The Other McCain

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

#SouthSudan: It’s Civil War Now

Posted on | December 23, 2013 | 12 Comments

There has been a lot of verbal tiptoeing among journalists writing about the crisis in South Sudan, said to be “on the verge” of civil war, etc. But the country’s former vice president, Riek Machar, has now admitted that he is leading the rebels, some army officers have defected to Machar’s side, bloody tribal violence has erupted, foreign nationals are evacuating, U.S. troops were wounded by rebel fire, a key oil region is reported under rebel control, total casualties are estimated to exceed 1,000 — it’s past the “verge.” This is a civil war:

Rebels have seized the capital of a key oil-producing state in South Sudan, government officials said, as fears grew that the latest violence would spiral into an all-out civil war in the world’s newest country.
The United Nations said it was trying to send more peacekeeping forces to the East African state, as foreign powers urged an immediate end to the fighting.
The violence, which began in the capital, Juba, has spread farther north in one week, killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.
Military spokesman Phillip Aguer told CNN that Bentiu is currently not under government control, after falling to troops loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, who was ousted from his post in the summer.
On its Twitter feed, the South Sudanese government wrote: “Bentiu is not currently in our hands. It is in the hands of a commander who has declared support for Machar.”
Bentiu is the capital of Unity state, the source of oil — crucial to impoverished South Sudan’s economy — that flows through pipelines north into Sudan for export.

We’re clearly past the “teetering on the brink” phase:

Civilian helicopters evacuated US citizens from a city in South Sudan that has seen bouts of heavy machine-gun fire, but 3,000 citizens from countries including Canada, Britain and Kenya remain trapped there, a UN official has said.
Toby Lanzer, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator, said Australians, Ugandans and Ethiopians were also among 15,000 people seeking protection at a UN base in Bor, a city that could see increasing violence in coming days.
The death toll from a week of violence in South Sudan has likely surpassed 1,000, though there are no firm numbers available, he said on Monday. The number of internal refugees is likely to exceed 100,000, said Lanzer, who is seeking urgent financial assistance from the international community.
“I can’t afford any delays from donor capitals right now,” he said in a phone call. “Never has there been a greater time of need in South Sudan.”
Bor is the city where three US military aircraft were fired upon on Saturday, forcing the Ospreys – advanced helicopter-airplane hybrids – to abort their evacuation mission. On Sunday, the US evacuated its citizens by civilian American and UN helicopters.
The US over the past week has evacuated 380 Americans and 300 others from South Sudan, which has witnessed vicious, ethnically targeted violence. Military commanders loyal to the country’s ousted vice-president have defected and say they are in control of areas that hold lucrative oil fields.
Lanzer, who spent the weekend in Bor, said the city was the scene of tense, sporadic clashes and “fairly consistent gunfire and heavy machine-gun fire”.

When the army announces a “major offensive”? It’s a civil war:

South Sudan’s army was poised for a major offensive against rebel forces, the president said Monday, as the country slid towards civil war despite international peace efforts.
Expectations of a major upsurge in fighting came as the United Nations warned that the situation in the world’s youngest nation was fast unravelling, with hundreds of thousands of civilians now at risk.
Fighting has gripped South Sudan for more than a week, after President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar, who was fired from the government in July, of attempting a coup.
Machar denied the claim and accused Kiir of carrying out a vicious purge of his rivals. Vowing to oust Kiir, his forces have since seized the town of Bor, capital of the powder-keg eastern Jonglei state and located just 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Juba, as well as the town of Bentiu, capital of crucial oil-producing Unity state.
The army is “now ready to move to Bor,” Kiir told parliament, adding that the counter-attack was delayed until US citizens had been airlifted out.
The comments came despite days of shuttle diplomacy by African nations and calls from the United States, Britain and the United Nations for the fighting to stop in the country, which won independence from Sudan just two and a half years ago, in July 2011.
US special envoy Donald Booth arrived Monday in Juba in a bid to push peace efforts, as the top UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, Toby Lanzer, said the situation was rapidly deteriorating.
“It would have been difficult one week ago to imagine that things would have unravelled to this extent,” Lanzer told AFP. “There are hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese who’ve fled into the bush or back to their villages to get out of harm’s way.”

