Thursday, September 06, 2018


Masculinity Is Good

Male and Female God created us. That means He created masculinity and femininity as well. Lose one or the other, and bad things happen.

At UCLA, students recently formed the Toxic Masculinity Committee—designed to help men understand, among other things, that their innate drive for aggression is a bad thing.

But is it? The women of Cypress, California, might disagree.

While shopping at the local Target store, Ismael Duarte noticed a man following his teenage daughter. When Duarte blocked him from getting any closer, the stranger walked away. Minutes later, Duarte spotted him again—this time the man was using his cell phone to try to film up the skirt of another young woman.

And that’s when Duarte went into “protect mode.” Duarte kicked the cell phone away, and pounced on the man, knocking him to the floor. The man scrambled to his feet and fled. But Duarte and his wife raced after him and used their own phones to photograph his car and license plate. Duarte called the police, and the man was arrested.

Now, as the father of a teenage daughter, I’m cheering Ismael Duarte’s “aggression.” You see, what gets lost in all the complaints about “toxic masculinity” is the fact that the very traits feminists associate with it—aggression, ambition, and violence—can and often are used in a good cause. My concern is that we are going to end up with fewer men like Ismael Duarte because boys as young as five are being taught that there is something wrong with the biologically-influenced traits associated with masculinity.

As my friend and radio host Dennis Prager notes in a column titled “Is America Still Making Men?” one of the questions every society must ask in order to survive is, “How do we make good men?” If we fail to answer this question properly, we end up with men who “will likely do much harm.” But men who are tutored from early childhood on how to “channel their drives in positive directions make the world a much better place.” They learn to take responsibility for themselves, their families, their houses of worship, their communities, and their country.

But this doesn’t take place automatically, Prager warns: Turning boys into good men takes work.

Tragically, Americans appear to have forgotten this lesson. For instance, modern feminism has attacked the very concepts of femininity and masculinity, insisting that boys and girls be reared in exactly the same way. Prager says boys are no longer allowed to have “masculine” toys such as play guns and toy soldiers. On the school playground, rough games like dodgeball have been banned.

Second, America has gone from a responsibility-centered culture to a rights-centered one. The result? Fewer men are willing to take on the life-long job of caring for a wife and children. Why should they, if life is all about them?

And sadly, cultural changes over the past 50 years mean that fewer boys have important male mentors in their lives to teach them how to be men.

If you’re the father of sons, I hope you spend lots of time with them, teaching them what being a man is all about—and maybe doing challenging stuff together, like hiking the Grand Canyon. And I recommend giving your sons a copy of Bill Bennett’s “The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood.”

Instead of trying to make men more like women, or labeling typical male traits as “toxic,” we should help boys harness characteristics such as aggression, ambition, and yes, even violence, into proper channels—such as working hard to support a family, racing into burning buildings to save children—or protecting their daughters from predators in retail stores.

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Women dressed like prostitutes confuse men, claims Maureen Lipman

Women celebrities who dress like prostitutes but complain about male attention are to blame for “confusing” men, Maureen Lipman has claimed.

The actress said that the #MeToo movement was “going too far” in vilifying men for incidents that took place decades ago when standards of behaviour were different.

“We mustn’t wipe out men,” she told Radio Times. “I know men have brutalised women over centuries, but I don’t think the message we’re giving out with #MeToo is right.”

Lipman, 72, is not the first well-known woman to express misgivings about the backlash against inappropriate male behaviour. She said that women celebrities who appeared in public in “all this bondage clothing — dressed a bit like a prostitute would have dressed” were sending mixed messages. “Young female pop stars, for example, are saying: ‘It’s my body, and I’m empowered to show it to you’. But then: ‘Don’t touch it, don’t come near it, don’t flirt with it.’ That is a bit of a shame because flirting is some of the best fun you’ve ever had in your life. We’re batting our eyelids and clenching our teeth at the same time. That is confusing.”

