Even though I am a firm believer in Ecclesiastes' "There is no new thing under the sun", there are some times where something seems new (at least to me), or maybe just a new and odd combination of things that have always existed.
That being said, one of the most bizarre moments of our currently insane zeitgeist is how American liberals both push aggressively for a policy but at the same time angrily and vociferously deny that they are doing so. From everything to Defund the Police to open the borders to CRT in schools to sex changes for children, they seem to both fight for it and then when confronted with any dissent, immediately angrily deny or insist you're hallucinating or distorting.
My political memories only go back to the Reagan years, but as far as I can remember, from everyone to Newt Gingrich to Nader to Bernie to Bush/Cheney, I don't remember any politician or political movement advocating a policy while simultaneously refusing to admit it. (Except maybe some foreign policy thing that relied on secrecy.)
I can only speculate as to why this is or how it happened, but it strikes me as bizarre and unprecedented. Appreciate any ideas anyone has....
A keen observation indeed. Is the reason they go straight to denial mode that they know their policies are indefensible? That they can’t construct any good arguments to defend them when confronted by the reality informing the common sense of the common people?
These folks are the real deniers. They deny their own actions. But in doing so they reveal that they actually understand reality.
What you're talking about is basically Michael Anton's 'celebration parallax': the rhetorical tactic whereby if you advocate for a policy or a political dynamic it's a wonderful and glorious thing, but if you criticize it that same thing is an insane unhinged right-wing conspiracy theory that totally isn't happening. The canonical example is replacement migration. On the one hand, leftists will crow about the historically imminent relegation of whites to minority status in their traditional homelands. On the other, rightists who talk about exactly the same thing but are less than sanguine about the implications are derided as kooks spewing hate-filled disinformation.
It strikes me as an extension of what Steve Sailer, I think, called the 'war on noticing'. Political correctness basically comes down to a prohibition on pattern recognition, e.g. how dare you notice that black people commit more crimes per capita. The difference is that the left is now throwing hissy fits over their political opponents noticing the things the left is saying and doing.
i think there's also Rod Dreher's Law of Merited Impossibility too: "It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it."
Also, I think for liberals/leftists who live their whole lives in ideological echo chambers (Brooklyn to Oberlin then media job or Bay Area to Berkeley to academia job, etc etc), they have no experience debating others, as they've never had to.
And when you can rely on a swarm of likeminded journalists and profs to descend on your opponents like avenging Furies armed w bigotry accusations, you can pretty much say/do anything and know someone will always be there to protect you and pummel the opposition.
I mostly agree with you, though I do recall observing similar hypocrisy during Bush Jr years ("We aren't torturing but we absolutely have the right to torture").
good catch, but maybe that's the exception that proves the rule?
also, they lied bc they knew what they were doing was against American and international law, and could very well get them tried sometime somewhere in the future.
i'm not sure that the people pushing and supporting the current Social Justice ideas have the same concerns.
I’m confused. You mean Bush & Co. knew they were doing something wrong, but SJ Lefties think that everything they’re doing is right? By any means necessary?
well, from what I recall and what seems most likely, Bush & Co. had some lawyers somewhere in the Pentagon or Justice Dept at the very least inform them that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" were very possibly illegal under American and international law. So there was the desire to do something along w the knowledge that it was very likely illegal...
And as for the Left and the policies they endorse—open borders, open jails, CRT and Gender Theory for kids—while they do deny their policies, or at least attempt to obfuscate, I do believe that they believe these are all correct, politically and especially morally.
That's why they're communists without admitting it. They probably don't even realize they're communists by their very actions and rhetoric.
You're not crazy. I've observed the same thing and my political memories go back to Reagan too!
Also. There's nothing new under the sun....true. But there's also no Peak Derp. I have no idea how this behaviour will end. I keep trying to take it to its logical end and all I get is a cut-de-sac of it will end badly.
They’ve always done it, they just never had anyone with a platform to call them out on the hypocrisy. Democrat policy in my lifetime has always been rooted in lies. They would say in the open 1 thing, but then do something else. Of course 90% of the population didn’t know, because all we had was the local newspaper and nightly news to investigate. Now we have access to information that looks behind there empty slogans. The internet created platforms for people outside the mainstream to get this info out there. It has gotten so large they can’t control the narrative anymore, they’ve been exposed so badly that they now openly lie and we know it’s a lie. There response is tyranny. Arrest all dissenters. It’s not working. Every one of these acts exposed, opens up more eyes. They’re becoming more and more isolated. It’s untenable, even arresting people that speak out won’t work. It will only make the opposition stronger.
