The Disastrous Effect of US Trade Policy on the US Middle Class

I agree with David Sacks here. To see the disastrous effects of US trade policy on the US middle class, take a road trip through America's many decimated town and small cities.

BTW, a lot of the people who worked these middle class jobs were men. How are men doing in education and the job market now that many of these jobs no longer exist? Steve Stewart-Williams tells us in his article, "The Other Half: Six gender gaps we rarely talk about" Here are his conclusions:

  • Young Women Now Often Out-Earn Young Men

  • Boys Are Falling Behind at School

  • Fewer Men Are Finishing College

  • More Men Die on the Job

  • Men’s Health Gets Less Funding

  • Men Are More Likely to Take Their Own Lives

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Maine Legislature Censures Member for Commenting on Male Participation in Female Sports.

Among other things, this situation raises First Amendment issues:

From FIRE:

Three weeks ago, Representative Laurel Libby of Maine’s 64th District posted on Facebook that a high school athlete won first place in girls’ pole vaulting at the Class B state championship after having competed the year before in the boys’ event and finishing in a tie for fifth place.

Libby’s post is constitutionally protected. She was speaking out about the policy in her state, set by the Maine High School Principals Association, that a high school athlete may participate in competitions for the gender with which they identify. Her post was also part of a nationwide debate. Maine Governor Janet Mills and President Trump have publicly sparred over the president’s executive order proposing to cut off education funding if states do not ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports.

But just days after Libby’s post, the Maine House speaker and majority leader demanded she take it down. When she refused, the majority leader introduced a censure resolution — to be heard in the House the next day — because Libby’s post had included photos and the first name of the student, who is a minor. Libby sought to defend herself in the hastily called House vote, but was repeatedly cut off. The censure resolution passed 75-70 on a party-line vote.

If all the censure did was express disapproval of Libby’s actions, that would be one thing.

A state legislative body is entitled to express displeasure with a member’s actions, which by itself does not violate the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court recently ruled.

But in Libby’s case, the Maine House went further, much further. When Libby refused to apologize for her protected speech, the House speaker declared she would be barred from speaking on the House floor or voting on any legislation until she capitulated. Thus, the House majority party has precluded Libby from doing her job and effectively disenfranchised her constituents, end-running Maine constitutional provisions that say a representative cannot be expelled absent a two-thirds vote or recall election.

Continue ReadingMaine Legislature Censures Member for Commenting on Male Participation in Female Sports.

J.K. Rowling Summarizes the Damage Done by Gender Ideology

Here's one more J.K. Rowling post dedicated to those people who sat on your hands while thousands of confused teenaged girls were being butchered and/or injected with hormones that would lead to their permanent sterilization. Moreover, as Rowling notes, there is the problem with luxury beliefs like this, benefitting only the elites. There's also the problem with the men who take advantage of vulnerable women. Rowling, who has been subjected to non-stop death threats for years, has this to say:

"This 'why do you care about a tiny fraction of the population?' line is, and always was, utterly ridiculous.

Gender ideology has undermined freedom of speech, scientific truth, gay rights, and women's and girls' safety, privacy and dignity. It's also caused irreparable physical damage to vulnerable kids.

Nobody voted for it, the vast majority of people disagree with it, yet it has been imposed, top down, by politicians, healthcare bodies, academia, sections of the media, celebrities and even the police. Its activists have threatened and enacted violence on those who've dared oppose it. People have been defamed and discriminated against for questioning it. Jobs have been lost and lives have been ruined, all for the crime of knowing that sex is real and matters.

When the smoke clears, it will be only too evident that this was never about a so-called vulnerable minority, notwithstanding the fact that some very vulnerable people have been harmed. The power dynamics underpinning our society have been reinforced, not dismantled. The loudest voices throughout this entire fiasco have been people insulated from consequences by their wealth and/or status. They aren't likely to find themselves locked in a prison cell with a 6'4" rapist who's decided his name's now Dolores. They don't need state-funded rape crisis centres, nor do they ever frequent high street changing rooms. They simper from talk show sofas about those nasty far-right bigots who don't want penises swinging around the girls' showers, secure in the knowledge that their private pool remains the safe place it always was.

