Daily Archives: October 24, 2021

Courageous journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia have just received the Nobel Peace Prize. Each of these remarkable leaders personifies great courage and reflects a nation experiencing challenge to internal repression.

Russia will be the focus of this column, the Philippines of a later column. Vladimir Putins Russia remains fundamentally different from the United States and the wider western world. Courageous reporters highlight ongoing repression.

Alexei Navalny, a prominent and influential Russia opposition leader, is a prisoner following his brave return to Russia early this year. This followed evacuation to Germany for emergency medical treatment after being poisoned.

Before Navalny returned to Russia, authorities there tried to intimidate journalists and restrict protests supporting him. State media regulator Roskomnadzor demanded social media not post information related to protests.

In Britain in March 2018, a police officer found Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, a city near London. Authorities immediately hospitalized them in intensive care. The nerve agent responsible sickened the officer, likewise hospitalized.

Skripal worked for the GRU, the military intelligence arm of Russia. He also worked as a double agent for British intelligence from 1995.

In September 2018, opposition activist Peter Verzilov became severely ill after a court hearing related to a protest and his subsequent arrest. He also was flown to Berlin for specialist medical treatment, where poisoning was diagnosed as the likely cause.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition leader and journalist, suffered two severe health attacks in 2015 and 2017. The diagnosis in each case was probable poisoning. He is vice chairman of Open Russia, an organization founded by successful business entrepreneur Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a strong Putin opponent who has been persecuted and imprisoned.

A particularly prominent victim is Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in November 2006 from acute radiation poisoning. Litvinenko was a former colleague of Putin in the KGB, the principal arms of state security in the Soviet Union, an agency rightly feared for ruthless methods and effective results. Putin is a product of distinctive KGB culture.

Litvinenko defected to Britain, where he until silenced was a prominent and influential public critic of Putin and the government of Russia. After a meticulous thorough investigation, representatives of Scotland Yard testified in a public inquiry the Russian government was involved in this killing.

Earlier, critics of Russias regime sometimes died violently gangland style, in public. In early 2009, near the Kremlin on a sunny day on a public street, a gunman murdered activist attorney Stanislav Markelov. Journalist Anastasia Baburova tried to help him and she was killed. The hit man was a practiced pro, his pistol equipped with a silencer.

Markelov had publicly denounced early release from prison of Colonel Yuri Budanov, sentenced to ten years for strangling a woman during the war in Chechnya.

Winston Churchill observed the key to Russia was national interest. Alliance with the Soviet Union was vital during World War II, when interests joined profoundly.

Today, as in the past, national interest should guide policy. Most apparent in the news are instances of Russian military aggression and related espionage and sabotage. Military exercises and involvements range from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and beyond. Interference in U.S. elections is notorious.

We should continue collaboration in such areas as space exploration, and professional communication between our militaries. We must condemn repression and honor Russians who speak out.

Stacker takes a look at100 actors who served in the military. Click for more.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War" (NYU Press and Macmillan). Readers can wrote to him at acyr@carthage.edu.

Read the original here:

ARTHUR CYR: Freedom of the press is vital and fragile - News-Daily.com

When I think back to the most major decisions in my life, they normally start in the same way: having a cup of tea with my mum. We would reflect and consider, challenge and critique until she would pose the perfect question that would let me choose the path forward. It is because of her skills that I have found myself today with the pleasure of leading Mavar, a charity that supports people from the Strictly Orthodox Jewish community in the UK who wish to explore new paths in life, and flourish and thrive in a life of their choosing.

The hundreds of people who have reached out to Mavar since we were founded in 2013 have done so because they have looked for the freedom of choice that many others take for granted. It is why, together with partner organisations in Israel, the United States, Australia, and across Europe, we are celebrating the first International Day of Choice (or Yom HaBechira in Hebrew) on 27th October.

There is no pattern as to why someone chooses to leave the Strictly Orthodox world. We receive calls from all sorts of people all ages, genders, locations, nationalities and with many different stories. Some are looking for education and some are looking for work, some are seeking refuge from trauma and some simply want to live as their most true self, some are aware of mainstream British society and some never had the opportunity to learn basic English.

