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News

We won’t fix fatherlessness until we confront women about their choices

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Pro-family conservatives are very passionate about making sure that children grow up with a mother and a father. Most say that both men and women need to do better to stop fatherlessness. But in practice, pro-family people direct their criticism towards men only, giving women a free pass. Let me explain why this approach is not likely to solve the problem of fatherlessness.

Pro-family conservatives typically target the man who had the recreational sex, and try to urge him to commit to the women after the woman gets pregnant. Why won’t this work? Well, it won’t work because the man who was selected by the woman clearly wanted sex more than he wanted commitment. That’s why he had sex first, instead of committing first. He was selected for sex without having to show any ability or desire to commit whatsoever. So, you can’t really go back to him and say “now you have to commit”. The time to get him to commit would be BEFORE he got what he wanted, and the only person in a position to make that happen was the woman.

So what about the woman? What did she want? She is probably hoping that the man she is choosing to have sex with will commit to her, because she has given him her body. The baby is there to make him more attached to her, since the baby has his genes. Unfortunately, this is not how men who value premarital sex actually work. Wanting premarital sex is a sign of wanting pleasure – not of wanting commitment. The reason why we need to talk to the woman is to tell her that she will not get what she wants by giving a man with no interest in commitment premarital sex. It doesn’t work. If you want a man to commit to you, then you have to choose a man who wants to commit, and then let him commit.

So, that’s why I recommend we approach the woman first. We don’t approach men, because they want sex, not commitment. We approach women, because they want commitment, and they don’t get it.

Now, how do pro-family conservatives respond to this? Well, they think that women should not be challenged to do anything differently at all. If you tell women to make wise choices, then you are shaming them, judging them, blaming them, etc.

But just think of some parallel cases, and see if you can see why it is not wrong to ask women to make better choices:

  1. If you invest your money instead of spending it on alcohol and cigarettes, then you can retire earlier.
  2. If you go to the gym 3 times a week, and eat healthier, you’ll live longer and be slimmer.
  3. If you study computer science instead of English, then you’ll be able to find a higher paying job more easily.

The goal in telling a woman these things is not to shame her, but to help her to get a good outcome by making better decisions. The world is the way the world is, and she won’t be able to get a good outcome from a bad decision.

Now here is another one:

If you make a marriage-ready man commit to you before you give him sex, then your children are more likely to have a father in the home.

Now look at that statement. It’s not shaming women at all. Everyone agrees that men who have recreational premarital sex should be avoided. We’re not blaming women – we’re trying to get a good outcome for them by telling them the truth so they can make a better decision.

All we are saying to women is this: 1) focus on marriage early, so you can use your youth and beauty to lock down the best man possible. 2) And make commitment your top priority when choosing a man. This is good advice for her, and for her children.

When we are giving good advice, it’s not our concern that people feel shamed, or that they don’t like us. Our goal is not to make them feel good, or to make us feel good. Our goal is to make the children have a father in the home. I am fine with being hated for now, so long as I get a good result in the end.

Women these days often complain that they want to get married but can’t find a good man. But what I have found is that these same women deliberately choose to spend their late teens and 20s pursuing relationships with good-looking, tall men who have no interest in marriage or family. What I would like is for pro-family people to tell women to focus on finding a good man who is willing to love her and commit to her when she still has her youth and beauty to attract a good man.

There is no point in standing by silent while women waste their teens and 20s on bad men, then expect the good men they passed over to marry them in their 30s. Those good men understand that they were not the first priority for these women, and that their willingness to commit will not get them any respect from women who ranked commitment LOW on their list of criteria for men.

Men have preferences about women and marriage. You can’t bully a man into marrying an older woman who had other things to do with her youth than investing in him. A man marries a woman when she makes him her top priority, and sacrifices her happiness in order to love him and build him up. The earlier she chooses him, the more he is loved, and the more time they have to build together. It’s not blaming women to decline a marriage with them, any more than it is blaming a house that you don’t want to buy. Men are people, too. And men get to decide whether marriage is good for them, based on the value of the marriage offer.

I want to end by talking a bit about myself. I am not white, and was raised by two poor immigrant parents in a non-Christian home. When I was in grade 5, I received a New Testament from the Gideons. I read it, and I was happy to get some guidance on moral issues, as well as learning how to put myself second and serve God. The more I put God’s agenda first, the less I made bad decisions. I studied hard to be able to get a good job so I could give to charity. I was debt-free and financially ready to marry in my early 20s. I was a good steward of my money, and contemptuous of alcohol, drugs and status-enhancing material things.

