The Other McCain

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

The Butler Did It: ‘Gender Trouble’ and the Academic Roots of the #Transcult

Posted on | July 17, 2018 | Comments Off on The Butler Did It: ‘Gender Trouble’ and the Academic Roots of the #Transcult

 

When I began researching feminism in 2014, one of the first controversies that came to my attention was the conflict between radical feminists and transgender activists. Initially, my impulse was to point and laugh at what I called the Competitive Victimhood Derby, but after further investigation, it became apparent to me that the radical feminists — crazy as they might be — were actually on the side of truth.

The stubborn facts of human nature, the biological reality of sexual dimorphism, have been targeted by a deranged mob of activists engaged in a species of magical thinking, using rhetorical distortions and propaganda slogans in an effort to hijack the Feminist™ brand as a political weapon to be used for projects that were harmful to women. We may observe that this conflict, which had smoldered for many years on the radical fringe, burst into a widespread conflagration circa 2013 and has been raging out of control for the past five years. That is to say, the transgender rage against so-called “TERFs” (trans-exclusive radical feminists) became a public spectacle during Obama’s second term, and around the time the Supreme Court (in the U.S. v. Windsor decision) struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

The political context of this conflict, then, overlapped with the attempted exploitation of the Feminist™ brand by Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, and also with the judicial triumph of the same-sex marriage cause (in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision). Was the timing of this merely coincidental? I think not. One doesn’t need a conspiracy theory to see that, with the cultural Left seemingly triumphant circa 2013-2015, and the Feminist™ brand being widely celebrated in the lead-up to the 2016 election, there were many incentives for a power struggle within the “progressive” coalition. As the late Andrew Breitbart often said, politics is downstream from culture, and it is from this perspective that we must examine the cultural ideas that produce conflict within the factions of the Left’s 21st-century identity-politics coalition.

‘Gender Trouble’ made Professor Judith Butler a major academic figure.

We must look to academia to find the roots of this conflict. Modern feminism, which began on the fringes of the radical New Left in the 1960s had, by the 1990s, gained influence on university campuses via the Left’s “long march through the institutions.” It is impossible to understand what feminism has become in the past 25 years without examining the work of UC-Berkeley professor Judith Butler, as I explained in “Feminism: Reality Is a Social Construct” (March 30, 2017):

The enormous influence of Professor Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity has served as the vehicle by which French philosopher Michel Foucault (The History of Sexuality) became a feminist idol. . . . Keep in mind that Butler’s book is lodged more or less permanently among the Top 10 Amazon bestsellers . . . not because it is pleasant reading, but because it is required reading in so many college and university courses. Every year, many tens of thousands of young people enroll in Women’s Studies classes, and are introduced to Professor Butler’s version of feminist gender theory — the social construction of the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix.

This brief summary of Professor Butler’s influential book requires us to think clearly about three separate but related concepts:

  1. There is no such thing as human nature in terms of sexual behavior — no biological urges or instincts are involved in the behavioral differences between men and women, according to Professor Butler. All of the typical male/female patterns we may observe are the artificial products of “society,” which constructs “gender” for purposes having nothing to do with the innate qualities of men and women, as such.
  2. The division of human beings into two categories — male and female, produced by “society” — is at once both (a) essentially fictitious and (b) oppressive to women. The artificial nature of the “gender binary” is a reflection of “regimes of power/discourse” (a concept derived from Foucault) and this “binary” is also a gender hierarchy, as Butler acknowledges (p. xxx in the 1999 edition, which also cites Professor Catharine MacKinnon, pp. xii-xiii).
  3. Professor Butler’s real target, what she seeks to destroy by the “subversion of identity,” is not gender, however, but heterosexuality, per se. She does not avow this openly, by stating her destructive purpose in any declarative sentence that might be quoted as an aphorism. Indeed, quoting Professor Butler’s jargon-laden academic prose is difficult; she tends to ask leading questions, rather than to state anything plainly in concise, direct prose. Yet the anti-heterosexual premise of Gender Trouble is readily apparent to the careful and intelligent reader.

