Year: 2024

Have you read Christopher Rufo’s June 6 essay City Journal article “DOJ Indicts Doctor Who Exposed the Barbarism of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’”? It’s about a courageous surgeon, Eithan Haim, who blew the whistle on doctors at  Texas Children’s Hospital who continued performing procedures on children (as young as eleven) after CEO Mark Wallace shut down the hospital’s child gender clinic (see Rufo’s May 2023 article “Sex-Change Procedures at Texas Children’s Hospital for background”). Earlier this week, US marshals appeared at Haim’s home and summoned him to court to face an indictment on four felony counts of violating HIPAA. His initial appearance is next Monday, where he will learn more about the charges against him.

When on X (formerly Twitter) I criticize the practice of endocrinologists using chemicals to alter physiology and surgeons altering the appearance of genitalia to produce a simulate sexual identity, practices that go under the cover of “gender affirming care” (GAC), I am inundated with appeals to authority, often in the form of screen shots of Google summaries, showing medical associations and governmental bodies promoting the practice with success stories or dubious studies. Since GAC is a for-profit industry organized by corporate medicine and pharmaceutical companies, I ask people to take a critical view of such promotional materials, reminding them that this is not the first time that doctors, their associations, and governmental bodies have promoted atrocities.

One of my go-to examples is the lobotomy (also known as leukotomy). Lobotomy, a neurosurgical procedure severing connections in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, emerged as a popular treatment for mental illnesses in the mid-20th century. The procedure was widely adopted and routinely performed on individuals for more than thirty years, mostly on women, but disproportionately on gay men. It is still performed, albeit rarely. In its heyday, the procedure was performed on tens of thousands of Americans. The contemporary judgment that the practice was largely abandoned because of side effects and ethical problems is something of a revisionist history. For the most part, it was the development of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other pharmacological agents that replaced the practice—agents carrying their own side effects and ethical problems.

The promotion of the lobotomy is a paradigm of why skepticism of the claims of medical science is an imperative if our commitment to human rights is to meaningfully translate into effective safeguarding practices. In this essay, I briefly discuss the history of the lobotomy and the difficulty opponents of the procedure faced from both professional and popular forces. Then I turn to the matters of medical practices under Nazi Germany and contemporary practices known as gender affirming care. These matters comprise the bulk of this essay.

Neurologist António Moniz developed the lobotomy in 1935. Reports of lobotomy’s success in reducing symptoms of conditions such as chronic anxiety, schizophrenia, and severe depression were quickly disseminated by the medical profession. Prominent figures in the field of psychiatry played a significant role in popularizing the procedure. For example, in the United States, Walter Freeman became a staunch advocate, pioneering the transorbital lobotomy (popularly known as the “ice pick” technique). Professional associations, such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), played a major role in legitimizing the practice. The AMA provided a platform for the dissemination of techniques. The APA promoted the procedure at medical conferences and in psychiatric journals. Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949 for his work on lobotomies.

Not everyone in the medical community shared this enthusiasm, however. As those critical of GAC today, critics of lobotomy faced significant opposition and marginalization. They were characterized as traditionalists who were dismissed as resistant to new ideas. The procedure’s proponents held substantial influence and had the support of the medical community. This made it difficult for dissenting voices to gain recognition to influence policy and practice. Those who raised concerns about lobotomy’s efficacy and safety were not only labeled as impediments to progress; speaking out against the practice risked professional isolation and reputational damage. Critics could find themselves marginalized within their professional circles, losing opportunities for research funding, publication, and career advancement.

The medical community’s enthusiasm for lobotomy was one of the factors that created an environment where criticism was not easily tolerated. However, vocal opponents of lobotomy also faced public criticism. Proponents of the practice framed the procedure as a necessary and humane advancement in the treatment of mental illness. Critics were portrayed as unsympathetic to the plight of patients and their families desperate for any form of relief from severe psychiatric conditions, conditions that were associated with harm to self and others, seen, for example, in higher rates of suicide. Many patients and families reported improvement from the surgery; some patients were said to have been cured. Public perception and the practice of emotional blackmail thus further isolated critics and undermined efforts to caution against the widespread use of lobotomy. (For more on this, see Mical Raz’s 2013 The Lobotomy Letters: The Making of American Psychosurgery.)

Recently on X, user Gays Again Groomers (@againstgrmrs), hashtag #SaveTheTomboys, posted a video of a young woman at an outdoors Pride event dramatically removing her shirt to reveal her bandaged chest (see the video here). She has recently undergone a double mastectomy. Those in attendance, just off screen, applauded to express their affirmation. User Thomas Willett, whom I have cited before (A Zealot’s Attempt to Appear Reasonable and the Unreasonableness of Zealots), asked, “Why are you recording a suspected minor undressing?” I responded, “The woman was celebrating her mutilation publicly. People need to see the atrocity. It’s like asking why we see children in Holocaust or lynching photography.” Objections to my comment denied the analogy with the Holocaust because the victims of the Nazis did not seek the procedures performed on them, while the victims of GAC did. Moreover, those opposed to GAC were accused of caring about a decision somebody made about their body that has nothing to do with them, one user asking rhetorically, “Why do you transphobes always believe you have authority over everyone else’s bodies?”

Opposition to GAC has nothing to do with claiming authority over the bodies of others. At the heart of the opposition is an essential tenet of human rights: criticizing ideologies and disrupting practices that destroying the lives of people. Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), is a harmful practice that involves the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The exact number of women affected by FGM around the world is difficult to determine due to underreporting, lack of data in some regions, and the clandestine nature of the practice in certain communities, but it is estimated that over 200 million girls and women worldwide have undergone FGM. FGM is most prevalent in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, but it also occurs in communities around the world, including diaspora communities in Western countries. The practice is rooted in cultural, social, and religious beliefs and is often perpetuated as a rite of passage, despite its harmful physical and psychological consequences. Do efforts to stop this practice move from a desire to control the bodies of girls and women?

To return to the point about GAC being different because this is what the individual wants, many of the women who undergo FGM look forward to it, and often those who groom women for the procedure and sometimes perform it are other women who willingly had the procedure performed on them. Are we to quit our objections to FGM because millions of women look forward to it or feel it as a cultural imperative? It is, after all, a type of gender affirming care. I don’t mean this in a flippant way; FGM affirms the woman’s identity and role in societies that mutilate genitals. The difference with GAC is that, in industrial societies, the mutilation of genitals is to produce simulated sexual identities rather than to affirm tribal identity and membership in the community of women. It’s a different ideology that results in genital mutilation, but the ideology can’t make the practice okay; ideologies only motivate and rationalize associated practices. GAC marks one as a member of the tribe, as we see with the young woman in the video. One is witnessing there the behavior of a cult member.

Ethically speaking, whether atrocities perpetrated by Nazis doctors are to be regarded as crimes against humanity has never depended on victims being happy, sad, willing, unwilling, whatever. Many of those maimed or killed by Nazis didn’t know what was happening to them. Many of them thought the doctors were helping them. In many cases, the victims suffered from developmental and psychiatric disorders that made them oblivious to the acts performed on them. This is why we don’t blame crime victim for what happened to them. We blame the perpetrator, the individual or group who victimized them. The man who takes advantage of the vulnerable, the emotionally damaged, and the psychologically confused, who grooms, deceives, and manipulate others—this is the wrongdoer. Even if he is working under the cover of authority, law, policy, expertise, and reputation, he is doing wrong. The wrong in question is mala in se, Latin for “evil-in-itself.” The focus is therefore properly on the organizers of the system, those who pull the levers, and those who enable them. These are acts individuals profit from or advance the movement goals. The young woman in the video is the result of a society that tolerates atrocities to continue under the guise of health care.

When objections were made about sharing a video of an alleged minor, I reminded those in the thread that holocaust photography, like lynching photography, is documentation of atrocities in a fixed medium, and this documentation sometimes contained images of children because children are often the victims of atrocities. History teachers us that evil does not spare children, and we need to see the evil for ourselves and for what it is to understand why we need strong safeguarding systems. Indeed, it was photographs of GAC, why is coming to be regarded as the greatest medical scandal in American history, that finally convinced me of the irresponsibility of treating the movement politics around trans ideology as “gay adjacent,” which was how I thought about it before 2018. I won’t share the documentary evidence here, as you can find it online and I do not wish to shock the reader with something he may not wish to see, but upon reviewing that evidence—the images of phalloplasty, vaginoplasty, etc.—I was immediately reminded of the photographs I reviewed in my studies of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazi doctors. 

It is crucial to emphasize the fact that the emotionally troubled and psychological disordered, many of whom think they are being helped by drugs and surgeries, don’t realize they’re being experimented on and modified for the sake of movement ideology and, in the case of GAC, corporate profit. The doctors prescribing the drugs and performing the surgeries claim to be operating within the norms of Western medical science. The Nazi doctors, for example Erwin Gohrbandt, were also confident that they were practicing within the norms of German medical science. Not surprisingly those who object to my argument try to derail it by deny the analogy. But it’s not an analogy. It’s the thing itself. Gohrbandt worked with Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneer of GAC, the same man held up a saint by those seeking to prevent the removal of pornographic and child grooming materials from public schools and libraries by evoking the Deutsche Studentenschaft raid on the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in 1933. It was Gohrbandt who practiced vaginoplasty on the transvestites who frequented Hirschfeld’s estate, using Hirschfeld’s kitchen as his operating theater. (See Fear and Loathing in the Village of Chamounix: Monstrosity and the Deceits of Trans Joy. See also Thomas Szasz, Medical Freedom, and the Tyranny of Gender Ideology; The Exploitative Act of Removing Healthy Body Parts;  Simulated Sexual Identities: Trans as Bad Copy.)