So the “peace efforts” have so far failed, Machar’s rebellion is an ongoing enterprise, and everybody can stop pretending that this is merely a “crisis” and call it what it is: A civil war.

 


Category: Sudan

LIVE AT FIVE: 12.23.13

Posted on | December 23, 2013 | 18 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Khodorkovsky: I’m Not Challenging Putin

Former oil tycoon and political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Won’t be funding any opposition parties

Appeals Court Denies Stay On Utah Gay Marriage Ruling
10th Circuit denies stay pending hearing today


Senator Manchin: Obamacare Could Suffer “Complete Meltdown”
WV Democrat pushing for a one-year delay of the Abominable Care Act



POLITICS
GOP Finds Filibuster Alternatives To Fight Obama Nominees

Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas: nomination rammed through on a party-line vote despite pending investigation

No more Mister Nice Guy now that nuclear option’s been employed


Lawmakers Battle Over Future Of NSA Snooping

Senate Hopefuls Uneasy In Montana



Judge Deals Blow To Obamacare’s Contraceptive Mandate

Huge Backlash Mounts Over Suspension of “Duck Dynasty” Star Phil Robertson

Huckabee To Decide On 2016 White House Run After Midterms

Cheerleader To Soldier: Philly Eagles Girl Turns In Pom-Poms For Rifle



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Oil Rises On US Economic Data: NYMEX $99.27, Brent $111.82
Weak US Card Security Made Target Easy For Hackers To Hit
Darden Facing New Investor Unrest
Oracle To Buy Responsys For $1.5 Billion
German Retailer Aldi Plans $3 Billion US Expansion
News Corp. Buys Social Media Startup Storyful For $25 Million
Apple Signs iPhone Deal With PRC’s China Mobile
RSA Comes Out Swinging, Denies Taking NSA Payoff To Backdoor Its Crypto
T-Mobile To Unveil Uncarrier 4.0 Strategy At CES
Google Back In EU’s Antitrust Sights
Research Shows How MacBook Webcams Can Spy On Their Owners Without Warning



SPORTS
Broncos’ Manning Sets NFL Record With 51st TD Pass

Peyton Manning acknowledges the crowd’s cheers

Also, Denver beats Houston 37-13


Dalton Shines As Bengals Rout Vikings, Clinch AFC North

Raptors Rally, Hand Thunder First Home Loss Of Season


Romo Flips The Script, Cowboys Stun Redskins Again

Canucks Edge Jets Even After Losing Luongo In 1st

Panthers Jolt Saints To Make Playoffs

Blue Jackets Rally Past Flyers But Lose Gaborik In First Game Back

Nats Sign Catcher Chris Snyder To Minor League Deal



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Britney: I Think About Retiring

“Right now is my time to perform.”

Looking forward to kicking back in Louisiana

Taylor Swift Collaborating Again For Fifth Album

Three 6 Mafia’s Lord Infamous Dies, 40

Rachel Zoe Welcomes Second Son

Gabrielle Union Engaged To Dwyane Wade

Teresa Palmer Marries Mark Webber In Mexico

Selena Gomez “Happiest I’ve Been In A While” Since Canceling Tour

Ex-Danity Kane Singer D. Woods – I Got Screwed Out Of The Reunion

Demi Lovato – How Dare “X Factor” Joke About My Drinking Problem!

