How a hysterically funny family moment is changed by our PC culture

By Cathy Keim

I saw the viral video of the professor doing a TV interview that was crashed by his daughter and then his infant son. His frantic wife swoops in to remove the children and the interview ends.  If you haven’t seen it already, then take a look. It is hilarious, especially because it just happened with no artifice involved.

After the clip went viral, the family was interviewed and all seemed well.

But the professor is somewhat concerned that his serious academic track might be hindered by his family’s moment of fame, as though having a family might be held against him. Does having young children mean that you are not serious in your studies? Forgetting to lock your door to prevent them from intruding means you are not a top-tier academic? Having your proud wife video the television interview, thus enabling the children to make good their intrusion, is a negative event?

As a mom of five, I thought the initial segment was delightful and the follow-up interview was a pleasant look into a happy family. The daughter was happy and wanted to be with her dad and little brother chugged right along behind sister because that is what little brothers do. Mom was intent on removing them expeditiously, but she was not harsh or mean. Dad was surprised and perhaps flustered by the unexpected visit, but he seemed to have a bit of a smile on his face.

Then I was sent the following video clip which is a comic remake of the event, substituting a mother in for the father.

The mother takes care of a variety of intrusions, including deactivating a bomb for the SWAT team without breaking a sweat. She concludes the interview with finding a matching sock for her hapless husband. I laughed at the absurdity of the video, but then I stopped. Why did the comedian feel the need to try and improve on an absolutely enjoyable true event by re-enacting it with a woman? Why was it assumed that a woman would have handled the original event better than the father did?

The concluding kick in the teeth for men was the pathetic dad interrupting the invincible woman asking for his sock. Most men I know would have taken whatever sock they could find (matching or not) and proceeded with their life without a second thought.

It is only in our PC world that men are stupid, clueless, hateful, cruel slobs. Personally, I am quite fond of men. My father, my husband, my sons, my sons-in-law, my brothers, uncles, etc. are a big part of my life and I am grateful for them.

As I mentioned in my previous blogpost, America needs strong families. We will not get strong families if we continue to denigrate men and exalt women. We are all created equal by God, but with different purposes. I realize this is dangerous ground to be treading in the PC world that we inhabit, but it has been self-evident that men and women are different. It is only in my lifetime that the fiction that women are superior to men has been foisted upon us.

The feminist movement has brought nothing but heartache to our society. We have them to thank for no-fault divorce, abortion on demand, sex on demand, and the general coarsening of our culture.

Christianity is derided by the Left as a patriarchal repressive religion. As a young girl, I was aware of Rahab, who saved her whole family from destruction in the city of Jericho when she helped the Hebrew spies sent by Joshua escape. She is listed in the lineage of King David and thus of Christ. Or how about Jael, who put a tent peg through Sisera’s head, thus delivering Israel from his might? Then we have Ruth, who was faithful to her mother-in-law, Naomi, and became the great-grandmother of King David? Or Queen Esther, who risked her life to plead for her people and save them from the evil designs of Haman? These are just a few of the women of the Bible that stood bravely for their faith and families. They are hardly pathetic victims as the feminists try to portray women, and these noble women were my role models as I grew up.

Then in the New Testament we are taught: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”  Galatians 3:28 KJV

This is not meant to eradicate our ethnic or gender roles, but to teach that we are all equal before God. While I have a different role to fulfill as a mother, I am not less than a father, but neither am I more.

Christian Western Civilization has produced the most female-friendly culture in the world, but the feminists prefer to tear it all down rather than appreciate what they have. Unfortunately, the propaganda of the last several decades is bearing evil fruit: male/female relationships are fraught with peril as every meeting could result in someone being victimized.

People need to toughen up just a bit. A wolf whistle while passing a construction site should not reduce a woman to panic. A man telling his female co-worker that he likes her new hairstyle should not be considered sexual harassment. The destruction of gender and etiquette have led us to a place where every word and gesture could bring a charge of rudeness or – worse – a lawsuit.

Wherever men and women are, there will be sexual tension, so we used to have rules in place to regulate how these interactions would be conducted. This protected both men and women from difficult situations. There have always been those people that would break the rules, but at least it was clear to them what they were breaking and the likely consequences.

The current lack of clear rules leaves everybody vulnerable. Is our contract for our night together enough to protect from a charge of rape if either person changes their mind the next morning? Some colleges instruct their students to make a written agreement for each step of a night out, but when one kiss can lead to other things in the heat of passion and/or under the influence of alcohol it’s unrealistic to believe this will all be documented.

Have we lost our collective minds? The answer appears to be yes.

Sadly, even those of us who cling to traditional thoughts on gender roles are constantly buffeted by the cultural attacks – hence my diatribe set loose by the remake of a gentle, funny family moment gone viral. The Left seeks to poison everything, including this humorous family video, by inserting their agenda of female superiority.

Gentlemen, act like gentlemen. Ladies, act like ladies. Teach your children to do the same.

