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  1. by Mollie Engelhart As a vegan chef turned regenerative cattle rancher, I’ve traversed the narrow divides between two worlds: the health-conscious, progressive enclaves of Los Angeles and the rugged, often misunderstood landscapes of rural Texas. For years, I lived and breathed the principles of organic farming and plant-based eating, firmly rooted in the belief that our food systems should be safe, resilient, and free from harmful chemicals. My community was predominantly left-leaning, passionate about clean water, food safety, and the dangers of over-medication. It felt like common sense. Yet, a seismic shift occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, the very people who once railed against chemicals in our food were now clamoring for more. They went from advocating for natural and holistic approaches to a new cult-like devotion to any and every product produced by big pharma, big ag and big food - seemingly forgetting the principles they once held dear. It left me bewildered and questioning the values of a movement I had long identified with. I am a lifelong liberal. I married someone who is undocumented, and I’ve spent years passionately advocating for organic farming and holistic health. But as the pandemic unfolded, I began to realize that I had more in common with those I once considered my ideological opposites. In seeking a deeper understanding of the debate over the COVID-19 vaccines, I found myself listening to voices I had previously dismissed, including those of the right. It was a disorienting journey, yet it opened my eyes to a broader narrative. One voice that stood out was Tucker Carlson. Initially, I viewed him through the lens of my biases, assuming he was a racist and a bigot. But as I listened more closely, I realized that he, too, was a father concerned for his children’s health and future. He shared my values around environmentalism, clean water, and the importance of preserving our natural world. This was a turning point for me. I recognized that we were not enemies; we were parents trying to protect our families in a world fraught with uncertainty. This brings me to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His candidacy for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) resonates deeply with my journey. Many in my community dismiss him as a “whack job” with no medical background, but this kind of labeling is all too reminiscent of how I once viewed Carlson. RFK Jr. is not a threat; he is a champion for informed consent and transparency in our food and pharmaceutical systems. His vision for HHS aligns perfectly with the values I hold dear. He advocates for reducing chemicals in our food supply and ensuring that parents have the right to understand what goes into their children’s bodies. As a mother, I believe it is our right to know the ingredients in the vaccines our children receive, just as it is our right to demand food that nourishes rather than harms. We cannot ignore the fact that cheap, chemically laden food is a privilege that comes at a grave cost to farmworkers’ health. I was reminded of this every time I spoke to Cynthia, a house cleaner in California, who was part of a team that harvested strawberries—each of them diagnosed with cancer before age 40. The recent leftward shift towards accepting more chemicals in our food and water is disheartening. This is not merely a partisan issue; it’s a human issue. It’s about our children’s future and the environment we leave behind. We should be prioritizing clean air and water, not pushing for more fluoride or pesticides. True environmentalism is about ensuring that our food is safe, our air is breathable, and our water is drinkable. This has long been a cornerstone of progressive ideology, and it feels like we’ve lost our way. It pains me to see my friends on the left resist RFK Jr.’s candidacy. He is an accomplished environmental advocate with a proven track record of holding powerful corporations accountable for their actions. He cleaned up the Hudson River and has been a steadfast voice for mothers who have often been ignored. His understanding of the intersection between corporate interests and government regulation is precisely what we need in this critical role. I understand that the political landscape is fraught with emotion and disappointment, especially with the current administration. However, we must recognize that this is an opportunity for real, transformative change in our food systems—an opportunity to reshape the relationship between corporate interests and government oversight in a way that prioritizes public health and environmental responsibility. As a mother, a farmer, a chef, and a concerned citizen, it would be a grave mistake to overlook the potential for substantial reform that RFK Jr. could bring to the Department of Health and Human Services. We have the chance to make significant strides toward a healthier food system and a more just society. I urge the members of the United States Senate to move quickly to confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services so that we can begin the critical work of making our nation’s food supply and its people healthy again. Mollie Engelhart is an accomplished restauranteur, organic chef and regenerative farmer. This article was originally published by RealClearHealth and made available via RealClearWire.
  2. by Christine Schueckler If you’ve ever spent more than fifteen minutes on any social media or news platform, you’ve probably encountered “rage bait” content. Misleading headlines, out-of-touch opinions, and nonsensical commentary can be intentionally ridiculous, designed to make viewers click, view, and write scathing rebuttals in the comments section. Like it or not, the more it annoys us, the longer we remember it. This is exactly what the creators of this content want. Rage baiting is no longer restricted to Instagram Reels and TikTok, however. Political commentators are perhaps the worst offenders, provoking their audiences to righteous outrage. We’ve all experienced this: A voice in the political sphere discredits, debases, and insults those who believe differently, convincing his audience that he is morally and intellectually superior, while his opponents are evil, idiotic, or both. This has to stop. A 2023 Pew Research Center study found that 65 percent of American adults find thinking about politics “exhausting,” while another 55 percent stated that thinking about politics makes them angry. Those who were the most politically engaged were the angriest across the board, regardless of political party. And since 2016, both parties have increasingly reported that it is “stressful and frustrating” to discuss politics with those whom they disagree with. To be sure, there is much to be angry about. I find political debates to be “stressful and frustrating” as well. But when frustration with the convictions of the opposing party turns into anger at individuals—everyday Americans—with whom we disagree, a line has been crossed. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of negatively stereotyping each other, equating one type of person with the whole and thus dehumanizing every member of the opposite party. Democrats seem to regard Republicans as Trump-worshipping, uneducated, fanatically religious, racist hicks. At the same time, Republicans stereotype their opponents as purple-haired, Satan-worshipping, self-righteous snowflakes. None of this is productive. Stereotypes exist for a reason. Certainly, people of both descriptions do exist. But political news outlets perpetuate these clichés to dehumanize the other side, to make us angry. And it’s working. In order to heal the stark divisions in our country, we need to approach one another with compassion and understanding. It’s baffling to see how many members of both parties have never taken the time to understand the other point of view and learned to say, “I disagree, but I understand.” This is vital for the future of constructive discourse in our nation. What many fail to recognize is that someone can be wrong and still have the best of intentions. I firmly believe that the majority of voters in both parties are motivated by concern for the well-being of others, care for the oppressed, and human equality. We may have different definitions of what constitutes “well-being”; we may prioritize different forms of equality. But almost everyone is doing what they think is right. It’s easy to demonize our rivals, to write them off as twisted and evil. It’s easy to become complacent in our own convictions and decide that we have nothing to learn from the opposition. However, I hold that you can’t truly know what you believe until your views are formidably challenged. We need to be willing to engage with those with whom we disagree—with friendliness, respect, and an open mind. I speak from experience when I say that I’ve learned far more about my conservative beliefs by engaging with my more liberal peers than I ever have from conservative media outlets. The media wants us to be angry. It drives up their viewership numbers and keeps us coming back for more, anxiously waiting to hear what terrible thing the other side will do next. It has no incentive to treat its rivals as humans with past experiences and honestly held convictions. But we do. The end of political polarization begins with the individual, with respect and open dialogue. Our country relies on every one of us to treat each other as humans instead of sycophantic, faceless cogs in the political machine. J.M. Barrie wrote, “Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?” This is what America needs. Begin by assuming the best of intentions, then listen. Be a little kinder than is necessary. Christine Schueckler is a third-year English and French student at the University of Virginia. This content originally appeared on InetellectualTakeout.org and is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
  3. We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun: Dear Editor, I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon, 115 West 95th Street. *************************** Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except (what) they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. Francis P. Church, Editor 1897
