current events

Loftus Party Roundup

May 18, 2017 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

For those politically inclined, here’s a roundup of articles I’ve written for The Loftus Party recently. Regular readers know that I’m conservative in ideology; I’ve been a serious student of American politics, culture, and current events for about twenty years.

Mother’s Day 2017 After-Action Report: Here I talk about fur kids, parents with multiple children, and Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards trolling pro-lifers with her Mother’s Day greeting.

Stephen Colbert, Special Snowflakes, and Media Panic Explained: In this piece I explain some of the rationale behind Stephen Colbert’s obscene attack on Trump, participation trophies, and the value of conflict in day-to-day life.

Free Speech in the Age of Social Media: This is where I hold up a mirror to everyone and ask, in all seriousness, how far we’re all really willing to go to support the inalienable right to free speech.

It’s Time for Some Straight Talk About Men and Women: Can men and women really be just friends? I answer this question and more.

Get clicking and get reading; just know that if I offend you, it means I’m doing something right.

The Evan Video

December 8, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

At The Loftus Party, I deconstructed the viral Evan video:

We need to talk about the Evan video. It’s gone viral, so it’ll be relevant for about five minutes; referenced by pundits for another five days; and watched by your elderly parents in five weeks, who will ask you if you’ve seen that Ethan video on the YouTube. Despite that we’re on the tail end of Evan’s relevance cycle, we should still discuss it. The video raises important issues, but not in the way the producers think. Take a look at it and come back. I’ll wait.

Click on over, watch the video, and read the piece. You’ll be smarter for it, I promise!

The Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Initiative

November 16, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

The Loftus Party published my piece on The Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Initiative:

If recent election returns have taught us anything, it’s that the American Progressive Left is absolutely terrified of anyone who doesn’t think like them. Between impotent protests/riots against democratically-held elections to hysterical name-calling in the news media, the far left reeks of pants-wetting terror. And while this fear may be sweet to those of us who have grown tired of the unrelenting smugness and unearned superiority from these same shrieking ninnies over the last eight years, schadenfreude eventually loses its luster. What are we supposed to do now?

The endless think-pieces about how the left needs to break out of its bubble and see how other people live aren’t worth the pixels they’re digitally imposed upon. We’re at this pass now because of years of talk without action, bleated by people who live as spectators, not doers. So rather than just put further pixels into the ether, it’s time for us to act. It’s time to bring our lives to the American left, not wait for them to come to us.

Includes a recipe, conversation strategies, and everything you need for a nice, successful dinner with an agitated leftist guest. Click to read the whole thing!

The 2016 Election Season Is Over: The Road Ahead

November 9, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

You’re no doubt tired of politics at the moment, but I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the recent election results. Whether you’re celebrating or mourning, I have a few thoughts I’d like to get on the record.

Despite how polarized our common culture has become, we, as individuals, are far greater than our politics. I’ve discussed this before. Reducing a person to his opinions is not only intellectually lazy, but morally wrong. It’s a thought process angry people use to justify their resentment at a world that refuses to acknowledge their innate, unrecognized greatness. The only exception to this rule of not reducing a person to his politics are political activists: they’ve made a career out of demonization, and are fair game. Once you cross that line into activism, once you step onto that battlefield, you’re a combatant.
A casual perusal of social media shows a huge number of people all bleating the same tune: I’m ashamed to be an American. How can Ohio/Pennsylvania/Florida/East Japip be so stupid? Looks like the bigots are in charge now. What these angry, contempt-filled people don’t seem to realize is that it’s this very attitude that contributed to the rise of a person like Donald Trump. They are doing what they’ve done since the primary season: attempting to shame other people for their voting choices. That many of those same people weren’t so horrible when Obama was elected in 2012 doesn’t seem to register; one assumes that they somehow became stupid and evil overnight. The belief, absent any evidence to support it, of your superiority because of who you pulled a lever for is not just ludicrous, but pathetic.
The American news media is no longer worthy of the special protections afforded the press in the First Amendment. They’re political activists, all, and must be treated as such. Future pieces will provide instructions on just how to do that. Just because their favored candidate lost, it didn’t mean they didn’t cheat. They did. And still lost.
Don’t keep people around you who make you unhappy, particularly in social media. Do you really want to spend any attention on someone who calls you (or, in today’s passive-aggressive, can’t-get-my-hands-dirty-with-actual-confrontation culture, implies that you are) a bigot/racist/sexist/homophobe because of who you pulled a lever for? Let’s take it a bit further: do you want to spend your money and attention on entertainers who tell you that they’re ashamed of you? Who hold you in contempt?

My guy didn’t make it through the primary process. I’m not happy about that, but it is what it is. What I do is count my blessings: I’m healthy, my wife and son are healthy, and I get to write and be a husband and dad. Anything else that happens is gravy.

Book Review: A Father’s Choice: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Hope

September 22, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

Anthony Perry’s A Father’s Choice: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Hope is brief, but shines a brilliant spotlight onto an important and timely issue. The narrative describes more of the lead-up than the aftermath, providing an emphasis on healing over recrimination. Third-wave feminism’s domination of the issue typically shunts stories like Perry’s off to the side, which makes this an important book.