Clever - it is due to the complete control by the left (or define however, progressives, liberals, pagans....) of EVERY institution we have in US - the gov't certainly but also now clearly the media (incl'g social media), all IT, and all corporate for that matter, educational inst. and finally churches -- because they know they exert control and will not be challenged in their observed conflicting and hypocritcal positions, they are able to do it; they think, I won't be called out on it, so ... and this then grows into our own 3-letter agencies getting away with the fraud (CDC, NIH) and corruption/weaponization (FBI, DOJ) that we are enduring. It is quite a mess -- until we can untie and weed out that intricate and long-grown connection, we are toast.
I completely agree: the New Left, after a successful 50-yr campaign, has seized the means of cultural production and is in the process of seeding every sector of our society with their commissars and True Believers.
But this still doesn't quite explain why they both aggressively push their platform while also denying it.
But, now that I think of it, thus far the strategy has worked perfectly, so that must be part of the answer...
Many good replies here, and on top of them all, we have the 2013 repeal (in that year's NDAA) of the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, the law that prohibited the use, on the domestic population, of the type of weaponized propaganda that the United States Government had before then produced solely for foreign populations. The kind of rank gaslighting you describe would certainly fall under that which had been previously prohibited. Could be why the tactic seems so new and different.
It’s a variation on what I call the Japanese Two-Step: in reference to the atrocities committed by Unit 731 during WW2 the Japanese often respond like this
- The Media and complacent "conservatives" (RINO's).
- Two generations of indoctrination
- Free shit turns peoples brains off
- As opposed to the Left; conservatives clean up their trash after a demonstration/protest............KWIM?
- In the case of the MSM/social media platforms; they are now the tail that wags the dog of the Left. No accountability - the Left is enabled - and the media provides "cover" (through omission, talking points and straight out lies). That's what we haven't seen before in history. Or at least, I can't find an example.
- Hegemony - virtually all institutions are solidly Leftist.
The Soviets and Maoists were very good at claiming to be getting record harvests from the same provinces in which people were starving to death. That's similar.
Agree with all you’ve said. I really struggled to read to the paragraph you highlighted because I choked on the claim that these hospitals and doctors are providing “evidence-based” care. What evidence is there, exactly, that cutting off a minor’s healthy breast tissue or penis is a good decision??? There is none. In fact, there is ample evidence it destroys lives (check out the Swedish longitudinal study and various tragic anecdotal accounts on social media if you don’t believe me). This is straight-up lunacy, and that any medical organization makes this claim makes me want to shred my medical diplomas and licensures and run screaming into the hills, “I disavow! I disavow!!” The people pushing this stuff are ghouls. They have lost their way.
Reminder - Most physicians aren't members of these groups, many who do belong do so because their employer pays for the membership anyway (usually gets you a discount at conferences, journal access, things to put on your resume), and some of the memberships are compulsory.
It's disingenuous for these groups to present themselves as "speaking" for physicians when at best a fraction of a fraction are even remotely aware of the actual lobbying they do.
A lot of physicians have very negative views of these groups such as AMA which "...touts itself as speaking for all of us -- but rarely listens to any of us -- they work to fill their own pockets with dollars from big pharma and government"
Sample of the general feeling among physicians I know:
"The American Medical Association had its annual meeting this past week in Chicago. During their meeting of delegates they touted their self-proclaimed accomplishments and the fact that they have been growing in membership numbers in the last two years. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is what the AMA has to say about its membership numbers:
They write that membership has been growing steadily over the last 3 years but then cleverly bury the part about how revenue on membership has decreased every year (at least for the last five years) because the "new members" are actually mostly group practices, students, residents, fellows in training, retirees, and so called "sponsored memberships" which have much lower average membership rates. Retirees, students, and residents are a large proportion of this so-called growth -- not practicing MDs.
According to publicly available records, it appears that the AMA has also spent more money each year on marketing efforts focused on member retention.
