Perverts and Predators and the Celebrities Who Advocate for Their Rights

Posted on | August 23, 2014 | 37 Comments

Ebony Williams was a 13-year-old girl from Harlem. In August 1993, Ebony was brutally murdered by two men:

Investigators said the girl was believed killed in an apartment in Hunts Point on Aug. 22. She may have been raped, they said, and her throat was cut and her body was stomped and packed in a large cardboard box by two men.
The two, joined by a third man who became a police informer in the case, carried the box a few blocks to Whitlock Avenue and East 165th Street, leaving it under the Sheridan Expressway near Bruckner Boulevard. One of the killers later returned, doused the box with gasoline and set it afire, the police said.
A passenger on a No. 2 train, running on elevated tracks nearby, saw the flames and called the police. Detectives found the body badly burned. There were no clothes, jewelry or other means of identification. “All I saw was that her hair had been worn in corn rows,” Sergeant Garvey recalled.

It took two weeks to identify Ebony Williams by dental records. By then, police had already arrested Ebony’s killers, including Luis Morales, who was then 18 years old. Morales is doing a life sentence in Attica, where he now calls himself “Synthia China Blast,” and had apparently convinced at least one gullible journalist that “she was a former drug dealer and Latin King gang member . . . convicted in 1996 for a gangland murder she says she didn’t commit.”

News Flash: Criminals are liars.

Really, what’s a few convenient self-serving lies in comparison to raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl? But sympathy for criminals is very fashionable for liberals, so whenever a criminal can make up a story that will gain them pity, there is always a bunch of liberal fools who are willing to believe their stories.

There are entire tax-exempt organizations dedicated to convincing liberals that these criminals are actually victims of “social injustice.” One such organization is the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP), which advocates on behalf of “transgender” criminals.

The SRLP managed to convince Emmy-winning actress Laverne Cox that child-killer Luis Morales/”Synthia China Blast” is a victim, and Cox recorded a video reading a letter from Luis/”Synthia“:

“I was born and raised in the South Bronx, however since age 15 I’ve been raised in prison. In fact — since age 16 — I’ve only been home once, in 1993, for three months. I’ve been in prison ever since. I’m 38-years-young.” . . .

(Translation: “I’ve been a monster my entire life. The only time they turned me loose, in 1993, was when I murdered a girl.”)

“I am a political transgender woman/prisoner. I strongly support the rights of LGBT brothers and sisters in the community who are imprisoned also.”

(Translation: “I’ve got this ‘political prisoner’ hustle all figured out.”)

“They may not live in a cage 23 to 24 hours a day like I do, year after year, with no fellow prisoner contact, but they too face the constant torment that LGBT prisoners face in here.”

(Translation: “Yeah, that’s it — ‘constant torment.’ You know, like getting raped and having your throat cut and then having your body shoved in a cardboard box and set on fire.”)

“Lack of adequate medical care, abusive and evasive treatment by law enforcement officials, denial of basic human rights, the freedom to live among the straight society without fear of retaliation.”

Playing up the victim-of-transphobic-discrimination angle, Luis/”Synthia” was able to con people into believing he/she was a “political prisoner,” and Laverne Cox got sucked into this vortex of stupidity. Cox posted her video Tuesday at the SRLP site, and it took three days for the truth about Luis Morales’ crimes to hit the Internet, at which point Cox demanded that SRLP take down the video.

This controversy had the effect of focusing attention on the kind of criminal creeps who are involved in the SRLP “Prison Advisory Committee.” Cathy Brennan’s radical feminist site Gender Identity Watch noticed that SRLP was promoting the transgender victimhood tale of a federal inmate known as “Lennea Elizabeth Stevens“:

Hello all, this is my first post and I wanted to introduce myself and give a huge thanks to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project for creating a platform to unite our voices, for together we are stronger and safer. My name is Lennea Elizabeth Stevens and I am a 52 year old transgender federal inmate currently housed in an all male facility in Marianna, FL. I had transitioned full-time to my gender of choice, female, in 2002 while living in Las Vegas. In 2009 I was incarcerated to 87 months in the BOP. I will be releasing the end of 2015. I am planning to use this blog to document my experiences in hopes to give other transgendered people a clear understanding of what life is like as a woman in a man’s prison.

