The Psychopathy of the Left: Know thy Enemy

posted by Frederick Hink at American Thinker 

Eric Hoffer, in The True Believer, identified three groupings of people involved with mass movements: men of words, practical men of action, and fanatics. These can be further summarized as the benefactors -- politicians and community leaders who gain power through aggressive protests; the agitatorswho play the role of true believers by manipulating causes and people to gain recognition and power; and the cannon fodder, those who are easily manipulated and see social justice as a means to gain social acceptance and self-worth. Hoffer did not have access to psychological studies of individuals within mass movements; had he, his contemplations may have focused upon the personality traits of individual participants within mass totalitarian movements -- especially among the agitators and cannon fodder -- and concluded true belief was not the only driver toward violence.

From man-on-the-street interviews of Hamas sympathizers, two of these groupings are on full display: the agitators deny the barbarity of the Hamas atrocities on October 7th, dismissing it as “Zionist” propaganda; the cannon fodder is exposed as a legion of brainless twits -- many did not know what river or what sea they were demanding for their Palestinian brethren. “Queers for Palestine” activists do not know of the warm welcome they would receive from Hamas if they visited the Gaza Strip. Hint: it involves stones and rooftops.

But what motivates people to deny the truth -- or ignorance altogether -- in order to spread mayhem and destruction?

There have been numerous studies that have suggested that right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is dominated by “strict endorsement of conservative social norms and values …the compliance with established authorities… and antagonistic behavior toward outgroup members.” (Krispenz and Bertrams, 2023) These past studies have labeled right-wing groups as homophobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic, and all-around dirty scoundrels. Of course, when we think about right-wing versus left-wing, we assume conservatives versus progressives; but keep in mind, the dictatorial mullahs in the Muslim world are considered conservative, right-wing authoritarians who would happily stone to death a homosexual or “misbehaving” woman and slit the throat of any number of persons they deem infidels.

Historically, few studies have examined left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) in any detail because, of course, left-wing adherents are all well-meaning, empathetic, altruistic souls who are -- through strict compliance with social justice -- simply trying to make the world a better place for us all.

Ann Krispenz and Alex Bertrams’ “Understanding left-wing authoritarianism: Relations to the dark personality traits, altruism, and social justice commitment” is one of several new examinations of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) and what fuels the fire of zealotry, particularly among the agitators and cannon fodder. “Dark personality traits” refers to the dark triad -- the antisocial traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism (not the subclinical version of which we are all sometimes guilty), and psychopathy.

In the aftermath of the Floyd and January 6^th protests, professors Krispenz and Bertrams (University of Bern) examined similarities and differences between the two groups. “While there is wide agreement that RWA and SDO [social dominance orientation] are valid psychological constructs… the notion of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) has been met with skepticism by many researchers… even though some empirical studies found evidence for the existence of authoritarianism also on the left side of the political spectrum…” Academic “skepticism” is fed by the bias of left-leaning researchers who believe right-wing, knuckle-dragging Trump voters are monolithic, religious zealots who seek to enforce theological diktats, armed with “assault rifles” fed with large-capacity magazines.

The paper included two studies by the researchers who examined respondents utilizing recognized psychological profile questionnaires. The first studied the effects of narcissism on LWA.

In a first step, the results of the data analyses showed that LWA… [was] predicted by neurotic narcissism. Interestingly, and contrary to our predictions, we did not find any relationship between LWA… and altruism. These results seem to imply that individuals high in LWA are also individuals with high levels of neurotic narcissism…

Then, a robust relationship between the LWA subfacet [sic] of antihierarchical aggression and antagonistic narcissism was unveiled. Antihierarchical aggression represents the drive to use force to overthrow those in power and who endorse conservative values. The results of Study 1 suggest that this motivation can be more likely found in individuals who exploit others for their own interests, lack empathy, have a sense of entitlement, are arrogant and manipulative, demonstrate reactive anger and distrust others while at the same time seeking thrill…

What observers witness in continual Hamas -- or BLM or Antifa or (insert here) -- protests have been participants suffering from high levels of neurotic narcissism. The lack of altruism undercuts the Left’s “strong desire” for social justice.