So, the bottom line is that the AMA is spinning the overall increase in membership but the organization fails to mention how many are actually practicing physicians. I expect that, in reality, they are likely losing more and more members each year. Remember the important rule from your Freshman statistics class when you attempt to analyze a database -- "garbage in equals garbage out." And as one of my mentors at Duke once said, "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
So let's break it down further and take a closer look at the AMA's membership numbers ... -- there are 1,341,682 physicians/medical students/residents/Fellows in the U.S. today -- there are 250,253 AMA members. According to the AMA's own numbers, 22.5% of AMA members are students and 24.7% are residents (this number in 2016 was 235,000 or 1/6th of America's physicians).
Yet students only make up 8.1% and residents, 10.4% in the U.S., so if you remove them from the AMA's published numbers, you get 1,093,472 physicians, and then remove the percentages of students and residents from the previous numbers I quoted, ultimately there are only 132,133 practicing physicians who are AMA members. That's 12.1%. A drop. A decline that has continued for decades.
It's an interesting angle that the AMA paints a picture of membership growth in their marketing literature but skirt the fact that it's essentially like a fraternity claiming growth by rushing tons of freshmen the first day they get to college, with not many of them ever becoming full dues paying members and staying active for the 4 years of college.
Beyond the membership spin -- What is it about the AMA that America's Doctors really detest?
-- The AMA touts itself as speaking for all of us -- but rarely listens to any of us -- they work to fill their own pockets with dollars from big pharma and government
-- The AMA tends to have a narrow minded political view and works to stifle any dissenting opinions (in an effort to continue to align with the government agencies that line the pockets of AMA executives with taxpayer money)
-- The AMA has collaborated with the government to expand irrelevant and unfair payment codes (the hated CPT codes and ICD 10) -- this has significantly contributed to the disparity in pay for different specialties.
-- The AMA has spent more (of dues paying member money) than almost any other company on lobbying in the last 20 years -- to a tune of $347 million -- only the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Realtors have spent more.
-- The AMA receives nearly twice as much money from the U.S. government as it does from membership dues, and has since the Clinton Administration when the AMA signed on to support price controls for physician services -- in exchange for Washington leaving it to the AMA to decide how the shrinking pot of money for physician payments would be divided up between medical specialties. (Yes, this is all about how the self serving AMA determines CPT codes.) In 2010 alone, the AMA made 72 million in royalties and credentialing products sold to the U.S. government.
I think it is clear that the AMA is desperate. They are an organization that relies on government payments for its revenue -- which line the pockets of its executives. Membership is declining and the Majority of U.S. physicians DO NOT believe that the AMA represents their interests -- or the interests of their patients. Let's call a spade a spade -- the AMA is not the association for the U.S. doctor -- it's a money-making machine from the few who lead the way for the AMA in Washington D.C."
(Of the 18 comments, the most "pro" AMA comment is this: "If the AMA goes away, which current medical organization do you propose to take over their role. It's very easy to attack a group such as the AMA without coming up with a solution.")
Those of us, Mr. Bray for example, trying as best we can to keep Western civilization from The Big Smother are swimming in an ocean of language distortion. Like the fish that doesn't know it is wet we unknowingly use the language of the enemies of freedom to argue on behalf of freedom. Andrew Breitbart is creditted with uttering the truism " politics is downstream of culture". Culture is downstream from language. We must quit using the words of the lawless to combat the lawless. When hoping to persuade against acceptance of death before birth we should not refer to death before birth as abortion. Refer to it using words that describe what it is. It is murder before birth. No other description applies. The language which is endlessly invented by our soon-to-be oppressors affects the degree of reflective abhorrence at the thought of what is being described. A common form of sexual perversion for centuries was labeled queer sexual behavior. For sometime now it is known as gay sexual behavior. What a clever perversion of our culture's language. Behavior that should be revolting has become behavior that is celebrated. Mr. Bray uses the soon-to-be oppressor's phrase to describe what he is arguing against. Mutilation of child sexual organs is called child gender affirming surgery. This piece illustrates the ubiquitous nature of our language perversion. The article is about the creation of a new name for the specific individual or entity one disagrees with. They/them are no longer philosophical opponents. They are now targets. Philosophical opposition is now manifestations of hate. We need a new form of thesaurus for modern English, one that translates the language of our soon-to-be oppressors back into the language of Civilization's founders. We can't win the fight for freedom using the tools of our soon-to-be oppressors.
