What is it About All These "ISMs?"

I was reading this morning and it occurred to me we’ve created a lot of “isms.”  You know all those really cool things people like to opine on.  We have Feminism, Popularism, Nationalism, Globalism, and of course Racism.  All of these “isms” seem to be good things to have opinions on, but at the same time, none of them seem to have a universally agreed definition that applies to all members of society.  Why is that?

For example, there are “feminist” women who believe women should be equal to men, but can’t define what equality actually means.  Should men and women compete in sports whereas of today women would seem to have a disadvantage when it comes to strength and speed, or should there be similar competitions for men and women with equal prizes?  Why don’t women golfers make the same money as their male counterparts, even though revenue from their events seems to be lower than in the men’s tournaments?  

But then we have feminists who think women are superior to men and it is only through the chauvinist nature of society that women are prevented from showing that superiority.  Which feminist is right or is there no right?

The same can be said about Popularism.  Who can truly define what the legitimate popularist movement is?  On the one side, we have a minority of hardcore conservatives who believe the Trump movement was a popularist uprising.  On the other, we have a minority of hardcore radicals who believe ANTIFA and BLM represent the populist uprising.  Of course, the Democratic party, the party of hate, has long played this game on how best to divide the country to maintain its power, while the Republican Party, the party of greed, has stumbled about trying to keep up with their political opponents.  From a strictly legal perspective, I’ve got to put my money on the legitimacy of the Trump movement as being more mainstream since most Trump supporters are not destroying the towns and cities, they live in.

Is nationalism good or bad?  I was brought up thinking it was good.  I joined the military to see the world and protect the nation (actually in that order) and thought I was doing a good thing.  Now I’m told nationalism is bad and we should all agree globalism is the way to go, although it doesn’t appear to hold worldwide appeal, at least in places like China.

Finally, what is up with Racism?  We didn’t hear a great deal about how racist we all were, at least us white folks, until President Obama decided to choose sides in isolated local events was a good thing.  Now with the transmogrification of Critical Race Theory into a social justice standard it is widely accepted that only old white conservative males are racist and everyone else just wants to get along peacefully.  Although somewhere along the line the inner-city youth may have missed the memos since they seem to beat up and kill a lot of people who are not old white conservative males.

So my real question is, is the world better for discovering all these cool “isms?”

A Simple Question

When do the rights of an infant equal the rights of a woman?
This was a question our founding fathers never had to consider, but now thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court we must answer if we are ever to craft laws that are just and morally defensible.
Feminist argue men should have no voice in this decision, and if they weren't so adamant. we men craft the laws as they want them then perhaps I wouldn't care what a woman chooses to do.  But as it stands today, feminists believe they can exclude men from the moral and ethical debate that affects an entire species within society.
Where else is this argument valid?  Are only women allowed to decide what is best for whales?  How about physics or math?  Maybe in city planning?

Hillary Rodham Clinton

I don’t believe I’ve ever titled a blog post about a specific individual before, but there is a first for everything.  HRC is back in the news this week as she and her entourage float yet another trial balloon about a supposed third run at the office of President.  Once I stopped chuckling I thought about her life and legacy.  For Republicans she is the gift that keeps on giving.

Her thirst for power is such a remarkable quality she seems to US politics what Vlad the Impaler was to international diplomacy with the Ottoman Empire.  I am not sure if she is so ruthlessly calculating that she and her advisors have a true master plan, or she is so petty she intends to destroy what little remains of the old guard in the Democratic party as she slowly wilts away.  But I have to give it to her, she does have a Dorian Gray quality as she works so hard to market herself to the radical left.

I was driving yesterday when a song by Merrilee Rush came on the radio.  In the late 1960’s Angel in the Morning was a feminist anthem about how a woman was strong enough to accept the consequences of her actions regarding a one-night affair.  As I look at the modern movement that HRC has been such a central part of for almost 30 years, I can only wonder how we’ve evolved from that “free love” age to the “#metoo” generation and how her involvement in defending the predatory nature of fellow Democrats while using it as a club against her political opponents has really brought us to a point today where everyone is confused.

