Michigan student with lesbian parents stopped by teacher from writing about gay marriage

A Michigan high school teacher would not allow a student with two mothers to write about same-sex marriage for a class assignment.

Destiney McDermitt, 16, a junior at Hill McCloy High School in Montrose, was instructed by an English teacher on Feb. 7 to pick a topic she felt strongly about and argue either for or against it as part of an assignment titled, "Taking a Stand," she and her mother, Angela McDermitt-Jackson, told NBC News on Tuesday.

McDermitt-Jackson said the teacher told her daughter that she could not write about same-sex marriage because the topic might offend someone in the class.

"My daughter actually asked the teacher to ask the class if it would offend anybody," McDermitt-Jackson said, recalling the account of events as told to her by Destiney. "At which point, the teacher told her, 'I don't want to hear about it, I don't want to read about it and I am the one who has to grade it.'"

Destiney then texted her mothers from class and told them what was going on, McDermitt-Jackson said.

"She was upset and offended and she felt it was very inappropriate," McDermitt-Jackson said.

Later that day, McDermitt-Jackson said she and Destiney's other mother, Christine Jackson, went to the school and met with the principal and superintendent.

"They both agreed it was absolutely wrong and was unacceptable," she said.

Administrators took a statement from Destiney and other students in the classroom at the time and vowed to conduct an investigation, McDermitt-Jackson said.

Linden Moore, Montrose Community Schools superintendent, said in a statement on Friday that "the teacher attempted to avoid disruption and controversy by limiting the topics that students could choose for a writing assignment."

"Unfortunately, although well-intentioned, the teacher was too restrictive," the statement said. "We have spoken to the teacher and all of our staff about valuing opinions, beliefs, and rights of all of our students."

The superintendent said this has been "a learning opportunity for everyone involved." Moore did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.

McDermitt-Jackson said she is unsatisfied with the school district's response.

"They completely failed not only my daughter, but they failed all of us," she said. "They did not handle this appropriately."

She said she filed a complaint last week with the ACLU of Michigan because she believes her daughter was discriminated against and her right to freedom of speech had been violated.

Ann Mullen, a spokeswoman for the ACLU of Michigan, declined comment Tuesday, saying: "We do not disclose if or when we are contacted by a potential client."

McDermitt-Jackson said she does not believe the teacher, who the district is not naming, "has any business teaching in a public school district."

Destiney has since been switched out of the teacher's class, McDermitt-Jackson said.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/michigan-student-with-lesbian-parents-stopped-by-teacher-from-writing-about-gay-marriage/ar-BB10ofWt?li=AAggNb9&ocid=mailsignout

China's “Pair Up and Become a Family” program

This is something awful. No one maybe except fiction writers could have dreamed this horror up. Fact is way more bizarre than fiction, at least from what normal humans can come up with.

A four and a half minute broadcast by PRI on The World today was mind-blowing.

PRI writes: “In China's Xinjiang region, being part of the Uyghur ethnic minority means facing mass surveillance or detention in an internment camp. And when men are detained, Uyghur women are often left to keep their families and households together on their own. But Chinese policies in the region are increasingly repressive. Take the "Pair up and become a family" program, which assigns male Chinese minders to live in the homes of Uyghur families. Zubayra Shamseden of the Chinese Outreach Coordinator for the Uyghur Human Rights Project tells Marco Werman how policies like "Pair Up" affect Uyghur women in Xinjiang.”

What the ruthless tyrants that rule China are doing is assigning Chinese men to live in Uyghur family homes after Uyghur men have been arrested. The assigned men can sleep in the same bed with the Uyghur wife and do who knows wherever else. The Chinese government says no hanky panky, e.g., rape or pedophilia, is occurring. The Chinese government lies and calls this a “cultural exchange” and says that the Uyghur women welcome the Chinese “minders” and “re-educators” into their beds. Obviously, this is not a cultural exchange. It is barbaric savagery designed to forcefully obliterate the Uyghur culture and language by making Uyghur women serve as sex slaves to horny Chinese men who cannot find a Chinese wife because there are none.

This makes a lot of sense in view of China’s years of female infanticide under the one child policy. Millions of Chinese men cannot find Chinese wives. So, they get shipped off to the Xinjiang region and they get to rape Uyghur wifes as sex slaves. That’s tyranny with a vengeance.

One can only wonder what proportion of the Chinese people outside the Uyghurs will see the propaganda about this and come to believe that this is only an innocent re-education effort by virtuous and patriotic Chinese minders (men) who have been generously provided by the generous Chinese people and government.

