I said earlier when Charles I is on the throne over a 100 years later, he still seems to believe it, and very little good it does him... 

You can't tell the story through Kings alone after 1603 as effectively as you can up to that point’"

Links - 24th November 2024 (1 - Trans Mania)

Meme - Happy Rogue: "WHEN MEN PRETEND TO BE WOMEN."
Upset Rogue: "WHEN MEN PRETEND TO WORK AT McDONALDS."

Trans Activist Taiwanese Politician Threatens To Release Addresses, Identification Numbers Of Women Who Oppose Gender Ideology - "a prominent transgender politician took to social media to harass and threaten women critical of gender ideology, and to target organizations advocating for the protection of women’s single-sex spaces.  Abbygail ET Wu 吳伊婷, also known as Wu Yiting, threatened multiple female activists via social media for opposing gender ideology. Using both Facebook and Instagram threads, Wu, who is a representative of Taiwan’s Green Party, threatened to release information, including the identification number, phone number, and address of a private citizen associated with the organization No Self ID Taiwan (NSIDT)... Wu has a history of relying on the tactic of “doxxing” and exposing personal information online to intimidate opponents of gender ideology."

wanye on X - "My wife is listening to The Free Press series on J. K. Rowling and she was telling me about how the initial reaction from so many people was, “don’t you care about your legacy?” This is such a funny question, if sadly common, that immediately betrays an impoverished theory of other minds. JK Rowling isn’t walking through the world thinking that her opponents are correct and unfortunately, for reason she doesn’t understand, she’s forced to take the wrong position.  She thinks she’s right, silly.   She thinks she’s correct. She thinks she has the better worldview. She thinks you are mistaken. She thinks her position, in other words, will ultimately be vindicated by the full unfolding of time, which is to say that her position is the one that is better for her legacy.  “Don’t you care about your legacy?”  Anytime you see this question you know you’re dealing with somebody who lacks even the most basic empathetic faculties, a person who is completely incapable of modeling other minds.
I get these kinds of responses from progressives a lot. Progressives, don’t forget, are the more empathetic of our two orientations. They’re the ones who really understand how other people feel. And yet it happens to me all the time that they seem not to realize that I judge my own actions according to my morals, not theirs, that all strangers judge themselves according to their own morals. You really get the impression that they think you’ve adopted their worldview — because duh, obviously, there’s only one worldview — and you are somehow having an out of body experience in which you act according to a different worldview. And further that you on some level know that this is what’s happening and probably feel bad about it.  I was listening to NOFX’s Punk in Drublic while I was painting the other night and I couldn’t stop thinking about the line where he says, “how do they sleep at night?”  Everybody sleeps fine! The first step to becoming a mature thinker about the beliefs of other people is understanding that most of them sleep fine. They think they’re right! Everybody thinks they’re right! They’re not walking around with your worldview that they just somehow keep feeling to live up to. They have a different worldview.   I know I’m just repeating myself now, but this is elementary. You have to accept this before you can think seriously about anything else."
Left wingers really believe they are infallible and have no empathy (ironic, given how they claim they are about "empathy" - anyway we know from elsewhere that they don't understand right wingers). This is also why they call anyone who disagrees with them either a troll or evil - they genuinely do not know how people could sincerely disagree with left wing ideology

CityNews Vancouver on X - "A convict who became Canada’s youngest designated dangerous offender after sexually assaulting a three-month-old baby is seeking escorted leave from prison to attend cultural ceremonies in Vancouver."
Baked Perfect on X - "What was the traditional punishment for drowning and raping babies on unceeded land?"
Jonathan Kay on X - "I thought it was odd that this psychopath was a woman. Until I got to this part. It’s not a woman"

Vivian on X - "Also, I love how Republicans refer to The New York Times as “far left” and “communist” but then you check the NYT and they’re like “Opinion: Trans People All Deserve to Die”"
TRA delusion - if you disagree with any item on the TRAs' list of demands, you think Trans People All Deserve to Die

J.K. Rowling on X - "It will never stop being extraordinary to me that men who think of themselves as good guys stampeded to support males invading women’s reserved spaces and sports, then threw hissy fits when women didn’t eulogise them as progressive superheroes."
phil illy on X - "Men support pro-transgender policy less than women, and yet feminists still try to blame it on men. In reality this is a fight between feminists who prioritize gender and feminists who prioritize sex. It's a within-feminism issue."
"Across the board, women are more likely than men to support greater rights for transgender people."

Mia Hughes on X - "Stunning misinformation from the Alberta Medical Association.  To suggest that it is possible to block an adolescent's development for "a few years" and that there be no significant side effects is simply untrue. We know these drugs are powerful and affect bone density and cognitive development.   What's more, the AMA fails to mention the most important and harmful side effect: that the drugs block the cognitive and sexual development that would have enabled the young person to overcome their feelings of dysphoria naturally.   Before puberty suppression, gender distress resolved in upwards of 80% of kids; after puberty suppression was introduced, that rate plummeted to 2% - because puberty was the natural cure.   As well, misinformed parents cannot make informed decisions on behalf of their children. If parents aren't informed that the science underpinning puberty suppression is exceptionally weak, nor that the drugs lock in what would otherwise almost certainly be a transient identity, then they are not giving informed consent.   And if they're blackmailed into consenting with the line "would you rather a live son or a dead daughter," they're giving consent under duress.   The irony of the last line is almost too much to bear. Yes, we do need to stick to evidence-based approaches when dealing with medical matters, @Albertadoctors . So stop recommending a life-altering treatment protocol with an appallingly shoddy evidence base for healthy, confused kids."
Trebor on X - "@Albertadoctors Where is this study that shows "Hormone blockers have no effect on fertility.". It is a fact, right? Should be able to show and produce a study that directly confirms this. Any study that includes more than 18 subjects, maybe a few hundred."

