What Is the True Cost of EV?

The battery electric vehicle (EV) versus the internal combustion engine (ICE) powered debate is one of the most irrational of our time. On both sides of the discussion, you have those frothing-at-the-mouth types who attack the moment you disagree. And this is exactly the response that I got after I had casually mentioned that ICE is 1/3 the cost under a click-bait post…

One just called me ignorant, but others tried to make an argument, including this response:

I’m trying to figure out what car cost 1/3 of the price of a Tesla🤔🤔? The long range Model 3 (the one you want for a roadtrip) is $42,500 – $7500 tax credit is $35,000. This is not factoring in gas savings. Please tell me what new car is availability for under $12,000 (that’s the 1/3 cost of a Tesla you mentioned)?

Fair enough question.

Note, I never said new, but assuming that I did…

Believe it or not, and even in this inflationary age, there are still reliable sedans that come in under $20,000. Starting with a Mitsubishi Mirage G4 ($18,500), the Kia Rio ($17,875), and the Nissan Versa ($17,075), the lowest-priced option is half of even the subsidized price of the Tesla base model.

But you can’t exclude the subsidy from the cost of the EV, the government doesn’t have a magic wand to create value and we all end up paying for their expenditures in our taxes or by inflation due to money printing. And it only begins with that “tax credit” (so-called) given directly to privileged people who can afford a new luxury car.

What is the true cost of subsidies?

According to a study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the cost to us is nearly $50,000 for every EV produced:

Federal and state subsidies and regulatory credits for EVs totaled nearly $22 billion in 2021, or nearly $50,000 per EV, socializing the true cost of these vehicles to taxpayers, utility ratepayers, and owners of gasoline vehicles

Tens of billions of dollars have been spent trying to make EVs viable, and yet still the average cost of these vehicles is $65,000, compared to $48,000 for ICE. Why haven’t these subsidies leveled the playing field? It is simply the fact that batteries require tons of extra material and a much more complex process to produce.

So we can at least double that visible “tax credit” subsidy and already the true cost of an EV is close to three times a comparable ICE sedan.

We could stop there—the 1/3 number reached—but let’s continue…

What is the true cost of production?

The cost of a vehicle isn’t just the window sticker price or the money that it takes to manufacture. The bigger question—given the reason many say we should switch to EVs is about emissions—is what the increased environmental impact is of producing the batteries that go into these cars. Is this a trade-off we are willing to make?

Lithium batteries are costly, they require an enormous amount of water and also leave a toxic legacy that will grow exponentially as EV is adopted. Is it worth this cost to only marginally reduce carbon emissions? That is to say, around 17-30% less emissions according to European Energy Agency?

Sure, it could get better with a heavy investment in electrical generation and transmission—yet that is another huge cost financially and environmentally…

What is the cost of infrastructure demand?

This is where the conversation is the most interesting. We have the refining capacity and distribution network already built for ICE vehicles. Gasoline and diesel fuel have the advantage of being energy-dense and can be moved around using the existing highways. But what about EVs?

There is an illusion that comes with plugging something in. The load we put on the system is invisible. But there is no magic to it. Electricity is something that must be produced somewhere and then transmitted to the charging stations. If everyone adopted EV technology the grid would collapse.

We’re currently nowhere even near what it would take in capacity to convert everyone to EV. The easiest route to more electrical generation is to go anuclear. So how many new nuclear power plants would it take? Well, if we use miles driven and the number of cars on the road today, then we would need to build 250 additional nuclear power plants as big as the largest plant in the US, and the supporting infrastructure to keep up with this demand.

So are you willing to have a Palo Verde in your own backyard?

It cost 5.9 billion dollars to build one in 1988 (the equivalent of 13.9 billion in 2023) and we needed to start building 250 of them yesterday. The solar and wind equivalent would be even more costly to build and maintain.

The costs would be astronomical and that’s just considering only passenger vehicles. Switching Class 8 trucks would take even more of these massive power plants and spending—the cost of switching would be insane. Not to mention you would need more trucks to do the same work as you did with diesel. And remember, every dime that we spend on this mass EV conversion could go to health care or education instead.

Can you now see how extremely costly EVs will become as they are adopted?

But it does not end there…

Why is the cost of wear items greater?

Batteries are heavy and weight is the enemy of “wear items” like brakes or tires—which is not to mention the additional damage to the highway infrastructure.

EV tires wear 20% faster than comparable ICE vehicles. That is a cost out of your own pocket and also a concern for the environment. And do not forget, to be safe you’ll need those heavy-duty EV-specific tires. Sure, maybe this is not a very big problem for those who can already afford the premium cost of a new EV? However, for that waitress struggling to make ends meet she will have to make the choice between safety and home utilities.

Next up is excess road wear. Big trucks are obviously the leading cause of damage to roads. However, EV proliferation will start to cause problems for existing infrastructure:

A 6,000-pound vehicle causes more than five times as much road damage as a 4,000-pound sedan. A GMC Hummer EV, which weighs 9,063 pounds, will cause 116 times as much road damage as a Honda Civic, weighing 2,762 pounds.

The article cited above isn’t about EVs yet does apply given it is about the vehicle weight. Even the Model 3 is a whopping 3,862 to 4,054 lbs. Sure, one vehicle is not going to do a whole lot by itself, but the volume over time will significantly impact bridges and parking garages that were designed for lighter ICE vehicles. This EV vehicle weight bloat caused by batteries will require very costly upgrades to prevent catastrophic failures—like the Ann Street Building Collapse:

Speaking of disasters. With EV there is potential for a thermal runaway or reaction that can’t be stopped—like an ICE fire—by simply denying the source of oxygen. This hazard will result in more damage to road surfaces, more time spent in traffic jams after incidents, and additional toxic emissions. This is a cost to be seriously considered with all of the others.

Cost of time, capability, and resale value…

Many of the costs and drawbacks of EVs are hidden under a pile of subsidies or are moved upstream like the emissions—out of sight out of mind.

But what cannot be ignored is performance in terms of range. Time is by far our most valuable resource and nobody wants to spend hours in a place they don’t want to be because their vehicle battery is drained.

As far as capabilities, even EV trucks are useless for towing, both the Tesla Cybertruck and the Ford Lightning—both costing around $100,000 in the higher trim levels—aren’t so good at doing typical truck things. Sure, they produce a ton of low-end torque and are very fast. But the F-150 EV only went 90 miles pulling a camper and the Tesla only fared a little better.

And finally, we need to talk about plunging resale values. For a while EV was a novelty, the “way of the future” every suburban geek needed to virtue signal. But it appears that this is now starting to fade and reality is starting to take over again—46% of EV owners in the US plan to ditch EV to return back to ICE—and many will not recoup their cost because the floor is dropping out for used EVs:

A recent study from iSeeCars.com showed the average price of a 1- to 5-year-old used EV in the U.S. fell 31.8% over the past 12 months, equating to a value loss of $14,418. In comparison, the average price for a comparably aged internal combustion engine vehicle fell just 3.6%.

That’s bad news for the EV industry. That is probably why Ford, after losing billions on their EV investments, has made plans to pivot back to hybrid. Toyota, ever conservative, never made the mistake of getting sucked into the EV mania. My wife’s C-Max (hybrid) has no range anxiety, saves fuel, and has a plug-in version that can go on battery for a length of a commute. This is the right compromise.

ICE costs less to build, but the hybrid will likely emerge as the winner for being the best of both worlds. It has range like ICE, and torque like an EV, while also keeping its value and not requiring vast new expenditures to upgrade the electrical infrastructure. If costs are reflected in the market hybrid will come out victorious in the end. Some can afford EVs today, but only because others are absorbing more than half of the real costs.

