The Institutionalization of Social Justice

"Over the past few years, social justice activists have demonstrated an increased ability to suppress controversial viewpoints. To take a few examples:

A few months ago, mathematician Theodore Hill described in a Quillette essay how progressive groups were able to get a research paper of his on a biological phenomenon known as the “Greater Male Variability Hypothesis” removed from two separate journals, as well as to intimidate his co-author into silence.

Hill’s article was published just a week after another article by endocrinologist Jeffrey Flier, former dean of Harvard Medical School, who described how social justice activists had managed to get an academic journal to initiate a review of an already-published research paper by Brown University medical researcher Lisa Littman on gender dysphoria. Brown also deleted a reference to the paper from its website.

Both Hill and Flier point out that they’ve never experienced anything like this before. Hill wrote: “In my 40 years of publishing research papers I had never heard of the rejection of an already-accepted paper.” Flier noted: “In all my years in academia, I have never once seen a comparable reaction from a journal within days of publishing a paper that the journal already had subjected to peer review, accepted and published.”

Pressure to suppress controversial viewpoints isn’t just coming from external activists. In many cases, social justice activists within organizations have managed to exert pressure.

Last year, Google engineer James Damore was fired after an internal memo he wrote was leaked to technology website Gizmodo, causing an uproar within the company. His resulting lawsuit offered some insight into how social justice ideology has become institutionalized through training programs and lectures, and is now being implemented into a variety of company policies. This extends to Google’s products as well. Podcast host Joe Rogan announced on his podcast in February about having dinner with a highly ranked YouTube executive who, when asked why a user had received a community guidelines strike for putting a video of a conversation between authors Sam Harris and Douglas Murray on his playlist, was told that it must have been “hate speech.” (Murray is a prominent critic of contemporary European immigration policies.)"

This is a great evil descending upon America and the world. We need to fight this at every turn. Failure will mean a return to a neo-feudalism like that which has taken root in California. This will mean the uber-wealthy will become the aristocracy while the politicians and bureaucrats become the functionary's who make the system operate based on the foolish twaddle spewed out of the Clerisy, er, the Academe. The idea that academics, bureaucrats, and politicians would have real power and control over us is appalling.

We need to reform government at every level to remove power from the politicians as much as possible and to eliminate all possible bureaucrats and government employees. We need to build a firewall between the Academe and government ensuring there will never be cross-contamination of these two entities one by the other. 

Northeastern Workers Battle Forced Union Dues

"Both Neely and Lonis are hoping that the Supreme Court's June decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees will help them to finally succeed. The 5-4 decision ruled that public sector employees cannot be compelled to pay union fees, overturning a four-decade precedent allowing for forced unionism. Both suits filed by the Pennsylvania-based public interest law firm Fairness Center said the courts must honor resignation requests so as not to infringe on the right to free association.

"There is no state interest, compelling or otherwise, justifying the state's requirement that individuals remain members of a private organization, including a labor organization, for any length of time," the Neely suit says.

Fairness Center President David Osborne said each case highlights union resistance to workers exercising their rights as employees and U.S. citizens. He told the Washington Free Beacon that Neely "did not waive his constitutional rights when he became a psychiatric aide. And his right to leave the union should not be limited to 15 days every three years." The continued paycheck deductions both plaintiffs face have forced them to subsidize organizations with which they disagree."

The Constitution provides for the forced association of the individual and government. This is part of the social contract which was created between the people at the signing of the Constitution which in specific language took some of the natural rights from individuals and placed them in the control of the government. There is no Constitutional provision that the government has the power to force individuals to associate with any private entities or individuals. 

I argued this position with both of my unions the AFL-CIO and the AWPPW to no avail. I did not have the resources as a 16- or 18-year-old to fight the unions in court, nor did I have the skill or understanding of the process to do so. 

Thank God someone finally cracked this egg. The forced association of the individual with the union is tantamount to forced labor, forced association and is quite similar to a form of limited enslavement or servitude. And here I thought the 13th Amendment took care of this issue. Silly me!

The indentured servitude of the worker and the forced association of the individual with the union has been stopped by the Janus decision. Good. 

Unions attempting to stop the employees from resigning are behaving criminally and should be punished criminally. It is time for litigation to force the issue. Neither government nor the unions it protects are immune from the consequences of behaving both unConstitutionally and criminally. Where is the DOJ? Still asleep at the switch, I see. Sigh!

Can Mohammed Bin Salman Hold Power While Juggling Trump, Putin And Oil All At Once

Trump, Putin, and oil are easy compared to the feckless, self-indulgent, risk-averse, narcissists in Congress. 

Hard Brexit Here We Come - L'Ombre de l'Olivier

Soft Brexit just means Britain will be paying to support the corrupt EU lackeys. 

Venezuela: Political Arrests Reach Record High in 2018​

Nearly half of the public now believes GMO foods are bad for health

The apocalypse is not coming; the fear mongers are always wrong. 

'OptionSellers.com' Goes Dark After "Catastrophic Loss Event" In NatGas "Rogue Wave"

Unless you are Hillary Clinton, options have always been the worst option for regular investors. They are a hedge for businesses when the options are covered, but they are the riskiest forms of gambling when the options are not covered and the bets placed on margin. 

The oil and other commodity price inflation is due to options gambling. It is destructive and economically damaging.

White House To Pull Acosta's Pass Again After Temporary Court Order Expires

Obviously, there is no right to sit in the press room of the White House. The argument is foolish on its face. 

Capital letters frighten us!

Too many students are attending university, failure is an option.