The Other McCain

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

The ‘Mechanism of Social Control’

Posted on | April 15, 2015 | 38 Comments

“Since sex is something men do to women . . . men dominate and control women. . . .
“In other words, heterosexuality is the foundation of the social structure of male dominance, and successfully attacking it could bring down the whole house. . . .
“Is consensual sexual activity which entails male dominance and female subordination a form of social control? . . .
“The need for a unified feminist theory of sexuality is clear. If one concludes, as many feminists have, that heterosexuality is the primary and most powerful mechanism of social control, then understanding its meaning in all forms is imperative if male dominance is ever to be overcome. . . .
“Heterosexual instrumentalism practiced at the interpersonal level allows men to dominate and control women, which, in turn, provides the underpinnings of a system where women are controlled in all settings.”
— S.P. Schacht and Patricia H. Atchison, “Heterosexual Instrumentalism: Past and Future Directions,” in Heterosexuality: A Feminism and Psychology Reader, edited by Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger (1993)

The authors of that quote were both professors of sociology. Professor Steven P. Schacht taught at Southwest Missouri State University and Professor Patricia Atchison taught at Colorado State University.

Professor Schacht is a rather extraordinary example of male self-hatred, which he has further expressed in a remarkable essay, “Teaching About Being An Oppressor: Some Personal and Political Considerations.” Click through and read it. No Onion satire could possibly exceed Professor Schacht’s absurdity. It might be helpful to know that he received his Ph.D. for a dissertation entitled “Obscene Telephone Calls as Instruments of Male Dominance.” Just in case you are not yet convinced that Professor Schacht is a textbook case of pathetic self-loathing, however, please read his essay “Why Men Should be Feminists”:

Perhaps like many men who claim a feminist identity, the path I traveled to grasp such an outlook has been meandering, often painful, and not well marked. The seeds of this very divergent course of personal being were initially planted by a woman who was, among many other beautiful things, an artist, a poet, a radical feminist, and my mother. She spent untold hours trying to share with me the anguish and the hope of her feminist vision.
In my pre-adolescent years I accompanied my mother on numerous pre-Roe v. Wade protest rallies — the chant “women unite, stand up and fight, abortion is a women’s right” still clearly rings in my ears — often helping her paint banners and signs to carry as we marched. She took me with her to anti-Vietnam protests at the University of Minnesota campus (1968-70), several rallies for George McGovern . . .
As one would expect, almost all of my mother’s friends were strong feminist women themselves. My mother’s feminist values in raising me were very much reflected and consistent with other important women in my childhood.

Did I mention that his father was a former Air Force pilot? How do you think that marriage turned out?

[M]y parents separated for several years during my mid-teen years, each taking turns living in the family home with the other maintaining an apartment. Since my father was a pilot and away for many days of the month, in a sense, their separation had probably already occurred years before their formal breakup. Both dated, my mother even publicly became a lesbian, openly stating and showing her affection for her female partners, while my father pursued flight attendants and other younger women. My parents eventually did reunite, but this was because of my mother becoming critically ill, and their personal differences remained quite apparent.

Professor Schacht’s mother died when he was 19. Honestly,  it seems easier to interpret his story not as proving “Why Men Should Be Feminists” but rather “Why Women Should Not Be Feminists.”

That is to say, if you are a woman whose hobbies include anti-war rallies, pro-abortion protests and campaigning for liberal Democrats, and all your friends are “strong feminist women” . . .

Well, there is a Greek island near the coast of Asia Minor. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. If the first phrase that comes to a woman’s mind when she thinks of heterosexuality is “mechanism of social control,” she might just want to take the shortcut to her ultimate destination — over there on the other side of the Mytilini Strait — rather than ruining some unfortunate guy’s life by pretending to enjoy heterosexuality.

As for “feminist men,” obviously there is no hope at all for them. Professor Schacht recounts his academic career:

I would only spend two years teaching at SMSU. Like many positions to follow, in spite of having high teaching evaluations and a quite active publication record, I was basically fired for being too radical, too feminist, too queer, and an obvious gender traitor of sorts. Consistent with my SMSU experience, since leaving graduate school in 1990 I have held six different positions, spent a year unemployed, been divorced twice, and am presently recovering from colon cancer. Moreover, during the early years of my return to my mother’s feminist ideals, I increasingly found myself being betrayed and rejected by men (especially those in academia). Conversely, many of my attempts for seeking acceptance from feminist women were met with a cool reception, often filled with indifference, mistrust, and even hostility.

