Author: The FAR Platform

Yesterday, a federal judge barred President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in California for law-enforcement actions, including arrests and crowd control. (See Quelling the Rebellion.)

The ruling was issued by Clinton appointee Charles Breyer, a senior US district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. (Charles is the younger brother of Stephen Breyer, who served as a justice of the US Supreme Court from 1994 to 2022.)

Judge Breyer cited the Posse Comitatus Act as justification for his ruling. Let’s talk about that law.

The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878 by a Democrat-controlled Congress after the end of Reconstruction. It was designed to sharply limit the federal government’s ability to use the Army for domestic law enforcement. But why would Democrats at the time want to do that?

This came in the wake of the Compromise of 1877, when federal troops were withdrawn from the South. The law reflected the desire of Southern Democrats to prevent the federal government from deploying soldiers to enforce federal law within the states.

During Reconstruction, federal troops had been deployed to protect freedmen, uphold voting rights, and defend Republican-led governments from violent “Redeemer” resistance. By restricting the use of federal troops, the Posse Comitatus Act effectively made it much harder for Washington to protect black citizens from violence, intimidation, and disenfranchisement during Redemption.

The results were devastating. Lynchings and other forms of racial violence soared (see Agency and Motive in Lynching and Genocide). Black families were driven from their homes, their property seized by white mobs (see my review of Marcos Williams’ documentary Banished). At the polls, Black men were met with terror and intimidation that destroyed their right to vote for generations.

This law is a relic—and it’s time for it to be struck down. Take this ruling to the Supreme Court and have the Posse Comitatus Act finally ruled unconstitutional. Let’s return to the original intent of Article I, Section 8, and fully restore the powers granted under Article II of the Constitution. (See Concerning the Powers of The US Constitution—And Those Defying Them.)

We need to stop the rise of neoconfederate resistance in these blue states. If left unchecked, this escalating defiance will drive the nation closer to conflict. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. We settled the question of “states’ rights” once by war. Let’s settle the question this time in peace. (See On the Road to Civil War: The Democratic Party’s Regression into Neoconfederacy.)

I’m straight. My sexual orientation is part of who I am. It’s not political. Even if I thought it was—and some people do—and I raised a Straight Pride flag at my house, I would still oppose the government painting Straight Pride colors on a public crosswalk. (I recognize that a version of the Straight Pride flag looks like a neutral crosswalk on an asphalt road. But that is a coincidence.) The government should not endorse my politics, even if the majority wanted it to. Not everyone shares my politics. Why would anyone who believes in the First Amendment want the government to impose their politics on everyone else by painting a crosswalk in Straight Pride colors?

What flag I fly at my house, what symbol I wear on a hat or T-shirt, or what patch I sew onto my backpack—that’s my business. That’s my right as a citizen of a country that protects free expression. If I want to stick an “In this house, we believe…” sign in my yard, I can. (I wouldn’t, but I could.) And if the government tried to stop me, I’d tell them to back off. That’s my First Amendment right.

I can paint a Confederate flag on my car. I can wear a Christian cross around my neck. I can even tattoo a swastika on my forehead. But the government can’t raise a Confederate, Christian, or Nazi flag over the courthouse. It can only fly flags that represent all of us—the US flag and the state flag. Those are inclusive symbols. They belong to everyone: straight and gay, black and white, young and old.

That’s why flying a Straight Pride flag at my house is fundamentally different from the government flying one. I’d object to a Straight Pride crosswalk not because there’s anything wrong with being straight (though, let’s be honest, Straight Pride is a little weird) but because exclusive flags are political. And the government should not endorse political movements—whether they’re gay, straight, white power, black power, or anything else. For the same reason, the Black Lives Matter slogan should never have been painted on public streets—even if most people agreed with the sentiment. (And they don’t.)

I don’t have to be politically neutral. In fact, I’m very political—just not about Straight Pride. But the government is not a citizen. It doesn’t have a right to free speech. Its role is to represent everyone, not to endorse particular political ideologies.

Think of the government like my classroom. My students and I can express our political opinions freely, without fear of punishment (unfortunately, not all professors run their classrooms this way). But I would never plaster my classroom with symbols of my personal politics—not if I respect the First Amendment. That’s why I’m baffled that we’ve normalized public school classrooms being decorated with political movement symbols. That should trouble anyone who values neutrality in public spaces.

I’m honestly astonished that this point isn’t obvious—or welcomed. My argument protects everyone’s right not to stand on public property that’s been co-opted to express a political view they don’t share (or even if they do). Yet, just for saying this on X, people are calling me anti-gay. Nonsense. I’ve supported the gay rights movement since I first became politically aware. That’s not the point. People ask if I complained when Confederate flags flew on public buildings. Hell yes, I did. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve always wanted state governments to change those flags—to design symbols that represent everyone.

Some object that being gay is not an ideology or a politics. But queer is. There’s a crucial difference between being gay—a sexual orientation, a way of being, a matter of who you love—and being queer. Anyone can express queer politics on their own property or person, and that’s their right. But the government should never endorse queer politics. Whether I personally agree with it or not is irrelevant. It’s not the government’s role.

As I said on my platform Saturday, those who insist on commandeering public spaces by having the government endorse their politics are standing on ground that is antithetical to liberty. They reveal an authoritarian mentality—an unwillingness to allow others the freedom to move in politically neutral spaces. Wear a Pride Progress flag T-shirt crossing a public street? Fine. I’ll tolerate your expression. But I shouldn’t have to walk across a street painted in Pride Progress colors. That street belongs to me, too.