Oh, let’s throw a pity party for “Lennea Elizabeth” and boohoohoo for “what life is like as a woman in a man’s prison.” But aren’t you just a wee bit curious as to why he/she is in federal prison? “Lennea” wasn’t living in Las Vegas, but in Texas, and he/she wasn’t known as “Lennea,” either. Lewis Stevens was convicted under Title 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B), possession of child pornography.

Click here to read the entire federal indictment, but let me highlight just one of the videos they found on Lewis Stevens’ computer:

You can click that image to enlarge it. “PTHC” is Internet pedophile code for “pre-teen hard core” pornography; the indictment describes four PTHC videos found on Lewis/”Lennea” Stevens’ computer. And the SRLP would have people believe that this creep is a victim of social injustice? Just like the freak who killed Ebony Williams.

THIS -> @SRLP <- is one of the creepiest organizations on the planet. http://t.co/6A4Uoh09cW

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) August 23, 2014

Category: Crime, Gays

Shoot It. Shoot It In The Head.

Posted on | August 22, 2014 | 10 Comments

— by Wombat-socho

I’ve been kind of slack about hitting the library lately, having been busy with Ingress; what I’ve been re-reading as a bedtime book is the David Drake & S.M. Stirling collections Warlord and Conqueror, which between them contain the first five Raj Whitehall novels. For those unfamiliar with the series, Whitehall is a captain in the Army of the Gubierno Civil, one of two civilized nations on the planet Bellevue eleven hundred years after the interstellar civilization of the Federation collapsed in a welter of nuclear fire. Whitehall has been tasked with a surviving Federation command and control AI (“Center”) with reuniting Bellevue, which is a tall order. Opposed to the Civil Government is the Colony, a Muslim empire equal in technology and frequently better at applying military force; the other two major polities are the Brigade and Squadron, barbarian military governments that believe in the heretical Spirit of Man of This Earth (as opposed to the Spirit of Man of the Stars worshipped in the Civil Government) and both being technologically inferior to the Civil Government. The books follow Whitehall as he successfully repels a Colonial attack on the eastern frontier, retakes the southern territories and crushes the Squadron, does the same with the western territories and the Brigade, and finally, when paranoid Governor Barholm is about to have him executed for the death of Barholm’s nephew and heir, he is sent into action again to save the day again in the east. The series does an interesting job of transposing the tale of Belisarius into a far-future world where the native sauroids are a continual threat in wartime (or on other occasions when society breaks down), gasoline engines are a recent and unreliable innovation, and horses have been replaced by mutant half-ton riding dogs. While frequently gory, the Raj Whitehall novels also contain a fair amount of grim humor and references to Mauldin, Kipling, and other half-forgotten literary figures. Well worth reading; there are also (at last count) five more sequels in which Center and Whitehall’s uploaded mind try to set matters straight on other worlds poised on the edge of collapse into barbarism – or worse.

I’ve also been spending time on Sanctum 2, a fun combination of tower defense game and first-person shooter which I picked up when it was on sale at Steam last weekend. You get a variety of weapons to stick on the towers, a choice of shooters to help croak the monsters, and as you level up you get more options for the towers and your shooter, as well as perks that make the killing easier. I’m enjoying it a lot.

For something less mindless, I prefer Bioshock and its sequel Bioshock 2, both first-person shooters set in the undersea city of Rapture. The first game is a revenge quest; guided by the radio voice of Atlas, your character makes his way through Rapture, which has clearly seen better days. The surviving inhabitants are all homicidal maniacs called Splicers, except for the “Little Sisters” who harvest the wonder drug Adam and the “Big Daddies” who guard the Little Sisters. Your mission changes as the game progresses, and you get quite a bit of leeway in how you carry out the missions; you have to make choices regarding which plasmids and tonics to use, which devices to hack and how, and most importantly – how you treat the Little Sisters. Rapture is a city predicated on extreme Objectivist values (the founder Andrew Ryan’s name is in fact an anagram of Ayn Rand), but it’s in no sense a utopia, and the underside is pretty squalid. Bioshock 2 starts you in the body of a Big Daddy, an early model who’s bonded to a particular Little Sister. Unfortunately, that Little Sister is Eleanor Lamb, the daughter of. Dr. Susan Lamb, founder of the commune “Family” that’s running Rapture – and kidnapper of little girls from coastal towns. Fortunately, Eleanor’s Electra complex works to your advantage, as she leaves helpful gifts for you along your path, and you’re going to need them; even though you start with the ability to dual-wield weapons and plasmids, ammo is harder to come by and the weapons are trickier to use. Both games are hours of fun; didn’t feel compelled to pick up BioShock Infinite because the storyline didn’t appeal to me, and well, it wasn’t set in Rapture, which I think had a lot of unexplored potential left.

