Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Men Don’t Give Birth

"Doctors prepared to do an emergency cesarean delivery, but in the operating room no fetal heartbeat was heard. Moments later, the man delivered a stillborn baby."

apnews.com/b5e7bb73c6134d58a0df9e1cee2fb8ad

If men have babies, what’s even the point of talking about gender and sex categories? The categories are literally meaningless.

First:
“Sex” and “Gender” were synonyms. They both meant male and female as traditionally understood. Girls. Boys. Pink. Blue.

Then:
“Sex” and “Gender” were separated. Sex referred to biology. Gender referred to cultural norms around biology. Male vs. Masculine. Gender—being cultural—was malleable, and things like gender fluidity and transgender became common terms.

Now:
Sex and gender are synonyms again. But now they mean “malleable designations that mean whatever an individual wants them to mean.” The malleability of culturally-based gender notions has been back-migrated into biological sex.

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Politics

My America

I live and work in Saudi Arabia. I work for a Saudi company, and my colleagues are largely Saudis supported by a mix of Egyptians, Pakistanis, Indians, and other people from this side of the world.

My boss, however, is an American, a convert to Islam who moved here a decade ago and has lived here ever since. He is black, the son of a minister, and a product of private catholic schools.

We have many differences, but as much or more in common, and we have developed a real and enjoyable friendship. A few days ago at the end of work we headed over to a burger joint—of which there are many in Riyadh—to share a meal and conversation.

On the way, I asked him: What is your ideal country? If you could build your Utopia, what would it look like?

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Politics

Equal Justice and the Border Wall

The other day in a thread about illegal immigration and deportation, I posted some words of Trey Gowdy’s from a commencement address at Liberty University:

Let me tell you something about the law. It is the most unifying and equalizing force that we have in this country. It is the only thing that makes the richest person in this county drive the same speed limit as the poorest. It is what makes the richest person in Virginia pay his or her taxes on precisely the same day as the poorest.

As Trump’s inauguration draws closer, and as he continues to fill his cabinet with right-wing picks, and as he continues to make a fool of himself on Twitter, I continue to believe that the DNC and the GOP establishment made space for all of this to happen by failing for so many years to take a stand for the rule of law on the matter of immigration. The wall issue gave Trump so much traction in his campaign, early and late.

The thing is, illegal immigration doesn’t negatively effect people with money and power. Illegal immigrants aren’t moving into their neighborhoods, changing the culture around them, and competing for their jobs, or—really—affecting them much in any way at all. As Ted Cruz said, last November, “The politics of [illegal immigration] would be very, very, different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande—or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press.”

I think this is a very important point in the aftermath of Trump’s election, and Gowdy’s quote made it click for me.

The refusal to enforce the law on immigration and on border controls is really an unequal use of the law. Whether they realize it or not, those with power and money have decided that a certain segment of law that primarily protects the interests of poor, non-elite citizens doesn’t matter. And they’ve failed to enforce it. This failure is analogous to me to busting poor people for speeding, but not the rich.

And while non-elites may often be poorer and have less education than those in power, they aren’t stupid. They know a raw deal when they see one just as much as my six-year-old daughter (sniff, now seven) knows when her older brother is giving her a raw deal.

How America handles the immigration question is a matter of social justice. But it is also a matter of justice—a matter of law.

As long as the political establishment continues their failure of enforcing the law in this area, so long will Trump and people like him have a potent weapon in their Populist arsenal. Our political establishment, for the sake of their own agendas, and for the sake of this country, needs to start consistently and thoroughly enforcing the rule of law at our borders and in regards to illegal immigration.

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Politics

Facebook Discussion on Cake Baker Rights

Notes: This series of Facebook comments took place on a post on the wall of a gay friend that I believe was related to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law passed by Indiana to prevent government from substantially burdening the free exercise of religion. The law, which arose in part as a reaction to the Colorado Masterpiece Cake Shop case, passed into law the day of this thread. I engaged in response to another commenter who’s content was acerbic and anti-gay. This series of comments is a good example of the kinds of discussions with strangers I had on Facebook when I was most involved with the platform. The consistent failure to actually change any minds through all this engagement (as evidenced here) is one of the reasons I ultimately left the platform. I posted on the same topic in a comment on another thread a few days later. (DL, June 14, 2023).

[Commenter 1 Name Redacted], I hesitate to engage you simply because I’m not sure it’s going to get us anywhere profitable, but silence can be its own form of complicity, so . . .

1) The formulations “degenerate minority” and “degenerate sexual deviant” are not an indicator of an open minded clear thinker. Your expression is dismissive and muddy. It basically comes across as bombastic namecalling. Perhaps you could have written something like: “You shouldn’t get extra rights at my expense simply because of your race or your sexual preference.” In this way you could have made the same point without unnecessarily raising the temperature level of the conversation and offending many of the people you’re ostensibly trying to dialog with.

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Politics

The Importance of an Open Marketplace

Note: When Mike Pence signed Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act on March 27, 2015, the news made the rounds in my Facebook circle, and I participated in a couple of threads on the topic. This short comment echoes some of the main points I had made a few days earlier in a longer discussion. (DL, June 14, 2023).

I had this discussion earlier on another thread, and I’ll repost some of what I said here:

I subscribe to the concept of the social contract. As members of a freely self-governing society, we undertake certain commitments to one another. In essence, we willingly agree to give up some of our autonomy in exchange for the benefits and protections of combined effort.

In regards to the public marketplace, I accept rules regarding fair and equitable trade for all in exchange for police protection, protection from unfair competitive practicies by more powerful competitors and banks, easy access to my customers and suppliers provided by the public transportation infrastructure, and (crucially) free access to the market myself regardless of my beliefs.