This same authoritarian impulse drives demands that public employees adopt the language and doctrines of queer politics—using preferred pronouns, affirming certain identities—under threat of punishment. When the government compels me to affirm a particular ideology, I am no longer free. That is compelled speech. And when my tax dollars are used to paint a crosswalk in the colors of a political movement, I am being forced to fund a political message I may not agree with—one I may have no choice but to walk across.

It is not anti-gay to demand political neutrality in public spaces. But it is discriminatory to use government resources to push one political message over others. People say, “But Andy, how bad is it to walk over those colors? You’re overreacting.” No. I take the First Amendment seriously—and everyone else should, too. Just think about your own freedom. If the political winds shift and a movement you abhor paints its colors on our crosswalks, you won’t have room to object since, before the shift, you insisted on your colors in that space. No movement colors in those spaces ever, and you will command the higher ground.

Floyd Mayweather is unquestionably one of the best fighters of his era. His defensive genius, ring IQ, and ability to adapt to any opponent cement his place in boxing history. In terms of ring generalship, he was one of the finest practitioners of the sweet sport in history. High-profile struggles notwithstanding, Mayweather commanded his space. His pristine 50-0 record is impressive, but it should not be mistaken for the ultimate benchmark for boxing greatness. Numbers, after all, tell only part of the story.

Julio César Chávez was undefeated in his first 87 fights before tasting defeat. Had Chávez retired before his draw to Pernell Whitaker, his perfect record would have dwarfed Mayweather’s. Would that make him better than Mayweather? Not for that reason alone. What makes Chávez great is that he took on the best of his era when they were in their primes: Ruben Castillo, Rocky Lockridge, Juan LaPorte, Edwin Rosario, José Luis Ramírez, Hector Camacho, Meldrick Taylor, and many others. Chavez had the most total world title bouts (37) and the most title-fight victories (31) of any boxer in history. Chavez is a truly legendary fighter.

Featherweight Willie Pep won his first 62 bouts before losing to lightweight Sammy Angott (he bit off more than he could chew), only to string together another remarkable run of 72 victories. Willie Pep won the world featherweight title in 1942, beginning what would become one of boxing’s most celebrated careers. He successfully defended the title multiple times, showcasing his unmatched defensive skill and agility. He accomplished this against remarkable odds. In January 1947, during his first reign as champion, Pep survived a serious plane crash in New Jersey that left him with fractures to his back and leg. They never thought he would box again. Remarkably, he recovered and returned to the ring later that year to defend his title. Pep eventually lost the championship to Sandy Saddler (an all-time great in his own right) in 1948, ending his first reign, but demonstrated his resilience by regaining the title in 1949, outboxing the tall and dangerous Saddler in a dazzling display of boxing prowess.

Sugar Ray Robinson, widely regarded as the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all time (that is certainly my opinion), won his first 40 fights, suffered a loss to middleweight Jake LaMotta (Robinson was a welterweight at the time), and then embarked on a staggering 91-fight unbeaten stretch, capturing the World Middleweight Title by stopping LaMotta in the 13th round. Before this, Robinson had held the World Welterweight Title for many years with several successful title defenses, including a 15-round decision against future world champion Kid Gavilan. After beating LaMotta, Robinson would go on to win the middleweight championship four more times, posting victories over Randy Turpin, Rocky Graziano, Gene Fullmer, and Carmen Basilio.

These fighters—Pep, Robinson, and many other great fighters of the past—fought more often, frequently against elite competition, and in multiple weight divisions without the careful matchmaking that defined much of Mayweather’s later career.

The mystique of Mayweather’s 50-0 record owes much to Rocky Marciano. Marciano retired at 49-0, an unbeaten heavyweight champion in an era when retiring undefeated was almost unheard of. Marciano fans pin the greatness of their fighter on his unblemished record. That number became something of a sacred benchmark in boxing, a measuring stick for perfection. Marcino’s grit, determination, and high knockout percentage added to the legend of the Brockton Blockbuster. When Larry Holmes came close to eclipsing Marciano’s record in the 1980s—only to lose to Michael Spinks in his 49th fight—the mythology surrounding that number grew even stronger. Holmes didn’t help with his bitter remarks at the post-fight press conference. Holmes became a heel in the public mind.

Mayweather’s eventual 50th win, over UFC star Conor McGregor in what was more spectacle than sport, felt like a symbolic breaking of a curse. But the fetishization of “the zero” overlooks the nuances of competition and risk: it is far easier to remain unbeaten when opponents are handpicked and activity levels are lower, as opposed to the relentless schedules faced by fighters of previous generations.

Even within Mayweather’s spotless record, the claim of perfection carries caveats. His first fight against José Luis Castillo in 2002 is still debated. Many observers scored the bout for Castillo, arguing that Mayweather was outworked and outlanded. The official decision went to Mayweather, but it was hardly decisive. I had Castillo winning, in fact. The scorecards for that fight—a resounding unanimous decision for Mayweather—were obscene. Mayweather won the rematch, but no one can take Castillo’s performance in that first fight away from him. To my mind, Mayweather is not undefeated.

Mayweather’s 2007 split-decision victory over Oscar De La Hoya was close, and while Mayweather’s defensive skill was on display, some ringside experts felt the fight could have gone the other way. That was my feeling on fight night. Even his mega-fight with Manny Pacquiao in 2015, though a clear unanimous-decision win on the cards, was closer and less dominant than the scorecards suggested. Mayweather benefited from a lot of charity from judges over his career. The charity of judges towards Ray Leonard mars his legacy in mind, to cite another case. Mayweather wasn’t the first golden boy in boxing. Many argue that Muhammad Ali enjoyed charity in some of his bouts, as well.