The work of Nazi doctors on individuals suffering from emotional trauma and psychiatric disorders represents one of the most disturbing chapters in medical history. Driven by a perverse ideology and a blatant disregard for human life, their activities were characterized by unethical experiments and inhumane treatments. One of the most notorious aspects of Nazi medical practices was the Aktion T4 program, established in 1939, aimed at those individuals deemed “unworthy of life” due to mental and physical disabilities, chronic illnesses, congenital deformities, and psychiatric disorders. The notion of fitness was central to the progressive program of eugenics, which we can define simply as the practice of breeding for good genes. Those deemed as unworthy of life were subject to extermination and sterilization. Today, GAC targets the same populations. Most of those subjected to GAC suffer from autism, mental retardation, and psychiatric disorders. The chemicals (puberty blockers, cross sex hormones) and surgical procedures sterilize them. The alterations made to their physiology and genitals are irreversible and typically rob them of sexual pleasure. They are made into permanent medical patients. (See Making Patients for the Medical-Industrial Complex;  Disordering Bodies for Disordered Minds; The Body as Primary Commodity: The Techno-Religious Cult of Transgenderism.)

Nazi doctors conducted numerous inhumane experiments on psychiatric patients, often without their consent (with many of them incapable of consenting) and with no regard for their well-being. Patients were subjected to untested and dangerous drugs to observe their effects. These trials lacked ethical standards and proper oversight, frequently resulting in severe suffering and death. Crude forms of psychosurgery, including lobotomies, were performed on patients without medical justification, often resulting in permanent damage and severe side effects. As part of the Nazi eugenics program, many psychiatric patients were forcibly sterilized under the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) enacted in 1933. This law mandated sterilization for individuals with mental illnesses and other conditions deemed hereditary.

Gohrbandt and Hirschfeld were both advocates of eugenics, Hirschfeld traveling to the United States to meet with Paul Popenoe and Ezra Gosney, praising them as “the vanguard of improving humanity by sterilizing unfit men and women.” Popenoe co-founded the Human Betterment Foundation in 1928, an organization dedicated to promoting eugenics through research and advocacy. He believed in the sterilization of individuals deemed unfit as a means of improving the genetic quality of the population. Popenoe’s views on eugenics influenced legislation and policies related to sterilization in several US states. Gosney was a philanthropist who played a significant role in promoting eugenics-based sterilization laws in California. He funded research into the hereditary aspects of mental illness and feeble-mindedness, believing that sterilization could prevent the transmission of undesirable traits to future generations. Gosney’s research, conducted through the Popenoe’s foundation, contributed to the development of California’s sterilization law, which was one of the most extensive in the United States, and became the model for other states. The law inspired the 1933 German eugenics law. (See Fred Sargeant’s article in Spiked! “The dark legacy of Magnus Hirschfeld.” Sergeant is a veteran of the 1969 Stonewall riots and one of the founders of the first Gay Pride marches in New York City.)

Medical abuse was rampant in the concentration camps, with patients used as subjects for training and experimentation, reflecting the broader dehumanization of individuals with mental illnesses under the Nazi regime. Although neglected by historians for years after the war, when attention was finally turned to the fate of homosexuals during this period the consciences of morally upright people were properly shocked. Nazis considered homosexuality as a threat to Aryan superiority and masculinity and sought to eradicate it through various means, including through medical experimentation. For example, medical experiments involving castration were performed on men at the Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany, at the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS. Doctors there also attempted to “cure” homosexuality by administering hormones to prisoners.

Several Nazi doctors were later tried for their crimes, most notably during the Doctors Trial, held at Nuremberg in 1946-1947. For example, Karl Brandt, Hitler’s personal physician and a key figure in the Aktion T4 program, was executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It’s worth noting that, from 1944 onward, Hirschfeld’s house surgeon Gohrbandt served as a member of the scientific advisory board under General Commissioner Karl Brandt for Sanitation and Health Services. The evidence indicates that Gohrbandt was involved in the planning of the “freezing experiments” conducted on prisoners at Dachau concentration camp. We know that, in October 1942, at the Deutscher Hog Hotel in Nuremberg, Gohrbandt was present at a clandestine conference where doctors and scientists delivered presentations on topics related to the freezing experiments. Gohrbandt himself published their findings in the journal Zentralblatt für Chirurgie in 1945.

The Nuremberg trials prosecuted twenty-three leading Nazi doctors and administrators for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Sixteen were found guilty, and seven were executed, highlighting the international community’s condemnation of their actions. The atrocities committed by Nazi doctors led to significant changes in medical ethics and human rights. The Nuremberg Code, established in 1947, set forth principles for ethical medical research, emphasizing voluntary and informed consent, scientific validity, and the imperative to avoid unnecessary suffering. These principles have profoundly influenced modern medical ethics, reinforcing the importance of prioritizing subject welfare and medical freedom. The legacy of Nazi medical practices underscores the need for robust protections for vulnerable populations. It has shaped contemporary human rights frameworks, ensuring that such abuses are not repeated. 

Whatever happened to Gohrbandt? In the aftermath of World War II, Gohrbandt, despite being a known war criminal, enjoyed acclaim in the post-war period. He continued his career in medicine and research, ascending to prominent positions within the medical field. He maintained his reputation as a skilled surgeon and made notable contributions to medical literature and research, earning recognition within academic circles. Despite his controversial past, he remained affiliated with prestigious medical institutions and organizations. He even enjoys a Wikipedia page, where he is identified as an associate of Hirschfeld’s and credited with pioneering vaginoplasty. You can see at the bottom of the page a list of his postwar honors. As Bill Hicks would put it: “Is life fucking weird or what?”

Critics of lobotomy highlighted the lack of robust scientific evidence supporting lobotomy’s efficacy and raised ethical issues related to its invasive character and irreversibility. They questioned the procedure’s long-term outcomes and warned of the significant cognitive and personality changes observed in many patients. These concerns were overshadowed by the immediate and visible improvements reported in some cases, which were heavily publicized and celebrated by proponents wielding the manufactured clout of the healthcare industry. This strategy works because of a religious-like faith wrapped around medical science and the physician, the modern-day shaman. One can write an identical paragraph concerning gender affirming care. The difference is only a matter of scale.

Faith in the system has only deepened in the years since the lobotomy, the result of a comprehensive decades-long corporate propaganda campaign (see, e.g., this 2022 Reuters’ piece typical of the genre), as profit -seeking has vastly expanded the industry, finding opportunity in the ubiquity of gender ideology and the historic rise in mental disorders in the West, developments the industry played a role in producing. Propaganda inducing vulnerable populations to loathe their bodies has been pressed into public education. The culture industry, corporate press, social media platforms, and the Democratic Party are relentless in pushing the techno-religious cult of gender identity. The startling fact of a historic rise of mental illness in America’s youth is sounding the alarm (see, e.g., social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation: How a Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness). 

As the medical community’s understanding of mental health and neurological science advanced, and the harm of lobotomy became obvious, the claims of the industry grew increasingly untenable. This is the story, anyway. Certainly, the growing awareness of the procedure’s severe side effects and the ethical issues surrounding its application played important roles in the reevaluation of its use. As noted earlier, the development of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other pharmacological products played a major role in replacing the practice. These generated far more profit than the lobotomy, which had by then become an office procedure. The horrific experiments of the Nazi doctors were brought to an end and Europe was denazified. However, medical abuses continued, e.g., in the long-running Tuskegee syphilis study (see my 2009 essay Jeremiah Wright and Suspicions About the Origin of AIDS), and in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, where experimental mRNA gene therapies were used on the population at large (see COVID-19 and the Corporate State; The Future of a Delusion: Mass Formation Psychosis and the Fetish of Corporate Statism; Biden’s Biofascist Regime). What will be the story when—if ever—faith-belief around gender affirming care gives way to the reality of medical atrocities?

* * *

I have been studying the history of medical abuse since the late 1980s, swept up in the subject almost as as soon as I had returned to college after a long hiatus from education. Peter Heller’s Medical Sociology class was a change of paradigm and the reason I became a sociologist. Robert Jay Lifton’s 1986 The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide was my scholarly introduction to the topic. This book provides a detailed examination of how medical professionals became involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust, including the euthanasia program and the experimentation conducted in concentration camps. Lifton explores the psychological and moral dimensions of how ordinary people, including doctors, became complicit in such heinous acts. Another book I recommend is Vivien Spitz’s 2005 Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans. This book focuses specifically on the medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors on concentration camp inmates during World War II and the subsequent efforts to hold the perpetrators accountable at Nuremberg. Spitz was a court reporter during the 1946 doctors trial.

The most important thing to determine was the natural order in which the sciences stand—not how they can be made to stand, but how they must stand, irrespective of the wishes of anyone…. This Comte accomplished by taking as the criterion of the position of each the degree of what he called “positivity,” which is simply the degree to which the phenomena can be exactly determined. This, as may be readily seen, is also a measure of their relative complexity, since the exactness of a science is in inverse proportion to its complexity. The degree of exactness or positivity is, moreover, that to which it can be subjected to mathematical demonstration, and therefore mathematics, which is not itself a concrete science, is the general gauge by which the position of every science is to be determined. Generalizing thus, Comte found that there were five great groups of phenomena of equal classificatory value but of successively decreasing positivity. To these, he gave the names: astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology. —Lester Ward (1898)

I have been thinking about this analytical model for quite a while, indeed, for years now, sketching it at the beginning of my Foundations of Social Research class to clarify scientific theory, and while I am confident others have thought about this matter in this way before, I have not seen it specified in precisely this way. So I have decided to publish it on Freedom and Reason as the “Four Domains of Reality.” August Comte attempted this more than two centuries ago; however, his was exclusive of the humanist element in the social sciences and he left out psychology.