This does not compute…

By Cathy Keim

While reading some news items on Sunday night, I came across this article in the Baltimore Sun. A 64 year old man was sitting in Wyman Park reading a book when he was maced, knifed, and robbed by assailants that posted the attack on Facebook, thus aiding the police in apprehending at least two of the suspected robbers.  The statistics of increased crimes in Baltimore are reported:

Across the city, robberies continue to rise. There have been 13 percent more robberies committed so far this year, a rise from 3,126 at this time last year to 3,523 this year. Carjackings are up 43 percent, while street robberies have increased 17 percent, though commercial robberies have declined about 10 percent.

However, what I found incredible was the following quote:

Sandy Sparks, president of the Charles Village Civic Association and a founder of Friends of Wyman Park Dell, said she hoped the crime wouldn’t deter people from visiting the park, which she said is safe. “We’ve worked very hard to make the dell a beautiful, restful place,” Sparks said. “The last thing we want is to have the impression that it’s not safe to go there.”

A man has just been violently attacked while sitting on a park bench and yet we are told that the park is safe.  This is demonstrably not true and the statistics show that Baltimore has a serious problem with crime that is increasing.

It is this kind of incoherent thinking that makes me fear for our country.  How could Ms. Sparks even utter those words?  I am afraid that she is afflicted with the same disorder that much of our population seems to be succumbing to: stating obvious lies to forward an agenda.

When the media, political leaders, bureaucrats, scientists, and others in authority state nonsense that is obviously not true – while they continue to ignore the facts in front of them – then it is only a matter of time before the public disbelieves anything that they read or see in the press.

President Obama continues to tell us that our economy is great, but over 94 million Americans are not working and more are underemployed or juggling multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet.  College grads are living at home because they cannot find jobs that pay well enough to be able to pay their student loans and live independently.

The Republican-controlled House and Senate tell us that they are doing everything in their power to block President Obama’s agenda, but they keep on passing continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills that fund his every whim.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign says that she has pneumonia two days after she is diagnosed and hours after she leaves the 9/11 ceremony abruptly and almost collapses getting into her van.

Hillary Clinton states under oath that she has turned over all her emails, but additional emails keep popping up.

We are told that we should be happy to accept Syrian refugees because they are being carefully vetted even though we know that cannot possibly be true.  How can you vet somebody that has no documents and their hometown has been bombed to the ground?

I could go on and on, but you are aware of all the lies that are constantly being told in a drumbeat of falsehoods.

Trust is a fragile commodity and once it is broken, it is very difficult to restore.  As the boy who cried wolf in Aesop’s Fable found out, if you are a known liar, then even when you tell the truth you will not be believed.  Aesop wrote his fables about 600 years before Christ, so the concept is not new, but plenty of people seem to think that they can pull the wool over the rest of us and get away with it.

Lenin said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”  The Soviet Union was known for the disinformation that it spewed out to its citizens and to the world.

We may like to think that we are not like the Soviets, but then ask yourself who said:  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?  This statement has been proven to be a total lie, just like the other fraud:  Your health insurance costs will go down.

Our Founding Fathers were acutely aware of man’s weaknesses and flaws, so they wrote our Constitution to separate powers and block any one group of people from gaining complete control of our government.  They also listed in the Bill of Rights a series of guarantees to protect citizens from their government.  Their system only works, though, if the press reports honestly on what is happening and if the three branches of government actually perform their duties.  The last resort is for the citizens to replace their government if necessary.

The executive branch has been overstepping its bounds for the last eight years; a period where Congress has not blocked the executive branch by withholding funds.  The judicial branch has exceeded its boundaries at the Supreme Court level by legislating from the bench.  Congress has ceded power to the courts because it is easier to let the courts decide tough issues than for the politicians to have to take unpopular stands.

Not only can we not believe what we read or see in the various media outlets, but we are further bombarded with politically correct messages which seek to make any deviation from the party line unacceptable.  It is not just considered rude to disagree; it is liable to cost you your job if you refuse to toe the line. (Editor’s note: Just ask current Seattle Mariner and former Oriole catcher Steve Clevenger about that.) The claustrophobic feeling of everyone shunning you if you dare speak out is enough to shut most people down.

Standing up for pro-life positions, traditional marriage, different roles for men and women, and obeying immigration laws will result in your dismissal from polite society in many venues.  If you find yourself thinking twice about making a comment that would have been completely non-controversial five years ago, then you are self-censoring.  Something as simple as having more than three children is cause for censure in many circles.

Daring to say that Islam means submission, not peace as is widely stated, and that sharia law is not compatible with our Constitution is considered outside the bounds of civility.

Stella Morabito has an excellent article in the Federalist where she states, “These characters from the dystopian novel The Journal of David Q. Little can help us reflect on the choice between individuality or conformity; between living life exceptionally or as a drone.”