This is a topic I addressed in “Yes, ‘Gender’ Is About Sex” (April 2016):

Any reader familiar with the sources cited by Professor Butler — not only [Monique] Wittig, but also Adrienne Rich, Gayle Rubin, Esther Newton, Teresa de Lauretis, Eve Sedwick, Diana Fuss, et al. — recognizes that she takes for granted all feminist arguments made against heterosexuality. It was simply unnecessary, in 1990, for Professor Butler to cite such outspoken lesbian-feminist enemies of heterosexuality as Charlotte Bunch, Jill Johnston, Mary Daly, Marilyn Frye and Joyce Trebilcot. By the time Gender Trouble was published, there were enough such radicals among the tenured faculty of Women’s Studies that once Professor Butler invoked “gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality” (on the second page of her 1990 preface), all of her academic readers could be expected to nod in recognition: “Yes, we see exactly where she’s coming from here.”

What is apparent to the intelligent reader familiar with Professor Butler’s sources, however, is not necessarily evident to the many tens of thousands of university students who, every year, are required to read Gender Trouble. The sophomore who signs up for a class called “Sexuality and Culture” (University of Texas) or “Theories of Gender and Sexuality” (University of Pittsburgh) expecting an easy “A” may be confused by the time she reaches page 7 of Professor Butler’s book:

Perhaps there is an opportunity at this juncture of cultural politics, a period that some would call “postfeminist,” to reflect from within a feminist perspective on the injunction to construct a subject of feminism. . . .
Is the construction of the category of women as a coherent and stable subject an unwitting regulation and reification of gender relations? And is not such a reification precisely contrary to feminist aims? To what extent does the category of women achieve stability and coherence only in the context of the heterosexual matrix?[6]

Imagine yourself a sophomore, maybe hungover from last night’s keg party, trying to make sense of those three sentences. Notice, however, that two of these sentences are questions, and Professor Butler never provides direct answers to these questions. Perhaps, seeing the footnote, the sophomore will turn to page 209 and find this:

6. I use the term heterosexual matrix throughout the text to designiate that grid of cultural intelligibility through which bodies, genders, and desires are naturalized. I am drawing from Monique Wittig’s notion of the “heterosexual contract” and, to a lesser extent, on Adrienne Rich’s notion of “compulsory heterosexuality” to characterize a hegemonic discursive/epistemic model of gender intelligibility that assumes that for bodies to cohere and make sense there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender (masculine expresses male, feminine expresse female) that is oppositionally and hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality.

Look, I don’t care how high your SAT score was, there’s no way you can understand that paragraph without reading it at least twice, and how many college sophomores are going to be as diligent as I was, in that I ordered copies of Monique Wittig’s and Adrienne Rich’s books in an effort to make sure I understood the sources cited by Professor Butler?

Isn’t it obvious that the typical reader’s feeling of confusion as to what Professor Butler means is something she deliberate intended? That is to say, she was writing “over the heads” of the lay reader, communicating in a specialized jargon only her academic peers could understand.

“It is difficult to come to grips with Butler’s ideas, because it is difficult to figure out what they are,” declared Professor Martha Nussbaum in a 1999 essay for The New Republic. A feminist herself, Professor Nussbaum spent more than 8,000 words decoding Professor Butler’s ideas and pronounced them “evil,” a formula for political passivity:

It tells scores of talented young women that they need not work on changing the law, or feeding the hungry, or assailing power through theory harnessed to material politics. They can do politics in safety of their campuses, remaining on the symbolic level, making subversive gestures at power through speech and gesture.

In other words, from Professor Nussbaum’s left-wing perspective, the message of Gender Trouble — that the “subversion of identity” is the chief project of feminism — does not yield anything useful in terms of the kind of “social justice” that progressive politics should seek.

Does this mean that Professor Butler’s ideas are conservative? No, it means that Professor Butler encourages a politics of gesture.

This Is Why Trump Won

The typical sophomore student is apt to conclude, from her introductory Gender Studies class, that her duty as a feminist is not to cooperate with the “regulation and reification of gender relations,” to escape from the cage of “gender intelligibility” that is the “heterosexual matrix.” In other words, membership in the LGBT community is the sine qua non — and perhaps also the summum bonum — of being a feminist. Read more

Socialist Democrat: ‘Human Evolution … Marching Towards Progress’

Posted on | July 17, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

An incoherent advocate economic “evolution”:

Self-declared Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated Rep. Joe Crowley (D., N.Y.) in a congressional primary last month, said Friday that material gains under capitalism were the result of “human evolution.”
Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old whom DNC Chairman Tom Perez called “the future of our party,” explained her views on democratic socialism to “Firing Line” host Margaret Hoover. Hoover asked about the future of capitalism and pointed out that it’s the economic system that has brought the most people out of poverty, but Ocasio-Cortez attributed modern prosperity to humanity’s natural growth.
“I think that those things that you talk about, that you discuss, are part of the course of human evolution,” she said. “So I would hope that the most recent economic system, our current economic system, is the one that is most beneficial for everyday people.”
She added that her preferred system of democratic socialism would work best if people were only to vote for something if it is “a good idea.”
“When we talk about democratically socialist economies, first of all, they’re done with the full input of everybody,” she said. “You vote. It’s democratic. So if something is not a good idea, it doesn’t get voted for, ideally.”
She granted that capitalism was temporarily the “most efficient and best” system, but that it must change “as we evolve.”
“We’re starting to see that the people who create value in society are not experiencing any portion of the value that they are creating. So I do think that, absolutely, capitalism was the most efficient and best economy, perhaps, for the time that it was at, perhaps. But as we evolve, as automation begins to take out extremely large industries, we have to say that we aren’t going to throw those people away,” she said.
On whether democratic socialism calls for an end to capitalism, the candidate expressed openness to the idea.
“Ultimately we are marching towards progress on this issue. I do think that we are going to see an evolution in our economic system of an unprecedented degree. And it’s hard to say what direction that that takes,” she said.
Hoover pressed on whether she though capitalism would be the dominant system in the future, and Ocasio-Cortez said, “it’s absolutely a question.”

It’s obvious that no one ever previously asked Ocasio-Cortez a serious question about economics. She was not educated, but indoctrinated, in far-left ideas at Boston University. Her assertion that “the people who create value in society are not experiencing any portion of the value that they are creating” is straight-out Marxism, and is as false now as it was when Marx published Das Kapital. Even the poorest members of a free society benefit from the wealth and technological advances created by a capitalist economy, and socialism (“democratic” or otherwise) is not “progress.” Ocasio-Cortez here is invoking two Marxist myths — capitalism as a system of “exploiting” workers, and the idea of history as progressing in stages toward communist revolution.

As I say, it is obvious that Ocasio-Cortez has never been asked serious questions by anyone who disagrees with her far-left opinions, and this is true of the vast majority of young Democrats, who attended schools where nearly all the faculty were Democrats, which leads the student to assume that all intelligent people agree with them. The deliberate exclusion of conservatives from academia has consequences. It would be amusing if someone were to ask Ocasio-Cortez if she’s ever heard of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek or Thomas Sowell.

Meanwhile, of course, Ocasio-Cortez has foreign-policy ideas:

In May, she condemned the Israeli military for firing on rioters in Gaza attempting to breach Israel’s border fence, calling the Jewish state’s actions a “massacre.” Almost all of the Palestinians killed were found to have terror ties. . . .
After Ocasio-Cortez said she “absolutely” believes Israel has a right to exist, “Firing Line” host Margaret Hoover asked what she means by the Israeli “occupation.” The candidate said it has to do with settlements that infringe on Palestinians’ housing.
“I think what I meant is, like, the settlements that are increasing in these areas, where Palestinians are experiencing difficulty in access to their housing and homes,” she said.
“I am not the expert on geopolitics on this issue,” she added with a laugh. “I am a firm believer in finding a two-state solution on this issue, and I’m happy to sit down with leaders on both of these—for me, I just look at things through a human rights lens, and I may not use the right words. I know this is a very intense issue.”
In the interview, Ocasio-Cortez referred to “the occupation of Palestine,” although no Palestinian state currently exists. She went on to explain that this is an important issue on which she is “willing to learn and evolve.”

She is “not the expert on geopolitics,” even though she majored in international relations at Boston University?