In today’s essay I present a different model (or heuristic) to facilitate the exploration of reality with the understanding that scientific truth can best be reached through the lens of four interdependent domains: the physical, natural, social, and psychological. Each domain emerges from and builds upon the previous one, establishing a hierarchy of complexity, each successive domain qualitatively different where the fundamental properties of the substratum remain unchanged except where social activity changes them. The framework I outline here is how I mentally navigate the intricate web of existence, recognizing both the distinctiveness and interconnectedness of each realm. Each domain comes with concepts and theories abstracted from its facts, unified by a commitment to scientific materialism.

At the foundation of this structure lies the physical domain, encompassing the fundamental elements of the universe. This domain is governed by the immutable laws of physics and chemistry, including organic chemistry (which forms a bridge to the successive domain of natural history), dictating the behavior of matter and energy. Here, the basic building blocks of reality—molecules, atoms, and fundamental particles—interact in predictable ways, forming the substratum upon which all higher levels of reality are possible. The physical domain provides the essential groundwork for the emergence of the natural world, yet it remains indifferent to the complexities that arise within its successors. While there are many scientists who have contributed to our understanding in this domain, I will note here Albert Einstein, who formulated the special and general theories of relativity.

The natural domain encompasses the living world, wherein biological processes transform inert matter into life. This domain is characterized by the presence of organisms and ecosystems and their developmental and evolutionary dynamics. While rooted in the physical principles of energy and matter, the natural domain introduces a new level of complexity through the processes of growth, reproduction, and adaptation. Life forms, from the simplest bacteria to the most complex multicellular organisms, navigate their environments through complex biochemical interactions and push their genomes into the future through a myriad of reproductive strategies. Despite being anchored in the physical, the natural domain exhibits properties that are qualitatively distinct, such as homeostasis and metabolism, illustrating the principle of qualitative emergence. As with physics, there are several notable scientists, but the one who stands above the rest is Charles Darwin, as he identified the mechanism by which life changes over time with his theory of natural selection.

From the natural domain arises the behavioral-social domain, in sociology a realm shaped by the interactions and relationships among sentient beings. This domain is defined by the structures and systems that humans create to organize and understand their collective existence. Culture, institutions, language, and social norms form the bedrock of social reality, enabling individuals to coexist, communicate, and cooperate. While rooted in biological imperatives and natural instincts, the social domain transcends them, giving rise to complex societal constructs and collective consciousness. It is within this domain that human beings negotiate their identities, roles, and shared meanings, creating a tapestry of social relations that cannot be reduced to mere biological interactions. A notable sociologist working in this domain is George Herbert Mead.

Before moving on to the domain of the mental life, I need to clarify the concept of the “social”; traditionally limited to the human species (its origins n the Latin word socii, meaning “allies”), it arguably warrants a nuanced understanding. On one hand, the human capacity for self-reflection and complex communication gives rise to a social world that is distinctly advanced. This world is characterized by intricate cultural, political, and economic systems that are underpinned by our unique cognitive abilities and experience as a species. Humans, through language and abstract thinking, create and manipulate symbols, enabling a depth of social interaction unparalleled in the animal kingdom. This level of social complexity is shared by few other species, with perhaps exceptions such as other apes, dolphins, and whales, whose behaviors suggest a capacity for sophisticated social structures and self-awareness.

In contrast, the social existence of humans as well as non-human animals can be understood in a broader sense. Many animals, including those with less complex brains, exhibit social behaviors essential for survival and reproduction. These behaviors range from the coordinated hunting strategies of wolves to the intricate hive activities of bees. While these social systems might lack the self-reflective component seen in humans and some other mammals, they demonstrate an inherent social organization driven by evolutionary pressures. Thus, sociality in this context refers to the collective existence and interactions within a species, contributing to their reproductive success. For this reason, it is important to acknowledge that social behavior is not solely the domain of large-brained animals. Insects, for example, despite their lack of a proper brain, exhibit highly organized social structures. Ants and bees, through their complex colony systems, engage in cooperative behaviors that ensure the survival of their communities. These social interactions, though not reflective in the human sense, demonstrate a form of collective intelligence that is crucial for their functioning and adaptation.

So, while the concept of the social in, e.g, in the work in Max Weber, implies a certain level of cognitive sophistication, it might not fully capture the breadth of social behaviors observed across species; it may therefore be useful to differentiate between the types of social interactions. Human sociality, with its reflective and symbolic dimensions, stands apart from the more instinctual and survival-driven social behaviors seen in other animals. Recognizing this distinction allows for a deeper appreciation of the diverse ways in which life forms interact and organize themselves within their environments. At the same time, as Karl Marx argued, human beings, like many other animals, are intrinsically and necessarily social; humans organize to collectively meet their needs, relations that exist independently of their will, in the same way that the relations among other species do not depend on their subjectivity.

That said, it is important therefore to keep in mind two Marxian observations. The first is from Capital (volume one, part 3—omitted from Soviet editions): “We presuppose labor in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labor process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the laborer at its commencement.” Here, Marx is saying that, through socialization in a culture, a body of ideas, the architect inherits a symbolic system exists in the psychical domain, and this allows him to change the world intentionally.

The second observation to keep in mind is from the preface to the A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: “In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” Taken together, Marx is arguing that the structure raised in the imagination of the architect is a projection of his existence at a particular point in history in a particular type of social system.

The psychical domain emerges from the behavioral-social domain, but also the natural domain, since the human brain is a product of Darwinian evolution, representing the realm of individual consciousness and inner experience, all of which depends on the psychical for its electrical-chemical interactions. This is the mental life of our species. This domain encompasses the subjective aspects of human existence, that is cognition, emotion, and perception. Psychological phenomena, shaped by socialization and cultural context, possess an irreducible quality that distinguishes them from both the social structures and the biological substrates from which they arise. Consciousness is central to this domain, reflecting a level of complexity that challenges reductionist explanations. The psychological domain encapsulates the essence of what it means to be an individual, navigating the interplay between internal states and external realities. A major figure to note here is Sigmund Freud.

Each domain, while emergent from and grounded in its predecessor, maintains its unique characteristics and cannot be wholly explained by the principles governing the preceding levels. The physical domain sets the stage for the natural, which in turn provides the foundation for the social, culminating in the rich and intricate tapestry of the psychological, with direct relations from the natural to the psychological, substantially shaped by environmental experiences and symbolic communication. This hierarchical model underscores the principle of non-contradiction: no domain can violate the fundamental principles of the one it is rooted in but it can shape the substrata, in the case of humans intentionally. Physical laws remain inviolate within the natural world; biological imperatives persist within social constructs; and psychological phenomena, while distinct, do not contravene the social and natural conditions from which they emerge on modify it. For example, the current fashionable belief that a gender identity can exist that is incongruent with the gender of the organism is false because it stands in contradiction with the biological reality of gender in the human species, which is dimorphic and immutable. And while endocrinologists and surgeons can modify physiological processes and the appearance of secondary sex characteristics, these application of technology cannot change the subject’s gender.

The conceptualization or model of reality I have presented here is an attempt to offer a coherent basic framework for understanding the multifaceted nature of existence. It emphasizes the emergent properties and qualitative differences at each level while acknowledging the foundational continuity that links them. By recognizing the distinct yet interconnected nature of the physical, natural, social, and psychical domains, we gain a deeper appreciation for the complexity of the universe, our place within it, and how we think about it. This model encourages a holistic view of reality, one that respects the unique contributions of each domain while understanding the intricate dependencies that bind them together.

Here are a few strengths of the model: (1) Distinctiveness of each domain. By acknowledging the qualitative differences between domains, the argument avoids reductionism. This is particularly important in understanding phenomena like consciousness, which are difficult to explain solely in terms of lower-level processes. (2) Hierarchical structure and emergence. This feature captures the idea that complexity in the universe builds layer by layer, with each new layer introducing novel properties that cannot be fully reduced to the components of the previous layer. (3) Holistic perspective. The framework encourages a holistic view of reality, promoting an integrated understanding of how different aspects of existence relate to and depend on each other. This can be particularly valuable in interdisciplinary research and thinking. (4) Interconnectedness and non-contradiction. This feature of the model emphasizes that no domain can contradict the principles of the domain it is rooted in, providing a foundation for maintaining coherence across different levels of reality. This respects the integrity of each domain while recognizing their interdependence.

As with any system, and this is only a sketch here, there are areas in need of further clarification and exploration: (1) Clarification of boundaries. The distinctiveness of each domain is a strength, and it may be useful to further clarify the boundaries between them. For example, where exactly does the natural domain end and the social domain begin given instinct? I recognize that boundaries are sometimes context-dependent and fluid. (2) Dynamic nature of domains. Related to (1), these domains are not be static but rather dynamic and evolving. Detailing these processes add layers of complexity. For instance, how do changes in social structures influence psychological development over time? How might advancements in our understanding of one domain shift our understanding of another? (3) Examples and applications. Providing concrete examples of phenomena that exemplify the transitions between domains would help illustrate the argument more vividly. This would also demonstrate how this framework can be applied to real-world scenarios and point to directions in scientific inquiries. (4) Inter-domain interactions and potential theoretical/methodological incommensurabilities. While the argument touches on the interconnectedness of the domains, a deeper exploration of how they interact and influence each other would add depth. For instance, how do social factors influence psychological states, and vice versa? What are the feedback mechanisms between these domains?

I want to emphasize that this is a sketch of an argument I hope is promising for devising a compelling and useful way to grasp the complexity of reality through emergent domains, stressing the importance of domain-dependent methodologies (abstraction) and the possible cross-utility. This is the model, perhaps better pitched as a heuristic, that guides me in my study of reality. It balances the need for distinctiveness at each level with the necessity of coherence and non-contradiction across levels. To be sure, by exploring the boundaries, interactions, and dynamic nature of these domains further, the framework could be enriched, offering even more nuanced insights into the nature of existence, but as it is, it at the very least allows us to locate observed phenomena in various domains or across domains while avoiding explanations that suppose realities that contradict the domains out of which realities arise. Finally, as noted at the start, I don’t present this as an original way of thinking about reality, but having not seen it depicted this way (and this could be because of ignorance on my part), I wanted to share it with readers of Freedom and Reason to elicit feedback and insight.

