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“Science” becomes self-negating


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It all started in 2013 when Popular Science disabled its comment section. We laughed. Or, at least, I did. What a stupid idea for a major publication to declare “Comments can be bad for science. That’s why, here at PopularScience.com, we’re shutting them off.” As if science was some sort of fragile bird that needs affirmation to flourish in the cold, cruel world of the internet. It turns out that it wasn’t science that needed protecting, it was the “scientific” consensus that was being walled off from criticism or questioning.

Science has gotten really…weird, man!

Eight years later the poisonous fruit of the walled garden continues to infect science publications. Scientific American, the nation’s oldest weekly magazine, has been a proudly leftist pseudo-political rag for quite some time. They endorsed Joe Biden for President in 2020, for example, and they currently have an article headlined “Politicians Don’t Get to Use ‘Science’ to Oppose the Equality Act.” prominently displayed on their home page. But their latest declaration “We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We’re Going to Say So,” takes their bias to a new level.

After declaring that “13,000 scientists agree” that this is an emergency (because what’s more scientific than saying “everybody’s doing it, yo!”), Senior Editor Mark Fischetti sniffs “Journalism should reflect what science says: the climate emergency is here.” In a statement coordinated by Covering Climate Now, an activist project of the Columbia Journalism Review, Scientific American and several major newspapers declare that they will all use the same emergency language going forward. What prompted this call to action? Coverage of COVID-19.

The media’s response to COVID-19 provides a useful model. Guided by science, journalists have described the pandemic as an emergency, chronicled its devastating impacts, called out disinformation and told audiences how to protect themselves (with masks and social distancing, for example).

Got that? There isn’t a sentient being on Earth who thinks the media or the “science” got COVID coverage right. The response to COVID has been as devastating as the disease itself. We have been told to trust the experts, but the experts have lied to us from the very beginning about masks, about the efficacy of vaccines, and about herd immunity. The same “experts” who told us we couldn’t have funerals for our loved ones because of the virus praised last summer’s riots as being necessary and proper from a public health standpoint.

This is an open and direct call for conditioning and propaganda under the auspices of science. To push a radical, leftist agenda major newspapers are coordinating their messaging in order to scare the people into backing their preferred policies. And they’re not even trying to hide it! One look at some of the major players reinforces the one-sidedness of it all. The Guardian, The Nation, La Repubblica (Italy’s foremost leftist rag), and Al Jazeera are all pushing the mass coordination of the emergency narrative.

Science as we once knew it is dead. Cause of death: suicide.

WaPo’s Teeny Torquemada Has Thoughts


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The Washington Post’s Philip Bump is a zealot masquerading as a journalist. In today’s “news analysis” he continues to pump the narrative that Georgia’s new voting law is obviously bad because…well because republicans are just bad. That’s why.

“There’s always a reason that legislation is introduced, always some problem that lawmakers say needs to be addressed in the moment. In Georgia, there is no rational motivation for the passage of its new election law other than demonstrating fealty to the false claims elevated by Trump. Why did Raffensperger need to be replaced on the elections board now? Why did the rules governing absentee applications need to be tightened now, only a few months after an election in which repeated review and extensive scrutiny showed no improprieties had occurred?”

The answer is: COVID is (almost) over and the legislature is smart enough to know that the COVID-era loosey-goosey, let’s-mail-a-ballot-to-anyone-even-dead-people policies are generally unpopular and make elections less safe.

Keeping but reducing the number drop boxes, which didn’t exist before COVID is not a restriction, it’s the opposite. In a post-COVID world why would we need drop boxes anyway? Likewise, requiring ID for absentee ballots is exactly the same as states like Washington, Connecticut, and Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware. Since the legislature is making drop boxes permanent, they want to ensure the ballots are secure. That’s as rational a motivation as there can be for a healthy democracy.

But Teeny Torquemada doesn’t see it that way. Any and all relaxing of voting security (even the unlawful kind) must be upheld in the new world order that seeks to ensure republicans never win another election. After the President himself was awarded four Pinocchios for claiming the Georgia law is “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” the zealots need something to justify their their inquisition.

 

 

Gay Jokes 4 Progress!


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David Marcus in The Federalist writes a keen essay on the more subtle harms that cancel culture (yes, it’s a thing) can do to our shared cultural achievements. It’s worth a read. He hits on a few points that are missing almost entirely from the public debate on censorship in general, and makes one very important observation about comedy: “by laughing about…stereotypes [we can] diffus[e] them.” This is a concept as old as comedy itself, and it has a special place in the history of gay rights and gay acceptance generally, which we should not want to be erased.

