The Other McCain

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

War to the Knife, Knife to the Hilt

Posted on | September 8, 2013 | 52 Comments

David Horowitz on Saturday fired back at Diana West in the seemingly interminable war over West’s book American Betrayal.

What I can’t understand is why this back-and-forth has to continue.

This began, you will recall, when Horowitz published Ron Radosh’s attack on Diana’s book, an attack that would seem a continuation of the general line of argument Radosh began against M. Stanton Evans’ Blacklisted by History in 2007. Whatever Radosh’s motives, this has rapidly escalated into a war of annihilation. It is no longer just an argument about a book, but rather a demand that everyone in the conservative movement must choose one side of the argument and cast into outer darkness everyone on the other side.

Really? With everything we might otherwise be doing — hey, Virginia will elect a governor in a couple of months — we should set that aside so that we can take up cudgels to bash in the skulls of whichever side we find fault with in an argument over the extent of Soviet influence in the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

Damn. Just . . . damn.

You know matters have degenerated to an intense state of craziness when I’m the last rational adult in the room.

 

 

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Category: Books, History

Rule 5 Sunday: Tied To You

Posted on | September 8, 2013 | 20 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

[insert standard disclaimer here]

Randy’s Roundtable kicks off this week with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders*, and Fishersville Mike is also excited about the new NFL Season. Reaganite Republican prefers Miss Sweden Bikini 2013, while 90 Miles From Tyranny goes for the trifecta with Morning Mistress, Hot Pick of the Late Night, and Girls With Guns. Animal Magnetism brings it with Rule 5 Friday and the Saturday Blondepocalypse, while Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’s Pretty Girls on a Thursday is all about the food porn. Lowering The Boom was all about Alyssa Milano’s sex tape this week, while Laughing Conservative was more interested in Ella Milano, and Good Stuff is concerned about Chicom cops’ morale regarding the explosion of blow-up doll cases. Out on the west coast, Valley of the Shadow rattles the tip jar with Catherine Deneuve.

EBL’s herd of heifers this week is led by Kate Upton, but also includes hot Vulcan chicks, Asma Al-Assad, legendarily filthy Russian ska band Leningrad, and new Australian PM Tony Abbott’s hot daughters.

From the desk of A View From The Beach, we have Czech Again, Putin On The Ritz, New York Times Blames Job Losses on Porn Pause, Too Good to Be True, A Good Picture of Hillary Clinton, Best Boat Ad Ever, Our Favorite Redneck Goes Surf Fishing, and How About Some Irish Dancing?

Wine Women and Politics brings more fine Friday fillies, and even more of the same; also, Thursday bombshells, Can We Say Boo-tay?, and a Wednesday Women bonus.

American Power submits Alessandra Ambrosio, Arabella Drummond, Sabine, Kelly Brook, and Kate Moss for your consideration.

Soylent Green brings your AM Angel, “69 Down – Four Letters…”, Overnighty Ginger Awesome, Monday Motivationer Tishara, Name That Snooch, Okay Your Eyes Are Up There, Humpday Hawtness Sasha, Falconsword Fursday Kira, Overnighty Leanna, Corset Comeuppance, T-GIF Friday, Overnighty Naughty, AM Awesome Fur, and Afternooner Ashlie.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Paula Patton, his vintage babe is Frances Vorne, and Sex in Advertising this week is covered by Beyoncé. Dustbury has a long overdue Zooeypalooza.

Thanks to everyone for their links! Deadline to submit links for next week’s Rule 5 roundup to the
Rule 5 Wombat mailbox will be Saturday, September 14.


 

Category: Rule 5

Rachel Carson-Zerbe Publishes Her #FreeKate ‘Jailbait Manifesto’

Posted on | September 8, 2013 | 75 Comments

That’s what Matt Ross at Conservative Hideout calls it, anyway, and it’s pretty scary stuff. Rachel Carson-Zerbe has been one of the most obsessed supporters of accused sex offender Kaitlyn Hunt, and keeps harping on the “but they’re in love” argument and pretending to know what’s best for the underage girl in the case, as opposed to the girl’s “parents whose religiosity and bigoted views” she blames for breaking up this “high school romance . . . first love” — i.e., a 14-year-old having sex with a dildo-wielding tattoo-covered 18-year-old lesbian.

