Is DEI biblical?

From Ben Kissling on Christian Post.com (Feb. 2, 2024):

Christian academic institutions have fallen on hard times. I get it. I have three relatives/close friends who until recently worked at such institutions. Two of them were laid off. One because his entire college closed its doors for good. The other left her position in part due to the heavy workload she was being expected to handle.

So, I understand in a very personal way why the leaders of such institutions as the one I currently attend, Biola University, might decide it’s a bad time to pick a fight with a powerful state government over Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

When I was in high school, my church went through a split with my family on the losing side in the sense that we had to leave the church that I’d grown up in, a church whose building I literally helped build with my own two hands. For several years, our elders had decided to use volunteer labor to save money on our new building. My dad volunteered more hours on that thing than anybody but the pastor, and I spent a lot of 12 to sometimes 16-hour Saturdays helping him. Long story short, the elders and the pastor split, and the elders were faced with a choice of either taking the pastor to court over the by-laws or leaving the church. They chose to leave because of a single verse in the Bible which said we are not to take our fellow brothers in Christ to court. And just like that, everything we worked for and donated money towards for years was gone because of one verse.

What lessons do you think that taught me as a young believer? Maybe that our faith is worth sacrificing for. 

Is DEI compatible with Christianity? This is a different question than whether it violates some essential doctrine of the Christian faith. Not taking a brother to court is not an essential doctrine either, but I believe it is the right thing to do. The question is not “Can an individual be a Christian and also adhere to DEI?” The question is whether or not over time, adherence to the assumptions inherent in DEI will undermine Biola as an orthodox Christian institution. I believe the answer to the latter question is yes, and in the long run that is a far more serious question for Biola than the current financial situation.

There are some very basic, intuitive contradictions between DEI and Christianity, specifically Christian morality. Christianity is already inherently anti-racist, and as a Christian institution Biola does not need DEI. But it is worse than that, because DEI is not simply benign either. It is not simply an institutional program to combat racism. DEI is a moral system whose foundations are different than Christian morality, and as a result lead to different moral judgments than Christianity does. Once accepted by a Christian institution, DEI will replace the Christian morality of any institution which accepts its premises, which Biola has already done in March 2021 when President Corey instituted the Division of Diversity and Inclusion.

The key difference between DEI morality and Christian morality is simply that DEI flips the worldly, socio-economic standard upside down, while Christianity replaces it with an entirely different, other-worldly standard. In James 1:9-10, we see a clear example of the relation between Christian morality and socio-economic status: “Now the brother or sister of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; but the rich person is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away” (NASB). At first glance, it might seem like James is reversing the socio-economic standard. After all, he says the poor are in a high position while the rich are in a low position, when presumably judgments according to a socio-economic standard would have the rich high and the poor low. But why would James say each one should glory in their respective positions if one is truly high and the other truly low? If the rich actually were in a low position, then they cannot glory in that position. They should rather be ashamed of their low position and seek a higher one! But that is not what James says for them to do. [read more]

DIE is based on Marxism. Marxism is atheistic. So, the answer is no. Good article.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution’s Witch-Hunts

In 1978, the sociologist Albert Bergesen wrote an essay titled “A Durkheimian Theory of ‘Witch-Hunts’ With the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966–1969 as an Example.” Bergesen used Durkheim to illuminate the madness that erupted in Beijing in May 1966, when Mao Zedong began warning about the rising threat of infiltration by pro-capitalist enemies. Zealous college students responded by forming the Red Guards to find and punish enemies of the revolution. Universities across the country were shut down for several years.

……..

Bergesen notes that there are three features common to most political witch hunts: they arise very quickly, they involve charges of crimes against the collective, and the offenses that lead to charges are often trivial or fabricated. Here’s how Bergesen puts it:

They arise quickly: “Witch-hunts seem to appear in dramatic outbursts; they are not a regular feature of social life. A community seems to suddenly find itself infested with all sorts of subversive elements which pose a threat to the collectivity as a whole.

……..

Crimes against the collective: “The various charges that appear during one of these witch-hunts involve accusations of crimes committed against the nation as a corporate whole. It is the whole of collective existence that is at stake; it is The Nation, The People, The Revolution, or The State which is being undermined and subverted.”

Charges are often trivial or fabricated: “These crimes and deviations seem to involve the most petty and insignificant behavioral acts which are somehow understood as crimes against the nation as a whole. In fact, one of the principal reasons we term these events ‘witch-hunts’ is that innocent people are so often involved and falsely accused.”

To Bergesen’s list we’ll add a fourth feature, which necessarily follows from the first three:

Fear of defending the accused: When a public accusation is made, many friends and bystanders know that the victim is innocent, but they are afraid to say anything. Anyone who comes to the defense of the accused is obstructing the enactment of a collective ritual. Siding with the accused is truly an offense against the group, and it will be treated as such. If passions and fears are intense enough, people will even testify against their friends and family members.

Source: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018) by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.

The Chinese Revolution was truly evil. Then again all communism is.

Trump admin orders 270 trucking schools to shutter in crackdown on licensing of illiterate, illegal immigrant drivers

From NY Post.com (Aug. 31):

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy shut down 270 commercial driver’s licensing (CDL) schools Monday for offenses including graduating illegal immigrant truck drivers who can’t speak English or offering subpar training facilities.

“If you’re here illegally and you can’t speak the language and you’re not well-trained, you don’t deserve to be in a big rig, driving American roads, endangering American citizens,” Duffy said at a press conference in Detroit alongside Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and federal prosecutors.

Duffy announced that his department was removing 110 CDL schools from the federal Training Provider Registry, forcing them to “immediately cease all operations.” The schools had been found to have trained 5,000 enrollees later found to be unable to speak English.

Another 160 schools were suspended for failing to meet training facility standards — sometimes claiming a single truck or small parking lot comprised their training center.

States issue commercial driver’s licenses allowing holders to cross state lines, but the federal government sets national standards and has oversight over the roughly 31,000 CDL training schools across America.

“The last administration allowed truck driving schools to self-certify to say that they meet all of the federal standards to be a certified truck driving school. What we found is many of those schools don’t actually meet that standard,” Duffy said.

“We’re not gonna have a problem. We’re gonna have truck drivers,” he added.

“You have to speak English to operate a commercial vehicle. I didn’t create that rule. President Trump didn’t create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades, and we have schools that know the rule and still pass people through their school who can’t speak the language,” Duffy continued.

“And so there’s 110 of them, through our data analysis, that are the greatest offenders. As of today, those schools are shut down. We also have shut down 160 additional schools. These are schools that, in essence, certify that they are qualified to train truck drivers. However, they don’t have adequate space.”

Duffy said 239 people died in crashes caused by non-English speaking truck drivers since the start of Trump’s term in January 2025, with California issuing most of the licenses used by operators involved in the smash-ups.

In attendance at the announcement was Delilah Coleman, 5, who suffered a brain injury in 2024 when Indian illegal immigrant Partap Singh caused a pileup with his 18-wheeler in California. [read more]

Good!  Hopefully, the orders will stop the needless killings by illegals driving semis.

Human Diversity and Individual Instruction

From Mises.org (Sept. 5, 2020):

One of the most important facts about human nature is the great diversity among individuals. Of course, there are certain broad characteristics, physical and mental, which are common to all human beings.1 But more than any other species, individual men are distinct and separate individuals. Not only is each fingerprint unique, each personality is unique as well. Each person is unique in his tastes, interests, abilities, and chosen activities. Animal activities, routine and guided by instinct, tend to be uniform and alike. But human individuals, despite similarities in ends and values, despite mutual influences, tend to express the unique imprint of the individual’s own personality. The development of individual variety tends to be both the cause and the effect of the progress of civilization. As civilization progresses, there is more opportunity for the development of a person’s reasoning and tastes in a growing variety of fields. And from such opportunities come the advancement of knowledge and progress which in turn add to the society’s civilization. Furthermore, it is the variety of individual interests and talents that permits the growth of specialization and division of labor, on which civilized economies depend. As the Reverend George Harris expressed it:

Savagery is uniformity. The principal distinctions are sex, age, size, and strength. Savages…think alike or not at all, and converse therefore in monosyllables. There is scarcely any variety, only a horde of men, women, and children. The next higher stage, which is called barbarism, is marked by increased variety of functions. There is some division of labor, some interchange of thought, better leadership, more intellectual and aesthetic cultivation. The highest stage, which is called civilization, shows the greatest degree of specialization. Distinct functions become more numerous. Mechanical,—commercial, educational, scientific, political, and artistic occupations multiply. The rudimentary societies are characterized by the likeness of equality; the developed societies are marked by the unlikeness of inequality or variety. As we go down, monotony; as we go up, variety. As we go down, persons are more alike; as we go up, persons are more unlike, it certainly seems…as though [the] approach to equality is decline towards the conditions of savagery, and as though variety is an advance towards higher civilization….