Those that make the decision to take on a new life often talk about the things they miss about their time growing up. It can be the close-knit community, with a rich cultural tapestry of music, food and stories, and it can be although conspicuously not for the women the educational immersion in yeshiva learning. However, these ideas and practices do not have to be lost or ignored, rendered into some form of nostalgia. It also does not have to be rendered into an oddity or exotic reality, packaged and consumed for the Netflix generation, as in the case of Unorthodox and My Unorthodox Life. These things can live on, in new and different ways, as part of a cultural, social and religious life of their own choosing.

Over the years, Mavar has stepped in for members in many different ways. When Z called us, he had 60 to his name, and within weeks he was living in a houseshare while studying for his GCSEs. O has been diligently visiting a Mavar tutor for 4 years to work on his English, and in the process has developed a strong social connection too. When we asked another Mavar member what having the freedom of choice meant to them, they said Mavar has saved my spiritual life by giving me the possibility of starting life anew and to live a self-determined life in the way I choose. Mavar has granted me my freedom and has opened up our wonderful world with its endless opportunities.

The people who go on this kind of journey are sometimes referred to as OTD, which stands for off the derech [path in Hebrew]. These kinds of journeys do not take someone off any kind of path, however. Members of Mavar and likeminded organisations have to search long and hard for basic rights that I was born with and have the ability to live independently in a manner free of external constraints. In making this journey, the rest of us in Anglo-Jewry and in British society at large are all strengthened. Such a journey may not start with a cup of tea round the kitchen table, and may go on a path that many of us recognise. It can be long and isolating, but each and every one of us should celebrate their choice to embark on it nonetheless.

Amos Schonfield is CEO of Mavar. He previously has worked at Yachad, and is currently co-chair of the Board of Deputies Social Justice Committee.

See the original post:

Celebrating the freedom to chose | Amos Schonfield | The Blogs - Jewish News

Madam Chair,

Upholding freedom of expression is a key principle of the OSCE and a key commitment made by all OSCE participating States. Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy and is essential for holding governments to account.

People must be able to discuss and debate issues freely, to challenge their governments, and to make informed decisions, supported by access to information provided by a strong, robust and independent media.

We congratulate Mr Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa on co-receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Muratov for his tireless efforts to safeguard freedom of expression in Russia, where independent media faces increasingly adverse conditions.

For decades the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, co-founded by Mr Muratov, has published articles on subjects ranging from corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests to electoral fraud in Russia. We commend the bravery of the staff working at Novaya Gazeta in the face of intimidation and verbal attacks.

Since its founding in 1991, six journalists working at Novaya Gazeta have been killed for simply doing their job, including Anna Politkovskaya, who reported on human rights violations in the Chechen Republic.

Fifteen years on from the murder of Ms Politkovskaya, the situation for independent media and independent journalists remains dire. The Russian authorities continued assault on freedom of expression targets independent media outlets and journalists, but also wider civil society organisations and activists.

We reiterate our concern about Russias laws on so-called foreign agents, undesirable organisations, and extremism.

We condemn the recent listings under these repressive laws, including Bellingcat and Caucasian Knot, and urge the Russian authorities to reverse these designations with immediate effect.

As an OSCE participating State, the Russian Federation has committed to protecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens, including the right to freedom of expression. OSCE participating States, and indeed the Russian people, have a right to demand that the Russian authorities take urgent steps to bring Russia back into compliance with these commitments as quickly as possible.

The UK calls upon the Russian authorities to take all measures necessary to fulfil their obligations under the OSCEs human dimension and other international human rights commitments.

Thank you Madam Chair.

Link:

Freedom of expression in Russia: UK statement - GOV.UK

It's like a county fair,except everyone has a gun.

Here,the word "pandemic"is said with air quotes around it,and the politest namefor a Democrat is"pencil-neck geek." Anthony Fauci is a known communist,andJesus Christ is an assault weapons manufacturer. Here, LGBT stands for liberty, guns, beer and Trump.

This is the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival.

Rod of Iron Ministries andKahr Firearms Group both with ties to theultra-rich World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Churchfrom Koreaknown to some as the "Moonies" hosted the festival from Oct. 8-10 in Greeley. Just over 1,000 people live in this rural town in the northern Pocono Mountains, but more than 5,000 arrived forthe weekend-long festival.

