The lead story on Good Morning America on Tuesday June 2 was the Vanity Fair cover and other photos of former male Olympic champion Bruce Jenner, who has undergone gender reassignment surgery and become a woman named Caitlyn.
Here’s the deal: I don’t care. I don’t know what Ms. Jenner went through all those years of feeling like a woman trapped in a man’s body. I don’t know what mental gymnastics she went through to decide to have her body modified in order to conform to the gender she believes she is. From her glamour shots, she appears to be a not unattractive middle-aged woman and looks happy. I am glad that she had the opportunity to avail herself of modern medical technology to become who she needed to be.
What I do find interesting is that this is the lead story on a national TV news program. The media adulation of Caitlyn for coming out as a woman and taking charge of her life is distracting at best and misleading at worst. It’s also interesting that the Left-leaning mainstream media has decided that her coming out is sufficiently supportive of LGBT issues to outweigh her self-identification as a Republican.
Celebrity Distractions
I’ve never been one to closely follow celebrities’ lives. I don’t know who Kim Kardashian is. I know who Josh Duggar is, but not until I looked him up the other day. Riker Lynch? First time I heard of him was on Dancing With The Stars. Celebrities are people too, with their own problems and demons. They just have more money to indulge their whims and pleasures, and some feel like they need to tell the rest of us how to live. Being an actor or rock star doesn’t give anyone any greater intelligence or expertise on world issues, and people who adopt certain causes and viewpoints just because a celebrity does are abdicating their brains and responsibilities as human beings.
Our society’s obsession with celebrities is incomprehensible, childish and distracting. For example, in the 39 days since Caitlyn Jenner came out as a woman our national debt has grown by $40,000,000,000. While America has a national debate about one Olympian’s personal struggle with gender identity, the myriad ethical lapses, scandals, quasi-criminal activities and hypocrisy of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton are being largely ignored.
While America fawns over Caitlyn Jenner, Miley Cyrus, Ben Affleck and others, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has made more territorial gains and now controls over half of Syria’s land area and parts of Iraq including the key city of Ramadi. This group of 7th century fanatics routinely engages in savagery worthy of a Game of Thrones episode. Between raping young girls, oppressing women, executing gays by throwing them off buildings, murdering opponents in cruel and inventive ways and other atrocities, this group of Islamic fundamentalists is busy establishing their caliphate in a key region of the world, greatly threatening US national security. If they ever get a nuclear weapon, it will be a game-changer of astounding proportions.
While America is obsessed with which beautiful young woman was selected to be this season’s Bachelorette and debating the relative merits of Kaitlyn and Britt, a group of bikers and other Americans gathered in Phoenix to protest the terrorism that is fomented under the umbrella of the “religion of peace”. This was a fascinating contest of two aspects of the First Amendment: 
freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and a celebration of the right to keep and bear arms as affirmed in the Second Amendment. This event was marked by being entirely peaceful, with no rioting, no police being attacked, no arrests and nobody getting hurt.
In a nation where the “scandal” over whether a team’s ball-boys deflated footballs so the multimillion-dollar quarterback could get a little better grip is a story demanding a lot of attention, there are cities literally burning because racial tensions have increased – not decreased – during the Obama presidency and the meddling of professional race-baiters including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
While we as a country are glorifying young criminals who got themselves killed for attacking police officers or resisting arrest, other police officers are being targeted and murdered, with minimal coverage in the national mainstream media about these tragedies. I as a libertarian am wary of the police and believe that they should be closely supervised by those they serve, but they are the line between anarchy and lawfulness; peace and chaos. They are mostly good men and women, and their lives are just as valuable as anyone else’s, and more so than the criminals who prey on the weak in our society.
Get a Clue, America
Hillary Clinton once accused a “vast right-wing conspiracy” of attacking her husband over his many scandals and personal improprieties while in office. She probably has first-hand experience with “vast conspiracies” as her foundation has been exposed as accepting bribes from foreign governments while she was Secretary of State. As a committed Leftist pretending to be moderate, she knows well the goals and objectives of the UN Agenda 21.
The EPA is exercising ever-increasing control over our national economy and natural resources in clear violation of the Constitution and the intention of the Founders. Uneconomical green technologies are being pushed in the name of climate change, with climate change belief evangelists Al Gore, Tom Steyer and others poised to make tens or hundreds of millions off of their investments in renewable energy.
The debate over climate change is framed as “the 97% consensus of scientists” against the “climate change deniers”. Never mind the fact that there is strong evidence that climate data is massaged and manipulated to produce results that support the climate change agenda. Who cares that the computer models used to predict vastly warming temperatures are not accurate and results aren’t matching real-world data? 
There’s a national debate going on right now over whether or not the spying provisions of the Patriot Act are constitutional and should be renewed. This is a hugely important issue, because it goes to heart of who we are as a people: our right to privacy and our rights under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The debate over the Patriot Act is far more important than Melissa McCarthy’s dress size.
Existential Issues
America is facing some existential issues in this day and age, and the next election in 2016 is going to be vastly important – more so than most. We should be focusing on analyzing, debating, searching for answers and determining the best course for the future – will it be toward more “life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” for Americans of all races, creeds, sexual orientations, genders, marriage arrangements, income, wealth, and aspirations or toward more progressive ascendancy and growth (and failures) of government at all levels?
Caitlyn Jenner also helps to highlight out a key point regarding the Republican Party: that is must move past its obsession with social issues including abortion rights, LGBT issues, same-sex marriage and others that alienate moderate voters and empower the Left. America can’t afford these foolish distractions anymore.
By Richard D. Turnquist
June 3, 2015