Thread by @benryanwriter on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Because Harvard Law School clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ can't defend the falsehoods she utters when I fact check them, she instead resorts to ad hominem attacks. Her go-to smears of me are that I am creepy, obsessive and a pervert. These are not the claims of a serious person. The reason I fact check Harvard Law School clinical instructor and activist Alejandra Caraballo is because she has a wide platform and the falsehoods she tells about pediatric gender medicine have an impact. She was centrally responsible for spreading the false claim that the Cass Review discarded all non-randomized controlled trials. Hilary Cass later denounced the misinformation that she and Mallory Moore spread and said it was harming children. Reporters are by their nature dogged. Harvard Law School clinical instructor and activist Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer_ is a public figure in the area I cover for my work. Her public statements are fair game for fact checking, and I will continue to correct her false claims.  Here Harvard Law School clinical instructor and activist Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ complains that I use an alt account to screenshot her tweets in a tweet thread in which she had used her alt account to screenshot my tweets. She makes reference to the fact checking of the false claims that Erin Reed and Ari Drennen made in the spring.  And she repeats the false claim that the reason why I fact check the falsehoods she utters is because I have a sexual fixation on her. I can assure you this is false.  I presume that one of the reasons Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ tries every trick in her book to scare me off, as she has unsuccessfully for two years, is because she now knows that she cannot make false claims about pediatric gender medicine on X without my correcting her. In April, Alejandra Caraballo, Erin Reed and Ari Drennen all announced one day that I was "obsessive" and "creepy" and counted the number of times I mentioned Caraballo on X. It was a lot. Because the Cass Review came out April 9, and I soon made a pledge to myself to fact check every single false claim Caraballo @Esqueer_ made about the review. There was a flood of material. To hear Caraballo tell it, I am the one in this equation with something to answer for."

Meme - "Why are the women in this game so fucking ugl-"
"Dev team: Sophie Sophie Lilith Sophie Lilith Lilith"

i/o on X - "The percentage of conservatives who support same-sex marriage is in decline and I suspect the reason for this is that many of them felt an implicit social contract with liberals had been violated  "We'll support this gay marriage thing," they agreed, "now please leave us alone with the weird sex stuff."  But no sooner had SCOTUS ruled when overnight the Great Human Rights Issue of Our Time became requiring people to believe that humans could change sexes and if you said you didn't believe this you could lose your job and if you said you didn't want to participate in the pronoun charade you could lose your job and if you didn't want a boy on your girls swimming team you were told you would get kicked off the team or sent to reeducation and then your gym kicked you out when you objected to an old dude (claiming to be a woman) started undressing next to your 15 year-old daughter in the women's changing room and I could go on and on.  So some conservatives decided they weren't going to play anymore, weren't going to feel bad about not supporting something they hadn't felt all that great about to begin with."
The "myth" of the slippery slope strikes again

Stats For Gender on X - "NEW STUDY: In 2023, 268,436 US patients receiving "gender-affirming healthcare" had nearly 10 million insurance claims - on average 87% more than other patients."
Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 on X - "268,000 U.S. patients used insurance last year to pay for their sex-change drugs and surgeries. This does not include those who paid privately, or those missed in insurance claims because of different codes being used."
Trans mania is good business. There is a theory that it's being pushed by drug companies

Benjamin Ryan on X - "Kinnon MacKinnon, a trans man who researches detransitioning at York University, on why he decided to speak about his work to Azeen Ghorayshi @NYTimes:
“I landed on my own resolve that it is important for journalists covering trans issues and the debates about gender care to be well-informed about emerging research. There is so much misinformation circulating about detransition/retransition and identity fluidity and I wanted to set the record straight.
“And this has been pretty much my consistent stance for the last couple of years.
“As a researcher who holds publicly-funded research funds to produce knowledge about gender-affirming healthcare, gender-diversity, and detransition, shying away from sharing this information with society feels wrong.  At the end of the day, I think LGBTQ+, trans, nonbinary, and detransitioning people (e.g. my communities) have a right to access information about these experiences that we are very clearly seeing emerge in our communities and on social media.”
Among the responses MacKinnon got to his interview on his research with @nytimes  about his research on detransitioning:   “I also received a note from a US-based clinician in a Blue state who recently had a youth detransition. This clinician said they had trouble finding a therapist who would work with the young person because all the therapists they contacted apparently ‘don’t believe in detransitioning.’
“Sadly, from my own research, this did not surprise me.”"
Damn transphobic myth of detransitioners!

Warren Smith on X - "The 2nd half of my conversation with a Harris voter... He tells me women have no right to expect privacy in changing rooms."
Weird. Left wingers keep insisting that rights are not like cake - more for one doesn't mean less for others

Brianna Wu on X - "It is very frustrating that armies of biological women are transitioning and then changing their minds, risking all transgender health care. This is a totally new phenomenon. Male to female transsexuals do not transition and regret it at anywhere near the same rates. Never have. Part of it, I think, is everyone knows society hates women. So, being diminished and our lives being harder is baked in for us.   I think they transition thinking it will solve all their problems and it doesn’t."
Jazi Zilber on X - "possibly information asymmetry. women aren't aware how disgusting male lives are in ways. see the fascinating book "self made man". a woman who dressed as a man for a year+ to see how men live. agree was shocked at the rudeness brutality etc"

Maia Poet🦎 on X - "How did we get from: “Some kids have two daddies & that’s ok” to: “If your boy wears a dress, he’s really a girl & if you don’t castrate him- he’ll commit su!c!de” IN LESS THAN ONE DECADE?"
Natasha Chart 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇺🇦 on X - "Because Democrats adopted critical theory, or progressive stack, social heuristics. Nearest, angriest, most oppressed person has the floor & is correct. Then they were forced to agree that gender identity was the most oppressed category, so this outcome was almost guaranteed."
The "myth" of the slippery slope strikes again

