We go back to the Batman well and bring an old friend along as a guest to discuss Batman: Dark Knight Returns. 10 years after retiring, Gotham has descended further and further into crime and chaos as the corrupt police department is failing at the job it prevents others from providing.
Batman comes out of retirement to do battle various enemies, both old and new, for the last time. This Frank Miller work was a very strong comic series that was faithfully created as an animated feature with some very deep themes worthy of discussion.
Join us as we slice and dice on this one.
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FEATURING PARTS 1 AND 2 OF “BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS” SAGA! From the chronicles of the DC Universe comes the sweeping saga of rebirth, revenge and redemption.
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Our guest Shaheen is a Rothbardian Ancap mechatronic engineering student living in Australia. Interests include, but are not limited to, studying libertarian political philosophy, Austrian economics, and evolutionary psychology, playing basketball, golf and Crash Bandicoot.
Poverty is indeed predictable. According to economist Walter Williams, here’s how to bypass poverty: “Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen.”
As a black man raised by a single mom, Williams rose up and escaped the projects himself. To him, and most clear-thinking people, no amount of emotional claptrap will change the reality that repeatedly making bad decisions will result in bad outcomes.
But when it comes to poverty, it’s all about social scientism, in which leftists make up entire ideologies they think will support their unrealistic theories. In other words, they create fictions in order to promote their progressive hocus-pocus and to hell with the collateral damage.
Take a Fakebook post shared during Hurricane Florence. It was written by Gwen Frisbie-Fulton, whose Twitter bio reads: “activist~writer~southerner~anarchist.” And not “anarchist” in the anti-government way, but more in the anarcho-tyranny, statist vein.
Ms. Hyphenated-Last-Name sure talks a lot about the import of fully funding public schools for a chick who’s supposed to be anti-authority. Then again, her profile lists her big issues as “homelessness, housing, women, ecology, egalitarian organizing.”
I gotta give her credit, though. She at least sends her son to a failing Title One school, where he’s part of the 15% of white students. That’s a serious commitment to “equality.”
Yet no mention of “boys” in her issues or “mother” in her bio. Fulton’s a grrrrl of the New South, casting off the shackles of tradition and embracing post-modern fallacies. Sad ’cause she’s a decent writer.
So, we’ve considered the source. Now let’s deconstruct Fulton’s words and the false and dangerous presuppositions they propel forward as fact. After all, when lies are wrapped in powerful language and tug at your heartstrings, it can be hard not to fall for them.
“I called Alyeesha — a friend of a friend who had stayed at my house a few years ago when she was escaping a bad relationship. She lives Down East … in a small one-room house that was her grandma’s sharecropping cabin. She rents the cabin from the man who now owns the land; it is not hers.”
“She (has) a mattress on the floor, a sofa from a Rent-a-Center, and a picture of her grandmother on the wall. I wanted to let her know that if she was evacuating from the hurricane, there was a sofa waiting for her here. ‘Naw, I’m going to ride it out,’ she said.”
Here begin the implications that black people can’t get ahead. That they’re living hand-to-mouth in places stolen from them, and playing by the rules of evil white men who revel in keeping them down. Gotta have a high-interest couch instead of using CraigsList.
“Everyone I know … on the shore is riding it out … for most of them … it’s just that they can’t go. There aren’t enough seats in the car, or there is no car, or the car is busted.”
“There are too many babies or too many old folks. There are jobs that won’t be held for them … paychecks that haven’t yet cleared … food stamps that ran out last week … (not) enough money in anyone’s damn bank account.”
The dramatic implication? Black people are helpless, almost childlike. Perpetual victims with high-time preference who are unable to plan or budget for a rainy day. And although there are government goodies, it’s never enough.
Author and former welfare recipient Star Parker calls this “Uncle Sam’s Plantation” – a socialist mentality which “enslaves” low-income folks. It degrades individuals through eschewing personal responsibility, encouraging single-motherhood, promoting moral decay, and decimating the family unit by replacing fathers with big-daddy government.
By telling people they have no autonomy in their lives, that they’re not actors, that they’re only acted upon, it’s arrogance on the part of the do-gooders and manipulation on the part of the political class. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”
“As terrifying as it is, we know it’s not Florence that is wreaking havoc on North Carolina. It’s everything that comes later … it’s everything that was before.” Hmm, and what might that be?
