When people complain about "normalizing" Trump, you might ask them if they believe men can get pregnant. My guess is all of them do.
See, they think they can kick out pillars of this society and it's all good and just and virtuous and the structure remains sound; more sound, even. It's just when others start kicking out pillars that the structure is in danger of collapse.
This reminds me of a quote from a book called "Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto (former NY public school teacher): "Think of your dining room table; now break off two legs. Replace one with a tall stack of dishes and the other with a large dog. The top of the table will look the same covered in cloth, but it wouldn't be a good bet to get you through dinner."
Gatto was talking about education 30 years ago. Today, that's our entire society. The tablecloth still looks good, but the dog's starting to move.
That's fairly vague, though, about what one things should replace the dog and pile of dishes. Gotto was a progressive educator; his critique of schools was that they are too rigid, too authoritarian, too disciplined. He proposed homeschooling and "unschooling" as a substitute. It's people like Gotto -- his spiritual and intellectual heirs -- who led the movement to get rid of phonics and math education that teaches kids how to actually do math, and to relax school discipline.
Homeschooling works great (or can work great) for two parent families where both parents are reasonably smart and well-educated. Unschooling can work fantastic if the child is a genius. I know somebody who was successfully unschooled by very hippieish parents. Except! Both parents had doctorates, and the unschooled son now has a PhD in math.
Gotto was right in some of his critiques, but his ideas for reform were insane.
In the progressive, urban neighbourhood I lived in for almost 30 years there were many "unschooled kids" whose mothers insisted that children "teach themselves." I can't think of one of those that's not still living at home in their late 20s or has a viable career.
Here in CA, starting next year, public high school kids will be required to take an ethnic studies course. One can only imagine the curriculum -- oppressor/oppressed charts, privilege indexes, chanting Aztec incantations before sacrifices to the Sun God. Granted, these are students who read & write at the 3rd-grade level, if they're lucky.
My unschooled friend is not living at home, and he has a disposable income sufficient to buy expensive cars and a large townhouse in a major urban area for cash. But someone who first got introduced to geometry by reading Euclid (in Greek) at age 9 probably wouldn’t have done well sitting in rows and having a teacher laboriously explain long division.
But I agree with you — for people who aren’t geniuses it can be a disaster. One need only look at the Learning loss experienced due to the COVID shutdown to conclude that our schools, while suboptimal, are better than doing nothing.
There are, no doubt, a narrow range of personality types that do actually thrive in an unschooling environment. The one boy I know who did all right was an introverted, brilliant artist who spent his day drawing. Actual homeschooling is a different beast all together, and those parents who make it available to their children have my unalloyed admiration. It probably is the best form of ed for kids if the parents can do it well.
I wasn't promoting Gatto's educational philosophies. They were a product of their time, and I agree that he and John Holt were a mixed bag.
I teach philosophy, government, econ, and robotics at our homeschool coop (yeah, I know, it's a weird combination). We have over 200 families and I've taught for 10+years, so I've seen kids raised in LOTS of different educational philosophies. In Phil this year I have a Catholic, classical kid, 2 Dorothy Sayers / Trivium families, at least 1 Charlotte Mason classicalist, a couple of unit studiers, 2 siblings from a divorced mom who's educational philosophy is "what do I have time for today?", and 1 delight-directed unschooller (ala Holt or Gatto). They all contribute in our discussions and I have confidence they will become functional adults.
I've concluded is that Rousseau's tabula-rasa" theories do not survive contact with actual children. Education is kind of like hypnosis in that it requires active participation of the subject. You don't "hypnotize someone"; you create conditions that allow them to accept hypnosis. Similarly, you don't "educate" a child; you create opportunities for that child to become educated. While their methods took it too far (at least for a classroom setting), Gatto and Holt were very right about that.
Gatto was less about educational reform than a proponent of autodidactic learning, given how broken the education system is. The basic idea is that intrinsic motivation provides far better ground for learning than does carrot-and-stick extrinsic motivation.
Fwiw, of our five kids, four of them unschooled—one just for high school, the others from age 11, 8, and 6—the youngest never did classroom learning until he started community college at 16. All of them earned their high school diplomas a year ahead of their school cohorts, are all gainfully employed and pay their own bills and own their own cars. One of them owns (without any help from his parents) a rental property which provides income and covers its mortgage. The youngest, who spent the least time in a classroom, is living his dream as a video editor for a smallish YouTube channel (161K subscribers). The youngest two (24 and 21) are living at home paying us rent. . . and that's fine with us. The cost of living for young people starting out today is a heck of a lot higher than it was when my husband and I were their age, so we're glad we can give them a low rent place to live while they save for their futures.
All of which is to say, unschooling can be done well and it can be done poorly, just like formal education. The philosophy itself is simply rooted in awareness of how human motivation actually works, and it leverages that reality.
[EDIT to add: neither my husband or I are geniuses, nor are our children. I suspect our youngest would have struggled in school...likely been diagnosed with ADHD and auditory processing disorder and would have struggled to learn in a classroom environment. Unschooling at home, he learned how to learn in his own time and so had no trouble when he started CC as a 16 yo.]
My oldest just started community college (1 class) this year. It's her first time ever in a classroom setting (other than our homeschool coop). She likes it overall but it is certainly different.
Years ago my parents lived in a small fishing village about 50 miles south of Mazatlán for half the year. All houses were concrete block due to the salt air and the termites. When you left for the season, you sprinkled something on the ground (Borax maybe?) to keep the termites out. One year my father left his shotgun propped in the corner, with the barrel resting on an outside wall and thus beyond the borax ring. When they got back 4 months later, the shotgun was still sitting there completely unharmed... until he picked it up. The termites had hollowed out the whole stock, leaving a 1/2 mm shell that looked fine but disintegrated the moment he touched it.
As Rod has said, Trump and Biden are two different type of corruption. Trump is the run-of-the-mill, power-hungry, wealth-hungry, "what can I get for myself and my friends" type of corruption. Biden is some of that as well (example A and B: Jim and Hunter) but with a significant measure of "what can I do to undermine civilization" corruption as well.
Given the choice, I'll pick Trump. Because civilization is kind of nice. Because I have 3 teen daughters and I would like them to not have penises in their locker rooms at the pool, be able to say what they really think on the job or in college, be able to live out their faith in public without fear, and maybe be able to find decent men who aren't addicted to pornography to marry. Joe Biden seeks to undermine all of those things. So I choose Trump. I won't like it. But I'll do it. As Rod says: "Vote for the clown. It's important".
Maybe I'll make a "Pooh for President 2024" bumper sticker. Then it doesn't matter who wins, verbally at least, I'll be correct.
If one were to consider only infrastructure, Chinese rule might represent an improvement. I last visited China in 2011, and U.S. cities were a sorry comparison to Beijing and Shanghai even then. That's true of East Asian cities, in general.
