RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/05/04/the_politics_of_attacking_t

After a week of vicious personal attacks on Sen. Tim Scott, it’s time to step back and ask what’s really going on here. Why such ferocious pushback after Scott’s calm rebuttal to President Biden’s speech to Congress? Why are the assaults so nasty, so personal? What are the political implications?

One implication should be clear, but another is well hidden. The obvious one is the attacks are meant to keep Black voters firmly within the Democratic coalition. Condemning dissidents like Scott as “race traitors” implies that the only way to keep faith with Black America is to support Democrats and their progressive agenda.

This unified, enthusiastic support from African Americans is crucial for the party to win elections in purple states. Scott is challenging that unanimity. Donald Trump did, too, and made some inroads, but Scott is a far more congenial messenger. He’s a happy warrior with an impressive background and a record of accomplishment, personal and professional.

Related movements, such as “Blexit” (Black Exit from the Democratic Party), don’t have to be large to be politically important. Small inroads matter because our electorate is so evenly divided, so many contests are tight, and Democrats can win only if (1) Blacks turn out in very large numbers and (2) almost all of them vote Democratic.

That’s also why Democrats are furious about Georgia’s new voting law. Of course, they genuinely believe it is an obstacle to Black voting. But there’s another, equally important reason. They think attacking the law shows African Americans across the country (and many progressives) that the Democratic Party really cares about them and that Republicans are racist. This PR campaign has led to some ludicrous hyperbole, such as President Biden calling the law “Jim Crow 2.0.” That’s an insult to people who actually suffered through Jim Crow, who were denied the vote, education, good jobs, and dignity under that legal regime (which lasted from the 1890s until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act).

How does Sen. Scott threaten this Democratic coalition? Both by conveying his own views so effectively and by encouraging other prominent Blacks to join him. The more such voices, the harder it is to marginalize them as “tokens.” The more who speak out, the more socially acceptable it is for African Americans to vote Republican. The more traction this movement gains, the more dangerous for Democrats. Again, a small shift in this key constituency could matter.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/two-months-later-hows-the-lifting-of-the-mask-mandate-going-in-texas/

When Texas governor Greg Abbott lifted the state’s mask mandate on March 2, he was simply leaving it up to individual businesses to decide whether they wanted to require masks depending on circumstances. As expressed by Beto O’Rourke, who called the GOP a “cult of death,” here was the typically temperate response of many in the Democratic Party and its media wing, otherwise known as “the media”:

They literally want to sacrifice the lives of our fellow Texans, for I don’t know, for political gain? To satisfy certain powerful interests within the state? This isn’t hyperbole. You heard our lieutenant governor, arguably one of the most powerful positions in the state of Texas, say on Fox News at the beginning of the pandemic, we are willing to die. Old people are willing to sacrifice their lives in order for the economy to reopen. . . . Unconscionable, unacceptable, we’re not accepting it. We’re moving forward on an individual and collective basis to help our fellow Texans.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-5-3-some-sensible-black-voices-are-on-to-the-antiracism-scam

As Critical Race Theory and “antiracism” have swept through academia and the media and corporations over the past few years, seemingly almost no one in those institutions is able to see the thinly concealed and vile racism embedded in these ideologies. Here is Ibram Kendi’s famous articulation of what he calls “antiracism”:

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

So in other words, simply treating black people as adults and expecting them to make it on their own in a non-discriminatory world is not an acceptable remedy. Instead, blacks are to be permanently dependent on assistance from the government and/or whites. As I put it in a post back in April 2019, the “antiracism” agenda evidences:

the utter contempt in which the self-anointed elites of our country hold members of minority groups, most particularly African Americans. Somehow, these elites — or at least some very substantial number of them — have decided that African Americans are not capable of accepting personal responsibility in life or of being treated like adults.

