A Moral Universe Torn Apart Read online

  It's one thing for Liberian citizen Thomas Eric Duncan to carry around an Ebola-ridden woman, get on an airplane to Dallas, walk into a hospital with symptoms, and then walk out again. Such behavior can be attributed, at least in part, to ignorance. It's another thing entirely for a highly educated medical professional to endanger those around her for some miso.

  But that's the world of the media, where the proper response to the possibility of contracting Ebola is, "Don't you know who I am?" Double standards abound here; media members lather Americans into a frenzy over the threat of a disease that has, to date, claimed a grand total of one life in the United States. Then they go out for lunch in public after being told that they could be carrying the virus.

  The Snyderman story is truly part of a broader egocentrism in the media. The media didn't give one whit about the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative non-profit applicants — but they went absolutely batty over the Department of Justice targeting reporters. The media don't seem to care very much about demands for transparency from the Obama administration by the American public — but they're fighting mad about the Obama administration's refusal to let them photograph him golfing. After all, it's one thing for normal Americans to get stiffed, and quite another for our betters to feel the effects of government's heavy hand.

  The gap between the media elite and the general population has a deleterious impact on America's political future. Media members seem to have no problem with incompetent government overreach so long as they prosper, which is why so few media members worry over Democratic proposals to limit First Amendment press freedoms to government-designated "journalists."

  The American people suffer thanks to this elitism. The days of the adversarial media are ending — most investigative journalism now falls to the blogosphere or the foreign press. The corrupt relationship between media and government means that Americans don't find out about overreach and incompetence until far too late for them to do anything about it.

  And so the gap grows. No wonder Snyderman went for soup while under quarantine. After all, it's not like all those other customers work for NBC, or anything.

  Why Republicans Don't Get It

  October 22, 2014

  The Republican Party simply doesn't get it.

  A new poll this week shows 2012 presidential nominee and 2008 primary candidate Mitt Romney leading the field of potential 2016 Republican candidates. According to ABC News/Washington Post, 21 percent of Republican voters would vote for Romney in the primaries; Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee tie at 10 percent, followed by Rand Paul, Chris Christie and Paul Ryan. Altogether, some 44 percent of Republican primary voters want an "establishment" candidate — by which we mean a candidate for whom social issues are secondary, immigration reform is primary and economics dominates.

  The establishment donors on the coasts see this poll and believe that a consolidated funding effort mobilized behind the Chosen One (Romney, Bush, Christie or Ryan) could avoid a messy primary and keep the powder dry for a 2016 showdown with Hillary.

  The conservative base knows this, and they groan.

  That's because the conservative base understands that what motivates them is not the marginal tax rate — nobody in the country knows, offhand, his or her effective tax rate — but values. And none of the top priorities for Republican donors match the fire-in-the-belly issues that motivate the folks who knock on doors, phone bank and provide the under-$50 donations that could power a Republican to victory.

  The divide between the establishment and the base represents a divide between the wallet and the working man, the penthouse and the pews, the Ivy Leagues and the homeschools. Which is why Republican leadership quietly assures its top donors that should Republicans win the Senate, their first legislative push will encompass corporate tax reform and immigration reform. They will not push primarily for border security, or for protection of religious freedom, or for repeal of Common Core. They will not use their opportunity to govern as an opportunity to draw contrast between conservatism and leftism. Instead, they will seek "common ground" in a vain attempt to show the American people that efficiency deserves re-election.

  And the American people will go to sleep, conservatives will vomit in their mouths, and leftists will demonize Republicans all the same.

  Conservatives understand that politics simply reflect underlying values. That's why they are passionate. They don't vote their pocketbooks. They vote their guts, and their guts tell them that leftism is immoral on the most basic level.

  Republicans, on the other hand, believe that politics are just business by other means. That means that Republicans think Americans, left and right, share the same underlying values. That's a lie, and it's a self-defeating lie at that.

  Until Republicans begin to appreciate the moral conflict between right and left, they will dishearten the right and provide easy targets for the left. The nominee won't matter; elections won't matter. And the alienation of the American conservative will deepen and broaden, until, one day, it bursts forth with a renewed fire that consumes the Republican Party whole.

  Turn Down for What?

  October 29, 2014

  On the way to the airport the other day, my Uber driver, an elderly Russian chap, turned on a Top 40 radio station. Not being one to complain, I actually sat and listened to the lyrics. The song blasting through the speakers of the late-model Honda Civic was titled "Habits." The singer, a young, presumably wealthy Swede named Tove Lo (actual name: Tove Nilsson), warbles about her need to visit sex clubs, do drugs, "binge on all my Twinkies, throw up in the tub." She laments that she "drank up all my money."

  Why? Well, she explains, "You're gone and I gotta stay high all the time."

