Dave Smith argues that the culture wars were not organic. They were engineered by elites as distractions to keep Americans arguing against each other instead of uniting on key economic issues against the elites.
How did it come to be that conservatives have become the most vocal defenders of traditional liberal values? At Public, Michael Shellenberger describes the challenge facing those of us who embrace traditional liberal values:
For most of the post-war period, liberalism in the United States was defined around freedom of speech, the needs of the working class, and the fight against racism and sexism. It was liberals who defended the right to burn the American flag, and of neo-Nazis to march through a neighborhood of Holocaust survivors. It was liberals who fought against corporate power and for the rights of working people. And it was liberals who fought to end racial segregation and to protect girls and women, including in sports.
All of that has changed. Today, it is conservatives who are fighting the racial re-segregation of classrooms and workforces by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) administrators in thrall to Critical Race Theory (CRT). It is conservatives who are defending the right to freedom of expression online from progressives demanding greater censorship by Big Tech and the government. And it is conservatives who are defending the rights of girls and women to female-only spaces and sports from natal males...
A similar dynamic occurred with the natural environment. After World War II, both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, supported industrialization, economic development in poor nations, and nuclear power. Starting in the 1960s, the radical Left turned against industrialization, and started romanticizing peasant life in poor nations, while opposing nuclear energy in rich nations. The result was that Republicans were left holding positions that were once mainstream liberal ones...
As a result, conservatives find themselves in the paradoxical position of defending traditional liberal values like free speech and racial equality from progressives.... A big part of the reason as to why it has been left to conservatives to defend liberalism is because the radical Left, or what is sometimes called the Woke Left, had already defeated traditional liberals, first in major societal institutions and then in Congress, many years and some cases decades ago. [Christopher] Rufo attributes much of the radical Left’s success to its ability to manipulate language and emotions.
Traditional liberals didn’t understand who they were dealing with. The liberal university presidents, the newspaper editors, and the heads of various professional associations were committed to civil dialogue and democracy; the radical Left insurgents were not. The radical Left didn’t hesitate to use illiberal means, including making false accusations of racism, sexism, and homophobia, against their opponents...
Readers of Public know that I believe that the radical Left’s power stems from being able to offer a complete Woke religion to fill the vacuum left by declining belief in traditional religions ... Into the spiritual void emerged a new religion: victim ideology, or Wokeism.
Let's have a LOT more of this. It's called a conversation.
Apparently, the memo has gone out that we can start relying on common sense again. Pamela Paul, writing at the NYT, discusses the bizarre and unfair campaign of threatened violence against J.K. Rowling. Perhaps this is the beginning of what surely should be a more productive conversation that recognizes the reality of the two biological sexes:
So why would anyone accuse her of transphobia? Surely, Rowling must have played some part, you might think.
The answer is straightforward: Because she has asserted the right to spaces for biological women only, such as domestic abuse shelters and sex-segregated prisons. Because she has insisted that when it comes to determining a person’s legal gender status, self-declared gender identity is insufficient. Because she has expressed skepticism about phrases like “people who menstruate” in reference to biological women. Because she has defended herself and, far more important, supported others, including detransitioners and feminist scholars, who have come under attack from trans activists. And because she followed on Twitter and praised some of the work of Magdalen Berns, a lesbian feminist who had made incendiary comments about transgender people.
You might disagree — perhaps strongly — with Rowling’s views and actions here. You may believe that the prevalence of violence against transgender people means that airing any views contrary to those of vocal trans activists will aggravate animus toward a vulnerable population.
But nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic. She is not disputing the existence of gender dysphoria. She has never voiced opposition to allowing people to transition under evidence-based therapeutic and medical care. She is not denying transgender people equal pay or housing. There is no evidence that she is putting trans people “in danger,” as has been claimed, nor is she denying their right to exist.
Take it from one of her former critics. E.J. Rosetta, a journalist who once denounced Rowling for her supposed transphobia, was commissioned last year to write an article called “20 Transphobic J.K. Rowling Quotes We’re Done With.” After 12 weeks of reporting and reading, Rosetta wrote, “I’ve not found a single truly transphobic message.” On Twitter she declared, “You’re burning the wrong witch.”
On Feb 15, 2023, GLAAD and its allies sent a letter to the NYT, broadcasting clearly that they don't want people to have real conversations about transgender topics. They insist that there is only one side to the story, and their allies have done their damndest to silence anyone with a differing viewpoint with shame, cancelation, economic loss and violence. GLAAD's letter was signed by more than a few people who have written for the New York Times. I waited with interest, curious about how the NYT would respond. The NYT response was very difficult to find on Google, which pretends to be an unbiased search engine, but was worth the wait:
The NYT also released this message that they will not tolerate the authoritarian tactics of those who pretend to seek to discuss trans issues:
The resulting vomit of coarse and disrespectful language shocks even Buck Angel. Click the images if you are not easily offended by extremely crude language.