Maia Poet🦎 on X - "I reject being lumped into a community which has objectively nothing to do with me. Same-sex attraction doesn’t require overstepping boundaries, violating sex-based rights, permanently medicalizing children & telling kids who are likely to grow up to be gay, that there’s something wrong with them"
The reality of lived experience is hate when it threatens the left wing agenda. Lesbian ex-trans people like her aren't supposed to exist, and if they do they are supposed to unconditionally support transitioning children

Candice Jackson on X - "No it isn’t unkind to correctly sex you; it was rude of you to demand otherwise. No it isn’t unfairly discriminatory to exclude males from women’s sports, prisons & spaces; it was viciously discriminatory of you to demand otherwise. No it isn’t genocidal to refuse to fund or facilitate iatrogenic medical harm as “health care”; it was self-centered & entitled of you to demand otherwise."

very moisturized on X - "When I was a kid, I wanted to wear glasses so bad because my older sister wore glasses that I exaggerated having eye problems so I could get glasses - it’s insane to think this isn’t happening with gender transitions especially when kids enjoy feeling special."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "The biggest predictor of being a "trans kid" - per Littmann (2018) and others - is having a friend who decides they are one."
Left wing logic: socialisation is super powerful and indoctrinates everyone, but it cannot do anything to sexual orientation and sexual identity

Thread by @MegEBrock on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - " 🧵The Biden-Harris Administration ‘War On Families’  The Biden-Harris embrace of transgender ideology puts parents who don’t affirm their child’s gender confusion at risk of being labeled ‘abusive.’  Across the country ‘non-affirming’ parents are losing custody of their kids. In December, @katesrichardson reported on a document I discovered on a federal government website.  A federally funded “home visiting” program advised service providers to watch for signs of abuse against “gender-diverse children” like not letting a young child cross-dress.   The document was guidance for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program which is intended to combat abuse and neglect while promoting “positive parenting” and school readiness among “pregnant people and families.” The guidance offered to government workers who visit homes categorizes steering a child away from “gender expression” that does not correspond with his or her biological sex as abuse. Under the title “Recognizing and Reporting Abuse or Neglect” the now removed document ssays “abuse” may be  “more subtle (e.g., denying a child the right to play, dress, and act as they would like; or neglecting a child because the caretaker perceives them as “different.” “It is important for home visitors to recognize and address the abuse and neglect that may result, either directly or indirectly, from rejection of a child’s gender expression.”  You can view the entire document here:
Wanting to better understand how the Biden-Harris administration was embedding transgender ideology into the child welfare system, the @DailyCaller News Foundation launched an 10+ month investigation.  @katesrichardson and I were shocked by what we found. Our investigation showed the Biden-Harris administration paved the way for local child welfare systems to remove gender-confused kids from their parents, furthering the idea that not “affirming” a child’s gender confusion was neglectful and abusive.
In 2016, the Obama administration awarded a 10 million dollar grant to group of activist social workers who then developed a series of social services interventions that trained staff and families to affirm the gender confusion of children. Under the grant, a group from Ohio pioneered a program that strong-arms parents into affirming whatever confused beliefs children express about their gender. Parents who decline risk losing a voice in their child’s life. We discovered a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) webinar from last fall where an activist stated “Transphobia is child abuse” and cast a vision for completely transforming child protective systems nationwide.   The activists argued that “non-affirmation” must be treated as abuse.  “If they were denying them food or denying them access to school or denying other things, there would be headlines.”  “There would be prosecution.” We showed how these interventions and ideas being embraced by the Biden-Harris caused a Christian family in Maryland to lose their 16-year-old autistic son when they refused to affirm his gender confusion.
Under the research grant, An Ohio child welfare agency that was directly working with the Biden- Harris administration created a “confidential spreadsheet” tracking the sexual orientation and transgender identity of children as young as 5. The database tracked the sexual orientation, transgender identity and pronouns of children that interacted with the child welfare system in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Nearly half the children in the database were listed as living outside of the foster care system in their “own home.” The Biden-Harris push for transgenderism extended to the juvenile justice system.  In 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a $1 million grant to integrate gender ideology into juvenile justice and child welfare systems nationwide.  This transformation of the child welfare system has happened quietly, not through the power of law but through the power of bureaucracy.  The appointees of the next presidential administration will likely determine if the trans agenda is further elevated or forced to retreat. In researching these stories, I gained a deeper appreciation for how the transgender agenda threatens to overrule religious freedom, parental rights, and makes vulnerable children more vulnerable.  Read our investigation here:"

EXCLUSIVE: Kids Are Being Taken From ‘Non-Affirming’ Parents. Here’s One Family’s Fight To Get Their Son Back - "John was out shopping for his youngest son’s birthday in July 2021 when he received a panicked call from his wife. A state child welfare worker and police officers were at their home, trying to take away their autistic son. The social worker claimed the Christian family’s refusal to affirm his apparently newfound sexual orientation was child abuse.  John raced home in time to record a video of the harrowing encounter.  “I’m going to take the child with me,” Edwina Nimley, a casework specialist for the Maryland Department of Human Services, can be heard saying in a video of the incident...   Though the boy refused to go with her, Nimley tried again. “You’re afraid of me? You have nothing to be afraid of. The police is here but you have to go. This is the law,” Nimley said in the recording. “I need to talk to you separately from your parents. I need to take him to a safe place, separate from your parents.”  John’s son, who was 16 at the time, remained with his parents that July day, but John’s battle for custody of his son was far from over. At the time of the social worker’s visit, John Doe II and Jane Doe — who asked to remain anonymous to protect their privacy  — lived with their children in Prince George’s County, Maryland, where the local child welfare department had adopted a radical transgender affirmation program that views Christian parents who don’t “affirm” their child’s transgender or homosexual identity as unsafe and harmful.  John told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he and his wife were accused of abuse surrounding their son’s apparent LGBT identity, an allegation that shocked the family who had never seen evidence of their son expressing an alternative sexual orientation. In fact, about a month after Nimley’s police-escorted visit, John said he and his wife received a letter saying the child welfare case was closed.  But less than six months later, John and Jane would lose custody of their son after refusing to affirm him as a transgender girl during a stay at Children’s National Hospital.  “It sounds like a movie. It really does,” John told the DCNF.   African-American, devout Christian and military veteran parents John and Jane have had their family life turned upside down and find themselves pitted against state officials dead set on removing kids from so-called “non-affirming” parents and a legal system seemingly aimed at punishing Christian families.  The DCNF used interviews, legal documents and public records requests to piece together how an “affirming” child welfare system worked against John and Jane’s religious freedoms and parental rights, while inflicting emotional and psychological trauma from having their eldest son taken from them...   John told the DCNF they were asked to stop reading certain passages of the Bible that affirm traditional sexual values and gender.  “We are Bible believers and you are telling me I can’t talk about Adam and Eve? Abraham and Sarah? The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit? Essentially I can’t read my Bible,” John Doe II told the DCNF."
Weird. We kept being told that no one would take children from parents