 

In The Mailbox: 07.16.18

Posted on | July 16, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.16.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Socialist Ocasio-Cortez Attacks Israel, Then Admits She Doesn’t Know What She’s Talking About
Twitchy: Former FBI Agent Lisa Page Testified Again Today, Was “Very Forthcoming”
Louder With Crowder: Chris Pratt Shows The Art Of Being A Man On Instagram

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Sunday Lifting Thread – Coming Back From A Break, also, Strangers In A Once Familiar Land
American Power: Twelve Russians Indicted In Election Hacking Scandal, also, Amazon’s Case Of The $2630.52 Used Paperback
American Thinker: Why The “Resistance” In The State Department Is A Gift To Trump
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
BattleSwarm: Happy Bastille Day, also, Nicaragua – It Hits The Fan
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday, also, How Small Ships Can Make A Big Navy Better – On Midrats
Da Tech Guy: Churchill, Obama, & Trump, also, A Visit To The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum And A Look Back
Don Surber: Meathead Joins The Trump Schadenfreude List, also, No, This Doesn’t Make The Democrats Sound Like Kooks
Dustbury: Strange Search Engine Queries, also, This Couple Is Doomed
Fausta: Sunday Palate Cleanser – Don Giovanni
First Street Journal: The Truth Shall Set You Free!
Fred On Everything: Signature In The Cell & Intelligent Design – An Introduction To Protracted Desperation
The Geller Report: Two Dead, Millions In The Streets – Muslims Riot After France’s World Cup Win, also, Sixty Truckloads Of ISIS Fighters Sneak Into Iraq
Hogewash: High Capacity Ignorance, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Joe For America: Joe “The Plumber” Tells Fox News’ Bret Baier Why He’s Done With Politics
JustOneMinute: When You’ve Lost Newt…
Legal Insurrection: How The Mossad Pulled Off The Iran Nuclear Archives Heist, also, Ocasio-Cortez Claims “Capitalism Will Not Always Exist In The World”
The PanAm Post: The Follies And Distortions Of The Global Peace Index, also, Nicaraguan Massacre – 34 New Victims Of Ortega’s Bloody Reign
Power Line: Trump In Helsinki, also, Gender Follies At The University Of Minnesota
Shark Tank: Florida Lawmakers Call For Consequences In Nicaragua
Shot In The Dark: Just Not Your Day
STUMP: RIP Jeremy Gold – An Actuarial Memorial
The Political Hat: Doom  – From Venezuela To Nicaragua (Again)
This Ain’t Hell: Cohen’s Purple Heart Comments Spurs Veteran Protest, also, Fifteen Soldiers Treated For Lightning Strike
Victory Girls: California’s Confederate Democrats Reject Feinstein, Endorse Radical De Leon
Volokh Conspiracy: Heather Has Two Daddies And A Mommy
Weasel Zippers: 21 Newspapers Run Identical Letters Signed By Different People Slamming SCOTUS Nominee Kavanaugh, also, DNC Perez Dodges When Asked Why He Won’t Allow FBI To Access DNC Servers
Megan McArdle: Honey, I Shrunk Our Income Gap
Mark Steyn: Les Parapluies Du Cherbourg, also, Our Love


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Rule 5 Sunday: The Bikini Invitational

Posted on | July 15, 2018 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Today Rehab (the “beach club” at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino) is throwing its fifteenth annual Bikini Invitational contest, a swimsuit competition without the bothersome talent show and speeches. It’s being run by local Internet TV station Viva Vegas TV, and there’s $100,000 in prize money up for grabs. Here’s a shot of 2017’s finalists.

2017 Bikini Invitational finalists

Ninety Miles From Tyranny begins with Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #314, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. Animal Magnetism adds Rule Five Lying Journalist Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL’s Rule Five posts include National Dive Bar Day, Who Will Get The Tuna?, Everything Everything “Regret”, Headless Chickens, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, She Can Handle It, National French Fry Day, Cinderella, and Catherine Deneuve.

A View From The Beach brings us A Second Take of Rachel BilsonRussiagate Strzoks Out, Nurse Sharks Continue War on Models, Stormy Weather Russiagate, Alexa, Play Despacito, Russiagate Growing Rancid, “Shipping Up To Boston / Enter Sandman”, Russiagate in the Kavanaugh Era, English Model Goes Almost All In on World Cup Team, Banning Straws, A Straw Man Argument, Scarjo Faces Trans Backlash and Ex-Playmate Almost Embroiled in Russiagate.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Tessa Virtue, his Vintage Babe is Joan Bennett, and Sex in Advertising is covered by an especially creamy Got Milk? At Dustbury, it’s Imelda May and Silvia Cavalca.


