Gasping Gonads

Sometimes I fear Americans don’t have what it takes anymore, especially men in blue states like Massachusetts. But it didn’t use to be like that. They’ve gotten soft after years of feeling guilty about having so much in a world where so many have so little. Such thinking presumes the amount of wealth on earth is fixed, and because you have a lot, someone else is going without. Americans who think this way don’t believe that we built what we have by hard work and we deserve it, or that other parts of the world would do better to emulate us rather than resent us because they could do it too.

We used to think American culture was special. As children, we cheered watching Superman fight for “truth, justice, and the American Way.” We knew he wasn’t real, but we believed the American Way was pretty terrific, that it worked better than what other countries had, and that our strength, our inventiveness and our prosperity were the results. We invented the airplane, the light bulb, the television, and countless other things the whole world enjoys. Heck, we put a man on the moon.

In the 20th century, America became the greatest power on earth, but we didn’t create an empire. After trying to stay out of World War I, we tipped the balance against Germans and Turks. Though allies like England and France divided the spoils and added to their empires, we didn’t.

When Europe got into a mess again and Japan was taking over Asia, who bailed out the world? We did. Again, we tried for years to stay out of it, but we were attacked. So, we pulverized our enemies, then demanded nothing less than unconditional surrender. That was the American Way back then. When the war ended, we had our military deployed everywhere and nearly every other country was crippled. Our infrastructure was intact and we had sole possession of nuclear weaponry, yet we still didn’t create an empire. What did we do instead? We established and reestablished democracies in countries which had been our enemies and helped them rebuild. There’s no precedent for such unselfishness by such a powerful nation in all of recorded history.

In spite of this, many in the generation born after World War II condemn our country’s legacy. They run our universities now and instead of celebrating our proud history, they teach instead that our leaders have been selfish white men who’ve done little but oppress women, minorities, homosexuals and third-world countries everywhere. They insist that all cultures are equal, men and women are the same, there’s no such thing as absolute truth, right and wrong are relative, and the American Way is hated around the world. ROTC programs and military recruiters are banned from campuses. There are more colleges per square mile in the Boston area than anyplace on earth, so these attitudes are quite prevalent in Massachusetts.

Perhaps worst of all, they’ve permeated primary and secondary schools with their views. They try to raise our boys to believe that there’s no difference between them and little girls. If two boys fight, both are punished, even if one is a bully and the other is defending himself. They teach that fighting is always bad, even after you’re attacked. Parents of boys who don’t want to behave like the girls are encouraged to feed their sons prescription drugs. If the boys still manage to grow into men who still resist such “progressive” thinking, they’re forced to undergo “sensitivity training,” especially in such blue-state strongholds as Massachusetts, New York and San Francisco.

Now we’ve discovered that men in Massachusetts are losing testosterone. According to a recent study of 1700 Boston-area men in the January, 2007 Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and reported by Reuters, testosterone levels have dropped about one percent a year since the 1980s. “It’s likely that some sort of environmental exposure is responsible for the testosterone decline,” said Dr. Thomas Travison of the New England Research Institutes.

Environmental exposure indeed. What kind of environment have the “progressives” created down there in Massachusetts? What should we expect from a place where they don’t want to keep score at soccer games, where dodge ball and tag are banned from elementary schools, and homosexual “marriage” is invented? Looks like I got out just in time. Boys will be boys if they’re allowed to be. Raise them an environment that tries to turn them into girls and this is what you get. I’m guessing the “Boston-area men” were from Cambridge.

The article went on: “‘[Testosterone in] The entire population is shifting somewhat downward we think,’ Travison told Reuters Health. ‘We’re counting on other studies to confirm this.’” I have some suggestions, Dr. Travison. Do a red-state study in the middle of the United States away from the coasts. There you’ll find testosterone at rates you’d expect in men who haven’t been sissified. Then do another study in the San Francisco area. I suspect you’ll discover that testosterone there has declined to barely measurable levels. Lastly, compare your results with the new electoral map after Tuesday’s election and see if any correllations emerge.