Kate Upton, Maksim Chmerkovsky Split Up After Six Months

Beyonce Holds Private Album Release Party At Dave & Buster’s In Times Square



FOREIGNERS
Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina Freed
Dennis Rodman Leaves The DPRK
Brits, Canadians Still In South Sudan City Evacuated By US
Thai Protesters Step Up Efforts To Disrupt Elections
Three Egyptian Activists Jailed For Role In 2011 Revolution
Protesters Clash With Turkish Police Over Corruption Scandal
Defiant Ukraine Opposition Continues Pro-EU Rallies
US Increases Pressure On Pakistan As PTI Blockade Continues
Bangladeshi Factory Owners Charged In Fire That Killed 112
White House Petition Launched To Free Imprisoned Vice-Consul
Ice Storm Leaves Canada With Widespread Power Outages



BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: The Success Of Socialism
The Looking Spoon: Pajama Boy – Spawn Of MSNBC?
American Power: Obamacare’s Radicalism Exposed
American Thinker: Phil Robertson’s Detractors Advance His Message
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Andrew Kaczynski May Be The Worst Person On The Internet
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Dan Savage Won’t Shut Up About Gay Sex, But Phil Robertson Is A Monster?
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, December 20
Jammie Wearing Fools: Democrats’ War On Women – “I Got A Boner When I Walked Into The Office Today When I Saw You”
JustOneMinute: Spreading The Wealth
Pat Dollard: Kid Rock Defends Phil Robertson – Time To Stop This Bullshit-Ass PC Game
Protein Wisdom: If You Don’t Like The Ruling Class, You Must Be A Hater
The Jawa Report: Tis The Season – Salvation Army Toy Giveaway Turns Violent
The Lonely Conservative: An Inner City Tea Party?
This Ain’t Hell: Re Bateman On Guns
Megan McArdle: Would You Pay $2500 For The Perfect Cup Of Joe?


Shop Amazon – Free One-Day Shipping on Last Minute Gift Ideas

Category: Live at Five

Rule 5 Sunday: Transfer Station Blue

Posted on | December 22, 2013 | 19 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I was strongly tempted to put this off until tomorrow due to sheer inertia and a lack of gumption, but you folks have been good this week and deserve your b00bies. As usual, take care not to click the links where & when you shouldn’t.

Randy’s Roundtable leads off this week with Sarah Mutch, followed by Laughing Conservative with Candice Swanepoel, Fishersville Mike with some Duck Dynasty Rule 5, and Goodstuff with some Twisted Christmas stuff including Kate Moss. Ninety Miles From Tyranny checks in with Morning Mistress, Hot Pick of the Late Night, and Girls With Guns; Blackmailers Don’t Shoot takes it in a different direction with Inked Girls. Lowering the Boom spotlights Lt. Amy Washburn, former Eagles cheerleader, now working intel for the Army; we don’t know if any of these Estonian ladies noted by First Street Journal are former cheerleaders, but I think they’d make the cut.

EBL’s herd of notable heifers this week includes Denise Richards and Alyssa Milano, some of the gals from Duck Dynasty and Petticoat Junction, and Bad Santa (allegedly for the ladies); also, a double serving of vintage Hollywood Christmas Rule 5.

A View From The Beach has Santa’s Little Helpers, You Want Fries With That?, George Washington’s Fish, Maybe Drew Carey Was Onto Something, World To Remain Mens’ Oyster (with cavegirl content), Breaking News: Charlie Sheen Still An A$hole, RIP Joan Fontaine and Peter O’Toole, Au Revoir To A Bad Girl, The Great Inter-generational Dance-Off, and The Mommy Warriors.

At Soylent Refuge, it’s a good to remember that with breakfast (and other meals) presentation counts. The Monday Motivationer has some mirror mirror action, followed by Tuesday Titillation Sandra and Sublime Cameltoe Too. Humpday Hawt window shopping follows, with Evening Awesome Tyran, Falconsword Fursday Vroom, Overnighty Jennifer, Corsetcare Castanets, T-GIF Friday Isometrics, Afternoon Awesome Irish, and the weekender – 50 Shades Of Pink.

American Power returns with Alessandra Ambrosio, Kate Upton, Rosie In Red White And Blue, Andrea Tantaros, Rhian Sugden, Kelly Brook, and its own version of Rule 5 Sunday.

