Don's Tuesday Column

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Bluff Daily News   6/18/2024

Pride, guns, and campus “fun”

It’s an old saying, “Pride comes before a fall.” It originates in the King James Version of Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

As we left town for cooler climes—Odell Lake was around 70 with nighttime lows in the 40s—the electronic event board at the fairground announced “Pride Fest” with dates. This writer certainly won’t besmirch a willing buyer/willing seller arrangement for any event, anywhere. It’s a “To each their own…different drummer” situation.

Having interacted with gay coworkers in a couple of industries over the decades, there’s no animosity in this heart for the “queer” folk (their term of choice, not mine). It does beg asking if the “L,” “G,” and “B” parts of the alphabet people are ok with what until recently was a clear case of mental derangement: biological-from-birth males and females thinking they can will, drug, or surgically alter themselves into “being” the opposite sex.

Men and women are certainly free to “shack up” with whoever; the norms of society, even human civilization, enshrine the coupling of one man with one woman, in a marriage that produces offspring. This carries civilization forward, generation upon generation. Same-sex couples, having no role in that biological arrangement, are a boutique, and tolerated, part of society.

It’s strongly felt here that the abomination of transsexuality, the indulgence of such mental aberration and emotional displacement—while not seen that way among segments of society, will eventually be seen as a sad, distorted, perverted and sick obsession requiring treatment, not indulgence.

When a sufficient number of Sacramento Democrats forced a bill increasing penalties on child sex trafficking to pause its non-controversial progress in committee, over their “predilection,” shall we say, with allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to have sex with adult men—“Houston, we have a problem.”

Final thought: No reasonable parent endowed with a conscience should take a child to any “Pride” event, based on what has been recorded elsewhere. These are not “child friendly” events; it could be considered child abuse to expose kids to what has been displayed at some “Pride” celebrations. It’s not a benign thing that’s being lifted up for praise. It’s often said: keep it behind closed doors.

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Last Thursday’s edition reported that the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the law banning gun shows at county fairs and other public properties owned by the state. The 3-0 decision overturned a federal judge’s October ruling blocking that law.

The Ninth is the most overturned Circuit Court in America; 2^nd Amendment supporters hope this fanatical anti-gun decision quickly goes to the Supreme Court. Gun shows are an essential economic sector devoted to all things gun, weapon and outdoor related. Does the state own our Tehama County fairgrounds, and does this jeopardize annual gun shows?

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 State issues: I may have to use a word I swore to avoid. “Anti-Israel protesters burn campus police vehicle with 'incendiary device' in 'retaliation' for arrests; ​Pro-Palestine protesters burned a University of California, Berkeley, police car over the weekend” (Campusreform.org, June 3). So, violent, criminal students and others, having already broken laws against rioting, trespassing, etc. and being duly arrested—are now supported by other scofflaws burning property to protest the first ones’ arrests.

Previously, “UC Santa Barbara pro-Hamas encampment now an ‘autonomous society’” mimicking the “antifa/BLM/Occupy,” “autonomous zones” of literal “insurrection” (unlike the mislabeled Jan. 6 “insurrection” by unarmed, somewhat-riotous Trump supporters, opportunistic antifa types, and an unknown number of undercover police/FBI “assets”).

The actual alignment of the “Dining Hall Liberation” (of university property/food for “redistribution”) was displayed in the poster-figure wearing the pro-Hamas keffiyeh, carrying a Palestinian flag. Subtheme: “Anti-Semitism at UCSB: A closer look at bashing the Jews on campus” (Campusreform.org).

A “schadenfreude-elicious” moment from the May pro-Hamas protests: “Arrested UCLA Protester Returning to Retrieve Belongings Upset to Find Out Where They Are.” His wallet, keys and Apple watch, left at the encampment, ended up in a dumpster of collected detritus—with access denied by officials.

Strikes—to protest the treatment of pro-Palestinian protesters rousted from illegal camps in May—by academic workers at several Cal State schools were halted by an Orange County Superior Court judge. Their contract includes a “no strike clause.” These types never think the rules apply to them.

 “Pro-Hamas Activists Who Got Busted [on June 5] for Occupying Stanford President’s Office Have Learned Their Fate” (Townhall.com), which includes felony charges, suspensions and cancelled graduations for seniors. Beyond their despicable causes—pro-Hamas; pro-the October 7 slaughter, rape and mutilation of Israelis; and pro-genocide of Jews—every campus space illegally occupied by these, yes, I’ll call them scum, involves barricaded doors with bike locks, chains, ladders, chairs and tin foil on security cameras.

Between the graffiti, the destruction of property, the theft of equipment and befoulment of everything—tens of thousands of dollars of damage is left behind. They are right to cover their faces as employers justifiably want none of these deluded activists on their payroll.