leftism Archives - The Florida Capital Star

Commentary: Diversity Is a False Religion to Destroy America

August 22, 2024 American Greatness

This week, the National Association of Scholars (“NAS”) and the Heritage Foundation are sponsoring a panel discussion on diversity ideology in higher education. A number of reports have recently been published on the topic, with most documenting monies spent by state universities on “diversity, equity and inclusion” (“DEI“). The Maryland affiliate of the National Association of Scholars released the most recent such report this summer, but the Virginia affiliate issued one last year, while Idaho, North Carolina, Maine, and Tennessee produced similar documents before that.

The Maryland report reminds state officials that “diversity” is usually a cover for race-based practices that are now likely illegal under the 2023 United States Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (or “SFFA”). That opinion found that racial preferences in university admissions were a violation of federal civil rights laws and also the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. SFFA means that any race-based practice in college is presumptively unlawful. As the Court said, “Eliminating discrimination means eliminating all of it … distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their nature odious.”

Commentary: Joe Biden’s America Is a Gay Version of the Soviet Union

June 5, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

“Show me the man and I will show you the crime,” so said Lavenitry Beria, the longtime head of Stalin’s secret police.

The Trump conviction shows that the same crooked principle of justice animates American courts today. Should we be surprised? The alliance between the United States and the USSR during the 1940s—the American taxpayer funded the Soviet takeover of half of Europe and Asia to the tune of 300 billion inflation-adjusted dollars—was the central event of the 20th century.

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Do Leftists Now Believe Leftism Doesn’t Work?

February 13, 2024 Florida Capital Star Staff

It is hard to destroy a naturally beautiful city like San Francisco, with ideal weather and stunning infrastructure inherited from far better earlier generations.

Yet San Francisco continues its much-publicized and self-inflicted doom loop. The productive classes still flee the increasingly crime-ridden city and its self-induced pathologies. The city is eroding not because of the doomsayers and not because of what people say about San Francisco, but because of what San Franciscans have done to San Francisco.

REVIEW: ‘You Say You Want a Revolution?’ Is a Comprehensive Assessment of the Groups and Ideologies Destroying America

October 10, 2022October 9, 2022 Admin

Our great nation and its traditions, values, and institutions continue to be attacked from within. We live in a perilous time. A revolution isn’t coming – it’s already here. The all-out assault by the progressive elites has shattered major parts of American culture – chief among them, the rule of law. We are in the midst of a life and death struggle.

While the radical Left has captured virtually all major institutions, the final outcome is still in doubt. It is imperative that we have clear insights into the true nature of the conflict and identities, tactics, and ideologies of the organized groups and forces that mean to destroy America. James Pastor’s book helps provide these insights with a comprehensive summary and analysis of the current crisis.

‘Mutually Beneficial’: Major News Outlet Expands Climate Change Reporting Funded by Left-Wing Activist Groups

February 21, 2022February 20, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

The Associated Press announced Tuesday that it had secured funding from several progressive interest groups to hire two dozen climate change reporters.

The outlet referred to the groups’ funding as “philanthropic grants” and promised that the groups wouldn’t have any editorial control over the climate change content published, according to an announcement. But the five organizations — the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, Quadrivium and the Walton Family Foundation — are well known for pushing a variety of left-wing causes and funding Democratic political campaigns.

Commentary: The Left’s Anti-Intellectual Problem

February 9, 2022February 8, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

Last week in the Atlantic, David Graham took aim at smart conservative politicians who play dumb. He declares at the beginning of his piece, “This is the age of smart politicians pretending to be stupid.” As evidence, he mainly cites Gov. Ron DeSantis, senatorial candidates J.D. Vance and Eric Greitens, and Sen. Josh Hawley.

Graham argues that these men belie their impressive degrees from Ivy League universities by aligning themselves with the populist conservative movement in some capacity. DeSantis does not brag about COVID booster shots, Vance is critical of China and globalism, and Greitens and Hawley have doubts about the 2020 election. Surely, according to Graham, these must be poses to win over Trump supporters, not sincere positions stemming from valid objections. There’s just no way such educated people would actually believe what they’re pushing.

Commentary: We Must Never Cede Language to the Left

January 8, 2022January 7, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

In 2001, I served in the Michigan State Senate. One morning our then-governor, John Engler, met with our Republican caucus to promote his idea of consolidating several state entities within a single department by executive order. Characteristic of his transformational tenure, Engler was endeavoring to further streamline the Michigan bureaucracy to provide more efficient and effective services, promote accountability within state government, and save taxpayers’ money.

