By Mark W. Fowler

Theodore Dalrymple, a retired psychiatrist and columnist for City Journal, observed: “I have the not altogether unsatisfying impression that civilization is collapsing around me.” He spoke of the decline in civility and decorum occurring in England. The same phenomenon is happening here. The decline of civilization is associated with or caused by many factors. I propose to discuss three today: Policy driven by ideology rather than reality; indifference to individual potential; and fiscal irresponsibility. In many ways they are related.

Within the span of my medical career, there has arisen a new psychiatric illness named gender dysphoria, replacing other forms of dysphoria such as body dysmorphic disorder, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia. Twenty-five years ago, this disorder was rare; now it has exploded. It is unlikely that it was overlooked because of bias against it. Rather, its increasing prevalence is likely due to social contagion. In a skit on this very topic in “The Life of Brian,” a Monty Python movie, one of the characters proclaims that he wishes to be a woman so as to have babies. His distress is dismissed as a struggle against reality. No producer would dream of including such language in a movie now for fear of violent protests, commercial disaster, and social ostracization, but the comment is spot on.

Transgenderism has achieved cult-like status. If a person criticizes it, he/she is decried as a hater or a transphobe or anti-science. Yet science suggests that surgery and hormone blockers have no effect on the suicidality rates of these troubled souls, but they do have considerable side effects. Tavistock, the gender clinic in Britain, has stopped treating transgenderism in minors altogether, as have other European countries. As minors grow out of this, they often abandon the belief they are in the wrong body. This has not stopped American advocates from insisting that “transwomen” (biological men) are real women and should be given free tampons or allowed to compete in women’s sports or be permitted in women’s restrooms and private spaces.

All of this to avoid hurting the feelings of trans individuals. It is no surprise, then, that men, including sex offenders, have used this pretext to spy on women and little girls in dressing rooms, claiming that the antidiscrimination laws supersede sex offender restrictions on being around minors. What of the feelings of the more numerous females who do not wish to be observed by males or see males exposed? For thousands of years, society has recognized the obligation of privacy owed to women. Now we have to discard it. Is this not a triumph of ideology over reason?

Before the Supreme Court is a case involving the rights of parents of children in Montgomery County, Maryland, to allow their children to opt out of classes where books describing same-sex relationships and other sexual activity are presented to elementary school children. The school board formerly allowed parents to opt out but decided that this was too much of an administrative burden. (Suggesting the obvious, parents did not want to have their children exposed to this.) Now the appropriate solution is to simply eliminate this from the curriculum. But the ideologically driven school board declined the rational and reasonable solution in favor of ending the opt out, compelling students to attend.

Now, it should be noted that the math proficiency rate for students grades 3 through 8 is 31% in Montgomery County. Statewide in Maryland, it’s 22%. This is not just a minor problem; it’s a catastrophe impacting the pool of future scientists and engineers. And yet it’s somehow a priority for young children to be taught about gay behavior, not to mention the thousands of dollars that are being wasted litigating this at the United States Supreme Court.

The federal debt is north of $36 trillion. The interest on that debt is more than we spend on national defense. Deficit interest service precludes spending on other worthy goals, and the debt held by China gives it power to manipulate the Treasury interest rate and the marketability of bonds. You would think that in a congressional body of 535 people, some group of them could develop a plan to address this.

It is worth noting that the Revolutionary War started because England did not have money from financing foreign wars and imposed the hated stamp tax on colonials to pay for it.

Finally, the deficit is not a function of inadequate revenues. Federal revenues have increased every year from 2000 ($2 trillion) to 2024 ($5.08 trillion). It is a function of runaway spending. Here is a partial list of “essential” spending from Senator James Lankford’s federal fumbles: $20,000 for drag shows in Ecuador; $4 million for a Napa Valley vine trail; $660,000 to study the effect of COVID on Russian women; and $7.5 billion to build half a million electric vehicle charging stations. So far seven have been built.

Mark W. Fowler is a board-certified physician and former attorney. He can be reached at [email protected].