A Moral Universe Torn Apart

by Ben Shapiro

  And therein lies the problem. The only real answer to the antipathy between large segments of the black community and police is threefold: first, taking seriously fact-based allegations of racism against the authorities, and investigating and prosecuting such allegations if well-founded; second, not jumping to conclusions about non-fact-based allegations; and third, lowering crime rates among young black men, thereby lowering interactions between police and young black men.

  But those are not solutions backed by the racially delusional. Instead, they suggest an unending and circular "conversation" about race that goes something like this: Police sometimes shoot young black men; that's because police are racist; therefore, those who resist police are not morally unjustified; rinse, wash, repeat.

  Sadly, America's media backs this second approach. And so we end up with damaging foolishness like "Don't Shoot" infusing our pop culture and the snarky but empty-headed racial guilting of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert invading our news. And nothing gets solved. We just get more hate, more rage and more violence.

  The Global Map, 2017

  September 10, 2014

  Barack Obama pledged to radically transform America when he took office. He didn't stop at America. President Obama's greatest legacy may be the radical reshaping of the global map.

  Fast forward three years. Here's where we stand.

  Given Europe's failure to stand up to Russian aggression in Crimea, Russia's borders have expanded to include Eastern Ukraine, northern Kazakhstan and larger portions of Moldova. As of 2014, Russia had consolidated its hold on Transnistria, the Eastern region of Moldova, which is heavily Russian; Russia had annexed Crimea; Russia had placed troops inside Eastern Ukraine.

  But it didn't stop there. Russia began squeezing Georgia again, and pro-Russian regimes are consolidating their power in Kazakhstan and Belarus. Belarus asked the Russian government to place 15 warplanes inside the country in 2014; Kazakhstan got into a tiff with Russia over comments Putin made unsubtly suggesting a possible invasion of the country, then complied with Putin's demands when the West did nothing.

  Thus far, Putin has not invaded any NATO countries. But that could change, given the high Russian population in Latvia and Estonia.

  Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Jordan's kingdom has fallen, replaced by a radical Islamist regime. That Palestinian Arab regime has attempted to consolidate its power by forming an alliance with Hamas in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. In Lebanon, the Iranians and Syrians have effectively annexed southern Lebanon. Israel's only quiet border is now its southern border with Egypt.

  In Syria, Bashar Assad has retained a measure of power by essentially conceding territory to ISIS in the eastern part of the country; after a halfhearted intervention against ISIS, the international community went quiet as ISIS formed its sought-after caliphate in eastern Syria and northern Iraq. In response, Iran essentially invaded southern Iraq, and Turkey launched covert action against the Kurds in order to prevent the formation of a broader Kurdistan encompassing parts of Turkish territory.

  With the withdrawal of the United States and its allies from Afghanistan, Pakistan has once again made its presence felt. The Taliban have effectively taken control of large swaths of territory, with the help of the Pakistani regime, which has shifted leadership but not position with regard to radical Islam.

  In the most stunning international move, China has threatened full-scale annexation of Taiwan, barring access to the South China Sea from Western countries and cutting off Taiwan's trade routes. The West has refused to leverage China, fearing financial retaliation. China has made similar moves against the Philippines.

  Come 2017, this will be President Obama's legacy: a world of redrawn borders, all to the benefit of some of the worst regimes on the planet. When America retreats from the world, its enemies expand.

  The Conversation We Won't Have About Raising Men

  September 17, 2014

  On Thursday night, the Baltimore Ravens took on the Pittsburgh Steelers. The event carried national significance thanks to the Ravens' public-induced decision to cut running back Ray Rice after tape emerged of Rice clocking his then-fiancee in the head, knocking her out cold. CBS sportscaster James Brown utilized his pregame show to draw attention to the problem of domestic violence — and suggest widespread culpability for domestic violence. "Our language is important," Brown suggested. "For instance, when a guy says, 'You throw the ball like a girl' or 'You're a little sissy,' it reflects an attitude that devalues women, and attitudes will eventually manifest in some fashion."

  Brown wasn't the only commentator to blame "The Sandlot" for Ray Rice's horrifying Mike Tyson-esque blow to his future wife's head. ESPN commentator Kate Fagan explained, "This is behavior that is happening at the grassroots level that is born through years of our culture like raising men to want to not be like women and using language like 'sissy' and 'you throw like a girl' that demean women. ... [We need to focus on] really reprogramming how we raise men."

  Naturally, this talking point was celebrated far and wide by a mainstream press more interested in perpetuating the tenets of political correctness than in actually fighting domestic abuse. The real solution to domestic abuse is twofold: punishing it to the greatest possible extent, and yes, raising young men differently. But to state that the greatest risk factor for future domestic violence is insulting other boys as "throwing like girls" is pure idiocy. No man has ever hit a woman because she "throws like a girl." But plenty of young men have hit women because they had no moral compass and did not believe in basic concepts of virtue — and plenty of young men lack such a moral compass and belief in virtue thanks to lack of male role models.

