"The Madness of Crowds"

Book of the Month/December 2019

Douglas Wilson
Blog & Mablog


We live in demented times, and proofs of this assertion can be found by pointing in pretty much any and every direction. One of those proofs is the fact that I am able to select as my book of the month a book written by an open homosexual, and with the topic of the book being certain issues surrounding gender and identity. This book, The Madness of Crowds [by Douglas Murray] is that book. I recommend it highly.

The Christian reader has to discount for the fact that Murray has obviously carved out a space in his worldview for his own sin. And if we believe the Bible, we don’t get to go along with him in this. But at the same time, even when he is talking about homosexuality, he does a remarkable job of not politicizing it. He asks hard and pointed questions about how our culture at large is responding to a sexual revolution that has turned itself into a mindless and moralistic crusade. Murray is dealing with the thoughtlessness of that. As the title indicates, he is dealing with the madness of crowds—and this is quite a timely book because we are certainly in the middle of an epic fit right now.

Scotland the Brave?

Scottish Schools to Have ‘LGBT Equality’ Embedded in Curriculum

Virginia Hale
Breitbart London

The Scottish education system is to become the first in the world where primary and secondary schools are required in the curriculum to promote LGBT identity and lifestyles.

Every state school will have to “embed” lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex “equality and inclusion” within “all levels of the curriculum from early years to senior phase” after the Scottish Government accepted in full the recommendations of a working group headed by LGBT activists.

The move, which was backed by all parties, will see pupils taught about LGBT political history, movements, terminology, and identities as well as “LGBTI literature and lives” and topics on “addressing prejudice and homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic bullying”.

Scottish education secretary John Swinney told the Scottish Parliament: “Scotland is already considered one of the most progressive countries in Europe for LGBTI equality. I am delighted to announce we will be the first country in the world to have LGBTI-inclusive education embedded within the curriculum.”

Stressing that the changes will apply to all Scottish state schools, with no opt-outs, the minister added: “I am aware that some may say that LGBTI inclusive education could undermine the values of their faiths or beliefs. I do not take this view.

“Human rights and the values of respect and tolerance are universal. Children and young people should feel happy, safe, respected and included in their learning environment, and all staff should be proactive in promoting positive relationships and behaviour in the playground, classroom, and society.”

But Simon Calvert, deputy director of the Christian Institute, said that while parents, pupils and teachers are united in wanting to see bullying stamped out, he argued they “don’t want to see controversial political agendas embedded across the curriculum”.

Mad Max in New Zealand

The Inter-Generational Tsunami of Violence and Dysfunction

We often hear claims about the breakdown of the nuclear family and the allegedly devastating effect it is having upon society.  No fault divorce has meant that husband and wife, father and mother are fluid relationships.  The state has intruded more and more upon families and family structures.  Parents have been told that if they discipline their children with an open-handed smack on  the child's hand or bottom they will be prosecuted by the State and have their children removed.  

This extremist measure--known as the Anti-Smacking Act--was passed with the objective of reducing family violence.  What it has actually done is help build a tsunami of violence that will roll over and engulf New Zealand society in about fifteen years time.  The problem is now inter-generational and self-perpetuating.  The state is incompetent to parent children for the simple reason that the state and its organs are not parents--a rather obvious reality which the state refuses to acknowledge.  Politicians and organs of state still assert with religious fervour that the government is indeed competent--all it needs is more taxpayers' money and it will morph into a genuine uber-parent.

What's it like on the front line?  The truth is starting to emerge in state schools.

The Children of The Age Rise Up to Kill Themselves

The Dwarves Have Delved Too Greedily

Barbara Ehrenreich has been an advocate for the proposition that the "family is dangerous".   The idea was that the family represents a primitive social arrangement which needs radical rework by the State.

In an article in Time (July 18, 1994) she wrote:

A disturbing subtext runs through our recent media fixations. Parents abuse sons -- allegedly at least, in the Menendez case -- who in turn rise up and kill them. A husband torments a wife, who retaliates with a kitchen knife. Love turns into obsession, between the Simpsons anyway, and then perhaps into murderous rage: the family, in other words, becomes personal hell. . . . We live in a culture that fetishizes the family as the ideal unit of human community. . .

In the same article she asserted:

. . . even the ostensibly 'functional' non-violent family can be a nest of pathology and a cradle of gruesome violence.

She should know, for Ehrenreich publicly confesses to killing two of her children by aborting them.

What concerns us here was the continuing effort by Unbelief from the seventies onwards to persuade people that the family needed to be replaced.

Where Now, Brown Bear?

Lights in Dark Places

The received wisdom in the West is that the family is nothing more than a social convention--and out of date, at that.  There appears to  be nothing sacred or sacrosanct about the family per se.  Other arrangements or conventions are seen as equally valid, equally valuable, and equally applicable to man's wellbeing.  

This is just another example of Unbelief trying to shake off the shackles of God and His created order.  Marriage is the primary social institution according to Christian doctrine.  The Word of God puts marriage and family as more fundamental to humanity and to human society than any other social bond or arrangement--certainly more fundamental than the state.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.  [Genesis 1: 21-25]

Since Unbelief presupposes from the get-go that the above Word is false, every alternative is up for grabs--and, implicitly, equally valid.

The Madness of Unbelief

Transgenderism and Ugly Doctors

Walt Heyer
The Federalist

Socially indoctrinating young children toward accepting transgenderism is rampant today in public schools. In Washington state, public schools will begin teaching gender expression to kindergarteners in fall 2017, under newly approved health education learning standards. The gay advocacy network GLSEN received a grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control in 2011 for $1.425 million over five years to promote the LGBT agenda in public schools at taxpayers’ expense.

