“California’s new ‘Ebony Alert’ law creates a notification, like an AMBER Alert, to recognize missing Black women and children ages 12-25.
“Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 673 into law this week, which allows law enforcement to issue an Ebony Alert and the Department of the California Highway Patrol to update electronic highway signs. Media platforms, like radio and television, are encouraged but not required to participate in Ebony Alerts.
“‘Today, California is taking bold and needed action to locate missing Black children and Black women in California. I want to thank the Governor for signing the Ebony Alert into law,’ said Democrat Senator Steven Bradford, who authored the bill. ‘Our Black children and young women are disproportionately represented on the lists of missing persons. This is heartbreaking and painful for so many families and a public crisis for our entire state. The Ebony Alert can change this.’”
Most people don’t care about the major parties’ platform, not on the National level and certainly not, if they are even aware, on a state/local level. Nonetheless, the party platforms have to a large degree a way for the various factions, interests, and partisan coalition members to make sure that their voices are heard and that they are included valued members of the party coalition (even if the platform is moderate to their interests).
This has been true of the Democrats as well as the Republicans… until now.
The new 2024 GOP platform eschewed any of this and instead was, in essence, a lengthy and slightly more grammatically correct Truth Social post penned by Donald Trump. Many who are part of the Republican coalition, and the Right in general, including 2nd Amendment supporters and Pro-Life groups, were largely ignored. This happened not only with the platform, but with the GOP National Convention where being part of the Right’s, and thus GOP’s, coalition was demonstrated to be of second importance to praise of Donald Trump, regardless of whether the highlighted speakers were pandering or outright antithetical to social conservatives.
It’s not like Trump ever cared about the pro-life movement outside of transactional benefit. The pro-life movement and the religious right all accepted their 30 pieces of silver and has largely gone the way of Judas. Trump could kick a pregnant woman on 5th Avenue to the point where she miscarried and pro-life and/or religious voters would still vote for him. After all, what else are they going to do? Vote for Democrats? Heck, the Trump administration tried to pass Unconstitutional restrictions on bumpstocks during his first term, and pro-2A people are still going to vote for him en masse.
You could argue that aside from a small number of “National Conservatives” who treat Christianity as an identity rather than a faith and those who literally believe that God sent Trump as the only possible savior of America, the religious right has effectively been neutered if not euthanized. And therein the void has been filled.
What we are seeing here is a Hobbesian apotheosis: For the moment, the GOP is Leviathan with Trump as the kingly head.
This is simply the most overt sign of what we’ve seen happen for the past decade: Subservience to Trump the person, and the “MAGA”/”America First™” in which he cloaks himself (or other clock on his behalf). Not limited to the Republican Party, this yoking of the Conservative Movement and the attendant media, think tanks, and organizations to the firm hand of this new Leviathan.
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
What happens when a Republican President secures a second term and becomes a lame duck? What, then, is the future of the party? As many ask this in anticipation of a second Trump term, let us look back forty years ago when William F. Buckley, Jr., Newt Gingrich, and Bill Green debated the question of just where is the GOP headed?
“The bill plays the usual euphemism game, pretending that assisted suicide isn’t really suicide. From H.R. 8137:
“‘Medical aid-in-dying, an authorized medical practice, is not euthanasia, mercy killing, or assisted suicide.’
“Sigh. This tactic is as predictable as it is disingenuous. If a bill referred to a dung beetle as a butterfly, it wouldn’t change the reality of the thing. The renamed insect still wouldn’t fly and would roll in feces on the ground. The same is true here. The term ‘assisted suicide’ is accurate and descriptive. ‘Suicide’ means the intentional killing of oneself. To be “assisted” means to be helped in completing an act. Moreover, ‘suicide’ is a ‘what’ that causes death, not a ‘why.’
“‘Medical aid in dying,’ in contrast, is a euphemistic, culture-of-death catchphrase deployed to shroud the reality of what is done. If we care about integrity in legislation, we should recognize that the term ‘assisted suicide’ is apt — let alone that it is used in the current funding ban.
“The new bill, if passed, would make the current federal law inoperative in states where assisted suicide is legal.”
Palliative care has gone from making dying people comfortable to just killing them and getting it over with.
“[There is a] proposed policy around assisted suicide that has been published by the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA). It is both abject and a betrayal of Saunders’s humanitarian vision for the care of dying people. And the statement contains not a hint of the many problems and abuses that have been associated with “medical aid in dying” (MAID), reasons why the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that access to assisted suicide is not a human right.
“First, the proposed policy position embraces the word-engineering tactic of calling assisted suicide MAID. I have repeatedly criticized this euphemistic deflection and won’t repeat those thoughts here.
“Then, the statement calls participation in suicide a form of palliative care. From the proposed “HPNA Position Statement: Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD):”
“‘HPNA acknowledges that some patients with terminal illnesses may seek medical aid in dying (MAiD) as an end-of-life care option where legally available. Although suffering is not a requirement in order to qualify for MAiD in the United States, some patients may utilize this option to relieve their suffering, which is consistent with the ethical principles of palliative nursing care. Suffering at the end of life may be caused by loss of control; death anxiety; feeling like a burden; and refractory physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and existential symptoms. MAiD is consistent with the fundamental ethical principles of patient autonomy and beneficence.’
