A letter to the boys & young men of America

Mr. Incredible

Amidst all the shrieking about toxic masculinity, I thought this column, by J. Ishiro Finney,  was worth posting in its entirety:

A response to the mass shooting in Florida.

The bodies aren’t even cold yet and already you are being blamed.

Yes you.

All of you.

The boys and young men who will grow up to become one half of America’s future.

Once again, due to society’s failure to raise you, to teach you, to properly guide you on your path to manhood, your mere existence is being held responsible for seventeen more deaths—this time in Florida, and once again, at a school. The headlines of the last few days say it all:

  “Guns don’t kill people; men and boys kill people, experts say”
  -USA TODAY

  “Michael Ian Black reacts to Florida shooting: Boys are broken”
  -New York Daily News

  “How Gun Violence And Toxic Masculinity Are Linked, In 8 Tweets”
  -The Huffington Post

  “Toxic white masculinity: The killer that haunts American life”
  -Salon

  “Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us”
  -The Boston Globe

  “Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us”
  -Harpers Bazaar

  “Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Mass Shootings; Blame Men”
  -Politico

In the handful of decades I’ve been alive, I’ve seen America shift from a culture of responsibility to one of blame. We don’t solve problems anymore. We cry, we pray for, we seek to find closure, and then finally, slaughter a sacrificial lamb for our sins. When I was young and Columbine happened, that lamb was Marilyn Manson and video games. Before that, it was D&D and Twisted Sister. 

These days, though, as body counts continue to rise and excuses continue to vanish, the lamb America has chosen to sacrifice is you. Rather than take responsibility for the seeds we’ve sown, the culture we built, and the disaster you’ve been left to inherit, we as a nation have chosen to lie to ourselves. To listen and believe those who claim that the answer is simple: “Boys are simply born bad.”

As an aging Gen Xer watching this tragedy unfold, I can’t help but look back at my youth and realize we were the dry run for this “crisis of masculinity” as the media likes to call it. In my time I’ve watched as fathers were pushed out of the home, separated from their children, and their role in society debased and devalued. Like you, I was taught male behavior was bad behavior. That I was broken and needed to be fixed. Drugs, therapy, mass socialization were required to save me from my most innate instincts—

—the need compete.

—the drive to create.

—the urge to protect.

—the desire for female affection.

Like you, I was told these instincts were not only wrong, but dangerous. That due to my Original Sin of being born a boy, I was destined to mature into a lustful monster and an oppressor of women. All this was burned into me before I even reached college, where campus policy actually assumed all men to be rapists waiting to happen.

It isn’t hard to see how we got here, to an age when America is more than willing to sacrifice its boys. To quote Fight Club, “We’re a generation of men raised by women.” And the women who raised my generation had a saying: All men are pigs. But there’s another saying those same women were enamored with and that is: The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

So here we are, coming close to fifty years of single mothers raising their boys as if they were animals. Two generations of young men raised to believe they’re broken, immoral, and dangerous. That their natural state, if left unchecked and unmedicated, is a sexual ticking time bomb of rape and abuse. Half a century of academia peddling a grim version of history that holds your gender personally responsible for all the wrongs ever to have happened in the world. And a press, that at this very moment, is blaming YOU for every school shooting to have ever occurred.

After all this, how could there not be a crisis of masculinity?

So to the boys and young men of America, believe me when I say it isn’t you who should be apologizing for the state of our world today. This mess was set in motion long before you were born.

You are not bad.

You are not broken.

You are not inherently evil or a sexual abuser in waiting.

You are boys who were robbed of your right to be men.

All your life you’ve been told to act, think, and behave like women. To suppress your passions, your pride, your need to compete and drive to achieve.

Now society is crumbling around us.

Feminizing boys didn’t make better men. It’s resulted in broken homes and shattered families and record suicide rates. It’s destroying any notion of a healthy partnership between men and women, and is pushing us ever closer to total collapse of gender relations.

Boys, we don’t need you to be like women, the world has plenty of women, already.

What the world needs now more than ever is for you to be men.

For you to grow-up, to grow strong, and do what men do.

For it is men’s strength and determination that tamed the wilderness, built civilization, and has kept the world fed despite all predictions we’d all die starving before the year 2000. It’s men’s curiosity that lead us to explore the oceans, to conquer space, and peer into the tiniest of microcosms of the human body. It was men who built the cities we inhabit, the luxuries we enjoy, the medicines that keep us alive. Men built the road, the plumbing, the electrical grid, the phone in your hand, the internet it’s connected to.