The end result of that was a long period of chastity and sobriety, during which I accumulated 950K in cash (so far), and a fully paid off house that I bought new valued at around 300K. The point of me saying this is clear – what works with people who need help is to tell them the way the world really works, and what decisions they can make to get out of the mess they started off with.

Everywhere you look today, people are TERRIFIED of telling people who look like me that the solution to their problems is to read the Bible and make God their Boss. Instead, Christians are being dragged into secular solutions to the problems I had: Marxism, destroy the family, single mother welfare, abortion, etc. They don’t want to offend people who look like me by telling us to make better choices.

Their motivation is the same as the pro-family people who don’t want to offend women. “Let’s tell them that the bad decisions they are making are actually good decisions, so they will like us. And when it blows up in their faces, we will just blame those people over there, and demand that they change”. No, the solution to problems is found in the choices we make.

Blaming white people would not have helped me to get where I needed to go. Why do we shy away from telling the women who freely choose bad boys and make babies with them that the solution to their problems is in their own hands? It’s because we want to feel good. We want them to like us. But Christians ought to understand that the best thing you can do for someone is offer them the Bible, and urge them to bring their actions inline with it. And the Bible clearly states that sex outside of marriage is wrong. If a woman takes that seriously, then any children she has will not be fatherless.

A while back, I was asked to mentor a young lady who was born in a divorced home. Her mother made her with her father, then her mother divorced her father. Then her mother married her stepfather who treated her very badly. She shacked up with an atheist and got pregnant, then killed her baby. The atheist dumped her. When she came to me, she was tired of her own decision-making, and wanted to learn how to make men like her without having to give them sex.

So, I put her on a learning plan of Christian apologetics, economics, science, history and philosophy. Today, she is married to her husband and has a son. She organizes apologetics conferences in her spare time. And the highlight of my life so far was that phone call from her where she explained how I was right about everything, and that now she understood why I had told her to make those better choices.

It was not easy. There were times where she chose more bad boyfriends – annoying unemployed students who were younger than her! – and she was mad when I didn’t approve of them.  But she kept coming back for more advice whenever things failed. And in the end, she succeeded. Her husband loved her the moment he saw the books on her bookshelf. And today, her son has a father at home.

News

Why did evangelicals for Biden oppose pro-Christian policies and Christian moral values?

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During the 2020 election, conservatives said that Democrat legislation like the Equality Act and the Women’s Health Protection Act would hurt Christians in areas like religious liberty and right to life. But many people felt that Democrats would not hurt Christian values and liberties. Well, it turns out that the facts people were right, and the feelings people were wrong.

Now we get this story, from Daily Caller:

Medical professionals are suing President Joe Biden’s administration over a mandate requiring doctors to perform transgender surgeries in violation of their religious beliefs or medical judgement.

Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American College of Pediatricians, the Catholic Medical Association and an OB-GYN doctor specializing in adolescent care filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga Thursday against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

[…]The two medical associations represent 3,000 doctors and health care professionals, ADF said in a press release.

I’m just imagining myself being in a position where the secular left government forced me to violate my conscience. It makes me sick.

So, why were so many Christians tricked by the Democrats? Well, it turns out that a large number of people who identify as Christian actually just apply the label Christian to a set of values and a worldview that is defined entirely by their feelings. They believe that what is “moral” is what makes them feel good. In this culture, people have decided that it is better to be “compassionate”, “tolerant” and “non-judgmental”. What that means is that the strong adults do what they want to do, and the weak, e.g. children, suffer.

Take the Women’s Health Protection Act. It’s a bill that’s been already passed in the House by Democrats that eliminates ALL restrictions on abortion at the state level. This bill would make it easier for women to kill their unwanted unborn children. No Christian should support it. But evangelicals for Biden do.

Suppose you approached an evangelical for Biden with an argument like this:

  • P1. If the unborn are humans, then it’s wrong to kill the unborn.
  • P2. The unborn are humans, as per the science of embryology.
  • C. Therefore, it’s morally wrong to kill the unborn.