An annual report from the Southern Poverty Law Center describes a burgeoning new form of Christian supremacy sweeping the country.https://t.co/DawS2jTm1S

— FFRF (@FFRF) June 5, 2024

FFRF is the acronym for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I am committed to the principle of secularism, which means as much freedom from religion as it means freedom of religion, so I am predisposed to support the FFRF. I oppose the flying of the Christian flag in public spaces. I oppose exposing children to Christian Nationalist propaganda. But if this and other groups are going to make the case against compulsory Christianity, as I have (see, e.g., Rise of the Domestic Clerical Fascist and the Specter of Christian Nationalism), and more broadly the imposition of religious and quasi religious faiths on citizens in their daily lives, as I have (see, e.g., The Tyranny of Narrowing the Range of Acceptable Opinion), and in the subversion of our civilization (see Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s essay “We Have Been Subverted” published yesterday in the Free Press), then they need to use credible sources. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is not a credible source.

I have penned several essays about the SPLC over the years (see Southern Poverty Law Center Defames Parents Invested in Safeguarding Children; The Irony of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Authoritarian Desire; Good Riddance: Teacher Fired for Indoctrinating Fifth Graders). However, as I demonstrated in my previous essay on Freedom and Reason, How to Detect a Ruling Class, if you want to understand an organization like the SPLC and wonder how it remains credible in the eyes of organizations like the FFRF when it goes after parents trying to free public schools from propagandistic materials and ideological curricula pushing gender and race ideology, just flip the scenario, by which I mean, take the other side. Flipping scenarios allow one to identify the principle at hand and expose the double standard at work. It’s a check on ideological thinking, a check desperately needed at a time where the target of progressive ideology is the very foundations of free conscience and thought.

Suppose a movement where Christian nationalist flags are hung on school walls and raised on campus flag poles. Suppose teachers, the desk and walls of their classrooms festooned with crosses and images of Jesus, encouraging students to ask them about their Christian faith. Imagine social and emotional learning circles in which each child is encouraged to talk about their faith, and those children identifying as Christian celebrated and love bombed. Imagine the classrooms and libraries full of Christian nationalist literature, with teachers assigning the text. Imagine story hours organized around Christian nationalist themes with clergy reading books to children. Liberals and progressives alike are horrified at the thought of such a situation—but for very different reasons, which I will come to in a moment.

Now suppose a right wing organization (give it whatever name you fancy) puts on its list of “extremists” an organized group of concerned parents who want the flags taken down, teachers to impart information and skills from a politically and ideologically neutral standpoint, children not made to feel ostracized because they don’t share the teacher’s faith, which is personal and involves family life not public education, to not be labeled a bigot for their deeply-held beliefs, libraries with materials designed to impart knowledge, not to groom children for induction in the Christian Nationalist movement, or even the desire to be a Christian (since not all families are and it is none of the teacher’s business), and public libraries that are open to people of all faiths—and to those with no faith at all (like me my entire life).

Does this right wing organization have any credibility in judging extremism? No, of course not. The organization is itself extremist! By labeling those who desire nothing more that the First Amendment rights of their family to be respected, the organization I have asked you to suppose is defending the imposition on children a political and ideological movement whose ubiquity already signals that Christian Nationalism has captured public schools and libraries. I don’t have to ask you to suppose the imposition on children of a political and ideological movement whose ubiquity already signals that it has captured not only public schools and libraries but public spaces everywhere. It’s June, an entire month devoted to Pride, the ideology of the LGBTQ movement, which puts central to its contemporary manifestations the neo-religion of gender ideology.

I will ask you suppose one more thing: an entire month devoted to Christian Nationalism. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Even harder to imagine the Democrat mayor of Green Bay raising the Christian flag in a ceremony flanked by Christians, right? If you saw such a thing you would try to wake yourself from the fever dream. It must be a dream. A nightmare! But if such a month did exist, and if those flag were raised, and if thousands of Christians marched in the streets of America, thrusting crosses and thumping bibles, proselytizing bystanders, it’s not at all hard to imagine the violent protests the Christian nationalists would meet in the street. Nor—if you know me—would if be hard to predict what I would be doing. I wouldn’t be marching in the Christian parade, because I am not a Christian, albeit I would defend the rights of Christians to peaceably assembly and express their opinion. I would not be among the progressive mob; their rantings and ravings representing nothing more than contemptible expressions of hypocrisy—their violent actions thuggery. I would instead be extolling the virtues of civil and human rights in the principled pages of Freedom and Reason.

I noted a moment ago that for very different reasons liberals and progressives alike are horrified at the thought of the such a situation. The liberal is horrified because the principles of free conscience, speech, and association are violated when any political or ideological agenda is shoved down the throats of children. Many of today’s conservatives have moved towards liberalism seeking the protection of principle because they have no power and modern conservatism is substantially liberal anyway (free market, limited government, private property). The progressive is horrified not because the principles of free conscience, speech, and association are being violated but because he, like the Christian extremist, has his own agenda he wants to shove down the throats of children. The progressive puts power over principle, appealing to principle only insofar as it creates room for its negation. This is because progressivism is corporatist not republican. Islam is like this, too. These are fascistic desires.

* * *

I cite above Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s essay “We Have Been Subverted.” I wanted to add a note here acknowledging that most of this argument I can be found on my blog (although I don’t like this term “cultural Marxism” because progressivism is not any form of Marxism). This is not to say that Ali cribbed her argument from my blog (although I would be flattered if she had). Rather it is to say that the facts and observations Ali makes are obvious—or would be obvious in a world unmolested the hegemony of the crazy ideas we refer to collectively as progressivism. Audiences are told that people like me have been red pilled, sucked into a vortex of extremism by algorithm. In my case, it’s mostly academics and their brainwashed acolytes who say this. During a recent intervention (I may post more about this soon), my views were described as “heterodox.” The assumption there is really telling. This is how bubblized the “folx” are at the university.

In reality the academy—along with the culture industry, the mainstream media, the Democratic Party—is the bubble of extremism. Not radical, mind you (I’m radical), extremist. Not because the bubble is at odds with what most people understand about the world, which is of course true, and common sense counts for a whole lot, but because it is fundamentally at odds with truth and principle. If the university were concerned about the principled pursuit of the truth, there would be no interventions except in cases where teacher denied students their right to articulate relevant positions at variance with those the teacher falsely believes represents the orthodoxy.

Think about it (here’s where common sense helps): the university is a place where there are people who not only state that men can be women, but a place where correcting that false statement can inspire a petition to get your fired and the university—which assumes as an official stance the truth of the falsehood, even putting its employees through training sessions to press it into their heads—won’t trouble itself to affirm in the moment its commitment to free speech and academic freedom. This example, which I am not alone in suffering, testifies to the subversion Ali writes about. The deck of her op-ed is essential to grasp (emphasis in original):“What is at stake in our ability to see the threat plainly? Nothing less than the preservation of our way of life.”

Imagine if one of Trump’s sons screwed his other son’s widow and lied on a federal form about his compulsive crack cocaine use, all while purchasing a hand gun, speed loader, and ammunition. That’s a felony. And the widow thing (wow). Imagine there’s a laptop that has video of the son with a prostitute tooting lines and engaging in gun play. Even more than this, the laptop has information on the father. There are emails in the trash bin. There might be some incriminating items in there. Now imagine the son is on trial and the prosecution introduces the laptop into evidence. What would your Google News feed look like right now? All this is happening right now. Be honest.

Ask yourself these questions: What government agents could Trump have counted on to take possession of his son’s laptop and conceal it during the campaign? Which high ranking intelligence officials could have been deployed to assert, in an open letter, on the basis of their authority and expertise, that the laptop looks like Russian disinformation? Could Trump have depended on Facebook, Youtube, and other social media platforms censoring and deplatforming every user, including media companies, attempting to share the story? Can Trump depend on the legacy media right now to prioritize other news stories over his son’s situation? How shall the media explain why is didn’t report on the laptop when it first knew about it? Why did the social media companies censor the story? And what about those intelligence officials?

If the inverse of the last eight years doesn’t seem plausible, indeed if it seems absurd (which you know it does), then you are confirming suspicions millions of Americans have that the administrative state, the culture industry, and the mass media are all pulling in the same direction. They are working for a side. The meaning of this is significant. It means that the dominant institutions of your society that you depend on for information, and that preserve your history and enrich your culture, are not truth seeking institutions, but a myth making apparatus that serves the interests of a ruling class, obviously one Trump betrayed. Do I need to say this? The ruling class is not you.

Betraying the class he ascended to would be the last thing Biden would ever do. He became one of them because of subservience to their needs, not because he did anything of significance. The ruling class needs cheap disposable labor. The ruling class needs to sell weapons and make war. It needs mass consumption. The ruling class needs to control the dominant institutions of our society. To make sure things run smoothly, the ruling class needs obedient servants, like Biden. Those who disobey, or who do not serve, or who might serve us, are marginalized and eliminated using various techniques. There is a universe of examples. Their marginalization and elimination will be framed in terms of “justice” and “saving democracy.” That’s how to detect a ruling class.

* * *

Hunter Biden’s laptop—the original device with hard drive intact—has been entered as evidence in court by prosecutors in his Delaware trial. Remember when you were told that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation during the 2020 election? Remember how CIA chiefs and top agents signed an open letter saying just that? The FBI had possession of the laptop in later November or early December 2019.They knew they were lying. Take this in. The intelligence community, the community that is supposed to protect our democracy, misled the public to thwart democracy. Take this in, as well: this is the same time frame as the first impeachment of Trump. Remember the phone call he made to Ukraine to find out what was going on between the Biden family and the Ukraine government? Trump was suspicious. And he was right to be.