  4. by Barry Brownstein Political divisions are ugly, and those divisions have spilled over onto the Thanksgiving table. One study found that “partisan differences cost American families 62 million person-hours of Thanksgiving time.” Presumably those same differences are impacting the quality of family time throughout the year. Time to count our blessings has become another opportunity to count our grievances. Here are five suggestions to help bring harmony to your Thanksgiving table. 1. Begin with your purpose in mind Our mind selectively interprets our experience, in part, based upon where our attention is focused. When our purpose at the dinner table is clouded by wishes to feel superior to a relative who “just doesn’t get it” we are setting ourselves up for an unhappy Thanksgiving. Since our attention is directed by our purpose, our mind will jump on every shred of evidence to confirm that our relative is a “problem.” By allowing our mind to gnaw on irritations and grievances, we have made harmony dependent upon others behaving as we think they should. Notice, as details of our complaints fill our mind, we suffer more. We can lead by going first; we can find our higher purpose for this year’s Thanksgiving gathering. As we take our attention off disagreements with others, we can watch the quality of conversation change. 2. Ask yourself: Would I rather be right or be happy? Is it important to have an opinion about everything? How often do we look for a pause in the conversation so we can tell others why they are wrong? When we express an opinion that doesn’t need to be expressed, we are saying to the other person: My function is to correct you, and your function is to accept my correction. Should we be surprised if others resist us? Ryan Holiday, author of several books on Stoicism, writes of the price we pay for our opinions: “If you were to think of the worst punishment you could inflict on a person it would be to cast a spell on them that says, ‘You will now have a strong opinion on everything you see and hear.’ Why? Because inevitably they find that much of what happens to them is disagreeable to that opinion, and worse, they will find themselves in many pointless disagreements with other people about those opinions.” Here is the good news. We can be grateful for our opinionated relatives; they provide us an opportunity to practice not having to always be right. We can choose, instead, to be curious about the opinions of others. 3. Practice Ben Franklin’s humility rule In his autobiography, Ben Franklin writes of learning of a flaw in his own character revealed to him by a friend: “I was generally thought proud, that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation, that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing and rather insolent.” Franklin realized he was lacking in humility and, despite practice, he could not “boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue.” So, Franklin added a rule to his life: “I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so, or it so appears to me at present.” Franklin noticed how contradicting others gave him pleasure: “When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition.” This Thanksgiving, we can practice denying ourselves the “pleasure” of contradicting others. 4. Understand the nature of feelings We believe that the intensity of our feelings is a signal that we are right and others are wrong. Upset feelings are a guide to the quality of our thinking and not the correctness of our position. When we experience intense emotions, we commonly attribute our emotions to what is external. We are certain that “obnoxious” Uncle Joe has caused our discomfort by expressing his flawed opinions. Full stop! Being irritated, being annoyed, being angry are pre-existing qualities in us and are not caused by Uncle Joe. Our reaction to Uncle Joe reveals to us a flaw in our own character. Instead of irritation, we can cultivate gratitude by remembering how the sacrifices of the family members sitting at our table have improved our lives. 5. Reflect on our shared human experience Politics is divisive, but all human experiences have common elements. Viktor Frankl, the famed psychiatrist and author of Man’s Search for Meaning also wrote The Will to Meaning. In it he describes a “tragic triad” of human experiences. He observed, “There is no human being who may say that he has not failed, that he does not suffer, and that he will not die.” Before a cosmic moment has gone by, everyone at our Thanksgiving tables will experience Frankl’s “tragic triad.” We can look at the faces around the table and let our hearts melt with the truth of our common journey. When we focus on what we share, and not what divides us, Love comes to the forefront of our experience. Barry Brownstein is professor emeritus of economics and leadership at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of The Inner-Work of Leadership, and his essays have also appeared at the American Institute for Economic Research, the Foundation for Economic Education, and many other publications. To receive Barry’s essays in your inbox, visit his Substack. This content originally appeared on InetellectualTakeout.org and is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
  5. by Cadence McManimon I don’t think it would be a shock to anyone to point out that traditionalists often romanticize, even idolize, 1950s American culture. Why? I think the allure lies in nostalgia, even nostalgia for a time we’ve never experienced. It’s easy to romanticize an era which we think embodies our values and lifestyle dreams. In reality, there were definitely good things about the ’50s we could bring back. And of course, there were a number of dangerous societal trends that gained traction in this decade, too. Let’s explore a few and see why we tend to idolize the ’50s, and whether we should reframe our perspective. ’50s Trends to Bring Back A celebration of the male and female dichotomy. After the end of WWII, the young male population returned to their home country and home lives. This long-awaited masculine return resulted, of course, in the baby boom: the generation we know now as “boomers.” It also had ripple effects through pretty much all of daily life. Women were able to leave the workforce and return to a home-centeredlifestyle, to raise children, to cook and clean and socialize. Men returned to a workforce bolstered by government programs, to fatherhood and breadwinning, to building businesses and the economy. Married couples got to live out masculinity and femininity in their day-to-day lives since the war was over and massive national poverty had ended. Compare this to today, when the dichotomy of male and female is not just overlooked but downright villainized. A booming economy of affordability and comfort. Adjusted for inflation, the average 1950s house cost about $90,000 in today’s U.S. dollar, a living standard well within reach and sustainability for most suburban families. Many young couples were able to marry, start a family, and buy a house relatively quickly due to the low cost of housing—the average house cost only three years of pre-tax income for the average family. With the blossoming economy came many comforts previously difficult to access. Beauty parlors hosted women regularly, and many women spent an average of two hours at a salon every week. Movie theaters, soda shops, roller rinks, dance halls, and sports events were regular activities for students and young adults. Colleges, too, were affordable to attend. As my paternal grandfather once said, “the 1950s was the best time to be alive.” Pay was good, living was cheap, and dozens of daily comforts opened their doors to the average citizen. A classic aesthetic. One of the first things almost any traditionalist is drawn to is a classy, objectively beautiful aesthetic. And the decade of the ’50s had it in spades. Likely this aesthetic has its roots in the celebration of male versus female. How many traditionalists say things like “back when men looked like men and women dressed like women”? Fashion choices reverted from war-ration creativity to flamboyantly fun clothes for daily wear, even for stay-at-home mothers and school children. The wildly popular fashions were amplified on the silver screen, of course. Enter the golden age of Hollywood, which revolved around beautiful cinematography and color film, stunning actresses like Audrey Hepburn, and newfangled music stars like Elvis Presley. Films and music in this time set the standard for the future, and many hits from back then are still audience favorites today. ’50s Trends to Leave in the Past Rampant materialism and commercialism. Arguably, the rise of materialism was a response to the back-to-back crises of the Great Depression and WWII in previous decades, when basic necessities were scarce and luxuries unthinkable. Due to the booming economy, the ’50s saw a skyrocketing focus on consumerism and materialism. Companies capitalized on commercialism by marketing heavily in popular aesthetics, as well as targeting their ads toward stay-at-home mothers who did the majority of shopping for households. Society in general began setting a high value on image, appearances, and the latest trendy products of the day. Whereas previous decades may have promoted more solidarity and support through the trials of need and war, this consumerism of the ’50s sowed seeds of comparison and “keeping up with the Joneses.” The daily division of the nuclear family. During the average daily hours, a father was at work and away from home, all the children were in public school separated from each other based on age, and a mother was home alone or out and about with a social calendar. In previous decades, of course, men were often primary breadwinners; but in this era began the idea of the daily commute, thus removing men from coming home to eat meals with their families. Women in previous decades often worked jobs based from home, but in this decade, many didn’t have to earn an income at all. Their free time often turned into social calendars, charity work, and women’s events… few of which would include their children or husbands. Other women chose to retain their jobs from the previous decade’s wartime, further removing all family members from the home. Public schools exploded in both enrollment and physical size, to accommodate the baby boomers’ growing up. Another major influence in the public school system was 1954’s Brown vs Board Of Education, which resulted in the federal desegregation of schools. While, of course, desegregation was a positive, it was also a shock to an unprepared school system: This contributed to increased class sizes, school needs, job demands for teachers, and increasing need for school busing commutes. One result of these bigger classes, changing social dynamics, and a larger teacher-student ratio was the explosion of teen culture. This unique young adult clique began to wield enormous power via peer pressure to levels hitherto unforeseen in American childhoods. An emotionally promiscuous dating scene. With the rise of teen culture came an unprecedented lack of supervision in the dating world. Possibly in an effort to just let kids be kids, the prevailing attitude around dating became “just have fun!” Generally, most of society agreed on keeping sexual chastity, but at the same time, media and society encouraged young people to date around at younger and younger ages and to worry about committing to a spouse later. Interestingly, despite condemning sexual promiscuity, society developed a sort of emotional hookup culture. It actually was quite common to have multiple boyfriends or girlfriends, to secretly date someone else’s “steady,” and to engage in plenty of “parking” and “necking.” I personally can see how this may have set the stage for the sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s. It’s also worth noting that by the 1950s, Margaret Sanger had founded abortion birth control mogul Planned Parenthood, and in the ’50s, Hugh Hefner began Playboy magazine. Both companies attacked fundamental gender roles and societal standards even while these roles and standards were prized in fashion, social circles, and commercial marketing. In the end, we can ask ourselves a number of questions: Was beautiful fashion worth the skyrocketing media reliance? Does a booming economy justify materialism? We might consider many answers. Overall, though, I think it’s safe to say one thing: No historical era was perfect. Traditionalists shouldn’t look at the past with rosy lenses and wish themselves back in time. Every generation had strengths and weaknesses, good ideas and bad mistakes. Why? Humanity is still human, and we always have been and always will be. Let’s not do our current generation the disservice of claiming previous ones were so much better. Cadence McManimon is a published author, former special education teacher, and now a wife and mother. She has too many houseplants, plenty of artsy projects, and not enough pens that work! (Doesn't everyone?) Her novels Name Unspoken and The Lily Girl are available at her website cadencemcmanimon.com. Her favorite things include crayons, sarcasm, Sherlock Holmes, and hearing from readers! This content originally appeared on InetellectualTakeout.org and is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
