Columns

Columns

12
Jul
2019
What ‘Tolerance’ Has Wrought (and it’s Quite Sick)

What ‘Tolerance’ Has Wrought (and it’s Quite Sick)

By Erik Rush •

It is nearly impossible for one not to note that the scandal surrounding billionaire Jeffrey Epstein being charged with the sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy comes on the heels of a veritable tsunami of recent news stories highlighting various forms of sexual deviance and misconduct which are either being advanced or committed, respectively, by those on the left.

Part of the reason for this is that there are now enough potent alternative media sources addressing stories like these (the establishment press will do nothing but run interference for criminal offenders on the left as they extol the virtues of sexual deviance), and because the political left is so vigorously pushing this doctrine of evil that it is nearly impossible for the average citizen to escape it.

In recent months, we’ve been treated to such news items as “trans” men molesting girls in ladies’ rooms, more and more aspects of sexual deviance being taught in schools, the introduction of bills that would soften criminal penalties for pedophiles and several instances of very high-profile liberals being prosecuted for sex crimes against children. Some of these have been so disturbing that even the establishment press didn’t pass on them.

In the wake of the 2017 Harvey Weinstein scandal and the advent of the MeToo Movement, the public was alerted to the fact that some of the sexual misconduct being perpetrated by Hollywood types was against children, as former child stars came forward to attest to having been serially molested and/or raped by adults in the industry. Inasmuch as Hollywood has designated itself the arbiter of morality and culture in America—and that their dictates are often followed by the mindless—this is particularly troubling.

In an interview last week, former Disney star Bella Thorne discussed her years of molestation and rape at the hands of adults in the entertainment industry. Thorne’s claims are singularly horrifying; she recounts numerous instances of being forced into full-on intercourse from the age of 6, with those around her doing nothing despite possessing full knowledge of what was going on.
Leaving aside the inevitable physical injury resulting from adults having sex with children, there is no escaping the deep inculcation of emotional and psychological trauma attendant to same, and that this persists for the victim’s lifetime. Anyone who maintains otherwise is simply lying.

Despite this, the underhanded push for normalizing pedophilia marches on. In October 2014, Rutgers law professor Margo Kaplan penned an op-ed for The New York Times contending that pedophiles suffer from a disorder, and thence ought not be prosecuted as criminals. For those who are old enough to remember, the process of normalizing homosexuality in our society ran the very same course, in that it began with de-stigmatizing said behavior. As I pointed out in last week’s column, The American Psychological Association (APA) itself has been forced to backpedal on its sporadic efforts to normalize pedophilia after public outcry and the resistance of some mental health professionals.

Here, I believe it is important to address the deportment of the majority—or morally-grounded, conscientious Americans—in this context. The political left has been uncannily successful in driving narratives and re-qualifying normalcy, and this is only because we’ve allowed them to do so.

When the LGBTQ lobby began pushing for legitimizing “gay marriage,” all of the censure within that discussion fell upon the majority who questioned the wisdom of the measure, rather than the miniscule faction that sought to buck a societal convention that has existed for thousands—I repeat, thousands—of years. This not only flies in the face of common sense, but it’s completely illogical.

As a result, we now have political candidates proudly flaunting their deviance, trotting out their same-sex partners during campaign events—and winning elections.

In the near future, we can expect that those of us who resist the proliferation of gay children and teens, preteen “drag queens” and the normalization of pederasty and pedophilia will be branded by the left as a bunch of big fat meanies for our disapproval. It is we who will be accused of seeking to harm these children, rather than that charge falling upon those who wish to serially rape them.

At this juncture, I must ask: When did we become a society wherein we reflexively capitulated to destructive public policy with nothing but “accept it or we’ll call you names” being the impetus for our yielding to a disgusting and damaging agenda?

In millennia past, and until very recently in America, most communities would welcome the summary execution of a child rapist. The fact that we have thus far acceded to the demands of the left on the topic of sexual morality in the name of tolerance illustrates that we are well on our way down the slippery slope to a fundamentally sick society. The fact that the left can engage in their advocacy for extreme perversion so shamelessly says more about us than it does about them at this point, and what it says isn’t good.

This is what tolerance, as the left qualifies it, has wrought. The sickness described herein represents who the left is, and what they want for all of us.

Wake up, America. It’s not about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms—and it never has been.


Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
05
Jul
2019
Leftist Sensibilities Are Destroying Our Youth

Leftist Sensibilities Are Destroying Our Youth

By Erik Rush •

One TV show depicts a little girl who’s been worked into such a frenzy by her teachers about climate change that she has an anxiety attack over fears that the Earth will become a sterile moonscape within her lifetime. Another features a group of mostly black, lower-income high school students who get to visit the offices of the State Department after winning an essay contest. Upon arriving, they are greeted by a black staff member of the Secretary of State who congratulates them over their accomplishment, especially considering the racism in America that dogs their every step and aspiration.

