Smart Talk #3
The issue of transgender “females” competing in women’s sporting events continues to appear as a “hurdle” to get over. The smart news is that most Americans believe that birth biology, and not later gender ‘identification,’ should be the determining factor in competitive entry. According to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll (June 22-23), 56% of those surveyed believe that it is “unfair to make women compete against transgender athletes.” The unfortunate thing and, frankly, unsettling thing, is that about 25% think it is fair for women to complete against what are essentially biological men. Sounds like still more elitist, for-gosh-sakes-don’t-offend-anyone, thinking. More to the point, just what the heck are they thinking when the concept of competitive “fairness” is the focus, as it always should be. Oh, and by the way, and this may be impacting the prior finding, believe it or not, 40% of Democrats feel it is “fair for women to compete against transgender athletes.” Probably so, just as long as it doesn’t ever impact any of their own daughters in athletic competition!
Back to the brighter side, 74% of Republicans believe such is unfair, as do 59% of Independent voters. 59% of men, and 54% of women agree that it is unfair. One might have expected a considerably higher number of women (moms!) objecting to mixed female-transgender athletic competition. One also wonders if the numbers against would have been higher had the poll been conducted during the Trump years. Attitudes about so many things have now wafted deeply off into Never-Never Land.
And some more smart talk from that white 9-year-old student testifying before her Minnesota school board about the impact of racial issues (CRT) on her and her classmates (in an earlier post, she spoke about the political impact of BLM posters, meaning politics, at her school). Said she in a way that would have made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. very proud: “I do not judge people by the color of their skin, but by the way they treat me (character). I have Asian, Mexican, white, Chinese, and black friends, and I like them because some of them make me laugh, some are sweet and kind, sporty, or share the love of God. They are (all) just my friends.” Concluded the editors of the New York Post: “CRT not only discourages such open-minded, inclusive thinking, it pushes whites to believe they are racist and blacks to feel oppressed. That’s not just an outrageously false portrayal of America, but a prescription for driving the nation apart.”
Now would probably be a good time to awake from the damaging “Woke” bad dream, being imposed on us by too many. The brilliant, widely-respected author and historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has done much intelligent writing about the unintelligent “wokeism” phenomenon. He says there are a lot of reasons why the wokey thing spread so rapidly “once America lost its collective mind during the pandemic, quarantine, self-induced recession, and rioting off 2020.” Per Hanson: “Wokeism was never really about racism, sexism, or other isms. For some, it illustrated a psychological pathology of projection: transferring one’s own prejudices onto others in order to alleviate or mask them” from oneself.
And that really does clearly explain it: Projecting one’s own societal faults onto others so as to absolve oneself from any fault, guilt or blame. Rich white elites (or rich elite non-whites) can cast blame on lesser status whites for racism, police misbehavior, etc. while continuing to earn even more wealth, live surrounded only by one’s chosen race, in home(s) within gated communities, perhaps including private (or, worse, if political types, government-provided!) security.
Concludes Hanson on ‘wokeism:’ “When our elites are clueless about national debt, inflation, illegal-immigration, crime, soaring gas prices, and a global pandemic, they reassure themselves that at least they can knock down another statue of Robert E. Lee. America is systematically being conned by those who disguise their hypocrisy, who manipulate the guilt-ridden, who have no interest in solving America’s most dangerous problems, and who get to stay rich by hyping an American in need of massive rebooting.” And another concluding pronouncement on ‘wokeism’ by the author of a recent book, titled Woke. Inc.: “The true solution is to gradually rebuild a vision for shared American identity that is so deep and so powerful that it dilutes wokeism to irrelevance, one that no longer leaves us susceptible to being divided by corporate elites for their own gain.”
Well beyond likely-related ‘wokesim,’ the equally brilliant and pro-American freedom author/media commentator Mark Levin is seriously concerned about the dominant drift (becoming a tidal wave?) he sees toward actual Marxism here in America: “Marxism has spawned a number of movements in this country over the course of decades, but it’s now reached its pinnacle. Whether it’s critical race (or gender, or immigration) theory, or the so-called Green New Deal movement, it is a war on your lifestyle, a war on your income, a war on your private property, a war on capitalism. It is true. It is here. It is now. We’ve got to take the language back, take the narrative back, and we need to confront this.” And it’s even in Congress, says Levin, referring specifically to the so-called ‘squad:’ “This is a cabal of Marxists who hate this country, who bring their attitudes and their indoctrination into the country and are at war, right there in the halls of Congress, against our own country. They have found a home in the Democrat Party.” The insidious virus of Marxism is now in our schools, the media, our corporations, even, as he said, in Congress. “Some of these people are unwitting who are promoting it; some of them are surrogates who are useful, or really useless, idiots,” concludes Levin.
Echoing Levin’s thoughts on the societal dangers we face in the potential eradication of our freedoms, author & commentator Jeff Davidson has written a piece entitled, “There Is No Way to Co-Exist With the Left.” In it, he states: “Decades ago, I leaned Left on nearly all issues of the day. Today, I find virtually every Liberal or Leftist viewpoint, from no need for voter ID, to restrictions on the First Amendment, to be harmful to society…. The Left loves the idea of total authority and of imposing its will on all of us, forevermore (e.g. that masquerading federal power-grabbing ‘For The People Act’!).” Davidson continues: “The 14-month lockdown has given us all a taste of what socialism would be like. The Left’s agenda would destroy our civilization in less than a year or two. (While) it would be nice to be able to reach consensus in some way with those on the Left, my sensibilities cry our and say that would be cultural and national suicide.”
On a far more positive note, for the near-term future safety and securing of America, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has introduced a bill that would provide grants to local communities aimed at hiring 100,000 additional law enforcement officers. Said the Senator: “American families aren’t safe, but they deserve to be. And they can be if we will act. This is not the time to defund the police or vilify them, but to support the brave men and women in blue and put more of them on the streets. Immediately!” Echoing the sentiment to add, not subtract, police protection, Heritage Foundation legal expert Zach Smith stated: “The best way to combat the surge in violent crimes in many of our cities is to empower police officers to do their jobs, to make available more officers to police those cities, instead of defunding the police. You need more boots on the ground who are going to be able to do their jobs, and then you need to make sure prosecutors in those cities are going to prosecute crimes where appropriate.”
And for this edition of Smart Talk, one very fitting closing quote from Victor Davis Hanson: “Defunding law enforcement is an elite obsession of those who do not live in insecure places.”
(Transgenders vs. women in athletics stats via newmax.com, Jeffrey Rodack, 6-25-21; CRT quotes re: Minnesota child’s testimony via nypost.com, Post Editorial Board, 6-24-21; Hanson on wokeism quotes via dailysignal.com, Victor Davis Hanson, 6-24-21; Woke, Inc. author quote via nypost.com, Vivek Ramaswamy, 6-21-21; Levin quotes on America’s Marxism via breitbart.com, Trent Baker, 6-20-21; Davidson quotes via Twitter, Jeff Davidson, 6-21-21; Hawley & smith quotes via theepochetimes, Mark Tapscott, 6-24-21; Hanson closing quote via amgreatness.com, Victor Davis Hanson, 6-14-21).