Posted on 07/31/2014 1:41:29 AM PDT by markomalley
A reader recently alerted me to an article in Slate Magazine that is so bizarre that, as you read it, you think it is a joke, an April Fools farce, or someone illustrating absurdity by being absurd. Yet, as far as I can tell, the author means every word she says.
I must say, I have never read anything stranger in my life (except a couple things in Mad Magazine, but they actually were jokes). If you dare to read the excerpt below, prepare for your brain to explode.
And yet too, nothing I have read is such a perfect catalogue of the growing absurdities of the cultural radicals who are increasingly losing touch with reality. So bizzare and out there is this article that some of you will say, “Oh well, no really takes this seriously, why give publicity to such fringe lunacy?” But if that is your view I would ask to to think again. Even just ten years ago most people did not think the notion of “Gay marriage” would ever go anywhere. And yet. what was thought by most as a fringe lunacy then, is now celebrated by many and the “law of the land” in a growing number of States.
Watch out, things are getting dark very fast. Make sure you have a strong stomach before you read what follows. And beware, it may be coming soon to a maternity ward near you. An article such as this surely illustrates what St. Paul said of the unbelievers and sexually depraved of his day: they became vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. (Rom 1:21)
As usual the words of the author are in bold, black, italics. My comments are in plain, red text. If you have a very strong stomach and a brain that does not easily explode you can read the full article here: Slate Magazine article
Imagine you are in recovery from labor, lying in bed, holding your infant. In your arms you cradle a stunningly beautiful, perfect little being. (being…? “Baby” is the usual term is it not? Consider this your first warning dear reader) Completely innocent and totally vulnerable, your baby (thats better) is entirely dependent on you to make all the choices that will define their life for many years to come. (OK, here’s another sign of trouble. This woman has succumbed to fearing her own philosophy. Let me state for the record that it does not pertain to the human person to “define the life” of another person. That is what God does. This is a central error of the cultural radicals. They claim the right to “define life, and the lives of others. This woman is going to go on to describe her anxiety about the fact that a parent can “define the life” of their child. Again, her fear is based on a flawed and prideful notion she carries).
Suddenly, the doctor comes in. He looks at you sternly (oh please), gloved hands reaching for your baby …“Is it really necessary?” [you ask]. ….The doctor flashes a paternalistic (oh please) smile. “No, no … but….This is a standard practice. People just wouldn’t understand why you didn’t go along with it,” he says, casting a judgmental (oh please) glance.
Look out here it comes…
…The imaginary [scenario] I described above is real. Obstetricians, doctors, and midwives (well at least its not all stern, paternalistic, judgmental male doctors!) commit this procedure on infants every single day, in every single country….without even asking for the parents’ consent, making this practice all the more insidious. It’s called infant gender assignment: When the doctor holds your child up to the harsh light of the delivery room, looks between its legs, and declares his opinion: It’s a boy or a girl, based on nothing more than a cursory assessment of your offspring’s genitals. It just gets stranger every day. Again this story is so insane that I was certain this article had to be a joke. But it seems the “woman” (can I call “her” that without giving offense?) is quite serious.
We tell our children, “You can be anything you want to be.” We say, “A girl can be a doctor, a boy can be a nurse,” but why in the first place must this person be a boy and that person be a girl? Your infant is an infant. (No, the sex of a baby in not incidental, it is integral, the infant IS male or IS female AND it is deeper than genitals, despite our author’s flippant reductionism. “Gender” or as most of us used to say the “sex” of a person goes all the way down to the DNA, and I would argue to the soul, which is the form of the body)…. As a newborn, your child’s potential is limitless (No it isn’t. Human beings are limited, contingent beings. We are not God. Here too, the strange notions of the cultural radicals are on full display. The simple fact is, no matter how unpleasant some think it is, human beings ARE limited and thus our potential is also limited. No matter how much our author might wish to leap a tall building in a single bound or be “genderless” (to use her term), she cannot. There are just some stubborn facts that get in the way of her pipe dream. Namely, we are not of unlimited potential and we ARE male or female. The world is full of possibilities that every person deserves to be able to explore freely, receiving equal respect and human dignity while maximizing happiness through individual expression. I wonder if our author would allow “offspring” to “explore freely” the owning of slaves, or the thrill of “maximizing happiness” through the “individual expression” of engaging in human trafficking or leading a genocidal campaign in a foreign land. Just asking. But her vague and wide open notions here allow such a question. Surely “she” (can I call her that) has some lines in mind that should not be crossed? But if she does, does it not mean she is limiting the “limitless potentials” she celebrates for every newborn?