Regardless of the discourse and word games The Undead like to play, the issues of consent, malpractice, gross negligence and intentional recklessness belong in the courts. Where applicable,
parents, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies should be prosecuted under federal The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).
If you disagree or are opposed to children being surgically mutulated, by posting the actual advertisements FROM A CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL!!- you become a denier as well as being accused of targeting. No argument . I wonder why they took their websites down if everything was just CARE?Just silence the people who disagree. And now beg the already biased and corrupt Justice Department to prosecute them for the crime of free speech. Where have we seen that before? When everything becomes a right without taking responsibility - where will it end? And the weaponization of words and inflammatory adjectives keeps escalating. No more debate or discussion, those are inconvenient things of the past. Again, Chris, thanks for shining a light on it.
In the Boston Children's Hospital video you linked (preserved on the Daily Mail site), a doctor named Frances Grimstad says that not every gender affirming hysterectomy includes removal of the ovaries.
So here's my question: why on earth would they leave ovaries in a woman who wants to become a man? Ovaries are involved with ongoing female hormone production. If you're gonna become a man, why leave female hormone production intact?
well, that smiling doctor saying that a "gender affirming hysterectomy" is just like a regular old hysterectomy is DEAD wrong. women get hysterectomies because there is some kind of problem- cancer, fibroids, a rupture. no one gets perfectly healthy organs surgically removed from their perfectly healthy bodies because they just don't feel like they're that gender today.
these doctors are evil behind their phony smiles.
if i was delusional and believed i could fly, would you "affirm" me by leading me to the edge of a tall building and giving me a shove? would you tell an anorexic girl that she really was fat and should eat less? suddenly, doctors are in the business of humoring mental illness.
"children know what gender they are from the womb." no, they don't but they do have a gender at birth- before birth in fact, one of two. it is not assigned; it is observed.
there may be times when they wish they were something else, they may have childhood fantasies. that used to be a normal part of growing up and not something to be surgically "corrected."
no one is born into the "wrong" body. the body you have is the body you have. maybe i wanted to be taller; am i going to get my long bones removed and replaced with metal rods to add a few inches?
any doctor who would do that might deserve a bomb threat or two.
we've had enough.
i read today about a school in vermont. the female students have been banned from their locker room because they expressed discomfort about having to change in front of a trans identifying male student. so their "lived experience" is discounted, their feelings of unease are discredited. they, the majority, are told they can get dressed in a small toilet stall if they are uncomfortable while the single male out ranks them. he gets to have the entire locker room- THEIR locker room- to himself. it's beyond grotesque
It's probably just me, but "targeting" seems weirdly reminiscent of old school "journalism," which has, for the most part, gone the way of pay phones. It'll be interesting to watch Garland try to make the case that presenting documented facts and recorded conversations is akin to terrorism. The MSM and cable news networks should find the idea chilling. I expect the FBI will form a task force to investigate the threats on hospitals and providers of "evidence-based health care," while the actual fire bombings of pregnancy counseling centers continue to receive its tacit endorsement.
I expect that G*&$#@%d and the F’nI will start busting down the doors at 4am of people who are presenting documented facts and recorded conversations and hauling them off at gunpoint.
Even though I am a firm believer in Ecclesiastes' "There is no new thing under the sun", there are some times where something seems new (at least to me), or maybe just a new and odd combination of things that have always existed.
That being said, one of the most bizarre moments of our currently insane zeitgeist is how American liberals both push aggressively for a policy but at the same time angrily and vociferously deny that they are doing so. From everything to Defund the Police to open the borders to CRT in schools to sex changes for children, they seem to both fight for it and then when confronted with any dissent, immediately angrily deny or insist you're hallucinating or distorting.
My political memories only go back to the Reagan years, but as far as I can remember, from everyone to Newt Gingrich to Nader to Bernie to Bush/Cheney, I don't remember any politician or political movement advocating a policy while simultaneously refusing to admit it. (Except maybe some foreign policy thing that relied on secrecy.)
I can only speculate as to why this is or how it happened, but it strikes me as bizarre and unprecedented. Appreciate any ideas anyone has....
This is an interesting observation.
thanks!
so im not crazy? ;))
seems like among all the other brain viruses out there, cognitive dissonance is spreading like wildfire...