  6. by Rebecca Friedrichs Facebook chief Mark Zuckerburg now admits in writing that he was manipulated by the Biden administration into suppressing free speech on Meta platforms. His actions obstructed vital information on effective COVID protocols, and bolstered the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. This did enormous damage to our health and polity. But Facebook’s censorship brought harm to innocent children too. I’m a longtime teacher, and for decades I’ve personally witnessed dangerous corruption in America’s schools. I dared to warn families, so I was silenced by Zuckerberg’s “shadow-banning,” thanks to algorithms imposed by censors (“fact checkers”) at Meta. Meta’s banning (as well as Twitter’s) began the very same night of my 2020 speech at the Republican National Convention. My pages changed from active with hundreds of likes and shares to zero likes and shares. And I went from rapid, daily follower increases to a complete halt in growth. Hundreds of my followers have reached out to me since the banning began to tell me that they no longer see my posts in their newsfeeds. Instagram’s (Meta’s) analytics show that an average of only 25% of my followers are seeing my content. That’s how shadow-banning works. I’m allowed to post, but my message is squelched. Though I’m a volunteer in this battle for the kids, I had to hire social media experts to help me get my message to the public. They’ve reignited my social media presence – predominantly on Meta’s Instagram – with a reel-heavy strategy. Our ratios are the highest they’ve ever been – with the exception of follower count. That doesn’t add up. It’s even worse on Facebook and X. We have high hopes that we’ll be freed on X since Elon is now in charge, but we’ve been unable to reach their tech team for support and believe our pre-existing Twitter shadow-banning has yet to be lifted on X. Government tech is suppressing my speech because I exposed so-called teacher unions for morphing America’s schools into social, sexual, and political warzones, and I shared personal stories of how they pick on loving teachers and little kids. Though I spoke 100% eyewitness truth, I’m still shadow-banned four years later. I know many people like me who are also banned on social media. We’re denied our free speech rights, while the predators we’re exposing broadcast loudly. Zuckerberg stated that he believes “the government pressure [to censor content] was wrong.” He also penned, “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” That sounds nice. But I’m still shadow-banned, and the day after Zuckerberg’s letter released, my personal page was inexplicably suspended. Many of my allies in the cause for truth are banned too. Because of the censorship, we’re now ruled by tyrants. I have friends whose family members died from untested COVID shots and government-mandated hospital protocols. I know many who are suffering serious shot-related health complications. And the kids I’ve been trying to protect are being sexualized in our schools in record numbers. That’s why I’m concerned about Zuckerberg’s claims that he’ll “push back if something like this happens again,” because it’s still happening – it never stopped. He never freed us from censorship. Nothing Zuckerburg can say now will erase the injury he and the other tech titans have done to the country that made them billionaires. But I’ll believe he’s sorry when he ends the silencing of honest Americans like me. Who knows how many Americans are dead, or severely injured, because tech titans silenced expert opposing views about the government’s handling of COVID? How many of those untested shots would have been rejected? How many patients would have taken commonsense, award-winning medicines like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, instead of dying on ventilators? How many Americans might have voted differently in 2020 had they known the Hunter Biden laptop – loaded with authoritative accounts of government corruption and crime – was legitimate? A little closer to home, how many additional families have lost their children to sexualized curricula, school violence, and the transgender agenda because Zuckerberg blocked our vital information about corruption in government schools? How many kids lost two years of learning because schools were shuttered thanks to the politicking of teacher unions? While those unscrupulous unions enjoy the freedom to propagandize on social media, thousands of commentators, including myself, are still shunted off the main feeds of innumerable apps because we dare stray from the official government tech line. That my friends, is reflective of communism. In regard to demoting the Hunter laptop as “Russian disinformation,” Zuckerburg now says, “We’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again – for instance, we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers.” Since I’ve been demoted for four years without explanation, this is not reassuring. And what about the hundreds of millions of dollars in cash Zuckerburg doled out to nearly 2,500 counties in 49 states? All on the up-and-up? Not according to numerous skeptics, including Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member who in 2021 said it was clearly an effort to aid Democrats. Spakovsky said “this was a carefully orchestrated attempt to convert official government election offices into get-out-the-vote operations for one political party.” In a contemporary period where numerous government agencies are weaponized to serve the so-called Democratic Party in its persecution of those they dislike, Zuckerberg’s words here are poignant. “I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other,” Zuckerburg deadpanned, adding meaningfully, “I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.” But it’s hard to believe a man who cannot fully admit that his actions did benefit Democrats over the democratic process, and who continues blocking truth-tellers on the very day he released his confession. Calling your bluff, Zuckerberg. Prove your sincerity by freeing persecuted truth-tellers like me. You can find me @RebeccaForKids. Rebecca Friedrichs is the founder of For Kids and Country, author of Standing Up to Goliath, and a 28-year public school teacher who was lead plaintiff in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
  7. Guest Writers

    Farm Tough

    by Ray Craig Recently, my 10-year-old son, Eric, made a play in his baseball game that I was particularly proud of. He didn’t strike out the side or make a fantastic stop in the field. He didn’t smash a double down the left-field line. No, it wasn’t a remarkable play at all—Eric was hit by a pitch on his arm while batting. What pleased me was how Eric casually dropped his bat and sprinted to first, similar to when he draws a base on balls. It’s sad, but this behavior from a young boy is now about as rare as one of these kids knocking a home run over the fence. For whatever reason, most young boys now cry and make a scene if they suffer any pain—however minor—on the field, usually carrying on until the umpire or coach runs out to attend to them. Before long, Mom and Dad are rushing into the dugout, and the kids from both teams get into the act by kneeling to show respect to the injured player, similar to when they take a player off the field on a stretcher during an NFL game. The commotion quickly comes to a close when the youngster miraculously shakes off the injury and finds his way to first base. I look to the ground and cringe at the overreaction whenever this happens. Reflecting on where this early behavior leads, I think about the excuses employees at my business give for wanting to work from home in this post-COVID world. A recent humdinger was a boy in his mid-20s who said he couldn’t make the 10-minute walk from his apartment to our downtown office because it was raining and he couldn’t find his umbrella. Not exactly “greatest generation” material. Back on the Farm When Eric quickly shook off the hit by pitch the other night, memories of growing up with my dad, grandpa, and uncle on our farm flashed into my head. I recalled the countless times I saw them suddenly cut their hands working on machinery, fixing a fence, or getting pinched between a gate and heavy livestock. I would notice the blood and point it out. My remark would usually get them smiling as they carelessly wiped their hands on their shirt or jeans before returning to their job like nothing had happened. I think about my mom in her early 70s still taking care of things around our 10-acre farm. I picture her working outside in the summer wind and heat, using a push mower on the bank of grass between the blacktop and our house. I am thankful for my niece, who gritted through this recent college softball season. She probably never felt better than 50–60 percent but kept showing up game after game as a courageous example for her teammates. Next in Line While Eric is growing up as a city kid, I am happy he has picked up this toughness. As his dad, I know I am his most critical role model in this area. But to hammer the message home, I hung up Rudyard Kipling’s “If—” poem on his bedroom wall, alongside an autographed black-and-white photo of Iowa’s all-time best baseball player, farmer’s son, and Cleveland Indians’ hall-of-fame pitcher Bob Feller (my grandpa’s favorite). Next to those items is a framed photo of Derek Jeter’s famous catch when Jeter dove headfirst into the Yankee Stadium seats to snare a pop-up against the Red Sox. Eric and I watch the Rocky movies and Pride of the Yankees together. We check out the recent Nolan Ryan documentary. And we stream The Last Dance series, where a young Michael Jordan risks his career by playing with a devastating foot injury and still scores a playoff-record 63 pointsagainst Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics. Most of all, I look for ways to surround my kids with people who demonstrate this same fortitude. I travel back to Iowa at least three times every year so the kids spend more time with their grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins who approach life the same way. Cowboy Up As I went to bed on Father’s Day this year, I wasn’t ready to sleep. I scrolled through our video library and landed on 8 Seconds, the 1994 movie about the legendary bull rider Lane Frost, a film my own dad always liked. While watching, it struck me that a lot of people right now could use a kick in the butt like the one Tuff Hedeman, another bull rider, gave to Lane in 8 Seconds. (Language warning): Lane was in pain from his last bull and was down on himself after a string of bad rides. He started whining about how he should quit the only thing he had ever loved to do. Tuff: “I got two words to say to you.” Lane: “Yeah, I know. It’s ‘f—’” Tuff: “That ain’t it!” Lane: “Well what is it?” Tuff: “Cowboy up.” The sooner, the better. This article was originally published by RealClearMarkets and made available via RealClearWire.
