Discrimination Against Certain Writers …

Is the pipeline to success open to all good fiction writers in the U.S.? Apparently not.

Charlie Kirk comments on the statistics offered by Matthew Schmitz:

Why are young men the most conservative they've been in decades? Because they grew up under liberalism, and they know its only unifying principle is constant anti-white and anti-male discrimination.

Need proof? Not a single white male born after 1984 has published a work of fiction in the New Yorker, America's most famous literary magazine. Did they all forget how to write? Of course not. They're being kept out because of their race and sex.

The left assumed young men would simply embrace being dispossessed and hated. They were wrong.

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The Covid Era Dysfunction and Lies in a Nutshell

Nicolas Hulscher has reported on a new study titled "A Narrative Review of the COVID-19 Infodemic and Censorship in Healthcare," which was just published in the journal Secrecy and Society. What did our government and institutions get wrong about COVID. I would say just about everything, which would explain current day widespread distrust in U.S. government and institutions.

Here is the abstract of the study:

Ideological and financial motivations have undermined science for decades. In this narrative review, we explore how organizations and governments used misinformation, disinformation, censorship, and secrecy to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Various rationales for employing censorship and secrecy during the COVID-19 pandemic are examined including how organizations and governments create confusion about the risks associated with their products and blame avoidance to shift responsibility and to avoid accountability for their actions. Methods of censorship employed during the COVID-19 pandemic are reviewed, examples are provided, and the consequences of these actions are reviewed. Information included in this review was obtained from scientific papers, government documents, mass media articles, books, and personal accounts of physicians and scientists. We examine how the use of censorship and secrecy created a challenge for scientists, physicians, politicians, and the general public in trying to understand COVID-related topics. Finally, strategies for managing censorship and secrecy during a pandemic are presented.
Here are the basic categories of government and institutional fraud and dysfunction discussed in the study:

1. COVID-19 Response Was Driven by Secrecy, Censorship, and Misinformation

2. Suppression of Scientific Debate on the Origins of SARS-CoV-2

3. COVID-19 Vaccines Were Overhyped, Unsafe, and Mandated Through Coercion

4. Cheap, Effective COVID-19 Treatments Were Suppressed to Protect Vaccine Profits

5. Lockdowns, Social Distancing, and Mask Mandates Were Not Backed by Science

6. Media and Tech Companies Served as Enforcers of Government Censorship

7. The COVID-19 Response Was the Most Widespread Attack on Free Speech in Modern History

Continue ReadingThe Covid Era Dysfunction and Lies in a Nutshell

Silence Versus Belief

Can you assume that people believe you merely because they stop debating you? Rob Henderson explains:

Clever activists know how exploit the weakness of professors. Most of the people who become professors just love their field—they don't want to wade into activism or political disputes. A lot of them are introverts, or at the very least, they just want to be left alone to do their work. So if activists flood a professor’s inbox with emails, call their department nonstop, pressure the department, and demand to know why they haven’t signed a petition or denounced a colleague, eventually, a lot of them will just give in.

At some point, the professor just wants the noise to stop. They’ll sign whatever, release whatever statement, do whatever it takes to be left alone. It’s not that they believe in the cause—it’s just easier to give in. They don’t want to get dragged into a political or cultural fight; they just want to keep their head down and focus on their work. A lot of it, frankly, comes down to cowardice—figuring out the fastest way to make the problem go away.

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Shutting You Up – Being Canceled by the Political Left’s Perfect Rhetorical Fortress

Over at Facebook I often post news items (from X) that people won't see if they get their "news" from legacy outlets. In response, many people have tried to belittle me with many flavors of ad hominem attacks. It's amazing to see grown adults resort to such tactics. They also use many other tactics, most of which are described in an excellent book by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott: The Canceling of the American Mind.

I asked Grok 3 to summarize the tactics often used by people on the political far Left against anyone who disagrees, including people like me who had for many years voted for Democrats. No longer. I don't recognize the current Democratic Party and I abhor many of their positions, such as pro-war, pro-censorship, race-essentialism and advocating for confused teenagers to undergo permanent life-changing surgeries and sterilization through cross-sex hormones and so-called "puberty blockers."

When I criticize these positions on social media it doesn't take long for the attacks to start. Many of these attacks have been described in Chapter 6 of The Canceling, "The Perfect Rhetorical Fortress." These are not attempts to communicate. Rather, they are attempts to shut people up, to cancel them. I asked Grok to summarize these "barricades." Here's Grok's response (which I reviewed for accuracy):

These tactics are described as "barricades" that form an impregnable fortress, protecting the user from having to address arguments on their merits. Below is a summary of the 11 barricades as presented in the chapter, based on the book’s framework:

Fasco-Casting This barricade involves labeling someone as "conservative," "right-wing," "far-right," "fascist," or even "neo-confederate," regardless of their actual beliefs. By associating the speaker with a negatively perceived ideology, their arguments can be dismissed outright as inherently bad or unworthy of consideration.

Are You a Man or a Woman? This tactic questions whether the speaker’s gender disqualifies them from speaking on certain issues. For example, men might be told they can’t discuss women’s issues, creating a barrier based on identity rather than the argument’s validity.

Continue ReadingShutting You Up – Being Canceled by the Political Left’s Perfect Rhetorical Fortress