Glibertarians.com 2017 Archive

Category: Children

  • Transmogrification and Projection

    What was once a humorous but true observation has become a blatant tactic with the Left: everything they do is about projection.

    The 24-minute news cycle is currently obsessed with transsexual and transgender rights because the President rescinded an awful “Dear Colleague” letter that was fraught with more danger than just who uses what bathroom.  Naturally, of course, the Right, being stupid, latched immediately onto talking about who uses what bathroom, but I digress.

    The Left fell in love with the term and promptly used it obsessively, wrongly, and beat its usefulness into the turf.  The Left accuses anyone who dares questions the rationality or wisdom of a “victim’s” feelings of “gaslighting” that person. Gaslighting, however, is not about refuting or mocking the fee-fees of a humorless 19-year-old twat (gender neutral) on Twitter.   Gaslighting is actually a systematic form of abuse which causes the victim to question his own memory, his own recollection of facts, his own judgment and perception.  When I think of a campaign to systematically undermine known facts, rational thought processes, and good judgment, one political and cultural group stands out to me.

    Naturally, the Left is whinging about gaslighting (without using the term correctly) while actually gaslighting the American public about gender and sexuality.  If you are one of those crazy regressives who thinks there are two biological sexes, and those two sexes (male and female) happen to correspond neatly to “socialized” gender roles (men and women) that have evolved over thousands of years and generally hold true across cultures and civilizations, boy are you in for it.  The Left is willing to Madred you until you squeal, “There are 1,000 genders!” We have actually come to the point where it is considered bigoted and awful to repeat biological, historical, psychological, and sociological facts.

    I am sure, to no one’s surprise, my feelings on transgenderism and transsexuality will make me first against the wall when the First Internationale – United States Edition convenes its Comintern. I am a semi-educated layman on psychological disorders, and Gender Identity Disorder — I mean, Gender Dysphoria — fits fairly neatly into the class of problems called psychotic disorders.  I am not the only one to think so, and the evidence is pretty compelling.  For example, a study conducted in the Netherlands, a country notably “progressive” on this issue, found that GID/GD was the primary diagnosis in only 39% of psychologists’ patients.  For the other 61%, it turned out,  “cross-gender identification was comorbid with other psychiatric disorders.”  Another paper in The Journal of Psychiatric Research found that 71% of GID sufferers had or currently have an Axis I psychological disorder, and wrote, “Lifetime psychiatric comorbidity in GID patients is high, and this should be taken into account in the assessment and treatment planning of GID patients.” The paper rightly points out this may be a chicken-egg problem:  are GD sufferers’ additional psychiatric symptoms caused by the high stress of having GD, or does the comorbidity of Mood and Dissoaciative Disorders with GD prove GD is a kind of psychosis that “travels along” with mentally ill patients?  Given the aforementioned Dutch study, where only 39% of GD sufferers had it as a primary diagnosis, I know which side I’m taking.

    Science!

    It’s important to note GD remarkably mirrors Body Integrity Identity Disorder.  If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say it is rather convenient the DSM-V renamed Gender Identity Disorder at around the same time Body Integrity Identity Disorder was named as such, but fortunately for you, I’m off Alex Jones duty this week.

    All kidding aside, the parallels between GID/GD and BIID are obvious.  You suffer from a delusion, despite biological and social evidence, that your body is “wrong” somehow, and the only way to fix it is to radically alter it.

  • When A Game Of Chicken Goes Horribly Wrong

    I know its a week old, so sue me!

    Florida Man?  Pshaw!  Alabama Man, not to be outdone by his panhandly (it could be a word) neighbors, decided it was a good idea to play chicken at 4:00 am.  His son, rather than talk him out of the plan, decided to participate in the festivities.

    This is not how they did it.

    An Alabama father and son were killed in a head-on collision with each other on Saturday morning, police said.

    Police said that alcohol was a factor in the crash that killed Jeffrey Morris Brasher, 50, and his son, Austin Blaine Brasher, 22, but they are continuing to investigate.

    The crash occurred at around 4:10 a.m. when the 2006 Ford pickup the Brasher was driving collided with his son’s 2004 Chevrolet pickup, according to police.

    Neither Brasher was wearing a seatbelt, according to reports.

    Neither was available for comment.

  • Texas “Boy” Wins Texas Girls Wrestling Tournament – Largest Media Sports Outlet Reports On Story With Comments Turned Off

    Mack Beggs, a female transitioning to be a male by using massive amounts of steroids completed an undefeated season Saturday by winning a controversial Texas state girls wrestling title in an event clouded by criticism from those who believe the testosterone he’s taking as he transitions from female to male created an unfair advantage.

