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Can I remain I after we become we?
No man is an island, wrote John Donne. Neither is any nation, even if it’s the island nation of Great Britain.
This contradiction lies at the heart of the current political crisis facing British Prime Minister David Cameron. And as the British contemplate their future place in the world community, the rest of us should contemplate what the world will look like for our children and their children after them.
There are two legitimate, opposing arguments facing Britain in deciding whether or not to remain part of the European Union. To compete in the world marketplace as part of an economic powerhouse works to the advantage of every European country, Britain included. On the other hand, the threat to employment and security posed by unrestricted immigration may offset any benefits.
But whatever the British end up deciding for themselves in this month’s referendum, there is a deeper issue in play, one that has implications for all of us.
A Tale of Two Icons
What’s the difference between Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton?
Obviously, gender.
Less obviously, expectations.
In an interview with NPR’s Shankar Vedantam, Mary-Hunter McDonnell of the Wharton school of business explained the difference between how men and women are judged by their peers for ethical infractions.
Professor McDonnell and her colleagues asked volunteers to recommend a jail sentence for a hospital administrator who filed a false Medicare claim. When the volunteers believed that the administrator was a woman, the average suggested sentence increased by over 60%.
The researchers also analyzed over 500 disciplinary proceedings in 33 states by the American Bar Association. They discovered that women were disbarred more than twice as often for similar types of misconduct.
The assumption here is that, since women are expected to be more ethical, they are punished more severely when they violate ethical standards.
This may be unfair in practice, but in principle is makes perfect sense. Moral people are expected to behave better than immoral people; consequently, we find their moral lapses less tolerable.
Which brings us back to the Clintons.
At last, a hero
Just when you thought there was no hope for sanity left in America, the light of reason breaks through the clouds of ideology, if only for a moment.
Maya Dillard Smith, head of the Georgia ACLU, resigned her position last week citing her organization’s unwillingness even to discuss any perspective or opinion out of sync with its own advocacy for transgender bathrooms.
The Huffington Post and other far left outlets responded, predictably, by attacking Ms. Smith and completely missing the point. This is not about predators coming into public bathrooms. That approach was from the start a tactical blunder by conservatives (which, sadly, is all too common).
The real issues here are governmental overreach and the right to privacy. Just as the minority deserves protection from oppression by the majority, so too does the majority deserve protection from the predilections of the minority.
This is where the ACLU so consistently gets it wrong. Social conventions are not all oppressive. Just the opposite: they create the standards and boundaries of personal conduct that allow civil society to function. Tearing them down willy-nilly because someone might find them discomfiting leads to social anarchy, from which everyone ultimately suffers.
But even that wasn’t the point behind Ms. Smith’s resignation. It was the ACLU’s outright refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of any position other than its own.
This is the problem that is plaguing the Western World and tearing our civilization apart. The zombie-like groupthink that turns every adversary into a neanderthal or a Nazi undermines the whole notion of a democratic society. We have to be able to discuss and debate, and to accept that reasonable people can disagree. As long as a culture of political dogma prevails, endorsed and enabled by so many in high office and the media, our society will continue to crumble.
But for now, we have an unlikely hero. Kudos to Maya Smith for taking a true stand on true principle, for not selling out, for not trying to have it both ways (ala Kim Davis), and for not being afraid of the hail of vitriol she knew she would bring upon herself from her former allies.
May she inspire others to follow her example.
Remember their sacrifice
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
Is it too late to let freedom ring once more?
Facebook has confessed that stories appearing on its supposedly-unbiased “Trending Topics” were manipulated. Rather than risk allowing its one billion active users exposure to the corrosive influence of conservative commentators, Facebook’s “news curators” decided to doctor the list of headline stories to favor left-wing political leanings.
In other breaking news, the sky is still blue, the grass is still green, and the loudest proponents of freedom are still laboring mightily to impose their vision of freedom on others.
Freedom of speech has been on life-support for decades already, wracked by the infectious scourge of groupthink, political correctness, and moral equivalence. College newspapers have routinely been stolen by students and even administrators for espousing politically incorrect views. Speakers of all ideological stripes have been shouted down, sometimes even by groups they support. Recently, a petition circulated among Yale students to repeal the First Amendment (including, ironically, the right to petition) collected 50 signatures in one hour.
The real death of free speech stems from the death of credibility. News organizations have abandoned even the pretense of objectivity or accuracy. The line between reporting and editorializing is consciously and persistently blurred. Elected officials and presidential candidates show such utter disregard for the truth that they don’t even attempt to disguise their prevarications, much less apologize when caught in the act.
But it’s the corruption of language itself that may pose the greatest danger to what remains of the institution once called Truth.
Profile of Terror
Whether or not the cause of the EgyptAir disaster turns out to be terrorism — and regardless of whether Donald Trump was right or wrong to call it terrorism before any information was in — that was and is everyone’s first thought in these dangerous times. We don’t believe in accidents anymore; experience has been too stern a teacher and the lessons of fanaticism have been too painful.