As a footnote, I’m not opposed to EVs nor do I think they are destined to go extinct. If resale values continue to drop I would even consider owning one. The whole point of this article is simply to give a bit of pushback against the Pollyannaish sentiments that would lead to an ill-advised mandate. There would be an enormous cost, and opportunity cost, that would come with this. Just the fact that EVs need massive subsidies to be sold should tell us enough. If it isn’t viable in the market it isn’t viable.

Truth Be Told—Who Really Cares About Waitresses?

Early on in this site, I spent significant time trying to explain the power of description and how bias works. The underdogs are the ones who are assailed by less favorable language by those who have power in the group. A good quality can be twisted into something bad or propagandists can cast the exact same actions in a very different light—which is what these two examples capture:

When Trump proposed an end to taxes on tips the focus was on the ‘cost’ of allowing servers to keep more of what they earn. But when Harris copied the idea, suddenly there is no concern for revenues lost and it is all about her “fight” for the little guy. Likewise, when JD Vance offered a $5000 tax credit for children it was “difficult” and yet when the Harris campaign did the same it was all about newborn cuteness. I mean, think of the children!

I suppose we should just be happy that the Democrats are finally coming around to the conservative idea of letting us keep more of our hard-earned wages. It makes so much more sense than minimum wage hikes and giving everyone food stamps. Of course, this means less power in the hands of the politicians, who love to run campaigns that scare their constituents about the potential loss of benefits.

Trump had previously made the mistake of enacting an across-the-board income tax cut. This gave the media propagandists opportunity to claim it was a “tax cut for the rich” since those who pay more get a bigger cut proportional to the amount they paid. That’s fair. If you pay more how are you not entitled to more? But everyone who paid in got a cut and the middle class a higher percentage, as outlined here:

According to IRS statistics of income data analyzed by Americans for Tax Reform, families earning between $50,000 and $100,000 saw their average tax liability drop by over 13% between 2017 and 2018. By comparison, those with income over $1 million saw a far smaller tax cut averaging just 5.8%.This pattern of middle-class tax reduction was also seen in key swing states.

For instance, taxpayers in Pennsylvania earning between $50,000 and $100,000 saw their tax liability drop by over 14%, while households with incomes over $1 million saw their tax liability drop by just 3.1%.Taxpayers in

Colorado earning between $50,000 and $100,000 saw their tax liability drop by over 13%, while households with income over $1 million saw their tax liability drop by just 4.5%.

Clearly everyone was getting a cut, and the middle-class got a higher percentage back than the rich, but the media coverage obsessed with the dollar amount people kept—rather than the percentage being cut—to distort the public perception.

The Trump-Vance ticket has learned and is now outmaneuvering the left. Most people know that keeping more of their own money is efficient and much better than a new government program. It is just that the Republicans didn’t sell it.

But this time, with an idea to end taxes on tips and another to help all young families, the typical deceptive spin doesn’t work.

Harris had no choice but to try to outbid her opponent.

The problem with this?

Harris was the tiebreaking vote on a bill that sends IRS agents after waitresses. Now, yes, the Democrats will claim that they need the 80,000 agents to go after ‘the rich’ since they know CNN, MSNBC, and NY Times would never run a story linking a poor minority woman being audited to DNC policies, yet it in this case is too hard to deny who the true beneficiaries are.

We should question the sincerity of those who only introduced their policies after the other side did. At best, they’re like the kid who cheats on the test by copying off the smart student in their class. At worst, they are simply saying whatever it takes to get elected and have no intention to do what are now proposing. We can’t trust the ‘journalists’ to set the record straight or give unbiased presentation of facts.

Go listen to the interview and see if the headlines match with the reality.

The most frustrating kind of misinformation is factually based.

They lie by structure or omission, by presenting the costs and not the benefits, and sadly it works because people aren’t able to read through it.

They did this with Trump’s tariffs, stories zooming in on the few who were inconvenienced and ignoring the many long-term benefits. But the criticism ended when Joe Biden took over the policy, suddenly it was silence—just necessary to push back against China and finally rebuild some of our deteriorated manufacturing strength. Nothing changed about the actual policy or benefits, only the presentation.

Now the choice is yours, do you go with the side that originated these steps in the right direction or with those who lied about Joe Biden’s declining mental health, saying he was “sharp as a tack” until the debate made the truth undeniable and now would have us believe they’re telling the truth?

Add that Harris is trying to introduce disastrous price controls and could end up creating food shortages as happens when central planning replaces free markets. If you think inflation is bad, then wait until more food-production businesses start to close, like this fruit farm and market, due to the increased compliance costs and lack of profit. We can’t afford four more years of economic mismanagement.

Sight, Sources, Statistics and Science

Social media provocateurs love to push popular controversies to generate clicks on their sites and get those heated comments sections. The question about the gender of two boxers in the female category of the competition was that perfect story. It was not straight up or settled, but generated a lot of strong opinions on both sides.

For myself, it is fairly evident that these two boxers do have a competitive advantage or they would not have won in their respective divisions. I mean, that’s not even a matter of dispute. An advantage is how anyone wins an athletic contest and it doesn’t mean they cheated. However, when not only one but two people with the same extremely rare and potentially enhanced condition—both get the gold? What are the odds?

Only one out of 500,000 people in the world go to the Olympics. But, of course, nothing is ever that simple. Those who live in small countries, like Algeria or Taiwan, have a far greater chance of representing their home countries simply because there are fewer people to fill the same spots. And then not everyone in the world is competing to be in the Olympics. Most of us don’t try out. It is sort of like my being sixth while wrestling in the Eastern National AAUs—many superior to me simply didn’t make the trip.

But to go to Paris and beat everyone? There is a reason why we give precious medals to those who do. It is one thing to be that PhD who identified as a breakdancer and ended up scoring zero, it is quite another to get on the podium. There were 124 boxers in the female category, divided into six different weight classes, and went through three qualification tournaments. This is certainly not an easy road. The champion is one out of every woman in the world who can make that weight and is into boxing.

There is speculation that those two boxers who had been disqualified from IBA fights due to failed gender tests—and masculine appearance—is they may have a disorder called Swyer syndrome. This isn’t a fact, but it would explain why they would have been declared women at birth and always identified as women. Those with this very rare condition have a male Y chromosome despite their female sexual hardware and offer no male advantage.

However, it is also possible that the two have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which impacts 2-5 out of 100,000 females, which means they would have characteristics of a female outwardly but also have male testes that are undescended. Severe AIS wouldn’t confer an athletic advantage, according to the sources I’ve read, and yet that does not tell us anything about milder cases.

Still, the conversation can’t end there, we have other possibilities:

Some press reports have mentioned 5alpha-reductase type 2 deficiency. This rare syndrome is best reported in the Güevedoces in the Dominican Republic. Affected XY individuals are apparently female at birth because they can’t activate sufficient testosterone to the much more potent dihydrotestosterone to masculine in utero and thus appear female (the default gender in the absence of masculinising hormones). However, they have testes in what appear to be labia. At puberty, the testes produce much more testosterone sufficient to activate receptors and masculinise the child. Such subtleties are beyond the capacity of most regulatory bodies to accommodate.

The chances of two women with these rare chromosomal disorders somehow making it to the Olympics would be incredibly low. For example, Swyer Syndrome is around 1 in 80,000 births. So multiply those odds by the chances of getting to the Olympics and then take that times two. The number is incredibly large. There is a far greater chance of being struck by lightning. If the XY chromosome is present in these two—along with higher testosterone levels—the fact they dominated the field, given what coaches have said, should be considered proof of a potential unfair advantage.

