I’ve been building up a large set of open tabs in my web browser with things I want to write about, and it’s becoming unmanageable, so that must mean it’s finally time to write. Given the number of topics, I’ll try and keep comments relatively minimal.

New restrictions on speech and beliefs seem like they’re coming

Police officers and “hate speech”

I’m increasingly concerned that the First Amendment is on its way out. Religion is already frowned on if it touches the public sphere, but freedom of speech (and belief) seems under attack. This showed up, for example, in drafts of California AB655, as discussed here. This would have prohibited police officers from serving if they have used “hate speech”, defined as:

… advocating or supporting the denial of constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.

The article notes that expressing the view that homosexuality is wrong could be considered hate speech by this definition and used to exclude someone from serving as a police officer. Particularly, since gay marriage is now a recognized constitutional right, advocating against it or expressing the view that it is wrong could be considered hate speech and thus be grounds for excluding someone from service as a police officer. A legal expert quoted notes:

Under the guise of addressing police gangs, the bill at the same time launches an inexplicable, unwarranted, and unprecedented attack on peaceable, conscientious officers who happen to hold conservative political and religious views.

Ultimately, this language was changed to provide a little more leeway, but it seems consistent with the spirit of our times.

Gina Carano and the cancel culture

Similar issues came up with the Gina Carano firing, where the very reason Carano was “canceled” and fired was for pointing out that people are being persecuted for their beliefs, something that has caused problems in the past and will do so again:

Religion and politics are both systems of belief, and if you are hunted down and persecuted, possibly killed, because of your beliefs, then you are a victim of a crime against humanity. Again, Carano’s clearly drawn point was that targeting any group as an object of socially approved hate has proven to result in oppression and even violence.

Book banning and Amazon

Amazon recently began removing certain books from their platform along with introducing a new policy on “inappropriate and offensive” works. In particular, it removed “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” by Ryan Anderson. Amazon is, of course, a business and has the right to sell or not sell whatever it wants, but Amazon has tremendous power and is using it to squash a particular viewpoint here, Shrier argues. It’s not applying this policy universally – for example:

Amazon gladly carries Mein Kampf without fear that anyone will attribute its anti-Semitism to the bookseller because Amazon distributes millions of titles.

But, this book for some reason it hasn’t explained, is too inappropriate or dangerous or something. Shrier worries about the effect this will have on others’ work in our society:

As a direct result of Amazon’s action, many outstanding books will now go unwritten; they will not be commissioned whenever Amazon’s distribution is the slightest bit in doubt. As I write this, authors are being dropped by agents or politely refused representation, based on what the agents now know Amazon will not carry. “I’m just thinking of your career,” agents will say. “Why not try something a little less inflammatory?” …This is the “chilling effect” of censorship, John Milton called the “greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him.” When censorship is imposed by the government—or the world’s third largest multinational—it forbids new life like a frost.

Had the government banned Anderson’s book, Anderson would now be headed to federal court, where he would prevail. When Amazon acts, the independent writer has nowhere to go. Anderson’s recourse? He can complain about it on Twitter, which hosts any of us only as long as it feels like it.

The author himself tackled this issue in an editorial at the Wall Street Journal:

Why would Amazon exercise its unrivaled market power to banish my book? Because the book is changing minds in a continuing debate about how best to help patients who experience gender dysphoria. “When Harry Became Sally” has been praised by medical and legal experts—and that’s what makes it unacceptable to the woke.

Rowling, Fiennes and the cancel culture

Apparently actor Ralph Fiennes gave a recent interview in which he addressed the vitriol directed towards author JK Rowling because of her position on transgender issues. The article notes:

“I can’t understand the vitriol directed at [Rowling],” Fiennes said. “I can understand the heat of an argument, but I find this age of accusation and the need to condemn irrational. I find the level of hatred that people express about views that differ from theirs, and the violence of language towards others, disturbing.”

Skepticism about racial philosophies and critical race theory should be punished

Another recent article highlighted how parents are now working together to track down and punish those skeptical of their schools’ racial agendas. The article is worth reading in full; it highlights how parents at a particular school worked together to punish those who didn’t adequately support the school’s racial agenda. They advocated hacking, spying on, and exposing those they disagreed with, and evidence could be as slim as someone being “carefully neutral” on an issue, or speaking up in support of Dr. Seuss’s content.