Certainly, then, if progress is to be made by added satisfactions, there must be even more variety of functions, new and finer differentiations of training and pursuits. Every step of progress means the addition of a human factor that is in some way unlike all existing factors. The progress of civilization, then…must be an increasing diversification of the individuals that compose society….There must be articulation of each new invention and art, of fresh knowledge, and of broader application of moral principles.2

With the development of civilization and individual diversity, there is less and less area of identical uniformity, and therefore less “equality.” Only robots on the assembly line or blades of grass can be considered as completely equal, as being identical with respect to all of their attributes. The fewer attributes that two organisms have in common, the less they are “equal” and the more they are unequal. Civilized human beings, therefore, are unequal in most of their personalities. This fact of inequality, in tastes, and in ability and character, is not necessarily an invidious distinction. It simply reflects the scope of human diversity.

It is evident that the common enthusiasm for equality is, in the fundamental sense, anti-human. It tends to repress the flowering of individual personality and diversity, and civilization itself; it is a drive toward savage uniformity. Since abilities and interests are naturally diverse, a drive toward making people equal in all or most respects is necessarily a leveling downward. It is a drive against development of talent, genius, variety, and reasoning power. Since it negates the very principles of human life and human growth, the creed of equality and uniformity is a creed of death and destruction.

There is a sense, however, in which equality among men is sensible and beneficial. Each individual should have the freest possible scope for the development of his faculties and his personality. In order to have this scope, he must have freedom from violence against himself. Violence can only repress and destroy human growth and endeavor, and neither can reason and creativity function under an atmosphere of coercion. If each person has equal defense against violence, this “equality before the law” will permit him to maximize his potentialities.

Since each person is a unique individual, it is clear that the best type of formal instruction is that type which is suited to his own particular individuality. Each child has different intelligence, aptitudes, and interests. Therefore, the best choice of pace, timing, variety, and manner, and of the courses of instruction will differ widely from one child to another. One child is best suited, in interests and ability, for an intensive course in arithmetic three times a week, followed six months later by a similar course in reading; another may require a brief period of several courses; a third may need a lengthy period of instruction in reading, etc. Given the formal, systematic courses of instruction, there is an infinite variety of pace and combination which may be most suitable for each particular child.

It is obvious, therefore, that the best type of instruction is individual instruction. A course where one teacher instructs one pupil is clearly by far the best type of course. It is only under such conditions that human potentialities can develop to their greatest degree. It is clear that the formal school, characterized by classes in which one teacher instructs many children, is an immensely inferior system. Since each child differs from the other in interest and ability, and the teacher can only teach one thing at a time, it is evident that every school class must cast all the instruction into one uniform mold. Regardless how the teacher instructs, at what pace, timing, or variety, he is doing violence to each and every one of the children. Any schooling involves misfitting each child into a Procrustean bed of unsuitable uniformity.

What then shall we say of laws imposing compulsory schooling on every child? These laws are endemic in the Western world. In those places where private schools are allowed, they must all meet standards of instruction imposed by the government. Yet the injustice of imposing any standards of instruction should be clear. Some children are duller and should be instructed at a slower pace; the bright children require a rapid pace to develop their faculties. Furthermore, many children are very apt in one subject and very dull in another. They should certainly be permitted to develop themselves in their best subjects and to drop the poor ones. Whatever the standards that the government imposes for instruction, injustice is done to all—to the dullards who cannot absorb any instruction, to those with different sets of aptitudes in different subjects, to the bright children whose minds would like to be off and winging in more advanced courses but who must wait until the dullards are hounded once again. Similarly, any pace that the teacher sets in class wreaks an injustice on almost all; on the dull who cannot keep up, and on the bright who lose interest and precious chances to develop their great potential.

Obviously, the worst injustice is the prevention of parental teaching of their own children. Parental instruction conforms to the ideal arrangement. It is, first of all, individualized instruction, the teacher dealing directly with the unique child, and addressing himself to his capabilities and interests. Second, what people can know the aptitudes and personality of the child better than his own parents? The parents’ daily familiarity with, and love for, their children, renders them uniquely qualified to give the child the formal instruction necessary. Here the child receives individual attention for his own personality. No one is as qualified as the parent to know how much or at what pace he should teach the child, what the child’s requirements are for freedom or guidance, etc. [read more]

Excerpts from the “Intelligence Trap” book

The first step [to evaluating a claim] is to learn to ask the right questions:

• Who is making the claim? What are their credentials? And what might be their motives to make me think this?
• What are the premises of the claim? And how might they be flawed?
• What are my own initial assumptions? And how might they be flawed?
• What are the alternative explanations for their claim?
• What is the evidence? And how does it compare to the alternative explanation?
• What further information do you need before you can make a judgment?

……….

Refining these findings to a set of core characteristics, Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe have shown that high-reliability organizations all demonstrate:

• Preoccupation with failure: The organization does not become complacent with success, and workers assume “each day will be a bad day.” The organization rewards employees for self-reporting errors.
• Reluctance to simplify interpretations: Employees are rewarded for questioning assumptions and for being skeptical of received wisdom. At Deepwater Horizon, for instance, more engineers and managers may have raised concerns about the poor quality of the cement and asked for further tests.
• Sensitivity to operations: Team members continue to communicate and interact, to update their understanding of the situation at hand and search for the root causes of anomalies. On Deepwater Horizon, the rig staff should have been more curious about the anomalous pressure tests, rather than accepting the first explanation.
• Commitment to resilience: Building the necessary knowledge and resources to bounce back after error occurs, including regular “pre-mortems” and regular discussions of near misses. Long before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP might have examined the underlying organizational factors leading to previous, less serious accidents, and ensured all team members were adequately prepared to deal with a blowout.
• Deference to expertise: This relates to the importance of communication between ranks of the hierarchy, and the intellectual humility of those at the top. Executives need to trust the people on the ground. Toyota and NASA, for instance, both failed to heed the concerns of engineers; similarly, after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the media reported that workers at BP had been scared of raising concerns in case they would be fired.

……….

Nine “master virtues” that the IVA [Intellectual Virtues Academy] considers to be crucial for good thinking and learning, with accompanying slogans. They are divided into three categories:

Getting started

• Curiosity: a disposition to wonder, ponder, and ask why. A thirst for understanding and a desire to explore.
• Intellectual humility: a willingness to own up to one’s intellectual limitations and mistakes, unconcerned with intellectual status or prestige.
• Intellectual autonomy: a capacity for active, self-directed thinking. An ability to think and reason for oneself.

Executing well

• Attentiveness: a readiness to be “personally present” in the learning process. Keeps distractions at bay. Strives to be mindful and engaged.
• Intellectual carefulness: a disposition to notice and avoid intellectual pitfalls and mistakes. Strives for accuracy.
• Intellectual thoroughness: a disposition to seek and provide explanations. Unsatisfied with mere appearances or easy answers. Probes for deeper meaning and understanding.