If our new blue-state Congress forces a pullout from Iraq and the terrorists gain strength, will we still have what it takes to defeat our enemies? Time was we did. Now, I’m not sure.

Gonads Gone?

There are over a billion Muslims in the world, about one out of five people. Not all are jihadists who want to destroy Israel and the United States, but how many? One percent? Ten percent? Half? Nobody really knows but it’s a very important question. Even if it’s one percent, that’s ten million. When news of September 11th spread around Muslim countries, there was a lot of celebrating in the streets. Were most Muslims glad we were attacked or was there only a small minority celebrating in the streets that day? Is there a “silent majority”? Hard to say.

Some analysts claim our enemies belong to a fast-growing group within Islam variously labelled Islamofascists, Jihadists, Islamists, and so on. President Bush’s strategy is to establish Muslim democracies to give a presumed silent majority voting power. But in Palestine, Muslim voters elected a terrorist group called Hamas to run the Palestine Authority. What will happen in Lebanon’s next election? Will Hezbollah win control? Both groups call for the destruction of Israel and the United States.

Bernard Lewis, America’s foremost historian of the Muslim world, says jihadist, radical Islam was first espoused by an Arab named Wahhab in the 18th century. Wahhab was allied to the House of Saud which eventually conquered Arabia. When oil was discovered there in the early 20th century, the Saudis gained power and so did Wahhabism by association. Our petrodollars fund its propagation. Last April, Lewis said Wahhabism is to Islam what the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity. If he’s right and I hope he is, jihadist Islam will be bothersome for a time, but fade away to the wacky fringe as the Klan has but I’m not confident it will.

The KKK got fairly strong in the south after the Civil War and spread north a few decades later. Mainstream Christian leaders, however, publicly condemned it. Ordinary Christians were horrified by KKK terror tactics and said so openly. Yet I’m hearing very little condemnation of Jihadist terror from Muslim clerics or Muslims in general. Instead, we see them burning American flags, Israeli flags and Danish flags. They jump around, yell, shake their fists, burn President Bush and Pope Benedict XVI in effigy, behead captives and blow themselves up to kill infidels all over the world. In European cities, Muslim minorities demonstrate with signs exclaiming: “Behead Those Who Insult Islam” and “Kill Those Who Insult Islam.” Now they want to kill the pope.

I’ve learned a lot from Bernard Lewis but I have to ask myself: was he downplaying Jihadist strength? He made the KKK comparison in April, but by August he was warning that mad Muslim mullahs who control Iran might try to trigger an Apocalypse on the 22nd of the month. They didn’t, thank God, but Lewis got me nervous and I listened to the news more closely that day than usual.

Lewis’s 1990 essay in the Atlantic Monthly called “The Roots of Muslim Rage” first opened America’s eyes about what motivates jihadists who have since become a threat to civilization itself. Jihadists blame the decline of a once-great Arab/Muslim civilization on western oppression. To regain power, they would impose a purified, 8th-century brand of Islam on themselves and everyone else. They would return to the beginnings if Islam and that’s what al Qaeda means: “The Source.” Then they would rise up again to smash the west and Christianity as they did fourteen hundred years ago.

How many Muslims are (take your pick) Jihadists? Islamofascists? Wahhabis? Radical Islamists? We don’t know, but it doesn’t take a majority in any given country or region to turn things completely around. Nazis were a minority in 1920s Germany but they took over in the 1930s. The Bolsheviks were a minority in 1917 Russia, but they controlled the Soviet Union a few years later.

After Pearl Harbor, Americans understood the threat and were ready to do whatever it took to destroy our enemies. Roosevelt demanded nothing short of unconditional surrender and we smashed the fascists in less than four years. Then we fought a cold war for more than forty years to defeat Communism. Do we still have what it takes to defeat the Jihadists? I’m not so sure. We have the strength, certainly, but lack the will. We’re afraid to offend them, much less destroy them. Two generations ago, we summoned the will and the courage to fight. Now it seems our national gonads are gone.

