ISIS and Liberals: Working Toward the Same Ends

Hardly a day goes by that the news does not contain a glib reference to ISIS destroying some ancient monument or some other piece of our ancient history. This week, they managed to combine their two favorite activities, grisly executions and destruction of human cultural heritage, into one when they blew up three prisoners by tying them to historic Palmyran columns and just exploding everything all at once.

When I was younger, this might have gotten much more attention. Today, not so much. This event does not concern the modern American because he is already inured to human and historical destruction. You do not need to look very long at the comment section of any such story to see the ignorant screeds of today's liberals vilifying the killers as religious even as they ignore or even applaud the destruction of something from our common history (or ignore the destruction of a million fetuses every year in our abortion clinics).

Today's college kids secretly love this shit: History, after all, is sexist and racist.

One disturbing trait in the typical liberal today, even those who have allegedly been educated in our most respected institutions of higher learning, is the almost entire lack of any regard for the past. A columnist somewhere wrote that today's youth are basically technopeasants. They are enamored of their technology and think themselves very advanced but they basically have no knowledge of anything outside their computers and their phones. They disregard history (and most think that math is a school subject too hard to take seriously). As for great historic figures such as Agamemnon or Julius Caesar, they were probably sexists and racists (though any juicy tidbits about the pederasty of the Greeks and Romans are always enjoyed by this crowd.)

I briefly taught high school classes after many years as a Montessori teacher in the elementary grades. It sickly amused me one day when my students disparaged historical figures about whom we were reading because they were so backward and "now we're more educated and stuff." My head nearly spun. The children in front of me were barely literate and knew next to nothing about anything outside their phones and their social media accounts. Nineteenth century farmers could have told them more about the world around them in an hour than they will ever learn in life.

Political correctness has erased critical thinking from our natural skill sets. Young people are finding it more and more difficult to integrate into the working world because it is a composite of cold, hard facts. It does not matter how you feel about showing up to work on time or what your perception of your boss is.

This is not to say that you should not have concerns about the way that your work environment is arranged. What handicaps young people is the idea that their feelings are real things. They are not. Justice is a real thing. An employer may be unjust to his employees and this is a real concern. That he is simply mean is...meaningless.

Today's young, liberal youth coming out of school would be much better prepared for the world if they had ever had to take seriously the lessons of our past. Greek sculpture, Byzantine painting and medieval Catholic art should be taken seriously not because you necessarily believe in their gods but because they are beautiful and meaningful parts of our history. You do not have to believe that the world is 6,000 years old to derive meaning from the story of Noah in the opening chapters of the Old Testament or accept Jesus as your Savior to appreciate the concept of mercy demonstrated in the Gospel According to Luke.

Unfortunately, these texts, as well as many of the great Greek philosophers and Roman orators, are practically non-existent for school children today. Publicly deemed too difficult (and secretly reviled by the PC police as sexist, racist, genderist and whatever the fuck else they can think of), these texts are increasingly hard to find in modern classrooms.

The PC police are no different than the extremists in the Middle East. They see themes in the work of the ancients that do not come to the same conclusions as they have in their multi-cultural religion. Like the ancient Christians whom they ignorantly and mistakenly accuse of destroying ancient works (when, in fact, they preserved those works for us), the antifas and the PC police eagerly erase or ignore cultural jewels from our past.

Politically correct censorship is just soft Jihad.

What's Wrong with Jeb Bush?

Exactly what is wrong with Jeb Bush? He is doing pretty poorly against two outsiders yet he could easily have been seen as the crown prince of the GOP given his heritage and background. The answer to the question depends on which party opines on the matter. The GOP answer is really the most important right now but it is always useful to see infighting through an outsider's eyes.

Democrats See Jeb Bush and Think...

Liberal boogeymen - Woohoo! Let's start a war and revoke abortion rights!

Without question, most libs look at Jeb and see George W. Whether that identification is justified or not is neither here nor there. Even if, after thinking about it for a while, they can begin to see differences, it does not matter. Liberals are allergic to GW Bush like they had nut allergies and he was a Payday bar. Jeb may have less nuts but he is still toxic death to them.

And it doesn't help Jeb that he has done things such as cross the racial boundary with his wife or learned Spanish. That doesn't make them like him any more. Jeb has fallen for the liberal fallacy that conciliating people makes them more likely to like you. This is a classic beta male mistake.

Conciliating people actually makes them more likely to despise you. The only way to win liberals' respect is to be tough with them. This is why Trump will end up garnering much more respect from his enemies if he wins the nomination. Libs are definitely not scared of Jeb. That's his real problem.

Republicans See Jeb and Think...

Where's the Beav?

I do not want to malign all conservatives but the simple fact is that many of them are not ready for this picture.

It's not a matter necessarily of racism. I do not like the way that people now whip out the racist accusation every time someone isn't comfortable with the immediate liquification of all races into one mildly brown guy with slightly slanted eyes. I have fathered a multiracial family but I do not expect everyone to want to follow in my footsteps. I like the fact that there are Duggar families sharing the country with me. Call me open-minded.

Nevertheless, I am sure that a significant segment of the population backing Trump is just plain uncomfortable when they look at this picture. Jeb Bush has strayed. Possibly worse, he even converted to Catholicism.

Of course, I am sure that the committee handling Jeb's entire life in order to lead him to the presidency had this figured out. They probably weren't planning on such a tough fight from the extreme right wing of the party. Didn't we already cow these people? Aren't they supposed to be distracted by professional wrestling? What went wrong?

The planners were probably thinking about the general election when Jeb could present a soft, conservative identity that would be immune to the racist card that Obama played, though subtly, on McCain. Libs won't be able to suggest that this is just an old, white guy with no clue about race. Up against any of the present Dem contenders, he would appear positively cosmopolitan.

The republicans uniting under the Trump banner also see weakness in Jeb. Trump said on a TV interview that Jeb is low-energy but immediately said that this is OK. But he doesn't really think that this is okay and neither do his followers. They want a man in charge and Jeb is too much the affable office manager. They prefer a hard-charging tycoon.

The biggest thing wrong with Jeb Bush is his timing. He should have run in 2000 and he should have run in 2012. Without Trump in this race, I think that the race would have been really to see who would be his running mate. Trump has opened it up so much that Ben Carson is vying for first place in some polls.

That is why I like Trump more than anything. He has kicked in the door and let in some fresh air. Too bad for Jeb Bush that the sudden breeze upset his paperwork.