He’s billed as a climate-change expert. But the climate the professor apparently created in his own apartment left much to be desired: He allegedly attacked his fiancée, leaving her fearing for her life.
As the Star Tribune reports, Aaron Doering (shown), “a tenured professor, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with two felony counts of domestic assault by strangulation. He remains jailed in lieu of $40,000 bail.”
“Doering — who also serves as a fellow for the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and regularly appears on media outlets to discuss climate change, sustainability and related topics,” the New York Post adds, “had to be separated from his fiancée by responding officers when they got to the couple’s apartment in Minneapolis, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the [Tribune] newspaper.”
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Providing further detail, the Tribune also relates that the fiancée
had red marks on her forehead and bruising in the shape of fingers on one side of her neck.
The woman told authorities that during the course of an argument, Doering had grabbed her by the hair and dragged her through the apartment. He later beat and choked her until she was unable to breathe and felt as if she’d lose consciousness, court records show.
She alleged it was not the first time Doering had physically assaulted her and provided pictures documenting prior injuries. “Victim believes [Doering] will kill her if he returns to the apartment,” according to the criminal complaint.
In court, Doering’s case will be judged on its merits, as it should be. But the court of public opinion may note that his behavior is part of a clear pattern: Leftists committing abuse.
Consider Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.). That he was recently elected his state’s attorney general — its chief law-enforcement officer — is ironic given that he has been accused of physical abuse by two former girlfriends, the last of whose son corroborated his mother’s charge.
Then there’s ex-senator Al Franken, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey, and Ben Affleck — all revealed as guilty of sexual misconduct — not to mention Ira Einhorn, the charismatic left-wing activist who murdered his girlfriend in 1977.
Some will note that Ellison hasn’t been charged or convicted, Einhorn is ancient history by Twitterverse-attention-span standards, and all the above cases are anecdotal. Fair enough.
But try this on for size: Up to 90 percent of the recent sex scandals have involved leftists, as the charts here evidence. (This perhaps explains why the #MeToo movement has fizzled {that whole “desired results” thing, ya’ know?}.) Coincidence?
George Mason University professor Walter E. Williams doesn’t think so. Discussing the leftist species many years ago while guest-hosting for radio giant Rush Limbaugh, he didn’t mince words.
“Liberals are basically evil people,” he opined.
But was this just emotion talking, or rightist bias? Well, consider Peter Schweizer’s 2008 piece “Don’t listen to the liberals — Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows.” As I reported last year, the cited studies found that relative to conservatives, liberals are:
• far less likely to believe they have an obligation to care for a seriously ill spouse or parent;
• far less likely to believe you derive happiness by putting another’s happiness before your own;
• far less likely to believe getting married is important;
• far less likely to believe having children is important;
• nearly twice as likely to say parents shouldn’t sacrifice their own well-being for their children’s;
• less likely to hug their children;
• “more likely to rate ‘high income’ as an important factor in choosing a job, more likely to say ‘after good health, money is the most important thing,’ and agree with the statement ‘there are no right or wrong ways to make money,’” as Schweizer writes;
• less likely to donate money or devote time to charity, and, when they do, they more often support a political cause than help the needy; and
• are more envious. In a study involving a computer game concerning accumulation of and transfers of money, researchers found that liberals were more likely than conservatives to give up a little of their own cash if it would cause more money to be taken from someone else.
Returning to Professor Williams’ characterization, though, a theologian may point out that people aren’t “evil” — but good by nature as they were made by God and for God — but that they do evil. Fair enough again. But what explains this apparent leftist immorality?
Of course, some could take issue with generalizations here. While the Truth is black and white, people are shades of gray; “Everyone is in a different stage of ‘conversion’” (meaning, turning from oneself to God), as a man of the cloth I encountered once put it. Nonetheless, groups do have characteristic qualities.
One defining leftists — as I often mention — is moral relativism, the notion that right and wrong cannot be an absolute but only mere “perspective.” Yet upon embracing this, anything can be justified. Lie, rape, kill, steal, commit adultery? Why not? Who’s to say it’s wrong?
This explains the eternal-absolution appeal of relativism, that it provides justification for past misdeeds and also future ones. This, of course, makes future ones more likely because moral constraints are largely if not completely gone. If no hard and fast moral yardstick exists, what is there to govern our base instincts but man’s law? Then the only mistake for you is getting caught.
The more one descends into this mentality, the closer he gets to occultist Aleister Crowley’s distillation of it: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” This not only makes society more socially lawless, but explains why a certain segment of it would behave the most lawlessly of all.
Photo of Aaron Doering: Hennepin County Jail
