Greatness for Its Own Sake: What makes the Triple Crown different from any other athletic honor

As a Kentuckian it is hard to avoid horse racing. And it was hard for anybody to avoid the news of this last weekend's Belmont Stakes, in which the Kentucky-bred horse American Pharoah became the first horse in thirty-seven years to win the Triple Crown, having also won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.

What makes the Triple Crown different from any other sporting honor. Julia Yost has done about as well as I've seen anyone explain it:

The lack of partisan fandom in racing has something to do with the brevity of its stars’ careers. No sooner have you heard of the three-year-olds that run in the Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont, than they retire to the stud farm. So those of us who wanted to see a Triple Crown this year did not want it because we had grown up cheering for Zayat Stables’ American Pharoah (who was born practically yesterday). We wanted, this year as every year, to behold athletic greatness for its own sake.

Read the rest here.

Why I would be less bothered by a new mosque in my community than a new state college

The conservatives who are so worried about the threat of Islam should look a little closer to home for the real enemies.

If you asked most conservatives to identify the greatest threat to America, they will inevitably point outside the United States, usually to ISIS. Undoubtedly ISIS is a threat, and could some day actually affect the U.S., which it doesn't seem to be able to do right now.

And then there is always the lurking suspicion of Muslims in the United States who, almost without exception, mind their own business and don't bother anyone.

It is hard to figure out why liberals are so indulgent toward Muslims. My theory is that it is easy for liberals to be magnanimous toward Muslims. Unlike Christians, there are not a lot of them. And because of their low representation in the population they don't affect the culture much. In the United States, they're pretty harmless.

Christians are dangerous because they are still culturally influential. That's why Muslims are tolerated and Christians aren't.

But this inordinate fear of Islam is rife among rank and file conservatives. How many times have you heard someone say they believe Obama is a Muslim? Every time I hear a friend say this my response is the same: "We would be a lot better off if Obama were a Muslim. Think about it: He would be pro-life, against gay 'marriage,' and impatient if not condemning of the mindless egalitarianism he and his liberal friends are using to destroy the culture. No Muslim would take the positions Obama takes on issues of cultural significance.

And this brings me to my main point, which is this: We have a lot less to fear from Muslims from faraway places than we do from liberals right here at home.

It isn't Muslims who are destroying American culture: It is liberals who are destroying American culture, which leads me to a corollary observation: The average conservative American has far more in common with the average Muslim than he does with the liberal anchor of the news program he watches every night, or with the liberal professor at the university down the road, or with the liberal bureaucrats who run our government, or with the drug-riddled, serially monogamous, animal rights activist celebrity who appears on his television set every night. 

In fact, one uncomfortable fact we don't want to face is that many of the excuses used by radical Muslim groups to oppose the United States are perfectly valid. We hear all about how how Arab Muslims are upset with the United States because of our over-involvement in their internal affairs. But that is not the main reason America is hated overseas by so many people—Muslims and non-Muslims.

When I hear people talk about "exporting democracy" to other countries, I just laugh. Is that really what we export to the world? Here's what we export to the world: pornography and rap music written by misogynist thugs. And then we give them lectures on how to treat women!

If you are a person in a traditional community living in a foreign country and you saw the garbage America was sending into your country, how would you feel? The world—and the underdeveloped world in particular—has become the cultural trash dump for America.

This is not a justification for the violence perpetrated on Americans. If Americans are killed, we should go after the perpetrators and destroy them. But it sure does make it a lot harder to occupy the moral high ground when you are giving these people legitimate reasons to stir people up.

The only thing saving us from being hated worse than Isis is that Isis cuts peoples heads off and enslaves women and doesn't apologize for it. Fortunately most people think that's worse than self-righteous Americans who simply corrupt their culture and pretend they're doing them a favor.

I mentioned to a friend the other day, after having seen a very large new mosque just outside of Toledo, Ohio, that I would be less bothered by a new mosque moving into my town than by a new state college. Even if the mosque contained Islamic radicals, it could not come close to matching the cultural destruction perpetrated by the class of people occupying academia who seem determined to destroy the very beliefs, traditions and customs that have always held our society together.

I'm less concerned about what Hillary Clinton let Al Qaeda radicals do to Americans in Libya than I am about what Hillary Clinton would do to America from the Oval Office.

Go watch a Muslim wearing a burkha, bowing down and peacefully saying his morning prayers. Then go watch a man in a gay pride parade, in dark leather and metal spikes (before the police crack down on him for public lewdness). And then ask which thing bodes most ill for American culture.

Are you more disturbed to know someone is shouting "Allah Akbar" 5,500 miles away, or someone saying "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture's got to go!" a half an hour down the road?

The barbarians aren't at the gate. They're inside the gate pretending to manage the defenses.

