The Other McCain

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

Ersatz Children

Posted on | April 12, 2014 | 39 Comments

by Smitty

“More young women choosing dogs over motherhood” reads the NY Post headline. Sure, this is a part of our Postmodern, “____ as a social construct” culture. Yes, it has a veneer of plausibility, because it’s pushed in the media. But it’s dreck.

Must we even say this? These are pets, not children. Blurring the distinction between the two is not Progress; it’s decay. This is just further moral decline. But, as with the case of gay marriage, I don’t think that waxing ‘Old Testament’ and getting all ‘Bible Thumpy’ is a help. Newton’s Fourth Law, “For every message, there is a javelin directed at the messenger”* applies.

So the task is to figure out the best way to laugh at this, bless these womens’ hearts. And laugh while the men and women are young enough to escape their perpetual adolescence and mature into functional adults that carry a civilization forward.

Actual parenthood is an essential part of the overall human experience, for those who can. It’s taken me forever to get there–this post is as much directed to my younger self as anyone else. Though I was too busy earlier in life, and, to be honest, it took my Afghanistan deployment in 2011 to wake me and Mrs. Other Smitty up, I absolutely never would have said that a pet is equivalent to a child.

Let’s recap:

  • Parenthood is great
  • Raising children is a job; anyone disparaging it is an idiot
  • Anyone saying Fluffy is a child, however, is an idiot

UPDATE: Americans are having dogs instead of babies

*I just made that up.

 

Category: Culture

Professor Herf Gets It Right

Posted on | April 12, 2014 | 15 Comments

Earlier this week, we noted Brandeis University’s cowardly surrender to the forces of political correctness (or perhaps, creeping Sharia). The president of Brandeis gets an earful from Jeffrey Herf, a University of Maryland history professor with a Ph.D. from Brandeis:

That the president of a university founded by Jews in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust should have rescinded an honor to a woman who has had the courage to attack the most important source of Jew-hatred in the world today is a disgraceful act and a failure of leadership. Instead of appeasing intolerance in your faculty, you should have taken this moment to reaffirm the values for which Brandeis has stood for so long and reconfirm the place of universities as models of tolerance and enlightenment in our troubled society.

Read the whole thing. If Brandeis University will not stand up against the forces of cultural jihad, who will?

 

Category: Education, Islam

Sixties Flashback: ‘Hey, Hey, LBJ! How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?’

Posted on | April 12, 2014 | 44 Comments

That was one of the slogans chanted by anti-Vietnam War radicals at protests circa 1967-68. Another one was, “Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh! The NLF is gonna win!” NLF was the National Liberation Front, otherwise known as the Vietcong, so that the Left was cheering for terrorists long before 9/11 and the Bush-era madness of Ward Churchill, et al.

The truth about the 1960s — especially the pro-Communist, anti-American allegiances of the so-called “peace movement” — is nearly forgotten now, and no one under 40 knows anything at all about it. Our education system is such a complete failure that the past is a tabula rasa for most young people, whose knowledge of history ranges from minimal to non-existent. And most of what young people think they “know” about the 1960s is substantially wrong. Anti-war protesters were not seeking “peace” in Vietnam, they were seeking Communist victory, and the reason they hated Lyndon Baines Johnson was because he was in favor of defeating the Communists.

It was therefore with astonishment that I watched MSNBC Thursday attempt to retrieve and repair LBJ’s reputation as a liberal hero. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Listening to hour after hour of paeans to LBJ’s wonders, I almost wished that someone might put the 1968 versions of Tom Hayden and Stokeley Carmichael into a time machine, and transport them to the MSNBC set where they could denounce Lyndon Johnson as the morally bankrupt old fraud he was.