Handling challenges

• Open-mindedness: an ability to think outside the box. Gives a fair and honest hearing to competing perspectives.
• Intellectual courage: a readiness to persist in thinking or communicating in the face of fear, including fear of embarrassment or failure.
• Intellectual tenacity: a willingness to embrace intellectual challenge and struggle. Keeps its “eyes on the prize” and doesn’t give up.

Source: The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Stupid Mistakes (2021) by David Robson.

Capitalism Is Not Racist; Capitalism Undermines Racism

From Mises.org (May 31, 2022):

Anticapitalist intellectuals have infused mainstream discourse with the idea that racial discrimination is baked into the DNA of capitalism. Usually, evidence of racial disparities in professional quarters is cited to buttress the narrative that capitalism is penalizing minority groups. Though it has become commonplace to argue that disparities constitute racism, the issue is more complex.

Racial discrimination is not an entrenched feature of capitalism, yet businesses must discriminate to remain competitive. Failing to reward the right competencies will result in failure. Therefore, discrimination is a legitimate policy that only becomes objectionable when done for nonmarket reasons. Even consumers discriminate on a daily basis, although they might not recognize it as such.

When parents insist that their children attend schools managed by capable educators, this is a form of discrimination because they are rejecting inferior schools. Secondly, other consumers prefer employing the services of formally educated workmen in contrast to their self-taught peers and are willing to pay a premium to obtain that labor. An unwillingness to discriminate is tantamount to incompetence, since the costs of inaction are detrimental to one’s business and well-being.

Using this pragmatic model of discrimination, it becomes easier to appreciate why some groups are less likely to be employed in white-collar jobs. Robert J. Morris presents data showing that the paucity of minorities in white-collar jobs is possibly a consequence of the achievement gap:

Black students made up less than three percent of the approximately 330,000 students from the graduating class of 2020 who took the ACT and were considered to be ‘‘STEM ready’’ students based on their Science and Math scores. Hispanics made up eight percent of the “STEM ready” students, whereas white students and Asian students made up 64 percent and 11 percent respectively.

Mediocre scores automatically disqualify minority students from attending elite colleges and becoming white-collar professionals. Likewise, in reading, the performance gap between whites and minority groups is abysmal. In Florida’s Alachua County public school district white pupils are reporting 72 percent achievement in reading and black students are reporting a paltry 25 percent.

Activist Tia Leather in an interview viscerally explained the implications of inept reading skills:

The reading level can mean that there are certain jobs, you can’t apply for. Certain levels of life, you just will never get to…. And as we know, through the research, it could mean jail time. And that’s how they’re building our prisons based on how well you’re reading by … third or fourth grade. So, the issue is there’s so many layers to unpack.

Moreover, Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf was recently vilified for observing that reaching diversity targets might be impossible due to the shortage of qualified minority talent. If the intellectual achievements of some minority groups are too meagre for them to join the ranks of the elite, then this is a problem to be solved by minority communities. Sociologists have penned compelling narratives linking the fortunes of students to family stability, and others assert that equivalent family patterns would narrow the racial wealth gap, but despite a treasure trove of evidence contradicting the racialist theory of capitalism, it continues to wield enormous clout in policy circles.

However, the sharpest evidence against the theory of racial capitalism is the preference for black workers during an era shaped by virulent racism. If capitalism is judging people on the basis of race, then in an environment where racism is acceptable, racist businessmen should refrain from conducting business with blacks. But this is not what we observe when studying the history of slavery.

Unsurprisingly, entrepreneurs are motivated by money, so even when they are racist, the pressure to accumulate wealth propels them to engage blacks. On slave plantations, overseers were responsible for executing important tasks requiring managerial competence. They supervised junior staff, disciplined slaves, and reported to planters. Overseers had to possess intimate knowledge of plantation management to reap success, hence planters selected for highly intelligent people.

Yet in the American South, black overseers were favored due to the deficiencies of their white peers, as Laura Sandy points out in a research article:

When compared with white overseers, the enslaved were not simply viewed as equivalent, and publicly advertised as “known to be equal to the management” capabilities of their white counterparts, but they were frequently considered to be superior.

Sandy’s account is corroborated by primary sources:

In 1784, Alexander Rose posted an advertisement in the Gazette of the State of South Carolina, which praised an enslaved man named Jonathan as having “more general or better knowledge of planting” than the majority of “White Men” in the state. Later in the decade another planter, who claimed to have purchased “perhaps one of the most valuable Negroes” in the Lowcountry, broadcasted the use of an enslaved man to manage his plantation without a white overseer present. With the enslaved at the helm, “any manager or overseer” was unnecessary; the enslaved overseer could direct plantation operations very profitably, independent of white supervision.

Relying on incompetent whites to manage estates was a losing strategy for planters, so to avert the demise of their plantations, they eagerly employed the services of blacks. Other than managing estates, enslaved workers were so competent at the trades that by the eighteenth century they were outperforming white men. Such findings are not peculiar to the American South: in Bridgetown, Barbados, free blacks dominated the market for skilled labor to the detriment of white artisans.

Irrespective of ideological positions, employers will prefer quality labor to inferior substitutes. Racist planters chose competent blacks over incompetent whites to the chagrin of their colleagues when racism was tolerable, so why would employers in an age where racism is perceived as deplorable penalize employees because of race?

Luckily, we don’t need to belabor the debate because the issue is indeed simple—some minority groups fail to attain parity with whites due to lower levels of human capital. In short, only lagging groups and their leaders can correct the achievement gap but a fixation on dubious theories of racial capitalism is sure to distract them from achieving worthwhile goals. [source]

Sad to say, the Left will still say the free-market system is racist.

Why Young Americans Are Not Taught About Evil

From Real Clear Politics.com (August 29, 2023):

Most of our schools teach almost nothing of importance, and nothing is more important than the study of good and evil. In the United States today, nearly all schools, from elementary through graduate, concentrate on teaching about racism, sexism, preferred pronouns, homophobia, transphobia, LGBTQIA+, climate change, diversity, equity, inclusiveness and white guilt. In other words, most of our educational institutions, including the most prestigious, do not educate.

Here are a few proofs.

It is almost certain that the great majority of American high school and college students (with the obvious exceptions of Christian students) could not name the Four Gospels (presuming they even know what they are); five of the Ten Commandments (presuming they know what those are); or the names of two Shakespeare plays. Most American students know little about the American Revolution, let alone about the French or Russian Revolutions. The same holds true for the Constitution and every other American founding document. It is doubtful that, other than Washington and Jefferson having owned slaves, American students know anything about these men or could name two other Founders.

When it comes to evil, the ignorance is enormous, often almost total. For example, according to Pew, about half of Americans ages 18-39 cannot identify Auschwitz or any other Nazi death camp. And there is every reason to assume that much fewer than half could identify the Gulag Archipelago (20 million-plus murdered); the Ukrainian forced famine (5 to 6 million murdered in a little over a year); Mao's Great Leap Forward (about 60 million murdered); or Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (about one in every four Cambodians murdered).

As noted, almost no one outside of Russia has ever heard of the Russian Civil War, let alone knows anything about it. One reason is that the winners, the communists, had no desire that people know about it. Yet, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, about 10 million people, the great majority noncombatants, were killed.

Why don't students know about evil?

The first reason is that nearly all the genocides of the 20th century were committed by communists, and the Left, which runs virtually all educational institutions, has always had a soft spot for communism. If people were to recognize that communism has been the greatest source of evil in the modern age in terms of numbers murdered, number of lives destroyed, liberty stolen, and the sheer amount of human suffering inflicted (greater by those metrics than those of the Nazis before they were forcibly stopped), the Left would lose much of its appeal.

Another reason is the foolish notion that people are basically good. This has been a left-wing belief since the French Enlightenment leader Jean-Jacques Rousseau came up with the idea. As he wrote in his book, "On Philosophy, Morality, and Religion," "Man is a naturally good being, loving justice and order; there is no natural perversity in the human heart... All the vices imputed to the human heart are not natural to it."

This nonsense had been foreign to the Western mind. Its view of humanity was rooted in the Bible, and neither Bible-based religion -- Judaism or Christianity -- affirmed the goodness of the human heart. As Genesis states, "The will of man's heart is evil from his youth," and the rest of the Bible repeatedly warns us against following our hearts.

