The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The #FreeStacy Story: Why Was My @rsmccain Account Suspended?

Posted on | February 20, 2016 | 427 Comments

Unexpectedly, and without explanation, my @rsmccain Twitter account was suspended Friday evening. Based on past experiences, my guess would be that this resulted from a complaint by one of the leading “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who have been at war with #GamerGate since August 2014. However, there was no reason stated for the suspension, and who knows? So I’ve switched to the @SexTroubleBook account I created to promote my book and meanwhile, friends who are fed up with Twitter’s bias and censorship started the #FreeStacy hashtag. This morning I shared some thoughts with a blogger friend who followed the #GamerGate saga:

As I have said for years: Being notorious is not the same as being famous, but it’s better than being anonymous.
That is to say, I don’t often complain about being hated or misunderstood. It comes with the territory. I started out in the news business as a $4.50-an-hour staff writer for a tiny weekly newspaper in Austell, Georgia. Most people have no idea what I did before I got involved in political journalism as an assistant national editor for The Washington Times in 1997, or even have any idea of the work I did there. The vast majority of people who read my blog or follow my Twitter feed have no knowledge of or interest in my personal “backstory.” It’s not about me. I am not the story. I am the guy telling the story, or I am the guy making jokes about the story. I understand that. But I think some people in the New Media era lose sight of this reality.
Politics is like football. It’s a team sport. Until I was in my mid-30s, I was a very partisan Democrat. Bill Clinton (who I voted for in 1992) cured me of my Democrat loyalty. During the 1990s, I began a rather deep autodidactic study of politics, history, economics, philosophy, etc. My politics are conservative, my economics are Austrian, my faith is Christian. It’s that simple — and certain people HATE me for it. But those people hate everybody who is not a Democrat. Fine. I understand that kind of hate, having once been a Democrat myself, but Democrats think of their personal hatred as “social justice.” And so I understand them better than they understand me.
However, it’s not about me. . . .

You can read the whole thing at The Ralph Retort.

This has been a crazy experience, but then again, my whole life has been a crazy experience, so I’m cool with it.

UPDATE: Linked by Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom, Legal Insurrection, Da Tech Guy Blog, Battleswarm, featured at Twitchy, Vox Day, now a Memeorandum thread and welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: Robby Soave quotes me accurately at Reason magazine, and they’ll probably never forgive him for it.

UPDATE III: Here’s a podcast I did today:

UPDATE IV: Linked by Donald Douglas at American Power and by Dean Esmay at Dean’s World. Arguably the most interesting post, however, is Ken White at Popehat explaining why he really, really dislikes me and yet . . .

Well, he hates me with every fiber of his being, which is OK. It is a free country, and nobody is required to like me, or even to pretend to like me. However, if Hillary is elected president and our nation descends into anarchy and civil war, and from this chaos emerges a military junta in need of a Supreme Leader as figurehead of New America, I’m available for the gig.

Under such a regime, Generalissimo McCain will not only be obeyed, but also respected and, in fact, it will be the duty of his people to admire and praise the Generalissimo.

Is such an outcome . . . likely? Probably not, but you can’t say it is impossible. You are my people, America, and should circumstances require me to rescue our beloved nation — a swift coup d’état, at a time of crisis — then you understand it will be my duty to answer the call. The Enemies of the People will tremble! And the enemies of the Generalissimo are also the Enemies of the People, obviously.

Blog wars? The Generalissimo will be merciful. It would ill behoove the junta to be settling personal grudges and besides, our manpower will be strained to its limits, rounding up Women’s Studies majors and feminist Tumblr bloggers, giving them a few days’ training, loading them onto C-130s and dropping them by parachute into places like Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, etc., as part of our effort to bring about world peace.

