There are many stories, but this one is as good as any other.
Long-time school teacher Peter Vlaming was fired for saying these words: “Don’t let her run into the wall.”
Problem is, the lunatic parents of the poor little girl Vlaming sought to protect are telling the world the little girl is a little boy. The lunatic “parents said it was unhealthy for their child to remain in Vlaming’s class.”
Unhealthy.
UNHEALTHY.
Now what should have happened was that the male neighbors—not the government, not the authorities—of the lunatic father of the little girl, should have, when they heard the father wanted to begin pretending his daughter was his son, took him for a little walk. And when they picked him up from the bottom of the steps he accidentally slipped down, they should have explained to him that Reality trumps feelings. The father could then have brought this wisdom to his idiot wife. And all would have been well.
But no. Feelings trump Reality. Feelings are what count.
It is feelings that will doom us.
The lady boss of the school where Vlaming created an “unhealthy” environment recommended to the school board to suspend Vlaming. She got her way.
That is the real story. (If you instead believe it is right and just this man Vlaming was canned for calling a girl “she”, I do not care to hear from you, especially if you say we must respect the feelings of the girl. It does the girl no good at all to go along with her parent’s fantasy.)
There are lunatics and idiots ever with us. And cowards. That is not important. What is important is that now the cowards in charge of us fear the lunatics and idiots. They do not fear those who hold with Reality. And the reason our cowardly leaders fear the lunatics and idiots is that the lunatics and idiots have stronger feelings than the Realists. And feelings are what counts.
The majority in Vlaming’s case, represented by his many students, walked out of school to protest Valming’s removal of income. Here is what the cowardly woman who fired Vlaming said
“Given the peaceful nature of the event, students will not be disciplined for this instance of leaving lunch or class,” she said.
“We understand that some students are unhappy with the decision made by the School Board last evening and felt it important to let them express their viewpoint concerning this matter.”
Let them have feelings. But she must have considered that the feelings of the larger mob that would come for her now that the matter is public would have been stronger. In this judgment (if she made it) she was surely right.
A reader to Dreher’s original story wrote in:
My brother is a leftist atheist who teaches biology at an elite liberal arts college. He told me that he has stopped using pronouns with ALL his students. He said that it is impossible to have a rational debate with them about gender ideology. He told me that this is all about power and control, and the students’ demands keep on escalating. He is distressed that a whole cluster of female students in the physics department suddenly declared themselves trans, and immediately the tone of the department changed from “celebrating women in physics!” to “celebrating transgender people in physics!”
“[A] whole cluster of female students in the physics department suddenly declared themselves trans.”
Feelings, nothing more than feelings.
Feelings, wo, wo, wo, feelings
You will recall it was the students—the young, ignorant, and passionate—in the Cultural Revolution that were the most murderous and bloody minded. So it will be with us.
Few will stand up against these students. Nobody who has anything to lose will say “Reality!” Nobody in any authority will say “That girl is not a boy.” No public persona will say, “The parents of this girl should be spanked.” Even Vlaming’s supporters did not do this, and instead dithered on about “rights” and—you guessed it!—feelings.
Oh, maybe I shouldn’t complain. It’s just one man with a family tossed on his ear because he chose Reality over the Lie. He should have gone along and embraced the lie. And protected his family.
At least, until the mob discovered something else disqualifying in his earlier life.
It will only get worse. We are losing.
There is no -ing about it. We have lost.
Which means, in the long run, we will have won, as reality always and inexorably reasserts itself. In the interim, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez et ilk are an inexaustible source of entertainment.
Yes, trigger warning, reality reasserts itself—very, very harshly. I suppose one could say it’s karma that these people will suffer immensely for the lies and cowardice displayed. One has to wonder how rational people became so cowardly that they fear the crazy and let them run the asylum. If the cowards really think they can hide, they are dead wrong. The crazies will destroy everything while the cowards hide under the table. Humans are just totally irrational right now. I pity those who will live through reality reasserting itself, though many did ask for it. Very dark times.
Somebody made a prophecy about this a while back (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).
