Whenever controversy breaks out over some new Progressive lunacy, a daily occurrence of late, the normal community struggles to explain what is happening, without writing it off to insanity. Usually, the old tropes are deployed as a way of labeling it as nuts so everyone can move on. “Marxism!” “They just want power!” “It’s the radical Progressive agenda!” “The Chicago way!”

Frankly, I think the next person who mentions Saul Alinsky should be pushed up against the wall and shot. But, that’s why I refrain from watching Fox News or listening to talk radio. I know those people are, for the most part, on my side of the fight, but I just can’t take the repetition of catch phrases that has become what passes for Conservatism these days.

That aside, the more thoughtful outside the fever swamps struggle to come to grips with what’s going on. After all, the people hooting and bellowing about the use of pronouns with regards to Bruce Jenner seem like sensible people. They went to college. They have respectable jobs in the media. They function in their day-to-day lives without a custodian. How can they not see the madness of our age?

Take for example this story about Ranger School. The short version is, in the name of fairness, girls were allowed to enter Ranger School and all twenty washed out the first time. Eight were invited back and they washed out again. Three were invited to give it a third shot. Strongly hinted, but not explicitly said, is the plan to maybe lower the standards so the girls can pass and become Rangers.

The Rangers are the best of the best, and being a Ranger means passing a physical test that pushes body and mind to the breaking point. If women can’t do it, the argument goes, then they shouldn’t be Rangers.

But there is another opinion quietly being voiced as well: that Ranger School is more akin to a rite of passage – an opportunity for men to “thump their chest,” as one Ranger puts it – than a realistic preparation for leading in war. That women can actually make Ranger units more effective. And that the standards that keep them out are outdated.

This, of course, is an attempt to move the goal posts. Ranger school was designed to cull the weak from the strong, both physically and mentally, so the remainder is an elite corp of fighters. This is not unique to the US military or to modern militarizes. Germanic tribes utilized a form of special forces against the Roman Legions. The Spartans organized their society around segregating their elite warriors into special units.

The question, therefore, is why in the world would the military want to risk degrading these units in an effort to include women. You’ll note that it is just assumed that inclusion of women would make the units more effective. Nowhere will you find anyone providing a reason why that is so. It is just a given like the laws of thermodynamics or gravity.

The question remains. Why?

Normal people would look at this and conclude the obvious. That is, point of the spear soldiering is the most physically and mentally demanding thing a human can do. Men are larger, stronger and possess greater cardiovascular capacity so men will dominate women in the physical aspects. Men are also more aggressive and violent, characteristics that come in handy when trying to kill people.

The members of the New Religion, however, believe biology is an illusion and that sexes are an artifact from a bygone era. There are no “men” or “women” in a strict sense. People are “assigned” a sex at birth and that colors their development into what we think of as men and women. That’s why the “women” are failing Ranger School.

Further, perfect equality is the optimal result of humanity, the true nature of man. Therefore unequal results must mean we’re doing something wrong. Our society is arranged in an immoral or unjust way causing these variations in results. That’s key to understanding the worldview of these people. They have a mystical vision of the perfect human society, which drives them to keep rearranging things in order to achieve it.

That’s why Ranger School will eventually be turned into diversity seminar. It’s effectiveness as a fighting unit is of no concern to the New Religion. What is of ultimate concern, the all consuming concern, is that the unit is perfectly equal and there is no difference between the members, regardless of what “sex” they were assigned at birth. If it is impossible to achieve such a thing, then it must be destroyed. An offense to the great spirit cannot be tolerated.

That’s the other part of the New Religion. Their destruction of social institutions without the slightest idea of how to replace them is not nihilism. Much like fanatical Muslims, fanatical Progressives see the elimination of that which offends their beliefs as part of the march to perfection. The Mohammedan thinks that end is to dwell with Allah for eternity. Progressives see the end as the eschaton, which can only come about when the imperfections are removed.