Abortion doesn’t just affect the woman undergoing the procedure (let alone the baby being killed), but also the baby’s father, who is often considered irrelevant to the mother’s decision-making process. Even if he desperately wants to keep the baby, as Perry makes clear, the prevailing narrative is that abortion is the mother’s choice, and the mother’s choice only. There’s a terrible, powerless inevitability to Perry’s memoir that makes this a difficult read, but not difficult enough. Between the pointless fight scene in the last third and the strange non-reaction to Jenny’s horrible admission, the impact is somewhat muffled, putting distance between the reader and the events.

Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Too often we read about fatherless homes and deadbeat dads; here’s a grim story of fatherhood denied.

(I’ve written about turning from pro-choice to pro-life here.)

Jews, Mel Gibson, and Hacksaw Ridge

September 9, 2016 by David Dubrow 1 Comment

NOTE: My Gentile Encryption Machine (GEM) has been on the fritz lately, with most of the errors occurring, I think, in Display Mode. I believe I’ve gotten it to work. As usual, all Chosen Eyes Only (CEO) material will be separated by double lines (===), with the remainder for public view. Please send a GEM Technician As Soon As Possible (ASAP).

======BEGIN CEO======

I watched my little boy put on his feety pajamas before bed last night. His process is personal to him: he lays them out on the rug in his bedroom, sits down on them, slides his feet into the trouser part, gets his arms into the top part (with some difficulty), and zips them up. He is most careful to keep his nascent wedding tackle from getting caught in the zipper.

He’s five years old.

During this process I asked myself, When do I tell him? When will he be ready for what’s in store?

A week ago we got a Disney Little Golden Book Omnibus hardback from Costco, and we typically read one story from it per night before lights out. Stories from Paw Patrol, Bubble Guppies, Blaze and the Monster Machines. By the end of last night’s story, however, I couldn’t wait any longer. I just had to tell him the truth all Jewish children must learn.

“Sonny boy,” I said, as his big eyes blinked up at me, glassy with fatigue after a long day of kindergarten, “There’s something you need to know. You’re Jewish, son. And before long you’ll go to Hebrew school. There you’ll learn about the acquisition of funds through theft; how to manipulate the inner workings of the news and entertainment industries; and how to destroy this disgusting, Christian culture of American capitalism, turning it into a socialist, egalitarian paradise where you, my son, will be in control…but behind the scenes. You’ll shift foreign policy to always put Israel’s interests before America’s, and you’ll teach college students how horrible America has always been. It’s part of our culture, son. It’s in our blood. My father taught this to me, and his to him, and so on. You were born to skulk in the shadows of history, always manipulating, always undermining. So sleep well. Your mommy and I love you.”

I hope it wasn’t too soon. Please let me know at the next Jew Conclave.

======END CEO======

Mel Gibson’s new movie is titled Hacksaw Ridge. Gibson’s a genius filmmaker, full stop. I loved Bravehart, Apocalypto, The Passion of the Christ. But I’m not going to see Hacksaw Ridge or anything else he does because he’s an anti-Semite. Even though Allison Hope Weiner, a Jewish woman, wrote in 2014 that Mel Gibson deserves a second chance.

Maybe I would give him that second chance in another time, but I’ve grown pretty tired of Jew-haters. On the left there’s the Obama administration and the vast majority of academia with the BDS scumbags and the loathsome Students for Justice in Palestine. On the alt-right you’ve got Trump-worshipers who have nothing better to do all day than make up terms like “oven dodgers” for Jews on social media. They’re small in number but incredibly loud. I’ve hit my limit with anti-Semites in daily life. I’m just not that interested in parsing Mel Gibson’s redemption: how much outreach he’s done with the Jewish community since his drunken tirade, all the money he’s given to Jewish charities, and whatever. Good for him and his nice Jewish friend Allison Hope Weiner for all the nice things he’s done. For my part, once I conceive the desire to punch your teeth out of your head, it’s a feeling that doesn’t go away.

I’m not saying everyone should shun Gibson, or that ostracizing him’s the right thing to do, or you’re morally compromised for going to see Hacksaw Ridge. Do what you want. The way I see it, there are thousands of movie choices out there, so why should I enrich someone who says that me, my kid, my brothers, and my brothers’ kids are responsible for all the wars in the world?

Forget it. It’s not worth it.

And it’s not because Gibson hurt my fee-fees or that I give a damn about anything he says or does outside of filmmaking. I just think it’s foolish to support people who hate me, not to mention a serious breach of taste. I’ve done it before, but I’m not doing it again. Playing footsie with anti-Semites is a stupid game.

Also, isn’t it telling that Gibson cast a Jewish actor to play Desmond Doss, someone who refused to pick up a gun and fight in the service of his country? Yes, I know he was courageous and carried all those soldiers to safety, but there’s still something not-quite kosher about the casting choice (heh).