Typically in this Friday "What the Heck" column, I focus on things that have left me bewildered and confused from the previous week – things that I don't have an answer to and am looking for some help. To start off this week, however, I'm throwing something in that might provide an answer to something that has been confusing me.
Fetishes
First, the problem. Understanding that people are unique, quirky, and have their own eccentricities, there's something about this kind of behavior that just isn't easily explained:
A grown man having infantile desires and obsessions with pretending to be a six-year-old girl. I am among those that attribute this kind of conduct to mental illness. But even then, why has it exploded so suddenly, so rapidly, and so fully in just the last few years? A commentator I have a great deal of respect for, Allie Beth Stuckey, recently pointed out there could be some other factors at play with the transgender craze:
I'll have to defer to someone who knows more about this subject than me, but if our entire culture is being led down the path to moral oblivion by a handful of folks with a pornographic fetish, that's gonna be great for the history books, isn't it?
Federalists
Meanwhile, I need someone to explain to me how it is that well-known media sources, ones that try to exude some sense of credibility and objectivity (even when everyone knows better), continue to hire reporters and writers who (1) have no clue about the people they are often writing about, and (2) don't have it in them to perform even the smallest amount of research to inform themselves.
For the latest example of this, check out this article by Politico, where they used their "Friday Read" feature to do a deep-dive into the right's legal association, the Federalist Society. In the title of the piece, the author jabs that the conservative legal movement just "isn't quite sure about democracy anymore."
It was standard political hackishness. Since the January 6th riot, the Left has been on a three-year bender shouting to anyone who will listen about "threats to democracy" this and "undermining our democracy" that. So I guess it shouldn't have been surprising to see this pearl of wisdom get published:
Who wrote that? And how can they be working for a major media outlet like Politico and be so goofy? I mean, does the staff at Politico not actually realize that we are a republic and not a democracy? Do they really not know that we wouldn't want to be a democracy? Are the reporters and editors there incapable of looking at Federalist Paper #14 where the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, writes himself:
In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.
It's not a "tongue-in-cheek slogan." Those are the words and intentions of the Founding Fathers. It's not about minority rule. It's about preventing the tyranny of both the minority and the majority. The Founders feared mass democracy because of how easily a majority faction could exploit and eliminate the rights of the minority – just as easily as a king could, they argued.
Reflecting on this ignorant analysis by Politico, commentator Stephen L. Miller observed that, "Perhaps having a bunch of 26-year-olds dominate DC news outlets was a bad idea." I'm beginning to think so.
The End of the World
Finally, a bit of devastating news for everyone. According to The New York Times, we're almost out of time. In fact, we're looking about 6 and a half years left on the planet. Hope you don't have any long-term plans:
These kinds of predictions and prophecies have become such a joke that I'm actually shocked places like The Times aren't self-conscious and paranoid about being mocked enough to word it all differently. I mean, they've got a legacy of printing this kind of kookiness that never materializes:
But my favorite thing this time was the way the ardent global warming activists waded into the comment section to taunt anyone who questioned this latest doomsday. One bold warmer threw out a challenge to those who question The Times' veracity:
Honestly, I would, but I can't. I can't because the property values are so high there. That would be property values that anticipate future worth, and that are driven up by wealthy people – like those stars who fret about climate change – competing with each other to buy it all. One would think that if everyone knew the Maldives were about to be drown, that wouldn't be happening.
What could cause this bizarre behavior? Maybe hypocrisy or dishonesty, but I'm gonna say it's probably climate change.
