Category Archives: Political Correctness

In a world seemingly beset by problems, Steven Pinker has made a career out of focusing on the positive. For the past decade, the Harvard professor turned celebrity intellectual has been spreading the good news about human progress. Pinker has written two bestsellers on the subject and won the praise of thinkers and commentators from Bill Gates to Joe Rogan. His message? Things are getting better. Progress is not inevitable, but the trends are good. Even though it may not always seem like it, the world is more peaceful, prosperous and happy than even just a few decades ago.

Steven Pinker has spent years documenting human progress, and right now hes worried we may be backsliding.

Not in any of the big areas. The overall trends on crime and life expectancy havent all of a sudden reversed. Nor is humanity primed to descend into a second Dark Age. Rather, the not-so-newfound concern of Harvards Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology hits far closer to home. In the last several years, Pinker has become increasingly concerned about a wave of illiberalism, particularly on college campuses.

I spoke to Pinker this past summer after he and several dozen other writers and intellectuals released A Letter on Justice and Open Debate. The letter decried a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.

Nowhere is this ideology more widespread than in the halls of Americas colleges and universities. And Pinker has been among the loudest voices pushing back.

Political correctness and cancel culture (in effect, if not in name) are not new, though, Pinker says. For decades, the culture on college campuses has trended ever away from free expression and toward censorship inflicted both overtly and through softer means of subtle intimidation. When he was an undergraduate, Pinker recalls, There were cancellations; there were disruptions of lectures.

Pinker traces the origins of this dynamic all the way back to 1975 and the publication of E.O. Wilsons Sociobiology, when Wilson and other biologists would get shouted down for expressing the view that genetic and other evolutionary considerations determine, in part, social organization.

Still, 1975 was a relatively tender age for the stifling atmosphere we now see on campus, Pinker says. In the 46 years since Sociobiology, the window of acceptable views has narrowed and, consequently, the rate of cancellations has grown. Just in the last few years, though, we seem to have reached a fever pitch.

In 2017, Evergreen College in Washington State descended into chaos when a white professor refused to leave campus after a group of activists organized a day without white students and faculty.

That same year at Middlebury College, students accusing political scientist Charles Murray of racism due to his work on genetics and intelligence prevented him from speaking on campus and assaulted a professor who was escorting him.

A year later, Brown Assistant Professor Lisa Littman of the School of Public Health published a peer-reviewed journal article coining the term rapid-onset gender dysphoria. Upon criticism from trans activists that the study was harmful to trans youth, the University retracted a letter promoting Littmans study, and the journal that published the article announced a post-publication review of the piece, only to republish the same results several months later.

These are not isolated incidents. They speak to a broader trend of cancellations in an increasingly stifling academic environment. To give a more empirical point of reference, the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has tracked disrupted or canceled events going back to 1998 in its Disinvitation Database. After remaining relatively stable, the last five years saw 36 percent more disrupted events (166) than the five years prior (122).

In other words, things seem to have gotten precipitously worse just recently. When I asked the professor why this might be, he provided two theories.

The first is that the recent spike might be a backlash on the left against Donald Trump. People feel that classical liberalism, enlightenment ideals have failed and nothing is left for us but to oppose it with brute force. Brute force meaning (using) the administrative apparatus to silence or fire people. The rise of Trump, combined with flashpoints like the killing of George Floyd, has served as a focal point for the dissatisfaction with the status quo that has led to some fairly radical responses.

The other explanation is that this new wave of illiberalism is just the cumulative effect of several generations of professors having indoctrinated their students in an ideological mixture of postmodernism and Marxist critical theory. Unfortunately, we have just reached the tipping point.

But the problem isnt just some fringe groups of student activists, Pinker says. Many of our institutions, including much of the campus bureaucracy itself, have become radicalized over the years. So many people in positions of administrative power were brought up with this postmodernist and critical theory ideology that its become second-nature. Professors then indoctrinate the next generation of students in these sorts of beliefs, namely that history is a struggle, that there is no objective truth and that argumentation and logic are just pretexts to power. These students, in turn, go on to become professors themselves primed to indoctrinate the next generation.

Its not that every college administrator or professor shares these views, though, Pinker says. But few are daring enough to express their opposition. When faced with an issue of this sort, colleges too often choose flight over fight. Groveling has become the default setting. Its rather disturbing to see the people in charge of our institutions of higher learning repeating clichs and slogans, Pinker said. For university administrators, (acquiescence) is often the path of least resistance since a small number of noisy student protestors can make a university presidents life miserable.

