Leftists, controlled by “LGBTQ” activists and in thrall to their dogma, have redefined yet another term: bullying. They seek to impose their redefinition on all of society in their relentless quest to socially condition everyone into affirmation of their sexuality ideology. There’s no better evidence that they have redefined “bullying” than their claim that Melania Trump’s campaign against cyberbullying is hypocritical because her husband allegedly cyberbullies.

The often-foolish Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank recently made that claim in a column in which he argued that President Donald Trump cyberbullied former CIA director John Brennan by calling him a “political hack.” Milbank also accused Trump of cyberbullying special counsel Robert Mueller, former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, John Dean, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), Governors Andrew Cuomo, (D-NY) and John Kasich (R-OH). Milbank’s evidence that Trump cyberbullied these people? He called them names on Twitter.

Milbank’s argument raises the question “What is a bully?”

My Random House Dictionary defines a bully as “a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.”

My American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “a person who is habitually cruel, esp. to smaller or weaker people.”

My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a tyrannical coward who makes himself a terror to the weak.”

My Oxford American Dictionary defines it as “a person who uses strength or power to coerce others by fear.”

Is calling famous adults in positions of cultural power names “cruel”? Are John Brennan, Robert Mueller, Chuck Schumer weak? Are they terrified by Trump’s tweets? Does tweeting mean things about famous adults in positions of cultural power constitute the use of coercive strength and power?

Apparently, the spanking new Leftist definition of “bully” omits all references to smaller or weaker people, which means that untold numbers of people—including countless “progressive” pundits, politicians, professors, teachers, and actors—are guilty of bullying.

If all epithets constitute bullying, then was former Obama press secretary, Jay Carney a bully when he called Milbank a “hack.”

When Milbank called U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) a coward and said the president is “surrounded by hooligans,” was Milbank bullying?

When perpetual power-seeker Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “deplorables,” was she bullying?

When Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn called opponents of the legal recognition of homosexual unions as marriages sophomoric Bible-thumpers, hankie-twisters, and poisonous debaters, was he bullying?

When the editor and publisher of the “progressive” magazine The Nation, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, said former president George Bush was incompetent, untrustworthy, and dishonest, was she bullying?

When former President Barack Obama called Kanye West a “jackass,” was he bullying? When Obama called a segment of the population bitter Bible-clingers was he bullying?

Are “progressives” bullies when they call theologically orthodox Christians ignorant, hate-filled bigots for their belief that homosexual acts are immoral?

Was Jesus a bully when he called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers?”

If someone is a hack, a jackass, or a viper, is it bullying to say so?

If we use the true definition of bullying, it becomes clear who the bullies are. Bullies are those who possess cultural power—and by cultural power, I mean our dominant cultural institutions—and wield it against those with little or no cultural power.

It is “progressives” who control government schools, academia, the arts, professional medical and mental health organizations, mainstream media, social media, and corporate America. When Trump tweeted that John Brennan is a “political hack,” he was not guilty of bullying. When Carney called Milbank a hack, he was not bullying. When cultural power-brokers call an elderly florist a bigot, they’re bullying.

For tactical reasons, “progressives” have decided that when it comes to adults talking about adults, bullying no longer refers to coercive, threatening, cruel treatment of weaker people. They do that all the time. Now it refers to any speech by conservatives that’s not pleasant, sufficiently obsequious, or ideologically aligned with their views. But remember, no one has an obligation to acquiesce to Leftist language rules.

This is not an endorsement of speech that is uncivil or intemperate, but not all unpleasant speech is uncivil or intemperate. There is even a cultural place for expressions of hatred. Decent people with properly formed consciences will hate wicked acts and will say so even in the face of coercive bullying by the culturally powerful.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Leftists-Redefine-Bullying.mp3

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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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Recently Ben Shapiro, writing for National Review, exposed a fundamental 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 from three prominent political figures, President Trump, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Governor John Kasich, to illustrate that there is little principled difference between their positions.