    Beggs, who reached the state tournament after two opponents forfeited, was dogged throughout the tournament by questions about whether his testosterone treatments made him too strong to wrestle fairly against girls.

    The University Interscholastic League, which oversees athletics in Texas public schools, enacted the birth certificate policy Aug. 1, 2016. And while Beggs’ family has said he wanted to compete against boys, UIL deputy director Jamey Harrison, who refused to address Beggs directly, said the UIL had not received a request to change divisions from any athlete at this competition.

    "I must break you." -Mack Beggs
    Girls Wrestling Champion

    In a twist of irony, The above story was reported on the ESPN W outlet rather than the main site.  ESPN W, which ostensibly caters to women, does not have commenting in its articles.  ESPN’s main site permits it. To my recollection, it’s the first article about an athlete referred to as male throughout to appear on the “W” site.  I’m sure its a coincidence

    Meanwhile, the Washington Post article had commenting on and the responses largely derided Beggs being able to compete against athletes who are banned from taking the same performance-enhancing drugs Beggs is mega-dosing on in order to deliberately change body structure.

    USAToday had the comments turned off for their story, which said there were “a smattering of boos”  amid mostly cheers.  Which is a departure from the WaPo pice which hilariously led with the words “booed and bloody”.  Now perhaps Kent Babb had some insight into Beggs’s monthlies (if he’s still having them while taking mega-dowses of male hormones, I don’t know) that gives him license to use “bloody” in a description of someone that looks like they barely broke a sweat while competing against a series of opponents that are physically inferior to him in every way. Perhaps his editor added it in for color. And perhaps Babb is just full of it.  Either way, no blood was visible and there were more cheers than boos.

    But WaPo and other outlets have gotta fight for Team Trans rather than report honestly.  After all, if just the fact were reported here: “a person taking doses of steroids that nobody else in a competition designed for females is able to take under the rules, wins the competition without breaking much of a sweat”, I’d imagine the reactions would be quite consistent.

    Of course, the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in sports” doesn’t want your reaction to be heard anyway.

    BONUS CONTENT: These people say their seven year old is trans and would change Trump’s mind on access to trans bathrooms.  Seven.  Their kid is seven. And this fostering of a delusion so they can get street cred with their idiot progressive friends is child abuse.

  • Do you really think we are going to pay for it?

    Hold on, Mom. I’ll be there as fast as I can.

    It has been said that the Y generation is the most selfish generation there ever was. The “Selfie” generation. Yet, this is one generation that is growing up to face one of the most burdensome public debt in history.

    A few years ago, after she watched some sad sob story on some Canadian Bs Channel, my mother (boomer born in the 50’s) complained to me that old people were left alone and that none of their many children ever came to see them in their old people’s home. Now I do love my mom very much (she can still drain the life out of you with her first world problems), but yet my first thought was “Well… maybe they deserved it. Maybe they screwed up their children so bad that those children don’t care about them anymore.”

    I kind of had the same thought yesterday when I watched this clip from Molyneux.

    He makes references about Y generations kids still living in their parent’s basement, and that the reason they are stuck in their parents’s basement is because their parents had the good life while shoveling public debt down to their kids. Now their kids are stuck with the bill and can’t afford a basement by themselves anymore.

    It led me to go back to my days working in finance and check how was the dear Regime des Rentes du Quebec going. (Quebec Social Security fund if you’d prefer).

    Sad to see. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for all Social Security types of regimes around the Western World. Those Social Security schemes are going dry as we speak.

    Denouncing this as a Ponzi Scheme is no news to any of the people hanging around here. I am well aware that you won’t need any new fainting couches.

    But, knowing all we know about the snowflake generation, do the boomers still think that the Y generation, their kids, that always bring the tab to them, won’t bring the tab to them once the funds run off? Do you really think the Y are going to pay for it? The X might, but if the Y won’t, no one else will. What will you do then, at 80?

    Now it’s the thing that makes me wonder the most about all the public debt accumulation. The boomers seem to think the younger generations will subsidize their lifestyle forever. I’m just a late X, early Y, and I have agreed in my life to play the card I was dealt with, but I can tell you one thing, I don’t think the Y will.

  • HR 610 and the Conundrum of School Choice

     

     

    The full text of HR 610 may be found here.

    H.R.610 – To distribute Federal funds for elementary and secondary education in the form of vouchers for eligible students and to repeal a certain rule relating to nutrition standards in schools.