I think the main thing the federal government needs to do about this issue is to make it clear that the Civil Rights Act does not protect so-called gender identity.
It is Biden's job (and his subordinates') to not try to find creative interpretations of the laws Congress has passed that warp those laws to support gender identity delusions.
This is not in any way saying that Congress is doing its job to pass the laws we need right now.
This is the oxymoronic conflict between democracy and liberalism, the former believes law should be rooted in the will of the governed; the latter that it should be rooted in universal principles not subject to abridgement even by popular will.
I think federalism is the only possible way forward for this country to continue as a republic. But it requires a willingness to allow others to choose (democratically) to live under rules and policies that you personally would consider distasteful or downright immoral. The Left today is unwilling to do that. They have gone so far in the direction of "liberalism" (unabridgable universal principles) that they have completely abandoned "democracy". That's how the Left-wing authoritarianism Rod has chronicled so well has come into being.
On a more practical level, as Thomas said below: "why does Joe Biden believe it is his job to PROMOTE penises in girls' locker rooms?" Thomas is right -- that's a darn good question.
This is called "a civilization in (possibly terminal)" decline. But according to the progressives, as Orwell foretold, you must ignore the evidence of your own eyes and ears. Not even adumbrated here is the rot in the education system: plagiarism, faking of scientiifc data, etc.
Dale, I'm not sure why, but I'm more offended by the fact that he's a dement than I'd be if he were a capable man who had decided these things with a mind which, however wicked, was structurally sound, at least.
I compare it with being killed in a freak accident or by a stray bullet.
I don't grant Biden any sanction because of his balminess, though. He's always been thick, and managed to function well enough in spite of it.
Valid point. But he was in a bad situation. A Democrat when the Republicans wanted vengeance for a martyred president. Further, the eleven year old Republican Party wanted political allies in the South.
Biden probably belongs in the lower half of the distribution, as he has not been brilliant. But you have to be ODing on Old Doom-and-Gloom 100 proof to think things are worse today than in 1861 or 1933. Even the late 70s were worse than today.
Jon, the late 70s? Are you serious? Do you remember that sexual lunacy at the expense of children was tolerated in the schools then? That there were thirty - seven sexes, and that bald, lipstick wearing doggie boys were in charge of securing nuclear waste? That 70% of the American people supported same sex marriage?That most young people had given up on prospects of marriage, family, and home ownership? That one half of the country despised the other, and that the other despised back? That white males were discriminated against? That the border between Mexico and the United States was nonexistent? That there was serious talk in the country of defiance of tyrannical federal actions, with many traditional Americans being quite serious about secession, or maybe informal secession? That many young Americans were anti - Semitic? That a third of them declared themselves sexually non binary?
Yes, very. High inflation "stagflation: in fact, the Soviets getting aggressive, drug culture, the energy crisis, the hostage crisis, crime rates soaring, "malaise", the lingering stink of Watergate, the lingering divisions of Vietnam. Oh, and horrible fashions and music (OK, I'm being facetious on that). By any objective measure things were much worse and they was an air of doom over us. Today's "crises" strike me as a lot of drama queenery by people with too much time on their hands.
You're about fifteen years younger than I am, and you have written about your mother's death when you were nine, which by my calculation, would have occurred in 1976.
One day when I was nine, my mother, not anticipating the effect her words would have on me, said, "Your father has had a heart attack." I, thinking she was telling me that he had died, started to sob. She hastened to tell me that he was still alive, was in the hospital, and was expected to make a full recovery. ( He lived thirty - eight more years. )
A couple of times in later years, she would denounce herself for having been so cloddish in the way she told me, and apologize.
As I have said to you before, Jon, I don't like to think of the grief you would have had when your mother died. It must have been terrible. I've come to believe that people historically have looked back upon a given period in which they've lived through the focus of what their experiences were during that period. So I think it is with you and the late 1970s.
I assure you that in the Carter era, there was nothing like what we who generally agree with Rod Dreher have today, the sense that the culture has died and the country is truly falling apart. ( An example is the border crisis. A bigger example is the one I cited previously, the mutual loathing which the two political sides have for each other. People thought Carter was failing, but nobody hated him. People were nervous about Reagan, but no one thought he wanted to start a nuclear war. Ad infinitum. )
We were unsettled by the Soviets, though not remotely to the extent we had been in the early 60s. ( I knew a kid in the early 60s who, every time we ran into one another, said reasonably, "Do you think there's going to be a war?" ) The economy in that period wasn't great, but unlike today, a large majority of the American people believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ; people were still upset by profanity and other manifestations of boorish behavior in public; gays and other sexual oddities were not a fussed over class, whose whims were treated with great respect, who were immune to criticism, and whose lunacies the rest of us were expected to accept poker - faced; very few people believed that marriage was archaic and most people in my age group were married or expecting to be married; very few of us thought we'd never be able to afford a house or to have children; white people and English derived culture were not under constant attack; people were not subjected to the Mao - like induced fear of running afoul of The Authorities by using the wrong pronouns, let alone the knowledge that in the course of a given day, they were under relentless electronic surveillance; and anyone who talked of transing a child would have been brought to the attention of the police.
This is an example of why you should respect the wisdom of your elders.
It would seem you ask for the impossible from today's society. It sort of reminds me of the claim by Glendower and Hotspur's response in Henry IV, Part One: "Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?"
Maybe they could make a case as to why they would be worser? It's an attainable goal. The worst President and then some. Now send me some money so I can fail biglier.
When Bill Clinton was elected, I thought to myself, this means anybody can become president. I did not mean that in a good way. And since then, in one way or another, I feel vindicated. The trajectory since then has been down. Not that Clinton's predecessors were all fine and upstanding and (no pun intended) unimpeachable. But I can't help conclude that Biden (the dried husk of a senile but still corrupt politician), or the "collective Biden", really is the worst, at least since Eisenhower.
And I write that in complete agreement with everything in Mr Dreher's post, except for his reference to the "pro-Hamas" demonstrators which - unfortunately again - oversimplifies and tars those who genuinely oppose what they consider to be horrific behavior on Israel's part by forcing them all into the procrustean bed of being all "pro Hamas".*
Biden has gone out of his way, and even beyond his legal authority, to provide material support to the unconscionable Israeli obliteration of Gaza, and now to wage war against the Houthis, an action which is likely to make things worse, including worse for Americans. So, for me, Biden's inept, corrupt, and insane (but profitable for the war industry) foreign policy is an additional reason for me to reach the conclusion that he is the worst president. So far.
* (Mr Dreher's reference to the young man in the picture "flashing a swastika" seems like another in a string of indirect attacks on those protesting against the attacks on Gaza, especially since he seems to be suggesting that the young man is identifying himself as a Nazi. It is entirely possible, however, that the young man flashing the swastika was not identifying himself with that symbol but rather may have been equating Israeli conduct vis-a-vis Gaza with the behavior of those who served under that symbol prior to and during WW2.)