With infant gender assignment, in a single moment your baby’s life is instantly and brutally (Oh please) reduced from such infinite (there’s that word again) potentials down to one concrete set of expectations and stereotypes, and any behavioral deviation from that will be severely punished (Oh please) —…That doctor (and the power structure behind him) plays a pivotal role in imposing those limits on helpless infants, without their consent, and without your informed consent as a parent. This issue deserves serious consideration by every parent, (no it doesn’t) because no matter what gender identity your child ultimately adopts, infant gender assignment has effects that will last through their whole life. I would like to say that I think the author is seeking to “limit my infinite potential” by trying to coerce me into ignoring the obvious, she is “imposing” silliness on me and then (as the cultural radicals are more than capable of doing) threatening to “severely punish” any “behavioral deviation” by me against their politically correct agenda. In other words, doesn’t she want to break the very rules she announces? Does she not seek to impose an agenda on doctors and folks like me, whom she says commit the crime of imposing an agenda on others?
….Infant gender assignment might just be Russian roulette with your baby’s life. (Oh for heaven’s sake, such over the top rhetoric. But since she raised the issue of taking life I would like to point out that the cultural radicals are the one who have the body-count, in the hundreds of millions, through their advocacy and funding of abortion which really DOES kill babies).
For the sake of thy sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
I loathe the malicious misuse of the word “gender” in place of the word “sex.” People do not have a gender, they have a sex. Male or female. I wish we could close down all the sick universities in this country and send all the kids to shop class.
I'd support that.
Ping!
Yabbut, someone would have to empty the finger bucket every day...
I think most people would learn to be careful after losing the first digit.
I have never ascribed to the I am responsible for what happens in my life mantra which is obviously a complete characterization of the human condition. I ascribe to the steel ball in the pinball machine of life theory.
It’s not the kids who are the problem - it’s their parents and their professors. They can be trained to be intelligent, diligent people with skills or they can be educated to be politically correct robots. And I don’t remember too many lost fingers in my years in high school. And let’s bring back home ec, too!
True, but if you're starting from scratch with teenagers, it might take a few fingers for them to assimilate, "Sharp things cut you."
Let’s let an expert on the left, David Horowitz, explain. In his book Radicals, he devoted a long chapter to Alinsky, containing the following telling excerpts:The focus on power was illustrated by an anecdote recounted in a New Republic article that appeared during Obama’s [2008] presidential campaign. “When Alinsky would ask new students why they wanted to organize, they would invariably respond with selfless bromides about wanting to help others. Alinsky would then scream back at them that there was a one-word answer: “You want to organize for power!” In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky wrote: “From the moment an organizer enters a community he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army.”…Guided by these principles, Alinsky’s disciples are misperceived as idealists; in fact, they are practiced Machiavellians. Their focus is invariably on means rather than ends. As a result they are not bound by organizational orthodoxies or theoretical dogmatisms in the way their still admired Marxist forebears were. Within the framework of their revolutionary agendas, they are flexible and opportunistic and will say anything (and pretend to be anything) to get what they want, which is power.
http://neoneocon.com/2013/05/17/remember-obamas-an-alinskyite/
I guess I have a different take on young people in America. Where ever I go - whether to a suburban mall or a New York City Starbucks, I meet hard-working, smart teens and young adults. Invariably polite and competent. No body parts in buckets. The kids at my local Barnes & Noble are practically literary geniuses - some writing the great American novel in their parents’ basement and the others training to move into jobs in publishing and editing (if there are any jobs in literature after Hillary’s book destroys Simon and Shuster!) Europeans who visit our country are gob-smacked by our brilliant culture of service - generally manned by young, minimum wage kids.
My perspective is skewed by the example of my sons and their friends! Of course, I don’t see them at work.
Wow, what does that mean?
That my sons and their friends do some stupid and dangerous things with sharp implements and flammable substances.
But at work, they get good reviews.
And electricity. They do stupid things with electricity.
This kind of outright stupidity is bewildering even by Slate standards. This isn’t just PC craziness, this is outright denial of reality.
Just recently I filled out a form that asked:
Male
Female
Other
I’m assuming the “other” category is for those who don’t have a clue.
I’ve been saying this is their next step. If Junior can decide to be the opposite sex at age 3 and have Mom, Dad, and Doctor play along, why bother with the pink and blue for newborns? And for people who think gender roles are an evil social construct to be broken, why then do they support these mentally ill people in choosing to be classically masculine or feminine?
This scenario is already playing out in Sweden, where at least one couple has refused to tell even close relatives the baby’s sex, wanting to raise it ‘gender neutral’ or whatever.
Romans 1:21
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
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