Visit Amazon’s Intimate Apparel Shop
Amazon Fashion – Jewelry For Women

FMJRA 2.0: Strange Man, Changed Man

Posted on | July 14, 2018 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Rule 5 Sunday: Crystal Hefner
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

SJW Self-Destructs
The Political Hat
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.06.18
Proof Positive
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Day Late & A Dollar Short With Astrix
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

Feminism and the Darwinian Dead End
EBL

Notorious Cyberstalker Deborah Frisch Is Out of Jail, and Cyberstalking Again
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.09.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

The Confirmation Circus Begins
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.10.18
Proof Positive

Rhetorical Escalation
Pushing Rubber Downhill
A View From The Beach
EBL

Democrats Use Kavanaugh Nomination in Congressional Fundraising Efforts
The Pirate’s Cove
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.11.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Queer Feminist Update
EBL

Steven Crowder Confronts Transgender ‘Antifa’ Radical in Austin, Texas: VIDEO
EBL

New MuellerGate Developments Prove ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Against Trump
Western Rifle Shooters
Pushing Rubber Downhill
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.12.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers this week:

  1. EBL (16)
  2. A View From The Beach (8)
  3. Proof Positive (6)



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In The Mailbox: 07.13.18

Posted on | July 14, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.13.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Reminder – Linkagery for the FMJRA is due tomorrow at noon; links for Rule 5 Sunday are due tomorrow at midnight. Consider this our version of an open thread, but be discreet and behave yourselves.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: National French Fry Day
Twitchy: The Onion Hilariously Zings Media Insanity Over SCOTUS Nominee Brett Kavanaugh
Louder With Crowder: The NATO Scam – Why Trump Is Right, also, Watch #AbolishICE Protesters Celebrate Love, Call Black Officer “N****r”
According To Hoyt: Chaos
Monster Hunter Nation: Infinity RPG Session 1 Recap
Vox Popoli: The President We Need

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – It’s A Joke Edition
American Thinker: Progressive Child Abuse In The Schools
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Lying Journalist Friday 2.0
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For July 13
CDR Salamander: Hey – About The German “Navy”…
Da Tech Guy: Would That Gun Owners Got The Same Leniency From State Laws That Stormy Daniels Does
Don Surber: Kavanaugh v. Strzok
Dustbury: Unreal People
First Street Journal: What Wonderful News For Friday The 13th
The Geller Report: Chicago-Area Town Board Member Being Pressured To Resign For Noting Muslim Immigrants Aren’t Assimilating, also, Mass Murder Plot Thwarted, Man Caught Before Blowing Up Condo To “Kill All The F*****g” Jews”
Hogewash: A New Look At M16, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
JustOneMinute: That Was Special
Legal Insurrection: Bluff Called – Speaker Ryan To Hold Vote On ICE Abolition Bill, Infuriating Democrat Authors, also, Trump Says Britain “Losing Its Culture” Because Of Mass Immigration
The PanAm Post: Nicaraguan Opposition Announces New Measures To Pressure Ortega
Power Line: About That “Giant Trump Baby Balloon” [Updated], also, Struck By Strzok
Shot In The Dark: Let’s Take A Break From The Virtue-Signaling Security Theater About Guns
The Jawa Report: Fatwa This! Totally Not A Psycho Edition
The Political Hat: Press Nothing For English
This Ain’t Hell: Cohen Tells Strzok “If I Could Give You A Purple Heart, I Would”, also, The New Army Combat Fitness Test
Victory Girls: Her Majesty Meets President & Mrs. Trump For Tea At Windsor Castle
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Foreign Leaders Now Calling Out U.S. Media Lies, also, Minor League Montgomery Biscuits Make Millenials Angry With Millenial Night Promotion
Megan McArdle: Of Boiled Water And Media Bubbles


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Loony Troons: Fantasy, Mental Illness and the Transgender Victimhood Narrative

Posted on | July 14, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

Avery Edison “has legally been a woman since 2009” and, in addition to calling himself a woman, Avery also pretends to be a “comedian.”

Here’s the real question: Why should we be required to play along with Avery’s make-believe games, either as a “comedian” or as a “woman”? Nobody can force you to go to one of Avery’s performances and laugh at his/“her” jokes, so why is it that “legally” we can be compelled to pretend that we don’t know that this “woman” is a man with a penis?