Since the exposure of Kaitlyn Hunt’s repeated violations of the “no contact” order sent her to jail to await trial, the “Free Kate” movement has dwindled until all that remains is a devoted hard core following — the most deranged anti-social personalities and deviant freaks.

Is there an argument to be made for leniency in this case? Perhaps, but the prosecutor offered two different plea deals and Kaitlyn rejected them both, evidently believing she could manipulate the younger girl to prevent her from testifying truthfully in court. After disregarding the court-ordered terms of her pretrial release, Hunt has already been charged with sending sex photos and videos to a minor,  the evidence of which is “overwhelming.” Now she’s in the Indian River County Jail, and it’s difficult to imagine how she’ll avoid a sentence in prison.

SHE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE PLEA BARGAIN.

How much more clearly can I say this? And why can’t the “Free Kate” fanatics like Rachel Carson-Zerbe seem to understand it?

 

Category: Kaitlyn Hunt

Feminism as Cultural Marxism and the Wrecking of Harvard Business School

Posted on | September 8, 2013 | 52 Comments

Destroying America is a difficult task, but Harvard University is determined to do its best. Donald Douglas at American Power highlights the mind-boggling tale of how two feminists — Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard’s first female president, and Frances Frei, senior associate dean — have wrecked Harvard Business School in the name of “equality”:

As faculty members pointed out, the more exquisitely gender-sensitive the school environment became, the less resemblance it bore to the real business world.

In other words, radical equality can only be achieved by the abolition of standards. Read the rest at American Power. Words fail.

 

Category: Education, Feminism

Courage, Alessandra: ‘Let Us Determine to Die Here, and We Will Conquer!’

Posted on | September 8, 2013 | 63 Comments

It’s weird how tunnel-vision can limit our knowledge of the online world. There are vast swaths of the Internet I’ve never seen. Today I noticed an inbound link from “Reflections by Alessandra,” who praised as “beautiful . . . must read” something I’d written.

Alessandra’s blog seems to have an almost monomaniacal focus on fighting the gay agenda and, noticeably, she hasn’t ceded an inch of her conservative position in more than nine years. This may explain why she hasn’t gotten much notice from the conservative blogosphere, which has been in strategic retreat for the past decade. Besieged by clamorous activists, even many Christian conservatives — concerned with being “relevant” and maintaining their political influence — have quietly backed away from sound teaching.

Near the end of the post linking to my post, Alessandra linked to a short item she wrote in 2004, praising the complementarity of the sexes as something “sacred and beautiful,” which is in fact the orthodox and traditional biblical teaching on the subject:

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Notice that the Pharisees were, as always, trying to trap Jesus, hoping to catch him saying something heterodox or blasphemous and, as always, Jesus thwarted their purpose by his divine understanding. And here they thought they had him trapped:

They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

This teaching was rather shocking and has, I think, been somewhat misinterpreted. Even Jesus’s disciples were dumbfounded:

His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

Eunuchs? Why is Jesus talking about eunuchs here? You see that he understood that the vast majority of people would be mystified by his answer. He often spoke in parables, the significance of which were only apparent after his death and resurrection, and turning his teachings into an actual church — establishing a clear theology and governing principles — was a struggle for his disciples.

The Egyptian theologian Origen rather infamously took Jesus’s words about eunuchs quite literally, but more orthodox teachers have viewed Matthew 19:12 as relating to clerical celibacy and an ascetic rejection of pleasure, forsaking the ordinary companionship of marriage in order to concentrate on “the kingdom of heaven.”

That this teaching could be misunderstood, and did in fact soon give rise to heretical schisms, can be seen in many of the writings of Paul, who had to condemn various teachers who seemed to believe that Christianity should be tolerant of fornication or, conversely, should reject even married sex as sinful:

Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. . . . For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

Notice that Paul writes this in reply to questions from church members at Corinth where, we see in Chapter 1, divisions had arisen in the early congregation, with “contentions” among the followers of various local teachers. Some of these were evidently demanding celibacy of their followers, and Paul — evidently a widower who had not remarried — was in favor of celibacy for those such as himself, as being relieved of the necessity to provide for a household enabled him to travel and preach without secular concerns.