The second study turned its attention to antihierarchical aggression as it related to the antagonistic narcissist personalities. As a side measure, the researchers compared the participant’s narcissistic traits to the other two dark triad disorders: Machiavellianism and psychopathy. It sought to measure “prosocial” attitudes as it relates to social justice causes, i.e. “issues like the fight against poverty, racism, and discrimination (e.g., due to sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or gender).”

Surprisingly, we found a significant association between Machiavellianism and antihierarchical aggression… and an even stronger relationship between psychopathy and antihierarchical aggression…

In this analysis, the association between antihierarchical aggression and social justice commitment vanished and a relationship between antihierarchical aggression and psychopathy was unveiled…

Accordingly, the results of Study 2 showed not only significant correlations between the dark triad traits, but also revealed that each of these traits have unique aspects as only psychopathy was significantly predicting antihierarchical aggression.

It is not wise to use broad brush strokes to paint all leftists as neurotic. Many of the college kids, or cannon fodder, are run-of-the-mill narcissists who, with maturity and wisdom, will see their participation in these protests as regretful childish acts. For many agitators, grift from donations is the primary driver for their activism. However, the fact that zealous agitators and cannon fodder are closer to psychopathy than the other dark triads is disturbing.

Though not clinical diagnoses, we call them psychopaths (born from evil) and sociopaths (made from evil). These are the folks you see on true crime shows who are mass- and serial-murderers. In review of psychological literature, there is acceptance that no clinical treatment will help individuals with psychopathy. Little is known about them because sufferers do not seek psychological help and are usually exposed only through court-ordered treatment after being found guilty of heinous crimes. Much of the literature is focused upon helping victims of psychopaths and teaching others how to isolate themselves from these deranged souls, not for treatment.

Evil is the absence of conscience; psychopathy is the lack of empathy and conscience; thus, many in these LWA movements are evil incarnate. There is no persuasion nor negotiation that can yield resolution with members in these movements. They lack empathy and conscience; these are necessary traits in order to find non-violent resolution. The best strategy is to isolate and ignore them and jail them when their actions become destructive.

X22, On the Fringe, and more- June 20

 

How California’s Paradise Become our Purgatory

 How and why did California end up as a warning to Western civilization of what might be in store for anyone who followed its nihilism?

California has become a test case of the suicide of the West. Never before has such a state, so rich in natural resources and endowed with such a bountiful human inheritance, self-destructed so rapidly.

How and why did California so utterly consume its unmatched natural and ancestral inheritance and end up as a warning to Western civilization of what might be in store for anyone who followed its nihilism?

The symptoms of the state’s suicide are indisputable.

Governor Gavin Newsom enjoyed a recent $98 billion budget surplus—gifted from multibillion-dollar federal COVID-19 subsidies, the highest income and gas taxes in the nation, and among the country’s steepest sales and property taxes.

Yet in a year, he turned it into a growing $45 billion budget deficit.

At a time of an over-regulated, overtaxed, and sputtering economy, Newsom spent lavishly on new entitlements, illegal immigrants, and untried and inefficient green projects.

Newsom was endowed with two of the wettest years in recent California history. Yet he and radical environmentalists squandered the water bounty—as snowmelts and runoff long designated for agricultural irrigation were drained from aqueducts and reservoirs to flow out to sea.

Newsom transferred millions of dollars designated by a voter referendum to build dams and aqueducts for water storage and instead blew up four historic dams on the Klamath River. For decades, these now-destroyed scenic lakes provided clean, green hydroelectric power, irrigation storage, flood control, and recreation.

California hosts one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients. Over a fifth of the population lives below the property line. Nearly half the nation’s homeless sleep on the streets of its major cities.

The state’s downtowns are dirty, dangerous, and increasingly abandoned by businesses—most recently Google—that cannot rely on a defunded and shackled police.

Newsom’s California has spent billions on homeless relief and subsidizing millions of new illegal migrant arrivals across the state’s porous southern border.

The result was predictably even more homeless and more illegal immigrants, all front-loaded onto the state’s already overtaxed and broken healthcare, housing, and welfare entitlements.