Sources Please Vs. What We See

Much of the smirking response of mid-wit “sources please” types—who simply went along with the ‘official’ International Olympic Committee (IOC) narrative—comes down to many of the slightly dimwitted “I see what I see” types misidentification of the issue as being about transgenderism. When the real issue is whether or not these athletes have intersex characteristics and thus an unfair advantage in female competition.

Yes, the right is too reactionary. However, not without cause, they know too well how the NCAA and corporate media denied that Lia Thomas had an unfair advantage as one born a man and still having a penis as well as the rest of a man’s hardware. And they correctly see that these two Olympic boxing competitors have a masculine appearance. They had incorrectly assumed that this was just another case of a man cheating his way to the top by pretending to be a woman.

However, that misunderstanding of some is being used as a strawman of the real issue, the real argument is source versus source. Specifically, the fact that these two athletes were disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for having male XY chromosomes. These laboratory tests took place in Turkey and India So, despite the attempts, by bigots, to smear the IBA as being corrupt for ties to Russia. But the reality is that no organization is totally without political ties and there’s a reason why the IOC has never banned the US for our military aggression around the world.

So it really comes down to who we want to believe. The IOC rests its entire claim of gender, on legal documents, passports, and birth certificates, provided by the country of origin, and says this gender assignment makes the boxers women. By contrast, the IBA cites biological science and test results and tells us these two ‘women’ have XY chromosomes. Right off the bat, the criteria of the IBA are science and laboratories whereas the IOC is relying on political entities. Should we follow the science or believe those appealing to non-scientific evidence?

At this point, the mid-wits completely lose the plot and rely on their confirmation bias rather than logical deduction. They’ll simply refuse to acknowledge the obvious, that the official IOC criteria to determine eligibility is entirely inadequate for solving this riddle; that the IBA at least has what appears to be scientific evidence, and thus this is a question to be answered in the lab rather than the court of public opinion—so they double down on their insults trying to deflect from the real issue.

But, in the end, this isn’t about science, what we see, statistics, or sources. No, it is about partisan politics that blind many somewhat intelligent adults to what even a child could see. It exposes those “sources please” mid-wits as just another level of ignorance. And social conservatives could help themselves a whole lot by not jumping the gun and not oversimplifying complex issues. Both sides are guilty of false dichotomies and believing misinformation. Lastly, those who are suggesting that I-man Khelif is representative of Algerian femininity are guilty of the bigotry of low expectations.

The Displaced Aggression Of Ruby Hamad

As someone who prefers getting news from non-Western sources, I occasionally read Al Jazeera for some perspective, and that is how I came across an article, “Imane Khelif and Western delusions of white innocence” and had to hit back. For the remainder of this blog, I will identify as a minority woman to obtain maximum victim points, and so I don’t need to pull my punches.

Editorials are often wild swings, some are so off-balance and contrived that they invite a counterpunch. I had no idea who Ruby Hamad was. But her profile reveals a Syrian-Lebanese woman obsessed with ‘white’ European women and how they are loved more than her. She has made her name through her racist and misogynistic attacks on ‘white’ feminists. It’s a little bit weird given how white she is. But hatred is not always rational—she only has a platform because she helps ‘woke’ white leftists with their self-loathing.

In response to the recent outcry, about the two Olympic boxers who had previously failed their gender eligibility test, Hamad politicizes. She rides on her favorite hobby horse—that being ‘white’ women—and she tries to reframe the discussion as being about the protection of ‘white’ women rather than a matter of maintaining integrity and fairness in the competition.

Now typically I’m sympathetic to those trying to break free of US hegemony and who are tired of their national stability and desire to self-govern being constantly undermined by US-led Western powers. European colonizers are responsible for the current disorder in many parts of the world. And, I also believe the Palestinian voice should be heard and that their innocent population should be protected by international law like any other occupied nation, and the killing of children and non-combatants in Gaza is horrendous.

Victims aren’t just Israeli — nor are ‘people of color’ the only ones who suffer injustice.

However, Hamad does exactly what those on the Zionist side do to Palestinians—with a broad swipe she tries to make all people in a place share guilt for what governments have done. In essence, she has exactly the same attitude as Israeli spokespeople who claim that all in Gaza share in the blame for the Hamas incursion and—outraged that we care that Palestinian babies die—then turn the attention back to the suffering of their own people on October 7th.

It is a whataboutism. A deflection. And doesn’t deal with the actual issue.

This does highlight one aspect of the controversy, that being the solidarity with the two athletes centers on racial or religious identity rather than their gender. Those who most vehemently deny the complexity of the gender question are Arabs (or Taiwanese, in the case of Lin Yu-ting), which suggests their political partisanship and that the racial motivation is a projection that is entirely their own Hamad believes that it must be about white women because this is how she thinks. But it is really about how gender is defined to keep competition fair.

Hamad flails in her attack. She makes the row about the Italian boxer crying—which totally reinvents the chronology and ignores the reality of where it all started. People had already been talking about the disqualifications of Khelif and Yu-ting, by the International Boxing Association because of failed gender tests. It had nothing to do with how they looked, where they came from, or the race of the women pounded by them. It is, rather, everything to do with alleged XY chromosomes and higher testosterone levels, and fairness to female athletes.

But the truth does not need to line up with her narrative. An Italian woman, who has a darker complexion than Haman, is now made into the token example of “white woman tears” for being upset after a disappointing loss to a physically superior opponent. Imagine that, someone who put an enormous amount of time into their sport, then forced to quit the fight after 46 seconds due to the strength of the blows that were landing, having very strong emotions…

Scandalous whiteness!

Had silly Hamad spent 46 seconds thinking instead of trying to force the evidence to fit her own toxic ideology, you would have missed this rhetorical beat-down.

The biggest irony of this all is that Hamad is in complete alignment with the old imperial left—who, by far, are the most meddlesome of the political elements of the West both in the world and domestically with a constant barrage of moralizing emotive nonsense. Like concern over ‘misgendering’ a trans ‘man’ who is competing as a woman and is born a woman at the same time they tell us we can’t question the gender on birth certificates or passports.

The self-loathing face of white privilege.

It is truly only the privileged people who have the time to virtue signal and stir up division between people, the rest of us need to work and provide for our families—hoping these lunatics don’t start another war.

What makes this personal is I have a good friend who is Algerian and is one of the most beautifully feminine women I’ve ever met. Had she not been a devout Muslim (who, unlike Khelif, wore the traditional dress which always included a Hajab) there may have been been good chance of a romantic relationship between us. So this notion that European femininity is somehow different or more vulnerable is plain ridiculous. Khelif is no more representative of Algerian or Arab femininity than I am Britney Spears.

Ultimately this is all political. Hamad does not care about boxing, certainly not things like safety or fairness. She is just another myopic and mean-spirited partisan who only cares about injustice when it comes to her people. She’ll never write an article about the Arab abuse of their foreign help (many of them vulnerable women of color) nor is she intellectually curious enough to know about the slave trade of Europeans (yes, many women) by Muslim Arabs who raided shipping and became enshrined in the anthem of the US Marine Corps: “To the shores of Tripoli.”

Incidentally, the ‘Barbary’ pirates capturing US sailors for ransom led to the re-establishment of the Marines. At the time, the US was not oriented towards global dominance and only started along that path of being a sea power because of this provocation.

