Writing in Jewish World Review, Frederic Fransen reminds Americans of a key lesson from Revolutionary War-era pamphleteer Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. “The colonies need to declare independence,” Fransen summarizes Paine, “because so long as their goal was seen as reconciliation, foreign governments would consider the Americans as rebels and the conflict an internal affair.” But a unilateral declaration of independence, Fransen notes, instantly converts mere complaints from an aggrieved group into a negotiation between sovereign states.

Radical Transgenderism Takes Another Hit
The 11,000-member American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) – which includes hundreds of Canadian members – “has come out unequivocally against ‘gender-affirming’ surgeries in adolescents under age 19,” writes Leor Sapir in City Journal. The ASPS has also joined a growing number of international organizations in warning about the potential physical and psychological damage to children and teens of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
[Editor’s note: Two days after the ASPS’s announcement, the American Medical Association announces it now agrees that gender-altering “surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”]