“We know that it is the slow seep of the water back down from the mountains … we know it is poverty. … We know where the flood waters will go. They will follow a slow, predictable path … (and) read like economic and racial maps.”
Forget about building up the characteristics and life skills necessary in order to break out of the cycle of state-dependency. The Fultons of the world instead tell them they’re cogs in this capitalist conspiracy, water droplets in the swells of the white-supremacist sea.
That kind of excuse-making is what Parker says “dehumanizes” folks. It’s a narrative that actually makes things worse, creating a gulf between low-income blacks and the 80% of them who are in the middle class.
We should instead be looking at “pathologies,” explains Parker, like out-of-wedlock birth, crime, and the “values” within distressed communities. “There is a gap because of how we conduct our family lives.”
For instance, the economic disparities between black men who are married to the mother of their children and white men who are married to the mother of their children are virtually nonexistent. If poverty was the consequence of racism, this certainly wouldn’t be the case.
It’s about human action. Like Williams asks rhetorically, “Do people have free will, or are they governed by instincts?” In other words, can a person pivot when he’s heading down the wrong path or is he purely a puppet of nature and circumstance?
“No one can blame a person if he starts out in life poor, because how one starts out is not his fault,” Williams adds. But “if he stays poor, he is to blame because it is his fault.”
“We all love a good hurricane. We fetishize storms … The hurricane is … the excitement that we need. We gather bottled water, toilet paper, snacks. It’s something we can do … Our lives can be so mundane. We gorge on hurricanes.”
Huh. So people who prep are somehow doing so because of their humdrum lives, not because they want to be equipped and ready for a looming emergency? Not because they view evidence, see a conceivable threat, and want to act accordingly? Stupid.
Maybe it’s this type of behavior Fulton should be encouraging. Thinking ahead, weighing costs and benefits, considering cause and effect, and dealing reasonably and responsibly with a situation are the exact actions one should to take in order to survive natural disasters, as well as to navigate and avoid some of the the storms of life.
“Alyeesha has the grit to make it through … but after the winds pass and the bottled water gets loaded back up, she knows that people’s attention will just move on. Jim Cantore does not come for poverty.”
What does The Weather Channel’s go-to hurricane guy have to do with anything? At first I thought Cantore had been “insensitive” and was being pegged a racist, but I found nothing remotely controversial about him.
Maybe it’s because he’s a white guy, and his very skin color and biology grant him innate “privilege.” Or maybe it’s that he grew up in too-white rural Vermont. Or that he’s worked at TWC since 1986. Curse that bigoted work ethic!
“Alyeesha’s little house may be flooded out, she may lose everything. There is no insurance company to call; her landlord may just tell her he can’t do nothing.”
Renter’s insurance is a thing. You don’t need to depend on your landlord to protect your property.
“Her friend who drives her to work may not be able to come to get her, she may lose her job. She will be left standing in the still waters of America, brown water on her brown legs, on land that was not her grandmothers and is not hers.”
No one is going to get fired because of a hurricane, especially a low-income black woman. C’mon.
Again, the presupposition is the same old leftism that’s been pushed since LBJ’s “Great Society” reared its destructive head in 1964. That no matter what Alyeesha does, the historical and institutional racism of the country (and specifically the South) will simply pull her under.
Despite $22 million spent on the “War on Poverty” in its first 50 years, there were no decreases in what are categorized as “the poor.” What there has been, though, is diminished self-sufficiency and increased inter-generational dependence.
“The cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960,” remarks economist Thomas Sowell. “This was before any of (the LBJ) programs began.”
“Poverty … (has) always been a slow build of mold between generations. … It’s a looming light bill and a long wait on child support.”
In 1960, most black children were raised in two-parent families, says Sowell. But that isn’t the case today, when the great majority of black kids are raised by a single parent – one of the root causes of poverty. But who has time for facts and obvious fixes when you’re clamoring for cash?
According to economists Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, “Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution.” It’s never enough.
The assertion is that Alyeesha will drown if she’s not rescued by white angels like Fulton, whose formulas for salvation only require more government theft, monetary increases to already-failing programs, and touchy-feel proclamations. These tired tactics only increases the cycle of poverty.