Lipman also indicated some sympathy for Roman Polanski, the film director who fled the US after pleading guilty to the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Polanski, 85, has never served time in jail, but Lipman, who starred in his 2002 film The Pianist, said that his decades-long exile in Europe was “probably enough” punishment. She also suggested that the circumstances of Polanski’s crime during a “photoshoot” at the Los Angeles home of the actor Jack Nicholson, were not considered so problematic in the era in which they occurred.

“We’ve got to stop judging everybody now on the mores of then,” Lipman said. “In the Sixties it was plausible for a young girl to be brought to Jack Nicholson’s house and left with Roman Polanski. It wasn’t an unusual thing.”

She made it clear that she supported the progress made in encouraging sexual abuse victims to come forward but said that #MeToo was leading to “kneejerk” and “all-inclusive” condemnation of men for relatively minor historical offences.

Lipman is perhaps best known for playing the Jewish grandmother Beatrice Bellman in a series of British Telecom adverts. She has just signed to play Evelyn Plummer, an “outspoken battleaxe”, in Coronation Street.

She ended her long-standing support for the Labour Party in 2014 and has repeatedly criticised Jeremy Corbyn’s record on antisemitism.

In her Radio Times interview, the actress implied that the low profile adopted by Mr Corbyn’s Mexican wife, Laura Álvarez, reflected a broader marginalisation of women by political leaders. “Where’s Mrs Corbyn? She’s a Mexican in a peaked cap following two paces behind . . . Is he hiding her?” she said. “Where is Mrs Putin? Where has she gone? Can you trust a man like that? Trump grabs pussy as a way of saying, ‘How do you do, madam?’ We know that; he’s a misogynist and a vulgarian. And he’s on the third Mrs Trump, who hates him.”

In January, 100 prominent French women signed an open letter claiming that seduction was being criminalised by the #MeToo campaign. Mary Beard, the classicist, has spoken of the tendency to “cherry pick” isolated incidents of misbehaviour out of context, urging the movement to focus on the protection of women working now rather than past misconduct.

SOURCE







States Must Stop the War on Faith-Based Adoption Agencies

Yet another adoption agency is closing its doors, at a time when thousands of young victims of the opioid crisis flood America’s foster care system.

This time, it’s Catholic Charities of Buffalo, New York. The agency can no longer cooperate with the government there because the state will not allow Catholic Charities to operate consistently with its religious mission.

Catholic Charities of Buffalo represents another example in a disturbing trend toward driving out faith-based agencies from America’s child welfare system entirely—a trend that could cause children immeasurable harm.

Catholic Charities places children in homes with both a father and a mother in accordance with Catholic teaching on marriage and the family.

Unfortunately, the state now considers that belief to be discriminatory against LGBT individuals. New York issued an ultimatum: Abandon your beliefs, or quit your ministry. Catholic Charities is unable to comply with these rules and now must shut down, leaving the state with even fewer agencies to meet the needs of kids.

The state of New York is wrong to treat Catholic Charities’ religious mission in this manner.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges that those who uphold a traditional view of marriage do so “based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises.”

And as Kennedy made clear in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a religious belief in traditional marriage is not equivalent to discrimination on the basis of sexual identity, and the government cannot target people for their religious beliefs.

Americans must remain free to disagree on the definition of marriage if our civil liberties are to mean something. A government that can pick winners and losers in a debate on important cultural issues retains the power to silence debate on any topic. Everyone is vulnerable to lose their freedom when the state is given license to repress viewpoints it disfavors.

The situation becomes even more dire when children hang in the balance, as in New York. Kids become the collateral damage when the government shuts down agencies over their beliefs.

Unfortunately, what has happened in Buffalo is no isolated incident.

Earlier this year, the city of Philadelphia canceled its contracts with Catholic Social Services due to its religious beliefs about marriage, displacing hundreds of children in the process.

Meanwhile, the ACLU and Lambda Legal are litigating in Michigan and Texas in hopes of making these shutdowns the new normal nationwide.

Shamber Flore, a young woman who was adopted through St. Vincent’s Catholic Charities in Michigan—the agency being sued by the ACLU in Michigan—is speaking out on the real cost of shutting down faith-based agencies.