What concerns me the most is not that people support particular movements in this space, but that they really seem to believe that anyone who opposes them is actually evil and deserves to be silenced, punished, canceled, and otherwise prevented from bringing up any objections. Free speech, it seems, would be too harmful in such cases and cannot be tolerated – or at least, that seems to be the way things are headed.

Gender identity and the equality act

Women’s rights, gender identity and sports

One thing I’ve been seeing a lot about lately in the sports world is the issue of women’s rights and gender identity. Title IX of course famously did a great deal for women’s athletics, ensuring that women’s sports have access to funding and that women can participate extensively in college sports. Now, though, some are very concerned that Biden’s recent executive orders will essentially mark the end of women’s athletics. As noted in that article:

As Abigail Shrier explained in the Wall Street Journal, the biological differences between the sexes are so pronounced that “the fastest female sprinter in the world is American runner Allyson Felix, a woman with more gold medals than Usain Bolt. Her lifetime best for the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds. Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high-school boys in the U.S. alone could beat it.”

What will women’s sports mean in a world where anyone who identifies as a woman can compete as a woman? And how will we be able to ensure that women are able to continue participating to the extent that they have been able to for the last several decades? Yes, there are certainly special cases of athletes who are at the boundary between genders – Caster Semenya comes to mind – but what about more typical cases? Society needs to be able to have a more careful and thorough discussion about these issues without the debate just being reduced to saying, “It’s discrimination if you don’t let people compete as the gender they identify as and that’s final.”

The cited editorial in the Wall Street Journal looks into more details of the issue, and notes:

…the athletic chasm between the sexes, which opens at puberty, is both permanent and unbridgeable. Once male puberty is complete, testosterone suppression doesn’t undo the biological advantages men possess: larger hearts, lungs and bones, greater bone density, more-oxygenated blood, more fast-twitch muscle fiber and vastly greater muscle mass.

It should be no surprise, then, that the two trans-identified biological males permitted to compete in Connecticut state track finals against girls—neither of whom was a top sprinter as a boy—consistently claimed top spots competing as girls. They eliminated girls from advancement to regional championships, scouting and scholarship opportunities and trophies, and they set records no girl may ever equal.

The article goes on to express concern that women’s safe spaces – like battered women’s shelters, or women’s jails, etc., may be next. “Women’s rights turn out to be cheap and up for grabs. Who will voice objection?” the author asks. Another article at the LA Times looks at the jail issue in more detail and notes:

A transgender woman at a men’s prison, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said that she knows at least five inmates who have applied to transfer under false pretenses and that staffers have asked her to help identify such inmates.

To some extent, the question seems to be, “How do we distinguish between someone who legitimately identifies as a woman, versus someone who is saying they identify as a woman solely in order to change prisons?” In other words, someone will end up in the position of needing to judge the sincerity of people’s convictions, a topic which comes up again below.

More related thoughts from Shrier here in the context of the proposed Equality act.

Here’s a related perspective from a female powerlifter which is also worth a read.

It’s worth noting that this issue also makes the national political stage as some states consider making their own laws about whether transgender participants are allowed in women’s sports. Mohler analyzed what happened in South Dakota and notes how political pressure, including from the NCAA, played a major role in the final outcome.

The Equality Act would put the state in the position of judging which religious convictions are sincere

Al Mohler had an interesting discussion of the proposed Equality Act and points out that this act has to address how to balance freedom of religion (e.g. the right of religious colleges which hold to a traditional view of marriage to exclude same-sex couples from married student housing) with the act’s protections against discrimination based on gender. Mohler points out that the bill’s sponsor, David Cicilline, explains how this will be balanced. Mohler said:

But I really want to direct our urgent attention to a comment that Congressman Cicilline made when he was asked if this Equality Act would represent a challenge to religious liberty and to religious institutions. He said this, and I quote, “The determination would have to be made as to whether or not the decisions they are making are connected to their religious teachings and to their core functions as a religious organization, or as a pretext to discriminate.”