Meme Huge Jenga Tower: "THE ENTIRE TRANS MOVEMENT"
One supporting block at the bottom: "ASKING: "WHAT IS A WOMAN?""

Meme - "Women of Warhammer Show Us Their Finest Work *Trans woman*"

Meme - Lily @ Gamescom 20 @Ikol_Twe: *big thumb guy* Normal person: "I don't want to sleep with you"
*Trans people give big thumbs up*
Normal person: "how big is it"
Doggo @Le_Canine: "I DON'T LIKE THE GAYS."
POOKING @PUNCHNAZIS: "HAH, THAT MEANS YOU'RE SECRETLY GAY! DUMB NAZI!" *Pooking looks down from home and hugs his Adolf Hitler body pillow*
Autoerotic gynephilia requires affirmation, after all

Wesley Yang on X - "I was perfectly happy not knowing what an Autogynephile was or crime rates by race. I would have been perfectly content in the absence of society-wide gaslighting campaigns not to have to learn about these things. I’m like a lot of people."
Ozmodiar on X - "Yes exactly. This is the answer to all of the "why are you so obsessed with xyz" comments. I didn't care about it until you forced me to, in order to make any sense of what was happening."

Thread by @therestofus5 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Remember when the Biden administration invited Dylan Mulvaney to the White House because he was on "day 190 of being a girl", and women began posting tiktoks about how insulting it was and how they had never been invited despite being actual women and having to work actual jobs? Remember when the Biden administration appointed a man as "first female admiral", and employed another man who liked to steal women's clothing and then tried to convince everyone that they weren't just creepy white men, they were actually an "oppressed minority" Remember when the Biden administration invited a man to a White House roundtable event for lesbians even though many women had spoken out about being harassed and mistreated by him, and tried to convince everyone that he wasn't a creepy straight dude but in fact a lesbian woman? Remember when the Biden administration invited a man to the White House to promote the medicalization of gender non-conforming kids while detransitioners were sharing stories about being convinced to transition by older men online? Often men who were not medicalized themselves. Remember when the Biden administration invited a man with breast implants to the White House and he decided to go topless despite the fact that there were families there? In this case the White House banned him, and his response was to say this "proved he was a woman" So while they're out there blaming Latinos, black men, white women, Gen Z, the working class, the uneducated and anyone else they can think of, it's a good time to remember that their support for these woman-hating creeps was UNCONDITIONAL and ABSOLUTE."

Thread by @chrisjollyhale on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "A Latino prison guard who voted for Clinton and Biden told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing he voted for Trump yesterday because “Democrats make me feel bad about who I am.” I'm not sure what he means, but it reminded me of this:  "The cliché is voters judge politicians based on their likability. The deeper question isn’t how much voters like a politician, but whether they believe a politician likes them." — @EzraKlein. I don't think the majority of my party "hates Trump voters," but in the interest of winning elections, too many do. On my way to Kamala Harris’s concession speech, I came across this young man directing traffic. He kindly allowed me to take his photo. It’s a fitting snapshot of this election. *Black man with MAGA hat*"

Meme - Wesley Yang @wesyang: "The etiology of autogynephilia has been exhaustively documented in the clinical literature and increasingly exposed by those who have had to live with it. Treating it like a civil rights cause or that suffering from it makes a man a woman is a macabre absurdity."
Ask A Transwidow @AskATranswidow: "#WhatPeakedMe  My husband trying to be me, destroying our family.  Well, at least it was not in vain, he is now a Women's Golfer of the Year many times in a row. Taking a 💩 on your family improves your golf game, bc it is cheating to play as a woman. @Psychgirl211"

Links - 18th November 2024 (2 - Daniel Penny and Men Protecting Women)

Meme - iamyesyouareno @iamyesyouareno: "“All the young fit guys stood silent and looked at the ground”  Because they know what happens when they do something."
brecht apologist @madisontayt_: "this man on the subway was repeatedly harassing a woman, being disgusting, invading her space, etc tell me fucking why me and the other women around tried to intervene and tell him off but all the young, fit guys around just stood silent and looked at the ground" *Daniel Penny arrested*

Thread by @wokal_distance on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I can actually explain this:  Male physical intervention into conflict escalates the conflict. The man she refers to was being rude and such, if a man intervenes to stop him, the subway harasser likely becomes *violent*. These women do not understand what that means....
There is no "margine for error." Almost nobody (save for pro UFC fighters) has the strength, power, and skill set to easily subdue someone. A man who becomes criminally violent will often not stop until he is stopped by being knocked unconscious or severely wounded. And... The man who tries to stop a violent criminal may be killed if he doesn't use enough force and is overpowered by the criminal. And the gap between "getting killed because you didn't use enough force to stop the criminial" and "using so much force the criminal dies" is small... And no one is smart enough and skilled enough to calculate the exact amount of pushing, punching, choking, etc that will stop a violent harasser without hurting the violent harasser....especially during the chaos of a physical fight when your brain is in fight or flight mode.
This means when a man intervenes physically against another man there is always the possibility of death or that someone gets severely injured.  Even a man who wins may be badly injured in the process because the margine for error is so small.... Men know physical intervention might result in injury or death, and they will not donit if it means ending up catching an assault or murder charge.  This is why the Daniel Penny trial is such a big deal among men at the moment.  If you want men to intervene... You have to tolerate the consequences of that intervention.
What women can't do is demand men intervene, and then empathize with the criminal who gets hurt and demand the guy who intervened go to jail, cause that's how you get good men to stop protecting you from bad men."