Student activists have learned how to game the system. Claims of mental and physical harm are used to advance political agendas. Statues are taken down. Disfavored speaking events are shut down, and those opposing such moves are treated as though they agree with the content of the speech rather than the principle of free speech itself. But its mostly a tactic, Pinker says. Its not that we have a generation of snowflakes. Although, there may be some of that. But its not so much being wounded but its the pretext of being wounded, which is used as a means to exert power and conscript others into conforming to the ideology.

All of this would be moot, though, if it werent for campus administrators playing along. Student activists have found a partner in university administration and have leveraged its power for political purposes. Nowadays, the radical student protesters bring in the campus bureaucracy to multiply their own power, something they wouldnt have been caught dead doing when Pinker was an undergraduate. Even though university presidents technically arent powerless, they have subcontracted or outsourced the parts of the job that entail responding to student activists.

Consequently, bureaucracies like Title IX and gender equity offices have taken up those tasks. But the missions of those offices, while noble, are not the universitys mission. The transmission of knowledge is just not something these offices concern themselves with. Its not in their job description. And since they operate largely autonomously, in cases where the two missions conflict, the university winds up on the losing end.

The result is that fringe student activists can and do wield an inordinate amount of power on campus. Universities have become political in the extreme, and we should be worried.

Contrary to the clich sometimes attributed to Henry Kissinger that academic disputes are so fierce because so little is at stake, I think a lot is at stake, Pinker says. Not only (because) its college graduates who populate and control all of our institutions but the entire academic ecosystem is at stake.

The ability of universities to inform the public hinges on their credibility. And college administrators, for the most part, have watched silently as that credibility is destroyed. I have more than once gotten into arguments with conservatives and libertarians over climate change, where I say, theres no reason to question our best science that climate change is real, and they say why should we believe it just because its the scientific consensus? Universities are so overrun by the political correctness police that we cant take anything coming out the of the university at face value if someone dissented, theyd be canceled.

Solving these problems is not easy. But there are some slam-dunk moves universities and students can take to improve the culture, Pinker says. The number one priority of each and every campus bureaucracy must be to advance the mission of the university. Administrators must also continuously reiterate the principles that underlie the existence of the university, namely acquisition of knowledge where knowledge inherently involves humility and skepticism.

On the student side, Pinker is optimistic. Ive been surprised by how many students are actually appalled by the stifling of debate and the deplatforming of speakers. But, by and large, these students have watched the battles on campus from a safe distance. (They) arent bringing in the bureaucrats to shut down those they disagree with, theyre not protesting, theyre not setting off fire alarms during lectures, so we dont really know how prevalent these views are. But repairing the culture requires that they be more vocal.

Whether these kinds of changes are coming anytime soon, Pinker is unsure. But he rejects the notion that the pendulum will swing back from gravity alone.

I think it could happen and will happen but only if we make it happen. It wont happen by itself.

Andrew Reed 21 can be reached at andrew_reed@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Image: Bhaawest,CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Reed '21: Steven Pinker Wants to Repair Campus Culture - The Brown Daily Herald

The America of the 21st century is quickly evolving into a nation of politically correct puppets who are quite skilled in the art of acting hypocritically virtuous. They often keep their pretentious emotions well hidden in order to be a part of this charade called political correctness.

Technology entangles the vulnerable in a politically correct web of empty words. Instead of promoting unity, I believe it is often used to edit the words in our Bibles and to demonize the symbols of our freedom that they deem to be offensive. They recently declared war against the Muppets, which is both pathetic and laughable.

To further divide America, political correctness enthusiasts have seemingly joined minds with the socialist movement. One seeks to control our voice box, while the other seeks to control our freedom. This must be a dream come true for comrade U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

To strengthen our democracy, we should also look within to identify and repair our own frailties. Unfortunately, the idle-minded often blame others for the sins of our past and present. They whine and play victim, seemingly because its easier than confronting the issues that divide us.

It is impossible to force the euphoria of brotherhood on society. We must come to the realization that erasing the past and rewriting Websters dictionary is futile. A strong and inclusive society is only achievable with open and honest conversations.

History has proven that America is synonymous with freedom and, together, they are the two most powerful seven-letter words on planet Earth. Be grateful, America, and please stop whining.