    HR 610 is a seemingly dry and dusty bill currently with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce; but HR 610 has the potential to fundamentally re-shape publicly funded education in the US. Previously I covered the “nutrition standards” aka school lunch part of this bill. Now let’s dive in to the delicious libertarian puzzle that is the voucher part of HR 610.

    Section 102 repeals the The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. The 1965 act in it’s much-amended form tips the federal education dollars scales towards poor students by net funding poor students at a higher rate than non-poor, which creates perverse incentives failing students.

    Repeal of the 1965 act is coupled in Sec 102 (b) with a limitation on the authority of the US Secretary of Education:

    The authority of the Secretary under this title is limited to evaluating State applications under section 104 and making payments to States under section 103. The Secretary shall not impose any further requirements on States with respect to elementary and secondary education beyond the requirements of this title.

    So, still federal funding of local schools but no more micromanagement. We may fully expect the delicious irony of critics of this carping about the lack of accountability when the consistent position of those critics has been more money, always more money, while the schools continue to fail. Presumably there is some large number of net jobs in in public education whose only function is to collect the figures for the US DoEd so as to keep those block grants coming. Those jobs would suddenly become superfluous, as would the jobs at DoEd to check those figures and approve the block grants.

    Section 103 is the real meat of the bill. Currently block grants to schools are awarded according to multiple criteria. At the most basic level is per-child funding to Local Education Agencies (school boards), then the extra poor-kid funding as outlined above, and various other shenanigans. The new legislation would entirely flatten the federal block grant program to proportional per-child funding. True equality.

    Section 104 states that to be eligible for block grants that various states must make it lawful for parents of an eligible child to elect to enroll their child in any public or private elementary or secondary school in the State; or to home-school their child. So, a soft mandate on the states, but a mandate the states may avoid by foregoing federal block grants.

    Section 105 contains a mandate that states who wish to receive federal block grants must establish a voucher program:

    (5) DISTRIBUTION TO PARENTS.—

     

    (A) IN GENERAL.—From the amounts allocated under paragraph (3), each local educational agency that receives funds under such paragraph shall distribute a portion of such funds, in an amount equal to the amount described in paragraph (2), to the parents of each eligible child within the local educational agency’s geographical area who elect to send their child to a private school or to home-school their child (as the case may be) and whose child is included in the count of such eligible children under paragraph (1)(A), which amount shall be distributed in a manner so as to ensure that such payments will be used for appropriate educational expenses.

     

    (B) RESERVATION.—A local educational agency described in this paragraph may reserve not more than 1 percent of the funds available for distribution under subparagraph (A) to pay administrative costs associated with carrying out the activities described in such subparagraph.

     

    There you have it. Federal tax dollars going to icky religious schools, objectively evil for-profit schools and slack-jawed fundamentalist home-schoolers. And the act doesn’t say anything about whether those schools must be accredited by anyone. Someone bring the fainting couch.

    Treating everyone the same? Sounds suspiciously like A-N-A-R-C-H-Y. Also, triple word score.

    There is a one percent rakeoff for local education agencies for administrative purposes which is not unreasonable. The voucher payments are not to be considered as income to the child or his parents. The act also contains the interesting definition: The term “eligible child” means a child aged 5 to 17, inclusive. So, no federally funded Pre-K, and no federal funding for kids who were “held back” for a year or two. Everyone gets thirteen years of federal education block grant money.

    But now let’s look at what the act doesn’t do. It doesn’t require the states to setup a voucher program using state funds. Some states may become so cross at Congress that they forego federal grant money altogether rather than pass any money through to competitors or home-schoolers. And the act does not address funding; congress will still budget a line item for those block grants, but hopefully will reduce that amount as states drop off.

    The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where HR 610 currently resides, has twenty two Republican members including Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (NC), Vice Chairman Joe Wilson (SC) and Tea Party star Dave Brat (Virginia).  The committee also includes seventeen Democrats. It will be interesting to see if the Republican members really do have the stomach to upset the apple cart. But they have cover for HR 610 which is far less extreme than HR 899 (Massie, KY) which outright eliminates the DoEd.

  • A History Of American Public Education: Part 1 of 4

    PART 1: Awakening the Progressive Giant

    I wrote a paper on the topic of public education for a class a couple years ago, which I am heavily excerpting from for this article. The main purpose is to explain some of the 19th Century factors that went into the whole-hog acceptance of compulsory public education, and a little bit of analysis of how to roll some of this back. Part 1 addresses the religious circumstances in the 19th Century that led to compulsory public school. Part 2 will address the secular circumstances leading to compulsory schooling. Part 3 addresses implementation of compulsory schooling and the effects on society. Part 4 will address long term effects and rolling back compulsory schooling.