Muslim Arabs, before they were conquered themselves, pillaged the Christian Middle East and subjugated all in their path. No, this is to villainize them or say that ‘white’ is better. What it is to say is that conquest is human and we’re all guilty of the best and the worst parts. The only real difference between myself and the Hamad types is that I want to escape the tribalism of the past while she thrives on it. I envision a world where everyone wins whereas she can only be happy when those who she declares “not white” rule. She’s not truly anti-colonial, she is simply enraged that her own tribe lost the civilizational struggle to those she believes are inferiors.

In addition to this, she is like the angry PhD candidate, also from a Syrian background as I recall, and as vile as Hamad, who—despite a progressive feminist lean—was very racially prejudiced and to the point that she scorned me for my once having a black fiance—told me she would never go with a man who had been with a black woman. This is what makes me amused when Hamad gestures towards the African American grievance. Blacks may have been second class in the US, but they would be far worse off in the Arab world she represents.

The truth is that men beating women is as acceptable in Algeria as it is across Arab and Muslim regions. I believe this is why intelligent women from these places have such cognitive dissonance. They believe, on the one hand, this religious cultural identity makes them better. But then, on the other hand, they’re also battered and afraid of the men in their own places. They’re resentful. They would love to be treated as a Western woman and protected. This is why they want to see the women they envy to be hurt. It is displaced aggression:

Displaced aggression is a statistically robust psychological phenomenon. It involves a specific form of attack prompted by rumination on anger-inducing experiences and/or revenge-related thoughts, which might lead to the expression of anger on innocent people. Often, victims of aggression will not seek to confront the actual source of aggression (the original provocateur), and instead bully subordinates in an effort to relieve themselves of the stress that they carry.

Incidentally, in a conversation with a black female neighbor, she described the toxic reality of the community she left and how much she loves to live amongst us ‘white’ rural people who encouraged her rather than trying to tear her down and ruthlessly compete. Her mother, an alcoholic, used to deride her with the slur that she was ‘white’ for showing a little bit of ambition and self-respect. This black woman wisely chose to bring her children to the safety of a community still governed by a culture of self-restraint and looking out for the vulnerable.

White women are targets of jealous rage. Hamad would be better to acknowledge the true origin of her self-loathing and challenge the framing that makes her only care about the tears of those who look like her.

Hamad’s book “White Tears Brown Scars” is an attack on feminism and the West’s culture of protecting women. She popularized the phrase “white women’s tears” as a way to downplay and dismiss the suffering and display of emotions by white women. It is dehumanization. Making her sexual rivals into manipulative animals that do not deserve our empathy or concern. A license for calloused and cruel disregard in response to actual injustice. What it really amounts to is an attempt to normalize the abuse of women who step out of line—which is allowed in the Islamic culture that produced Hamad.

Ruby Hamad should clean up her own side of the street first before commenting on ours.

But I reject her, with her displaced aggression, because it is not okay for men to beat women—despite what her Syrian–Lebanese culture or the Quran says:

Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance – [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.

This is key to understanding the big difference in attitudes between Christian and Islamic traditions, I know the Old Testament treats women more as property of men—like the Quran—but the Gospel radically changed the conversation. St Paul tells husbands to sacrifice themselves for their wives like Christ died for the Church.

My wife tells me you couldn’t walk around in her home country like American women do, go out in revealing clothes, alone. She claims men where she lives would take it as being an invitation for assault and they would likely find your body in the ditch. If it is ‘white privilege’ or some form of imperialism for women to be able to stroll safely through their own community, then so be it. I’m not going to apologize for valuing the tears of my wife, the woman I love, over Hamad’s bitterness about not being able to find a man like me. I’m quite alright with a daughter who cries.

Philosophical Candidates

Remember, as a child, those day-dreams of a life unrestricted by parental control, where it would be video games all night, ice cream, pizza, and soda all day? What is amazing is upon reaching adulthood the thought of this lifestyle is disgusting. First off, it would be horribly unhealthy—in the sense that those who indulge bulge. Second, a party every day is totally unsustainable, someone has to do the work to keep the lights on and put food on the table.

Many people become more conservative as they mature and start to realize the value of the limitations they once spurned. Yes, an adult will modify what was taught to them by their parents and community. And some grew up in social environments where there was not much worthy to be preserved. But to totally throw away everything inherited from prior generations is a terrible mistake. Only an ideological extremist believes stripping it all bare is necessary and good. It is wiser to build on what works.

That is not to say that the tradition passed down can’t become stifling and overbearing or limiting our potential either. There must be a bit of flexibility, some Oikonomia, or means to adapt the rules as the need arises. However, the opposite ditch, of discarding everything and starting from scratch very quickly becomes chaotic, everyone does what is right in their own eyes, and it soon requires authoritarian measures to enforce the vision. This is the thing Nietzsche warned about—our morality is not self-evident and we should think long and hard about those monsters that we will release with our neglect.

This wasn’t a sacrilege, it was a lament of what happens when you yank the foundational rug out from under a moral system.

Cultural revolution, while always promising to upend systems of oppression and usher in a new utopian age, ends up being worse than what it is replaced. Yes, “All animals are equal” may be the founding cry, but is very soon after modified by opportunists who sadly are now unrestrained by those institutions despised and yet there for a reason. The only good thing is that this out-of-balance off-kilter, ‘we know better than all who came before’ attitude, tends to implode on itself if given time. The Soviet Union only lasted as long as it did because of Christian ethics within the population.

Two Visions For Our Future

Recently, with the decline of Joe Biden and a failed assassination attempt against his rival, the Democrats decided it was time to make a change up top. It is her time now—that is to say Vice President Kamala Harris—and there is plenty that could be said about her career thus far, but there is one peculiar repeat statement she has made that really deserves our attention:

“What can be, unburdened by what has been.”

This strange little mantra has been widely panned by the right. This is more Kamala word salad, they chortle, and yet—while she does sometimes explain things like a school teacher talking to a kindergartener—it is not gibberish. This is something Harris has apparently put some thought into and is something with a meaning that we should try to unpack.

What does it really mean to be unburdened by what has been?

I’m not going to sinisterize.

Most on the left I know have a glowing hope for the future and could never imagine that their philosophy could lead to Gulags. I do not believe Harris intends it this way, but it does hint heavily of Marxist thought where we are to be liberated or emancipated from all that came before. On the surface, this is an inviting thought. Imagine a world with no abuse, no poor, everyone has their needs provided and has complete freedom. This would be wonderful—and this is what every cookie-cutter college leftist has in mind as the end product of their efforts.

So how does the unburdening begin? Well, it already has. If you have been paying a bit of attention, everything normal is now being called fascist. Believe that women exist as a category and isn’t something a man can ‘transition’ to? Fascist! Maybe you like the nuclear family and see it as a praiseworthy social convention? Fascist! How about a border where there is reasonable control over who is allowed in and who is kept out? That makes you literally Hitler! And Harris has embraced this side of the debate, she announced her pronouns and the nature of her politics.

None of this is to say that Harris is a terrible person. I simply don’t want a leader unbound to existing ethics or any standard of decency, or who can write off Constitutional law as being a “what has been” product of wealthy white men with some of them slave owners and thus should be discarded. Sure, it may be a document with flaws, and could possibly use more amendments too, but it is better than nothing and represents the will of the people who signed onto this national project to this very day—white, black, Native, or immigrant alike.

What was established is for our benefit. It is no more a burden than a wool coat in the blistering cold. To think that we know more than every other generation that came before us, that science and technology have made us into gods, is delusional.

Furthermore, the left’s unboundness means they do not care about precedents (except as a tool to restrict their rule-obeying opponents and the ends justify the means. And they mean well. They plan to fight injustice. But this script has played out many times before and is the very thing that tradition is a bulwark against. At the very least those who believe what “has been” has value will hesitate and consider before they destroy the foundations of civilization.