In the Nexflix era people who were born in the late 90’s and early 00’s (how is that even possible?) got to discover TV shows and movies older millennials and Gen Xers grew up with. Friends is the most celebrated example, since it had a “moment” in 2017 and 2018. But its resurgence was also met with controversy over the *gasp* problematic jokes, especially insensitive gay jokes that peppered its decade-long run.

The 90’s were a weird time. Pants were too big, hair was out of control, and most of the country thought gay relationships (not marriage, relationships) should be illegal. in 1996 Congress sought “to express moral disapproval of homosexuality” by passing the Defense of Marriage Act by 342-67 in the House and 85-14 in the Senate. It’s shocking today to even consider this. And in the midst of a national controversy about gay people and civil rights shows like Friends and Will and Grace flourished.

Tensions about cultural norms were high back then as they are now. No one had satisfactory answers about how much the government should be involved in dictating gay rights. Republicans and democrats took the position that the world would end if their preferred policies weren’t enacted. And while the “very political” class was engaged in blood sport, the rest of us did what normal people do: we laughed about it. In an environment where your elected leaders overwhelmingly disapprove of you, just being a part of the culture was liberating and life-affirming. Sure, a fair critique is that we were treated as two-dimensional objects and not three-dimensional subjects, but we couldn’t even discuss this “problem” if we had been left as zero-dimensional non-entities.

“Doesn’t it make sense to place ourselves in the continuum of what came before us and what will come after?” Marcus asks. Of course it does. No society springs fully-formed into perfection. We are, after all, flawed human beings, not demigods. Erasing the culture of the past deprives subsequent generations of guideposts to measure the achievements of a more just society. Acceptance comes as a result of changing hearts not by diktats or censorship that force the changing of minds. If we were to declare a new starting point, a year before which all cultural content would be obliterated, how would we know if we were progressing at all? It would be left to the whims of those who think they are our betters to tell us.

Not every positive change in society needs to be the result of some dour theory cooked up in a faculty lounge or in a Queer Theory seminar. As Aristophanes said “comedy too can sometimes discern what is right.”

The Real Problem With Ro Khanna


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On Sunday, Rep. Ro Khanna (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Tech) made an unsurprising confession: Democrats would rather businesses go under than allow them to pay less than $15 an hour to unskilled workers. This comes after the CBO projects that raising the minimum wage to that level will cost 1.4 Million jobs.

As politically stupid as that is to say out loud, it’s what the likes of Amazon and others have been pushing for since before the pandemic made them “indispensable.” What better way to crush the last vestiges of competition than by getting the government to do your dirty work for you?

But the real threat Khanna poses to America was his supporting argument: “If workers were actually getting paid for the value they were creating it [the minimum wage] would be up to $23.” (Emphasis mine). On its face, this is just typical lefty claptrap. But it’s more sinister than that, and we should pay attention.

But first, a bit of history.

“Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains,” declares Rousseau in the opening of The Social Contract. It was, in the best French tradition, a pithy encapsulation of Enlightenment political thought — the same thought that guided our founders. Rousseau makes the argument the only reason man gives up his essentially free (and facially neutral) nature is because the law treats all citizens equally. At least in an ideal world. This argument is a direct refutation of Thomas Hobbes’ belief that man is violent and should be fearful of others — making a strong, unaccountable ruler necessary, and indeed a Good Thing.

Rousseau’s philosophy permeates our system. How many times have we heard about defending the rule of law from every corner of the political spectrum? Our founders wedded Rousseau’s concept of an impartial rule of law to the natural rights doctrine of John Locke when crafting the Declaration of independence and our Constitutions. Locke believed that nature itself was suffused with a law, which he summed up as “no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, and or property.”

Creating a government that would best conform to this law of nature was the primary preoccupation of the men who made this country free. It’s one of the most delicate governmental balancing acts put into practice. Liberty is the inherent mode of our very beings and government must not only protect it, but promote it.  The outcomes are imperfect, but ours is still the greatest experiment in ordered liberty in history.

Ro Khanna fundamentally disagrees with this philosophy.

Karl Marx in his 1844 Manuscripts outlines what is called social alienation. Put simply, Marx believes that man’s freedom is immaterial, shared with others, and contingent. There is no freedom in nature. Rather, man’s essence and indeed his value as a being is subsumed into his labor, which is quantified (unfairly) by his economic output. He is alienated from his essence when the capitalist abuses this nature by directing the labor and not allowing it to flourish naturally for the collective benefit.