  Teaching respect for women begins with ensuring that solid male influences models fill the lives of young men — men who respect women, cherish them, treasure them, and believe in protecting them. This is an unpopular stance, because it suggests that boys require men to raise them. Which they do. But that truth doesn't fit the logic of the left, which seems to think that lack of fathers counts less than rhetorically bothersome phrases.

  For leftists, the answer to domestic violence isn't to deal with any of the issues that could lead boys to become abusing men. The answer, instead, is to lecture Americans about the use of the word "sissy" — not because that solves the problem, but because it makes those on the left feel warm and fuzzy inside. Similarly, the left will tell Americans that the name of the Washington Redskins matters far more to Native-Americans than the nearly half of Native-American youths who drop out of high school; they will explain that "microaggressions" are the true problem faced by blacks in America, not lack of education, poverty or unwed motherhood.

  We extol the language police even as we castigate moral authorities. And so our problems grow worse. But at least we feel better about them.

  A Moral Universe Torn Apart

  September 24, 2014

  "I am not ashamed," a young woman says into a camera. "I am not ashamed."

  The woman is Leyla Josephine of Glasgow, and she is a self-described feminist performance artist. She is reading a poem titled "I Think She Was a She" — a poem lauded by The Huffington Post as "unapologetic. ... She ardently declares her power over her body as she reminds us that a woman exercising her right to choose is not uncommon — and should never be shamefully brushed under the rug."

  What, exactly, is this poem? It's Josephine recounting her abortion of her unborn daughter. She notes, "I know she was a she and I think she would've looked exactly like me. I would've told her stories about her grandfather, we could've fed the swans at Victoria Park." Then, however, she reveals just what she's done: "I would've supported her right to choose. To choose a life for herself, a path for herself. I would've died for that right like she died for mine. I'm sorry, but you came at the wrong time."

  You came at the wrong time. Therefore, murder is justified.

  At least Josephine has the intellectual honesty to admit that her daughter was in fact a daughter, not some fict
ional ball of tissue. But by blithely signing away her daughter's life in the name of convenience, Josephine becomes the emissary of a deep and abiding evil. Her lie that she would lay down her life for the right of her child to choose life, when it is eminently clear that she would not even sacrifice an iota of inconvenience to avoid killing her own child, is morally sickening. Her child did not choose to die for her convenience. Her child had no such choice.

  But Josephine doesn't care. "Don't you mutter murder on me," Josephine spits.

  Meanwhile, an ocean away, the creator of Obamacare, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, has written an equally nausea-inducing piece in which he stumps for death at 75 years of age. Not merely death for himself, mind you — death for everyone. "My father illustrates the situation well," Emanuel writes, in coldly eugenic fashion. "About a decade ago, just shy of his 77th birthday, he began having pain in his abdomen. ... He had in fact had a heart attack, which led to a cardiac catheterization and ultimately a bypass. Since then, he has not been the same." Emanuel's father is 87, and says he is happy. That doesn't matter. He's no longer useful, according to Emanuel.

  Emanuel sees wondrous good for the rest of us in sending the elderly to the "Logan's Run" carousel — after all, "We want to be remembered as independent, not experienced as burdens ... [leaving our grandchildren] with memories framed not by our vivacity but by our frailty is the ultimate tragedy."

  This is the cult of death created by a society that values amusement over life. Amusement means that the death of others is second priority; amusement means that if your own capacity diminishes, your raison d'etre has ended.

  If America was built on life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, today's leftist death cult devalues the first and destroys the second in pursuit of the third. And, in the end, there will be no happiness, for happiness is not ceaseless hedonism but living a moral and responsible life. Apparently, we dismissed that definition of happiness long ago. The result: an un-civilization of Leyla Josephines and Ezekiel Emanuels.

  The Throat-Clearing President Versus the Throat-Cutting Terrorists

  October 1, 2014

  Last week, President Obama spoke to the United Nations about the growing threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In the course of that speech, he discussed a wide variety of threats to Western civilization, ranging from Ebola to global warming, from chaos in Syria to China's incursions in the South China Sea. The speech seemed unfocused, meandering. But it held together thanks to one common thread: Barack Obama believes that words solve everything. Particularly his own.

  Obama's narcissism isn't mere arrogance. It's messianism. It's pure faith that his verbiage can alter the course of history. "We are here," Obama said, "because others realized that we gain more from cooperation than conquest." Well, actually, no — the United Nations exists because evil nations were forced through conquest to admit that cooperation might be a more advantageous strategy.

  "While small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun," Obama said, "they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions." Not exactly — millions of voices in North Korea have not altered the fate of those stuck in the world's largest gulag, nor have millions of voices in Iran freed them of the tyranny of the mullahs.

  "The ideology of ISIL or al Qaeda or Boko Haram will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed, confronted, and refuted in the light of day," Obama spouted. If good argument killed bad argument, Islamism wouldn't be on the march, but on the ash heap of history. Global politics, it turns out, is not a Harvard Law mock trial.

  "We believe that right makes might," Obama summed up, "that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones, that people should be able to choose their own future." Hogwash would be too kind a word to describe this sort of highfaluting idiocy — if right made might, millions of Jews would still populate Europe.