wanye on X - "Something that’s poorly understood in the general public is the way that low trust escalates violent situations. You can get in a fistfight with a guy at school when you know with some certainty that as soon as he gets the better of you, everybody watching is going to pull him off and there will be extreme norms against him punching or kicking you while you’re on the ground.  But if instead what happens is that onlookers jump in and start kicking your head themselves, then you’re in an environment in which fist fighting basically doesn’t exist. Every fight is a potentially fatal one. In that situation you should draw a gun and shoot anybody who attempts to punch you. There is no honor in squaring up with somebody in that environment.  For similar reasons, there is no such thing as fist fighting a cop. The cop has a gun on his hip, so every fight involves a gun.  A lot of bad takes about violent interactions can be understood through this “trust” lens, by asking yourself something like, “was the person defending themselves in a high enough trust situation that lesser violence was available?”  Quite often, as with fighting or wrestling a cop, one very loud faction believes that to be the case when it manifestly isn’t."

wanye on X - "Yes, it’s right that Daniel Penny is an outlier. Most men will only intervene when there is a credible signal from the other people present that the project will be supported or at least not impeded. On a modern subway train, intervening on your own pretty much means you’re on your own. And, actually, it’s worse than that, because it’s very likely that bystanders will jump in to make what you’re trying to do harder and more dangerous for you.  Daniel Penny isn’t the reason the average man won’t intervene. He’s just confirmation that their assessment of the situation — you’ll be on your own, to the extent other people intervene as well it will be to yell at you, and the broader society will not have your back — was entirely correct."

wanye on X - "This is a very funny kind of fight to me, because it’s an example of a case where progressives have a view of the world that most people don’t endorse and there are no institutions to which they can appeal to get their way, which is what they’re used to. So they have to make these arguments about what men should do and then men just say, “yeah, that’s not convincing, and I’m not going to intervene as long as things are the way they are.”  You see a similar kind of frustration with arguments about people moving to the suburbs. There again, progressives can control the institutions. They can elect progressive prosecutors, make the police department more progressive, they control the schools, it’s Democrats in the mayor’s office in most big cities. But what they can’t stop you from doing is opting out.  And it drives them absolutely crazy.   That’s why you see that some of the sharpest invective is aimed at people who move to the suburbs."
Emre on X - "Before I actually moved to the suburbs, I thought it was all cul-de-sacs and Chilis/Fridays. I have about 50 restaurants within walking distance, walk my kids to and from school, doctor, supermarket, etc. But no crime and the public schools are great. No progressives though."
Aphasialista on X - "Unfortunately, in California they’ve found a solution: When a city or county strays too far from the preferred policy, they simply rip all local control away from everyone and centralize it in Sacramento."

Jeremy Kauffman 🦔🌲🌕 on X - "if you ever see a woman in trouble in a public space make sure to ask whether she supported black lives matter before intervening"