While Marx goes much deeper into human nature, Ro Khanna has taken from his philosophy the most facile interpretation: it’s an obscenity to allow a business to exist that “abuses” workers in this way.  For Khanna, the loss of a few million jobs is worthwhile because the moral health of a society is imperiled by the existence of “capitalist exploitation.” Workers are actively harmed by having market wages, which is why “we don’t want low-wage businesses” to exist at all. Man’s essential nature isn’t freedom, or liberty, or even neutral: it’s as a material thing that labors.

This is a sinister, dehumanizing philosophy tarted up as concern for the poor. Khanna and his communist allies know the misery millions will face if they achieve their preferred policy, but that’s a feature, not a bug. After all, if man isn’t born free, who cares if he’s in the chains of poverty?

 

What The Hell Is Going On?


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Amidst a flurry of news this week, one odd story has gone woefully underreported. According to federal court documents, NBC and CNN paid $35,000 each for the footage of a Trump-supporting Air Force veteran being shot and killed by a still-unidentified man during the Capitol riot in January.

John Sullivan, the founder of a group called Insurgence USA, has admitted to a federal court that the news networks paid him handsomely for his recording. Prosecutors also allege that Sullivan “infiltrates protests to cause chaos and record video footage.”

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but something here doesn’t add up. A self-proclaimed anti-Trump activist who incites violence at protests profits from a supposedly pro-trump “insurrection.” And the people who pay him have an incentive to push the “insurrection” narrative for a variety of reasons. That narrative is currently being used to label Republicans and Trump supporters as terrorists and fueling calls for a new “War on Terror” within the United States.

Such rhetoric isn’t new. Back in August of 2020, Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans of being “domestic enemies” and “enemies of the state.” The difference now is that there’s been an incident that far too many people with power are using as “proof” of an enemy within.

What the hell is going on? I’m not sure, but a picture is emerging that, ominously, suggests that there is an enemy within, and it may not be Trump supporters.

Consider:

  • The Chief of the Capitol Police on the day of the riot said that they made six requests for National Guard troops in the days leading up to the demonstration, but were denied by both House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms.
  • The story that Officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death by a bloodthirsty mob has fallen apart, even as it’s been used to pummel Trump supporters.
  • We’ve been told over and over that the mob was armed, but Capitol Police have never said how many weapons were confiscated or if any weapons were discharged by their officers or rioters.
  • The mysterious pipe bombs found at the DNC and RNC were placed the night before the riots, and even with a massive manhunt and video footage no one has been arrested. It’s also odd that no one noticed suspicious packages outside of such secure buildings anytime during January 6th until after the riot began.
  • The man appointed to lead the “9/11-Style commission” looking into the breach at the Capitol called Sen. Josh Hawley a “little piece of shit” and has criticized republicans for years on MSNBC.
  • Members of Congress falsely accusing colleagues of offering “reconnaissance tours” prior to the riots

There’s more than this, of course. Like the weird tale of panic buttons being removed from Congressional offices with no proof or follow-up by an oddly incurious media, and AOC’s hallucination of being in danger from rioters who never came near her.

The media has parroted the most outlandish of these stories while refusing to do basic follow-up reporting to get to the truth. And now they’ve paid an anti-Trump agitator a startling sum of money for video he took while he was rioting.

The question we need to ask is Cui Bono? Who benefits? It sure looks and feels like the media, Nancy Pelosi, and the surveillance state demagogues are — to our detriment.

Bearded Harpy Seeks Higher Office


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PA state rep Brian Sims is an icon — in his own warped mind. The openly gay lawmaker has made a name for himself over the years, but not for anything he should be proud of.  He’s best known for offering his social media followers $100 to dox underage girls who had the temerity to pray peacefully in front of a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood. He also “welcomed” then-Vice President Mike Pence to Pennsylvania with this charming photograph.

Now, the bearded harpy of Center City wants a promotion: to Lt. Governor of the Commonwealth.

In one way he might be an upgrade. The current Lt. Governor, John Fetterman, pulled a gun on an unarmed black jogger in 2013 while he was mayor of a small town. Just imagine if a republican had done that.

But back to Sims. It took Sims five months to offer an apology to the young girls, even as his actions were being investigated by the police and were denounced by his legislative colleagues.