Read more HERE…

Earlier today, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio signed into law protection for the unborn at 20 weeks.  This law has an exception for abortions that are necessary to save the mother’s life or prevent serious risk of substantial bodily impairment.  The law is based on the concern that unborn humans can feel pain at 20 weeks.  Ohio joins 15 other states that protect humans from abortion at the age of 20 weeks in the womb.  Kasich vetoed a bill designed to protect unborn humans once their heartbeat can be detected, between 4 weeks and 6 weeks.

Can Babies Feel Pain?

Unborn babies may be able to feel pain much earlier than 20 weeks since nerves develop around 7 weeks.  Pro-life people have been concerned for decades that unborn humans are feeling excruciating pain inside abortion clinics.  Ultrasounds of abortion earlier than 20 weeks show the unborn human reacting in a manner consistent with feeling pain.  While the pro-choice lobby scoffs at this concern, their criticism is noticeably absent when doctors give anesthesia to pre-viable babies to prepare that baby for fetal surgery.  Fetal surgery occurs when a doctor needs to perform surgery on the unborn baby, but then return the baby to the mother’s womb after the surgery because the baby is not old enough to be delivered. In these situations, when the unborn baby is a patient, pain management is understandable by everyone regardless of their view on abortion.  Yet, when the baby is scheduled to be an abortion victim, concerns about pain are criticized.  This double standard is illustrative of the double-minded way many pro-choice people approach sincere concerns about abortion.

Exceptions At 20 Weeks?

Kasich believes in a rape exception for pro-life laws.  However, he signed this bill into law which doesn’t have a rape exception.  Pro-choice people are criticizing him for being inconsistent, but this raises some questions.  Do these pro-choice people really think it takes a woman 20 weeks to realize she was sexually assaulted?  That’s five months.  I don’t agree with Kasich on his rape exception view, but the fact is, a victim of sexual assault who decided to get an abortion would get the abortion much earlier than 20 weeks.  Perhaps these pro-choice people realize that’s the case and they’re just using the word rape to get people sad or upset.  If so, are they using the horror of rape as a political football to advance their abortion agenda?  We should all agree that it’s demeaning to rape victims to throw out the word rape just to push a political agenda.

Why Veto The Heartbeat Bill?

In his veto message, Kasich mentioned that the Heartbeat Bill goes beyond current U.S. Supreme Court rulings, it would be declared unconstitutional by the judiciary and the State of Ohio “will be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to cover the legal fees for pro-choice activists’ lawyers.”  He also said that such a defeat “invites additional challenges to Ohio’s strong legal protections for unborn life.”  The real reason the unborn are not legally protected from the moment their heart starts beating or from the moment they are created at fertilization is because of the U.S. Supreme Court.  It would be good if Kasich signed the Heartbeat Bill into law, but the real change must occur at the U.S. Supreme Court.

What’s Next For Legal Change?

Five pro-choice U.S. Supreme Court members continue to veto the will of the people.  They are Ginsberg, Kennedy, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor.  To make progress against the injustice of abortion, we need to reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.  That can occur after the Scalia vacancy is filled with a pro-life Justice and a pro-life Justice replaces one of five pro-choice members of the Court.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump can sign pro-life executive orders, can sign a federal bill protecting the unborn from abortion at 20 weeks and can defund abortion clinic chains like Planned Parenthood.  Overturning Roe is very important.  After that, defunding may have the most profound effect because many abortion clinics will close across the nation.  The defunding effort takes away federal tax dollars from abortion clinics and re-directs those dollars to Federally Qualified Health Centers to provide real healthcare to women.  Pro-life states will continue to pass pro-life legislation and pro-life people will fight to stop pro-choice legislation from passing.

What’s Next At the Grassroots?

Pro-life people need to fight the abortion clinic lobby with activism.  This is a life or death struggle that starts at the grassroots.  If we win, hundreds of thousands of lives can be saved from abortion each year. Winning means social and legal change.  We may be turning the corner with Trump, but how much progress we make depends on us being united, smart, courageous, and very active.

