I spend time each evening listening to TikTok videos. They’re short, and I follow a bunch of really funny people. They make me laugh, and are often a source of relaxation for me. Lately, though, I’ve had a spate of odd ones show up in my feed. Bear with me here.

The first one is a person who is … obviously trans, male to female. She’s in a red dress with ridiculous lipstick that I’d call “slut colored”. But whatever… some people have bad fashion sense (I’m one of them, just in a different direction). Then she proceeds to “explain” to “cis women” that “we have to talk”. Sorry for all the quotes, I need to be clear that it isn’t ME saying it. And that I’m expressing… dislike. In any case, this “lady” (in quotes because her attitude is not lady-like) then explains that we women need to stop calling ourselves women. We need to stop saying woman, and breastfeeding, and mother, and a bunch of other gendered words.

Most of the iterations of that particular video are what we call a “stitch”. It’s when you start showing someone’s video (in this case, the “lady in red”) and then break in and make your own commentary. Most of the commentary I’ve been seeing is from women. Angry women. And they’re women across the spectrum: left, right, white, black, old, young. More old than young, though, definitely. They’re all saying the same thing, however. They’re telling the “lady in red” to stuff it, all corners, in a variety of interesting and often both polite and educated ways.

I’ve found it fascinating, because the responses are SO across the divide. The only clear defining thing is that the older women are most vehement, I think because we spent so long fighting for equality in a bunch of different venues.

There are several replies that I found to be truly educational. These women were strong, and they put their responses in words that I wish I had thought up. Some of my favorites (all paraphrased, be aware):

When you go to Starbucks, do you order “coffee” or “caffeinated coffee”? You order “coffee”. Why? Because that’s the natural state of coffee: caffeinated. If you want decaffeinated coffee, you can order it. Some people will look askance at you, but it’s your right, you’re an adult, go right ahead and drink the dirty water like the heathen you are. 😉 But there’s nothing WRONG with asking for decaf. Just don’t expect it to be the default. The same is true with trans women. You want to be a trans woman, fine. BE ONE. But leave me and mine alone, because we *aren’t* trans women. We’re just women. Just like we like coffee. Not decaf coffee.

And…

I am a mother, a woman, and I breast fed my kids. They are labels and things that I simply AM. I will always be these things regardless of what someone else chooses. You can choose to be a trans woman, or chest feed. Go for it. That’s YOUR decision. But you trying to make ME change MY terms? That’s domination. There is a “baseline”, we can all agree on that, because otherwise, there would be nothing to transition from or to. Men are not being asked to change their words (penis, prostate, etc) to make people more comfortable. Just women. And they’re only being asked that by trans women… who used to be men, who have canalized men’s thinking. There’s nothing WRONG with them wanting to be trans women, but they have to stop acting like men and asking women to suppress their own womanhood to make the trans women feel more comfortable. This is internalized misogyny. Use whatever terms you like for yourself… but those are all alternatives to baseline terminology.

I will admit, I had not noticed that similar changes were not being asked of men in regards to trans men. I went and actually looked, because I wondered if it were true. It is. These demands for women to change their language, their own labels, their self-worth in many cases, are not coming from anyone who was, at any point, a biological woman. And they are not being lobbed at biological men by trans men. These are important things to note, because they indicate that it’s not a “trans problem”… it’s a man problem.

Now, before you go all gaga on me, understand, I like strong men. I like men with beards, who are covered in sawdust (man glitter), who can handle a shotgun and a gutting knife. Those men aren’t the problem. YOU men aren’t the problem (meaning those I’ve interacted with here on GFZ).

The problem appears to be ONLY with men who have decided to become women, but who are doing so to gain something outside of self-satisfaction.

You might ask why that’s important. Let me explain. I have a number of trans friends. Most, you’d never know. My friend Charlie, she looks like a girl (so so so like a girl… more than me LOL), talks like a girl, dresses like a girl, walks like a girl, talks like a girl. She sits down to pee. She’s a girl. If you met her in public, you’d assume she was a girl, as much as you’d assume I’m a girl (maybe more LOL). And you’d be right. She’s not the problem. She went through what she did to become a girl, having been born in a male body, because SHE’S A GIRL.

