More bulletins on the willed abolition of the American mind:
- The ever-useful Phyllis Schlafly presents a list of instances of how zero-tolerance policies are applied in American schools. I’d give examples, but each is worse than the next—just read the column.
- And on the ever-exciting Rick Santorum front,
- Ben Shapiro, puzzling like so many over why it was outrageous to compare homosexuality with bigamy and polygamy, called up some homosexual activists. They couldn’t explain it either.
- He should have called Owen Allred, head of the United Apostolic Brethen, a traditionalist Mormon spinoff, who had the explanation: Santorum’s inclusion of polygamy in his list tarnishes a religious tradition reaching back to Abraham, Jacob and Moses. Sweet reason at last!
But why the mindlessness and fanaticism of the mainstream? It’s a requirement of “inclusiveness,” which by definition is the will to avoid natural distinctions and so a sort of willed stupidity. “Zero tolerance” is based on the conviction that administrative discretion of any sort means discrimination. The solution is to be indiscriminate. And the incoherence of the response to Santorum’s comments comes from the new convention that you’re not allowed to think about sex and its place in human life. If you did, some sexual practices—and those addicted to them—might come off looking worse than others. And that would offend inclusiveness.