Lawmakers Avoid Discussions of First Principles

Recently Ben Shapiro, writing for National Review, exposed a serious failure of lawmakers that partisan debates conceal. Partisan debates conceal that fundamental, first-principle policy arguments about governance are avoided like the proverbial plague by politicians of all political stripes.

Shapiro uses comments about health care from three prominent political figures, President Donald Trump, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Governor John Kasich, to illustrate that there is little principled difference between their positions:

President Trump wants to re-enshrine Obamacare’s two central premises: that it is the government’s job to make sure everyone has health insurance, and that health-insurance companies should therefore be forced to cover pre-existing conditions. Sanders wants to spend more money on the same two principles — or do away with the second principle altogether in favor of a direct government program. Kasich expanded Obamacare in his own state, saying that St. Peter would want government health-care spending expanded, and he mirrors both Trump and Obama in his central contention that there is a government-guaranteed “right” to health insurance.

What are these three fighting over? Whether to spend an insane amount of money on Medicaid or simply a crazy amount of money on Medicaid; whether to pay for everyone’s insurance through taxes later or today; whether to force insurance companies to cover services that are unnecessary or allow them to pare such services back to a moderate extent; whether to mandate that healthy people buy health insurance or whether to coax them into gradual single-payer acceptance via back-door fines. All of this matters, of course. But to suggest that this is a cataclysmic conflict over principles is idiotic. Democrats and Republicans apparently agree on health care’s central principles, they just argue over how best to implement them.

In other words, these are tales full of sound and fury signifying almost nothing.

Lawmakers avoid discussions of fundamental policies and principles

Shapiro elucidates what kinds of discussions politicians avoid and why:

[O]ur politicians generally elide the most important policy questions of the day — the ones that would implicate central principles. That’s because so long as they stick to the center of the road and then act as though they’re facing threats for doing so, they don’t have to alienate anyone — and they can rake in money.

Then Shapiro reveals the central conflict facing our republic now and the one from which our lawmakers flee with all due haste:

[O]n the hot-button issue of whether religious Americans ought to be protected from government intervention when they operate their businesses according to religious dictates — the single most important cultural issue in America today — politicians have been largely silent. What’s Trump’s perspective on the issue? We have no idea. Bernie Sanders doesn’t spend a good deal of time talking about it either. And John Kasich couldn’t be more vague. When politicians do have to sound off on such issues, they often run from the fray.

The next revolution

I would add another hot-button issue which implicates first principles and on which politicians remain largely silent: That is the Left’s reality-denying attack on the public’s recognition of and respect for sexual differentiation.

Never in the history of the world has there been a sustained attack on a proper understanding and recognition of sexual differentiation. What we are witnessing now is a cultural revolution the likes of which no society in history has encountered.

Because of the obsession lawmakers have with raking in money in the service of securing their re-elections, because of their cowardice, because of their intellectual incuriosity, and because of their ignorance, they are failing to address this radical and destructive revolution. And for all these reasons, our political leaders have no sense of the end game.

What is the end game of “trans” cultists? It is nothing less than the eradication of public recognition of sex differences everywhere for everyone.

While Leftists pursue their end game via strategic incrementalism, naïve, ignorant, and cowardly Americans incrementally capitulate. Some conservatives argue that if men who pretend to be women have been castrated, it’s okay if they invade women’s restrooms and locker rooms. It’s as if these conservatives believe that an elaborate disguise effaces the meaning of sex. Or that being unaware that an objectively male person is present where girls and women are undressing legitimizes their presence.

If that’s the case, then these same women should be comfortable with peeping Toms peeping as long as women are unaware of the peeping. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting those who experience the disordered desire to be the opposite sex are voyeurs. Rather, I’m suggesting that if being deceived about the presence of men in private spaces legitimizes their presence, then surely being deceived about the presence of peepers should legitimize peeping.

No efforts to masquerade—not surgical, chemical, or sartorial—can change the sex of humans. So, no matter how convincing a gender-pretender’s disguise, he or she should not be permitted in opposite-sex private spaces.

Our politicians need to know what the “trans” cult end game is and once they understand that, they need to have the courage to address it. If they are stubbornly committed either to ignorance or cowardice, then they have no business serving the people in elected office.

“Trans” cult beliefs

So, here’s what our politicians and the people they serve need to know about the “trans” ideology:

“Trans” cultists do not believe surgery, cross-sex hormone-doping, cross-dressing, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or even the experience of gender dysphoria is necessary to “identify” as “trans” or to access opposite-sex locker rooms, restrooms, dressing rooms, showers, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, or any other historically sex-segregated spaces.

They believe all that’s required to “identify” as “trans” and to access opposite-sex private facilities is their word.

They believe that one’s “gender identity” can change day to day.

They believe that genitalia have no connection to maleness or femaleness.

They believe that those who care about the genitalia of their romantic/sexual partners are “transphobic.” That is to say, any man who wants his sexual partner to be an objectively female person with female anatomy is “transphobic.” And any homosexual man who wants his sexual partner to be objectively male with male anatomy is “transphobic.” (This is getting “trans” cultists in hot water with the homosexual community.)

They believe that sex-segregated private spaces are intrinsically and unjustly discriminatory. They believe that they should have unrestricted access to opposite-sex private facilities. In their view, requiring them to use privacy stalls is unjust and discriminatory.

They believe spaces in which undressing and bodily functions are engaged in should not be permitted to “discriminate” based on either sex or “gender identity.”

If lawmakers don’t believe me, maybe they could scrounge up 30 minutes to watch this video of a young man who “identifies” as a “transwoman.” He spells it all out:

“Trans” cult end game

So, now that we’re clearer about what the “trans” cult believes, let’s see what their peculiar and doctrinaire beliefs will look like in practice. In other words, here’s a glimpse into their desired gender-free, co-ed-everything, dystopian world:

The sexual integration of private spaces will not be restricted to “trans”-identified persons: 1.) Schools and all other places of public accommodation—including places like Disney World and health clubs—that permit one objectively male “trans” person access to women’s facilities will have no rational grounds to prohibit other objectively male persons (i.e., normal men) from accessing women’s facilities because that would constitute discrimination based on “gender identity.” 2.) If genitalia are as irrelevant to physical privacy as say, hair color, then sex-segregated restrooms and locker rooms no longer make sense. 3.) There’s no rational reason for women to be more comfortable undressing in front of men who wish they were women than undressing in front of men who are content being men.

Men who claim to be “transwomen” but choose not to be castrated will have unrestricted access to all previously women-only private spaces. And if women are permitted to walk naked in a locker room, so too will men with penises who claim to be women. So too will men with penises who have had breast implants.

Women who claim to be men and who have birth certificates that identify them as male but have forgone “top surgery” will be exempt from laws and ordinances that prohibit women from going topless in public. These pretend-men with congenital breasts will be able to play topless frisbee in the park along with breastless, topless actual men.

Objectively male persons with falsified birth certificates identifying them as women will be assigned semi-private hospital rooms with actual women.

When entering a nursing home, elderly men who pretend to be women will be assigned rooms with actual women. Bill SB 219 is pending in California right now that if passed will require that long-term care facilities must assign “transgender” residents rooms in accordance with their “gender identity” rather than their sex. Further, it would make it illegal to reassign “transgender” residents to a new room if their roommates complain about their “gender identity.”

Women’s athletics are doomed.

Despite the dire portents that no one should be able to miss, lawmakers who claim to want to lead and serve say virtually nothing and probably know less.

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