The problem (IMO of course) is those who have decided that their current discomfort in themselves, their lack of self-esteem, their inability to meet mates or make friends, comes because they have a penis. They’re not girls. I’m not even certain they’re boys, to be quite frank, but that’s a whole other conversation. There’s nothing about them that makes them female. They mistakenly believe that cutting off their offending appendage will suddenly make them likable, to everyone else and to themselves. And that is not the case.

Based solely upon my own observations (obviously biased), I would say that this is a new trend that comes about because the “incels” (to use the leftist term) are looking for yet another way to demand attention. I see true trans people as fitting in (aka “normal”), being comfortable in their new gender, because it is an external reflection of their internal selves. They tend to be well dressed, well spoken, well adjusted. These angry ex-men seem to be poorly dressed in outfits that often highlight the disparity between what they claim to be and what they are. They smear bright colored make-up across their faces, in almost a caricature of women.

When women across the field all call someone out for this kind of negative behavior, it can actually become a healing thing. We ladies need to remember that we can draw together. It’s part of “what we do”, often at a genetic level. It’s more than just women, though.

In observing this phenomenon, I have ended up populating my TikTok feed with a lot of stuff I normally wouldn’t. Suddenly, I’m seeing transTok, and I’m seeing people who are angry or upset about this whole thing. And they’re largely my age. It appears that the trans extremists have managed to irritate GenX to the point where we’ve been forced to stand up and do something. Damnit, get off my lawn!

Addendum several days after writing the base article:

So the people responding to this whole thing are not just women (I’m noting this here because this article was written over a period of two weeks while I actually went and looked things over). In fact, there are a number of people who are apparently trans who have been “passing” (meaning you can’t tell they used to be another gender) for 20 or more years, who are standing up. Why are they standing up? Because they want to make it crystal clear that the few people who are making these absurd claims are extremists. They’re not representative of the trans community. Well thank heavens for that. So now we have bio men and women AND trans men and women, speaking out against these … well, domestic terrorists is what they are, really.

I’ve talked a bit about media bias and how the media manipulates our viewpoints by feeding us things that they believe will sell to us. There are a grand total of four people who are behind this entire debacle. Four. This entire media storm has been brought about by LESS than a handful of people who are being ridiculous and borderline criminal (in my opinion). The only reason I’m not naming them is because I don’t want to give them anymore attention than they already have. If you go look it up, you’ll be flooded, I assure you.

I don’t care what you want to call yourself. If you want to be called JollyWhoopCat, I’ll do my best to remember that, and I’ll try not to giggle when I say it. But don’t expect me to change what I call myself. I believe we should be comfortable being individuals. I am who I am. I will use what terms I choose, for myself. I’ll try and be mindful of what other people want to call themselves. The ultimate in letting others live… but I expect the same in return.

The base issue with all of this, is that there are a few out there who want me to change myself, to make them more comfortable. The answer to that is quite simple: NO.

If you want to change yourself to be more comfortable (be that with piercings, tattoos, gender changes, dyed hair, whatever), I’ll hold your hand and support you. Go for it. I know people who find collecting firearms makes them more comfortable in their own skin. I’m good with that, too. Do not, however, be thinking you can change ME. Only I can do that, and in this case, I’m quite fine just as I am.

‘Nuff said. Discuss (or don’t… you do you, Boo).

Heuristic Hagar

Turkey and Syria were hit with a massive earthquake on Feb. 7th. There’s a lot of coverage about it. If you’d like to see pics of the devastation you can look here. It’s not pretty. There is drone footage here, as well. You can also read a bit about the where and why of it here.

Yes, we can blame shoddy building for some of the damage. There’s the usual groups talking about how people are stupid for living on fault lines. Their president is being told he could have prevented it (sort of like Bush was supposed to prevent the levees breaking in New Orleans after Katherine?). There’s a small amount of merit in all of these statements, but not a lot.

The bottom line is that you cannot really prepare for this kind of destruction. Yes, it happens. Yes, it happens more often when you live on a fault line. But this is the largest quake in decades. It’s just not something you can plan for. In a world that’s rapidly becoming overpopulated, we can’t simply seal off huge tracts of land because “something bad MIGHT happen.”