Men have always been innovators, explores, defenders, and leaders.

But most importantly, men have always been fathers.

So to the boys and young men of America, please read this and take every word to heart.

The world needs you.

-J. Ishiro Finney, Feb 2018

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My take-away: America has shifted from a culture of responsibility to one of blame.

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Happy President’s Day

image credit: smvdiscoverymuseum.org

Thoughts from Melissa Emery at CNS News:

I recently received an email from an old friend who lives in a very blue state exclaiming that Trump was “not his president.” 

. . .

I tried not to respond in anger, but merely with regret to learn that Trump was not “his” president, since wages were up, taxes were down, the stock market was up, and over 2 million new jobs had been created. Black and Latino unemployment were at new all-time lows. Were these not things that liberals cared about anymore? But, perhaps, I suggested a bit snarkily, these bits of news had not appeared in the New York Times. I doubt that I’ll ever hear from him again.

As the days went by, his comment that Trump was not his president kept rolling around in my head. I wanted to ask him, who IS your president? Are you operating now without a president? Is your state no longer part of the Union? And how does not having the United States’ president as your president work for you? Do you still get all your Social Security payments and Medicare benefits? Can you still sit in your lovely cabin by a lake and pontificate about how much smarter you are than people who voted for Mr. Trump?

. . .

I didn’t like Obama. I wanted him and his crew out of there as soon as possible. But it never occurred to me to say he was not my president. He was president of the United States, for better or for worse. We cannot continue to be united if we decide which laws to obey and which presidents to acknowledge. If you don’t like Trump, work to elect someone you do like next time.  . . .

Mark Steyn posted a musical medley in honor of President’s Day starting with this introduction:

Happy Presidents Day to all our American readers - and yes, I know it's grotesque to have to put Jimmy Carter and Franklin Pierce up there with Washington and Lincoln, but don't blame me . . . 

From a history.com link on President’s Day:

Presidents’ Day is an American holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February. Originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government. Traditionally celebrated on February 22—Washington’s actual day of birth—the holiday became popularly known as Presidents’ Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other figures, Presidents’ Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents past and present.

Cleveland Tea Party salutes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Donald J. Trump.

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Newt's "Practical proposal to protect our children"

Photo credit: newstalkflorida.com

The other evening on Fox News, Sean Hannity proposed his solutions for security on school campuses, to prevent another Parkland shooting from taking place. His proposals mostly involved increased armed presence in halls and classrooms, security clearances at all entrances similar to checkpoints at entrances to federal buildings, and so forth. I did not much like his proposals, as they would turn our campuses into the very militarized environments that we associate with police states. 

During the Parkland shooting, ROTC training saved lives. CNN reported:

Colton Haab heard seven gunshots, and his Junior ROTC training kicked in.

The 17-year-old junior knew a gunman was on his high school campus Wednesday afternoon so he ushered 60 to 70 people to shelter in an open Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps room. At that point, he realized that the Kevlar sheets generally used for the Junior ROTC marksmanship program could come in handy.

"We took those sheets, and we put them in front of everybody so they weren't seen, because they were behind a solid object and the Kevlar would slow the bullet down," Haab told CNN on Thursday.

In his proposals, Speaker Newt Newt sets forth some alternative ideas that expand on the Junior ROTC trainee's quick thinking. The excerpt below is from his newsletter (also posted online at Fox News):

This week’s tragic attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is a deeply painful reminder of how much we have failed to honestly confront the problem of school shootings in America.

Putting up “Gun-Free Zone” signs is not a solution. It is an act of self-deception. By definition, the determined killers carry their guns past the signs. They are not slowed down for one second by community sentiment.

The current strategies of responding to a violent threat by either freezing students in place or accelerating student evacuation both carry seeds of disaster. Freezing the students in place simply sets them up to be killed methodically by a brutal, evil, or mentally ill person. Having them flee may lead them to run right into the path of the killer.

. . .

The fact is, evil people with guns must be stopped by good people with guns.

Furthermore, the faster good people can respond, the fewer innocent people will be killed.