There’s a song by Beck. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

 

Category: Sex Trouble

‘Fempocalypse’

Posted on | April 14, 2015 | 39 Comments

Exactly how I never before noticed the blog “Owning Your Sh*t,” I’m not sure. This lady has got it nailed cold:

Okay, someone commenting on my last video scoffed at my assertion that unless our attitudes change, society will, sooner or later, reach a…well, let’s call it a “fempocalypse.” That is, that feminism will eventually help bring about an economic and social collapse.
Many people are simply unable to wrap their heads around that idea, because we’ve all been told, ad nauseum, that feminism is a cause of prosperity, when in reality, it is largely–perhaps entirely–a consequence of it.

Watch the video:

Here is a key paragraph:

“By prioritizing women in education at all levels, we have handicapped men’s ability to be as productive as the system needs them to be to maintain itself. By encouraging single motherhood and allowing women to banish fathers from their children’s lives, we’re creating half a generation of boys who risk becoming unemployable and expensive burdens on the system as adults, and half a generation of girls who are more likely to perpetuate and exacerbate the problem by becoming single mothers themselves.”

These two factors are interrelated. When you separate motherhood from marriage — by subsidizing illegitimacy and incentivizing divorce — you are consequently disincentivizing the behaviors necessary to successful marriage. That is to say, where women’s desire to become mothers requires them first to attract a man’s commitment to monogamy, mothers will teach their daughters (and other cultural institutions will support this teaching) how to be the kind of women men want to marry. Meanwhile, in a marriage-oriented society, men will strive to become the kind of men that women admire and respect, in order to obtain the benefits of marriage.

Break this connection, however, and the whole thing unravels. Men and women can behave however they wish, without really losing anything. If everybody is selfish and irresponsible, and if “society” (i.e., the taxpayer) enables these attitudes and behaviors, then why teach your daughter the virtues of the Good Wife? Or why teach your son to strive toward the kind of behavior necessary to attract and keep the Good Wife? Let him be a “playa” with a string of “baby mamas,” and so what? Furthermore, since women can’t rely on men to behave responsibly, “prioritizing women in education at all levels” is necessary so that women can fend for themselves. Why invest in education for boys, if males are just lazy, violent, selfish, unreliable creatures who contribute nothing useful to society?

These attitudes are part of a syndrome that is like a snowball rolling downhill, gathering momentum until, next thing you know, it’s Detroit.

“Owning Your Sh*t Is” is an awesome blog, and you should follow her (@girlwriteswhat) on Twitter, too.




 

Category: Economics, Feminism, Marriage

Canadian ‘Education Expert’ Is What You’d Expect Canadian ‘Education Expert’ to Be

Posted on | April 14, 2015 | 19 Comments

That is to say, he’s a dangerous pervert:

Benjamin Levin was consistent and “realistic” in his descriptions of sexual assault of children during online chats and never once stressed that it was all for fantasy, the Crown argued during day two of his sentencing hearing on child porn charges.
Crown counsel Allison Dellandrea read aloud several extremely graphic chat exchanges the former Ontario deputy minister of education had with undercover officers he believed were submissive mothers interested in having sex with their own children.
The 63-year-old married father of three repeatedly and consistently claimed to have had sex with his own daughters, starting at age 12 (though, as he told one of the officers, “I wish we’d started younger.”).
Levin — who was a member of Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne’s transition team — has pleaded guilty to the making of written child pornography, possession of child pornography and counseling to commit sexual assault on a child. . . .
Dellandrea took the court on a tour of the “depraved” online world the formerly well-respected education expert inhabited, suggesting he “wasn’t just dabbling in the child sexual abuse online world, he was a leader” there. . . .
As the sentencing got underway Tuesday, so too did a protest against Ontario’s revised sex-ed curriculum at Queen’s Park downtown. Critics of the Liberal government’s update to what students will learn in school about sex believe Levin’s pedophilic interest influenced the update — a charge the government denies.

You can read the whole thing. (Hat-tip: @SeverEnergia on Twitter.)

So, the “education expert” is a pervert and — this is relevant, in all honesty — his former boss is a lesbian.