About 99% of what is called “transgender activism” is just whining from people with a fictitious sense of victimhood — a paranoid persecution complex — trying to shame the rest of us into feeling guilty for not applauding their self-created emotional theatrics. Having made ludicrous spectacles of themselves by attempting to act out their perverse fantasies in public, transgender activists then claim to be oppressed victims of “transphobia” if we decline to participate in their fantasy.

They’re not victims, they’re bullies, and their activism is not politics, it’s gaslighting — dishonest manipulation, a common deceptive tactic of abusive sociopaths who seek to create confusion in order to conceal their own wrongdoing and malicious intent. This is intertwined with a lot of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tricks by which the sociopath attempts to obtain sympathy by playing the victim. This involves a truly satanic level of dishonesty, a false accusation (“You’re oppressing me!”) employed as an attack on innocent people who, in all honesty, would be happy to ignore these attention-seeking lunatics, if only they’d stop their constant public lectures about “gender.”

Avery Edison: “Hey, lesbians, let’s talk about my penis.”
Lesbians: “Get lost, you freak.”
Avery Edison: “Hate speech! Transphobia! Harassment!”

Imagine someone acting that way in real life. You’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, and some weirdo you never saw before walks up behind you and tries to start a conversation about his penis. This would be a considered a crime — “lewd and lascivious misconduct” or whatever — in every jurisdiction in America, but on the Internet, transgender lunatics expect people to tolerate this in the name of “activism.” They’re the online equivalent of exhibitionists who hang around public parks, waiting to expose themselves to passersby.

What has caused this deviant behavior to proliferate is the pursuit of perverse fantasies. The Internet can make this seem not only possible, but preferable to normal everyday reality. Those who are drawn into this delusion are typically victims of their own bad habits:

Autogynephilia is a self-induced, chronic, progressive disorder . . .
Sexual fetishes occur almost exclusively in men, and men who have one sexual fetish usually have several . . .
This kind of “transgenderism” is actually a fetish, a perverse obsession which is an acquired psychological disorder.

It is important to understand that gender dysphoria has high rates of co-morbidity with other mental illnesses, so that anyone who engages in such behavior usually has other psychiatric issues, as well. And to repeat myself for the umpteenth time: Crazy People Are Dangerous. Have you forgotten Jackson Mosher, a/k/a “Gwynevere River Song” so soon?

 

The possibility that Mosher/”Gwynevere” could be dangerous was apparent to radical feminist Cathy Brennan, who had been threatened by Mosher/”Gwynevere” in a February 2017 Facebook exchange. Like many other transgender activists, Mosher/”Gwynevere” hated “TERFs” (trans-exclusive radical feminists), but it turned out that Mosher/”Gwynevere” hated someone else even more — his/“her” father, Robert Mosher.
On a Saturday afternoon — Aug. 12, 2017, five days after his/“her” last blog post — Mosher/”Gwynevere” showed up at the home of his/“her” father on Waterford Crossing in Waxahachie, Texas. Mosher/”Gwynevere” was armed with a knife, and an altercation ensued in which “Gwynevere” stabbed his/“her” father multiple times. This was a fatal error. Never bring a knife to a gunfight, as they say in Texas.
“Gwynevere River Song” was shot dead by his/“her” father, who was hospitalized for his injuries.

One obvious reason why most people don’t want to associate with transgender people is because so many of them have other antisocial attitudes that make it unpleasant to interact with them. Think about it. Does it seem to you that Avery “Let Me Tell You About My Penis” Edison is someone you’d want to invite to your house for dinner? Do you want somebody like that to know where you live? Probably not.

 

The non-funny “comedian” and non-female “woman” would have us believe that there are “multiple” lesbians who are “attracted” to him/“her” and that this proves “transwomen are women” when, in fact, it just proves that some self-described lesbians are as crazy as Avery is. Invite a bunch of lunatics to a party, and crazy things will happen, which is why abnormality is the norm in the urban LGBTQ social scene. It might be helpful if Avery Edison would provide a sociology grad student with the names of his/“her” ex-partners, so that a survey could be conducted, asking questions like, “On a scale of 1-10, How drunk were you that night?” or “What psychiatric conditions have you been diagnosed with, and were you off your meds at the time of this encounter?”