     

    The Second Great Awakening

     

    In the early 19th century, the United States was going through a massive theological change. The nation was in the midst of the Second Great Awakening, and revivals swept the countryside. These revivals led to the growth of Methodist and Baptist evangelical denominations throughout the country. One of the doctrines of major importance in this Awakening was the doctrine of postmillennialism.

    While postmillennialism is not popular in today’s church, it was a major part of antebellum Protestant doctrine.  Postmillennialism taught that Jesus’ second coming would occur after a millennium of peace and justice, which had to be initiated by the Christians. Therefore, these evangelicals worked to root out conflict and injustice, such as slavery and moral decay. The clergy found themselves walking a fine line between destroying the unity of the nation that they believed would bring a millennium of peace and justice and actually promoting that peace and justice. If they pushed too hard on slavery, it would result in the dissolution of the Union, but if they didn’t push hard enough, there would still be societal sin in slavery.

    As it turned out, they could not achieve this balance, and the evangelicals largely took the side of the Union during the Civil War. Some ministers, however, condemned this secular and religious concept of America’s perfectibility as idolatry, and tried to steer those impulses toward the betterment of the Church. Although the Civil War and the friction between different ministerial factions slowed down the revivalist nature of the Second Great Awakening, it also laid the foundation for the Social Gospel movement of the late 19th century.

    The Social Gospel

    The Social Gospel was an evolution from the postmillennialist Second Great Awakening toward the idea that churches were responsible for social action and the eradication of societal ills. This Social Gospel was not particularly theologically deep and was primarily a codification of New England liberalism with an appeal to “teachings of Jesus.” The Social Gospel was, in a sense, a mix of the prophesies of the Bible with the burgeoning public understanding of the science of evolution and its application to societal progress.

    In order to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth, and specifically in America, Social Gospel preachers such as Baptist pastor Walter Rauschenbusch believed that the nation needed a spiritual regeneration. The initial push of the Social Gospel movement was government-neutral, but the movement evolved. By the second generation, which was defined by the temperance issue, the Social Gospel had come around to using government for its advantage. Rauschenbusch recognized the change that was afflicting his movement. He saw the tendency of the Social Gospel to drift away from its mooring and eventually secularize as they gained wider acceptance. He warned against the movement sagging down “from evangelical religion to humanitarian morality.”

    However, despite his best efforts to prevent it, the Christian-led Social Gospel already had cracks of secularism forming. The Southern Progressives united their message with the Social Gospel being preached in the South, relying on the religiosity of southerners as a connection between faith and politics.  As those sympathetic to the Social Gospel waded into secularism through the Progressive movement, they put the Christian revival and spiritual betterment of society on the back burner.  The Progressive Era had been born, a secular manifestation of the populist energy that had been created by the Social Gospel, the muckraking labor movement, and Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting.

    The Social Gospelers were one voice among many in the Progressive movement, and the Progressives’ ideas gradually transformed away from the Social Gospel due to the “irrational hatreds of certain groups such as foreigners.” This was, in part, due to a second side of the Progressive movement, the Social Darwinists.

     

    (to be cont’d… Same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel.)

  • HR 610 – Restoring Parental Freedom to Pack Lunches, Etc.

    Congressman Steve King (R, IA) has introduced HR 610, titled Choices in Education Act of 2017. The bill does two things – establishes a nationwide voucher program and tinkers with the school lunch regulations. I’ll cover the voucher program at length in another article. Here’s a brief walk-through of the the school lunches part.

    Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!

    Section 9(a)(1)(A)(i) of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1758(a)(1)(A)(i)) is amended by inserting before the semicolon the following: “, to establish a calorie maximum for individual school lunches, or to prohibit a child from eating a lunch provided by the child’s parent or legal guardian”.

    That would amend §1758 to read as follows (changes in bold):

    • 1758. Program requirements

    (a) Nutritional requirements

    (1)(A) Lunches served by schools participating in the school lunch program under this chapter shall meet minimum nutritional requirements prescribed by the Secretary on the basis of tested nutritional research, except that the minimum nutritional requirements-

    (i) shall not be construed to prohibit the substitution of foods to accommodate the medical or other special dietary needs of individual students, to establish a calorie maximum for individual school lunches, or to prohibit a child from eating a lunch provided by the child’s parent or legal guardian; and

    (ii) shall, at a minimum, be based on the weekly average of the nutrient content of school lunches.