Stella has written frequently on the evils of political correctness, but here she really explains what we are up against:

The term “political correctness” had not yet made its way into the lexicon when the book was published. But this passage clearly shows Little feeling the utter loneliness political correctness creates through its force-fed propaganda that sows social distrust and separates people through blind conformity. When there are no outlets for real conversation, you end up in virtual solitary confinement, talking to yourself to preserve your sense of sanity.

As you contemplate what went wrong that we are having so many previously unacceptable activities forced upon us such as boys using girls’ bathrooms, elementary age children having sex change operations, women in combat roles, or why our politicians can’t use the words “terrorist attack” when bombs go off in New York City, then realize that you are being actively manipulated and the only way to resist is to refuse to conform to the expectations being foisted upon us.

Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum suggests that too many Americans are still getting their news from the mainstream media.

Many rely on their local establishment newspapers (most of which, sadly, reflect the perspective of the National Left for choice of stories to cover, as well as what events and public figures to ignore).

Some rely on Fox News (which has a strong GOP Establishment slant, and thus advances a Globalist Message.) 

What this means: even many dedicated activists are handicapped by getting limited information on fast-breaking developments they need to understand.

Information has always been controlled and manipulated by the forces in power.  Unless you personally were present when an event occurred, then you were dependent on the report from somebody else, whether it be family, friend, or reporter.  What is different now is that everything feels like it could be a conspiracy theory because we have lost our trust in the system: our news media, our politicians, our academics, our scientists, and even many of our clergy.

As Morabito explained, this loss of trust leaves us feeling isolated, lonely, and fearful because if no one is worthy of trust who can we rely on?  In the end, it all comes down to standing on our principles which for Americans means the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, both of which point to our Creator who gives us unalienable rights.  The Founders were pointing directly to the God of the Bible. Thus, In God We Trust!

Ehrlich brings book tour to Salisbury

It was an event which was supposed to occur on a Monday night back in January in a completely different venue, but as has been the case before with Bob Ehrlich we all had to wait until the weather thawed before Wicomico County Republicans could hear from him.

As part of what he billed as a 16-state tour for his third and newest book, Turning Point: Picking Up the Pieces After Eight Years of Failed Progressive Policies, the former governor made brief remarks then commenced to signing copies for a crowd of close to fifty people.

Calling the book an “eight-count indictment of the Obama administration,” Bob remarked that some of his favorite stories, which come from a volume that’s a compilation of his writings over the last several years from a number of sources (with a couple of original, previously unpublished portions added in) were the open letter he wrote to his son about marijuana laws and his interactions with some of the offenders. Two common elements he found among those who had been caught and imprisoned for drugs were the lack of a father figure at home and that they got their start with marijuana. However, Bob was careful to note that not everyone who used marijuana was a criminal.

A second favorite was the chapter on political correctness that he wrote to be humorous, but are instead being reflected in today’s headlines. He implored the college students in attendance not to placate those who get overly worked up about “safe spaces” on campus.

As you may expect, Bob showed a passion and zeal about the subject matter which should make these chapters great reading. (My plan is to eventually review the book once I get a chance to sit and digest it all.)

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There were a lot of books being signed and plenty of people had their chance to pose for a photo with Bob. I’m going to borrow Dave Snyder’s picture here, which I got from social media – the snapshot I got of Bob signing came out too blurry.

Those in attendance also got to meet one of the Republican candidates running for Senate, a man who once worked for Bob Ehrlich. Chrys Kefalas was in the area today on what he described as a “listening tour” of local manufacturers, although he was also at Fratelli’s for lunch. (I was invited to that event but couldn’t attend.)

My chat with Kefalas was rather brief, as he was obviously concentrating on circulating around, but in conversations I had with his campaign staff I gained a little perspective on his ideas and shared some of my own. To me, Chrys’s job if he wins is to concentrate on making conditions better for the country as a whole: more beneficial trade pacts, a decrease in taxation and regulation on a federal level, and working to leave government as the least of our worries. It would then be incumbent upon the Hogan administration to make Maryland more competitive against its neighbors and other states because the federal government would simply create the best possible conditions for any American company to succeed.

Once Ehrlich left, the party began to break up. But if I may make one observation regarding a summerlike evening in the midst of an early spring: walking out of Roadie Joe’s they had a musician outside. I turned the corner and could faintly hear something down at Brew River only to arrive at the parking lot where I had parked and hear some very good band over at Headquarters Live. I was standing at my car literally listening to three different venues, all opened up.

Downtown Salisbury’s not just alive on 3rd Friday anymore, folks. And speaking of music, it gives me a good segue into letting you know monoblogue music will be back tomorrow after its winter hiatus. It’s someone you’ve heard from before with something new.

Draft our daughters: political correctness strikes again

By Cathy Keim

Our elitist politicians show once again why so many Americans are rejecting their cries to “follow me.” At the New Hampshire debate last Saturday night, three Republican candidates for president, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and (the now withdrawn) Chris Christie, happily jumped into the PC-constructed world of equality for women by declaring they would support making it mandatory for women to register for the draft.