A keen observation indeed. Is the reason they go straight to denial mode that they know their policies are indefensible? That they can’t construct any good arguments to defend them when confronted by the reality informing the common sense of the common people?
These folks are the real deniers. They deny their own actions. But in doing so they reveal that they actually understand reality.
> so im not crazy? ;))
Let’s not get presumptuous. 
got me!!
What you're talking about is basically Michael Anton's 'celebration parallax': the rhetorical tactic whereby if you advocate for a policy or a political dynamic it's a wonderful and glorious thing, but if you criticize it that same thing is an insane unhinged right-wing conspiracy theory that totally isn't happening. The canonical example is replacement migration. On the one hand, leftists will crow about the historically imminent relegation of whites to minority status in their traditional homelands. On the other, rightists who talk about exactly the same thing but are less than sanguine about the implications are derided as kooks spewing hate-filled disinformation.
It strikes me as an extension of what Steve Sailer, I think, called the 'war on noticing'. Political correctness basically comes down to a prohibition on pattern recognition, e.g. how dare you notice that black people commit more crimes per capita. The difference is that the left is now throwing hissy fits over their political opponents noticing the things the left is saying and doing.
i think there's also Rod Dreher's Law of Merited Impossibility too: "It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it."
Also, I think for liberals/leftists who live their whole lives in ideological echo chambers (Brooklyn to Oberlin then media job or Bay Area to Berkeley to academia job, etc etc), they have no experience debating others, as they've never had to.
And when you can rely on a swarm of likeminded journalists and profs to descend on your opponents like avenging Furies armed w bigotry accusations, you can pretty much say/do anything and know someone will always be there to protect you and pummel the opposition.
I mostly agree with you, though I do recall observing similar hypocrisy during Bush Jr years ("We aren't torturing but we absolutely have the right to torture").
good catch, but maybe that's the exception that proves the rule?
also, they lied bc they knew what they were doing was against American and international law, and could very well get them tried sometime somewhere in the future.
i'm not sure that the people pushing and supporting the current Social Justice ideas have the same concerns.
I’m confused. You mean Bush & Co. knew they were doing something wrong, but SJ Lefties think that everything they’re doing is right? By any means necessary?
hmmmm....
well, from what I recall and what seems most likely, Bush & Co. had some lawyers somewhere in the Pentagon or Justice Dept at the very least inform them that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" were very possibly illegal under American and international law. So there was the desire to do something along w the knowledge that it was very likely illegal...
And as for the Left and the policies they endorse—open borders, open jails, CRT and Gender Theory for kids—while they do deny their policies, or at least attempt to obfuscate, I do believe that they believe these are all correct, politically and especially morally.
Okay, yes. I’m less confused now!
Especially apt since they have NO morals at all.
SJ Lefties? SJ?
‘Social Justice’
I experience it as Gaslighting.
I get that! Especially, when the biggest bigots, where I'm from, are also the dumbocraps.
Are you sure they weren’t just farting in your face?
😂
That's why they're communists without admitting it. They probably don't even realize they're communists by their very actions and rhetoric.
You're not crazy. I've observed the same thing and my political memories go back to Reagan too!
Also. There's nothing new under the sun....true. But there's also no Peak Derp. I have no idea how this behaviour will end. I keep trying to take it to its logical end and all I get is a cut-de-sac of it will end badly.
They’ve always done it, they just never had anyone with a platform to call them out on the hypocrisy. Democrat policy in my lifetime has always been rooted in lies. They would say in the open 1 thing, but then do something else. Of course 90% of the population didn’t know, because all we had was the local newspaper and nightly news to investigate. Now we have access to information that looks behind there empty slogans. The internet created platforms for people outside the mainstream to get this info out there. It has gotten so large they can’t control the narrative anymore, they’ve been exposed so badly that they now openly lie and we know it’s a lie. There response is tyranny. Arrest all dissenters. It’s not working. Every one of these acts exposed, opens up more eyes. They’re becoming more and more isolated. It’s untenable, even arresting people that speak out won’t work. It will only make the opposition stronger.
You know where I come from then. (Philosophically that is.) No matter how good a friend they are, beware.