By infiltrating the curriculum in our nation’s public schools, LGBT activists can groom the next generation of participants. Young people are questioning their gender identity at an alarming rate that seems to be increasing, and are encouraged by educators and medical professionals to experiment with gender transition. Unfortunately, experimentation can cause even more confusion.

Feelings Change, Bodies Don’t

The problem with taking the steps to transition physically—cross-gender hormones and surgeries—is that physical changes are likely permanent, but the feelings driving the desire may change, especially for young people. I recently received an email from a man now in his thirties that demonstrates this reality:

I transitioned to female beginning in my late teens and changed my name in my early 20s, over ten years ago. But it wasn’t right for me; I feel only discontent now in the female role. I was told that my transgender feelings were permanent, immutable, physically deep-seated in my brain and could NEVER change, and that the only way I would ever find peace was to become female. The problem is, I don’t have those feelings anymore.

When I began seeing a psychologist a few years ago to help overcome some childhood trauma issues, my depression and anxiety began to wane but so did my transgender feelings. So two years ago I began contemplating going back to my birth gender, and it feels right to do so. I have no doubts—I want to be male!

Feelings can change. For this man, feelings that were overwhelming in his teens changed after he went to counseling to deal with childhood trauma.  My story is similar.

Indecent Exposure as a Human Right, Part III

A Velvet Glove Covering The Iron Fist

The previous two article in this series have focused upon the transgenderist madness of the United States.  But the present ham-fisted, moronic President is in too much of a hurry.  He has pronounced a top-down dictat which represents a radical shift in law and precedent that makes trans-genderism a human right.  

Now, let's be clear.  Transgenderist ideology has nothing to do with one's gender per se.  Rather it has everything to do with one's gender identity.  So, today one identifies as a male, tomorrow a female, and the day after as a dragon.  It matters not.  Society must recognised one's fundamental human rights--one of which is gender self-identity.  (OK, so this human "right" has only been discovered and articulated in the past five minutes, but let's not get all legalistic.  It's the vibe of the matter that's important.  Doesn't it feel right to proclaim that people have the freedom to be whatever they want to be?  Of course it does.)

We mentioned that Obama is a moron, but he is a moron in a hurry, so he has had to to something BIG.  Since trans-genderism only came down in the last shower of rain, Obama has had to act quickly to capture it and make it part of the US landscape.  He hasn't much time left.

But in New Zealand, we do it the right way.  We do it quietly, subtly, so that no-one will know.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Slut-Shaming and the Gospel of Grace

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

In a time when we no longer know what a man is, or what a woman is, it would seem to follow that we can no longer know what the perversions of these offices are. Among many other weirdnesses, we are so far gone that we no longer know what a slut is.

Societies and cultures disintegrate in complicated ways. The pathologies of decadence are built on lies, and lies are always complex. They don’t disentangle easily because they are designed to be tangled.

This is the position we currently find ourselves in, which means we need to be careful as we go. But the need to take care is not an argument for saying nothing because we are up against torrens calumniae, a torrent of slanderous lies. To say nothing is to acquiesce in being swept away, over the falls, and down to the rocky cauldron of nonsense far below. In fact, I think we are already down there, waiting for the ambulance.

Because I am going to argue for something here that will be considered completely outrageous by the sob sisters of feminism, I want to state the conclusion first before turning to any arguments for it. I want every reasonable person to see that every appropriate qualification is built into what I am saying.

Government Sexual Libertinism

Coming to a Government School Near You

Further to our piece yesterday on the promotion of sexual libertinism in government schools, we reproduce a recent post from Bob McCoskrie, National Director at Family First.

PARENT ALERT

'Sexuality' and 'Gender' Education in Schools:
Polluting the Minds of Our Children
 

Hi

We are constantly being contacted by concerned parents and being asked our opinion on the sex education curriculum in NZ schools.

We continue to warn ALL parents about:
* the new sexuality education guidelines which schools are now having professional development on,
* any programmes being run by Family Planning and Rainbow Youth,
* the new sexuality programme ‘Inside Out’, funded by the Government.

We have written to all school principals warning them about these programmes. They have also received copies of our reports mentioned below. We've had great feedback!

The fact that the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Education are funding and pushing this agenda with little parent involvement should concern us all. At the bottom of this special newsletter, we show you what you can do as a parent to protect your children.

Sexual Propaganda From Libertines In Government

Oh, What a Wonderful World

A friend of a friend of a friend has just sent this through.  It promotes the latest sexual perversions-du-jour  being officially promoted by the government in New Zealand.  The official government vid came with an instruction:

Please just take 3 mins to watch the first bit of this video-aimed at year 7 & 8 students and funded by the Ministry of Social Development. Simply staggering. Imagine playing this to your students!!

http://insideout.ry.org.nz/ep6/

The teaching episode, intended for pupils eight, nine, and ten years old, comes with a helpful glossary.  Let's take a look:

When Bobby Sang the Blues

And Nothin' Left Was All She Left To Me

Further to our piece on "Jolly Good Fellows" published yesterday,  Douglas Wilson has opined upon a  Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, who has decided that Bible needed revisin' and brought into twenty-first century.  The particular professor is not important: the decision of a professor in an evangelical theological seminary to affirm homosexuality and homosexual "marriage" as Christian is of some significance.  As is the reaction of Fuller, which, we understand will not be admitting said professor to a tenured position.  He will be departing Fuller shortly.  Good for Fuller.  Let's hope the particular professor will come to comprehend the viper he is clutching to his bosom, and repent. 

With that background, Wilson's piece, entitled "Our Decomposing Lusts" should be read in full.  But for our specific purposes, we want to quote his last two paragraphs, which echo the sentiments conveyed yesterday in "Jolly Good Fellows".