Daniel Penny Shows Us The Tragic Cost Of Defending Women In A World That Hates White Men - "Penny is facing the full wrath of our media and legal establishment. Not because he did anything wrong whatsoever—on the contrary, he was far more compassionate and heroic than the average person would be in such dangerous circumstances—but because of the color of his skin and the identity of the man he restrained. He's now facing the possibility of 15 years in prison... What followed was a barrage of headlines framing the incident as a racially charged crime, despite the lack of any racial motivation from Penny. The media quickly likened the event to the George Floyd case, with some outlets calling Penny a murderer, eager to make this a case of white violence against a black victim. Despite Neely's criminal record of numerous violent incidents, the media has largely portrayed him as a victim of racial injustice, preferring the optics of a white man subduing a black man.  Penny now faces manslaughter charges, with the potential of 15 years in prison—charges that are more about appeasing political and racial narratives than delivering justice. The case has become yet another battleground for racial politics and the left’s ongoing efforts to dismantle traditional masculine values. As Eva Vlaardingerbroek so clearly stated, "If you are a white man and you see something like this happening, you might think twice before stepping in if the person who is harassing the passengers is black because you might end up exactly like Daniel Penny.”  It’s not just that white men are being labeled racists for defending themselves—it’s that they’re literally being criminalized for it. And that's no accident. Take a step back and look at the larger narrative that feminism often promotes today. On one hand, men are constantly criticized for being “toxic,” too aggressive, or too domineering. Feminists push a narrative that men’s traditional roles as protectors and leaders are outdated and harmful. But on the other hand, when danger strikes, who do feminists expect to stand up? Men.  When men fail to act, these same feminists are quick to point out their so-called deficiencies. They claim men are no longer equipped to lead, aren’t willing to protect women, and have become passive or cowardly. They bemoan a world where, in their eyes, men are no longer living up to their responsibilities. But isn’t this the direct result of the narrative feminists have been pushing for years? When you shame men for embracing strength, courage, and leadership, don’t be surprised when men hesitate to act—or, in some cases, choose not to act at all. This double standard leaves men in a no-win situation. If they step up, as Daniel Penny did, they risk being demonized, criminalized, and labeled violent aggressors, especially if racial dynamics come into play. But if they don’t act, they’re accused of failing in their basic duty to protect others. Feminism’s convoluted messages, alongside liberal policies that gut the justice system, have backed men into a corner, and feminists have the gall to even blame men for that, too.  Feminists love to rag on men for not measuring up, but they’ve helped create a situation where men have every reason to think twice before they act. If you stand up, you might end up in jail. If you don’t, you’re considered a coward. And who benefits from this? Absolutely no one.  These same "progressive" types who pushed for policies like cashless bail and slashed police budgets in cities like New York have made the streets and subways less safe and created environments where extremely dangerous individuals are out on the streets, preying on the vulnerable. Ironically, liberal policies and feminists who love to lecture men on toxic masculinity have done more to undermine women’s safety than anything else. Vlaardingerbroek is right when she says we need more men like Daniel Penny, not fewer. Despite what modern feminist rhetoric might say, women have an innate desire to be protected by the men they love and trust. But what happens when the men who would protect them are punished for it? It’s a chilling thought, one that should concern every woman.  Do you really want to live in a world where your husband, brother, or boyfriend might hesitate before defending you because he’s worried about going viral for all the wrong reasons—or worse, ending up in jail? Embracing modern feminist ideology has become less about personal conviction and more about survival—an exercise in fear and conformity for both men and women. Women often adopt feminist rhetoric not out of genuine belief in its principles but to ensure acceptance within their peer groups. In an era where social media outrage can destroy reputations in a matter of hours, many women feel pressured to conform to the feminist narrative, afraid of being labeled backward, uneducated, or even traitors to their gender if they express dissenting views. They do it to fit in, to avoid the judgment of friends and coworkers, and to ensure that they aren’t seen as “problematic” or “internalizing misogyny.” This isn’t about empowerment—this is about fear... Men, meanwhile, have a different but equally potent pressure to conform. In a world where any act of traditional masculinity—strength, protection, leadership—can be framed as “toxic,” men increasingly bend to feminist expectations simply to appease those around them... By giving in to modern feminist demands, men and women alike are sacrificing their true selves in exchange for conditional acceptance that’s based on fear. The more men and women appease these societal expectations, the more they lose sight of who they are, creating a culture where authenticity is sacrificed at the altar of conformity.  This dynamic creates a dangerous social environment, too. Women are expected to deny their biological realities, suppressing their desires for strong, protective men, while men are coerced into abandoning their instincts to lead and defend, retreating into passivity. And as both sexes drift further away from their natural roles, the tension between them grows. Instead of fostering healthy partnerships between men and women, modern feminism fosters fear, resentment, and an inability for either side to truly embrace their inherent strengths... everyone is too busy placating the loudest voices to realize they’ve lost their own in the process. If feminists want to pretend that men don’t need to defend women, fine. But they can’t have it both ways."

Alexander on X - "The reason the whole “should I protect women” debate rubs me wrong isn’t even really about women.  It’s about the traits that get signaled when people talk about being afraid to protect others, the “risk,” “consequences,” if it is “worth it,” or “what do I get for it.”  True if it’s about protecting women or other men.  It signals low altruism, which says, “This is a weak person who would be a bad coalition member.”  I don’t think I could ever trust someone like that in a hard situation, because they are flat out telling me, “I will avoid the hard decision if it poses any risk to me.”   In Western and European culture we have archetypes of heroes and we have archetypes of self-sacrificers. These are viewed positively.  Some cultures defer more to self-serving archetypes. They are “clever” and the idea of “smart person who avoided risk” or “benefitted at the cost of others” is valued more in those cultures. They value sneakiness, cunning, lies, deceit, and personal gain.   European culture also has these archetypes, but we don’t tend to elevate them as the role model in the same way that we do the heroic archetypes.  We value strong people who protect the weak. We don’t value weak people, and we don’t value people who shirk the “duty” given to them by our social norms or by their innate traits.  A lot of the discourse on “what do women like” overlaps, because the same traits that women find attractive are also the traits men desire in same-sex peers and coalition members.  We have a lot of men who spend a lot of time talking about how to emulate those desirable traits. As much as men seemingly want to be that guy, and spend a lot of time talking about how to look more like that guy in themselves, they really dislike what goes along with that. You will never be that guy if you are unwilling to behave like that guy. This also means bearing any consequences that come from that.  So, people like Daniel Penny will be considered heroes to many. Unfortunately they will sometimes face serious consequences.  “Bad boys,” insofar as this means delinquency to many people, will reap whatever benefits being a “bad boy” brings, but also face the consequences of having a criminal record.  We basically have a lot of people scheming about “how can I be this thing without actually having to engage in the behavior and results associated with this thing.”  And because they aren’t willing to do the hard thing, some go further and recommend that others don’t do it either.  If people just kept their weak little feelings to themselves no one would care. We don’t expect everyone to be a hero, brave, strong, or altruistic.  The problem occurs when people start discouraging others from engaging in virtuous behavior. You “shouldn’t” protect others. Hard to imagine that being good for the fabric of society. You’re no longer celebrating and encouraging the good.   Half of the time these are revenge fantasies. They love the idea of men collectively withdrawing and letting women get hurt. So, we also see a lot of vengeful and rancorous traits here. Narcissism and neuroticism; people who seethe and wish harm on strangers - they also make poor coalition members.  You have people treating questions of bravery and virtue like greedy little bean-counters: “Well actually the cost and benefit of this blah blah” when what is really valuable is having the moral fortitude and direction to simply say and do the right thing."