Clever - it is due to the complete control by the left (or define however, progressives, liberals, pagans....) of EVERY institution we have in US - the gov't certainly but also now clearly the media (incl'g social media), all IT, and all corporate for that matter, educational inst. and finally churches -- because they know they exert control and will not be challenged in their observed conflicting and hypocritcal positions, they are able to do it; they think, I won't be called out on it, so ... and this then grows into our own 3-letter agencies getting away with the fraud (CDC, NIH) and corruption/weaponization (FBI, DOJ) that we are enduring. It is quite a mess -- until we can untie and weed out that intricate and long-grown connection, we are toast.
it is indeed 1984.
I completely agree: the New Left, after a successful 50-yr campaign, has seized the means of cultural production and is in the process of seeding every sector of our society with their commissars and True Believers.
But this still doesn't quite explain why they both aggressively push their platform while also denying it.
But, now that I think of it, thus far the strategy has worked perfectly, so that must be part of the answer...
Maybe we can find the definitive answer somewhere in Alinsky.
Great comment.
Many good replies here, and on top of them all, we have the 2013 repeal (in that year's NDAA) of the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, the law that prohibited the use, on the domestic population, of the type of weaponized propaganda that the United States Government had before then produced solely for foreign populations. The kind of rank gaslighting you describe would certainly fall under that which had been previously prohibited. Could be why the tactic seems so new and different.
It’s a variation on what I call the Japanese Two-Step: in reference to the atrocities committed by Unit 731 during WW2 the Japanese often respond like this
1. We didn’t do it
2. They deserved it
That's how narcissists think. "They MADE me do it!" Also, sociopaths and psychopaths.
Here's a few ideas:
- The Media and complacent "conservatives" (RINO's).
- Two generations of indoctrination
- Free shit turns peoples brains off
- As opposed to the Left; conservatives clean up their trash after a demonstration/protest............KWIM?
- In the case of the MSM/social media platforms; they are now the tail that wags the dog of the Left. No accountability - the Left is enabled - and the media provides "cover" (through omission, talking points and straight out lies). That's what we haven't seen before in history. Or at least, I can't find an example.
- Hegemony - virtually all institutions are solidly Leftist.
Right on!
Clinton. Bill. He must run a training camp on bald faced lying.
Though he at least does it with a smile and a narcissistic pleasantness. These newer lefties are way less charming and some are truly dang nasty.
Some?!
I hedge. I hedge.
Maybe a matter of degree though. All politics is projection. Obama was a master at sleight of hand.
The Soviets and Maoists were very good at claiming to be getting record harvests from the same provinces in which people were starving to death. That's similar.
Agree with all you’ve said. I really struggled to read to the paragraph you highlighted because I choked on the claim that these hospitals and doctors are providing “evidence-based” care. What evidence is there, exactly, that cutting off a minor’s healthy breast tissue or penis is a good decision??? There is none. In fact, there is ample evidence it destroys lives (check out the Swedish longitudinal study and various tragic anecdotal accounts on social media if you don’t believe me). This is straight-up lunacy, and that any medical organization makes this claim makes me want to shred my medical diplomas and licensures and run screaming into the hills, “I disavow! I disavow!!” The people pushing this stuff are ghouls. They have lost their way.
But not their way to the bank. Also, a common thread amongst dumbocraps.
Reminder - Most physicians aren't members of these groups, many who do belong do so because their employer pays for the membership anyway (usually gets you a discount at conferences, journal access, things to put on your resume), and some of the memberships are compulsory.
It's disingenuous for these groups to present themselves as "speaking" for physicians when at best a fraction of a fraction are even remotely aware of the actual lobbying they do.
A lot of physicians have very negative views of these groups such as AMA which "...touts itself as speaking for all of us -- but rarely listens to any of us -- they work to fill their own pockets with dollars from big pharma and government"
Sample of the general feeling among physicians I know:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/campbells-scoop/80583
To save you from having to register, copy paste:
"The American Medical Association had its annual meeting this past week in Chicago. During their meeting of delegates they touted their self-proclaimed accomplishments and the fact that they have been growing in membership numbers in the last two years. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is what the AMA has to say about its membership numbers:
They write that membership has been growing steadily over the last 3 years but then cleverly bury the part about how revenue on membership has decreased every year (at least for the last five years) because the "new members" are actually mostly group practices, students, residents, fellows in training, retirees, and so called "sponsored memberships" which have much lower average membership rates. Retirees, students, and residents are a large proportion of this so-called growth -- not practicing MDs.