Yet Paul certainly did not require celibacy and, in fact, saw that it was best for Christians to marry “to avoid fornication.” This rather negative appraisal lacks the beauty of Jesus’s “one flesh” teaching, but Paul was dealing with a different problem, and one that persisted, as we see in his warning to Timothy:

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

What Paul condemns as “doctrines of devils . . . forbidding to marry” may have referred to the earliest stirrings of the counterfeit known as gnosticism, but the early centuries of church history are so crowded with heresies it is difficult to know exactly what Paul had in mind. We can perhaps best understand the context by noticing that Paul also warns Timothy also to avoid “profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.”

By “science falsely so called,” Paul refers to Greco-Roman philosophical teachings about the nature of man and the universe which, as we now know, was far more imperfect than anyone then realized. We know from Acts 17 that Paul had encountered pagan secular teachers — Epicureans and Stoics named specifically among them — and condemned their beliefs as “too superstitious.”

Examining the history of early Christian heresies, we see that in many cases the heretics were trying to define the nature of God according to the categories supplied by the Greco-Roman philosophers, and this “science falsely so called” was simply inadequate to the task.

The nature of God, and God’s will for mankind, are subjects that any Christian must approach with humility, knowing that “we see through a glass, darkly.” The infinite and eternal nature of God is beyond mortal understanding, and we should be hesitant to proclaim that we know anything about God’s will that cannot be supported by an orthodox reading of Scripture. At the same time, however, where scriptural teaching is both clear and abundant, we should not hesitate to condemn heresy, lest these “doctrines of devils” take root and begin overgrowing Gospel truth like poisonous weeds.

All of the preceding exegesis has been preamble, therefore, to reiterating the Bible’s clear condemnation of homosexual behavior:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Now I pause here, to point out the underlying theological doctrine. Paul is here condemning pagan idolatry, which “served the creature more than the Creator.” It is this sin — the rejection of God — which led men to thinking themselves so “wise” in secular knowledge that they could reject the created order in favor of their own personal beliefs. Remember, Paul was writing this to the early Christian church at Rome, which included not only Jewish converts, but also Gentiles, including certain servants in the imperial court and even wealthy Romans from aristocratic families.

Paul was saying that even to the pagan Gentiles, who had no knowledge of the monotheistic teachings of the Hebrews, the truth of the created order was apparent in nature, so that even those who knew nothing of the Ten Commandments were “without excuse” for rejecting the reality of God’s existence, and of the basic moral law, that they could perceive in everyday life. Instead, full of self-regard, the supposedly civilized Romans embraced idolatry and in punishment for that rejection of God were surrendered to their own “vile affections.”

Cause and effect are important to understand here: The homosexual behavior Paul describes is not the cause of condemnation, but rather the effect of condemnation — a very difficult thing for us to understand in the 21st century, as we are once again confused on account of “science falsely so called,” as decades of allegedly scientific teaching about the nature of sexuality have confused many. But I’ll leave off that thought to continue with Paul’s memorable condemnation of first-century Rome:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Sometimes I like to point out to my children how “disobedient to parents” is tucked into this grocery list of evil that Paul provides to condemn the Romans as “worthy of death.” Kids today . . .

What we see here is that, among all the sinfulness that characterized imperial Rome, Paul made a point of highlighting homosexuality, but not to the exclusion of other widespread evils. Rather, Paul cited the “uncleanness” of their “vile affections” — terms that are analogous to what the Old Testament condemns as “abominations” — as characteristic symptoms of their amoral decadence.

This brings us back, then, to the “sacred and beautiful” qualities that Alessandra saw in the natural complementarity of the “one flesh” union between man and woman.

This is not something which requires biblical study to appreciate. Rather, as Paul declared to the Romans, “that which may be known of God is manifest . . . the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” There is a natural order in creation, and from this order anyone can perceive, even without benefit of religious teaching, the existence of the Creator, and may seek to live in accordance with the Creator’s will.

How, then, has America gone so far astray that a nation once so eminently Christian in its culture has been overtaken by decadence?

My theory is this: In the past century, the intellectual quality of Christian clergy has markedly declined, and the assaults of modernism have not been met by the most persuasive rhetoric either from the pulpit, or in the writings of Christian leaders.

As a result, Christianity has suffered a loss of prestige, and this has resulted in a demoralization of believers who, knowing what the Bible declares as truth, are embarrassed that biblical truth does not have more intelligent, articulate and charismatic spokesmen.