Kathy E. Hondares

East Lampeter Township

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Charade of being politically correct (letter) | Letters To The Editor | lancasteronline.com - LNP | LancasterOnline

What is happening in womens sports right now is a perfect example of why its important for citizens to speak out on sociocultural issues. Too many have acquiesced to the immense social pressure to either affirm or stay silent on the issue of transgenderism because they dont want to be labeled as hateful and judgmental.

At this point, the pressure is so great that many citizens fear losing their job if they dare express an opinion that doesnt align politically with the Left. Many people justify their silence by telling themselves its none of their business how other people live their lives. However, transgender ideology does, in fact, affect us all. There are real world implications for the redefinition of certain key words like man and woman, and one way we are seeing that play out is the misguided, dangerous, and unfair push to allow males in female sports.

There is a mountain of evidence that shows that, in general, male athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, possess better hand-eye coordination, and are more spatially aware than their female counterparts, all of which clearly give men the advantage. Women would be put in a considerably vulnerable position if they were made to compete against males, especially in a contact sport as women are more likely to be injured when colliding with a man verses another woman.

Males even have the advantage after one year of gender-affirming hormone therapy. A study by the British Journal of Medicine showed that trans-women (males) still had a 9% faster average run speed after the one year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in womens events.

The celebration and complete acceptance of transgender ideology has implications beyond the world of sports. It is now acceptable to allow our youth to be test subjects for social experimentation. Our cultures celebration of victimhood has an incredible pull on impressionable youth especially if they are struggling socially. They know that by identifying with the LGBT movement they will be celebrated by their peers and by the culture.

Unfortunately, this does not lead to happier and healthier kids, despite what we are told. There is a reason that a moral society establishes an age of consent for sexual activity. Our government recognizes that children do not have the ability for consensual sex because their brains are not fully developed. And yet, we are being told that toddlers have the self-awareness and mental capacity to choose their own gender. Children and teens are being encouraged to make life-altering decisions that they do not have the ability to make and that they likely will regret as they grow older. How is this showing compassion and kindness towards young people who struggle with gender dysphoria? Speaking truth with love and respect is a much higher virtue than ignoring obvious lies for the sake of being kind. It is nothing less than tragic to accept a worldview in which biological sex and gender are separate from each other because this leads to a society in which objective scientific facts are turned into mere cultural and social constructs. This leaves women particularly vulnerable because we cannot protect womens rights without a concrete definition of what it means to be a woman.

If gender is not informed by objective biological science, then it has to be based on subjective feelings and opinions which can and do change, especially in a culture that quickly and easily propagates postmodern philosophies like gender theory through the use of social media. The number of kids who identify as trans has skyrocketed in recent years. This is not an organic development, but due to peer contagion that is spurred on by activist parents, media, Hollywood, Planned Parenthood, and certain public school systems all actively recruiting our youth to identify with the LGBT movement. Trans athletes are currently in the minority, but as transgenderism ideology becomes more mainstream, there will be more and more males who will want to compete in womens sports. If we do not pass legislation to protect womens sports, the scholarships, awards, and opportunities that sports provide will once again be dominated by men and boys.

Many have been fooled into thinking that this is progress. It is not. We must not allow transgenderism ideology to override established biology. We must not choose political correctness over the safety and hard won rights of women and girls.

Transgenderism is portrayed as a complex and nuanced field of medicine, but in actuality, it is an ideology that requires us to ignore established biological science and logic. The whole transgender movement is religious in nature. It requires faith to believe that men can be trapped inside a womans body, and vice versa. It requires complete obedience in thought and action. People are held accountable for daring to question a narrative that, for all of human history up until very recently, most people would have considered absurd. There are calls for repentance when someone has been identified as a bigot, but there is no forgiveness to be found no matter how desperate or unnecessary the apology. The fallen are told that, unfortunately, losing a job and/or being deplatformed from social media are the justifiable consequences for not falling in line with the doctrine of gender theory a theory that in part was pioneered by the prominent psychologist John Money, whose unethical experimentation on two young boys led to their suicides as adults.

The incoherent thought processes in this particular ideology are many. Just one example: we are told that making the assumption that only girls like to play with dolls and like the color pink is wrong and an example of a toxic social construct.

But at the same time we are told that if a young boy exhibits those preferences, he must actually be a girl. How are these assertions compatible with each other?

