It's about time someone older than the age of 40 reminded us that liberalism once stood for a heck of a lot more than gender theory and critical race theory!
Modern liberalism has shown its true colors. There are and were always a minority who really did set out to change the world for the better. But they have been drown out by those wh…
It's about time someone older than the age of 40 reminded us that liberalism once stood for a heck of a lot more than gender theory and critical race theory!
Modern liberalism has shown its true colors. There are and were always a minority who really did set out to change the world for the better. But they have been drown out by those who get off on doing little more than shaking up the status quo — a pursuit of influence for the sake of power, hence the desire to micromanage every facet of our lives (for our own good of course!).
For decades, the "leave me alone" and "live and let live" crowd better known as Conservatives instinctively recoiled from the social engineering ambitions of their Leftist counterparts. They sensed that it wasn't about making a better world but rejecting that which came before them, no matter how great the price of that progress. No amount of progress is enough. Pushing the envelope is the whole point and too often the ONLY point, hence why liberalism disproportionately favors the young and the naive.
Let's examine the "how" of pushing the envelope for a moment:
Are we really to believe that pedophilia should be redefined as "Minor Attracted Persons"?
Are we really to believe that children should make life-long decisions about their gender identity in the most permanent way possible — surgical alteration — and that States such as California should become sanctuary States for unaccompanied transgendered youth who have been allegedly been scarred for life by the word "No" from a parent who, for all we know, may be more medically or financially-inclined than "trans-phobic" to object to surgical "affirmation"? (And what of the Left's knee-jerk assumption that most parents are anti-trans to begin with?)
Are we really to believe that in a country where literacy rates were nothing to brag about before the pandemic that educators should seize upon the opportunity afforded by the pandemic — during which time children fell even further behind in their education — to pack more than the three "Rs" into the school day? (Didn't teachers used to lament that they didn't have time for the extraneous demands of administrators?) And why IS it so important to convey non-normative gender identities to children so young that they're still fascinated by the tooth fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa Claus?
Whatever else a child may identify as, is it even a school administrator's business? Is the Left really arguing that children and their families should have no privacy? If public schools cannot endorse something as intimate as a religious belief system, why is it okay to delve into the most intimate details of gender/sexual identity — and then object to those who characterize such preoccupations as "grooming"? Beyond that, didn't Liberals used to say children don't need the help — if they identify as something other than hetrosexual it is because they were "born that way"? If so, what's the point of cramming 100+ different genders down their throats before they hit grade 8? What became of "self discovery"? How is it an "organic" choice for a child to identify this way or that way if the adults around them are trying to mind-jack them before they can read and write their own names?
The woke wave of the past 5-10 years are the projections of fundamentally insecure adults who apparently believe that if they do NOT teach gender identity and critical race theory to elementary students, children will grow up to be homo/trans-phobic, xenophobic bigots! For one, this is a horribly negative and depressive way to think. Second, when does the Left wake up to the demographic reality that the "white majority" is about to become a minority? Then what? Do decades worth of minority-majority sociology studies go out the window because it won't be convenient to apply such concepts to a "white privileged" minority? Pray tell: How do States such as California, where Caucasians have been a minority for years, exhibit the ongoing problem of white privilege? What decade does the Left think we are living in?
Scarier still, what does the evolution of "woke" look like? If the operating theory, "change for the sake of change" holds true, what is to stop Western countries from adopting the belief that not only should minors be "empowered" to vote — but even to marry before they are "of age" by traditional Western standards? (The key word being "traditional". The next generation of Liberals will no doubt argue that if children can surgically affirm their identity before they hit puberty, legal statutes dealing with under-aged minors are too restrictive, if not xenophobic towards cultures that allow children and adults to intermarry!)
With so much of the heavy lifting achieved by the greats of the Civil War, underground railroad and Civil Rights eras — from Abraham Lincoln to women's suffrage, Rosa Parks and MLK — what we are observing from the 21st Century Left is an inciting of senseless cultural battles for the sole purpose of re-imagining the glory days for a generation now far, far removed from the "lived experience" of genuine reformers. In the 21st Century, social justice pursuits need not be a "good idea" — it need only be THE idea of the moment. And for too many, ill content to celebrate the achievements of their generational predecessors, change for the sake of change is plenty good enough.