According to publicly available records, it appears that the AMA has also spent more money each year on marketing efforts focused on member retention.
So, the bottom line is that the AMA is spinning the overall increase in membership but the organization fails to mention how many are actually practicing physicians. I expect that, in reality, they are likely losing more and more members each year. Remember the important rule from your Freshman statistics class when you attempt to analyze a database -- "garbage in equals garbage out." And as one of my mentors at Duke once said, "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
So let's break it down further and take a closer look at the AMA's membership numbers ... -- there are 1,341,682 physicians/medical students/residents/Fellows in the U.S. today -- there are 250,253 AMA members. According to the AMA's own numbers, 22.5% of AMA members are students and 24.7% are residents (this number in 2016 was 235,000 or 1/6th of America's physicians).
Yet students only make up 8.1% and residents, 10.4% in the U.S., so if you remove them from the AMA's published numbers, you get 1,093,472 physicians, and then remove the percentages of students and residents from the previous numbers I quoted, ultimately there are only 132,133 practicing physicians who are AMA members. That's 12.1%. A drop. A decline that has continued for decades.
It's an interesting angle that the AMA paints a picture of membership growth in their marketing literature but skirt the fact that it's essentially like a fraternity claiming growth by rushing tons of freshmen the first day they get to college, with not many of them ever becoming full dues paying members and staying active for the 4 years of college.
Beyond the membership spin -- What is it about the AMA that America's Doctors really detest?
-- The AMA touts itself as speaking for all of us -- but rarely listens to any of us -- they work to fill their own pockets with dollars from big pharma and government
-- The AMA tends to have a narrow minded political view and works to stifle any dissenting opinions (in an effort to continue to align with the government agencies that line the pockets of AMA executives with taxpayer money)
-- The AMA has collaborated with the government to expand irrelevant and unfair payment codes (the hated CPT codes and ICD 10) -- this has significantly contributed to the disparity in pay for different specialties.
-- The AMA has spent more (of dues paying member money) than almost any other company on lobbying in the last 20 years -- to a tune of $347 million -- only the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Realtors have spent more.
-- The AMA receives nearly twice as much money from the U.S. government as it does from membership dues, and has since the Clinton Administration when the AMA signed on to support price controls for physician services -- in exchange for Washington leaving it to the AMA to decide how the shrinking pot of money for physician payments would be divided up between medical specialties. (Yes, this is all about how the self serving AMA determines CPT codes.) In 2010 alone, the AMA made 72 million in royalties and credentialing products sold to the U.S. government.
I think it is clear that the AMA is desperate. They are an organization that relies on government payments for its revenue -- which line the pockets of its executives. Membership is declining and the Majority of U.S. physicians DO NOT believe that the AMA represents their interests -- or the interests of their patients. Let's call a spade a spade -- the AMA is not the association for the U.S. doctor -- it's a money-making machine from the few who lead the way for the AMA in Washington D.C."
(Of the 18 comments, the most "pro" AMA comment is this: "If the AMA goes away, which current medical organization do you propose to take over their role. It's very easy to attack a group such as the AMA without coming up with a solution.")
Thank you!!
I’ve been a physician since the mid-90s. Have never been a member of the AMA. You’ve brilliantly laid out more than the many reasons why.
"Evidence-based gender-affirming care"???
Where is this "evidence"? I keep seeing and hearing this phrase but have yet to see ANY compelling evidence supporting the mutilation of children!
Gender affirming care. Right up there with “mostly peaceful protests” and “reproductive justice”, and of course, “safe effective vaccines”
some irony in that a crowd who were outraged - rightfully so - about female genital mutilation in africa would advocate for it here at home
Pffft. Reappropriate the language.
I’m going Targeting. Need anything?