College campuses too PC for ... Jerry Seinfeld?

Why Elizabeth Warren never made the cover of Vanity Fair

Does anyone remember when Elizabeth Warren claimed to be a native American? It was a claim she was expected to back up—not only by her conservative, but by her liberal critics—and couldn't. All she could produce was a rumor that she might be 1/32 Cherokee.

Now we have Bruce Jenner claiming something much more biologically significant that what Warner claimed and yet he is not expected to back it up at all. There is no proof Jenner is even 1/32 female. But it doesn't seem to matter.

Why in one case (the racial makeup of a person) is evidence expected and yet in another (the gender of a person) evidence is not only not expected, but considered completely irrelevant?

We live in a culture that is so science obsessed that if you use the expression "A scientific study has found ..." you are almost guaranteed a serious hearing. We are told on an almost daily basis that everything about us, from our appearance to our psychological states—including our ostensibly free will decisions—are biologically determined.

Everything is biologically determined. Everything—except one thing: gender.

How in this science-worshiping culture can you say basically anything you want to about gender—anything (other than that it has some kind of verifiable, biological basis) and no one checks your credentials at the door?

Funny how that works.

Bruce Jenner and the Emotive Theory of Gender

If you tried your hardest you could not make up the farcical drama we have seen played out on the national stage over the last two weeks in regard to Bruce Jenner (now calling himself "Caitlyn"), who has convinced a credulous national media that he has been able to change his sex by the simple expedient of a little cosmetic surgery and the donning of a corset for a national magazine.

The whole XY chromosome thing that we were all told in high school science class was the way to determine gender in human beings is now a victim of political fashion. Now, in a move hard to justify as an actual scientific improvement, gender is determined by feelings.

You are a man if you feel you are a man. You are a woman if you feel you are a woman. The actual biology is now incidental. Let's call it the "Emotive Theory" of gender determination, on contrast to the "Biological Theory" of gender. And of course the move to the Emotive Theory doesn't clarify anything; in fact, it makes things a lot more confusing, partly because, unlike the Biological Theory, where there are hard and fast rules, under the Emotional Theory of gender determination, anything goes.

One chapter in the historical chronicles of the early 21st century will be about why, in a time when science is worshiped with more reverence than any god, scientific principles got thrown to the wind when it came to anything having to do with sex.

It wasn't too long ago that Paul Gross and Normal Levitt could write a book like Higher Superstitions: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, about the political distortions of even basic science. It was greeted with accolades by the hard-nosed scientific community at the time. Today the academic and popular left has become so predominant in academia and the media that Gross and Levitt would be thought old-fashioned, and scientists expected to tow the party line.

In 1996 Alan Sokol took the criticism of postmodernist thought to new and hilarious heights when he wrote a paper filled with deliberate nonsense and submitted to Social Text, a prominent postmodernist academic journal. The editors published it, making themselves a laughing stock among their academic colleagues and attracting the derision even of the public that had never heard of Social Text.

Again, here we are in 2015 living in a time when what Sokal wrote in his paper is no more nonsensical than what you hear on E! television, or the View, or CNN. The heights of nonsense have been scaled and conquered.

Some day history is going have a good laugh at the expense of our generation, which has managed to confuse itself so badly about gender that it has literally rendered itself incapable of making sense of the common, everyday world. And not only that but they are even more confused about the reality they have created for themselves.

Their ideology makes them scratch their head about the world, so they create another one for their own political convenience that ends up making them scratch their heads even harder.

I would say that the Emotive Theory of Gender awaits its Alan Sokal, but in reality I don't think there is anything more nonsensical than what the media feeds us on a daily basis. You could try to make up something more ludicrous than what we are now seeing with the Bruce Jenner story, but you just wouldn't be able to do it.

Not only are the doctrines of the Emotive Theory nonsensical in themselves, but they blatantly contradict themselves.

How many times have we been told that our distinctions between the masculine and feminine are arbitrary and socially constructed. But right on the tails of that lecture, we watch Anderson Cooper's interview last week with Buzz Bissinger, where he solemnly asks,

AC: You've spent hundreds of hours with Bruce Jenner, a lot of time with Kaitlyn, are they different? Do they seem different? You know obviously their appearance obviously ... 

Buzz: Yes they're very different, very different in appearance obviously. 

And they blather on about this, making no sense at all, going so far as to refer to the "soul of Bruce" being replaced by the "soul of Caitlyn."  It's amazing what reconstructive surgery can do nowadays.

For one thing, how can Bruce become a woman if he has already been one from the beginning, which is what he claims? If he is simply bringing his body into alignment with his soul, then why are we all gushing about him "becoming" Caitlyn and the "soul of Bruce" leaving (and by the way, were exactly did it go?), and the "soul of Caitlyn" inhabiting this highly trafficked body?