If we truly cared about the mental well-being of our impressionable youth, we would point them to the truth of who they are based on objective reality rather than the subjectiveness of postmodern philosophies and cultural trends. We would tell them that while transgenderism falsely claims that our bodies are irrelevant to the person we are on the inside, our biology points us to the truth that our bodies and souls together form an integrated and whole human being.

Not only would we tell them the truth of who they are, we would advocate for ethical, compassionate, evidenced-based psychological care to address their confusion and distress.

One way North Dakotans can make their voices heard on this issue is to contact their district senator and urge him or her to support HB 1298 relating to the prohibition of males in female sports. We must not allow a counterfeit social justice for the minority to create an injustice for the majority. The future of womens sports, as well as the mental well-being of our youth, depend on the courageous among us who are willing to accept the social backlash in order to stand for truth. Its time to stand up for women, for girls, and for children because they are the ones who are being the most negatively impacted by the transgender movement. In order to do that, we must educate ourselves on the origin of gender theory and examine this worldview in a logical way, leaving emotion, politics, and antagonism toward others behind.

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Counterfeit justice in sports: Why we must fight - Minot Daily News

Yes the political correctness police are at it again and now theyre coming for your ice cream.

There are a few sure fire ways to tell if someone is from North Jersey or South Jersey. If they say water ice theyre south, Italian ice theyre north. If they say hoagie theyre south, sub theyre north. And those little confections you put on top of your ice cream? If they say jimmies theyre south, sprinkles theyre north.

Well South Jersey, get ready to double down or repent.

Turns out some geniuses somewhere along the line have come up with the narrative that jimmies are racist. And an ice cream shop in Massachusetts, where some New Englanders also call that topping jimmies, is changing the name. They had an ice cream flavor called Just Jimmies but is now changing the name to Just Sprinkles.

Somewhere along the road to Idiocracy some people decided jimmies got their name from the Jim Crow laws which forced racial segregation. Although no one can produce any hard evidence of this origin whatsoever. Still, in candyass 2021 when we all live in perpetual fear of looking bad, the ice cream shop isnt taking any chances.

The company put out a statement saying, While the origins of the word jimmies is unclear, Brighams made the decision to change the name to ensure the brand reflects our values and meets our consumers expectations.

This is pathetic. We are now sanitizing things we arent even sure are racist. Were sanitizing things just in case there could possibly be an eventual slight misunderstanding.

So what are places like South Jersey expected to do? Now that some places are changing the name just in case its racist does that mean if you DONT change the name you ARE racist?

Folks. ITS JUST AN ICE CREAM TOPPING!

Even if jimmies had been based on Jim Crow, which theres no evidence of, no one means that when they order jimmies. It means something completely different now from what it maybe never meant in the first place.

So whats South Jersey going to do with jimmiesgate upon us? Will they change the name to sprinkles? Hell no. Theres a better chance of them changing the name to jawn.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski. Any opinions expressed are Jeff Deminski's own.

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Hey South Jersey, the PC police are calling out jimmies - New Jersey 101.5 FM

A recent article from theNY Post is calling for members of Generation X to save the world from cancel culture. And after getting picked up by Fox News, the article is being laughed into oblivion by Gen X on Twitter, who would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.

In the heavily exaggerated wars between Boomers and Millennials, and Millennials and Gen Z, Gen Xthose born between the mid-1960s and early 80shave largely been able to stay out of the fray. A lot of them also pride themselves on that. But writer Matthew Hennessey has decided that this generation is the last hope to stop this current trend of holding people accountable for their actions and shifting away from media containing racist images.

But despite being a self-proclaimed member of Gen X, Hennessey has a strange understanding of what the world looked like during his formative years.

We grew up in a country that didnt ban books. We all agreed that witch hunts and blacklists were bad. Censorship was an outrage. The 1980s were not that long ago. Dont act like you dont know what Im talking about, he writes.

I dont know how he came to the conclusion that books werent being banned in the 1980s but they absolutely were. Everything fromThe Satanic Verses to the Dungeon Masters Guide toThe Color Purple and so many more were banned from schools and libraries. He even usesHuck Finn as an example of modern cancel culture, even though thats been banned off and on in various forms since right after it was published nearly a century and a half ago.