That ain’t charity. It’s immoral and counterproductive. As Sowell poignantly puts it, “Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.” In other words, their kind of helping only hurts, but it sure makes ’em feel good about themselves.
Another lying “white angel.”
“Poverty has always been a flood and not a hurricane … It’s the uncomfortable plastic chairs at DSS and the caseworkers who don’t make eye contact. It’s the 10 months of pregnancy with no insurance and lying to the doctor about the cramps because you can’t afford a referral.”
“It’s the long wait in jail because you can’t afford bail … It’s the long nights with the heat out and the long calls trying to reach the landlord.”
“It’s the hours in detention after your own boss at the meat processing plant calls immigration on you and the long stare you give him while he hires your cousin for less money under the table. … So we look away.”
Like Parker says, it’s values. Crime begets poverty. Like Williams says, marry the father of your children and stayed married. It’s “not rocket science.” Like we deplorables say, don’t come here illegally. Build the wall.
Expecting mothers (legal citizens and otherwise) already get Medicaid if they’re “categorically needy.” This is a pretty low bar for those already entangled in the welfare industrial-complex. Now Fulton’s just making stuff up.
It’s already illegal for a tenant’s heat to be shut off. And if you’re an illegal who’s working, why would the guy who hired you call immigration? He’s already paying you for less money off the books. Illogical.
Moreover, no one “looks away” from the non-white poor. It’s all we ever hear about.
But what does it even mean to be in “poverty” in America? Below is a sampling from the Mises Institute of material goods owned by most of the 46.2 million Americans deemed “poor” in the 2010 census.
The lion’s share are not lacking adequate clothing, warm housing, or food. In fact, “Some 96% of poor parents report their children were never hungry at any time in the prior year,” report Rector and Sheffield. They “have more living space in their homes than the average non-poor Swede, Frenchman, or German.”
“Poverty is predictable … like underfunded schools and outdated textbooks … legislators turning their heads.”
Really? Few issues are talked about as incessantly and laudatorily than are teachers and the indoctrination centers where we pay them to work. How dare I, mom to three homeschooled sons, throw stones from 1,400-square-foot house with no carport or cable? I refuse to look away.
40% of my husband’s labor is forcibly confiscated by the state for wealth redistribution, most of which is used to propagate the very school system that encourages this systemic racket and its divisive talking points. Now that’s predictable.
“It’s the predictability that after the storm we will arrest the looters who spent their last dollars on gas when prices surged up 50 cents before the storm. … We will … not say a thing.”
At least Fulton admits that the overwhelming majority of American “poor” have cars – a luxury in many other countries – but this glimmer of reality comes at the expense of fetishizing the categorical crime of looting. Why make excuses for such lawlessness?
And maybe Alyeesha doesn’t want Fulton’s help. Maybe she doesn’t want to be used as a prop in her PC advertisement. Maybe she knows she can take care of herself or that her life isn’t half bad. Maybe she’s grateful to live in her ancestral home. Maybe she’s thankful to be alive.
But that’s the … slow drip of poverty. All your life you are just watching the water rise, knowing no one is coming to get you: after all they told you to get out.
Don’t get swindled by left’s hurricane of hubris. It’s a river flooding with fallacies, a storm raging with irrationality, and winds blowing with the hot air of white guilt. (See, I can play this rhetorical game, too!)
It’s a critical-theory screed drowning in the red dirt of socialism. It’s time to get our heads above water and breathe new life into truth.
I am an asshole for requiring proof and logic. I accept this, but others must soon join me or we may have something more accurately described as a piñata system than a justice system. Public opinion is despicable, but it is powerful.
I dislike Brett Kavanaugh. He was one of the primary architects of The PATRIOT Act during his time as White House Legal Counsel. I dislike his permissiveness when it comes to state expansion, trampling of The Constitution, and advocacy of numerous civil rights violations. But this is not what he is primarily in the news for right now. He, like most conservative nominees to any office, is under last-minute public trial for supposed “sexual misconduct” (the current favored and completely meaningless term).