However, as the West began to abandon the Bible, including belief in the God of the Bible, Westerners began to believe in man. As Marx put it, "Man is God." People had no choice. For if there is no God to believe in, one must believe in man -- or one has literally nothing to believe in. Therefore, belief in man's inherent goodness became both psychologically and philosophically necessary.

A third reason follows from the second. With the exception of the mass murder of the Armenians (which was committed by Muslim Turks), the genocides and the other horrors of the 20th century were committed by secular regimes. Given the centrality of secularism to leftism, this fact has been kept from young people. Likewise, the fact that all these genocides were committed by big governments is not taught to young people because big government is also central to left-wing ideology. In other words, a true depiction of the evils of the 20th century would mean the end of the two pillars of left-wing ideology: secularism and big government.

If you want to make a more moral world, you must begin with the study of evil. But, for the reasons enumerated here, the Left is not -- and cannot be -- interested in fighting real evil. So, the Left fights made-up evils: American systemic racism, transphobia, capitalism, carbon emissions, sexism and former President Donald Trump, to name a few.

This is why young people know almost nothing about evil. The Left doesn't want them to know about it. Because knowledge of evil inevitably leads directly to rejection of the Left. [source]

Great points. Dennis Prager's last comment sums his essay up quite nicely: "This is why young people know almost nothing about evil. The Left doesn't want them to know about it. Because knowledge of evil inevitably leads directly to rejection of the Left."

Why Do Some Countries Stay Poor?

From Peter Jacobsen on FEE.org (Aug. 23, 2023):

Accounting for "The Wealth of Nations."

This week for Ask an Economist, I have a question from a reader named Mark. He says,

“I’ve worked with immigrants that recently moved to the US, and workers still living in their native country and working for me remotely.

My experience is that they’re on average, much harder working and more skilled (even in technical fields) than my American colleagues. The foreigners work hard, making no excuses, grateful for the work, and take every opportunity to better themselves. Americans, on the other hand, demand much higher wages, complain about the work, and make little effort to improve themselves.

Since the people from many of these poor countries are better workers, why are their home countries so poor? Immigrants on average start more businesses and do better in the US than US born citizens. With all their skills and ambition, it seems their home countries ought to be significantly richer than the US cities, yet this isn’t the case. What’s the cause of these countries’ poverty?”

Mark asks perhaps the single-most important question in the history of economic thinking. Why do some countries grow rich while others stay poor?

A Long History of Answers

In 1776, Scottish philosopher Adam Smith published perhaps the most influential work in the history of political economy: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

This book, usually referred to as “The Wealth of Nations,” tries to answer the question Mark poses. Since then, wealthy countries have grown much wealthier, some poor countries have grown wealthier, but there are a substantial number of countries lagging behind.

Before we get into the right answer, we should spend some time talking about some popular wrong answers.

Economist Bill Easterly has done a great job chronicling some of these wrong answers in his book The Elusive Quest for Growth.

Easterly’s point in the book is simple. Throughout the late 20th century and into the 21st century, the United States and other countries have attempted to trigger economic growth in poor countries. These attempts have failed.

Easterly discusses three failed panaceas which experts believed would trigger development: investment, population control, and education. Before looking at each once, though, consider the unifying theme here. Developed countries tend to have higher levels of investment, lower birth rates, and more education. From this, experts have tried to infer that if these conditions are replicated in poorer countries, then development will follow.

This strategy has failed. It turns out these factors are more a consequence of growth than a cause. Let’s look at each failed panacea.

1. Investment

In the 1950s, experts began to believe that simply having machines and financial capital to take on big projects would make countries rich. This belief, ironically, was based on the (false) success of the Soviet Union. Soviet production numbers were going through the roof, and for decades economists believed they would overtake the US. Why?

The Soviet Union was industrializing through forced savings. By reallocating private resources to large industrial investments, it appeared the USSR was able to shock the economy into early industrialization. It turns out that this growth was illusory, as economist Murray Rothbard rightly predicted, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But the Soviet Union fooled many economists in the 1950s, so the model of centrally planned growth via investment took off. The belief was that because poor countries were in such dire situations, citizens had no ability to save. Without saving there is no growth. A vicious cycle was preventing growth.

So developing countries could fix this by giving the required investment for countries to have sustained growth. This investment would increase incomes, which would increase savings, and spur on permanent natural growth. Easterly calls this the financing gap approach.

The approach failed, though. Models failed to live up to their predictions, and poor countries were not made rich via air-dropped investments. The reason for the failure is the same reason noted by Rothbard in his analysis of the Soviet economy. Production is a means to the ends of consumption. If your production is not linked meaningfully to the well-being of consumers via the knowledge of prices, profit, and loss, then it will not lead to any sustained growth.

Central planners attempted to create production for its own sake, leading to the misallocation of capital and natural resources. Investment alone is not enough—you must have the right investments.

2. Education

A natural next plan for development experts was education. If increasing production via physical capital was not enough, maybe increasing knowledge or human capital would do the trick. Easterly chronicles how education development policy dominated from the 1960s to the 1990s.

The results did not bear out on this either. Easterly chronicles how study after study finds little to no correlation between education and economic growth. One study shows that as the education explosion happened in poor countries, the growth rate of income in these countries actually fell. This is exactly the opposite of what we’d expect if education theories were true. Another study found that for countries that grow 1% faster than average, education could only explain 0.06% of that in terms of growth in human capital.

Easterly points to several other types of studies which show a simple, consistent result: education does not create economic growth.

……

The Best Answer

So if all these answers are wrong, what is the right answer? Let’s go back to Adam Smith, and take a look at his famous conclusion. Why do countries become rich according to Smith?

“Little else is required to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

Smith is arguing that the ultimate cause of growth in a country stems from its institutions. In other words, the rules that govern your daily economic activity are at the bottom of the different growth outcomes we face in our world.

Another way to frame this is that in order for a country’s economy to grow, the citizens need economic freedom or access to private property rights.

When people have private property, they can use, sell, or rent out their property. This leads to a few results. First, people have an incentive to maximize the value of their property. If you own a house, you want to keep it in good condition because letting it fall apart means you lose some money. Private ownership incentivizes responsibility.

Furthermore, when people are able to sell their goods, prices form for those goods. Prices reflect the value of a good or service relative to other things, and embody societal knowledge about the good. When an oil rig breaks down in the ocean, oil becomes more scarce. We don’t have to be told oil is more scarce to curb our consumption. The rising price causes us to curb consumption whether we know it or not.

Prices also allow firms to do accounting to determine their profit or loss. If a firm makes a profit off of a sale, this tells them consumers valued the final product more than the value of the inputs used to create it. This process of transforming less valuable inputs into more valuable outputs is at the center of economic growth. To paraphrase the economist Peter Boettke: without ownership of the various goods used in production, there can be no markets for them. Without markets for these goods, there are no prices. Without prices, there can be no economic calculation.

So institutions which are economically free are the cause of economic growth. The data bear this out. Economists James Gwartney and co-author Robert Lawson pioneered the Fraser Institute’s “Economic Freedom of the World Index.” The Index measures how free the economies of different countries are and uses that information to examine the connection between freedom and flourishing. What they find fits perfectly with the theory here. Economically free countries are richer and healthier than unfree countries.

Economist Peter Leeson also examines the evidence in a paper titled “Two Cheers for Capitalism?” His conclusion?

“According to a popular view that I call ‘two cheers for capitalism,’ capitalism’s effect on development is ambiguous and mixed. This paper empirically investigates that view. I find that it’s wrong. Citizens in countries that became more capitalist over the last quarter century became wealthier, healthier, more educated, and politically freer. Citizens in countries that became significantly less capitalist over this period endured stagnating income, shortening life spans, smaller gains in education, and increasingly oppressive political regimes. The data unequivocally evidence capitalism’s superiority for development. Full-force cheerleading for capitalism is well deserved and three cheers are in order instead of two.”

