Decorum And Civility Lost

Decorum and Civility is missing in today's shuffled social order. Either nobody has it at all, or nobody has a sense of it. To refresh your memory, we all know what civility means, that of being polite; decorum maybe not so much. Webster defines decorum as behavior in keeping with good taste and decency. When was the last time you saw those traits on display, especially in the political arena? Perhaps it’s a product of the rise of a number of populist causes and technology. Donald Trump may share part of the blame. I wholeheartedly support his policies; however, I find his exaggerated persona and over-the-top political theatre antics offensive, yet got to hand it to him for calling out the mainstream media and the entrenched unelected government drones that are doing us harm. Yes, he is indeed brash and uncouth, but perhaps provoked by the incessant attacks on his person, family, and agenda that have brought out the worst in him. But using the yardstick of “Am I better off now than I was four years ago,” sentiment certainly tilts in his favor. The world is currently contemplating that tilt as well. Witness Macron groveling before China’s Xi. And Brazil’s da Silva is next in that queue, both countries’ leaders demonstrating a total absence of decorum. But again, admittedly, Trump’s Twitter rants were less than presidential, and with that, one could argue that it set the tone for a new level of divisiveness and lack of decorum. But I digress. Intelligent discussion has been replaced with shouting down speakers, cancellation, and violence. Stanford law students, for example, interesting that they are learning to mount an unbiased defense of murderers and rapists yet seem unable to tolerate a speech given by a conservative federal judge. And social media has been a potent enabler. Hiding behind the keyboard has resulted in anonymity without repercussions, and that has led to unparalleled levels of vitriol spewed into cyberspace. Malcontents the world over suspect they too can become “influencers” and cash in, causing them to engage in levels of exhibitionism online that used to get you arrested. Decorum, people. Take that transgender influencer, Dylan, who received Joe Biden’s blessing and became a spokesperson for Bud Light, with his perverse lady-face on a commemorative can, just for displaying his gender-bending on the internet for all to see. Why exactly should anyone be influenced by this mocking caricature of a 1960s housewife? Women, actual women, should be offended. There is no good taste here, but rather a significant lack of it. And why should an entire stadium care about the Dodgers fan’s attempted on-field marriage proposal before he was tackled by security? Is your life so pitiful to desire internet notoriety to the extent of interrupting the lives of 56,000 people who paid to see a baseball game? Find a nice beach at sunset and take a knee, kid. Decorum, please. I’m begging you. Yet the media seems to be on the wrong side, endorsing this bad behavior. Disgruntled? Have a complaint? Bypass HR and go directly to an AR. Just shoot the place up. Come on!  And the Tennessee legislators leading what democrats used to define as an insurrection in Nashville, thoroughly disregarding their oaths of office. Bullhorns and raised fists on the state assembly floor shouting over the state’s business. Shame. And then to cry racism and claim their constituents were being robbed of representation is just disingenuous. Remember when we used to be a nation of laws? When civility and decorum were something we were taught and then practiced. Civility and a sense of decorum were associated with being well-bred, which we once admired. Now we only apply those standards when it fits the narrative of the Woke. I cringe in regret.

Embarrassing

So the perpetrator of the classified document leak is a 21-year-old loner, a “gun enthusiast” and a fascination with the military,” who grew up in Rhode Island and now resides in Massachusetts. The media is doing their best to paint him as a conservative gun nut despite hailing from the deepest of blue states. Regardless of his penchant for firearms and military gear, not so unusual for someone serving in the armed forces, why exactly is our military allowing a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman computer geek access to our most sensitive military secrets?  Is our military so desperate for talent that they let this twerp slip through the security cracks?  And exactly how protected is our trove of classified documents that seem to be popping up everywhere, from Biden’s garage to the streets of Belfast? Yes, Biden’s itinerary was reportedly found literally blowing in the wind in Ireland. Our government has become a laughingstock on the international stage. And there doesn’t seem to be any adults in the room, anybody taking charge. China and Russia are taking notice. How embarrassing. 

Scarlet Letter

My concern is that the Progressives have figured out how to end all meaningful discussions. Look at the insurrection promoted by members of the Tennessee state legislature. They clearly violated parliamentary rules and fomented a takeover of the house floor while conducting business. But their removal is considered racially based, of course. Criticize violence by a transgender and starts with suppressing rights but ultimately ends up as transphobia. The mayoral race in Chicago was marred in the final week by the black candidate accusing the white candidate of racially based attacks on his policies. It is an argument-ending tactic that changes the subject of discussion from the issue at hand to defending yourself as not being a racist or transphobic. It’s a scarlet letter that causes the conservative to immediately recoil and go on the defensive. It’s childish, anti-intellectual identity politics that works.