He seems to be having trouble coming to terms with what is going on in Gaza. One time he focuses on the Toronto Police delivering coffee to demonstrators, the next time he condemns the Houthis and praises Biden for attacking them without any mention at all of the Houthis' stated objective, and now (and not for the first time) he lumps all protestors into one category: people who support Hamas (i.e., terrorists).
Perhaps it would be better if he didn't bring it up at all, or confronted the Gaza situation head on, rather than make these indirect, offhanded comments embedded in his otherwise (in my opinion) valid criticisms of wokeness, etc.
Buchanan. Bush II. Obama. Carter. Johnson. Wilson. Perhaps Madison. On his watch, America had the shame of Bladensburg and the burning of the Capitol and the White House with Madison scurrying about the Maryland countryside evading British patrols.
Fillmore, Taylor and Pierce were non-entities. When you look at his record, Harding is underrated. Wilson gave him a recession and big government and Harding cut the spending and the economy took off. Yes, Harding had two mistresses and adultery is a bad thing but Florence "The Duchess" Harding was not a very affectionate woman. The Klan accusation is off-base. In 1922, Harding spoke to a mixed-race crowd of 30,000 in Birmingham, AL and advocated for more rights for blacks.
I won't for Trump again. I also will not vote for these Democrats. Not hard to say "both sides" here. I think no matter what things will get worse if Trump or Biden is POTUS, and there is sure to be a reaction in 2028. For that reason I'd rather have Biden in charge for the decline. And, sure, Trump really is an authoritarian. Both sides are unacceptable! DeSantis was our offramp. The base wants Trump and the Never Trumpers want Haley, who I see as unacceptable as she's willing to negotiate with the woke cult. Let it burn with BIDEN as President.
I have in mind Russiagate, the efforts to hamstring Trump in ways, some of which undermined US foreign policy interests. As a result, for example, relations between the US and the world's major nuclear power went downhill when there should have been efforts to improve them.
The "main stream" or "legacy" media had a meltdown and abandoned what was left of journalistic standards, dropping any pretense of journalistic objectivity. (See Jeff Gerth's article in Columbia Journalism Review for a fuller discussion and for numerous illustrations.)
Trump himself surrounded himself with the most noxious and treacherous of advisors, appointing people like Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, and John Bolton to positions of influence and power, and withdrew the US from several important arms control treaties.
They are attributable to Trump because they were inflicted on Trump by his enemies. The pertinent attribute was the target bullseye painted on Trump's back before he took office.
I'm voting for Trump, but I can totally understand this perspective, Jackal. The American republic is on life support no matter who wins. (Note, the American empire may survive for many decades, but the republic will not. Too many conservatives think it's AD 476. I suspect it's 50 BC and what's coming over the hill isn't the barbarians but Caesar's army... but I digress.) Biden will draw out the death; the response of Biden's supporters to a Trump victory will hasten it, but the destination has been set by our cultural and moral decay. Politics can, at best, soften the landing.
DeSantis was the off-ramp to do that. Unfortunately, the GOP got lost looking for the exit and the Dems don't even realize they're careening toward a "bridge out" sign.
I think DeSantis sees things the same as you do. The Never Trumpers are upset with him over the "if we have a country left by 2028" comment. If we have elections in 2028 (and I believe we will) I want Biden/Harris to be responsible for whatever failures.
Some of the MAGA cult sees this as 50 BC. I've been told by one of the smartest Trumpers I've met that he sees Trump as America's Caesar. He sees this as a good thing, of course. I'm reading the Rise & Fall of the Third Reich right now. Trump is not a Hitler, not even close, but as I'm reading I see some parallels to Trump (and I also see parallels to the left). The better comparison for Trump is someone like Ferdinand Marcos. If Trump could pull it off he'd be a Marcos. I don't think he's capable of doing this, though. A 2nd Trump term (same buffoon at the top, minus the competent cabinet and semi-competent Congress) would be an absolute disaster.
"I've been told by one of the smartest Trumpers I've met that he sees Trump as America's Caesar. He sees this as a good thing, of course."
The fact that the Right sees this as a good thing speaks volumes about the Right these days. How did the Right because just as un-American as the Left?
If I thought Trump had the brains and personal courage to become our American Ceasar, I'd be his biggest supporter.
But he has neither and has already proven himself a failure. "Better Than Biden" is such a low bar that Trump being able to clear it isn't much of an accomplishment.
Trump as Marcos kind of fits, I think. Trump as Hitler was always a joke. Trump as Caesar doesn't fit either, since Caesar was competent. That's also also why I don't see Trump as a Franco figure; competence was also his key to success. Although, like Rod, I think such a figure is in our future.
Of course, if Trump is Marcos, someone needs to check Melania's closet for shoes.
I prefer the comparison with Mussolini, myself, as I wrote the other day, There is even the physical resemblance and mannerisms. People comparing someone with Hitler is such a tiresomely overdone cliche. Even so, I might reluctantly vote for Trump, given the curse of our two-party system.
Yeah, that's my feeling too, Jon. Isn't the Mussolini joke that "at least he made the trains run on time"? that implies a basic executive competence which Trump lacks.
It should be obvious by now that there is only one way to vote in this election. Any other vote or abstention will only contribute to the ongoing ruination of the nation. In the meantime, remember, “We must obey God rather than men!” Acts 5:29.
As bad as all of that is ... and it is bad(!) there won't be the votes for Trump and we will have more of this. Don't let the polling fool you like it did in 2022. There was no red wave. And there won't be in 2024 either. Women are out en masse for abortion. Educated suburban women can't stand DJT and they outnumber the women who worship him like their god. In the middle are moderates and independents and they don't want DJT either. So, people saying he will win are fooling themselves. He won in 2016 because no one wanted HRC as president and he seemed like a kick. But TDS in the media and his own idiotic narcissism have ruined any chance he had. There was no stolen election - he simply lost and couldn't take it. Now we will see him in and out of courtrooms and hear his mean name calling and idiotic legal theories (absolute immunity?? that's called being the king, not the president of the United States). So, go ahead and pledge your votes to him. You will be disappointed. I just hope that we survive long enough to look back and shake our heads in amazement over this time in history. It's terrifying.
Whatever else is true about our present moment, politics cannot save us. Looking at the prospect of either a Biden or a Trump presidency is like choosing between death by hanging and death by the firing squad.
This post reads like an email that you should draft but never send. A primal expression of rage that’s good to get off your chest but best left in the drafts folder or deleted.
We get it. You hate the direction the country is going on social issues. Neither you, nor the Republican Party, nor Trump, nor Haley have a credible plan to change anything. So you rage. And you tout the visions and actions of a political leader whose country is so different than the United States it makes any application of his ideas to our context laughable on its face.
