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....
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.
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....
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:
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.")
"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).
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.