None of this diminishes Mayweather’s brilliance. He is a generational talent and a master of his craft. His defensive skills were on the level of Pernell Whitaker (though not quite at the level of Willie Pep). But when Mayweather proclaims himself “The Best Ever,” the history books invite a more tempered judgment. True greatness in boxing is measured not just by perfection on paper but by the depth, frequency, and audacity of the challenges faced—and by that measure, Mayweather, for all his genius, stands a step below the legends who built their legacies the hard way.

I’m not sure where I would put Mayweather in my all-time rankings, but he certainly wouldn’t be in my top ten. My top ten: Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Roberto Duran, Muhammad Ali, Pep, Sandy Saddler, Chavez, Marvin Hagler, Roy Jones, and Salvador Sanchez. There are others that push Mayweather out of the next several slots.

The matter of the President’s use of the National Guard should not be misunderstood. There is a great deal of bluster from the neoconfederates of today’s Democratic Party about the President’s so-called “power grab.” Governors like Newsom and Pritzker, along with numerous Blue City mayors, are misinforming the public about the Constitution and the powers of the federal government.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress several powers related to the militia: it authorizes Congress to call forth the militia to enforce federal laws, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. One complaint I have about Donald Trump’s first term is that the President did not use the National Guard more aggressively during the George Floyd riots. 

Article I, Section 8 also gives Congress the power to organize, arm, and discipline the militia, while leaving the appointment of officers and the training of the militia to individual states, subject to federal standards. When not deployed by the federal government, state governments retain control over the National Guard.

Under Article II, the President serves as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, including state militias when called into federal service—authority he possesses explicitly. This power allows the President to direct the militias during times of war, national emergencies, or when federal law must be enforced.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution (the Bill of Rights) is closely tied to Article I, Section 8, as well as Article II. It addresses the concept of a citizen militia and the balance of power between the federal government and the states.

As noted, Article I gives Congress the authority to organize, arm, and regulate the militia; Article II gives the President the authority to command those forces; and the Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms as a safeguard for the security of a free state. Together, Article I, Article II, and the Second Amendment reflect the Founders’ intent to maintain a well-regulated militia that can be mobilized for defense and other purposes, while preventing the federal government from disarming the populace.

What about Posse Comitatus? The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is a federal law that generally prohibits the use of the US Army and, by later extension, the Air Force, to execute domestic laws—except where explicitly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. It was later extended to include the Navy and Marine Corps through Department of Defense regulations, but the law itself primarily applies to the Army and Air Force.

The idea behind the law was to prevent the military from acting as a domestic police force after Reconstruction, when federal troops had been used in the South to enforce civil rights and suppress rebellions. This law was secured by the Democrats to thwart the Union’s efforts to protect newly freed slaves, while advancing the cause of black liberation. In other words, it was a move to limit federal authority to allow Redemptionists to continue their program of racist terrorism.

Today’s Democrats are not only defying the authority of Articles I and II, but they are also seeking to negate the Second Amendment by disarming the populace. They do this by treating guns as if they have agency, when in truth guns are merely tools—effective means for self-defense and the defense of the homeland (among other purposes, such as hunting and sport).

Militias are not moribund, as we are often told. Over time, through legislative acts and reforms, state militias evolved into what is now the National Guard. The Militia Act of 1903 formally organized state militias into the National Guard, integrating them more closely with the federal military structure while preserving limited state authority. Subsequent laws, such as the National Defense Act of 1916, expanded federal oversight by providing equipment, funding, and training, and required Guardsmen to meet regular Army standards.

This transformation modernized the militia concept, creating a flexible force that serves both state and national interests. It did not abolish the militias or the powers of Articles I and II, nor did it cancel the Second Amendment; rather, it clarified and strengthened the foundational law of the Republic.

Thus, when the President, under his Article II powers, calls forth the National Guard to enforce federal laws, suppress insurrections, or repel invasions, he is acting fully within the scope of the Constitution. This is not a “power grab.” It is a legitimate exercise of authority granted to the President by the Constitution—the contract between the people and the government to establish a more perfect Union.

From where does federal authority derive? Beyond natural law, the power of the federal government over state governments is enshrined in the Supremacy Clause, found in Article VI, Clause 2 of the US Constitution. It establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land.”

This means that when state laws conflict with federal laws, powers, or constitutional provisions, federal law and power prevail. The Supremacy Clause ensures a unified legal system across the country, preventing states from undermining national authority. Otherwise, we would be a loose confederacy—an arrangement the Constitution explicitly abolished when it superseded the Articles of Confederation. The Supreme Court has consistently reinforced the principle of national supremacy, emphasizing that states cannot interfere with or contradict valid exercises of federal power.

The neoconfederates of today’s Democratic Party are defying the Supremacy Clause not because they do not appreciate the power it gives the President—they relish that power. They are defying federal supremacy now because they do not like the current President.

The same holds true for the federal judiciary, its judges refusing to stay in their lane. Like Democrat governors and mayors, rogue judges are thwarting federal policies because Trump is President. They are engaged in judicial insurrection.

Article III of the Constitution creates only one court—the Supreme Court—and that Court has no enforcement power, as powers are separated by the Constitution. Every federal court below the Supreme Court is created by Congress, funded by Congress, and subject to Congressional oversight and discipline. The power of the federal judiciary is a new development in American history. The Founders were very concerned about this possibility. 