In my column last week, I cited the moral ambivalence fostered primarily by the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s as a major causative factor for the rise in societal dysfunction illustrated by such things as skyrocketing rates of divorce, out-of-wedlock births, teen pregnancy, drug addiction and increased rates of depression and suicide, particularly among children and younger people. Further, that since much of the new leftist-fostered sensibilities targeted sexual behavior, it has given rise to higher instances of sexual dysfunction, most recently exemplified by gender-confused children who claim to be LGBTQ individuals and the showcasing of child and preteen “drag queens.”

The most significant and sobering aspect of this phenomenon—as I asserted in my column—is that all of this has risen to the level of a major public health concern.

The American Psychological Association (APA) and consequently mental health practitioners at large have not revealed nor supported any studies addressing the proliferation of the dysfunction I mentioned above in this context. This is because these entities are largely on board with the leftist social engineering that’s taken place over the last 50 years. In fact, the APA itself has been forced to backpedal with regard to certain assessments and recommendations it has made over the last 20 years, as some of these appeared to legitimize deeply aberrant sexual behavior, such as pedophilia.

There is however, plenty of anecdotal and testimonial evidence supporting the contention that the amoral drift our society has taken in recent decades has been harmful, and I don’t think Americans need biased, agenda-driven organizations to inform them of things that they can plainly see.

I took my own sample from among some mental health practitioners (whom I will not name for reasons that should be obvious) that I’m sure the reader will find illuminating. The one and only question I posed wasn’t leading in that it did not indict anyone for anything. Simply put, I asked these professionals if they had any insight into why there had been such an increased incidence of depression, anxiety disorders and suicide amongst young people and children in recent years.

I was somewhat surprised to hear them respond quickly, stating that the answer was quite simple. To a man/woman, they said that young people have increasingly been raised on messages of hopelessness and presented with scenarios in which their future survival was in very real jeopardy.

Hearkening back to the linked article at the beginning of this column, this makes a great deal of sense. Despite the specter of nuclear annihilation that loomed during the Cold War, the tension and occasional militant outbursts of the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War and other contentious social issues of the 1950s and 1960s, there was a prevailing undercurrent of hope that we as a nation would overcome these things. This held true even for the press, entertainment media and many activists of that period.

This is no longer the case. As indicated at the outset of this column, today, young people—particularly school children—are being barraged with messages carrying even darker overtones than those to which kids were exposed vis-a-vis nuclear war in the 1960s. Today, children are being told that climate change will make the planet uninhabitable within a very short span of years. If you’re a black or brown child, you’re told that if rich white people don’t manage to somehow consign you to a life of poverty or incarceration, the police are quite likely to kill you. Kids who’ve succumbed to messages of sexual ambivalence and gender confusion are warned of a heterosexual majority which seeks to oppress them in a variety of ways. Then there’s the fact that around 50% more of these kids are coming from broken homes than 50 years ago.

Finally, there are the dim prospects attendant to getting a good education, which used to be touted as a young person’s ticket to success. Children today are regularly treated to examples of young adults protesting in the streets over having been saddled with obscene amounts of student loan debt and an increasingly capricious job market.

The press and the media are fully on board with all of this doomsaying, and one can only imagine that liberal parents of young children are reinforcing these messages.

So I ask you: Who wouldn’t become anxious or depressed behind all that?

My children are now adults, but I do recall having to do occasional damage control around some alarmist or activist message imparted by liberal schoolteachers. Obviously things have become far worse in the ensuing years.

I’ve never been a liberal. I could see when I was 18 that the leftist sensibilities which were being widely adopted would have a deleterious effect on America as a nation. Still, it is decidedly chilling to see the things I feared actually coming about, and to see the depths of moral and intellectual depravity in which those on the left are willing to engage.

Thus, I have determined that liberalism, progressivism, socialism—call them what you will—are not concepts which ought to be tolerated in the tradition of our inclusivity as a nation or over misinterpretations of the First Amendment. They are cancer; they are seditious poison which must be neutralized by any means necessary, lest we fall as a nation, and ultimately as individuals with a well-developed sense of what “humanity” really means.

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
28
Jun
2019
Normalizing Sexual Deviance: Kids Must be Protected

Normalizing Sexual Deviance: Kids Must be Protected

By Erik Rush •

According to a recent report issued by the State Department, the United States has been ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking. In an interview with Fox News, the United States Institute Against Human Trafficking (USIAHT) co-founder Geoff Rogers said that “a multitude of kids” are being sold as sex slaves today in America, and that these children are American-born, with 50% to 60% of them coming from the foster care industry.

“The United States is the number one consumer of sex worldwide,” Rogers said. “So we are driving the demand as a society.”
In a recent opinion piece for Fox News, writer Carol Roth chided the magazine Teen Vogue for surreptitiously endorsing prostitution as a career choice for young women. Earlier this month, the Christian Post featured an article about a mother in Washington state who was physically removed by police from a public library that was hosting a “Teen Pride” event. The woman reported that she witnessed what amounted to hours of child “grooming,” with free exhibitor items that included condoms, sex lubricant and bookmarks shaped like penises that carried lewd messages.

In recent months, we’ve been treated to a proliferation of news stories addressing the phenomenon of so-called transgender children and “drag kids,” as well as an increase in the incidence of individuals being prosecuted for crimes related to pedophilia and for the possession of child pornography.