Every school in America should have several teachers and administrators trained in firearms who are permitted to carry concealed weapons. The number of these “protectors of the innocent” in each school should be determined by the number of students. Agreeing to serve in this role might be encouraged with an appropriate monthly stipend. After all, in Georgia, teachers who agree to serve as coaches are paid stipends ranging from $150 to as much as $400 (and sometimes more for large football programs). Surely, we can afford to provide this type of incentive to people who want to help protect our children.

Because these protectors would have concealed weapons and not be in uniform, would-be killers would have no idea who might be capable of ending their threat by ending them.

. . .

If we are really serious about protecting our children, we must have trained and equipped protectors prepared to handle this type of situation whenever there are school activities. The Parkland school had an armed officer assigned to the campus, but the officer never encountered the shooter and was not able to respond in time. Dramatically increasing the presence of uniformed, visibly-armed security guards, however, might create an environment ill-suited for learning.

Instead, teachers and administrators serving as protectors could complement and support the dedicated officer or security personnel who are already serving in many schools. This combination of using uniformed police officers to handle standard school security challenges, while also having responsible adult protectors who are already going to be working in the school prepared to provide additional force in the case of a catastrophic emergency, like a mass shooting, is the most effective and practical way to protect our children.

Read Newt’s full column here.

We all know now that the FBI completely dropped the ball on this one. See Sundance here. It wasn’t the first failure by the FBI to act on tips of imminent danger. And it won’t be the last. Message to schools: you are probably on your own. Prepare accordingly. And I thought Newt's ideas were on the right track.

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Progressive Cuyahoga County

image credit: commondreams.org

image also at the Wikipedia website for the Congressional Progressive Caucus

The headline yesterday at cleveland.com:

Progressive activists launch takeover bid 

of Cuyahoga County Democratic Party

From the report by Andrew W. Tobias:

Progressive activists, along with a suburban mayor who lost last year's party leadership fight, say they have filed hundreds of candidates in their insurgent bid to seize control of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party's central committee.

The full report is here.

Well, they'd be in good company. Did you know that Rep. Marcia Fudge is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus? (For more perspective, see David Horowitz's essay - from the year 2000! - showing how Hillary’s identification as a modern-day “Progressive” is no different than identifying as communist.)

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Today’s Excellent Read: High Crimes and Misdemeanors

art credit: gallerycartoon.blogspot.com

Douglas MacKinnon at Investor’s Business Daily brings a lot of the dossier-DOJ-FBI-Russia-collusion-spy scandals into clearer focus, and it is not pretty. A few morsels:

As ever more deliberately concealed evidence is being uncovered of factual "collusion" between the Obama White House, the failed presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and Russia; of professional operatives in our intelligence services openly trying to first, cripple the campaign of Donald Trump, and then, having failed at that criminal objective, to delegitimize his presidency; and of secretly funded far-left anarchist groups proudly preaching violence against those they oppose, it seems the perfect time to ask three questions:

First, what is the definition of a "Police State?

Second, what is the definition of "Treason?"

And last, what – as defined in the Constitution of the United States of America – is the meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors?"

. . .

When you collude with foreign espionage agents to manufacture evidence to obtain a warrant to spy on citizens of the United States for purely political and ideological reasons, you are not only breaking the laws of the United States, but are introducing those very questions of treason, bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors into the conversation.

. . .

What is happening now is not only chilling to the bone, it's dramatically more dangerous because these crimes are being aided, abetted and covered-up by a number of partisans in the mainstream media.

Read the rest here.

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Amnesty vote in Congress ~ Alert!

UPDATE: 5:53pm (posted at 6:37 pm) from NumbersUSA media release:

NumbersUSA and its 9 million activists are pleased that the Senate rejected all three amnesty proposals that came to the floor today for a vote. Every proposal under consideration put the interests of illegal aliens and foreign citizens ahead of the interests of American workers, American communities, and national security. Americans can not afford for Congress to grant amnesty without immediately ending Chain Migration and the Visa Lottery and mandating E-Verify.

UPDATE: 4:32 pm from The Hill:

The Senate has rejected legislation based on President Trump's framework for an immigration deal in a 39-60 vote on Thursday, leaving an uncertain path forward for Congress with nearly a million immigrants sheltered by an Obama-era program face the prospect of deportation.