I agree that the cultural transformation we’re undergoing is significant. Call me naive, but I believe that confidently living out one’s convictions and trying to build and support communities that demonstrate an alternative way of life is enough. People are actually hungry for meaning and enchantment and small-o orthodox Christianity is relevant in this moment.
But the hate and the rage are unnecessary and counterproductive.
I'm gonna guess that the point was to contrast Thomas Edsall's concern with 'normalizing' Trump with the abnormalities that have been 'normalized' by Edsall's peer group.
That's exactly right. I don't think Trump has a credible plan to change anything. As any regular reader knows, I believe our problems are far beyond political solutions. Scuds is right: my target is not Joe Biden here, but Tom Edsall, who is flipping out over the normalization of Trump, but is blind to how incredibly abnormal so much of life under Biden is. (And I don't blame Biden for most of this, to be clear; again, my point is to make fun of what Edsall thinks of as normal.)
I'm a UT Austin grad, myself. I'd rather not say in what year, but suffice it to say that I am now retired. My most memorable student job was at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where I was the proverbial kid in the candy store.
Ah, damn: I used to run into two Presbyterian seminarians from there at the bar, and they were flirting with ideas such as Jesus being a solely human bastard. So apparently that’s going on over there nowadays (not to spoil your memory or anything).
They'll hang Abbott from the nearest lamppost if he tried taking Texas out on the nation (Hell hath no fury like senior citizens losing their Social Security and Medicare)
It's to showcase that, at the end of the day, every "horror" that Trump and MAGA bring is massively dwarfed by the bizarre freakshow that is the democrats and liberal culture.
RE: "Neither you, nor the Republican Party, nor Trump, nor Haley have a credible plan to change anything. "
Even a cursory review of the Republican Party candidates makes it clear their "credible plan to change" is to push back against the social moral decay that is enabled (at times embraced) by Biden and Democrat Party in general. That push back is more than enough for me, as well as roughly half the country, to support Republicans.
I find myself thinking more and more about Lot in Sodom; a man who tried to live as justly as he could in a society which was utterly depraved. He was saved from the destruction of the city, but he (obviously) should have fled the city years ago, and was not untouched by its depravity. While he survived, what was the result? His wife is destroyed, his children are poorly catechized and traumatized (I mean, while I get that he was trying to model hospitality to his guests, NOT cool that he offered his daughters up to be raped by the mob) and ultimately, they end up engaging in incest with him. I tell myself I should leave this country, and fly to the ends of the world, but where is there left to go, and how would I support my family there? And so I haven't left, even though I can sense judgment is coming, I have the same cope as Lot; I pray that more mercy is handed down to me than was to him. The mercy God handed down to Lot was a strange mercy indeed.
Best comment so far. My own feelings exactly. I was talking with friends a decade ago (pre-Trump) about this and we reached the same conclusion: "where would we go?"
I think the only hope is a reassertion of federalism leading to a de-facto dissolution of part of the United States. It won't solve the cultural rot, but it could give places for those who seek a society that enforces a sane moral code to retreat to.
Who knows, perhaps we'll see Governor Abbott in Texas start that process this week by openly defying a direct SCOTUS order on the border. I doubt it, but it's possible.
Though for the record, I don't see anything to defy. The Supreme Court order doesn't stop Abbot at all. All it does is continue his conflict with the Border Patrol.
Rush Limbaugh always joked that he'd tell his listeners when it was time to head to New Zealand, but that was before Covid, and we saw that New Zealand became a prison.
Most of the time, we are exactly where we are supposed to be, as crazy as things are, I feel like God equips us to be in that place until he says to go. Do not be afraid!
Where would one go? The rot shown in the post is the norm in most of the Western World. Places where it is not (Russia) will have their own significant problems. Would China or Islamic states be better?
Yeah, but see, none of those people write mean tweets.
This is it exactly.
When people complain about "normalizing" Trump, you might ask them if they believe men can get pregnant. My guess is all of them do.
See, they think they can kick out pillars of this society and it's all good and just and virtuous and the structure remains sound; more sound, even. It's just when others start kicking out pillars that the structure is in danger of collapse.
This reminds me of a quote from a book called "Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto (former NY public school teacher): "Think of your dining room table; now break off two legs. Replace one with a tall stack of dishes and the other with a large dog. The top of the table will look the same covered in cloth, but it wouldn't be a good bet to get you through dinner."
Gatto was talking about education 30 years ago. Today, that's our entire society. The tablecloth still looks good, but the dog's starting to move.
That's fairly vague, though, about what one things should replace the dog and pile of dishes. Gotto was a progressive educator; his critique of schools was that they are too rigid, too authoritarian, too disciplined. He proposed homeschooling and "unschooling" as a substitute. It's people like Gotto -- his spiritual and intellectual heirs -- who led the movement to get rid of phonics and math education that teaches kids how to actually do math, and to relax school discipline.
Homeschooling works great (or can work great) for two parent families where both parents are reasonably smart and well-educated. Unschooling can work fantastic if the child is a genius. I know somebody who was successfully unschooled by very hippieish parents. Except! Both parents had doctorates, and the unschooled son now has a PhD in math.
Gotto was right in some of his critiques, but his ideas for reform were insane.
In the progressive, urban neighbourhood I lived in for almost 30 years there were many "unschooled kids" whose mothers insisted that children "teach themselves." I can't think of one of those that's not still living at home in their late 20s or has a viable career.
Here in CA, starting next year, public high school kids will be required to take an ethnic studies course. One can only imagine the curriculum -- oppressor/oppressed charts, privilege indexes, chanting Aztec incantations before sacrifices to the Sun God. Granted, these are students who read & write at the 3rd-grade level, if they're lucky.
Homeschool, homeschool, and homeschool if you can.
Gather like-minded parents to split the costs of teachers.
My unschooled friend is not living at home, and he has a disposable income sufficient to buy expensive cars and a large townhouse in a major urban area for cash. But someone who first got introduced to geometry by reading Euclid (in Greek) at age 9 probably wouldn’t have done well sitting in rows and having a teacher laboriously explain long division.
But I agree with you — for people who aren’t geniuses it can be a disaster. One need only look at the Learning loss experienced due to the COVID shutdown to conclude that our schools, while suboptimal, are better than doing nothing.
There are, no doubt, a narrow range of personality types that do actually thrive in an unschooling environment. The one boy I know who did all right was an introverted, brilliant artist who spent his day drawing. Actual homeschooling is a different beast all together, and those parents who make it available to their children have my unalloyed admiration. It probably is the best form of ed for kids if the parents can do it well.
I wasn't promoting Gatto's educational philosophies. They were a product of their time, and I agree that he and John Holt were a mixed bag.