Depressing News Abounds

What a horribly depressing news cycle we are in. It appears that the progressive game plan can be summed up with two descriptors: sex and deriving income with as little work as possible. Simplistic, yes, but apparently appealing to the masses in an ever-growing welfare state. Sex can be broken down into multiple subcategories. There is dealing with the inconvenient by-product of having sex, namely pregnancy, and the unfettered access to abortion anytime, anywhere. Then there’s sex as it relates to gender, the left’s melding of the two as a choice, an option that can change at a whim. There’s the alphabet soup crowd, including the suddenly ubiquitous transgender person, a fraction of the population that demands accommodations from the rest of us. And the second principle, more revenue from less work, is best illustrated by the French, who continue to riot over plans to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 despite already enjoying five weeks less work a year than their American counterparts. Unions seem to be leading the charge in this country, imposing ludicrous restrictions on employers' ability to maintain profitability, having to weigh decreasing productivity against burgeoning overhead. Who do they suspect is going to pay for all of this?  We keep feeding the bears, yet we are surprised when we find them rooting around in our trash, looking for more. 

Narcan To The Rescue

Where is Nancy Reagan when you need her? Interesting to note that Narcan has been approved for over-the-counter sales at pharmacies. According to the Wall Street Journal, Emergent Biosolutions is the first company to obtain approval to sell a nasal spray version of Naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medication, without a prescription. It appears that we have moved on from “just say no” to “make sure you have your Narcan.”  What could go wrong?  Will Narcan’s ready availability become a security blanket of sorts, lulling drug users into a false sense of security that they can use opioids with impunity or perhaps increase the dose to dangerous levels under the assumption that someone will be on hand to administer the antidote?  And isn’t it strange, in a world where recreational pharmaceuticals are being tainted with lethal amounts of fentanyl, that we choose to prioritize the message that you can be rescued by another drug rather than avoiding using the drug that got you into this mess in the first place. How often have we heard the sob story that the victim succumbed to fentanyl overdose while using cocaine, heroin, or “oxy,” but never does anyone condemn the use of the drug that was the vehicle for the fentanyl?  I recall an interview in which the father railed against the proliferation of fentanyl, having lost his son to an overdose. Apparently, the son had an injury and, rather than seek the advice of a physician, he chose to score some oxycodone on the street, which was laced with fentanyl. I’m sorry for your loss, but how preposterous is it that your son chose a street pusher over a medical professional? There’s only one reason why you would do that. The use of pharmaceuticals for recreational use continues to plague America. The legalization of marijuana hasn’t helped. Studies show permanent alteration of brain chemistry, particularly in young users, and anyone who denies it is a gateway drug is lying to you. The fault lies not with the drug, rather with America’s insatiable appetite for getting high. 

Racism Run Amuck

My CRT rants of late dredged up an old memory that I felt was a perfect example of our current racial impasse, a no-win situation where everything is perceived as racism.  An incident told to me by a close friend, a practicing facial surgeon:  

“Back in my surgical training days, the residents got ahold of a young black female patient who was dissatisfied with her appearance.  She was what they call in the realm of facial analysis bimaxillary protrusive, meaning her jaws were skeletally situated forward in the facial plane. She also had a component of vertical maxillary excess whereby the upper jaw is taller, creating a high smile line, a high palatal vault, and a narrow nasal base, often with a prominent dorsal hump and a recessive chin. (pardon the medical jargon, but it's his storytelling). This results in a “gummy” smile where the patient shows a great deal of gum tissue above the upper teeth when they smile.  They also tend to be lip incompetent, so when the teeth are together, the lips do not meet when relaxed, and teeth show even at rest. Can you fix that? Sure.  Off to surgery, she went to move her jaws into a flatter facial profile and shorten the vertical height of the upper jaw, so she showed less teeth at rest and produced less of a gummy smile. The surgery accomplished those goals, although one could argue that using standardized norms of facial structure measurements as a guide, one could argue that it “Caucasianized” her facial features to a degree. It was, however, the patient’s choice to alter her facial appearance to her ideal aesthetic. 

But I digress. An unfortunate component of vertically impacting the upper jaw is that it can lift the nasal tip and broaden the nasal base, thus making the nose wider and rounding up the nasal openings, much like the effect kids get when they pull up their nasal tip to make a “pig face.” There are steps that can be taken to minimize this complication, but they were apparently not employed sufficiently, or they were ineffective in this case and resulted in a nose appearance the patient was not happy with.  So once again, the unhappy patient was whisked off to surgery, this time for a rhinoplasty, to narrow the nasal base, reduce the nasal tip lift and essentially restore her nose more to the pre-operative appearance.  Here’s where things get interesting.