Newsome raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $22 an hour. The result was wage inflation rippling out to all service areas, unaffordable food for the poor, and massive shut-downs and bankruptcies of fast food outlets.

Twenty-seven percent of Californians were born outside of the United States. It is a minority-majority state. Yet California has long dropped unifying civic education, while the bankrupt state funds exploratory commissions to consider divisive racial reparations.

California’s universities are hotbeds of ethnic, religious, and racial chauvinism and infighting. State officials, however, did little as its campuses were plagued for months by rampant and violent anti-Semitism.

Almost nightly, the nation watches mass smash-and-grab attacks on California retail stores. Carjackers and thieves own the night. They are rarely caught, even more rarely arrested—and almost never convicted.

Currently, Newsom is fighting in the courts to stop the people’s constitutional right to place on the ballot initiatives to restore penalties for violent crime and theft.

Gas prices are the highest in the continental United States, given green mandate formulas and the nation’s highest, and still raising, gasoline taxes—and are scheduled to go well over $6 a gallon.

Yet its ossified roads and highways are among the nation’s most dangerous, as vast sums of transportation funding were siphoned off to the multibillion-dollar high-speed rail boondoggle.

The state imports almost all the costly vitals of modern life, mostly because it prohibits using California’s own vast petroleum, natural gas, timber, and mineral resources.

As California implodes, its embarrassed government turns to the irrelevant, if not ludicrous.

It now outlaws natural gas stoves in new homes. It is adding new income-based surcharges for those who dutifully pay their power bills—to help subsidize the 2.5 million Californians who simply default on their energy bill with impunity.

What happened to the once-beautiful California paradise?

Millions of productive but frustrated, overtaxed, and underserved middle-class residents have fled to low-crime, low-tax, and well-served red states in disgust

In turn, millions of illegal migrants have swarmed the state, given its sanctuary-city policies, refusal to enforce the law, and generous entitlements.

Meanwhile, a tiny coastal elite, empowered by $9 trillion in Silicon Valley market capitalization, fiddled while their state burned.

California became a medieval society of plutocratic barons, subsidized peasants, and a shrinking and fleeing middle class. It is now home to a few rich estates, subsidized apartments, and unaffordable middle-class houses.

California suffers from poorly ranked public schools—but brags about its prestigious private academies. Its highways are lethal—but it hosts the most private jets in the nation.

The fantasies of a protected enclave of Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and the masters of the Silicon Valley universe have become the abject nightmares of everyone else.

In sum, a privileged Bay Area elite inherited a California paradise and turned it into purgatory.

CCP Makes Nearly $9 Billion in Profits Annually From Medical Genocide, Lawyer Estimates

 Mr. (David) Matas said that official figures for organ transplants were 10,000 organs a year, but said this figure may be 10 times higher.

David Matas, international human rights lawyer, before an event on forced organ harvesting at Harvard University in Boston on March 8, 2024. 
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/ccp-is-profiting-at-least-8-9-billion-annually-from-medical-genocide-lawyer-estimates-5671723?utm_source=China_article_paid&src_src=China_article_paid&utm_campaign=China-2024-06-20-ca&src_cmp=China-2024-06-20-ca&utm_medium=email&est=Wk32%2FRT3rq%2Fz7xql5jOK7Dpq4a4561DIGgzZNgFM3ooLVMrfQC0wMDH0pl1vpwawdK7R&utm_term=news1&utm_content=1

SYDNEY, Australia—International human rights expert David Matas has highlighted the scale of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s medical genocide, estimating that the regime may be earning nearly $9 billion (A$13.5 billion) a year from forced organ harvesting.

“The numbers are large and horrendous,” Mr. Matas told the Sydney audience in a Q&A session following a screening of the documentary “State Organs,” which exposes these clandestine crimes by the communist regime.

“The total figure I was getting was $8.9 billion a year.”

The award-winning documentary is about the perilous search for two youths who mysteriously disappeared in China.

What their families uncovered was far more sinister: a state-sponsored industry targeting innocent, healthy citizens for their organs, which are then sold for transplantation globally.

Mr. Matas said that the CCP’s official figures for organ transplants were 10,000 organs a year, but his calculation produced a figure ten times larger.