In The Elusive Quest for Growth, Easterly has one other insight that merits our attention on this question. Easterly points out how much of the United States government’s focus on development in the late 20th century was really an attempt to win allies against the Soviet Union.

This is extremely ironic, considering that the US government was essentially incorporating Soviet style central planning to attempt to bring about growth in these developing countries.

Instead, it would have been better to follow a US-style pursuit of economic growth. Institutions which enable economic growth are the true driver of wealth creation. Once you enable individuals to freely compete and cooperate, the power of human ingenuity does the rest. [read more]

Food for thought. Lessons the Left never gets--especially the "easy taxes" part.

The Remaking of America

From AM Greatness.com (Aug. 7, 2023):

We are in the midst of one of the most radical revolutions in American history. It is as far-reaching and dangerous as the turbulent years of the 1850s and 1860s or the 1930s. Every aspect of American life and culture is under assault, including the very processes by which we govern ourselves, and the manner in which we live.

The Revolution began under the Obama administration that sought to divide Americans into oppressed and oppressors, and then substitute race for class victimization. It was empowered by the bicoastal wealth accrued from globalization, and honed during the COVID lockdown, quarantine-fed economic downturn, and the George Floyd riots and their aftermath. The Revolution was boosted by fanatic opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump. And the result is an America that is unrecognizable from what it was a mere decade ago.

Here are 10 upheavals that the Left has successfully wrought.

Free expression. In large swatches of American society—particularly the corporation, the media, the government, the public schools, and the university—it is suddenly dangerous to speak freely. At a DEI workshop, politely object that “whiteness” does not account for all the challenges of “marginalized peoples,” and you will become either ostracized, reprimanded, or perhaps fired.

Suggest to a class that man-made climate change and the state remedies for it, are still under debate—and your career and livelihood are endangered. In 2020, state that Covid lockdowns would do more eventual damage than the virus—and your career was through. Express doubt that there are more than two biological sexes, and if an athlete or high school principal you will be shunned or rendered professionally inert.

The government, in league with social media, censors the news. “Liberal” universities often first require McCarthy-era type “diversity” statements for one to be hired. Commissars review syllabi to spot incorrect or improper speech or insufficient DEI zeal.

The Left now seeks to modify the First Amendment, and its empowerment of “hate speech,” defined as most anything impeding the progressive project. The state and the universities properly issue word lists of approved vocabularies.

The old ACLU or Sen. Church Committee would now probably be deemed rightwing. The methodologies of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover are the preferred models, once they were rebooted to the right cause.

The Weaponization of Justice. Administrations and their efforts to stock the justice department with supporters come and go. But in the last decade the Left has viewed the Department of Justice as a political extension of the party—whose unchecked power must properly be directed to hurt enemies and help friends. No wonder Eric Holder described himself as Obama’s “wingman” and became the first Attorney General to be held in contempt for ignoring a congressional subpoena.

Never in U.S. history have the Department of Justice and sympathetic state and local prosecutors indicted a leading opposition candidate and likely nominee of one of the two major parties, and at the beginning of a presidential campaign. Donald Trump is currently charged with nearly 100 felonies by at least two prosecutors. He likely eventually will be hit with more than- 500 indictments, from four prosecutors, every one of the latter with a long record of either leftwing associations or Democratic service.

The mass murderer Charles Manson faced less legal exposure. No one believes Trump would have been indicted on such counts—most of them involving allegations from years past—were he not running for President.

One count that Donald Trump is not charged with is bribery, or taking money while in office, a crime cited as impeachable in the Constitution and germane to the accusations that Joe Biden and his family raked in millions from foreign governments due to the improper use of his prior Vice Presidency. For what reason did Joe Biden lie that he never discussed his son’s business? Why did Hunter complain to his daughter that Joe demanded half of his own grifting income? Why would a Vice President serially call disreputable American grifters and foreign corrupt oligarchs? Can Joe’s lifestyle ever be reconciled with his reported income?

Given such asymmetry in the application of the laws, conservative or even apolitical Americans are apprehensive that any political prominence will draw the attention of government in effort to either indict or bankrupt them with legal expenses.

The last four FBI Directors have either admitted they lied under oath, or preposterously under oath claimed ignorance or amnesia about events directly under their control. Or they simply stonewalled subpoenas and testimonies about alleged FBI crimes.

The former CIA Director admitted to lying twice under oath. The FBI hired social media corporations to suppress election-cycle news deemed unhelpful to the Left. The agency, along with Democratic operatives, helped hatch the election-cycle conspiracy of the 2015-2016 Russian-Collusion hoax, and the 2020 Russian disinformation laptop hoax. The FBI played a central role in many of the 2024 indictments. In other words, the FBI along with the DOJ, has sought to warp three presidential elections in a row.

On the prompt of a Joe Biden campaign official (and now Secretary of State) and a former interim CIA director, 50 former intelligence officials lied to the electorate that an authentic but incriminating Biden computer was a likely Russian plant—a fact known to be lie but not disclosed as such by the FBI. [read more]

This is the blueprint how the Left is radically transforming America. Another great article by VDH.

Whiz kid offered Google job out of high school but got rejected by 16 colleges —now he’s suing for discrimination

From NY Post.com (Mar. 3, 2025):

Stanley Zhong was a near-perfect college applicant.

Out of the more than 2 million kids who take the SAT annually, he’s one of roughly 2,000 to score a 1590 or higher.

His high school GPA was a 4.42 on a 4.0 scale. He even had an offer in hand to work a PhD-level job at Google before graduating high school.

Stanley, who intended to study computer science, also managed his own startup, e-document signature platform Rabbit-Sign, while still a high schooler.

By anyone’s expectations, the Palo Alto, Calif., teen should have been Harvard- or MIT-bound. Yet Stanley, now 19, was met with disappointment after disappointment in 2023 when college admissions letters started trickling in.

Stanley was rejected by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell University, Georgia Tech, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin.

Only the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Maryland — with respective 31% and 44% admissions rates — accepted him. Stanley’s father, Nan Zhong, was astounded.

“I did hear that Asians seem to be facing a higher bar when it comes to college admissions, but I thought maybe it’s an urban legend,” Nan told The Post.

“But then when the rejections rolled in one after another, I was dumbfounded. What started with surprise turned into frustration and then finally it turned into anger.”

With just two offers of admission out of 18 schools, Nan became convinced that his whiz kid must have been discriminated against — and decided to take the schools who rejected his son to court.

“There’s nothing more un-American than this,” Nan said of the alleged discrimination his son faced. “I don’t really think [these schools] give a damn about the damage they’re doing to these kids.”

Asian American students have long gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to affirmative action. The Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in college admissions in June 2023, finding that Asian students were systemically overlooked.

Because Stanley applied for admissions shortly before the ruling, the Zhongs decided to sue colleges located in states that had pre-existing laws prohibiting racial discrimination in admissions.

Affirmative action has been banned at public universities in Stanley’s home state of California since 1996.

So far, the family has filed lawsuits against the University of California system and the University of Washington, alleging the schools “[engaged] in racially discriminatory admissions practices that disadvantage highly qualified Asian-American applicants.”

“[Stanley’s admissions] results stand in stark contrast to his receipt of a full-time job offer from Google for a position requiring a PhD degree or equivalent practical experience,” the lawsuit claims. “Stanley’s experience is emblematic of a broader pattern of racial discrimination against highly qualified Asian-American applicants at UC.” [read more]

Disgraceful. This is racism by these woke universities.

Artemis II Mission Shows There Are No Limits To American Exceptionalism

From The Federalist.com (Apr. 7):

Pushing the boundaries of what was once thought to be impossible is a hallmark of American greatness. And the recent mission to circle the moon is no different.

The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission set a record on Monday for traveling further into space than any humans have ever gone before. As part of their “lunar flyby,” the four-person crew (consisting of three Americans and one Canadian) broke Apollo 13’s record by reaching an estimated 252,756 miles from Earth.