Some of you reading this probably live in Tornado Alley. Some may live on fault lines. Others live near nuclear reactors. And so forth, and so on. There’s only so much you can prepare for, and only so much you can avoid. Humans aren’t meant to live in bubble wrap, after all.

But how can we prepare for survival? And what should we prepare FOR? That’s the question that you have to answer for yourself.

Me, I live in New England, on top of a hill, near a number of clean bodies of water. I don’t need to worry about floods, because by the time flood water gets high enough to affect my ho use, there will be too many other problems to worry about. I don’t have to worry about running out of water to drink and clean with. I do have to worry about cleaning that water, though, because if disaster happens, I can’t be certain that the water will remain clean and potable either due to the disaster itself or other people being idjits.

I am not near a major city, so it’s likely that if disaster does hit, it’ll be weather related. The most usual types of issues in my area are loss of power, loss of running water, and lack of food. I determined this over the past ten years, observing what happens in my area, as well as researching what’s happened here historically over the past 200 years.

I know how to cook without power. I do so on a pretty regular basis, actually. I have a nice fire pit that I use for fun. Still, cooking over an open fire is not a great way to do daily cooking. In an emergency that lasts more than a few days, an open fire pit will be detrimental to my own safety. For that reason, I’m working on plans for an outdoor kitchen behind the house, where it’s private and no one can see. I’ll be putting in a small wood burning stove of some type (likely cement with metal parts) that works like a rocket stove. I’m hoping to build a cobb oven in which I can bake breads and other foods.

My home is full of oil lanterns, solar lanterns, and stores of candles. Seeing what I’m doing in the dark is not going to be an issue. I have the means to carry water from nearby places to my home, and methods to use to clean that water so it’s safe to drink under most circumstances. I know how to grow a garden, hunt, and raise and butcher animals for food.

Whether the disaster that hits my area is ecological, weather-related, or political doesn’t matter. I have my plans, and all of them are tested. When the power goes out, it’s no big deal. I’ve gotten the kids to the point where power loss equals fun stuff, because we pull out the popcorn and make special foods, and we spend time around the wood stove in the living room reading and playing games. No panic, just preparation and readiness.

I can’t tell you how to prepare. Everyone is different. I look at the disaster in Turkey and I find myself in tears. But I know I would never live in a high rise apartment, even one that was supposedly earthquake proof. I’ve seen too many buildings go down like jenga blocks in the past 25 years. That’s MY choice. Other people make their own choices.

I would say that if you have to live in an apartment or multi level condo of some kind, make sure you have preps elsewhere. If your building is burning because someone played a stupid game and won stupid prizes, you may not have access to go back and get your preps. If you are facing a social uprising, you may want to get out of Dodge rapidly, and having 2000 lbs of goods isn’t going to be the least bit helpful. If you are running because of flooding, mudslide, or earthquake, there may be no time to load up with your preparations. Always have your eggs in more than one basket.

Even I do this, and I’m personally in a “best case” situation with my preps. I have most of my preparations “in big”… food, water, filters, weapons, ammo, etc. all stored neatly and out of the way. I cycle through some stuff (food, ammo) and leave the rest for long term storage. But I also have car kits for every car we own. Mini versions with food, shelter, first aid, water, and information. Why? Because we might be away from home when disaster strikes. We may be caught up in something. We may need to flee. We may need to hide temporarily, for a longer or shorter time. And for those reasons, I have caches of all those things, too. In several places. Because I cannot know what MIGHT happen, some random day between tomorrow and forever.

Beyond all of that, however, the single most important prep you can have? Skill sets. Learn to do for yourself. Think about what might happen, from most likely to least likely, and prep for what you can. Practice it. Turn off the power at the main breaker at odd moments and force the family to practice rusty skills. Learn how to cook over a fire. Know what foods you can eat from your local tract of land. Understand how to filter water. Practice making a fire (because if you lose your Bic, then what??). On and on. Continue to acquire skills until you literally cannot anymore (ie you’re dead).

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

I am DAMN proud that I can do most of those things. I’ve never had the opportunity to conn a ship, and solving equations is probably my weakest point. And I’ve never died gallantly, and hope to avoid it for some time to come. But I’ve done all the rest. What can you do?