Proof Positive’s Babe of the Week is Michelle Borth, his vintage babe is Joan Fontaine, Sex in Advertising is once again covered by Victoria’s Secret, and of course there’s the obligatory 49ers cheerleader. Dustbury goes for the trifecta with Tatyana Rodos, Angie Harmon, and Nicole de Boer; Three Beers Later chips in with Rachel Washburn.

The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week included Akina Aoshima, Hideo Kamibayashi, Amanda Roadmen, Cassidy Hubbarth, Erika Medina, Ayumi Hayama, Diana Morales, Megu Fujiura, and Nina Minami. Also, BIKINIS!, Christmas Babes, and Asian Women.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for next week’s Rule 5 Sunday will be midnight Saturday, December 28.


Shop Amazon – Free One-Day Shipping on Last Minute Gift Ideas
Visit Amazon’s Intimate Apparel Shop

Category: Rule 5

A Positive Aspect Of The “Duck Dynasty” Kerfuffle: Identifying The Fools

Posted on | December 22, 2013 | 45 Comments

by Smitty

Such as O. Wesley Allen Jr.:

But other Bible experts said the Scripture Robertson cited isn’t quite clear about homosexuality.
“A lot of people misread this text because it’s so complicated,” said O. Wesley Allen Jr., an associate professor at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky.
First, scholars say, we have to look at the context surrounding Paul’s letter.
The Christian leader is trying to get the quarreling Corinthians to stop taking each other to civil courts and being judgmental. “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already,” Paul says.
Things were supposed to be different after they became Christian believers, Paul continues; they were supposed to stop their sinful ways.

There are plenty of areas for conjecture about the Bible, especially the beginning of creation and the apocalyptic end.

But to try to say that the Bible, at any point, is less than clear when it comes to sexuality is a public confession of unreliability. The human form is the human form. The reproductive system is not the digestive system. Sexual activity outside of marriage (which I should not have to state means the heterosexual context, not any of the current ‘novel’ geometries) means falling short of the optimal.

The clarification is welcome. We know whom to ignore. The other good news, as with the Chick-Fil-A blowback, is that the tolerant, easy-going Christians in this country are awakening to the danger of getting pushed around by the godless Commie sodomites who’ve trashed our culture and politics.

This is a crucial step in recovering the situation.

Category: Culture

Crime Is a People Problem

Posted on | December 22, 2013 | 19 Comments

How many times have I said this? A lot: The key to crime prevention is to identify, apprehend and imprison criminals. People who commit serious crimes also usually commit petty crimes, and by the time you actually catch a criminal and convict him on a serious charge, he’s probably already gotten away with numerous minor crimes.

It’s the Al Capone Principle: The infamous mobster was responsible for a vast criminal enterprise, but all they could convict him for was federal tax evasion. OK, fine, lock him up on this relatively minor crime but please, for the love of God, lock him up!

This came to mind as I read the news from New Jersey:

Nearly a week after 30-year-old Hoboken lawyer Dustin Friedland was gunned down in a deadly carjacking while returning to his vehicle in an upper level parking deck of the Mall at Short Hills, police this morning arrested four men on charges of murder.
The four, were identified as Karif Ford, 31, Basim Henry, 32, Kevin Roberts, 35, all of Newark, and Hanif Thompson, 29, of Irvington. All were being held at the Essex County Correctional Facility on $2 million bail each.

 New Jersey resident Mandy Nagy writes:

The four have been charged with murder, felony murder, carjacking, conspiracy, possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose, according to FOX News.
Friedland and his wife, Jamie, had returned to their parked 2012 silver Range Rover after an evening of holiday shopping on December 15th.  Friedland had opened the car door for his wife and was said to have been walking behind the vehicle to the other side when he was confronted by several of the alleged carjackers.  After reportedly getting into a scuffle with one of them, Friedland was shot once in the head and later died in a Morristown, NJ hospital.