And for another, are there now really two Jenner selves--one inhabiting the body before the transformation and another entering it and taking over after the transformation? And when did this transformation occur? When he started taking estrogen? When he shaved his legs? When he put on the corset? Is the seat of the soul now the breasts, of which Bruce got a brand new and significantly larger set?

What happened to masculinity and femininity being arbitrary social constructs? If they are arbitrary and don't reflect reality then how can Bruce be said to be different from Caitlyn?

We now live in a society that believes that men and women are not fundamentally different from one another unless they have been first switched through reconstructive surgery.

You just can't make this stuff up.

CNN's Chris Cuomo criticizes Fox's Duggar interview, in denial about Bruce Jenner's deadbeat dad past

CNN's Chris Cuomo criticizes Fox's Duggar interview for being a "conversation among friends." That's nothin'. He should check out his own network's treatment of deadbeat dad Bruce Jenner, who hurt his children far worse--and while they were wide awake, no less.

In fact, the double standards and self-righteousness have reached fever pitch at CNN over the Duggar interview. Armies of psychologists have been enlisted in the campaign to lecture the Duggars about whether they did enough to protect their daughters from a brother who groped them in their sleep (as opposed to humiliating them fully conscious before the public, which is what CNN has done).

We have yet to hear words of advice and reproval about what Bruce Jenner did to his children, who, by the way, are still dealing with what he did to them--as opposed to the Duggar children, who are over what Josh did to them and are now dealing with what CNN is doing to them.

Where are the calls, like those CNN has been issuing for the Duggars, for Bruce to undergo treatment to come fully to terms with his deadbeat past (not to mention is self-indulgent present)?

No. They are too busy rubbing the noses of the victims in what their brother did to them.

These people are a menace to society.

Is Morality Declining in America? Most Americans Think So

A new survey has found that a majority of Americans think America is morally declining:

'In the poll, taken in early May, 72 percent of respondents said that “the state of moral values” in America is “getting worse.” Only 22 percent said it is “getting better.”'

That's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that the majority of Americans are right about the decline in morality. The good news is that they still have enough sense of morality to know that it's declining.

As I pointed out in my essay earlier this year in Canon and Culture, it's the point at which you start feeling warm that is the signal you are about to freeze to death. At least Americans are still moral enough to realize how threatened their morality is.

CNN lectures Duggars, excuses Jenner's abandonment of his children

The children Bruce Jenner abandoned when they were young.

So on CNN tonight, multiple psychological professionals joined Don Lemon to wag their fingers at the Duggar family and give them preachy sermons on being self-righteous, all apparently unaware of how self-righteous they looked doing it, as well as lecturing them on how they could have been better parents.

Several of these "professionals" on the program suggested that the entire family--Josh and the sisters he victimized when he was a minor (who have been victimized even worse by CNN publicizing what happened to them despite the fact that their records were supposed to be sealed--all of whom just want to be left alone, get treatment.

Meanwhile, back at Kaitlyn Jenner Central, amidst the blanket adulation of Kaitlyn Jenner--who abandoned his four children and refused to pay child support for ten years when he was an adult, and who is now free of his third wife--no moralistic lectures have been administered about all the things he could have done to be a better father and husband and no treatment has been suggested concerning his confused belief that he is really a woman and how this is connected with this selfish life leading up to now.

Funny how these things work.

All Together Now: Let's all pretend that the whole Bruce Jenner affair makes perfect sense

I have a longer post going up in the next day or two about the whole Bruce Jenner affair, but what has been so surprising about the whole surreal moral meltdown it represents is how so-called "conservatives," having laid aside whatever critical faculties they had (and, let's face it, it does vary), have surrendered to the mindless nonsense of postmodern gender ideology.

When Jenner came out and announced that he was morphing into a woman, I expected the Anderson Coopers and Rachel Maddows of the world to sing their hosannahs, but last night on Fox News, it was a veritable love-fest in response to the Vanity Fair cover showing Jenner, newly-dubbed "Kaitlyn," in a corset.

First off there was Meghan Kelly, who, having just finished bragging about how firmly she was going to deal with the Duggars because, you know, that's just the way she is with everyone, couldn't contain her admiration for Jenner.

Then, just about 30 minutes later, Kelly appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show, where Bill asked her what she thought about Jenner's supposed gender change. But the patented Meghan Kelly tough girl act she likes to brag about was nowhere to be seen. "I give him a lot of credit," said Kelly. "I think he's courageous."

Whut?

I'm trying to imagine all the suffering and embarrassment that must be involved in being featured in a glowing cover story in a major pop culture magazine and having virtually everyone in the media, whatever their politics, fawning, if not outright salivating, all over you.

Courageous? Really?