Christians have no one to blame for this but themselves. If a young man nowadays shows exceptional intelligence, his parents do not say, “Oh, you should go to seminary and become a preacher.” No, he must go to Harvard or Yale and become a lawyer, or pursue some other elite education and secular career so he can make lots of money.

Promising young people who, in an earlier era, may have pursued a calling in Christian ministry are instead diverted to worldly occupations, and the caliber of clergy has declined toward mediocrity. This, by the way, is what explains the so-called “mega-church” phenomenon among Protestant evangelicals. Whereas a few decades ago, good preachers were common enough that a single medium-sized town might have a dozen or more ministers, each with his own congregation of a few hundred members, nowadays good preaching has become so rare that, if any really talented minister turns up in a community, his congregation will swell to many thousands.

Unless and until this trend is reversed, until the intellectual quality of Christian clergy improves, until some latter-day Billy Graham emerges to lead a revival that restores the morale of the church, I don’t know what can be done to halt the secular tendency toward decadence that is now becoming more evident every day.

That many Christian conservatives are apparently willing to accommodate this tendency, to retreat from Gospel truth rather than to hold the orthodox position in spite of the prevailing winds of decadence, is discouraging in the extreme.

We can draw inspiration from the example of Alessandra who, as General Bee said of Jackson at Manassas, stands there like a stone wall: “Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer!”

 

Category: Culture, Gays, Marriage, Religion, Sex

Prime Minister’s Good-Looking Daughters Become Australian Campaign Issue

Posted on | September 8, 2013 | 27 Comments

Tony Abbott is the Liberal Party leader, but everything’s upside-down in Australia, so actually he is the conservative (“classic liberal,” i.e., free market) and his victory over the Labour Party was attributed both to his own disciplined campaign and the internal divisions that have riven Labour. Three years ago, Labour leader Kevin Rudd was ousted by Julia Gillard, who became Australia’s first female prime minister and, arguably, its worst. Abbott “made a paid parental leave scheme his ‘signature’ policy, while pledging to scrap the carbon tax and make billions of dollars of savings to bring debt down.”

And the hotness of Abbott’s daughters was actually an issue:

Labor tried to portray Abbott as anti-woman because he said his daughters weren’t bad looking and that voters should support a Liberal candidate because of her sex appeal.

From a list of the top gaffes of the campaign:

Abbott urges the contestants on Australia’s Big Brother programme to vote for him as “the guy with the not bad looking daughters”, prompting embarrassed giggles from the contestants.

This is just a Neutral Objective Fact: Abbott’s daughters are good-looking and if he takes a paternal pride in their looks, why not?

(Jon Huntsman’s daughters Abby and Mary Anne were the two best reasons to vote for him. It’s not their fault their dad’s a RINO.)

Anyway, we can expect Australia’s vigorous tabloid press (the U.S. has nothing like it, except the New York Post) will be treating us to lots of “Abbott daughter bikini photos” and “Abbott daughter boyfriend scandal” stories for the next few years. Life is good!

 

Category: Australia

#SlutWalk OK, I Denounce Myself

Posted on | September 8, 2013 | 95 Comments

Honestly, this is just so wrong:

It’s one of those situations where I know the joke is totally inappropriate, but the temptation . . . Ah, I used to get sent to the principal’s office all the time in school for this impulsive streak and, while I’ve learned to filter it most of the time, occasionally the urge is too strong.

So, I yielded. Hate me for it.

SlutWalk Chicago was apparently about as stupid as every other SlutWalk in the three-year history of this feminist absurdity.

It’s like feminists who think it’s empowering to shout “vagina!” That”s not empowering, it’s just stupid and crude — about as stupid and crude, really, as my tasteless sarcasm, which may be the subconscious motive why I pulled the trigger on that Tweet.

When I see a bunch of feminists parading around half-naked as if nakedness were some kind of profound political statement, I feel an iconoclastic urge to objectify them with the male gaze.

Because they hate that, and I very much want them to hate me.

You other guys can play “white knight” to these feminist if you want. Just go ahead and pretend you’re better than me — more sensitive — and I’ll mentally categorize you with that pervert Hugo Schwyzer.

