Politics

The Heretic

Imagine yourself living perhaps 400 years ago in a culture controlled by a Puritanical church, where the established powers had a very personal interest in determining the rules, language, behavior, and even thoughts of the citizens. You were that rare person who observed not only contradictions in the church doctrine and hypocrisy in the actions of the leadership, but actually expressed your concerns. You put yourself in a precarious position, subjecting yourself to accusations of blasphemy, heresy, and witchcraft, often leading to social ruin, banishment, and even death. Certainly you were the exception, as most people would conform to the demands of the powerful to avoid being called such things: look straight ahead, mindlessly repeat the catechism, and hope to be left alone.

The Employee Who Thought Management Was Out To Get Him

Centuries later…For many years I was a NY State civil service employee, and for much of that era had the good fortune to be pretty much left alone to do my job, one I felt was truly meaningful. During that time I worked with and came to know a fellow employee who seemed like a decent guy, competent in his job, reliable, caring, mature. Nevertheless, there was always suggestion of taint about him, as if he had done something really bad in the past; the implication that if you want to get ahead, get those promotions, don’t get too friendly with him.

by Reid Fitzsimons

An interesting thing happened to the venerable and widely respected Salvation Army (SA): they were caught, so to speak, in the ether of political “wokeness,” and a lot of disappointment followed. Specifically, they posted on their website a “guide” entitled “Let’s Talk About Racism,” sometime in the Spring of 2021. This was outed, so to speak, by non-traditional media, specifically a group called Color Us United, in October 2021; the resulting publicity led the SA to delete the document in November. As part of their defense, they referred to it as a “study guide…for internal use,” and issued a rather acerbic and juvenile preamble on Nov. 25th: “This statement is in response to a politically motivated group that is trying to force The Salvation Army to conform to the group’s ideology of choice.” Here is a link to the full SA statement: https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/story/the-salvation-armys-response-to-false-claims-on-the-topic-of-racism/

It’s never a good idea to take grandiloquent positions based on snippets from others so, after some difficulty, I did track down the deleted “Let’s Talk About Racism” document, and an associated study guide; it can be found at an internet archiving site called Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/). After reviewing the materials I, as a heretofore enthusiastic supporter of the SA, concluded the critics were correct, and that the apologetics issued by the SA were misleading and even self-righteous, and one of the terribly frustrating things about this controversy is that it was entirely unnecessary. So... Let’s Talk About Racism Elitism. 

To be a bit acerbic myself, Let’s Talk About Racism is less a thoughtful and serious paper than one written for extra credit by a sophomore college student in a sociology class (minus the Biblical references), a class where the professor is an ageing hippie who yearns to be pertinent while dreaming of the halcyon days from the 60’s of “free love,” i.e. easy sex without responsibility or consequence, days long before “#MeToo.” It is rife with the vocabulary of the progressive word salad, and indeed begins with a specious argument, presented as established fact, that “Race is a social construct.” For anyone unfamiliar with the phrase “social construct,” it a means to diminish or deny what until now has been generally accepted, and is often used in a pejorative, disdainful manner; it is most commonly seen in the world of “transgender” polemics: gender is merely a social construct, and to believe there is a factual or biologic basis for male and female means you are an ignorant moron.

Chuck Schumer gesturing
Benito Mussolini gesturing

by Carole Milljour

Note: The following is a letter sent by a friend (and supporter of this website), Carole Milljour, to the rather duplicitous and moral reprobate Chuck Schumer, Senator from NY. She had originally signed on to a group letter opposing the use of Federal government money to pay for abortions (i.e. repeal the long-standing Hyde amendment), and in this letter she is responding to his reply, which, of course, is both despicable and predictable (his response is below Carole’s letter).