Heuristic Hagar

Over on “But HE said it first!”, Crawford mentioned:

Colleges are teaching students that “whiteness must be eliminated”. Granted, they don’t strictly mean white people, but the way they define “whiteness” maps to traditional American values.

I decided that I would see what my Left (and other) friends would say about this. I posted up something on my FB wall, basically asking people why I ought to be embarrassed or upset about being white. I mean, I’m lily white. I have Magyar blood on one side and British on the other. The only thing whiter than me is a Scottish redhead.

Yet I feel no shame over this. I know the media is speaking about how whiteness is some sort of disease we need to get rid of. I don’t see any of my friends saying it, but because of who I am In The Real World [tm], I sort of self select. But I know that a lot of those people read the media that’s presenting this message. So I asked, at noon on Feb 2nd.

And here it is, some 6 days later, and I had a mere handful of responses. Most were of the type to say, “That’s crazy, no one should be saying that.” They all expressed concern over what I was reporting. Because they’re my friends, they all went and checked out the links I sent, and then went off to process what they’d read.

And then there was that one. I’m sure you know the type. Presents as cute, fluffy, innocent… right up until something challenges their world view.

That one wrote a lengthy reply to me, basically saying that if someone had ever accused me of racism, that was obviously my own fault. They couldn’t possibly consider introducing me to people of color after my statements. Apparently, by this person’s commentary, I am responsible for how those OTHER people chose to label me, even though those others don’t know me (and this one person actually does, in person). I was online when it was posted, and went to read it. By the time I tried to reply (about 30 seconds later), the comment had been removed.

I wondered if it was FaceBook, because goodness knows, FB does that sometimes. But nope. Not only was the comment deleted, the person in question felt that my statement required them to unfriend me.

Don’t get me wrong, the person is welcome to unfriend me. After reading what they wrote, I was considering doing the same thing to them. I just found it interesting that they would write something that was victim blaming, and then delete it. I would think they saw the error of their ways, were it not for the unfriending.

So there you have it. I challenged my Left friends as I challenge my Right friends, and got mostly crickets. Those few replies I did get were the type to say, “That’s horrible; I’m not saying that.” I pointed out to them (as I did to people on here) that if they’re standing on the left side of the great divide with those people, then they are literally WITH those people. If they don’t want to be supporting those people, they need to step farther away from them.

I want to talk about writing and speaking tactics for getting information to “the other side.”  I have noticed, both in some of the articles and in many of the comments on GFZ, that people are fairly liberal in their use of name calling. I’ve noticed that it’s been a bit of a trend over the past six to ten years. It’s not a trend that I like.

When I first moved to the States, I was expecting to run into “rude rednecks” all around me. Imagine my surprise when said “rednecks” turned out to be polite, well spoken, and for the most part, educated and intelligent. I quickly learned that the people I was most concerned about, that the liberal folks of the north had feared, were the people who were the most ready to help someone who was in need.

Fast forward to ten years ago. I had long come to understand that the Right were fairly polite except for a few extremists that no one liked. I had come to a personal understanding that the Left were only polite to their own, and even then it was iffy, but they often couched that lack of politeness with pretty words. I was disappointed, surely, but I started slowly moving to the Right.

And then Trump got into office, and something changed. Suddenly, the people who I had come to know as being well spoken and softly polite were not, anymore. They began using some pretty nasty tactics to rile up “the other side.” One of those tactics was name calling.

For the past twenty years, I have been calling out people on the Left for indulging in name calling and petty behavior. People who mocked Bush for his ears or for misspelling potato, people who attacked Trump because of his weight or his hair, these were people that I roundly denounced. I culled my friends vigorously, removing those who would use that kind of base rudeness to lash out at “the other side.”

Now I’m seeing it, more and more, from the Right. Boy, it bothers me. It bothers me more than it does from the Left, if I want to be honest. My movement from Left to Right has been slow, and due to people like Awa and others who I trust and who have taken the time to teach me. I expect more from the Right, and the Right is now letting me down.

What I need you to understand is that you are not ever going to sway the people who are far Left. It’s not going to happen. More than anything else, they just don’t read what you have to say. They’ve muted you, deleted you from their FB friends list, and they avoid you. You’re not talking to them. You don’t need to sway those on the Right. They already side with you. Your target audience is ME.