It sprawled across the lawn of the Tommy Gun Warehouse and boasted an impressive lineup of speakers: Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist for President Donald Trump;Dana Loesch, the formerNational Rifle Associationspokeswoman; Pastor Sean Moon,a self-proclaimed messiah and messenger ofJesus Christ. They and other GOPfigureheads rallied behindTrump and the Second Amendmentat the third annual Rod of Iron Freedom Festival.

To many here, theyrepresent the last line of defense in a fight for America's liberty.

"There aredark forces out there trying to destroy our republic," warned Rick Saccone, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor. "Frankly, we have a nation to save."

It's why thousands of people, some from as far as Florida and Texas, flocked to Greeley for the weekend. They are the avowed champions offaith, family and freedom, and in few other places can they find an in-person community as large or as tolerant of fringe ideologies as this one.

Here, opinions normally reserved for anonymous online forums are said aloud. They range from the mundane to the alarming, and emerge in outbursts from the crowdand betweenstrangers in line forfunnel cake: The Deep State is real, but the pandemic is fake. Critical race theory is the scourge of America, and Black Lives Matter activists are secret communists.The Biden administration wants conservatives dead. Trump won the 2020 election.

The theories have been debunked, but guest speakers repeatedthemon stage beneath the festival's main tent anyway, appearingto grow bolder with each answering scream of approval.Theireffect on the crowd was electric.

Someone placed afire pitin front of the stage Saturday afternoon to cut through the chill of anovercast day. To the festival-goersnearest it, the flames framed each speaker'sfaceand lent weight totheir threats of impending doom. None were more gripping than those of Pastor Moon, who walked to the podiumwearing a crown of bullets.

The America he described is a terrifying one: Pedophilia, satanic cults and dangeroushuman-animal experiments are the norm; D.C. bureaucrats are the new Nazi leaders, and the U.S. dollar is on the brink of collapse;the Deep State exists, and corporate executives aretryingto "utterly kill America and eradicate freedom from the face of the earth."

It sounds bad. Still, Moon warned of worse to comeshould Americans fail to fight back against their "evil, vile and wicked" rulers. This is where the rod of iron the festival's namesake comes in.

It's referenced in the Bible as a tool from God used to smite and rule over nations, Moon said. To him and his followers, the rodis the AR-15, and it's the key to saving America from tyranny.

"Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession," reads Psalm 2:8-9."You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery

Jesus is not the "effeminate, castrated"man taught about atSunday school, Moon said. He's an assault weapons manufacturer.

"Is that amazing or what?" saidCharlie Cook, a firearms instructor and gun rights advocate, as Moon left the stage. "Man, oh man, oh man."

Related:PA representatives weigh in on bill to allow for concealed carry without permit

Behind each rallying cry was a sales pitch:Buy the speakers' books, listen to their podcasts, subscribe to their YouTube channelsand donate to the NRA, all in the spirit of saving America fromtyranny. Speeches like these occupied the first half of eachday while vendors in smaller tents prepared fried Oreos and hot dogsfor lunch.

Quiet moments on the lawn were rare. At one point, dozens of leather-clad veterans, bearded and grinning, ripped through the festivalonmotorcycles. A man in a green kilt played bag pipes. Somewhere else, a recording of "Stars and Stripes Forever" played.Vendors hawkedbullet-shaped thermoses for $20 each, and mugs that read "Thou shalt kill sloth."

The festival followed a packed schedule it was impossible to see everything.Attendees hurried from the Liberty Tent to Freedom Tent to listen in on seminars like "The Theft of Manhood" and"From Hell to the Grail," then rushed back to the mainstage in time for a Concealed Carry Fashion Show.There, armed men and women posed on stage while moderator Amanda Suffecool guessed where their guns might be hidden.

Elsewhere, a group called Friends of theNRA sold $20 raffle tickets for the chance to win a 9mm gun: a Smith & Wesson, a Glock, a SIG Sauer or a Springfield Armory Hellcat.

*If gun is not legal in your state, you will receive$450 cash instead,a poster said in small print.

Safety first: When it comes to firearms, education and training matter

Keith Parker and his wife, Rama, sat at their own tent yards away. They own a small business called ResistForty6 and sell T-shirts adorned withpointed, if crude, responses to popular liberal taglines.