Make America Great Again

Donald Trump rolled out his red hats and MAGA slogan in his 2016 campaign. The message was simple, a repeat of Ronald Reagan’s “Let’s make America great again” encouraging answer to the total economic disaster of the Carter years. As he said, in the 1980 Republican convention:

For those without job opportunities, we’ll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who’ve abandoned hope, we’ll restore hope and we’ll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again.

Trump knows a good brand and borrowed it from the best Republican leader since a guy named Abraham Lincoln. The progressives lost their minds. They dug up the one time it was used by the KKK. And couldn’t decide to condemn with “America was never great” or be offended because “America is already great and how dare Trump suggest anything otherwise!” If you were playing a game of “wrong answers only” this harsh criticism of MAGA as white supremacy would make a bit of sense.

When the left says, “Do you know who else said make America great again?” and then goes on to associate this benign statement with all manner of evil, they’re poisoning the well. There is zero reason to interpret this slogan as Trump’s desire to bring back Jim Crow or the racial policies that were once championed by Democrats. But this does whip the left into a frenzy and it keeps them from deviating and making an independent decision whom to vote for based on the actual positions of candidates.

What does Trump mean by “make America great again”?

Trump is a businessman, his interests are mostly economic, rebuilding our industrial base, bringing back gainful employment for blue-collar workers lower taxes, and less red tape standing in the way of entrepreneurial spirit. My wife, who opened a store in her home country, complains that the US is not a free country and is appalled by the many layers of taxes and requirements. This is what dooms many to working for “the man” or corporations that can afford compliance costs while drowning their competitors with cheap imported foreign goods.

The legalism of US law would make a Pharisee uncomfortable.

From a 2016 Trump campaign speech on jobs and the economy:

Jobs can stop leaving our country, and start pouring in. Failing schools can become flourishing schools. Crumbling roads and bridges can become gleaming new infrastructure. Inner cities can experience a flood of new jobs and investment. And rising crime can give way to safe and prosperous communities.

Had Trump’s first term not been sabotaged by COVID and blue state shutdowns, there is no doubt this would have been fulfilled. In fact, by the third year of his presidency the minority unemployment rate reached record lows. Even NPR, while downplaying it, could not deny these numbers Trump touted were real. Biden’s only success comes from not rolling back those tariffs the fear-mongering media had so roundly criticized. It is strange how the success and failure of policies is determined only by who is employing them, isn’t it?

No, Trump’s not woke. He believes in hiring based on qualifications. He doesn’t want to continue world policing and the massive expansion of government programs. This is why he is the enemy of those who derive all of their power from the administrative state and sap our resources. He is keenly aware that a free flow of cheap labor, while it helps elites who want nannies and landscaping at a discount, pulls down wages for those who do not come from wealth. Even a Senator named Barack Obama understood this:

If this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole—especially by keeping our workforce young, in contrast to an increasingly geriatric Europe and Japan—it also threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net.

Make America Great Again is not about a swerve in the direction of Nazism or some new form of ethno-nationalism. It is about restoring the economic conditions that had allowed our grandparents to buy their home and a car on a single income. Back in 2015, Bernie Sanders had blamed open borders on a right-wing conspiracy, that will make everyone poorer, but now the left is saying that normal border security is racist. What changed? Why are these Democrat policies, like the immigrant cages during the Obama administration, demonized under Trump?

Compassion means disincentivizing illegal crossings where human trafficking is a concern requiring sorting facilities.

It is really disorienting for those who soak propaganda like a sponge. They never see that Democrats did this full 180 on multiple issues where they had been right. Trump is right about the border. It should be the top priority. Just the Fentanyl overdoses alone are a reason. I’ve lost a former high school classmate and football teammate this way— 83,000 Americans died in 2022 alone—and it had ironically played as much role in the death of George Floyd as a knee on his shoulder. Why do we even talk about that dozen killed in a school shooting or Ukraine in light of this?

Reform, Not Revolution

Progressives tear at the fabric of civilization without understanding the consequences of their actions. They believe that the erasure of history, destruction of monuments, or the degrading of religion (see Paris Olympics) is a path to a better future. But this amounts to cultural vandalism and is ignorance of the positive contribution of these religiously created values we’ve internalized. There is truly nothing that is written on the substrate of the universe that says slavery is wrong or that genocide is evil—the stopping point to “unburdened by what has been” is a return to animalistic impulse.

The frontal lobe of the brain is developed by the myths and moralities that progressives do everything in their power to destroy with ridicule and sacrilege. And it will inevitably go much further than anticipated. We rarely have enough appreciation for what we have been given. Everything is taken for granted until it is gone. And when there is a vacuum that is left to fill, and the ‘demons’ waiting in the wings will come rushing in:

When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation. (Matthew 12:43-45 NIV)

Christianity led to equal rights in the West, the abolition movement, is a product of St Paul advocating for Onesimus or telling the Galatian church, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The left assumes the values it has are universal. They see only the faults without giving credit.

The progressive left, by contrast, denies all limits and conventions. Their “can be” may seem good at first glance. But is opening Pandora’s box, it is releasing what previous generations have built social structures to contain and could end up being more like a trip on Event Horizon. America has been good and bad, had moments of greatness and failure. We should tune the ideal it was founded on, not tear it down to start all over again. There is much to conserve in “what is” with an eye to improvement. Veer not too far to the right or left.

At least with Trump, morally corrupt as he may be, he comprehends that our inheritance is not a burden. For him, there is something that can be recovered “again” from the past generations even if those lessons were not perfectly applied to him. He’s a grandpa, he has seen trends come and go, old enough not to care about what is currently popular. Trump may have some narcissistic traits, at least that is the character he plays on television to the roar of the WWE crowd—but he isn’t trying to be God.

Conspiracy Central

Conspiracies happen all of the time. It is not a surprise that people plot evil schemes and would be more strange if they did not. But it doesn’t mean that everything that happens is a conspiracy. Being old enough to recall the black helicopter theories and warnings of imminent UN takeover. Who can forget the FEMA camp claims and those pictures of ‘coffins’ Barack Obama’s administration would soon be loading us into? Strangely many dates come and go, but none of those who push these wild global plots come forward later and say, “You know, I may have been wrong about JFK being the Antichrist… “

Wild conspiracy theories are about political ideology more than evidence. It is oftentimes a product of those who feel disempowered and seek uncomplicated explanations. The left, for example, hallucinates nebulous things like systemic racism or white privilege. Not entirely claims without any merit and yet if it is used to explain every outcome—if you see it lurking behind everything people do—then stop, get some help! The fringe right likewise, turns to fantasy when reality is too hard for their simple minds to understand. Inflation can’t just be about the Fed printing trillions of dollars devaluing currency, no it must be fires at food processing facilities!

There is always a motivated misunderstanding of evidence that is involved beneath this kind of claim—a misuse of statistics and facts to form grandiose theories.

The common thread of conspiracy theories is that they can’t be disproven. They are all established on faith, firm belief evidence connecting all the dots can be found and can shape-shift as needed. If one part can be disproven they can simply move the goalposts or deny the evidence is legitimate. If someone does not want to believe that the moon landing happened you could show a Saturn V rocket, introduce them to one of the astronauts, thoroughly explain all of the alleged irregularities they see and they’ll still believe that it was faked.

It is a matter of political orientation, not facts or plausibility, and stems from assumptions and a general mistrust of the system.