The rhetoric about “three coequal branches” of government is misleading. Nowhere in the Constitution is this phrase used. Nowhere in the Constitution is the judiciary given explicit power of judicial review beyond the Supreme Court. That power was later recognized by the Supreme Court in Marbury v Madison (1803), a highly problematic precedent.

Thomas Jefferson and other Republicans at the founding and in the early years of the Republic were deeply concerned about the unchained power of the judiciary, particularly the potential for even the Supreme Court to become too strong and override the will of the people and their elected representatives. Jefferson feared that judicial review could allow unelected judges to nullify laws passed by Congress or actions taken by the President, upsetting the balance of power among the branches. He warned that this could create an oligarchy of lawyers, with life-tenured justices dominating both the Legislative and Executive branches.

This fear was well-founded. Marbury v Madison tilled the soil for the growth of a judicocracy—panels of judges who could thwart the popular will. The Republic is fundamentally a representative democracy, answerable to the people. The Founders understood the peril of an all-powerful judiciary. The Supreme Court has much work to do in cleaning up precedent in this area, but Congress can act today by defunding and reorganizing the judiciary.

What about “states’ rights”? This matter was settled in the 1860s, when breakaway states under the control of the slaveholding Democratic Party, which had organized themselves into a sovereign confederation, surrendered on the battlefield and rejoined the Union, each required to provide their citizens with a republic form of government. 

Crucially, in resolving this question, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were not violated. Yet another myth has been constructed around these amendments. 

The Ninth Amendment safeguards unenumerated rights—those not explicitly listed in the Constitution. It declares that listing certain rights should not be interpreted to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people. This amendment addresses the scope of individual liberties, not “states’ rights.” States have not rights, only powers, and these powers are delegated to them by the people and the Constitution. 

The Tenth Amendment reinforces federalism by stating that powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or the people. While, to be sure, it was intended to limit federal authority and protect state sovereignty, the federal government remains supreme under the Constitution. The Civil War, costly as it was, clarified this principle once and for all. It is a shame that three-quarters of a million or more lives were lost settling that issue. 

Together, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments underscore the Founders’ vision of a government with limited powers, protecting both individual freedoms and state autonomy within the federal system. They do not give states the power to thwart legitimate actions by the federal government.

What we are seeing today are state governments and a runaway judiciary claiming powers they were never intended to possess. We have a President asserting the authority of his office to bring renegade governors and judges to heel, as Abraham Lincoln did before him. President Trump is a republican in the truest sense of the term. He is not an authoritarian dictator seeking more power than he possesses; he is reestablishing the authority the Constitution bestows upon his office.

Folks are hyperventilating over on X because cities are removing Pride colors from crosswalks.

This isn’t about being anti-Pride—it’s about the First Amendment.

The First Amendment forbids the government from endorsing any particular ideology or social movement. That’s what the clauses on conscience, speech, and the press are all about.

Public spaces are neutral spaces, where no one should be compelled to participate in speech or expression they disagree with.

You can’t have freedom of belief or expression unless you also have freedom from government-endorsed belief or expression.

I thought that was obvious. Apparently not.

Someone told me I hadn’t read the First Amendment. Not only have I read it—I understand it.

So I asked a few rhetorical questions:

“Would you want to see the Confederate flag painted on the sidewalks you walk every day?”

“How about the Ten Commandments plastered on public school buildings?”

“Or anti-LGBTQ slogans bolted to the courthouse door in your city?”

The point of protecting free conscience, speech, and writing isn’t whether you agree with the symbols displayed on public property. It’s about recognizing the principle of personal liberty.

The government shouldn’t paint the Confederate flag on crosswalks—not because it’s offensive, but because it amounts to government endorsement of a particular ideology. The First Amendment forbids that.

If a citizen wants to walk across the street wearing a T-shirt with a Confederate flag, that’s his right. Have at it, Hoss.

If he paints that flag on a public building, it’s vandalism. Arrest him, fine him, make him clean up the mess.

If the government paints the flag, that’s a violation of the First Amendment.

This isn’t difficult to understand if you start from the principle of liberty.

So why do some people want Pride colors painted on crosswalks? Because they’re not liberty-minded—they’re authoritarian-minded. They want the government to impose a particular ideology.

In doing so, as Christopher Hitchens warned years ago, they’re making a rod for their own backs.

The New York Post (founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton) published a disturbing article yesterday: “Minneapolis gunman Robin Westman blamed massacre on mom warning him not to change gender.”

Robert (aka Robin) Westman wrote in his journal:

“I remember one day, she said something like, ‘In the future you will look back and feel ridiculous about who you feel like you are inside. You will regret this.’”

His mother was right.

Westman said this made him want to kill children. Let that sink in: his mother telling him the truth—offering sound, grounded parenting—became, in his mind, justification for mass murder. Even while admitting he should never have gone down that path, and warning others against it, this was his response to parental correction.

See how this ideology works? The mother refuses to lie, so the son kills children. This warped logic mirrors the emotional blackmail often employed by trans activists, where suicide threats are wielded to enforce compliance with a warped worldview.

But those trapped in this delusion—given meaning by radical gender ideology, indeed generated by it—aren’t the only ones deploying this tactic. The queer activist sphere and the profit-driven medical industry that mutilates bodies have adopted the same coercive logic. And now, grotesquely, we see child murder used as leverage to demand affirmation of a sick ideology.

This is what I warned about Thursday in Alliance of Death Cults: The Rise of Lethal Misanthropy in the West (see also The Terrorist Embodies the Ideology in Reality).

