Society

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TSA glove

by Reid Fitzsimons

Any fair discussion about the TSA requires a disclaimer of sorts. The average TSA employee is looking for a paycheck, not confrontation and perhaps to be viewed as doing something meaningful in at least a small way, not just another assistant to the acting chief assistant to the deputy director in charge of special projects; I can assure those inexperienced in the workings of government there are plenty of the latter. Human nature dictates that wherever there is power to be had, running the gamut from petty to absolute, a certain type of person is attracted not to the mission but to the allure of authority. Throw in a uniform and I am sure there are enough TSA employees who derive something from their position other than the satisfaction of doing their job, so to speak, and they are likely well represented in management.  As a point of reference, there are around 56,000 TSA employees and the budget is in the range of 7.4 billion.

I cannot think of any other citizen/government interaction that so routinely expects/ demands the former comport themselves as sheep. I’ve never heard of anyone who loves the TSA but certainly there are those who hate it. I do not hate the TSA and submit to the ovine requirements when necessary, but I have my tale, nothing particularly dramatic, which I am recounting here. ...continue reading →

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blck lives mtter girls

by Reid Fitzsimons

Several months go, when the BLM sentiment was all the rage, progressives climbed over themselves to express their heartfelt commitment to the cause, lest they be discovered as the first one to have stopped applauding. As the hapless president of Smith College ($62,000 per year to attend), Kathleen McCartney, attempted to hop on the bandwagon of compassion and outrage, the poor thing committed quite a faux paux. In her rush to be hip and stand in solidarity with the huddled masses she ejaculated an e-mail declaring, “All Lives Matter.” Much like a malodorous emission of flatulence at a Boston wine tasting, there was brief pause as the proper reaction was considered. This was followed in short order by expressions of hurt and offense so dear to our modern educated youths: “It felt like she was invalidating the experience of black lives” one Smith student was quoted as saying; “It minimizes the anti-blackness of this the current situation” opined another. Needless to say Ms. McCartney apologized profusely, sycophantically acknowledging that, “As members of the Smith community we are struggling, and we are hurting.” She promised the soothing tonics of a new Chief Diversity Officer and renewals of social justice commitments. Perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of her statement, “All Lives Matter,” was that it came precariously close to sounding like the words of some Pro-Life nut job. ...continue reading →

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by Barry King

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416390/whos-really-showing-courage-indiana-maggie-gallagher

This is a waypoint on the path of the devolution of the USA towards becoming a police state. I heard some of this low-information hysteria first-hand on the car radio while driving through Indiana recently, in a snowstorm. Putting "religious freedom" inside scare quotes like that, in order to condemn it and suppress it, moves the USA away from the principles of the American revolution and toward those of the French. Diderot said "Let us strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest." He would have gladly joined the current campaign from the American left against Indiana's perfectly reasonable Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

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by Barry King

In certain ambiguous situations of deadly violence, in which a black victim is killed by a white killer but there’s no evidence about whether the killers’ motives included racism, the politically correct thing to say is: that violence was not just “random”; it was an example of (racial) prejudice in action.

On the other hand, in certain less ambiguous cases, in which the motives are clear (such as: “We are Muslims, they were Jews or Christians, and we killed them *because* we are Muslims and *because* they were Jews or Christians), then the politically correct thing to say is: that violence was just “random”; it was not an example of (religious) prejudice in action.

Observations about those situations: 1. Both are different from what you might expect if the position statements were derived rationally from the available evidence, and 2. The premises and logic underlying each position contradict the premises and logic of the other, which is not a situation one should expect if both were derived rationally.
Tentative conclusions: 1. neither of those politically correct positions is rationally determined. 2. One person’s “bigotry” can sometimes be another person’s “righteous indignation”, and that sword can cut both ways. 3. If people are to be invited to get off their “high horses”, that invitation will be most irenic if it is addressed broadly rather than narrowly.

 

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noble rouss

 

by Barry King

While setting the stage for the French version of liberty, equality, and fraternity, Rousseau said that savages were noble, and that humans generally were naturally and inherently good (religious opinions to the contrary notwithstanding). When asked why he would believe such a thing, in the absence of any evidence for it, he answered that the idea just popped into his head one day, which is pretty much the only available answer to that question. The idea popped into Rousseau's head, and began it's process of decimating western civilization, without his ever having lived in Africa, and long before Europe itself descended into a darkness darker than any ever seen in Africa, in the middle of the 20th century. Philosophically, this notion is pretty much sine qua non for Rousseau's process of becoming "enlightened" and "humanist", and for leading so many others to follow him in that direction.

It's hard to articulate exactly what the problems are, with Rousseau's humanism. But among them is this one: it leaves unanswered the question, when life proves to be full of problems, at whom are we going to point our fingers of blame? After all, everybody else is naturally and inherently good, just like we are. So where in the world is all of this "evil" coming from? Since Rousseau, the best available answer from his point of view has generally been, "Don't ask, it's an embarrassing question". ...continue reading →

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Pardon my French (and Latin)

In math, "equality" (A=B) and "diversity" (A≠B) are contradictory and mutually exclusive hypotheses. Mathematicians (except those working on Schrodinger's Cat) generally do not try to hold contradictory hypotheses as both true. However, in modern political and social theory it is necessary to value both "equality" and "diversity" at the same time, especially for those on the left who admire the French Revolution more than the American one. The French said "equality!” in French, while the Americans said "from diversity, unity!” in Latin. ...continue reading →