How drunk or desperate does someone (male or female, gay or straight) have to be before they decide to leave a bar with Avery Edison? And since we’re asking rhetorical questions, how much of a failure does a male have to be before he decides it would be easier to pretend to be female?

In order for this kind of make-believe to be more enjoyable than reality, after all, doesn’t your reality have to be hopelessly tragic? Or is it the case that the fantasy — what you imagine a woman’s life to be — has taken hold in your mind as a fixated obsession to the point that you despise your male reality and count it as worthless? Say what you will about the transgender phenomenon, one cannot expect rational explanations from those in the throes of such bizarre madness.

 

Oh, look, it’s “James Waters,” the schizophrenic Marxist whose double mastectomy and synthetic testosterone were provided by Canadian taxpayers. Turning a 22-year-old mentally ill woman into a ludicrous simulacrum of a male is considered “health care” in Canada, and therefore every Canadian has a “right” to such treatment.

She/“he” claims to be a victim of both transphobia and capitalism, as she/“he” declared at the Toronto Trans March last month. Diagnosed with multiple severe psychiatric disorders, this 22-year-old Canadian (“pisces sun + libra moon”) considers herself/“himself” qualified to lecture the world about mental health:

The “chemical imbalance” model of depression and other conditions is an oversimplification at best and completley unfounded at worst. It benefits drug companies and harms people. Stop using it uncritically.

You can’t even spell “completely,” you fool! And who are you to tell us what “benefits drug companies and harms people,” when you’ve been injecting synthetic testosterone for years? You forced taxpayers to foot the bill to have yourself surgically dismembered, and now you expect the rest of us to listen to your advice on mental health?

‘James’ in 2015 (left) and in 2018, after ‘top surgery’ (right).

 

Here’s some mental health advice: If you think you may be transgender, how about you log off the Internet for a few months and reconsider?

Spending too much time on the Internet can make you crazy, and after four years of studying radical feminism, it’s all I can do to cling to sanity long enough to explain how crazy these people are. Today is the fourth anniversary of my first post in the Sex Trouble series (“The Long Shadow of the ‘Lavender Menace,’” July 14, 2014) and I’m probably no more crazy now than I was then. On the other hand, you’d have to be crazy to undertake such a project, and I’m uniquely qualified for the job. Remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!



 

 

On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re Russian Military Intelligence

Posted on | July 14, 2018 | Comments Off on On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re Russian Military Intelligence

 

Excuse my sarcastic reference to that classic 1993 Peter Steiner cartoon, but how else do you expect me to react to Friday’s big news?

Twelve Russian military intelligence officers hacked into the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Party and released tens of thousands of private communications in a sweeping conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election, according to an indictment announced days before President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The indictment represents special counsel Robert Mueller’s first charges against Russian government officials for interfering in American politics, an effort U.S. intelligence agencies say was aimed at helping the Trump campaign and harming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The case follows a separate indictment that accused Russians of using social media to sow discord among American voters.
The 29-page indictment lays out how, months before Americans went to the polls, Russians schemed to break into key Democratic email accounts, including those belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Stolen emails, many politically damaging for Clinton, appeared on WikiLeaks in the campaign’s final stretch. . . .
The indictment identifies the defendants as officers with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU. If that link is established, it would shatter the Kremlin denials of the Russian state’s involvement in the U.S. elections, given that the GRU is part of the state machine.
The Russian defendants are not in custody, and it is not clear they will ever appear in American court, though the Justice Department has recently seen value in indicting foreign hackers in absentia as public deterrence.
The indictment accuses the Russian hackers, starting in March 2016, of covertly monitoring the computers of dozens of Democratic officials and volunteers, implanting malicious computer code known as malware to explore the networks and steal data, and sending phishing emails to gain access to accounts. . . .

You can read the rest of that, but the key point is that this indictment is meaningless — Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Boris Alekseyevich Antonov and their comrades in the GRU’s Unit 26165 are never going to be brought to trial. Also, keep in mind “you can indict a ham sandwich,” as the lawyers say, and while Mueller was able to convince the D.C. grand jury that these allegations are true, they are still only allegations. Not to role-play defense attorney for a bunch of Russian spooks, you understand, but reading over the indictment, I didn’t see any actual evidence, nor does the indictment explain how the feds know that these 12 particular GRU agents were responsible for “Guccifer 2.0,” etc.