Meanwhile, Kendi gets rich off peddling his neo-racism, and plenty of others make various sorts of comfortable livings off the trendy ideology, whether as teachers or as diversity deans at colleges or as corporate diversity officers. But are there any black thinkers who are seeing through the smokescreen of Orwellian “antiracist” verbiage and calling out the ideology for just how destructive it is for the supposedly intended beneficiaries?

The answer is that there is a small but growing number, and they are deserving of greater exposure. So let me give a small shout out to some of the more prominent examples.

https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/people-getting-fired-for-referring

It has become clear over the past year that our racial reckoning has shaped attitudes about the N-word. Or, among a certain few who scare the rest of us into pretending to agree.

As someone who is both a linguist and commentator, I am in an awkward position on the N-word. The linguist describes; the commentator opines. In my new book Nine Nasty Words, which publishes tomorrow, in the chapter on the N-word I try to stick with just describing. However, many will wonder how I “feel.” I have opined here on this topic before; in anticipation of the publication of Nine Nasty Words I will share some further thoughts.

* * *

A widely discussed documentary on James Baldwin in 2019 was carefully titled I Am Not Your Negro, as opposed to what Baldwin actually said in an interview, “I am not your nigger.” In 2019 when literature professor Laurie Scheck ventured a discussion in a class at the New School in New York on why Baldwin’s actual phrasing had been elided, she uttered the word itself – only to be reported to the administration by students in her class and narrowly avoid being fired. And then, more recently, she was indeed fired, with no compelling reason given. It is hard to imagine that continued evaluation of the N-word incident in light of the “racial reckoning” starting last summer had nothing to do with this.

It has become almost hard to keep up with the episodes of this kind of late. As I have discussed here, law professor Jason Kilborn was barred from the University of Illinois in Chicago’s campus as a threat to black students’ safety after in frustration referring to himself in satire as a “monster” in a conversation with black students intended as a healing one. The conversation’s spark? His writing “n*****” in an exam question about employment discrimination, that had bothered no one until – golly, wonder why? – this year.

About ten minutes before this, Greg Patton had been dismissed from a class he was teaching at the University of Southern California for mentioning that in Mandarin, the equivalent of the hedging “like” in English is “nèi ge, nèi ge” which translates as “that, that …” but sounds like, well, you know. Not only had Patton given the lecture countless times before with no problems, but – you couldn’t write this better – the class was on communication in global markets!! Yet the usual suspects went about for weeks claiming that Patton had committed a kind of “violence” added to the grinding burden that being black in modern America is.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/soviet_tyranny_warmed_over_is_still_tyranny.html

A colleague recommended I read Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, a long and deep look into the abyss of Soviet communist oppression in the first half of the 20th century.  In her opinion, “everyone should read this book.”  I must agree — the world would probably be a better place if the book was required reading in universities, especially in the West.  It should also be taught in high schools, at least in excerpts.  Sadly, in the age of the tweet, Solzhenitsyn’s 700-odd agonized pages are probably doomed to general neglect.  More’s the pity.

Mark Twain said long ago: “The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”  The Gulag Archipelago, though intended by its author as a forlorn memoir to the hundreds he saw ground up by the Soviet state, is also the most powerful of warnings.  Communism is still with us.  Its central themes have never been extinguished.  Its salespeople are still out on the street.  The seductive lies of dead ideologues have never lost their power to persuade.  They have changed a little, adapted to new cultures, new eras, and new technologies — but in the end, the Devil’s siren song still rhymes.

One hardly knows where to begin.  Let’s start with the political usefulness of the common criminals — people Solzhenitsyn summarizes as “thieves.”  In Soviet prisons and labor camps, the truly antisocial elements were made the jailers of the rest.  They could torture, rape, and sometimes kill their fellow prisoners with near impunity.  “Thieves” were officially designated as a victim group, a people wronged by capitalist oppression.  They were not to blame for their own actions.  They were, in the terminology of communism, “socially friendly elements.”  The people whom the state didn’t like, on the other hand, the people who had lingering ideas of individual rights and freedoms, or who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, were the peoples’ enemies — the socially undesirable.

