Politics

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by Reid Fitzsimons

There’s a well known adage that says a frog placed in a pan with cool water will remain in the pan as the water is gradually heated until it dies. I doubt that it’s true, but the point is valid: if something pernicious is initially portrayed as benign but slowly changes until it’s harmful, it has a chance of eventually being accepted. The chronically battered wife probably didn’t fall in love with her husband because he beat her from the start, it just kind of escalated until it becomes the norm.

Presently, the water is still tepid in regards to normalizing pedophilia, i.e. adults having sex with children. Soon enough, however, it will be boiling, and one of the most disgraceful accusations- of being a pedophile- will give way to something like, “if you don’t accept and embrace sex between adults and children you are a pedophobe!

A chubby bearded guy with glasses titillated, along with others, by watching prepubescent boys dressed up as sexy girls. If progressives have their way, this malevolence will become routine.

As usual, this type of societal transformation begins with nuancing the language. Hence, the current innocuous term being floated, which sounds so much less pejorative than “child molester” or “pedophile,” is Minor Attracted People, or MAP. The main advocate for this term seems to be a “transgender” (of course; “they and them” pronouns) post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins named Allyn Walker who wrote a book entitled A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

I’m a white male, so I have white male pride. I’m taller than average, so I have taller than average pride. I’m a white male raised in the suburbs, so I have taller than average white male suburban pride. I demand “pride months” and that people chant “white male suburban taller than average rights are human rights!” You might respond, “Isn’t pride supposed to be based on some kind of accomplishment, especially one that took some effort and maybe even a little sacrifice? You can’t really be proud of merely being who you are based on skin color or height or whatever. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be okay with what or who you are, it just has nothing to do with pride.” And I say, “What are you, some hate-filled cisgender fascist who supports the oppressive meritocracy, a backward thinker who believes actual accomplishment is better than being wonderful simply because you feel you are? You’re just like Hitler!”

Two sides of the same "pride" coin

I first met Vivian in a tiny Honduran village in 2008. My wife and I had opened a little project for children of the village a year before and we were fortunate to have many volunteers, mostly young people from the US, Canada, and Europe. One of these had befriended one of teenage attendees, Myra, and visited Myra’s house, a typical single room mud and stick hut with a dirt floor and without electricity. Our volunteer from Belgium asked me the next day if we knew Myra had a little sister who was dying. We did not, so I soon visited there myself and encountered 2½ year-old Vivian, who was hairless, had lots of scars on her body, and weighed 11 pounds. Her beleaguered mother was holding Vivian and constantly shifting her from breast to breast in a largely futile attempt to feed her: mom was simply dry, and Vivian was simply starving to death.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

When we moved to South Alabama in 2008 we learned our new neighbor had a sophisticated sounding English surname. Based on this, we envisioned him to likely be a cultivated person, maybe a retired college professor. This image was quickly dispelled upon meeting him: he was an ignorant vestige from the Jim Crow/KKK days, an overt racist and, we later learned, an lifelong alcoholic with anger control issues; his pleasant wife certainly earned to title of “long-suffering.” In America today, of course, accusations of “racism” from people either trying to justify their privilege or victim status (or usually both) spew out like stomach contents at a drunken frat party, but I suspect there are very few people under 50 today who have actually met a real racist. This is because they have largely died off, like our bigoted and imbecilic neighbor of 10+ years ago.

Trevor Anderson of South Carolina, recently fired from his position as a middle school French teacher

More recently, Mr. Trevor Anderson was discharged from his position as a French teacher at a South Carolina middle-school. This was a blip in the news cycle seen at Foxnews.com (link below). In a prejudicial way, as with our Alabama neighbor, I immediately envisioned an educated and serious person, someone certainly able to control himself (I recall elementary school teachers in the 1960s admonishing us to “control yourselves”). It ended up, however, that Mr. Anderson has a avocation as an enraged pro-abortion activist. Apparently in response to pro-life demonstrators near his favorite abortion clinic, the gentleman in question grabbed a megaphone and generously shared his thoughts. Among his litany of passionate outrage were the following quotes: "I teach them French. I teach them that people like you are a piece of s---… I teach them that Christians are f---ing idiots...You're all f---ing idiots.” And, presumably in response to a black pro-lifer, he suggested "You do what all these White people tell you to do, you f---ing c--n. You f---ing j---- boo…Do a little dance for us like your masters want you to." And, to a pro-life woman, "You deserve to be called a c---, you deserve to be called a b----."