“It is actually the opposite. As Dame Cecily knew so well, the proper compassionate approach to suicidal ideation — whether in terminally ill people or otherwise — is suicide prevention, not participation and facilitation by medical professionals, of all people. Indeed, when I trained as a hospice volunteer in the 1990s, I was strictly instructed to alert the multidisciplinary team if a patient ever indicated a desire for suicide or immediate death.”
Remember, it’s not malpractice if it’s intentional!
“The myth that legal assisted suicide is about terminal illness is becoming harder to swallow.
“Evidence can be found in a recent survey of doctors, published in the Journal of Cutaneous Oncology, which asked doctors this question: ‘In addition to adults with terminal illnesses, [which] other groups of patients who should be MAID eligible?’
“…
“Majorities of doctors surveyed answered that they would be willing to be present when the deed is done. Here’s the question: “If it were available (or is available), what is your willingness to be present when patients took MAID drugs?” Again, disturbing results, with 61% either probably or definitely, yes:
Definitely not: 6%
Probably not: 33%
Probably yes: 39%
Definitely yes: 22%
“That’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to willingness to do the deed. And no doctors would definitely refuse to ‘refer for MAID.’”
For centuries now, revolutions—be they violent or be they peaceful—have been the modus operandi of the elite who fancy themselves as benevolent. The dyed-in-the-wool Left have fully adopted this position of noble elites guiding the peasants for their own, greater good in an enlightened new feudalism. Rather than preserve checks and balances and the rights they protect, the new purported rulers sought centralization and rule by the enlightened with power to be wielded like a weapon if need be. In this view, the government is meant to impose the correctthinking and beliefs. And this drive for beneficent overlordship by both technological exploitation and a myriad of hydra heads striking independently, is a culmination of that long march through the institutions that seek to overthrow by through the very institutions that stood against them.
But differences in the methods or the particular eschaton being immanentized do not and can not alter the core problem: The enlightened few, acting for the sake of the greater or common good, seeking not to constrain the exercise of abusive power but to coopt that power to defeat the hated abusers. This is the lure of Tolkien’s One Ring. This is true even in democratic forms.
An existing system implemented imperfectly, as all systems by nature are, is vastly superior to an idealized system. To fight an ideology that exploits and seeks to replace a superlative if imperfect framework responsible for much of America’s greatness by exploiting and replacing it yourself is to become the very threat that you seek to fight.
“The Board of Trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday slashed funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in next year’s budget, diverting the money to public safety and policing instead.
“The measure, which the board unanimously approved, redirects $2.3 million of diversity funding to campus security, possibly precipitating the collapse of the office of diversity and inclusion. The vote, reported by the local Fox8 station, comes amid disruptive anti-Israel protests that have roiled UNC and other college campuses in recent weeks. The board passed the measure after it first cleared the budget committee.
“Budget committee vice-chair Marty Kotis said law enforcement needs more investment to counteract the demonstrations disrupting the functioning and stability of the school.”
Just a week ago, your humble author noted a marked increase in the acceptance of violent rhetoric and and warned of “fringe individuals who live in political echo chambers who are likely to do something stupid”. Less than a week after posting, there was an attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Initial reporting on the shooter suggests that the shooter was a loner of the “school shooter” variety, rather than some dedicated ANTIFA or other Leftwing nutball. The actual reason for the assassination attempt does not, and can not, detract from the very basic fact that that it must be condemned without reservation. Let us also not forget the other victims, either.
There were, unsurprisingly, plenty of anecdotes of “undecideds” or people who were planning to skip the that line on the ballot suddenly coming out as newborn die-hard Trump supporters. However, this was far from a universal observation—both online and in the real world. You humble author previously noted that so many voters are treating the election like a non-event and seem almost indifferent to an extent hitherto not seen in modern era politics. But people are being swamped with more politics than ever by a smaller number of people than ever. They’ve stopped caring, and the people responsible don’t care. This disinterest is real and may not be accurately measurable. Case in point:
What worries me less than the crazy leftists is the lumpen mass of the American people. My apolitical friend was completely disinterested in the assassination attempt on Trump. I suspect she’s not alone.
It’s telling that people are choosing indifference over siding against one side or the other. The “double-haters” are real and it’s a sign of the sad state of politics today that not even an assassination attempt of a former President and current major party Presidential nominee is enough to get them to care. From an electoral standpoint, this assassination attempt will likely help with turning out Trumps voters and push some “double-hater” likely voters to vote for Trump rather than skip the ballot or vote for Biden. But this will be marginal, though margins matter a lot, just as they did in the previous two Presidential elections.
Before the motive of the assassin was even known, rhetoric on social media by the Right placed the blame, not on the shooter, but on Biden and the Democrats in general for hyperbolic rhetoric about how Trump will be a dictator or become the new Hitler. Your humble author yet again notes that less than a week ago condemnation of over the top violent rhetoric and fearmongering would lead to an escalation of violence was made, and a call for people to get out of their bubble fear and vitriol and touch proverbial (or not so proverbial) grass.
And yes, this was a condemnation of the violent rhetoric and violent actions from the fringe of both sides. And for that condemnation, typically sensible people became incensed that the Right was not blameless in the increased ratcheting of fearmongering and violent rhetoric, or that it didn’t matter because the Left started it or was worse.