This exaltation of the criminal classes was not merely a feature of the penal system, but permeated the judicial system as well.  Sentences for property crimes and violent crimes tended to be light.  When ideology dictates that bad is good and good is bad, the results are predictable.  Crime, fear, and suffering flourish.

When we see the knee-jerk movement to “end mass incarceration,” to “abolish the police,” and then watch as the mob terrorizes and loots city after city — we can only assume that the current revolution is progressing nicely.  The left has begun to release the pent up power it has long been nurturing in our prisons, leavening it with a hefty dose of race-hatred to increase its ferocity and garnishing it with a dollop of class envy for the sake of old-time Marxist nostalgia.  You cannot say the Marxist narrative hasn’t kept up with the times, but the core doctrine remains unaltered: thou shalt terrify and cow the populace with such sociopathic operatives as come to hand.  Nor is such doctrine in any way unique to Soviet communism.  Other socialists have played variations of this tune.  The Fascists had their black shirts and the Nazis had their brown shirts in the early stages of their development.  We now have BLM.  A thug is a thug is a thug.  His color is irrelevant.  By any other name, a fist is a fist, and a burning bottle of gasoline smells as sweet.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/03/the-democratic-partys-stasi/

While reading emails in his bedroom last Wednesday morning, Paul Hueper heard a loud commotion inside his house. Still clad in pajamas, the Alaska business owner ran to his dining room to see what was happening.

Hueper found himself face-to-face with several armed FBI agents, guns drawn, barking orders to him and his wife, Marilyn. The agents had kicked down the front door of their home in Homer, Alaska where they also operate a day spa and inn.

The pair were quickly handcuffed along with a few houseguests, including a teenager. Paul and Marilyn, who had attended Donald Trump’s speech in Washington, D.C. on January 6 and then walked to the Capitol, were interrogated for at least three hours by federal investigators.

“They said they had a search warrant but didn’t present it to us . . . they said it had something to do with the January 6 riot . . . as they called it,” Hueper told a local radio station after the April 28 raid. “They put us in different rooms to make sure we were telling the same story. They treated us like criminals.”

Marilyn was told she was a suspect in the case of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “stolen” laptop; a few hours into the inquisition, an agent finally showed Marilyn a photo of someone inside the Capitol on January 6 who looked like her. She told agents it wasn’t her and insisted the image had been photoshopped.

The whole incident was somewhat amusing to the Huepers. “We laughed a lot of the time because it was so ridiculous,” Marilyn said. “I could hear Paul laughing in the other room.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/biden-pushes-founders-america-brink-americans-must-gen-michael-flynn/

https://www.westernjournal.com/exclusive-gen-flynn-biden-pushes-founders-america-brink-americans-must-revisit-original-plan/

James Madison, hailed as the father of our Constitution, is probably turning over in his grave given the shredding of our God-given constitutional values and principles upon which we were founded.

Madison recognized that since concentrating power leads to tyranny, dividing government power was essential for the preservation of liberty. He will never be accused of being short-sighted about the threats government would pose to the people.

Madison and others set out deliberately to design a form of government that would limit abuses and withstand the test of time. America now faces that test, and the central question that has emerged is: Will we pass the test, or will we fall into the abyss of history as other nation-states have done?

Along with other framers of our nation’s Constitution, Madison argued for dividing federal power among the three branches of our government — legislative, executive, and judicial. These should be studied and clearly understood by every American schoolchild from an early age, but to our nation’s and our children’s detriment, they are not.

And what is even less understood is why the Founders adopted a structure that they knew would result in conflict among the branches. In truth, the constitutional structure was designed not to enhance the efficiency of the government but to impede the exercise of raw governmental power and to protect the liberty of the people.

Separation of powers is not a flaw in our system of government, as many demanding changes increasingly assert. It is purposely designed to protect our constitutional republic from the tyranny of a few — tyranny that today is knocking down the door of America.

