One of the reasons why both antisemitism and the violence of the left continue unabated is the complete lack on incentive to stop doing these things.
As long as laws are not enforced, except against those who fight against such things , they will continue.
In a famous scene in the John Wayne movie True Grit this is illustrated
Society has had enough of the “let him be” and I fear that unless things change quickly citizens themselves will decide to apply the alternate as the norm.
The distinct difference between this stuff happening in areas controlled by the left and places controlled by the right is striking, but not as striking as the number of leftist willing to tolerate all this crap for the sake of fitting in with the right people.
It’s always amazed me how so many people willingly choose hell over heaven but my amazement to that pales before the number willing to choose hell on earth.
I hear Elon Musk is getting ready to start his own university.
This is a smart idea, given what being taught at colleges these day and the attempt to view even math and science through the lens of DEI rather than objective fact it would seem there would be a market for a school that actually you know teaches real skills.
Idiocracy was not a how to guide, but our colleges are lurching toward it.
The degree that all things have become one big grift is really something and the speed that this had taken place has been really something too.
But like most things that are unsustainable they tend to collapse, first slowly then very very quickly.
Don’t Worry, as Cardinal George told you there will be someone to pick up the pieces and start again.
Finally a quick word on the death of Mr. Hoge.
He lived a long useful life and because of this and his abiding honesty bad people tried to make trouble for him.
They not only failed but he mocked them ruthlessly on a regular basis for the rest of his life to make sure they knew he failed, this is what happens when you have someone who has brains in places where most people don’t have places and faith to go along with it.
His tweets were a joy, his post were deep, particular those involving space but having him as a friend was the real treasure.
He gave me the black fedora I have as a gift. Every time I put in on for the rest of my life I will remember him. That’s a better gift that the hat itself.
Everyone dies, my suggestion is to try and live as good as he did.
Last Thursday, Chicago’s new mayor, Brandon Johnson, the candidate of the far-left Chicago Teachers Union, held a press conference. It was one of those dog-and-pony shows, also in attendance was the city’s police superintendant, Larry Snelling a Johnson appointee, and other municipal officials.
Armed with brochures, Johnson unveiled the “People’s Plan for Community Safety.” Who are the people that devised the plan? Presumably that group doesn’t include cops and crime victims, and it almost certainly doesn’t include the South Side family who had two cars stolen in separate incidents last month. One theft was a carjacking that was captured in a horrifying video.
Crime was the main campaign issue in this spring’s runoff election for mayor. Paul Vallas, a moderate Democrat, promised to beef up law enforcement. It was the center piece of his lackluster campaign. Johnson, appealing to his African American and leftist whites, vowed to attack crime at the root causes–just like the outgoing mayor, Lori Lightfoot.
Predictably, Johnson and the other city officials at the presser focused on the “root causes” of Chicago crime.
From the event’s press release:
There is a shattered sense of safety in Chicago that has been driven by decades of purposeful disinvestment in our communities. It is time for a new community safety approach – one that addresses the root of the problem by investing in our people and neighborhoods to secure a safer Chicago for generations to come. The People’s Plan for Community Safety calls upon our entire city, and especially those most impacted by violence, to create solutions together.
Lightfoot’s failures as mayor went beyond law enforcement. But Chicago tried the healie-feelie approach to crime under Lightfoot. It didn’t work.
Chicagoans voted to double-down on dopey.
Commenting the next day on the Morning Answer with Dan and Amy, co-host Dan Proft threw a penalty flag at Johnson’s root causes crimefighting strategy. Reminding listeners that Johnson is half of a two-parent household, Proft said Johnson is focusing on the wrong root causes.
Indeed.
A few days earlier in the Wall Street Journal, Proft noted, Jason L. Riley pointed his finger at the true root cause of rising crime rates, the proliferation of fatherless households since 1960. Referring to what is known as “the success sequence,” Riley wrote:
A decade ago, New York City launched a campaign to combat teen pregnancy. It featured ads on buses and subway cars that read: “If you finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty.”
He continued:
We could use more of that moralizing from public officials, whether the issue is solo parenting, substance abuse or crime. The success sequence works to keep people not only off the dole but also out of trouble with the law. High-school graduates and children raised by both parents are much less likely to end up in jail. “Virtually every major social pathology,” political scientist Stephen Baskerville writes, “has been linked to fatherless children: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, and psychological disorders—all correlating more strongly with fatherlessness than with any other single factor, surpassing even race and poverty.”
Chicago, and most American large cities, as well as many suburbs and rural communities, have been on a failure sequence for decades.
I’m not claiming to have the answers to turning around the failure sequence, ignoring the problem, along the lines of placing electric tape over the check engine light on your car when it flashes, of course means more failure. And yes, there are single moms who do a stupendous job raising kids.