I teach philosophy, government, econ, and robotics at our homeschool coop (yeah, I know, it's a weird combination). We have over 200 families and I've taught for 10+years, so I've seen kids raised in LOTS of different educational philosophies. In Phil this year I have a Catholic, classical kid, 2 Dorothy Sayers / Trivium families, at least 1 Charlotte Mason classicalist, a couple of unit studiers, 2 siblings from a divorced mom who's educational philosophy is "what do I have time for today?", and 1 delight-directed unschooller (ala Holt or Gatto). They all contribute in our discussions and I have confidence they will become functional adults.
I've concluded is that Rousseau's tabula-rasa" theories do not survive contact with actual children. Education is kind of like hypnosis in that it requires active participation of the subject. You don't "hypnotize someone"; you create conditions that allow them to accept hypnosis. Similarly, you don't "educate" a child; you create opportunities for that child to become educated. While their methods took it too far (at least for a classroom setting), Gatto and Holt were very right about that.
Thanks for the clarification. I apologize if I seemed snarky.
It sounds like you are a fine teacher, and I’m sure your students benefit immensely from your tutelage.
Whether I'm a good teacher or I happen to have good students is ambiguous at best, but thanks. And I didn't take it as snarky, man, don't worry.
Gatto was less about educational reform than a proponent of autodidactic learning, given how broken the education system is. The basic idea is that intrinsic motivation provides far better ground for learning than does carrot-and-stick extrinsic motivation.
Fwiw, of our five kids, four of them unschooled—one just for high school, the others from age 11, 8, and 6—the youngest never did classroom learning until he started community college at 16. All of them earned their high school diplomas a year ahead of their school cohorts, are all gainfully employed and pay their own bills and own their own cars. One of them owns (without any help from his parents) a rental property which provides income and covers its mortgage. The youngest, who spent the least time in a classroom, is living his dream as a video editor for a smallish YouTube channel (161K subscribers). The youngest two (24 and 21) are living at home paying us rent. . . and that's fine with us. The cost of living for young people starting out today is a heck of a lot higher than it was when my husband and I were their age, so we're glad we can give them a low rent place to live while they save for their futures.
All of which is to say, unschooling can be done well and it can be done poorly, just like formal education. The philosophy itself is simply rooted in awareness of how human motivation actually works, and it leverages that reality.
[EDIT to add: neither my husband or I are geniuses, nor are our children. I suspect our youngest would have struggled in school...likely been diagnosed with ADHD and auditory processing disorder and would have struggled to learn in a classroom environment. Unschooling at home, he learned how to learn in his own time and so had no trouble when he started CC as a 16 yo.]
My oldest just started community college (1 class) this year. It's her first time ever in a classroom setting (other than our homeschool coop). She likes it overall but it is certainly different.
The dog left the dining room 40 years go.
Not before puking all over the rug
My favored image is that we are like an egg that has had its yolk hollowed out, with the still-shiny shell belying its basic fragility.
Your comment reminds me of a story...
Years ago my parents lived in a small fishing village about 50 miles south of Mazatlán for half the year. All houses were concrete block due to the salt air and the termites. When you left for the season, you sprinkled something on the ground (Borax maybe?) to keep the termites out. One year my father left his shotgun propped in the corner, with the barrel resting on an outside wall and thus beyond the borax ring. When they got back 4 months later, the shotgun was still sitting there completely unharmed... until he picked it up. The termites had hollowed out the whole stock, leaving a 1/2 mm shell that looked fine but disintegrated the moment he touched it.
I always ask, "Well, lets establish a normalcy baseline. Can a man be a woman?" If they say 'yes', I end it.
They have swallowed a the hugest of lies. And if they can be made to say that, even believe it, they can be made to say and believe anything.
Absolutely right: a person who’s willing to say that could be made to say anything whatsoever—straight out of Orwell.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery.
As Rod has said, Trump and Biden are two different type of corruption. Trump is the run-of-the-mill, power-hungry, wealth-hungry, "what can I get for myself and my friends" type of corruption. Biden is some of that as well (example A and B: Jim and Hunter) but with a significant measure of "what can I do to undermine civilization" corruption as well.
Given the choice, I'll pick Trump. Because civilization is kind of nice. Because I have 3 teen daughters and I would like them to not have penises in their locker rooms at the pool, be able to say what they really think on the job or in college, be able to live out their faith in public without fear, and maybe be able to find decent men who aren't addicted to pornography to marry. Joe Biden seeks to undermine all of those things. So I choose Trump. I won't like it. But I'll do it. As Rod says: "Vote for the clown. It's important".
Maybe I'll make a "Pooh for President 2024" bumper sticker. Then it doesn't matter who wins, verbally at least, I'll be correct.
Pooh? Why the 'h'?
Winnie The...
As I said, the pun only works verbally.
I'll send you a chit in the mail to cover your expenses.
I thought you were making a joke about how China might own us. (You know, Xi the Pooh.)
If one were to consider only infrastructure, Chinese rule might represent an improvement. I last visited China in 2011, and U.S. cities were a sorry comparison to Beijing and Shanghai even then. That's true of East Asian cities, in general.
Much of China is a Potemkin village. Don't take it as face value.
I don't think Xi Jinping is eligible though...
"I would like them to not have penises in their locker rooms at the pool"
Me too. Is it Joe Biden's job to stop this, all across America? How about advocating at the, y'know, school board level? Federalism and all that?
I think the main thing the federal government needs to do about this issue is to make it clear that the Civil Rights Act does not protect so-called gender identity.
Congress has to make that decision - and they're not doing anything right now but, like Rod, showing Hunter Biden dick-picks.
Well, it sure is good to know that our alleged leaders have their priorities in order.
It is Biden's job (and his subordinates') to not try to find creative interpretations of the laws Congress has passed that warp those laws to support gender identity delusions.
This is not in any way saying that Congress is doing its job to pass the laws we need right now.
"Is it Joe Biden's job to stop this, all across America?"
His own language shows he thinks it is Joe Biden's job to promote this, all across America.
This is the oxymoronic conflict between democracy and liberalism, the former believes law should be rooted in the will of the governed; the latter that it should be rooted in universal principles not subject to abridgement even by popular will.
I think federalism is the only possible way forward for this country to continue as a republic. But it requires a willingness to allow others to choose (democratically) to live under rules and policies that you personally would consider distasteful or downright immoral. The Left today is unwilling to do that. They have gone so far in the direction of "liberalism" (unabridgable universal principles) that they have completely abandoned "democracy". That's how the Left-wing authoritarianism Rod has chronicled so well has come into being.
On a more practical level, as Thomas said below: "why does Joe Biden believe it is his job to PROMOTE penises in girls' locker rooms?" Thomas is right -- that's a darn good question.