Next week: more SF, fewer games.

Category: Books, Culture

Enlisting Alice Cooper To Respond To The Prospect Of Another Romney Candidacy

Posted on | August 22, 2014 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Varying his meaning slightly:

Category: Mitt Romney, Music

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.22.14

Posted on | August 22, 2014 | 20 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

TOP NEWS
Rick Perry’s Mugshot Goes Viral

Art by SABO. h/t Don Surber

Former PIU investigator quashes CPRIT allegations
Perry: It’s possible ISIS has crossed the southern border
Rick Perry rounds up the media herd

Pakistani Opposition Leader Imran Khan Ends Talks With PM Sharif
No further talks with government until Sharif resigns

Americans Recovering From Ebola Released From Hospital
Doctor says patients pose no public health risk

POLITICS
GAO: Bergdahl Exchange Violated Law, Used Improper Funds

SGT Bowe Bergdahl

DoD failed to give Congress 30 days notice, illegally switched money between accounts

Jodi Ernst Takes On Military Sexual Assaults

Romney: Hillary Can’t Distance Herself From Obama

California To Appeal Federal Court’s Decision Banning State’s Death Penalty

OK Catholic Bishop Drops Suit Over Satanic Black Mass After Consecrated Host Returned

Federal Judge Strikes Down Florida’s Gay Marriage Ban

McDonnell Details Marital Woes In Corruption Trial

Team Obama Leaks News Of Failed Raid In Attempt To Shore Up Image

THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Falls From US Uptick On Poor PRC Economic Data: WTI $93.85, Brent $102.53
S&P 500 Sets Record, Dow Regains 17,000
Asian Shares Inch Up, All Eyes On Jackson Hole
Family Dollar Rejects Dollar General Bid On Antitrust Concerns
Soybeans Face Second Week Of Decline On Supply Pressure
eBay Considering PayPal Spinoff
Google’s Search App Now Truly Multilingual
Windows 9 Unveiling Set For September 30
European Class Action Suit Against Facebook Attracts 60,000
Chrome, Chrome Everywhere: Acer Unveils New Chromebook, Desktop Chromebox
“Flappy Bird” Creator Dong Nguyen Unveils “Swing Copter”

SPORTS
The Curly W Is For Walkoffs, Wins, And Washington Nationals

Denard Span scores the winning run in the bottom of the ninth

Nats’ streak reaches ten with another walkoff win

Reds Skid Reaches Six With 8-0 Drubbing By Braves

Yanks Blank Astros In A Hurry

Giants Get Split With Cubs

Angels Complete Sweep With 2-0 Win In Boston

Rays’ Cobb Outduels Price, Tigers

Twins Top Tribe 4-1

Run Ends For Mo’ne Davis And Philadelphia As Chicago Advances In LLWS

Dodgers Edge Padres 2-1

Pete Rose, 25 Years After Ban: I Want A Second Chance

FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Pamela Anderson, Carey Hart Slam ALS Ice Bucket Challenge In Online Rants

Not down with the struggle

Anderson slams ALS for animal testing, Hart says just donate already

Carson Daly, It’s a Girl!

Dave Grohl: You Too Get A Baby Girl!