Presumably, such incidents will only make TSA lines move slower and slower. Which wouldn’t matter if that actually made us safer and safer.
My neighbor told me recently that his son flew to Australia by way of Istanbul and Qatar. Changing planes in Qatar’s Hamad International Airport, he was ushered through customs without even breaking stride — along with every other Caucasian on his flight — while every single Middle-Easterner was detained, searched, and questioned at length.
Interesting that the Qataris have no qualms about profiling their own people, while here in the open-minded West cling desperately to the illusion that every passenger poses an equal threat to our security.
Is it possible that the Qataris know something we haven’t figured out yet?
If terrorists were dressing up as Orthodox rabbis, I would want TSA to profile me and those who look like me. Instead of taking it personally, I would be grateful for their common sense and conscientiousness.
But I guess that’s just me.
The Danger of Democracy
The prospect of a presidential race between the two most unpopular candidates in American electoral history should give us serious pause to reflect upon the inherent precariousness of any democratic system.
On the one hand, democracy protects a people from the whims and excesses of despotism by creating a system of accountability and popular will. On the other, it places power in the hands of the masses, who may be uninformed and easily manipulated; as Robert A. Heinlein once wrote, does history record any case in which the majority was right?
A lot of people seem to agree. Even now that the outcome appears inevitable in both primary races , opposition to the status quo has grown so intense that, in both parties, the voices of pragmatism are being drowned out by the battle cry of revolution.
Each rebel camp is a bizarre mirror-image of the other. On the Republican side, the party orthodoxy is rejecting the presumptive nominee for being indifferent to its values and unfit to lead. On the Democratic side, a surging upstart movement rallies around an untethered independent while decrying the corruption of the party orthodoxy itself.
Both insurgent groups are threatening to turn to third-party candidates. Leaders on both sides are warning that such a move would be political suicide, and history supports their fears. Third-party campaigns backfired for Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, Strom Thurmond (nearly) in 1948, Ross Perot in 1992, and Ralph Nader in 2000. So isn’t it better to vote for the lesser of two evils than to give away the election by grasping at straws?
That’s a good question.
A Day of Remembrance Soon Forgotten
So what was the point of last week’s Holocaust Memorial Day?
Once upon a time, the commemoration served as a warning against the consequences of unbridled nationalism. But in this generation, the memory of Nazi atrocities has mutated into a political football tossed about to score points for one ideological cause or against another.
IDF Major General Yair Golan made the most egregious fumble when he suggested last Wednesday that events in pre-war Germany are repeating themselves in modern-day Israel. Like all public figures who talk first and think later, the deputy chief of staff was soon scurrying to revise his comments, pleading that he hadn’t meant what he said and hadn’t said what he meant.
More likely, General Golan meant exactly what he said. And it’s likely that his heart was in the right place, even if his brain was out to lunch.
Giving offense vs. taking offense
The political correctness police were out in force recently, correctly censuring Larry Wilmore for his use of the N-word and insanely condemning Hillary Clinton for uttering the words “off the reservation,” perceived as demeaning to Native Americans.
Starting with Mrs. Clinton’s turn of phrase, we might as well excise from the the lexicon of acceptability words such as “nosy” because it might offend people with large noses, “insightful” as insulting to myopics, “high-minded” as defamatory of marijuana users, and “thin skinned” for denigrating hemophiliacs. If we want to find reason for taking offense, we can find it everywhere.
The more noteworthy incident was Larry Wilmore’s use of the N-word at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, and his directing it toward the President of the United States, no less. Clearly the remark was intended to be affectionate and laudatory, which is how it was taken — without offense.
But that’s not really the point. In a society that is growing simultaneously disrespectful and intolerant of disrespectful speech, we need to elevate public discourse, not sink deeper into the gutter. If the N-word is too offensive to be broadcast — even news anchors reporting the story weren’t permitted to repeat it in quotation marks — then it is certainly unacceptable to be used in the presence of our president or, even worse, said to him.
Frankly, I’m more concerned by the use of President Obama’s first name, and his nickname at that. Maybe Mr. Obama and Mr. Wilmore are on a first-name basis. But in a formal context, such familiarity is utterly disrespectful from anyone other than a spouse, parent, or sibling.
This is the real threat of political correctness. It’s not just that we take offense in all the wrong places. It’s that we lose all sensitivity for the difference between what is respectful and what is disrespectful, we lose all sense of priorities, and we forget that refinement is a value. Nothing matters except the applause, the laugh, the ratings, and the votes.
This is why the same people who took offense at Mrs. Clinton’s use of “off the reservation” have no reservations about her pathological pattern of telling lies and misrepresenting political adversaries.
This is why our political and social institutions are in chaos.
And this is what we are teaching our children.
Passover, Freedom, and the War on Culture
The responsibilities of freedom, the history of freedom, and the culture wars that threaten the values and the foundations of civilization.
Listen to my interview on the Bill Martinez show (interview begins at 33:00).
Yonason Goldson 