One time-tested way out of poverty is quality education. Utilizing education to achieve success worked for that Founding Father without a father, Alexander Hamilton.
But Johnson, a former Chicago Public Schools teacher who was a longtime paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, even while serving as a Cook County commissioner, remains overly loyal to the CTU.
Also last week, the Chicago Board of Education, which includes six Johnson appointees, approved a resolution, in the name of equity of course, that has long been on the CTU’s anti-education wish list, removing the ability of students to attend high schools–better high schools–outside of their neighborhoods. Most of the students who benefit from the doomed program are minorities. Of low-income 11th-grade CPS students, less than 20 percent of them score at grade level in reading and math.
In another attack on students, the state’s private school tuition tax credit program, the Invest in Kids Act, which was signed into law six years ago by a Republican governor, will be allowed to expire next year.
Chicago–and Illinois–are focusing on the wrong root causes.
Ernst Janning: Judge Haywood… the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people… I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it, You must believe it!
Judge Dan Haywood: Herr Janning, it “came to that” the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.
Judgement at Nuremburg 1961
11 years ago I was credentialed press at the Mitt Romney “victory” party in Boston. After the result became clear I was interviewed by French Radio concerning the result. One of the things I said in the interview is that we were no longer a single American culture but now two separate cultures living in the same country.
Nothing better illustrates this than What we’ve seen from the left in the last 10 days.
Consider: In the last 10 days we have had.
Presidents of elite ivy colleges state that it’s a question of “context” if calling for the extermination of Jews on campus is against school policy.
The Mayor of a major city hold and defend holding a segregated Christmas party
Harvard having a Jewish group remove the menorah each night for fear it would be vandalized and the university’s reputation take a hit (what they can’t afford security)
Students at various college campus in fear for their lives at their own schools
Complete media silence on Americans being held hostage by terrorists
A congressional staffer filming gay porn in the US capital
An ivy league college tolerating plagiarism by their president (but not their students)
Disruption of Christmas tree lightings all over the nation
Large numbers of US students, and faculty publicly defending people currently holding Americans hostage.
There was a time not long ago when none of this would be tolerated by society. They would have been considered violations of common decency and such actions would have led to swift and immediate consequences.
But the truth is and has been for a decade that we no longer have a common decency. We have utility and Marxism and tribalism which means that all of these must be excused because those people practicing these things are on the left and for the left/media/educational/entertainment complex the cause is above all.
And for those who claim the same on the right, remind me which party expelled George Santos even through it shrunk their majority to a microscopic level.
I’m sure there are democrats who see the actions of Senator Carden’s staff member and never thought it would come to that.
Frankly it came to that when the party defended Bill Clinton getting blow jobs from interns and when they Democrat house didn’t expel Gary Studds, the first openly gay member of congress, for banging underage boys at the capital.
The recent budget deal to fund the Department of Defense, once again, showed how much elected Republicans are absolute wimps about negotiating. While continued billions to Ukraine was halted, we got nothing banning paid travel for abortion and a very limited spending cap on DEI.
We’re in the middle of funding one war in Ukraine, watching Israel fight another and trying to prepare to fight China…and we’re still wasting money on DEI and abortion?
But honestly, I’m not surprised, because most Republicans fail to put their money behind their values.
An easy example is Starbucks. Starbucks has long championed abortion, yet I still watch hundreds of Catholics order their Unicorn Latte (or whatever other sugary nonsense they prefer) from a company that happily donates to Planned Parenthood and a host of other reprehensible organizations. There are now hundreds of small coffee shops and plenty of other chains, and there is zero reason you can’t drink coffee from somewhere else. Yet here we are, throwing money towards the people that hate us.
Worse still, Republican voters are typically the stingiest in supporting alternative media. I’m becoming more and more impressed with Daily Wire’s “Bentkey” programming that my wife and I are likely going to cancel our Disney+ membership. Given the increasing amount of dumb programming coming out of Disney, its harder and harder for me to justify sending money to them when there is plenty of good kids content on Bentkey. I might have to use the DVD to watch Star Wars once in a while, but that’s already paid for, and at least they can’t change Luke’s preferred pronouns in my copy of Empire Strikes Back.
This Christmas, you should look at where you are spending your money, and try to find an alternative if that source is a raging liberal dumpster fire. Budweiser was a great example of people waking up and going “Hmm, not going to support this anymore,” and it sent a strong message to other businesses. But more has to be done. Continuing to pour money into organizations that hate your values is going to continue to breed feckless politicians, who follow the money.
While you’re at it, since Christmas is coming soon, why not send a friend or relative a copy of my book? It’s available in printed and audiobook format, and you can’t go wrong sending money to me.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
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