The search for a way back to even a modicum of civility would require the participation of both sides

I thought about just putting together a general-purpose roundup, but I came to see that a common theme ran through all the items I wanted to share.

As a point from which to begin, let us note that two of the pieces employ the term "Latinx" in their reportage. In one case, the context is the citing of the name of a Yale Law School campus group. In the other, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is being quoted.

The term only came along fairly recently, but like so many such newly coined words, it now falls off the tongues of leftists quite naturally, despite its being embarrassingly asinine.

You probably already surmised as much, but here is how it came to be:

Latinx is the gender-neutral alternative to Latino, Latina and even Latin@. Used by scholars, activists and an increasing number of journalists, Latinx is quickly gaining popularity among the general public. It’s part of a “linguistic revolution” that aims to move beyond gender binaries and is inclusive of the intersecting identities of Latin American descendants. In addition to men and women from all racial backgrounds, Latinx also makes room for people who are trans, queer, agender, non-binary, gender non-conforming or gender fluid.“In Spanish, the masculinized version of words is considered gender neutral.

But that obviously doesn’t work for some of us because I don’t think it’s appropriate to assign masculinity as gender neutral when it isn’t,” explains queer, non-binary femme writer Jack Qu’emi Gutiérrez in an interview with PRI. “The ‘x,’ in a lot of ways, is a way of rejecting the gendering of words to begin with, especially since Spanish is such a gendered language.”

Latinx is also, as pointed out by writer Gabe Gonzalez, a way to reclaim identity, a form of rebellion against “the language and legacy of European traditions that were imposed on the Americas.”

Okay, having thus set the table, let's look at the items that have crossed LITD's radar in the last couple of days and from which a theme has emerged.

Let's start with Aaron Haviland's Federalist piece entitled "I Thought I Could Be a Christian at Yale Law School. I Was Wrong." Here's what he's been encountering as he tries to study and adhere to his principles:

On a recent Sunday evening in New Haven, Connecticut, a visiting priest gave a homily about the importance of Christian love. The gospel reading was Luke 6:27: “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also…”

In an age of political tribalism and social media, the priest reminded us that it is all too tempting to give in to the temptation of striking back at your enemies. But the duty of a Christian is to refrain from that temptation, to pray for your enemies, and to ultimately attempt to forgive.

As a stereotypical Catholic, I don’t usually quote scripture, but those words resonated with me that evening because they came at an appropriate time. I am a third-year student at Yale Law School. Before law school, I attended the Naval Academy and the University of Cambridge, and I served in the Marine Corps. I am also a member of my school’s Federalist Society chapter. (I write in my personal capacity, not on behalf of any organization.)

Earlier that Sunday morning, my friends and I sent out a school-wide email announcement about a guest speaker event for the upcoming week. A lawyer from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the Christian legal group that has won numerous First Amendment cases at the Supreme Court, would be discussing Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

Given that ADF has been smeared as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, we expected some controversy. But what we got was over-the-top even by Yale standards. 

The first condemnation was from Outlaws, the law school’s LGBTQ group. They attacked the Federalist Society for inviting ADF to campus and called for a boycott of the event. Over the next 24 hours, almost every student group jumped onto the bandwagon and joined the boycott.

The emails were a veritable alphabet soup of identity groups, including: APALSA (Asian Pacific American Law Students Association); BLSA (Black Law Students Association); SALSA (South Asian Law Students Association); LLSA (Latinx Law Students Association); MLSA (Muslim Law Students Association); MENALSA (Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association); and JLSA (Jewish Law Students Association).

NALSA (Native American Law Students Association) said ADF employees were not welcome on their “ancestral lands.” The Yale Law Women, Yale Law Student Alliance for Reproductive Justice, and the Women of Color Collective joined, as did the American Constitution Society, the Yale Law Democrats, and the First Generation Professionals.

In addition to the boycott, some students said people who supported ADF’s position should no longer be admitted to the law school. One student emailed a list of the Federalist Society board members (publicly available information) so students would know whom to “thank” for this event.

The event took place two days later. Around 30 people attended. The boycotters decorated the front door with rainbow posters, but mostly stuck to protests and support groups in other rooms. The one disruption occurred near the end of the event, when three students walked in, rifled through empty pizza boxes, and left with a couple leftovers. On their way out, one of the protestors blew us a kiss and gave us the middle finger. 

At National Review, Ben Shapiro looks at Cynthia Nixon's shaming of Joe Biden for calling Mike Pence a "decent guy" and says that his short-term - very short-term - friend Mark Duplass would completely understand. Alas, both Biden and Duplass succumbed to moral cowardice and folded like cheap card tables.

It’s never a good feeling to get Duplassed.

The term “Duplassed” comes from the actor Mark Duplass — a talented actor and director who contacted me sometime last year, asking whether I could give him any guidance on the pro–Second Amendment position regarding gun control. I was happy to help; he showed up at our offices, where we spent an hour and a half chatting over the issue. As he left, I warned him that if he let his leftist friends know that we had met, he might face a backlash. He blithely assured me he wasn’t worried.