    So, no calorie maximums and no confiscations of lunches sent from home. Not that the Congress has any business meddling in education in the first place, but this is not the typical unfunded mandate to take positive action which Congress has traditionally imposed upon public schools.

    Public education priority. All your lunch are belong to us.

     

    The no-calorie-maximums part will doubtlessly cause hysterics among the usual suspects, but in practicality will free the school lunch folks from having to worry about going over the limit by one calorie and incurring the wrath of US DoEd retribution.  And while this is indeed micromanagement of the schools by Congress, it is a net gain because it rolls back existing onerous federal regulations; regulations which should not exist, of course. The US Secretary of Education would still be in the business of  prescribing minimum nutritional requirements for school lunches.

    The second part is a huge win for parents – no confiscation of lunches sent from home. HR 610 may also override the peanut butter bans in place in many schools.  While still meddling in education, this is a more libertarian-friendly form of meddling as it articulates an individual right which the government may not infringe – much like the First Amendment.

     

    The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where HR 610 currently resides, has twenty two Republican members including Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (NC), Vice Chairman Joe Wilson (SC) and Tea Party star Dave Brat (Virginia).  The committee also includes seventeen Democrats. It will be interesting to see what they do with this.

  • There Is No Such Thing As Libertarian Parenting

    My eldest child was born in the Central Valley of California, my middle was born less than a year later in the Inland Empire region of California, and my youngest born a year and a half later in Fort Worth, Texas.  In addition to these places, our family has also lived in Northern Virginia and currently reside in Houston.  We have lived on a hobby farm, in an urban apartment, and in a house in the suburbs.  Despite being under the age of 5, my children have visited many museums, zoos, eaten at many restaurants, have attended concerts and basketball, hockey, baseball, and football games (including the 2015 Sugar Bowl where they witnessed The Ohio State University Buckeyes beat the hell out of Alabama).  Our girls swim, play golf, draw and paint, play instruments, cook, know more lyrics to songs than I do and play video games.  Our children do not have regular routines that they follow.  What we lack in regimentation we more than make up for in life experiences.  We believe children should be seen, heard, and exposed to the world.

    All of that being said, we are not “libertarian parents” as there is no such thing.  If I were to describe our parenting it would be highly active and unregimented, but not libertarian.  Helicopter parents, Tiger Moms, and free ranged parents can all be libertarians.  Libertarianism does not ascribe an ideal parenting style.  Libertarians simply believe the ideal way to raise a child is up to the individual parents and not the state.  Our parenting is what works best for us and is a reflection of who we are just as other people’s parenting is a reflection of them.  And as I would never chastise a Tiger Mom or a helicopter parent for having too much involvement in their children’s lives or a free ranged parent for having too little, I would expect the same from others in a free society.  As our parenting style is not ideal for other families, just as others are not ideal for us.

  • Attack of the Humor Police

    I will admit that, being an old fart, I have never heard of PewDiePie before. Apparently, he’s a YouTube phenom, and has triggered the screeching of the Humor Police.

    Maker Studios dropped Kjellberg on Monday after a Wall Street Journal investigation highlighted the anti-Semitic sign, as well as eight other videos that included anti-Jewish jokes or Nazi images.

    Now, one does not have to be a dreaded “alt-righter” (whatever the fuck that actually means) to see the humor in what he’s doing. I think it takes a special sort of stupid to conclude that because he used Nazis and Nazi symbology as a means of parody (“what people will do for five bucks!”) that this is somehow anti-Jewish or threatens people in any way. But the Humor Police are always on the job, stamping out anything that looks even the tiniest bit transgressive.

    So in that vein, I will confess that this video cracked me up. For a donation, this school will teach any English phrase you like. Since I found this funny, clearly I’m advocating that little kids use intoxicants. Right?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2JHEFsb-z0

  • Geraldo Rivera Causes Meltdown On Social Media Over Yale Step-down

    Who wants a mustache ride?
    Geraldo Rivera

    In a move against political correctness run amok, Geraldo Rivera, who made his name unlocking the secrets of the Al Capone vault and giving away US troop positions in Iraq has decided to step down as an Associate Fellow at Yale University’s (soon to be renamed) Calhoun College.

    As anticipated by anybody with a pulse, his twitter feed went completely insane with people calling him everything under the sun.

     

    I wonder how many of those accusing him of everything from slavery apologia to outright hatred of blacks realizes that Yale will remain named after an actual slave trader even after the name of the slave-owning seventh Vice President of the United States is removed from campus buildings.