(The reported “scuffle” — Bruce Friedland resisting the robbers — may well have saved his wife’s life.)

The stolen Range Rover was found the following morning in Newark, NJ. Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said in a press conference today that the crime is believed to have been motivated by the vehicle, according to the Star Ledger.
The state of NJ has been battling carjacking crimes in Essex County. Earlier this summer, a joint NJ state and federal task force launched an anti-carjacking public awareness campaign, aimed in part at warning would-be carjackers of serious consequences for related offenses.

From the Task Force announcement:

Since 2009, more than 200 carjackings have taken place in Essex County, and each year that number continues to climb. . . .
In the 1990s, Essex County led the nation in car theft. With advances in technology, vehicles are better equipped with sophisticated anti-theft devices, making it almost impossible for an amateur to steal an unattended car. As a result, carjackings have been on the rise.
In recent years, there have been more than 400 carjackings in the county. These crimes occur in the early morning hours and late at night.

Again proving my point that crime is a people problem: People who want to steal cars cannot ultimately be deterred by “anti-theft devices,” but will resort to whatever means are necessary to their felonious intentions because they are criminals.

It’s who they are, it’s what they do, and they’re going to keep committing crimes at every opportunity, until you lock them up:

The four thugs accused of savagely killing a young Hoboken lawyer in a New Jersey mall’s parking garage have extensive criminal histories — and one had been released from jail just four days before the slaying. . . .
All four — who face possible life sentences — have rap sheets stretching back years that include multiple burglary and drug counts.
Thompson, who has done more than a dozen stints in the Essex County Jail, was released on Dec. 11 after serving time on a burglary charge.
Roberts has been arrested 13 times on narcotics and weapons offenses.
Both Ford and Henry were sent to prison in 2003 — Ford for burglary and Henry for bank robbery, records show.
Henry finished federal prison time eight months ago for a robbery in which he put a gun to the head of a Union Township bank employee.

So two of the accused carjacking killers had only recently gotten out of the slammer and evidently none of them has ever done anything for a living except deal dope and steal stuff. Career criminals, one and all, and nobody is safe as long as such criminals are on the streets, not even the affluent residents of Short Hills, New Jersey, a community 22 miles west of New York City. The population of Short Hills is 81% white, the median household income is $235,799 and if you’re a criminal from Newark looking for rich people to rob, Short Hills is a target-rich environment.

The irony is that the cops on the Anti-Carjacking Task Force actually know who commits these crimes: Today’s dope bust or burglary suspect is tomorrow’s armed robber or murderer, but our legal system has been perverted by decades of liberal jurisprudence so that courts and cops are required to pretend that crime happens utterly at random and 30-year-old lawyers get shot dead at the shopping mall by criminals who had no business being anywhere near that mall because they should have been behind bars. Our legal system has been hijacked by radical ideologues who apparently believe that criminals have a monopoly on “rights,” but in the immortal words of Inspector Harry Callahan: “Well, I’m all broken up about that man’s rights.”

 

 

(Via Memeorandum with more blog commentary at Weasel Zippers, Gateway Pundit, Scared Monkeys and Hinterland Gazette.)

 


Category: Crime

Where We’re Heading

Posted on | December 22, 2013 | 46 Comments

If you don’t want to be accused of homophobia . . .

The director of a new film featuring gay themes and characters is blasting the movie ratings board for giving the comedy an R rating.
G.B.F., set for a Jan. 14 debut, earned the rating for “sexual references.” Director Darren Stein feels the film should be a PG-13 affair. . . .
Stein, in a previous chat with The Huffington Post, described the film as a departure from other teen features.
“G.B.F.” has a gooey emotional center . . .

