Left & Right June 5, 2019

Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair. The producer asks us both if we support President Trump's increasing tariffs on China and Mexico. I support the China tariffs but not necessarily the recent ones on Mexico. Mark questions all tariffs and thinks conservatives should too. They always did.

Mark says tariffs never worked anywhere but I point out how the US Government used tariffs almost exclusively to support itself until the Graduated income tax was enacted in the early 20th century. Mark raises history too saying that tariffs on Merino wool were a boom to sheep farmers in northern New England in the early 19th century resulting in all the stone walls through what are now woods.

I bring up historian and biographer Dave Garrow's claim that Martin Luthor King was much more of a womanizer than previously reported. He participated in orgies and witnessed a rape by a fellow minister and laughed. Mark questioned why I brought it up and I answer that it shows mainstream media's bias against stories that don't fit their left-wing narrative. Mark says it's insulting when I question the professionalism of the New York Times and others in media. We go back and forth on that for quite a while.

At about the halfway point Mark brought a print-out of my column submission to his newspaper for the week and voiced several criticisms, ultimately saying he would not run it. It pertained to the Drag Queen Story Hour due to run at the Conway Public Library later this month. I see it as a danger for drag queens who are usually homosexual men to be models for children aged 3-8 who may become confused about their own sex. Mark says I'm wrong to conflate drag queens, homosexuality, and transgenders.

I contend there's a spectrum and what is lately referred to as gender dysphoria is on it. Mark says that's just wrong and they're all separate and distinct. This discussion takes up nearly all the second half of the show and gets heated. He claims I pull people out of thin air who support my ideas.

I cite research by Lisa Littman MD of Brown University who documented a group of fourteen-year-old females that together declared they were males after showing no signs of gender dysphoria previously. Mark contends she rescinded her study but I disagreed, pointing out that the former dean of Harvard Medical School backed up the science behind Littman's study. (Later I learned that she republished the study with minor modifications but didn't change her basic claims.)

Mark suggests I'm unenlightened and need therapy because my beliefs run counter to the LGBTQ narrative. I obviously disagree and claim that whoever dares publish data or opinions contradicting that narrative is publicly vilified by the LGBTQ lobby and Littman suffered a politically-correct assault at Brown University reminiscent of fascist tactics.

Buried With Bush

“Have they buried him yet?” I kept asking last week. Observances of former President George H.W. Bush’s death seemed to go on forever. For a week or more, media were completely dominated by commemorations of his passing. Services held in Maine, Texas, Washington, DC, and elsewhere were extensively covered. Very few stories have that much staying power in America’s public consciousness anymore, so why was it so hard to finally put old George to rest and move on?

It was a combination of factors, I think. He was the last president from the World War II generation, or “The Greatest Generation,” as NBC’s Tom Brokaw called it. When former senator, presidential candidate, and fellow WWII vet Bob Dole paid his respects to Bush, he had to be assisted to stand from his wheelchair in order to salute. Very few of that generation remain with us and soon they will all be gone. Not only will they be put to rest, but so, we fear, will the values by which they lived.

To them, family, church, and country mattered most. Not everyone from that era lived by those values but no one disputed them as ideals. Today there is no general agreement on any of them. Bush was married for more than seventy years. That he loved his wife and was loved back by her no one doubted. Except when he lay in state at the Capitol, most remembrances were held in churches where his extended family — and it is extensive — participated. The final theme dominant in the wall-to-wall coverage was his service to country beginning in WWII and continuing through his presidency.

Five current and former presidents were seated in the front row at Bush’s service in Washington. Of those, all but Trump remain in their original marriages, but lies and coverups of marital infidelities led to the impeachment of President Clinton — and may for President Trump as well. Last week’s release of data from the Mueller investigation prompted soon-to-be US House committee chairmen to salivate over the prospect of impeaching Trump for alleged campaign finance violations in the form of payoffs to two professed mistresses. It’s likely that many presidents have been unfaithful and some biographers have documented their infidelities. The same is true of kings, queens, and other past leaders, but publication was usually delayed until after they died. Not anymore.

Most dictionaries still define family as: “a group consisting of parents and children living in the same household,” but that description is now disputed by many calling themselves “progressives.” They see traditional family as a source of oppression, a haven for “the patriarchy.” Homosexual and transgender activists tend to agree and work to broaden the definition to include almost any grouping of human beings wishing to address themselves as such. If we haven’t reached that point already, most children will soon be born into a collection of people not comprised of a mother, a father, and children.

Churches are in steep decline across America as well with some predicting that soon the majority of us will be “unchurched.” That’s already true in many “progressive” regions. Religions we used to consider “mainstream” have sanctioned marriage between two men or two women. After over two thousand years, even the Roman Catholic Church is making noises in that direction since the election of Pope Francis in 2013. A preliminary statement emerging from a Synod of Bishops on the family in 2014 called “Relatio post disceptationem” hinted at a relaxing of Catholic teachings on homosexuality and divorce. Prominent bishops attending the synod, however, condemned that document and claimed that most bishops wished to preserve traditional teachings. In the four years since divisions within the Catholic Church have only deepened.