For decades, Muslim terrorists called for the destruction of America and we ignored them. Even after we suffered a worse attack than Pearl Harbor, we still don’t have the will to destroy our enemies. Many insist Islam is a religion of peace and our only enemy is Osama Bin Laden. However, Islam means “submission.” Will we submit? Iran will soon have nuclear weapons and its president threatens to wipe Israel off the map while his proxy army, Hezbollah, chants “Death to America.” Meanwhile, Americans are more worried about global warming than jihadists with nukes. Have we lost our minds along with our gonads?

French Economics

My lesson plan for the day included showing part of a video on the Vietnam War to each of my five 20th century US History classes. I had to rewind the tape as each new group filed in. I watched the VCR’s on-screen display of footage while Fox News was on in the background. Watching over my shoulder, my students were fascinated by live coverage of French students throwing bricks and stones at riot police in downtown Paris. Fox’s correspondent was in the middle of the melee as demonstrators threw balloons filled with paint as police used Plexiglas shields to protect themselves and many were covered in yellow. Occasionally police would grab a hold of an unruly young man and subdue him as he writhed against their grip. Other police would surround the officers holding him down and it appeared they were stomping on him. We couldn’t be sure since the camera’s view was obscured. My students were quite interested so I let them watch a bit longer after finding the right place on the videotape.

“Are the police kicking him?” a student would ask in each class.

“I’m not sure,” I’d say. “What do you think?”

“It looks like they are,” some suggested. Others would nod, their brows wrinkled with concern. On the TV, the Fox correspondent said similar demonstrations taking place in over two hundred locations around France. Other unions were calling for strikes. Airports, trains, busses and subways were shut down in a transit workers strike. Students and labor unions were demonstrating because a new government policy would allow private companies who hired young people under twenty-six years old to fire them or lay them off during their first two years of employment. Previous government policy dictated that, once people were hired, their jobs would be almost guaranteed for life. Students and union members wanted to keep it that way.

After a few minutes, I pressed the “mute” button, turned to the class and asked: “Do you understand what the fuss is about?” Most continued to look at the now-silent television as a phalanx of helmeted police with shields moved forward against the mob, then retreated, over and over. Nobody answered my question though. “Muslim youths were rioting across France last fall,” I said. “but this is different. These are ethnic French kids, not immigrants.”

“Are they burning cars?” asked a student.

“Some are,” I said, “but not as much as the Muslim rioters did.”

We had been studying communism, socialism and capitalism in the context of the Cold War - hence the Vietnam film in the original lesson plan. Students knew that socialist countries closely regulated business compared to capitalist countries which favored a laissez-faire policy. “This is a good example of government regulation of business. France was moving toward socialism but is now trying to relax some of that regulation and demonstrators are resisting. French workers get thirteen weeks vacation per year. Government forces companies to give the new worker five weeks paid vacation after he’s worked only one year and it goes up from there. Companies are reluctant to take on new employees if forced to keep them for life. Businesses resist expanding and as a result, France’s unemployment rate is about 23 percent among young people.”

Then I explained how the unemployed get generous welfare benefits from government. That gets very expensive, so French workers must pay up to 68% of their salaries in taxes. “For every three dollars they get paid, two go to the government,” I said.

Policies the French government proposed for beginning workers are quite similar to policies for public school teachers here in the United States. I explained the provisions of my teaching contract for each class. Teachers get about 14 weeks vacation per year. In most American school districts, teachers may be let go after the first year and after the second year without explanation. However, if a teacher is hired for a third year, it becomes extremely difficult to ever get rid of him. Should a district want to fire him and the teachers’ union helps him fight it with legal help, the district can expect to spend an average of $200,000 in legal fees before it’s over.

