Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 10, 2023

 May 1

To Luke Griffo and his blog article on his claims that the Transgendered Movement has a disdain for women. This article was posted on the blog of the Redeemer Church of South Hills.

The above article attempts to portray the Transgender part of LGBT movement  as being monolithic. History shows that sometimes attempts to so describe a group are efforts to make a scapegoat of that given group. The above article does attempt to paint the LGBT movement as a monolith and it does so with a combination of wholly inadequate documentation and a misunderstanding of the thinking involved.

The following quote comes from the LGBT Foundation website. It challenges the claim made above that says that a key part of transgenderism is a 'disdain' for women (see  https://lgbt.foundation/whatisawoman   ):

'A woman is someone who identifies as a woman. Many women are cisgender (often written as cis), and this means the gender they were assigned at birth matches their gender identity. Some women are transgender (often written as trans), and this means that the gender they were assigned at birth didn't match their gender identity.

Cis women and trans women are women – it’s as simple as that.'

Thus the problem with the quote from the above article is that it takes a single quote from one source and generalizes from that quote a view of women by the whole group.

That is not to say that there are no problems with what the source, cited by the article, says. For example, one page says:

'Acknowledging the existence of female biology is transphobic or cissexist'

That statement has its mirror image held by many conservatives. That mirror image says that the only factor that is involved in gender identity is the biological factors that can be observed. The problem with that view is that sometimes,, even what is observed can be indeterminate regarding a person's biological sex.. Another problem is that the biology on the outside does not always match the messages that the biology on the inside is giving a person.  Also, there are social and psychological factors that contribute to one's gender identity.

Citing Genesis 1:27 has a limited effect here because nature, along with man, fell and became corrupted when Adam sinned. And so Genesis 1:27 gives Christians a partial view of people. In addition, society also consists of unbelievers and Church history does not always reflect kindly on how Christians, including Christian leaders, have treated women.

The above article overstates the Christian objections to transgenderism. And if we want to present a credible witness to the world, including the LGBT Movement, we need to be fair and accurate in describing groups that we oppose. The above article fails in both ways in describing the Transgender part of the LGBT Movement.

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To Heidelblog and Mary Harrington and the portion of her article quoted by Heidelblog on the assertion that there are only 2 genders.

Mary Harrington's full article can be found at:

    https://compactmag.com/article/i-was-canceled-for-saying-sex-is-real

What is missing in the above quote are the details. When it says children are having their reproductive organs removed, which children is she referring to? How many? What are their ages? And why, since surgery for those under 18 is done under special review, was the surgery seen as necessary?

In addition, gender affirming care often includes medical treatments that are reversible as well as care that is neither surgical nor medical. So why paint gender affirming care with a broad brush and suggest that some things happen more often than they do? And why not also reference the times where gender affirming care relieves depression which, because of its ties to suicide, could be life saving? Why not give a more complete picture of gender dysphoria?

The title of the article might suggest why. In order to fit within the confines of Genesis 1:27, we Christians can only admit to two biological sexes, and genders because genders are often conflated with biological sex by both us religiously conservative Christians and the LGBT movement. Regarding biological sex, there are 3 sexes: male, female, and intersex. Note that irreversible surgery must be performed on many who are intersex to conform them to either the male or female sex. However, regarding gender identity, which deals with the psychological, some  Native American tribes recognized up to 5 genders. My guess is that Harrington recognizes only two genders: male and female.

See, it is one thing for the Church to hold to Biblical standards on sex and gender. We must do that. But to impose those standards on society should be considered an overreach especially since we religiously conservative Christians ignore the newest revelations that medical science provides about gender dysphoria. As with homosexuality, we simply do not know all of the biological contributors to gender identity and dysphoria. And so we run the risk of repeating the Church's historical mistake when it first adamantly rejected Heliocentrism. 