There was once a sort of bipartisan consensus about this: Left-wingers hated LBJ for fighting the Vietnam war; right-wingers hated him because he wouldn’t fight to win in Vietnam. Quite a few young anti-war radicals of the ’60s grew up to become conservative Republicans and Reagan voters; the one thing they never became, however, was the kind of liberals who supported LBJ. This past week’s weird carnival of liberal Lyndon-love was offensive to me. Left-winger Michael Kazin also had about as much of it as he could stand:

LBJ, wrote my friend E.J. Dionne, presided over “a consensual period when a large and confident majority believed that national action could expand opportunities and alleviate needless suffering. The earthily practical Johnson showed that finding realistic ways of creating a better world is what Americans are supposed to do.” Not a word about those countless people in Southeast Asia whose lives reached their unnatural limits when they encountered an American infantryman with an M-16 or a bomb dropped from a B-52.
Of course, to remember what the United States, during LBJ’s tenure, did to Vietnam and to the young Americans who served there does not cancel out his domestic achievements. But to portray him solely as a paragon of empathy, a liberal hero with a minor flaw or two, is not merely a feat of willful amnesia. It is deeply immoral.

You can read the whole thing at the New Republic. Of course, Kazin is a Commie-loving pinko traitor, but at least he has the intellectual integrity to tell the truth about Lyndon Johnson.

 

Category: Culture, History

This Is Not The Time To Go Wobbly On #ObamaCare: Abort It With The Prejudice Of All Stone-Hearted Feminists Combined

Posted on | April 12, 2014 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

In this one-time, symbolic sense, I’m willing to be seen encouraging an abortion. And, yes, a plan for something better, that supports liberty, the economy, mom and apple pie needs to be described.
And then, Just. Bludgeon. ObamaCare. Like. A. Baby. Seal.

In ways they’ve never discussed before, senior administration officials now admit they feared late last fall that the entire law might collapse under the weight of Democratic defections and aggressive Republican calls for repeal. The mathematics of veto-proof majorities always argued against repeal, but the nightmare of HealthCare.gov followed by the “political lie of the year” on individual insurance policies filled senior Obama advisers with Affordable Care Act existential dread.

Make a fundraise out of it. Print a full copy of the legislation and amendments, drill a center hole, drop in some rebar, and then sell $5 ticket to take a whack at a monument do diabolical falsehood.
ObamaCare is a river of lies, with headwaters in Hell. Let its legend as the antithesis of our Constitution grow and instruct future generations that Progress was a fool’s errand.

via HotAir QOTD

Category: Health Care

The Imperfections of Victimhood

Posted on | April 12, 2014 | 44 Comments

Well, this wasn’t a conversation I was planning to have today, but after some Twitter discussion on the Dana McCallum transgender lesbian rape story — it’s like the Rocky Horror Nightly News Show or something — the misunderstanding exceeded what could be accomplished in 140 characters or less. So I said, “I’ll blog it and get back to you, OK?”

Do I really care what a bunch of San Francisco liberals think about me? I do not. On the other hand, San Francisco liberals are never going to have Second Thoughts if they think that the alternative to their worldview is ignorant bigotry, so occasionally it is worthwhile to demonstrate that our bigotry is not ignorant, and perhaps not even “bigotry” at all. That is to say, one may have entirely logical reasons for disagreeing with liberals and, even if your reasons are emotional or sentimental, it may still be possible to persuade liberals, by means of an articulate discourse.

The accusation that male-to-female transgender Dana McCallum raped her lesbian (biologically female) spouse @MadMelvina is one of those stories that strikes at the intersection of multiple contemporary ideological crusades of the Left:

  1. Rape Culture — This is the idea, popularized by feminists, that rape is not an individual act perpetrated by criminals. Instead, we are told, rape is the result of social attitudes about sex. By this pretzel logic, the person who makes a sarcastic remark about rape is complicit in the crime, because such remarks represent a cultural attitude that makes rape possible.
  2. Anti-Homophobia — As fashionable causes go, fighting homophobia in 2014 is like being a Freedom Rider in 1963 or a draft-card-burning hippie peacenik in 1968. Liberals have convinced themselves that prejudice against gays and lesbians is an existential crisis, and anyone who doesn’t constantly denounce homophobia might as well go join Westboro Baptist Church.
  3. Radical Feminism — Little noticed by the mainstream media, hard-core radical feminism is staging a comeback. And these man-hating lesbian separatists are angry as hell about the attempt of some transgenders to include themselves in feminism. From the radical (“essentialist”) perspective, these XY-chromosome sex-changers are simply men — the Oppressive Patriarchy incarnate! — employing a particularly sneaky way of co-opting the Womyn’s Movement.