Pete Wentz: It’s A Boy

Scott Weiland Arrested For Stealing Razors And Meth

Nick Cannon And Mariah Carey Living Apart, Marriage On The Rocks

Chris Pratt Visits LA Childrens’ Hospital In Costume As Star Lord From “Guardians Of The Galaxy”

Beyonce’s Mom Says Breakup Rumors Are BS

Columbus Short Arrested

Miley Cyrus To Perform On Live Season Finale Of “Chelsea Lately”

FOREIGNERS
Malaysia Receives Bodies From Flight 17 Crash
Hamas Finally Admits To Kidnapping And Killing Israeli Teens
Venezuela To Fight Food Smugglers With Supermarket Fingerprinting
Indonesian Court Upholds Widodo’s Election Victory
At Least 33 Dead In Sinai From Egyptian Bus Crash
Turkish Foreign Minister Tapped To Succeed Erdogan As PM
Death Toll Could Double In Japan Landslide
Irish Peacemaker, Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds Dead At 81
Feisty Exchange As Aussie Immigration Minister Defends Detention Of Illegal Immigrant Children
Riot Police Deployed As South African MPs Protest Zuma’s Expenses
Russian Military Vehicles Seized In Ukraine

BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: Why Obama Will Never Beat ISIS – He Won’t Even Try.
Michelle Malkin: The Ferguson Feeding Frenzy
Twitchy: “About eight people here almost raging” – #DayOfRage Sparsely Attended Nationwide
American Power: Pamela Geller – “Obama Has Consistently Denied The Jihad Threat”
BLACKFIVE: Leaking The Raid That Failed To Find Foley In Syria
Conservatives4Palin: Gov. Palin On Richard Dawkins’ Disgusting “Abort” Comment
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, August 21
Jammie Wearing Fools: Nine-Year-Old Boy Shot To Death In Chicago, Obaam, Holder, Sharpton Unavailable For Comment
Joe For America: When A Black Cop Killed An Innocent Dillon Taylor In Utah, The Press Was Silent
Protein Wisdom: Banana Republicanism
Shot In The Dark: Trulbert! Part VII – In Hoc Slogan Vinces
STUMP: Public Pensions Watch – Dallas Pension Learns About Concentration Risk
The Gateway Pundit: Liberal Media Pulls Out Of Ferguson After Reports Off Officer Wilson’s Injuries Surface
The Jawa Report: Striking Terror Into The Hearts Of Muslims
The Lonely Conservative: Nancy Pelosi’s District Exempt From Water Restrictions
This Ain’t Hell: Meanwhile, In The “Government Transparency” Department
Weasel Zippers: NJ “Devout Muslim” Says He Gunned Down Teenager As “Act Of Vengeance” For IS Military Action In Islamic Countries
Megan McArdle: Legalize Drugs, Deal With The Downsides

Category: Live at Five

The Madness of ‘Gender Theory’

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | 56 Comments

Feminists and friends of Amy Austin (@amymarieaustin) have spent the past day-and-a-half chastising me on Twitter for the tone and content of Wednesday’s post, “Feminism Repeats Itself, the First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce.” It may help to examine the “gender theory” gibberish piled into Ms. Austin’s 995-word screed entitled “Patriarchy and the Problem of Being Born Female.”

Having spent the past several months immersed in a study of radical feminism, my antennae automatically alert to the word “patriarchy,” a sort of dye-marker for radicalism. Most people who think of themselves as “feminists” are not radicals, defining their understanding of feminism in vague terms of “equality” and “choice,” signifying opposition to whatever it is they consider “sexism.”

However, when people start talking about patriarchy and male supremacy, when they speak of the systemic oppression of women — well, at that point, you can be reasonably certain you’re talking to a radical feminist. And gender theory is a spawn of this radicalism.

Attempting to explain gender theory to normal people is like attempting to explain a schizophrenic’s delusions to sane people. Normal men are masculine in the most common-sense understanding of that word, and normal women are feminine. Because the meanings of male/masculine and female/feminine are so obvious, from a common-sense point of view, normal people take these categories for granted.

However, radical feminists are not normal people. They are intellectuals, and the most eminent feminist intellectuals have spent the past four decades denouncing the common sense of normal people when it comes to men, women and sex. Anything that normal people believe about sex is a myth, according to feminist intellectuals, and in place of our oppressive patriarchal myths, they offer us feminist ideology and gender theory. Their hostile critique of normality (for that it is what it boils down to) is couched in a pretentious academic jargon, with which Amy Austin’s 995-word rant is replete:

Social constructions of gender, like power, stem from patriarchal ideologies . . .
Environmentally speaking, gender is independent of sex . . . and signifies the social constructedness of what maleness and femaleness mean in a given culture. The hierarchy that implicitly positions men above women due to reproductive difference, is a harmful one. . . . .