Yesterday on Facebook and X, I posted an analogy to illustrate the emerging mindset in queer praxis:

Instead of condemning Islamic terrorism every time a Muslim kills people, we need to respond with love and acceptance. Those who oppose Islam are responsible for the terrorism. Islam is a religion of peace. We provoke them by rejecting their way of life.
We would have fewer victims of Islamic terrorism if we affirmed the teachings of Muhammad and changed our laws to reflect his tenets. That’s all they want: for the rest of us to embrace their worldview. We must teach our children that Islam is a wonderful way to see the world—and ask them whether they might want to become Muslim themselves. We should fly the Star and Crescent over City Hall and paint elaborate geometric designs on our crosswalks. This is how we should deal with Islamic terrorism: by recognizing our role in causing mass shootings and suicide bombings. Because, really, it’s our fault. We’re the bigots.

It’s less an analogy than a parallel. Anti-Western sentiment and self-loathing underpin woke progressivism. It’s the frame and the shuttle of the loom weaving together anti-human ideologies. The endgame of progressivism isn’t just the overthrow of the American republic—it is the dismantling of the Enlightenment itself, replaced with the nihilism of transhumanism: a religious fervor that denies reality.

We are now in the terroristic phase of a neo-religion. Authorities hid Audrey (aka Aiden) Hale’s manifesto because they needed more time to normalize the ideology. Westman’s approach—releasing so much on the Internet—did not allow the authorities to memoryhole his crime and the motive.

Shame on everybody who enables this pathology. It’s madness. Denying the madness goes to judgment. If one believes in the doctrine of gender identity, one’s judgment on everything is suspect. If he’s right about anything, it’s accidental; he is simply repeating a truth he’s heard from an authority he obeys, just as he repeats the lies that authority tells him. He does not obey reason.

Deep down, almost everyone knows Westman was a man. Likewise, almost everybody knows Hale was a woman. Some reporters avoid pronouns altogether, terrified of what will happen if they use the “wrong” ones—their linguistic contortions are, at this point, almost comical. Others knowingly use the wrong pronouns out of fear. And still others insist on the wrong pronouns because they’re loyal to a movement that demands lies over truth.

Westman was a man. Hale was a woman. Both were psychopaths who killed children because they embraced a hateful, anti-human ideology—the same ideology that demands we all participate in the lie.

There’s no transcultural or transhistorical way for a male or a female to appear. This is not about how a person dresses or whether he wears makeup or whatever. It’s about the demand that society affirm the delusion that a person can be the gender he is not and cannot be—and making them out to be the enemy when they don’t.

The West is a free society because we don’t have to believe ridiculous things. We shouldn’t have to live in fear over our refusal to participate in a mythology about gender, a god, or anything else. Children shouldn’t have to die for the cause of a neo-religion.

It’s not resistance to radical gender ideology that’s responsible for the death of children. It’s not guns, either. It’s the collective act of embracing a deranged worldview that endangers them.

During his campaigns and presidency, Donald Trump has emphasize a “law and order” approach, focusing on supporting police, increasing funding for law enforcement, and taking a tough stance on crime and civil unrest. His rhetoric, as well as others in his administration, frames civil disturbances as challenges to public safety, while highlighting the need for stricter enforcement of laws. The Trump approach has drawn both support from those prioritizing security and criticism from those concerned about policing practices and racial justice implications. However, the criticisms are not merely misplaced, but largely hail from an left-political standpoint corrupted by critical race theory. Those advocating the standpoint purport to speak for a community that is far from monolithic.

While I was in graduate school at the University of Tennessee, Randall Kennedy, a left-liberal law professor at Harvard, published Race, Crime, and the Law (1997). This book impacted my understanding of the problem I was tackling in my dissertation, Caste, Class, and Justice: Segregation, Accumulation, and Criminalization in the United States, which concerned the problem of the racialization of the criminal law and its enforcement. (Kennedy is the author of several books, including his 2002 Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. Troubling, and often comically, Kennedy faced restrictions on citing the title while on tour promoting the book.)

While much public attention has focused on police misconduct, biased prosecutions, and unfair sentencing, Kennedy argues that these are only part of the picture. He contends that a deeper and more pervasive injustice is what he terms “racially selective underprotection.” In his words, “blacks have suffered more from being left unprotected or underprotected by law enforcement authorities than from being mistreated as suspects or defendants.” (In a January 2024 essay, Ever Wonder What Progressives are Trying to Accomplish with Their Social Policies?, I argue that the systematic underprotection of blacks in America’s cities is not accidental.)

For this position, Kennedy was heavily criticized by those who were socializing critical race theory (CRT) at the time. CRT is an ideology that sees enforcement of the criminal law through the lens of “systemic racism.” With this concept, public safety was interpreted as racially-motivated government oppression. CRT advocates saw Kennedy’s commitment to colorblindness—that is, equal treatment before the law regardless of race—as a betrayal of the black movement, rooted in New Left politics, to define social relations primarily in terms of race. They needed Kennedy on their side, they lamented, but he was getting in their way. (Kennedy analyzes this phenomenon in his Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, published in 2008.)

Yet Kennedy’s argument in Race, Crime, and the Law is compelling and backed by a mountain of evidence. He documents that black Americans are “doubly victimized” by crime—first by the offenders who prey disproportionately on black communities, and second by the legal system’s neglect in providing them equal protection. As he puts it, “the principal injury suffered by African Americans in relation to criminal matters is not overenforcement but underenforcement of the laws” (emphasis mine). This observation reframes the debate: the problem is not only that black citizens are policed too harshly in some contexts (Kennedy admits there are problems here), but also that they are too often abandoned when they most need protection.

