As some may have noted, I’ve largely been absent from the blog for the past week and a half, as well as off Twitter all of last week.
I got a week-long ban on Twitter, which is now over, and decided to just take a week off of political stuff (aside from my “News of the Week” related review of the news), and will be back in full force next week.
News of the Week for Feb. 17th, 2020
After a year of over five-thousand innocent Venezuelans dead, including targeted assassination, amongst other abuses of power, people are still willing to stand up against the tyrant Maduro, and his friends in other countries.
Yet, while Maduro seems happy to stand up against Venezuelans, he doesn’t seem very capable of standing up against the foreign powers that are propping him up. Russian soldiers are actively involved in military missions, perhaps to protect their future interest in Venezuela’s oil company. Ironic, then, that Maduro and Chavez before him destroyed their country in order to keep a firm and exclusive nationalist grip on their oil industry. It has gotten so bad that a foreign ambassador has been made a member of the Venezuelan cabinet—Bolivar must be spinning in his grave.
Well this is novel: the Cuban ambassador was just made a member of the Venezuelan cabinet. Haven't really seen that kind of move before, even in the Stalin era in Eastern Europe. https://t.co/S9J6F5oqgz
— toomas hendrik ilves (@IlvesToomas) January 21, 2020
News of the Week for Feb. 9th, 2020
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
Extremism can be either good or bad, and either portrayed as either bad or good. But extremism isn’t what it used to be, and ‘twould be interesting to contrast extremism today with extremism from over half-a-century ago.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Standing up and saying “No”.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Children aren’t deemed capable of being responsible for themselves (outside of abortion), but are deemed mature enough to mess up their bodies on hormone blockers an plastic surgery… but perhaps not for much longer.
“A Cobb County lawmaker wants to make it a felony for medical professionals to help a minor with gender transition.
“State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, said the legislation aims to protect children from having irreversible procedures done when they are young. Current law requires a parent to consent to surgery or for a minor to be prescribed medication.
“While the bill is still being drafted, Ehrhart said Georgia medical providers who perform surgeries or administer or prescribe medications that assist minors with gender transition could be charged with a felony. The legislation would not affect doctors working with adults who seek to undergo gender transition.”
A full list of state proposals to protect children from transgender exploitation can be found here.
The 26th Amendment to the Constitution was passed because it was felt unfair that we didn’t trust the vote to eighteen, nineteen, and twenty year olds when we could trust them with actual military weapons to be used in an actual war. How could we not trust them to have a say in policies that could end up getting them sent off and potentially killed?
Since then we’ve seen the age limit for alcohol, tobacco, and increasingly any firearm increased to twenty-one based on the scientific evidence that brains don’t mature until that age, and eighteen, nineteen, and twenty year olds don’t understand the consequences of their actions—yet we still trust them to have a say in the running of everyone else’s lives and to understand the consequences of their voting preference that impacts everyone else.
That we “trust” seventeen and under year olds to have an abortion or undergo transgender surgery is another, though equally nonsensical, topic.
Certainly, though, if you are competent enough to have a say in making the laws, then you must be competent to face the consequences of breaking a law, right?
In the Fools’ Golden State of California, the answer may soon be NO.
“A California state senator wants people 19 and younger accused of crimes to be tried as juveniles.
“California’s current law says people ages 16 and 17 can only be tried as adults in certain circumstances. Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Democrat from Berkeley, announced a bill on Tuesday that would raise the age at which people are automatically tried as adults to 20.
“Skinner said brain science research shows the part of the brain that inhibits impulses and enables organized, planned behavior is not fully developed in people as young as 19.
“‘When teenagers make serious mistakes and commit crimes, state prison is not the answer,’ Skinner said.”
But access to the ballot box is the answer?
Just when you thought politics in the year 2020 couldn’t get any more… year 2020, this happens:
Yes, that is the far Left “union”, the International Workers of the World (aka “Wobblies) with furry fetish art.
“Kelsey Tanabe Walker, the person responsible for the Greater Chicago IWW post revealed that although the organization had no ‘official affiliation with the furry community,’ furries are welcomed into the union as if they were ‘any other worker’:
“‘As the IWW is also known as the One Big Union, and we believe that when workers come together as a unit, they can overpower their bosses, we originally took the meaning of the image to be in reference to this principle. While we have no official affiliation with the furry community, we appreciate that furry workers hold these same values of worker power, and welcome them in our union the same as any other worker.’”
News of the Week for Feb. 3rd, 2020
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
The left-leaning bias of the media has been known for over half-a-decade. Fifty-four years ago, Mr. Bukley took on David Susskind over just such a point that is more evident now than it was even then.
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