Recall, the patient is unhappy with the appearance of her nose after jaw surgery altered it and wants something that more closely resembled her original nose appearance.  Got it?  I stopped by the OR on my surgical rounds. I had not scrubbed in, but as the senior fellow, I had reviewed the case and had an academic interest in the procedure. The surgeon, the surgical assistant, and the anesthesiologist were white, and the two nurses, the scrub and the circulator, were both black.  The patient was asleep on the table and was being prepped and draped for the procedure.  The attending surgeon saw me and gestured me over, maneuvering the nose to show me what he had in mind.  He stepped back and asked me what I thought of the plan, and what I would do to correct the nose.  What do you think of the appearance, he asked?  “It looks like a two-car garage,” I quipped, referencing the post-operative change in appearance after the first surgery.  “The nasal base has been widened, and the nasal tip lifted, making the case passages  big and round, an unnatural appearance on her face.”  “Yup,” he said, nodding in agreement.  We continued to banter casually about the incisions and the surgical procedure.  I wished them luck and excused myself to complete my rounds.

The next day, the attending surgeon told me, “we have a problem. The two black nurses in the room said my comments about the patient’s nose were racist.” “How’s that exactly,” I asked.  “They felt you were criticizing her ethnically black nose,” he said.  “That’s absurd,” I retorted.  “That’s not even her nose. The patient had elected to completely alter her facial appearance, and when the surgery resulted in an unfortunate change in the appearance of her nose, she herself had chosen to have that altered so as to resemble her original appearance.  So, in essence, the nose I was criticizing was not even her original ethnic nose (which I thought from pre-surgical photographs was fine, to begin with) rather, it was a nose that had been distorted by surgery so much so that the patient didn’t like its appearance.   So let me get this straight: I am being accused of racism for being critical of a surgically altered nose, not her natural nose, but one that the patient doesn’t like either?  That’s ridiculous.”  He thought about it for a moment and appeared confused by logic.  Then, he blurted out, “Well, they still think it’s racist.”

And there you have it: the impasse.  The circular argument. Why is it racist? Because I think it is racist.  But what makes it racist. Because I am an oppressed person of color, and I think it’s racist. End of discussion.  So we have reached the stage where proof is no longer required, merely perception. The supplanting of reason with “lived experience” so popular with the left. The goal is not to reason; the goal is to make declarations and not to open the floor for discussion. Therefore everything is now perceived as racism, from mathematics to menthol. It was recently declared that white people cannot text images or memes that feature black people because it is a form of digital racism. It has even been suggested that white people shouldn’t smile at black people because smiling is an overcompensation that covers for their innate racial bias.  Apparently, there is now a Neo-Nazi or a white supremacist lurking under every rock.  Even Whoopi Goldberg, recently mired in controversy for racial generalizations and historical misrepresentation, lamented that there should be a handbook of sorts telling you what you can and cannot say.

University departments of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have become bloated bureaucracies that must continue to promote the narrative of widespread racism as a raison d’etre. As Andrew Doyle articulated in his book The New Puritans, academia appears to have lost its purpose when there exists a university that boasts 95 members of its DEI department yet has only 13 history professors. It leads to Ph.D. dissertations such as “Whiteness Interrupted,” by Marcus Bell of Syracuse University, who asks “what it means to be white,”…… a fundamental question at the heart of critical whiteness studies….. (CWS) upends traditional approaches to the study of race and racial inequality by averting the gaze from racially subordinate groups and focusing it upon the racially dominant group.”  Critical Whiteness Studies?  How preposterous.  There are a lot of studies out there that are actually critical, but studying “color of your skin-ness” is not one of them. This is just more ruminations from activists, opportunists, and self-anointed experts in the fields of “whiteness studies” the way paved by author Robin DiAngelo , who in her landmark book “White Fragility,” seems more intent on projecting her own racial bias onto all of White America.  Yet the only measurable statistic most often held up to scrutiny is that of generational wealth, despite the overwhelming examples of success in sports, entertainment, business, medicine, and political control of urban enclaves that members of the black community, a mere 13% of the US population, enjoy.  We had a black president who certainly didn’t get voted into office by just the tally of votes from the black population alone. If white America is so inherently racist, exactly how could that have come to pass? Does racism exist?  Sure it does. Bias will always exist between people that don’t look alike, that don’t speak the same language, and that don’t have the same values. Witness ethnic enclaves worldwide where people that share the same culture, the same religion, the same ethnicity, bind together. We all may have as a survival instinct deep within our genome the same fears of otherness. But as Doyle astutely points out, despite our cosmetic differences, the human genome is remarkably consistent throughout all ethnicities. We are indeed biologically the same on the inside, and we need to be reminded. And despite the stain of slavery, one that America seems to bear alone despite a majority of enslaved Africans landing on other shores, this abrupt veering away from the teaching of the Reverend Martin Luther King into seeing color above all else, disregarding the content of one's character, this replacement of meritocracy with race-based quotas, is not ultimately going to be a unifying principle. Division and demagoguery are not the path to a unified America.