"Danger: Toxic Masculinity," one said. Another:"Biden Loves Minors."

"The jokes write themselves," Parker said. "I just put them on shirts."

He held each one in front of his chest and explained the inspiration behind it. "BidenLoves Minors" isajab at theBlack Lives Matter movement, and it'sParker's best seller by far. He makesthem in sizes small enough for children to wear, and some at the festival do.

A salesman with grey hair and a matching goatee, Parker is quick to smile. He riffed with passersbyaboutthe "empty dimwits" elected to office and earned their nods of approval.

"Elected, or got installed. Whatever," he said.

The jokes are punctuated bymoments of earnestness. He and his wife Rama, a server from New Jersey, would rather not be there, Parker said. But after witnessing what they believeto be a fraudulent election, they no longer feel they have a choice.

"We're here to dissent while dissenting's still legal," Parker said. "That's not as funny now as it was when I said it a few months ago."

'An extremely vulnerable position': Mental health calls are common for police in the Poconos. Is there a better way to respond?

On the final day of the festival, families shuffled under the mainstage tent to escape a light drizzle. Countless others were already there, waiting to hear Steve Bannon, arguablythe festival's most renowned guest. Hewas running late. Retired CIA officer and emcee-for-the-dayCharles Faddisshifted from foot to footwhile technicians worked to get Bannon on the phone.

"Steve, if you can hear me," Faddis said. "We've got a group of very fired-up patriots, and they're really tired of hearing me tap dance and stall."

Bannon answered the phone at last, hisvoice patched through to speakers on stage. He didn't say muchor, if he did, it was lost to poor cell reception. Attendees leaned forward in their seatsto hear him better.

"We are winning," Bannon told them. "It's going to be a long, nasty fight, but we're going to win this thing."

His voice wavered in and out over the course of the call, but the crowdseemed to know when they were supposed to cheer. The 2020 election was stolen,Bannon said, and itsconsequences have beencatastrophic. He promised that things will get betterif peoplecontinue showing up for rallies and listening to his podcast, the War Room. He spoke for three minutes, then hung up.

The conversation ended fasterthan it had beenscheduled to, so Faddis stalled some more. It isn't just the Democrats conspiring against America, he said into the mic. It's the Republicans, too.

"We are being betrayed by the people that supposedly are on our side," he said. "What do we do now?"

Immediately, people in the crowd began to shout: Vote 'em out.Hang them. Assassination! Put them in jail. Tar and feather them.

After three days spent here, mentions of assassinationare no longer shocking, and the presence of guns in front,behind and beside youfeels normal. Now, glimpses into attendee's livesbeyondpolitics reminders thatlife exists outside of this placearemore startling.

Like the heart-shaped bumper sticker on one attendee's car that said"I love my rescue,"right beneath another that said"#QANON." Or the parent who straightened the fairy wings on herdaughter's back and wondered aloudif fairy wingsare washing-machine safe.

They made their way back to theparking lot Sunday evening and stepped carefully over the ruttedtire tracksleft by a thousand cars. The lot sat ona hill overlookingthe lawn, and from there, the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival looked small. Not even the sound of the guest speakers' voices carried this far.

The popof gunfire from a nearby shooting rangedid, though. Trump'sface grinned from a sticker on a car window, and beneath it,a taunt: "Miss me yet?"

Hannah Phillips is the public safety reporter at Pocono Record. Reach her at hphillips@gannett.com.

Stories like this are possible because of our subscribers like you. Your support will allow us to continue to produce quality journalism.

Stay up to date by signing up for one of our newsletters.

Published9:17 am UTC Oct. 18, 2021Updated9:17 am UTC Oct. 18, 2021

See more here:

Doomsday, guns and Jesus Christ: Inside the ultra-right Rod of Iron Freedom Festival - Pocono Record

President Joe Biden has mandated vaccines for a large part of the American workforce, a requirement that has prompted protest from those opposed to the measure.

Meanwhile, a similar move in New York City to enforce vaccinations has resulted in more than a dozen businesses being fined for flouting the rules.

The basic idea behind the objections: Such mandates, which also extend to requirements to wear masks and quarantine if exposed to COVID-19, are a breach of the Constitutions 14th Amendment, which states that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.