The other candidates were not asked to respond to that question and only Ted Cruz came out with a statement addressing it after the fact. From Politico:

“I have to admit, as I was sitting there listening to that conversation, my reaction was, ‘Are you guys nuts?'” Cruz said Sunday, speaking at a town hall here. “Listen, we have had enough with political correctness, especially in the military. Political correctness is dangerous. And the idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat, I think is wrong, it is immoral, and if I am president, we ain’t doing it.”

No one under sixty years of age has been subjected to the draft, as it has not been used since 1973, so the politicians have the comfort of not having the result of their imprudent statements coming home to haunt them too soon. But do we really want our daughters being forced to register for the draft?

Our mad dash for equality has pushed us over the edge. Our military has been badgered into opening combat roles to women because a few women feel they are being denied their opportunity for advancement in the military. Yet when they have tried to find women that can perform equally with men, the experiment has failed miserably.

Political correctness is staring reality in the face and PC is winning. Just as Bruce Jenner is not a woman, no matter how much makeup or surgery he may submit to, neither are women warriors in the mold of men. While some individual women may outperform some individual men in feats of physical prowess, as a general rule men are far stronger and bigger than women across the board.

PC has made it difficult for people to state the obvious. A man is immediately called a misogynist and a female is condemned to “a special place in hell” for not supporting women. But we must not be deterred from speaking the truth in the face of these lies – remember that the lies only work if we self-censor and refuse to speak the truth from fear of being labeled with the slur of the day.

We must return to some fundamental truths to be able to decide what must be done about our military and draft policies. The feminist movement has been trying for decades to make men and women equal. However, their criteria are incorrect because they are trying to make us equal as in being identical. While we are all created equal before God in that we are created in His image, we are not the same.

Men and women have different roles to play as evidenced by the fact that only women bear children. The current emphasis on transgender identities is just the latest attack on identity and roles in society. I will agree that there are instances where it can work for the man to stay at home with the children and the woman to be the breadwinner – that is their privilege to decide how they will live their lives. However, for the government to decide for every woman in America that she will register for the draft with the implicit possibility that she might be forced to join the military and serve in combat is a whole different category.

In the past women were excluded from registering with the Selective Service because they were excluded from serving in combat roles. That restriction, though, came to an end back in December, 2015:

In a historic transformation of the American military, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said on Thursday that the Pentagon would open all combat jobs to women.

“There will be no exceptions,” Mr. Carter said at a news conference. He added, “They’ll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars and lead infantry soldiers into combat. They’ll be able to serve as Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry, Air Force parajumpers and everything else that was previously open only to men.”

This is the result of the Obama administration’s order to integrate the military within three years. The obvious next step will be to insist that women sign up for the draft – hence the question at the presidential debate.

These Republican candidates that are vying to lead the party missed an opportunity to clearly state why the policy to enforce gender neutrality in the military is wrong. They caved to the pressure to appeal to women voters by saying they believed in equality, but they should have pointed out that equality doesn’t mean being exactly the same.

If men and women were the same we would not have male and female competitions in sports. When money speaks, as in the world of professional football, baseball, and basketball, the fake equality falls away and men are hired by how fast they can run, how far they can throw, and how hard they can hit. Women are not hired because they cannot produce the same results. (Editor: Note that the one major professional sports league for women, the WNBA, has their brief season during the off-season for the NBA rather than competing directly.)

Now ask yourself why we are putting women in combat in trucks where they cannot lift the tires to change them, where they cannot carry a fellow soldier to safety if needed, and where the need to carry a 100-pound backpack could slow them down and endanger everybody?

The fact that women have stayed behind while the men went to war has never meant that women are weaker. Indeed, they have shouldered the responsibilities of maintaining the home front, raising the children, and praying for their loved ones on the battle field. They have dealt with losing husbands, fathers, and sons. They have coped with the adjustments from their injured loved ones returning from war.

The difference in roles doesn’t mean that women are weak and men are strong, but means that women and men have their strengths in different areas. We have been forced to swallow “fairness and equality” for so long that we are unable to see what is obvious.

The politicians that want to lead us should be bold enough to state the obvious rather than falling all over themselves to be politically correct.

How to break free from PC groupthink

By Cathy Keim

“It is simply a question of organizing and manipulating collective feelings in the proper way. If one can isolate the mass, allow no free thinking, no free exchange, no outside correction and can hypnotize the group daily with noises, with press and radio and television, with fear and pseudo-enthusiasms, any delusion can be instilled.”

Joost A. M. Meerloo, MD

I was able to attend the Educational Policy Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, this past weekend. I will be writing up some of the excellent presentations over the next few weeks.

I want to start with Stella Morabito’s important lecture, Countering Propaganda. Her biography at the conference stated that she had worked as an intelligence analyst, where she focused on various aspects of Russian and Soviet politics, including Communist media and propaganda.