  In reality, right dictates that right arm itself — right must become might in order to emerge victorious. Americans know that.

  Because Americans know that, Obama must occasionally bow to reality. And so, in the same speech in which Obama called for Russian, Chinese and Syrian conflicts to be resolved through diplomacy, he uttered the most un-Obamaesque comment of his entire presidency with regard to ISIS: "The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force."

  This is eminently true. It is also so far out of Obama's wheelhouse that he almost strained an oblique in making that statement. And, in fact, when polling doesn't apply to him, Obama is happy to pressure other nations not to use the language of force — in the same speech, Obama pressured Israel to negotiate with its enemies, even though its enemies are of the exact same ilk as ISIS. If Obama does not bear a striking animus for the Jewish state, the best that can be said is that he wants Israel to be on the cutting edge of Western civilization's rhetoric-first throat-cutting. After all, Obama tells Israel, too many Israelis are "ready to abandon the hard work of peace."

  Yes, the hard work of peace. With people who want to slit their throats.

  That's the real Obama, not the puffed-chest commander-in-chief threatening to bomb virtually everyone in virtually every country in the Middle East.

  And that's the problem. Lack of foreign policy comes from lack of belief in the principled use of force. And so Obama, the messianic narcissist, vacillates between two extremes: empty threats and pathetic wheedling. Neither works.

  Rise of the Barbarians

  October 8, 2014

  On Friday night, a Huntington Beach man, 43, was walking back to his car after the Los Angeles Angels played the Kansas City Royals in the American League Division Series. Three men accosted him, and then proceeded to beat him senseless. He is currently in critical condition at a local hospital after police found him unconscious.

  I didn't find the story particularly shocking, given that I took my father and two younger sisters to the Angels-Royals game on Thursday night. Throngs packed the stadium — the team announced the attendance at 43,321. We had bleacher seats, which sold for $68. The team must have also sold standing room tickets, since behind the bleachers — lines of fans stood three deep, watching the game.

  When my family and I arrived at the game, the ushers had not cleared paths through the standing-room crowd for those who wanted to get to their seats. We gently edged our way toward the seats.

  Which is when I heard a guy scream into my ear: "Why the f—- are you bumping me?"

  I turned to face a young Hispanic man, wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt (it was reportedly 93 degrees outside at the time), baggy jeans, an Angels cap cocked off at a bizarre angle, the brim unbent. He wore a close-cropped three-day stubble. He was approximately my height, but probably 20lbs. heavier than I. Two of his friends flanked him.

  Though I hadn't bumped, I quickly apologized — after all, what point is there in a confrontation at a sporting event?

  My apology, however, was not accepted. "I said, why the f—- did you bump me?"

  Again I apologized. When it became clear that this fellow had downed at least a few beers and had his mind set on some sort of violence, my sister grabbed my arm and we walked away. He glared at me the rest of the game. My sisters focused on reassuring me that getting into a physical fight with the dolt would have served no useful purpose, and could have ended in a 3-on-1 beating. Which didn't make me feel much better.

  Unfortunately, this fellow wasn't the only beer-soaked Neanderthal in the bleachers. When a Royals fan, who happened to be black, showed up with his girlfriend, two boozy white Angels fans screamed — with children in close proximity — "Go back to f—-ing Kansas City!"

  It's unlikely any of these charming folks were involved in the beating of the Huntington Beach man after Game 2 of the ALDS. But we now live in a society where young male barbarians are growing in number, their masculinity tied into useless aggression. More and more, young men seem to channel their aggressive instinct not into building, but into destroying — not in
to defending the innocent, particularly women and children, but into confrontations for no apparent reason other than demonstrating dominance.

  Why?

  As a society, we have robbed men of their protective missions. Men who seek to protect women and children are called anti-feminist, gender normative. Men have abandoned their responsibilities to the state. As for building things — well, there too, men have been told that to build is to act selfishly, without concern for the community. And young men have no male role models, since many of their fathers have abandoned them or abandoned true maleness in pursuit of vainglorious brutality. All of which leads to an increase in destruction by men without purpose, hemmed in only by the power of the state and the benefits of self-interest.

  None of this is an excuse for barbarianism, of course. But it does help explain why masculinity used to center around acting like a gentleman, while now it centers around acting like a boor. The more we foster the barbarian mentality, the more barbaric society becomes.

  A Bowla Ebola Idiocy

  October 15, 2014

  On Monday, The Daily Mail reported that NBC's chief medical correspondent, Nancy Snyderman, had a hankering for a bowl of soup from Peasant Grill in Hopewell Boro, New Jersey. So she hopped in her car with one of her crewmembers and headed over to the Grill. When she got to the restaurant, she had her crewmember run inside, grab the soup, and run back out.

  There was only one problem: Both Snyderman and her crewmember were under mandatory quarantine for 21 days. That quarantine was a result of their journey to Liberia to cover the Ebola outbreak, a journey during which cameraman Ashoka Mukpo contracted the disease. The authorities made the quarantine mandatory after another of the crewmembers violated a voluntary quarantine last week.