We should note that while many religiously conservative Christian leaders and influencers looked at the 2015 SCOTUS Obergefell decision on same-sex marriage as a sign that we Christians have lost the Culture Wars, almost the opposite took place. That SCOTUS decision has only provided a spark for some of us to renew the fighting of those wars. Such a decision will not serve the reputation of the Gospel well. That is because we are trying too hard to say too much in order to turn the tide of the Culture Wars. And trying too hard to win, as most athletes can tell us, produces mistakes some of which can cost one the game. And perhaps this is a game that we even shouldn't be playing because, in a democratic society, the playing this game and fighting of such wars strongly indicates, if not implies, that one is against democracy because fighting culture wars is a sure sign that one opposes pluralism. 

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May 4

To Auguste Meyrat and his article that favorably compares Tucker Carlson to G.K. Chesterton because of how Carlson's criticisms or Romney's view of Capitalism reminds him of the Distributism that Chesterton proposed. Heyrat, along with Chesterton and Carlson, also sees progressivism and radical feminism as a threat to society because they are against the kind of faith, family, and community establishment that conservatives favor. This was posted on the Imaginative Conservative website.

The above article is divided into 2 parts neither of which supports the title. There is the part of the article that deals with what Tucker Carlson said and then the part that advocates for a G.K. Chesterton idea of Distributism.

As for Carlson, what he has going for his case is that he uses criticisms of the status quo  some of which have been provided by the Left. Or I should say that Carlson plagiarizes  those particular criticisms because he doesn't acknowledge the source of those criticisms. And that is because he has to condemn Socialism, without defining it. But a major weakness of his commentary is that he seems to be saying that all of our problems are caused by outside influences. Not only that, he proposal that out leaders should care about our happiness forgets that what makes people happy varies greatly from person to person. And what makes some people happy is what hurts others. Also how people define a family  varies. Yes, our leaders are more concerned with their own personal profits than our happiness. But as George Carlin  tells us that selfish, ignorant people are going to elect selfish, ignorant leaders. That is because those leader come from the people. Btw, we should note that Carlson never proposes a solution to the problem so why does his observation here merit him a comparison with Chesterton?

As for Distributism, it might be partially good for a rural setting, but it works on a simple absolute premise that says that small is always beautiful. And what isn't small is corrupting. In fact, we can attribute all of the problems that we have in this nation, and possibly the world, to any large institution and/or any ism that supports what is large. What is implied by that is that if one was to supply the right setting, people would not be corrupted. And so we should strive to make everything small and every family independent. That is the ticket to human happiness. That is the conservative utopia.

And so there are three questions surrounding Distributism. First, are the claims being made about Distributism true? Second, is Distributism feasible in today's world with such large populations and large population centers? Finally, is Distributism enforceable? The last question is necessary because not only would we have to implement Distributism, we would have to maintain it too.

Distributism is marketed as providing what makes human flourishing possible: faith, family, and community. But what isn't in Distributism's advertising is the conformity that would be necessary in each area. Given the history of religious wars, there would have to be some degree in the conformity of faith. And such a conformity would lead to a  segregation of communities. Then one would have to wonder what would tie together those diverse communities so that any conflicts that arise from  their differences would be effectively minimized. 

The same goes with families. We are emerging from  a time when our nation had a singular definition of what a family is. Now, the cat is out of the bag. And what Distributism might get wrong is whether or not feminism emerged out of dissatisfaction with that definition. Was the source of that dissatisfaction caused by outside alien influences or from people who were dissatisfied with that status quo definition. And now, are all people willing to live with the differences or will there be attempts to force compliance with the old status quo definition? 

Also, how will community be established where every family is as independent as possible? Won't communities then be based on similarities? And how can there be enough similarities between the families in a community to hold a community together without segregating out those families that are too different for the rest? How strong will the sense of community be if community is primarily based on similarities? What if a family becomes significantly less independent than the other families? Will that family be eventually expelled from the community?

In other words, does Distributism account for the differences between people and the number of people have? It isn't that Distributism has nothing to teach us. But is Distributism sufficient in and of itself to even initially provide the goods it is being advertised as providing let alone be maintained from generation to generation?