And you’re losing me.

By giving in and using the tactics used by the Left, the Right is going to lose this fight. Those of us who’ve slowly been migrating Right are now pulling back. We’re taking a close look at you, and making decisions.

Believe me when I say, I have no interest in Biden or Harris, or in the Left bull cookies that are currently being spread around. I very much want to see a solid Second Amendment, and I want to see the First Amendment protected as befits its place as first. I want to see each and every child in the country taught about the Constitution both as an historical document and as a living document.

But you are shooting yourselves in the foot when you lower yourself to using the Left’s nasty tactics. Every time I see someone on the Right call Biden by some insulting name, I withdraw further. If you want to call him inept, ineffective, medically unsound, I’ll stand beside you and hold a sign with you. Those are truths. But the insulting, the name calling, the stooping into the muck? No. That’s not truth, it’s anger. If you let your anger rule you, you lose.

I don’t think the Right can prevail over the Left if it continues to fight in the same way it has for the last five decades. But I KNOW the Right cannot win this if they lower themselves to the Left’s level. All it does is push away the people like myself who want to know more, who are beginning to see that the Left’s carefully crafted lies are unraveling.

Awa will tell you, I was hesitant to write this column (From Behind Enemy Lines). I don’t use my real name, and I’m hiding in my anonymity. That hurts, just to be clear. I’ve always despised those who hide behind shields. But it’s the only way I was willing to write here. Because I don’t want to be splattered with whatever it is you’re slinging at the Left this week. I no longer feel safe enough around the Right to speak my mind openly.

Read that one again: I no longer feel SAFE ENOUGH around the Right to speak openly.

I realize it isn’t your job to make me feel safe. I really do. However, if your aim is to convert people like me to the Right, to lure me in because y’all have good cookies, then you just cannot be handing out cow pies and claiming they are cookies. It doesn’t work.

The Left has worn me down until I really just expect them to twist words. While that’s a very sad state of affairs, it is what it is. That’s the current status quo. What’s even more sad is that the Right is doing it now, too. When I bring it up, I’m told, “But they did it first!” I don’t really care. It’s not an excuse. When you shoot back with rude words or name calling, you seem to be telling me that you’re just like them, meaning the Left. Is that what you want?

And before I hear that it’s not the same thing… yes, yes it is. It is indeed lowering yourself to their level. It is behaving badly. It’s wrong. It’s wrong when the Left does it, but at this point, they’ve been doing it so long that I don’t think they are even aware. YOU are all aware, though. You know what you’re doing when you do it. Behaving badly “because the Left did it” is sort of like being a bad parent “because your neighbor did it.”

So… those of you who are actually interested in swaying the opinion of others, who want to teach the ones like me who are on the fence, who are learning… think about how your words and actions affect us. It’s looking pretty grim right now.

Heuristic Hagar

I spent a number of years living in Canada during my youth. I learned that guns were bad, Canadian healthcare was perfect, and that Americans were assholes. Years later, I was living in Maryland and learning more about the US healthcare system and politics, and I realized that Canada was not the utopia it pretends to be.

Most Canadians will tell you how amazing their healthcare is. If pressed, they will then explain how horrible it is to have to pay for healthcare in the States. In the same breath, they’ll laud their own experiences. This is because Canadians are indoctrinated to believe that their healthcare and schooling, and indeed their entire way of living, is vastly superior to the United States.

There are so many complexities to this topic that it’s hard to know where to start. I’ll begin with this: the Canadian healthcare system is broken, but in very different ways to the US system. The US system is also broken, but most of the breakage has to do with insurance, not actual medical care.

And therein lies the problem. It’s the problem everywhere, by the way. People in general seem to equate health CARE with health INSURANCE. While they are connected, they are not the same thing. Everyone seems to treat them as if they are the interchangeable, and there is nothing farther from the truth.

Health insurance in Canada is okay. It’s not great, and not horrible. The set-up is very similar to how HMOs are used in the United States. There are limited numbers of doctors available at any given time. No one is taking new patients, but new patients are arriving in a constant flow. Emergency rooms aren’t permitted to turn people away, but the waits range from four to twenty four hours.  At the point of service, Canadians pay nothing for their medical care. They do pay for prescriptions and certain other things like some types of therapy and such. There are set fees for the majority of medical procedures that require payment, so it’s not too complicated. Most jobs include insurance that covers such things as prescription medication, eye care, and dental care. The average Canadian pays very little out of pocket, and almost nothing at all at point of service.