“We did our own calculation of volumes by going to hospital websites and adding them up. The Chinese official figures were in total 10,000 organs a year, but our calculation was 100,000 a year,” he said. “That’s an awful lot of people.”

He touched on how large-scale atrocities are sometimes hard to grasp, quoting Joseph Stalin’s adage that “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.”

Documentary Would ‘Chill Australians to the Bone’

Kerry Wright, an audience member and former high school teacher, said the film was a timely reminder of the ethical concerns surrounding organ transplants and the need for stricter regulations, as countries increasingly rely on trade with China.

“I think this is something that should chill Australians to the bone,” Ms. Wright, who is involved with the Tibetan movement, told The Epoch Times on June 19.

Practitioners of Falun Gong are not the only prisoners of conscience victims of forced organ harvesting. Tibetans, House Christians, and Uyghurs have also been victims.

“They already know about it, but I think most people don’t want to feel and look. It is just too ... way out, beyond their understanding, but this film does it very well.”

One of the poignant stories featured in the film is that of Sonny Zou, who was detained and tortured for practising Falun Gong. He was released briefly but tricked into returning to the police station in 2000, where he was sentenced to three years in a labor camp.

Mr. Zou fell ill and died the next day; his body was cremated without his family’s consent. Mr. Zou was 28, leaving behind his wife and 11-month-old daughter.

His widow faced police intimidation and surveillance for protesting her husband’s death, and disappeared three months later. The couple’s deaths are shrouded in mystery to this day.

Ms. Wright said that the film should be seen by all lawmakers.

“I actually recommend it as compulsory viewing for all people in politics from all parties. I don’t think this is a party matter,” the Australian educator said.

Origins of the Secret Organ Harvesting Industry

Mr. Matas has dedicated nearly two decades to exposing the Chinese regime’s systematic organ harvesting practice.

His investigative work, including his co-authored book with late Canadian MP David Kilgour, “Bloody Harvest of Falun Gong Practitioners in China,” was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

In this work, they found that the main source of organs was practitioners of Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa), an ancient, spiritual practice rooted in traditional Chinese culture that teaches its adherents to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

Due to its effectiveness in improving health, by 1999, Falun Gong attracted over 100 million practitioners, including Mr. Zou.

The popularity of Falun Gong, however, led to the jealousy of the top leader of the CCP, Jiang Zemin.

Seeing it as a threat to the communist regime’s totalitarian rule, the dictator launched a brutal persecution campaign against the practice. The ongoing persecution campaign involves, and is not limited to, arbitrary detention, torture, forced labour, and forced organ harvesting.

The practice’s emphasis on traditional moral values, harkening to China’s Buddhist- and Daoist-steeped culture before the communist regime, was perceived as a threat to its atheist ideology.

The documentary was screened across major cities of Australia including Canberra, Perth, and Melbourne, ending in Sydney on June 19.

Raymond Zhang, director of the “State Organs,” said that he spent six years on the documentary.

To truthfully restore history, he overcame many difficulties to find witnesses of forced organ harvesting who were brave enough to be interviewed, including family members of victims, witnesses, and doctors involved in live organ harvesting.

“Millions of families lost their loved ones to the state crime, which is comparable to the holocaust in World War II,” Mr. Zhang said.

“The difference is: it’s still ongoing.”

Trump Should Announce His 2.0 Dream Team Right Now

posted by Kurt Schlichter at Townhall 

President Trump is arguably winning this election, but we need to shoot for more than a razor-thin victory. We should shoot for a landslide. We need a critical mass of Americans supporting him, not just to get him into the White House but to enable him to enact the conservative agenda that will revitalize this country and, to borrow a phrase, make America great again. That means he needs the support of not only the Trump Devoted but also the Trump Curious as well as the Trump Dubious. He gets that by showing he is serious about governing. He scored big in 2016 when he put out a list of potential Supreme Court justices. That gave a bunch of wavering people the final nudge to take a risk on Donald Trump. He needs to do that now for the heavy hitters who will populate Trump 2.0 administration. 