My guess is at least half. Probably at least about 65%. Maybe more. If so, that's what propaganda (dark free speech) in the hands of tyrants and demagogues can do to a society who does not have access to facts and truth. That is why facts and truth is so critically important for a civilized democracy and civil society, democracy or not. Crushing facts and truth is not merely important to tyrants and demagogues. It is critically necessary.

Logic Fallacies: Hypocrisy and Whataboutism

One thing that I used to assert when it seemed reasonable was an allegation that politicians and other players were hypocrites about blatantly doing the same things or worse variants they bitterly criticized their political opposition for doing.[1] By the time the president won the electoral college in 2016, political hypocrisy on the right was simply mind-boggling. What about hypocrisy on the left? It was still there, but it had not reached the quantity and quality of hypocrisy the right routinely practiced right out in the open. There was and still is very little moral, political or social equivalence on this point between the left and right.

A logical fallacy is reasoning mistake or error that makes an argument invalid. Logical fallacies are non-sequiturs, i.e., arguments where the conclusion doesn't follow logically from what preceded it. In essence, a logic fallacy is an invalid connection between a premise(s) (fact(s)) and the conclusion, because the conclusion does not necessarily flow from the premises. Often the facts are disputed as not facts. The human mind did not evolve to do precise logic. People make various kinds of mistakes unless they are aware of the errors and consciously try to avoid them. Instead of using formal logic, humans usually rely on informal logic, which is probably best called reasoning.

One source says this about appeals to hypocrisy: “Tu Quoque [an appeal to hypocrisy] is a very common fallacy in which one attempts to defend oneself or another from criticism by turning the critique back against the accuser. This is a classic Red Herring since whether the accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge. However, as a diversionary tactic, Tu Quoque can be very effective, since the accuser is put on the defensive, and frequently feels compelled to defend against the accusation.”

Defending ones-self from a hypocrisy charge makes the rhetorical mistake called stepping into an opponent’s frame, as mentioned here yesterday. That's probably why charges of hypocrisy in politics are almost always ignored and not even denied. Even a short, simple denial steps into the opponent’s frame, thereby strengthening the opponent’s argument.

Is alleging hypocrisy a logic fallacy?

Whataboutism or hypocrisy is a fallacy sometimes based on the argument that since someone or some group did something bad in the past, doing it now is justified. Sometimes that is true and sometimes it isn’t. An appeal to hypocrisy is an informal fallacy that intends to discredit an opponent’s argument by asserting the opponent’s failure to act consistently in accord with its conclusion(s). The logic looks like this:

1. Person A makes claim X, e.g., the president claims Hillary Clinton was sloppy about national security for using an unsecured personal server for official government business.
2. Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X, e.g., a critic claims the president is sloppy about national security for using an unsecured cell phone for official government business.
3. Therefore, X is false.

A Wikipedia article asserts that the conclusion, X is false, is “a fallacy because the moral character or actions of the opponent are generally irrelevant to the logic of the argument. It is often used as a red herring tactic and is a special case of the ad hominem [personal attack] fallacy, which is a category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of facts about the person presenting or supporting the claim or argument.”[2]

Is that true? Sometimes it is, but sometimes it doesn’t seem to be. Why? Because the moral character or actions of the opponent are clearly relevant to both the facts and the logic of the argument. In the national security sloppiness example above, X is true because the underlying facts and logic apply to the same concern, i.e., national security sloppiness. In Clinton’s server case, she was sloppy and X is clearly true. In the president’s cell phone case, he is still being sloppy. This particular appeal to hypocrisy therefore does not constitute seem to be a logic fallacy. It points out truth in two different situations.


Q: Does the foregoing analysis get it wrong? Is a charge of hypocrisy or whataboutism never logically sound because the underlying facts and logic always have to be evaluated independently?

Footnotes:
1. One example is the president criticizing the Clintons for having conflicts of interest due to their charity, while the president operates with conflicts of interest by continuing to profit from his for-profit businesses. The degree of the conflict the president is subject to is 100-fold to 1000-fold bigger financially than anything the Clinton charity ever constituted. Assuming the Clinton charity constituted an unacceptable conflict of interest, and it did, the situation for the president is far worse both qualitatively and quantitatively, but both situations constituted actual conflicts of interest.