Some may recall the recent heartbreaking news story about a Noa Pothoven, the 17-year-old girl in the Netherlands who opted for suicide earlier this month after years of mental anguish following repeated rapes as a child. At around the same time, a very telling article surfaced which featured a former Children of God cult member who didn’t believe that the late actor River Phoenix’s childhood with the sex cult was to blame for his death.

Phoenix died of a drug overdose at the age of 23, and he readily admitted that he was around four years old when he first had sex while in the cult. Might his use of the extremely dangerous drug cocktail that killed him have had something to do with emotional scarring?
The former cult member said in the article that “[I]t would be a causal fallacy with not enough information to infer that a few formative years were damaging enough to cause a drug overdose as a young adult.”

I beg to differ.

Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to do extensive research on an unrelated project pertaining to unresolved trauma, particularly in children. After consulting with quite a few mental health professionals and researchers, I was horrified to learn that seriously traumatizing a child is a remarkably easy thing to do. For a young child, something as seemingly innocuous as a cross word from a teacher having a bad day or a health care provider with a poor bedside manner can result in years of neurosis. More systematized trauma—such as that associated with having a drug addicted or alcoholic parent—can lead to crippling mental and emotional conditions that often lead to profoundly tragic outcomes.

Leaving aside religious arguments and standards of morality, the central problem here concerning our collective moral deportment is that we as a nation have bought into the fallacious premise that morality in general and sexual morality are not only matters of choice, but that this choice is a personal liberty with which no one has the right to interfere.

Here, I would use the emerging controversy over vaccinations as an object lesson. While I fully comprehend the misgivings harbored by those who have become suspicious as regards vaccination programs, the fact is that compulsory vaccination programs came about as a result of public health concerns. In the effort to maintain a population free of life-threatening communicable diseases, one cannot have a segment of that population refusing to take available precautions to prevent such diseases.

Similarly, we as a nation can no longer afford to abide significant numbers of individuals engaging in behaviors that pose a public health threat.

In my column of May 29 in this space, I outlined the methods that the political left employed to break down sexual mores and to sexualize children during the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. These are still very much in play, and the game has escalated.

The permissiveness and moral ambiguity that has taken hold in America since the Sexual Revolution now amounts to a major public health concern, even if it is not recognized as such. This is not only because sexual libertinism can give rise to sexually-transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies (although this is certainly true), but because it strikes at the heart of families. In so doing, it has manifested mental and emotional dysfunction on a dizzying scale.

A recent study claimed that diagnoses of major depression have risen by 33 percent since 2013 alone. This rate is rising even more rapidly among millennials and younger people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the suicide rate for white children and teens between 10 and 17 was up 70% between 2006 and 2016. While nonwhite children and teens tend to kill themselves less often than white youth, the rate of increase was even higher, at 77%. Finally, the epidemic of illicit drug use we have seen over the last 50 years can reasonably be factored into this picture as an effect of the overall societal malaise.

Numbers like these reflect a decline in social cohesiveness in this country, and this can be most closely observed in families, which have been the primary and intended target of the political left since the middle of the last century. There can be little doubt that a divorce rate which skyrocketed to 50% in the decades following 1970 contributed to the dysfunction in children who were raised in broken homes.

I don’t expect too much buy-in to these concepts just yet, because if science’s understanding of the human brain and mind is in its infancy, its understanding of unresolved trauma and its effects is in its embryonic stage. As such, and because aspects of this phenomenon are part of a politically-driven program of social engineering, the average citizen is simply not aware of the ramifications.

We can only surmise that, as with other deviant practices the political left has sought to legitimize and protect, the ostensible choice of children to engage in sex with adults is going to be framed as a right that should not be interfered with, and that ironically, opposing same will make child-hating bigots out of those in opposition.

In my view, it is time to rally to the defense of our children, the toxic invective of leftists be damned. As I write this, there are already public policy organizations claiming that adult/child sex is not harmful to children, and pushing for the “normalization” of pedophilia.

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
21
Jun
2019
A ‘Perfect Storm’ for Socialism’s Demise?

A ‘Perfect Storm’ for Socialism’s Demise?

By Erik Rush •

Were the stakes not so high, it would be tempting to laugh at the pathos of the Democratic Party as it prepares to take on President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign leviathan. Since some of us still retain the vestiges of superstition, I’ll dispense with smug musings, and because to do so would be far more in keeping with the deportment of the opposition.

There are a whole lot of things which speak to the desperation of Democrats and leftists at large, and these have been in evidence since Trump was elected. While it’s not something liberty-loving Americans can take to the bank just yet, at times one wonders just how much the shrill tones and hyperbole of the left will hurt Democrats in the next election. The public’s en masse desertion of traditional venues speaks to the public’s increasing distrust of these organizations, which can only be a disadvantage to Democrat candidates running in 2020.

There has also been the well-publicized internal struggle within Democratic Party factions. While the idea of impeaching the President may appeal to rabid leftists within the party, polling has shown that this is thoroughly unpopular. Thus, those in the Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez (D-NY) axis of the party and the draconian socialism proposed by newbies like Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) are a definite liability. Old guard power players like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are walking a very fine line between alienating lifelong Democrats who do not support socialism, and alienating leftists, who now represent a significant voting bloc within the party.