It should not be necessary for me to say that I think all of these people are crazy. But all crazies are not created equal and, as crazy as the radical man-hating lesbians may be, they at least have valid science on their side in saying that “female” is a biological category — genetically determined, rather than being a “social construct.”

Readers will recall the January item, “Feminists Accused of ‘Transphobia’: Competitive Victimhood Derby“:

So, RadFem 2013 was a conference in London, which resulted in a gigantic controversy because radical feminists insisted on excluding the “transgendered” from their female-only event, and one of the featured speakers, Australian lesbian feminist Professor Sheila Jeffreys, was about to publish a new book, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism, that was deeply offensive to the “T” people represented in the LGBT acronym.
How crazy did that conflict become? At one point in April, the venue tried to cancel the event after discovering that “certain language was used and some statements were made about transgender people that would go against our equalities and diversity policy.” Another RadFem conference organizer, Cathy Brennan of Baltimore, was meanwhile all over Twitter announcing “transwomen are men” and comparing them to MRAs (men’s rights advocates). . . .
The Competitive Victimhood Derby is ultimately a zero-sum game, you see. There can only be one winner, and the transgender claim to equal victimhood is rejected by radical feminists, who view this as an attempt to usurp their own categorical claim.
It’s like a traffic jam on the Crazyville Road, where two politicized groups of wackjobs are compelled by the implicit logic of their arguments to fight each other for supremacy.

Strange as it is to say, however, I perceive in the RadFem position not only a basic scientific truth about who is a woman, but also an argument for the principle of free association.

What the RadFem organizers are saying is that transgenders wanting to attend their conference are like Nazis wanting to attend a synagogue or Klansmen wanting to attend an NAACP meeting. If the organizers of a feminist conference cannot decide who is invited (and who is not invited), whose essential liberty is being infringed?

Therefore, I accept that RadFems (who understandably do not want me and my oppressive patriarchal penis anywhere near their conference) also have the right to exclude XY-chromosome persons who present themselves as pseudo-females. And the only real argument that transgender “feminists” can make in response is that their exclusion from the RadFem conference hurts their feelings.

So what? Since when was it a civil-rights violation to hurt somebody’s feelings? Where do people get the idea that, if you call me a “hillbilly,” I can sue you for not calling me an “Appalachian-American”?

People do not have a “right” to high self-esteem!

OK, so when it was reported that Dana McCallum’s ex-wife had accused her of rape, a radical feminist rejected the categories:

Conservatives don’t usually find themselves nodding in agreement with angry radical dykes, but it’s difficult to deny the basic point here: If radical feminism is about advancing the interests of lesbians, then it is sort of an insult to radical feminists to label Dana McCallum’s (alleged) crime a “lesbian rape.” Such an inaccurate label wrongly shifts the blame from one group (transgenders) to another group (lesbians).

Radical dykes have feelings, too, you know.

Apparently, however, Dana McCallum’s (alleged) victim has an overpowering sympathy for the, uh, transgender community. (The alleged victim’s identity is not a secret, by the way: Anyone can figure out that @MadMelvina is @DanaDanger’s ex-wife.) The rhetoric about McCallum’s gender was upsetting to the alleged victim:

 

Hmmmm. It certainly would have been the wise thing to bite my tongue and say nothing. But my innate propensity for irreverent sarcasm is sometimes just too strong to resist:


 

Was I trying to make a serious point here? Yes, because it would seem like to me that if a woman had been raped by a member of the transgender community, this event might cause her to have Second Thoughts about her sympathies. In fact, maybe this unfortunate experience would cause a victim and her friends to question their entire liberal worldview, which is based on the idea that moral virtue consists chiefly of striking poses of political sympathy toward Oppressed Minorities and Other Victims of Society.