If student enrollment goes down, American teachers can be laid off. But, if business slows down for French companies, they keep paying their workers because it’s usually cheaper than the legal costs of laying them off. Workers can request government help for legal fees to fight the layoff. Companies pay the legal fees themselves. Workers are almost guaranteed jobs for life, but companies are reluctant to expand if they have to assume all the risks. As a result, France’s economy stagnates and unemployment goes up. Government tries to ease regulation; unions and students riot.

Some students seemed to get it, but others were puzzled. Economics can be like that. It is the “dismal science” after all. Everyone, however, was interested in watching the riots. “What will happen next, Mr. McLaughlin?” one asked.

“Good question; I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Lining Up Last

At St. William’s School, we always lined up before doing anything. It was girls on the left and boys on the right whether we were going out to recess, to the lunchroom, back to the classroom, or wherever. The girls’ line always went first and sometimes I resented that. If I was shivering in the cold wind, I had to wait for the girls to file in first. Seldom did they seem to appreciate our sacrifice. They accepted their privilege as a matter of course.

Girls were more organized than we were. If I forgot to write down a homework assignment or lost it entirely, I could always call up Mary Bauer or Geraldine Hoyle. One of them would be home and able to tell me what it was we were supposed to do. Both were kind and helpful and I didn’t mind if they always went first, but some of other girls were annoying and it was easy to resent them. But it didn’t matter what I thought. They were girls and they always went first.

When I graduated from eighth grade, I went to a Catholic all-male high school and my sisters went to a Catholic all-female high school nearby. After graduation, young men my age were last in line again as Affirmative Action programs were getting started. Women and minorities were given preference over Caucasian males in hiring and promotion. Then we had to get in line for the draft during the Vietnam War. Women were exempt from that. They didn’t have to line up at all.

In those days there were demonstrations in which women demanded equal pay for equal work. I had no objection. In the kinds of jobs I was working at the time, women were getting the same low wages I was getting. I didn’t see any wage discrimination, but that’s not to say it wasn’t happening somewhere else.

When my first three children were girls, I was glad women were guaranteed at least as many opportunities as men were. With Affirmative Action and other developments, they were likely to get even more opportunities than men. They were born in the 1970s when girls were thought to be disadvantaged in schools so special programs were set up to assist them. Evidently they’ve been successful, inasmuch as girls’ performance is measured against boys’ performance at least. Girls are way ahead.

Most feminists pushing these special programs believed there were no differences between males and females beyond the obvious physical ones. We’re all the same, they insisted. They really believed this and still do. The only reason men achieved more than women was because the evil patriarchy conspired to keep women down. They insisted that if you raised girls the same as boys, they would turn out the same.

The most tragic result of this fallacious teaching is what happened to an unfortunate boy born an identical twin in 1965. When he and his brother were circumcised, his was botched. A woman using an electrical cauterizing device accidentally burned off his penis. His parents were persuaded by Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins University that the boy could be raised as a girl just as easily as his twin brother would be raised as a boy. So the rest of his genitalia were removed in a sex change operation. He was raised as a girl and given hormone treatments during adolescence. In spite of socialization, hormones, the nurturing as a girl, he never adjusted. He didn’t want to play with dolls; he was prone to fighting; he peed standing up. Finally, he was told what really happened to him and he set out to reverse it. He had surgery again to reconstruct a penis and even married. Two years ago, at age 38, he killed himself. Dr. John Money is still writing and lecturing, however, about how there are no differences between males and females beyond the obvious physical ones.

At a recent in-service workshop in MSAD 72 called “With Boys in Mind,” two veteran elementary teachers offered data convincing most present that boys are in trouble. Nationally, boys make up 2/3 of students in special education and are more likely to be classified as hyperactive. Boys earn 70% of D’s and F’s and fewer than half of the A’s. Boys represent 90% of discipline referrals. When it comes to grades and homework, girls outperform boys in elementary, middle, high school, and even graduate school. Men make up less than 40% of college graduates these days. Boys are many times more likely to commit suicide than girls and women.