The theme of this election cycle is quickly shaping up to be one of capitalism versus socialism and, as radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said this past Monday, that’s probably a good thing.

Despite the major TV news networks still enjoying a well-established communications infrastructure (even if they’re not enjoying viewers), skewed polling that shows the corrupt and creepy Joe Biden pasting Trump in the election and the tireless bleating of every Democrat politico in the country, many are developing a gut instinct that the 2020 election results are going to reflect a Trump landslide so humiliating to the left that it will spell their inevitable decline as a going political concern.

It appears that even more likely voters are paying attention and informing themselves than in 2016, and that Democrats retaking the House of Representatives in 2018 may simply have reflected Democrats getting serious about the Trump threat and exploiting the dullards and miscreants who inhabit districts such as those taken by Ocascio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

Among the ridiculously packed field of Democrat presidential hopefuls, we are seeing an abysmal turnout at their rallies and fundraising events, whereas the president is enjoying an almost Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965 buzz at his own events. At President Trump’s campaign launch in Orlando this week, his supporters began showing up at the venue nearly two days early; on the morning of the event, there had been more people waiting for a longer period of time than for all of the Democratic hopefuls thus far.

As Mr. Limbaugh pointed out, there has probably never been a more opportune time for showcasing the dismal failure of socialism, particularly in the Western world. Right now, we have the quintessential capitalist serving as our president who, in a very short time, has positively energized our economy. Among likely voters and Trump supporters, the number who self-identify as former Democrats has to be producing tension on the Democrat side, particularly because many of these are millennials. One can only surmise that alternative media venues are picking up the viewers, readers and listeners that outfits like CNN can’t manage to keep.

The elephant in the room (no pun intended… really) is one which probably distresses Democrats far more than Trump’s camp, this being that although few are willing to articulate that a large measure of Trump’s support is due to the socialist policies of Barack Obama, this also stymies the efforts of any Democratic candidate who would point to Obama’s governance as a good reason to support them.

The case against socialism is also evident on the international stage. The influx of inassimilable migrants orchestrated by European politicians has rendered many urban areas dangerous for locals; these people having been sold out by their leaders is apparent to any American who isn’t still drinking the establishment press Kool-Aid. Despite a characteristic lack of coverage by the press, Venezuela’s economic implosion—which has impacted the entire region—makes this nation the poster child for socialism’s lack of viability.

While all of these developments are encouraging and indeed may be the harbinger of another Trump victory, we must remain mindful of the left’s success to date, their tenaciousness and the fact that this socialist ascendency has been in the works for 100 years. The class of people who recently voted for Ocascio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib will most assuredly be voting in the next election, as will any illegal immigrants who manage to evade the current administration’s ICE net. We can also expect to see strong representation among dead voters and those who plan to vote early and often.

Finally, we cannot forget the short memory that the electorate tends to have, nor the superficial appraisals they often give political candidates. By this I mean that we will for some time remain vulnerable to the machinations of the left, particularly in the area of identity politics. Should Trump leave office in 2025 with a booming economy, high approval numbers and a happy electorate, we will still be in danger of being hoodwinked by the next cleverly-marketed ethnic candidate or “favored” minority who runs as a centrist, but whose allegiance is to socialism.

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
14
Jun
2019
Why Opposing the LGBTQ Agenda is Not Bigotry

Why Opposing the LGBTQ Agenda is Not Bigotry

By Erik Rush •

Back in April of this year, Michael W. Chapman penned a column for CNS about Ana Samuel, Ph.D., the research scholar and pro-traditional marriage activist who warned 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg that his homosexual ideology is “dangerous to the nation.” Samuel maintains that while civility is paramount in the debate over this issue, she also asserts that her following (representing millions of mothers with traditional family values) will resist “policies that assault our values, harm our families, and hurt our children.”
Ms. Samuel is a notable figure, not only because she is dynamic and well-educated, but because she is Latina, and therefore is bucking the system to which a majority of Americans of Latin descent hold allegiance. Samuel happens to be the daughter of Mexican immigrants and her husband is an Argentine immigrant. The couple have six children.

It is a sad commentary that with the “normalization” of homosexuality in the public square, even many conservative Americans have either accepted the notion that the attendant ideology (as Samuel put it) is not harmful to society at large, or they just don’t press the point anymore.

There is a distinct difference between being tolerant of people in the LGBTQ camp and summary acceptance of every notion advanced by leftist mouthpieces ostensibly advocating for them. By the same token, there is a distinct difference between people who self-identify as LGBTQ and those who claim to represent them, i.e., politicos and activists, since these have widely divergent objectives.

As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, the political left successfully inculcated moral ambivalence into millions of young people through the propaganda and so-called sexual sensibilities that came out of the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s. They simply denied the fact that sexual libertinism was harmful to society at large, and stigmatized anyone who disagreed.

Similarly, leftists have chipped away at the sensibilities of the public as regards homosexuals. Tolerance for people in the LGBTQ camp has become synonymous with the summary acceptance of the LGBTQ agenda, lock, stock and barrel—and some of it is decidedly frightening as well as disgusting.