The generation that fought for its right to party should be leading the charge against these millennial Maoists terrorizing the culture via social media, Hennesseys article reads, making the extremely interesting choice to quote the Beastie Boysa band that has worked hard to make amends for the rampant sexism present in their early work. Self-inflicted cancel culture!

Hennesseys approach to his argument is poorly plotted. He brings up instances of cancel culture that his generation experiencedspecifically, Tipper Gores campaign to add ratings to music with explicit lyrics. But he also frames the 80s as an era where cancel culture didnt exist, where people could agree to disagree. In reality, those kids grew up seeing how absurd this sort of culture war was and now take offense to their Fox News elders telling them they should fight against censorship in any forms. (Especially since that view of cancel culture has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with human decency.)

Moreover, that generation has already been through all of this once, when the big villain put forth by the right was political correctness, which really just meant common decency. Now weve got cancel culture, which is really just accountability.

Hennesseys version of the present is just as baffling as his version of the past. In the fight against cancel culture, he writes, We will have to engage in a thousand tiny battles every day and it will be terribly uncomfortable. Itll be hard standing up to school administrators pushing an anti-racist curriculum on your kids. Itll take real courage to refuse to call yourself a bigot and to denounce the people who raised you.

First of all, someone should tell him that theres already a word for anti-anti-racism and its just racism. Also, I dont think Gen X has any problem denouncing their parentsthe people who tried to cancelD&D and Twisted Sister. (The latter of which, by the way, didnt really happensomeone should listen to the recentYoure Wrong Aboutpodcast episode about that whole Tipper Gore campaign. They might learn something!)

If we cant find the guts to do this dirty job, the second half of our lives is going to look very different than the first half did, he writes. We will taste life in Siberia. Our children and our childrens children will be forced to navigate a miserable, paranoid world of lies and deception. They will be asked to spy on their own parents. They will denounce their friends.

You heard it hear first. If we dont buy all the books written by transphobes and keep watching movies with grotesque racist caricatures, then were basically inviting a new wave of Nazi Youtha panopticon of surveillance and social banishment.

What an argument.

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Gen X Would Very Much Like To Be Left Out of These Meaningless "Cancel Culture" Conversations - The Mary Sue

Wyoming wind energy proponents dodged a bullet when a legislative committee shot down yet another proposal to increase taxes on the industry.

But some are worried that having a tax debate about renewable energy year after year is taking its toll on wind projects and harming the industrys chances of capitalizing on a robust 2020. It may not matter if any of these repeated broadsides actually land; the uncertainty alone can scare off investors and eliminate the states chance to thrive.

I dont think its necessarily a case of direct assault on wind power in Wyoming. Its more like a steady drumbeat of opposition led by two groups with divergent interests one that genuinely wants equity in taxes on renewable resources and fossil fuels, and a second simply unwilling or unable to accept the end of coals glory days.

The first scenario leads to a fundamental problem, because tax parity cant exist for industries that use such different resources to generate electricity. How does a state assign equal values to a finite product like coal when its ripped from the ground, and an infinite one like wind that must be captured as it blows across our landscape for it to have any value?

The traditional apples-to-apples comparisons dont exist for wind and coal. The challenge for legislators, then, is to create policies that will allow an industry like wind to compete without being taxed out of existence.

For lawmakers intent on propping up the coal industry at all costs, it doesnt matter whether the competition comes from wind, solar, battery storage or some Earth-saving, peace-love-and-harmony inducing miracle energy technology from outer space. If coal doesnt win, these legislators think everyone in the state loses. They are true believers, frustrated that an industry that has brought so much revenue to Wyoming is the victim of what they view as environmental political correctness.

By a 7-2 vote, the House Revenue Committee killed House Bill 108-Wind energy production tax. The measure would have doubled the wind tax adding $1 per megawatt hour to the $1 per MW hour that has been enforced since the state began taxing wind generation in 2009.

HB 108 would have also repealed the three-year tax exemption on power generation once a project goes online now in effect.

Attorney Matt Micheli, former chair of the Wyoming Republican Party, has represented both coal and wind interests. He testified against HB 108, in part because Micheli realizes that raising taxes on any industry does not guarantee more revenue to state or local governments.

In 2010, Micheli recalled, Wyoming had 30 industrial wind farms on the drawing boards. Zero were built after the wind generation tax went into effect.

The industry struggled until last year, when Wyomings online wind capacity statewide increased by nearly 1,000 megawatts. That is second only to Texas in new construction.

