Daily Archives: February 8, 2021

After one of President Bidens recent executive orders provided encouraging news for trans athletes, backlash was sadly inevitable. After all, hes a new president and as weve discussed numerous times, transgender athletes have become a lightning rod in Americas endless and tiresome culture wars.

So its not surprising that during the confirmation hearing for prospective Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona, a few ambitious politicians would take the opportunity to announce that their number one academic priority was to throw a marginalized group under the bus.

Enter U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

The first words out of his mouth tipped off everyone where he was going and it wasnt anywhere pleasant...

The Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to Connecticut saying that boys cant compete with girls in sports or shouldnt be forced to allow boys to compete in girls sports [sic]. If youre confirmed, will you enforce that Office of Civil Rights opinion?

To review, a duly elected U.S. Senator couldnt make it through one sentence (and thats being very generous with the term) without misgendering an entire community twice. It is a credit to Cardonas sense of restraint that he responded with an answer other than Grownups are talking. Why dont you go color?

Instead, Cardona asserted that his job as Secretary of Education would be to make sure were following civil rights of all students. He later expounded, I think its critically important that education systems and educators respect the rights of all students, including students who are transgender, and that they are afforded the opportunities that every other student has to participate in extracurricular activities.

That sound you just heard was one of Betsy DeVoss yachts exploding.

At that point, Paul began playing the greatest hits of Martina and the TERFs, spouting out talking points like destroy girls athletics, they dont get college scholarships, and hulking six-foot-four guys wrestling against girls. The proceedings transformed into less of a Senate hearing and more of a jukebox of bullshit.

Listening to his line of questioning, it was worth remembering that Paul considers himself a Libertarian. And if theres one singular piece of philosophy at the core of Ayn Rands canon, its that whenever people are left to freely pursue excellence in their chosen field, the government should step in to stop them as forcefully as possible. While calling John Galt a woman.

If trans athletes are such a threat to the core of Pauls world, maybe he can form his own barnstorming team called The Parasites.

That wasnt all. Later in the hearing, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah took the floor. In the past year, Romney has marched with Black Lives Matter demonstrators and was part of the Group of Ten Republicans who met with President Biden to give the appearance of being willing to negotiate with Democrats.

But when it came to trans athletes, Romney was almost enthusiastic in his support for Pauls demagoguery:

I want to associate myself with a number of the things that were said by Senator Paul. Thats not something I say very frequently! But he made a very, very good point. Ive got pictures of my eight granddaughters... they shouldnt be competing with people who are physiologically in an entirely different category. And I think boys should be competing with boys and girls should be competing with [girls] on the athletic field.

Epic sigh.

I understand that confirmation hearings are all about trying to generate soundbites, especially when the nominee already has the votes clinched. Furthermore, I also know there are many out LGBTQ Republicans and conservatives who align with Paul and Romney on many issues.

But this is a story of two extremely powerful leaders cynically singling out members of our community to score cheap points. They also serve to turn people who havent researched this issue against a group that is already marginalized, othered and attacked way too frequently as it is.

This sorry episode isnt about politics or ideological disagreements. These are two of the most powerful men in the country going all-in on punching down. Its one bit of political theater that should have closed during previews.

Originally posted here:

Paul and Romney embarrass themselves by lashing out at trans athletes - Outsports

Our house is divided. Perhaps more than at any time since the Civil War, Americans seem to occupy two different worlds, suspicious of the other and wary that the view of the other represents a threat to cherished, inviolate truths about what America is all about. This tension has humbled a nation whose unity helped win its freedom from the worlds strongest empire nearly 250 years ago, see it through a civil war and defeat fascism and communism.

Where is that unity today or the strength it helps fuel? In its absence, it has come to violence in the very halls of our national capitol.

From our countrys founding, there have been a series of conflicts with one unresolved theme: Slavery, suffrage, and civil rights have the same pressure an unwillingness to recognize the value and rights of those whom the powerful deem different. In our civilization and every other there are endless stories of those with power being unwilling to share it.

Yet, our awareness of this weakness from generation to generation has made possible the courage to make steady, incremental change. Let us not forget where we started with a constitution that counted enslaved human beings as 3/5 of a person and where enfranchisement was limited only to wealthy white men. We are far from the goal of equity, but the sacrificial work of leaders and martyrs has improved our shared plight.

