Conditions For Tolerance

     Sane persons in a sane society appreciate the value of a degree of conformity: not smothering, “everyone must be and think and do exactly alike” conformity, but a concession to important norms of conduct pertinent to public places and public events. It’s why we have “blue laws” about acceptable degrees of personal exposure on public streets.

     Whoops! Excuse me! We had such laws once upon a time. If they’re still on the books, they’re not enforced, at least not consistently. Today there appear to be neither effective norms for public conduct nor any great willingness to assert them. Some of the consequences have been dire.

     Well, at least we still have laws about criminal conduct, right? Thou shalt not kill, steal, or diddle the underage, for example. Those are enforced, aren’t they? Not perfectly, but most of the time, right?

     Even those inarguable laws don’t receive perfect respect, much less perfect enforcement. Ashli Babbitt’s family might have a few words to say on the subject. Ditto for all the victims on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island. But perhaps that’s too large a story for a Friday morning in Lent. Today I have another, “smaller” story in mind:

     Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Brett Blomme was arrested Tuesday on tentative charges of possession of child pornography, the state Department of Justice announced.

     Blomme, 38, was taken into custody by special agents with the state Division of Criminal Investigation “following an investigation into multiple uploads of child pornography through a Kik messaging application account in October and November 2020,” according to a statement….

     A 44-page search warrant filed Friday by a DCI special agent said investigators found Blomme, using the name “dommasterbb,” uploaded 27 videos and images containing child pornography. Two of the files were uploaded at a Milwaukee County government building, the search warrant said.

     The special agent sought permission to search Blomme’s courtroom, chambers, houses in Milwaukee and Dane counties and his 2017 Audi. Blomme is currently assigned to Milwaukee County Children’s Court….

     Blomme was elected to the court in the spring 2020 election, defeating incumbent Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Dedinsky, an appointee of former Republican Gov. Scott Walker….

     A longtime LGBTQ activist, Blomme previously was director of major gifts at the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin for 18 months, following a stint at the Madison City Attorney’s Office. From 2011 to 2015, he practiced criminal defense with the State Public Defender’s Office….

     During the election, Blomme had to explain why he, his husband and their children live both in Milwaukee and the Madison area.

     So the accused Brett Blomme, who has been charged with the possession of child pornography, is:

  • A homosexual;
  • An “LGBTQ+ activist;”
  • And a Children’s Court judge.

     I’d bet any amount you’d care to name that the “LGBTQ+” types will scream bloody murder about causal connection proposed between those three things and a pedophilic offense. It must all be mere coincidence!

     Funny how common such coincidences are, isn’t it?

     Cassandra Fairbanks adds:

     The alleged pedophile judge was the president and CEO of the Cream City Foundation, which runs the Milwaukee Drag Queen Story Hour for local children. As of early Thursday morning, however, all articles and mentions of him had been scrubbed from their website….

     According to his LinkedIn profile, Blomme served as the president and CEO of the drag story hour foundation until August 2020, when he left to become a judge.

     “Brett Blomme is the President & CEO of Cream City Foundation. He has nearly 15 years of experience in philanthropy, community organizing, law, and nonprofit management. Before joining CCF, Brett served as the Director of Major Gifts for the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW),” his profile states.

     Mike Hendrix comments:

     [W]e now have the Pervert Corollary to Sutton’s Maxim: Kiddie Diddlers will reliably be found where the kiddies are. Which would make DQSH a mighty neat little setup for these monstrous freaks, wouldn’t you say?

     Mike adds a few pictures from “Drag Queen Story Hours” past to nail the coffin lid tightly shut. Surf over there for a gander; my stomach isn’t strong enough to post them here.

***

     My thoughts on this subject revolve around the concept of tolerance, specifically: What is tolerable and what is not? Upon what criteria shall we decide?

     Those questions are at the heart of all efforts to maintain a society that is simultaneously maximally free and adequately orderly. The answers are elusive, in part because of the unprecedentedly high willingness of activists to create confrontations, coupled to the aversion to confrontations common among non-activists. Mark Steyn’s observation about “the smarter bullies” comes to mind:

     If it were just terrorists bombing buildings and public transit, it would be easier; even the feeblest Eurowimp jurisdiction is obliged to act when the street is piled with corpses. But there’s an old technique well understood by the smarter bullies. If you want to break a man, don’t attack him head on, don’t brutalize him; pain and torture can awaken a stubborn resistance in all but the weakest. But just make him slightly uncomfortable, disrupt his life at the margin, and he’ll look for the easiest path to re-normalization. There are fellows rampaging through the streets because of some cartoons? Why, surely the most painless solution would be if we all agreed not to publish such cartoons. [From America Alone]

     Steyn has outlined a pattern easily understood in application to any and every sort of deliberate public disturbance. There are fellows disrupting our church services and protesting loudly outside our courtrooms because we consider homosexuality a mental disorder? Why, surely the most painless solution would be if the diagnostic treatises were to remove such a classification. The construction of parallel formulations for other public nuisances is an exercise for my Gentle Readers.

     As it happens, I’ve been addressing the “What are the limits of tolerable tolerance?” question for some time. I wrote a substantial novel that addresses it. But a generalized solution to the question may be impossible to reach.

     Worse yet is the possibility that political pressures might compel a “generalized solution” that solves nothing, or makes matters worse. Political decisions often have that character.

     Of two things we may be sure:

  • As long as activists get what they want from forcing confrontations and political maneuvering, they’ll keep doing so.
  • With each such confrontation (and the consequent concessions to the activists), the far larger, non-activist public will grow wearier, angrier, and more inclined to intolerance, even when it’s unwise.

     As Herbert Stein memorably put it, “If something cannot continue indefinitely, it will stop.” Even if we can’t be sure exactly when.

***

     American society of today tolerates several things it should never have agreed to tolerate. Permitting the sexually disordered to have access to vulnerable children is one such mistake. Tolerance of insane levels of counterfactual self-classification – e.g., the bearded hulk in a dress who claims to “identify as a woman” – is another. While these things certainly don’t account for all abuse of the vulnerable young, they contribute a share that is easily eliminated.

     This is not to say that homosexuals and those who prefer to present as the opposite sex don’t have rights. They most certainly do. But no more than you or I do they have a right to impose themselves on others willy-nilly. Unfortunately, as the Brett Blomme case illustrates, they’ve succeeded in using politics to win privileges that invade the rights of others, including parents’ right to insulate their children from pernicious influences.

     We the Normal have lessons to learn about the abuse of the concept of tolerance. Unfortunately, we’re learning them in the harshest imaginable way. Too many children have paid or are paying a price they cannot afford.

2 comments

    • doubletrouble on March 19, 2021 at 1:08 PM

    I don’t even understand how we get ourselves in this deep…

    “Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.’’- G.K.Chesterson

    • robert on March 19, 2021 at 9:30 PM

    Chesterson was indeed a man after G-ds own heart . Matt Trewhella is not far behind with the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate . 

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