When the governor finished his convincing pitch for the Department of History, Arts, and Culture, I raised my hand: “Governor, you know the new department’s acronym will be hack (HAC)?”

Commentary: In Scotland, They’ll Take the Woke Road

January 2, 2022January 1, 2022 Florida Capital Star Staff

The online class on gender, feminism, and the law was underway when Lisa Keogh, a 29-year-old student and mother of two, introduced a note of unwoke contention into the discussion.

“We were talking about equal rights for women, and I said I don’t believe a trans woman is really a woman,” said Keogh, then attending Abertay University Law School here. “I said that my definition of a woman is someone with a vagina.” Keogh, disagreeing with another point of view expressed in the same meeting, also voiced the apparently retrograde opinion that not all men are rapists.

Commentary: Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization

November 27, 2021November 26, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Millions of citizens long ago concluded that professional sports, academia, and entertainment were no longer disinterested institutions, but far Left and deliberately hostile to Middle America.

Yet American conservatives still adamantly supported the nation’s traditional investigatory, intelligence, and military agencies—especially when they came under budgetary or cultural attacks.

Commentary: Campus Radicals Destroy What Made American Universities Wonderous Institutions

October 18, 2021October 17, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

There is no faster – or more amusing – way to make a campus radical lose his composure than to fuss about the importance of cultural literacy.

The term “cultural literacy,” made popular by the controversial scholar E.D. Hirsch, describes a person’s capacity to comprehend cultural references and use that knowledge in conversation with others.

Commentary: One Simple Change to Begin Reversing the Left’s Takeover

September 22, 2021September 21, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Take heart. The resurgence of a freedom-based conservatism has already begun. On the other side of the pandemic tyranny, the debacle in Afghanistan, and the catastrophic reckoning with inflation, Americans will be ready to be rid of the screechy pseudo-intellectuals who ruin everything. When that day comes, it’s critical we take steps to eliminate the Left’s toxic syndicate that indoctrinated so many Americans. It’s not enough to beat them back. We must look to the source of this poison that almost overtook our country.

There are so many problems that need to be unwound. Leftist authoritarianism has infected everything as indoctrinated graduates began assuming leadership roles in heretofore apolitical organizations from churches to school boards to the military. Instead of trying to fight the battle on every front, we should look first to stopping it at its source: Academics unmoored from market incentives.

Commentary: How Progressives Rewrote American History

August 15, 2021August 14, 2021 RealClearWire

America’s Founders understood that political change is inevitable. They thought it must come about through constitutional mechanisms, with the consent of the governed, and must never infringe on the natural rights of citizens. Progressives – rejecting the idea that any rights, including the right of consent to government, are natural – accept no such limits. Progressivism insists that the principled American constitutionalism of fixed natural rights and limited and dispersed powers must be overturned and replaced by an organic, evolutionary model of the Constitution. Historical progress should be facilitated by experts dedicated to the expansion of the public sphere and political control – especially at the national level. As progressivism has grown into modern liberalism, the commitment to extra-constitutional “progress” is broadly shared across elite political, academic, legal, and religious circles. Politics is thus increasingly identified with a mix of activism, expertise, and the desire for “change.”

Commentary: Alumni Organizations Are Pushing Back on Woke Campuses in Battle for Free Speech

July 28, 2021July 27, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

When Davidson College senior Maya Pillai was asked about her greatest college memory, the first-generation immigrant answered, “I don’t have one.”

In an August 2020 interview with the Charlotte Observer, Pillai, the president of Davidson’s chapter of College Republicans, described her alienating college experience.

“Because of my political affiliation, it led to not having friends,” said Pillai, who received a full, merit scholarship to the highly-respected North Carolina institution. “And because it led to not having friends, it led to not having a fair reputation on campus. So I’ve been essentially outcast due to my political views.”

Commentary: No Longer ‘Democrats’

July 23, 2021July 22, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

In the old days, Democrats had predictable agendas, supposedly focused on individual rights, the “little guy,” and distrust of the military-industrial-intelligence complex.

The Left, often on spec, blasted the wealthy, whether the “lucre” was self-made or inherited. The old-money rich were lampooned as idle drones.

Up to 98 Percent of Faculty Donations from Oregon’s Largest Public Universities Went to Democrats

July 22, 2021July 22, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Between 96% and 98% of all political donations made by faculty members at Oregon’s three largest public universities went to Democrats, according to a new study by the Oregon Association of Scholars.

The report’s author, Portland State political science professor Bruce Gilley, told The College Fix that between 60% and 80% of college faculty donations nationwide go to Democrats, so “Oregon is way above normal.”