  8. by Rob Smith Convention, customs, manners and civility. When my daughter Ella was 16, I met her at a local restaurant for dinner. I was already seated when she arrived and before I could hold the chair out for her, she plopped down in the seat next to me. I was livid. I stood up and told her to get her ass out of the chair and stand up. I told her to always wait until the gentleman held the chair out for her, no matter how long it takes. I followed with “you need to demand respect from men, because if you don’t, you’ll never get it.” Manners are important. Indeed, they are the adhesive glue that binds society together and allows it to operate in smooth, orderly and conciliatory fashion. Like all convention, customs and manners developed organically because they served important functions. There was never a top-down Napoleonic Code of Manners that was dictated to the populace by some sort of government edict. I think all would agree that we have seen a degradation of civil society over the past 30 plus years. Our cities are trashed, there’s violence in the streets, and civil adult discourse is rare. Politicians and talking heads are totally uninhibited from telling not just “straight up lies,” but lies that are so fantastically and obvious false that a 3rd grader can immediately recognize the deceit. I attended schools with rigid honor systems and grew up in a culture where such blatant dishonesty made one an outcast and an immediate social pariah, cast out from respectable society. I remember a childhood contemporary was kicked out of boarding school for cheating on a test. At the time, this seemed like a punishment worse than death, as he would have to live with the stigma of dishonor the rest of his life. These long-established honor codes reflected the mores of the culture, anyone who violated these standards polluted the student population and had to be immediately drummed off campus. Today dishonesty seems to be rewarded as long as it advances an agenda. I have lots of nicknames, Robbie, Jones, Big Rob, Big, B.R., B-aura, Mr. Bread Truck, Professor and a few others, one of which is Mr. Mayor. I don’t know why folks call me Mayor, but I have thought quite a lot of what I would do if I was the mayor of Richmond, or better yet Governor of Virginia. The very first initiative, before any government policy proposals would be to start a campaign to re-establish civility and good manners. And what better place to begin than Richmond, Virginia, which I am quite sure, at one point not terribly long ago was the good manners capital of the world. I want to bring those days back. An initiative like this takes leadership and passion. Oh, how I hate to see what is happening to my city, not to mention the fabric of our national culture. My campaign would be much like Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” program. No government money. When Robert E. Lee became president of what would become Washington and Lee University in 1865, he initiated the “Speaking Rule.” Other Virginia schools followed. I don’t remember there being such a rule at the University of Virginia, primarily because the natural, organic culture that already existed was one spoke to everyone he passed and engaged in a pleasantry. It’s demoralizing to walk down the sidewalk in Richmond and watch your oncoming neighbor try NOT to make eye contact to avoid speaking. They know nothing of the “speaking rule,” and it’s sad. In the world of social media where people rage at complete strangers, there is no better salve than to look someone in the eye , smile and say “Good morning.” Good manners revolve around respect for others, and of course such respect is the essence of the Golden Rule. Good manners have a transcendental nature in that they create a system that one can’t see and can’t touch, but nonetheless create a benign social order. This evolves into a “custom” which evolves further into an almost universal “convention.” Kindness, gentleness, respect and tolerance are the result. Moreover, when a child is raised in this social order, this invisible ethos of civility instills itself in one’s personality, it is imbued, cooked in the sauce, and the act of being well mannered and thoughtful occurs without any conscience volition or effort to be that way. A few years ago, I visited two older gentleman I knew in the Alzheimer’s ward. There were ladies present, and I’ll never forget, although they couldn’t remember their names, they didn’t forget their manners. They were as we say perfect “southern gentlemen.” It was “baked in.” Before the advent of “business casual,” we all wore suits. How well I can remember 100 degree, extremely humid days and the perfumed smell of tobacco resting in downtown Richmond warehouses. Despite the heat and humidity, men did not take off their jackets when wandering outside their offices. If one was in the presence of a lady, the custom was to seek her permission before taking off one’s jacket. Now this might sound archaic to some, but the foundation of this rule, like so many others, is respect for and deference to women. As these exercises in civility have waned, what are we left with? The absolute barbarity of men beating the tar out of women in an Olympic sport. Dressing well is important. By putting forth an effort to look nice, you exhibit respect and appreciation towards everyone you encounter, but the respect works both ways, your dress illustrates that you respect yourself. Likewise, being punctual illustrates your respect for the other party and the value of his time, but it also illustrates that you respect yourself. Boy, how many lessons did I learn from my father! Always stand when a lady enters a room. Stand when she leaves the dinner table and stand again when she returns. Ladies are always served first. Never, ever begin to eat until the last lady at the table has picked up her fork and put food in her mouth. I’ll always remember him telling me to always wear a sports jacket and sometimes a tie when traveling on a plane. “Son, wherever you go in this world, you are a representative of the Commonwealth of Virginia and our family.” When I was old enough to drive and before cell phones, the custom was to follow a woman home and make sure she got into her house safely. When I see kids that I coached or taught in Sunday School wearing a hat in restaurant, I yank it off their heads and ask them what the hell is wrong with them. That was Dad’s biggest pet peeve! Offer the black housekeepers walking through the neighborhood to the bus stop a ride. Always be a good sport, and win or lose after any competition, whether athletic or business, shake the other fella’s hand. When using the telephone, introduce yourself and say “may I speak to,” and not “is so and so there.” Never go through a woman’s pocketbook or anyone’s mail. There’s a proper way to shake hands. Oh, he was a stickler for proper English! Using words correctly and phrased pleasantly honors the recipient. And, I will never forget exactly where I was when I heard the biggest rule of all. I was 5 years old. Dad was driving. I can remember the story Dad told me, the exact bend in the road and the message was the most despicable thing a man could ever do, and was never, ever permissible under and circumstances, was to hit a woman! Robert C. Smith is Managing Partner of Chartwell Capital Advisors, a senior fellow at the Parkview Institute, and likes to opine on the Rob Is Right Podcast and Webpage.This article was originally published by RealClearMarkets and made available via RealClearWire.