Devon Eriksen on X - "If you are a woman living in or near NYC, or other large cities with significant dark-skinned populations, you need to realize that the city government has designated you to be hunted for sport.  With no season, no bag limit, and no tags required.  Why?  It's very simple.  It's because they are more answerable to the people who prey on you — dark skinned men — than they are to you or anyone who wishes to defend you.  Why? Because dark skinned members of the criminal underclass have political air cover, and you do not.  Why? Because dark-skinned people, including those who are not members of the criminal underclass and would never dream of assault, robbing, raping, or murdering you themselves, will support those who do so for reasons of racial solidarity.  If a dark-skinned male is killed or injured by someone defending you, regardless of how feral or depraved he is, what sort of violent criminal past he had, or what he was trying to do to you, the vast majority of other dark-skinned people will riot (and vote) on his behalf.  Politicians do not want riots. They do not want to be voted out of office.  So, if one of these characters suffers harm while attempting to harm you, the city government will race to throw you and/or anyone who defended you, under a bus, in the hope of appeasing the people with dark skin.  Because they have more political power than you.  Why? Because they have racial/tribal solidarity, and you do not.  Therefore the city government, and other city governments across the nation, is willing to sacrifice an unlimited number of you. They don't care about you at all, because you getting raped, robbed, or killed doesn't cost them a single dollar, or a single vote.  Before you vote again, it would be wise to consider whether and how much you contributed to this situation.  Did you protest on behalf of George Floyd? Did you believe the press when they told you he was an innocent victim, who died as a result of rough handling, rather than a habitual thug who died of a self-inflicted drug overdose?  I realize that it is very stressful for you to appear mean, or to go against popular opinion, as expressed by the television.   But men will not defend you physically if you will not defend them politically.   Perhaps, once upon a time, the mere fact of being female would have inspired protectiveness from every man except the feral thugs who are attacking you in the first place.   But those days are gone, so long gone that most of the adult men walking around today are not old enough to remember them.   That privilege that the women of old had was part of a deal. A deal that is no longer in place.   You see, I'll tell you a secret about men, which will take you far in life if you are willing to believe it and live by it, which you probably won't.   The secret is that men are willing to undergo incredible hardship, risk, and suffering for the welfare of others... but not if those others do not treat them with love, admiration, gratitude and respect.   You can express an attitude of love, admiration, gratitude, and respect towards a man, or towards men, at the cost of zero money and very little effort.   But you have been taught that it is shameful to do so.   Perhaps you might want to begin asking yourself who taught you that, and why. And asking yourself what great rewards you have reaped from treating men with hatred, contempt, entitlement, and condescension.  Because if you will not do this, and you need something from men, which you have just admitted you do, your only other option is to try to shame men into providing it.   I've seen this before, and will no doubt see it again in the comments, once or twice.   "Boo-hoo, are your precious little manfeels hurt? Is that why you sitting there minding your own business like a selfish coward?"  It's not a bad line, if not terribly original, and it would have worked just fine for a woman living in an age where men were viewed, by default, with some respect.   Problem is, such expressions of contempt and disgust only have any force if they are significantly different from your normal attitude towards men.   There is no point in threatening to withhold your love, admiration, gratitude and respect if you are already doing so.   This is what men really mean when they talk about Daniel Penny. They may not have the words to express it, but this is the true meaning.  It's not about Penny being arrested.   It's not about him being put on trial for murder.   It's not about anything that the bureaucrats of New York City did.   The offense was committed by the women of New York City. Yes, all of them. Every single one.   Your grave offense, your sin, for which men may never forgive you, was that you, the women of NYC, did not rise in a single, outraged mass, swearing that no one currently in office, from the mayor on down, would ever receive one single vote from anyone with girl parts, if the charges against Daniel Penny were not immediately dropped.   Men are refusing to rise in your defense because you refused to rise in theirs.   The only advice I can give you now, is to leave New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Portland, Seattle, Kansas City, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston.   You should instead move to a small town where the rule of law still exists.   Because this is the land of wolves now. And you are not a wolf."

Meme - Jeremy Kauffman 🦔🌲🌕 @jeremykauffman: "shot // chaser"
brecht apologist: "this man on the subway was repeatedly harassing a woman, being disgusting, invading her space, etc tell me fucking why me and the other women around tried to intervene and tell him off but all the young, fit guys around just stood silent and looked at the ground. this guy was a BIG DUDE and yet we were moving around to try to create a physically barrier bet him and her and there were so many guys who were definitely stronger than any of us just fucking twidaling their thumbs and acting like nothing was wrong"
brecht apologist: "i would also like to add that it feels hollow and selfishI at best and nefarious and exploitative at worst to only be bringing up violence against women at the expense of another marginalized group. especially following the murder of jordan neely, it's propagandistic."

Meme - lil old me 🇵🇸 @loseroml: "All the people using that ex marine as a gotcha don’t realize that you can intervene without choking someone to death…literally women are intervening and men just twiddle thumbs because they’re afraid to choke someone to death? Pls you haven’t even lifted a finger"
Dave Parke @Dave_Parke: "Nope. He didn't try to choke him to death. Women don't realize that men can accidentally kill each other when they fight. Weird things happen. This is the world you wanted. Men are unnecessary and masculinity is toxic. You're equal. You handle it."
Kiki @kikisknees: "LOL, "Hey quit it." That should work."
MISINFOSCIENCE @MISINFOSCIENCE: "Sounds like you ladies can take care of yourselves!"
Eric🎙️ @ThereWBBourbon: "Does that inconvenient truth bother you back to some sort of primal understanding that men are supposed to be your protector or you do you want “yeah but” your way into whatever pretzel you’re twisting yourself into?"
C/SAR Diver 🇺🇸🐻⚔ @rstemler1: "Men, who live in reality, cannot compete with women, who just "know better."  Enjoy the Hell you created."
Ericus Cartmanicus Aurelius @CartmanAurelius: "How much experience do you have subduing violent criminals?"
BKactual @BravoKiloActual: "Please explain to everyone, step by step, how you would intervene on a large, aggressive man harassing a woman."
Ars Sababa 🇮🇱 🇫🇷 🚁 🚁 @ArsSababa: "This sounds like someone who has never tried to subdue anybody who is extremely dangerous before.  Let’s let the girl bosses show everybody how it’s done."