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Politics

My First Thoughts on Transgenderism

Note: Ten years ago I wrote this as a Facebook post because I wanted to speak clearly and publicly in response to the then new (at least, it felt new) but growing cultural trend of normalizing transgenderism as a means of overcoming or negating biological reality. In the intervening decade, though the irrationality of the transgender movement has become increasingly accepted in our society, my views have not changed. If I wrote the post today, I would likely seek to moderate the tone somewhat, but the ideas themselves I still embrace. I post this here now out of a commitment to speaking the truth as I see it, even though I believe I may someday suffer professional or other repercussions for holding these views. Such are the times in which we live. Following the note itself are a selection of my comments from the discussion thread that followed the original Facebook post. (DL April 20, 2023)

I dislike provoking ill feelings in others, but with Bradley Manning’s transgender announcement today and the subsequent pronoun shift in the media coverage, Wikipedia, etc. regarding him, I feel like it’s time for me to say something clear about my position on transgenderism.

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Politics

In the Wake of Sandy Hook

Note: The Columbine massacre, which happened at the end of my senior year of college, is the first mass shooting that I remember. In the twenty-five years since, it seems undeniable to me that mass shootings of this type have increased in frequency and severity. While I believe the primary cause is not the guns themselves (guns have been been woven into American society since the beginning) it seems increasingly clear that we as a society cannot be entrusted with guns without more effective limits. I wrote this Facebook post in the wake of Sandy Hook to explore foundational principles that we would have to observe and incorporate into our thinking as we explore more effective gun control as a society. (DL, June 10, 2023).

In the wake of the terrible sadness of Sandy Hook, we need to reevaluate the place of guns in our society—specifically the place of the modern weapons that have done so much to increase the average person’s lethal potential.

This is a contribution to that reevaluation. It is a statement of principles that I believe to be true.

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Politics

Hi Andrew

Note: Some time in 2009 I gradually switched from reading Michelle Malkin on a regular basis to reading Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish on a regular basis. It was a momentous shift, and over time did a great deal to soften my thinking and open me up to new points of view. In particular, Andrew’s writing greatly expanded my understanding of what it means to be gay. I felt in Andrew a genuine likeness of mind, perspective, and temperament, and yet his homosexuality was so clearly simply a part of him, not a pose adopted to justify certain kinds of sexual desires as I had long thought. Moreover, his passionate gentleness in the pursuit of truth, his openness about his own mistakes, and his willingness to front flawed ideas wherever they are found–even in his own thinking–has become a model for me. This site certainly bears his mark in its structure and intent. Over the years, I e-mailed many comments to Andrew and the Dish team. This is the very first; under discussion are the decisions America should make about its continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was a very committed Ron Paul follower at this time. (DL, Sept. 18, 2021)

Hi Andrew,

If we’re going to be truly realistic about our options overseas, we need to cast every discussion of those options in the economic context of how much the various choices cost and how much we can sustainably afford.

The plain fact of the matter is that 1) we can’t sustainably afford much more of anything, and 2) a total economic meltdown poses at least as much of a risk to our republic as foreign terrorists–probably much more.

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Politics

Open Letter to Bob Inglis

Note: I was opposed to the bailouts in 2008. During the 2007 primary cycle I had discovered Rand Paul and become strongly enamored of Libertarianism and even more strongly opposed to government intervention of all sorts than I had been previously. I wrote this high-sounding appeal out of a sense of duty and urgency. Looking back, I have no confidence that my position then was the right one. I still believe our spending of the last 20 years has been unsustainable and destructive, and I still believe the core idea that in order for people to successfully self-govern, they must be willing to deny themselves and to embrace suffering when needed. But am much more conscious of how ignorant I was then (and am now) of how the economy actually works. Also, I find my tone of righteous bombast annoying and ineffective–especially given the fact that we were living with my parents at that time because we couldn’t afford our own place, and I depended on the Earned Income Credit every year to make ends meet. This may have been about the time we were on SNAP as well. (DL, Sept. 8, 2021)

Dear Congressman Inglis:

There are greater evils than a major recession, or even a depression. Both my father and grandparents lived through the Great Depression, and throughout their lives I saw the marks of character, self-discipline, and financial responsibility that that dark time left on them. My father and grandparents were thankful people, mindful that the good times should never be taken for granted.

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Politics

Just Words 1.2: The Atheist Betrayal

Note: This is the second post I wrote for the short-lived anonymous activist blog I started in early 2007 dedicated to strident Christian politics. It had been four years since I first heard of the concept of gay marriage, and I could see clearly which way the cultural winds were blowing. This was my attempt to fight for the culturally-Christian America of my youth. As described in the note to the first blog article, within a few months of starting the blog, I began to move away from Christian militancy and towards Libertarianism, motivated by the campaign of Ron Paul. Nevertheless, though my methods and political priorities have changed, I think the argument here is basically sound, as the continual encroachment of radical progressive fundamentalism throughout the West has shown. (DL, June 10, 2023). 

Judge Wolf’s ruling is . . . a treacherous collaboration with the evil empire which, though fallen in its Soviet form, lives yet in the ideology of godlessness that has been appropriated into the halls of American justice.
-Just Words 1.1

American Christians must wake up.

They must awaken to the imminent threats facing their civil and religious liberties–threats which cannot be overstated. There are forces at work in this country that are wholly dedicated to stamping out the social influence of America’s biblical heritage and of America’s Christians.  Their watchword is “tolerance,” but these are nothing less then the uncompromising partisans of a god-less ideology.

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