Another example is how the GOP treated the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury (lying under oath) and an alleged obstruction of justice. The GOP enthusiastically pursued investigations into Clinton’s bad acts. By contrast, the GOP rejected and/or ignored evidence of obstruction of justice by the president, including blatant obstruction of congress during the impeachment inquiry. The GOP opposed any investigation by the House, Senate and the Department of Justice. The two situations are vastly different. Clinton’s bad acts constituted instances of bad judgment in lying under oath and immoral personal sexual behavior. On the other hand, the president’s bad acts go straight to corrupting governance and betraying the trust people put in him to be an honest politician while in office. The two situations are different but both still focus on differences in how evidence of bad acts is treated.

2. Wikipedia cites this as an example of the fallacy: “In the trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the controversial lawyer Jacques Vergès tried to present what was defined as a Tu Quoque Defence—i.e., that during the Algerian War, French officers such as General Jacques Massu had committed war crimes similar to those with which Barbie was being charged, and therefore the French state had no moral right to try Barbie. This defense was rejected by the court, which convicted Barbie.”

Top 131 Conservative Websites

The Best Right Wing Sites In 2020

An updated and accurate rankings of the most popular conservative websites online.

Thanks to the freedom of the Internet, never before have right wing political thinkers had so many choices when it comes to news and editorials.

There are so many, it’s hard to know which are the top conservative websites worth your time, and which aren’t.

To make things easier for you, we’ve gathered the largest ordered list of best conservative websites online, sorted them by popularity, and added some of our own commentary.

The sites are sorted by Alexa Rank, a highly-reputable service which measures a site’s popularity and traffic. The lower the Alexa Ranking, the more popular the site.

1. FOX News

FOX News needs no explanation. It made its debut in 1996 and has been driving liberals bonkers ever since, dominating the ratings along the way.

2. Breitbart News Network

Founded by the late, great Andrew Breitbart in 2007, Breitbart is one of the most controversial right wing sites in the world. Critics often smear the site as being all sorts of -ists (racist, sexist . . . you know the routine by now), but honest people know better.

3. Western Journal

The site prides itself on its honest content, which the site claims is grounded in traditional Christian ethics.

4. DRUDGE REPORT

 If you want a broad overview of what’s happening in politics, DRUDGE REPORT is what you’re looking for.

5. Daily Caller

The Daily Caller is the work of conservative megastar (and smartest man alive) Tucker Carlson. 

THE REST OF THE LIST HERE:

https://rightsmarts.com/top-conservative-websites/

WARNING:

THIS LIST MIGHT TRIGGER SOCIALIST and LEFTIST SNOWFLAKES.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Yes, let’s DO play some “Whataboutism”

ICYMI:

“When Donald Trump was a private business man in New York, he got millions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury housing.  That’s called corporate socialism.“ –Bernie Sanders, 60-Minutes (02/23/20)

For the Americans who fear Bernie Sander’s brand of “democratic socialism,” let’s take a deeper look into some of his outrageous proposals:

-Medicare for all (which, btw, probably won’t happen.  Best case scenario, a building on the ACA.  And if no Congress to back him, won’t happen at all; just pie-in-the-sky.)

-Tuition free higher education (best case scenario, it will be cheaper)

-Free childcare (best case scenario, some kind of voucher system to offset the costs)

-Taking on corporate greed (pharmaceuticals, health insurance companies, jails for profits, etc.  You can expect all of these groups to go kicking and screaming into that dark, profitless night.)

These are some of the highlights of what Sanders advocates for, along with, as a potential Sanders supporter, my personal opinions about them.

*          *          *

Now let’s play the whataboutism game.

What about America’s “corporate socialism”:

-Bank and other corporate bailouts
-Farm subsidies and tariff offsets

-Tax loopholes 
-Zero dollars paid in federal taxes companies   

Like it or not, these are four examples of “corporate socialism.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this leads me to wonder, why is one brand of “government socialism” okay, yet Sander’s brand of “democratic socialism” not okay?  Hold that thought.

Granted, we have many socialized programs already in play (Medicare for seniors, Medicaid and other safety nets for those at the poverty level, HUD, etc.).  We also have many, and I mean MANY, social institutions that operate on government budget tax allocations: Teachers, libraries, fire depts., police depts., civil service jobs, etc., all looking out for the betterment of the greater society.  Even the FBI, CIA, and the bloated Military Industrial Complex operate under budgets provided by the government, via our taxes.  A society cannot function very well, indeed is destined to fail, without these basic-type socially-oriented programs.  These social institutions keep our greater society afloat and competitive on the world stage.

Isn’t it time for America to rethink that scary word “socialism” that corporate America has, in the name of obscene profits, indoctrinated us to fear?  Seems to me (and Bernie) that our “just socialism for the rich” is another version of corporate America's dreaded “just socialism for the poor.”