Now we have $10 billion worth of wind projects that are once again in the pipeline, ready to come to this state, Micheli said. Were hearing [legislators make] the same arguments from more than a decade ago well get more revenue if we put another dollar [wind generation tax] on top of these contracts.

Randy Fitzpatrick of NextEra Energy Resources said in the highly competitive world of renewable energy, the difference between winning or losing a contract often comes down to pennies per megawatt hour.

Wyoming lost aNextEra project to Colorado over a mere 40 cents per MW hour, Fitzpatrick said. Doubling the current $1 per MW hour tax means Wyoming wind companies might as well just close up shop.

Wyoming is the only state in the nation that requires the wind industry to pay three forms of taxes, Micheli noted: on electricity generation, sales and property. If all of the states wind projects come to fruition, he said, it would mean almost $1.5 billion in state tax revenue over the next 20 years.

But a 100% increase in the wind generation tax that renders Wyoming unappealing would result in no new tax revenue, period.

If we force these projects to other states, where is that money going to come from? Micheli asked. I dont want to increase sales taxes and property taxes. I dont want an income tax.

Wyoming Business Alliance President Cindy DeLancey also testified against HB 108. This is where our money is going to come from, she said of wind energy. Were at a point where we are thinking about our revenue challenges, how we broaden our tax base [Instead of] adding additional barriers to produce non-mineral revenue, we need to be opening our doors.

Indeed, Wyomings major energy competitors, including Colorado and Utah, have paved the way for their success by offering property tax abatements and sales tax exemptions for wind projects.

Micheli asked if Wyoming legislators will be able to resist making the kind of harmful tax decisions that have hampered the growth of the states wind industry until now.

Their vote proved they are able. Thats good news, but the state is lagging. Voters should ask why Wyoming is still having this conversation in 2021.

Veteran Wyoming journalist Kerry Drake has covered Wyoming for more than four decades, previously as a reporter and editor for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and Casper Star-Tribune. He lives in Cheyenne and can be reached at kerry.drake33@yahoo.com.

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Can Wyoming get out of its own way in courting renewables? - Wyoming Tribune

Over the last two weeks, Democrats continued passing patently partisan bills instead of working across the aisle to find bipartisan solutions. The most glaring example of this was the rushed $1.9 trillion progressive wish-list shamelessly guised as COVID relief.

What the media will not report is that we still have nearly $1 trillion of unspent funds from previous COVID legislation. Piling more onto our national debt while this money remains untouched is completely irresponsible. If enacted, our total coronavirus spending will reach a staggering $6 trillion. Folks, thats more than the GDP of every country except China and the United States.

Talk about reckless spending!

Hidden behind this hefty price tag are numerous provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with COVID. In fact, only 9 percent actually goes toward public health funding. But this didnt stop Speaker Nancy Pelosi from including a $140 million carveout for a Silicon Valley subway. After rejecting a Republican amendment to redirect this money for student mental health programs, Pelosi eventually removed her California pet project from the bill. I guess she finally realized partisan pork spending does little for struggling small businesses, students suffering from months away from the classroom, and speeding up vaccine distribution.

Dont be fooled by the title of the Equality Act; this liberal legislation is unjust, unfair and penalizes Americans for their beliefs on biological sex. We cannot punish individuals for their moral values just to appease woke politicians.

Under this bill, biological males can compete in female sports practically guaranteeing that biological females would no longer have a chance to succeed in sports or secure much-needed scholarships. This produces a whole new set of challenges for young women to reach their goals.

Does that sound equal to you?

I proudly voted against this federal overreach that infringes on millions of Americans Constitutional rights in the name of equality and political correctness.

After the 2020 elections raised countless concerns, its clear reform is needed to restore public trust in our elections, and naturally, Democrats thought a big government approach would tackle the challenge. Their so-called For the People Act is just another Pelosi power grab aimed to nationalize our elections and benefit progressive politicians.

Tired of attack ads? Under this legislation, the federal government would help fund them. Authorizing publicly funded campaigns through a 6 to 1 funding match means that for every $200 donation, the federal government will match $1,200. The government has no place in filling campaign coffers.

Additionally, this one-size-fits-all mandate strips states of their ability to make decisions on registration and voting practices. I dont know about you, but Id rather let Alabama choose what works best for us, and not have Californias liberal election laws forced down our throats.