The career of Kathleen Wynne is an object lesson in what I mean by “Feminism Is a Journey to Lesbianism.” In 1973, Wynne met the lesbian love of her life, Jane Rounthwaite. But in 1977, Wynne married Phil Cowperthwaite, with whom she had three children before leaving him for Jane Rounthwaite in 1991. That is to say, her husband was just a bill-paying sperm donor whose role in her life was, ultimately, to provide her and her lesbian partner with children and money. The Toronto Star did a big feature profile about Wynne that is a predictable exercise in progressive non-judgmentalism. The reader is presented with this remarkably weird saga and, well, how dare you point out the weirdness of it?

Feminists don’t believe that heterosexuality is natural for women, nor do feminists accept the validity of any moral concept other than Equality with a capital “E.” And what feminists mean by this sense of Equality is, of course, female supremacy.

“There are no Christian feminists, because feminism is a sort of narcissistic idolatry, wherein women deny God and instead worship themselves as their own divinity.”

Any man who becomes involved with a feminist must understand that she views him as irrelevant, superfluous, a disposable accessory, a bit player in the grand drama of her own life. The basic uselessness of males is one of the philosophical tenets of feminism. This makes it impossible for any feminist to genuinely admire, trust, respect or love any man. Whether or not she is actively homosexual, the feminist is always a lesbian in the philosophical sense, as various feminist scholars (including Adrienne Rich and Marilyn Frye) have explained. That is to say, a male may be a feminist’s roommate, her social companion and her occasional sexual partner, but he can never be the love of her life, because the feminist’s life is devoted to herself and to her love for women.

Feminists often claim that anyone who speaks of feminism in terms of “man-haters” and “lesbians” is merely expressing ignorant bigotry, but certainly no one could ever accuse me of ignorance, because I’ve read more feminist books than the average Women’s Studies major. Glancing around my desk at this very moment, I see Sarah Evans (Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left, 1979), Jill Johnston (Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution, 1973), Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice Raymond (The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism, 1990) and Jone Salamonsen (Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco, 2002). My point is not only that it is possible for an opponent of feminism to be knowledgeable about feminism, but furthermore to assert that the more you actually know about feminism, the more likely you are to oppose feminism — at least, that is, if you are an intelligent, honest, responsible, sane and normal person. Feminism is a movement that appeals to the stupid, the dishonest, the irresponsible, the insane and the abnormal.

“If Americans can be divorced for ‘incompatibility of temper,’ I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.”
— G.K. Chesterton, 1910

We need not pretend that a normal, sane and responsible life is an easy thing to accomplish. Chesterton quite accurately summarized the basic problem of traditional married life. In order to find happiness — or even a tolerable level of peace — in a marriage, we must continually overcome the problems produced by the natural differences between men and women. Yet the traditional basis of marriage is also the moral principle of Christianity, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, in accordance with the commandment of the Creator: “Male and female created he them” and “be fruitful and multiply.”

Because feminists reject Christianity, per se, they can never love men in the way a man naturally wants to be loved, a reality that the men in their lives cannot help but recognize. This is why you so often see “feminist men” — Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Hugo Schwyzer — acting in such perverse, exploitative and abusive ways toward women. The “feminist man” accepts feminism’s negative verdict against himself, which consequently destroys whatever self-respect or morality he might otherwise have had. As I have sometimes pointed out, feminists actually despise the “male feminist,” viewing him (quite accurately) as a selfish manipulator who expects women to give him a cookie for advocating feminist causes.

Because he has no self-respect and recognizes no real standard of morality, the “feminist man” is quite often a very dangerous kind of pervert. Benjamin Levin, who served as the “education expert” in Kathleen Wynne’s campaign, is a perfect example of his type. And it’s not a good type.

Also, the phrase “Canadian pervert” is more or less redundant.




 

Category: Canada, Crime, Feminism, Gays, Sex, Sex Trouble

Her Majesty Worries About The Dermatological Condition Of Her Serfs

Posted on | April 14, 2015 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Font due to Rick Wolff, hat tip due to Rare, image due to The Silence of the Lambs, creepiness due to Her Majesty.

Category: Hillary Clinton, humor

It Seems As Though @KurtSchlichter Doesn’t Hold Her Majesty In High Regard

Posted on | April 14, 2015 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

Great outing from the Colonel at Townhall:

. . .let the liberals solve this problem for us with their bizarre determination to nominate that glass-jawed, email-deleting cuckoldette. Yeah, non-coastal America is dying to elect someone who reminds everybody of their first wife, including women and the never-married.