Maybe — and hey, I’m just throwing this out there, OK? — it makes more sense to look at human beings as individuals, rather than as members of collective identity groups. Maybe people who chatter constantly about “critical thinking” could apply some skeptical curiosity to the liberal habit of categorizing people as either (a) Victims of Oppression or (b) Perpetrators of Oppression on the basis of group membership. Is it possible that some gay people, for example, have problems more important than “homophobia”? Yes, I think this is possible, and I even think that if you studied the situation carefully, you would find that the vast majority of homosexuals aren’t really Victims of Oppression at all.

Far be it from me either (a) to foment transphobic bigotry, or (b) to engage in slut-shaming and victim-blaming. However, I would hope that @MadMelvina‘s experience with @DanaDanger might inspire her to reconsider her apparent belief that all transgendered people are Victims of Oppression in every circumstance. After all, if @MadMelvina‘s allegations are true, then she is the Victim, and @DanaDanger is actually the Oppressor. And I will repeat what I said before:

Some people have a “rescuer” tendency that leads them to get involved with damaged personalities. So if McCallum’s ex fled one abusive situation, only to end up in another (allegedly) abusive situation, this is perhaps predictable.

One does not have to be a perfect victim in order to be a victim. When a teenage hoodlum gets gunned down by rival hoodlums, we are not “blaming the victim” (nor are we “pro-drive-by-shooting”) if we say that such crimes illustrate the danger of adolescents becoming involved in youth gang activity. By the same token, when a teenage girl is sexually assaulted after getting passed-out drunk at a party, we are not “pro-rape” for mentioning the role of alcohol in the crime.

Knowing absolutely nothing about the facts of “the incident in question” involving @MadMelvina and @DanaDanger, I am nonetheless predisposed to believe the victim in this case.

Why? Well, a careful reading of Dana McCallum’s August 2013 speech to a high school LGBT group indicates that McCallum has a long history of mental illness. The careful reader with a background in psychology might see elements of pathological narcissism, impulsive behavior and “boundary issues” in McCallum’s story. Would someone like that be capable of sexual assault? Certainly, I think so.

But wait a minute: Aren’t the mentally ill also an Official Victim Group for whom liberals are required to feel sympathy?

And if the alleged rapist is a mentally ill transgender, doesn’t that double victimhood trump the rights of a mere woman?

The logic of the Competitive Victimhood Derby has led us to this strange place, where a rape victim fears transphobia more than she fears that other women may fall prey to similar crimes.

PSYCHO-TRANNY RAPE RAMPAGE
Women Savagely Assaulted by Sex-Crazed Shemales

Yeah, that’s a tabloid headline that would sell some newspapers. And as crazy as the news has been lately, who knows?

Maybe these musings won’t cause any San Francisco liberals to have Second Thoughts about their worldview, but I hope at least I’ve demonstrated that my bigotry isn’t entirely ignorant.

And perhaps it isn’t really bigotry at all. Think about it.

 

Category: Crime, Feminism, Gays, Sex

Separated At Birth: Eric Holder & Caillou

Posted on | April 11, 2014 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

One is a pathetic, infantile piece of beta-male work, and the other is a Canadian:

Inspired by Krauthammer video via Breitbart below the fold, for autoplay reasons:
Read more

Category: Eric Holder

Transgender Lesbian Dana McCallum Accused of Raping Lesbian Ex-Wife

Posted on | April 11, 2014 | 100 Comments

Accused transgender lesbian rapist Dana McCallum.

