Category Archives: culture

There’s Bigotry

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…and there’s bigotry.  Keep in mind that the Virginia Attorney General, yet another Progressive-Democrat in the Virginia government—and third in line for succession to the governorship behind Northam (D) and Lieutenant Governor (another Progressive-Democrat and accused of rape, which he is poo-pooing) confessed last week to doing blackface decades ago.

The hue and cry over all of this from the virtue-signalers and determined nay-sayers of all sides is loud.

What’s missing from two of these cases (the alleged rape was much more recent, and it still wants serious investigation, with the Lieutenant Governor in jail or the accusers liable for damages and possibly jail, depending on the investigation’s outcome) is any sense of forgiveness and any recognition of the ability of a man to be rehabilitated, even to rehabilitate himself.

Also missing is any sense that this sort of thing is not unique to Virginia or to Party.  Ignorant, racially stupid, and bigoted behaviors were widespread in those days, and they’re still too widespread today.

There are two aspects to apparently bigoted behavior, though.  One is seemingly bigoted behavior by those who simply don’t know any better, but on learning, correct their behavior.  Yes, it is possible that folks even as recently as 35 years ago, as the civil rights movement was getting firmly under way, didn’t understand what they were doing or were simply indifferent to the negative implications of their actions—hence the need for that movement.  Such persons especially should be given the benefit of the doubt, and they should receive forgiveness.

The other aspect is that seemingly bigoted behavior actually is the result of bigotry.  That aspect is exemplified by the then-Democratic Party’s Jim Crow laws and their Ku Klux Klan, and by today’s antifa and neo-Nazi gangs, among others.  Such persons should be given the benefit of the boot from public life.

There might seem to be a third aspect, behaving in apparently bigoted ways in order to “go along.” I lump those, however, with the actual bigots via those of the go along crowd’s abject cowardice.

An Inquisition

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The “hearing” by the House Judiciary Committee of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Friday was just that.

It was more than that, too.  The number of times the Committee’s Progressive-Democrats talked over and interrupted Whitaker’s answers, even dictating what his answers must be (“Answer yes or no”), before he could complete them was breathtaking.  Not a single Progressive-Democrat let him complete his answers to each of their questions; most of them wouldn’t let him complete any of them.  Here’s the 6-hour C-SPAN video of the hearing; see for yourself.

When Whitaker protested his being blocked from answering, Committee Chairman Jerold Nadler (D, NY) insisted that the time allotted to each member is that member’s to do with as he sees fit: “The gentleman [the committee member] controls the time.”  That’s true, as far as it goes.

However.

Whitaker, as are all witnesses testifying before any House committee (or Senate committee, come to that), was sworn to tell the truth.

Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you’re about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief, so help you God?

It’s impossible to tell the truth, to be correct, without complete answers containing all the truth, all the facts, as understood by the witness.  The Progressive-Democrats’ repeated prevention of Whitaker from telling all of the truth, stating all the facts, in answer to the question put before him comes perilously close to suborning perjury, if not outright do so.

Flexible Genders and (Modern) Feminism

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A generally satirical piece by Bill Walsh on The Daily Wire concluded with this straight-up bit of logic:

This [the concept of “identifying as…”] is their own logic. I’m just accepting it. For the sake of argument, anyway. Liberals still have not faced the fact that their progressive gender theory completely undermines, negates, and rules out, all of the feminist “girl power” stuff. They want to have their gender cake and eat it, too. One minute they want us to believe that gender is fluid and a person’s body parts have nothing at all to do with the matter, the next minute they want us to jump for joy because a bunch of people with vaginas were elected to Congress. The two ideas stand in obvious conflict. They must choose. Or else they will have to face the fact that every time they go off on a feminist tangent, they are, according their own ideology, guilty of transphobic bigotry.

What Walsh said.