Currently, Stella is more concerned with how our elites are using propaganda to control us. She pointed out that a few years ago we would have laughed if we had been told that kindergarteners were being taught transgender ideas in school, but here we are! How could this happen in America?

Morabito used the Ingrid Bergman movie, Gaslight, to illustrate her point. Ingrid’s character is isolated by her manipulative husband and disoriented by acts he orchestrates like making the gaslights flicker while he tells her that they are not flickering. Due to her isolation, she is not able to check her observations with someone else to verify the reality of what she is seeing. Her husband convinces her that she is delusional. The spell is broken when a police inspector verifies that the lights are flickering.

The American public is being gaslighted by the elites who are manipulating the agenda to push us ever further from reality. Now we are to the point that our children are being taught that gender is a construct of our mind, not of the physical differences that are clearly evident.

This change in the public mindset came on the heels of the mainstreaming of homosexuality and its subsequent push for gay marriage. It will continue with a “singles’ rights” movement that promises to end legal recognition of all marriage. Nor does it stop at marriage: on the horizon there is transhumanism, “which includes a push to end ‘fleshism’ by enacting laws that protect non-biological entities from discrimination.”

Political correctness (PC) is the tool that is being used so effectively against traditionalists in their quest to protect our Judeo-Christian values. PC uses the fear of social rejection to isolate and disorient people so that they self-censor their speech.

The media, Hollywood, and academia inject ideas that are made plausible by repetition. We are conditioned to accept these ideas by the constant barrage from all sides repeating that the idea is real and our old-fashioned, outdated beliefs are ridiculous.

All people are born with a desire for human connection as is shown by the mother-child bond. We are hardwired to need social contact. Stella pointed out that the purpose of destroying all our buffer zones of family, church, and friends is necessary to achieve the goal of control. If we can honestly check our feelings and observations with others, then we cannot be gaslighted completely – thus the intense war on the family, church, and freedom of expression and religion. Isolation is the way the elites maintain power and power is what this is all about.

Propaganda is sorcery, but like Toto pulling back the curtain and exposing the Wizard of Oz, the spell can be broken by strong human relationships. Good comedy and satire are two of the most powerful weapons available. Once people are aware of propaganda, they can defuse its power over them.

Stella says to never underestimate the power of one person speaking to others, because we can rebuild our civil society with good will and good cheer. Put a human face on what you believe: your face.

When you share your ideas and opinions with someone in a confident, cheerful manner, you have the opportunity to: embolden the like minded, encourage a fence-sitter, or break down the caricature or stereotype that the “true believer” has embedded in his mind. You may not convert a “true believer” to your viewpoint, but he will at least be confronted with a cheerful, smiling person which may be the first step to breaking down his picture of a slavering bigoted non-person conservative.

It is up to us to understand the art of infiltration that the elites are using to undermine our families, churches, and organizations. Counteract this by spreading the knowledge of the vulnerability of groupthink. The spell can be broken by exposing it.

Stella concluded with this thought: Pessimism is not affordable. Submission is futile, resistance is not! Develop relationships and be of good cheer.

If you would like to read more by Stella Morabito, she is a senior contributor at The Federalist, and she blogs at www.stellamorabito.net.

For additional reading, Stella recommended: The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing by Joost A. M. Meerloo, M.D.

The academy run amok (part 2)

By Cathy Keim

It seems ridiculous to even be addressing oversensitive students at expensive, overrated colleges when Paris has just endured brutal terrorist attacks. One would think that the reality shock treatment of these events would stop the complaining, but that is not going to happen.

President Obama has led the way with his racially divisive, politically motivated statements since he was elected. Rather than leading a united America, he has taken every opportunity to drive wedges deeper between our different ethnic groups.

I return to the words of Victor Davis Hanson, who explores the president’s actions:

Race largely determines whether Obama comments on pending criminal cases such as those of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown or keeps silent about such cases as the murder of Kate Steinle. If Professor Henry Louis Gates had been white and the arresting officer black, there would have been no beer summit. Obama would have kept mum if Trayvon Martin had been white or had successfully killed George Zimmerman and survived their fight — or had been shot in a fight by another African-American. A typical weekend bloodbath in Chicago, Baltimore, or Detroit earns no presidential editorialization.

Of course, President Obama is a product of our Ivy League university system, so he is just regurgitating what he learned there. Here is where the real danger lies. The students that seem so ridiculous to those of us that function in the real world, graduate and go on to get jobs at leftist think tanks, in the government, or remain in academia. They do not enter the real world and grow up. Rather they stay in “safe spaces” and spew out their warped views on all of us by the megaphone they obtain by the media coverage of the think tanks, by the regulations they produce in the government, or the young students they infect as they teach.

