Potpourri: Some thoughts on a few topics currently in the news

Condé Nast’s liberal online publication Teen Vogue is in the news, and not for anything positive that has happened. Alexi McCammond was hired at the magazine on March 5th, scheduled to start as editor-in-chief on March 24th.

But in the interim, magazine staffers got wind of something McCammond had done, and raised enough cane that the up-coming EIC decided to resign the position she had not yet taken.

What horrendous deed had McCammond done? Had she committed murder, or armed robbery? Pedophilia? Did she vote for Donald Trump?

No. She had committed the unpardonable sin of making insensitive, some say racist remarks in tweets. In 2011. When she was 17 years-old. And has since apologized profusely for her transgressions.

But in this day of hypersensitivity, when anyone can be highly offended by anything or everything, even what one did years ago as a teenager is a hanging offense.

Interestingly, the delicate sensitivities of the staffers of this young women’s magazine were not sufficiently provoked by the sponsored content from the Saudi Arabian government, a country where women are routinely mistreated and subjected to male dominance. 

This is the essence of the cancel culture: ignorance and hypocrisy.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., continues to amaze with her impudence, deviousness and heavy-handed partisanship.

When Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., who was recently declared the winner of a challenged election, asked to have her son, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, observe her being sworn in from the gallery above the House floor, Pelosi denied the request. 

“I guess he’s considered a risk,” Tenney said. No doubt. He’s the son of a Republican Representative, graduated from the Naval Academy and is now a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy. Who could be more of a threat to Pelosi than someone with such a positive record? And he never had a relationship with a female Chinese spy, either.

No, he’s not a risk. Pelosi; Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.; Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn.; Elizabeth (the filibuster is racist) Warren, D-MA, et al, are risks. They are working overtime to weaken the Constitution, nationalize our elections and increase the incidence of vote fraud, assist illegal aliens entering the country by the thousands, ignore the 2nd Amendment, raise taxes, increase unemployment, and the list goes on.

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What is supremacy? Merriam-Webster defines it as “the quality or state of being supreme,” which is defined as “highest in rank or authority.” 

How does a group — perhaps an ethnic group — gain supremacy? In the case of a nation, supremacy would naturally go to a group that is much larger than the others, likely larger than all the others combined.

In Spain, for example, the World Atlas tells us that 89.9 percent of its population is Spanish, and just 10.1 percent is of a foreign ethnicity. 

Guess what? In Spain there is Spanish supremacy.

In the United States, even after decades of immigration, the Statistical Atlas tells us that white people still comprise the majority at 62 percent. The next closest group is that of Hispanics at 16.9 percent. Blacks make up 12.6 percent, Asians are 5.2 percent, and mixed ethnicities are 2.3 percent.

As you go back through time, the white majority was much larger. So, when the culture and norms of the United States were evolving, white people overwhelmingly set those standards. And they still exist.

So, the “white supremacy” we hear so much about is not an unusual thing, and it is not automatically a bad thing. 

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Why will the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not allow the press to participate in ride-alongs with agents at the southern border? Since the news media are the source of the information we depend upon, that might make some think there is something being hidden down there.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that the department is preparing video to distribute to news media, but cited the pandemic among reasons for not allowing reporters, photographers and camera crews into the facilities housing illegal aliens.

“We are focused on our operations, executing our operations, in a crowded Border Patrol facility where hundreds of vulnerable migrant children are located,” Mayorkas said.

Wallace challenged the Secretary, saying his answer sounded like an “excuse,” and that one pool reporter and camera crew could enter one facility and record what’s happening, without endangering the children or the crew.

Mayorkas emphasized the department’s efforts to provide such a video. Apparently, he trusts the government to provide the best information to the public. Yeah, right!

* * *

If you don’t like Dr. Suess, don’t read those books. If you don’t like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson because they were Confederates, don’t try to have the carvings on Stone Mountain removed, just don’t go there. If someone you know of goes to an event sponsored by someone or something you dislike, just deal with the difference in opinion, don’t try to get them fired or otherwise punished. 