Listing the Team 47 superstars will demonstrate that a second Trump administration will be serious about governing. Famously, some people in the 2016 administration were less than serious. A bunch of them were outright ridiculous. Rex Tillerson? Anthony Fauci? Mike Esper? Trump would have been better off with Omarosa at State, as the Chief Medical Advisor to the President or as SecDef than those buffoons. When you have a national security advisor whose mustache is more competent than the rest of him, that’s a problem. 

But this time, Trump is not going into office without a Rolodex. There are tried and true Republicans out there who are both ideologically correct and administratively competent. Trump’s greatest weakness is the impression that he’s not a serious guy, that he’s all mean tweets, Playmates, and bizarre rhetorical tangents. But that’s not so. He eventually put together a pretty good team. The results speak for themselves, leaving COVID-19 and the 2024 election aftermath aside. What he needs to do in 2024 is demonstrate to people that what they already hope will be true will be true – that the Trump administration is going to be filled with serious people ready to rebuild our fallen country.

Everybody’s been talking about the vice-presidential sweepstakes, and The Donald has got a bunch of good presidential apprentices to pick from. But the vice president isn’t the big story. His key picks are to fill the critical offices, people who will enforce his America First agenda for their left-leaning departments. Remember, much of the federal government is dominated by lazy communist parasites who will do everything they can to undermine the will of the people, all in the name of Our Democracy. Every Trump department and agency head must understand that he’s entering hostile territory. Every one of them must be willing to confront the bureaucrats with a whip and a chair and literally beat them into submission. They will attempt to co-opt him. They will attempt to bamboozle him. They will attempt to make him an institutional cheerleader for whom the department’s short-term advantage is the priority. Look at Jeff Sessions. That human rutabaga truly loved the Justice Department. That made it easy for the Justice Department to play him like a banjo and do incalculable damage. Anybody who prioritizes his department over putting America first is a loser. We don’t have time for that nonsense this time. We need steely-eyed killers out for figurative bureaucratic blood.

Here’s my dream team, a list of brutal pipehitters that Trump can announce right now and demonstrate his seriousness about keeping those promises he’s making about draining the Swamp. These guys are all based because they understand that this is a death struggle with the Marxists. All of them are – in their own way – utterly ruthless. There’s no time to be nice. There’s no time to take guff. There’s no time to accept excuses from time-serving bureaucrats. It’s time for the bureaucrats to fear their bosses rather than vice versa. And this is my dream team that will do that.

Let’s start at the White House. Every President needs a solid chief of staff. Frankly, the CoS choice can make or break an administration. This is the guy who runs things, who makes the machine hum. He’s got to be somebody who can reach out to Congress, to the cabinet, and even across the aisle to make things happen. You don’t need a bomb thrower, but you do need someone who wants to accomplish what the bomb thrower wants to accomplish, only with less noise and explosions. You need a silent assassin and chess grandmaster.

Reagan had James Baker, and Trump should have Robert O’Brien, his former national security advisor. Robert ran a large law firm in Los Angeles – there are few bigger viper pits – and he was one of the most respected and universally trusted advisors in the first Trump administration. This guy can talk to anyone – he was a hostage negotiator for the Trump administration. He knows how to work behind the scenes, yet he can still present well in public. O’Brien would provide the iron discipline a Trump White House needs to function. He’s also a Trump whisperer – he gets the President, and the President trusts him. Robert, a personal friend, will probably be mad at me because he’d rather be Secretary of State – he’s perhaps the foremost theorist of the Trump Doctrine – but I think he could do the most good (at least in the first year of the administration) wrangling cats at the White House. An Army vet, Robert knows you deploy where you are needed, not necessarily where you want to deploy.

Another friend is Ric Grenell, who should be the first secretary of state. Ric is the consummate diplomat. He knows how to talk to people, both behind the scenes and in public, and he’s an outstanding judge of character. He’s smart, but he also listens to advice. He is focused on the mission. This guy is urbane and sophisticated enough to mingle with snooty Europeans, but he also went running with the Marine embassy guards when he was our ambassador to Germany. He understands the problems with the State Department, and I guarantee that with Ric in charge, you’re not going to see anyone in Foggy Bottom agitating to support Palestinian terrorists over our Israeli allies – at least not more than once. I can’t say enough good about Ric, and the right people can’t say enough bad about him.