Pre-teen “drag kids” are now being showcased in media and at LGBTQ events, and we are admonished to embrace them or be branded as bigots. We are also supposed to accept the idea that these children came up with the idea all on their own, as opposed to having been groomed by activists, media and twisted individuals around them. Finally, it is demanded that we capitulate to the preposterous idea that this lifestyle does no harm to these children.

But the left has always been duplicitous, stealthy and craven. We were told in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision that abortion would only occur in the most extreme of circumstances. Now, aborted baby parts have become a cottage industry, and leftists in some states have widened the criteria to qualify babies that are literally in the birth canal as abortable. We were told in the 1960s that sexual libertinism wasn’t harmful; it was just a lifestyle choice that we all ought to accept. Fifty years later, as I said in my earlier column, the results speak for themselves.

We were also told when “gay rights” became “a thing” in the 1970s that it was unfair, even bigoted, to suggest that homosexual men have a penchant for pederasty. Yet, now we can find preteen “drag boys” at Pride parades; when they are showcased, these are invariably surrounded by homosexual men—usually pretty skeevy-looking ones at that.

The bottom line is this: The leftist power structure, which claims to advocate for minorities of every stripe, has no such interest. Their chief objectives are to sow division amongst various groups while grooming the population at large for every manner of maladjustment they can conceive, whether drug addiction, sexual dysfunction, or the idolatry of Earth worship, to name but a few.

The danger of a guy like Pete Buttigieg (and the difference between him and his “husband” versus a homosexual couple living quietly in their community) is that Buttigieg is a socialist activist promoting the LGBTQ agenda. As such, he already knows that his ideology is dangerous—at least in the eyes of those who hold traditional values.

Do not doubt that the LGBTQ agenda has as much to do with the civil rights of LGBTQ people as the agenda of reparations for blacks has to do with the long-term well-being of black Americans—this being none at all.

Like Dr. Ana Samuel, we need to start making the distinction between people in minority groups and the socialist power structure which exploits them—and fast. Following this, we need to act accordingly. If you oppose the preteen drag queen festival being proposed at your child’s public school, you know that this is not the same thing as being in favor of shipping homosexuals off to concentration camps.

So, help to organize the protest against that dragfest, or attend it in accordance with your conscience—but be prepared to defend yourself. When words fail, leftists are very quick to resort to violence.

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
31
May
2019
What Tolerance For Sexual Deviance Has Reaped

What Tolerance For Sexual Deviance Has Reaped

By Erik Rush •

Last Sunday on Fox News’ “The Next Revolution,” referencing the effluvia of slander and histrionics being doled out by prominent leftists, host Steve Hilton stated that the Washington, D.C. political and media establishment have “lost their minds.”

While this may sound like hyperbole, some of the rhetoric coming from the left does have elements of clinical insanity. The insistence on the part of prominent Democrats that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election despite having been cleared of this charge certainly qualifies. Claims that restrictions on abortion being considered in some states will kill black women (an abject fallacy in itself) whilst ignoring the black babies being killed by abortion in the absence of such measures also qualifies.

The most bizarre and incoherent ideas currently being advanced by the left have to do with gender. Only 20 years ago, the idea of same-sex “marriage” was considered ridiculous by a majority of Americans. Similarly, biological males competing in sporting events as females would have been considered not only absurd, but grossly unfair to biologically female athletes.

Today, these “institutions” are practically commonplace, and they’ve become so largely because those who considered them ridiculous remained silent rather than being labeled as bigots.

The most recent incarnation of the left’s efforts to promote sexual ambivalence has to do with the nature of gender itself. Not only does a segment of the tiny but extremely vocal LGBTQ lobby advocate for biological males and females being able to “choose” a preferred gender with which to identify, this bunch also contends that there are multitudes of genders, perhaps even hundreds.

Who knew?

I remember quite well during the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when the political left was pushing sexual permissiveness with all the urgency of avoiding the next planetary extinction-level event, catty, mincing liberals accused those who resisted going along with the program of being prudes. As far as they were concerned, a prude was just as bad as a segregationist—and if you ran afoul of their budding doctrine, they certainly let you know it.

Also during this period, court cases and discussions in the public square arose with regard to how these “new sensibilities” would be represented in media and education. Oh, the controversy over Sex Ed in schools! Many will recall the liberal argument that sexual function and reproduction were “only knowledge,” and that keeping this valuable knowledge from our youth was simply wrong. Further, that an ignorance of sexuality and reproduction would lead to young people getting into trouble should they become sexually active.
There was a great deal of concern about sexuality being represented in films and TV, and particularly its effect on children, as well as concern over the proliferation of pornography and its effects on society at large.

In November of 1968, the first voluntary Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating system took effect, not so much because the public was concerned about sexual content in movies, but because the MPAA brass deemed the Hays code (in place since 1930) archaic. Movie makers had been increasingly pushing the envelope in this area anyway; the new ratings code actually gave film makers more license to produce explicit material.

While millions of Americans possessing traditional values were alarmed at these emergent sensibilities, there was a certain congruity in the disposition of courts and regulatory agencies which decided that if a segment of the population wished to expose themselves to smut, it was not the role of the Christian majority or those or secular folks who held to traditional values to dictate mores to them.