While traveling in their Orion capsule, the team viewed previously unseen surfaces of the moon and captured breathtaking images in the process. Amid their discoveries was a noticeably bright crater, which one of the astronauts suggested naming “Carroll” after mission commander Reid Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.

While the mission has certainly boasted its great moments, there was something the astronauts reportedly said before embarking on their journey that puts a perfect bow on the entire thing. As summarized by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, the Artemis II crew said that they hope their feat “will be remembered as the moment people started to believe that America can once again do the near-impossible and change the world.”

It’s a simple, yet important point to remember given the constant barrage of negativity Americans hear about their country from its most vocal institutions. From higher education to legacy media and Hollywood, everyday citizens are regularly inundated with anti-American rhetoric about why their nation is evil, stupid, and not that great after all.

Why would you want to try your best and work your hardest in a racist, bigoted, oppressive, hateful country like America? or so the conventional leftist groupthink goes.

The Artemis II mission provides a stark contrast to that backwards thinking. It teaches America’s people that adventure and risks are worth taking, that hard work wins, and that there are no limits to what their country can accomplish.

That’s American exceptionalism at its best.

So, dream big. Reach for what others believe to be impossible. Give 110 percent into what you do. And always remember that it could happen nowhere else except in the United States of America. [source]

USA! USA! USA! 

More articles on the mission:

• 16 inspiring Artemis II photos that’ll make you feel like a tiny Earthling
• Artemis II astronauts reflect on historic flight as they wrap up moon mission
• 9 highlights from Artemis II's epic journey around the moon
• NASA’s Artemis II mission’s return to Earth, hour by hour
• Artemis II's Grand Moon Finale Almost Here With a Pacific Splashdown to Cap NASA's Lunar Comeback
• Artemis II splashes down off the coast of San Diego, finishing historic journey around the moon
• Watch a recovery crew open Integrity’s hatch for Artemis II astronauts
  
• NASA Artemis II Zero Gravity Indicator & Moon Mascot 'Rise' Back Home on Earth
• Artemis, the Greatness of God, and Human Exceptionalism

Don’t Say ‘They’: Why Pronouns Matter

From Breakpoint.org (June 6, 2022):

A couple weeks ago, a Title IX investigation was opened for three middle school boys from Wisconsin who used the pronoun she for a biologically female student who wished to go by they. Under the Biden administration, refusing to use misaligned pronouns is considered sex discrimination. Even style guides today encourage the use of they if it is the chosen pronoun of an individual.

One rationale given is that someone really is whatever gender he or she claims, and to not recognize that with pronouns is to contribute to that person’s psychological distress. This is the case even if, as Abigail Shrier describes as being increasingly common, a person’s gender dysphoria is socially conditioned. So, according to our own government, we are now in a zero-sum game: Either use individuals’ chosen pronouns or be blamed for their suicides.

Thankfully, many are beginning to recognize that even using the pronoun they for an individual is deeply problematic, much less fully imbibing all that the new transgender orthodoxy commands. Recently, the Manhattan Institute’s Leor Sapir wrote an editorial entitled “Don’t Say ‘They.’” In it, Sapir argues that using they and them to refer to an individual is far from harmless and amounts to buying into an ideology that “gender is an oppressive social system.” In other words, using nonbinary plural pronouns and also opposite-sex pronouns says something that is not true about God’s design, the created reality of men and women.

So, what are we to do? Shall we use words that align with reality or shall we refuse to risk the psychological distress of a transgender person?

Two guiding principles can help us here. First, as Aleksander Solzhenitsyn advised, we must “live not by lies.” Second, as Paul advised, “so far as it depends on (us), live peaceably with all.” Living like Christians today requires both, together.

Words matter. Not only do our words reflect reality, and thus misusing words can distort reality, but Scripture is plain that God’s words make up reality. To use words incorrectly is to not only embrace something not true, it is to mislead others away from God. This is not true, nor is it loving. Thus, God says that He hates a “lying tongue.” 

Honoring the second principle, to do our best to “live peaceably with all,” is particularly difficult when the choice is to tell a lie or to be responsible for psychological distress. Philosophy professor Nick Meriwether had a creative response when he found himself between this rock and hard place. When a male student requested that Dr. Meriweather refer to him as a female, using feminine titles and pronouns, he offered to only “refer to this student by a first or last name.”

In response, Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, charged Dr. Meriweather with creating “a hostile environment,” placed a warning in his employee file, and threatened future punitive action if he refused to comply. So, Dr. Meriwether filed suit, claiming his free speech had been violated. He won. Shawnee State was forced to award him $400,000 and remove the disciplinary statement.

Dr. Meriweather’s story demonstrates that people of conscience ought to not prematurely surrender their convictions, or believe that cultural defeat is inevitable. Even more, it offers a way forward when it comes to pronouns, telling the truth and living at peace.

In English, names do not indicate gender. Pronouns do. Offering to call individuals by their chosen names is a way of respecting them as people without saying something that is not true about them. In a conversation with an individual, the pronoun you is acceptable, since in English it refers to both plural and singular, and to both male and female. In no way, does you deny that biological sex is binary.

On the other hand, speaking in the third person—he, she, or they—when speaking about others is trickier. Some people point out that we use the word they all the time to refer to individuals. However, whenever we say something like, “Somebody left their book,” we don’t know who it is. It’s different if we do know who it is. For example, it would be inaccurate (and strange) to say, “Abigail left their book.”

In other words, there are ways to not say something that is not true. We can avoid using nonbinary or opposite-sex pronouns, and instead use names. And, we can use plural pronouns to talk about a group rather than an individual. Still, as Dr. Meriweather’s situation illustrates, these alternatives will not satisfy everyone. And, when there is no choice but to use third person pronouns, the only way to tell the truth is to use the pronouns that align with biology, not ideology.

To be clear, there is one situation where using someone’s chosen name violates the first principle of telling the truth: If you’ve known a person all of his or her life, and if that name was given for specific purposes. So, for example, to ask moms to use a chosen name over a given name for the child they’ve raised and loved is just cruel.

Some argue that because language changes over time, accepting pronoun changes is just changing with language. This argument assumes that language doesn’t actually refer to reality, but only to other words. But there is a real world, and sexual distinction is part of that real world. To change the language of pronouns severs a link to reality, denies that reality, and disconnects people from what is actually true about their created bodies.

Pronouns may not seem like a fight worth having, but as Chesterton said, “The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.” [source]

Amen. Good principles to live by.

Let’s Stop Saying That Progressives are ‘Out of Touch’

From Jeff Charles on Red State.com (June 9, 2022):

One of the most oft-repeated talking points on the right is that over the past couple of years, with their lurch further to the left, Democrats have shown they are out of touch with the American public. It’s a popular maxim, one that I have also repeated. But I have come to realize this isn’t as true as we think. In fact, the reality is even more disturbing.

We’re old enough to remember all the fuss over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, right? Democrats and their close friends and allies in the activist media made an enormous stink in response to the notion that teachers would not be allowed to instruct children seven-years-old and younger on gender identity and sexuality. They even deceptively called it the “Don’t Say Gay bill.”

But polling showed that the American public wasn’t buying it. Indeed, at least one survey revealed that 52 percent of Florida Democratic primary voters supported the measure. Other studies showed people overwhelmingly favor the law. Nevertheless, the progressive left persisted, with the help of Disney, who received a black eye in the messaging battle over the matter.

Leftists exploited the murder of George Floyd to push for silly initiatives like “Defund the Police” under the guise that it would help to safeguard black lives. They bullied major cities across the country into slashing police budgets in a way that resulted in fewer police officers patrolling the streets. Even further, woke district attorneys like San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin were hard at work protecting criminals engaging in violent acts. Needless to say, these approaches made people far less safe and were at least partly responsible for the skyrocketing crime rates that followed. San Francisco’s voters were so fed up they voted to give Boudin the boot in California’s primary elections earlier this week.