To the conspiracy-minded folks, everything becomes a conspiracy, there can never be an accident, or a lone wolf attack, no such thing as coincidence in their world. Sandy Hook couldn’t be a deranged (drugged out) Adam Lanza. No, to Alex Jones it must’ve been a false flag with the casualties being crisis actors rather than real people. And some of those hunch I understand, this is what happens when every tragedy is treated cynically as an opportunity by control-freak politicians.

Why did we go to war with Iraq after 9/11?

Is it so hard to believe that the CIA may have played some role in the JFK assassination when they do regime change all around the world?

The real issue I have with Q-Anon, where all is a hidden criminal plot (and everything is going according to the plan) is how it sucks the oxygen out of the room for discussion of real observable corruption. The far-flung theories, worse, are used to discredit those reasonable concerns about the expansion of government power and proliferation of unaccountable agencies. We should be far more concerned with what those with power are ‘legally’ doing in plain sight—and not giving them cover of cockamamie theories they happily use to dismiss us all as crackpots.

That’s the irony here, the conspiracy theorist is aiding the conspiracy. For example, fact-checks of “Covid is a bioweapon” were used to strawman the reasonable questions about a possible Wuhan lab-leak. This is why we couldn’t have a serious conversation.

So why do the kooks need to speculate so far beyond the evidence? Why can’t they stick to what is known or factual, the most plausible explanation, rather than always having to gallop to the craziest possible conclusion? In some cases it might just be stupidity, that they simply aren’t very good at tracking normal human motivation. But in many cases, it is just a form of resentment, they are unserious people—with a massive inferiority complex—who both need to distinguish themselves and also discredit those who did attain more.

It is basically the working-class equivalent of pulling the race-card.

And yet this is not entirely without cause.

They’ve endured globalism, they have seen their jobs outsourced, prices rise and wages stagnate. This was not the America that was promised to them. A place where their own dreams would be the limit. They see things going the wrong way, opportunities drying up for people like them, as a flood of new faces replace the familiar. There has been a sort of conspiracy against them, but not in the way they imagine. Yes, in many ways, they have been screwed over by their betters—so perhaps that is where the deep suspicion originates?

I Feel Bad For The Shooter On The Roof

It was inevitable.

Trump, who packs rallies despite somehow losing the last election, took the stage again in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Nearby another man crawls on a roof top, a rifle in his hands, takes aim and he pulls the trigger. He missed his mark, but continues to fire, one bullet fired striking a person in the crowd, killing them instantly, another hit the former President who drops.

Thomas Matthew Crook was only 20-years-old. His entire life he has been propagandized by a partisan media blinded by rage. After the dismal debate performance of Joe Biden, a heroic old man fighting till his last breath for the good of the country he loved, great fear gripped this young man. The evil Drumfler would ascend to power again!

And this time, as the headlines screamed in warning and even Biden himself claimed in the debate, Trump would be out for revenge—which would lead to a literal bloodbath.

Worse yet, the justice system that a month back would never make an error in regards to charges against Trump, suddenly gave way to a Supreme Court that wants Trump to be a dictator! This gullible young mind absorbed the hysteria.

Voting would not be enough!

No, Crook wasn’t going to leave the future of the nation in the hands of fate. Women depended on him. Black people too. Gays and lesbians as well. The time for talk was over, Trump and his MAGAt minions needed to be stopped and he was prepared to lay down his life for the good of his country to put an end to this threat. If the courts could not stop Trump, if Biden couldn’t, then the only option left was a rifle.

If only someone could have talked some sense into him. If only he had gone outside the ‘mainstream’ corporate news bubble or considered other possibilities.

Had he done this he would’ve have learned Trump is liberal, a New York businessman with an immigrant mother and married to a foreign born wife, who (despite gesturing to Evangelicals) has the morals of Bill Clinton and is therefore not remotely interested in implementing the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 25” conservative fever dream.

Trump is actually a disappointment to the right-wing, he banned bump stops and has a centrist platform when you stop taking the Democrat claims as fact or the full truth. It isn’t like he’s going to bring back slavery or force women to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. He’s a fiscal conservative who supports bringing manufacturing jobs back and likes trolling on social media. That’s it. He’s not a fascist. He won’t ban abortion (which he says should be up to states) nor is he any more evil than those who falsely accuse him for their own gain.

Crook came within millimeters of his target, which is quite impressive for 150 meters, but will be remembered as a brainwashed fool who mistook rhetoric for reality.

He may have actually secured a second term for Trump when most people take a step back and realize that the extremists might be on the side of the leftist media—that initially had responded to the assassination attempt by playing it off as popping noises and Trump falling down.

It is time to start seeing through this nonsense.

If Trump were literally Hitler, the President Biden would not have come out against the shooter. No, he would’ve lamented the bad aim and reiterated the bullseye statement he made just days ago. Instead he is now pulling ads and admitting that the show has gone too far after his opponent was nearly killed. Ironically, for a brief moment, Biden has looked very presidential.

Too bad Crook didn’t realize that he was a pawn in a manipulation game before he executed on the plan.

Responsible people failed him.

He died for nothing.

I’m Not Hey! Or A Heffa

My wife asked me if it is normal in America to call someone “Hey!” Her coworker had used this exclamation rather than her first name. “My name is not Hey,” she thought, not verbalizing the protest. In her Filipino culture this casualness is considered to be impolite bordering on an insult.

It has been a big adjustment, coming here, to see how little respect there is for others, especially the elderly and the pregnant. For her, from her perspective, I should not use my elder neighbor’s first name. He should be “uncle Steve” instead, to denote his age rank in comparison to us. Likewise, she was shocked how expecting mothers are not given lighter duty, as they would be in Asian countries. However, tough as she is, she vowed that if an American woman can do it then she can.

But it really does say something about us that we can’t be bothered to recognize the status of others. Most people in the world, including our own past generations, realize that we come into the world and leave the same way. The deference shown to elderly is paying it forward, a recognition that we too will become old and increasingly frail, that we will need help. The use of honoring language is part of that care or setting them apart from those youthful and able.

We have sought absurd equality in the US, where people are all interchangeable, the incel ‘conservative’ says it is unfair for him to have to pay women for maternity leave and ‘progressives’ think biological men can be women with some nipping tucking and a change of wardrobe. Feminists, ironically, strip motherhood and natural feminity of its glory to prioritize the tasks that any human can do. Egalitarian aims are good so far as equal protection under the law, but when it becomes erasure of all human difference it isn’t so much anymore.

Concepts of social rank, codified in religious law like, “Honor your father and mother,” are a part of natural order. Social animals have hierarchies, a pecking order or status that is earned through age or abilities. This can be abused and yet the alternative of disorder is not an improvement. Why be honorable, for example, in a world where accomplishment or reputation is no longer recognized? This may be why we’re so afraid to age—we only lose abilities and gain nothing in return for the experiences we’ve had.

My wife also observed how her American boss doesn’t want to be referred to using a title of respect. It is as if men are afraid of rank, would rather just be one of the boys, and therefore are uncomfortable when the language of their status is used. This, of course, doesn’t change the authority that is wielded by a manager. No, all it does is hide this under a layer of obscurity and makes me wonder why we have become so afraid or ashamed of status.

This all adds to the comedy when Taylor Swift screams “F*ck the patriarchy” to her stadium full of adoring fans. A billionaire who got her start with the help of her rich Daddy pretending to be some poor little powerless girl, a victim of oppression, in a society where nobody wants to be called “sir” or “ma’am” (maybe due to ageism?) and attractive women have all the power—both feminine wiles and all of the opportunity for worldly wealth possible. Total buffoonery on the part of the pop icon.

