Will Culture War Issues Dominate In 2024?
What do we see in the news everyday? In addition to “unexpected” or “inexplicable” sudden deaths of young and seemingly healthy people? We see a mounting campaign, backed by the full weight of the Zhou regime, against normal people. And especially against Christians. Increasingly the anti-cultural warriors make no bones about naming who their targets are, whom they’re trying to ban from the public space. It’s Christians. Or people who are susceptible to “Christian values”. Normals, you might say.
You may have thought that the Sec/Transportation would be spending his time doing something about transportation infrastructure in the US—especially rail and bridge infrastructure. Well, no, I know you didn’t think that. But you might have wondered what he actually has been up to. No, let me rephrase … Well, anyway:
Multiple midshipmen claimed 'woke' ideology has worsened under Secretary Buttigieg's leadership
Multiple current and former midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, told Fox News Digital that "woke" ideology has been seeping into the school in recent years and has accelerated under the leadership of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The highly selective USMMA, which is the only military academy authorized to carry a battle standard because of its 142 casualties during World War II, is under the Department of Transportation and educates leaders "who are inspired to serve the national security, marine transportation, and economic needs of the United States," according to its website.
The academy made headlines in January for a controversy over "Christ on the Water," a historic painting that depicts Jesus Christ walking on the water toward merchant mariners lost at sea. The image painted by Hunter Wood, a merchant mariner whose art drew on his own experiences, has adorned the Elliot M. See conference room located in the school's administrative Wiley Hall for 76 years.
"Aboard the fragile lifeboats, the men [in World War II] placed their faith in a Power greater than theirs, interpreted here by Hunter Wood in perhaps his most ambitious work," reads a description of the painting by the USMMA from the 1970s.
The academy placed a white curtain over the painting after a complaint from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). In his Jan. 10 letter to USMMA Superintendent Vice Adm. Joanna M. Nunan, MRFF president and founder Michael Weinstein argued that the painting's display constituted a violation of the First Amendment's clause forbidding the establishment of religion.
A painting establishes a religion? Who knew, right? We already knew about the Woke military weeding out normals—and suffering steep declines in recruiting and preparedness. It’s on to the Merchant Marine! But it’s just one of many such incidents. The Woke are on the war path!
Tamillia Valenzuela said board should consider 'where our values lie'
Actually, it wasn’t just one board member:
An Arizona school board member wearing cat ears during a meeting said she would oppose having a contract with a Christian university over the religious and Biblical beliefs they espouse, Fox News Digital found.
The Washington Elementary School District, which serves students in the Phoenix and Glendale areas, had an ongoing contract with Arizona Christian University for five years, enabling their student teachers to be placed in its schools for field experience. The contract opened up opportunities for recruitment and hiring.
On Feb. 23, the board agreed on a motion to dissolve the partnership with the Christian university.
What was the problem with providing student teachers from a Christian university the opportunity for experience in teaching? There appears to have been no complaints about proselytizing by these student teachers. The problem seems to have been a suspicion that their beliefs may have somehow been infectious. Valenzuela, a “bilingual, disabled, neurodivergent Queer Black Latina… who loves a good hot wing (but only with the right ranch) and things that sparkle,” says she’s all for freedom on religion, but wants to ban student teachers with religious beliefs from schools. Their beliefs might somehow be … infectious? Transmissible?
"Part of their values is... [to] ‘transform the culture with truth by promoting the Biblically-informed values that are foundational to Western civilization, including the centrality of family, traditional sexual morality, and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman,'" she said.
"I want to know how bringing [teachers] from an institution that is ingrained in their values so directly brings impact to three of your board members who are a part of the LGBT community."
She added that the board recently added their pronouns at the dias as a solidarity move with the LGBT community.
"Because if we're bringing people in whose mission [has]… been with their institution's education that very plainly on their website... that above all else, it was to influence people to Biblically-minded. How does that hold space for people of other faiths? How does that hold space for our members of the LGBT community? How does that space for people who think differently and do not have the same beliefs," she said.
But consider. Adding pronouns at the dias—isn’t that a lot like establishing a religion, in the broad Wikipedia sense of the term? After all, it does openly, at official government functions, promote “solidarity” with a worldview—at a minimum:
Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness,[5] faith, and a supernatural being or beings.
Isn’t displaying pronouns for the express purpose of expressing solidarity with an explicitly described worldview just as much an establishment of a religion—quite arguably even more so—than hanging a painting about believing Merchant Marine sailors in WW2? In other words, isn’t this an example of one religion using government power to marginalize another religion? I think it is, and it demonstrates that the notion of neutrality in such matters is difficult to impossible to implement. And that’s kind of what Naomi Wolf was getting at. Why not honor the principles, the religious beliefs, on which this country was founded?
The reason why not is simply that the beliefs of a vocal minority have changed, and they wish to impose their own beliefs and values on the rest of us. Judging from current events and polling, the mushy middle of Americans don’t particularly like this development but … well, they wish someone else would deal with it, because Americans no longer like taking sides. That’s the American way, as it has become—we don’t, as a population (as opposed to a people), believe in much of anything in a way that many are able to articulate. Sorry, that’s reality. There’s no wishing the dilemma away.
Nevertheless, there are signs that a considerable proportion of the country is increasingly unhappy with this situation. The difficulty is that someone needs to take a stand. Will some politician stand up? There are votes to be had, one way or another. How long will Americans tolerate what America is becoming, as so excellently described by Tucker (h/t CTH):
He’s right. Instead of mongering for ever more wars in foreign lands, Americans need to take care of business right here at home. We need to stand for something, because there are those out there who are eager to impose their demons or gods on us.
Now, speaking of foreign lands and beliefs, here’s an addendum. I add it because the wars in foreign lands that I referred to above are, in fact, wars of religion. Yes, we thought that that was what the Constitution saved us from with the First Amendment. But then we had a Civil War over our views on human nature, and had to come up with an amendment to the Constitution over the sinfulness (or not) of drink. And now America makes war around the world to impose Western values—which, as it happens, are exactly the values espoused in AZ by “a bilingual, disabled, neurodivergent Queer Black Latina… who loves a good hot wing (but only with the right ranch) and things that sparkle.” If you don’t think that the war on Russia is very much bound up with the return of the Russian Orthodox to the public life of a major power, I have news for you: Our war on Russia is very much about that. It has been about George Soros’ vision of a global Open Society since probably the 1980s, and certainly since the early 1990s when he was already urging proxy warfare against Russia.
It’s all war. That’s the iron law of life in a post-Christian West.
I’m old enough to remember hearing constantly about a certain “religion of peace” for the last twenty or so years. It was unthinkable to question or criticize members of that group. Some religions are more equal than others on this animal farm.
I'm not big on certain National Holidays, however with the demise of soros I'd strongly consider a new one.