On my blog, on December 19, 2019, I published an essay titled The Conspiracy to Overthrow an American President. I wrote there, “Hunter had accepted a board seat on Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, which gave the appearance of a political favor to Joe, who was at the time the Vice-President of the United States. Biden admitted to an audience during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that he threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless they fired a prosecutor he did not like.” In October of 2020, I published New York Post Drops a Bombshell on the Biden Campaign, in which I discussed the suppression of a New York Post article that “reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” Trump was right. That was a perfect phone call.

Democrats are off the chain. The Party is the tip of spear in remaking America in the image of the Third World. Today, absurdly, Attorney General Josh Kaul’s office in Dane County (a progressive swamp) filed charges against Kenneth Chesebro, James Troupis, and Michael Roman. The men, all Trump associates, are charged under a statute that criminalizes attempting to forge legal records or other public documents.

But these men didn’t forge legal records. The situation of Hawaii in the 1960 presidential election as their precedent, where Democrats and Republicans sent different slates of electors to Congress (Nixon declined to toss the Democrat slate and put the matter to Congress even though he had the authority to do this, thus handing the election to Kennedy), the Republican Party in some states named alternative electors in 2020. Wisconsin was one of them. Of all the states, Wisconsin, the state with the most evidence of rigging, had not certified its electors by the safe harbor deadline.

Under the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (quietly but radically revised in 2021), Pence, like Nixon, had the authority to include or exclude electors as he saw fit, which could be challenged by Congress. Members of Congress could in their own right raise objections to electors. This rhetoric of “fake electors” is propaganda. Putting it charitably, Pence had misunderstood the law (it appears he was misled by the attorneys around him). But other Republicans hadn’t (Gosar, Cruz, Perry, and Hawley) and raised objections—as had Democrats in 2004 (which I supported because of evidence of rigging in Ohio). The “insurrection” stopped the process of disputing certifications. (Far from keeping Trump in office, the events that day secured Biden’s victory.)

I voted for Evers in 2018 because of what Walker was doing to the UW system—my deep dive into gender ideology was a few years away (Democrats aggressively push the queer agenda throughout Wisconsin’s public institutions). It was during 2020 that Evers’ authoritarianism became obvious. He appears mild mannered; behind the visage is darkness. Now, emboldened by the Trump’s conviction in a kangaroo court in Lower Manhattan, his administration is engaged in lawfare against his party’s political enemies.

This is the third year the Pride Progress flag has been raised beside City Hall for the month of June. You can watch the ceremonial raising of the flag here. I wrote about this last year (see Flying Pride Again—Or Are They?)

The First Amendment was set down in writing as fundamental law because the founders of the American Republic extolled the Enlightenment values of freedom of association, conscience, and speech. By these lights, city hall should be a politically-ideologically neutral space. The city is violating the rights of its citizens.

Imagine if a conservative mayor flew the Christian nationalist flag. Or the RNC flag. Or the Appeal to Heaven flag. Or the Don’t Tread on Me flag. Would that be appropriate? I think the outrage would swiftly tell us it wasn’t (albeit probably not for the right reason).

The US flag flips on the pole because this is our country. The mayor could fly the state flag, if he chose to, just beneath the US flag, in deference to federalism; that would represent all citizens, as well. But the Pride Progress flag is not representative of the people of Green Bay. It is not the flag of my family and many other families and should not be flying over this or any other public space.

The Pride Progress flag is more than unrepresentative of Green Bay’s population; it is a distinctly divisive flag, polarizing people along lines of gender and race. It should not be flying here.

It’s insane that my rejection of something as insane as the belief that men can be women would even be a matter of contention—at an institution of higher learning who reason for existing is pursuit of the truth and defense of that pursuit. This individual puts the matter as I have put it in different words. That it is not Peter Boghossian’s hand that is front of her is the same quality of truth as the statement: “Trans women are men.”

I have been using George Orwell’s 2+2=5 example from Nineteen Eighty-Four. Gender ideology is 2+2=5. It’s the denial that this woman’s hand is in front of her face. It’s hokum. All of it. It’s a perversion of the truth. This means that the medical industry and the associations and regulatory bodies that manage the public’s perception concerning this matter are deceiving people for prestige and profit.

But it’s more than this. This is not merely the greatest medical scandal in history (indeed it is that); it proves we no longer live in a secular republic founded upon reason and science. This is why half of America, with a lot of smart people included in that number, agree that the verdict in Kafka’s The Trial is fair. They live in a post-truth world. And the scariest thing about this situation is that they want to live in this world.

Education is not the antidote to alienation. That’s because education is indoctrination. And that’s because our institutions have been captured by progressive ideology, beneath which lurks corporate power. The project to make America great again is indeed about reestablishing the great traditions of the Western past—traditions lost to postmodernist corruption.

So, as we navigate Pride month, let’s rededicate ourselves to the truths that gender is binary and immutable—and further recognize that these facts have to do with homosexuality in that denying them harms gay and lesbian people. Conversion is the process of changing or causing something to transition from one form to another, in this case to produce a simulated sexual identity. Trans is deceptive mimicry, mimicry designed to either deceive others or deceive oneself. Be a force multiplier in reestablishing mutual knowledge about scientific facts by conveying these truths, even if only in small groups or by sharing the content of others. If you must act in bad faith, then at a minimum don’t lie to yourself. At the very least, see what you see.

In July 2020, during the COVID19 pandemic, I received a typewritten anonymous letter with a fake return address from another state but actually postmarked as originating in the city I live in. It was somebody near me. I opened it in the backyard with my wife present. The letter was shot through with envy, hostility, and resentment. I have a few suspects in mind, but without a confession I will probably never know for sure. I figure that it had to be a man because there was so much rage in it. Frankly, I find it hard to imagine a woman being motivated to write such a letter whatever its tone.

The thing that bugged me about the letter, in addition to the fact that the contents indicated that it was somebody I had interacted with before, likely somebody I worked with, which is creepy, was that the author was upset because, according to him, I had become a right-winger. I had no way of responding to the charges.

I can guess about the things that marked me as having crossed the line. I criticize Islam. For progressives, that makes me “Islamophobic.” I oppose illegal immigration. That makes me “xenophobic.” I’m what they call “gender critical.” So I’m “transphobic.” Black Lives Matter and critical race theory? “Negrophobic” perhaps? (Don’t roll you eyes; that’s an actual term, archaic now, of course—as all these terms will be one day.)

None of these are right wing positions, as I have shown on the pages of Freedom and Reason. Irreligious criticism is central to leftwing thought. The OG of leftism, Karl Marx, spared no religion in his criticism of the painkiller. Christopher Hitchens, the celebrated leftwing essayist, was no less critical of Islam than I am. Hitchens worried as well about immigrants, his predictions prophetic in light of Europe’s current situation. Marx told his comrades that the British capitalist imported Irish labor to undermine the standing of the British proletariat. What Hitchens’ position would have been on gender ideology I can’t say; he died in 2011 before the emergence of that particular mass psychogenic illness. He was, as I am, pro-gay and lesbian, but that is a different matter. Marx’s admiration for Darwin and his notes on Lewis Morgan’s Ancient Society (worked up by Frederich Engels after Marx’s passing) make clear he would have had seen gender ideology for what it was: a neo-religion.

As for their views on race, except for his position on reparations assumed for the sake of an Oxford style debate, I detect no differences between Hitchens and myself. My dissertation was a Marxist analysis of the intersection of race and class and its association with patterns punishment over a five hundred year period, so I know something of Marx’s views here. He saw the oppression of racial groups as emergent from capitalist exploitation. Slavery in the United States was driven by economic interests. Colonialism, which involved the subjugation and exploitation of non-Europeans, was a tool of capitalist expansion. Racism was both a product of and a justification for colonial exploitation; racial and ethnic divisions were manipulated to maintain control and economic dominance. He argued—in a letter to Abraham Lincoln, no less—that capitalists used racism to divide workers, thereby preventing them from uniting against their common exploiters. He emphasized the need for workers of all races and nationalities to unite in the struggle against capitalism. I confirmed all of this in my work.

I am a feminist. Some might find Hitchens lacking in that department. Marx saw the oppression of women as intertwined with the capitalist system. Workers were exploited by capitalists, but women were doubly oppressed—both as workers and within the family structure. Marx and Engels commented on this in The Communist Manifest (I wrote the preface to the Clydesdale edition). In his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, based on Marx’s notes on Morgan, Friedrich Engels theorizes that the patriarchal family structure emerged alongside the rise of private property, linking women’s oppression directly to economic systems. Marx acknowledged the economic contributions of women, both in the workforce and in the domestic sphere. He saw women’s labor in the home as essential to the functioning of capitalism, although it was unpaid and undervalued. Marx supported the idea that women’s liberation was essential for the overall emancipation of humanity. Abolishing private ownership in capital promised to emancipate women from the patriarchal relations that have oppressed them over the centuries.

Since there are many sorts of feminism, let me tell you that I subscribe to what has been in the past called a “difference feminist,” as opposed to a “sameness feminist.” The difference between the genders are such that the pursuit of equality requires equity to ensure women are not disadvantaged in domains where men are stronger and faster. Overlapping distributions not withstanding, if we treat men and women the same, then we can not treat them equally. I am a staunch defender of reproductive freedom; men do not face the same circumstances that women do in this regard. I am opposed to strident gender roles (as the previous paragraphs should have made clear). I am also a gay liberationist, which is not to deny heteronormativity, but rather to say that homosexuals are entitled to the same rights as everybody else, including the right to marry. What do I care is a man loves a man?