No normal person talks this way. People must be taught to babble this ideological nonsense, which always reminds me of George Orwell’s aphorism: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that; no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

It is not necessary, nor is it my purpose here, to dismantle and disprove Ms. Austin’s claims about “the social constructedness of what maleness and femaleness mean.” It is enough to say, in reply, that most educated people are opposed to an excessively rigid system of “gender roles.” We don’t wish to unnecessarily limit people’s career choices, nor do we go around shouting hateful slurs and epithets at people who are, as the feminists would say, gender atypical. At the same time, however, most people are basically normal — masculine men and feminine women — and don’t think of their normality as part of a harmful, oppressive hierarchy.

Radical feminism’s war on human nature is an attempt to redefine what we believe about men and women and sex, and to do so in order to destroy everything normal about men and women and sex. Radical feminism envisions an androgynous future, where human beings are more or less identical and interchangeable units, where there are no meaningful differences between men and women. This is the radical meaning of “sexual equality,” and if it is an impossible goal, its ultimate futility will not prevent feminists from destroying the happiness of normal people in pursuit of this doomed radical project.

So now, here is the concluding paragraph of Amy Austin’s rant:

It is not simple anatomy which is harmful to children, it is the forced gender roles which we assign to the sexes that harm them from birth. It is telling girls that they are inherently inferior; it is telling them that they are responsible for becoming victims of sexual assault or violence; it is teaching them that their vulvas are ‘dirty’ whilst men’s sexual parts are ‘something to be proud of’; it is teaching boys that they need to “man up”; it is teaching them that they are allowed to be violent in certain circumstances; and is it teaching them that women are enticing objects of sexual desire. We must begin to educate our sons, we must stop blaming our daughters for dressing “inappropriately” and encourage our sons to respect not only themselves, but their female counterparts. The term ‘gender’ needs to be abolished. Only then might we be able to move away from a society that fundamentally relies upon patriarchy, to one where we talk freely of female biology and remove the negative connotations that surround the term ‘female.’

Notice anything about that paragraph? First-person plural pronouns — “We must . . . our sons . . . our daughters . . . our sons.”

Yet Amy Austin is an unmarried college student who has no sons or daughters, nor does it seem likely that she will be procreating anytime soon, so that these first-person plural pronouns amount to her lecturing other people about how to raise their children.

Her lecture includes many false accusations; I assure you that my daughters have not been taught “that they are inherently inferior” or “that their vulvas are ‘dirty,'” and exactly who is Ms. Austin blaming for the “negative connotations” of “female”? Perhaps other people are not offended to encounter insulting lectures from these young fanatics who suppose that their ability to mimic the jargon of radical ideologues makes them qualified to pass judgment on the lives of people they don’t know. Perhaps others are content to ignore the fact that the madness of “gender theory” is being promulgated at taxpayer expense at public universities, where no member of the faculty or administration dares speak a word in opposition to the radical feminist agenda.

“PIV is always rape, OK?”

It was necessary, in response to one of Ms. Austin’s defenders, to recall how and why I began this long exploration of feminist theory, and the anti-male/anti-heterosexual rant of “Radical Wind” was the starting point. Of course, I’ve been critical of feminism for many years. (Since 2009, we have celebrated the week before Mother’s Day as “National Offend a Feminist Week.”) But the “War on Women” theme of the 2012 presidential election, the rhetoric about “rape culture” surrounding the Steubenville case, and the 2013 Kaitlyn Hunt lesbian molestation case had the cumulative effect of making clear it was time to begin “Taking Feminism Seriously”:

Some of my fiercest arguments over the years have been with Republican women who argue on behalf of an oxymoron, “conservative feminism,” a thing that is as ridiculous as it is impossible. Real feminism is entirely a left-wing phenomenon, and Republicans who think they can cherry-pick seemingly inoffensive items from feminism’s radical agenda are deluded. . . .
Trying to disabuse Republicans of this “conservative feminist” delusion doesn’t make me popular with certain feeble-minded superficial people, but that’s OK. I know what feminism is, I know what conservatism is, and the two things are fundamentally incompatible, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

You can read the whole thing. Feminism’s social, cultural and political impact had become newsworthy, a sort of constant background hum that occasionally flared up into the headlines, while the movement’s deeper ideology went unexamined.