There are many parallels between slavery and abortion, the most obvious being there are those who create a culture which allows for sub-humans, and this entitles them to use their Untermensch as chattel: if it’s not human you can treat it like an inanimate machine, and if it proves to be troublesome, simply sell it or kill it. Curiously, there were many slave owners and supporters of slavery who did in fact have moral qualms about the horror they propagated, but were essentially addicts to the convenience and power that apparently comes with owning people. This raises the great moral question- which is more depraved, to know it is evil ad do it anyway, or to be so reprehensibly inhumane as to not even recognize evil. Chuck Schumer is somewhat atypical because he fits in both of these categories.

Dear Honorable Charles Schumer:  

It may be a woman's body, but it is not her life she is sacrificing, but a child of God.  Our government should not be funding abortion services or services in which body parts of an unborn baby are sold for profit.  As a taxpayer, and voting resident of NY, I do not like the attitude of anyone who thinks they have any power at all to vote for taking a human life, especially when that individual is in office to work for the citizens of this state.  It may be your opinion, but not the opinion of everyone you were chosen to represent. 

I am shocked and angry that you can have such little concern for an unborn child with the feeble excuse that it is okay to terminate it under the guise of “it's a woman's right since it is her body.” No one should have that right.  That unborn child suffers when it is torn apart in the womb.  Abortion is a moneymaker and people who are for it don't care one way or the other for the child or the mother.  It's a disgrace.  A woman has the right to use the various types of birth control, because that is her body; but the body she plans to remove from her womb is not hers: that child is a separate entity unto it's own.  I was my mother's child, not my mother!  It may have been her body, but I was her child!  

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T-shirt available at E-Bay for $19.95
by Reid Fitzsimons

The word “racism” is used in our current culture with impressive frequency, and often with frightening consequences. From a societal standpoint, it is tantamount to being called a “witch” during a time when Western governments were largely theocracies, and such accusations could lead to severe punishments with no real opportunity for defense against the undefined charge. Similar to those dark times, when those in control were not concerned with the betterment of the people under their rule, but interested only in maintaining their elite status, vague accusations were (and are) an effective means to obtain and wield power, a way to intimidate opposition into silence and compliance. At the present time, despite the ubiquitous (and even cultish) nature of the charges of “racism,” it is largely used generically, and often by very immature people, much more like a 4-year-old calling someone a “doo doo head” while having a tantrum than a reasoned adult. The premise of this article is to actually consider what “racism” means, if indeed it was exclaimed with any thought at all. For Part 1 of this article, click here: http://conservativeproletariat.com/?p=631

“They are all like that” racism: At one time I was well acquainted with a person, a former physician, who was living as a ex-patriot in Honduras (My wife and I have spent a number of years there running a small charity project). Often over the duration of our association, he would declare, “ALL Hondurans are VILE!” Not some, not many, not most, not just a handful, but ALL! There was, obviously, no basis for this other than his deranged feelings. In a way his worldview was fascinating, as if generic and immutable attributes could be applied to large numbers of people linked by whatever- race, nationality, ethnicity, religious traditions- with no allowance for individual variation.

In the US at the moment there are declarations made by racialists that ALL white people are racists- it is genetic, generic, and immutable. Like the concept of Original Sin in Christian theology, there is a stain among (white) people simply for being born, but unlike Christianity it applies only to one class of human, there is no option of redemption or forgiveness, and the intent is to see an entire race of people grovel in perpetuity. The irony here- that this in fact is racism in its most primitive form- should be obvious, and it probably is, but for some it is used as a means to power. Another irony is that the person mentioned above took great pride in the belief that he alone was the only white person who wasn’t a racist.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

Accusing others of Racism in our present political and social climate is an efficient means for a person to find validation and meaning in their lives, at least for the kind of person that needs a bad “Them” so they can be part of the good “Us.” This is not unlike ill-balanced religious zealots who need others to serve as sinners so they can view themselves, in contrast, as Saints. Of course, as with so many things of this nature, word meanings are vague and often remain poorly defined.