The main thrust of Schlichter’s piece, though, is a cavalry charge up the Lefty middle.  Tap that glass jaw. Call the Lefty’s bluff via the legal system. It’s not a bad plan, given lots of time and resources.  A few questions for the Colonel, though:

  • Can you offer a breadcrumb or two? Your next couple of books could be How To Go To The Legal Mat With The Lefties, and What To Do About The Gastropodic Slime After You’ve Gone To The Legal Mat With The Lefties.
  • Can we part out the work? Quite a few conservatives view legal interactions like being covered with gastropods. Is supporting the ACLJ a possible option?
  • What about the problem of legalism, itself, as the issue? Many fear that, in wrestling the Lefty gastropods, we risk becoming them. What are your recommendations for skeletal conservation?

via Instapundit

Category: Instapundit

Advanced Feminist Logic™

Posted on | April 13, 2015 | 43 Comments

Some will say that it is an oxymoron to speak of feminist logic, but after many months of careful study, I have mastered the basics:

1. Do you have a vagina?
2. Vote Democrat!

This is the simplest understanding of feminism, i.e., whatever arguments are necessary to persuade unhappy women that voting Democrat is the best revenge. However, mastering Advanced Feminist Logic™ requires the disciple to accept without question the premise that women are universally oppressed by patriarchy. All women are victims of this system of oppression, the feminist believes, and all men benefit from it.

“Feminist consciousness is consciousness of victimization . . . to come to see oneself as a victim.”
— Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression (1990)

Whether they are speaking of “male supremacy” or “sexism,” whether the immediate object of their indignation is “rape culture,” “harassment” or the “objectification” of women in media, always the fundamental premise of the feminist argument is this systemic, historical and universal oppression of women. What we might call the Patriarchal Thesis is really an extraordinary assertion, requiring us to believe that there are no natural differences between men and women. Rather, everything we consider to be “natural” in terms of human traits and behavior — the masculinity of males and the femininity of females — is socially constructed by the gender binary of the heterosexual matrix.

Those who have achieved Feminist Consciousness understand that differences between men and women are an illusion created by the patriarchy in order to oppress women. And if you don’t accept this extraordinary claim, you are either (a) a woman in need of further enlightenment to achieve Feminist Consciousness, or (b) a male, and therefore a beneficiary of oppression and probably also a rape apologist.

“All women are prisoners and hostages to men’s world. . . .
Each man is a threat. We can’t escape men.”

Disagreement with Feminist Logic™ becomes impossible once you accept the Patriarchal Thesis that is the fundamental premise of the feminist worldview. And if you do accept this premise, you will find it quite difficult to deny that “PIV is always rape, OK?”

Heterosexuality itself is both the cause and effect of male supremacy — “most women have to be coerced into heterosexuality,” to quote Professor Marilyn Frye — because, in the feminist worldview, there is no natural reason for women to be attracted to men, and thus it is patriarchal indoctrination that deceives women into the delusion of “love.” According to feminist theory, women’s “love” for men is actually a symptom of fear, a syndrome akin to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a reaction to “sexual terror” enforced by male violence, as Professor Dee Graham explained.

If the preceding paragraph strikes you as insane, then obviously you have not achieved Feminist Consciousness. The premise of the Patriarchal Thesis leads invariably to the conclusion that males are at best unnecessary or irrelevant, insofar as they are not actively engaged in rape, violence and oppression. Fear and Loathing of the Penis — an existential dread of male sexuality — is the underlying spirit of feminism. It is scarcely surprising to see feminists at our colleges and universities promoting hysteria about “rape culture,” as no feminist can possibly imagine why a woman would ever consent to sexual intercourse with a man.