Canadian medical care is lacking. Doctors and other medical staff are underpaid and overworked, much moreso than here in the States. They are required to do their work under very strict guidelines. For instance, the last time I was in Canada, the length of visit allotted to a physician to diagnose you going in for flu symptoms was only ten minutes. They had ten minutes to get in, order any tests, talk to you, examine you, and come to conclusions. Specialists have different rules, of course, but they aren’t all that much better. I don’t have the actual details for current conditions, but friends in the Great White North do report that wait times have gotten even longer in the past ten years. 

A woman on TikTok (don’t judge me, it’s a fun little platform) was describing her most recent visit to a Canadian emergency room. She had a problem with her calf, it being swollen, and hot to the touch in one specific area. She provided pictures. My first diagnosis, upon seeing it, was deep vein thrombosis. That’s definitely an ER trip. She waited in the ER waiting room for ten hours before being seen. She lost her leg because of the length of wait, because by the time she was seen, the damage was too severe. Complications due to the late nature of the surgery mean she may lose not just her leg, but her life. 

American health care is several steps above Canadian, in my very strong opinion. I’ve never had to wait more than a couple of hours to be seen at an ER, and then only in appropriate times. America has something called Urgent Care, for things that are more emergent than seeing your family doctor tomorrow or Thursday, but not as emergent as needing the emergency room. This takes pressure off the ER and the family doctors enough to keep the system from getting gridlocked. 

On the flip side, American health insurance is a complex and convoluted crapshoot. I say that in the most polite of tones. The VA and Medicare both provide some insurance coverage and medical care coverage for people, but reported care under both programs is poor. If you want to know why, look at all the commentary about Canadian socialized medicine above. For those Americans who either choose to not have insurance, or who cannot afford it, self-pay is a perfectly valid method of going through life.

The problem with self-pay is that there is no way to know how much anything costs. An office visit for a sinus infection may cost $150 this week, $300 next week, and $50 the week after that. There are no explanations, no oversight, and no way to know what is going on behind the scenes. All attempts to make medical care costs transparent have, thus far, been for naught. 

The behind the scenes insurance mess is even worse than the self-pay mess. Insurance companies exist in order to make money, and that’s something many people forget. It is their job, quite literally, to turn people away for services. Doctors, dentists, ophthalmologists, and specialists of all types are required to fight tooth and nail to get paid for their services. In order to get enough money to cover their own expenses, medical practices often have to charge insurance companies outrageous amounts, because they get only pennies on the dollar in return. It’s a vicious and horrid cycle wherein the insured pay the price for their own torture.

The care in America, though, is so much better! I have had medical care in America, Canada, and Britain. America wins on the care side, by far. When I broke my ankle, I was treated quickly and compassionately. I received not only emergent care at the ER, but appointments after the fact to check on my progress, and I was given access to physical therapy to aid in my recovery. Did I pay for all of this? Yes I did. It was expensive. I winced. It hurt to open the wallet that widely. But I received excellent care. Had I been in Canada, the outcome would have been vastly different, and likely would have ended up with me having unnecessary hardware in my ankle.

When my appendix burst and ultimately dissolved (that’s a whole other story), I was rushed into the ER by my family. Every doctor and nurse there listened to what I had to say, and I was treated with gentle hands and expertise. Due to the nature of the emergency, I ended up being in hospital for five days. As someone who was paying out of pocket, that was panic inducing. I could see the dollar signs stacking up. Instead of sending a bill to me, they send a financial advisor to talk with me. She helped us to come up with a payment plan that was reasonable for us. When I had a panic attack at 2am on the third day, the night nurse came and sat with me. I managed between sobs to explain that I was still in a lot of pain (I had managed to go septic due to how my appendix committed sepuku) and I was terrified to be going home in the morning. She talked to my doctor, and it was agreed I should spend another day in care. It made all the difference. In Canada, you go home three to five hours after your surgery. Let that one sink in.