Re: the former believes law should be rooted in the will of the governed; the latter that it should be rooted in universal principles
The two are not mutually exclusive. The very notion that law should be rooted in popular sovereignty is a universal principle.
This is called "a civilization in (possibly terminal)" decline. But according to the progressives, as Orwell foretold, you must ignore the evidence of your own eyes and ears. Not even adumbrated here is the rot in the education system: plagiarism, faking of scientiifc data, etc.
Somehow I got the eerie thought that Hunter Biden might have a future as a model for high school textbook illustrations.
Yeah, Hunter's Anatomy.
You can't make this stuff up. Total decline. Don't forget some of this stuff is exported to the world "for their own good."
And that is why a third or more of the world views us as the great Satan…is that that hard to understand?
Imagine if we had a president who wasn't a moral idiot as well as a functional one.
The Afghanistan withdrawal. Look it up.
Can anyone make a plausible case for why anyone other than Biden has been our worst president?
I guess some say Buchanan, for the obvious reason.
All the same I'd like to see the case actually made by someone....
Put another way, has any administration done so much to normalize wickedness and hostility to Christianity as Biden's?
Dale, I'm not sure why, but I'm more offended by the fact that he's a dement than I'd be if he were a capable man who had decided these things with a mind which, however wicked, was structurally sound, at least.
I compare it with being killed in a freak accident or by a stray bullet.
I don't grant Biden any sanction because of his balminess, though. He's always been thick, and managed to function well enough in spite of it.
Others say Andrew Johnson for equally obvious reasons.
Valid point. But he was in a bad situation. A Democrat when the Republicans wanted vengeance for a martyred president. Further, the eleven year old Republican Party wanted political allies in the South.
Also, James Buchanan, also for obvious reasons.
Biden probably belongs in the lower half of the distribution, as he has not been brilliant. But you have to be ODing on Old Doom-and-Gloom 100 proof to think things are worse today than in 1861 or 1933. Even the late 70s were worse than today.
Jon, the late 70s? Are you serious? Do you remember that sexual lunacy at the expense of children was tolerated in the schools then? That there were thirty - seven sexes, and that bald, lipstick wearing doggie boys were in charge of securing nuclear waste? That 70% of the American people supported same sex marriage?That most young people had given up on prospects of marriage, family, and home ownership? That one half of the country despised the other, and that the other despised back? That white males were discriminated against? That the border between Mexico and the United States was nonexistent? That there was serious talk in the country of defiance of tyrannical federal actions, with many traditional Americans being quite serious about secession, or maybe informal secession? That many young Americans were anti - Semitic? That a third of them declared themselves sexually non binary?
Re: Jon, the late 70s? Are you serious?
Yes, very. High inflation "stagflation: in fact, the Soviets getting aggressive, drug culture, the energy crisis, the hostage crisis, crime rates soaring, "malaise", the lingering stink of Watergate, the lingering divisions of Vietnam. Oh, and horrible fashions and music (OK, I'm being facetious on that). By any objective measure things were much worse and they was an air of doom over us. Today's "crises" strike me as a lot of drama queenery by people with too much time on their hands.
You're about fifteen years younger than I am, and you have written about your mother's death when you were nine, which by my calculation, would have occurred in 1976.
One day when I was nine, my mother, not anticipating the effect her words would have on me, said, "Your father has had a heart attack." I, thinking she was telling me that he had died, started to sob. She hastened to tell me that he was still alive, was in the hospital, and was expected to make a full recovery. ( He lived thirty - eight more years. )
A couple of times in later years, she would denounce herself for having been so cloddish in the way she told me, and apologize.
As I have said to you before, Jon, I don't like to think of the grief you would have had when your mother died. It must have been terrible. I've come to believe that people historically have looked back upon a given period in which they've lived through the focus of what their experiences were during that period. So I think it is with you and the late 1970s.
I assure you that in the Carter era, there was nothing like what we who generally agree with Rod Dreher have today, the sense that the culture has died and the country is truly falling apart. ( An example is the border crisis. A bigger example is the one I cited previously, the mutual loathing which the two political sides have for each other. People thought Carter was failing, but nobody hated him. People were nervous about Reagan, but no one thought he wanted to start a nuclear war. Ad infinitum. )
We were unsettled by the Soviets, though not remotely to the extent we had been in the early 60s. ( I knew a kid in the early 60s who, every time we ran into one another, said reasonably, "Do you think there's going to be a war?" ) The economy in that period wasn't great, but unlike today, a large majority of the American people believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ; people were still upset by profanity and other manifestations of boorish behavior in public; gays and other sexual oddities were not a fussed over class, whose whims were treated with great respect, who were immune to criticism, and whose lunacies the rest of us were expected to accept poker - faced; very few people believed that marriage was archaic and most people in my age group were married or expecting to be married; very few of us thought we'd never be able to afford a house or to have children; white people and English derived culture were not under constant attack; people were not subjected to the Mao - like induced fear of running afoul of The Authorities by using the wrong pronouns, let alone the knowledge that in the course of a given day, they were under relentless electronic surveillance; and anyone who talked of transing a child would have been brought to the attention of the police.
This is an example of why you should respect the wisdom of your elders.
It would seem you ask for the impossible from today's society. It sort of reminds me of the claim by Glendower and Hotspur's response in Henry IV, Part One: "Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?"
Maybe they could make a case as to why they would be worser? It's an attainable goal. The worst President and then some. Now send me some money so I can fail biglier.
When Bill Clinton was elected, I thought to myself, this means anybody can become president. I did not mean that in a good way. And since then, in one way or another, I feel vindicated. The trajectory since then has been down. Not that Clinton's predecessors were all fine and upstanding and (no pun intended) unimpeachable. But I can't help conclude that Biden (the dried husk of a senile but still corrupt politician), or the "collective Biden", really is the worst, at least since Eisenhower.
And I write that in complete agreement with everything in Mr Dreher's post, except for his reference to the "pro-Hamas" demonstrators which - unfortunately again - oversimplifies and tars those who genuinely oppose what they consider to be horrific behavior on Israel's part by forcing them all into the procrustean bed of being all "pro Hamas".*
Biden has gone out of his way, and even beyond his legal authority, to provide material support to the unconscionable Israeli obliteration of Gaza, and now to wage war against the Houthis, an action which is likely to make things worse, including worse for Americans. So, for me, Biden's inept, corrupt, and insane (but profitable for the war industry) foreign policy is an additional reason for me to reach the conclusion that he is the worst president. So far.
* (Mr Dreher's reference to the young man in the picture "flashing a swastika" seems like another in a string of indirect attacks on those protesting against the attacks on Gaza, especially since he seems to be suggesting that the young man is identifying himself as a Nazi. It is entirely possible, however, that the young man flashing the swastika was not identifying himself with that symbol but rather may have been equating Israeli conduct vis-a-vis Gaza with the behavior of those who served under that symbol prior to and during WW2.)