A few months later, Duplass tweeted, “Fellow liberals: If you are interested at all in ‘crossing the aisle’ you should consider following @benshapiro. I don’t agree with him on much but he’s a genuine person who once helped me for no other reason than to be nice. He doesn’t bend the truth. His intentions are good.”

This, it turns out, was a rather large mistake. It prompted spasms of outrage from the Left, which brutally ratio-ed him on Twitter; Duplass quickly deleted his tweet, then issued a quasi-apology, calling his original tweet a “disaster on many levels,” adding that he “in no way endorse[s] hatred, racism, homophobia, xenophobia or any form of intolerance.”

Being Duplassed sucks, to put it mildly. To have a person address you as a human being and acknowledge your basic good nature is inherently rather heart-warming. To have that judgment summarily rejected thanks to political blowback is just as stomach-churning. Suffice it to say, then, I have some sympathy for Vice President Mike Pence, who got Duplassed by former vice president Joe Biden this week.

This week, Biden spoke in Omaha, Neb., where he called Mike Pence a “decent guy.” This was, of course, a grave sin — a sin so grave that radical-leftist actress and failed New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon chided Biden publicly. Nixon tweeted, “@JoeBiden you’ve just called America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader a ‘decent guy.’ Please consider how this falls on the ears of our community.” Most ridiculously, Nixon then tagged Biden’s wife so that she could presumably shame her husband into compliance. 

Biden did his withering via Twitter, but Nixon wasn't finished. She penned a Washington Post op-ed that contained four lies about Pence.

 She repeatedly mischaracterized Pence’s record, suggesting that he “signed a ‘religious freedom’ bill that would have allowed LGBTQ discrimination” (false — he actually called for changes to the bill to “make it clear discrimination won’t be allowed”); that he “refused to lift a ban on needle exchange programs until a preventable HIV outbreak reached epidemic level” (false — he issued an executive order in March 2015 allowing distribution of needles while acknowledging public-health concerns about such distribution); that he “suggested support for so-called conversion therapy” (false — there is no mention of conversion therapy on the website at issue); that he “published an article urging businesses not to hire gay people” (utterly false outright). Aside from all these false charges, Nixon condemned Pence as indecent for attempting to “ban transgender people from military service,” a position with which Pence has not been involved, and a position supported by a significant percentage of the population including a Department of Defense panel of experts; and seeking to “define transgender Americans out of existence,” a complete lie that mistakes recognizing biological sex differences for discrimination.

Now, AOC takes a slightly different tack when she encounters deviation from The Program: condescension:

I often think about how I work with white or male allies when they say something insensitive. 

The 1st thing I do is pull them aside + say “hey, you may not be aware of X thing regarding Latinx people, but here is the history and it’s hurtful. If you want to learn more, read Y.” 

John Sexton at Hot Air articulates the degree of smugness involved here as well as I could:

Good grief, she’s pointing to herself as an example. She’s a 29-year-old issuing reading assignment to “white or male allies.” What would happen if one of those allies pulled her aside and gave her a reading assignment? I suspect any attempt to reverse the flow of information would be filtered through a matrix and quickly deemed problematic. If a man pulled her aside that would be mansplaining and if it was a white man it might also be white supremacy. A white woman would be accused of a confused identification with the patriarchy created by the benefits of white supremacy. But the bottom line is clear enough. AOC talks. White and male allies listen and get on with their reading assignments.

(I just noticed that Blogger spell check put a dotted read line under "Latinx" in the AOC tweet above. Also when I typed it in the previous sentence. How long until Blogger is made to be woke?)

Lastly, I share a five-minute video outgoing American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks has posted on Facebook entitled "Disagree Better." His point is that we don't need to sweep our differences of viewpoint under the rug, but rather learn tools for more effective polemical exchange and persuasion. He goes over three: don't try to insult the other person into agreement, don't assume the values of the other person, and use your values as a gift, not a weapon.

It's a great video, and every person in our society should heed its message.

And it comes from an immensely interesting man. He's good friends with the Dalai Llama. He spent twenty years as a professional French horn player. I've recited the story before about my first day at the 2013 Americans for Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit in Orlando, Florida, and how I got up early to be at the fitness center at the resort when it opened at 6 AM. Brooks was headed the same way, and we made some pleasant small talk as we walked across the plaza. And I can tell you that the guy can move some iron. He's fit.

But here's the problem with his message: A huge swath of post-Americans is going to instantly tune it out. How do you employ the polemical tools he offers when they get trampled into the dust, per the situations cited here?

Leftists are single-mindedly determined to reinvent humanity and squish like a gnat anyone who begs to differ with that agenda. Pence, Shapiro, and Haviland do regard their values as gifts, and look where it has gotten them.

This is absolutely not a call for slurs and ad hominem attacks, but any productive way of proceeding in this brittle post-American society needs to start with the recognition that we have indeed reached a state of civil war, albeit not yet hot.

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