David French points out that:

…perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the entire morally bankrupt system is its balkanizing effect on our fragile, multiethnic democracy. Universities are creating an entire class of people who are race/gender/sex-obsessed, viewing themselves less as Americans than as advocates for their particular ethnic or cultural tribe. The result is endless racial conflict, constant rage over sex and gender, and numerous innocent, resentful casualties of the never-ending quest for utopia. Is it any wonder that college students now face a “mental-health crisis?

This fixation on sex and gender issues has led to the additional danger of being accused of date rape. Every student must be aware that they may be accused of a sex crime and their life ruined in the ensuing melee. It seems that at most colleges it is guilty until proven innocent when it comes to date rape.

I think that David French hits the nail on the head when he states:

Conservative parents have often reduced themselves to expecting that their kids will waste their college years — either wildly drunk, wildly liberal, or both — and then hope and pray that they muddle through, earn their degree, and get a job so that “real life” will “straighten them out.” Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, but parents rarely seem to question the decision to feed their own children to the lawless, malicious beast. We do what we’re expected. We do what we must. And we deliver our kids to the very institutions that seek to destroy us.

Conservatives possess the power of the federal purse. Conservatives possess the power of the state purse in most states. Millions of conservative parents help guide (and pay for) their kids’ college choices. Given this reality, helplessness and impotence are a choice. It’s time for a cultural and political war against the intellectual and legal corruption of the university Left.

Although I am addressing the university system here, I would add that the same holds true for the government schools K-12. Parents need to stop feeding their children to the beast. Pull your children out of the government schools. We have lost control of the system and it is not working for the good of our children. Parents need to exit the system completely and let it collapse.

The university system needs to be examined closely and you need to know your child before you let them go to university. If your child has no clear purpose, then do not send them to be indoctrinated or to party at huge expense. They can drink themselves silly for much less while working at an entry-level position. When they realize that is not how they want to spend their life, at least they won’t be buried in school loans.

The current craze for everybody needing a college degree is due to the government forcing companies to stop giving aptitude tests. Businesses used to have tests that they gave to job-seekers that would help them find who had the skills to fill the position. When the federal government decided that was unfair, businesses used a college diploma as a way to weed out their applicants, thus spawning the expensive race for a diploma which has resulted in many students attending college that neither have the interest nor the desire to really be there.

If one major corporation would eliminate the degree requirement for employment, the floodgates would open and others would follow. The diplomas in certain areas have become so worthless in predicting whether a person can write or read at a college level that it is time to remove this obstacle to employment.

For many jobs some on-the-job technical training or a few courses at the community college would better prepare the applicant with the skills needed. If your child wants to go into a field that needs extensive training such as engineering or the sciences, then you can still avoid the expense and drama of the party school college environment by taking courses online, or utilizing a community college for the first two years. Then when the student is older and has proven that he is ready, you can send them off to a carefully selected institution of higher learning. There are still a few out there that have not succumbed to the insanity, but do due diligence to find them and don’t depend on out-of-date information since the inexorable push is to the left.

This is a long war on our country and our children’s education is the battlefield. You must wake up and realize that the government school system is not what it was when you were a child. You cannot undo over the supper table in an hour what is being force-fed into your child for hours each day and when they leave for university, the phone call once a week is no match for the powerful persuasion of professors and peers.

Your duty as a parent is to train and equip them to face the onslaught once they are ready. Do not send them out to do battle until they are prepared.

The academy run amok (part 1)

By Cathy Keim

“What did it profit that I read the greatest human ideas of the so-called ‘liberal arts’ in the books I got hold of. My thinking was enslaved to corrupt desires, so what difference did it make that I could read and understand these books? I delighted in learning, but I had no divine context for what my mind picked up. I had no foundation to discern what is true or certain. I was standing with my back to the light, so that the things that should be illuminated were in shadow, even though they were in front of my face.” ― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

Last week I attended a talk on marriage by Msg. Charles Pope. His message was excellent, but one thought that he tossed out at the very end in response to a worried parent’s question about their child keeping the faith in college really hit me. He opined that going to college might not be the best choice anymore because the college campus has become a cesspool. (In the context of marriage, the hook up culture certainly qualifies as a cesspool that is damaging many young peoples’ futures emotionally.) But he further clarified his comment by pointing out that St. Augustine observed that one cannot learn truth when one’s mind is consumed with lust. Thus, Msg. Pope concluded that the current depraved moral state of universities might render them unsuitable places for a young person to study with any hope of actually learning what is good and true.

Victor Davis Hanson writes that:

The truth is that the university is a dysfunctional institution. Free speech no longer exists. Trigger warnings, micro-aggressions, and safe zones have created a climate of fear and bullying on campus. Affirmative action criteria emulate the abhorrent “one-drop” rule of the Old Confederacy. Campus identity is defined by race and gender, but never class. Annual hikes in tuition exceed the rate of inflation. Faculty are paid widely asymmetrical compensation for instruction of the identical class, depending on archaic institutions like tenure and seniority. Non-teaching personnel have soared. Graduate PhD programs have proliferated, even as jobs for their graduates have shrunk. Undergraduate university graduation rates have declined. College graduates are assumed to earn high-paying jobs; but the dismal rate of bachelor’s degrees translating into employment commensurate with staggering college costs and student-loan debt would prompt federal investigations of fraud and false advertising in any other institution.”