I am so old I can remember a time in the United States Air Force when Generals thought women were not suitable to fly airplanes.  This was well after the Amelia Earhart, the WASPs of WWII, and Jackie Cochran proved otherwise.  It was the same mentality that said Blacks should not drink at the same fountain as white folk.  That all finally changed in the 1970s and women have gone on to prove they are every bit the equal to men in the operation of complex equipment in demanding stress environments.  There remains a biological issue of the physical strength that would suggest there are some things that might be too demanding for the gender, but let’s not debate that here. 

There is no lack of study on the topic of feminism and woman’s rights, it’s been an on-going issue since its beginning in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848.[1]  The funny thing though is how the whole issue of equality has gotten twisted into one that mirrors the outrages of select groups in all social matters.  It also suffers from the fact a faction of the movement has pronounced themselves as the one true voice and are so narrowly focused on their political agenda they refuse to consider legitimate opposing voices within their own gender.

Since her rise to national prominence in the early 1990s HRC has been one of the key voices leading to this divide within the feminist culture.  A movement which now demands not only equality, but expects the government to fund their moral choices, and force those with opposing views do so as well.  She and her party have fostered voices that demean women who don’t fit within her political sphere and encourage abuse of those women for political gain.  For example, her current defense of her husband and why he was right not to resign fly’s directly in the face of the #metoo mantra that men in power who take advantage of that power to gain a sexual advantage are plain and simply abusers of the helpless and defenseless women.

Since she entered the national stage -- her views of the feminist movement seem to evolve with the political needs of the party. How she viewed her role as the First Lady was significantly different than all her predecessors, and successors for that matter.  We saw in her attempt to ram universal health care through the Congress during President Clinton’s first term that she viewed herself as an elected official, but without the legitimate clout or charisma to persuade even her own party of the value of such legislation.

Since those heady days of the Clinton White House, she has inspired others towards the extreme.  Take, for example, Kyrsten Sinema, Democratic Candidate for Senate in Arizona, who made this declaration in 2006, “These women who act like staying at home, leeching off their husbands or boyfriends, and just cashing the checks is some sort of feminism because they're choosing to live that life.[2]”  Making it clear that women who choose to be mothers aren’t really suitable to deciding what is and isn’t important to feminism.  By the way, she has also shown her disdain for the entire state she proposes to represent. The question for me is does she really enter into this political process to serve the needs of all the state, serve the needs of only a few, or to basically enrich herself?  At this point, she seems to be following in the HRC model where the office is a means to power and wealth, but that’s just my opinion.

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[1] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/seneca-falls-convention-begins

[2] http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/19/arizona-democrat-kyrsten-sinema-attacked-bullshit-stay-home-moms-leeching-off-husbands/

Humility

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.”  Proverbs 11:2

It is an interesting time as those who shape public opinion and the news fall like dominoes -- disgraced by their own transgressions.  It begs the question, will this current sense of outrage continue until we achieve a new equality where all are held accountable for their actions, or will we soon tire of these public beheadings, and the powerful will again possess the weak?

Call me a cynic, but I can’t imagine the celebrities of politics, entertainment, and the news now reaching deep within themselves for introspective and returning to a time when they held themselves to the same standard as the rest of us, or reported the news without a political and moral bias. It seems more likely they are now looking over their shoulders with the fear of what may fall out of their own personal closets. Perhaps, it never was fashionable to accurately report the news, or hold a moderate position, and I was just naive when I thought it was. 

It is almost cliché when we talk about the corrupting nature of power, but the original quote is attributed to John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, (AKA Lord Acton), who wrote in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Great men are almost always bad men.”  

As long as those who report on the politicians enable them to hide their “open secrets,” we value celebrity above honor, and believe entertainers opinions are worth listening to I expect we will soon return to life as normal; or at least something that approximates the previous normal.

Perhaps, and this is just my speculation, if the feminist movement was really about empowering all women and not just furthering the cause of some women, there would be a chance we could achieve a more balanced relationship between the powerful and the powerless.