“Gooey emotional center”? No, thanks, but if you don’t want your 12-year-old to see that movie, you’re a homophobe. The requirements to avoid accusations of homophobia keep increasing:

Be sure to read Mark Steyn’s excellent essay on the “tolerant” left’s intolerance of mainstream Christian beliefs, and their intolerance of the temerity that anyone might express them.
See, “The Age of Intolerance” (via Memeorandum).
And because he’s a bleedin’ idiot (and epic asshole), LGM’s Scotty Lame-ieux attacks Steyn on free speech grounds (although Steyn’s not making a free speech argument). See, “And David Duke is the New Fred Shuttlesworth!“

There are probably worse people on the planet than Professor Scott Lemieux, but none whose names immediately came to mind.

See, this is what the Left’s “homophobia” game is about: Pointing the accusatory finger, and requiring that we all join them in destroying the targeted hater, so as to validate and increase the power of the accusers. If you say, “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t think the targeted person should be destroyed,” your dissent from the gay lynch mob forms the basis of an accusation that you share the homophobic guilt of the accused target. Even silence — or a failure to shout loudly enough at the target — could be proof of your guilt, if any grounds of suspicion previously existed.

Trying to “argue” with totalitarians like Professor Scott Lemieux is a waste of time, because hate-filled radical monsters like that don’t want to persuade you, they want to destroy you.

What is necessary is to expose the fact that Professor Scott Lemieux has zero authority to accuse anyone else of moral failure.

What acts of humanitarian philanthropy does he claim as evidence of his moral authority? Does Professor Scott Lemieux have a reputation for generosity, courage and honesty or, as I strongly suspect, is he one of these selfish lying cowards who populate academia nowadays, pharisaically displaying their “progressive” politics as an ersatz substitute for actual virtue?

So while I have no specific reason to suspect that Professor Scott Lemieux is currently planning genocide, if any gay youth go missing in Albany, N.Y., the police might want to check his freezer, just to be on the safe side. He is Canadian, you know.

 

Category: Education, Gays, Intellectuals

So, Justine Finally Landed …

Posted on | December 22, 2013 | 141 Comments

The unfortunate Justine Sacco, whose Friday tweet inspired the hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet, went into full grovel mode:

Today Sacco spoke to ABC News, saying, “My greatest concern was this statement reach South Africa first.” After sending her statement to South African newspaper The Star, Sacco shared the following apology:
“Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet,” Sacco said. “There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand.
“For being insensitive to this crisis — which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly — and to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed.
“This is my father’s country, and I was born here. I cherish my ties to South Africa and my frequent visits, but I am in anguish knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people here; my family, friends and fellow South Africans. I am very sorry for the pain I caused.”

As Ace accurately observed Friday, Sacco is a liberal, and her joke was actually a self-deprecating reference to white privilege. No one can deny that it was tasteless and, as she says, “insensitive,” but it scarcely justified her public crucifixion. Her apology, while no doubt sincere, is also a signifier: “I get it! I’m a liberal, too!”

But her liberalism (like all liberalism) is misguided, assuming as it does that the problem of AIDS in Africa (or any similar social problem) results from a shortage of caring. This is a species of Magic Thinking: “We could solve this problem, if only we cared enough.” And from this delusion, we get a lot of empty gestures that do nothing to solve problems, but make people feel good about themselves.

Thomas Sowell wrote an entire book about this, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy — a book that no liberal has ever bothered to read, because if they bothered to read it, they wouldn’t be liberals anymore.

If you think that every problem of black people can be explained by racism, or that every problem of gay people can be explained by homophobia, certain conclusions are inherent in those premises, no matter how you construct your syllogism. One example is the way in which we monitor speech for “proof” that others secretly harbor forbidden sentiments, and immediately pounce upon anything that looks like such “proof,” like Justine’s tweet:

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS.
Just kidding. I’m white!”

Twelve words, and let’s get her fired from her job for making a bad joke on Twitter, as if getting her fired will purge the world of racism and thereby end AIDS in Africa. The Daily Mail reports.