Sacrificial. Lincoln, King, Kennedy and thousands of others who never received fame, paid the ultimate price for this progress.

We are grateful for their courage and commitment, and on their shoulders we stand today as we reach higher to recognize the humanity in those with whom we disagree.

The sacrifice we are called upon to make today is smaller. We must try to understand a viewpoint that doesnt seem to make sense, and the life experiences that gave rise to it. It can be gut wrenching to do, but it is a necessity for a democracy to survive.

We are justifiably outraged at the ransacking of the Capitol, but we must also ask what led those who did it to believe the presidential election was stolen. We may condemn riots that burn down shops and neighborhoods, but we should ask what leads people to feel they have no other choice. We must ask how we got here because unless we understand that and address the root causes, we cannot move forward.

No one wins hearts and minds by yelling more loudly than the other side. Both sides lose their hearing.

To be united is not to agree on everything, but to agree that some interests and values rise above all others. Our nation has never fully agreed on much, but it has not always torn itself apart because of it.

This is something we try to model in higher education. To read Marx does not make you a communist. To hear a lecture by Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulLawmakers lay blame on Trump over riot as second impeachment trial looms Murphy: 'I don't think any of our job ends just because the president has left office' Congress mulls tightening eligibility for stimulus checks MORE does not make you a libertarian. Understanding another perspective can better help you form your own. This can be especially true in trying to understand a perspective that may be totally opposite of your own. Every socialist should read Ayn Rand. Every conservative should read the New York Times editorial page.

Indoctrination is not the goal. Those who have been indoctrinated to a cause are not true believers. They are simply parrots, repeating what they have been told without real understanding or thought. Those with a shallow understanding are scared to confront other beliefs and perspectives. Those with deep understanding and commitment are not.

Those who want to rebuild unity and democracy will seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Being rude on social media or getting in yelling matches on cable TV are acts of those with shallow beliefs and understanding. These are actions of the weak and insecure, who dont actually understand or care for the significance and gravity of the ideas at hand. We need leaders and citizens who are bigger than that.

John Comerford is president ofOtterbein Universityin Westerville, Ohio. Follow on Twitter@Otterbein.

Original post:

Our nation has never fully agreed on much, but it hasn't always torn itself apart | TheHill - The Hill

Among our countrys many ailments is the spread of fake news. As Beth McMurtie argues in a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, disinformation and propaganda are flourishing, with people increasingly in politically polarized media ecosystems.

Fortunately, there are doctors in the house. Specifically, universities are full of professors with doctorates in education, history, and communication who seek to cure students of disinformation.

Unfortunately, a number of these experts also spread the disease, like medieval doctors who failed to sanitize their own hands.

For instance, one professor that McMurtie interviewed, Jennifer Mercieca, observes that many students following politics lean toward conservative outlets. That trend, she tells McMurtie, presents a particular set of challenges given the right wing medias war on truth, including an attack on academics as liars and misleading and corrupt.

Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that where ever others differ from them it is so far error.

Rather than disprove this perception of academic bias, McMurties article only confirms it by leaning heavily on conservative examples of prejudice. For instance, Professor Mercieca proudly insists that she never calls anyone a liar: Such labels, she says, dont reveal anything about why someone like Alex Jones, a far-right radio-show host who promotes conspiracy theories, is as powerful and as successful as he is.

Instead she helps students do their own analysis of Donald Trumps rhetoric to see how he claims to win even when his projects (such as building the wall between Mexico and the U.S.) fail to meet with much success.

And so the article goes, with McMurtie offering examples of how to deal thoughtfully with the misinformed (conservatives).

There is certainly bias on the right, just as there is bias on the left and everywhere in between. The reason is not so much politics as human nature, our predilection to believe we know best.

As Benjamin Franklin observed at the Philadelphia Convention, Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that where ever others differ from them it is so far error.

In this case, the Chronicle showcases that tendency by downplaying examples of partiality on the left.

There is no mention, for instance, of the factual inaccuracies in the 1619 Project promoted by the New York Times, despite substantial documentation by historians and economists.

There is no reference to Paul Krugmans column initially titled, How Many Americans will Ayn Rand Kill? Even the New York Times editors seem to have realized they had gone too far, changing the title to When Libertarianism Goes Bad.