The objectors ask: Arent mandates un-American?

As a scholar who has spent decades trying to unravel the hurdles that mark the beginning of this nation, I offer some facts in response to that question a few very American facts: Vaccination mandates have existed in the past, even though they have similarly sparked popular rage.

No vaccination foe, no latter-day fan of the Gadsden Flags DONT TREAD ON ME message, would ever gain the posthumous approval of the American founders.

George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and the rest of the group cultivated different visions about America. But they agreed on one principle: They were unrelenting on the notion that circumstances often emerge that require public officials to pass acts that abridge individual freedoms.

Most of the founders, to begin with, were slave owners, not especially concerned about trampling over and abridging the rights of the persons they held in bondage. But even when they dealt with those they deemed to be their peers, American citizens, their attitude was rather authoritarian at least by todays standards.

In 1777, during the American Revolution, Washington had his officers and troops inoculated against smallpox. The procedure was risky. But for Washington, the pros outweighed the cons. It was an order, an actual mandate, not an option that individuals could discuss and eventually decide.

After every attempt to stop the progress of the small Pox, Washington explained to the New York Convention, I found, that it gained such head among the Southern Troops, that there was no possible way of saving the lives of most of those who had not had it, but by introducing innoculation generally.

During the summer of 1793 an epidemic of yellow fever struck Philadelphia, then the American capital. It shattered the citys health and political infrastructure. Food supplies dwindled; business stopped. Government federal, state and municipal was suspended. Within just three months, 5,000 out of nearly 55,000 inhabitants died of the infection.

Public hysteria took off. Philadelphians at first pinned the outbreak on the arrival of refugees from the French colony of Saint-Domingue who were escaping that islands slave revolution.

But there was also heroism. Black clergymen Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, for example, tirelessly transported the sick, administered remedies and buried the dead.

Urged on by Gov. Thomas Mifflin, the Pennsylvania state Legislature imposed sweeping quarantines. And almost everyone complied.

Henry Knox, then the U.S. secretary of war, didnt object. Knox had fought during the Revolution. He had risked his life on many battles. He had developed a keen sense of what civic duty means: I have yet six days quarantine to perform, he wrote to President Washington, which of the choice of evils is the least.

The epidemic didnt abate as quickly as expected. By September 1794 the yellow fever lingered in Baltimore, where it had spread from Philadelphia. In 1795 it reached New York City.

One John Coverdale, from Henderskelfe, Yorkshire, England, wrote President Washington a long letter. He advocated more drastic measures, including three weeks of quarantine and policemen strategically placed in every corner to hinder people from passing from zone to zone; and he wanted people to carry with them certificates either of their coming from places not infected or of their passing the line by permission.

In other words, a quarantine, lockdown and vaccine passports.

No politician we know of at the time considered such measures un-American. In May of 1796, Congress adopted, and President Washington signed, the first federal quarantine law. There wasnt much controversy. In 1799, Congress passed a second and more restrictive quarantine law. President Adams signed it without a flinch.

So apparently its not certificates, quarantines and vaccine mandates that are un-American, as some maintain today.

The argument that individual rights trump the greater good is un-American, or at least out of step with American tradition. Its an attitude that the founders would have put under the encompassing banner of ambition.

Ambition comes when individuals are blinded by their little or large egotisms and personal interests. They lose track of higher goals: the community, the republic, the nation. In the most severe cases, ambition turns anti-social.

Ambitious individuals, the founders were sure, are persons stripped of their membership in a community. They choose to relegate themselves to their solitary imagination. They have become slaves to their own opinions.

Alexander Hamilton was tired of being turned into the butt of endless accusations: It shall never be said, with any color of truth, that my ambition or interest has stood in the way of the public good.

When facing a quarantine, a mandate, or similar momentary abridgments of their liberties, many Americans today react the same way Hamilton did. Like Hamilton, they look beyond themselves, their opinions, their interests. They dont lose sight of the public good.

Others remain ambitious.

[The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly._]

More:

The American founders didnt believe your sacred freedom means you can do whatever you want not even when it comes to vaccines and your own body - The...

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Thursday she does not think former President Donald Trump will be the GOP 2024 presidential nominee.

If he were to get the nomination, she did not say whether she would support him.