Now, you would think that an argument like this would work on evangelicals for Biden. But it doesn’t. They deny premise 2, because they have a feeling that it’s false, and that feeling cannot be overturned by the science found in embryology textbooks.

Evangelicals for Biden don’t think logically, and they don’t care about scientific evidence. Their views (including their self-serving caricature of “Christianity”) are formed by their emotions and peers. And they don’t read any non-fiction or watch any debates that might change their minds. They surround themselves with people who agree with them. Anyone who tries to reason with them, or use evidence, is ejected from their lives.

This kind of failure to choose policy using reason and evidence applies to dozens of issues that are of interest to Christians. Not just abortion and higher gas prices, but also foreign policy disasters we are seeing in Afghanistan now, and in places like Vietnam before. They never learn. They never learn, because for them, a worldview is not about having true beliefs that achieve good results. For them, it’s about feeling good, looking good, and surrounding themselves with people who agree with them.

Just this past week, I was reading comments from one of these “Christian” Democrats who had hooked up with a hot bad boy in her youth, then had an abortion. She became “Christian” later in life, to escape the feelings of shame from her past. When Trump came along, she only had one thing on her mind, and it wasn’t policy or the Supreme Court. She identified Trump with the bad boy (who she freely chose) who got her pregnant, and she hated him for it. She did not want anyone voting for this man, because he made her feel bad. To correct herself, she would have had to have buckled down, and done some research. But since learning is hard work, and hard work makes her feel bad, she never learned a thing.

Evangelicals for Biden were never interested in Trump’s pro-life record, or the unemployment rate, or the elimination of ISIS in Iraq. They didn’t care about his record of achievements. They cared about themselves. They wanted to avoid being shamed for their selfishness past, present and future.  They didn’t care who would be hurt by a Biden presidency.

Well, I was a Never Trump conservative in 2016. but after 4 years of pro-life wins, a booming stock market, record low unemployment, no new wars, and tough sanctions for our enemies, I changed to be a Trump supporter. That doesn’t mean that I look to Trump for moral or spiritual leadership. I just wanted the policies and the judges. The 2020 Never Trump people wanted BIDEN policies and BIDEN judges.

And now when you are looking at all of these horrors in the news, including the violation of the consciences of Christian pediatricians, maybe everyone will understand that “Christians” who form their view by feelings (compassion, tolerance, non-judgement), experiences and peer approval are not Christians at all. Next time, don’t be tricked by virtue-signalers. Real Christians want to know how the world works. We would rather GET GOOD RESULTS than FEEL GOOD.

News

Why you should read “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington

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What's the best way to get up from slavery?
What’s the best way to get up from slavery?

Lately, my friends have been very excited that I’m a non-white conservative. They want me to answer the grievances of BLM people, and explain from my own experiences what Christianity and conservative policies have to say about making the lives of non-whites better. My friend Wes recommended “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington to help me focus my thoughts.

Here’s a summary of the book:

Dignity through Labor

Over the course of Up From Slavery, Washington develops the idea and ideal of dignity through labor. For Washington, the gravest aspect of the institution of slavery is the denigration of labor for both blacks and whites. Because the enslaved had no personal investment or return on their labor, they did not complete their work with an attitude toward improvement. Likewise, whites, largely deprived of meaningful labor, were robbed of the ability to achieve self-sufficiency. In both races, this produced personalities and characters that seek to escape labor. Washington emphasizes labor as the only way to make oneself useful in an interdependent, modern society. Throughout the whole of Up From Slavery, Washington searches for and obtains work. Further, once he obtains it, Washington completes all labor to best of his ability, no matter how lowly the task. At the Tuskegee Institute, Washington makes this idea and ideal a foundational ethos. All students who study at the Tuskegee Institute must learn a trade or industry alongside their more traditional academic pursuits. In addition, many of the buildings, most of the furniture, the wagons, and the materials used at the school are produced by students. This level of practical skill and diligence also acts as the foundation of Washington’s theory and program for racial uplift.