This isn’t the only incident that has called Sims’ judgement (and stability) into question. This past August, local police investigated Sims for threatening a fellow pro-gay lawmaker over an LGBT Bill of Rights that Sims was angry about. It’s unclear what caused the unhinged rant, but the issue was later dropped (because he’s a democrat, I’m sure).

Visible gay representation has been a cornerstone of achieving equality in this country. But Brian Sims is not the kind of politician, let alone human being, we want associated with us. Let’s hope the voters of Pennsylvania see him as the nasty piece of work he is.

UK: Chest Milk is Best Milk


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I swear this isn’t Big Mike’s chest. But it could be…

Ah, England, where you can be harassed by cops for sitting in your car to smoke a cigarette because it *squints* “breaks lockdown rules.” It’s stunning that the land that gave us Magna Carta, representative democracy, and Queen Anne style furniture has sunk so low. It couldn’t possibly sink lower, could it? Sadly, it can. Via the Washington Examiner:

“‘Human milk,’ ‘breast/chest milk,’ or ‘milk from the feeding mother or parent’ are the more acceptable terms for midwives to use at the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust in lieu of using the traditional ‘breast milk.'”

Excuse me, what? Chest milk? Milk from the feeding parent? Wait…there’s more. The nanny goats (excuse me, child-rearing quadrupeds) at Britain’s state-run National Health Service helpfully remind us that these “guidelines support trans and non-binary birthing people.”

Non-binary.
Birthing.
People.

Why not just call them a “baby chute” or “human hole” or “birth canal havers?” And how does this “support” anyone? I’m all for using someone’s preferred pronouns as a matter of personal courtesy, but for the love of Judy Garland why is a health service bothering with this foolishness in the middle of a pandemic?

Why does the left hate women so much?

House Democrats and the “Goldfinger” Exception


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You expect me to talk? No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!

The trial of the 45th President begins tomorrow and the Trump legal team has put out a spirited, sometimes fiery, but well-reasoned defense. One matter that they vigorously push back on is the House’s assertion that a government official, in this case the President, is not afforded the same First Amendment protections of ordinary citizens. I call this the Goldfinger Exception after the famous scene in the classic Bond film. And just like in that film, a Mr. Bond saves the day! The House Managers say:

“Most fundamentally, the First Amendment protects private citizens from the government; it does not protect government officials from accountability for their own abuses in office…Regardless, even if the First Amendment were applicable here, private citizens and government officials stand on very different footing when it comes to being held responsible for their statements.”

This is a breathtaking assertion. It is also directly contradicted by Supreme Court precedent, which the defense brilliantly points out. Indeed, Trump’s lawyers note that the House doesn’t even bother to quote court opinions — they instead rely on blog posts to back this mangling of our most cherished freedom. One of the relevant cases is Bond v. Floyd,which involved the GA state legislature voting to prohibit the seating of Julian Bond because he spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Bond sued in federal court, and won. As the Trump legal team explains:

“When the state argued ‘that even though such a citizen [Bond, elected to GA’s House] might be protected by his First Amendment rights, the State may nonetheless apply a stricter standard to its legislators[,]’ the Supreme Court responded tersely, ‘We do not agree[,]'”

And citing the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case, Justice Brennan (of all people) went on to conclude:

“The manifest function of the First Amendment in a representative government requires that legislators be given the widest latitude toexpress their views on issues of policy. The central commitment of the First Amendment…is that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”

So there we have it. Bond, Julian Bond, shows us just how the House’s assertions are “malarkey.”

Welcome to Zuckerberg-burg


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ZuckermeisterIf you thought the worst thing to come out of Nevada was the movie Showgirls then you’re not paying attention to Dem Governor Sisolakand his insane proposal to allow tech companies to form their own governments within the state.

While he calls them “Innovation Zones” they’re really miniature feudal domains run by our emerging masters in Silicon Valley. As the AP reports:

“The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services.”

Surely the democratically-elected local governments would have the final say in how these zones are run? Nope.

“The zones would have three-member supervisor boards with the same powers as county commissioners. The businesses would maintain significant control over board membership.”

How much is “significant?” The governor isn’t saying. And just how can a company get these rotten boroughs? Money, of course. If a company promises to “invest” at least a billion dollars in the next ten years the state will sell your sovereignty to the highest bidder.

This is a disaster for democracy and for the American experiment. The holier-than-thou types in the media and government keep telling us “democracy is fragile.” It is. But their unholy alliance with big tech is actively undermining the only acceptable basis for their exercise of power: the consent of the governed.