Free, fair, and accurate elections are the bedrock of our Constitutional Republic. Yet through this dangerous bill, Democrats are promoting ballot harvesting, and universal mail-in voting, and discouraging voter ID.

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Please reach out to my office at barrymoore.house.gov, calling (202) 225-2901, or mailing him at 1504 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, Keeping close contact with you is my top priority as I am traveling between Alabama and Washington, D.C. As the 117th Congress gets to work, I hope you will stay updated on my activities by joining me at:

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The Moore You Know | Opinion | southeastsun.com - The Southeast Sun

Its easy to accuse the NRL of wowserism after it sent Cronullas Toby Rudolf an official warning for his post-match comments about his potential post-match antics after victory of the Dragons.

Part of his cunning plan was to have 1000 beers and then try and pull something. Anything will do at Northies Hotel. In reality, he was probably going to have an ice bath and a good nights sleep before recovery the following day.

It was met with merriment on The Matty Johns Show, which was conducting the on-field cross, and shared widely on social media. Rudolf is viewed as a bit of a throwback footballer, a knockabout lad who might play on a weekend and throw a few bricks around the building site bright and early Monday.

Alas, the hilarity ended on Tuesday when NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo swiftly let Rudolf and the Sharks know it was all out of order.

Its clear that those kind of comments are offensive and derogatory to people and thats not how we are as a game any more, Abdo told the Herald. He was trying to make a joke but its not appropriate to joke like that. I think he understands and he appreciates those comments are hurtful.

The response has been met with the familiar cries of political correctness gone mad and that the real characters were being driven out of the code. In rugby league, there is always the undertone from certain sections that the game is slowly being drained of its core macho elements; just look at the reaction when the shoulder charge was rightly outlawed.

Toby Rudolf during his Fox Sports cross. He has been warned by the NRL for the contents of the interview.

But this was the ultimate no brainer for the suits at NRL HQ, especially in the context of a week where the treatment of women has been front and centre in the nations consciousness. On Monday, thousands joined the March 4 Justice rallies around the nation to protest against sexism and gendered violence.

One of its former stars, Jarryd Hayne, has also been in court this week as he faces two charges of aggravated sexual assault inflicting actual bodily harm on a woman in her bedroom on September 30, 2018. He has pleaded not guilty.

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It was a no-brainer for the NRL to warn Toby Rudolf over post-match interview - Sydney Morning Herald

The Washington Post had a story in January I've had in my head since: Civics teachers are our best and maybe our only chance to get this country back on track.

This month a group called Educating for American Democracyreleased a report on making civics education a higher priority. We've put ourselves behind the 8-ball for a generation or two. Id wager a sad percentage of millennials think a filibuster is a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

The herculean work is a partnership of the U.S. Department of Education, the National Archives Foundation, the Smithsonian and others who are concerned about how the next generation will practice democracy. Autonomous zones and smashing windows at the Capitol to hang the vice president are not the American way.

We the People unite love of country with clear-eyed wisdom about our successes and failures in order to chart our path forward, says the collective. In recent decades, we as a nation have failed to prepare young Americans for self-government. The time has come to recommit to history and civics."

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I won't kid you. I get uneasy when the government wades into these sorts of things. The government doesnt have a great track record of making things better.

Who gets to pick the standards?

For the third year in a row, Democrats in the Colorado House are trying to pass a media literacy bill for school districts and charter schools. House Bill 1103wouldnt cost anything, but it would require the state Board of Education to expand academic standards for reading, writing and civics to include competency in media literacy, meaning being able to tel the difference between a conspiracy theory and the evening news.

Rep. Lisa Cutter, a Democrat from Littleton with a background in communications, points to the frighteningly high number of people who get their news entirely from social media or news sources more attuned to ratings and clicks than democracy and truth-telling.

This growth coincides with decreased readership and funding for traditional institutions and the robust fact-checking standards, years of editorial expertise, accountability and layers of filters they provide, she told the House Education Committee last week. In this changing landscape the burden of evaluation for the validity of information is shifting from media outlets to the individual.

Republicans are worried about the Democratic majority imposing a leftward slant, stopping barely short of calling it brainwashing.

This brings up all kinds of fear that this is an opportunity for one-sided censorship, along the lines of whats trendy right now with political correctness and censorship, said Republican Rep. Mark Baisley of Roxborough Park.