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by Reid Fitzsimons

Joe Biden, our demented, deranged, and diminished President, has an interesting verbal tic. For decades he has told tall tales and make believe anecdotes that he thinks will be to his political advantage. From his silly “I was coal miner” to this cynical and vicious “the other driver involved in the death of my wife and infant daughter (in the 1970’s) was drunk,” there is no fantasy too fantastic for him not to utter. Not uncommonly, we know he is lying because he’ll insert the phrase “Not a joke!” The introduction to this article, which is about why so many girls and young women believe they want to become males, is definitely not a joke, as follows.

The time I spent in Kenya in 2002 and 2003 as the volunteer medical director (PA) of a remotely located clinic coincided with the peak of the African AIDS epidemic. AIDS was only one among many hideous diseases- malaria was actually more common- that maimed and killed so many, and never a week went by (sometimes never a day) where there was misery and suffering incomprehensible to most Americans. One horrific belief among some men with AIDS was that they could be cured by having sex with a young female, and the girl really didn’t have any say in the matter. One day, the tragedy of the day was a girl of perhaps 18 who, in one clinic visit, was diagnosed with AIDS, tuberculosis, syphilis, and noted to have peau d'orange on the skin on her breasts, suggestive of an atypical form of breast cancer. Keep this in mind when considering the things that cause us so much angst in our very privileged American lives.

To girls and young women: if you can’t live up to this standard of womanhood, if you’re not hot and sexy, you are a LOSER and might as well “transition” and become a guy.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIH functionary since 1968 and multimillionaire, a corona virus celebrity who became the face of the establishment during the pandemic. In Nov. 2021, he made the impressively grandiose statement in regards to criticism directed at him, “But they’re really criticizing science, because I represent science”

by Reid Fitzsimons

I have some friends who are into natural remedies. Sometimes they ask my thoughts, as a retired medical practitioner (PA), about various substances and treatments they might have heard about. When I was younger, I probably would have repeated the standard line- there is no scientific evidence it provides any benefit- but now I’m more, “what the heck, if it’s harmless, give it a try.” Recently they asked about tree-derived substance from Southeast Asia called kratom, something that has been used indigenously for centuries and said to be an analgesic, stimulant, antihypertensive, and to enhance sexual functioning, among other things. In researching this substance I realized it has actual drug properties, including opioid components. It is not illegal at the Federal level, but has been made illegal in several states and other countries. It has a number of potential adverse effects, and is not something I would take lightly. In fact, the FDA notes it has no scientific data that would support the use of kratom for medical purposes and warns the public NOT to use any products labeled as containing kratom, due to reported deaths. And the FDA can be trusted……….correct?

Something happened just shy of three years ago, something that effected the world and perhaps forever changed the relationship between people and governments (or at least traditionally free and democratic governments), this being the corona virus pandemic. Three years later, it’s both fascinating and deeply disturbing to look retrospectively at actions taken by governments and, equally troublesome (if not previously inconceivable), the scientific and medical establishment. Up until 2020, I was pretty much all in for standard, allopathic medicine. Certainly over the years I had been aware of that some study was the ultimate study that proved this or that medicine or treatment was perfect, until the next ultimate study refuted the last ultimate study and the new finding became the gold standard that could never be refuted...until the next study: it truly is necessary to understand that science and medicine are NOT infallible by any means, because in the end science and medicine are products of people who are fallible, and may well have selfish and self-interests influencing them. Nevertheless, within context, I embraced and supported the orthodoxy.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

I have a friend who was raised in relative poverty but, through hard work and smart life decisions, became quite wealthy. A number of years ago his son, at perhaps the age of 13, went through an obnoxious spoiled period- very mouthy and said pretty vile things. If he had to be home by 9, or to bed by 10 on a school night, life was UNFAIR, and one of his refrains was “I HAVE RIGHTS!” Many of us can recall going through similar adolescent phases, and thankfully most of us grew up and out of this “it’s all about me” selfishness,”as did this young man.