Unfortunately, like our Constitution itself, this has become a double-edged sword. Fast-forward 50 years, and any child with a computer, tablet or smart phone can navigate to the most aberrant and disgusting pornographic fare ever conceived. American consumers are hard-pressed to find movie and TV offerings that do not aggressively promote leftist sexual orthodoxy, and even TV shows featuring comic book superheroes are peppered with gratuitous pro-LGBTQ messages.

As is occurring today, back in the 60s and 70s, the perceived “rights” of individuals to engage in sexually deviant behavior superseded any consideration of how propagating sexually deviant behavior might impact society at large.

Well, at this point, I think that the jury is in, and it’s apparent that we’ve pretty much screwed ourselves (pun intended).

An interesting perspective comes from Christine Caine, an Australian activist who has firsthand experience with sexual abuse and trauma. Caine founded A21, a global anti-trafficking organization that operates in 15 countries, and which aids in prosecuting sex traffickers and rescuing victims.

Now, one could claim that the increasing incidence of sex trafficking, especially that involving children, has nothing whatsoever to do with the phenomenon of an increasing sexual permissiveness in Western culture—but I think that most reading this will know better. Ms. Caine asserts that the proliferation of pornography and other sexually-ambivalent materials has fueled human trafficking, and I tend to agree. We’re human beings and, by our nature, the only ones who’ll find themselves immune to morally ambivalent materials of any kind are those who do not partake in them.

So, we have confirmation that the atmosphere of sexual permissiveness we’ve cultivated has severely compromised us culturally. Also, we can now see that the left (via the LGBTQ lobby) has no intention of exhibiting the same tolerance to people who hold traditional values as was shown them. Indeed, having been extended an olive branch, they continue to cry “oppression” amidst calls for traditional values to be relegated to criminal status.

So much for tolerance…

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
24
May
2019
Black Billionaire ‘Victims’ and Their Leftist Overlords

Black Billionaire ‘Victims’ and Their Leftist Overlords

By Erik Rush •

Norman Vincent Peale, the Christian philosopher and author of the best-selling book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” is credited with having coined several axioms that have become fairly commonplace in the American lexicon.

Among these is the phrase “We tend to get what we expect.”

While this may seem somewhat trite, many will concur, outrageous fortune notwithstanding, that there’s a lot to this saying. In general, people who expect positive outcomes tend to experience more of them—and of course, the reverse often bears out as well.

Last week on CNN, retired NFL tight end Martellus Bennett and “CNN Tonight” host Don Lemon were discussing members of the Boston Red Sox visiting the White House to celebrate their World Series victory with President Donald Trump in the context of Bennett having opted out of a White House visit when the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl with Bennett as a player.

Bennett’s responses spoke to his belief that although many white players in pro sports do show solidarity with black players who decry alleged racism, they cannot understand what black players experience as black men in America, “even though we have money.”
Pretenses to victimhood like these are a noxious political device, even if men such as the Bennett brothers remain unaware of this fact, and that they are themselves being played (pun intended).

Martellus Bennett is the brother of Michael Bennett, an activist, author and defensive end for the New England Patriots. Both are of a generation of young black men (even though the former has already retired) who grew up indoctrinated into the belief that the same system of institutionalized racism that existed in America prior to the Civil Rights Movement still exists today.

I cannot tell you what it was like to be a black man in 1935 or 1955 because I hadn’t yet been born. My direct experience, which began in the 1960s, reflects a time when there was still a great deal of inequity existing in the area of race, but also a time where there was a great deal of hope and the knowledge that things were improving—quickly—because many people were fighting valiantly for that cause.

This has not been the case for many blacks who came of age after the Civil Rights Movement. As this period came to a close, the political left increasingly co-opted the civil rights agenda, with powerful white liberals, their high-profile black lackeys and activists increasingly controlling the narrative on race. Racist white boogeymen were everywhere; blacks could count only on liberals and their largesse to save them from an imminent return to segregated water fountains and politically-sanctioned lynchings.

Naturally, blacks’ alignment with Democrats and the ensuing socioeconomic malaise blacks suffered as a result of this served to artificially “validate” the idea that blacks were still being systematically oppressed—because in the context of the previous paragraph, they were.

Black Americans were no longer being demoralized by your archetypal bigoted “white crackers,” but by the political left. Unfortunately, this was nearly impossible for them to discern, due to the carefully-crafted propaganda and systematized cultural indoctrination being imparted by the educational system, media, activists and, of course, the widespread corruption of the black church via Black Liberation Theology.
Martellus Bennett and Michael Bennett were born in 1987 and 1985, respectively. The brothers have been massively successful—which one would think quite against the odds in such a racist nation. By their words and their NFL knee-taking practices, it is clear that they’ve taken to their indoctrination very well.

The problem is that neither have a frame of reference for what real racial inequity is. Driving around in a luxury automobile in a state of self-induced, paranoid hypervigilance doesn’t count, I’m afraid.