What it seems to me is that Distributism relies on a significant degree of conformity that threatens our rights, especially those rights that involve being or saying things that are different from the proposed status quo. In addition there is both an intolerance stemming from the degree of conformity required in Distributism and a concern with how dependent one's neighbors could be be that either fosters or indicates a significant degree of  selfishness in those who are comfortable with Distributism. And isn't selfishness in our leaders one of the complaints that Carlson makes. And if our way of life naturally produces a selfishness, does Distributism really change the status quo that we experience now?

And  conformity needed for Distrubutism along with the intolerance that comes with it along with minimizing dependency between people and family units seems to be the common link between Distributism and Tucker Carlson.  So is that what qualifies Carlson to be compared to Chesterton?

So It's Aloha Tucker Carlson

 Remembering that the word 'aloha' can mean hello or goodbye, Carlson's departure from Fox News will eventually result in a gig someplace else. In other words, we might as well be singing the title of the Beatles' song, Hello Goodbye, to Carlson. For unlike what Nixon said about himself after he failed to win the 1962 office of governor of California, we will still have Carlson to kick around for some time still.

Some conservatives fail to be honest with why Carlson was fired. According to the Christian Ethnocracy promoting American Reformer website, Carlson's dismissal was due to his revealing of the evils that exist in America (click here to check it out). 

The American Conservative, which seems to be another Christian Ethnocracy promoting website, laid the blame for Carlson's firing at his mention of God at an Heritage Foundation meeting (click here). The article, though mentioning a discrimination lawsuit in which Carlson is named in as a possible cause for his dismissal, tries to discredit the part of the lawsuit's accusation against Carlson. The article itself tells a story of how Carlson challenged Sydney Powell to provide evidence for her claims that Dominion had switched votes from Trump to Biden.

On the Christian blog front, Anthony Costello describes Carlson as a secular prophet of sorts for good (click here).

What those three sources have in common are a conflating of conservative politics with religiously conservative Christianity and the omission of both was a reason for the firing given by Rupert Murdoch and some of the false information that Carlson himself has recently spread on his show (click here for the Politifact list). As for reasons given by Murdoch, that, according to the LA Times (click here), one has to do with Carlson's promotion of a conspiracy theory stating that the Federal Government was involved with the January 6th Insurrection and the naming of Ray Epps being an FBI plant but who did not enter the building. The problem Murdoch had with Carlson's reporting that was that he did not provide any evidence for what he said.

That some have either conflated conservative politics with religiously conservative Christianity or others have been too tribal, many such conservatives have failed acknowledge that some of the complaints that Carlson is now making have been made by the Left for decades.

What is revealing about Carlson's followers is that they don't pay attention to what has been said before until he, or perhaps another accepted conservative authority speaker says it. Has Carlson  just recently complained about the corruption at Wall Street? Yes, he just has (click here). Has Carlson complained about the limiting of legitimate debates on important issues in this nation and that has been because the Republican and Democratic Parties are beholding to elite corporate and business donors? Yes, he just has (click here). But people on the Left have been complaining about all of that for decades only to be, at best, ignored by many conservatives such as Carlson's followers.

Why would such conservatives ignore certain warnings and claims until one of their accepted authority figures gives the same warnings?  Perhaps the answer can be found in Carlson's speech at the Heritage Foundation (click here for the speech). In his speech, Carlson divides much of America into 2 groups: there are those who are brave and strong in standing up to the current nonsense and there are those who are weak--eventually he named the two groups good and evil. Of course, those at the Heritage Foundation, especially its leader, belong to the former group while those who disagree belong to the latter group.

During his speech, Carlson canonized the kind of conservatism supported by the Heritage Foundation and demonized those who think differently. He did this by his comments on the LGBT community with their use of pronouns and supporting surgery that assisted people in changing genders. He did that with comments on abortion and his claim that the Treasury Secretary told women to get an abortion to help the economy. He did that by portraying the Biden Administration as being against free speech in the current arrest of 4 American citizens for, what Carlson claims was, opposing Biden's efforts to help Ukraine. 