@Sheri: My toddlers will likely have to live through reality reasserting itself. We all will, if we live long enough. I sometimes possess great anxiety over the world they are growing up in—it will have to boil over at some point. I will be turning 30 this month, and anticipate we will only slide further down the slope for the time being (or at least the media will do its best to create the illusion that we are). My one hope is that the kids who participated in the walk out demonstrate what used to be “common sense” to all: there are irrefutable facts of nature and biology. And these kids will become adults who have seen the asinine insanity of an ideology that does its damnedest to take out one more good (white/Christian/middle class/family- and community-oriented) man.
Don’t let it run into the wall?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ajHEdsdU4
Don’t let no thing run into the wall?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI6JKoEKksM
They fear them because they will actually do something and have the power to do so.
Why should they fear us? What will we do? What CAN we do? We don’t even have the option to not fund them. We can’t retaliate, but the other side is downright encouraged to do so.
They may be craven but they’re not stupid.
It’s not even facts versus feelings. That hardly comes into it.
“The Gods of the Copybook Headings” — Rudyard Kipling
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
should have […] taken him for a little walk.
When advocating anarchy and mob violence, grammar is important.
While my impulse is to be sympathetic with the teacher, unlike Briggs and the authors he borrows his opinions from, I don’t have access to the child’s medical records. Therefore, unlike Briggs and his betters, I can’t confidently exclude the possibility that the child suffers some anatomical or genetic abnormality for which this gender switch is the least bad course of action. For me, to jump to the conclusions that Briggs and his leaders jump to would be unjustified. But we don’t all have the same intellectual standards.
the reason our cowardly leaders fear the lunatics and idiots is that the lunatics and idiots have stronger feelings than the Realists.
As Hoyos points out, it is not the stronger feelings per se, but the actions those feelings inspire that the cowardly leaders fear. Not too many realists are tearing down statutes or rioting (yet).
One side takes to the streets to cause violence and mayhem; the other writes strongly worded blog posts and podcasts. You do the math.
Soory – statues (although in many cases, statutes as well).
You need to point out that Vlaming taught French.
I hope that before he left the school for good, he was able to flunk her for misgendering a flowerpot.
I believe the numbers are still correct, and fall under a Gausian distribution as do many others. The LGBTQ, etc population are still about 2.6% of the overall population which relegates them to “one tail” of that “Bell shaped curve”. If we read Dr. David Grossman’s book “On Killing” (cannot underline as is proper), we would see that that same Bell shaped curve applies to Homo sapiens ability to Kill! 2.6% of us are Psychopathic killers, yet we do not try to make them part of the main stream. I have NO problem Not judging members of the LGBTQ population but cannot understand why we must make the rest of the people on the “Curve” conform to them. Should this be a real goal?
Maybe the kid is a biological anomaly and the “obvious” gender isn’t necessarily really so clear such that calling a student who looks like any other girl a guy is actually ok. Let’s assume that is indeed the case.
Consider the actual situation as described in the press:
“The student and parents met with Vlaming on multiple occasions and expressed their concerns. Vlaming shared his position with the parents and said he would use the student’s new name and avoid offensive pronouns, according to Voyles.
“But after an incident where the student was wearing virtual reality goggles and almost ran into a wall in the hallway and Vlaming shouted “don’t let her run into the wall,” the parents said it was unhealthy for their child to remain in Vlaming’s class, according to school division’s attorney Stacy Haney.””
Let’s also assume the above accurately reflects reality.
In what appears to have been a minor emergency situation the teacher reacted instinctively. Under such emergency[ish?] conditions calling a “he” a “she” might happen when there’s no gender confusion. After all, how many of us have called out to one of our children, our spouse, a particular pet, etc., and called out the wrong name when in a larger group — rhetorical question…probably 100 percent of us (and if not, the figure is close). Many of us have, or have observed, a parent calling out to a particular child and getting the name/child correct only after the 2nd or 3rd try — more if the situation was particularly intense (e.g., when little Davey was clearly going to wash the dog with the maple syrup in the living room on the carpet).
That’s what makes this situation, the firing of the teacher, even more grim — humans acting in an emergency revert to their basic instincts, experience or training as it relates, or might indirectly relate. One might be taught, for example, that the safest course of action when a deer jumps into the road in front of you when driving at night, and fast, in a wooded area, is to hit the the brakes and hold the wheel steady and hit the animal, or at least try to stay in the lane — but do not swerve! Most people instinctively swerve for the same reason most jump when someone surprises them and yells “BOO!” And because they swerve they commonly lose control of the car and crash into a tree for far worse damages and far worse personal injury than would happen by holding steady.