There are no allusions to NPR giving Vicky Osterweil a platform to promote her book In Defense of Looting. Her interviewer did not even challenge Osterweils claims that looting enables people to demonstrate that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free, or that we have to be willing to do things that scare us and that we wouldn't do in normal, peaceful times, because we need to get free.

Can we all agree now that such comments are problematic, regardless of the speakers political persuasion?

Instead, the Chronicle implies that students must be warned against conservatives and advised to trust real experts. Especially dangerous, according to one professor McMurtie interviewed, is the idea that the traditional gatekeepers of informationjournalists, scientists, and academics includedhave been side-stepped by self-styled experts who think they can read raw data and determine the truth about mask-wearing and voter fraud.

Is this really the solution? Drop the portcullis to exclude the supposed barbarians?

The problems in that approach were signaled decades ago by the Austrian economist F. A. Hayek. In The Intellectuals and Socialism, Hayek emphasizes the bias as well as the power of intellectuals, a class into which he places journalists, teachers, radio commentators, scientists, and doctorsthe very gatekeepers stressed in McMurties article. Hayek warns:

It is the intellectuals in this sense who decide what views and opinions are to reach us, which facts are important enough to be told to us and in what form and from what angle they are to be presented. Whether we shall ever learn the results of the expert and the original thinker depends mainly on their decision.

Hayek emphasizes that such intellectuals have good intentions but err in judging particular issues in relation to new ideals that fit their vision of an advanced society. The practical difficulties of achieving that society are of less interest than the broad visions, the specious comprehension of the social order as a whole which a planned system promises.

If we want to heal our country, we have to start by healing ourselves.

Hayeks point is especially prescient given current debates on how to respond to COVID-19. Who are the intellectuals, and how much power do they urge us to cede to state governments in relation to where we travel and how businesses can function?

One source that McMurtie interviewed, Michael Caulfield, stresses that since students cannot process all the data on COVID-19, it is better to rely on experts: You have to find someone who knows what theyre talking about. . . . And then think about whether what theyre saying is in the mainstream.

Caulfield is right that the source of information matters, but the danger of his emphasis on the mainstream is that it could lead students away from other perspectives that might be true or partially true. As John Stuart Mill observes in On Liberty,

...even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.

Such prejudices not only heighten the polarization that McMurtie bemoans. They lead us to ignore how experts mislead us, as in the CDCs changing message about wearing masks. And they direct us away from other scientific perspectives on the pandemic, such as The Great Barrington Declaration.

If we want to heal our country, we have to start by healing ourselves. We have to acknowledge the prevalence of bias across the political spectrum and the prejudices we are in danger of spreading.

Otherwise, we are making our students less aware and our country more divided. No vaccine can cure that.

Originally posted here:

Why Telling Students to 'Trust the Experts' Is Poor Advice | Caroline Breashears - Foundation for Economic Education

Binge-worthy doesnt even begin to describeThe Lady and the Dale, Nick Cammilleri and Zackary Druckers four-part, one-of-a-kind docuseries, premiering January 31 on HBO. Produced by the Duplass brothers, this twist-and-turning saga stars a three-wheeled car called the Dale (that may or may not have been viable) and its marketer extraordinaire, a visionary female entrepreneur (and longtime serial con artist) named Elizabeth Carmichael. With a promise of 70 miles to the gallon at a time when the 70s oil crisis was leaving Americans to linger at gas stations in Soviet-long lines, the Dale seemed to many a dream come true. And to others, too good to be true.

As Carmichaels over the top boasts and publicity stunts edged her ever closer to breaking the glass ceiling (and upending Detroit), a few corporate-friendly, straight white guys began to sniff around. (Most notably an equally egotistical local news reporter by the name of Dick Carlson yes, he who spawned that other pompous right-wing journo.) In short order, the story of an overhyped sports car became a focus on Liz Carmichael herself, which inevitably transformed into the tale of her former existence as Jerry Dean Michael, who for decades had scammed his way from coast to coast, dragging a loving wife and adoring five kids in tow.

But perhaps most remarkable or unremarkable of all was that the more Carmichael changed in physical appearance the more she stayed true to her grifter ways. Which resulted in a maddeningly ambiguous answer to the frustrating question that all non-cisgender folk have historically faced: Are you really what you claim to be? For ultimately, and ironically, the larger than life Liz had been able to convince more people to believe in her outlandish lies than to give credence to what seemed to be her sole inviolable truth. Sure, Elizabeth Carmichael had been born Jerry Dean Michael, but shed never been a man.