Like Marx and Hitchens, I am an atheist and a secularist. I advocate freedom of conscience. People are free to believe what they will. People are free not to believe what they will. I believe in freedom of the press and speech. We are free to write and speak our thoughts and opinions. We are free to express our emotions. We are also free from having to write and speak and feel the way others wish us to. In the 1840s, Marx wrote several articles criticizing the Prussian government’s censorship policies (see his series of articles On the Freedom of the Press, published in 1842 in the Rheinische Zeitung. In these articles, Marx argued that freedom of the press was a necessary condition for political freedom and that censorship was inherently reactionary and counterproductive. Censorship, he argued, is a tool of the ruling class to maintain control and stifle dissent. Marx believed that free speech is essential for exposing injustices and for the development of a critical, informed public. Influenced by Enlightenment thinkers and early liberal ideas, Marx’s arguments for free speech are rooted in his broader philosophical beliefs about human freedom and the role of the state.

I am a strong proponent of freedom of association and assembly. People must be free to be with whom they wish and avoid those with whom they wish not to. They must be free to meet together to share ideas and challenge power. All these rights—and the right to conscience—are found together in a single article in the US Bill of Rights, the first one, and echoed in international covenants, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These are indeed human rights. They are functional to other rights. Secularism requires the exercise of speech critical of religious and religious-like ideology—and even of scientific claims. Marx held that free discourse is crucial for challenging and transforming oppressive social and economic structures by enabling those working from a materialist conception of history to announce their discoveries in the same way Darwin announced his. This is all purposeful, aligning with Marx’s emphasis on the importance of class consciousness and the need for workers to be able to discuss and critique their conditions openly.

I oppose concentrated power, whether it is corporate power or state power or religious power, and this is why we must have the freedom to speak freely and to criticize our betters. I dread the administered life, and being compelled to act in bad faith. Just as I am committed to a public life, I am committed to the individual’s right to privacy, to be left alone in his self and in his possessions, to be unmolested by the police without probable cause to suspect wrongdoing, to receive a fair trial, and to have means to defend himself in a court of law. To remain silent. I believe also in his right to self defense, and the defense of his home and innocents, and in the right to means to effect these ends.

None of these positions is rightwing even if some right-wingers advocate some of them. As I have always understood it, rightwing means believing that there is a natural hierarchical order to things natural and social. A right-winger believes some men are destined to rule over others, that there are betters and lessers. In his heart, he is an elitist. He believes in the patriarchy, the natural order of things gender-related where women are to dutifully assume their subordinate and natural role in society. He believes this also about those whose skin color differs from his. For him, human nature is aggressive and avaricious—but also lazy and in need of discipline. He is a romantic; deep down he pines for the days when kings and noblemen took their place on their thrones and estates, and those beneath them knew theirs. He sees in the captain of industry the sovereign’s analog. He likes war. And the penalty of death. He believes in God and devils. He wishes his worldview was everybody’s, so he doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state. He doesn’t believe in sexual freedom, either; homosexuality is unnatural, a perversion, contradicting God’s plan. He likes tradition. And obedience.

What we see in the progressive tendency is a lot of these rightwing characteristics, albeit often in sublimated form. The world progressives represent is the world of corporate statism, administrative rule, and technocratic control. They are the cleric for the corporate state. The rank-and-file reside in the professional-managerial class as academics, bureaucrats, cultural managers, and propagandists. Their roles are functional to capitalist power and profit; they have internalized neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Critical race and queer theories are embraced throughout the corporate structure and the institutions that perpetuate that structure, not because these are leftwing ideas, but because they are not. As Marx told us, they divide the working class. Identitarianism and its coding as diversity, equity, and inclusion is the new rightwing expression. As with the old racists, in opposition to individualism, or to class solidarity, progressives tribalize society and establish rules regulating human interaction—rules everybody is required to follow despite having never participated in their creation or consented to them. A myriad of oppressions not merely eclipse the class struggle, they undermine it.

With progressives, diversity is not diversity in belief and opinion, but to be found in the multiplicity of tribes, with some tribes more equal than others. Equity is not the equity of the difference feminism I described earlier, but the doctrine of equality of outcomes based on tribal averages, with some tribes more equal than others. Being inclusive is not tolerating difference, but excluding difference of opinion, censoring unauthorized thought—the very condition Marx condemned as manipulative and oppressive. Restricted thought is pressed into the brains of children. Education becomes indoctrination. In the progressive space, men are held to rightfully claim the personage of women, trespass upon their spaces, take advantage of their opportunities, and bathe in the accolades mean for them. In this space, safeguarding children becomes bigotry. The classical liberal values of the Enlightenment embraced by Marx and Hitchens are replaced by their opposite: postmodernist and technocratic reworkings of premodern mythologies and tyrannies. Progressivism is its opposite: regressive, its rituals atavistic—inquisitions, witch-finders, and all the rest of it.

Beneath the corporation and the professional-managerial class is the vast majority, the masses who build the structures, grow the food, deliver the goods, serve the customer, and fight the wars. To return to my political and moral commitments—they are to these people. This is my choice of comrades: The construction worker. The farmer. The factory worker. The day laborer. The shopkeeper. How are these commitments rightwing? I am committed to the pursuit of scientific truth. The truth cannot be bigoted. Why must I believe a lie for the sake of the true believer? Treating individuals as concrete personifications of abstract categories is fallacious. To say so is not racist. It’s the opposite. To say a white man is bad because he is white—that’s racist.

And what about nationalism? A republic is a political-juridical system that represents the interests of the citizen. The citizen is sovereign in a republic, not the monarch or an installed president teetering atop an unelected and unaccountable technocratic apparatus. A republic requires national integrity and a shared culture to serve a common purpose. It must define and secure its borders for the sake of the citizenry that has given its consent to be governed according to democratic and rational processes. This is called nationalism, and it’s not rightwing. Ask the colonized about their nationalist struggles. Find out what they believed. I’m confident that it wasn’t for the most part rightwing.

The leftwing standpoint presents with political and moral beliefs, opinions, and practices that generally advocate for substantive equality, individual justice, and the reduction of social hierarchies. Left-wingers advocate for measures that reduce economic disparities and improve the conditions of people, such as higher wages, safe working conditions, the right to unionize, and social security. Left-wingers argue for public ownership or regulation of key industries providing necessary goods and services (energy, sanitation, etc.). Education, housing, and access to food and medicine are major issues for the left. Left-winger advocate for civil rights, including the protection of minorities. This encompasses efforts to combat racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. Left-wingers emphasize the importance of environmental protection, prohibitions on habitat destruction, resource conservation, and sustainability. Left-wingers embrace liberal values, such as free speech, individual rights, and personal freedoms (if they don’t then they aren’t really leftwing). This includes a commitment to upholding democratic principles and protecting the rights of individuals to express their views openly without fear of repression. Left-wingers are committed to secularism and embrace a scientific worldview.

Those political and moral beliefs, opinions, and practices define me. I am not rightwing. And those who accuse me of this have either never learned or have forgotten what it means to be leftwing. Which is why they appear more like right-wingers than what they claim to be in their virtue signaling. You see it in the attacks on those who dissent from the woke progressive line. As readers of my blog know, a group of students on the campus where I teach circulated a petition this spring in which they sought signatures to affirm their demand that the university fire me. Many of these students portray themselves as leftwing. Many of them even claim to be Marxists. But this is impossible. One of the reasons they desire to see me terminated is because my views on gender are rooted in scientific materialism. They even reject the scientific view of gender in favor of the postmodernist tactic that reduces gender to a tautological definition to depathologize boundary transgressions. With this definition they advocate for men to trespass upon women’s spaces. How can such misogyny be leftwing? It can’t.

Import the Third World, become the Third World. That’s what we just saw. This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your…

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 30, 2024

I am less optimistic than Carlson. I wrote in response to a comment on my Facebook feed in the immediate aftermath of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the history of the American Republic: “The corporate-state slide from soft to hard fascism begins slowly—then accelerates exponentially. A people wake up one day and the hellscape a handful of them warned the rest about is upon them. We passed the Rubicon when charges were filed and cases taken up. There’s no going back to the way we were. We have to drive the authoritarians from their strongholds.”

“Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.” This is true. Charitably, people celebrating this verdict don’t understand the necessary conditions for the survival of a constitutional republic based upon classic liberal values. We’re following Rome’s path to demise—from republic to empire; but the devolution to the latter is more rapid in our case because it is intentional. Progressives don’t see it because they want it. They want technocracy and the administrative state. Either they hate or don’t understand America and what she represents to history or, before today (if forever who knows), what she will mean to the future of mankind.

Also, while the celebrants may claim to have read them, they never really read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four or Kafka’s The Trial. Yes, they may have read these warnings in the sense that their eyes scanned the pages and they wanted to look learned in front of their peers (or maybe it was a class assignment), but they didn’t comprehend what they were reading. To be sure, not everybody doesn’t understand; some have seen in these works the path to and the methods of Oz, the Great and Terrible—without the beneficence, of course. That flying monkeys are often sheep we knew when they dutifully put diapers on their faces and lined up to get jabbed with experimental mRNA products. But wolves wear the same clothing, so don’t be naïve.

Amid their jubilation, Democrats feign to have found great respect for the justice system. Remember how Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal was dismissed as an expression of racism (even though the victims were all white)? The Central Park Five? Ad nauseam. Do Democrats really expect everybody to forget how for year the Party has tirelessly endeavored to delegitimize the justice system or how they constantly run down the American Republic? They’re replacing 1776 with 1619 as the starting date. They’ve fashioned a new myth of original sin, smearing the nation that abolished the cruel legacy of a racialized slavery as founded in white supremacy. As they tell it, the country is illegitimate from inception. This is clear in their lack of reverence for the core institutions of our republic. They target Supreme Court justices from a desire to expand and entrench the administrative state—the unconstitutional, unelected, unaccountable fourth branch of government. That desire is totalitarian.

