In today’s Friday Quickies post, I wrote about the rather bizarre sexual identity civil war being played out in Congress now that the Dems are in control, as the different sides to the argument fight over whether “transgendered” individuals should be included in an employment discrimination bill.
By the way, before I get any further in this post, I want to say I want a short persons anti-discrimination bill. Or maybe I want a “looks lousy in pea green sweaters” anti-discrimination bill. What am I saying. How about an “anything that offends my sensibilities is discrimination” anti-discrimination bill. Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964* is, apparently, inadequate to the purpose, despite it’s laundry list of people against whom there cannot be discrimination, and since we apparently need to legislate to the fringe in order to keep Americans behaving decently at work, we’d better line up every single kind of discrimination imaginable and start passing laws like crazy. End of digression. Back to the main purpose of this post, which is transgendered individuals.
If the post RD directed me to is to be believed, the feds are already acting as if transgendered individuals are a protected class. How else to explain this:
James Watson’s forced recantation reminds me of a situation that has arisen at a particular government-administered intelligence program with which I am familiar. One of the employees at this office has decided he is a woman, and has demanded–and so far received–the right to use the women’s restroom. Management has informed the women who work there that if they even voice disagreement, they will lose their jobs on the spot. All employees are required to call him by his new female name, to use female pronouns in reference to him, and to otherwise assent that this very sick individual really is a woman. Again, failure to do so will result in immediate termination, no questions asked. They have been instructed, in other words, that they shall accept as true whatever they are told. Any suggestion that they believe their own eyes over what management tells them shall result in being cast into the outer darkness–this is a very privileged world and once you’ve been expelled, it is nearly impossible to get back in.
What has been astonishing to behold is the number of employees–particularly the functionaries in middle management–who have taken the view that because we humans make our own reality, they now believe–really believe–that this man is a woman. Management has said so. He has said so. To deny it is to commit an act of discrimination. All discrimination is wrong. I believe he is a woman. And so forth.
There are some who have privately reacted with horror, and the thing that horrifies them most is that so many people are willing to surrender their minds to the control of others, and to believe that reality is whatever they are told it is by the authorities. A scene which as always stuck with from from 1984 involves Winston watching his interrogator destroy a piece of evidence that the government was lying. You must remember that such evidence existed, he insists. You yourself held in in your own hands only moments ago. “I do not remember it,” his tormentor replies, and Winston sinks into despair.
Watching men as accomplished as Watson debase themselves and profess not to believe what they know to be true fills me with the same kind of despair.
I don’t think the 1984 comparison goes too far at all. George Orwell, raised in the socialist milieu fully understood would happens when variations of socialism take over.
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* By the way, regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it’s interesting to note the operative language: “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” By “sex,” Congress of course meant “gender,” as the legislative history clearly shows. Nevertheless, it would seem to me that a court can easily expand sex to mean sexuality, as well as gender, without the necessity of enacting brand new legislation.
Filed under: GBLT | Tagged: 1984, Discrimination, George Orwell, Transgendered |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
They have been instructed, in other words, that they shall accept as true whatever they are told.”
“There are some who have privately reacted with horror, and the thing that horrifies them most is that so many people are willing to surrender their minds to the control of others”
I may be quibbling, but does everyone REALLY think that these people are surrendering their minds? That they are supposed to accept these things as true? Their right to voice their opinion is being ruthlessly oppressed, but come on! MIND control? That kind of hyper-exaggeration is what we normally get on the left, not on the right!
This wouldn’t be the first case of management denying reality. I’m reminded of the apocryphal story that Galileo, on his deathbed, muttered “Nevertheless, it IS round.”
Nor is this the first case of management smashing its employees with a ruthless iron boot, destroying all sense of cohesion and morale. It happens a lot. No one wants to leave a job and move on, but when your management is shown to be such an outrageous group of vicious assholes, it may be time to.
I did not object to “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” in 1964, nor do I now, but I do object to Everyone, Except White Heterosexual Males, Shall Be Protected.
Mike, the issue for Galileo was whether the earth was
fixed in space with everything revolving around it, or
if the sun was the center of the solar system, with
earth moving around *it*. Thus, the quote – said to
have been uttered as he left the room after recanting
his position – was “Still, it moves.” The VERY BEST
book on this subject – and you will be shocked at
how you were lied to all these years – is Galileo’s
Mistake, which you can find at Amazon. Read it.
Ivan, I would only add “Christian” to that list.
Our culture is going insane…….
When (and why) did “gender” come to mean “sex”. Maybe when sex came to mean intercourse?
For the record, sex mean classification according to reproduction function and gender means classification according to grammatical conventions.
Not that the language can’t evolve, I just find it curious when it does.
After four decades of management and management consulting I can assure you that anti-discrimination laws place a low hurdle in the path of all classes covered by the law.
Top management, not middle-management, has a bias toward people who do not have an extra tool for suing the corporation. That unprotected class is getting smaller all the time. It now includes heterosexual white males under 55 years old, not too heavy and in very good health.
Can someone direct me to the source
of the “forced recantation” by James
Watson?
What is *that* about?
I don’t know, Earl. Since it was part of the quotation, I just kept it there. I was rather hoping either (a) that the reference could be used to demonstrate the falsity or truth of the quotation or (b) that someone would explain to me who poor James Watson is/was.
Found it, Earl, and I should have remembered sooner. James Watson is the Nobel Prize winner who stated his belief that black people are overall less smart than other people. He has since apologized and stated that he doesn’t know what came over him when he made that statement.
Certainly I’m extremely uncomfortable with the idea of drawing racial lines around intelligence — except that I’d be the first to tell you that, when it comes to Bell Curve intelligence tests, Jews tend to have a higher Bell Curve than other groups. So I guess it’s okay to think these thoughts in connection with higher performance than with lower performance.
The problem, of course, with making lower performance claims about other races is that you start getting into issues of education and opportunity. Jews have a culture that was historically devoted to academic achievement and that, again historically, elevated intelligence to a very valued level. Other cultures don’t do that, and you really can’t have a pure test of intelligence absent full educational opportunities and a culture devoted to the world of the mind. If people aren’t training those mental muscles, how can you make conclusions about their innate quality?
The aristocrats are all racists at heart, for how else can they justify the fact that they can live it big and rich while others have to sludge through life living hand to mouth?
They must believe themselves superior, in one way or another, else they would feel too much guilt. Without noblesse oblige, how would such a person such as Kerry or Kennedy ever live with themselves?
Oh joy. Our tax dollars at work yet again.
[…] So should gays really be celebrating this revelation? It seems to me as if Rowling is saying that, while homosexuals can quite obviously be loving, brilliant, powerful, honorable and brave, their sexuality can blind them and celibacy is the better option. That seems to be strictly in keeping with the religious doctrine that says that, while gays can’t help being gay, they shouldn’t act on it. (I actually find this view troubling, since sexuality is such an integral part of the human condition. I just like bedroom conduct kept in the bedroom, and off the streets and out of politics.) […]