So as I was describing this in my usual jocular fashion on Twitter, I found myself accosted by Ken Simon, a theatrical actor, playwright and director. Rather than ping-ponging back and forth 140 characters at a time, I wrote him a message via Twit Longer:

Let me explain something, as politely as possible.
You came trolling into my timeline, accusing me of “misconstruing” feminism, as if I don’t know what I’m talking about. Never mind the fact that I’m sitting here with about five dozen feminist books within arm’s reach. The tweet to which you responded was, in fact, a subtweet in response to a feminist who had insulted me after I tried to compliment her.
So, here comes the White Knight, Sir Kenneth of Simon, to add further insults and I’m like, “Who is this asshole, anyway?” Go over and check your TL, and you’re a liberal advocate for gun control whose chief concern today is that Hillary Clinton might not be liberal enough for you. You’re inside an ideological bubble, an echo chamber divided from the exterior world by a high towering wall of Epistemic Closure, and I don’t know that anything I say could convince you to reconsider your opinions. There is no reason for me to argue with you, except for the fact that you decided to show off for your friends: “Look how superior I am to This Guy Here.”
Fine. Bask in the warm glow of your self-congratulatory gesture. Just don’t expect me to join in the applause. Also, don’t expect any reward for being a White Knight of Male Feminism.
Ask around, Ken. Feminists don’t actually like Male Feminists.
Eventually, you’ll discover that feminists consider you just another misogynist swine, and your effort to ingratiate yourself to them by parroting their rhetoric will only inspire feminists to hold you in even deeper contempt than they hold men generally. You may not believe me today, but if you are intelligent, honest and observant, one day you’ll realize I’m right.
Feminism is a totalitarian doctrine of hatred. It cannot be reformed, nor can it be appeased. Feminism is an ideology that demands war against human nature, and the question is whether we can stop this deadly menace before it destroys our civilization.
Sincerely,
— Robert Stacy McCain

That’s not a joke. People need to wake the hell up.





 

Category: Sex Trouble

Ethics in Doxxing?

Posted on | April 13, 2015 | 35 Comments

@IjeomaOluo is a feminist and a thoughtful writer.

This is a rare combination. Feminism has for decades been an intellectual ghetto inhabited by bad writers spewing tedious jargon (the misogynist oppressor mansplained, sitting at his desk surrounded by about five dozen books of feminist theory). Oluo writes about a Tumblr vigilante site called Racists Getting Fired:

Finally! A way to battle all those nameless, faceless hatemongers of the Internet . . . Finally, people are having to face some real consequences for their hateful and harmful behavior. This is the moment of comeuppance, and boy, is it satisfying. . . .
So now, now we have doxxing in the name of Social Justice and truth.
But we still have doxxing in the name of control and terror. . . .
It wasn’t long before the inevitable happened to Racists Getting Fired; an innocent person was doxxed. Brianna Rivera found herself on the receiving end of threats and harassment after an ex-boyfriend impersonated her online with posts that made her look like a racist. A few minutes of investigation showed it was fake, but the Internet doesn’t self-correct: People ride the wave of fury and then move on to the next target. By the time a retraction was posted, she had already faced investigations by both her employer and the university she was attending. Even now, people are still sending her hateful messages for her nonexistent bigotry.
Those of us fighting for progress and equality believe that we’re working on the side of good, and most of us are. But when we look at language used around doxxing for “good,” it’s very similar to the language used by those trying to silence us. . . .

You can read the whole thing and, while Oluo makes many of the usual simplistic assumptions — e.g., advocacy of “social justice” is synonymous with personal virtue — her skepticism toward the progressive mob mentality is encouraging. Identity politics invariably leads toward a Manichean worldview and the dangerous self-righteous fanaticism summarized in the radical slogan “By Any Means Necessary.”

Because it’s nearly 9 a.m. ET, I’m going to go ahead and click the “publish” button now, but come back in an hour or two, and I’ll expand this.

UPDATE: “Sources close to the campaign said . . .” How many times have you read a phrase like that in a news article and asked yourself, “Who are these ‘sources,’ and why are they speaking anonymously?” The use of anonymous sources is a fine art in Beltway journalism, to which I got a hasty introduction after I arrived in D.C. in November 1997 and became an assistant national editor at The Washington Times. Although I was new to the ways of Washington at the time, I wasn’t one of these ambitious 23-year-old kids fresh out of J-school who swarm to D.C. every year after graduation, hoping to become the next Political Media Superstar. I was a 38-year-old married father of three with nearly a dozen years of award-winning experience in the newspaper business. Arriving in journalism’s Major Leagues, however, required me to learn a whole new game.

Two months after I hit town, the Lewinsky scandal broke — I remember that first teasing headline at the Drudge Report — and for a few days I had a ringside seat while our reporters scrambled to nail down the story that Michael Isikoff’s editors at Newsweek had spiked. Veteran reporters including Frank Murray and Jerry Seper worked the phones like maniacs trying to get that story, and they had the basic facts, they just couldn’t get the kind of confirmed sourcing necessary for our editors to approve it for publication. Four days after that first Drudge tease, the rival Washington Post finally got the story, and then our staff at the Times had to scramble to catch up and “match” the Post‘s coverage.