I dont think thats going to happen, Capito responded when asked during a virtual press conference if Trump would be the 2024 nominee, adding that 2024 is a long way off and I cant even say who I am going to vote for in 2022.

I think theres a lot of good candidates out there, she said of the field of possible Republican presidential nominees for 2024, and Trump may evaluate which role he can play that yields the most influence.

I think President Trump may find out where his influence can be greater, outside office than in office, she said.

But Capito also added a caveat to that statement.

I think its harder to predict him in general than most people, she said.

Trump has been sending signals he will seek the nomination, including a recent trip to Iowa.

According to the political publication The Hill, 80 percent of Republicans polled want him to be the candidate in 2024.

The poll underscores the stubborn support Trump enjoys among the GOP base, backing that may be growing, the article said. Sixty-six percent of Republicans said in the same poll in May that Trump should run for the White House in three years.

In 2024, Trump will be 78, which would make him the oldest presidential nominee in history. President Joe Biden was 77 when he was the nominee in 2020.

During the press conference, Capito also reiterated her opposition to the Freedom to Vote Act, which failed to advance in the Senate Wednesday with a Republican filibuster.

Democrats failed to receive the 60 votes needed to move it forward.

The act, supported by Capitos fellow West Virginia colleague, Democrat Joe Manchin, proposed to, among other things, make Election Day a public holiday, ensure states have early voting for federal elections, overhaul how congressional districts are redrawn and impose new disclosures on donations to outside groups active in political campaigns.

Calling the act an attempted federal takeover of our election system, she said states are in control, as they should be.

We dont have a broken system, she said, pointing out that more people voted in 2020 than in the nations history.

The act is a rallying cry for the base of the Democratic Party, she said, and is only being used to distract from other problems.

Capito said changes were made in many states voting protocols as a result of the pandemic, including allowing absentee ballot voting without a reason.

States are now taking a look at that, she said of possible adjustments to the process, adding that some states like Georgia are deciding if the secretary of state or the attorney general should be responsible for certifying an election.

Capito said the basic goals are to make it as convenient as possible for people to vote, and keep politics out of the voting process itself, and any extreme measures that dont fit into that framework are ended by cooler heads prevailing.

Let us decide and let us move forward where we think we can have safe and efficient elections, she said of West Virginia and all states.

The real concern, she said, is any erosion in the confidence in elections.

Capito pointed to the Russian interference in the 2016 election and the 2020 it was all fake mantraas actions that undermine that confidence.

She was one of the first Republican senators to declare the legitimacy of the 2020 election and ask people to move on, not promoting any talk of widespread fraud.

Capito also addressed the controversy over talk of Manchin leaving the Democratic Party.

Lets be real here. He is the Democratic Party in our state, she said. He is the one who runs the show and has for years in that party.

Republicans would welcome him, she said, and it would solve a lot of problems, like reconciliation, and we could get something done.

But that is not going to happen.

There is no way I can envision him going home and telling his Democratic friends he is leaving them, she said. He is not going to do that.

Continued here:

Capito reflects on Trump, Freedom to Vote Act - Beckley Register-Herald

Transgenderism has emerged as one of the most influential ideologies of our time. It is shaping peoples behaviour and thought in pursuit of a specific political objective the erosion of the significance of biological sex. And it is undermining long-held cultural assumptions about what it means to be a man or a woman.

Above all, it is an intolerant, coercive force and it has been thoroughly embraced by political and cultural elites in both the UK and the US.

In the UK recently we have seen Labour Party leader Keir Starmer criticise one of his MPs for daring to say that only women have a cervix. And we have also seen Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer condemn a gay- and lesbian-rights group for criticising trans ideas, calling it a hate group.

Even members of the Conservative Party are now exponents of the trans ideology. Indeed, the prime ministers wife, Carrie Johnson, used her sole appearance at the Conservative Party conference to urge her fellow Tories to fight for the rights of trans people a thinly veiled rebuke to those in the party who are concerned about gender self-identification. It is clear that transgenderism is the new orthodoxy among members of the political class.

For our cultural elites, transgenderism vies with environmentalism as the cause of the 21st century. As sociologist Michael Biggs notes, the transgender movement has transformed cultural norms and social institutions at breathtaking speed.