He then spoke in generalities that could only be used to support some old status quos views held by conservatives. This is when he used the labels 'good' and 'evil.' According to Carlson, good produces order, promotes peace, is evidenced by a lack of conflict, and favors cleanliness. On the other hand, evil manifests itself as violence, hate, division, and filthiness. Note that we do not see any group that serves as a mix of good and evil. And thus the context for the right to choose abortion and the desire to transition genders is completely absent. 

But more important, it seems that Carlson describes good and evil in terms of either supporting or protesting against the old status quo. If we consider the hippies during the 1960s and early 1970s, they were involved in some not so good things. And they were challenging the status quo which means that they were looking to tear some practices down and replace them with other ideas. So, by Carlson's template for good and evil, they were evil. But they also protested the Vietnam War and the materialism of that time. And so if they were evil, how could they have opposed what was wrong? But if they were good, how do we explain some of their practices that turned out to be harm like open sexual practices and drug use.

We could also ask about the Civil Rights Movement that looked to disturb the calmness and order that was part of the status quo of the Jim Crow era.  Even the peaceful protesters who followed Martin Luther King Jr invited disorder and division. They were portrayed as Communist instigators and trouble makers who were disturbing the peace by leaders who defended the Jim Crow culture and laws.  So how could they have been on the side of good if they were displaying some of the characteristics that Carlson attributes to evil?

Or consider the urban rioters of the 1960s. They were not just trying to destroy the then social order, they were destroying property and even attacking people. So how is it that Martin Luther King Jr responded to their riots by both opposing them while adding that they were to be listened to because King stated that 'a riot is the language of the unheard.'

The point being we are all people and we are all a mix of good and bad. Yes, some are more good than bad and vice-versa,  but there isn't this group that is good and another that is bad and Carlson demonstrates that himself in some of his remarks in his speech to the Heritage Foundation. For he certainly misinformed people about the arrests of 4 Americans whom, claimed, were arrested for disagreeing with the Biden Administration on the war in Ukraine. Actually, they were indicted by a grand jury for becoming unregistered agents for Russia who were trying to spread Russian propaganda and influence the elections for Russia's benefit (click here and there).

Carlson also grossly misrepresented Janet Yellen by claiming that she told women to get an abortion to help the economy. In reality, Yellen was praising the right to an abortion, not abortion per se. And she did so because  that right to an abortion helped women to better participate in the economy (click here). In addition, the battle for the right to an abortion has a very involved context including women's question for equality here and that includes the woman's right to choose if her life is threatened by carrying and/or bearing the child. So would Carlson condemn as evil the woman who gets an abortion to spare her own life? He also says that he has compassion for those in difficult situations but is he also giving mixed signals. 

In addition, we could consider the earlier part of this article that contained a link to a list of failed factchecks on Carlson.

In short, Carlson's speech at the Heritage Foundation was an open invitation for those conservatives who were attending to join him in auditioning for the role of the Pharisee in the parable of the two men praying ( click here for Luke 18:9-14). Spoiler Alert: the Pharisee did not fare well in that parable.

With his definitions of what is good and evil, the answer to why conservatives who favor Carlson are reluctant to agree with points that have been made by Leftists for decades until Carlson makes them is disturbing. Such is the case when Carlson recently complained about about Wall Street and our nation's one-party political system. Since Leftists, and I assume Carlson includes Liberals in that group, are evil, to agree with evil is too frightening to try. Such conservatives need permission from an approved authority figure before they are willing to agree with a Leftist position. And that shows an unhealthy dependence that some conservatives have with their accepted authority figure heroes. 

Such a practice shows that these, but certainly not all, conservative followers have made their authority figure heroes into their nanny-thinkers. And that means that these conservatives will passionately embrace what their nanny thinking heroes say. We should also note that this kind of dependence on nanny thinkers crosses all ideological boundaries. That is because the dependence on nanny thinkers is all a part of an authoritarian mindset. And Carlson's followers do not have a monopoly on the authoritarian mindset.

Though we are now just saying goodbye to Carlson on Fox, because of the kind of followers Carlson has, we will soon be saying hello to him on another media source. After all, he has too many heavily dependent followers for that not to be the case.