Do I wish we had a country where the insurance was as straightforward as the medical care? Yes I do. It’s a desperate wish. Forced to choose, though, I will choose good care over okay insurance every single time. 

It is unfortunate that I see America quickly following in Canada’s footsteps, both in care and style of insurance. I’ve lived in New England now for over ten years. In that time, I’ve never had problems seeing a medical practitioner… until 2022. I have had four appointments canceled out from under me, because the doctors have left the practice. I have been trying to see someone in a non-emergent way, for over a year now. It’s not something worthy of going to Urgent Care, and definitely not worth a trip to the ER. All I can do is continue to wait for an appointment I hope will eventually happen. 

If you want to fight for health care, fight to make insurance and medical payments clearer, more transparent. Fight for decent pay and hours for doctors (because, while doctors here get paid fairly well, they are swamped with unconscionable fees for malpractice insurance). Fight for nurses being allowed to do their jobs and not be treated like servants. And fight for private insurance to be either fixed or regulated, but NOT by the government. Fight to keep health care out of the hands of the government. 

Heuristic Hagar

As a person who sits in the middle (or even “slightly left of middle”, if you prefer, which I’m sure some of you do), I often run into articles from the left or right of the divide that are poorly researched or make vast assumptions without providing any background or context. It’s been pointed out to me numerous times by Right friends that the Left is incredibly bad about this, and that they twist and turn and manipulate words in order to change the meaning of what’s being said.

This might be true. I am personally of the belief that it is true about the Left, to a point. I don’t think that it only happens on the Left, however. I see enough of it on the Right to make my head spin. To highlight this, I offer you an article from the Washington Examiner.

In it, the author speaks rather strongly about how horrible it is that Harvard Medical School is offering a course on how to treat LGBTQ infants. This is one of several articles on the course that have hit the air in the past week. 

Legal Insurrection offered their own spin on the same information. Fox News jumped on the bandwagon as well. Then there’s this one from Sandra Rose.  All of these articles seem to stem back to a single source, and some even name that source: College Fix. Their article on the topic is pretty pointed. 

I found this mess when I was slumming on TikTok, and ran across a video purporting to be by Dr. Jordan Peterson (it was not, and was subsequently taken down and the user deleted). Since Dr. Peterson is someone I’ve repeatedly been told is an authority I can trust, I watched with some level of horror that a medical school so near to me would be teaching that infants can express sexuality. 

Unlike most people, though, I didn’t take (who I thought was) Dr. Peterson’s word for it. I went investigating. I found all of the above articles first. Then I went looking for specifically Left leaning news outlets. There wasn’t a lot out there, probably because they haven’t been inundated with the news yet. The divide between Left and Right news feeds tends to be about 5 to 7 days, for things which cause people to be “indignantly righteous” about their given cause. The College Fix article only came out a week ago, so we may see more information from the Left in the next few days.

It was only after a lengthy search that I found some more balanced articles. First, AP did a decent job on their write-up, being much more balanced and fact based. They leave aside the moral pearl clutching and stick to the fact that the course catalog and teachers do not actually say what College Fix says they do. Out In Perth is a bit more in your face about it, being a firmly Left leaning news outlet. But in my strong opinion, the best information on this mess is from The Daily Wire. Facts speak for themselves.

What’s the truth? Well, Harvard Medical School has discovered that infants who are born with genital anomalies require special care. There’s some interesting stuff in there, and the course covers such information as what to do when those anomalies are life threatening or may cause serious physical damage or discomfort, long-term. It also touches on how to talk to parents of infants, who are now dealing with exhaustion and concern for their child, and have to figure out whether it’s right, moral, or possible to be made to choose which gender their kid ought to be. This entire section, the one on infants, is one day out of a month long course. 

Whether you’re interested in the comfort or affirming care of LGBTQIA+ individuals as adults doesn’t really play into this. The infants in question, who do exist and have existed for as long as we’ve been pumping out babies, require special medical care. There are all sorts of issues that those children with genital anomalies are going to face, first as infants, then as toddlers, and eventually as adults. Frankly, it doesn’t matter if a gender is chosen for them by their parents or doctors, or they grow up with their anomalies intact until they’re old enough to choose. It’s going to be tough going. Knowing how to care for them is a good thing. 