In reality, racism is a concept that resists simplistic definitions, but rather it is better explained by category and example, which this article endeavors to do. First, an introductory warning: to anyone reading this who is emotionally and culturally fragile- prepare your fainting couch, because in a few instances the “N-word” is going to be spelled out fully.

Those who are inclined to hurl out the insult of “Racist” typical do so mindlessly, and they largely mean nothing more than anyone who disagrees with them, but if they were able to attach to it some significance, these are some possibilities:

True vile and hate-filled racism: In prior times, up into the 1960’s perhaps, truly vile racism was often public and even proud, but, where it exists today, it’s more of an hidden internet phenomenon among a handful of losers: the mostly mythical “white supremacists.” It is, fortunately, the least common form of racism, despite what social justice activists yearn to believe.

In my 62 years I have encountered this type racism twice. The first was in the late 1970s in Mississippi, where a complete jerk from a privileged family, who somehow became a lawyer, talked to me about “blacktopping the road-” intentionally running over black people. He also talked about the joys of “coon hunting” at night. As far as I know he was (fortunately) a despicable coward and never lived his fantasies.

The second encounter I had was in South Alabama soon after my wife and I moved there in 2008. I went to introduce myself to our new and elderly neighbor, and was asking him about lawn mowers when he spontaneously declared, “I don’t care much for niggers.” He went on to talk about the good old days when “niggers knew their place” and one time they got uppity and had to be driven from (presumably by the local KKK) a town in the area. We came to learn he had been a lifelong angry drunk who, ironically, had a hypoxic brain event soon after, and ended up being cared for by black caregivers.

Biased racism: this is a form of racism that has existed in my lifetime and was somewhat common- an inculcated a belief among certain whites that blacks were, simply, inferior. A perfect example of this type was as follows: I knew a person who owned (in the government backed loan sense of the word) a large amount of farmland in Mississippi, and he had a habit of hiring people as his farm managers right out of central casting for thieving rednecks.

Once, just after the latest manager absconded with pockets full of loot, I asked him if he might consider hiring Archie as the manager. Archie was a black man who had long been a dependable employee and knew farming front and back. He, the land owner, replied succinctly that Archie could not be considered because, “He’s a nigger.” He did not say this with any animosity and indeed he treated Archie and all his black farmhands well. It was simply a belief that a black person couldn’t function as a manager. In his defense, sometime later a woman with an agricultural related college degree applied to be the farm manager. I asked him why he didn’t hire her and his response was a predictable, “Because she’s a woman.”

Observational and descriptive racism: When I lived in East Africa many years ago it was common for kids to run about excitedly as I passed by shouting “Mzungu,” which essentially means “White Person” in Swahili. They were certainly not racist, simply observing that they saw a relatively rare white guy. Unfortunately, invoking a description of race, for example saying in a rural mostly white small town, “I saw a black guy crossing the street,” might be construed by easily offended “social justice” activists as racist.

Progressive politicians, feeling anointed and obligated to somehow shield black Americans from reality, have decreed that using race in describing a suspected criminal, for example, is prohibited. Hence, in some cities it is disallowed to say, “The suspect is a young black male of average size.”

Unfamiliar racism: There was an old widow neighbor (recently deceased) who my wife and I helped quite a bit- we live in a mostly white rural area and she simply hadn’t been around black people much. I was telling her that we were going to bring over from Kenya a black man to attend college in the US, that he was going to spend some time with us, and that she would enjoy meeting him. She said, “I don’t know, I’ve never had a black person in my house before,” a statement that could easily elicit a charge of racism from sensitive activist. Once he arrived she was very welcoming, was quickly and thoroughly charmed by him, and even gave him a hug when he left for school. This man is from a very dark-skinned tribe, and she observed, “He’s the darkest black person I ever saw!”

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by Reid Fitzsimons

Note: This was sent to Sen Toomey following his announcement that he has sided with the Democrats in supporting the impeachment/Senate trial of Donald Trump, no longer in office.