St. Vincent’s changed Shamber’s life. Her mother was a prostitute and her father was abusive and largely absent. Then, St. Vincent’s placed Shamber with the Flore family, and her new home enabled her to heal.

“I grew up exposed to prostitution, poverty, and drugs, but thankfully and fortunately my story didn’t end there,” she said in a statement. “I have had the privilege of having my story rewritten and I know this wouldn’t have been possible without the help and aid of St. Vincent.”

“[Foster children] deserve more people, more agencies, more open hearts to fill the shortage of families willing to care for kids like myself. If the ACLU has its way, there will be less helping hands, less homes and ultimately less hope for foster kids, and we can’t let the ACLU take that away.”

What the ACLU hopes to achieve in Michigan has already come to pass in other states.

California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., have already driven out religious providers through similar policies. They did so even though religious agencies are unique assets to the child welfare system, with great track records for overall recruitment and for finding homes for difficult to place children.

Some states and localities have gone beyond canceling contracts with religious agencies and simply refuse to license them altogether. With these agencies unable to even do pro bono work, states lose agencies whose private donors have helped subsidize the already-strained system. These shutdowns have left states with fewer hands to meet the needs of kids. The timing could not be worse, as the opioid epidemic has sent 92,000 children and counting into the system.

Closing down these agencies did not help a single child find a home. Nor did closing these agencies prevent a single LGBT person from adopting, as such adoptions are legal across all 50 states.

There is nothing to gain from closing down faith-based agencies, but there is much to lose. When religious agencies go out of business, children suffer.

A line must be drawn in Buffalo. No more agency shutdowns. The future of our children depends on it.

SOURCE





Real Blackfellas Don’t Complain

Leftists seem to be dimly aware that the name "Aboriginal" is not actually an Aboriginal name (It's Latin) so put on a big turn about using old tribal names (Murri, Boori, Boong etc.).  There are hundrdds of such names so the practice does nothing for clarity or anything else.  And Aborigines don't in fact use such names very much anymore.  They ordinarily refer to one another in  English -- as "blackfellas".  So you can see that the writer below is unusual in being really in touch with Aborigines


On 26 January 1788 when the First Fleet ships unloaded their 1200 convicts, Royal Marine guards and officials, not a shot was fired.

As they looked around what’s now Circular Quay they saw nothing other than bush. Not a single building, planted field, domesticated plant or animal – nothing at all. It was the same across the continent. It was "terra nullius" – a vacant land.

There was no Aboriginal Army to defeat in battle. There was nothing to claim as the spoils of victory.

There was just wild bush. The few Aborigines who came out to have a look at these strange people were completely illiterate and innumerate and those on the south side of the harbour spoke a language completely unintelligible to those on the north side of the harbour and they’d been constantly at war with each other for as long as anyone can remember. There was no "invasion".

Captain Phillip was instructed by the government in London to treat the natives "with amity and kindness" and he did. No Aborigines were shot; no platoon of Marines fixed their bayonets or loaded their muskets or took a shot at anyone who emerged from the bush to see what was going on. Instead they offered them gifts and friendship.

Most people now "identified" as "indigenous" – like myself and my children and grandchildren have European – mostly British – ancestry to a greater or lesser extent.

I recently had a DNA test done that shows I’m 48% Irish, 20% English, 30% Scandinavian, 1% Spanish and 1% Aboriginal. The absurdity is that, in this time of identity politics, I am an "Aborigine" by virtue of the fact that one of my Irish ancestors married an Aboriginal woman 6 generation ago.

There is no reason to change Australia Day. It was the day "Australia" came into being and had it not been for those British coming ashore on 26 January 1788, I wouldn’t exist and neither would Mr Mundine. The name "Mundine" is as English as a cold pork pie or fish-n-chips wrapped in newspaper.

It’s time for all indigenous people take a spoonful of cement, harden up and to get over what happened 229 years ago and stop playing the victim.

If it were not for the Australian, American and New Zealand soldiers, sailors and airmen defending Australia from the swarming Japanese in 1942, there would be no Aborigines living in Australia today. The black power mob should be holding street rallies to thank ordinary Aussies for keeping them alive today in more ways than one. We owe them nothing!

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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