Yeah, the "pro-Hamas" item in Rod's list is not like the others. Rod's gonna Rod, though!
He seems to be having trouble coming to terms with what is going on in Gaza. One time he focuses on the Toronto Police delivering coffee to demonstrators, the next time he condemns the Houthis and praises Biden for attacking them without any mention at all of the Houthis' stated objective, and now (and not for the first time) he lumps all protestors into one category: people who support Hamas (i.e., terrorists).
Perhaps it would be better if he didn't bring it up at all, or confronted the Gaza situation head on, rather than make these indirect, offhanded comments embedded in his otherwise (in my opinion) valid criticisms of wokeness, etc.
Clinton was a pretty competent politician.
Buchanan. Bush II. Obama. Carter. Johnson. Wilson. Perhaps Madison. On his watch, America had the shame of Bladensburg and the burning of the Capitol and the White House with Madison scurrying about the Maryland countryside evading British patrols.
Millard Fillmore, who signed The Fugitive Slave Act.
Warren G. Harding - Teapot Dome Scandal. (and a couple of mistresses)
Harding reportedly joined the Klan too
That would not surprise me, either.
Fillmore, Taylor and Pierce were non-entities. When you look at his record, Harding is underrated. Wilson gave him a recession and big government and Harding cut the spending and the economy took off. Yes, Harding had two mistresses and adultery is a bad thing but Florence "The Duchess" Harding was not a very affectionate woman. The Klan accusation is off-base. In 1922, Harding spoke to a mixed-race crowd of 30,000 in Birmingham, AL and advocated for more rights for blacks.
Or biological men and boys participating against biological women and girls with backing from the Biden Regime.
That's Biden normal, too!
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/title-ix-transgender-student-athletes-biden-rule/index.html
Ah I see now that Rod covered that. But people forget the Biden Regime is backing that, so I don't mind reminding.
"just because of who they are" !!!
LOL
Orwell laughs!
I won't for Trump again. I also will not vote for these Democrats. Not hard to say "both sides" here. I think no matter what things will get worse if Trump or Biden is POTUS, and there is sure to be a reaction in 2028. For that reason I'd rather have Biden in charge for the decline. And, sure, Trump really is an authoritarian. Both sides are unacceptable! DeSantis was our offramp. The base wants Trump and the Never Trumpers want Haley, who I see as unacceptable as she's willing to negotiate with the woke cult. Let it burn with BIDEN as President.
I have a feeling it will burn even with Trump as president. Remember how things went from 2016 and on.
Please, tell us how things went from 2016 and on.
That's the least you can do for this conversation.
I have in mind Russiagate, the efforts to hamstring Trump in ways, some of which undermined US foreign policy interests. As a result, for example, relations between the US and the world's major nuclear power went downhill when there should have been efforts to improve them.
The "main stream" or "legacy" media had a meltdown and abandoned what was left of journalistic standards, dropping any pretense of journalistic objectivity. (See Jeff Gerth's article in Columbia Journalism Review for a fuller discussion and for numerous illustrations.)
Trump himself surrounded himself with the most noxious and treacherous of advisors, appointing people like Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, and John Bolton to positions of influence and power, and withdrew the US from several important arms control treaties.
You managed to confuse me, and that's not easy:
How is what you posted in the first two paragraphs attributable to Trump?
That I suggested that things would "burn" if Trump were reelected does not mean that it would be all Trump's fault or doing.
They are attributable to Trump because they were inflicted on Trump by his enemies. The pertinent attribute was the target bullseye painted on Trump's back before he took office.
By your reasoning, the six million perished 1940-44 caused their fate by wearing a yellow star.
Nice . . .
I'm voting for Trump, but I can totally understand this perspective, Jackal. The American republic is on life support no matter who wins. (Note, the American empire may survive for many decades, but the republic will not. Too many conservatives think it's AD 476. I suspect it's 50 BC and what's coming over the hill isn't the barbarians but Caesar's army... but I digress.) Biden will draw out the death; the response of Biden's supporters to a Trump victory will hasten it, but the destination has been set by our cultural and moral decay. Politics can, at best, soften the landing.
DeSantis was the off-ramp to do that. Unfortunately, the GOP got lost looking for the exit and the Dems don't even realize they're careening toward a "bridge out" sign.
Don't forget, Sulla came before Caesar. I think it's 100 BC.
What happened to the Gracchi? Where/who are they in our time?
It is so tempting to create a Gracchi/Kennedy parallel, isn't it?
I hadn't thought of that, but now that you mention it JFK/RFK do kind of fit the parts.
OK guys, I know I started the whole Rome thing... but let's not get lost in the weeds too much. :-)
Yes, that's where I'm at on Rome comparisons.
People do seem to forget that Rome became an empire with foreign provinces long before it had an actual emperor.
I think DeSantis sees things the same as you do. The Never Trumpers are upset with him over the "if we have a country left by 2028" comment. If we have elections in 2028 (and I believe we will) I want Biden/Harris to be responsible for whatever failures.
Some of the MAGA cult sees this as 50 BC. I've been told by one of the smartest Trumpers I've met that he sees Trump as America's Caesar. He sees this as a good thing, of course. I'm reading the Rise & Fall of the Third Reich right now. Trump is not a Hitler, not even close, but as I'm reading I see some parallels to Trump (and I also see parallels to the left). The better comparison for Trump is someone like Ferdinand Marcos. If Trump could pull it off he'd be a Marcos. I don't think he's capable of doing this, though. A 2nd Trump term (same buffoon at the top, minus the competent cabinet and semi-competent Congress) would be an absolute disaster.
"I've been told by one of the smartest Trumpers I've met that he sees Trump as America's Caesar. He sees this as a good thing, of course."
The fact that the Right sees this as a good thing speaks volumes about the Right these days. How did the Right because just as un-American as the Left?
Long story, but to simplify it we stopped passing down values from one generation to another.
When American overseas embassies became vehicles to push liberal secular insanity, I see no reason to be pro-American as it stands now
Because, of course, America has never pushed liberal secular insanity before. Not even once.
If I thought Trump had the brains and personal courage to become our American Ceasar, I'd be his biggest supporter.
But he has neither and has already proven himself a failure. "Better Than Biden" is such a low bar that Trump being able to clear it isn't much of an accomplishment.
I was gonna say: calling Trump the American Caesar sounds sort of like a slander against Caesar.
Trump as Marcos kind of fits, I think. Trump as Hitler was always a joke. Trump as Caesar doesn't fit either, since Caesar was competent. That's also also why I don't see Trump as a Franco figure; competence was also his key to success. Although, like Rod, I think such a figure is in our future.
Of course, if Trump is Marcos, someone needs to check Melania's closet for shoes.