The ease and alacrity with which trans identity has been promoted, and conventional distinctions between men and women have been eroded, have surprised even trans activists. An American law professor sympathetic to transgenderism wrote of the stunning speed with which non-binary gender identities have gone from obscurity to prominence in American public life, citing as proof the growing acceptance of gender-neutral pronouns such as they, them, and theirs, all-gender restrooms, and the increasing number of US jurisdictions recognising a third-gender category (1).

The UK and parts of northern Europe have proven no less hospitable to transgenderism they, too, have welcomed the dramatic conceptual revision of the relationship between men and women. Gender self-identification has now seemingly trumped long-standing conventions. A biological male can now identify as a female in order to gain access to womens toilets, refuges or prisons. Even hitherto girls-only institutions, such as the Girl Guides, are now open to boys who identify as female. In the National Health Service, transgender patients can choose to be treated in either male or female wards.

Little wonder that in many areas of life now, the boundary between man and woman appears increasingly illegitimate. To the extent it still exists at all, it is presented as artificial, even oppressive. And those who choose to transgress it are celebrated by the media as brave and inspirational role models.

Transgenderism is making itself at home in the most unlikely of places. Rejecting long-held scientific assumptions, both Nature and Scientific American have denied that there are clear criteria for classifying humans as male and female (2). The British Medical Association has also fallen in line. In its guide to inclusive language, it advises its members to use the term pregnant people instead of pregnant women. Just recently the prestigious medical journal, the Lancet, decided to call women bodies with vaginas. It seems that, even in the scientific, medical domain, biological reality is being sacrificed at the altar of transgender ideology.

Remarkably, transgenderism has also been embraced by big business. An advert for British bank HSBC announces that Genders just too fluid for borders. According to HSBCs accompanying promotional material, its customers can now choose from 10 gender titles, including Ind, Misc and Sai.

HSBCs willingness to transform language may look like a harmless exercise in linguistic sensitivity towards people who wish to be known as Mx or Ser. But it is one of many attempts to impose a vocabulary that not only challenges age-old linguistic norms but also the sentiments that lie behind them. As George Orwell warned, taking control of language and redefining the meaning of words is the first step taken by those seeking to control peoples thoughts.

This obsession with words is hardly surprising. Ideologies that seek to shape peoples behaviour in pursuit of a political objective are inexorably drawn towards the policing of language. As laughable as some of the new vocabulary and pronouns may be, advocates of transgenderism are deadly serious they want everyone to view social reality as they do, through the prism of transgenderism.

In many parts of North America, the policing of gender-related language is backed up by formal and informal sanctions. Directives issued in 2015 by New York Citys Commission on Human Rights state that employers and landlords who intentionally use the wrong pronouns with their non-binary employees or tenants can face fines of up to $250,000. In 2018, California governor Jerry Brown endorsed a bill that promised to penalise healthcare professionals who wilfully and repeatedly declined to use a patients preferred pronouns.

A tribunal in Canada recently ruled that refusing to use someones correct pronouns violates their human rights. As the head of the tribunal put it, especially for trans, non-binary, or other non-cisgender people, using the correct pronouns validates and affirms they are a person equally deserving of respect and dignity.

In effect, the tribunals ruling turns the individuals demand to have his or her chosen identity validated and recognised by others into a sacred legal norm. This calls into question both freedom of expression and freedom of thought. It implicitly demands that people should accept the world not as they see it comprised of males and females but as trans ideologues see it comprised of self-identifying, gender-fluid individuals. This is an attempt to control the way people think. As Orwell put it in Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Trans activists have won sympathy and support by claiming that their oppression is similar to the historical oppression of black people. The cause of trans rights is therefore presented as a civil-rights cause. Yet one of the distinctive features of trans activism is that, while it insists on civil rights for those it claims to represent, it has no inhibitions about curtailing the civil rights of opponents especially their freedom of speech.

Indeed, transgenderism provides the now paradigmatic argument for denigrating free speech. It claims that those who voice criticism of transgenderism, or fail to use trans vocabulary, call into question trans identity. In doing so, they therefore inflict psychological pain and trauma on trans people. This conviction that any deviation from trans ideology inflicts harm on trans people lies behind the bizarre walkout this week at Netflix over Dave Chappelles latest comedy special, in which he makes jokes about trans people. By presenting criticism as a cause of victimisation and mental ill-health, trans activists are able to silence their opponents.