The Ohio legislature has sent a bill to Governor John Kasich that will legally protect unborn babies from abortion once a heartbeat can be detected.  The law makes it a fifth-degree felony to abort an unborn human without checking for a heartbeat or aborting after the baby’s heartbeat can be detected.  It also opens the door to civil lawsuits and disciplinary action.

The heartbeat is present at around 3 weeks and 3 days, but usually can’t be detected until 4 to 6 weeks.  The bill also provides an exception to allow an abortion when it is necessary to save the mother’s life.

If Governor Kasich doesn’t veto the bill by December 16th, it automatically becomes law.  He also has the option to veto a portion of the bill (line-item veto).  The state legislature could override a potential veto, but that requires a three-fifths vote.  They are likely to override it in the Ohio Senate since the original vote was 21 to 10, but it’s less likely to be overridden in the Ohio House since that vote was 56 to 39.

Take ACTION:  Call Gov. Kasich’s office at (614) 466-3555 to leave a message encouraging this one time presidential candidate to stand for the right to life and sign the “Heartbeat Bill” into law.  You can also click HERE to send a message to Gov. Kasich via his website.

Background  

The ACLU has already threatened to sue the state of Ohio if this bill becomes law.  It’s very likely that the lower courts will find it unconstitutional because of Roe v Wade and subsequent cases.  Tragically, the current U.S. Supreme Court would agree and  Ohio would be forced to pay the legal fees of the attorneys that sued.  If Ohio tried to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court and enforce the heartbeat bill anyway, the Federal Government would force the state to comply.

Ultimately, the real problem is the current U.S. Supreme Court.

The five pro-choice Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court will not allow “we the people” to govern ourselves when it comes to abortion.  Five pro-choice Justices continue to impose their personal opinions about abortion on 320 million Americans instead of allowing the ordinary democratic process to create the law that the people want.

These Justices hide behind stare decisis (upholding prior decisions), dubious interpretative approaches including substantive due process and what they call looking to the shadows of the U.S. Constitution. However, prior decisions have been changed numerous times and because they are so controversial, they harm the U.S. Supreme Court by politicizing the nomination and confirmation processes.  Meanwhile, it’s well established that no provision of the U.S. Constitution was ever adopted or ratified with the intention of creating a legal “right to abortion” nor were they adopted or ratified with the intent to prohibit the people from protecting the unborn from abortion.

Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court has five pro-choice Justices (Ginsberg, Kennedy, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor) and three pro-life Justices (Thomas, Alito, and Roberts).  There is one vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court left by the late Justice Scalia.  President-elect Trump has stated repeatedly that he will nominate a pro-life Justice once he is in office in January 2017.  The Republican U.S. Senate will likely fast-track the confirmation of that Justice.  However, the U.S. Supreme Court will still be split five pro-choice Justices to four pro-life Justices.  We will need one of the pro-choice Justices to leave the Court while Trump is President and the U.S. Senate is Republican if we want to move the U.S. Supreme Court away from abortion and toward life.

The three oldest Justices are pro-choice.  They are Ginsberg, Kennedy, and Breyer.  If one of them leaves the U.S. Supreme Court and that position is filled with a pro-life Justice, we could see Roe overturned in our lifetime.  Bills like this one in Ohio that protect babies with detectable heartbeats can finally be a reality.  It will be a true victory for the value of human life and for our democratic process.

Pro-lifers are hopeful that Gov. Kasich will sign this “Heartbeat Bill” into law.  It’s the right thing to do.  Meanwhile, another bill is available for him to sign that protects the unborn from abortion after 20 weeks.

Nevertheless, the real fight is with these five pro-choice Justices. They stand in the way of democracy.  They stand in the way of basic human rights for all humans (born & unborn).  They stand in the way of true human progress.

Join IFI at our Feb. 18th Worldview Conference

We are excited about our third annual Worldview Conference featuring world-renowned theologian Dr. Frank Turek on Sat., Feb. 18, 2017 in Barrington. Dr. Turek is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture:

Click HERE to learn more or to register!