So to garner some clear-eyed answersFilmmakerreached out to Cammilleri and Drucker just prior toThe Lady and the Dales debut to learn all about their head spinning journey back in time and down the rabbit hole.

Filmmaker: So how did you all team up to do this series? And was it important to have both cisgender and non-cisgender folks involved in production (particularly for gaining access to the diverse range of interview subjects, from the trans to the transphobic)?

Cammilleri: I produced the project alone for the first six years. In that time it took all my effort just to gather the story of Lizs crimes, the Dale, the rose business finding subjects, writing court orders, mailing letters, digging up archival, getting funding. There wasnt a lot on Lizs life as a trans woman, save for a few diary entries published in the press. So when producers Allen Bain, Andre Gaines, and Duplass Brothers Productions came onboard in 2017 and 2018, we all agreed we needed representation across the spectrum (both cis and non-cisgender crew and speakers) in order to complete Lizs portrait as a wholehearted and three-dimensional trans woman.

Zackary came onboard immediately as a creative. It was clear she cared as much about Liz as I did. She helped me uncover a lot of Lizs trans life and personal journey in a way I hadnt seen before, and couldnt see because I didnt have that lived experience. Our production crew was so diverse, with so many opinions on who Liz Carmichael was, that it helped inform every decision we made about her life in an amazing way.

Because Id been shooting for seven years I had already interviewed nearly every cisgender interview subject you see in the series. So when Duplass Borthers Productions came onboard we reshot all the interviews, while adding some incredible LGBT scholars to help illuminate Lizs life as a trans woman. It just became a matter of who would be in the room for each interview. Once or twice the decision was made not to have Zackary there for fear of the subject being openly transphobic or withholding. But that was rare. Zackary conducted the interviews with all her subjects. I conducted the interviews with all mine. Allen Bain conducted the interviews with (family members) Candi and Richard. Every decision was a collective one.

Drucker: Making a film or television series takes a village, and the making of this was epic. Its fair to say that this project was transformative for many of us. We all learned something about ourselves and our families in its creation. Exploring such disparate vantage points added to its complexity. We all move in and out of various roles throughout our lives. Any trans person who has a large extended family knows that, even in your family of origin, there can be a wide range of perspectives and levels of understanding as to why you are who you are.

Filmmaker: I was particularly struck by the exquisite craftsmanship in this series specifically the combo of archival imagery, animation, and photo collage with the audio recordings. Even though Liz Carmichael died over a decade and a half ago, I actually got the sense that she was alive and well and telling her own story throughout. So how did you go about creating and stitching together all these various parts (which also includes many contemporary interviews)? Im guessing this must have been an incredibly time-consuming process.

Cammilleri: Because Lizs story was so effectively erased by the press, The Lady and the Dale became the most challenging project Id ever worked on. There was almost nothing left of Liz, so we had to piece her back together from the scraps of archival, stock photos, VO even employing crew members families to serve as character head replacements. (My grandfather Tommy portrays Mary Thayers husband in episode three. He crushed it.) That creative restriction soon resulted in such a rich and nuanced world personal to Lizs imagination, that grows and shrinks with her through the various phases of her story. Our animation team Awesome + Modest and Sean Donnelly, our animation director, deserve all the credit in the world for some of the most amazing animation Ive ever seen. They brought Lizs world to life.

Drucker: We had limited archival material of Liz, so much of her voice is reenacted based on direct quotes from articles since she was so extensively quoted or recorded in the media. But the breadth of other material was intimidating. There are thousands of pages of FBI files, hundreds of newspaper articles and lots of archival television discoveries. We interviewed more than 30 people, half of whom did not end up in the series. Animation is really the key to Lizs internal universe. Trans people create their own universes because we must claw out space for ourselves in a world that would probably rather we not exist. Lizs animation style is scrappy, DIY, paper-based cutouts with jagged edges. We wanted it to feel like this is how Liz would animate her story. Its tactile, its analog, there isnt a single digital dissolve or transition. Its a completely paper-based process/world.

Filmmaker: One of the most fascinating admissions in the series comes from Candi Michael, Lizs adoring daughter, who stressed that the whole family had been a part of Lizs transition from Jerry Dean. It happened slowly over time, which really made me rethink the era before hormones and surgeries became more readily accessible. Theres just something to be said for an unhurried process, one that allows loved ones to collectively come to terms with physical change. So were there any specific revelations regarding trans identity that you personally garnered through researching this story?