Here’s the thing: At my previous employer in Georgia, the use of anonymous sources was forbidden by the publisher, Burgett E. Mooney III. It was his belief that a reliance on anonymous sources undermined the trust of readers and that, furthermore, anonymity was often a disguise used to conceal the malign personal motives of sources. With the advantage of hindsight, I see exactly what Burgett saw. There is a certain kind of shabby journalism that simply cannot be done if you insist that every quote and fact be attributed to a named source or an official document.

Certainly, no reporter could ever get away with “sources said” when covering the county commission, the board of education or high-school football. On the other hand, covering politics and policy in Washington would be nearly impossible without “sources said.” However, no editor in his right mind would grant an unlimited license to use anonymous sources.

One of my regular duties at the Washington Times was to work with the legendary political reporter Ralph Z. Hallow. When it came time to take the pulse of Republican Party insiders, Ralph was the consulting physician — some might say, the proctologist — of the conservative movement. Ralph had a huge network of sources whose phone numbers were filed away in his Rolodex of Doom, and he was on a first-name basis with most of them. To watch Ralph work the phones was like watching Joe Montana run a fourth-quarter touchdown drive. He was simply the best at what he did.

However, getting Ralph’s stories to match the editors’ expectations was often an ordeal, and I was usually the guy who played go-between. About 2 or 3 o’clock, the managing editor would call me into his office and say, “Make sure Ralph backs up his lead on this.” That is to say, the statements made in the first paragraph of the story had to be supported by quotes and — here was the key thing — we needed some of those quotes attributed to named sources. One more than one occasion, we’d be pushing the deadline while Ralph worked the phones trying to negotiate the on-the-record quote necessary to the story. Sometimes, it would be a source he’d quoted anonymously, and Ralph would be trying to coax the source into having his name appear in the story. Other times, Ralph would call a new source — someone he hadn’t previously interviewed for the story — and get a reaction quote from him to back up the general point of the story.

Keep in mind, of course, that this was all legitimate journalism. This wasn’t any kind of scandalous smear-mongering “gotcha” stuff, but solid political reporting. Ralph’s story would include quotes and information attributed to a “Republican pollster,” an “RNC member,” a “former Reagan administration official” or whatever, and these were all legit sources. Still, we couldn’t publish a story whose main premise was derived from unnamed sources, so getting that on-the-record quote to nail it down was absolutely necessary.

Given my firsthand knowledge of the very difficult work required to do reporting the right way, then, what do you suppose I think about some of the reckless nonsense that is perpetrated online by idiots who exploit anonymity as an excuse for acts of malicious dishonest cruelty?

UPDATE II: After spending months on the road covering the Tea Party movement and the 2012 presidential campaign, I came home after the election and thought, “OK, now what?” The political Road Warrior act was fun — doing on-the-scene reporting is what I love best — but it’s a young man’s game and, after getting caught in that damned Louisiana speed trap, it became simply too expensive to continue. So as I was at home recovering from the Fear and Loathing of the 2012 campaign, suddenly the Internet went crazy about a rape in Steubenville, Ohio.

‘Anonymous’ and Steubenville: Online
Lynch Mob Complicates Rape Case

That was the headline on my first blog post about the story, and my main point was summarized thus:

Alas, welcome to the 21st century, where everyone with Internet access can play at being an “investigative journalist,” and every random rumor can be portrayed as a serious accusation which is allegedly being covered up by authorities. This conspiratorial motif and the proliferation of the Amateur Detective mentality online has had consequences in Steubenville . . .

While I am an enthusiastic advocate of New Media and Citizen Journalism, we’ve seen way too many instances of paranoid conspiracy theories and baseless accusations being promoted by dangerous dingbats who don’t have the first clue about how to do basic reporting. Over and over, the Internet has afforded ideological ax-grinders a platform to exploit the biases of True Believers to push wild rumors and false claims that fell apart as soon as they were exposed to careful scrutiny.