Your Challenge: Defend “socialism for the rich.”

Thanks for posting and recommending.

Some Random Thoughts: Corrupting History & Whatnot

Voting the old-fashioned way - by mail

I mailed my old fashioned, horse and buggy days paper ballot in today. The dem party here let me vote on their primary ballot. The reps don't allow that for unaffiliated riff raff voters in California. I voted for mayor Pete. He’ll give those darn Russkies (including the president) a run for their money. Just can't vote for old white guys any more, unless of course there’s no choice in the general election. Hm. Looks like I’ll be voting for an old white guy in November. Sigh.

Faking history

Yesterday, those feisty folks at WBUR’s On the Media program broadcast a short segment about what’s going on at that hotbed of overheated politics and wild clambakes & sex orgies, the National Archives. What, the National Archives? Yes, the National Archives (NA). Turns out, the NA has been doctoring photos to make the historical record surrounding America's president look better, i.e., different, than it actually is. Oh, that naughty Donald the Sneaky. Will the dirty tricks never end? Woe is me. Forsooth and egad.

That wailing and gnashing of what’s left of my teeth aside, in a 9 minute broadcast segment, The Vanishing National Archives, OTM reports on the audacity of the NA to produce fake, pro-Trump history for posterity. It’s a total hoot.



The NA got caught and apologized for doctoring a photo of the 2017 Women's March in Washington, DC. The photo had been doctored to remove unflattering (disparaging) references to the president. The excuse was the NA didn’t want the little children of the future offended by naughtiness on protester’s signs. That’s just the beginning. The NA plans to allow millions of documents simply go away and never come back. The New York Times reports: “The National Archives is letting millions of documents, including many related to immigrants’ rights, be destroyed or deleted. .... But less appreciated is the fact that vital information is actually being deleted or destroyed, so that no one — neither the press and government watchdogs today, nor historians tomorrow — will have a chance to see it.”

Once again, a democratic norm has been crushed. It turns out that there is no enforcement mechanism in the Presidential Records Act, and the president is free to take all of his papers and burn them. When the NA tried to save some of the papers that the president had tried to destroy, which is his normal mode of operation, he fired them. The president hates leaving a paper trail, which as we all know, makes plausible deniability more fun and much easier to get away with. Be prepared for pro-Trump history books and real history books. A fight is brewing, to say the least.

Brandolini’s law of bullshit - a new law of human nature

A comment here a few days ago alerted me to a new fundamental law of nature. Here it is:

Discovery of this new law possibly came from Alberto Brandolini in a Tweet, but I’m not sure. My unpaid, illegal research minions are digging into the shrinking National Archives to see if there are any records left. Let’s hope the minions don’t get singed in the bonfires going on in the basement of the NA. Safety first.

The thing is, Brandolini’s law is true. It really is much harder, often impossible, to refute bullshit and lies than it is to generate it. In fact, bullshit and lies are so difficult to refute, that sophisticated speakers and politicians usually avoid trying to do so. Doing so is usually considered to constitute the grave rhetorical mistake called “stepping into an opponent’s frame.” As we all recall, this rhetorical issue has been discussed here before[1] in a delightful OP cleverly titled The Morality of Framing Issues in Politics. OK, it’s a dumb title. Whatever. With Germaine at the helm, you get what you pay for.

Anyway, stepping into an opponent’s frame is very much like stepping in something one needs to get off the bottom of one’s shoe after the neighbor’s dog left a deposit in an inconvenient location on the lawn. Oh, these are troubling times indeed. Ruffians spewing bullshit and lies and there's no good recourse for society but to absorb the social and economic damage. Woe is us.

Brandolini has it about right.

Bye for now facts fans.

Footnote:
1. Here's my scintillating blather about the rhetorical boo boo (mistake) called stepping into the opponent’s frame:
Frames can be very powerful. Some experts argue that politics for smart politicians is a matter of framing and reframing. Inexperienced politicians make the mistake of ‘stepping into their opponent's frame’, which significantly undermines their argument and power to persuade. If you make that mistake, this is what usually results:
1. You give free airtime to your opponent’s frame, including his images, emotions, values and terminology
2. You put yourself on the defensive
3. You usually have a heavier burden of proof to dislodge the opponent’s frame because lots of contrary evidence and explanation is needed to overcome a little evidence, including lies, that supports the frame
4. Your response is often complex and vulnerable because complicated responses to rebut simple frames are usually needed