Drucker: Thank you, that is such a thoughtful question. In the scope of trans people through time, eking out an existence, swimming upstream, its hard to imagine Lizs story going any other way. I didnt know about Liz before Jay and Mark Duplass approached me with this project, and Lizs whole story was a tremendous learning experience for me. Many of the trans elders Ive known from her generation came out of a queer community, but Liz was isolated as a felon on the run, transitioning alone.

The harshest realization was how little mens views of trans people have changed over time. When asked about Lizs trans identity, many of our subjects had negative things to say, which in most cases was not necessary to include in the final cut. I introduced myself to interview subjects as Victoria, my passing legal name, and only one of the subjects seemed to notice that I was trans. Many of the rest didnt. I feel confident about saying that because of the derogatory things that they said about trans people, which I really doubt they wouldve said if they had identified me as trans.

Cammilleri: I wasnt too familiar with the LGBT community, so I never really understood why trans people were called frauds or con artists. Its one thing to read about it in a book, but its quite another to hear it and see it over and over and over as if being trans is as much of a crime as being a criminal. But Liz never conceded a day in her life. She woke up every day making the choice to be Liz Carmichael, despite knowing what she would face. Thats more courage than most people have in the world. My biggest revelation: survival is heroism.

Filmmaker: The fact that Liz, like fellow conservative Republican Caitlyn Jenner, grew up with the view of white male entitlement as an inherent right is a key part of her life story. (Indeed, its actually unsurprising that Liz was such a fan of Ayn Rand, who I always suspected was herself genderqueer as Rand was never able to comprehend, and practically despised, women who didnt male-identify as she did.) It just seems that Lizs contempt for society grew with the increasingly thwarted expectation of taking her white male privilege with her into womanhood. She just couldnt comprehend giving up that power or having it stripped from her. So how did this unsympathetic aspect a victim who couldnt see others as victims inform your approach to the story?

Drucker: You are spot on. I love this analysis. Im totally with you.

Cammilleri: Yes, thank you for such an incredible analysis. By 2000 everything was stripped from Liz, including her own name. She was forced to survive in the shadows as Kathy Johnson. Yet that entitlement seemed almost cruelly reflected in Mark Lisherons appearance. Early in my filming process, Mark admitted he had no journalistic reason to be at the compound. The irony of that admission always stuck with me. The very thing that withdrew Liz from society is what brought Lisheron to her doorstep. In that moment in that scene it became clear Lizs story was always a tragedy. A life filled with dopplegangers. Once we knew that, we just had to inch our way down, episode by episode, into that inevitable crevasse.

Filmmaker: Finally, how exactly did you get transphobic Dick Carlson to participate? (Was a straight cisgender white man strategically sent to do the interview?) The irony that libertarian Liz was taken down by another free-market Reagan Republican is just too rich. Is Carlson still to this day unable to see that he and Liz shared the same worldview?

Cammilleri: Well, the villain always thinks theyre the hero of their own story. So I told Carlson he was the hero, and he agreed. I shot the interview with our cameraman Matt LaCorte (a cis male) in 2016 prior to DBP coming onboard.

As for the last part, even if they did have a common worldview I dont think hed ever see it, because hes not looking to relate to her. She was an enemy to be defeated.

Drucker: Liz Carmichael continues to be one of Dick Carlsons amusing stories. Really hes a bit player in the arc of Lizs life, but what he represents is a deep legacy of the media-shaping opinions around trans-ness and gender expansive people that continues through to today. The future gets better and worse simultaneously. Liz could fly under the radar because trans people were not part of the publics imagination, but now we are certainly the most visible generation of trans people to come along, and the most organized. Our movement has grown, and so too has opposition to our rights. The story of Liz and Dick is a somewhat humble microcosm of what is today a global conversation. Dick Carlsons day is over, and Im not that interested in dissecting him but we have a whole hell of a lot of insight now into who Tucker Carlson is and what motivates his transphobia.

Read the rest here:

Liz was Isolated as a Felon on the Run, Transitioning Alone: Nick Cammilleri and Zackary Drucker on Their HBO Docuseries The Lady and the Dale -...