Maybe this proves the radical feminists right. Even after they get rid of their penises, men are still men and all men are rapists:

A prominent advocate for transgender and women’s rights in the tech world has been charged with raping her wife, The San Francisco Examiner has learned.
Dana McCallum, a senior engineer at Twitter who speaks and writes about women’s and transgender rights and technology issues, was arrested Jan. 26 and booked into County Jail on suspicion of five felonies, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
McCallum, 31, whose legal name is Dana Contreras, was charged Jan. 29 with five felonies, including three counts of spousal rape, one count of false imprisonment and one count of domestic violence, according to the District Attorney’s Office. She has since pleaded not guilty. . . .
McCallum’s attorney, John Runfola, says the case is simply about money.
“I’m just disgusted that, you know, this is going on,” Runfola said. “Dana is an employee [at Twitter] and is about to come into a large amount of money. … This whole thing is about money.”
The couple had been separated, he said, but were still having sexual relations. McCallum served her wife with divorce papers the day before the incident, Runfola said.
The incident in question, according to Runfola, happened in a small condo in the Mission district when four teenagers were in the house.
“No one heard ‘rape’ or fighting or anything,” he said.

Uh, why were four teenagers at this couple’s “small condo in the Mission district”? But never mind that distraction: Exactly how does a transgender rape her estranged lesbian wife? Can a woman be “raped” by her partner’s surgically created simulacrum of a vagina? One suspects that a detailed account of “the incident in question” would be an exceptionally strange story. Speaking of which . . .

The Daily Mail notices that McCallum has published “the text of a talk I gave to Bloomington High School South’s gay-straight alliance in Indiana on April 24, 2013.” Because, yeah, talking to high school kids about your sex life is the thing you want to do a few months before you’re accused of raping your lesbian wife while four teenagers are in your condo.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

UPDATE: A bit of research reveals that @MadMelvina is @DanaDanger’s ex-wife. She is about 15 years older than McCallum, and fled an abusive marriage to her previous husband. At least one of the couple’s friends is siding with the ex against McCallum:

Some people have a “rescuer” tendency that leads them to get involved with damaged personalities. So if McCallum’s ex fled one abusive situation, only to end up in another (allegedly) abusive situation, this is perhaps predictable. Speaking of which . . .

TERFs = Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists, i.e., lesbian separatists who don’t want trannies in female-only spaces. Weird to find myself agreeing with them, however limited the agreement may be.

 

Category: Crime, Gays, Sex

The One Percent

Posted on | April 11, 2014 | 15 Comments

Matthew Continetti recounts the luxurious lifestyle of two top liberal lobbyists in Washington whose marriage went kaput:

The stories begin in the fall of 2001. She was in her early thirties, working at a trade association, and on the rebound. Her second marriage had just ended. A friend, Dorothy Robyn, a Democratic policy wonk, suggested she meet Tony Podesta. Tony was decades older than she, and had been married once before, but he was young at heart. He took her to the opera for their first date. On the way, the story goes, they stopped by one of his homes to pick up a car. She noticed his art collection. “I don’t know why it is,” Tony said, “but I have artworks where the women have no heads.” The next day she sent him a note. It was signed, “Woman with a head.”
The woman with a head was Heather Miller, and soon she and Tony were in love. They moved in together. When they married, in April of 2003, Tony was 59, and Heather was 33. Nancy Pelosi witnessed their vows, as did Patrick Leahy, and Ed Markey, and Bill Richardson, and countless other Democratic bigwigs. According to the Post, which has chronicled the ups and downs of the Podestas’ relationships and careers, the noted D.C. chefs and restaurateurs Roberto Donna and Kaz Okuchi “personally cooked for the guests.” This was no ordinary wedding.
And Tony Podesta was no ordinary man. A longtime Democratic aide, a counselor to Teddy Kennedy, Tony had been one of the capital’s most powerful lobbyists for some time. As his lawyers would later put it, “‘Podesta’ was a widely recognized and well-respected name in the lobbying industry at the time of the marriage.” The lobbying firm he had established in 1987 was powerfully connected. His younger brother, John, was President Clinton’s chief of staff. Tony Podesta owned art and wine and real estate in Italy, in Australia, in northern Virginia, and in D.C. He was a major Democratic donor, a force to be reckoned with, and a cut-up, a character who wore loud neckties and red Prada shoes. . . .

Read the whole thing. The swinish Podestas are suing each other and waging a tacky P.R. battle via strategic media leaks.

 

Category: Liberals
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