PA Bill Number: HB2311
Title: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program.
Description: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program. ...
Last Action: Laid on the table
Last Action Date: Sep 23, 2024
Bubba and Smother-Mothering :: 11/12/2016
My neighbors have been using social media to offer a number of similar descriptions of Trump supporters. Like Hillary Clinton, they find Trump supporters a basket of deplorables. They are unfeeling people who hate blacks, gays, and women.
They are racists, bigots, homophobes and sexists. They say things that drive college students into “safe zones” and they are ignorant, uninformed and stupid. They are uneducated. In a word, Trump supporters are morons. As one local luminary put it, they are the bubbas, the unwashed working class idiots.
I am a Trump supporter. With reluctance, but because my neighbors leave me no alternative, I am going to suggest that their unfriendly descriptions of Trump supporters do not describe at least some of us. I have a B.A., an M.A. a Ph.D. and a law degree. I have spent my working life teaching in colleges and universities, full time and part time, and more than twenty years writing opinions for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. I am now in the private practice of law, and I have studied history, politics and law for the last fifty years. While I do not regard myself as having more than average intelligence, I also do not feel I am a moron or a bubba.
I divide the electorate into two groups: those who look to the good of the whole and those who look to the good of themselves. When I see blacks voting for blacks, gays voting for gays, women voting for women and people on the left in general voting against those who would speak their minds and oppose political correctness, I see a parochial group willing to sacrifice the good of the whole in favor of personal predilections. As far as I am concerned, people on the left are among those who vote only with regard to themselves and attack those who disagree as poorly informed idiots.
Before we get to a general discussion of the left, however, let’s talk about supporting Donald Trump. The long and short of it is this: Trump is a poor candidate who is embarrassing and ill-informed, but he is, nonetheless, for me, preferable to Hillary Clinton. I did not vote for Trump; I voted against Clinton. And that brings us to why anyone would vote against Clinton.
One aspect of politics that is non-negotiable for me is the necessity of upholding the rule of law. Candidates for public office must be law-abiding and respectful of the law. Hillary Clinton does not do well by this reckoning. She used her public office of Secretary of State to solicit money from foreign governments, payable to the Clinton Foundation, in return for access to government officials. More than 50% of those she met with privately as Secretary of State were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Moreover, she set up a communication network on a private server to cover this up. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/emails-reveal-how-foundation-donors-got-access-to-clinton-and-her-close-aides-at-state-dept/2016/08/22/345b5200-6882-11e6-8225-fbb8a6fc65bc_story.html
In addition, Clinton exemplifies the Washington insider, the person who came to Washington to do good and stayed to do well. Plainly, Clinton violated the espionage act in her treatment of classified information by putting it on her private server. In fact, several hapless generals and the submariner who took a picture of himself in the submarine have been prosecuted for less. And yet Clinton was cleared by the FBI.
Bear in mind what this means. Clinton risked the security of the United States not only by publishing confidential documents on unprotected servers, but also by soliciting money from foreign governments, who would then, presumably, have influence in decisions made by government. And bear in mind what Clinton did when the congress announced it was investigating her use of the private server: she destroyed 30,000 emails AFTER the subpoena was issued.
It is difficult for me to understand how Hillary Clinton can be a candidate for any public office, let alone the presidency. It is extremely likely she has committed a number of serious crimes and in all likelihood, if she and her foundation were investigated correctly, she would be convicted and imprisoned.
Of course, those on the left don't care about any of this. They are morally certain their ideas are correct and should not be questioned (see below). Since Clinton supports the views of those on the left, and these views are morally certain, the mere breaking of laws, or even putting the security of the United States at issue, doesn't matter.
Bear in mind that we have not discussed Clinton’s lies about Benghazi, failing to send help for an American diplomat and his protectors who were killed, and her stonewalling about information concerning Obama’s response to Benghazi. We have also not discussed her disastrous activities in Libya which led to the rise of Islamic terrorists, costing us American lives and billions of dollars. And we have not discussed Clinton’s poverty. Remember that by her own description, she and Bill were broke when they left the White House. She is now worth millions, but admittedly, that came after she stole the White House china. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=121856&page=1
Finally, we haven’t discussed Hillary as the false prophet, the defender of women who cultivates lucrative friendships with Muslim oppressors of women across the Middle East. If I were making the welfare of women my cause, I would not be soliciting money from the Muslim leaders responsible for the serious and continuing barbaric treatment of women. For Clinton, however, multi-million dollar donations seems to make this more palatable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/02/18/foreign-donations-to-hillary-clintons-foundation-raise-major-ethical-questions/
But this has been only a description of why someone might vote for Trump over Clinton. Let’s now consider something my neighbors never consider, qualities of the left that a rational person might object to.
The main characteristic I see among those on the left is moral certainty. Leftists are so profoundly, incontrovertably, irrevocably, absolutely sure their political ideas are correct that they reject with disbelief anyone who would think differently. And as a device to protect these incontrovertible ideas, they reject as uncivilized and improper any discussion that might be upsetting to those on the left
Such people never consider the possibility—the possibility—that with respect to a particular idea, they may be wrong. I seriously believe most people on the left have never considered this possibility. Why? Because they don't have to, and in any case, it would be politically incorrect.
Obfuscation threatening disaster. Obama and Clinton and the left generally have been unwilling to call a murderer who shouts “Allahu Akbar” while cutting off someone’s head (or who murders 13 unarmed service men), an Islamic terrorist. This has been accompanied by an obvious favoritism toward Muslims, generally, culminating in the Iran deal, in which Iran gets nuclear weapons within a few years, a relaxation of sanctions, and hundreds of millions of dollars from us.