The next day I received an email from a friend with the link to James O’Keefe’s undercover videos of college officials destroying copies of the Constitution because a “student” felt offended by it.

I was rather perplexed as to why James O’Keefe would have chosen that stunt for his newest expose, but next we have the outrageous behavior at Mizzou.

Then I received the following piece from a young acquaintance about PC behavior run amok on modern liberal arts college campuses.

Liberal arts schools all over the country have apparently gone insane. At Claremont McKenna College, a young woman has been publicly shamed, plastered all over the internet, and had to resign her position as junior class president not for verbally or physically attacking or belittling someone, not for bandying about racial slurs, and not even for personally wearing a Halloween costume deemed “offensive,” “racist,” or “culturally appropriative” by the People Who Decide Such Things. No, no – she committed the thought crime of (horror of horrors!) posing for a picture with two people whose costumes could be considered crass and stereotypical. And so, for the insubstantial, subjective “crime” of hurting people’s feelings, even though she herself was not wearing a costume that could be offensive to anyone aside from those who enjoy decent music, this girl gets her photo posted and re-posted, gets to be the subject of mockery and derision around the world, and is forced to resign her position because the Student Body President believes she can no longer “effectively represent students in her class.” Remember, though, that while CMC has become a decidedly “unsafe space” for her, she is the “aggressor” and villain here.

Meanwhile, at Yale, that shining paragon of intellectualism, two professors are on the mob-rule chopping block for an even more intellectual and intangible thought crime: the opinion – conveyed in a measured, respectful email – that maybe, just maybe, the annual PC clamor over Halloween costumes is overblown. This “hateful” email triggered an immediate call for these professors to resign their positions, and even resulted in some students claiming that they could not bear to live on Yale’s campus anymore because they felt “unsafe.” Just watch this video and remember: the meek, bespectacled professor standing calmly in a crowd of students is the villain; the “brave” young woman hurling abuse and profanity in his face, while gesturing wildly in a way that seems to indicate she is a hair-trigger away from physically attacking him, is a social justice warrior, and, therefore, our hero.

I’d like to ask a question: let’s theoretically postulate that these individuals, this CMC student and these Yale professors, have, as their detractors seem to be assuming, the worst of intentions. Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that all three are inveterate racists, but change none of the other facts in these scenarios. What is an appropriate “punishment” for their behavior? Should they be fired from their jobs? Lose their scholarships? Be kicked out of school? Should their insensitive photos and meekly worded (er, I mean, “hateful”) emails follow them for the rest of their lives, affecting their employment prospects, their dating lives, and everything else they do for the rest of forever? Does relatively inoffensive or even meek, non-confrontational “racism” justify the permanently life-altering consequences this kind of public shaming entails? I’d honestly like to know, because the more I see internet lynch mobs tear apart their prey, the more it astounds me that, although the Modern Illiberal Left has disavowed things like the death penalty and demanded second, third, and fourth chances for all manner of criminality, thought crime is seemingly the one offense for which the punishment must be absolute and for which there is no mercy.

Finally, I’d like to end with a reminder that most of the “social justice warriors” who jump into these things seem to forget: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. PC is not an ideology that remains static, and while you might be comfortably ensconced in the “enlightened” crowd right now, how long before the wheel turns and you find that an opinion or two of your own is no longer popular or PC? From my recollection, many of my old college friends who posted the CMC Halloween costume story with positive and socially conscious affirmation, likely have Facebook photos lurking from seven years ago of themselves in costumes and/or situations that, stripped of any context, could make them appear racist, insensitive, or culturally appropriative. I wonder how many of them think on the fact that their own lives could have been irrevocably altered and their reputations destroyed – all for nothing more than a Halloween costume.

The universities have a stranglehold on our young people due to the diploma being required for many jobs and professions. One wonders though if the insanity has reached the tipping point where parents and students will refuse to enslave themselves to outrageous school loan debt in order to attend these cesspools?

Update: Turmoil at CMC continued last Thursday “with the resignation of Dean of Students Mary Spellman, who had angered students with her email to a Latina student saying she would work to serve those who “don’t fit our CMC mold.” Spellman later apologized.” (Emphasis mine.) Dean Spellman’s mistake was to upset the sensitive student that she sought to help by sending an email that was deemed insufficiently politically correct thus outraging the student more.

(Editor’s note: watch for Part 2 tomorrow evening.)

Make the case for the First Amendment

by Cathy Keim

Last Sunday I was flying home from the west coast and happened to sit by a professor from a major university whose specialty was First Amendment Studies. I usually immerse myself in an exciting book to make the time pass, but this trip the book was not so compelling and he ran out of LA Times crossword puzzles that he had apparently collected for the trip. When we got around to owning up to what we did, he demurred from being quoted on a blog, but was happy to discuss issues off the record.

