Blog Introduction - 20220612

    I'm actually very excited to sit down and get this blog going. It's been on my mind ever since I started "The Rational Layman." I enjoy writing much more than I do making videos, and I don't do it nearly enough, but hopefully I'll keep up with this weekly blog as a sort of companion piece to the channel. 

    I suppose it best to begin with a sort of introduction, statement of intent/purpose, expectations, et cetera. The blog will hopefully serve as not only a source of information in conjunction with the daily videos, but also as a place to vent, sort of like a journal or diary. I'm hoping the writing comes off that way as well, reading more like a conversation and less like a lecture. I will admit that I am slightly out of practice with the writing since I left university, but bare with me, and hopefully this can be a cool little side piece to the normal "The Rational Layman" content. This will also allow me to expand upon certain ideas and positions that I cover in the videos. 

    You've by now noticed the name of the blog, "der Hitch." This name is in honor of two people who have been of great inspiration to me, my grandmother, and the late, great, Christopher Hitchens. I hope those of you who are religious will not hold it against me, but you might consider Christopher the "patron saint" of atheists, and like many others, I've always admired his intelligence, wit, and skills as orator. No doubt, especially as the channel delves more into philosophy and theology, we'll all have some wonderful conversations/debates over these topics. Of course the German article "der", meaning "the" in English, acknowledges my grandmother, also known as "Oma" (colloquial word for grandmother in German), as she is a long-ago immigrant from Germany, and has always been one of the most amazing people I know. With all of that said, lets get into the meat and potatoes of this weeks news and information.

    This week covered quite a few videos on gender and sexuality, so I suppose it best to begin there. It isn't really a topic I'm all that interested in. Admittedly, my positions on gender have changed slightly over time, but more so I'm concerned with the sense of ownership that activists seem to have over your children. And again, I have no stake in this game, currently; I'm childless, I do however have many nieces and a nephew that I am concerned for. The problem here isn't in the idea itself, the idea or cause is irrelevant, I've been clear multiple times on my position over the right to live and prosper for those in the L.G.B.T. community; the problem lies within educators who are more concerned with being activists as opposed to educating. We can carry this forward into discussions on things like C.R.T., but for now we'll focus solely on gender ideology. The fact is, you do not have any claim of ownership over someone else's child. It's sad that this has to even be expressed with the aims of changing a large portion of societal thinking. Educators should be focused on educating children on academic subjects; math, history (as objective as you can be), science, literature, not gender ideology, sexuality, sexual orientation, or any other social theory that has yet to be (and probably can't be in most cases) made objective in any meaningful sense of the word. It isn't the job of the educator to inculcate children with values, it is the responsibility of the parent and of the family unit. Educators should be passive stewards of fairness and equality, not active participants in indoctrination, regardless of the cause. The unfortunate truth is that there will always be hate of some form, and there will be always children brought up in hate, but the best we should expect of educators is for them to keep that hate from being expressed in the classroom, and nothing more. Educators hosting secret "L.G.B.T. clubs", telling children to lie to their parents should be more than a red flag, and I do not think it an expression of cancel-culture for those "educators" to be removed from their posts. 

    I suppose this is where we're going to have to discuss the LGBT drag-shows sweeping the nation's schools, and not high schools or universities, no, elementary schools. If they aren't directly being performed in k-12 schools, they're offered at gay bars for children as young as toddler age; and it's incredibly distressing that these "parents" decided that even over their own children, activism is the most important thing in their lives. As a non-parent myself, I suppose I just don't understand the need to have your child exposed to sex and sexuality at such a young age. Of course the reaction to the controversy from supporters of this "drag-for-kids" movement was mostly idiotic; by now I'm sure you've all seen the photo of the young boys in hooters, surrounded by tantalizing, big-breasted waitresses in the traditional hooters/revealing outfits. This was spread around as a sort of "gotcha moment" aimed at conservatives, but I'm not sure it really had the desired effect. First, you're more than likely going to run into plenty of conservatives who would find it inappropriate to also take your children to Hooters; second, there is what should be a difference between a Hooters and a drag performance, your young children are more likely to see "sex" walking through the mall, but it has becoming incredibly, incredibly taboo to tell young women not to dress trollopy, so here we are; and third, when did the woke left start getting its moral/ethical instruction from conservatives? The next logical step in this sequence of events and line of reasoning, is for the woke left to claim that because some catholic priests (and let's assume for the argument they're politically conservative) molest children, well by golly they can molest children too! Bottom line, we shouldn't be exposing our children to sex or sexuality as much as possible, and while I think that trans. individuals should be free to live their lives unencumbered by harassment or discrimination, I also believe that we should be raising children within the confines of socially accepted gender norms until they are of the age to begin making those decisions for themselves.

    I'd be remiss if I didn't address a glaring similarity in what's going on now to the creationism versus science debates of old; and it is here that I may ruffle the feathers of some of my more religious viewers. Science and creation are not on the same level, and no, religion should not be taught as if it is, for all of the same reasons I mentioned in the last paragraph. Science and creation are not equal and alternative view points over the origins of the cosmos, and religious education is not objective in the way that science aims to be. I won't get too deep into this now, but I felt the need to bring it up, lest I get some objections to science education in the classroom in the same vein as my objection to gender ideology. There is of course a much deeper conversation to be had here on the "science" of gender ideology, but again, we'll save it for some other time. 

    A quick word over masculinity, and some of this will tie into gender ideology. There is much talk over redefining masculinity, and quite frankly, this redefining isn't beneficial to men, it isn't beneficial to society, it isn't beneficial to anyone; and it is solely the product a collective group of women and spineless men who seem to live in fairy-tale land. This redefining of masculinity seems to be nothing more than a concerted effort to feminize men. It's obvious to anyone paying attention that the mainstream media propagates pieces on masculinity by trans-men and women that seek to feminize men. Traditional and strong/stoic depictions of masculinity by strong/stoic men are sidelined and often times ostracized for being "extremist", "misogynist", "sexist", "racist", etcetera. You'll find no shortage of nonsensical pieces connecting masculinity to some "ist" or "ism." And should you decide to not raise your son within a traditional understanding of masculinity, you will be doing him a deep disservice. I do not believe that every man has to fall into one rigidly defined archetype of manhood, I do believe however that it is more than acceptable, it is necessary, for many men to accept a traditional understanding and idea of masculinity, not only for themselves but for the people around them. 

    So I could go into much more depth on the aforementioned topics, but I'm still a bit unsure on how long I would like these blog posts to be. Hopefully, if I can get people interested in reading them, I can get a better idea of what feels too long or too short. If they seem somewhat haphazard at times, don't forget that I do want these to read somewhat like a stream of consciousness novel, and they most likely will not be highly edited or altered. With that said, don't forget to follow us here, on the channel, and on our other social media accounts. I will include the snipfeed link on each post, which will include a link to all of our socials. As always, if you disagree with anything I have said, please say why in the comments, I hope everyone has a good one, and take care!

P.S. Of course any criticism is welcome, including tips on writing. While I probably wont change the overall style, smaller critiques may make their way into the writing. No doubt you'll find typos and other sorts of errors, my actual schedule for sitting down and writing is somewhat haphazard at the moment, and much less attention-getting than it should be. Also, what's a good length? Is this too long, too short? Let me know in the comments, and take care!

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