Selflessness, Desire to Be Useful to One’s Community

The people that Washington most admires and models himself after are those he labels selfless. Washington defines this as the willingness to work on the behalf of others. For Washington, this is not only about duty or labor, but also about the willingness to do one’s best for the benefit of the collective good. Washington believes that racial prejudice can be overcome if black people make themselves indispensable to their communities and their nation. The brick-making episode provides an example. Though the brick-making enterprise at Tuskegee felled three kilns before successfully producing bricks, the venture eventually proved successful and the school began to sell its bricks on the open market. Washington describes how whites who were unsympathetic or apathetic to the education of blacks and the overall project of the Tuskegee Institute were willing to purchase Tuskegee bricks due to their quality and convenience. Washington suggests that if black race can find their niche in society by fulfilling a need, then they can co-exist peacefully and productively with whites.

Impracticality of Political Agitation

Throughout Up From Slavery, Washington defends his ideas about racial advancement and uplift by subtly undermining the proposals of his critics. Though Washington does not explicitly state his objection to the strategies of specific thinkers like W.E.B. Dubois or even his predecessor, Frederick Douglass, he nevertheless highlights the wastefulness of political agitation for equal rights at every chance he gets. To do this, Washington shows that political agitation results in worse relations and outcomes than those that existed before. For example, when he goes home to Malden after his second year at the Hampton Institute, Washington finds that both the salt-furnace and the coal-mine are not in operation due to worker’s strikes. In Chapter IV, Washington describes how strikers usually spent all their savings during the strikes and returned to work in debt, but at the same wages. He raises the impracticality of political agitation again after his controversial Atlanta Exposition speech. After the success of his speech, he hypothetically asks if a black man would have been invited to give a speech had people agitated to put a black person on the program. He answers in the negative, saying that such opportunities can only arise through merit.

And here’s a summary of his most famous speech:

On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington was selected to give a speech that would open the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. The speech, which is often referred to as the “Atlanta Compromise,” was the first speech given by an African American to a racially-mixed audience in the South. In it, Washington suggested that African Americans should not agitate for political and social equality, but should instead work hard, earn respect and acquire vocational training in order to participate in the economic development of the South. By doing so, eventually, he stated, African Americans would gain the respect of white society and be granted the rights of full citizenship.

There’s a free full audio version of the book, and the full text is online. I recommend this book to people of all races, because as the sexual anarchy brought on by feminism becomes widespread, the majority of the children of tomorrow will face the same kinds of challenges.

I see Washington’s ideas as consistent with a Christian worldview, where we don’t expect to be treated fairly. We expect sinful people to treat us badly. What Christianity says is to be patient, and focus on your relationship with God and loving your neighbor. And one way to love your neighbor is to sell them something valuable that you made through your labor. Another way is to work and save, and give to charity.

Government solutions to problems like racism and poverty aren’t a top priority for Christians. Most of all, we need the freedom to be good, and to do good. That’s priority one. You may not make your life better by being moral and diligent, but it’s rare that doing so causes you to harm yourself. It’s very important that you not harm yourself.

So, this dovetails nicely with my own story. My married non-white parents were not smart enough or willing enough to monitor my education, but they were clear that they wanted me to do well in order to find good-paying work. So I completed my BS and MS in a STEM field, and went to work right away, and I’ve been at it continuously for 20 years now. I save most of what I earn for charity and early retirement.

I’ve never experienced any of the racism or police brutality that American blacks complain about. And that’s because I follow what Washington is teaching. I dress in a clean way that doesn’t communicate danger to others. I’m careful to spend my time reading apologetics, economics and military history. I don’t listen to popular music or watch popular TV or movies. I don’t hang out with people who blame other people for their lack of success.

I got my first job by volunteering to do it for free on Saturdays for 7 months. My first full-time job salary after college was $50,000. Then I got a raise of $6,000 and then a raise of $9,000. I used to work 70 hour weeks in my 20s. I graduated college with $9,000 dollars in the black, and my net worth is now about $1.25 million. By the way, the secret to becoming wealthy is to not spend money on showing off. You can be very generous to your friends and still get rich. Just never buy anything that is designed to communicate “status” to anyone. And never spend money on alcohol or chasing sex outside of marriage.

At no time did I accept that the problems defined by the secular left were my real problems. And at no time did I accept their “solutions” as real solutions to anything. As black economist Thomas Sowell writes, the “solutions” of the left are not effective at helping people like me. The “solutions” of the left are designed to make leftists feel better, and look more virtuous to others. You are much better off reading the Bible, Christian apologetics, free market economics, American military history, etc., and then respecting what you learn from that in your decision-making. I think that reading the right stuff is even more important than having good parents or attending church.