 




 

Category: Fear. Loathing., Media Bias

Verging On Fantasy

Posted on | February 20, 2016 | 3 Comments

— by Wombat-socho


So last week I promised you a review of Larry Correia’s Son of the Black Sword, the first in a series of epic fantasy novels from the International Lord of Hate. Short version: this novel delivers. Set in a society looking a lot like pre-Raj India, complete with various societal castes and perennial infighting among the powerful families, this is the tale of a master swordsman, a member of the Protectors, who has an extra edge over demons and humans thanks to his ancestor sword, a weapon forged from magical black metal that contains the memories of all its wielders back to its forging. Ashok needs it, because the demons that live in the sea and prey on seaside humans are damned tough to kill, and when the Protectors are sent in to break up a house war, numbers are never in their favor. Ashok’s entire life is upended by his teacher’s deathbed revelation, a revelation that sends him home to find the truth about his origins. This shows every sign of becoming a rich, complex series, possibly even surpassing his Monster Hunters International universe, though at times it reads more like SF than fantasy. Highly recommended, and I’m just sorry it took me so long to get around to it.

Roger Zelazny is best known for his Amber novels and for his Hugo-winning Lord of Light, and I suspect the latter’s quasi-sequel, Creatures of Light and Darkness, suffers from the comparison in a number of ways. Whereas Lord of Light was a tightly-written tale of transhuman “gods” and “goddesses” contending for power in a world settled by colonists from India, Creatures of Light and Darkness relied a lot more on allegory and poetry to drive its plot, and the both the background and the characters suffer from that reliance. Some of the characters are given different names to start the book, because to name them by their true names would wreck the plot before it even got rolling, and while the presence of Anubis and Osiris is understandable, we know little or nothing about how they came to be the powerful figures they are in the universe Zelazny describes, since there’s very little backstory, and much of what there is lacks relevance to the main plot. It’s not a bad read, but one can understand how people who came to know Zelazny through Lord of Light were disappointed. Worth picking up for cheap.

One of the joys of unpacking all my old books is occasionally finding one I haven’t read in decades, and finding out it’s every bit as good as I remember. Such is the case with Henry Garnett’s Blood Red Crescent, a young adult novel about teenage Venetian Guido Callatta, who winds up with a ringside seat to the Battle of Lepanto in this excellent historical novel. I have the original 1960 edition and was very pleased to see that it’s been reprinted and brought out in a Kindle edition. While written for kids the same age as its 15-year-old hero (or slightly younger), the book still gives an honest portrayal of a divided Christendom facing the Islamic threat in the Mediterranean. Several historical figures make appearances, and at times I felt as if I was having flashbacks to G.K. Chesterton’s “Lepanto”. Definitely recommended.

Also recommended: Castalia House’s reissue of There Will Be War Volume III, which among other great stories includes the classic “The Spectre General” by Ted Cogswell, “The Miracle Workers”, by Jack Vance, “Hide And Seek” by Arthur C. Clarke, and “Silent Leges” by Jerry Pournelle, which many of us will recognize as Mark Fuller’s story from Prince of Mercenaries.


Category: Books

Guys: Never Talk to a College Girl

Posted on | February 19, 2016 | 78 Comments

The more I read about the current climate on America’s college and university campuses, the more convinced I am that no man smart enough to go to college would ever be stupid enough to date a college girl.

Feminists have ginned up a frightening hysteria of anti-male fear among female students. Any boy who kisses a girl on campus could be expelled for sexual assault, and even speaking to a college girl might result in accusations of harassment. Feminist “rape culture” rhetoric has incited such a virulent hatred of males among college girls that they go berserk at the idea of a man being invited to speak on campus, even if the man is homosexual. A frenzy of uncontrollable madness was unleashed when Milo Yiannopoulos spoke last week at Rutgers University:

Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos made an appearance at Rutgers University, and his ideas and rhetoric so traumatized the delicate flowers who heard him that many of them attended a “group therapy” session afterward.
You are not going to believe what happened next:

According to the [Rutgers student newspaper The Daily Targum], students and faculty members held a wound-licking gathering at a cultural center on campus, where students described “feeling scared, hurt, and discriminated against.”
“A variety of different organizations and departments were present to listen, answer questions and show support” to the apparently weak and vulnerable students, who just a few days prior had disrupted Yiannopoulos’ event by smearing fake blood on their faces and chanting protest slogans.
One student at the event told the Targum that they “broke down crying” after the event, while another reported that he felt “scared to walk around campus the next day.” According to the report, “many others” said they felt “unsafe” at the event and on campus afterwards.
“It is upsetting that my mental health is not cared about by the University,” said one student at the event. “I do not know what else to do for us to be heard for us to be cared about. I deserve an apology, everyone in this room deserves an apology.”
A number of organizations were at the event to offer support to the poor, traumatised students. These included Psychiatric Services, the Office for Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance, and the Rutgers University Police.