Institutional racism and the use of excessive force on the part of police are inacceptable. It has been proved definitively however, that in most of the extremely rare cases in which white police have used deadly force against unarmed blacks in recent years, the black individuals in question were engaged in behaviors which put them at risk of contact with the police in the first place.

As I’ve pointed out previously, my nearly innumerable observations involving blacks and law enforcement evidenced that in the majority of instances in which a law enforcement officer contacts a black person, the latter invariably acts with anything from indignation to outright belligerence, whether that individual is a street dealer or a Ph.D. Considering the paramilitary modality in which law enforcement officers must operate, this is probably one of the most unintelligent deportments anyone of any color might adopt.

Conversely, I cannot count the instances in which, as a teenager and young adult, I was contacted by rude and belligerent police officers whom I knew were bigoted morons, and in which the situation was handily defused simply via my being polite.

With blacks in America lined up behind the power brokers of the political left, nothing in the way of overtures toward parity will ever be sufficient, because their socialist overlords will deem any and all measures insufficient whilst continuing to keep blacks disenfranchised. Neither reparations, increased entitlements, socioeconomic strides, legions of black multimillionaires and billionaires—not even the election of blacks to the highest offices in the land will suffice. Blacks will continue to believe and claim that they are second-class citizens, even if no one else views them as such.

Most unfortunately, they will continue to expect questionable treatment and, by their overall deportment, many will continue to get it.

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
17
May
2019
Americans, Stop Capitulating to Leftist Twaddle

Americans, Stop Capitulating to Leftist Twaddle

By Erik Rush •

The recent revelation of a popular children’s cartoon character as a gay male creature about to “marry” another gay male creature seemed to be a good jumping-off point for some observations on social norms in America (such as they are), and the wholesale denial and delusion which currently permeate cyberspace and the airwaves.

“Arthur” is a Canadian/American collaborative effort, an animated television series targeted at children ages 4 to 8, and aired on PBS (yes, my use of the word “targeted” is intentional). The show has run for an enviable 22 years, and was a favorite of my children when they were in that age group and we still had broadcast TV in my home.

It should go without saying that I’m glad they are no longer in that age group.

As someone who has been around for a little while, I’ve noted that people such as myself cannot take for granted that those around me are aware of our history—even those in my age group. This is obviously exacerbated by the spirited efforts toward revisionist history on the part of politicos, activists and the entertainment industry.

Thus, it would be very easy for people younger than 30 to presume that we’ve always glorified the prison lesbian lifestyle on television, one out of three Americans are LGBTQ persons and that we’ve always had politicians who succeed for no other reason than they happen to be homosexual.

Ten years ago, I penned a column for WND highlighting a disturbing phenomenon: This involved numerous occurrences of the pork tapeworm amongst members of orthodox Jewish communities. This was noteworthy in that orthodox Jews are prohibited from eating pork—so how were they being exposed to this deadly parasite?

As it turns out, the infection was being spread to these individuals by undocumented migrants whom they had engaged as domestics. These migrants had horrible hygiene, and were passing on the tapeworm eggs to their employers through fecal contamination. This was not widely reported because political correctness trumps public health; anything indicting migrants, particularly undocumented ones, is considered racist by the establishment press.

In more recent days, we’ve seen sparse media reports of diseases we haven’t encountered in America in decades. In the main, these have been reintroduced by undocumented aliens who arrived during the Obama administration’s orchestrated immigrant crisis of 2014 and afterward. In this case, not only won’t the press acknowledge the danger, they’re actually contending that disease-carrying migrants are somehow a benefit.

Yeah. And nicotine is a vitamin…

Sexual deviance and infectious diseases are not the only unwholesome things that have proliferated to alarming proportions over the last few decades, however. Discounting feeble water cooler arguments that “things have always been this bad but we just weren’t documenting it” aside, there are a number of distinctly disturbing and dangerous phenomena that have arisen recently which those who haven’t been around as long as I have (or who haven’t been paying attention) may simply not be aware.

Another distressing item I addressed in this space during Barack Obama’s presidency was the proliferation of jihadist training camps within the continental United States. This was facilitated at least in part by the solidarity Obama held with radical Muslims, and his clandestine importation of displaced Muslims from the Middle East during his time in office. Obviously, the press avoided this subject like the plague.

Now, we are beginning to see reports of truly disgusting goings-on at jihadi training camps that have been raided by law enforcement.
Through the wonderful phenomenon of globalization, we’ve become aware of the extent of such things as the international sex slavery trade and black market organ harvesting. Even more disturbing have been the increasing reports of sex slavery originating and being practiced within the U.S., and often involving minor children.

Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, America’s been sold on the notion that moral relativism is just wonderful, and the deviant left has only turned up the heat over the last several years. Unless one intends to buy into wholesale Orwellianism however, it’s pretty clear that the trend toward moral ambivalence has carried grave consequences.

Not all are bowing to this new leftist orthodoxy, however: Recently, Arizona followed a few other states in declaring pornography a public health crisis due to the ease with which minors can access online porn. I’ve written in this space of having recalled many instances of the left’s campaign to over-sexualize children when I was a child myself—not that I recognized it as such at the tme. Given the proliferation of pornography and the ubiquitous nature of sexual material online, I shudder to think how today’s children are getting their “Sex Education.”