By highlighting this imbalance, Kennedy urges a broader conception of racial justice—one that demands not just fair treatment of black defendants, but also adequate protection of black neighborhoods. His argument is what inspires my moral assertion that public safety is a human right. Kennedy’s thesis thus challenges reformers to balance concerns about over-policing with the pressing need to address crime and insecurity in neighborhoods that have historically been underserved by law enforcement.

Given the hysteria surrounding Trump’s program of enhancing law and order in America’s crime-ridden inner cities, a program that has yielded positive results in Washington, DC, yet has been resisted by Democrat leaders in California, Illinois, and other blue states, it appears that Kennedy’s critics won the argument on the left. Thus, one finds, despite Kennedy’s left-liberal bona fides, his arguments routinely portrayed as conservative. His friendly criticisms of affirmative action and DEI, crucial for finally realizing America’s foundational principle of equal treatment, have made him a frequent target for the black Brahmin class I identified in my essay, The Mark of Progressive Racism: The Infantilization of the Black Proletariat, published earlier this week.

The progressive media establishment is growing ever more desperate in the project to keep as many foreigners in the United States as possible and signal to the corporate elites who exploit foreign labor to drive down the standard of living for American workers and undermine the integrity of their communities its commitment to open borders. Every day, the mainstream media proclaims its subservience to the party of mass immigration and the moneyed interests that party represents.

In his rant yesterday evening, Chris Hayes of MSDNC lectured his audience, “We’re an interconnected society of humans who depend on each other to survive and thrive, and there’s not some neat line you can cleave between America and foreigners. We just have neighbors and communities.” This is the standard transnationalist line. It skirts the line known as borders. Borders are as neat or as messy as those in power want them to be. The globalists thrive on messy borders. Civilization depends on neat ones.

Hayes’s lecture was prompted by the situation at Bear Gulch, where—the public is told—US Border Patrol agents arrested two firefighters who were battling the Bear Gulch fire in the Olympic National Forest in Washington. The men are being held in a facility in Bellingham. This is a false narrative.

Here’s what actually happened: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) conducted a criminal investigation and, based on its findings, terminated contracts with two companies assisting in the firefighting efforts—ASI Arden Solutions Inc and Table Rock Forestry Inc.

Following that decision, BLM requested that Border Patrol verify the identities of forty-four crew members. Agents determined that two of them were in the US illegally, with one under a previous order of removal. Both individuals were arrested and transported to the Bellingham Station.

The arrests occurred during an ID check—not in the middle of active firefighting operations. By that point, the BLM had already ended the contracts for those crews, meaning they would have been removed from the operation regardless. The remaining forty-two crew members were dismissed from the site because their contracts had been voided, not because they were detained by Border Patrol.

It’s important to understand that propaganda narratives distort these events. One’s default should be that the mainstream media is lying. From there, determine what the true facts are. Being in the country illegally does not exempt anyone from legal consequences. Draping illegal aliens in heroism doesn’t provide immunity from the rule of law.

But Senator Patty Murray of Washington is pushing the propaganda line with gusto, even drawing parallels to immigrant service members. But if soldiers are in the country unlawfully, why should they be exempt from standard enforcement actions? Call the bluff. Stand for the rule of law. Illegal immigrants have to go.

I found an article today: “Mental Health Diagnoses among Transgender Patients in the Clinical Setting: An All-Payer Electronic Health Record Study,” published in Transgender Health. Transgender Health is a peer-reviewed specialty journal recognized in the field.

The study “performed a cross-sectional analysis of the prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses among transgender patients in clinical care using an all-payer electronic health record database.” The population sample was large—60 million patients nationwide.

The researchers found that “58% (n=5,940) of transgender patients had at least one psychiatric diagnosis, compared with 13.6% (n=7,311,780) in the control patient population.” The study concluded: “Transgender patients had a statistically significant increase in prevalence for all psychiatric diagnoses queried, with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder being the most common diagnoses (31% and 12%, respectively).”

Think about that: a journal in the field of transgender health published a 2019 study showing a high rate of psychiatric illness among a majority of trans-identifying patients. This wasn’t a red flag?

And this isn’t the only red flag.

In 2016, Project LifeSkills (JAMA Pediatrics) found that, among 298 young transgender women (ages 16–29), 41.5% had at least one psychiatric diagnosis, and 20.1% had two or more—high rates of mood disorders, PTSD, and more. (“≥” means one or more.)

A 2022 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that transgender and gender-diverse individuals averaged 3.54 psychiatric diagnoses, including borderline personality disorder and PTSD.

A 2016 article in the French journal Encéphale reported that 32–44% of children and teens in gender identity clinics had co-occurring disorders.

Some studies report that as many as 85% of trans-identifying individuals have one or more psychiatric disorders.

If the DSM (the American psychiatric manual) had not removed “gender identity disorder,” then 100 percent of such patients would still be identified as having at least one psychiatric disorder.

The French study noted that psychiatric comorbidities are more common in male-to-female transsexuals (a term now eschewed by the industry). It added: “Data on long-term mortality show that transsexuals present a 51% increase in mortality compared to the general population. This is mainly attributed to a six-fold increase in suicides.”

The authors concluded: “Transgender individuals suffer from more psychiatric pathologies compared to the general population. This may be due to social and familial discrimination and ostracism. These results demonstrate the vulnerability of this population. An awareness program for mental health professionals is essential to adapt care to the specific needs of this population. A list of ‘non-transphobic’ mental health professionals should be established.”