Sen. Toomey:

Almost 20 years ago my (future) wife and I decided to depart from our comfortable small town, middle-class lives and venture into the world of volunteer charity work. This first led us to Guatemala, then East Africa, and finally back to Central America. In Kenya, in 2002 and 2003, I was the medical director (PA) of a very remote clinic, this being during the time of the AIDS crisis. I suspect you couldn’t begin to imagine the misery, suffering, and death I encountered on a daily basis: malaria and AIDS especially, but also diseases as far reaching as typhoid, cholera, and even rabies. There were too many failures, never enough successes, lots of gut-wrenching sadness, and even occasional joy. My wife had the courage to travel by herself and join me at this clinic, and I recall with timeless admiration when a young woman had just given birth with resultant vaginal tearing, and my wife held in one hand the patient’s hand, and in the other a flashlight so I could see to do the surgical repair. In looking at a summary of your biography, I suspect we saw more of this reality of the world in a day then you’ve seen in your lifetime.

In the mid-2000’s we decided to develop a kid’s oriented project in Honduras, which we opened in a small, rural village in 20007. This included educational and reading experiences, a feeding program (typically we served 100’s of meals a week), wholesome recreation and sports- basically a place where impoverished children could feel safe and be kids. Once we were told of a 2 ½ year-old girl who weighed 11 pounds, was hairless, and covered with scars. We took her to an “expert,” a local physician, and were told she was beyond salvage. Nevertheless, we provided her with intensive nutrition and other measures, and today she is a healthy teenager. In this type of work there are frequently unexpected and significant challenges.

by Reid Fitzsimons

I received a call the other night from someone I didn’t recognize who wanted to ask me two quick questions. It ended up he was a campaign worker for a candidate in PA’s 12th congressional district, Lee Griffin, running for the seat currently held by Fred Keller. Once I was oriented to the purpose of the call I asked if his guy was a Democrat, and eventually, after some equivocation, the answer was yes. I explained that I cannot find it in myself to vote for anyone who aligns themselves with the hatred and racism of the Democrats, a party of, by, and for “Black Lives Matter,” which itself is an organization that primarily caters to privileged white and black leftists and manipulates and exploits black Americans for personal and political power and profit- quintessential racism. The caller, who was very polite, said that his guy Griffin wasn’t a racist because he had an inter-racial marriage. The call ended amicably. Admitting to my own embarrassment that I should have known who Lee Griffin was, I decided to take a look at his campaign website, leegriffinforcongress.com, which to me has the feel of zealous religiosity rather than a political tone.

There was a time when the Democrat party was in fact a political party, and in my lifetime they defined themselves as the party of the workingman, as compared to the Republicans being the party of the wealthy. Whether this was true or not is debatable, but nevertheless the Democrats were a political enterprise, and ran the gamut of union workers, law and order types, and the occasional wacko (like any party), but no one questioned their basic allegiance to the idea and fact of the US: George McGovern was pretty far out there in 1972 but he was a decorated and courageous WW2 bomber pilot.

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US Marines, Battle of Belleau Woods, France 1918
Trump visits the Suresnes American Cemetery in France, Nov. 11, 2018.

Note: Belleau Wood denotes a significant military engagement in France in June 1918 in which (especially) US Marines displayed enormous courage- and incurred enormous casualties- in a victorious battle against German forces, this being of course WW1. Two years ago there were commemorations in Europe marking the 100th anniversary of the end of WW1. Trump attended some of these and now, two years later, The Atlantic magazine published an article accusing Trump of odious behavior related to his visit to France in Nov. 2018. There were reportedly four anonymous sources for article and the allegations have been vigorously denied by the Trump administration. Links to both The Atlantic article and an article discussing Trump’s refutation of the claims are below.

The other day I received a brief e-mail from a highly educated scholar with an impressive amount of real world experience. He is a serious and very respectable person who tends to be a “never Trumper.” His e-mail expresses his belief that the accusations are true and his associated disgust with Trump; the bulk of this article is my responding that such accusations should be viewed with objective skepticism. Note the syntax used reflects a familiarity between him and me, hence it might sound as such.