As it turned out, the Steubenville story was legit. Two teenagers were convicted of sexual assault, and four school officials were indicted on obstruction of justice charges. One of those officials pleaded guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor. Looking back on that crazy Steubenville protest scene two years later, however, we should ask, “Was that necessary?” Was the outcome of the case significantly influenced by the vengeful swarm of Internet vigilantes and the howling mob of weirdos in Guy Fawkes masks?

Count me as skeptical. I’m aware that the Social Justice Warriors count that as a “win,” but as I pointed out in January 2013, it would be kind of hard to cover up a crime that had already been the subject of a 6,000-word New York Times article. While the SJWs may still be high-fiving each other over Steubenville, I’m still unconvinced that they really accomplished anything that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Furthermore, I suspect, the general impression created by the Steubenville vigilantes — i.e., that gang-rape is a common occurrence that is routinely covered up by officials — helped lead Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Rolling Stone into the horrible journalistic fiasco of the UVA rape hoax.

Think about this: If you start feeding mob hysteria about “rape culture,” and if crusading journalists set out to validate this fearful climate of sexual paranoia, isn’t it a near-certainty that this effort to “prove” the claims of fanatical True Believers will result in innocent people being falsely accused?

UPDATE III: Rather than to spend all day on endless digressions, let me connect the dots here. Part of what we saw in the Steubenville lynch mob was people with dubious motives, hiding behind the screen of online anonymity, “doxxing” various people they accused either of participating in a gang-rape or covering up for the rapists. You start publicizing the addresses and phone numbers of people and accusing them of complicity in gang-rape, you do so with the expectation that bad things are going to happen those people. But let us ask how different that kind of “doxxing” is from what Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Rolling Stone did to the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia?

While you’re thinking about an answer to that question, ask yourself this: Why Phi Kappa Psi?

It is now generally agreed, I believe, that whether or not Jackie was ever actually raped by anyone, she was not raped at Phi Kappa Psi in September 2012. So, if Jackie was going to fabricate a gang-rape, why did she decide to blame it on Phi Kappa Psi? Why not Sigma Nu or Alpha Tau Omega? How does a fake victim decide who to blame for her gang-rape that never happened? (“Grab its leg.”) Maybe if Phi Kappa Psi’s defamation suit goes to trial, we’ll get some answers to questions like that, but I expect Rolling Stone and other defendants will make generous out-of-court settlements before it gets that far.

What we already know, however, it that the liar Jackie was very concerned about protecting her privilege to lie anonymously about Phi Kappa Psi, and Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s spectacular journalistic failure stemmed from her willingess to protect Jackie. This was one reason why Erdely didn’t bother to interview the three friends to whom Jackie first reported her alleged rape. If Erdely had interviewed them, she would have learned that their version of events did not match Jackie’s story, and she also might have figured out that this alleged rape was connected to Jackie’s “Haven Monahan” catfishing scheme to make Ryan Duffin jealous.

Oh, but Jackie had to stay anonymous, you see.

What about the proprietors of “Racists Getting Fired,” the Tumblr blog that prompted Ijeoma Oluo’s second thoughts about “doxxing” as a weapon of social justice? Aren’t they anonymous, too? And isn’t their anonymity a way for them to avoid responsibility for their actions? Given the way that site was used for an ex-boyfriend’s personal vendetta against Brianna Rivera, how is it different from “revenge porn”? For that matter, doesn’t Ijeoma Oluo realize that her entire narrative about “doxxing” and “harassment” is a myth?

One reason doxxing feels so good is that it turns the tables. GamerGate, that war on women operating in the name of “ethics in gaming journalism,” has been exposing people’s personal information and using it to silence them almost since the beginning. GamerGate has sent people death threats, inundated target’s employers with calls for their termination, swatted their homes. Many people have been forced into hiding. Men’s Rights Activists have long shared the private information of prominent feminists as a way of harassing and intimidating them.

Dude, check the record. “Doxxing” did not begin with GamerGate. It is a tactic pioneered by Internet hackers, especially those associated with the Anonymous conspiracy that flourished circa 2010-2012. The fact that there is an obvious overlap between videogame enthusiasts and hackers (rather than a “war on women”) accounts for the use of “doxxing” against various people who have made themselves a nuisance to gamers. As for the allegation that “Men’s Rights Activists” (MRAs) are engaged in “harassing and intimidating” feminists, this is just a way of using a label to create guilt by association. Dean Esmay and Paul Elam are MRAs. If they criticize a certain feminist by name, and that feminist is subjected to illegal harassment, the guilt is on the perpetrators of the harassment. Yet it is a fact that feminists tried to shut down an MRA conference last year, effectively hounding them out of the hotel where the conference had been scheduled. So if feminists are harassing MRAs, are we surprised that the MRAs return the favor?