“This may be due to social and familial discrimination and ostracism.” This emotional blackmail used by trans activists and the medical industry to shame those who doubt or deny the possibility that a person cannot be born in the wrong body.

This is what happens when ideology captures a profession and corrupts it. What should be treated as a psychiatric matter has been redefined as a “way of being” and normalized. The cause of self-harm is attributed not to the disorder, but to those who refuse to affirm a delusion.

And the ideological capture isn’t limited to psychiatry. Endocrinology has also been taken over, with “gender-affirming care” reclassified as “endocrine disorders” to bypass insurance restrictions and deceive states that have limited these practices.

Surgery, too, has been captured—healthy breasts amputated, penises inverted, flesh from arms used to construct faux phalluses. These procedures routinely create lifelong medical patients. More money for the industry. (I will spare you the pictures, but you can easily find them by performing a Google search. Try these search terms: “phalloplasty”; “vaginoplasty.”)

What should be a healthcare field has become an ideologically driven, profit-generating industry.

To call this stituation tragic is an extreme understatement.

The latest devastating news from the Minneapolis shooting: Robert Westman wrote in his notebook that he was no longer comfortable identifying as trans and regretted convincing himself he was a woman. (That this story remains at the top of the Google news index—and the manifesto was publicly released—suggests that the political terrain is changing. Let’s hope so.)

He isn’t alive to blame himself anymore. But others are still here—and should be asking what they did. Westman surely had a lot of help in sustaining that delusion. His parents didn’t help; his own mother accompanied him to court to petition for a legal name and sex change.

This is the power of mass psychogenic illness. One of its consequences is children murdered in pews as they attend Mass.

Secretary Robert Kennedy and HHS need to stop this madness, launch a full review of these practices, and hold accountable those who organized and participated in this industry.

We need a public Nuremberg-style tribunal—a “Doctors’ Trial 2.0.” The public deserves to know everything.

For the record, HIPAA—the 1996 US federal law that protects sensitive patient health information (PHI)—was never meant to shield doctors who harm patients or engage in misconduct. Authorities need to release the relevant information. Parents need to understand what a scam this is.

We also need a complete overhaul of public education. Purge these institutions of radical gender ideology. Administrators, counselors, and teachers are grooming these kids.

A great many people who are dead today would still be alive if society had not gone down this path. We said “Never again” after the Holocaust. What in the hell happened?

I don’t do this for my emotional well-being. The more I dig, the worse it is for my mood. But we have to talk about this. I’m just one person. I will do what I can.

Reflecting on yesterday’s events (see The Terrorist Embodies the Ideology in Reality), I recognize that the mass shooting perpetrated by Robert Westman—a man who identified as a woman—is one of those situations in which progressives struggle to place blame squarely on conservatives, deflecting responsibility for fostering an environment where death cults thrive.

Predictably, there’s already renewed talk of gun control, reviving the familiar narrative that conservatives, by defending the Second Amendment, are somehow to blame. But that explanation—dulled by overuse and burdened by an obvious ulterior motive—misses, often intentionally, the deeper issue: radical gender ideology, and the cultural forces sustaining it, fueled the Minneapolis shooting and the other tragedies I document later in this essay. Efforts to redirect attention toward gun control can only distract from the problem of ideology for so long. Increasingly, Americans are awakening to the problem of transgender identification and the psychiatric-industrial complex—and the larger institutional framework—that normalizes it.

It occurred to me last night that activists within the trans movement who rely on emotional blackmail—namely, the familiar claim that failing to affirm their ideology leads to suicide—may soon make a narrative shift. That emotional tactic could evolve into a darker ultimatum, one already suggested by the violence of so-called trans martyrs: that refusing to affirm the ideology will lead not only to self-harm but also to violence against others. In effect, we could see the persistent threat that characterizes Islamic terrorism—the logic of the suicide bomber—emerge in this context.

Such a shift would project responsibility for violence outward, onto those who reject the ideology, as if dissent had provoked it. Just as many in the West now self-censor out of fear of offending Islam, Americans may soon keep quiet to protect themselves and their families from ideological retaliation.

This scenario is not difficult to imagine. We already see members of the public instinctively cower in the presence of mentally ill individuals behaving menacingly. Such fear is rational: while some people remain oblivious, many are attuned to their natural inclination to sense danger—a survival mechanism that triggers the fight, flight, or freeze response. Terrorism depends on this instinct to control others, knowing that many will flee or freeze, particularly when told to “show compassion” toward those with mental illness and avoid upsetting them.

We don’t need speculation to see that radical gender ideology is drifting toward a form of ideological extremism. Take the slogan “Queers for Palestine.” Whether viewed as a meme, a political slogan, or a rallying cry, it initially strikes many as absurd. But the phrase makes sense when one recognizes that “queer” is not merely (or really at all for many gays and lesbians) a reference to sexual orientation but to a broader ideological framework. What I—and an increasing number of others—call radical gender ideology is the belief that gender is fluid and can be changed at will. Because this belief runs counter to established science and common sense, and because it incorporates elements of faith and myth, it functions as a religion. From an anthropological perspective, it is, in fact, a species of religion.

As a religion, radical gender ideology bears striking similarities to Islam. Within the belief system, the transgender individual occupies a sacred position akin to that of the martyr in Islam. Not every Muslim is a martyr; the martyr is the one who kills and dies for the faith. But the martyr reflects the best of the faith. Likewise, the religion of gender identity already has its martyrs—those who harm themselves or, in extreme cases, others, as seen in the tragic events in Minneapolis.