Of course, there are some of us out there (called "males," a term used for humans with XY chromosomes before this system of gender determination became politically unpopular) who actually would be embarrassed to appear in a corset--on a magazine cover or anywhere else. But we are hard to find now, except at Nascar tracks and bowling alleys.

At what point is this absurd "courage" meme going to be seen for what it is? When will we acknowledge that when gays or people who claim to be transgender "come out," it isn't to angry crowds, but to a sycophantic popular media?

How long do we have to keep pretending that gays are really persecuted?

But O'Reilly's response to Kelly's silly remarks was even more interesting. I mean, surely Bill, the impresario of the "No Spin Zone," would press Kelly on such a blitheringly nonsensical statement. Even O'Reilly--Bill the tough guy--caved without a fight. "Well, people can do what they want," he said. "This is America and nobody should comment on it."

In other words, don't dare question the fact that a person can change his gender through the power of sheer emotion with a little assistance from a cosmetic surgeon. Don't even think about it.

Thank you Fox News, for the advice. You just go on pretending this all makes sense while a few of the rest of us who think feelings can't change the nature of reality practice a little common sense.

In fact, surprisingly, the most sensible coverage of the issue came on some CNN show (the one on late that features the male and female co-anchors with the British accents), who interviewed a transgender man critical of the whole Jenner affair, who pointed out (and you can only say this if you are transgender) that you can't change your gender.

But back on Fox News is was all postmodern fluff.

Sheez.

The Latin oration at this year's Harvard Commencement

How Rand Paul is playing his GOP enemies like a fiddle

Rand Paul is playing his GOP establishment enemies like a fiddle. It's actually fun to watch: Rand sets the trap, which consists of some clever political stunt to try to get valuable media attention, and the knuckleheads in the establishment fall right into it.

Every time.

Paul's latest escapade was his filibuster of the Patriot Act, under which, in the name of counter-terrorism, the government is allowed to spy on you. The result? More valuable airtime for a politician who has already become a media magnet. There is simply no other politician in either party who is able to get the media attention Paul gets. I have no concrete evidence of this, but I would be willing to bet that Paul gets more media time then all the other Republican presidential contenders combined.

And Paul doesn't suffer from media scrutiny. In practically every minute of camera time he gets, he sounds lucid, cogent, and well-informed. You may disagree with him, but you've got to admire the cleverness with which he is able to garner this kind of attention.

But, you ask, is it good attention? Isn't a lot of the attention Paul gets negative? And isn't this bad? Well, that's certainly what the establishment thinks. But, quite frankly, the establishment is stupid.

This is the establishment that successfully pushes for an establishment candidate to win the Republican nomination every presidential election and which, having gotten shellacked, then blames the very people who pointed out that if the establishment nominated an establishment candidate it would get shellacked.

It happens every time.

Now this establishment has convinced itself that Paul is risking his political credibility by going up against it. The Sunday news shows this last weekend featured a parade of grim Republican analysts, each wagging his finger at Paul for his transgressions against Republican orthodoxy and proclaiming that Paul was politically immolating himself in plain daylight.

It really makes you marvel that there are people who are this politically tone-deaf.

The establishment is clueless about the fact that getting the establishment to oppose you is a good thing, not a bad thing. The establishment, being an establishment, is blind to its own unpopularity. The only people who get excited about the Republican Party establishment is the Republican Party establishment. No one else is impressed with them except themselves.

If you took a survey, the "Republican Party establishment" would rank somewhere between termites and stray dogs on the scale of popularity.

MEMO TO THE REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT: Yo, Establishment, are you complete idiots? Do you not get the fact that Rand Paul wants you to oppose him? Do you not realize that every time you get up on the Senate floor or on Fox News and condemn him you not only put his name in front of the public once again, but make him more attractive to voters, not less?

Every time these people run Paul down on some news show or in some floor speech, Paul's campaign officials are high fiving back at campaign headquarters. Every time Charles Krauthammer or Brit Hume predicts that Paul is cutting his political throat by going questioning some establishment shibboleth, his campaign staff pops another champagne cork.

There are depths of political imbecility that have yet to be plumbed, but few have delved as deeply as the people running the national Republican Party.

T. S. Eliot and the Politics of the Permanent Things

From "The Permanent Things of T. S. Eliot's Politics" at The Imaginative Conservative:

The expectation of change, in the twentieth century, has been greater than the expectation of continuity, nearly everywhere. And the permanent things, as Eliot called them—those enduring truths and ways of life and standards of order—are awash in the flood of sensual appetite and ideological passion. As Eliot expressed this phenomenon of decadence, referring to standards of education, in his book Notes towards the Definition of Culture, we are “destroying our ancient edifices to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in their mechanized caravans.” 

Read more here.