Yeah, but not because of assault
Of many possible problems, these accusations occur more than thirty years in the past. There is no evidence of any kind. It is “he said, she said” and nothing more. Beyond the attempt to turn the nomination of a judge to an identity politics pissing match, avoiding all salient facts, there is nothing. Teams are drawn up. Republicans think his accusers are liars. Democrats think “a woman must be believed” and “men need to shut up”. In addition to the previous idiotic statements, Sen. Hirono also made quite clear that Kavanaugh’s guilt is presumed because of his political positions. She states plainly “his credibility is in question…because of his questionable judgments.” Again, no facts, just opinions. Continue reading “A Credible Statement”
For the past few months, channel one had been having some issues. First with the mute button not unmuting effectively, and then some problems with the sliders that adjust the levels on that channel. I have since moved to channel two and have been humming along doing our weekly show creation.
Finally, I got to the point where I had this nagging feeling that if I don’t hop on it soon, I will be out of the warranty period so I finally made a call to Mackie…and I must say I was impressed.
With a simple set of questions with the friendly technician on the phone it was determined that there was a defect in the mixer I had, and with the same level of class as exhibited in the return policies of other such Seattle-area retail greats: Nordstrom, Costco, and Amazon – a replacement was promptly sent to me without delay.
So, big ups to Mackie. I’ve been very happy with my mixer, aside from the issues with channel one, and I’m even happier with you taking care of the problem immediately.
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After listening to Episode 17 of Michael Malice’s podcast of “YOUR WELCOME” (which is one of the few podcasts I regularly listen to), I was motivated to come up with this cartoon. In the show, Michael Malice is joined by documentary filmmaker Matt Taylor and psychologist, professor and author Dr. Robert Epstein to talk about the documentary “The Creepy Line” which delves into how online powerhouses like Google and Facebook’s practices pose a serious threat to society. See more at Michael Malice “YOUR WELCOME“.
Thoughts on social media or modern day censorship? Leave a comment and get the conversation started! Looking for more awesome libertarian cartoons, memes and infographics? Check out the Libertopia Graphics Tab above! Also, be sure to check out our cool store for your totally unique libertarian / voluntaryist / anarcho-capitalist / Rothbardian t-shirts, cups, mugs, notebooks and more! Click Here! As always, thanks for coming by and have a great day!
We explore some cinematic history covering a few iterations of the Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai story that starts out fairly libertarian, but each iteration gets less and less so.
We’ve never worked for everything before, but $20 is a lot right now.
We cover the original where Yul Brynner stars as one of seven master gunmen pitted against an army of marauding bandits in this rousing action western tale that launched the film careers of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn.
And we also discuss the newer one by Director Antoine Fuqua who brings a modern vision to a classic story in The Magnificent Seven. With a small town under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Sarsgaard), the desperate townspeople seek protection from seven outlaws (Washington, Pratt, Hawke). As they prepare the town for the violent showdown, the seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.
Plenty to chew on in this episode, so we hope you do enjoy it.
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A man in black recruits six hired guns to lead Mexican villagers against an outlaw’s gang. Directed by John Sturges.
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We’ve all heard the common defense of police when their crimes become so odious that it enters public discussion. Something along the lines of “it’s only a few bad apples,” or “police have a hard job, so we have to give them some leeway.” None of these arguments holds up under scrutiny, but that has never stopped apologists.
I wrote about Ozark Season 1 last year, specifically about how Marty Byrde was a departure from the way fathers are usually portrayed in media. This season I found an interesting parallel between Marty Byrde and these common defenses of police.
