Friday roundup

Otto Warmbier's parents are pretty outraged at Very Stable Genius's taking Kim at his word that Kim did not know about Warmbier getting tortured into a comatose state. It's particularly outrageous when one considers that the VSG brought the Warmbiers to the 2017 State of the Union address.

At Quillette, a public high school teacher compares and contrasts her experiences in three New York schools, and concludes this:

It is not poor teaching or a lack of money that is failing our most vulnerable populations. The real problem is an ethos of rejection that has never been openly admitted by those in authority.

Why should millions of perfectly normal adolescents, not all of them ghettoized, resist being educated? The reason is that they know deep down that due to the color of their skin, less is expected of them. This they deeply resent. How could they not resent being seen as less capable? It makes perfect psychological sense. Being very young, however, they cannot articulate their resentment, or understand the reasons for it, especially since the adults in charge hide the truth. So they take out their rage on the only ones they can: themselves and their teachers.

They also take revenge on a fraudulent system that pretends to educate them. The authorities cover up their own incompetence, and when that fails, blame the parents and teachers, or lack of funding, or “poverty,” “racism,” and so on. The media follow suit. Starting with our lawmakers, the whole country swallows the lie. 

Why do precious few adults admit the truth out loud? Because in America the taboo against questioning the current orthodoxy on race is too strong and the price is too high. What is failing our most vulnerable populations is the lack of political will to acknowledge and solve the real problems. The first step is to change the ”anti-discrimination” laws that breed anti-social behavior. Disruptive students must be removed from the classroom, not to punish them but to protect the majority of students who want to learn.

John F. DiLeo at the Illinois Review on the failure of Ben Sasse's born-alive infant bill to pass the Senate:

 Let us never again question the arguments of the slippery slope.  Every law is indeed a potential foundation for future expansion; we need to think carefully about every policy choice, before setting it in motion.  Abortion in hard cases paved the way, first, to abortion on demand for any reason, and now even to an act which can only be called infanticide.

We rightly attack the Nazis for their gas chambers, the Phnom Penh for their killing fields, the Soviets for their dekulakization.  We rightly hate the memories of Bloody Ban Tarleton for executing surrendering colonial soldiers, and the 19^th century czarist pogroms.

But we have truly lost our moral compass, if we refuse to protect the most innocent among us, our newborn children, from being killed by people who profess to be doctors.

They can use a scalpel, or a chemical, or even just a table, and leave the newborn on a shelf to die of exposure, and in some states, there’s nothing we can do about it.   The newest instrument of the abortionist is the oldest murder weapon of all – exposure.

A friend of mine has a great blog called Unremarkable Miracles. Every post is a gem. They're usually long, thoughtful rumination on experiences he's had in the course of his daily life. He's done a number of things over the years. I first really got to know him when he owned a wine bar and I used to put together small jazz groups to play there.

Important Avner Zarmi piece at PJ Media entitled "Why Trump's 'Style' Matters." A taste:

Worse, Mr. Trump has a personality that simply brings out the worst in both his more avid supporters and his opponents. He inspires and exacerbates "resistance" at every level, and is an intensely polarizing figure. Having spent the last two years dividing the country to an extent unprecedented since the end of the Civil War, now he calls for bipartisanship. A major part of the problem will be that the country simply cannot afford, e.g., a new "infrastructure" program, despite his grandiose campaign rhetoric. Nothing -- and I repeat, nothing -- has been done to address the appalling national debt and deficit caused by current levels of government spending. Indeed, the much-vaunted tax cut coupled with increased military spending (which, I'll grant, was necessary) without serious reforms to the entitlement programs that are already over 60% of federal spending has simply blown a wider and deeper hole.

So glad that Naomi Roa's nomination to the DC Court of Appeals has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee. This aspect of it is particularly heartening:

Both Committee Republicans who had expressed doubts about Rao — Sens. Joni Ernst and Josh Hawley — voted in her favor. Ernst had indicated some time ago that her concern about Rao’s student writings on rape had been assuaged after meeting with the nominee.

Hawley’s concern was more serious. He sensed in her fairly recent academic writings more sympathy for “substantive due process” than a solid conservative should have. Substantive due process is a doctrine that can be used to invent rights not found in the language of the Constitution, such as the right to an abortion. Hawley had also heard that Rao was personally pro choice. 

According to my sources, Rao failed to assuage this concern during an initial private meeting with Hawley. However, when they met a second time, shortly before today’s vote, Rao must have talked more expansively about the writings that concerned Sen. Hawley. In any event, Hawley says he came away from the discussion satisfied that, as he put it, Rao believes the meaning of the Constitution is “fixed.”

Writer Barrett Wilson has a great piece at The Federalist called "After My Social Justice Friends Dropped Me, Conservatives Took Me In."  A taste:

Recently, I went to have a beer with one of my friends from my former life as a social justice crusader. He’s one of the few left-leaning friends I have left since I was mobbed and shamed out of my lefty, social justice community for “toxic behavior” on Twitter (in a straight-up Justine Sacco-style event). He’s a great guy, and he’s still friends with my old friends, so when we meet, it’s a secretive thing.

As I was on my way, I started thinking about just how many people I had lost in my life over the last year or two. It’s got to be in the hundreds. People who have known me for 20 years or more, who said they loved me, who took care of me and let me take care of them, are all mostly gone now. For many, it’s a matter of their own social survival. Guilt by association is a h-ll of a thing.

As I was starting to tally the people I have lost touch with, another thought occurred to me: I probably have more conservative friends than liberal friends now. For a lifelong “bleeding heart” liberal, this is quite the unexpected life development. I decided to tweet something to that effect.

I tweeted: “Since I was mobbed out of my social justice community, I’ve found that conservatives are more kind, forgiving, and open-minded people than my old crew. I’ve found friendship and acceptance despite disagreement. I can’t get in trouble anymore for saying so—so I’m saying so.” 

One for the death-rattle-of-western-civilization file: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle intend to raise their kid in a "gender fluid" way and "won't be imposing any stereotypes."