The measure spearheaded by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) needed 60 votes to clear a filibuster, but failed to meet the mark.

It was the fourth proposal in a row rejected by the Senate on Thursday afternoon, and it received the fewest votes of support. All three other measures won more than 50 votes.

UPDATE 3:10 pm from The Hill:

Senate rejects first bipartisan measure as immigration votes begin

The Senate has rejected an immigration measure sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Christopher Coons (D-Del.) that did not include money for President Trump’s border wall.

The proposal is the first of four that the Senate will vote on Thursday, though each appears short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. 

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This Action Alert is from NumbersUSA [emphasis color in original]:

As [of] noon on Thursday, the Senate is considering not only granting amnesty to every illegal immigrant already in the country, but to any illegal immigrants who can get here by June!

Could anything express more contempt for American voters than this? Incredibly, this bill is rumored to have 65 supporters in the Senate; it already has EIGHT Republican co-sponsors!

The Senate is debating immigration proposals all day TODAY and through the end of this week. So far, it looks to be one horrible bill after the other. (One exception would be the amendment from Pennsylvania's Sen. Toomey, which directs actions against sanctuary cities.)

KEEP CHECKING YOUR EMAIL FOR ACTION ALERTS -- THE SITUATION IS CHANGING HOURLY! [NOTE: Or check this website for Updates.]

Our best hope may be that the Senate defeats ALL its current proposals. Then, if that happens, we will press hard to have the House take up the Goodlatte bill, H.R. 4760, that we've endorsed.

. . .

There is GOOD news on the House side. We've learned that House Republican leaders are doing a "whip count" on the Goodlatte bill. This is such great news, because this is the NumbersUSA-endorsed bill that mandates E-Verify for every employer, cancels chain migration, and eliminates the visa lottery.

A whip count means they will be more likely to bring the bill up for a vote if it seems to have enough support to pass. So, obviously we're now pouring lots more resources into the House fight as well as our Senate efforts.

. . . None of the Senate measures would prevent pressure for future amnesties by requiring all employers to use E-Verify or reduce the size of the amnesty by ending Chain Migration in the near term. Mandatory E-Verify and an immediate end to Chain Migration must be part of any DACA deal!

1) The Schumer-Collins-Rounds-King Proposal -- This is biggest threat, an amnesty to EVERY ILLEGAL ALIEN IN AMERICA, INCLUDING ALL THOSE WHO CAN SNEAK IN BY JUNE 30, while it guts interior enforcement! And it may actually have the most support.

2) The White House Proposal -- Sens. Chuck Grassley and John Cornyn have drafted legislation that reflects the White House DACA proposal. It would expand DACA to grant an immediate amnesty to approximately 1.8 million illegal aliens. It calls for a $25 billion trust fund to build the border wall and improve overall border security. It would eliminate the Visa Lottery and halt new applications for Chain Migration, but it uses those supposedly eliminated visas to bring in the backlog of more than 4 million foreigners, which could take 15-20 years.

3) Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) propose granting amnesty to 3.2 million illegal aliens without any concrete steps to reduce immigration or improve enforcement at all.

One piece of good news is that the White House publicly rejected the McCain-Coons approach yesterday. 

It's hard to see how most of these bills are a "compromise." . . .

Call Ohio Senators: 

Sen. Rob Portman --    (888) 995-2089

Sen. Sherrod Brown -- (888) 995-2018

 See a report by Ed Morrisey at Hot Air here.

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Gun Free Zones

image credit: dreamstime.com

The headline today was horrible. 17 dead at the Florida school shooting. Here’s a follow-up from CrimeSearch: 

Another mass public shooting in Florida, another gun-free zone: Parkland, Florida school shooting

. . . When will there be a serious discussion of the dangers of gun-free zones?  When will the media point out in their discussions of the guns used or how the guns were obtained that another attack occurred in a gun-free zone?

After listening to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) push for more gun control on Shepard Smith’s show on Fox News this afternoon, we decided to put up this post. . . .

[Re] mass public shootings in Florida where at least four people have been killed [were] all gun-free zones . . . where general citizens are banned from having guns. . . . 

After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, I finally figured out that a gun-free zone was the least safe place to be. Note: Cleveland Tea Party does not take a position on guns per se, but one of our core values is "limited government." The Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) is an act of the U.S. Congress signed into law in 1990; less government can save lives. 

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