Meme - hoe_math @ItIsHoeMath: "Absolutely infuriating response.   Wifejak-tier disconnection from reality.  When we day "Daniel Penny," we don't mean "just that one guy just that one time."  What we mean is "a very long, very clear trend of white men being severely punished for saving white women (or anyone, really) from non-white (especially black) violent criminals.  It happened to Derek Chauvin. It happened to George Zimmerman (not even white, but portrayed as white on the news). There are STILL leftards who think Kyle Rittenhouse is white and shot black people for fun and got away with it.  We would gladly jump in to save you from violence, but the culture we live in generates enough retards that there's a high chance we will be arrested, sent to trial, and lose.   Chauvin's jury, for instance, was just a BLM rally. Their deliberations were just "white bad black good," so Chauvin is in prison now for doing his job. (No, he did not crush St. Floyd's neck for 8 minutes, and yes, Floyd the Holy took 2x the amount of fentanyl necessary to kill him.)  It's because of people like you (mostly women) who refuse to see this trend that it will continue."
Allie @Cluffalo: "A lot of men claiming Daniel Penny are the reason they don't intervene to help women also did not help women before Daniel Penny  Quit taking credit for what you never would have done"

The Economics of Political Correctness

The Economics of Political Correctness - WSJ

One morning, chatting with Harvard undergraduates just before my class, I reminisced about my own college years in the late 1990s—debating religion in our residence hall or arguing about the role of discrimination in America in common rooms.

Those conversations were uncomfortable and even heated at times. But they were positive experiences for me and I’m pretty sure everyone else. Grappling with different views helped us understand one another, and that helped me understand, and sometimes change, my own outlook.

I asked a student in the front row: With all this technology and social media, where do you have these types of conversations? She looked up from her turquoise notebook and replied: “We don’t.” I looked around the amphitheater and asked, “Really?” A hundred heads nodded in unison.

I thought they were exaggerating until a student in another class dared to ask if racial disparities are due to systemic racism or differences in work ethic. He happens to be black and from a disadvantaged background, and he earnestly wondered why, in his neighborhood growing up, it seemed to him that black immigrants worked harder than American-born blacks. A white woman a couple of rows behind him called him a “white supremacist.”

If my dorm-mates and I had the threat of academic censure hanging over our heads back then, would we have been as forthcoming with each other? I’d like to think so, but I doubt it. We weren’t courageous; we lived in a world where the cost of information was higher and the cost of asking the “wrong” question was essentially zero, so debate was an efficient way to learn.

In my college dorm’s common room, I met an Indian woman who thought arranged marriage made more sense than dating. I found her arguments baffling for the obvious reasons—and besides, economists typically think more choice leads to better outcomes. She didn’t question my motives for asking; she simply pulled out data on divorce rates across the two continents to prove her point. That common room was the first place I debated chapters of the Bible with an atheist. The first time I had a chance to ask delicate questions of a gay man about his experiences.

A decade ago, I still interacted with dozens of undergraduates and doctoral students who were asking important and provocative questions about race and sex in America. But now students invite me to lunch and ask if their research idea is too risky; they wonder out loud what they are allowed to “say in public,” as though they are in the situation room discussing nuclear launch strategy rather than pondering the economics of policing in an overpriced cafe.

Some are turning to an app called Sidechat, where they can frankly debate others in the Harvard community without revealing their names. It’s good that these conversations are happening somewhere; it’s distressing that they require a veil of anonymity.

The issue affects research in economics, hardly known for its far-left politics. When I used artificial intelligence to evaluate all the race- and sex-related papers published in the top six econ journals since 2006, asking the algorithm to score how liberal or conservative the conclusions leaned, I found a more than 2-to-1 leftward tilt overall.

There were particularly big gaps in the late Obama years and the early 2020s. Did empirical output lean particularly to the left at those times, or were political-correctness pressures especially strong?

Realistically, either journal editors are refusing to publish controversial results, or academics are too cowardly even to do the research. One notable exception—a recent American Economic Review paper finding that children’s academic outcomes improve when parents are incarcerated—met with censorious derision from others in the field on social media. My own work on race and policing, which was published in a top peer-reviewed journal in economics, was labeled “hate speech” by (pre-Elon Musk) Twitter.

Even if stone cold economists have fallen prey to self-censorship, economics can tell us why. A brilliant analysis by Stephen Morris—a formalization of early ideas developed by Glenn Loury—develops the basic economics of political correctness. Here is an example:

Suppose there is an informed professor advising a less informed politician as to whether diversity, equity, and inclusion policies help minorities. If the professor says DEI is harmful, the politician might interpret the recommendation as the honest findings of an unbiased researcher. But he also might interpret it as the motivated reasoning of a racist, and might even stop asking the professor for advice.

Mr. Morris demonstrates mathematically that if the professor is sufficiently concerned about being thought a racist, he will lie and recommend DEI even when he knows it’s a bad idea for minorities. And if he does tell the truth, his advice may come across as tainted by bias. The implications are unsettling for anyone trying to make decisions based on academics’ recommendations.

A similar dynamic is at play on any socially sensitive topic, and social media turbocharges it. Online activists have major incentives to call out even obscure academic work they deem beyond the pale; doing so can help them shore up their own progressive bona fides and build their followings. And there are few penalties for misconstruing the target’s argument or being plain wrong.

The question is what can be done. First, we need to take a careful look at how we hire and promote faculty. Instead of having them sign statements swearing fealty to DEI, perhaps they should promise to tell the truth. Second, we need high-powered incentives for people who are correct regardless of politics. If someone scientifically demonstrates that systemic racism is the main factor in racial disparities in America, this should be celebrated. If someone finds that health disparities are driven by genetics rather than social factors—that too should be celebrated. We need something like the MacArthur Fellowship or the X Prize for telling the truth about data.

I am gravely concerned about the rise of political correctness on college campuses, its effect on the type of analysis that is being published and being taught, and how this will undermine, among many other things, efforts to help the marginalized in America. Such efforts will succeed only if they are rooted in the truth.