Dear God, the education system is turning kids into spineless cowards. My paratrooper son spends his days jumping out of C-130s and marching for miles with 70 pounds of gear on his back, but Rutgers students “broke down crying” and were “scared to walk around campus” because Milo gave a speech? Are there any sane students at Rutgers? Are there no responsible adults in the administration or faculty? Like every other university in America, Rutgers has been descending into decadent chaos for years, as evidenced by this story from September 2014:

Jessica Valenti hopes to redefine
what rape really means
A Rutgers graduate with a master’s degree in women’s and gender studies, Jessica Valenti . . . addressed an almost-full Trayes Hall in the Douglass Campus Center yesterday during her presentation, called “Yes Means Yes: Battling Rape Culture and Moving Towards a Positive Sexuality.” . . .
“I am a feminist this month because a student and activist Emma Sulkowicz carries around a mattress to all of her classes in protest until her rapist is kicked out of her school,” Valenti said.
Valenti hopes to redefine rape, saying that the word has been so distorted that it makes it difficult for sexual assault survivors to admit and report rape. She added that society tends not to believe victims.
The new definition of rape, she said, must include the acknowledgement of inequalities and discriminations in society . . .

What does this mean? It means never talk to a college girl.

“The new definition of rape” means that everything is rape, if a feminist says it is rape, and guess what? Any guy who talks to a college girl is a rapist, because “inequalities and discriminations in society” or something. Whatever. Feminists like Jessica Valenti clearly won’t be happy until males are forbidden to attend college. Heterosexuality will be prohibited on campus and guys will be subject to arrest if they go anywhere within 500 feet of a college girl. And this would probably be a good idea, because college girls are so crazy now that no parent would want their son to associate with one of them.




 

Category: Education, Sex Trouble

In The Mailbox: 02.19.16

Posted on | February 19, 2016 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Book post to follow after work; my trackball ain’t tracking so well any more, and it’s making posting difficult, to say nothing of annoying.


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Pope Francis, Tear Down This Wall!
Da Tech Guy: Pope Francis In Context
The Camp of the Saints: No Longer To The Manner Born
The Political Hat: About That Democratic Socialism…
Michelle Malkin: Border Surge Solution – Send ‘Em To Camp David!
The Shark Tank: South Carolina – Jeb Bush’s Last Stand?
Twitchy: Louisiana Police Captain’s Warning To Gang Members Goes Viral


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Thinker: How Justice Scalia And Ted Cruz Saved The Second Amendment
Conservatives4Palin: Coulter, Others Ramp Up The “She’s Not One Of Us” Attacks on Nikki Haley
Don Surber: Dumped Cruz Ad Actress Explains Why Hillary’s In Trouble
Jammie Wearing Fools: Fearless Strongman Trump Walks Back Attacks On Pope
Joe For America: Chilling Video Shows #blacklivesmatter Attack On Hero Marine
Pamela Geller: Leaked German Government Report Shows “Refugees” Committed Over 200K Crimes Between 2014-2015
Protein Wisdom: Friday Fiction- 100 Word Challenge
Shot In The Dark: While You’re All Outraged About The Apple Flap
STUMP: Math Ain’t Magic – Playing With Numbers Doesn’t Make Pensions Cheaper
The Gateway Pundit: Miami Police Call For Beyonce Boycott After Racist, Cop-Hating Super Bowl Show
The Jawa Report: Sandcrawler PSA – The Force Can Have A Strong Influence On The Weak-Minded
The Lonely Conservative: Watch As Senator Ben Sasse Reads Angry Tweets From Trump Supporters
This Ain’t Hell: Pentagon To Track Down “Ghost Soldiers” In Afghanistan
Weasel Zippers: Obama Refuses To Bomb New ISIS Capital In Libya
Mark Steyn: No Market For The Marketplace Of Ideas


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Category: Linkagery

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | February 19, 2016 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