It's about time someone older than the age of 40 reminded us that liberalism once stood for a heck of a lot more than gender theory and critical race theory!
Modern liberalism has shown its true colors. There are and were always a minority who really did set out to change the world for the better. But they have been drown out by those who get off on doing little more than shaking up the status quo — a pursuit of influence for the sake of power, hence the desire to micromanage every facet of our lives (for our own good of course!).
For decades, the "leave me alone" and "live and let live" crowd better known as Conservatives instinctively recoiled from the social engineering ambitions of their Leftist counterparts. They sensed that it wasn't about making a better world but rejecting that which came before them, no matter how great the price of that progress. No amount of progress is enough. Pushing the envelope is the whole point and too often the ONLY point, hence why liberalism disproportionately favors the young and the naive.
Let's examine the "how" of pushing the envelope for a moment:
Are we really to believe that pedophilia should be redefined as "Minor Attracted Persons"?
Are we really to believe that children should make life-long decisions about their gender identity in the most permanent way possible — surgical alteration — and that States such as California should become sanctuary States for unaccompanied transgendered youth who have been allegedly been scarred for life by the word "No" from a parent who, for all we know, may be more medically or financially-inclined than "trans-phobic" to object to surgical "affirmation"? (And what of the Left's knee-jerk assumption that most parents are anti-trans to begin with?)
Are we really to believe that in a country where literacy rates were nothing to brag about before the pandemic that educators should seize upon the opportunity afforded by the pandemic — during which time children fell even further behind in their education — to pack more than the three "Rs" into the school day? (Didn't teachers used to lament that they didn't have time for the extraneous demands of administrators?) And why IS it so important to convey non-normative gender identities to children so young that they're still fascinated by the tooth fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa Claus?
Whatever else a child may identify as, is it even a school administrator's business? Is the Left really arguing that children and their families should have no privacy? If public schools cannot endorse something as intimate as a religious belief system, why is it okay to delve into the most intimate details of gender/sexual identity — and then object to those who characterize such preoccupations as "grooming"? Beyond that, didn't Liberals used to say children don't need the help — if they identify as something other than hetrosexual it is because they were "born that way"? If so, what's the point of cramming 100+ different genders down their throats before they hit grade 8? What became of "self discovery"? How is it an "organic" choice for a child to identify this way or that way if the adults around them are trying to mind-jack them before they can read and write their own names?
The woke wave of the past 5-10 years are the projections of fundamentally insecure adults who apparently believe that if they do NOT teach gender identity and critical race theory to elementary students, children will grow up to be homo/trans-phobic, xenophobic bigots! For one, this is a horribly negative and depressive way to think. Second, when does the Left wake up to the demographic reality that the "white majority" is about to become a minority? Then what? Do decades worth of minority-majority sociology studies go out the window because it won't be convenient to apply such concepts to a "white privileged" minority? Pray tell: How do States such as California, where Caucasians have been a minority for years, exhibit the ongoing problem of white privilege? What decade does the Left think we are living in?
Scarier still, what does the evolution of "woke" look like? If the operating theory, "change for the sake of change" holds true, what is to stop Western countries from adopting the belief that not only should minors be "empowered" to vote — but even to marry before they are "of age" by traditional Western standards? (The key word being "traditional". The next generation of Liberals will no doubt argue that if children can surgically affirm their identity before they hit puberty, legal statutes dealing with under-aged minors are too restrictive, if not xenophobic towards cultures that allow children and adults to intermarry!)
With so much of the heavy lifting achieved by the greats of the Civil War, underground railroad and Civil Rights eras — from Abraham Lincoln to women's suffrage, Rosa Parks and MLK — what we are observing from the 21st Century Left is an inciting of senseless cultural battles for the sole purpose of re-imagining the glory days for a generation now far, far removed from the "lived experience" of genuine reformers. In the 21st Century, social justice pursuits need not be a "good idea" — it need only be THE idea of the moment. And for too many, ill content to celebrate the achievements of their generational predecessors, change for the sake of change is plenty good enough.
Thanks for the detailed, thoughtful analysis, SocialCritic.