His e-mail:

in other news, the latest from our esteemed president (via the Atlantic):

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

My response:

I can appreciate the frustration a historian must feel at times, hoping to find a gestalt, so to speak, among disjointed and largely non-existent source materials, and then to make the discovered knowledge meaningful in some way. Say a music historian found an unsigned piece of paper in an ancient manuscript that stated Salieri had frequent intercourse with Mozart, what might be inferred? Here are several possibilities: Salieri and Mozart had an ongoing homosexual relationship; the word “intercourse” often had a different, non-sexual meaning in the historical context of the time and that they were frequent collaborators; or that Salieri wanted people to think he was a close confidant of Mozart but didn’t want to personally state such. Let’s say the historian was also a gay-rights activist, the kind who, for example, use salutations from the 18th century as evidence that many founders of the US were homosexuals, and we see a headline, “Renowned historian discovers that Mozart and Salieri were lovers.” Something that seems so benign can become, willfully or not, interpreted or misinterpreted in so many ways.

If a primary Spanish speaker, in learning English, transliterated “Mi tio Pedro me molestaba cuando yo tenia cinco años,” he or she might say, “My uncle Peter used to molest me when I was five,” but this wouldn’t be correct, though someone who didn’t understand the linguistic context might accuse Uncle Peter of being a pedophile.

18 months ago or so it was widely and unequivocally reported in the most august news organizations in the US that Nathan Phillips (the 60+ year old guy who banged the drum in the face of the Covington High School student) was a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam war, but he wasn’t, nor was he a “Marine recon ranger,” which was also reported as fact.

Two years ago this month it was reported that Brent Kavanaugh and some high school buddies were involved in essentially a gang-rape assembly line in which they drugged young girls and had sex with them while they were incapacitated. People that hated Trump were ecstatic, and never really asked themselves, “Is this really likely to be true?” because they so desperately wanted to believe it.

So we have an article in the Atlantic, very much a leftist publication but one of the few remaining with some traces of true liberalism, using (I believe) four anonymous sources to report rather ignorant and odious statements emanating from Trump’s mouth made two years ago. Anytime something like this is proposed, an intelligent and educated person, tempered with a bit of wisdom and complemented with some real life experience (and always with a bit of skepticism), should ask themselves not if it’s possible it’s true, because the answer is always yes, but is it likely to be true?

If it was reported that Trump said something like, “Belleau Wood, what the hell is Belleau Wood?” that would be believable, especially because ignorance of history runs deep in the US, and I wouldn’t doubt that 95% of Americans (and 98% of elected officials!) have no idea what Belleau Wood was nor its significance and, more worrisome, wouldn’t care. As to referring to the Marines killed during that engagement as “suckers,” I don’t buy it for several reasons.

First, obviously, is the anonymous nature of the sources, but even if the claimants were known, we’ve seen in the last four years any number of people making false or specious claims against Trump (or his representatives) out of hatred, greed, desire for celebrity, political reasons, or a combination of these factors: as we learned with the “whistleblower” during last year’s impeachment proceedings, he (though I think his name still remains officially undisclosed) was a blatant partisan. Second, the timing is suspect: if Trump made such an unfortunate statement two years ago, why was this not made public at the time, in an environment ripe for any and all accusations against Trump. And the other half of the timing question is, "why now?" I imagine and suspect in the next two months we are going to see many similar accusations, with some being reported as “bombshells,” and these, regardless of veracity, will dominate the news cycles. Thirdly, though Trump clearly has a tendency to say nasty things about people he perceives as opponents, there is no real motivation for him to say such things generically.

An unfortunate trait of human nature, shared by all of us, is pleasure derived from hearing bad things about people we don’t like, and accepting them without critical regard or context or perspective. In some cases, if dislike becomes hate, it goes beyond schadenfreude and becomes almost a drive to hear and believe things that will elicit blind outrage, which sometimes I think is a neurophysiologic state: a paradoxical pleasure stimulation evoked by a barrage of neurotransmitters!