Most people consider Marty as also bearing guilt for informed participation in the crimes of the cartel he serves. I agree. However, Marty hasn’t violated the non-aggression principle. His cartel handlers say “we know you’re not a killer” and it is true—he hasn’t murdered anyone. He’s an accountant. The only time he’s taken up a forceful resolution has been when someone was holding a knife to his wife’s throat. He actively avoids violence at every possible instance. Continue reading “Ozark: A Few Bad Apples”
One Nation Under Gold is a book about the role of gold in American economic history by James Ledbetter. The book details how gold has shaped the American psyche and played a role in many debates and power struggles from the founding of the United States until the current age. At the beginning of the book, there is a helpful timeline of many of the most important events that Ledbetter discusses. A short preface states the case to be made: that monetary gold has many qualities that good money should have, but cannot fulfill the ultimate hopes of its advocates. The introduction begins with both positive and negative contemporary commentary on the California Gold Rush, then briefly discusses the history of gold and the human relationship to it in the New World, particularly the United States. The first chapter begins with George Washington’s woes with paper money during the American Revolution. Ledbetter uses this example to show how the Founding Fathers came to hate paper money. The role of debt in encouraging states to ratify the Constitution is mentioned. The search for effective currency in the 18th and 19th centuries is discussed at length, which included foreign coins, gold, silver, and paper currencies theoretically (but sometimes fraudulently) backed by metals. The correlation between monetary views and one’s opinion concerning the size and scope of government (which continues to the present day) is noted, with centralized paper money being associated with big government and decentralized metallic money being associated with small government. After discussing Andrew Jackson’s battle to defeat central banking and the Panic of 1837, Ledbetter returns to the California Gold Rush and its implications, including environmental and human exploitation as well as the Panic of 1857. With the Civil War and the issuing of greenbacks to fund it, a great failure of the gold standard is demonstrated that will echo through the rest of the book: it would stop wars and expansive social programs if it were strictly adhered to, but political leaders will always find some workaround. Chapter 2 covers the time from Reconstruction to the Gilded Age. Ledbetter begins with the market manipulations of Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, alongside President Ulysses Grant’s role in the affair. The differences in opinion between North and South over paper money and compensation for the Civil War are also highlighted. Ledbetter notes an important lesson from these years: a polity that values multiple currencies will create a market of exchange between them, and huge swings in those markets will eventually cause social unrest. The debate over the monetization of silver and its role in financial downturns for the rest of the 19th century are discussed next, but the decade of the 1880s is skipped over. The chapter concludes with the Panic of 1893 and the near-disappearance of US government gold reserves in 1895, which was resolved with the help of J.P. Morgan. Read the entire article at ZerothPosition.com
The chord progression is the same for all parts: C, Amsus4, G7, C7, C, Dm, Em, C. The acoustic guitar solo also follows these chords. The tempo is such that performing the entire song takes 3:45–4:00. Verse 1: Sometimes buy high Sometimes sell low Never quite know Where the market winds blow But one man’s loss Is another man’s gain Here in cyberspace Liberty shall reign Verse 2: The mining is hard And it takes lots of juice But that’s to make sure That the spending’s no deuce Once it’s in hand They can’t steal away The wealth is all yours Just keep your private keys safe Chorus: Bitcoiner Blues The song of the hour Sing along and Fight the legacy power Buildin’ from scratch A new paradigm Savin’ the world from The state and its crimes Verse 3: Roads made of silk And markets for death That’s the landscape In this new Wild West The first they took down But they’ve been replaced Thank Dread Pirate Roberts For leading the way Verse 4: As for exchanges Only trust if you dare Your coins aren’t safe there Let the user beware Decentralize transactions You’ll be better off Or HODL your coins And play some rounds of golf Chorus Acoustic Guitar Solo Verse 5: Investors are coming With new ideas to try Driving their Lambos The limit’s the sky SEC may stop some IRS may stop more But someday we’ll stop them And show them the door Verse 6: New coins are programmed And old coins bite dust Let markets decide which Currency to trust Maybe someday Bitcoin will fade away too But ’till then I’ll sing These Bitcoiner Blues Chorus Outro: Bitcoiner Blues The song of the hour Sing along and Fight the legacy power Maybe someday Bitcoin will fade away too (But ’till then I’ll sing These Bitcoiner Blues)x2 Originally posted at ZerothPosition.com
You might not expect a homeschooling Facebook group to be a hot spot of political controversy, especially one which is comprised of classical Christian educators. After all, these are moms and dads who are supposed to stand for truth, no matter the consequences. Parents who are trying to model godly behavior to their children. Home-educators who teach and value the Trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Honestly, it’s actually not that rare to find homeschooling parents hashing it out. I mean, homeschooling itself is contentious in some circles, much less its many different styles and flavors. Even on the closed social-media group for Classical Conversations – a supplemental homeschool program whose motto is “To know God and to make Him known” – one must expect disagreement and diversity of thought.