Feminists love to do this thing where anyone who criticizes them is denounced as “anti-woman.” They use this “kafkatrapping” tactic as though your criticism of their ideology (or their tactics) reveals something terrible about you. Thus, the male critic of feminists is often accused of suffering from some sort of insecurity: “You’re just intimidated by strong women” — which isn’t it at all, of course.

Genuinely strong women are admirable. These women parading around half-naked are not strong. They’re deluded, and the embrace of “solidarity” is actually a security blanket, which ultimately will do nothing either to address their claimed grievance or to solve their underlying problem, namely their own profound unhappiness.

Political activism is a poor substitute for happiness, and to think of your every personal problem in the ideological context of “oppression” is just a rationalization, a way of absolving yourself of responsibility for your own life. Your job is a drag, your boyfriend is a jerk, you need to lose a few pounds — feminism tells you that, one way or another, this makes you a victim of the oppressive patriarchy.

You start viewing the world through that warped lens, and suddenly everything becomes political: Your droopy tits, for example.

OK, fine. Actually, I’m rather fascinated.

The commercialized synthetic ideal of perfectly spherical breasts? Boring. The inarguable authenticity of saggy boobs? Intriguing. So when you decide to display your flopper-whoppers as a political statement, I’m going to ju-jitsu your feminist gesture, objectify you with the male gaze, and make a totally inappropriate comment.

Because here’s the thing: You’re trying to control the narrative, to impose your discourse and deny me the right to disagree.

It’s a straight-up totalitarian power trip, and I refuse to play along.

Not justifying. Just explaining. I already denounced myself, OK?

Hope you enjoy your empowerment.

 

Category: Feminism

@Alyssa_Milano Releases Sex Tape as ‘Social Statement’ (Alex Jones Is Nuts)

Posted on | September 7, 2013 | 72 Comments

As soon as I saw ALYSSA MILANO SEX TAPE, you know I had to click the link, and was momentarily afraid Becca Lower was linking video from a certain 1995 exploitation flick that shall not be named. (“Never mention that movie . . . she hates that movie,” a friend advised me not long after I began my long quest for an Alyssa Milano re-Tweet.)

After watching the ALYSSA MILANO SEX TAPE, I Tweeted:

It seemed to me the video was a bit pro-war, and my profound skepticism about the Syria situation is well-known, but I honestly didn’t think that Alyssa Milano would actually reply:

The “sex-tape” is not a political statement. It is a social statement of how Americans are more likely to click on a link labeled “sex-tape” than they are legitimate news.

This a legitimate point: Whether you are for or against this Syria intervention — and as readers know, I’m against it — you at least ought to be informed about it. And you should not be misinformed or disinformed about it, as is the case with Alex Jones’s audience:

“War whore”? Alex Jones is a despicable conspiracy theorist who spent years pushing 9/11 Truther nonsense. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Alex Jones spotted Michelle Malkin at a protest and he started shouting “neocon” and a bunch of other stuff, which incited some protesters to start chanting, “Kill Michelle Malkin.”

If it hadn’t been for Charlie Martin and Jim Hoft being there to defend her, who knows what might have happened?

I’ve hated that dangerous kookball ever since, and the fact that Alex Jones is now smearing a liberal like Alyssa Milano (while, characteristically, ranting about the “New World Order”) goes to show just how little Alex Jones’s paranoid anger has to do with actual politics.

Alex Jones is worse than those idiot liberals who were raging because Alyssa Milano appeared on Fox and Friends this week.

If anybody needs rational arguments against the Syria intervention, I’ll be happy to provide them, but you’re not going to get any rational arguments from Alex Jones about anything.

And now, if you haven’t clicked ALYSSA MILANO SEX TAPE yet, go ahead and do it, and you can thank Alyssa Milano on Twitter.

UPDATE: Linked by Donald Douglas at American Power — thanks! — and Andrew Marcus shares his video of the 2008 DNC confrontation with Alex Jones:

Watch that video, with Jones calling Malkin “evil” and a “monster” and shouting, “She wants to put us in camps!” and you realize that this is a guy affected with serious psychiatric issues.

“Crazy” is not a political philosophy.

Also keep an eye out for the way Charlie Martin (the big stocky guy) doesn’t let Alex Jones intimidate him. Jim Hoft was great there, too, but everyone agreed Charlie was a superstar that day.

 

Category: Celebrities, Conspiracy Theories, Sex, Syria
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