When Will It Stop

 So another school shooting, this time perpetrated by a female identifying as a male with the typical trappings reinforced by dramatic media coverage of previous incidents: an AR-style assault rifle, an assault pistol, a semi-automatic handgun, and a manifesto boasting of pending internet fame and a glorious death. Like a checklist for the deranged. Brought to you courtesy of video games, gun-free zones, and our failure to identify the mentally ill among us, specifically our drug-addled, gender-bending, social media-addicted, perpetually depressed youth. Working from home or just not working. What a bunch of coddled wankers. Yet what was the predictable knee-jerk response? President mumbles wasted no time blaming guns and the failure of Republicans to pass his proposed ban on assault-style weapons. Of course. The Washington Post, the rag most suited to house training your puppy, claimed: “the shooting focused attention on gun laws in Tennessee, which gun control advocates say are among the most lax in the country.”  What gun control advocates are those? Oh yeah, those who think all gun laws are the most lax in the country. Yet, in the very next paragraph, the flunkies at the Post found the solution but came to the wrong conclusion. “Hale (the shooter), who had legally purchased multiple guns, had previously been under a doctor's care for an undisclosed emotional disorder. Hale’s parents told law enforcement officials after the shooting that they had felt Hale should not own weapons.”  The solution? Red flag laws that are the rage in 19 blue states but failed to pass in Tennessee after a bill was introduced that, here you go: “met heavy opposition from state Republican leaders who described such statutes as unconstitutional.” And why was that?  Because they are unconstitutional. And ripe for misuse and haphazard application. Who is it that will differentiate between an actual threat and perception?  Or worse yet, petty disputes and domestic squabbles? He threatened me; he looked at me funny; I feel like my life is in danger; he was stalking me; he was not mentally stable. Or perhaps he’s just a Republican. Take his guns away. And all his cutlery as well. Deny him his constitutional rights. Yeah, that’s going to be a workable solution. And often, the application of these laws is left up to local law enforcement. The state police investigator in a red flag state, for example, who couldn’t be bothered when called on Christmas Eve for a suicide threat. Even after one of his officers was threatened as well. Just take his pistols but let him keep his hunting rifle, was the solution. Sure, can’t do any damage with that lever action .30-30. Idiots. This example actually happened, illustrating how unwieldy and impractical the law is in practice. Too much wiggle room, opinion, and innuendo. And the Supreme Court will find it unconstitutional when the 19 states come under scrutiny. But the solution is right there. We need an independent arbiter. And that has to be our mental health professionals. If you are diagnosed with “an undisclosed emotional disorder,” shouldn’t your mental health be the very yardstick for gun ownership?  Isn’t that your red flag? Isn’t that list of psychiatric medications that “dog whistle” that you lefties are always blowing? We don’t lock up the mentally ill anymore; we medicate them and set them loose. And sometimes, they take their meds and show up to follow-up appointments. And sometimes they don’t. But what about patient privacy and HIPAA, screams the left. What about it?  If you’re seeking to keep guns out of the hands of the deranged, mental competency is a good place to start. And I’m not talking about billboards proclaiming, “Bob’s a nutcase.” We have the background checks in place for the purchase of firearms nationwide. Don’t let the media fool you into thinking you can just stroll into a gun store and purchase an arsenal. That is nonsense. There is paperwork. They’re always paperwork. And a criminal background check. NICS, the national criminal instant background check, has been law since 1993. So without disclosure, the NICS system could add an adjudication of mental competency parameter and, without disclosure, simply deny the application. Like when your credit card is denied, the server doesn’t know why and often you don’t either. The mental health advocates will undoubtedly howl, claiming patients with only mild forms of depression will be caught up in the net. But surely a mental health physician will be able to differentiate between “I’m depressed because my dog died” and something more serious. Like John Fetterman, for example. Further, if you have been prescribed mood-altering drugs, specifically SSRIs or tricyclic antidepressants, which have been documented as potentially increasing suicide risk with adverse effects such as anxiety, agitation, and confusion, then perhaps these folks shouldn’t have access to firearms. It will be unpopular with the mental health community, and the NRA may even object on the grounds of potential for abuse, but if we are to put a stop to the carnage, we have to rationally examine the similarities in these perpetrators and stop blaming the gun. And that consistent similarity is mental health.