What’s even more egregious about this is that rising crime rates, combined with fewer police officers, disproportionately harmed black communities. African Americans represented the lion’s share of victims of violent crimes, including homicide. But progressives still insisted on attacking police even when polling showed the majority (81 percent) of black Americans wished to see the same level of police activity in their neighborhoods or more.

Last but certainly not least, President Joe Biden and progressives are still pushing for a shift to green energy amid sky-high gas prices instead of drilling for oil in the U.S. Former President Donald Trump sought to make America as energy independent as possible, but Biden reversed course immediately after taking office. Now, everyday Americans are paying almost double at the pump and taxing their wallets just to get groceries because of massive inflation. Nevertheless, Biden and his merry band of Democrats in Congress refuse to allow more drilling and oil production in the United States.

The progressive approach to solving the energy crisis is in direct opposition to what most Americans want. A Heartland/Rasmussen poll conducted last month revealed that 82 percent of likely voters are “very” or “somewhat concerned” about rising energy and gas prices under this administration. Additionally, 60 percent of respondents said they would favor legislation that would “dramatically increase American energy production.”

As it turns out, most Americans can’t just go out and buy a Tesla as Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and other leftists have suggested.

These, and a mile-long list of examples, would lead any reasonable person to conclude that progressives just don’t understand average, everyday citizens. They don’t bother having conversations with regular folks to understand what they believe about the problems they are facing.

But I’ve come to realize that this assumption is both naive, inaccurate, and even dangerous.

These people are not out of touch with the American public. They are not unaware of what the people want. They are not oblivious to the viewpoints of us normal folks.

They know what we think. They just don’t care.

They don’t give a rodent’s derriere how we feel about the direction of the country.

They know better, which means we should just shut up and go along with their program. Progressives will continue pushing their insane ideas on race, gender, and sexuality in public K-12 schools. Even further, they will keep trying to limit educational alternatives by opposing school choice. Your kids and grandkids belong to the state, not to their parents, so to them, it is totally justified to encourage youths to transition to other genders without informing their parents.

Democrats have backed off of the ridiculous “defund the police” movement. But this does not mean they have given up. Woke district attorneys are still making sure criminals are given lenient treatment. They are still enacting soft-on-crime policies, even against gun violence, while trying to limit gun ownership for responsible Americans.

When it comes to gas prices, it’s the same story. If you want some relief at the pump, you better figure out how to get a Tesla, or you will be S.O.L. The elites don’t have to worry either way because these inflated prices are not harming the elites as they are for plebes like you and I.

Progressives are not out of touch. They are not ignorant. They are elitist would-be tyrants seeking to obtain more power. These people believe they know what is best for the unwashed masses. Leftists think they know what we need more than we do. This is what we are facing.

I’ll note that this does not apply to moderate liberals or even many average people with progressive views. But it is certainly applicable to the Marxist intelligentsia and their minions in the activist media. So, let’s stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. They deserve neither our understanding nor our good-faith conversations. We cannot reason with them. Our objective should be to defeat them. [source]

The author completely understands the Left.

Thousands of Dead People Got Student Aid, Trump Admin Finds

From Newsweek.com (June 2, 2025):

The U.S. Department of Education revealed that over $30 million in federal student aid had been distributed to thousands of deceased individuals during the past three years.

The disclosure followed an internal cross-check of student aid records against federal grant logs and the Social Security Death Index.

Why It Matters

The discovery of erroneous payments totaling over $30 million to deceased individuals raises significant concerns about the integrity of federal financial aid programs, which are funded by U.S. taxpayers.

President Donald Trump's administration has been emphasizing the amount of money the government is wasting and has been trying to eliminate unnecessary expenses.

What To Know

The Department of Education's review found that, over the previous three years, more than $30 million in federal student aid was paid out to thousands of recipients who were already deceased. These payments included both loan disbursements and grant funds.

Officials identified the problem by cross-referencing student aid records with the Social Security Death Index. They stated that the lack of real-time data sharing contributed to erroneous payments, as outdated records failed to flag recipients who had died, allowing automatic disbursements to proceed.

To address the issue, the Education Department reported it is strengthening its real-time data-sharing agreement with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and enhancing administrative processes to detect eligibility changes more quickly.

These steps aim to close loopholes that permitted deceased individuals to remain listed as eligible for aid.

The department also announced the resumption of automated post-screening for student aid records, a process that was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated that these checks are crucial for ensuring that all recipients meet the eligibility criteria before additional aid is released.

The $30 million misallocated to deceased recipients was part of a larger total: nearly $90 million was distributed to ineligible recipients during the same period, according to the Department of Education.

Despite the large number, experts say the level of fraud is still relatively low.

"As we know, in any system, public or private, mistakes and fraud can occur," Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek. "This $90 million figure represents less than 0.10 percent of the total average government outlay of $87 billion for student loans."

He added: "The attention this is getting is purely a result of the scale, and it actually highlights how well the system has performed." [read more]

Terrible. This is why gov't agencies have to get rid of their fraud, waste, and abuse.

Promise to America’s Parents

From Breakpoint.org (July 7, 2022):

Last year, a coalition of organizations, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Policy Alliance, Colson Center, and the Heritage Foundation, teamed up to issue a Promise to America’s Children, a commitment to protect their minds, their bodies, and their most important relationships amid this hypersexualized culture.

Today, we join again, this time to issue a Promise to America’s Parents. Why? As the website puts it,

“Local, state, and federal government policies are imposing ideologies that divide children by race and promote the falsehood that a boy can become a girl or vice-versa. Some schools are treating children as if they are the opposite sex without the permission of parents. Medical professionals are performing harmful experiments on children who are emotionally distressed about their bodies. To protect children, parents need laws that protect their rights.”

Simply put, no government entity should usurp the place of parents. In too many classrooms, progressive ideas are forced on children, targeting their hearts, minds, and identities. A reigning ideology in education is critical theory which, in its various forms, denies that every single person is made in the image of God. Thus, kids are taught to see other people in simplistic categories of oppressed or oppressor, to see Christianity as an oppressive and destructive historical force, and to see themselves primarily in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Promise to America’s Parents galvanizes parents to “A.C.T.”—an acronym referring to accountability, choice, and transparency—on behalf of their children. According to the Promise,

“Children belong first and foremost to their families. In the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, they are not “mere creatures of the state.” The unique and intimate relationship between a parent and a child creates a duty and a corresponding natural right. Parental rights are fundamental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. However, courts have not consistently protected parental rights against government interference and invasion as they should. “

In the “A.C.T.” acronym, accountability means that “Every mother or father may hold the government accountable for infringing on their rights to care for their child.” Choice means that “Every mother or father has the responsibility and right to choose the education and medical treatment that they deem best for their child.” Thus, neither schools, nor healthcare providers, nor schools acting like healthcare providers should push a child toward an alternative gender without the parents’ permission. Schools also must not restrict a child’s speech by creating vague anti-racist policies that would prohibit differing viewpoints being stated.

Transparency means that “Every mother or father has the right to know about what their child is learning, their child’s health, and any harms to them.” Parents have the right to know the content within the curriculum, from textbooks to other materials. Parents have the right to know the content of their children’s files. Specifically, no separate files should be kept to maintain secretive use of counseling, gender pronouns, or treatments.

Please read the whole Promise to America’s Parents at promisetoAmericasparents.org. There’s also a free downloadable toolkit, explaining parental rights at schools and in doctors’ offices. It also provides practical advice on how to proceed if a child describes their school day, and warning lights start flashing in your head. For example, the toolkit explains what you can and cannot ask for in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, how to access the school’s curriculum, securing opt-out policies for classroom instruction that conflicts with religious or moral beliefs, and how to help children report statements or actions that treat students differently because of their race, religion, or moral views.

There are also plenty of stories on the Promise website about parents who took a stand. Two parents whose stories are told are plaintiffs in cases represented by ADF. Melissa Riley says of her son, who is biracial, “He is changing . . . . If things don’t go his way or things seem unfair, he will now claim it’s racism. He never did that before.” Another parent, Carlos Ibenez is a plaintiff because his daughter was told in middle school that as a Latina, she wouldn’t succeed because the system was set up to privilege people with white skin.