Projection

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Here’s CNN commentator Van Jones on President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday:

My first take: “A psychotically incoherent speech mixing cookies with dog poop.” #SOTU #peoplesSOTU #cookiesanddogpoop pic.twitter.com/phYf4PFb0E
— Van Jones (@VanJones68) February 6, 2019

It’s a minute-20 excerpt from Anderson Cooper’s show at the link in the tweet, and Jones went on throughout his tirade in that vein.

That’s all consistent, though, with Jones’ wholly balanced position while he was in the Obama administration that Republicans are “assholes” because they didn’t agree with Obama’s policies and policy proposals.

His projection, it’s clear to see, has gotten even more irrational.

Virtue Bullying

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As I think about it, I begin more and more to support Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s refusal to resign over a blackface incident(s) and/or a radio interview in which he discussed Virginia’s then-proposed (since rejected) law that would have allowed abortions up to and including the pregnant woman dilating (according to the bill’s primary sponsor, Delegate Kathy Tran (D), and who now in the face of the hue and cry, says she “misspoke.”)

The blackface yearbook image and the Michael Jackson blackface dance affairs occurred 35 years ago.  Stipulate that Northam knew what he was doing at the time that what he was doing was despicable, and that he knew that, also. I’m a firm believer in the power of rehabilitation and of the ability of a man to be rehabilitated, even to rehabilitate himself.  It’s entirely believable to me that Northam (whom I do not know, so I am speculating, but with the benefit of the doubt) has rehabilitated himself, that he’s corrected his underlying ethos and concept of morality, and that as a result, the man he is today is far different from and far better than the man he was 35 years ago.  Whether Northam can prove that while staying in office, though, or he must resign and make that proof in private life is a matter solely for the citizens of Virginia to decide; it’s not for outsiders, however sincere, to demand.

In an apparently damning radio interview, Northam said this, according to what the NLMSM has chosen to publish.

When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physicians, more than one physician, by the way. And it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that’s non-viable.
So in this particular example [the Tran example of the mother is dilating], if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. So I think this was really blown out of proportion.

Notice that.  It certainly seems like Northam was supporting the potential for infanticide—but we don’t know because the carefully edited published excerpts omit the rest of Northam’s remarks, so that, in particular, we don’t know what Northam said (or didn’t say) would, should, or could be the outcome of that ensuing discussion.

Whether Northam should go or stay on the basis of his views of abortion is up to the citizens of Virginia; it’s not for outsiders, however sincere, to demand.

Northam, for now, is resisting nothing else than virtue signaler bullying, and that’s to the good.

That the virtue signalers are bullying rather than speaking from principle is made pretty clear from the fact that nearly all of the calls for Northam to go, to resign, to… are coming from folks seeing only to their personal political gain, without any concern whatever for the morality of the situation or the morality of Northam going or staying.

An extended face-off over Mr Northam’s status risks undercutting a key Democratic message as the 2020 race for the White House gets under way, party officials and advocates said.

And this from Anton Gunn, a Progressive-Democratic strategist:

This really does undermine the moral high ground of where the Democratic Party wants to put itself in the 2020 cycle, and it’s a shame that the governor of Virginia doesn’t understand that.

The virtue signaling nature of the calls for Northam’s ouster doesn’t get any clearer than that. These worthies are concerned solely with their personal political gain and with Party political gain.  They care not a whit about moral considerations.

And this from Ken Thomas, the author of the WSJ piece at the link:

The state’s constitution allows for impeachment of the governor for “malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty or other high crime or misdemeanor.” The photograph wasn’t taken while he was in office, and Republicans control the Legislature, which would have to launch such an effort.

A shabby excuse, indeed. As with the Federal Constitution, an impeachable offense is what the State’s legislature says it is—especially regarding the corruption, neglect of duty or other high crime or misdemeanor part. If the virtue signalers were serious, they’d begin the impeachment proceedings, even if they had no expectation of success. Instead, they’re just engaged in cynically virtuous spouting off.

Finally, Northam works for the citizens of Virginia; he has no obligations whatsoever to outsiders, virtue signalers, or porch dog yappers.