“Pure madness, the Culture, more animal than man now, as if stricken by rabies.” ~ A.D. Aliwat In Limbo
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submitted by Mark W. Fowler –
Theodore Dalrymple, a retired psychiatrist, and columnist for The City Journal observed: “I have the not altogether unsatisfying impression that civilization is collapsing around me.” He spoke of the decline in civility and decorum occurring in England. The same phenomenon is happening here. The decline of civilization is associated with or caused by many factors.
I propose to discuss three today: Policy driven by ideology rather than reality; indifference to individual potential and fiscal irresponsibility. In many ways they are related.
Within the span of my medical career there has arisen a new psychiatric illness named gender dysphoria, replacing other forms of dysphoria such as body dysmorphic disorder, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia. Twenty-five years ago, this disorder was rare, now it has exploded. It is unlikely that it was overlooked because of bias against it, but rather its increasing prevalence is likely due to social contagion.
In a skit on this very topic in The Life of Brian, a Monty Python movie, one of the characters proclaims that he wishes to be a woman so as to have babies. His distress is dismissed as a struggle against reality. No producer would dream of including such language in a movie now for fear of violent protests, commercial disaster and social ostracization, but the comment is spot on.
Transgenderism has achieved cult-like status. If a person criticizes it, he/she is decried as a hater, or transphobe or anti science. But science suggests that surgery and hormone blockers have no effect on the suicidality rates of these troubled souls, and considerable side effects.
The gender clinic in Britain, Tavistock, has stopped treating transgenderism in minors altogether, as have other European countries. As minors grow out of this, they often abandon the belief they are in the wrong body. This has not stopped American advocates insisting that transwomen (biological men) are real women and should be given free tampons in the boys’ restroom (for trans boys) or allowed to compete in women’s sports and finally allowed in women’s restrooms and private spaces.
All of this to avoid hurting the feelings of trans individuals. It is no surprise then, that men have used this pretext to spy on women and little girls in dressing rooms including sex offenders claiming that the anti-discrimination laws supersede sex offender restrictions on being around minors. What of the feelings of the more numerous females who do not wish to be observed by males or see males exposed? For thousands of years society has recognized the obligation owed to women of privacy. Now we have to discard it. Is this not a triumph of ideology over reason?
Before the Supreme Court is a case involving the rights of parents of children in Montgomery County, Maryland to allow their children to opt out of classes where books describing same-gender relationships and other sexual activity are presented to elementary school children. The school board formerly allowed parents to opt out but decided that this was too much of an administrative burden. (Suggesting the obvious, parents did not want to have their children exposed to this.)
Now the appropriate solution was to simply eliminate this from the curriculum. But the ideologically driven school board declined the rational and reasonable solution in favor of ending opt out, compelling students to attend. Now, it should be noted that the math proficiency rate for students grades 3 to 8 is 31% in Montgomery County. Statewide in Maryland it’s 22%.
This is not a problem it’s a catastrophe impacting the pool of future scientists and engineers. And yet it’s somehow a priority for young children to be taught about gay behavior not to mention the thousands of dollars which will be wasted litigating this to the United States Supreme Court.
The Federal debt is north of 30 trillion dollars, over $270,00 per household. The interest on that debt is $658 billion dollars approaching the amount we spend on national defense $820 billion. Of that debt Japan owns $ 1.74 trillion and China owns over $800 billion.
Deficit interest service precludes spending on other worthy goals, and the debt held by China gives China power to manipulate the Treasury interest rate and the marketability of Treasury bonds. You would think that in a Congressional body of 535 people some group of them could develop a plan to address this.
It is worth noting that the Revolutionary War started because England did not have money from financing foreign wars and imposed the hated Stamp tax on colonials to pay for it.
Finally, the deficit is not a function of inadequate revenues. Federal revenues have increased every year from 2000 ($2 trillion) to 2024 ($5.08 trillion) it is a function of runaway spending ($3 trillion in 2000) to a peak of $11 trillion in 2024.
Here is a partial list of “essential” spending from Sen. James Lankford’s Federal fumbles: $20,000 for Drag shows in Ecuador; $4 million for a Napa Valley vine trail; $660,000 to study the effect of Covid on Russian women; $7.5 billion to build half a million electric car charging stations. So far 7 have been built.
About the Author: Mark W. Fowler is a Board-Certified Physician and former attorney and can be reached at mwfowlerjdmd@hotmail.com