“Feminism defines patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. As feminist and political theorist Carole Pateman writes, ‘The patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection.’ In feminist theory the concept of patriarchy . . . often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women. Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction, which can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.”
— Wikipedia

Every serious student of feminism is aware of the influence of Marxism and lesbian radicalism on feminist theory, but most conservative political commentators are not serious students of feminism. They are interested in feminism only as it affects elections — the so-called “gender gap” — and do not bother to examine feminist theory as it is developed and promulgated in Women’s Studies programs. This lack of critical scrutiny toward feminist theory results in a failure to ask the key question: “What does ‘feminism’ mean?”

When it is pointed out that, for example, the most widely assigned anthology of feminist literature is edited by three lesbian professors, or that the communications coordinator of the Feminist Majority Foundation is a self-declared “raging lesbian feminist,” many people who consider themselves “feminists” are quick to protest that this sort of radicalism is not what they support. Despite the schisms and factions within the feminist movement, however, the radical influence has steadily gathered strength since the 1990s, when the Clarence Thomas hearings and the Navy’s “Tailhook” scandal focused attention on sexual harassment. And in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Windsor v. United States, the most extreme voices of radical lesbianism have become increasingly more persistent in declaring that heterosexuality is inherently oppressive to women:

Sex for men is the unilateral penetration of their penis into a woman . . . whether she thinks she wants it or not — which is the definition of rape: that he will to do it anyway and that he uses her and treats her as a receptacle, in all circumstances — it makes no difference to him experiencing it as sexual. That is, at the very least, men use women as useful objects and instruments for penetration, and women are dehumanised by this act. It is an act of violence.
[I]ntercourse is inherently harmful to women and intentionally so, because it causes pregnancy in women. . . .
Men, by whom we are possessed, colonised and held captive, are the sole agents and organisers of PIV [penis-in-vagina, i.e., heterosexual intercourse]. Men dominate us precisely so we can’t opt out of sexual abuse by them; intercourse is the very means through which men subordinate us, the very purpose of their domination, to control human reproduction.

This was the Radical Wind rant that inspired widespread mockery from conservatives, but despite the laughter — “Was she dropped on her head?” — the doctrine this deranged young woman was expressing is actually taught in nearly every Women’s Studies program in the United States, where some 90,00 students are enrolled annually. Radical Wind was able to list the sources of her anti-male analysis, including Mary Daly, Dee Graham, Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffreys, all of whom are or were tenured professors and feminist authors whose works have been widely cited in the field of Women’s Studies. Radical Wind could have cited any number of other sources (Charlotte Bunch, Adrienne Rich, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, et al.) as authorities for her denunciation of heterosexuality. Examine the syllabus of the introductory Women’s Studies class at almost any university, and good luck finding any that don’t include such radical authors. At Berea College in Kentucky, for example, a 2012 syllabus for “Classic Texts in Women’s Studies” (WST 315) included assigned readings by both Adrienne Rich and Mary Daly, as well as other lesbian feminist theorists like Audre Lorde, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin.

My background familiarity with feminist theory informed my answer to the obvious question about Radical Wind: Is she crazy?

Yes, she is crazy, which is to say her behavior has been irrational and self-destructive, and her inability to cope with disappointment — “I didn’t understand why I accumulated so many failures” — led her to adopt an extreme anti-male worldview, i.e., radical feminism. But this is all radical feminism actually is, the elaboration of mental illness as a political philosophy. Sane, normal and happy women don’t become feminists. However, as the realities of sexual behavior in our culture become increasingly abnormal — and widespread sexual promiscuity is, historically speaking, abnormal — fewer women are sane and happy, so feminist beliefs become more commonplace and abnormality is thereby normalized.