There are several solid candidates for the Department of Defense. I’m thinking Mike Pompeo if he’s not picked for Veep. Pompeo is a West Pointer, but this Officer Candidate School grad won’t hold that against him. He was a solid Secretary of State and a solid CIA Director, and he has the understanding of bureaucracy that you need to take on the Pentagon and win. The fact is that our military needs a complete rebuilding from the ground up. The culture is broken. It needs a guy who gives orders, not suggestions, and who knows the games officers play when they don’t want to conform. You could do a lot worse than somebody whose alma mater motto was “Duty, Honor, Country” when choosing the guy to fix a command structure so broken that it thought it was a good idea to get rid of “Duty, Honor, Country.” Give him a few retired colonels and senior noncommissioned officers to go out and be his hatchetmen and you will incentivize those three and four stars who have sat idly by as our military has declined into woke ridiculousness.

We need an Attorney General who will turn the Department of Justice back into the Department of Justice instead of the Department of Democrat Tyranny. I’m thinking Tom Cotton, if he is not the Veep pick. His Arkansas seat is safe, and this veteran and lawyer – he went to Harvard, but that was when they had the occasional token conservative – is completely ruthless. As an Army officer, he’s used to issuing orders and that’s what needs to happen there. Not suggestions, not hugs, orders. “This is what our president, the guy the American people elected, wants us to do, folks, and that is what this Department is going to do.” He also needs some high-level executive experience to complete his CV for his future presidential campaign. Plus, as a senator, he’s likely to be confirmed with very little hassle. Of course, the new Attorney General needs to find places for Harmeet Dhillon and Mike Davis, both of whom could do the AG job, too.

Trump should put Ben Carson back in at Health and Human Services. If he doesn’t select Doug Bergum for vice president, which wouldn’t be a bad idea, the Gov would make a great Energy Secretary with a mandate to make us independent in fossil fuels and the world leader in nuclear power. If Glenn Youngkin is not picked for vice president, how about making him treasury secretary? Youngkin knows how to get things done and this would burnish his credentials for running for a Virginia Senate seat, or even for President down the road, on a revitalized economy.

The Department of Transportation seems to be the place you send young guys who think they have bold new ideas, so let’s send someone who actually does – Vivek Ramaswamy. For Homeland security, we need somebody hugely competent, tough, and who understands the issues. Representative Mark Green, a former special operations doctor and congressman, would be excellent. Put Lee Zeldin in to replace the grotesque Chris Wray at the FBI – or, better yet, put in no one and shut it down.

For communications, why not pick a real comms pro? How about Townhall’s own Larry O’Connor, a seasoned radio host and former Broadway theater manager? Hey, if you can handle Val Kilmer, you can handle Jake Tapper.

There are other jobs and other candidates for them out there, but these are the big ones. These are the ones the voters will be looking at because these are the departments and agencies that are the biggest problems. The folks I’ve listed are problem solvers. That’s what we want. That’s what America wants. America wants Donald Trump to come back in and fix this mess, and to win, he should name his dream team right now.

Pope Francis’ Feel-Good Gospel Fans The Flame Of Radical Gender Ideology

 Here I am an Agnostic (and Stoic) posting about the Pope...

Pope Francis’ failure to unequivocally defend traditional sexual morality is undermining the faithful’s fight against radical gender ideology.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/06/20/pope-francis-must-take-a-stand-against-gender-ideology/

Pope Francis’ coy two-step on sexual mores hangs over Catholic culture like the sword of Damocles. Papal ambiguity weakens the Catholic Radio Association’s current effort to resist newly mandated reporting rules about workforce diversity. Driving the rules is an ideological ambition to demolish the scaffolding of traditional behavioral norms regarding sex.

Specifically at issue is the “nonbinary” classification.