I prefer the comparison with Mussolini, myself, as I wrote the other day, There is even the physical resemblance and mannerisms. People comparing someone with Hitler is such a tiresomely overdone cliche. Even so, I might reluctantly vote for Trump, given the curse of our two-party system.
Mussolini was somewhat competent at least.
Yeah, that's my feeling too, Jon. Isn't the Mussolini joke that "at least he made the trains run on time"? that implies a basic executive competence which Trump lacks.
Trump is America's Cataline: corrupt plutocrat seeking power for personal reasons.
Alas we have no Cicero to hound him into infamy. All we get are dollar store demagogues.
You're assuming the country will still be together as one in 2028.
It should be obvious by now that there is only one way to vote in this election. Any other vote or abstention will only contribute to the ongoing ruination of the nation. In the meantime, remember, “We must obey God rather than men!” Acts 5:29.
I say we run that ad just as you've scripted it.
As bad as all of that is ... and it is bad(!) there won't be the votes for Trump and we will have more of this. Don't let the polling fool you like it did in 2022. There was no red wave. And there won't be in 2024 either. Women are out en masse for abortion. Educated suburban women can't stand DJT and they outnumber the women who worship him like their god. In the middle are moderates and independents and they don't want DJT either. So, people saying he will win are fooling themselves. He won in 2016 because no one wanted HRC as president and he seemed like a kick. But TDS in the media and his own idiotic narcissism have ruined any chance he had. There was no stolen election - he simply lost and couldn't take it. Now we will see him in and out of courtrooms and hear his mean name calling and idiotic legal theories (absolute immunity?? that's called being the king, not the president of the United States). So, go ahead and pledge your votes to him. You will be disappointed. I just hope that we survive long enough to look back and shake our heads in amazement over this time in history. It's terrifying.
Whatever else is true about our present moment, politics cannot save us. Looking at the prospect of either a Biden or a Trump presidency is like choosing between death by hanging and death by the firing squad.
Nah. More like bronchitis or giardiasis. You'll probably survive either, but it will not be fun. (I've had both in my day)
Trump may well win in November (see:L: 2000, 2016, electoral college). But I do agree there's no red wave in the making.
That was a painful montage to scroll through.
This post reads like an email that you should draft but never send. A primal expression of rage that’s good to get off your chest but best left in the drafts folder or deleted.
We get it. You hate the direction the country is going on social issues. Neither you, nor the Republican Party, nor Trump, nor Haley have a credible plan to change anything. So you rage. And you tout the visions and actions of a political leader whose country is so different than the United States it makes any application of his ideas to our context laughable on its face.
I agree that the cultural transformation we’re undergoing is significant. Call me naive, but I believe that confidently living out one’s convictions and trying to build and support communities that demonstrate an alternative way of life is enough. People are actually hungry for meaning and enchantment and small-o orthodox Christianity is relevant in this moment.
But the hate and the rage are unnecessary and counterproductive.
Tell me, what was the point of this post?
I'm gonna guess that the point was to contrast Thomas Edsall's concern with 'normalizing' Trump with the abnormalities that have been 'normalized' by Edsall's peer group.
That's exactly right. I don't think Trump has a credible plan to change anything. As any regular reader knows, I believe our problems are far beyond political solutions. Scuds is right: my target is not Joe Biden here, but Tom Edsall, who is flipping out over the normalization of Trump, but is blind to how incredibly abnormal so much of life under Biden is. (And I don't blame Biden for most of this, to be clear; again, my point is to make fun of what Edsall thinks of as normal.)
Edsell is old enough to have lived through the vast cultural changes forced through by the left.
On the other hand (Dukeboy01 please copy):
https://twitter.com/BillMelugin_/status/1750239730695070038
Ah, Texas is awesome: the once and future Lone Star? The governor’s mansion is about two miles from my apartment.
I'm a UT Austin grad, myself. I'd rather not say in what year, but suffice it to say that I am now retired. My most memorable student job was at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where I was the proverbial kid in the candy store.
Me as well!—2011.
Ah, damn: I used to run into two Presbyterian seminarians from there at the bar, and they were flirting with ideas such as Jesus being a solely human bastard. So apparently that’s going on over there nowadays (not to spoil your memory or anything).
They'll hang Abbott from the nearest lamppost if he tried taking Texas out on the nation (Hell hath no fury like senior citizens losing their Social Security and Medicare)
Yeah, I guess. And after all, Texas as a whole is split about 55/45, just like pretty much every other state in the nation. But this is fun.
It's to showcase that, at the end of the day, every "horror" that Trump and MAGA bring is massively dwarfed by the bizarre freakshow that is the democrats and liberal culture.
Tell me, why did you have to ask?
RE: "Neither you, nor the Republican Party, nor Trump, nor Haley have a credible plan to change anything. "
Even a cursory review of the Republican Party candidates makes it clear their "credible plan to change" is to push back against the social moral decay that is enabled (at times embraced) by Biden and Democrat Party in general. That push back is more than enough for me, as well as roughly half the country, to support Republicans.
Don’t forget Ukraine and the border. Both of which Trump speaks credibly about.
I find myself thinking more and more about Lot in Sodom; a man who tried to live as justly as he could in a society which was utterly depraved. He was saved from the destruction of the city, but he (obviously) should have fled the city years ago, and was not untouched by its depravity. While he survived, what was the result? His wife is destroyed, his children are poorly catechized and traumatized (I mean, while I get that he was trying to model hospitality to his guests, NOT cool that he offered his daughters up to be raped by the mob) and ultimately, they end up engaging in incest with him. I tell myself I should leave this country, and fly to the ends of the world, but where is there left to go, and how would I support my family there? And so I haven't left, even though I can sense judgment is coming, I have the same cope as Lot; I pray that more mercy is handed down to me than was to him. The mercy God handed down to Lot was a strange mercy indeed.
Best comment so far. My own feelings exactly. I was talking with friends a decade ago (pre-Trump) about this and we reached the same conclusion: "where would we go?"
I think the only hope is a reassertion of federalism leading to a de-facto dissolution of part of the United States. It won't solve the cultural rot, but it could give places for those who seek a society that enforces a sane moral code to retreat to.
Who knows, perhaps we'll see Governor Abbott in Texas start that process this week by openly defying a direct SCOTUS order on the border. I doubt it, but it's possible.
Though for the record, I don't see anything to defy. The Supreme Court order doesn't stop Abbot at all. All it does is continue his conflict with the Border Patrol.
Rush Limbaugh always joked that he'd tell his listeners when it was time to head to New Zealand, but that was before Covid, and we saw that New Zealand became a prison.
Most of the time, we are exactly where we are supposed to be, as crazy as things are, I feel like God equips us to be in that place until he says to go. Do not be afraid!
Where would one go? The rot shown in the post is the norm in most of the Western World. Places where it is not (Russia) will have their own significant problems. Would China or Islamic states be better?