Parents can protect their children from indoctrination that targets the mind and the heart. Parents can protect their children from being co-opted by the state. Please, visit promisetoAmericasparents.org. [source]

Amen. The Left believes children belong to the State on not the family. So, they can make them into new people that worships the State.

Chinese students with CCP membership, military links ‘infiltrate’ U.S. universities, watchdog says

From Just the News.com (Feb. 3):

Chinese students and scientists who are members of the Chinese Communist Party, attended schools tied to the Chinese military or worked with companies connected to Beijing's theft of U.S. technology have “infiltrated” several top American universities, according to a watchdog group report that raises fresh concerns about America's vulnerabilities to its most fierce adversary.

A conservative non-profit oversight group, the American Accountability Foundation, reported that it found nearly two dozen Chinese academics working at elite U.S. schools and labs “who because of the dual-use threat of their research, close ties to the military research sector in China, and/or clear ties to the Chinese Communist Party should be expelled from the United States or never be re-admitted."

The research document — titled "Chinese Scientist Infiltration Threat Assessments " — says that Chinese students working at some of America’s top colleges, often receiving U.S. federal funding (some of it from the Pentagon) to conduct research into advanced technologies have troubling backgrounds which could pose a risk to U.S. national security.

Many Chinese scientists at U.S. institutions have CCP connections

The concerns raised by AAF’s new report include the fact that some of the Chinese scientists ensconced inside American academia and at cutting-edge U.S. labs appear to be members of the CCP and are affiliated with the CCP’s projects aimed at stealing U.S. technological know-how or military secrets, and worked with or for companies which serve the Chinese defense industry.

Some of these Chinese academics have clear links to problematic Chinese firms like Huawei or to China’s notorious Thousand Talents program, of which the FBI said "American businesses, universities, and laboratories should understand the potential risks and illegal conduct incentivized by Chinese talent plans and take steps to safeguard their trade secrets and intellectual property." At least one of the Chinese scientists appeared to have been employed by the Chinese government while in the U.S.

The schools employing the Chinese scientists named in the AAF report include Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell University, Brown University, Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, the University of Florida, the University of Michigan, University of Florida, Penn State University, the Stevens Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, Indiana University, and the University of Southern California, as well as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The research areas focused on by these Chinese students — many of whom are receiving U.S. government funding for the lab research they are doing in the U.S. — include unmanned aerial drones, robotics, exoskeletons, artificial intelligence, large language models, viral research into highly-infectious pathogens, advanced materials research, next-gen semiconductors, advanced laser welding, quantum sensing, nuclear materials research, thermal-resilient electronics, electrical grid technologies, pharmaceuticals, applied mathematics, condensed matter physics, and other key areas which could have dual-use military applications. [read more]

They are both students and spies. The Chi-Coms require by law any Chinese national student to report any info they learn to the Chinese Embassy. I believe this is a general law for any country a Chinese national is in.

Another article on the matter

Report: These Chinese Researchers At U.S. Universities Have CCP Ties

Weimar America

From AM Greatness.com (Dec. 4, 2023):

Something eerie, something creepy, is happening in the world—and now in America as well. The dark mood is brought on by elite universities, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion industry, and massive immigration from illiberal nations and anti-Enlightenment societies.

At Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York, hundreds of students rioted on news that a single teacher in her private social media account had expressed support for Israel. Waving Palestinian flags, and screaming violent threats, the student mob rioted, destroyed school property, sought the teacher out and tried to crash into her classroom—before she was saved from violence by other teachers and an eventual police arrival.

The subtext was that the overwhelmingly minority students (whose school is ranked academically near the bottom among New York City schools) were acculturated to the racist reality that as the “oppressed” they were exempt from any punishment for hunting down their own teacher. As a Jewish (and thus white) “oppressive” supporter of Israel, she was reduced to, in the words an enthusiastic commenter on a Tik Tok video of the riot, a “cracker ass bitch.” And so the student pack tracked her down as if they were hunting an animal. The old Nazi youth gangs tried to kill Jews because they were not considered “white;” our new Nazis hunt them down because they allege that they are. The common denominator between the 1930s and 2023 is an unhinged hatred of Jews.

Hundreds of such incidents are now occurring on a daily basis—as the country is leaving its Weimar phase and heading at warp speed into normalizing Jew-hatred and worse. Instructors singled out Jewish students in classes at UC Davis and Stanford. Pro-Hamas students ripped down posters, swarmed public buildings, and disrupted traffic.

A pro-Israeli demonstrator in Los Angeles was hit on the head and killed by a pro-Palestinian university professor.

Jewish students were trapped in a Cooper Union university library surrounded by pro-Hamas demonstrators. At MIT, Jewish students were warned to keep away from particular areas of the campus deemed dangerous for them.

What would happen to a university president who warned black or Latino students to keep clear of areas where she could not guarantee their safety from other students?

A bankrupt media deserves much of the blame. They daily broadcast Hamas’s suspect casualty figures, as if that terrorist organization has ever been capable of speaking the truth.

The Western news regurgitated “500 dead at a Gaza hospital,” due to a supposedly deliberate Israel bombing. In fact, the hospital parking lot was hit by an errant Islamic Jihad missile intended to kill civilians in Israel.

No matter—few reporters apologized for spreading Hamas-fed misinformation, despite the previous Hamas lies that they never harmed civilians, that tunnels were not beneath hospital grounds, that they did not murder 1,200 Israelis; or their lies that Hamas gunmen do not rape, when they engaged in mass rape on October 7.

The media normalizes Hamas’s atrocities by treating it as if it were an ordinary government, not a murderous terrorist clique that decapitates civilians, takes children as hostages, and mutilates those it slaughters. That the terrorist organization has kidnapped at least ten American citizens and killed perhaps another 31 is lost on the “journalists,” many of them Americans who could care less about the fate of their fellow citizens.

The media fixates on the Israeli response to mass murder, but rarely the mass murder of 1,200 Israeli civilians that prompted the current war. During ceasefires do Israeli terrorists drive into Gaza cities, and shoot and kill innocent civilians—and then brag, as did Hamas recently, that such murdering will only increase? [read more]

Another interesting (and possibly unnerving) essay by VDH.

The Revivalist Manifesto Is a Blueprint for America

From Duggan Flanakin on Townhall.com (July 9, 2022):

Last October when I had lunch in Baton Rouge with Scott McKay, the first of his op-eds championing an American revivalism had just appeared in The American Spectator. There, he had proclaimed that Bush Republicanism was effectively dead, that “conservatism” had been quite unsuccessful at conserving anything, and that Trump was a John the Baptist figure who had set the table for the coming revival.

My appetite for Scott’s vision grew rapidly as he published a follow-up article a month later. Since there was little left of the Founders’ vision left to “conserve,” it was time, he said, to move from passive, defense-minded conservatism to an activist, offense-minded revivalism.

“We need,” he admonished us, “to push back against the incompetence and treason which have encroached upon our liberty and prosperity, and we need a reflowering of the cultural, economic, and political patrimony our forebears gave us.”

Reviving the American spirit, and the American nation, he suggested, should rest on four major tenets. First, too much government makes stealing easier than earning a living, as government power is both corrupt and self-protective. Second, government is representative not of the people but of the interests with access; thus, revivalism should shore up civil society to revitalize long-dormant self-functioning communities.

Third, as we cede more power to government, it corrodes nearly every institution in our culture. Revivalists, therefore, must foster creation of an effusive culture not subject to government control or intervention, one that replaces the greatly decayed educational, entertainment, and informational (media) institutions.

Finally, McKay said, revivalists must stop allowing abuses by corporatist oligarchs (whose power is akin to that of government) and bring forth a new anti-corporate capitalism that can bring prosperity across the board. Stop defending low tax rates for monopolistic corporatists who exercise their wealth and power in support of their government partners. [read more]

A great blueprint for saving the country.