There were brain research findings indicating that girls mature earlier than boys. One woman at the workshop wondered aloud if men ever caught up. I told her we would eventually, but we die too soon. The average life span for women is several years longer than for men. Finally, men are allowed to go first - to the morgue.

Paris Riots in Class

First published 11-14-05

On the blackboard, I wrote four questions under the heading “Riots in France.” The first asked, “Who is rioting?” The others asked, “What happens during the riots?”; “Why are the riots occurring?” and “What is the French government doing about them?” Students were instructed to copy the questions on a piece of paper, leaving space under each for answers. They they were to use search engines on their laptops to find information. The riots had, at that point, been occurring for two weeks.

“How should we answer the first question, Mr. McLaughlin?” a girl asked.

“Use your brain,” I said. “Don’t use mine. It’s a simple question: ‘Who is rioting?’ Find an answer.”

She didn’t like my response, but I didn’t want to influence her search. I knew the answer was being reported in different ways and that’s what I wanted students to find out.

Pretty soon, several started raising their hands. When I called on a boy, he started reading from the screen of his laptop: French youths rioted for the thirteenth night . . .”

“Hold on,” I said. “I’d prefer that you each write the answers on your paper before we go over them as a group. I want you to process the information through your brains rather than reading it from the screen.” When most were done researching, I said, “Okay. Who is rioting?”

The boy had his hand up again. “Youths,” he said.

“Youths,” I repeated. “Who else found that?”

Several hands went up.

“Any other answers to ‘Who is rioting?’ ” I asked.

“Immigrant youths,” said a girl.

“Immigrant youths,” I repeated. “Any other answers?”

“Muslim immigrant youths or the children of Muslim Arab and African immigrants,” said another girl.

I went over to a world map and called for everyone’s attention. “Here is France,” I said, “and here is North Africa across the Mediterranean. During the 1800s, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia became French colonies. After World War II there was a rebellion in Algeria and it became independent in 1962. After that, France’s population didn’t go up much as people used birth control more and abortion became available. Immigration from the former colonies was encouraged and now Muslim African and Arab immigrants, and their descendents, comprise about 12% of France’s 60 million people. However, they’re not assimilating well. That means they’re not joining French culture as fully as France would like. They live in France, but stay to themselves keep their own ways. Unemployment is very high among Muslim male ‘youths’ - almost 40% of those under 25 are out of work and many of them get into trouble. That’s the part of the population of any country that commits most of the crimes and their being out of work doesn’t help. Are you beginning to get a picture of how the riots could happen?”

There were nods all around.

“Okay. What happens during the riots?” Lots of hands went up and I called on a girl.

“They’re burning up lots of cars,” she said, “setting them on fire.”

“How many?” I asked.

“More than fourteen hundred the other night.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of cars,” said a boy.

“But it’s getting better,” she said. “Not as many cars were burned last night.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Six hundred sixty.”

“That’s a lot!” said another boy.

“Okay,” I said. “Third question: Why are the riots occurring?”

There was a pause before another girl said, “Because they feel discrimination in France and they’re angry.”

“Okay. Any other answers?”

“Because they don’t have jobs,” said a boy. “A lot of them have nothing else to do.”

“All right. Now for the last question: What is the French government doing about the riots?”

“They’re putting more police out there to deal with the rioters,” one said.

“They’re starting curfews,” said another.

“What are curfews?” I asked.

“When people must be inside at night.”

“Is it a sundown to sunrise curfew?” I asked.

“Ten PM to dawn,” she said.

“What happens if they go out?” asked a boy.

“They go to jail for two months and get fined $6000,” she answered.

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

“Do you think those moves will be effective?” I asked.

“There were only 660 cars burned the first night of the curfews,” said the girl.

“Only?” said the boy.