Those of us, Mr. Bray for example, trying as best we can to keep Western civilization from The Big Smother are swimming in an ocean of language distortion. Like the fish that doesn't know it is wet we unknowingly use the language of the enemies of freedom to argue on behalf of freedom. Andrew Breitbart is creditted with uttering the truism " politics is downstream of culture". Culture is downstream from language. We must quit using the words of the lawless to combat the lawless. When hoping to persuade against acceptance of death before birth we should not refer to death before birth as abortion. Refer to it using words that describe what it is. It is murder before birth. No other description applies. The language which is endlessly invented by our soon-to-be oppressors affects the degree of reflective abhorrence at the thought of what is being described. A common form of sexual perversion for centuries was labeled queer sexual behavior. For sometime now it is known as gay sexual behavior. What a clever perversion of our culture's language. Behavior that should be revolting has become behavior that is celebrated. Mr. Bray uses the soon-to-be oppressor's phrase to describe what he is arguing against. Mutilation of child sexual organs is called child gender affirming surgery. This piece illustrates the ubiquitous nature of our language perversion. The article is about the creation of a new name for the specific individual or entity one disagrees with. They/them are no longer philosophical opponents. They are now targets. Philosophical opposition is now manifestations of hate. We need a new form of thesaurus for modern English, one that translates the language of our soon-to-be oppressors back into the language of Civilization's founders. We can't win the fight for freedom using the tools of our soon-to-be oppressors.
Regardless of the discourse and word games The Undead like to play, the issues of consent, malpractice, gross negligence and intentional recklessness belong in the courts. Where applicable,
parents, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies should be prosecuted under federal The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2017-title42/html/USCODE-2017-title42-chap67.htm
Reminds me of that scene from Billy Madison in the bathtub: "Stop Targeting Me, Swan!!" ;)
This is all becoming so tiresome especially when you live in CA.
If you disagree or are opposed to children being surgically mutulated, by posting the actual advertisements FROM A CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL!!- you become a denier as well as being accused of targeting. No argument . I wonder why they took their websites down if everything was just CARE?Just silence the people who disagree. And now beg the already biased and corrupt Justice Department to prosecute them for the crime of free speech. Where have we seen that before? When everything becomes a right without taking responsibility - where will it end? And the weaponization of words and inflammatory adjectives keeps escalating. No more debate or discussion, those are inconvenient things of the past. Again, Chris, thanks for shining a light on it.
The professional lunatic class project denial on anyone who disagrees with their own reality-denial.
In the Boston Children's Hospital video you linked (preserved on the Daily Mail site), a doctor named Frances Grimstad says that not every gender affirming hysterectomy includes removal of the ovaries.
So here's my question: why on earth would they leave ovaries in a woman who wants to become a man? Ovaries are involved with ongoing female hormone production. If you're gonna become a man, why leave female hormone production intact?
well, that smiling doctor saying that a "gender affirming hysterectomy" is just like a regular old hysterectomy is DEAD wrong. women get hysterectomies because there is some kind of problem- cancer, fibroids, a rupture. no one gets perfectly healthy organs surgically removed from their perfectly healthy bodies because they just don't feel like they're that gender today.
these doctors are evil behind their phony smiles.
if i was delusional and believed i could fly, would you "affirm" me by leading me to the edge of a tall building and giving me a shove? would you tell an anorexic girl that she really was fat and should eat less? suddenly, doctors are in the business of humoring mental illness.
"children know what gender they are from the womb." no, they don't but they do have a gender at birth- before birth in fact, one of two. it is not assigned; it is observed.
there may be times when they wish they were something else, they may have childhood fantasies. that used to be a normal part of growing up and not something to be surgically "corrected."
no one is born into the "wrong" body. the body you have is the body you have. maybe i wanted to be taller; am i going to get my long bones removed and replaced with metal rods to add a few inches?
any doctor who would do that might deserve a bomb threat or two.
we've had enough.
i read today about a school in vermont. the female students have been banned from their locker room because they expressed discomfort about having to change in front of a trans identifying male student. so their "lived experience" is discounted, their feelings of unease are discredited. they, the majority, are told they can get dressed in a small toilet stall if they are uncomfortable while the single male out ranks them. he gets to have the entire locker room- THEIR locker room- to himself. it's beyond grotesque
It's probably just me, but "targeting" seems weirdly reminiscent of old school "journalism," which has, for the most part, gone the way of pay phones. It'll be interesting to watch Garland try to make the case that presenting documented facts and recorded conversations is akin to terrorism. The MSM and cable news networks should find the idea chilling. I expect the FBI will form a task force to investigate the threats on hospitals and providers of "evidence-based health care," while the actual fire bombings of pregnancy counseling centers continue to receive its tacit endorsement.
I expect that G*&$#@%d and the F’nI will start busting down the doors at 4am of people who are presenting documented facts and recorded conversations and hauling them off at gunpoint.