What’s more relaxing than a grandmother in the Keys of a perfect day, walking in the shallows as the tide flows in?
It’ss the first day after the cleanup was mostly complete from the next hurricane after Katrina. The family has trundled down to the beach to find it mostly the same, despite some strange small bits of debris that looked like bones, and seaweed that seemed. . .old, dark. Sinister?
The day is beautiful; the tube inflated; the hat in place. She enjoys sand between her toes. Until the foot slips on the slimy lip of a stone opening. . .

via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

In The Mailbox: 02.18.16

Posted on | February 18, 2016 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: What If Hillary Loses Nevada?
Da Tech Guy: Louisiana In Crisis
The Camp of the Saints: Queen Hillary Clinton – The Once And Future Tyrant
Proof Positive: Live By The Poll, Die By The Poll
Michelle Malkin: Message From A Fed-Up Grassroots Voter To The RNC/GOP
Twitchy: “Sure He Does. Now.” Obama Regrets Alito Filibuster
Shark Tank: Obama Passes On Scalia Funeral, Looks Forward To Visiting Communist Cuba

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: The Rebel Journalists Banned From Covering Alberta Legislature Events By NDP Premier
American Thinker: All Aboard Starship Bernie
Conservatives4Palin: Camille Paglia – Sexism Has Nothing To Do With Womens’ Embrace of Bernie Sanders
Don Surber: Hillary Is The Ronda Rousey Of Politics
Jammie Wearing Fools: “Special” Ed Schultz Closes Super PAC After Collecting A Whole $25
Joe For America: Stephen King, The Shining Bigot
JustOneMinute: NYT Has No Moderation In Pursuit Of Republicans
Pamela Geller: Polish Magazine Nails It With Cover Showing European Woman Being Molested By Migrants
Protein Wisdom: The Hypocrite In Chief
Shot In The Dark: Back To The Future
STUMP: Puerto Rico – What’s Going On?
The Gateway Pundit: Popular Russian TV Show Trashes Corrupt Michelle Obama
The Jawa Report: New SPLC Report Names Trump Greatest Terrorist In America, Muslims Mentioned As Victims
The Lonely Conservative: What About “Rape Culture” In High Schools?
This Ain’t Hell: Southern Maryland Veterans Association Shut Down By State
Weasel Zippers: DC Police Want Help Identifying #blacklivesmatter Thugs Who Beat And Left Hero Marine For Dead
Megan McArdle: Fear iPhone Hackers Or The FBI? Two Views, One Chat
Mark Steyn: Truth In Captioning


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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 02.16.16

Posted on | February 17, 2016 | 6 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Exploding Heads
Da Tech Guy: St. Antonin of Washington, Intercede For Us
The Political Hat: Doctors Required To Ignore Biological Reality
Michelle Malkin: Will GOP Candidates Take The Stop Fed Ed Pledge?
Twitchy: Cruz Campaign Denies Posting Fake Trey Gowdy Facebook Page, Endorsement


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Economists See Huge Costs In Sanders Agenda
American Thinker: The United States At The Point Of No Return
Conservatives4Palin: Let’s Face It – Trump’s A Democrat Running For The GOP Nomination
Don Surber: Term Limit Justices
Jammie Wearing Fools: Eagles Of Death Metal Front Man Slams Gun Control For Paris Massacre
Joe For America: American Coeds Forced To Wear Hijabs?
JustOneMinute: Heck of A Presser
Pamela Geller: Obama’s ISIS Coverup – Reports Showing War Against Islamic State Wasn’t Working Were Deleted
Protein Wisdom: Shorter Left – We’re Giddy Scalia Is Dead And You’d Better Shut Up About Our Glee
Shot In The Dark: Enjoying The Tailspin
STUMP: In Memoriam – Some Opera For Scalia
The Gateway Pundit: UK Cops Arrest Man For “Offensive” Facebook Comments On Syrian Refugees
The Jawa Report: Daesh Commander Begins Demonstrating Beheading Techniques, Hilarity Ensues
The Lonely Conservative: Rush Limbaugh Says Trump “Sounded Like Daily Kos” At Last Debate
This Ain’t Hell: Marine From Iconic Fallujah Photo Mugged In DC
Weasel Zippers: Schumer Claims He Didn’t Call For Blocking Of Bush Nominees Despite Evidence He Did
Megan McArdle: Replacing A Justice Shouldn’t Be So Excruciating
Mark Steyn: Feeling Too Much Bern


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Category: Linkagery

‘Jeopardy’ Is Rape Culture?