  The next song featured a rapper named Lil Jon screaming loudly at the listener that it is "Fire up that loud, another round of shots. ... TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!" Translation: We're drunk and crazed, and we won't stop being drunk and crazed. The music video, as described by creator Daniel Kwan explores, "this other universe where dudes are so pumped up on their own d***s — and they're so into their testosterone — that the way that the show that is by breaking s*** with their d***s." The video, which shows a young man crashing through ceilings and into furniture as his erect penis swivels wildly in his pants, currently has nearly 130 million views on YouTube.

  No wonder Tove Lo needs to stay high all the time.

  The end of Western civilization, it turns out, comes with both a bang and a whimper. The bang: endless sex, animalistic, primal, without strings. As Adam Levine whines, "Baby, I'm preying on you tonight, hunt you down, eat you alive, just like animals, animals, like animals." In 1971, according to the National Survey of Young Women, 30.4 percent of young women aged 15-19 living in metropolitan areas reported having premarital sex. By 1979, that number was 49.8 percent. Today, 62 percent of young women overall have had premarital sex according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 1950, men's median age of first marriage stood at 22.8; today, it stands at 28.2. More people having sex younger, and without commitment is not a recipe for societal happiness.

  Thus the whimper. In a culture in which emotional connections are degraded to the level of bovine rutting, is it any wonder that 9.2 percent of Americans — some 23.9 million people — have used an illicit drug in the past month, and that nearly a quarter of those aged 18-20 have done so? Or that nearly a third of men over the age of 12 and 16 percent of women have participated in binge drinking in the last month?

  From what are these people running? Drugs and alcohol are an escape — but we are the most prosperous society on the planet. We are wealthier and healthier than any nation in history. So why the angst?

  That question sticks in the craw of the materialists of the secular left, who insist that endless supplies of Soma and government-sponsored sex, complete with Malthusian belt — to borrow terms from Huxley — should bring happiness. Obviously, it doesn't. America's suicide rate recently hit a 25-year high. Suicide has surged among the middle-aged, those
aged 35-64, jumping 30 percent from 1999 to 2010.

  Turn down for what? For survival. Or we could just keep going to sex clubs, throwing up in the bathtub and drinking up all our money. After all, isn't that what freedom from consequences — our God-given pursuit of happiness, according to the left — is all about?

  Lessons for the GOP for 2016

  November 5, 2014

  On Tuesday, Republicans won a historic electoral victory, sweeping away a Democratic Senate, replacing Democratic governors in blue states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois, and reversing Democratic state legislatures in Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, Maine, West Virginia and New Hampshire. Republicans now control more state legislatures than they have at any point since the 1920s, and a bigger House majority than they have since 1928.

  The celebratory mood for Republicans pervaded the country — a feeling of hope, lost since President Obama revealed himself to be just as radical as the right suspected, has returned. That hope isn't vain — when a landslide of such proportion takes place, there is something to it. The question is whether Republicans can capitalize on their newfound opportunity and finally make a strong move toward winning the White House.

  Therein lies the problem. Midterm elections have historically been poor predictors of presidential elections. That's because the crowd that turns out for midterms does not mirror the crowd that turns out for presidential elections — those who turn out for midterms are more highly motivated and generally better informed. In 2010, for example, approximately 84 million Americans voted for in local Congressional race. In 2012, 108 million Americans voted in the same races. Republicans won about 45 million votes in the Congressional races in 2010, with Democrats coming in far behind at 39 million. In 2012, each party earned about 54 million votes. Of the additional 24 million voters who showed up to vote in Congressional races in 2012, 62.5 percent went for Democrats.

  That means that Republicans must not sit on their laurels.

  For many in the commentariat, that means that Republicans must push forward a compromising, bipartisan agenda. That seems to be the general opinion of those on the political left, who despise Republicans and who, as the evening of Nov. 4 progressed, strongly resembled Arnold Toht at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," their faces falling with each result.

  The truth is precisely the reverse. Republicans cannot be seen as the Party of No, as the GOP's enemies would have it — but they do have an obligation to turn President Obama into the President of No. That means pushing easily comprehended, single-issue bills, short and clear and popular. If President Obama wants to veto those bills, that becomes his problem. But Republicans should not stop passing legislation between 2014 and 2016.

  Meanwhile, Republicans must work to exploit holes in the Democratic base. In 2012, President Obama appealed heavily to minority groups for strong turnout; Hillary Clinton does not have the same minority appeal. That means she will focus strongly on winning single women, and driving them to the polls in large numbers. Republicans should therefore push national security issues, family freedom issues — and they have just the right faces to do that in Senator Joni Ernst, R-Iowa and Mia Love, R-Utah, among others.

  Conservatives can see a ray of sunshine at last. Now they must work to ensure that the ray of sunshine doesn't turn into another faded opportunity.

  America's Education Crisis

  November 12, 2014

  America's Education Crisis

  An educational crisis has struck Minneapolis' public schools: Black students have a tenfold higher chance of suspension or expulsion than white students. And superintendent Bernadeia Johnson wants to "disrupt that in any way that I can."