  9. by Walker Larson Recently, I was in search of trout, but my search resulted in more than just fish. I’ve been a fly fisherman for over a decade, but when I moved to Wisconsin a few years back, I lost easy access to my favorite haunts. So I was searching for a new stretch of untouched waters to fish near my home, a journey that led me through the winding backroads of the coulees in my area, as the evening summer sun soaked the little fields in liquid bronze and made the tree line glisten. I headed to a stream a few valleys over from my own. I’d been through the quiet recesses of this valley before, seen many of the farmsteads from the road as I drove past, but I didn’t know who lived in them. I didn’t know many people in my area, apart from those living on the dead-end road I call home. The decision to talk to the natives was partly one of self-preservation. In Wisconsin, you can legally fish any navigable waterway as long as you enter at a public access point and keep your feet wet. Still, I’m reticent to assume that all my neighbors know this law. I’d hate to end up on the wrong end of a shotgun of some backwoodser with hair sprouting from his nose and ears, faded baseball cap cocked atop his ragged hair, glaring with wild eyes at the presence of an intruder on his land. I thought I’d better get permission from the landowners before venturing into the creek to avoid such an encounter. In reality, of course, everyone I spoke to was nothing like my imaginary backwoodsman. They were all well-shaven, friendly, remarkably helpful, and deeply interested in identifying our mutual acquaintances (of which there turned out to be more than I expected). Somehow, the fact that most of them knew the people on my road better than I did made me feel more at home. In a flash, my own lane and the people on it was not some isolated rural outpost, but rather a place and a people familiar to a wide network of families living in the area. And, conversely, this new valley I was exploring suddenly took on a little of the flavor of home, for there were old bonds of friendship and shared history between my immediate neighbors and my new acquaintances, some of whom seemed as permanent as the hills themselves. The folks I talked to knew the exact house I lived in, which they referred to affectionately as “Robinsons’ place.” Of course, my home does not belong to the Robinsons and hasn’t for some time. But in those valleys, memory and tradition hold strong, and my presence of two years hardly amounts to more than a pit stop in the eyes of the locals. Somehow, I know that the acreage I call home won’t truly be “the Larsons’ place” for many years to come, not until generations of us have lived and died here. We haven’t earned that designation yet. One of the men I talked to–a thin, leathery fellow with a weather-worn face–drew me a verbal map of the valley and the interwoven streams and tributaries that flow through and around it, like veins on the back of a hand. “I used to trap mink and rats all up through there,” he said, eyes fastened on the distant ridges, or maybe on the distant past. I had a confused image flash through my mind of enormous mousetraps out in the marshes and woods. Who would go to the trouble of trapping a rat? Can there really be that much skin on a rat? And who would buy a rat pelt? Gross. Then it dawned on me. “Muskrats?” I asked, innocently. “Muskrats, yeah,” he said, turning to me with a puzzled look, as though there were no other kinds of rats in existence. “I’d get 30 or 40 rats through the valley, but they’re all gone now. I don’t know what happened.” Another woman I spoke with told me how she’d lived in the same house for 33 years, there beside the creek. I looked at the house–an old white one, a little dirty and worn, but solid-looking–and thought of how many scenes of one family’s joys and sorrows its walls had witnessed. The woman (we’ll call her Harriet) had spoken a little briskly to me at first, when she wasn’t yet sure who I was or what I wanted, but she soon softened, and her warmth was as palpable as that of the muggy, summer evening. She had an odd habit of ending almost every sentence with, “And that,” or sometimes, “and that. So.” (“We’ve lived here for 33 years, and that. So.”) It was as if every item of conversation were added to some imaginary list of all the things that are. It made each remark somehow homey and also more significant. This quirk in her speech made the next thing she said more poignant than it otherwise would have been: “You know Dane? On your road?” Harriet asked. “Yeah, I’ve met him.” “He passed away.” I hadn’t known this until a half hour before, when the muskrat trapper told me. “I just heard that.” “He was one of our best friends. A groomsman in our wedding, and that.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t know him well. He seemed like a really good guy.” He had plowed my driveway once in the winter, refusing any payment except my promise to visit him sometime. “Yeah, he was an amazing guy.” “Cancer, wasn’t it?” “Yeah, cancer, and that. So.” Half an hour later, as I stood in the shimmering water, cold as a Wisconsin winter, staring at the bejeweled back of a brook trout, I knew that in my fishing trip I had caught something more than the shadowy, elusive fish who own these little pools and little riffles under the canopied banks, where the drowsy summer flies buzz and the many-voiced water sings an endless song–I’d snatched a little scrap of human connection, of old stories and relationships, of history unique to the valleys where I live, that I didn’t have before, that I didn’t even know existed. It had been there long before my arrival and, no doubt, will continue long after I’m gone. Of course, the pressures of modern technology, transportation, economics, political divides, and the general fragmentation of society threaten this scrap of old-fashioned human community. But I was gratified to know it still exists in some places. The realization didn’t come without regret, however. If I had been more integrated into the local community, if I’d met more of my neighbors sooner, I might have known the ordeal my next-door neighbor was undergoing. I didn’t even know he was sick, let alone that he had died, until I talked to other people in my area. What breakdown of local culture must have occurred so that a man living right next to me had gone through his final days, died, and been buried, and I’d known nothing of it, driven past his house every day none the wiser? If I had known, perhaps I could have done something for him. At the very least, I could have fulfilled my promise to visit him in payment for his plowing my driveway. Walker Larson holds a BA in writing and an MA in English literature. Prior to becoming a writer, he taught literature and history at a private academy in Wisconsin. He is the author of two novels, Hologram and Song of Spheres. When not working on his acreage or spending time with family and friends, he blogs about literature and education on his Substack, The Hazelnut. This article appeared on IntellectualTakeout.org and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  10. by Rebekah Bills We are under the influence of our stuff—home décor and furnishings, fast fashion, modern art, and too much more—and it’s slowly gnawing away at our contentment and human potential. What prompted this realization? Some old Sears catalogs, actually. And a love for antiques, the reason for which I couldn’t quite put into words. But let me try now. While flipping through an old Sears catalog, the beauty of its illustrations and the quality of the items depicted struck me. How antithetical the now-decades-old catalog appeared in comparison to our modern shopping scene! The kinds of products sold in the old catalog bespeak a more holistic view of life, sorely lacking in today’s shopping culture. The items—antiques by today’s standards—appear so much more beautiful than their modern counterparts, and their beauty brings with it a character and a sense of permanence that invites reflection and creativity into the spaces that house them. Here, we find once-in-a-lifetime items like homes and tombstones. Yes, tombstones! These purchases invite much pre-purchase forethought, prompting the buyer to reflect on how the item will serve its purpose over time. We might see the tombstones and ponder our mortality, or flip through the houses for sale and imagine our ideal sort of family life. Nothing in these catalogs would trigger an impulse buy. It’s impossible to imagine someone buying one of the nice winter coats or the gold-rimmed dinnerware offered in the catalog only to discard it a few weeks or months later. The questions that the catalog prompts in a potential purchaser are of this sort: What would serve my family best for years to come? Is this worthy of being an heirloom one day? Contrast that with today’s throwaway culture. Hardly ever would amemento mori such as a tombstone appear in the pages of a shopping catalog. Sure, we’re told to shop local, shop green, and be climate friendly (which many products now dubiously tout), but we often fail to consider how our items will serve not only ourselves in the short-term but also those who come after us; rather, we look only for what suits our immediate needs or wants. Consider, for example, Amazon, where one look at an item leads to endless recommendations of similar and related products. In the modern online shopping scene, we find ourselves lost in a microcosm of almost infinite, short-term options. To page through the Sears catalog is to travel back in time to a world more holistic and grounded—in which longevity prevails and a more comprehensive view of life is reflected. With our modern preference for faster and cheaper comes the loss of allure that beauty and craftsmanship entail. Look, for example, at the font and illustrated ads of an old 1918 Sears catalogue and a 1940 Sears Fall and Winter catalogue. Today, even the illustrations themselves reveal a deeper level of craftsmanship. We could frame one of these and hang it in our home. In addition, the more “everyday” items for sale, such as dinnerware, fine china, and vases, boast beautifully ornate artistry. Flipping (digitally) through the old catalog, I couldn’t help but imagine what a home must have looked like furnished with the well-crafted items that were so beautifully hand drawn there. Such exquisite craftsmanship gives items the power to imbue their surroundings with personality and to inspire creativity. I thought of a quote I came across on Pinterest apparently from Turkish playwright Mehmet Murat İldan: “Give me an old house full of memories and I will give you a hundred novels!” Winston Churchill similarly said, “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.” I can attest to the accuracy of these sentiments; while studying abroad in Germany, I got to experience quite a few castles, old homes and shops, and quaint inns. And the architecture and the interior furnishings—even of the more modest homes—oozed stories, both real and fictional. The charm of beautiful surroundings was pervasive, and it generated a livelier and more creative thought-life during my time studying abroad. And one needn’t have a castle nor even a little old house in a quaint German town to cultivate such an atmosphere of romance and creativity. When my little family moved from our D.C. apartment to a tiny brick townhome and traded our modern (often IKEA) furnishings for old thrift-store finds, our little home experienced the welcome intrusion of personality and mystery that antiques bring with them. Who owned this before? Will this beautifully upholstered bench be passed down to my children someday? Could I gaze at this painting and be transported to another life? The movement away from quality, lifelong purchases that prompt such questions and spark creativity is not only