“The personal is political” has been a feminist slogan for more than 40 years, and it is therefore impossible to separate the personal experiences of these women from their political theories. As I explained Thursday on Twitter to feminist Emily Stockman:

The point is to understand feminist theory as what it actually is, a rationalization and substitute for therapy, i.e., “I’m not a misfit. I’m not unlucky. I’m not overweight. I’m politically oppressed! I’m a VICTIM OF THE PATRIARCHY!“

All human beings have problems in life. However, only women have access to the ready-made rationalizations of feminism, an elaborate belief system that offers them a political explanation for their problems, permitting them to believe that their shortcomings, failures, hardships and disappointments can all be blamed on male domination. Whatever problems she experiences in her relationships with men, whatever her career difficulties or her negative feelings about herself, at every turn feminist theory is there to teach an unhappy woman that her heartbreaks and struggles are ultimately the fault of a vast patriarchal conspiracy that oppresses women.

Feminism’s core theory is either true or it’s false. One must either accept and defend radical feminism’s anti-male/anti-heterosexual worldview, or else reject and condemn it. What is happening in our education system today, however, is that radical feminism is being promoted by intellectuals in environments where criticism and opposition are not permitted. The victims of this ideological indoctrination are, in many cases, mentally ill women — like Amy Austin who, while suffering from severe depression, has evidently embraced feminist “gender theory” as the panacea for her problems.

The accusation by Ms. Austin’s defenders that my criticism of her widely-praised essay amounted to “harassment” actually proves my point: Such is the current climate on campus that it is now considered harassment even to disagree with a feminist.

It is not for me to decide for Amy Austin or anyone else whether they should accept or reject feminism. However, I feel an obligation to ensure that no one is mistaken about the core meaning of the feminist idea. As Richard Weaver warned, Ideas Have Consequences, and the consequences of radical feminism — for individuals, as for our society as a whole — may be very serious indeed.

THE ‘SEX TROUBLE’ SERIES:

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

The Bloody Cost of Failure

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | 52 Comments

The New York Times reports:

Kneeling in the dirt in a desert somewhere in the Middle East, James Foley lost his life this week at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Before pulling out the knife used to decapitate him, his masked executioner explained that he was killing the 40-year-old American journalist in retaliation for the recent United States’ airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq.
In fact, until recently, ISIS had a very different list of demands for Mr. Foley: The group pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom for his release, according to a representative of his family and a former hostage held alongside him. The United States — unlike several European countries that have funneled millions to the terror group to spare the lives of their citizens — refused to pay.
The issue of how to deal with ISIS, which like many terror groups now routinely trades captives for large cash payments, is acute for the Obama administration because Mr. Foley was not the lone American in its custody. ISIS is threatening to kill at least three others it holds if its demands remain unmet, The New York Times has confirmed through interviews with recently released prisoners, family members of the victims and mediators attempting to win their freedom.

ISIS obtained it current strength in Syria after 2011, as part of the “militant opposition” to the Assad regime. ISIS was at least encouraged — and some say aided and armed — by the U.S. and its allies during the “Arab Spring” the Obama administration celebrated. Hillary Clinton’s State Department was directly involved in this series of blunders and, while we may stipulate that their intentions were good, their policy was misguided and has manifestly failed.

The Law of Unintended Consequences has not been repealed, nor have The Gods of the Copybook Headings been dethroned.

If you ever wondered what Jimmy Carter’s second term would have been like, you need no longer wonder.

Category: Iraq, Syria, Terrorism

It’s Almost As Though They Have A Script Sitting In Wait, Or Something

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | 65 Comments

by Smitty

Larry2 at Instapundit
There seems to be a pattern:

unarmed young black guy is shot,

there is a vast media outcry over the young “honor student’s” death,

family provides photos of the dead guy taken when he was 11 years old, well before he had opted for the ghetto thug look,

it comes out that the “honor student” has been committing felonies,

witnesses say the honor student was beating the hell out of the person who shot him,

Democrat politicians call for the shooter’s conviction, and

prosecutors, fearing rioting, black voters, or what have you, prosecute the shooter anyway.

Have I missed anything?

Probably could add something about #OccupyResoluteDesk inserting himself, sadly, wearily, oh-why-won’t-this-world-listen-to-me-self-righteously.

An interesting nuance is the way Obama gets his emotional vampire on in these cases, while never getting too close to Rev. Jesse or Rev. Al or whichever flag officer the Racism Industrial Complex deploys to whip up the Low Information Voters.

Then you have the logistics of bringing in your Professional Protest Staff.

Category: Barack Obama