The real question, however, isn’t necessarily about who threw the first punch in the fight, but rather who is responsible for specific criminal wrongdoing. In other words, Paul Elam might call a feminist a despicable liar, but if somebody then targets her for an actual death threat, it’s the person making the threat (and not Paul Elam) who is responsible. In a larger sense, however, when we encounter this kind of conflict, we have to ask which side is responsible for turning an argument into a take-no-prisoners fight to the death. Here I think feminists simply do not wish to be held responsible for their own deliberate aggression. Every day — every single day for the past two years at least — feminists have been pushing this “rape culture” discourse that demonizes all men as responsible for an alleged epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses.

It seemed to me at first that this was simply a carry-over from the “War on Women” rhetoric of the 2012 campaign. When it persisted, however, I recognized that one reason activists kept beating the “rape culture” drum was in preparation for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. There was a clear partisan political agenda behind this, and the Democrat operatives pushing this agenda didn’t give a damn about actual facts.

You can think for yourself, or you can be a puppet on somebody else’s strings. I’m glad to see Ijeoma Oluo asking questions about the ethics of “doxxing.” Perhaps if she keeps asking questions — if she is willing to look at facts and not be misled into accepting partisan mythology — she will eventually begin to doubt the “social justice” gospel that has deformed the souls of so many in her generation.




 

Category: Crime, Fear. Loathing., Intellectuals, Progressivism, Sex Trouble, Terrorism

Rule 5 Sunday: Not Long Before The End

Posted on | April 12, 2015 | 24 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I was off blowing stuff up in Ingress tonight after my stint in the tax mines to relieve my stress and get a little exercise, so I’m going to reverse the normal order of things and do Rule Five Sunday first this weekend. The FMJRA will probably happen tomorrow, maybe in the morning. In the meantime, by way of noting the NRA convention this past weekend, here’s Dana Loesch on the cover of her book, Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America

Nice guns.

As usual, the following links may lead to pictures commonly described as Not Safe For Work, so exercise discretion in your clicking. Management is not responsible for hair loss, sudden weight gain, excessive flatulence, sore gums, inflamed bowels, or flat feet. If swelling persists for more than four hours, call your doctor.

Average Bubba leads off with the Hump Day edition of Rule 5, followed by Randy’s Roundtable with Lucy Bayet, Goodstuff with preserving the essence of Supergirl [insert Dr. Strangelove reference here], and Ninety Miles from Tyranny with Morning Bare, Kelly LeBrock, and Girls Guns and Dogs. Animal Magnetism chips in with Rule 5 Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon, and First Street Journal reminds us “If It Ain’t Rainin’, It Ain’t Trainin’!”

EBL’s thundering herd this week includes Ava Gardner with the Chairman, Rand and Kelley Paul, Party On Marie Harf, Rule 5 Media Heads Who Can’t Be Trusted, Harvey Girls, Film Noir, and Separated At Birth.

A View from the Beach offers Hollywood Cheesecake with Alison Brie, The Solar System is a Really Soggy Place (alien warning), “House Burning Down”, Vive la Différence,Brontosaurus is Back! (with cavegirls), “Flutter”, Water Makes People Stupid, Paula Bunyan, and Hippity Hoppity Easter’s Here!

At Soylent Siberia, it’s your coffee creamer, Monday Motivationer Ahoy!, Overnighty Coy, Tuesday Titillation Twofer, East Side West Side, Humpday Auburn Awesome, Falconsword Fursday Bone Collector, Leonard’s Lunchtime Lesbians, Fursday Overnighty Crimson Carumba, In Lieu Of Corsets: I Forgot Kate Upton, T-GIF Friday Phascinating Phalanges, Happy Hour Hawtness, Weekender Couched in Awesome, and Bath Night Brass Ring.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Simone Holtznagel, his Vintage Babe is Doris Day, and Sex in Advertising is provided by Carl’s Jr. At Dustbury, it’s Iveta Bartosova and SZA, while Loose Endz pries himself away from the tube long enough to post Season Five: Game of Thrones.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox is midnight on Saturday, April 18.


Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America
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Category: Rule 5
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