displayed in America’s shopping scene but also, more pathologically, echoed in the modern American psyche. We encounter “throwaway” culture in movies and pop music (I recently wrote about Taylor Swift’s latest album and the death of long-term relationships). If something or some relationship isn’t “working for you,” just cut it out (which is not always the wrong approach, but it’s certainly not always the right approach either.) Don’t feel the love and devotion you once felt in a relationship? Leave. Our purchases, just like our life choices, are constantly subject to the ultimate criterion of today’s culture: whatever makes you happy now. And, quite frankly, catering our shopping to our every whim and ever-changing appetites is not conducive to the cultivation of timeless, finely crafted pieces whose artistry fuels the imagination. That’s not to say that modern art cannot be used tastefully nor that every shop these days is guilty of pandering poor-quality items—rather that quality finds are a rarity these days, and our short-term consumer appetites lead us to prefer faster, cheaper solutions with none of the personality of the equivalent items of our forebears. Somewhere along the line in our modern world, we traded beauty and quality for endless options, affordability, and convenience. And with this trade, we lost the fine craftsmanship and the attendant romance that things once had. And we lost our ability to connect our purchases with important immaterial goals, such as raising a family or investing in an heirloom. We lost the kind of home that could inspire “a hundred novels.” Maybe if we started investing in aesthetic, handcrafted items meant to last a lifetime, we might then better focus on the things that matter and making those things last—a novelty in today’s throwaway, me-oriented culture to be sure, but one very much worth the expense. Rebekah Bills served four years as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency, earning 6 Individual Act Awards, DIA’s Science and Technology Mission Enabler Award, and the Director’s Personal Coin. Now—her best assignment to date—she cares for her two young sons, Gabriel and Emmanuel, and her exuberant Great Dane puppy, Beowulf. This article appeared on IntellectualTakeout.org and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  11. by Michaela Estruth “When I grow up, I want to be a mom.” These are common words to hear from young girls; they aspire to be just like their own mothers. But all of a sudden, once those young girls become women, those words become less and less common. Has that maternal desire faded? Perhaps. But might there be another explanation? The question, “What do you want to do?” is a constant ask of every 18- to 22-year-old. College-aged adults like me are just beginning independent lives and discovering the world of opportunities while also discovering a culture of commendation or condemnation. Depending on where we go and what we do, others will either praise us or persecute us. And young adults know this. We can feel it every time someone asks us that question about our future plans. If I were to respond to that question with “I want to get married and be a mom,” the average American would stare at me and blink. Then they’d probably say, “Right, but what do you want to do before that?” This mindset is just one of the factors contributing to America’s declining birth rates. America’s birth rates reached a record low of 1.6 children per woman in 2023, below the necessary replacement rate of 2.1. The birth rate had been on a rise for the past two years, which many experts attribute to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the statistics now show the continued decline and the lowest rates since 1979. This decline cannot be reduced to one factor. The cultural “success message” that delays marriage and family, however, should take some blame. Last December, Statista reported on U.S. Census Bureau data showing that the average marrying age for men is 30.2 and for women is 28.4—a marked increase since the 1950s when men married around age 23 and women around age 20. Along with getting married later, men and women are also having kids later. Twenty percent of women have their first child after the age of 35, according to a July 2022 article from the National Institute of Health’s News in Health. The article opens explaining why women may postpone starting a family: “There are many reasons you might wait to have kids. You may want to focus on your career. Or save some money first.” These are some of the common arguments against getting married and starting a family at a young age. Shouldn’t young women like me first go to grad school, perhaps law school, or at least make a worthwhile living? Don’t we want to travel, let loose, and have fun? Of course, all these reasons aren’t inherently wrong or even necessarily unwise, but the point is that people are starting families much later, and often putting off doing so for the sake of perceived personal accomplishment or enjoyment. And therein lies the heart of the issue. The cultural sermon preaches “you first” to every young man and woman looking to start adult life. “Do what you want to do. Marriage and family will come later.” But here’s the blunt truth: Marriage and family doesn’t just happen to someone. They take time and intentionality. Dating requires patience and thoughtful consideration before making a lifetime commitment to another person. Marriage requires self-sacrifice, a love that is rooted in commitment, not mere sentimental feeling. And a child demands that same self-sacrifice every minute of every day. Being a father or a mother means putting the child’s needs above your own. It means instruction, love, discipline, provision. These are exhausting responsibilities, and yet the most fulfilling. But sadly, the exhaustion and selflessness of parenting causes many to postpone the joys and blessings that overwhelmingly dominate. On May 15, Evie Magazine posted an article on X highlighting actress Rachel McAdams as a mother. In the post on X, McAdams is quoted as saying that motherhood is the greatest thing she has ever done, despite years of living the independent dream. “Your life is not your own anymore,” McAdams said. “But I had 39 years of me, I was sick of me. I was so happy to put the focus on some other person. I waited a long time. I’m having more fun being a mum than I’ve ever had. Everything about it is interesting and exciting and inspiring to me. Even the tough days — there’s something delightful about them.” For McAdams, the famous actress lifestyle wasn’t satisfying. But motherhood was. Even though women are still having kids—something that will hopefully never stop—many women aren’t doing so until much later in life, instead pursuing immediate self-fulfillment and enjoyment. Unfortunately, this mindset is also often imposed on a family. One kid is enough work already, so why would two exhausted parents have another? Today, a family with more kids is stereotypically deemed Catholic in reference to the Catholic doctrine that opposes contraception. But maybe that family of seven just loves having a big family. One thing is for sure, though: That eldest child was born well before the mom turned 35. That mother wanted to prioritize being a wife and a mom. So no, I’m not advocating for every 18-year-old woman to go get her MRS degree. But I am saying that prioritizing marriage and family isn’t a waste of time, energy, or money. In fact, it is an investment in a bright future of laughter and love. So don’t let anyone tell you to not get married and have kids—starting a family is likely the best decision you can ever make. Michaela Estruth is a rising senior studying history and journalism at Hillsdale College, where she is the senior editor of Hillsdale College’s The Collegian and host of various radio shows. She is a 2022 graduate of WORLD Magazine’s World Journalism Institute and a writing and editing intern for the Colson Center. This column originally appeared on IntellectualTakeout.org, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Unsplash
  12. by Cadence McManimon These days, it’s almost common knowledge that homeschooled students have a better academic education, do better in college and careers, and are regarded as “smarter” than students from public schools. Homeschooling families typically gravitate toward this educational lifestyle to avoid the public school environment, to prioritize their faith and family values, to adjust to a more flexible and forgiving lifestyle, and to offer their children a better childhood than that found in public schools. Yes to all! These are wonderful reasons to choose homeschooling and should be widely shared and celebrated. When my parents chose to homeschool me and my siblings, though, they had no idea how deep the effects would be. Academics is only one aspect of homeschooling. The family-centric, homeschool lifestyle offered us benefits that continue to shape my adult life and the life of my own family. Everyone should know the often completely hidden perks that homeschooling provides children long after they finish their high school coursework. Here are just a few: Better Socialization My dad always looked bemused when people brought up the age-old question: “But what about socialization?” His perspective was, what adult spends eight hours a day in a room filled with people exclusively the same age? Homeschooling offered my family the flexibility to explore social settings of all sorts, rather than relying solely on peer classroom interactions. The most natural form of socialization stems from immediate and extended family relationships. Siblings and parents provide the first relationships in our lives, and these often become lifelong stalwarts. Beyond that, extended family and friends offer wider circles, bigger age gaps, and more activities for students to explore. Even beyond that, a flexible homeschool schedule allows room for completely different social contexts to be introduced. For instance, my family was really interested in music and dance. Our various performances through the years taught us all the basic skills of learning to make introductions, first impressions, small talk, and much more. Time Management Homeschooling offered me a lot of free time and a flexible schedule. Throughout my teen years, I would almost always complete my daily lessons before noon! (I challenge you to find a teenager who wouldn’t jump at having that type of free time.) Along with that, my parents wisely gave us many responsibilities to attend to during our ample free time. We had many different chores like tending livestock and gardens, babysitting, and various extracurricular lessons as well. The result was that all of us kids, after reaching the age of reason, developed the valuable skill of time management. As we grew up, we had less and less direct supervision from our parents and learned to balance schoolwork, chores, family, outside jobs, and leisure on our own. This is actually a rarer skill than people might think. In public (and even most private) schools, students are locked into an hourly schedule, with bells and teachers prompting every shift of activity and change, which doesn’t provide the opportunity to internalize how to manage one’s own schedule. This educational method was designed to train children for the military and the industrial/factory world of the early 1900s, and arguably did so successfully. Of course, we do not live in that world today—so why are we still using that system? Many students now will move into work-from-home jobs or careers with widely varying or self-managed schedules. For those who struggle to self-manage, this can be a nightmarish awakening to the real world. And those who are self-disciplined might fall into the common workaholism trap because they never were taught the importance of