In February, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reinstated a dormant requirement that radio stations must file Form 395-B. The document requires radio stations and their affiliates to list the race and “gender” of their employees. It has gone unused since 2004, following a 2001 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

But 20 years later, the word “gender” is no longer a surrogate for sex, meaning the biological distinction between male and female. Today “gender” signifies a range of chosen behaviors that are treated as if they were ethnic or racial realities. Consequently, the FCC’s renewed mandate requires a head count of so-called “nonbinary” personnel from radio stations transmitting on AM or FM frequencies, satellite radio, cable networks, and broadcast TV stations.

The Catholic Radio Association, joined by other broadcasters, has filed a petition against the FCC, arguing that the mandate is a form of compelled speech. It coerces broadcasters to accept the validity of categories — e.g., the inventory of so-called “genders” — that do not comport with bodily reality. Consequently, the FCC’s order to affirm “nonbinary” status violates their Catholic faith.

But does it?

A clear answer in the affirmative would have come easily to every bishop of Rome since Simon Peter until now. But unequivocal clarity offends against the reigning secular dogma of diversity, inclusion, and bureaucratic aggression against biological facts. Concerned with his street cred, image-conscious Francis prefers the zeitgeist-friendly approach to sexual codes and practices. Lurking behind his reveries about love and sexuality is careful avoidance of the word sin.

We do not hear much about sin anymore in relation to sexual behaviors. Thomas Mann’s quip that sin is “a half-jovial, familiar, and mildly facetious word” suits the Bergoglian pontificate.

He released that snake onto the field in “The Pope Answers,” a Disney documentary released in April 2023. In what America Magazine called “a lived example of the culture of encounter,” Francis confided to a small group of twenty-somethings that, yes, he knew what the term “nonbinary” meant.

But he declined to state what the term signified or to allocate gravity to it. Instead, he leap-frogged over any issues attached to the descriptor and landed full-square on a plush welcome mat to all passport holders in the LGBT nation:

Sex is one of the beautiful things that God has given to the human person. To express yourself sexually is a richness. So anything that attracts from real sexual expression lessens you and depletes this richness.

It is pied beauty all around:

All persons are the children of God. All persons. God does not reject anybody. God is a father. And I have no right to expel anyone from the Church.

Reference to expulsion was a red herring. It shifted attention away from the issue at hand: Is “nonbinarism” just one of those lovely gifts from God? Or is it a nihilistic chimera that undermines the social order by simultaneously denying the polarity of the sexes and, consequently, the ultimate ends of sex?

Those tablets carried down from Sinai heralded a God who rejects certain behaviors. Accordingly, Jesus’ injunction, “Go and sin no more,” was a command to relinquish forbidden habits. As pope, Francis has not only a right but an obligation to name those behaviors that contradict the Catholic Church’s traditional moral compass. 

Language is a critical load-bearing structure of culture. For that reason, we take seriously George Orwell’s warning that “the worst thing you can do with words is to surrender to them.” Being “nonbinary” is largely a shiny new term for bisexual — the B in LGBT. Not so long ago, a bisexual was just one of those AC-DC types whose electrons switched directions depending on who was available and willing. In short, the word described a sexual opportunist.

By now, in the linguistic version of a corporate takeover, the term “nonbinary” has been annexed by a movement. It has become an -ism — “nonbinarism” — boosted by force of will into an identity. Promoted as if it were a core component of one’s being, like race or ethnicity, it escapes the boundaries of an articulated moral system. The moral crudity of a dissipating culture elevates it to a civil rights issue.

Francis’ on-camera heart-to-heart with Gen Zers cocooned a subjective, nonbiological identity in the gossamer skein of unspecified sexual expressions. “The Pope Answers” strengthened the very radical gender ideology Francis officially rejects.

The FCC reports that the first 395-B filings will be due Sept. 30. It would help if, by then, Francis found an opportunity to disavow the word “gender” and its glossary of spawned coinages.

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Maureen Mullarkey is a painter and a critic. A member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), she writes on art and its intersection with religious and politics. Her essays have appeared in various publications, including The Nation, The Hudson Review, Arts Magazine, Art & Antiques, and The American Arts Quarterly. She was a columnist for The New York Sun during its life as a print publication. Currently, she is a senior contributor to The Federalist, an irregular contributor to The Weekly Standard, and keeper of a weblog titled Studio Matters. She is represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC. Follow her on Twitter, @mmletters.