After all, CC has communities (local co-ops) in all 50 states, as well as in more than 20 countries worldwide. So, just what was it about a benign t-shirt that caused such an online brouhaha a while back? It’s a little inside baseball, so let me explain.
CC’s curriculum features a timeline from Creation to modern times. There’s a 13-minute song which parents and students memorize every “school year,” ultimately giving them quick and easy access to 168 key points and people throughout human history.
About halfway through the timeline comes “Songhai in Africa,” which many young kids mistakenly think says “Some guy in Africa.” It’s a longtime joke for those of us who’ve done CC for years.
Our finding humor in childhood innocence is taking nothing away from the once-powerful Western African empire, located in present-day Niger. It’s no slight at their accomplishments, flourishing gold trade, profitable commerce, independence from Mali conquerors in the 14th century, or eventual expansion over the kingdoms of Mali and Ghana in the 15th century.
It’s just an elementary goof that we lighthearted moms see as cute and funny. It’s also part of the “conversations” which CC fosters. When your kid gets something wrong, that’s your opportunity as an educator to explain that “It doesn’t say ‘some guy,’ silly! It’s Songhai. Let me tell you what I know about them, and then we can find out some more about this old empire together.”
Yet, it triggered some tightly wound parents into a tailspin. “The shirt is super offensive and I’m bummed to see so many people who are laughing it off,” complained one mom.
Some called it “insensitive” and “offensive,” while others said it was representative of “white privilege,” and a few actually pegged it as “racist.” It was a totalitarian tirade. How dare you joke about Africans? You know they’re black people, right?
Seriously, people. Get a grip. Next thing you know, some self-sainted virtue-signalers will inform us that we white folks won’t even be able to even utter the word “Africa,” much less discuss its history and modern-day politics.
In an effort to counter the inanity of these left-leaning, perpetual-panties-in-a-wad Christian homeschooling moms, I reached out to the t-shirt designers at Pepper and Persephone – a small online business which sells Christian and CC-themed original merchandise. Here’s what I wrote:
“Dear ladies, I heard what happened to you all on a CC thread regarding the “Some guy in Africa” shirt. Please, please, please do not cave to the ultra-sensitive, always-offended, ever-uptight moms who don’t know how to laugh and apparently have consumed waaaaaaaay too much PC Kool-Aid. As a 7-year CC mom, Essentials tutor, and educator to three memory-master sons, I can tell you that that shirt was spot on! So simple. So inside baseball. So quirky. Soooo cute! It would surely be a big hit at our community and beyond, if you would simply not bend to the speech police. Self-censorship only emboldens their ceaseless meddling.”
“Won’t you please reconsider marketing this creative tee, which I think could be a win for y’all monetarily and win for freedom of expression, common sense, and good ol’ humor in the process? I promise to buy 3 myself if you take this stand against the patronizing nonsense constantly being dished out by the self-proclaimed keepers of ‘acceptable opinion’ and will also promote the product on my blog and through our CC community FB page. What say you two creative mamas? Up for some fun?!”
They kindly replied: “Thank you for reaching out and your kind comments about our design. We are currently talking through what to do with our design and what would be the best way to move forward. Thankfully the concerns raised have mostly been kind and thoughtful and we are thankful for the opportunity to have open and logical conversations about hard topics. We’ll let you know as soon as we have a final decision.”
Okay, fair enough, but I’m unsure as to why this was such a hard topic. It doesn’t have to be. Someone being needlessly offended and your choosing to ignore their lunacy is pretty easy, in my opinion. Repelling social-justice claptrap and the ever-changing rules of cultural Marxism, and upholding truth should be obvious, not super-complicated.
In P&P’s final response, they said: “We took a few days, talked it through, and did our due diligence to understand the concerns before we made a decision and we decided that it is best to put our creative efforts towards other designs at this time. Thank you for your enthusiasm, concern and understanding as we have tried to navigate this in way we thought best and in a way that promotes truth, goodness, and beauty.”
Of course these seemingly nice women have a right to run their venture as they see fit. As a consumer, a free-speech advocate, a lifelong learner, a home-educator, a champion of the classical method, a proponent of ceaseless inquiry, and most importantly, a Christian, I too have a right to speak my mind and hold businesses to account. To hold their feet to the fire when they acquiesce to the aggrieved-minority sham.