In America, small groups don’t get to decide what the rest of us can like.

Equality of results is an unachievable goal, so stop, already!

The New York Times recently published a profile piece on clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson claiming Peterson is the “pedigreed voice” of those cretins who wish to undermine efforts by liberals to promote equality.

Peterson’s excellent new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, has sold more than a million copies since its release this past January.  

But this is not about Peterson’s insightful tome, which is not primarily about equality, although that topic comes up in it. This is about the futility and great negatives of attempting to force equality of results.

Some years ago a step in that direction occurred in some schools in an attempt to save students from the negative feelings resulting from failure, or not being among the best at something. Instead of celebrating the best three or four with a trophy, some schools decided everyone deserved a trophy just for participating.

Even though one of the twenty participants in a 100-yard dash came in well ahead of the others, and four did not even finish the race, it is now the case for all participants to receive a trophy. Hurt feelings and disappointment are no-nos. But where’s the recognition for the fastest runner who beat the runner-up by a full second? First, second and third place trophies? Absolutely not! “Trophies for all” is better.

In recent tryouts for a high school cheerleading squad, one girl who tried out, but did not make the cut, was unhappy, as might be expected. So, her mother called the school and complained, and the school has since ruled that all who tried out will be accepted for the squad.

What about those that are just better at it and actually earned a position through their preparation and performance?  Does that mean the school will now accept all of those who show up for every tryout or team, regardless of their respective abilities? What if 50 girls show up next year for the cheerleading squad?

Some of the 50 will be significantly less able to perform than others. Will the squad have to do their challenging cheers badly, or just do less challenging cheers? Maybe they will just stand in a line and recite the cheers, hopefully together. What about the increased expense of outfitting 50 girls instead of 12? What if every girl in the school wants to be a cheerleader?

Regardless of their skills, preparation, or experience, every girl in the school is now deemed equal when it comes to cheerleading.

Except, of course, that they aren’t. Imposing equality attempts to equalize that which is inherently not equal.

Another popular topic is whether people doing the same job should receive the same pay. “Yes,” you may say. But it is more complicated than it appears.

Are they equally good employees that produce equally high quality work; do all have the same amount of experience; do they work the same hours? If all those are truly equal, perhaps they should receive equal pay. But that isn’t always, or even usually, the situation. Reality is rarely that cooperative.

We are all different, by design. Some of us are tall, some short. Some brilliant, some are less so, and some not at all. Some are athletic while others are not. Some are good at math, science, English, geography, art, music or other things, but also may not be good at others of those subjects. And there’s nothing liberals can do to equalize those natural inequalities.

How do you put a guy who trips on the stairs and continually drops things on the baseball or basketball team with kids who can actually play the game, and consider him equal to the others?

This trend of rewarding everyone regardless of their merit has taken hold, and has grown to a point where preventing individuals from having negative feelings is of greater importance than their learning to deal with the slings and arrows of life.

Many of us have decided that protecting feelings by giving everyone an award is more important than recognition for actual accomplishments. It is not a bad thing to compete with one another, to try to be the best among your peers, or at least work to be the best you can be. Do we no longer value excellence or achievement? Or is mediocrity the new national goal?

There is order in systems to rank people by their abilities, and forcing round pegs into square holes by imposing equality creates chaos. The effort to make all equal is chaotic, because it replaces order with disorder.

Protecting hypersensitive feelings did not get us to the top. America reached its peak of greatness by encouraging people to achieve great things and striving for excellence.

Equality – true equality in all things – is a pipe dream; an impossibility. But liberals seem determined to try, try and try again to produce the impossible. And this pretty well explains liberalism. In its efforts to achieve utopia, it makes promises that it cannot keep.

We can certainly work to improve equality of opportunity. After that, it’s up to the individual to succeed on her or his own initiative.