Posted on | February 16, 2016 | 60 Comments

During the #GamerGate controversy, feminists used the accusation of online “harassment” as proof that the videogame industry was a bastion of misogyny. Yet what, if anything, did this prove?

Go back and study the case of the perverted Reddit troll Violentacrez. The illusion of anonymity in the online world tends to enable antisocial behavior. There are now three billion people with Internet access, and even if only a single-digit percentage of those people are creeps and freaks, that still translates to many millions of abusive weirdos online. You cannot use Violentacrez to claim everybody on Reddit is a pervert, nor can you use examples of “harassment” to claim that every videogamer is a misogynist. If any categorical group of people (e.g., public school teachers) is large enough, it is easy to find examples of bad behavior (e.g., molestation of students) within the group, without implicating the entire group in this bad behavior.

Well, what about the audience of the TV quiz show Jeopardy? It’s one of the five most popular shows in syndication, and guess what? Some of its viewers are creeps and freaks. Former contestant Talia Lavin explains:

When Tiombi Prince competed on Jeopardy! in December 2015, she was fulfilling a childhood dream.
But after the show aired, she was inundated with sexual comments. Men sent messages congratulating her on her two-day win—and told her how much they liked her lips. White men, she said, told her how much they liked black women. One man was so persistent—sending her his email address, his “stats”—that it reminded her of an experience she’d had of being stalked after a single, disastrous blind date.
Elizabeth Williams, who received her own share of Internet fame after referencing Cheers in her Final Jeopardy answer, told me her personal Facebook page had been posted in the comments section of a blog post about her entitled “This Chick On Jeopardy Is Batshit Crazy And It’s A Huge Turn On.” She was bombarded with hundreds of friend requests from men.
“I’ve never been the least bit prudish, but I definitely felt creeped out by all of their comments,” Lynsey McMullen, who appeared on the quiz show in December, told me. (On Twitter, users told Lynsey she was “giving the buzzer a handjob” and that she looked “like someone you’d see in a MILF porn.”) “There was also a part of me that made me feel like I had brought this attention upon myself,” she said.
Appearing on America’s favorite quiz show—the show so staid and reliable that John Oliver quipped at last year’s Emmys that it might just be the most permanent fixture on earth—can make female contestants feel that they are running a sexualized gauntlet of unwelcome tweets, emails, and Facebook messages replete with explicit sexual material. I know, because I was one of them.
When I taped the show in August, I knew I’d bombed and tried to salvage it with a joke. I wasn’t prepared for that joke . . . to go viral when the show aired in September. Twitter chatter during the game led to an article on Uproxx, then more and more elsewhere, and a YouTube video whose views ballooned into the millions in the following days. The experience of going viral is brief but intense. It had the peculiar urgency of a dream—especially when I started reading the comments.
Scrolling through the thousand or so comments on the (since-deleted) YouTube video, I felt my skin start to crawl. My joke on a quiz show had somehow devolved into a group discussion of my breasts. . . .

You can read the whole thing. My point is that, while most viewers of Jeopardy are not creeps and freaks, any popular TV show will have a large enough audience that there will be some creeps and freaks among them. Provided access to an online forum where they can “talk back” to the women on the show, the creeps and freaks will say creepy, freaky stuff. However, this proves nothing in particular about the Jeopardy audience, nor does it prove anything about men in general.

Consider the phenomenon of “catcalling.” Some men engage in this boorish behavior, but most men don’t. Why, then, do feminists try to use catcalling to indict all men as complicit in “misogyny,” “objectification,” etc.? It should be obvious that the kind of guys who catcall women are not reading feminist blogs. Most catcallers seem to be barely literate, and many of them apparently don’t even speak English, so what purpose is served by the endless complaints from feminist bloggers about catcalling? Is it just about claiming victimhood?

Go to The Political Hat and read the quote from a feminist Tumblr blogger who claims that “the gaze of patriarchy” is a “constant source of stress” that inflicts brain damage on women.

 

Category: Sex Trouble
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