Here’s another t-shirt, one I bought at a CC practicum back in 2014 (pardon the stains). It encompasses the high bar which CC places upon writing and speaking clearly. The art of effective communication, persuasion, and civil debate.
So when people use fabricated, deceitful, and conversation-killing ad hominems to censor, that’s a serious problem. And giving in to the patronizing PC bullies only satiates their selfish do-gooder desires and tightens the noose on public discourse. Control rhetoric, control people.
They’re not interested in altruism, no matter how much they quote Matthew 18. They simply seek to advertise their faux virtue and carve out for themselves a safe space in this corrupt world. It has nothing to do with Christian unity; it’s all about secular conformity. Reacting to the flesh, rather than submitting to the Holy Spirit.
You may have had your own “Some guy in Africa” experience. Some seemingly minor infraction you just want to ignore or bend to because it would be easier.
But you know deep down that it feeds into the same malevolent endeavors of those who want to ban Huckleberry Finn from suggestive children’s reading lists, rename the Laura Ingalls Wilder Book Award, change Confederate-hero named schools, building, and streets, and add PC “context” to historic monuments. You know it’s caving to the world, but you just don’t want the hassle.
You grasp that it furthers the nihilistic goals of the progressives, drip by drip, outrage by outrage, capitulation by capitulation. That it’s the boiling-frog fable unfolding in real time. It slowly but surely envelops your life.
So, I get why P&P made the decision they did. Simply being called a racist these days can get you fired from a job, kicked out of your church, and cast to the periphery of “polite society.”
And perhaps they thought shelving the shirt was the loving thing to do. But bold Christians touting the Trivium are the very people who should be repelling PC, not participating in it, even if by default.
If we can’t defend a silly and humorous t-shirt, how are we to stand against the other more sinister manifestations of political correctness, like gender fluidity, critical race theory, democratic socialism, the attack on the nuclear family, the “coexist” equating of all religions, the normalization of pedophilia, the celebration of perpetual warfare, etc.
Is our armor of God really that loose? Can it really not repel the onslaught of totalitarian thugs?
Leftists wouldn’t be allowed to shame tradition, diminish civility, unravel our culture, destroy freedom of conscience, and disregard human nature if we normal, nice people didn’t let them get away with it. Stop making concessions.
The t-shirt controversy is simply indicative of the greater culture war, which common-sense folks are losing. So stop being so nice, y’all.
Carrying the cross isn’t supposed to be easy, and it certainly won’t make you popular or fashionable. Speaking truth is love, no matter what the evangeleftists claim. Ignore the mockers and pick up that cross.
Interesting that the P&P ladies mentioned “Truth, beauty, and goodness” and also sells gear featuring those specific words. They are known as the transcendentals, which have roots all the way back to ancient Greek philosophy.
But they’re also vital doctrines within Christian theology, as they are considered objective properties of God’s splendor and are used by man glorify Him. Each is a divine absolute, contingent upon the other. They’re also the depths of our human passions and should all be offered up to God.
In “The Abolition of Man,” Lewis refers to the over-sentimentality of culture. We cannot properly educate without the transcendentals. Not that people should trivialize emotions, but we should “inculcate just sentiments” as a “right defense against false sentiments.” Without these absolutes, the consequences can be dire.
This is where “We can do better and be better mamas,” as one of the anti-t-shirt parents said. We can show through example to our sons and daughters that speaking the truth is vital. That it is a balm to the madness. That resisting progressivism is not futile. That sticking up for dissenters will build solidarity. That embracing rhetoric can be revolutionary, if we’re only willing to expose the man behind the curtain.
As Psalm 3 says, “I will not fear, though tens of thousands assail me on every side … because the Lord sustains me.” Let’s raise children with chests. Fruitful and functioning Christians, who stand with vim and vigor for virtue and against the wickedness of this world.
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in Oz. It’s an inverted land in which up is down, and left is right, and wrong is right.
But if we are ever to make it back home – to a dwelling where our desires conform to truth and our souls to reality, to a truly good place where we can still laugh and peacefully endure discord while fighting for harmony – we need to stop political correctness dead in its tracks. Oh my, what beauty to behold.