The PR executive who was summarily dismissed after her racist Tweet sparked a revolt on social media has apologised – as her own father called her a ‘f****** idiot’.
Justine Sacco said that she was ‘ashamed’ over her actions and said she had been ‘cavalier’ in making her tasteless joke about the AIDS crisis in Africa.
But her father, who has not been publicly named, was more forthright and said that what she did was ‘unforgivable’.
He also apparently backed the campaign to name and shame his daughter as, in an ironic twist, it emerged he moved his family from Cape Town to the US in 1994 to escape racism at the end of Apartheid. . . .
Losing her job as a communications director could also mean losing her US work visa -potentially forcing her to leave America.

Well, I’m sure we’re all glad Justine’s father called her a “f**king idiot,” but did you notice something about that article?

So pervasive is what Sowell called The Vision of the Anointed that most people didn’t even notice this dishonest assumption. To say her tweet was “offensive” is one thing, but to label it “racist” is to assume to know Sacco’s intent when, as seems evident, her actual intent was anti-racist: “Sacco is a young, professional, New York woman. Chances are about 99.9% that she’s a BuzzFeed-loving, Obama-voting, MSNBC addict.”

If anything, Sacco’s tweet betokened the arrogance of a young liberal who assumes that all her friends (and she had fewer than 200 Twitter followers before Friday) understand she is not racist, whereas if she were a Fox-watching, Limbaugh-listening conservative Republican, she would understand that she is constantly suspected of secretly hating everyone who is not rich, white and heterosexual. Remember when Rush Limbaugh got kicked off ESPN? Even I have forgotten exactly what he said, but it was something about a black quarterback and the lesson was obvious: No Republican is ever allowed to criticize a black person, which has worked out rather nicely for Democrats since 2008, eh?

Apologies for contradicting bad ideas are never going fix any problem, especially not problems caused by liberalism itself.

NAACP investigating sheriff who
refused to lower flag for Mandela’s death

The Thought Police are always watching, aren’t they?

 

 

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! I liked this from the comments:

There was a time when even the Left considered Lord of the Flies a cautionary tale. Now they treat it like an instruction manual.

And finally someone got the allusion!

Ah yes, If the author of Justine were alive today he most certainly would be heading a modern media organization rather than staging his plays inside an insane asylum.

 


Category: Culture, Racism

Special Snowflake Syndrome

Posted on | December 22, 2013 | 77 Comments

A frightening report from the front lines of the Culture War:

Amy (not her real name) sat in my office and wiped her streaming tears on her sleeve, refusing the scratchy tissues I’d offered. “I’m thinking about just applying for a Ph.D. program after I graduate because I have no idea what I want to do.” Amy had mild depression growing up, and it worsened during freshman year of college when she moved from her parents’ house to her dorm. It became increasingly difficult to balance school, socializing, laundry, and a part-time job. She finally had to dump the part-time job, was still unable to do laundry, and often stayed up until 2 a.m. trying to complete homework because she didn’t know how to manage her time without her parents keeping track of her schedule.
I suggested finding a job after graduation, even if it’s only temporary. She cried harder at this idea. “So, becoming an adult is just really scary for you?” I asked. “Yes,” she sniffled. Amy is 30 years old.
Her case is becoming the norm for twenty- to thirtysomethings I see in my office as a psychotherapist. I’ve had at least 100 college and grad students like Amy crying on my couch because breaching adulthood is too overwhelming.

Key phrase: “Amy had mild depression growing up.”

Re-written: “Amy was diagnosed with mild depression growing up.”

That is to say, Amy was introduced to therapeutic culture at an early age, because she grew up in an affluent society that can afford for its more privileged youth to get thousands of dollars worth of psychiatric treatment to deal with their feelings. Does anyone ever stop to wonder what became of such people before the rise of the psychotherapy industry in the 20th century?

What happens is that people become defined by their diagnoses, so that sometimes you meet someone at a reception who tells you, within the first five minutes of your introduction, that they suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, ADD or whatever.