As for devotion to country, many Americans calling themselves “progressives” dispute the very concept of the nation-state, of national sovereignty, and of national borders. They support abolishing ICE, which stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They marched in Washington, DC recently chanting “No borders! No wall! No USA at all.” Democrat leaders deny they support open borders while consistently blocking serious efforts to control illegal immigration or funding for a wall on our southern border.

Not only is there widening disagreement about family, church, and country, it seems we cannot even agree on who is a man or who is a woman. More and more “progressive” psychologists, clerics, and politicians are insisting that homosexuals are born that way but men and women are not. People who consider such notions crazy place themselves in danger if they voice their opinions. They could lose their jobs, be forced to undergo “sensitivity training” which some would call brainwashing, and they could be charged with a “hate crime.”

Buried along with George H.W. Bush, we fear, were the values of the generation that produced him. What comes next, no one knows.

Curiouser And Curiouser

As if understanding today’s America weren’t complicated enough in this wild election year, we have the Orlando Massacre to further confuse us. As people reveal their true character when they’re under stress, so do societies. We’re in the middle of an election that surprises everyone. Does Hillary exemplify Democrats? Does Trump exemplify Republicans? Each polarizes his/her their own party, not to mention in the country. Pundits need new roadmaps because everything has changed. It’s a wonder they dare provide analysis. I’d already written a column for this week, but I’m going to save it for another time because I have to address what happened Sunday.

There are at least four major themes: homosexuality, Islam, multiculturalism, and guns. I learned about the massacre at 6:00 AM Sunday while browsing online. I then turned on Fox News for a conservative perspective at about 8:00 AM and learned the scene was a gay nightclub and the perpetrator had Muslim connections according to an FBI spokesman. To watch how liberals were spinning it I tuned in to NBC’s Meet the Press at 9:00 where host Chuck Todd inserted coverage at the beginning of his show.

Todd must have known what the FBI was saying about the shooter’s ties to Islam, but never mentioned it. Instead, he brought on Pete Williams to emphasize the gay connection. Williams, who is homosexual, didn’t say anything about Islam either. Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw also stressed gun control, saying he was brought up with guns in the midwest, but lost credibility when mentioning a non-existent assault rifle called an “AR-14” He likely confused the AR-15, used in Orlando, Sandy Hook, and San Bernardino, and the M14, used by Americans in Vietnam. No one else mentioned Islam until their token conservative, radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, twice invoked ISIS. The rest of the panel, liberals all, kept bringing the conversation back to gun control and anti-homosexual hate crimes.

Later I went back and forth between liberal-biased MSNBC which continued emphasizing gun control and hate crimes, and conservative-biased Fox News which continued emphasizing radical Islam. President Obama gave a speech never mentioning Islam either, stressing gun control. Just last week, the Homeland Security Advisory Council prohibited the Department from using the words “jihad”; “sharia”; “umma” and others because they would disrespect Islam, which Sharia itself prohibits. How can DHS fight radical Islam while complying with Islam's own mandates? With zero evidence, President Obama insists that Guantanamo’s existence is a recruiting tool for terrorists and must be closed. There’s voluminous evidence that ISIS’s existence is the real recruiting tool, but Obama only pretends to fight it.

Referring to Florida law that allows concealed carry but not in an establishment serving alcohol, a conservative commenter online asked how many would be dead if Omar Mateen tried to shoot up a country-western bar instead of a gay bar. He seemed to be making the case that gun control is not the solution, but the problem. If the bar’s patrons were packing, Mateen would have been shot much sooner.

Regular readers of this column know I used to be liberal until conservatives converted me by presenting facts that didn’t fit my liberal world view. Now I’m wondering if any of today’s liberals will question liberalism’s dedication to multiculturalism when presented with the paradox they’ve avoided for decades and which Orlando is rubbing it in their faces: Two or their most cherished victim groups — Muslims and homosexuals — are incompatible. It’s always been true, but the Orlando massacre is forcing them to confront it.

Muslims countries regularly execute homosexuals under Sharia Law. A poll by Washington DC’s Center For Security Policy reported in 2015 that most American Muslims believe they should have the choice of being governed according to shariah. Should we really be surprised when a Muslim fanatic shoots up a gay bar? His parents come from Afghanistan where 99% of the population supports sharia law and his father seems as crazy as he is. Seddique Mateen supports the Taliban and declared on his TV show in California that: “Our brothers in Waziristan [Pakistan], our warrior brothers in Taliban movement, and national Afghan Taliban are rising up.” However, Afghan Muslim men are notorious for raping pubescent boys — another paradox.

How can Islam, a religion which teaches that homosexuals should be executed, that wives can be beaten by their husbands, and that no other religion should be allowed but Islam be compatible with the multiculturalism so beloved by liberals? According to the Washington Post, Omar Mateen’s ex-wife said: “He was not a stable person. He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.” Multiculturalism insists that all cultures are equal, but are they? Omar Mateen was a registered Democrat and evidence is emerging that he may have been homosexual as well.

The more we learn, the more complicated this gets.