Politics

In between votes to legitimize the world’s worst regimes and condemn the world’s only Jewish state, the United Nations has found the time to introduce itself as a global governmental structure with the power to levy taxes on every inhabitant of Earth.   No, really.  The UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) is of the opinion that it can impose duties on the carbon emissions of ships to the tune of between $100 and $380 per metric ton. All of the revenue generated would be paid out to the UN’s “Net Zero Fund,” which would be used to “reward low-emission ships,” or pick winners and losers.

Many conservatives will have long suspected that “woke” language – the cocktail of victimhood narratives and group identity – alienates most Americans. It is simply too grating, and it is simply too divisive. And no matter what your politics, it is almost impossible to imagine a healthy society that is built on an aggressive competition over who is the most historically aggrieved.  Up until now this has been mostly an intuition. But a new study by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) finally puts evidence on the table: that this “woke” language actively provokes real anger, defensiveness and bile in respondents.

We’ve seen it again and again – Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Christina Yuna Lee, Michelle Go, Jocelyn Nungaray, Kristal Bayron-Nieves and now Iryna Zurutska – all young women brutally murdered by repeat offenders who never should have been on the street in the first place.Mental health failures. Bail reform. Parole abuse. Open borders. Progressive DAs. Every layer of this system protects offenders and creates more victims. To most Americans, that seems unthinkable.To those of us who live it, it’s another day in a system that treats criminals better than victims. That’s why the passage of Iryna’s Law in North Carolina matters.

I was fourteen when I clambered onto a boulder along Caracas’s Francisco Fajardo highway – what people called Piedra de la Libertad, the Liberty Rock – and spoke out about a government that had just ignored a referendum. “Tyranny” was more than a buzzword. To my astonishment, a woman I didn’t yet know – María Corina – helped me climb it. With her megaphone, I spoke of unifying, as a sea of flags from rival parties fluttered before me.Many dismissed her then. A woman who once called Chávez a “thief” to his face – too brash, too ideological, too direct for the choreography of Venezuelan politics. The old hands said she could never reach the people; she lacked the soothing tones, the feigned humility, the convenient ambiguity that defined our politicians.