Those who've benefited most from gender identity ideology are men, both trans-identified and not. Some have been rewarded for having a cross-dressing kink by access to all spaces previously reserved for women. Others have parlayed their delicious new victim status into an excuse to threaten, assault and harass women. Non-trans-identified leftybros have found a magnificent platform from which to display their own impeccably progressive credentials, by jeering and sneering at the needs of women and girls, all while patting themselves on the back for giving away rights that aren't theirs.

The actual victims in this mess have been women and children, especially the most vulnerable, gay people who've resisted the movement and paid a horrible price, and regular people working in environments where one misplaced pronoun could see you vilified or constructively dismissed. Do not tell me this is about a tiny minority. This movement has impacted society in disastrous ways, and if you had any sense, you'd be quietly deleting every trace of activist mantras, ad hominem attacks, false equivalence and circular arguments from your X feeds, because the day is fast approaching when you'll want to pretend you always saw through the craziness and never believed it for a second."

Continue ReadingJ.K. Rowling Summarizes the Damage Done by Gender Ideology

About Men in Women’s Prisons

I personally know "Elizabeth Bennett" and trust her information.

"Husband is an ER doc. He has repeatedly seen female prisoners come in pregnant or sexually assaulted by male prisoners who are housed with them because they state that they identify as female. The prison nurses generally think this situation is awful and are angry about it."

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J.K. Rowling: The Rewriting of Transgender History

Where are we on now along the historical record of transgender ideology? Before I go further, I want to state my view that every adult has the right to do anything they want with their own body and that everyone should be treated with kindness, even if they present themselves as the opposite sex. J.K. Rowling notes that real conversations are starting to happen with more frequency and this is a good thing:

J.K. Rowling:

The rewriting of history begins.

Opponents of gender ideology haven't merely 'endured unsparing criticism'. I haven't simply been told I 'betrayed real feminism' or received a few book-burning videos.

I've been sent thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence. A trans woman posted my family's home address with a bomb-making guide. My eldest child was targeted by a prominent trans activist who attempted to doxx her and ended up doxxing the wrong young woman. I could write a twenty thousand word essay on what the consequences have been to me and my family, and what we've endured is NOTHING compared to the harm done to others.

By standing up to a movement that relies on threats of violence, ostracisation and guilt-by-association, all of us have been smeared and defamed, but many have lost their livelihoods. Some have been physically assaulted by trans activists. Female politicians have been forced to hire personal security on the advice of police. The news that one of the UK's leading endocrinologists, Dr Hillary Cass, was advised not to travel by public transport for her own safety should shame everyone who let this insanity run amok.

Lest we forget, gender apostates have been targeted for crimes such as doubting the evidential basis for transitioning children, for arguing for fair sport for women and girls, for wanting to retain single sex spaces and services, especially for the most vulnerable, and for thinking it barbaric to lock in female prisoners with convicted male sex offenders.

Now the political landscape has shifted, and some who've been riding high on their own supply are waking up with a hell of a hangover. They've started wondering whether calling left-wing feminists who wanted all-female rape centres 'Nazis' was such a smart strategy. Maybe parents arguing that boys ought not to be robbing their daughters of sporting opportunities might, sort of, have a point? Possibly letting any man who says 'I'm a woman' into the locker room with twelve-year-old girls could have a downside, after all?

Mealy-mouthed retconning of what has actually happened over the past ten years is predictable but will not stand. I don't doubt those who've turned a blind eye to the purges of non-believers, or even applauded and encouraged them, would rather minimise what the true cost of speaking out was, but 'yes, maybe trans activists went a little over the top at times' takes are frankly insulting. A full reckoning on the effects of gender ideology on individuals, society and politics is still a long way off, but I know this: the receipts will make very ugly reading when that time comes, and there are far too many of them to sweep politely under the carpet.

Continue ReadingJ.K. Rowling: The Rewriting of Transgender History