Since he teaches courses on the First Amendment, I had to inquire about the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France. He assured me that we are very different in America and would not back down over cartoons, adding that he had shown them to his classes. I pointed out that many American media outlets refused to show the cartoons, saying that they were offensive. I also brought up the previous Danish cartoon riots in 2006. Despite his assurance that things were different in America, I had to mention that Yale University Press published a book in 2012 about the Danish cartoons, but would not include the cartoons in the book! That doesn’t come off as a profile in courage.

So, how are we to handle speech or art that is offensive to others? As a Christian, I would prefer that we all love our neighbor as ourselves and refrain from antagonizing them. That sounds like self-censorship – and it is – but it is done out of respect, not fear.

Political correctness is the opposite of self-restraint due to respect for others. Political correctness is bending to a powerful coercion that will punish you if you resist. We have seen this take place when people lost their jobs for not having the politically correct view on marriage.

Once decisions are being made to restrain our speech or art due to fear of reprisal, then the only way to combat this is to increase free speech. The professor was adamant that when ideas are pushed underground due to fear, then they only bubble up later.

If all the media stood shoulder to shoulder and ran stories showing a picture of Mohammed, then the point would stand that in the West, pictures can be published. The media did not have to all publish the same picture. It could be a tasteful portrait instead of the cartoon if you did not find satirical cartoons your style.

At the same time that we were flying across the US having our discussion, thousands of Muslims were protesting in London over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

A leaflet issued by the Muslim Action forum (MAF), who organised the rally, said recent republishing of cartoons, caricatures and depictions of Muhammad by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and other publishers is a “stark reminder” that freedom of speech is “regularly utilized to insult personalities that others consider sacred.”

We need to have an open discussion of this idea. This is not a time for self-censorship, but rather it is time for each of us to publically speak up. Political correctness has brought us to the point of not being able to accurately address the situation. The only cure is to let free speech increase.

The professor encouraged people to consider the political cartoons that have been present in America from it very beginnings. They were not timid, nor respectful of their targets. We have a long history of making points with satire and humor.

The First Amendment is under attack on many fronts. The LGBT movement, the Muslims, feminists, and the IRS are among a few of the groups trying to stifle free speech. When the IRS refused to grant 501 (c)(4) status to conservative groups, they effectively throttled their ability to speak out in the public forum by intimidating these groups and reducing their fund raising efforts which were to be used to advance their political ideas.

How many conservative activists have been called racists, bigots, haters, and homophobes for pointing out that our federal government is a bloated monster that exceeds its constitutional restraints repeatedly?

Rather than replying in anger, or getting defensive, instead go on the offense by presenting Judeo-Christian based Western Civilization in an appealing way. Know your narrative. Remember that if you cannot change the liberal dominating the conversation, then you may well present some new ideas to the other people in the social setting. Fight bad ideas with good ideas. We have the advantage of telling the truth. Make the case for liberty.

Political correctness run amok

If you haven’t been able to figure it out by now, I’m a big fan of the Shorebirds and try to make it out to all of the games as I can (perhaps 50 so far this season.) One of the fun things to watch is what goes on between innings and one of the promotions was a wheelchair race sponsored by a local home health care company. (Full disclosure: my significant other is one of their employees. They also put a large ad in the program so you can figure out who it is if you really care to know; that’s not my point.)

The premise was pretty simple: two teams of two players push a wheelchair while the other rides and they switch in the middle. A little harmless between inning fun, right?

Guess not. I had to bring back the wheelchairs from the stadium today because a total of FOUR – that’s right, four out of the nearly 200,000 fans the Shorebirds have drawn this season – complained. Apparently their gripe was that this event made fun of people who require wheelchairs to get around.

To them I say, get a life. Certainly I enjoyed watching the event, and I have no less respect for people who need wheelchairs. The point of the exercise was to play up the goal of the sponsor – to help people who are recovering from ailments return to their normal lives. Besides, there were only 8 games left in the season so why not let the event run its course? I wonder if these people whine about those athletes who compete in events such as the Boston Marathon in specially-designed equipment? Or, to pick a different promotion, how many people complain about the Maryland Lottery ticket contest – doesn’t that promote gambling?

A week ago Friday, the final wheelchair races featured several teams of local celebrities who were racing for their selected charities. Granted, not all of the races had such a noble cause but where does political correctness stop?

We worry about the perception given by people who are competing in an event for fun (and may find out just how difficult moving people around in such a fashion can be) while there are problems many times weightier affecting our way of life. Just live and let live and don’t sweat the small stuff, people.

I hope the sponsor brings back the races bigger and better next season (and while we’re at it, returning the Thursday night postgame concerts would be cool too.)

In the meantime, don’t let the four people who probably could never be happy anyway spoil things for the rest of us.