Finally, we have the recent school shooting in Colorado, which was quickly swept under the rug by the press for two reasons: One was that the assailants were vehement anti-Trumpers; the other had to do with the fact that one was a minor preoperative transsexual.Since this obviously does not speak to such people being particularly well-adjusted, we can see why the left (via the press) would seek to suppress such facts.

The foregoing are but a few examples of leftist social engineering to which, in the aggregate, Americans simply capitulated. Largely, they did this to avoid being called icky names. So, however all this shakes out, historians will be able to state with confidence that we nearly gave our country away in order to avoid what amounts to harmless schoolyard invective.

I, for one, cannot think of too many things dumber than that.

Obviously, I could list many more examples. We need only turn on our computer or TV to observe the ruthless vigor and extreme duplicity with which the political left is currently advancing every facet of its foul agenda.

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns
03
May
2019
Tech Giants’ Realm: Our Future Dystopia in Microcosm

Tech Giants’ Realm: Our Future Dystopia in Microcosm

By Erik Rush •

If one does a web search (I absolutely refuse to use the word “Google” as a verb) of the words “google facebook censorship,” the sheer volume of articles and blog posts referencing the blatant and coordinated suppression of free speech and thought on the part of the biggest tech companies is quite sobering.

It’s pretty clear at this point that Google wants to own the online environment in its totality. Not only does this company engage in a level of censorship and social engineering that border on brainwashing, but its business practices are so demonstrably unethical that it’s a wonder they’ve not been investigated for racketeering.

Google ads permeate cyberspace, and some websites that engage other ad publishers have found their sites suddenly flagged by Google as “malicious,” the pretext often being obscure issues with the non-Google advertisers’ back-end ad code. Purveyors of products that make liberals’ sphincters spasm find it difficult if not impossible to get their websites approved to run Google ads.

Thus, by definition, Google is picking winners and losers in commerce, and only the truly naïve individual believes that this could not expand to encompass individual enterprises as opposed to industries Google’s uber-lib leadership frowns upon. In fact, the user tracking protocols and algorithms used by companies like Google effectively give them the ability to engage in counterintelligence campaigns against anyone, from the conservative business owner to the outspoken Christian PTA member.

The retail giant Amazon has also become notorious for cherry-picking winners, censoring media sold on its platform and manipulating the sales statistics of books by conservative authors, for example. Like Facebook, Amazon has its own user privacy issues, and its overall business practices have come into question, even extending to allegations of criminal corruption in securing government contracts.

In the microcosm, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become stellar examples of what liberals think Americans’ sensibilities should be, and how dissenting views ought to be quashed. The inconsistencies in their application of community standards are evidenced by the thousands of reactions posted by users daily. A radical leftist, Muslim or a gay activist can post the most derisive, incendiary material and there are no consequences for such action. If a conservative, a Christian or an observant Jew mildly criticizes someone belonging to one of these protected groups however, they are summarily suspended or banned by the platform.

I suppose the rationale of people like Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai is that in the end, it won’t matter if politicos aren’t able to impose thought or behavior; these matters will be handled in the marketplace of ideas.

It makes one wonder what went on in several meetings former president Barack Obama held with the leaders of large tech companies during his presidency. The pretext for these meetings was to address issues of emerging technologies and user privacy, but it bears mentioning that these meetings were conducted in secret.

One could speculate as to the overall tone and content of the meetings, but in light of the criminality of the Obama administration (of which some have been long aware, but which is only now coming to light), I am confident that the tech giants’ current program of censorship was substantially refined and codified during those meetings.

Even lefty journalists aren’t too happy with the effects that the policies of companies like Google and Facebook are having on their industry, but like other protected classes under the socialist umbrella, they’re willing to take a hit for the team.
This phenomenon does give rise to a certain cognitive dissonance. It’s been pointed out that in the brave new socialist world, LGBTQ individuals are to be embraced, but so are Islamists, who have a nasty habit of summarily murdering gays and lesbians. These shortcomings are routinely ignored by the left; if pressed, they simply deny that such things occur.

This is par for the course however, and ought not distract those opposed to the socialist agenda. Duplicity is the socialist’s stock-in-trade, as is the wholesale betrayal of these protected groups once they’ve attained power.

Because socialists and hardcore liberals are without honor, tech giants’ desire to extinguish free speech and independent journalism is reflected in the microcosm of their properties, wherein they enforce their “morality” without restraint. This foreshadows the ruthlessness with which our population will be handled should these odious creatures gain political ascendency.

If I’d said to you prior to 1982 that yes, AT&T cornered the market on telephone service, but it’s a sovereign business entity that can operate as it wishes, and no one is holding a gun to your head forcing you use the telephone, you would have seen the folly of that line of reasoning.

The federal government did, and determined in 1982 that AT&T had established an illegal monopoly, which led to its breakup that year. Had the company attempted to implement a malignant political agenda rather than or in addition to employing unethical business practices to capture a market, I am quite confident that its executive board members would have been tried for treason, and the company’s assets liquidated.

Originally published in WorldNetDaily

Posted by Erik Rush in Columns