I am terribly distressed by all this. I knew it was here. I’ve been writing about it for years on Freedom and Reason. But to see the judicial system deployed for political purposes without the hopeful message a handful of New Yorkers might have sent to the authoritarians by doing the just and patriotic thing puts the threat to all our freedoms on another plane. They succeeded and millions are applauding. And Republicans have proven themselves ineffectual in stopping them. I posted elsewhere a variation on that Facebook comment: “We crossed the Rubicon when charges were filed and courts took them up. It’d be nice if these authoritarians made a whip for their own backs with these actions. But Republicans just lay there—even when you poke them with sticks. It’s what the establishment Republicans were hoping for anyway.” Then I changed my cover page to an upside-down United States flag.

Is there movement? “Republicans join Trump’s attacks on justice system and campaign of vengeance after guilty verdict,” an Associated Press headline reads. It’s made unclear to the reader that the piece is an editorial working as pro-regime propaganda. It’s filed under “Politics.” It can’t possibly be a news article. “The swift, strident and deepening commitment to Trump despite his felony conviction shows how fully Republican leaders and lawmakers have been infused with his unfounded grievances of a ‘rigged’ system and dangerous conspiracies of ‘weaponized’ government into their own attacks on President Joe Biden and the Democrats.” “Unfounded”? You’re not a serious person if you use this word in this context. The system is rigged and the government weaponized—it’s been found out and the conspiracy a matter of record. Denying the facts of rigging and weaponization is to admit one is untethered to reality. Or that one is a propagandist who deals in gaslights.

Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor under state law in New York. The state sets a two-year statute of limitations on the offense (New York law, CPL § 30.10(2)(a)). The charges in question had expired years earlier. That’s why employees in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office referred to the continued circulation of the charges as a “zombie case.” Various officials who looked at the case declined to prosecute—that was until Attorney General Merrick Garland deployed his number three at the Justice Department, Matthew Colangelo, to serve in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, had declined to prosecute the case. Even Bragg himself, who ran for office on a “get Trump” agenda, had declined to prosecute the case before the White House intervened. The House needs to bring all this out. Subpoenas should be flying.

Falsifying business records becomes a felony if performed to commit or conceal an underlying crime (known as a predicate crime). That is, some voodoo was needed to resurrect the charges. But when the inevitable guilty verdict was handed down, Trump wasn’t convicted of any underlying crime, since no underlying crime was ever specified. Rather, in Kafkaesque fashion, prosecutors conveyed to the jury (selected for their bias against the president) the crime of violating federal election law with a vague theory that Trump desired to appear more appealing to voters during the 2016 election by minimizing the distribution of negative information about him, i.e., the standard practice of impression management. No state prosecutor has ever charged anyone with such a predicate crime in the nation’s history. Prosecutors also insinuated two alternatives, both just as theoretically vague, something about falsification of additional documents and tax violations. The judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, told the jury that they didn’t have to all agree on which theory they preferred, just make sure the verdict was unanimous. (See former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig’s Intelligencer piece “Prosecutors Got Trump—But They Contorted the Law.”)

Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, is president of Authentic Campaigns, a Chicago-based progressive political consulting firm. Merchan’s top client is Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial. Also a client is the Senate Majority PAC, a major Democratic Party fundraiser. Judge Merchan himself donates to ActBlue, Progressive Turnout Project, and Stop Republicans. When Trump, along with many others, raised ethical concerns about what was obviously a conflict of interest, Merchan put in place a gag order punishing the president for continuing to talking to about the conflicted situation. The president, exercising his First Amendment right to free speech, a vital right for a criminal defendant facing the awesome power of the state, was fined several thousands of dollars and threatened with jail time.

Trump’s defense team was never informed as to nature of the accusations against him in advance of the trial. No predicate crime was identified in the indictment but instead developed over the course of the trial. In other words, they made it up as they went along, and even then it never materialized. There was no theory of the case. In New York State an indictment must be presented stating that there is sufficient evidence to bring a felony charge against the defendant and specify the charge to be prosecuted at trial. This requirement is found in the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. Add to this the First Amendment guarantee to free speech and press, and the Sixth Amendment guarantee that Trump had a right to a jury composed of impartial members drawn from the local community, as well as protection from convictions unless every element of the crime has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the same jury. How can a jury prove elements of a crime not specified in the charging documents, let alone never developed at trial?

I agree with those who say we need to highlight that every decision Judge Merchan made in the case that advantaged the prosecution, as well as the matter of his unconstitutional gagging of the defendant, but, more importantly, at its core, even if one accepts the theory that Trump violated federal election law, the case is unconstitutional—and not just because the defendant’s constitutional rights were violated; it should never have been brought because federal campaign finance violation or any other federal crimes lie outside Bragg’s jurisdiction as the district attorney of Manhattan. Such matters fall to federal prosecutors, not to local domains. That’s why the underlying crime was never specified; only a vague theory was offered to the jury to engineer a conviction so Democrats could campaign against a convicted felon.

Let’s make the political utility of the conviction even more obvious that it already is. The indictment listed 34 felony charges but never specified the crime Trump allegedly concealed. The 34 felony counts were misdemeanors arbitrarily elevated to felonies. Without specifying the underlying crime (actus reus—rendering absurd any attempt to establish mens rea), the court attempted to skirt the law while violating the principle of federalism in alluding to federal election violation. Any judge with only a little more integrity than Merchan would overturn this case on appeal for any or all the reasons identified in the foregoing. But Trump is unlikely to get any relief in New York State’s appellate system, which is just as corrupt as the Manhattan DA’s office. The case will have to go up to the Supreme Court (which may be packed by then having sidelined Trump). In the meantime, Democrats will be able to chant the number “34” to the delight of their brainwashed minions. With the documents and the Georgia election interference cases at a standstill, and the New York civil fraud trial only boosting his poll numbers, the “hush money” case was the best hope the Democrats had, and they secured their conviction.

I don’t want to get in the weeds on this, but it is worth noting that, without a case, Bragg and crew had to put on a circus. At the center of the negative information Trump allegedly suppressed is an unproven claim by porn actress Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) that she and the president had a consensual sexual encounter in 2006. The president denies the encounter, and in 2018 Daniels was ordered to pay $293,000 of Trump’s legal fees after her libel case against Trump was dismissed. She was later ordered to pay an additional $245,000 after her appeals failed. In other words, when Trump said he didn’t have sex with Clifford, she sued him for libel, and the court not only dismissed the case, but punished her for bringing it. Clifford’s efforts could be construed as an ongoing effort to extort money from Trump. The attorney who worked with Clifford on the NDA (nondisclosure agreements are a standard legal device used in impression management and the protection of information), adjudicated felon and serial perjurer Michael Cohen, to whom Trump paid legal fees, paid Clifford for her silence while he skimmed off the top tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, the NDA Cohen directed Clifford to sign in exchange for money was never signed by Trump. The prosecution put both Clifford and Cohen on the stand. The handpicked jury was apparently impressed by the spectacle.

Take time today to think about the Kafkaesque maneuver of elevating misdemeanors to felony status without either proving the underlying crime or showing that what was alleged was an even crime at all—while putting on the stand a porn actress whom a court ordered to pay the president more than half a million dollars in legal fees and a disgraced attorney who pocketed thousands of dollars from a presidential candidate in what looks like an extortion scheme. Take time to consider the constitutionality and fairness of a case alluding to the violation of federal election law tried in a local court in one of the most corrupt cities in America in which numerous constitutional rights were violated.

Putting this another way, and when you understand what happened here, if you are honest with yourself, you will see clearly the political motive behind it: because Trump allegedly attempted to minimize negative information about him that he reasonably expected would be used by the Clinton campaign and establishment media to appear more appealing to voters during the 2016 election, he committed the predicate crime of running for president with an intent to win. And because he won, and because he is on track to win again, he is the target of a lawfare campaign organized by the Democratic Party. That’s the real motive here. Trump won the presidency in 2016. The establishment denied him reelection in 2020. Had he ridden off into the sunset after January 20, 2021, none of this would be happening. But he didn’t, and the tens of millions of Americans at his back threaten the establishment’s hold on power.

The establishment also needs to rehabilitate Hillary Clinton’s unexpected defeat by manufacturing the perception that her repeated claims that 2016 was rigged are justified. X users are already suffering the obsessive tweeting about Clinton’s denied presidency. But it’s not just about rehabilitating her image (and possible future run). It’s about covering up the Democrat’s project to undermine Trump. The Obama White House, the Clinton campaign, and the FBI manufactured the Russian collusion case involving Trump (the Steele dossier, Crossfire Hurricane—classified files related to Crossfire Hurricane being the raison d’etat for the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in the foundering documents case). If they had only known about Clifford’s claim during the campaign (the story broke in 2018). All they had was “Grab ‘em by the pussy,” which Steve Bannon cleverly negated by bringing to the debates several of Bill Clinton’s rape victims.

The conviction in a Manhattan courtroom, in one of the most corrupt justice systems in America, confirms the reality and purpose of the various lawfare projects that many of us identified from the start. The establishment never thought Trump would win. They were terrified by what he might do as president, so they worked tirelessly to undermine his presidency, with considerable success. They’re even more terrified about the prospect of a second Trump presidency. A second term, this time with a clear plan to deconstruct the administrative state (Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Project), is a clear and present danger to the globalist project of managed decline—mass immigration, power projection abroad (NATO expansion and war with Russia), entrenchment of the technocratic apparatus and accompanying ideology (progressivism), and perpetuation of the deep state.

