You will be made to care.

I really don't care if Bruce Jenner wears dresses and claims to be a woman.

I don't care if two men want to play marriage.

What people do in their private lives is their business; I just don't want to be forced to affirm that there are three lights.

But I will be made to care.

//For Acculturated recently, I gamed out a frightening thought experiment about how parents who decide not to play along with their child’s gender dysphoria could one day be faced with a visit from Child Protective Services.

The Left has shown the totalitarian manner in which it exacts support, or at least silence, from everyday Americans. We’ve seen how lives were destroyed in the wake of the gay marriage debate, how many individuals were shouted down into submission by the side that proclaims itself to be “open-minded” and employed the slogans “No H8” and “Love Wins.” For many conservatives, including myself, the lesson has been learned.

With every tweet aimed at publicizing and shaming my position on transgenderism, the progressive Left is solidifying my decision to call Bruce Jenner by his given name instead of the name he has chosen because of a condition that mental health professionals once took seriously. Playing along with delusions isn’t a kindness to those suffering from other psychological conditions, and it isn’t a kindness for those with gender dysphoria either.//

Prudence - the ability to recognize reality - is the first virtue.

Start by saying that a man might be a female dragon so as to fit in with the political climate....

....end with this nightmare.

When tolerance conflicts with objective reality, pick the latter.

Is there any wonder that we can't solve our difficult problems....

..if we are so confused by the easy problems.



According to Thomistic philosophy, prudence is the first virtue that underlays every other virtue because prudence is simply the ability to see reality as it is.

When we get rid of the language of "right and wrong'...

....we don't understand the world better.

And when you don't understand the world, you lack the first virtue, prudence.

Comedian Steve Crowder explains:

//More importantly if a man threatens a woman, we’re not dealing with a misogyny problem. Amanda writes:

“a man sitting at a bus stop across the street from me began yelling obscene comments about my body.”

Okay, now we’re dealing with a character problem. Here’s the big idea: rather than simply divide men vs. women, we need to get back to focusing on right vs. wrong.

If a man kills six innocent people, that’s wrong. If a man threatens a woman, that’s wrong. If a woman wrongfully accuses an innocent man of being sexist, that’s wrong.

But the same neo-feminists, like Amanda, who are so quick to blame all men for their woes are oh-so apprehensive to condemn people’s actions based on purely moral grounds. Afterall, telling somebody that they’re “wrong” sounds incredibly judgmental. We all know how bad it is to be one of those people, right?

Women, if you aren’t judging men harshly and consistently (and the same for men to women), you are letting them off the hook. Even worse, you’re letting the bad ones off the hook and lumping them in with the good men out there who love and respect women.

A man who threatens you isn’t a sexist or a misogynist. He’s a bad person. He’s a low-life, scummy human being (just like Elliott Roger) who would ideally have been weeded out of the pack long before he ever had the opportunity to threaten you.//

Because denial of reality is always a healthy thing for a culture to embrace...

...or even force down the throats of its sheep-like population..

...I give you Sweden.

Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun: Hen - A country tries to banish gender.

But for many Swedes, gender equality is not enough. Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal but gender-neutral. The idea is that the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes. This means on the narrow level that society should show sensitivity to people who don't identify themselves as either male or female, including allowing any type of couple to marry. But that’s the least radical part of the project. What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.

Activists are lobbying for parents to be able to choose any name for their children (there are currently just 170 legally recognized unisex names in Sweden). The idea is that names should not be at all tied to gender, so it would be acceptable for parents to, say, name a girl Jack or a boy Lisa. A Swedish children's clothes company has removed the "boys" and "girls" sections in its stores, and the idea of dressing children in a gender-neutral manner has been widely discussed on parenting blogs. This Swedish toy catalogrecently decided to switch things around, showing a boy in a Spider-Man costume pushing a pink pram, while a girl in denim rides a yellow tractor.

Debating and the Virtue of Prudence.

This White House Dossier post seems to correspond to my prior post on the virtue of prudence and the third presidential debate:

Gov. Mitt Romney today pulled a bold move in the final debate with President Obama, opting for relatively limited verbal combat with his opponent while instead showcasing his knowledge of foreign affairs, adopting a presidential demeanor, and offering a sense of optimism for the future.

This strategy was the political equivalent of the Muhammed Ali Rope-a-Dope against George Foreman in the heavyweight boxing championship in 1974. Everyone expected a war, but Ali laid back on the ropes and let his bigger, stronger opponent pound away until Foreman was exhausted, and Ali knocked him out.

And I think Romney may have scored a knockout too.

Some commentators are suggesting Obama won because he scored more points. But I think such people are looking at this from within the paradigm of what they expected, and not what happened.

Everyone – including me – thought Romney would tear into Obama once again and engage in another slugfest, spending as much time as possible discussing the failures surrounding Benghazi. Instead, Romney completely walked away from Benghazi.

What Romney needed tonight was not to beat up on Obama – he had already proven he could do that – but to cast himself as a leader people will be comfortable having as their president.

He threw some jabs, but the knockout punch wasn’t delivered by fist, but by feint.

Romney stood tall while Obama appeared a little surly, eager to re-litigate domestic policy points that the two had already plowed through in two debates. By repeatedly demeaning Romney, Obama demeaned himself. The proverbial Martian visiting earth for the first time would have been convinced that Romney was the king the earthlings, not Obama.

The CNN post-debate snap poll gave Obama an edge, with 48 percent saying he won compared to 40 percent who thought Romney did. The poll as a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 point, a relatively large number.

But the impression that will linger through Election Day is that of the sunny guy to the left of the screen who seemed to have ideas about where to go and was interrupted repeatedly by the guy on the right who made lots of points but, in the end, had no new ideas, couldn’t defend his record the few times it was challenged, and seemed a little unlikable.