Glenn K. Beaton is a writer and columnist living in Colorado. He has been a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, RealClearPolitics, Powerline, Instapundit, Citizen Free Press, American Thinker, Fox News, The Federalist, and numerous other print, radio and television outlets. His most recent book is "High Attitude — How Woke Liberals Ruined Aspen"
A mathematician, an engineer, and a lawyer were each asked the question, “What is two plus two?”
The mathematician answered, “It’s four. It’s exactly four.”
The engineer answered, “It’s four, give or take a little. It depends on the precision of the numbers.”
The lawyer answered, “What do you want it to be?”
Lawyers are supposed to be zealous advocates for their clients. That’s not just customary; it’s a formal provision in the American Bar Association Rules of Professional Conduct – the ABA ethics rules.
This practical custom and ethical duty result in lawyers having a certain dexterity with facts. Lawyers spin the truth.
Imagine a scenario where you and your fellow cube dwellers could band together, go to your boss, and tell him “If you give us a big fat raise at the expense of the shareholders, we’ll give you a personal kickback.”
That’s what teachers’ unions do. The union members band together, package some payola in the form of union dues, launder it into “campaign contributions,” and give it to politicians who control the union members’ pay. In return, the politicians vote to increase the pay of the union members.
This is all at the expense of the taxpayers who have little say in the matter and are barely even aware of it. Unlike shareholders in a company, taxpayers don’t receive profit and loss statements. They just receive tax bills.
Here’s the scene of the crime. Rasmussen is a political polling company. In the lull after the 2022 midterms and before the 2024 general election, they had some time to kill. And could use a few clicks.
They found some. Last week they released the results of a poll posing the question:
Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “It’s OK to be white.”
Rasmussen reported that 72% of those polled – of all skin colors – agreed with that statement.
Among Blacks, too, most agreed that it’s OK to be white but the percentage was lower. Some 42% strongly agreed and another 11% somewhat agreed. About 18% said they strongly disagreed and 8% said they somewhat disagreed. About 21% said they were not sure.
If you take out the “not sure” category, 53% of Blacks agreed strongly or somewhat that “it’s OK to be white” while 26% disagreed strongly or somewhat. More than twice as many agreed as disagreed.
Enter the murderer. The creator of the Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams, picked up on the poll, as Rasmussen undoubtedly intended people to, ran off a cliff with it, and splattered spectacularly. In a Twitter storm, he lumped the 21% of not sure Blacks with the 18% of Blacks who disagreed strongly and the 8% who disagreed somewhat. Then in a bit of sophistry, he concluded that “add them together, that’s 47% of Black respondents [who] were not willing to say it’s OK to be white.”
I’m reminded of an old lawyer joke along the same lines:
Question: What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
Answer: A good start.
Twitter has a diversity, equity and inclusion department. Like many companies, Twitter calls it something other than that because that phrase is now a joke. Recall how proud the Left was of “woke” until “woke” became a joke.
Under various names, this DEI crap is everywhere. Any organization of any size – say bigger than about 50 people – now has a DEI person or even a whole DEI department. At Twitter, the department comprised 30 men and women and etc.
Up in Aspen where the town, the slopes and the people range from high to highly high, they’re having an election for mayor and city council.
The election is hotly contested, there’s a lot of hot air being blown about and, as always in Aspen, the sex is steamy, if unconventional. All this makes the Global Warmers howl, but their howls are dampened by air temperatures in the single digits and a Colorado snowpack that is about 130% of normal.
All 7,000 residents of Aspen want to be mayor or on city council. That’s always been the case, and so a few years ago the mayor and city council voted to start paying themselves a salary in order to recruit for this little part-time hobby job the residents not included in the word “all.” Because inclusiveness.
One resident who wants to be on city council already is. He’s named Skippy. He has a last name too, which everyone has forgotten. He just goes by Skippy.
Imagine a kid with a smart, dedicated, private, full-time tutor who dearly loves him, never goes on strike, and conducts classes within walking distance at a place that is physically and emotionally safe.
It’s called “homeschooling.”
Homeschooling used to be illegal. Children were required to attend organized schools even if they were physically assaulted, as I was, or were shaken down for their lunch money daily, as I was.
Bishops in the Church of England are agitating to make “God” a genderless word. No longer would God be a “he” or even a “she.” God is slated for genderless affirming surgery. God will be the Church of England’s eunuch.
This presumably means that God will be referenced as “they.” But “they” is a plural pronoun. Ergo, the Church of England now apparently considers God to be plural – there is more than one.
The choice of pronouns farce has thus gone to heaven. Not to die, as it should have the good grace to do, but to take over the place.
Testosterone is an interesting hormone. The more a man uses it, the higher his levels become. And the higher his levels become, the more he wants to use it. Exercise, especially resistance training like weight lifting, increases T levels. And then the increased T levels make a man want to go lift some weights. It’s a virtuous circle.
If gasoline in a car were like T in a man’s body, the more you drove, and the harder you drove, the more gas there would be in your tank.
But there’s not much gas in the tank of young men these days. The Cleveland Clinic and other researchers report that men today, especially young ones, have less T than ten, twenty or fifty years ago. Odds are, you’re not the man your father was.
Testosterone does more than make a man want to hit the weights. It also makes him happier, healthier, sexier, more muscular, more productive, and more reproductive.
A couple of centuries ago, an extraordinary group of 56 men on the eastern seaboard of our continent declared the independence of their lands. At the close of their Declaration of Independence, they further declared, “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
I think Lauren Boebert would have voted “present.”
The Founders weren’t just being melodramatic. Had they lost the Revolutionary War, they’d have met their end at the end of a rope. They took that risk to found this amazing democratic republic, one that Abraham Lincoln later noted was “conceived in liberty.” He might have added “with undaunted courage and against all odds.”
The number of people on planet Earth is about 8 billion. The number has grown exponentially, as numbers that are the result of exponential functions do. It’s something like the miracle of compound interest. The graph tells the story.
I don’t think we’re on the verge of starving ourselves. That Malthusian apocalypse gets proven wrong over and over. That’s because Malthusians fail to foresee the agricultural productivity ensuing from technology. For that matter, they fail to foresee the general increase in well-being and comfort that technology brings about.
I’m guessing Earth could easily support double, triple or maybe even ten times the current human population. Anyone who thinks we are running out of room to grow has never looked out an airplane window on a dark night over the Rocky Mountains.
Fine, Earth can support many more people. But how many people do we want Earth to support?
the Aspen beat 