David French seems to believe item 44 of the indictment is important:

The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also communicated with U.S. persons about the release of stolen documents. On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, “thank u for writing back . . . do u find anyt[h]ing interesting in the docs i posted?” On or about August 17, 2016, the Conspirators added, “please tell me if i can help u anyhow . . . it would be a great pleasure to me.” On or about September 9, 2016, the Conspirators, again posing as Guccifer 2.0, referred to a stolen DCCC document posted online and asked the person, “what do u think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign.” The person responded, “[p]retty standard.”

And this proves . . . what, exactly?

The “person who was in regular contact with” Trump campaign officials apparently believed he was communicating with “a lone Romanian hacker,” i.e., “Guccifer 2.0,” an online persona that the indictment says was created by the GRU agents “to undermine the allegations of Russian responsibility for” the widely reported June hacking of DNC computers.

As the indictment says, the hacked Democrat documents were published online where anyone could see them — Republicans, Democrats, anybody — rather than being surreptitiously delivered to Trump officials. And this “person who was in regular contact with” Trump campaign officials exchanged emails with the fictitious “Guccifer 2.0” who publicly claimed responsibility for the hacking. French says, “The indictment practically screams, ‘More information is coming!’ — including additional information about Russian communication with American citizens.” Well, yes, this is a fair inference, but the question remains, “So what?”

Can Mueller prove that (a) Trump officials knew they were communicating with GRU operatives, or that (b) this hacking was done at the behest of Trump officials? How could this be proven?

It was not a secret that Russians hacked the Democrats — this was reported by the Washington Post‘s Ellen Nakashima on June 14, 2016, and the next day, she reported that “Guccifer 2.0” had claimed credit, a claim that analysts called “part of a ‘Russian disinformation’ campaign.” Here we are then, more than two years later, and the grand jury indictment says that this was exactly the case. But what we don’t have is any indication that anybody on Team Trump was knowingly involved.

As a journalist, I get all kinds of email tips from all kinds of people. Suppose that in 2016 I got an email from someone claiming that as a teenager he was raped by John Podesta. If I replied to this email and asked questions, and the person answered, what does our email conversation prove? Nothing. So if it later turns out that this person emailing me was actually a Russian intelligence agent spreading disinformation, the mere fact that I exchanged emails with them doesn’t make me part of a Russian conspiracy. What I’m trying to say is, a dot here (Russian hackers) and a dot there (an email exchange with someone in touch with the Trump campaign) can’t automatically be construed as implying that Trump officials were illegally in cahoots with the GRU. For all I know, Mueller might have more evidence that does show such a connection, but it’s incorrect to assume that such evidence exists. Quite possibly, the Trump people were just clumsy amateurs who bumbled their way into this mess without a clue. But speaking of clueless bumblers, how stupid was Podesta to fall for this trick?

For example, on or about March 19, 2016, LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators created and sent a spearphishing email to the chairman of the Clinton Campaign. LUKASHEV used the account “john356gh” at an online service that abbreviated lengthy website addresses (referred to as a “URL-shortening service”). LUKASHEV used the account to mask a link contained in the spearphishing email, which directed the recipient to a GRU-created website. LUKASHEV altered the appearance of the sender email address in order to make it look like the email was a security notification from Google (a technique known as “spoofing”), instructing the user to change his password by clicking the embedded link. Those instructions were followed. On or about March 21, 2016, LUKASHEV, YERMAKOV, and their co-conspirators stole the contents of the chairman’s email account, which consisted of over 50,000 emails.

Your grandmother might be stupid enough to get phished, but grandma probably doesn’t have a law degree from Georgetown, as Podesta does, and you’d think he would be smart enough to spot the old “security notification” trick, but never overestimate a Democrat’s intelligence, eh?

In announcing the indictments, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein said:

The conspirators corresponded with several Americans during the course of the conspiracy through the internet. There is no allegation in the indictment that the Americans knew they were communicating with Russian intelligence officers. . . .
There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result. . . .
In our justice system, everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. It should go without saying that people who are not charged with a crime also are presumed innocent. . . .
When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on which side was victimized.
The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways. Free and fair elections are always hard-fought and contentious. There will always be adversaries who seek to exacerbate our divisions and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us. So long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in the Constitution, they will not succeed.

Our “foreign adversaries” may be dogs, for all we know.



 

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