I am sharing this, because I wanted to highlight a bad habit of the Left as being done by the Right as well. The repeating of information from a single source (a source, I might add, with a bad reputation and who didn’t check all their sources, as well as altering some of their statements and carefully editing replies) is never a good practice, no matter who is doing it. Taking news from a single source and not investigating it further is never a good practice. 

And it doesn’t matter if “the Left does it more”. That’s a schoolyard game play. “Johnny did it first!” It doesn’t matter. If Johnny jumped off a cliff, would you follow him? I’m sure many of you have said that very statement to your own children or grandchildren. 

This is exactly the kind of news reporting that causes the Left to cringe and say how horrible the Right is. It’s time to stand up and either say you’re not with those people, and walk away from them, or to admit that you’re not so different from the Left after all.

Heuristic Hagar

The average American has very little idea of what the word “classified” actually means. Most seem to think it indicates that a paper or idea listed as “classified” simply means “very private” or “for the listed parties only.” I doubt they have much concept of the importance of governmental and business information, or why something would be considered classified or confidential. 

The news is rife today with media reports about how classified papers were found at Biden’s office from 2017. “His personal lawyers found the classified material while packing files in a locked closet at an office that Mr. Biden used beginning in 2017. After the discovery, the National Archives was notified the same day, and the papers were handed over the following morning. Some of the documents were designated as ‘sensitive compartmented information,’ which means they were classified above Top Secret (Biden’s Classified Document Stash).”

As pointed out by the Wall Street Journal in the above article, this is rather poor timing for Biden, as well as being somewhat comical. It puts the Left into a rather uncomfortable position, where they are forced to either push forward with charges against Biden, or walk away from the current press against Trump for his own papers held past his tenure as President. 

There are differences between Trump and Biden’s cases, however, and they’re not small. I’m sure someone with a better grasp of the political system will do a more involved discussion of the details, but let’s look at some basics. 

The Democrats and the Left are currently downplaying Biden’s role in holding onto the papers. The story currently being pushed is that Biden’s lawyers discovered the papers, ones that Biden didn’t even know about, and that they immediately handed them over to the National Archives (How the Discovery of Classified Files in Biden’s Office Compares With the Trump Case). Trump, as we all know, hid the papers, fought returning them, and impeded investigations into his holding onto the papers in question.

What the Dems and the Left are leaving out is more interesting to me. Whatever your personal feelings are on Trump holding onto classified documents and fighting their return, he had a right to see and hold them. As President, and as a former President, it is entirely legal and permissible for him to read them, have them, and hold onto them. Those rights are outlined in the Presidential Records Act. 

Vice Presidents are not covered by the PRA. Biden did not, at any time prior to being named President himself, have any right to see, hold, or keep those documents. His being President now does not give him retroactive permission to have the papers in question, either.

The Left’s argument is that Trump was hiding “vast numbers” of papers, whereas Biden was only guilty of holding onto a few. Trump didn’t want to return his papers, and Biden’s people reported it immediately. Those differences are what the Left want you to see (Biden classified docs vs. Trump classified docs: What’s the difference?).

The problem is quality versus quantity, however. The files that were found in Biden’s old storage closet were ones from the Obama Presidency, files he should never have had. Sources (unnamed, see the articles linked below) say that they had to do with the Ukraine and were not all that important.

The question not being asked by the Left is, why did Biden have classified files about the Ukraine? On its own, it doesn’t feel like much. When you bring in the very real possibility that Biden’s son was involved at that time with the Ukraine, and the events surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop information, it suddenly makes much more sense.

It points to a rather nepotistic abuse of power. 

That abuse of power is vastly different than the boxes of papers Trump didn’t feel like returning to the National Archives. But no one on the Left wants to talk about that. In fact, if you bring it up, if you talk about how Biden should be treated the same way Trump was, there’s a sudden lull in conversation. It’s not the same, you’re told. 

They’re correct. It’s not the same. I see no evidence that Trump was doing anything nefarious with the boxes of papers he had. While I wish he’d just returned them to the National Archives, I can easily put that off as his personal pig-headdedness. Biden, on the other hand, should never have had access to those papers to begin with. Now that is something that everyone ought to be investigating.

Heuristic Hagar