"Toby" holds a sign with other demonstrators during a protest regarding evictions going on at the court, 6000 Chimney Rock Rd., Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Houston.
Privileged Yet Ignorant People Confusing "Rights" With Outcomes

It’s interesting that the term “rights” is so often invoked by privileged kids (in the years I spent do-gooding in impoverished countries I don’t recall ever hearing it). Of course, to them it’s an ill-defined generic word that essentially means, “I should get my way, I deserve whatever I want!” Unfortunately, this understanding and interpretation of “rights” is increasing in the US as we’ve become wealthier, more selfish, greedier, and more shallow: “rights” have become little more than political and cultural weapons and slogans, without regard for what they really are, and it is indeed pernicious to trivialize them. A “right” is not an argument for “I want what I want, and I want it now.”

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by Reid Fitzsimons

The Roxborough High School football team in a post-scrimmage huddle just before they were ambushed; two stills of the "coon hunters" taken from a video of the deadly incident (full video at bottom)

I would venture to say most Americans have never met an actual, true believer racist white supremacist. I am not talking about someone who doesn’t subscribe to “climate justice” or voted for Trump. I’m referring to white people who truly hate black people and find satisfaction in the oppression, maiming, and even killing of them. I have known, or at least met, a handful of dyed-in-the-wool white supremacists; they are people who don’t believe in the American ideals of equality, justice for all, and E. Pluribus Unum (out of many-one). More to the point, they are deranged losers. In the mid-80s I worked in a Federal prison where there were a few Aryan Brotherhood types, but they were much more violent criminal entrepreneurs than ideologues. When we (my wife and I) lived in South Alabama 2008-2012 our neighbor was a pathetic guy, a lifelong drunk in his 80s, who loved to talk of the KKK glory days of the 1960s (“When niggers knew their place!”).  But it is a recent and tragic event in Philadelphia where several black high school football players were hunted down and shot, killing a 14 year-old boy and wounding several others, that got me to thinking about an honest to goodness white supremacist I came to know a little in the late 1970s.

The fantasies of a true Jim Crow racist

This verifiable racist I met in the 1970s was, curiously, a lawyer in Mississippi. His uncle was a long-serving Democrat Congressman, which might explain his admittance to the Mississippi bar. I recall him wearing camouflage clothing and talking about the joys “coon hunting” and “black topping,” the former meaning hunting down and shooting black people and the latter running over them with a car. I am pretty sure he never engaged in his fantasies, thank goodness. He was simply a hate-filled cowardly ass who happened to be born into social and economic privilege.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

The office of a Wisconsin pro-life organization firebombed
and vandalized

We respond to bad things, especially the suffering of others, in different ways, ways often meant to shield us from uncomfortable realities about ourselves. Ignorance, either woeful or willful, is effective, and denial and avoidance also work pretty well. There are those who thrive on the suffering of others, and indeed create it. Sometimes these people are referred to as evil. I guess there are degrees of evil, where at the extreme evil people view not just their victims as a hated enemy, but also those who stand up for those they prey upon.

One of the most profound and widely read books of the 19th century was an antebellum novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The author was abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the legend is that when she met Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, Lincoln said, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war." I contend that people who consider themselves well educated and informed should read this book (though I was over 60 when I finally did, so I’m not sure how that reflects on me). The story is, of course, about slavery, but it’s not some monolithic sermon against slavery, but rather includes all the pitfalls of human nature mentioned above when people confront, or more correctly ignore, evil. The ultimate antagonist is the brutal slave owner Simon Legree, at whose hands Tom is ultimately beaten to death because he was protecting slaves who had run away from the plantation.

Slavery, regardless of where it existed is one of too many examples in history where life was devalued so as to allow malevolence to be tolerated, and where those who refused to accept the inhumanity of it were marginalized and essentially became the enemy of the institutional powers: slavery is evil in its own right, but to justify hatred of those opposed to it took evil to higher level.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

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.

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The current Salvation Army leadership, with the heads of their "International Social Justice" commission on the right

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.

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