In the 1960s, documented by the Church Committee hearings in the 1970s, these same forces discredited and neutralized politicians and leaders who threatened their goals. They defamed and even assassinated their enemies. Today, they use disinformation (Russia collusion, a phone call to Zelensky, an insurrection nobody has been charged with) and lawfare (impeding ballot access, impeachment, zombie cases, show trials) to undermine a presidency. The hoaxes and lawfare are dutifully dissimulated by academics, cultural managers, and establishment journalists. Trump derangement syndrome is so pervasive that those who should know better are cheering on the fascistic state tactics of the establishment.

The Democratic Party and their surrogates are telling everybody that Trump and the “MAGA extremists” (slur your words and you’ll have Biden’s mantra) are delegitimizing the judicial system by condemning the verdict. But the delegitimation of American institutions is not because millions of Americans are calling bullshit on what was clearly a show trial worthy of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, of the People’s Republic of China. The delegitimation is occurring because those institutions have been captured by forces who use the machinery of what’s supposed to be a system of justice as a weapon against their political enemies. Meanwhile, when it comes to the real and serious crimes that affect ordinary Americans every day, especially those living in urban spaces, those same forces sabotage the machinery and people die. The only conclusion I can come to is that these forces hate American and intend to replace it with a tyranny. And that, comrades, is why our fathers were revolutionaries.

Jamie Raskin and people like him are a threat to the existence of an independent judiciary (read his op-ed in The New York Times here). Protecting the integrity of the Court is how a people secure the stability of a constitutional republic over time. Disqualifying judges, eliminating tenure, and imposing ethical rules derived from the ideology of political parties rather than the emergent logic of the law rooted in a rights-based approach politicizes the judiciary. More than any power of government, the judiciary in a common law system must remain independent. That the Court makes decisions Democrats don’t like is hardly a good reason to undermine the independence of the judiciary. On the contrary—it’s the worst reason.

On a practical level, the attitude makes a whip for its advocates’ own back. If ever there is a conservative government in place that lasts for any period of time, Raskin and his ilk will sorely miss the progressive judges who were tossed by the conservative majority the first chance they got. Raskin’s argument is drunk on a period where progressivism runs the administrative state and the White House. That may not be a permanent situation. His argument is a lot like a majority religious persuasion wishing to impose its faith based doctrine on the people; those advocating its hegemony will sorely miss religious liberty when another religious persuasion dethrones it.

But Democrats think like authoritarians and know they control the administrative apparatus. Raskin wants the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland to intervene and collude with the other judges to take out Alito and Thomas so that Democratic Party wishes will have a better chance before the Court. This is not only action politicizing the judiciary; it’s also election interference. The Democrats already crossed the Rubicon by waging lawfare against a former president. We are already hearing threats from the other side that they will do the same. Imagine if partisan Attorney Generals on the other side when in power determine which judges are not impartial and remove them the bench for selected cases.

I’d like to think Raskin is just a fool on the hill. But there are many fools on the Hill. More than fools, though—they’re authoritarian. Progressivism is truly a totalitarian mindset. You can see the spirit at work in the ubiquitous presence of the double standard. Progressives want Alito to muzzle his wife. The clip to which Steve Bannon and Mark Paoletta refer in the clip below finds Melissa Murray (NYU law professor) complaining to Joy Reid about the hypocrisy of a jurist who overturned a 1970s ruling on abortion that even Ruth Bader Ginsberg said was a bad ruling failing to control his wife. Alito had responded to Senators Richard Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse’s request that he recuse himself in cases pending before him in a letter by reminding them: “My wife is a private citizen, and she possesses the same First Amendment rights as every other American. She makes her own decisions, and I have always respected her right to do so.” (For more, see Would it Be Better if Judge Alito Appealed to Hell? See also Politicizing the Court and More Reductio ad Hitlerum.)

Bannon jokes with Senior Fellow at @amrenewctr @MarkPaoletta on the WarRoom that MSNBC want “A Handmaid’s Tale” to be real life because they are baffled about how Justice Alito and Justice Thomas don’t control that actions and opinions of their wives. pic.twitter.com/McMLujz5QZ

— VISH BURRA 🏴‍☠️ (@VishBurra) May 30, 2024

Speaking of hypocrisy, what’s up with this?

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There is a 19-year-old Florida man who is facing felony charges for peeling out on the Pride Progress flag mural—his tire marks washed away by sunlight and rain. Dylan Brewer, 19, of Clearwater, turned himself into the Delray Beach Police Department yesterday. The incident took place around 8:30 pm on February 4 at the intersection of Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue. The flag needs repainting anyway because, as all road paint fades and peels. Moreover, there are new tread marks on the flag (Brewer is not alone in finding the flag objectionable. Any man in a truck peeling out on that flag might commit some misdemeanor, ordinance, etc. (noise, perhaps), but the idea that this is a felony or (effectively) a hate crime is ludicrous.

While you may think it petty, peeling out on the flag is an expression of dissent. Does the dissent originate in antipathy towards gender ideology? Perhaps. But not necessarily. And there’s nothing wrong with antipathy toward gender ideology. It is wrong to use taxpayer money to paint the Pride Progress flag murals on public streets. It’s the same wrong as painting BLM flag murals on public streets or murals of Saint George Floyd of Fentanyl with angel wings on public buildings. Public spaces should remain politically and ideological neutral spaces. Get this nonsense out of our public schools and libraries. Get it off our police cars. Stop flying these flags over government buildings. To compel people who travel public roads or enter public buildings or whatever to receive propaganda messages on a daily basis violates the First Amendment. We don’t live in North Korea. (For the record, I said the same thing about Louisiana to become first state requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in schools. “When Muslims take over a state, what’s to stop them from posting the five pillars of Islam in public schools? This is a people making a whip for their own backs—and ours.”)

Here’s an idea for progressive elites: how about going after the robbers and thieves preying on flesh and blood human beings instead of those dissenting from the mainstreaming of paraphilias by marring the symbols of a neo-religion that don’t belong in public spaces in the first place? We know why they won’t: neither public safety nor freedom of conscience concern them in the least.

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The Biden campaign is making something of Trump’s alleged racism. So the GOP is making something of Biden’s long and unambiguous record of expressing racist sentiment. It’s hard to think of any politician in the modern era who is more racist than Joe Biden—especially judged by the lights of progressive ideology. Racist beliefs are intrinsic to Biden’s belief system. It’s the way he ticks. The most disgusting expression of this is in the way he sees black people as his lackeys.

At the same time, he reflects the general attitude of progressives towards race. When Biden said that any black man who doesn’t vote for him isn’t black, anybody who pays even the least bit of attention to such things recognized that attitude in the way progressives talk about Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and every other black man wo strays from the plantation.

When Barak Obama was running for president in 2008 I had a colleague who remarked to me during lunch at convocation something like, “You in particular must be really excited to vote for the first black man for president.” As the professor on campus who taught race and ethnic relations and who had spoken publicly numerous times on racial issues, my reputation as a civil rights advocate was well known. She was of course referring to Obama, who I was not voting for. I responded with, “You mean Alan Keyes?” To say that she was taken aback is an understatement—she never talked to me again. Alan Keyes isn’t really a black man, you see—by the lights of progressive ideology. (Look up Alan Keyes. Look into his 2008 presidential campaign. Is he black?)

Joe Biden’s problematic racism over the years. Here are 7 minutes and 30 seconds of Joe Biden being racist. Joe Biden has always been a problem. Agree? pic.twitter.com/KjrPP1sPAE

— DEL (@delinthecity_) May 16, 2024

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Finally, I have yet another example of the problem of inaccuracy and imprecision in language. In this example, former president Ronald Reagan misrepresents the terms “conservative” and “liberal.” He also errs in defining fascism. So you know what I am referring to, here’s an accessible clip:

‘If fascism ever comes to America, It will come in the name of liberalism’ – Ronald Reagan 1975

How prophetic that statement was… @skamaraj32 pic.twitter.com/ZwtstNbTU4

— UN (@UshaNirmala) February 15, 2022

As he describes it, what Reagan presents as conservatism is actually liberalism. Liberalism is about limiting government to maximize individual freedom. To be sure, today’s conservatives are substantially liberal, but conservatism still comes with the desire to control people’s minds and bodies, so it quite doesn’t work as a synonym. What Reagan presents as liberalism is actually progressivism, again, as he describes it. Progressivism advocates private control over capital with government regulation of people for the sake of corporate power and profit (he leaves this piece out of his definition of fascism). Progressivism is the ideology of the corporate state, which comes in soft and hard fascist versions, all of which are self-evidently antithetical to liberalism.

The disappointing thing about this is that, at this time, Reagan knew this and blew an opportunity to explain to the people the meaning of the words elites use to confuse the people. Given his communication skills and populist sensibilities this would have been of great benefit. Progressives tagged their standpoint “liberal” to disguise the establishment and entrenchment of the corporate state over against democratic republicanism. Because citizens rightly see progressivism and the technocratic apparatus it animates as freedom-stealing, liberalism misused as euphemism caused the word to take on bad connotations (which Rush Limbaugh’s daily three-hour rants pressed into the public consciousness); meanwhile progressivism became confused with populism to appeal to justice-loving people to trick them into supporting soft fascism.

I have people tell me all the time that words change meaning. But what they actually mean to say is that is that words change usage, including misuse for propagandistic purposes. Liberalism is not like a political party, e.g., the Republican Party, that starts off as a populist abolitionist party and then becomes a part of the corporate state establishment. Liberalism is a word referring to a set of principles. If you do not believe in the principles, then you are not a liberal. You don’t get to carry the label with you when you leave the principles. It’s like Christianity—there are only so many tenets of the faith you can abandon before you are no longer one. If we are not clear on the meaning of words, then cannot have meaningful communications. This is why I am so stubborn about using the right words to accurately convey ideas. (See The Problem of the Weakly Principled; Gender and the English Language; Manipulating Reality by Manipulating Words; Linguistic Programming: A Tool of Tyrants.)