  Her solution: refusing to suspend black and Hispanic students. "The only way I can think [to solve the disparity] is to take those suspensions back to the individuals and try and probe and ask questions," Johnson explained. Johnson will work with the Department of Education, which originally brought the disparity to light. Now, Johnson will have to review every potential suspension of a non-white, non-Asian student. "Changing the trajectory for our students of color is a moral and ethical imperative, and our actions must be drastically different to achieve our goal of closing the achievement gap by 2020," Johnson stated.

  Black and Hispanic students in Minneapolis represent 60.3 percent of the student body. Just 15 percent of teachers are non-white. This has led to pressure to oust some white teachers in favor of minority teachers. But Minnesota has some of the highest-performing students in the nation: Overall, 70 percent of fourth-graders read at or above grade level, as opposed to 34 percent of students nationally; for eighth-graders, 82 percent of students score above grade level, as opposed to 43 percent nationally. The big problem: Black and Hispanic students score extraordinarily low when compared to white students. Is that because the teachers somehow teach better to white and Asian students? Or is the problem with the students?

  The students in Minnesota are not an exception. Male black, Hispanic and Native-American students in every state in America lead male students of other ethnicities in suspensions. That's not due to some inherent disadvantage attached to race, of course. It's because black, Hispanic and Native-American children are disproportionately likely to live with single mothers. And children living with single mothers misbehave more often than those living with fathers. A study from Great Britain of 14,000 children showed that children were twice as likely to manifest behavioral problems by the age of 7 than those raised by their natural parents. Those numbers continue to diverge as children grow older.

  But instead of dealing with the obvious problem, the government insists that the problem, somehow, lies in the strictness of the Minneapolis public schools. That's inane. School discipline in Asia far outstrips discipline in the United States. Unsurprisingly, school performance in Asia far outstrips school performance in the United States.

  The left in America believes that overlooking actual solutions in favor of happy talk about institutional racism helps minority students. It achieves precisely the opposite, making light of misbehavior and destroying the chances for better education for those who seek to gain it.

  The achievement gap will never be closed, so long as school districts across the country punish good students, reward bad ones and let political correctness trump educational necessity.

  The Ferguson Days of Rage

  November 19, 2014

  This week, America held its collective breath as it waited on the grand jury indictment verdict for Officer Darren Wilson. Wilson, you'll recall, had the misfortune to run into 6'5", 289-lb. Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man who had just finished strong-arm robbing a convenience store. Wilson pulled Brown over as he and his accomplice walked in the middle of the street; all available evidence shows that Brown then pushed himself through the driver's side window, punched Wilson, went for his gun, was shot in the hand, ran, turned around, charged Wilson, and was shot to death.

  But that doesn't matter. And it has never mattered. Because facts do not matter to those attempting to rectify what they perceive as an unjust universe. For those utopian visionaries - and, yes, violent thugs who rob stores are minions of the utopian visionaries — individuals do not exist. Individuals are merely stand-ins for groups. Wilson was a white cop; therefore, he was the Racist White Establishment. Brown was a black teenager; therefore, he was the Innocent Black Victim. The parts have already been written; Wilson was merely unlucky enough to land the starring role.

  And so we expect riots no matter what the outcome of the indictment. Should Wilson escape indictment due to complete lack of evidence, the utopians and their rioting henchmen will attribute that acquittal to the Racist White Establishment. Should he be indicted, the utopians and their rioting henchmen will cite Wilson as merely the latest example of the Racist White Establishment. No matter the antecedent, the consequence has been determined in advance: rage, riots, recriminations.

  If all of this sounds familiar, that's because it is. Alon
gside the anti-Racist White Establishment protesters taking to the streets in Ferguson in recent weeks, anti-Israel and pro-ISIS protesters have appeared. All utopian visionaries fighting the status quo — self-perceived victims — love their Days of Rage. And these Ragers don't require evidence to incite their emotions. Evidence regarding individuals is for the reasonable; false stories of victims and villains are the fodder for Ragers.

  Whether we're watching thousands of Muslims across the world protest and riot over cartoons of Mohammed, or whether we're watching hundreds of people in Ferguson riot over a media-manufactured story about a racial killing, Days of Rage provide the outlet for delusional anger. Radical Muslims need an external enemy to justify their own brutality; protesters in Ferguson need an external enemy to justify their own failure to make good in the freest country in the history of humanity.

  Every society has its Ragers. The West's suicidal impulse to humor those Ragers, however, spells the end of the West. When facts become secondary to emotion, truth dies. And a society that doesn't value truth cannot survive. Calling out the National Guard in Ferguson while lending a sympathetic ear to the Ragers does little good, long-term. It merely staves off the inevitable surrender of the reasonable to the Ragers.

  Feelingstown, Missouri

  November 26, 2014

  On Monday night, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch announced that Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, would not be indicted in the shooting death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown. McCulloch explained the falsehoods permeating the original media accounts of the shooting; he explained that Brown had, by all available physical and credible witness evidence, charged Wilson after attempting to take his gun from him in Wilson's vehicle.