Still, part of the deal with titles of respect and social rank is living up to your honored name. I’ve blogged against patriarchalism, that is the spirit of entitlement some men have and believe that those who want to be addressed in a dignifying proper way must be dignified. There is also a little bit of self-respect required. My wife is also aghast at how her female coworkers will playfully call each other “whores” and I start to wonder why we must be so degrading?

BAY-BEE, Identity Language and Oppression Narratives

The nurse pronounced baby as “BEE-bee” in our prenatal class and it got me thinking of how language develops. Words will shift to reflect their usage. The meaning eventually match with the reality when we attempt to disguise unpleasantness in flowery speech or try moral inversion. Cultural values will shine through and snap understanding back where it was prior to the manipulation.

How did “bAy-bee” become “BEE-bee”?

The latter evolution in pronunciation is cuter and therefore a better representation of the subject matter. The word never will change the thing it describes. Yes, words influence our perception, they also change to reflect a new understanding of the things that we are describing. For example, the word “baby” only changed in pronunciation for me when considering the little human now within my wife’s belly. It was no longer an abstraction or vague category, but a tiny vulnerable ball of loveable life.

When we experience something firsthand it is harder to deny what it is. We can use the terms detached and technical to distance ourselves from the emotional content. Say that a baby is just a clump of cells or some kind of parasite—up until the moment when we finally hold it in our hands. To keep up the charade after this would be delusional or psychopathic. It is not human to see an infant as anything other than precious. The political lexicon becomes irrelevant.

A Tangled Ball Of Words

Words trigger emotions. I was thinking of this as a tear formed while the instructor in a prenatal class described the ideal of “skin to skin” and a soothing environment. Some of this reaction may be feeling the weight of my wife’s pregnancy. But it also has a lot to do with my own identity as the “premie” and “fighter” who struggled for life. Discussion of baby care today compared to what it was for me. The thing is, while my experience certainly impacted my development, I don’t have memories of the trauma. It probably only looms large as a part of my personal identity because my mom told me what I went through and reinforced it. The I gave further shape and form to it by attributing many of my struggles to the events of my birth—everything from my delayed growth to difficulties with focus in school.

However, it is impossible to know, outside of creating a genetic clone, if I would have been much better off with a normal birth or with more human touch rather than being in a plastic box with ‘stimulating’ music. This had some impact, no doubt, and yet there is the bigger psychological complex I’ve built on top of this named thing. Like an irritant in an oyster, it provided a nucleus to attach all of my insecurities to and blame for my failures and shortcomings. With a normal birth would I have been more like my more accomplished siblings and less a mess?

However, it is very easy to reverse cause and effect to give ourselves an excuse for our being lazy and taking of exceptions. We become the label that we apply to ourselves as much as it truly describes us. We act the part. Things of identity, like race, sexuality, religion, are as much a construct or fantasy as they are facts. We live up to our name to an extent. My mom would often tell me that my name meant “strong-willed” and it might be one of those self- fulfilling prophecies. If we tilt confirmation bias in a direction it isn’t a big surprise if our character develops that direction. It is like strapping a young tree to influence where it grows.

In a sense, nobody is truly “born this way,” it is a statement discredits conditioning and culture too much. But the environment itself doesn’t make us where we are as much as those descriptive words that reverberate in our heads. A child that is called “stupid” by a parent or teacher may spend many years trying to sort through their doubts. My dad letting me look over his blue prints and then giving some affirmation when spotted an error made by the engineers is likely what led to my being confident in my abilities and a career in design. Our reality is influenced by use of language.

These are just personal observations, but it is also backed up by other sources that put it more succinctly:

Language is not just a medium of communication; it’s a lens through which we view the world and a mold that shapes our identity. From shaping cultural perceptions to influencing personal identities, language’s role is pivotal in constructing our social and personal realities.
Language as a Mirror and Molder of Reality and Identity

Language is more than a mere tool for communication.

It’s a portal through which we perceive and interpret the world.

Imagine how our understanding of colors evolves when we learn names for shades we previously couldn’t distinguish.

With each new word we acquire, a facet of reality emerges from obscurity, offering us a richer tapestry of experiences.
The Dynamic Relationship Between Language and Reality

Neither of those sources are academic or truly authoritative, but do say what I’m saying in a different way and thus useful so far as my goal here which is to provoke thought. New use of language reframes the world. It can amplify our efforts and transform society as more people begin to see the world through the lens we provided. Memes do this, as do pounding of propaganda headlines, it is why “fact-checkers” exist—all to reinforce a particular narrative.

With so much power in our words there is plenty of reason for cunning and conniving people to exercise this for their own selfish ends.

They take advantage of insecurities and level accusations to shame or confuse the innocent.

Wordsmiths, they could turn a baby into a villain and murderer into a saint—beware.

His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.
(Psalms 55:21 NIV)

There are some use the guise of compassion to gain control. Their promises are about attaining power. They seek only to bind us and yet many people are blinded to these motives because their identity has been hijacked by these nefarious actors.

Categories Are Social Constructs

The structures and constructs of language are entirely fabricated. There is no person who is “black” or “white” by birth, no, rather these are categories we create, clans that we join, and always artificial divisions. We are often grouped by others using various label words and internalize the divisions as being inseparable from our own experience, in that we identify with other “rednecks” or “blue-collar” types as those ‘like us’ and yet also *become* like that. Nothing requires a rural person to use country slang or go buy a massive diesel pick-up truck, some of the markers of this lifestyle (chewing tobacco or dress) can impact opportunities. This is about politics, not genetics. It is about the strength of an identity group that helps us gain power for ourselves. Being a victim of an “ism” is a lever, a social tool or means to build a coalition against others.

The individual without these groups, that is denied the right to put their fist in the air in solidarity with others ‘like them’ is weakest and most disadvantaged in this game. That is the irony of the “systems of oppression” language. Those who describe this kind of problem are actually creating it more than they are simply observing. In the same way that observation in quantum mechanics is an influence of reality (collapses the wave function), the ‘study’ of human interaction is an interaction and is a product of our bias as much as it has basis in reality. Those who are concerned with the existing ideas (of racism, sexism, or heterosexism) steal attention (and thus disenfranchise) victims of systemic heightism and those who lack privileges in ways not discussed, defined or even recognized. The individual is the most vulnerable, a minority of one, and frequently abused by recognized groups. Bullies travel in big groups—victims are often alone.

This line of questions quoted below is most likely well-intended, but is exploitative:

1) “Language both mirrors reality and helps to structure it” (2). Explain and give an example.
2)Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and class privilege are all interlocking systems of oppression that ensure advantages for some and diminish opportunities for others, with their own history and logic and self-perpetuating relations of domination and subordination (3). Explain what this means. Do you agree/disagree? Why?

3)What are the economic impacts of constructing race, class, and gender?

Sandwiched between the lines of this effort to build awareness (indoctrinate) are a pile of assumptions that, in the end, only serve to darken these artificial dividing lines.

It is rewarmed class warfare rhetoric, Marxism, and is basically designed to feed envy or feelings of being an other and disenfranchised. No, this is not to say that prejudice or abuse is entirely a social construct. What it is to say, rather, is that their worldview, segregated by these simple binaries, is too compartmentalized and minimizing of other factors.

There isn’t one group of oppressor and one group of oppressed.

There is no hierarchy of victimhood.

Everything depends on the context or situation. A Jewish student that is harassed on a college campus because of the IDF dropping bombs on Gaza is not privileged in this moment even if they are ‘white’ and rich. Nor is it anti-Semitic to characterize the decades long campaign against the Palestinian people as an ethnic cleansing. Labeling terms like “terrorist” or “occupier,” while useful to an extent, rarely explain accurately and are dehumanizing ends of conversation.