Thinking and mature people, who seem increasingly rare (perhaps even more so in academia!), will view reported "bombshells" with healthy skepticism. A personal example for me were reports that Obama ordered the White House to be cast in a purple light when Prince (or the “artist formerly known as Prince”) died of a drug overdose. Actually this was very conceivable based upon Obama's precedents, but before I personally began to express and share my “outrage,” I checked it out and, much to my disappointment, found it wasn’t true. And it didn’t matter whether I “felt” it was true or that “it might as well have been true,” it simply was not.

You might consider to reading Trump’s response and see if there is there is a basis for questioning the article in The Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-didnt-cancel-visit-to-american-military-cemetery-in-france-over-disdain-for-slain-veterans-sources-say

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by Reid Fitzsimons

Note: USAA (United Services Automobile Association) is a membership based insurance company begun in the 1920s by a group of Army officers. Over the decades they grew considerably and branched out into financial services.  Some type of military association is required to be a member and they have developed a deserved reputation for integrity and service. I’ve been a member for 37 years, and I (along with my wife) use them for our car and house insurance and many of our banking needs. One great plus of USAA is that it has been operated by serious and competent adults who never gave in to societal and political fads and pressures, until now. Below is a letter to Wayne Peacock, the newly installed CEO of USAA and the first who has never served in the military, in response to a position statement he released fully aligning USAA with the woke social justice activism (that statement can be found at the bottom of the page).

Greetings Mr. Peacock:

I had thought to myself with satisfaction that USAA was one of the exceptional companies that had the strength of character and sobriety to not succumb to the coercion and disingenuousness of the popular culture of the moment. That is, until I found your letter of supplicating mea culpa apologetics when I signed on to my USAA account.

I cannot recall in my lifetime a situation in which there has been unanimous agreement on a value- in this case revulsion at the brutal murder of George Floyd- that was so quickly exploited so as to create division and foster hatred and even violence. The underlying premise, that black lives matter (BLM), is fine as far as it goes, because everyone’s life matters, regardless of race, ethnicity, etc. What we know is that the political and cultural movement known as BLM in fact embraces racism by selectively applying worth to black Americans on a commodity basis, and finding marketable value only when the manner of death can be used for profit: if a black American is one of the handful killed by a white cop, for example, there is titillation; if a black American is one of approximately 6,500 killed by intra-racial violence every year there is something between silence and embarrassment: the former must be exploited, the latter ignored.

Back in 2002-2003 I served as a volunteer medical director at a clinic in remote Kenya, East Africa. This was at the time of the AIDS pandemic with suffering beyond the comprehension of most Americans. Needless to say, we generated a large amount of bio-hazard type waste, especially blood and pus and associated needles and scalpels, etc. These all were discarded into a designated pit.

Late one night a pregnant lady came to the clinic with obvious malaria, which actually accounted for most of the morbidity and mortality in our area. There was some debate in the literature about the effects of malaria on pregnancy, but sadly the mother miscarried and the dead child was fully expelled intact from her uterus. The baby was a fully formed girl, perhaps 23 to 25 weeks of gestation, and fully abortable by the standards of the Democrat party. The dilemma I faced was what to do with this dead baby- throw her down the pit, which would be consistent with the Democrat belief that this child possessed no more value than a tumor or basin full of pus, or provide some kind of dignified burial for her. Despite not being a believer in God or any religion, I could not help but to choose the latter.

I would like to ask the luminaries of the Democrat party- Cuomo, Warren, Buttigieg, Schumer, Biden, Northham, Pelosi- what they would choose, the pit or burial. I guess, unfortunately, we know the answer: to choose other than the pit would impart humanity on the baby, and this is contrary to their narrative that such a child is nothing more than medical waste, not just at 12 or 24 weeks of gestation, but right up to full term and even post-birth.