integrating leisure and variety into their schedules. Homeschooling can be a helpful, maybe even necessary, preparation for the world of adulthood, where time management rests on the shoulders of each individual. Self-Teaching Skills It’s no secret that the public school curriculum is a one-size-fits-all approach. Homeschooling, however, allows students to pursue their niche interests as well— sometimes to great depths. For me, my adult life has been shaped by having the above-mentioned skills of time management and creating a flexible schedule. But also, by allowing me to pursue niche interests, homeschooling helped me learn how to self-teach. For instance, my great passion as a child was art. I would pour hours and hours into working with my sketchbooks, pencils, and crayons. Neither of my parents were artists, and my mother says she’s lucky if she can draw a decent smiley face! But they gave me something better: art books for every birthday, drawing tools for every Christmas, and encouragement to forge ahead on my own. Today, sketching and painting are beloved hobbies I pursue in my leisure time—hobbies I work hard at and choose to do over things like watching television or scrolling through social media. This shaped me into a person who is not afraid to self-teach and pursue things I’ve never tried before. This skill actually led me to my writing work in both novels and freelancing. My writing interest started late in high school; my parents/teachers were not writers, and I did not go to college to study English or journalism. I simply had the skills to seek out resources on my own and the self-discipline to keep at it. Now I have a job that fits my lifestyle, skills, and schedule perfectly. How many public or private school students today might be better able to carve out time for work as well as for the pursuit of passions and dreams if they just had the skill to self-teach? Lifestyle Confidence I have yet to meet a homeschooler who is self-conscious about his alternative lifestyle. Whether their family focused mostly on religion, naturalism, farming, travel, or something else, the common ground is that homeschoolers grow up outside the normative culture. This removes any fear or insecurity about being different. We grew up being different, getting weird looks, and being asked countless questions about being homeschooled from curious strangers. Being a social curiosity inoculates us homeschool families against caring what the wider culture thinks of us. This offers us great freedom and confidence to live as we choose to live. And this doesn’t mean that every homeschooler will grow up to simply echo whatever their parents valued. I have met plenty of adult homeschoolers who are members of a different religion, who have moved far away, or, due to other factors, don’t even see their families of origin much. But all of them were unapologetically living what they valued and wanted and were unbothered when others looked at them askance. They simply felt free to do what they wanted, whether or not the wider world condemned or supported them. This is also valuable in today’s world of social media. I personally don’t use social media, but I have a couple of siblings who do, and the same freedom from peer pressure holds true in their cases. None of them are addicted to it, worried about comments or feeds or negativity, and they don’t compare themselves to what they see online. I attribute this to their confidence in living differently from the norm. And in today’s world, traditionalism is wildly different from the norm. Homeschooling is one of the best choices we can make regarding our children, and it gives them so many more benefits than even what I’ve listed here. The wider world of education is waking up to this, too. Many more modes of education are available today than even just a decade ago. Private schools are popping up left and right, Montessori is on the rise, learning pods and co-ops are growing, and online options are everywhere. And of course the school lockdowns of 2020 pushed the need for alternative education into the spotlight. So let’s take it seriously and choose what’s best for our children in every aspect of life, not just academics. Cadence McManimon is a published author, former special education teacher, and now a wife and mother. She has too many houseplants, plenty of artsy projects, and not enough pens that work! (Doesn't everyone?) Her novels Name Unspoken and The Lily Girl are available at her website cadencemcmanimon.com. This article appeared on IntellectualTakeout.org and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  13. by Jeff Minick “A society that loses its sense of outrage is doomed to extinction.” So stated New York State Supreme Court Justice Edwin Torres over 30 years ago in a private communication. From the bench, Judge Torres added this lament: “The slaughter of the innocent marches unabated: subway riders, bodega owners, cab drivers, babies; in laundromats, at cash machines, on elevators, in hallways.” We find the judge’s remarks, which read like today’s headlines, cited in Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1993 article “Defining Deviancy Down.” By normalizing what was once abnormal, Moynihan argues, we eventually ensure “the manifest decline of the American civic order.” He uses as his data points soaring rates of crime and gun violence, disintegrating families, a chaos of ideas about sexual practices and marriage, failing schools, and the closure of facilities for the mentally ill. Moynihan outlines his argument in this way: Now, flash forward 31 years. Those of us old enough to remember the 1990s may recollect that time as idyllic when compared to our present troubles. The Soviet Union had collapsed; the national debt in 1993 was around $5 trillion compared to today’s more than $34 trillion; our southern border was relatively secure. San Francisco was famed for its beauty rather than for its homeless population, crime rates in New York City were declining and would continue to do so over the next decade, and drug overdose deaths in 1993 were less than 10 percent of what they are today. Fortunately for the future of our country, some Americans of all ages are in fact outraged by today’s cultural radicalism and deviant behaviors. In “Culture Shock with Lindsay Wigo,” for instance, the young, eye-rolling Ms. Wigo brings us a man who claims deep suntans are racist, a woman who boasts about being a stalker, and another woman who identifies as a pig. In the 1990s, our society would have looked on this trio as oddballs at best and, at worst, as suffering from mental illness. Another negative take on our decline into deviancy —and there are countless others, both online and in conversations with our families and friends—can be found in Naomi Wolf’s “Broken in What Way?” Here, Wolf recounts at length a recent visit to New York, a city she loves but which now seems to be in ruins. “I think if one lives here day to day,” she writes, “the shocking decline of the city is not so obvious. But to me, the change in the city was like seeing a beloved friend, who had formerly been beautiful and enchanting and witty, in a hospital bed, on an IV drip, half-unconscious.” Here Wolf puts a finger on another reason for our demise: the gradualism that moves society from condemnation of an idea or a practice first to tolerance and then to acceptance. So, where do we turn if we wish to reverse this decline into deviancy? In 1993, Senator Moynihan recommended several political solutions, yet given the federal government’s increasingly dismal performance in the 21st century—the massive debt, the lost wars, the broken border, the malfunctioning domestic programs—that rutted roadway promises only more failures. No—if we are to reverse our present decline, we are the ones who must take action. In some instances, such as reducing the deviant federal deficit, most of us have only a vote as our weapon. In other cases, however, such as combating neighborhood crime, seeking the best possible education for our children, or opposing society’s attacks on marriage and the traditional family, our power to effect change vastly improves. Here we must begin by reviving the old-fashioned concept of decency, which one online dictionary defines as “behavior that conforms to accepted standards of morality or respectability.” Those standards derive from our Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian heritage, but they have been shoved aside in the last 50 years in favor of relativism, which is no standard at all. We find one glaring example of this sea change in the recent phenomenon of drag queen story hours in our public libraries. Billed as family-friendly events promoting diversity and foisted off on communities by the American Library Association, these performances for children aim at subverting the family, normalizing deviancy, and confusing preschoolers about gender and sex. At the same time, we must recognize that accepting deviancy as a norm comes with a tremendous cost. In many of our large cities, for example, crime and murder are now accepted as everyday events. The weekend casualty counts, assaults, and robberies out of places like Chicago and New York receive due notice in some media, but little if any effort is put into reducing these tallies of murder, rape, and theft. Once we understand that the deviant behavior found across the board in today’s culture is neither normal nor desirable, and we have the heart and the spirit to do something about it, we can take action. The field of education more easily demonstrates this power of the individual or a group of citizens to make a difference. More families are homeschooling now than ever before, and private academies of all sorts are springing up around the country. Parents are voting with their feet and leaving government schools. The Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad and the subsequent backlash that caused Anheuser-Busch InBev to take a major hit in sales was yet another demonstration of our power to make change. The lesson there was to stop supporting companies that are intent on radical cultural transformation. Public libraries have also become battlegrounds in the culture wars. From Prattville, Alabama, Lori Herring writes “How to Save Your Local Library From Cultural Marxists.” Pratt and a group of concerned parents spent nearly a year working to divest their public library’s children’s section of pornographic material, but they finally succeeded. Courageous people like them are making a difference. To take charge of our lives rather than looking to government is a tradition as old as America itself, and it can be applied to everything from cleaning up our city streets of trash to crime prevention. Participating in local elections, voting, becoming candidates ourselves, volunteering, staying engaged in local affairs—in these ways and more, citizens can have a direct effect on culture and community. Stout hearts, willing hands, and a sense of common decency can heal any number of the wounds inflicted on our society. Enough, then, of defining deviancy down. Let’s start defining decency up. Jeff Minick lives in Front Royal, Virginia, and may be found online at jeffminick.com. He is the author of two novels, Amanda Bell and Dust on Their Wings, and two works of non-fiction, Learning as I Go and Movies Make the Man. This article appeared on IntellectualTakeout.org and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  14. by Cadence McManimon It doesn’t take a fashion designer’s sense to notice the decline of American clothing in the last few decades. The neat suits and dresses of yesteryear have been replaced with stretchy athleisure, the hats and coats vanished in favor of sweatshirts and leggings. Quite honestly, I don’t think fashion and clothing is all that important. Sure, we’ve lost some aesthetics