The whole point of claiming the existence of “interlocking systems of oppression” is to make anyone who dares to question their narrow perspective a part of a monolithic enemy rather than an individual with life experience to be respected. It is truly the educated left’s own version of a conspiracy theory where anything they don’t like is part of some invisible system that can teased out of the statistical categories they created to emphasize identities based on color and physical features. If some in one of these groups lag behind then some other group must be at fault.

Building humanity requires the de-emphasis of meaningless boundaries and formation of bonds based on behavior. Skin color is not synonymous with culture or the choices one makes that shape their outcomes. Yes, we must identify mistreatment of people on the basis of appearance, but this isn’t black and white, nor is it oppression to apply the same standard to all. Indeed, some people are treated unfairly, but many end up being marginalized for antisocial behavior and yet claim to be victims of oppression when the chickens come home to roost.

Call A Turd a Baby…

Bringing this full circle, the word “baby” is cute (and the pronunciation of the word is becoming cuter) because babies are cute. The language of description is merging more and more with the reality adorableness that we perceive in a human child by our instincts. Using the word “baby” to describe an adult does not make them cute. Albeit pet names, used to convey fondness, do imdue the quality a bit or at least will hijack some of the sentiment that associated with babies. However, this is something that can only be stretched so far before the absurdity is too obvious.

In this regard language that is used in an attempt to counter popular perspective, or overrule accurate description, will eventually take on the meaning that it was supposed to erase. The language police can only temporarily remove a stigma (albeit never long enough to make the effort worthwhile) and it is because the unpleasant reality will always bubble to the surface again. In fact, “special needs” today probably carries more negative baggage than the use of the words slow or retarded in the past.

Likewise when a person is accepted at the university or get your job simply as a result of the particular identity group they belong to rather than only on the basis of equal qualifications this leads to an asterisk with the accomplishment—even when equally earned. New terms like “diversity hire” will spontaneously and organically come into existence as a result of need to delineate between identity and merit based. These, sadly, are far more damaging stereotypes applied to minorities who are outstanding by their own right.

Just as one cannot relabel a turd as a baby and expect people to cradle it once the truth is revealed, one can’t just apply credentials or distinguished titles to someone thinking this will change a lack of qualifications. It will only degrade the meaning of words and in the long-term will do nothing to solve the socio-economic divide.

Calling someone a fisherman and giving them a pile of fish is not the same thing as teaching them how to fish. You can’t simply declare reality as the left believes they can. Turds are only cute when the term is used ironically to describe something truly cute.

#CringeLivesMatter

Over the holidays my wife was out bargain hunting with me and we stopped at a strip mall where there was a pop-up store in one of the unleased spaces. We had parked at the wrong end of this clearly past its prime shopping plaza and near what appeared to be a Christmas party of some sort which I glanced at before heading to the discount shop a few doors down.

On the way back, after purchasing a box of used baseball gear, there was an older gentleman who beckoned me and my son to come inside. My wife wasn’t interested and returned to the car, but I wanted to be friendly and thought my eleven-year-old may enjoy meeting Santa.

Upon entering, there was nothing wrong with anything I saw as my eyes swept the room. They had various stations set up, there was a Mr. and Mrs. Claus, as one may expect, but the place wasn’t brimming with children and the average age most likely exceeded me by a decade or two. So we sauntered in past the ladies positioned to receive the guests towards the promising display of cookies and treats.

“Hmm…maybe we’ll come back to this?”

I didn’t bother to politely pluck a pastry as we turned towards the other folding tables, stopping first at the one with the coffee urn, warming CJ to the idea, by suggesting, “Hey, maybe they have hot chocolate mix!” Nope, I guess not. I quickly observed that cocoa was not available, segued to coffee, and—no cups. I didn’t feel like bothering anyone and my son had found a craft station where they had little ornament tree cookies for him to paint. He used an embarrassing amount of orange and blue paint to make a little brown for the trunk, but we achieved success and I worked on my exit strategy.

We humored the sweet old ladies on the way out (including one actually the size of an elf and appropriately dressed to play the part) then passed their brochures on the way out were they such and such county patriots or something? Not sure. But definitely fits a stereotype I have in my mind of the “save the children” picketers and people who rant online about chemtrails. They could be the January 6th grandma, showing up to throw their support behind Trump and ending up a felon for their undocumented tour.

Whatever the case, these probably were not the popular kids in school, not the members of the homecoming court, valedictorian or star athlete of the football team, but those of very average abilities. Some likely served in the military, most probably worked those mundane blue-collar jobs our politicians tell us Americans don’t want to do. They’re the forgotten people. Those who never had a way out of flyover country struggled to make the payment on the picking truck in from of their trailer park home, and even this party was awkward as there were.

This was real grassroots politics. Not those well-funded astroturf campaigns that get only glowing sympathetic reports from the corporate media. Nah, unlikely darling BLM or Antifa, these people are the true outcasts of our society, and when I look at them with a judgmental tone. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with their little outreach effort, I know they put work and planning into it, but still, I cringe as if the coastal elites will somehow think of me as different if I mock and throw these rubes under the bus.

I know how the internet treats these people, in one breath denouncing these lower class folks as being “privileged” and then, in the next, making fun of them for their crooked teeth or poor spelling. How many of those who smirk and sneer have a “Be Kind” sign in their front yard? I thought of this today as some older folks, some of them likely to wear a MAGA hat, tried to arrange a singles meet on the local community board only for an attractive 30-something female to call this effort “creepy” as if lonely people should be seen and not heard.

The thing is, there is no social benefit to our showing compassion to truly downtrodden people. While I would certainly get praise from the ‘cool’ people for showing up at a Black Lives Matter event, I get nothing for speaking up for the kind of people eliciting a cringe-response. This is another thing that feeds my skepticism about Christianity, the most ‘mission-minded’ uncles, those who appear to show love for the people of the world, will uncritically parrot the most negative characterizations of these people as if they’re lessor than.

And I get it. How can we respect someone who is unsophisticated and doesn’t know the difference between they’re, there or their, like we do? These people are likely high school dropouts, and certainly not professionals or professors, and (as awfully dumb as they are) are obviously brainwashed by the most dangerous and anti-democratic man in the history of America! No, we can’t take their grievance seriously. Instead, we’ll label them as “racist” “xenophobic” and “white nationalist” so we feel free to dismiss all they say as rubbish.

Meanwhile, the current party favorites can do no wrong, even if their violence is good. Torch a city and they’ll tell us straight-faced, while the fires burn, that this was “mostly peaceful protest,” but question their election result and enter the Capital building (like many on the left have done in the past when things don’t go their own way) and suddenly it is an “insurrection.” While they hunt down and gleefully prosecute those grandmas for their unauthorized tour—nobody on Jeffery Epstein’s client list gets investigated. Tell me again how you care about justice?

Far-left protestors take over capital in Madison to subvert the democratic process

Maybe I should just join the disdainful and look down my nose at my neighbors? They have nothing really to offer me. They had jobs that could be outsourced and can be replaced with migrants from South of the border who work for less pay, right? Besides that, most of these folks will be dead in a decade or two, why not look to the future? And yet if we do then we should admit what we are and quit acting as if we’re these wonderful Christ-following people for being completely in sync with the Hollywood activist in-crowd. Maybe Jesus wouldn’t pile on the world’s favorite whipping boy?

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Irregular Ideation

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." Albert Einstein

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