The teacher basically swerved when he should’ve held fast — and he was treated as if he intentionally crashed the car into a tree.
This is what’s particularly shameful about the movement to accept trans, etc. by counter-intuitive names: Sometimes this is valid and reasonable, many people but a tiny minority of the overall population, have medical conditions that make gender identity ambiguous and counter-intuitive naming reasonable. But now, even well-known human limitations, such as reacting in emergency stress, cannot be accepted as an extenuating circumstance!
This is “emotional reasoning” run amok. (look up “emotional reasoning” — its a medical term).
Charles Dickens described something similar in the opening of his book, A Tale of Two Cities, a few lines after the famous “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,”:
“France, … rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it [a reference to inflation, reckless spending]. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards.”
That kind of intolerance, with no regard to extenuating circumstances, is but one of the sort cited as leading to the French revolution.
There’s rumblings that many who favor sanity are getting fed up enough with such nonsense as the firing the teacher in today’s essay that targeted violence may be a collective response. People are willing to be flexible, but only to a point.
“France, … rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it [a reference to inflation, reckless spending]. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards.”
The Original Chuck D needs to cite his sources on that one I think. Smells like the Black Legend of Spain (French Edition).
That being said, I’m fully willing to concede that France didn’t just fall into the Revolution, but had been sliding very, very, badly for a good long while.
@Exring
Good point, but let’s put this into perspective.
The 2.6% of the world population is close to 195 million (https://www.census.gov/popclock/), more than twice the population of Germany or close to 2/3 of The USA. Imagine if we thought that the influence/importance of the country of that size/pop. is trivial and almost ‘non-existant’.
Your comparison with similar % of psychopaths may be correct, but nobody has ever denied that psychopaths exist. As we all know, their deeds speak for themselves.
I’m not sure that LGBTQ crowd wants the other 97.2% to conform to them, but rather to be recognized, which is not to say that in doing so people don’t go overboard sometimes.
Kalif- Are you suggesting that I have said that I am marginalizing the LGBTQ group? I didn’t say they don’t exist but what is happening in our educational system is more like “child abuse”. We are trying to teach a group of children things they are not ready to learn, nor can they do so in a fashion that increases their knowledge base but interjects itself out of context. Let’s stop being P.C. and speak candidly. What is being done is the same thing that is done by any “bully”. It is NOT healthy for a youngster and can be taught in time while NOT speaking negatively in the years of early development. I have not “disparaged” the LGBTQ community but only suggested that there has been a step way over the line when it comes to subjecting (indoctrinating) CHILDREN. We can start by not being “negative” as adults and introducing a better understanding when that question arises… I think you need to look closer at the demographics of population in the US of A and Europe. By today’s numbers, at least in the United States, the number you talk about is closer to one half not two thirds. I don’t know about Germany but as much as 10 years ago the population in the European countries was over 810 million. However, the numbers are immaterial. The percentages speak for themselves. The 2.6% is “barely” significant at the 95th percentile.
We aren’t fighting.
Advocate little walks? Lead on.
Talking with determined sociopaths preying on weaklings like this so called father and his defective brood is fruitless.
We’ve talked enough. Lead on.
You may wish to contribute this man’s cause:
https://www.gofundme.com/peter-vlaming-family-fund
I find it surprising that the LGB community has so embraced the T community. It seems like apples and oranges. I have been conditioned (hammered?) into accepting the former with a live and let live attitude, but I still see the latter as suffering from a mental disorder, whether you call it Gender Dysphoria or Body Dysmorphic Disorder or something else.
Why isn’t the LGB community concerned about tarnishing their brand? Is it all about the battle? With one clear victory under their belts, they lust for more, damn the consequences?
Very strange.
Kalif and Milton – The insane people don’t want recognition, they demand that everybody else share their insanities. It’s standard for the Left, since their entire world view is based on lies.
Miss Briggs
You don’t believe in preferred pronouns if I’m not mistaken.
You of anyone have very little credibility for telling what reality is. There are very little difference between your belief in a vengeful and despising god that sends people who do not follow some rules to hell to burn for eternity, and a little girl who believes that she is born with the wrong gender.
Maybe we should send all religious people to conversion therapy which you like so much.