Such incidents are not isolated. They are symptomatic of a broader cultural pathology deeply intertwined with a nihilistic strain of transhumanism. This worldview, reflecting profound self-loathing and misanthropy, rejects humanity itself. It explains why the Minneapolis shooter’s manifesto—released yesterday—read like a catalog of alienation and rage: alienation from society and rage directed at Christians and Jews. Investigators may claim they are still searching for a motive, but the motive is plainly in view.

Trans leftist accounts all over social media are celebrating the shooting and killing of children at the Minneapolis church by a trans gunman. They believe it is revenge against Christianity and the Trump administration for not allowing transitioning children, and defining sex as… https://t.co/owfZ3XCLD5

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) August 28, 2025

My concern about this potential narrative shift is not hypothetical. Today, trans activists are celebrating Westman’s actions, framing the attack as justified revenge against those who fail or refuse to affirm radical gender ideology. Andy Ngo reported on X: “Trans leftist accounts all over social media are celebrating the shooting and killing of children at the Minneapolis church by a trans gunman. They believe it is revenge against Christianity and the Trump administration for not allowing transitioning [of] children, and defining sex as biological.” Just as criticism of Islam provokes its martyrs to kill, criticism of gender ideology increasingly provokes its adherents to violence. It is an easy step for terrorists to blame the victim. Indeed, it is inherent in the motive to kill.

Today’s killing of Christian children at a church in Minneapolis occurred in the context of a surge in far-left trans propaganda encouraging Trantifa and other leftists to take up arms to kill transphobes and “fascists.”

Their targets: Christians and conservatives.

I have been… pic.twitter.com/BtwwMrG6WB

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) August 27, 2025

The alliance between these movements is not limited to a slogan that many dismiss as ironic. Look closely at the shooter’s writings: invocations of Mohamed Atta, appeals to the will of Allah, and symbolic homages to jihadist violence. These elements, explicitly referenced, make the slogan “Queers for Palestine”—and the sight of queer activists marching in solidarity with jihadists—not just comprehensible but chilling. Substitute the transgender individual with the Islamic fundamentalist—the suicide bomber seeking transcendence through martyrdom—and the parallels are stark. We have entered a new phase of movement politics.

It is crucial to recognize that Islam, like radical gender ideology, is not merely a religion but also a political project aimed at reshaping society. Both seek to impose their doctrines, transform Western institutions and culture, and enforce ideological conformity through coercion—legal, social, and physical. Both are hostile to free speech, demand the adoption of their language, and enjoy widespread support from the progressive establishment.

Yesterday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said: “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity.” He added: “We should not be operating out of a place of hate.” We have heard the same refrain countless times after Islamist terrorist attacks: “Don’t blame all Muslims for the acts of a few.” But public concern about Islamic terrorism is not about individual Muslims; it’s about the ideology. The same is true in the radical gender ideology case. Condemning those who question radical gender ideology by accusing them of “villainizing the community” is a tactic to stifle criticism and protect a favored ideology.

Robert Westman acted out of hate, driven by a warped worldview embedded in the nihilism of transhumanism—beliefs shared by many progressives who now feign shock at the consequences. “Kids died today,” Frey said. He should be more precise: Kids were killed—killed by a man motivated by an ideology that city leaders, activists, and cultural elites promote and normalize. Guns do not shoot themselves; people act on ideas. This is what anarchists call “propaganda of the deed.”

The human mind is a pattern-recognition machine, honed by evolution to make sense of threats. But that machine requires data—instantiations—to detect patterns. And because mainstream media obscures these events, individuals must seek the data themselves. Here are five cases where I can confirm that the perpetrators were part of the trans movement.

• In 2018, in Aberdeen, Maryland, Snochia Moseley, an employee at a Rite Aid distribution center, shot and killed three people before dying by suicide. Moseley was a man identifying as a woman, reportedly struggling with mental illness and turmoil over his gender identity.
• In 2019, in Denver, Colorado, at STEM School Highlands Ranch, Maya McKinney, a girl identifying as a boy named “Alec,” joined another student in an attack that injured several. McKinney claimed bullying over her gender identity and expressed a desire for peers to “experience bad things” similar to her trauma.
• In 2022, in Colorado Springs, at Club Q, Anderson Lee Aldrich, who identified as non-binary and used “they/them” pronouns, killed five people and injured nineteen before pleading guilty to federal hate crime charges.
• In 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Covenant School, Audrey Hale, a woman identifying as a man named “Aiden,” meticulously planned an attack that killed three children and three staff members.
• And yesterday, in Minneapolis, at Annunciation Catholic School, Robert Westman, a man identifying as a woman named “Robin,” attacked the school during Mass, killing two children and injuring many others before dying by suicide.

Beyond these high-profile cases, other homicides committed by transgender-identifying individuals rarely make national headlines unless the circumstances are sensational. No consistent government database tracks homicide offenders or victims by gender identity. Law enforcement records typically log only “male” or “female,” and ideological pressures mean identifying transgender offenders often requires piecing together media coverage or court filings. The absence of data does not mean the problem is insignificant; it means the scope is obscured. Outside of mass shootings, documented violence includes domestic disputes, interpersonal assaults, and, in some cases, drug- or gang-related crimes. Whether ideology motivated these crimes remains unclear, but the pattern of violence is unmistakable—and at the very least it demands honest scrutiny. I am not at all hopeful that this will happen.