What is distressing about this is the left’s acquiescence in the Iran deal—an arrangement threatening our very existence—as if it were normal and the best choice available. It is plain that what it does create is another Korea, but this time in the form of a country that opens its legislative sessions with the chant, “death to America.”
Political correctness. Political correctness is a tool invented by the left to attack any idea that is not in conformity with the left’s view of the world. For example, if someone argued that affirmative action is no longer a good idea, the left would attack this view as bigoted, racist, and moronic. The purpose of the attack would not be to consider whether the idea had any merit, but only to vilify the idea and those who advance it.
Political correctness generally is used as a psychological tool to promote fundamental left wing beliefs. For example, teachers who expel six year olds for fashioning a breakfast roll in the shape of a gun are victims of the mantra that the private ownership of guns is harmful.
In short, political correctness—a hallmark of leftist politics-- is a form of brainwashing. It is used without apology because, once again, the left is convinced unconditionally of the moral correctness of its views.
Disregard for the First Amendment. Why aren’t all nations roughly equal in housing, industry, income, and culture? Haiti isn’t Germany; Portugal isn’t the United States; Russia isn’t France. China isn’t Japan. Why not? A new book by the economic historian Joel Mokyr posits that income in England in the 17th century of $5 a day in 2016 dollars increased to $100 a day now largely because 17th century England had a “unique and productive culture. . . that welcomed change and favored scientific inquiry that spurred radical technological improvements.” Book Review by Richard Vedder, WSJ, November 11, 2016. So it is with political thought. Just as radical technological improvements were forbidden by many countries in the 17th century, so unpopular ideas are forbidden today by those who favor political correctness. But the First Amendment, America’s great engine of social progress, would have it otherwise. The First Amendment was not designed to protect ideas most people already accept, comfortable ideas; it was designed to protect and encourage ideas that are hated, reviled, spurned and made fun of. Why? Because it is these ideas that pave the way for deliberation, thoughtful response and growth. It is these ideas that force people to confront deficiencies in their own thinking and strive for something better. But the left opposes free speech, and in espousing political correctness – some words and thoughts may not be uttered – it is a cancer in the frail body of sustained survival.
Federalization. The organizational principle behind the formation of this country was that power would be shared between the federal and state governments. The left has discovered, however, that there is resistance to many of its ideas on the local level. It, therefore, seeks to federalize its agenda, such as gay marriage, regardless of the fact that the Constitution has reserved matters not enumerated in the Constitution (like marriage) to the states. As a result, decisions traditionally left to state governments increasingly have been reassigned to the federal government, disenfranchising state governments and local control of matters affecting only the locality. As in other leftist matters, that this violates the Constitutional principle of shared power is of no consequence, for realizing the agenda justifies anything.
Preferential treatment. Although the documents forming the nation contemplated that all men [and women] will be treated equally, the left has decided that some are deserving of favored treatment. Hence blacks, for example, who as a group have been destructive of their own interests, are given preferential treatment in affirmative action, admission to colleges, hiring for jobs, and conceptually in that a white person may not be critical of their behavior. This, of course, overlaps into political correctness and also into smother-mothering (below). I worked for four years as a supervisor at the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, a civil rights agency empowered to investigate discriminatory acts against blacks and other protected groups. Having processed several thousand cases during this time, I have some direct knowledge of how racial preference in favor of blacks works. Suffice it to say, blaming one’s own shortcomings on racial bias is damaging to oneself and also to those against whom it is directed. But to the left, such damage is welcome because it affirms their power.
Smother-Mothering. In a misdirected attempt to cast its biases in stone, the left has treated such biases as sacred objects, ideas that may not be disturbed or questioned. It is not surprising, then, that college students require counseling and “safe places” (i.e., smother-mothering) when they are exposed to thoughts not in line with left-wing ideology. It is somewhat more surprising that universities, the “market places of ideas”, find themselves in the unlikely position of banning certain speakers because their speech might be offensive to someone. Such ridiculous antics might be dismissed as unworthy of comment except that Yale Law School set up special counseling for students distressed by the Trump victory. Apparently Yale doesn't mind identifying itself as producing lawyers afraid of those who disagree with them, but that illustrates the degree of penetration such leftist notions, including smother-mothering, have.
Political correctness, smother-mothering and moral certainty are destructive of rational inquiry. People of good will who have differences of opinion but who want to work together have only one way to proceed. They have to agree to respect each other, to discuss problems openly and transparently, and to sit around a table and make a list of things they have in common and things on which they differ. They then have to attempt to reconcile the commonalities with the differences and negotiate a compromise solution.
But when the matter on which they disagree involves political correctness, the process of compromise is defeated because that which is politically correct may not be questioned. My experience has been that leftists do not want to discuss either differences or similarities of points of view because they know that if an accommodation is reached, it might be politically incorrect.
This inability to consider a solution that is politically incorrect is exacerbated by the leftist view that those who disagree with whatever is politically correct are evil and destructive. It was feared among leftists, for example, that if Clinton won, Trump supporters would take to the streets. It turns out, however, that those who took to the streets, sometimes dragging people from their cars and beating them, were the Clinton supporters. They were described as destroying everything in their wake. Self-examination has not been a leftist long suit.
It is this inability to imagine any view other than the politically-correct, morally-certain one that is the left’s ultimate weakness, and, I suspect, the reason my neighbors cannot imagine why anyone would vote for Trump.