and have nearly erased any sense of modesty. But in the end, clothes are still just clothes, right? And yet, even the humblest elements of history have something to teach us in this regard. For example, I have been a skinny jeans girl all my life. I literally used to sleep in jeans as a teenager! I prioritize comfort, as do most of my generation. I would be the last person anyone would expect to promote a return to wearing dresses. And yet, here I am, writing this while wearing an ankle-length skirt. What happened to me, a lover of comfortable modern clothes? I got pregnant. How very ordinary, right? I am currently expecting my third child with my husband, and since during my pregnancies I tend to get extremely sick, clothing choices rank at the absolute bottom of the priority list. That is, until this third time around, when I have some new symptoms. Let’s just say I am dealing with some inflammation in very sensitive areas! Tight clothes, legging seams, and denim fabric only worsen the discomfort. So, I’ve had to put away my beloved jeans in favor of soft skirts and dresses. And that’s when I realized why skirts have been so very practical throughout most of history. Most women, up until recent decades, did a lot more childbearing in their lives. It was common to have at least three children, if not seven or eight or more. Of course skirts would be more comfortable than pants as women carried, delivered, and nursed many consecutive babies! It’s only in recent decades that birth rates and motherhood have drastically decreased. On top of that, skirts and dresses are also far more adjustable for changing figures and weight fluctuations, which are a natural part of childbearing. I’ve been surprised these days that the garments that fit me the longest through my pregnancies are different dresses I’ve had since I was a teenager. Historically speaking, this type of adjustability was imperative during centuries when women could only afford two or three dresses. They needed clothes that would fit many seasons of life—it was simply impossible to buy different clothes for different body changes, as we have the option to do today. Along with that, historical—that is, non-synthetic—fabrics are far more durable. In the last couple of decades, we have had the luxury of clothing made of elastic fabrics. Clothes made of nylon blends, spandex, and jersey can stretch and accommodate pregnancies easily, as well as being affordable. So why am I nevertheless turning to skirts these days? Simple. Those elastic fabrics don’t hold up. They function like a rubber band and can only be stretched so often before losing their ability to “snap back.” The stretchy clothes I do have remain functional for only a year or so. The longest-lasting fabrics—coincidentally, those my dresses are made of, are woven from natural fibers such as cotton, linen, and wool. These fibers are simply more durable, and because they don’t stretch, they last for years and don’t wear out with laundering. It’s easy to see how this greatly benefited mothers throughout history. Along with these unexpected practicalities, I’ve also come face to face with dresses being gendered clothing. Our culture has distinctly pursued androgyny and unisex fashion, where men can wear women’s clothing or vice versa. Wearing traditional clothing is not in itself going to fix the gender confusion in our culture. But it does make an often subliminal visual statement. I recently came across this post by the Modest Mom from way back in 2012. I was impressed that her primary reasoning for dressing traditionally was not Biblical modesty, as I expected of her, stereotypically. Instead, she wrote about the stark visual difference skirts give to denote the female versus the male form. She said this is a very easy way to show her children the beauty and differences between the sexes. It reminded me of an experiment I took part in back in college. I, my sister, and a good friend were all in the depths of our coursework, and we had a lot of male classmates. We were discussing one day the popularity of androgynous athleisure fashion on our respective campuses. One of us had the bright idea to try a little social experiment just to see what would happen if we dressed completely femininely. So, on a normal day of classes, we each wore a pink dress all day long—and, yes, we agreed it had to be pink. We were shocked at the results. Yes, female students would comment “I like that outfit!” or “You look cute.” But the more drastic change came from our male classmates. My friend was in organic chemistry with almost exclusively male students; in her group project, she’d been pulling most of the weight in writing a hefty paper. But during the pink dress day, every member of her group offered to do double the amount he’d previously contributed! My sister experienced chivalry in the streets—every car driven by a man stopped to let her cross the road that day. I was offered multiple better seats in lecture halls, and every single time, men I barely even knew opened the door to let me pass. Without exception, we saw a huge increase in the amount of positive attention and deference from men in every setting. What was the lesson we learned? Men respond positively to women who look like women! Far from being preyed upon, as modern culture claims, looking feminine offered us three college girls more respect and kindness than wearing androgynous clothes ever did. And of course, I’m not the only writer to have noticed the difference dressing well can make in our lives. “What does our own sloppy dress tell us about ourselves?” asks Jeff Minick. “Are we rebelling against the idea of beauty and culture? Or are we just too lazy to pull on a pair of slacks instead of wearing the sweats we slept in?” As Maida Korte previously wrote on Intellectual Takeout, “Getting dressed in something more than flannel-patterned pants and a somewhat stale T-shirt signals that we are part of life and living it on purpose.” In our modern culture, have we too quickly thrown out skirts? What have we lost by rejecting the classic gendered dress of yesteryear? I don’t think we need to burn our jeans or swear off leggings forever, but we could certainly consider the benefits of returning to clothing that reflects our traditional values. What might dressing traditionally look like in our modern culture? It can start very simply: Recognize the value and visual signals of a classically gendered appearance. Apply good hygiene in our daily habits. Take five minutes to do something extra for our appearance, like curling or braiding our hair or having a fresh shave. Choose our clothing pieces thoughtfully. Practice frugality by maintaining the clothing we already have. There are so many small things like this we can practice, things that were commonplace mere decades ago. We don’t need to burn our newer wardrobes, or try to look like sock hop attendees, or start completely from scratch. A few small changes like this go a long way toward making our outward appearance reflect our values. Let’s rediscover the wisdom traditional culture can offer our modern closets. Cadence McManimon is a published author, former special education teacher, and now a wife and mother. She has too many houseplants, plenty of artsy projects, and not enough pens that work! (Doesn't everyone?) Her novels Name Unspoken and The Lily Girl are available at her website cadencemcmanimon.com. Her favorite things include crayons, sarcasm, Sherlock Holmes, and hearing from readers! This content originally appeared on InetellectualTakeout.org and is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Image credit: Pexels
  15. by Jeff Minick In his classic work Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton penned these profound words about tradition: For those with no interest in tradition, Chesterton’s words may appear meaningless or, worse, ridiculous. After all, these people might say, the dead are dead, and those who are either ignorant of history or who disdain tradition will pay Chesterton little attention. We see these forces of ignorance and contempt at work today regarding our American past. Knowledge of our history among students is abysmal, and even many adults have never read the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. They’re clueless about the past; for instance, about the accomplishments of men and women like John and Abigail Adams, the events surrounding the Civil War, and the enormous contributions of the United States and capitalism to people around the globe following World War II. Those on the extreme left go even further by attempting to obliterate altogether America’s heroes and past accomplishments. They rewrite history books, tear down statues, and seek to replace merit with equity and liberty with tyranny. If we rid ourselves of the morality and customs of the past, they say, we can step into a shining utopia, a heaven on earth freed from the shackles of old ideas, Judeo-Christian codes of morality, and a baneful, biased tradition. If they are still around to witness the consequences of their actions, these radicals are likely in for a shock. They claim they are on the right side of history by pitching American traditions into a dumpster and replacing them with relativism and collectivism, but the past is rarely kind to tyrants and bullies. They’ve also apparently forgotten that the dead still speak to all who care to listen. All of us alive today, for instance, still benefit from the gifts of wisdom inherited from our immediate ancestors. Born nearly a century ago, my now-deceased parents taught me a work ethic, manners, and morals that I have in turn passed on to my children. Mom and Dad doubtless learned many of these same lessons in their own adolescence, meaning these whispers from the past extend even further back in time. These same voices of the dead speak to us in the laws, documents, and deeds of our more famous ancestors. Revisionists can assault Thomas Jefferson as racist and sexist, but his Declaration of Independence will continue to stand as one of the world’s greatest monuments to liberty. They can attack the writers of our Constitution for the same reasons but again cannot erase the freedoms that that remarkable document brought to a new nation. Hike in a national park and the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt walks at your side. Turn on a light bulb, drive a car, take a prescribed medicine, fly in an airplane, and men like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford deserve at least a tip of the hat. Behind all of these famous figures is that long, winding line of our more anonymous forebears, men and women like my ancestors and yours who built this country, often at the risk of death, and who pursued the American Dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness so that their children’s children could do the same. If we listen closely, these voices of the dead also speak to us through memoirs, movies, novels, poetry, songs, and even tombstones. The fact is the dead only truly die when we living let them die. Whenever we teach our children the truth about America, the good and the bad, we keep the dead alive. When we stand against lies and oppression, whether delivered from the left or the right, we honor and remember the dead. And when we step into a voting booth this November, at our elbow will be a great host of spirits whispering a single word whose magic and beauty so many of us seem to have forgotten: “America!” Jeff Minick lives in Front Royal, Virginia, and may be found online at jeffminick.com. He is the author of two novels, Amanda Bell and Dust on Their Wings, and two works of non-fiction, Learning as I Go and Movies Make the Man. This article appeared on IntellectualTakeout.org and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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