Contrast the original design chosen by our framers with the intemperate statements of President Biden, who demands Congress yield to his will on matters such as gun control, under the threat that he will usurp the role of Congress by signing executive orders.

Consider the effect of the Democrats’ dangerous threat to pack the Supreme Court if it does not bow to President Biden’s broad claims to executive authority in violation of the separation of powers. Explain why 20 of our 50 Republican senators voted to confirm Merrick Garland as attorney general — under whose leadership the Department of Justice just conducted an early-morning raid on the law office and apartment of President Trump’s former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/04/when-can-we-expect-that-apology-from-biden-republicans/

In the run-up to the 2020 elections, we were bombarded with stories about Republicans who were not only opposed to Donald Trump’s reelection but were actively campaigning on behalf of Joe Biden.

These Republicans didn’t just express disdain for Trump, they sang Biden’s praises, calling him a uniter, a reasonable centrist, an honest man, someone who’d reach across the aisle “to get things done.” Now, after Biden’s first 100 days in office, we can see how well those promises have held up.

Our judgment in three words: Not. At. All.

Biden is governing as the most leftist president in history. He has shunned Republicans at every turn. He’s attacked the U.S. as racist. He’s been caught in flagrant lies. And so on.

So let’s see what exactly those “Republicans for Biden” were promising that a vote or Biden would produce. And let’s compare those with what the news tells us is happening now.

“I’m sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn’t imagine crossing over to support a Democrat. They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don’t believe that because I know the measure of the man. It’s reasonable, faithful, respectful.” — John Kasich

https://www.city-journal.org/civil-rights-orgs-make-false-claims-about-police

After Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd, many organizations and celebrities issued press releases that went beyond celebrating justice, offering blanket condemnations of the police as universally racist and oppressive. For instance, Seventh Generation, the Unilever-owned laundry detergent maker, tweeted that to stop the “killing of Black and Brown people at the hands of the police . . . we must divest from systems of harm.” The NBA’s LeBron James tweeted what appeared to be a threat (since deleted) toward the Columbus, Ohio police officer involved in the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant as she assaulted another person with a knife.

While I have come to expect this kind of anti-police rhetoric from the corporate world and celebrities, I was dismayed to see leading civil rights organizations also lending their voices to false claims about police.

As a police officer of almost 18 years, I understand the importance of conscientious and impartial policing. And as a third-generation Jewish American whose grandparents were forced to flee the rise of the Nazi Party, I have personally benefited from the hard work of civil rights organizations that champion vulnerable groups against discrimination and abuse.

When my grandfather, a Czechoslovakian, came to America after serving in the British army in World War II, there were still several anti-Jewish policies in place. Several prominent universities capped the enrollment of Jews well into the late twentieth century, and Yale didn’t have a Jewish full professor until 1946. Country clubs restricted Jews, blacks, and women from membership until the 1990s. Jews in America also faced many acts of violence. It was the civil rights organizations that stood up for us.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuomo-says-unvaccinated-people-could-wind-up-killing-your-grandmother/

New York governor Andrew Cuomo implied at a briefing Monday that unvaccinated individuals could threaten the lives of their elderly family members by forgoing the inoculation.

“Maybe you go home and kiss your grandmother and wind-up killing your grandmother,” Cuomo said referring to those who have abstained from vaccination. 

At the conference, the governor addressed the hesitancy among young people and general skeptics regarding receiving the shots. He specified that the outstanding vaccination target groups in the state are the “youthful” and the “doubtful.”

“There is an attitude of ‘they’ll be fine, why should they take the vaccine’,” Cuomo said. “Maybe you will get a long haul syndrome, that we’re not really sure what it is yet, but a lingering consequence of COVID.”

Cuomo’s comments about unvaccinated citizens endangering the elderly come as he continues to face a series of scandals, including allegations of a large scale cover-up of the coronavirus death toll in New York nursing homes.