Now, just pause for a moment. If you haven’t heard anything else I’ve said, just understand what this Congressman said. He said straightforwardly that if this act passes, some agent of government, some bureaucrat, some regulator, some judge, or some legislator, for instance, is going to have to make the determination as to whether or not a religious institution is making a bona fide religious claim based upon legitimate religious conviction in order to be understood as operating on the basis of some kind of legitimate religious liberty, or if it is simply using religious liberty as, in his words, “A pretext to discriminate.”

In a way, it’s easy to understand where Cicilline is coming from here. As Shrier points out, some people will falsely identify as transgender just to be placed with women to prey on them. If how people self-identify is all that matters, how can this be prevented? Presumably the government would have to intervene and pass judgment as to the sincerity of people’s beliefs. Cicilline is applying a similar logic here – religious freedom should only be allowed if the government decides it’s legitimate and not just a pretext. This means we’ll be asking the government to decide which beliefs are sincere, or which beliefs people are allowed have – exactly what the First Amendment was designed to prevent.

Mohler goes on to add, “…if the government, government regulators, government agents, get to decide when a Christian institution is actually operating on the basis of legitimate Christian teaching, then religious liberty is completely dead.” I completely agree with him here.

Mohler addresses these issues in more detail in an article called “The Equality Act and the Rise of the Anti-Theological State”, which is also worth a read. He concludes:

Visible before our eyes is the threat of an anti-theological state and the end of authentic religious liberty in America. Don’t take my word for it—just take Congressman Cicilline at his.

Racial issues in education

Bari Weiss had an excellent article called “The Miseducation of America’s Elites” about a problem which extends far beyond just our elites: Our educational system demonizes capitalism, teaches that skin color is very important, and urges kids to see themselves as racist because of their own skin color. And those who express doubts about it, speak out against it, or even are insufficiently supportive, they risk ostracism and worse. The article deals particularly with elite schools, but the issues are much more widespread than that. To some extent it also relates to cancel culture, mentioned above.

California’s new ethnic studies curriculum

This article highlighted California’s alarming new ethnic studies curriculum which at the time of its writing was about to pass, and now has indeed passed. The article notes this about the curriculum:

R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, the original co-chair of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, developed much of the material regarding early American history. In his book Rethinking Ethnic Studies, which is cited throughout the curriculum, Cuauhtin argues that the United States was founded on a “Eurocentric, white supremacist (racist, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous), capitalist (classist), patriarchal (sexist and misogynistic), heteropatriarchal (homophobic), and anthropocentric paradigm brought from Europe.” The document claims that whites began “grabbing the land,” “hatching hierarchies,” and “developing for Europe/whiteness,” which created “excess wealth” that “became the basis for the capitalist economy.” Whites established a “hegemony” that continues to the present day, in which minorities are subjected to “socialization, domestication, and ‘zombification.’”

The news reports the proposed curriculum was approved by the Board of Education; you can get details here. If the article linked above seems overly alarmist, I encourage you to download some of the content yourself and read it, as it very much seems to come from a particular political view.

This article has a bit more on where this came from and may be worth a skim as well.

Social media and misinformation

I really enjoyed this article on how Facebook’s algorithms promote misinformation; essentially, the algorithms are designed to maximize engagement – but engagement is maximized by controversial and even false content. It notes:

Misinformation and hate speech constantly evolve. New falsehoods spring up; new people and groups become targets. To catch things before they go viral, content-moderation models must be able to identify new unwanted content with high accuracy. But machine-learning models do not work that way. An algorithm that has learned to recognize Holocaust denial can’t immediately spot, say, Rohingya genocide denial. It must be trained on thousands, often even millions, of examples of a new type of content before learning to filter it out. Even then, users can quickly learn to outwit the model by doing things like changing the wording of a post or replacing incendiary phrases with euphemisms, making their message illegible to the AI while still obvious to a human. This is why new conspiracy theories can rapidly spiral out of control, and partly why, even after such content is banned, forms of it can persist on the platform.

I think the issue is broader than addressed in this article, because the algorithms – as others have noted – also promote controversy and division rather than civil discourse (again, because controversy increases engagement). But, it’s still worth a read.

Other stuff