He called the state Civil Rights Commission as a panel with a partisan agenda, pointing to the case of a baker in Lakewood who refused to sell a wedding cake to same-sex couple, because of his religious beliefs.

The question here is do we trust our teachers? I can only speak from experience, but I know they can do it.

Maurice McGee taught a master class in civics and student psychology 40 years ago at my high school.

He never told us what to think. He told us what to think about. After that, it was up to us to decide what kind of citizen we wanted to be, engaged or enraged. I chose aggravating.

I knew hed make me figure it out for myself, but I asked anyway: Can civics teachers fix our broken nation?

Here's the deal, Mr. McGee started, as my mind began spinning back four decades to see him leaning on the edge of his desk, neatly dressed, arms folded and heavy rimmed glasses affixed above his bushy mustache. The sciences such as math, chemistry, etc. have a set of rules and laws that, if followed, lead to a certain outcome. But individuals and the whole of society have no set of fixed values that leads to a wholly predictable outcome. Past outcomes help predict future actions, but nothing seems to be finite or etched in stone.

There is no set formula. History, civics, government, sociology can predict but not guarantee. I tried to give and teach facts and then hope for feedback. I could give you a thought or an idea and then wait for you to react. Your reaction told me that you were listening and assessing what you had been given. With you I could expect a reaction, and I almost always got one.

So thats how I became an excitable man.

It was not about the right thought or the wrong one, but simply the fact that I was provoking thought, Mr. McGee said. The most difficult students to teach were the ones who never reacted. I didn't know if their brain was turned on or not. So, I would try harder to get a reaction. I wanted my students to know facts, and then be able to associate these facts with the human condition.

Thats how a teacher teaches instead of preaches.

Mr. McGee said critical thinking was the skill he was trying to teach, not stump for votes.

Hope this makes sense, he said, wrapping up another good lesson.

Education has always been the engine that carried our nation forward, more than armies ever could. If we're going to save America, I'll take an army of Mr. McGees.

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INSIGHTS | Civics teachers are our best chance to save the world - coloradopolitics.com

Bill Burr was an unexpected presenter at the 2021 Grammy Awards, and many viewers were upset by his flippant humor. The controversial comedian presented the award for Best Tropical Latin Album at the Grammys premiere ceremony before the main event. Within minutes, videos of his jokes on stage were going viral.

Burr was reviled by some and lauded as a hero by others on Twitter on Sunday evening as footage of his Grammy's performance made the rounds. As always, he was dismissive of others' feelings, throwing out terms like "feminist" and "cis white male" as if they were punchlines in and of themselves. He got few audible laughs within the theater, and sparse ones on social media. Most were simply confused as to why Burr was chosen as a presenter in the first place.

Burr has a long reputation as a provocateur, from his stand-up comedy to his TV appearances to podcasts. He often pokes fun at young people, so-called "cancel culture," "political correctness" and other charged topics.

With no Latino heritage and little regard for other cultures, many viewers were baffled to see Burr presenting the award for Best Tropical Latin Album on Sunday. Scroll down for a look at the fall-out afterwards.

Whether or not Burr should have had a platform to say what he said on the Grammys stage, many fans argued that his commentary was, first and foremost, not funny. The comedian did not so much make a joke as inflect a mocking tone on his political presumptions, which had no apparent bearing on the award show itself.

Beyond that, many thought that Burr's Grammys commentary was disrespectful, especially to the artists who were there to receive what might be the honor of their lives. They accused the Recording Academy of disrespect too by hiring Burr for this position.

Of course, many people believed that Burr knew exactly what he was doing by provoking an angry response from social media at large. This included both fans and wary detractors.

Many critics said that Bill Burr's place on the presenting schedule was an indication of racism from the academy as a whole a common accusation these days as the Grammys face accusations from multiple high profile artists.

Many viewers thought that Burr himself looked uncomfortable with his position in this award show, and speculated that he was trying to deliver what was expected of him but missing the mark.

As Burr's segment went viral rapidly, many Twitter users questioned why everyone seemed to be watching the Grammy's premiere ceremony hours before the main event actually started.

Finally, many fans felt that at this point, Burr should be removed from the cast of The Mandalorian along with his former co-star Gina Carano. The 2021 Grammys begin at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

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Bill Burr's Grammys Appearance Ruffled Tons of Feathers and Delighted Fans - PopCulture.com