For instance, few academics at Sussex University have been prepared publicly to defend their colleague, Professor Kathleen Stock, while trans activists have been vilifying, intimidating and attacking her merely for voicing criticism of trans ideas. Although many academics will not admit it, they are scared of challenging transgenderism. This formidable capacity to silence critics is one of the most disturbing aspects of transgenderism.

Transgenderism is not content with merely abolishing the distinction between man and woman. It also aims to discredit any form of thinking that involves drawing binary distinctions between things.

Few have realised how dangerous this is. The act of drawing binary distinctions, of discriminating between different categories of phenomena, is central to moral thought and the formation of moral judgements. It allows us to distinguish between good and evil or right and wrong. Therefore the attempt to devalue the drawing of binary distinctions is not only an attack on reason, it is also an attack on our ability to exercise moral judgement.

This challenge to thinking in distinct, binary categories has, of course, been particularly aggressive in relation to identity and gender. Advocates of transgenderism claim that binary gender and identity categories violate and harm those who do not identify themselves in binary terms.

Moreover, the attack on binary categories often calls into question normality itself. In modern society, there is a huge misconception as to what is normal and abnormal, writes one blogger. The fact that there are two such categories, normal and abnormal, is just a reaffirmation of this misconception. One psychotherapist even challenges the validity of using normal and abnormal to refer to peoples mental and emotional states. It is a real question as to whether those words can be sensibly used at all, he writes, given their tremendous baggage and built-in biases and the general confusion they create.

Transgenderism also insists that the very idea of normality, indeed of normativity, represents a threat to trans identity. This attack on normality imperils communal life. If society is deprived of the idea of normal and abnormal, it loses the capacity to draw a line between desirable and undesirable forms of behaviour.

As I argue in Why Borders Matter, the crusade against binary thinking is principally driven by the desire to abolish moral judgement. Unfortunately, non-judgementalism already enjoys widespread institutional support in Western societies. Indeed, transgenderisms rapid ascent rests precisely on the pre-existing prevalence of non-judgementalism in high places.

Numerous critics of transgenderism have rightly raised concerns about its deleterious impact on the status and rights of women. But this pales into insignificance compared to its impact on children.

The presence of transgenderism in education effectively estranges children from the norms and values of their community. It challenges their own and their communitys understanding of what is normal and abnormal. This morally disarms them and leads to them feeling confused about their place in the world. For transgenderism that is not a problem. Rather, it is an opportunity for the indoctrination of young minds, a chance to tell children that gender is a choice, and that there is no biological justification for sex-based identities. Right from their earliest years, then, children are estranged from the cultural traditions, norms and legacies of their communities. And as a result, they are plunged into an identity crisis.

Transgenderism is frequently portrayed as edgy and cool. But there is nothing cool about messing up childrens lives and diminishing their capacity to make the transition to adulthood. It is a corrosive worldview that threatens the healthy development of younger generations.

That so many institutions have fallen under the spell of transgenderism is a sign that Western society is in serious trouble. So many people who are genuinely repulsed by this ideology remain silent and fear calling it out. This highlights the challenge transgenderism poses to those committed to defending a free and tolerant society.

So be warned. Unless checked, the authoritarian impulse driving transgenderism will become even more unrestrained it is not a transient phenomenon that will soon fade away. And the absence of any serious opposition to it will only encourage its advance, especially given the backing it receives from big business and elite foundations and trusts.

This is serious. When so many citizens allow the evidence of their own eyes and ears to be negated by trans dogma, democracy itself is in peril. We face a choice to acquiesce to transgenderism or to exercise our own moral judgement and challenge it head on. We must do the latter. Societys future depends on it.

Frank Furedis 100 Years of Identity Crisis: Culture War over Socialisation is published by De Gruyter.

(1) They, them and theirs, by JA Clarke, Harvard Law Review, No894, 2019, p896

(2) Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, by Helen Joyce, Oneworld Publications, 2021, p57

All pictures by: Getty.

To enquire about republishing spikeds content, a right to reply or to request a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.

See the rest here:

The trans assault on freedom - Spiked