To digress: Why don’t we ever meet any really interesting nuts? I mean, it might be interesting to meet someone at a cocktail party who says, “Yes, I’ve been diagnosed with sado-masochistic compulsions stemming from an unresolved Electra Complex.”

But old-fashioned Freudian categories are out of fashion, so you never meet anyone who describes themselves as being in the throes of an oral fixation or nymphomania or something like that. Neither, for that matter, does anyone ever describe themselves as a psychopath or a lunatic — “Hi, I’m Phil and I’m certifiably insane” — but instead these people usually confess to suffering from mood disorders which, to the contemporary way of thinking, means that they are sympathetic victims, rather than outright kooks.

Ever since Prozac started making headlines back in the 1990s, I’ve been dubious about the “brain chemistry” approach to treating mood disorders with SSRIs, because of a common-sense skepticism toward the claims of scientific “experts.” Is it really a smart idea to be loading people up on complex chemicals with all kinds of potential long-term effects? I mean, how many people who start on anti-depressants in their teens or 20s ever actually get well?

That is to say, shouldn’t the goal of psychiatric treatment be to get patients to the point where they don’t need treatment any more?

And yet I can’t remember anyone ever saying, “Yes, I was diagnosed with chronic depression, but I took these pills for six months and it went away, so now I don’t need the pills anymore and I’m as cheerful as a songbird all the time.” But I digress . . .

Encouraging kids to think of themselves as suffering from mental illness, e.g., Amy’s “mild depression,” is great for the pill merchants, but I’m not sure it’s really good for the kids. Helplessness is a learned condition, and if you start telling kids that they are helpless victims of their moods and feelings, well, maybe they’ll believe you. And if they are truly helpless . . .

“[T]herapeutic morality encourages a permanent suspension of the moral sense. There is a close connection, in turn, between the erosion of moral responsibility and the waning capacity for self-help . . . between the elimination of culpability and the elimination of competence.”
– Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (1979)

Describing the problems he sees with young people, psychotherapist Brooke Donatone writes that “the ability to address hardships is lacking in many members of this generation” who have had too much parental assistance and supervision:

The researchers suggest that intrusive parenting interferes with the development of autonomy and competence. So helicopter parenting leads to increased dependence and decreased ability to complete tasks without parental supervision. . . .
Rates of depression are soaring among millennials in college. A 2012 study by the American College Counseling Association reported a 16 percent increase in mental-health visits since 2000 and a significant increase in crisis response over the past five years.  . . .
If parents are navigating every minor situation for their kids, kids never learn to deal with conflict on their own. . . .
Amy, like many millennials, was groomed to be an academic overachiever, but she became, in reality, an emotional under-achiever. Amy did not have enough coping skills to navigate normal life stressors — how do I get my laundry and my homework done in the same day; how do I tell my roommate not to watch TV without headphones at 3 a.m.? — without her parents’ constant advice or help. . . .

Why is this happening? I blame the American micro-family, the two-income suburban household with one or two children. The parents are college-educated and expect — no, demand — that their children follow in their footsteps, without regard to the child’s own aptitudes or interests. This kind of high-pressure parenting is basically impossible with larger families, and the child with multiple siblings must necessarily rely more on his own resources.

High-achieving professionals quite naturally expect that their children should be able to replicate their success, but investing such hopes in just one or two kids puts unrealistic pressures on them, and fails to consider the problem of deviation to the norm.

The more exceptional a parent’s success, the less likely that their children will be able to match or exceed it. If you’re a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, the temptation to treat your child as a hothouse flower in an effort to make the child an even more exceptional achiever is likely to yield disappointment, simply because most kids — even those who inherit tremendous potential and who are provided with every advantage — aren’t exceptional.

Who are Amy’s parents? I’ll bet they’re well-educated, successful and affluent and are horribly disappointed in her. She’s 30 years old and says she has “no idea” what she wants to do, but I’ve got news for her: You’re already doing it, Amy. It’s called “failure.”

Lot of that going around lately.

 

Category: Culture, Education
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin