Table Settings At The Cannibal Feast

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

So, this week Dan and myself went to the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop. There will be an after-action report on this, as well as my explanation of why I think this is is important, but first I want to talk about what happened elsewhere while I was busy learning about innovative methods of propulsion, theories of terraforming, and other fascinating subjects: that is, I want to talk about the incident that, somehow, in the realm of the internet, made me into a Lesbian, Thai, Social Justice Warrior.

How is that possible? You ask – I don’t know.

The whole thing had the characteristics of a nightmare where you’re walking along a familiar hallway and suddenly you realize that the hallway is not familiar at all, and that your tentacles are dragging along the wall. And then you think “tentacles?” which is when you wake up screaming.

Or perhaps the nightmare where you’re a little kid and go to the kitchen for some water, late at night, and mom is sitting at the table, having a midnight snack of live snakes.

You see, not only am I not a Thai, Lesbian, Social Justice Warrior, but I’d, in fact be more likely to become or pretend to be Thai or Lesbian than a Social Justice Warrior.

None of which saved me from being accused of being this uber-left social justice warrior who has been harassing our cultural adversaries by accusing them of secret hatred and of being insufficiently PC.

I’m still wearing my “Wait, WHAT?” face from when Amanda told me about the comment that said this troll – variously identified as Requires Hate and Winterfox and a two-part name I can’t even spell – must be me, because of the “similarity in our rhetoric.” I haven’t read the comment. It might magically suck me through the internet and I might find myself with my fingers clapped around this creature’s neck strangling him while demanding he explain what in heaven’s name he means. (Though I think I know, and I’ll explain later.)

Anyway, after this Requires Hate creature had abused them and called them names and caused them to grovel, and enlisted the cowed cooperation of Alex-no-binary gender and our old friend Damien so-dense-that-I’m-afraid-a-blackhole-will form around me, people started comparing notes and getting made, because they realized this creature was the same who under the two-name moniker had been sucking up to them. They also claim she had waged whisper campaigns to have them banned from conventions, that she tarnished their reputations with the same whisper campaigns and that she made some people give up writing altogether.

And of course their problem – as explained in this article – is not that she did all those things, but that she used the tactics against the “wrong people” i.e. fellow “social justice warriors”, people who want to eliminate patriarchy and who are sure white privilege is hiding under their bed, ready to pounce out as soon as they relax — People who think that everyone who doesn’t think like them commits thought crime and should be silenced.

That is, they are upset because tactics they sanction and use against people like us are being used against them.

As is said in the comments, in this Mad Genius post by Dave Freer, the revolutionaries are always surprised when the tumbril stops at their door.

It was that comment, and other comments in that post (which you absolutely should read) particularly the ones about how RH/Winterfox caused real suffering and about how some people are suffering from PTSD after being exposed to her tactics, and WHY her tactics worked with them, when they don’t work with us, that got me thinking about this post.

I quote Synova’s comment below on how pernicious accusations of thought-crime are, because she is absolutely right, and because it makes clear why communist societies (starting arguably with the French revolution as a pre-Marxist, but proto-communist attempt) eat themselves. It explains why the SJWs are inevitably headed for this same cannibal feast, why even if Marx’s cooky theories of economics worked – they don’t – the crazy attempt to build a “new man” free from the “capitalist taint” (they can’t – capitalism is inherent in being human. You can make it illegal and drive it underground, or you can allow it to lift all boats, but creating and trading, buying and selling is being human.) with its attendant tendency to criminalize thought crimes would still end in mass graves and mass misery.

Synova:

Some of the comments by people who had been subject to the full treatment just made me want to cry. I didn’t think it was funny because the guilty parties and enablers aren’t the ones who are hurt. Yes, we can scoff at Scalzi when he makes a rational counter-argument and is made, ultimately, to retract and abase himself and agree in public and start proselytizing in public that no… you really can’t trust your own brain and if something seems wrong to you or you feel like defending yourself it is simply proof that you’re guilty.

But there were people who reported rather severe PTSD type reactions to even sitting down at a keyboard to write because they were so terrified of offending… again. Because *rationally* they’d done nothing wrong the first time, but they were forced to an irrational acceptance of their guilt. So now they’ve “accepted their privilege” and “checked it” and confessed and repented (they could come to the Dark Side and be welcomed, but they don’t know that, and have been taught that the Dark Side is evil, and that’s why shunning is so very evil within closed communities… being exiled is a horrific punishment) but since they had NO IDEA how they could have done something wrong in the first place, they also have no idea how to avoid it the next time.

Imagine doing this to a child.

The kid is walking through a room doing nothing much and suddenly POW… and then you tell the kid… well that was YOUR fault. You screwed up. You stepped on that spot on the floor.

So the kid looks at the spot and it looks like every other spot. But the kid is told that, no, the fact that she can’t even SEE the spot is what the problem is. You can’t SEE the spot… that’s why it is YOUR fault. Also, a good child will try to learn. You’re a good child, aren’t you?

So the kid says, yes… it was my fault. I could not SEE the spot. Not seeing the spot makes this my fault.

Afterward, it’s still impossible to see the spots, and walking across the room becomes fraught with danger. Sitting down at the keyboard gives this very “good” person the shakes and panic attacks… where are the spots? She still can’t see the spots but she MUST agree and believe that those spots exist.

I have a LOT of sympathy for those who were hurt, just like I have sympathy for any abused person.

For reasons and in circumstances I’m not going to get into here, I often found myself EXACTLY in the position of that child, growing up. It’s crazy making and it took me years (20 and a good marriage) to recover from it.

Which is why it’s a particularly evil thing to do to a single person.

But in a greater sense, it is literally what certain kinds of revolutionary doctrines, be they religious or political can do to a human being.

Note, these are usually doctrines (again, religious or political) that not only think they can remake humans, but think they can remake them into flawless creatures. I was going to say they can come from the right or the left, but only if you accept that all religious extremism is from the right, which I don’t think makes much sense.

There is a certain tendency in conservative/libertarian circles (if that’s what we’re calling “right” this week) to assume that humans come with some natural flaws, one of them being a thirst for power, another being a need for recognition. There is also an understanding that life isn’t fair.

It is only certain feverish religious states (well, the sects call themselves Christian, I have issues with them, and no, I’m not talking about any recognizable mainstream Christian sects, though there were certainly some interesting heresies in that direction in past centuries) that partake the illusions of the left (itself a fevered religion, albeit a godless one) that you can infinitely remake humans and use that change to create a paradise.

Here is the thing: every society has rules by which its members are judged. Some are sensible rules and we can applaud them. Some are batsh*t insane rules, and we’re jaw-dropped about them. And some are indecipherable to our current mentality.

Some of the things that bring condemnation on characters in Jane Austen’s novels, for instance, I only understand are “bad” because I studied the period. I’m sure blundering into it, I’d make a million gaffes. I find the morality police that whips the ankles of women who show them in Saudi-Arabia repulsive, but it is a rule and the women know about it. I understand rules about things like not eating from other people’s plates, not insulting strangers, etc.

BUT and this is very important, the point is not that those rules are fair. The point is that if you grow up in those societies, you have a reasonable expectation of knowing WHAT the rules are. I.e. if I’m strolling in a mini-skirt in a Saudi Arabian souk and get whipped, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. It can come as an outrage, but not a surprise.

Revolutions like the US, which changed governance but didn’t presume to change the way people worked, in their minds and hearts, don’t turn into cannibal feasts. OTOH revolutions like the French, where people descended/aspired to changing the names of the weekdays and the months, in order to construct a completely different humanity, inevitably end up in a pile of blood-soaked corpses.

So do revolutions like the Russian and the Chinese, and others.

The difference is this: these revolutions make functioning as a normal human a crime. This requires changing your very thoughts and the way you process reality. And they presume to divine from your smallest actions, your most casual lapses, that you have commited a thought-crime.

This, of course, requires special people who can look into the actions and every day assumptions of others and tell them where they went wrong.

The process is bad enough when done by a minister or another nominally trained person. (I am not talking here of ministers in normal denominations, who are usually trained and don’t want to remake humanity, just get it to behave a little better.) In extreme cases, it creates Jim Jones. It is nightmarish when done by the left, which means it is done by people given power and authority to do this by the grace of totally arbitrary characteristics: where they were born/when/what pigmentation their skin has/what happens to be between their legs/whom they like to sleep with. This is not an exhaustive list, but it should give you an idea that none of these attributes is magical, and none of them should confer the authority to discern and judge the secrets of other’s hearts.

But the SJWs believe it does. They believe someone who is born with more victim cards, even if the person was in fact born very wealthy and never experienced a day’s hardship, immediately can judge them and tell them when they’re exhibiting “privilege” which is a taint that attaches to other seemingly arbitrary characteristics, no matter how poor or downtrodden people born with them are.

This sets them up to be abused in exactly the way that Synova describes. Worse, it sets them up to join the mob and wail for the blood of innocent people in whom one of these “anointed ones” discerned guilt. Not to do so, might mean they were tainted with the guilt themselves, after all.

By this process, they saddle themselves with psychopaths as leaders (yeah, some of the anointed ones are merely true believers, but that kind of power inevitably attracts psychopaths and sadists) and make any organization, place, country or government they take over into hell on Earth, instead of the utopia they imagine.

The state of irrationality is demonstrated by the commenter who thought I was RH because of our “similar rhetoric.” There are in fact not even mild similarities between an extreme leftist and myself. BUT both of us made him feel pain. So, therefore we are similar and possibly the same.

That means the commenter had the ability to think/react/avoid pain of a nematode, if that high.

I would enjoin those people caught in the vortex of accusation/appeasement/abasement to take a good look at what they’re doing.

A society where the rules have to be divined by special individuals (no? Would any rational human being think of “lady” as an insult, till the SJWs declared it so?) is not conducive to liberty. It’s not conducive to kindness. It’s damaging to the ability to think.

In the end it makes you animals, joining a mob to avoid being killed.

I suggest if you are caught in it, or suspect you might be, that you re-read Animal Farm. And then evaluate the goals of your movement. You can demand that women be given opportunities in business and art. You can’t get into anyone’s heads and demand that they never have a bad thought.

You can establish that pinching a woman’s butt against her will is bad. You can’t establish that men shouldn’t be allowed to look at naked women or wear art showing a naked woman. And you have to decide whether female nudity is empowering or demeaning, btw.

The rules need to be clear and well established. They can be changed, but if they are, they need to be proclaimed so everyone in the society/group/cult knows them.

And no one should be condemned by inference/whispers/accusation without a fair chance to defend him/her/dragon self and confront his/her/gerbil’s accusers.

That is how you stop cannibal feasts. You start by admitting humans aren’t infinitely perfectible, and that even the “anointed ones” can have flaws like a search for power.

The alternative is that you tuck your napkin under your chin and dig in.

Forever.

602 thoughts on “Table Settings At The Cannibal Feast”

            2. Well, if we aren’t sticking to any one or anyone’s edition let me side jump.

              WD-40 … and I’ll slide on in to the finish.

  2. I think that asking these beings to have consistent rules is asking too much. The believers know only what they feel and the “leaders” for lack of a better word need the flexibility. Without the quicksand type rules, how can you destroy those who helped you before but stand in your way now.
    Orwell was fairly accurate about how these societies operate. The retcon of reality is absolutely vital.
    Oh well I’m starting to gibber like an idiot.

      1. Depends on what you want to use him for, he has a functioning brain, but I have no idea if he has a strong back or not.

        1. Damn it! A functioning brain you say… Hmmm… that right there disqualifies him from the useful idiots category.

          😦 To bad off to the camps with him.

          😉

          1. I’m told the re-ed camps are not all that bad as John Effin’ Kerry said so (yes, that was actually said to me about them by someone on the far left

                  1. I’ve taken to calling him Cramps. He’s a pain that shows up out of the blue, is easily dealt with, and after it’s gone you find that it didn’t really do any lasting damage.

    2. Consistent rules are contrary to their purpose. Consistent rules allow people to relax and treat the world as predictable, when the whole purpose of the structure is to make people uneasy and anxiety-ridden.

    1. Y’know the best part about this is?

      I bet that the idiots who were speculating that RH is Sarah will never apologize, and in fact justify their behavior, and make it so they neverhave to apologize because Sarah’s not one of their speshul snowflake sheeple and thus not entitled to or requiring of any humane treatment ever.

          1. “You’ll never work in my writer factory again!”

            “Dude, I never wanted to work in your writer factory. If I wanted to work in one, I’d rather write Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, and have a real pseudonym shared with pride down the decades.”

            1. Pretty much.

              I’m more than willing to reach an arrangement like Patterson makes, but I’d much rather it be with someone like Sarah, Larry Correia, Tom Kratman, John Ringo, etc.

              You know, people who write stuff I actually like.

          2. Had to look and see who James Patterson was.

            That was information that will likely be of no use to me.

            1. My mother used to read some of his books, I’ve never tried them myself, and was unaware that they were ghost written. (that is what you are implying, isn’t it?)

              1. I wasn’t implying anything.

                I had no memory of hearing the name in relation to books, and after looking there wasn’t anything there that I found interesting.

                1. Sorry, I was unclear, you were not the one implying that, Tom and suburban were.

                  The first half of my comment was a reply to you, then my brain saw a squirrel and chased it down a rabbit trail without bothering to even put a period in.

              2. As I understand it, they find some poor schmuck, desperate to make a name for himself, and Patterson hands them an outline. It’s not a particularly small one (80 pages or so), and the writer fills the rest in, then they split credit with Patterson’s name getting top billing since he’s the big name that can sell books just by being there.

                Basically, he found a way to monetize the old “I have this idea for a story. You write it and we’ll split the money” thing.

        2. addendum: an actual, sincere apology, including learning from the mistake and actually doing something like grabbing a clue, and treating the rest of us like actual human beings.

          They literally cannot do that. They have never been taught it. In fact they’ve been taught and experienced for all their years on the planet precisely the opposite – namely that a brief “I’m sorry, yeah whatever” is entirely sufficient

          1. Only the young untrained ones say that. They quickly learn to say “I’m sorry you were offended” and never think, let alone say “I’m ashamed I said that. I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

            2. “I’m sorry you’re such a contemptible narcissist that you can’t manage an apology for what you did when you were caught red-handed.”

              3. I like the English language. It has so many lovely words. And when it finds itself lacking in a word with a particular nuance it will look around until they find one in another language that fits conveniently and appropriate it.

                (The Daughter thinks of it in ruder terms, she says it sends out its soldiers and sailors to mug the other language in dark alleys.)

                1. “English is the result of Norman men-at-arms attempting to pick up Saxon barmaids and is no more legitimate than any of the other results.” Source unknown

                  1. H. Beam Piper said something very similar to that in one of the Fuzzy Novels.

                2. Tell her that it is much more likely that the soldiers and sailors stole the words in houses full of women with negotiable virtue rather than dark alleys. Soldiers and sailors are not stupid.

                  2. She isn’t stupid. She is aware.

                    When she first developed this argument she was young — early elementary age — people would have been so shocked by the allusion to brothels that they would never have heard her actual argument. (She had already begun to collect dictionaries of slang, jargon and scatological terms.) This is one of the very few times she choose to exercise such restraint in communication. Therefore it is memorialized in our way of saying it.

              4. Theirs is the natural stance of the aristo. They, by virtue of an enlightened soul(TM) assume the burden of judging humanity’s foibles and critiquing them. We, the bourgeoisie are the embodiment of counter-revolutionary thought, impeding the rise of humankind to its due enlightened condition. Thus there is no hypocrisy, for they who judge are not to be so judged.

            1. Just a clarification. The racial and sexual segregation is only acceptable if the right people do it.

              As a white male, for example, I’m not allowed.

              Not that I’d want that. Too many of my favorite people would be excluded.

              1. Ya know, riffing off what Mr. Beaver said about Aslan . . . if they have their safe spaces, we have our good spaces. (” ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good . . .”)

              2. I believe they see it as following:

                When they do it is good because it is creating opportunities for people who were formally kept out and when white males do it is bad because it must be to continue to keep your unfair monopoly on the best things in life.

                (Remember they are enlightened to the truth — you are either deluded, oppressed or evil. Possibly all three.)

            2. *snort* The PC are like the vicious high school jerks of both sexes, and I have no interest in wasting my time constantly being in high school. I’m quite adult and have better things to do.

              And yes, I noticed back then they were very angry with the fact that I did not NEED them to entertain myself or feel good about myself, so they started a whisper campaign about me that I was a lesbian and spread sexual rumors.

              SJWs never grow up.

              1. Wait…that’s an insult to them? And I’m a hypocrite for being a social conservative?
                My already low opinion of their moral authority has dropped further. I did not know this was possible.

                1. Well, this was back in the Philippines, and the social circle queens started a rumor that I was a lesbian and spread sexual rumors about me and my best friend. This fell apart when I got a boyfriend… not that it affected me in any way. I had better things to occupy my time with.

                2. What? You’ve never had anyone decide that not joining in whatever he’s doing is sufficient proof that you’re stuck up.

        2. Actually when offended by their own they eat their own. That is part of the nightmare. Look at the history of the French Terror – from Encyclopedia Britannica online:

          Reign of Terror, also called The Terror, French La Terreur, the period of the French Revolution from Sept. 5, 1793, to July 27, 1794 (9 Thermidor, year II). Caught up in civil and foreign war, the Revolutionary government decided to make “Terror” the order of the day (September 5 decree) and to take harsh measures against those suspected of being enemies of the Revolution (nobles, priests, hoarders). In Paris a wave of executions followed. In the provinces, representatives on mission and surveillance committees instituted local terrors. The Terror had an economic side embodied in the Maximum, a price-control measure demanded by the lower classes of Paris, and a religious side that was embodied in the program of dechristianization pursued by the followers of Jacques Hébert.
          During the Terror, the Committee of Public Safety (of which Robespierre was the most prominent member) exercised virtual dictatorial control over French government. In the spring of 1794, it eliminated its enemies to the left (the Hébertists) and to the right (the Indulgents, or followers of Georges Danton). Still uncertain of its position, the committee obtained the Law of 22 Prairial, year II (June 10, 1794), which suspended a suspect’s right to public trial and to legal assistance and left the jury only a choice between acquittal and death. The “Great Terror” that followed, in which about 1,400 persons were executed, contributed to the fall of Robespierre on July 27 (9 Thermidor).

          During the Reign of Terror, at least 300,000 suspects were arrested; 17,000 were officially executed, and many died in prison or without trial.

            1. They know and fear what their own will do if offended. Shunning at best; evisceration at worst.

              Fear is a powerful tool used to keep people in check. There is a great deal of freedom in not giving a damn.

    2. Sarah said:
      A society where the rules have to be divined by special individuals (no? Would any rational human being think of “lady” as an insult, till the SJWs declared it so?) is not conducive to liberty. It’s not conducive to kindness. It’s damaging to the ability to think.

      And if anyone doesn’t think that the rules are supposed to be decided by special individuals, check out this portion of a comment by the SJW who dropped in on Tom’s blog to defend them:

      No, I was suggesting that it is meaningful who has the right to define something as “racist” and something as “insensitive but not racist”. If white people can decide what is ok to say about non-white people, the whites have more power and they are more privileged, aren’t they?

      See? Special people get to define what constitutes “racist”. And everything else that offends them, by extension of the principle.

      1. No, I was suggesting that it is meaningful who has the right to define something as “racist”… Blah-blah-blech.

        Bigots. I hates ’em. How’s about we come up with a revolutionary!! new!!! idea and let individual people determine how they want to face the world and drop all this backwards, ignorant, shallow categorization? We could eliminate this retched tendency to see and treat people based solely on superficial characteristics, minor variations, tribal and social affiliations and treat with people as individuals, as fellow human beings with complex lives and actual emotional depth. We could see them as real, thinking creatures just like us. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Who’d a ever thunk it?

        Oops. No. Hang on a sec. That’d strip political and social power from a bunch of invested hacks happily standing on the backs of the those subjugated by the “caring” and “compassion” of our elites and betters. Better to bend the knee, genuflect in their direction and spout the (currently) approved rituals. Maybe they’ll drop us a crumb of recognition, maybe we’ll be spared their scorn and disdain, perhaps they’ll grant us a moment to bask in the light of their superior bigotry — even from just across the room.

        Hm.

        No.

        The Americans who came before me fought and died to throw off the yokes of aristocracy and free themselves from the arbitrary dictates of a king.

        So no. With expletive modifiers. Definitively.

        I’d go over to Tom’s to follow up on this (might later) but Wayne’s a nice guy and he dragged the troll in here for a whack, so — *WHACK!*

        1. I am perfectly willing to recognise the authority of non-white people to determine what is racist — provided I can choose which non-white people.

          I choose Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Bo Snerdley, Mia Love, JC Watts, Star Parker and Bobby Jindal. Oh, and our Lesbian Thai SJW Evil Space Princess.

        2. The idea that each individual should stand or fall on their own merit is, in terms of human history, a rather new and novel concept.

          In most of history someone or some body of people was expected to be in control. There was trouble in the ranks, as well as in the upper echelons, if someone who was not considered proper was elevated to the ruling class.

          1. Sure, in terms of history.

            Haven’t noticed the SJW’s excelling in historical understanding.

            I don’t contest your broader point, but in terms of current socio-cultural dynamics (limited to the U.S., I’m familiar with enough other countries to know the limitations) I don’t think it should be seen as new.

            Unusual, maybe. But not new.

            1. Compared to a human life span 238 years is a big number. It is not long enough to have formed a critical mass for self-maintenance — if it ever can. Unless we keep teaching the new and novel principles upon which we were founded it will be lost in one generation.

            2. Oh dear, they truly excel at Historical Understanding. (Also at hysterical understanding.)

              Why, they understand many many things that never even happened.

                1. Why am I thinking about the joke where the last lines was “It was a trap! There were two of them!”. [Very Big Evil Grin]

      2. “Special people get to define what constitutes ‘racist’. And everything else that offends them, by extension of the principle.”

        The problem of course is that this forces the disagreeing sides into a Bulveristic zero-sum game: one side is presumed always to have an interest in defining “racist” (or other opprobrious field of condemnatory speech) as widely as possible to give themselves ongoing casi belli, the other is presumed always to have an interest in defining it as narrowly as possible to exonerate their own speech however malevolent, and neither can be presumed capable of coming up with a mid-point on that spectrum acceptable to both sides.

        Which is convenient if what you want is a mindset that will keep conflict going until you have wrung every possible benefit out of it, but problematic if what you want is to actually resolve the issue, and even more so if you represent yourself as the latter while fighting under the former.

  4. From a strategic standpoint having a set rules that are so obtuse, contradictory, and draconian that they simply cannot be obeyed by anyone gives the enforcers of those rules the ability to selectively enforce them at their whim.

    I think that’s the point.

    Everyone is guilty, so criminals are simply those who happen to catch the eye of the mob. This leads to a covert division within the ranks, between those who are still naive enough to believe that the feeding frenzies are based on some objective standard of justice (while overlooking the transgressions of themselves and other “good” people) and those who realize that it is a completely arbitrary power play and that the only hope for survival is to continually cater to the whims of those who are in power at the moment.

    Neither is a comfortable way to live.

    The naive have to exercise a continual self-imposed blindness, to not let themselves become aware that last week’s rising star is this week’s sacrificial victim. You have to learn the trick of rewriting history as a defense mechanism because once an idol has been toppled you have to believe not only that the person is bad, but that person was always bad, and woe betide anyone who is on record having praised the victim in the past.

    Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia.

    The political camp, on the other hand, is never quite sure who belongs to which camp and must be continually vigilant to avoid any cynical utterances that might be heard by the wrong ears. More than that, though, climbing the political ladder is like clambering up an avalanche. One must always be ready to jump from one patron to another when the tremors start.

    Having once been active in a group that operated by this kind of “Everyone is guilty, but some are more guilty than others” mindset I can say that it simple fatigue that ends up doing in most of the members, in time. In a farewell post I wrote I said, “I can’t get a good night’s sleep tied to the railroad tracks”. It is exhausting to live waiting for the ax to fall.

    And that is why such groups must use horror of the other to maintain membership. They have to paint the alternative as progressively worse in order to justify living in fear. In the end, these groups collapse because enough people realize that no matter how evil the other side is, it has to be better than this.

    1. Selective enforcement can be nice if you are the one in power, but the problem is that if you are simply in the favor of those in power, you are always vulnerable to being selectively enforced against.

      And even those with some power, are almost always indebted to someone else for that power. So they must seek favor with those people, and favor with all of the people those people are indebted to. After a while all the lines of favor blur in the distance and there is simply no real way to know where they all run.

      1. More importantly, once you have power, you can never give it up because once you do you’re at the mercy of those that end up with the power. This is why a large number of dictatorships ended up with quasi-dynastic ruling families, as the people that you can trust the most to look after your legacy are your own kin.

        People that are driven to seek power and skilled enough to get it will always rise to the top. They will always have the skill and connections to manipulate the rules and end up on top. The more rules you give them to exploit, the more powerful they become.

            2. D’ya think the Republicans will actually use their rules against them this time? I’d like to actually see that. Because sometimes, the only way they’ll learn is by experience.

              And I know, there’ll be people who’ll be like “But to abuse the rules is making us no different from them.” This is not the case. They CHANGED the filibuster rules, so abiding by those rules now is abiding by the rules.

              Not every fence, law, custom, etc that is torn down or changed should have been.

              1. Shadow,

                But that is a perfect example of why we will never be able to get back what was lost.

                In stead of fixing what was broken by returning to the rules to how they are supposed to be the Repubs will just use the new rules to their advantage, and this will become the new normal. Overton Window anyone?

                This is how governments slide into tyranny.

                1. Returning to the old rules is not possible, having established the precedent that they can be dismissed when convenient. The bell cannot be unrung.

                  That does not make for tyranny, however, as the filibuster was never a Constitutional principle and had long since been moderated, amended and sapped of all strength.

                  1. RES,

                    Agreed. Was just pointing out how those excretions on both side become the norm, and that we should never be surprised by where we find ourselves.

                    Because rule are the rules don’t make things right. Because Harry Reed would do it, might gives us pause to think doing it ourselves might not be such a good thing.

                    How ever emotionally satisfying it would be to hoist them up by their own petard.

                    RES, the principle is that we should do things to limit tyranny of the majority in what ever venue we find ourselves. If it is wrong for them to do it when they are in power…

                    1. IMO the problem of limiting the “tyranny of the majority” is that you increase the possibility of “tyranny of the minority”. Remember, the SJWs are a minority.

          2. But when Obama stood in front of the White House press corps and responded to a question regarding Republicans asking the same thing shortly after he took office, his response was something along the lines of “I won.”

            Where was Reid then?

          3. I thought the whole reason no one had ever used the nuclear option was because they didn’t want to be on the receiving end when the pendulum swung. Did Dingy Harry really think his speakership would never wane? IMAO the GOP should use a little scorched earth just to let the Dems know they mean business. “Filibuster? Only if you stand here and actually talk the whole time.”

    2. Strikes me that this is a perilously close approximation of both our current legal and political systems here in America. Recently read a remark that any business person can reasonably expect to commit as many as three felonies in a given day simply by engaging in their business. May be a slight exaggeration, but somehow I doubt it. And as for politics, I simply point to either the ACA or the entire body of our tax code as two prime examples of arcane convoluted and toxic regulation.
      To paraphrase Harry Harrison, when one finds oneself in a concrete jungle one must learn to become a stainless steel rat. Those of us who hope to survive should take such advice to heart.

      1. You’re not the first person to say that.

        “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” ― Ayn Rand

        1. I have considered that this was the reason why the tax laws are such that it is impossible to be fully confident that you have properly submitted and paid … even when you have correctly followed IRS advisors.

      2. Proliferation of rules is perceived by those who would try to control every aspect of our lives as being the perfect way to gain that control, because they can rule by fear – when everything is a crime, people will fear even thinking of ways to go against the ruling body.

        Problem is, that’s only barely a hypothesis, and a lousy one at that, because there are always enough humans who will rebel against such a system that it cannot, ever, control everyone. So the people who thing they can, create new rules in a vain attempt to control the ones they haven’t been able to control yet, which merely pushes more people to the brink, who then rebel, causing a new set of rules, more rebellion, until it becomes a chaotic jumble. This is why I believe Sarah when she says, “In the end, we win, they lose.” Because they will destroy themselves from within.

        1. …because there are always enough humans who will rebel against such a system that it cannot, ever, control everyone.

          The question is if there will be enough in one place at one time to effectually rebel. So long as you maintain control over a critical mass the individual dissenters, or even small groups of them, can be managed.

          Look to North Korea. 😦

          1. They’re a different case, though. They have been held down since before there were so many ways to get around the controls. Also, they came from a culture that was already more conformist. Here, today, Americans embody the old saying, “The tighter you squeeze, the more will slip through your fingers.”

            1. And inevitably, once we get tired of evading and obfuscating the powers that be, we stop slipping through their fingers and reveal the razor blades beneath. Exceedingly hard to squeeze once your fingers are lopped off, ain’t it now.
              There is a movement in America, a hard core of Tea Party, unorganized militia, and such who are desperately begging our rulers to allow us some measure of freedom and determination over our personal lives. Sadly, they think it’s because we are weak while we know it’s because once unleashed our dilemma will be in deciding where to end the blood bath. “How many of them can we make die?” has a certain catchy ring to it after all. Someone ought to write a song.

                    3. Which reminds me that the drum is one of the least satisfying musical instruments ever recorded, because merely hearing drums is to perceive their shadow and omits the air pressure waves the instrument employs.

      3. I will note that this is precisely what happens in France.

        If you are white-skinned and mouth the correct platitudes (said platitudes depending on the circs) you can get away with practically anything. OTOH being or a duskier hue or failing to mouth the right platitudes gets you in a world of hurt if the authorities pick on you.

        To take an example: the Gendarmes regularly do random checks at traffic junctions for proof of insurance/ driver’s license/ sobriety etc. It has been noted that you are far more likely to be pulled over if you are darker skinned or driving a battered car. And I know of two examples (happened to my wife and a friend of mine) where being polite and foreign (of an acceptable type) got someone out of a potentially very large fine. Oddly that discretion rarely applies to certain other classes of driver.

        Now there are other factors at play too but it should be no surprise at all that neither the working class whites nor the (Arab/African) immigrant population are particularly enamoured with the establishment. Sufficiently so that it looks like the fascists* are likely to win big in the next national elections

        *i.e the Front National. May not be 100% fascist, but nationalistic and dirigiste to an extreme so pretty close.

        1. There is some confusion, it’s not “as many as” three fell ies but “at least” three felonies per day. You’ll never know it unless someone is looking for leverage over you. That’s what selective enforcement is all about.
          I personally commit, at a minimum, ten felonies upon waking. That’s even before coffee. Don’t be suprosef chances are the aged and sickly in your family commit similar felonies when they wake up.

  5. The naive have to exercise a continual self-imposed blindness, to not let themselves become aware that last week’s rising star is this week’s sacrificial victim. You have to learn the trick of rewriting history as a defense mechanism because once an idol has been toppled you have to believe not only that the person is bad, but that person was always bad, and woe betide anyone who is on record having praised the victim in the past.

    Gee. you know what this sounds like? Communist China. North Korea. The denunciations and expositions and witch hunts are a very, very familiar thing indeed.

    This very tactic was described in great detail in the book Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang.

    Chang, born in 1952, saw her mother put into a detention camp in the Cultural Revolution and later “rehabilitated.” Her father was denounced and publicly humiliated; his mind snapped, and he died a broken man in 1975. Working as a “barefoot doctor” with no training, Chang saw the oppressive, inhuman side of communism.

  6. Synova, your comment was scary spot on. That’s how a person can drive another person insane. I’ve been there, and you expressed it much more elegantly than I have ever been able to.

    1. Agree – that was a very elegant way to put it – and yes, using that very tactic can and has been used to drive people into a form of insanity.

    3. In fact as I just posted above, that is precisely what the Communist secret police did to people they didn’t like.

      1. Look at the recent experiences of (former CBS journalist) Sharyl Attkisson, up to and including planting of classified documents on her computer.

      2. Thanks for that link. It sent me spiraling back into a memory lane, so to speak. I lived in East Berlin as a kid, and the apartment we were assigned to had been one of the designated living quarters of the families of members of the Stasi. There were no suitable quarters in the diplomats’ quarter at the time, so sticking us into the apartment block that was assigned to the Stasi families was the next best thing to keep us secure. So as a result, we got to experience East Berlin rather differently from other diplomats. Less sanitized, shall we say.

        Spent the last hour reminiscing about how, as a diplomat’s kid, I could have had someone die by simply saying something completely normal and childish and careless – “That man was noisy.” Long story, but the summary is someone was being an ass about children in restaurants, and the police were offering to have the guy in question disappear. The police were quite keen to erase the embarrassment and the person who’d caused it, so even asked the children if they had been disturbed by the noisy person. My brother was too young, and I remember saying I didn’t notice anything other than people talking (I was too absorbed in the book I was reading.)

        Afterward, when we got home, my dad gave me a very careful talking to about being very careful about what I say while we lived in East Germany, and that he was proud of me because I didn’t condemn a man to death, or his wife or girlfriend finding herself just as dead.

        I was seven years old then.

        Looking back now at that incident and at life then with adult eyes, it’s quite sobering to realize that I had for a time, as a child, the kind of power, privilege and position that the SJWs so richly desire and would happily abuse, and that as a diplomat’s kid, I was pretty much exempt from all the consequences of failing to parrot the correct speech and views. I had that thing they could only dream of, and never, ever thought – nor could conceive of – using it. Simply never occurred to me.

        2. “Looking back now at that incident and at life then with adult eyes, it’s quite sobering to realize that I had for a time, as a child, the kind of power, privilege and position that the SJWs so richly desire and would happily abuse, and that as a diplomat’s kid, I was pretty much exempt from all the consequences of failing to parrot the correct speech and views. ”

          Oh, we’ve been there in this country for at least 30 years. No? McMartin pre-school, anyone?

          One major reason IMHO for the declining birthrate is that kids are simply too much of a legal risk to raise.

  7. Mixon’s post is absolutely hilarious. When she jumps into Ferguson for no coherent reason, lying about events, I spilled my coffee on myself laughing so hard.

    1. “I feel deeply angry, that in my own country today an unarmed young person can be shot on the street by a uniformed police officer, and months later there is no indictment, no criminal charges, against that man.

      People are pissed off about that kind of thing, and rightly so. Context matters.”

      Context matters? Really?

      Aside: Not having heard of Mixon before, until clicking through the link I thought Mixon was a screen name and a play on Minx and Nixon.

      Aside 2: I can’t get through to the POC Safe site, so I was in fear of being attacked by POC’s while on the regular one.

      1. I don’t want to click through… is there any recognition that the “context” of that was “huge guy tried to beat cop to death and got shot, after doing a strong-arm robbery of a store, while high enough on illegal substances that he was probably hallucinating”?

          1. So a 14 year old girl is adult when it comes to sex and abortions, but an 18 year old is a “child” when it comes to being shot for trying to beat someone to death.

            Makes perfect sense. -.-

            Thank you for risking the brain damage, I was pretty sure it was something like that…..

              1. For purpose of riding Mom & Dad’s health insurance, a person can be a child at 26.

                Sigh — by the time he was 26, William Antrim had been dead between 4 and 6 years (there be doubt as to the year of his birth.)

                1. And thus the reason our insurance went through the roof, because we had to have maternity insurance on the daughter that I was pregnant with at 26.

                  Even though she was… what, two at the time?

                  The gal that tried to get me wound up against the insurance company on that ended up backing away rather slowly…..

                1. That is the beauty of giving ‘gun death’ statistics. If their victim wouldn’t have had a gun, the perp obviously wouldn’t have been shot.

            2. Disgusting. /WmDanielsVoice

              LA Schools Blame Girl for Sex With Teacher
              District wins civil suit brought by family of 14-year-old
              By John Johnson, Newser Staff
              (Newser) – The LA school district is taking flak for going after one of its own middle-school girls in court over a sexual abuse case. Attorneys for the district argued that the 14-year-old should be held responsible for a sexual relationship with a teacher and thus deserved no money for emotional trauma. They also presented the girl’s sexual history in court—and won the case. Consider this quote from one of those attorneys, Keith Wyatt, to KPCC:

              “She lied to her mother so she could have sex with her teacher. She went to a motel in which she engaged in voluntary consensual sex with her teacher. Why shouldn’t she be responsible for that?”

              Critics contend that the answer is obvious: An eighth-grader can’t consent to a sexual relationship with a 28-year-old teacher. Or as a non-district attorney puts it in the Los Angeles Times: “The belief that middle-school children can consent to sexual activity is something one would expect to hear from pedophile advocates, not the second-largest school district in the US.” The issue was a no-brainer in criminal court, where teacher Elkis Hermida was convicted of lewd acts against a child and sentenced to three years in prison. But as KPCC points out, the age of consent isn’t as clear cut in civil cases. Critics of the Los Angeles Unified School District just wish it weren’t a school district that exploited the discrepancy. Meanwhile, Wyatt’s quote has caused so much outrage that the district says it will no longer use him for legal matters, reports AP.

              HT:Instapundit

              1. From pedophile advocates, or the state provided sex ed courses, actually.

                IIRC, this is the same school district that has pedophile rings that only get busted when they’re on video– and they get caught MOVING the predator, instead of taking legal action.

        2. No, that is the entire quote on the subject of Ferguson. It came out of left field, unrelated to the rest of the post, and I quoted it in its entirety.

          I agree with her last sentence completely, but it is completely at odds with the ones proceeding it. Something of which she seems sublimely unaware.

          What boggles my mind is that there are way more than enough real world examples of cops throwing their weight around inappropriately; why does every one that makes the news turn out to be a lie? You’d think it was a conspiracy or something.

          1. What boggles my mind is that there are way more than enough real world examples of cops throwing their weight around inappropriately; why does every one that makes the news turn out to be a lie?

            I’d guess it’s an effect of selecting examples by the characteristics of the target– most of the examples of Cops Behaving Badly that are genuine are on targets like “middle aged boring guy with a CC permit in a different state” or “dirty blond white guy getting assaulted by a cop.”
            Not an acceptable victim, not a story; in those cases where the target DID fit their narrative, it tends to get fixed. Fast, and with prejudice.

            Both “Trayvon” and this thug got in the news because the family’s lawyer knew they could probably make money if they put out a twisted story, AFTER they were already losing the PR battle locally.

            1. It is a form of Prog-Tourette’s. Every few paragraphs they have to bleat out such remarks, like leaving their Left-turn blinker on.

              This attribute was mocked in an off-Broadway one-act play I saw in 1975 (“Rubbers” — set in the NY State Assembly’s chambers) with a character who would shout out at random intervals “Starving babies in Biafra!”, a phrase which Beloved Spouse & I still employ as family shorthand.

              1. er… weird. My mom uses that same phrase for the same purpose.
                but yeah, the bit about Ferguson was there because otherwise the lefties might think she “turned” right wing. Like me. 😛

      1. When I read it, I read fear. I read so much fear that I was fearful for her and admired her bravery. After all… they eat their own. Just how careful does a person have to be, and how thickly do they have to wrap their words in the right sort of tribal language, and how many charts and “empirical” elements have to be included and how likely was it STILL to have had it all fall out the other way?

        I remember elementary. I remember the sick dread watching someone else being bullied and knowing in my bones that I had to be very very quiet or they’d turn on ME.

        1. Speaking of bullies…

          I am STILL amazed/shocked/depressed/somethinged by the number of people who bullied, ignored, teased or otherwise contributed to my torment in high school (or their spouses did) who want to ‘friend’ me on FB and act like nothing happened. Do they not REMEMBER?

              1. No, they simply don’t remember it the same WAY you do. It stands out in your mind because of the pain it caused. It doesn’t stand out in theirs, because they didn’t experience the pain. And in many cases, they may have actually not realized they were causing it.

                Yes, yes, I know. How could they not? But few people are taught to truly put themselves in the places of others, and especially anyone under 20 years old (sometimes older) may have no idea of how much what they are doing hurts the person they are doing it to.

                1. But few people are taught to truly put themselves in the places of others, and especially anyone under 20 years old (sometimes older) may have no idea of how much what they are doing hurts the person they are doing it to.

                  Sadly: This.

          2. Forget about the bullies, but why do all the people you haven’t spoke to since they needed help in Advanced Biology suddenly think you are interested in what they have for breakfast every morning?

            Aside; I just realized that I joined Facebook so that I could follow and comment on Sarah Palin’s page in the 2008 elections, and I think I’ve been on there twice since those elections, to contact people whose phone number I had lost. I was going to say it had been a couple of years since I was on Facebook, and suddenly realized how long ago those elections were, time really does fly.

            1. and several if not many have come to the sudden realization that yes, 20 some years later, i am still Odd, and yes, I am still smarter than them.

  8. *Reads end of first paragraph, tries to imagine device to accomplish such transformation, decides to wait until getting more black tea before hurting brain again.*

    1. Tea ain’t gonna cut it hon, ya’ll need something stronger; that comes with a brain painkiller.

    2. I take it that I should only attempt reading the referenced work if I am in the mood for an exercise in mental contortionism and the possible subsequent suffering of brain sprain?

      Or did you mean Sarah’s first paragraph above. Yes, that, too, brought me to a understandable dead stop …. WHAT?!? Really? Sarah? Our Sarah? Who’d a ever thunk that?

      1. I was trying to imagine the process and the gizmo required to turn Sarah into a lesbian, Thai, SJW. I had more tea, approved cover art, and went to the gym instead. Maxing out the weights hurt less.

              1. As is Cthulhumari. Unless you order the dish with the lager-panko breading and deep fry them…MMMmmmmm, not low carb any more.

          3. “I thought Lesbian Thai was a form of Haute Cuisine.”

            Eh, I’m likely to get in trouble if I make a reply to a comment on Lesbian Cuisine. So I’ll let someone else answer that….

            Kate! Kate, there is comment over here that needs one of your patented Australian replies!

              1. This is why you throw carp?

                But yes, Fish are hard to like. Even such common pleasantries as tipping their hats or saying “How do you do?” are beyond them, and the last time I exchanged Christmas gifts with one… well, I know a kid would have appreciated that bicycle a lot more.

              2. What about retsina and those evil little honey-soaked pastries the ladies at every Greek Orthodox Church sell as part of the fundraising bake sales? 😉

      2. She really missed an opportunity for rebranding. The blog could be called “Requires Only That You Hoyt”.

            1. CARP: Carbon Alloy Relativistic Projectile. Deployed in orbital cluestrikes. No defense against CARP attacks is possible.

                2. Aint that kinda, well, twentieth century? What we need is a Low Altitude Muon-Propelled Open-ended Ontological Negator. LAMPOON

  9. Whether statist or religious, every sect that presumes to make a perfect society and/or man brings untold misery. Worse, good-hearted people become totally turned off from all religions. Maybe this is a major reason for people to become atheists.

    1. Well, Christianity does propose the perfection of Society … but not in this world, only through Divine Transformation, and bad people* need not apply.

      *i.e., those who reject the very simple admission requirements.

      1. Actually, it’s pretty much all bad people* who apply. It’s people who think of themselves as good people who don’t…. 🙂

        *Jesus and His mom not included. All groaning Creation included free of charge. All decisions at Last Judgment are final.

  10. Oh, the pooooor SWEEThearts!

    *spit*

    One of the seldom told aspects of the infamous “hollowood blacklist” is that the people who “named named” before Congress were, by and large, peolle who had been subjected to this kind of Stalinist attack by the Hollywood Fashionable Pinkos. You can get away wil this crap for a long time, and build quite an edifice on it, but sooner or later so,ebody is going to decide it’s time to see if they can take you with them, and then life gets ugly.

    I think that the way to deal with this is to tell anyone oblikvious enough to come running to you with a tale of woe aboit it “yes, I know. This is exactly the kind of Stalinist crap YOU pull on anyone YOU disagree with. Makes it kind of hard to sympathize with you, jackass.”

    1. That, largely, is why Elia Kazan, founder of The Actors Studio, director, producer, writer and actor, described by The New York Times as “one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history” went before the committee and named those who were already known party members … and why many in Hollywood still shunned him almost five decades later when he received a Lifetime Achievement award at the Oscar ceremonies.

      Among the actors he introduced to movie audiences were Marlon Brando, James Dean, Warren Beatty, Carroll Baker, Julie Harris, Andy Griffith, Lee Remick, Rip Torn, Eli Wallach, Eva Marie Saint, Martin Balsam, Fred Gwynne, and Pat Hingle. Seven of Kazan’s films won a total of 20 Academy Awards. Dustin Hoffman commented that he “doubted whether he, Robert De Niro, or Al Pacino, would have become actors without Mr. Kazan’s influence.”

      Kazan stated in an interview in 1976:
      I would rather do what I did than crawl in front of a ritualistic Left and lie the way those other comrades did, and betray my own soul. I didn’t betray it. I made a difficult decision.

      Harvested from:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elia_Kazan

      Although I disagree with Warren Beatty on almost every possible political issue, I credit his fight for the 1999 honoring of Mr. Kazan at the Academy Awards.

  11. IMO part of the “Requires Hate” being Sarah, is the idea that the person said to be on “our side” who is making “our side” look bad is really on the “other side”.

    IE the person is really of “those people” who is trying to make “us” look bad.

    1. Cheh. They refuse to ‘own’ the monsters they unleash, why are we supposed to take ownership of the monsters they accuse us of having?

      Case in point, this falsified video, , their darling Lena ‘I molest my toddler sister’ Dunham, the sister who’s trying to make it now sound like what was done to her is ‘normal homosexual experimentation’ because only ‘heteronormatives’ would decry what happened to her as ‘pedophilia/ incest’; Bill and Hillary Clinton, especially the latter who made fun of rape victims… and let’s not even get into the lies the anti-gamergaters have been spreading.

      Yeah, the harder they try to desperately project and deflect, the more they expose themselves.

      Let them speak so we may know their thoughts.

      1. Yeah, I like their schizophrenic double standard. There is just a slight dissonance when you claim that is ‘normal homosexual experimentation’ while at the same time claiming ‘normal homosexuals are not pedophiles.’ And they get mad when people call them on their inconsistencies. Because we are Haters (they might even say we require it) for using logic.

          1. Well, obviously not all people attracted to the same sex (or people with paraphilias, for that matter) have been abused, or were made that way by abuse. But a significant number (anecdotal evidence from biographies of people) do seem to have had their sex lives twisted by abuse.

            Pedophiles’ major strategy is “grooming,” which is to say, the twisting of kids’ sexual psychology to make them victims and prevent reporting. Twisting somebody’s psychology and then traumatizing them by rape is bound to leave a mark. (Although obviously many victims do overcome this brain and body torture, which speaks to free will, good luck, and good help.)

            Also, it would seem that some pedophiles pick on kids who are different, and thus tend to pick on people with same sex attraction or other odd sexual tendencies. Also, someone who has been a victim of a pedophile in childhood will sometimes repeat the abuse on others; and pedophiles do tend to have many, many victims. Pedophilia in contexts like Greek classical society or contemporary rural Afghan society tends to become “normal” for high-status men. Some lesbian women, just like some heterosexual women, also engage in pedophilia, which can intertwine pedophilia into the world of women, also.

            So although there is probably no direct relationship, the presence of any pedophile victimizing kids must tend to create a vicious cycle that increases the incidence of problems with sex lives and pedophilia.

            1. I don’t believe that child abuse and pedophiles = homosexual people. Never have. Grace Dunham very strongly implying that what happened to her was ‘normal’ outside of the ‘heteronormative’ perspective is what is being seen as a ‘oh but this happens to us who AREN’T heteronormative all the time!’

              Which made me very, very angry. As you noted above, sexual abuse tends to create a cycle of abuse, and that tendency is a reality and fact. It can happen, and does sometimes, but not always. But the fact is, the predators, regardless of sexual orientation, want to create a ‘culture’ where their predation is made easier, and even harder to fight back against.

        2. When you’re talking about a 7 year old doing the “experimenting” it’s not “pedophilia” if they’re doing it to someone around their age.

          There are two versions of “pedophilia”, one is a specific psychological diagnosis that (in brief) is an *adult* being sexually attracted to bodes that haven’t undergone puberty. The other is “an adult who sexually abuses children”. In the eyes of many a 40 year old who hits on 14/15 year olds is a “pedophile”, they aren’t as they’re hitting on physically (mostly) mature adults (from the sexual perspective anyway). What they are is predators.

          A person who is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent or barely pubescent children is a completely different disorder.

          It is normal for men (and I’m guessing women) to be attracted to members of the opposite (or if you must, the attractive) sex who are right around 17 to 20. Note *sexually* attracted, not “partner” attracted.

          What Dunham purportedly did wasn’t “normal”, but it wasn’t pedophilia by any reasonable definition. It also wasn’t “sexual” exploration by any reasonable definition. It might have been slightly-abnormal copying behavior by a 7 year old, but only if she’d been abused herself.

          The problem with her is that she needs to make the act something more than it was.

            1. With a sister who was six years her junior. Which in both my book and by your (William) definition is pedophilia. I’m not saying all or most homosexuals are pedophiles, what I’m saying is you don’t get to claim that this is “normal” in the “normal homosexual experimentation” AND at the same time claim “normal homosexuals are not pedophiles.”

        3. OK. I think that the woman at the center of this mess is revolting. I think that she over-shared. I also think that “playing doctor” and similar explorations of anatomy (especially those parts that adults have hysterics about) is normal, regardless of the later preferences of the kids involved. Can such behavior cross over into abuse? Sure; push pretty much anything too far and somebody gets hurt.

          Normal homosexuals may or may not be pedophiles, but I don’t see that this case has anything to say on the subject. She messed with her (slightly) younger sister’s genetailia. Kids do that. She wrote about it in her autobiography. Twits do that.

          1. Imagine the shrillness of her denunciation if George W Bush had written such an anecdote about Jeb’s willy.

            Glass would shatter.

            1. Actually, if you read the whole original excerpt, there’s something like a six year difference between the sisters’ ages. Lena was born in 1986; Grace was born in 1992.When her sister was a baby, Lena was already in school. When Lena was 17 and doing all this “grooming” and masturbating junk, her sister was 11 or 12 and still in elementary school.

              1. I still think calling her a pedophile is a stretch. We have plenty of evidence to show that she’s a self-centered moron who, when writing an autobiography assumed that everybody would be fasscinated by and approve of every aspect of her revolting self.

                Typical Lefty twit, in other words.

                1. The only way I see calling her a pedophile being a stretch, is if you believe she lied about what she did. Which is entirely possible, she herself admits she lies and you can’t believe anything she says. I’m just scratching my head on WHY she would make up a lie like this.

                2. Perhaps not technically “pedophilia,” because she too was a child, but Lena was engaging in and possibly forcing her sister to have incestuous sex with her when Lena was 7-17 and her sister 1-12. This is pretty damned sick, and would make it very unlikely for either of them to have anything like a healthy attitude toward sexuality. And no, this doesn’t magically become okay because Lena was bisexual and her younger sister lesbian.

                  I also have to wonder just how all right this was for the younger woman when it was revealed in publication. Yes, she’s standing up for her older sister now — it’s obvious that she loves her — but that doesn’t mean that she was originally happy with having it publicly stated that she first became sexually-active at age 1, and continued this activity until age 12. “Lesbian” does not equal “pervert” or “slut,” after all.

                  1. You overlook the possibility that the younger sister was so damaged by it that she doesn’t realize that she was damaged.

            2. Granted, but if Bush had walked on water and healed lepers the Left would have found some way to make it evil.

              So I don’t think that proves anything we didn’t know.

              1. Compare and contrast G.W.Bush’s reputation in Africa with that of The One.

                And my data point on this predates the Ebola mess.

              2. Of course it would be, Bush owned a ranch and walked through barnyards regularly; can you imagine the pollution he would spreading if he walked on water?

        4. It’s actually pretty simple, the left holds the right to the right’s own standards (Which the right has chosen as goals to aspire to, meaning they often fall short) and when the Right falls short, they lambaste them. However the Left’s standards a MUCH lower, such that any leftist can meet them, and thus be celebrated for their purity by being perfect leftists.

      2. My response when I first heard about the SJWs crying about Requires Hate? “What’s the matter, Dr. Frankenstein, don’t you like what you created?”

      3. Let them speak so we may know their thoughts.

        Yes.

        At the same time make sure you educate your young so they can recognize what is foolishness.

    2. Which is a neat theory except for the fact that this went on for a decade. They’re saying Sarah is capable of maintaining multiple persona over ten years and no one get suspicious until after they get busted to some extent?

      Of course, the SJW crowd probably doesn’t want that theory to get any legs. After all, even acknowledging the possibility exposes them and their hypocrisy. After all, RH was nominated for a Campbell Award and generally lauded as one of the best of the new up and coming writers. What would make her writing better than her writing as Sarah? I mean, why would Sarah hold back on her “primary persona’s” writing, just to save it for the fake persona? Or, could it be that she checks the right SJW boxes this time around?

      Since RH and Sarah are two different people, it’s kind of irrelevant, but those saying Sarah is RH are also implying that RH’s work was more acceptable for awards than Sarah’s because she mouthed the right things enough of the time. I don’t think they want to do that.

      1. They want to believe that story because otherwise RH makes them look bad even to themselves.

          1. True, but they don’t seem to want to accept “Truth”. It doesn’t make them “feel good”. [Sad Smile]

            2. Finding out that the ground you thought you were standing firmly upon is nothing but a twisted empty illusion is not going to ‘feel good.’ [Sad smile returned.]

      2. The other major issue is time and productivity.

        Sarah gives the impression of being fairly heavily booked, of burning the candle at both ends some times.

        RH’s trolling load would not have been a trivial effort. If Sarah were capable of pulling it off on top of her actual efforts, if Requires Hoyt were real, Requires Hoyt would have used some of that extra bandwidth to write stories beyond what the real Sarah and Requires have actually done, combined.

        Where are those stories?

        It simply isn’t very plausible. Sarah Hoyt and Requires Hate are two people, with different values regarding how best to spend time and effort.

  12. On a lighter, and *very* tangential, note:

    An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, several Americans (including a Southerner, a New Englander, and a Californian), an Argentinean, a Dane, an Australian, a Slovakian, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, an Uzbeki, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a Samoan, an Armenian, an Aruban, an Albanian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a Virgin Islander, a Georgian, a Bahamian, a Belarussian, a Cuban, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, an Amish, a Romanian, a Chilean, an Eskimo, a Kyrgyzstani, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, an Ecuadorian, a Costa Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and 47 Africans all walk into a fine restaurant.

    The maître d’ scrutinizes the group, one by one and bars their entrance, saying: “Sorry, you can’t come in here without a Thai.”

        1. I tried to read it out loud to my darling, and he said “I object. Clearly nobody was described wearing a fursuit.”

          He has a point… *puts on horrified SJW seal mask* OH NOES! THAT DID NOT INCLUDE GAYS OR FURRIES ATHEISTS OR NAMBLA PEOPLE! NOT INCLUSIVE ENOUGH!

          *takes off mask* gah. Just TRYING to pretend to be them for the entirety of a single sentence hurts my head waaay too much.

          1. It did include a Micronesian, however, so not all of our non-heteronormative people were excluded.

            Oh, and it included two Georgians, one from the state and one from the country.

                1. Hey, some of my best friends are Georgians from Georgia (Gruznya) living here in Georgia (metro Atlanta); and yes, George is a very common first name in Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia.

              2. It’s actually a running joke in John Ringo’s Kildar series. Former Seal, struggling college student in Georgia, the state, through assorted misadventures finds himself leader of a strange warrior village in a remote corner of Georgia, the country.

            2. Shame on you for mocking someone just because they have a tiny nesian. How cruel and insensitive.

          2. The company I work with is in the process of adding a fourth con/event/show to its roster. We have the Anime Con and the SF/F Con, and a LAN event. The newest one is a Furry Con premiering in 2016. (There is talk of adding Horror con after that.)

    3. That’s sort of like my last company when it was independent coming into a place for the Christmas party. We didn’t need no tie because we took the restaurant over.

        1. I searched for the image, found a site carrying it, then right-clicked the image and copied the image location, then pasted that url in here. Some sites have scripts and such that prevent that, so it won’t work for them.

      1. A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walked into a bar.

        The bartender looked up and said, “Is this some kind of joke?”

        1. Okay, if the bar has been lowered that much….

          A piece of string walks into a bar. The bartender gives him the Hairy Eyeball and says “We don’t serve Strings here.”

          The String goes outside, ties himself into an impressive sheepshank, frizzes his end, and goes back into the bar.

          The bartender looks him over suspiciously. “You’re not a string, are you?”

          “No, I’m a Frayed Knot.”

  13. In a statist society their are only two types of people tolerated: useful idiots and those in charge if useful idiots.

    The more you talk to statists the more you realize they all think they are going to be one of the ones in charge.

    😉

          3. No that would be cooler than the truth of just a weird brain that likes to add letters where they do not belong.

            😦

  14. I’m an elder in a fairly establishment small church. It’s surprising how often I need to correct someone making a claim that isn’t true. I’m not talking doctrine – I’m talking not even spending tn seconds to check something out before promoting it. And somehow, they look at me as though it were my fault.
    It’s a trait endemic to the human race. Why think if someone authoritative (for whatever reason!) deems it true?
    Pravda! the true enemy of truth.

    1. Yep. Favorite phrase for semi-doctrinal inaccuracies: “I think you’ll find the source for that in the book of 2nd Imaginations.”

    2. Happens even in the Catholic church– where everything can be cited, with how official it is!

      I once spent most of two days arguing with a guy about if a document that specifically said “we did not come to a decision on this aspect of the question because it’s simply too complex and no agreement could be reached, with strong support on both sides.”

      He wanted to take that as “it is forbidden.”

      I was evil for arguing with what boiled down to his prudential judgement being applied as a binding teaching…..

      (It was about adoption of already created IVF humans; creating humans that way is forbidden as violating their rights, but they couldn’t come to an agreement on if adopting and implanting such a child was more like, say, cutting off a gangrenous leg to save a life or something objectively wrong. For those who are curious.)

      1. (It was about adoption of already created IVF humans; creating humans that way is forbidden as violating their rights, but they couldn’t come to an agreement on if adopting and implanting such a child was more like, say, cutting off a gangrenous leg to save a life or something objectively wrong. For those who are curious.)

        Oh, that could be a conundrum.

        Interesting.

        1. Interesting. I always considered adopting snowflake children an unalloyed goodness and had I had the money would have tried it. Sometimes things seem very simple to me. They’re already there, let them live.
          Between life and death, choose life.

            1. The counter, I believe, is that one might wish to avoid doing anything that might be seen as affirming the initial creation of the embryos through artificial means — thereby, by proxy, accepting the treatment of a human life as a commodity.

              Still, the life has been created, and as observed by esteemed hostess, as these are already created embryos who hang now hang in a frozen limbo — I, too, would choose life.

              1. You know, the funny thing is my husband wouldn’t go “oh, no, my wife is carrying someone else’s baby.” He’d go “Baby” and “Any baby we raise is ours.”
                He’s a Father-thing.

                1. There are those who are more strongly wired to parent — some whose impulses are not just limited to the children they physically produce, but to any child that needs a parent.

                  (Thinking a moment more: It could aslo be that it is that their wiring to parent has been less broken by society along the journey. Or it could be some combination of both.)

                  1. I’m thinking “both.” There are perfectly good men that just can’t form a child-bond with not-their-kids; there are men (usually teachers, though not usually educators these days) who form child-bonds really easily. Women, too, although we seem to have an easier time forming them. (and being deformed by poorly chosen ones)

                2. <— has a very strong mothering instinct herself.

                  I hear a random newborn's crying and I look around, with the first thought being 'Where is it? There's a crying baby. Must find out why the baby is crying and give it love and care so the crying stops.' I don't have to be related to the child in question in any way.

                  1. Heck, doesn’t have to be the same species and folks will do that– humans are strange in that we’ll keep mothering after they’re out of the “triggers baby reflex” stage.

                    If I had the writing ability, I’d do a story where that is what “In God’s Image” meant. That kind of sacrificial love.

                    2. The issue is doing it justice– I’m just not subtle. I can fake it by being obscure, but I just can’t do subtle, and this makes Frozen’s “sacrificing yourself true love” point of “love isn’t kissing” look easy.

                      It’ll probably just get rolled into my Alien Catholic Cyborg story, because it makes sense to me….

          2. Ah, here it is, or at least one of them; I think the earlier, angrier one was linked, but a lot got deleted.
            http://www.marymeetsdolly.com/blog/index.php?/archives/1035-What-is-the-Catholic-view-on-Embryo-Adoption.html

            Far as I can see, it’s no different than, say, adopting a child born of rape. (Using them as a fertility treatment would, of course, be dehumanizing; it would have to be viewed as adoption… and my stomach turns at the rate of loss involved in even a highly successful attempt….)

            1. ” and my stomach turns at the rate of loss involved in even a highly successful attempt”

              Better than the rate of loss if it isn’t attempted.

            2. Yes. If I’d had the money, I’d have tried it, just because I can’t stand the idea of their dying. Now it’s probably too late (though menopause is not here yet…)

            3. Oh, it’s vastly different.

              When one adopts a child of *any* sort at or past birth one is jumping past all the unpleasantness of pregnancy, the expense (usually) and pain of childbirth, and is getting a more-or-less known entity.

              When one “adopts” an embryo, one puts oneself through all of pain, discomfort, uncertainty and turmoil of the implantation (which I’m told isn’t *NEARLY* as fun as the natural way), then you get to go through the pregnancy and birth.

              The Catholic Church is consistent in taking the position that IVF is bad because it leaves behind a trail of abortions. But once the deed is done? Adoption is probably the *best* way to “clean it up”.

              1. I agree it’s probably the best way, but I can also see the vast damage that this “Good intention” would have.

                Incidentally, the problem with IVF isn’t just the number it kills. It’s the way it dehumanizes the child utterly, and turns them into a consumer good– not the product of a loving family that will nurture and support them.

                Sort of like how the child conceived by rape is an additional victim of the rapist, since what they are naturally entitled to is ripped away by that person’s wrongdoing.

                1. I remember a conversation on your blog a couple years ago, about this, mainly because your stance on surrogate mothers somewhat surprised me. After you explained your opposition with the reasoning as the dehumanization of the child, it made sense. I still don’t totally agree with you, but I can see your side of it, and really it is an academic argument to me, since I don’t expect any decisions one way or the other to affect me personally. What to do with already fertized zygotes however gets to be a thornier problem.

                  It doesn’t matter if you think IVF is wrong, if you believe that a fertilized zygote is a living being (Catholic doctrine, unless you’re Pelosi) then just flushing it down the drain is akin to murder. It is like punishing the son for the sins of the father. I would think that anyone even remotely versed in Catholic doctrine (like myself, a Protestant who uses the same Bible as Catholics, and has Catholic friends) would find absolutely forbidding adoption/implantation of already created zygotes as problematic. Which makes me wonder how “good a Catholic” your opponent was.

                  1. I’m glad it was understandable, at least. 😀 I may wish I persuaded folks, but just getting the understanding across is good, too– especially here, where I know they’ll be inclined to share that understanding.

                    The way I get a grip on the idea is– of course– in a metaphor; if we have an entire room full of kids who are dying, and for each one that we even try to save via a rather radical human experimentation, they will be maimed and even if they don’t survive the family that tries to take them will be hurt forever… is it alright to try?

                    And that’s before the problems of it encouraging people to put more kids in that room, and people getting confused about the difference between putting kids made to order in that room and just trying to pull them out.

                    With normal adoption, the risks are more obvious– we’ve all heard of foster children who simply didn’t work in the family they were placed in. With embryo adoption, the mother will have a physical connection to the kid, and the father will not; “my wife is pregnant with someone elses’ child” is a pretty dang big stress on a marriage, especially in a society where we’re already having to fight tooth and nail to get the idea of being open to life created in that marriage instead of it being recreation that only makes kids when something goes wrong.

                    1. That last paragraph is a load of utter bollocks.

                      In it you are basically making the progressive argument *for* abortion–that if you don’t want the child, it is better off dead because Mom and Dad won’t love it.

                      Yes, there are rather well publicized cases of “foster” or “adopted” children “not fitting in”. These are *generally* either (a) foreign adoptions where the medical history of the child was not made clear, (b) idiot parents who are expecting a sony consumer experience, or (c) older children who have problems from their *birth* familes (drug addiction and sexual/physical abuse).

                      As noted I was raised by adopted parents who loved me as well as anyone could have. My father held off for several years because he was worried about how well he could raise a child not his.

                      He was the most loving and concerned parent. Not necessarily the *best* parent possible, but that wasn’t due to the biological origins of his children, but rather his own lack as a human being. I truly believe that he could not have loved my brother and I more if we’d have been his own children.

                      Men have adopted, in one fashion or another, other men’s children for 10s of thousands if not millions of years. We’re generally used to the idea of our wives having slept with other men, either from a first marriage, rape during war or in the modern times marrying a woman who played the field like we did.

                      The only reason my wife and I haven’t fostered/adopted any children is (a) we’re as likely as not to be on another continent in 2 years, and (ii) I’m of the belief that where there are newborns, couples who can’t have kids of their own should get a clear shot, and where older kids are concerned there are issues of abuse and problems it could cause that my daughter needs to be older to be protected from. Otherwise there’d be a bunk bed in her room filled with some kid who’s parents couldn’t do the needful.

                    2. In it you are basically making the progressive argument *for* abortion–that if you don’t want the child, it is better off dead because Mom and Dad won’t love it.

                      No, I am not. As we’ve already established, though, you don’t draw the line between actively choosing an objective and committing it, and it happening naturally. This just adds that you’re not listening to the concerns of the folks that I tried to explain, and which were linked, because you didn’t even bother to respond to THEM instead of continuing to attack the picture you’d formed already.

                      I’m not going to keep arguing it with you, because it’s not going to change anything. You’ve got the information if you want to try to understand a different viewpoint, and you’ve made yours quite clear.

                  2. Well, there is the theory that it’s best just to keep the snowflake embryos frozen until the end of time – or at least until we get our act together with higher tech (and more developed theology). It’s sort of a Schroedinger’s option.

                    Of course, a lot of those embryos are already dead and have been since they were frozen, and a lot of them are bound to die while being unfrozen, but there’s no way to tell their status. And the longer we wait, the more of them are probably dead.

                2. I have to disagree with that UTTERLY.

                  I have a buddy in Australia that I worked with–a woman–who DESPERATELY wanted a kid of her own, and went through 4 or 5 heartbreaks, including 2 or 3 on IVF.

                  I can see no way, doctrinally or philosophically that a child created through IVF, with the mother providing the egg and the father providing the sperm is no different in *any* way from one conceived “naturally”. Even if the mother provides the egg and picks the father out of a decision tree of stored sperm (because Dad can’t for some reason) is no different than has happened for as long as there’s been humans. The urge to procreate is *POWERFUL*.

                  Now, if you were talking about the potential parents sitting down with a gene-splicer and mixing one up out of a wish list, *then* I might agree on the consumer parts.

                  Anyone who looks at the results of (usually) 8 to 10 years of struggle and heartbreak and doesn’t see a child is frankly, well, needs to be taken out of the community and shunned until they learn better.

                  I knew a family down in FL where the mother was inseminated by a rapist, and not only bore the resulting child, but kept him and raised him. I can’t say that no one in the extended family treated him differently, because I have no information on how they would have treated him otherwise (mixed race as well), but from the limited interaction I had there was nothing but respect for the mother for keeping the child and loving him as if he were all her own.

                  And I’m really, really suspicious about anyone who goes on about “naturally entitled”. No one is “naturally entitled” to shit. A child born of rape, in the US and put up for adoption will, in almost any way imaginable, have a better life than 99.9% of people who ever lived.

                  1. Look at your starting point, though; the place you’ll arrive at is baked in, with the kid as a means to fill the parents’ desire for X and Y. Doesn’t mean they don’t love the kid, of course, but the vector is contrary. That you draw the line in the kid being made to order being geneticly related to both parents, or maybe “just” from select eggs and sperm, isn’t something that you’re going to be persuaded out of.
                    You’ll change your mind, or you won’t; most likely, you not seeing anything wrong with the idea of making a kid in a lab because that’s what the parents want.

                    It’s like the abortion argument; most of the rational people that don’t agree are arguing different baseline assumptions. Your notion of what basic human dignity entails is different than mine.

                    1. “with the kid as a means to fill the parents’ desire for X and Y. ”

                      This reasoning is why abused children are more likely to be planned and wanted than a control group. It’s what the parent wants, not the child, that matters.

                3. [Citation needed] on “IVF …. turns [a child] into a consumer good — not the product of a loving family that will nurture and support them,” given that I can point to a counterexample that I’m certain isn’t unique: the twin children of a married couple I know who learned that the father had testicular cancer just as they were ready to start trying to have kids. They banked his sperm, and once he was in remission, he was no longer fertile, but thanks to IVF, they were able to have the children they’d planned and prepared for. Needless to say, those are two grateful parents, and they are taking their one shot as seriously as I have ever seen two people take the job of parenting.

                  If you’re saying that this is an exception that proves a general rule, then I understand, but I still question the compassion of a policy that makes cancer a dead end for people who are committed to parenting for the long haul.

                4. As all three of my sons were conceived via IVF, I call total bullshit on your idea that it dehumanizes the child. All of my sons are deeply loved, and are certainly the product of a family that nurtures and supports them. Maybe it would dehumanize it for *you*, in which case I would advise you to not do IVF.

                  I had tubal damage and it was impossible for me to get pregnant any other way. Of the many other women I’ve known who also did IVF, NONE of them match your bizarre portrayal of them as using IVF as a form of “consumerism”.

                    1. Karin and Meredith, follow Foxfier’s link we had this discussion on her blog a few years ago in considerable length. At that time she explained her beliefs fairly well, at least I understood them, even if I didn’t agree with them. It is a difference in theological beliefs at the base of it, I came at the argument (actually of using surrogate mothers, but same basic premise because those are IVF) from the same premise that you did, of medical reasons that the parents couldn’t conceive/ woman carry to term normally.

                      To try and argue/explain it here would get into fairly in depth theology; which I often find interesting, but Sarah usually doesn’t approve of on her blog.

                  2. This thread started with a reference to a discussion that had been had regarding the Catholic Church’s stand on adoption of ‘spare’ frozen embryos that have been created during the IVF process. I doubt the anyone posting here thinks that most parents whose children have been conceived through IVF do not love their children. Anyone who is even a little aware of what the process of IVF puts a women through knows that it is not undertaken lightly.

          3. Both my brother and I were adopted.

            Yes, this means my mother never had any children that lived 🙂

      2. I once was on a specifically Catholic blog where a commenter was insisting that the Pope’s opinion on whether a certain war was just was binding on all Catholics, I pointed out that, to the contrary, it is laid out in black and white in the Cathechism “The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good. “, and he insisted that was proof I was a bad Catholic.

        1. I really hope you linked that little clip from a now-former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, explaining the difference between a binding teaching and others….

      3. …that way is forbidden as violating their rights,

        I understood it to be forbidden because for each child created there was likely to be several zygotes destroyed, which is essentially abortion (aka “murder” in catholic doctrine).

        …agreement on if adopting and implanting such a child was more like, say, cutting off a gangrenous leg to save a life or something objectively wrong.

        I can *barely* see an argument that because the adoption of the zygotes could lead some people to believe that *their* fertilized eggs might note be killed, it would lead to *more* IVF and hence more failure, that’s some *seriously* marginal thinking.

        There are LOTS of couples out there *desperate* for a baby to call their own, and the church has done a *wonderful* job of alienating much of it’s base, and *horrible* job opposing abortion. This idiocy is a wonderful mix of the two. Angels dancing on the head of a pin bullshit COMBINED with (at least one) authoritarian ass who will tell these hopeful couples in essence “God doesn’t want you to have kids”.

        What a fucking prick. You should have told him that if God didn’t want him to suffer, then God would solve the problem and proceeded to punched him in his throat. HARD. Then kick him whilst he was down.

        Let us posit for a second or two that there is a moral difference between a egg fertilized inside the body that fails to implant (God’s will donchaknow) and one outside that isn’t implanted (Satans will?). Now along comes a couple that is *willing* to take an already fertilized egg and bear it as long as possible.

        And that’s NOT God’s will? I mean presupposing.

        Yeah, in the throat. Hard.

        1. I guess I should point out that that is not a Christian way to end an argument, but then neither he nor I are good christians.

        2. I think you might want to go read the two sides; you might be interested in the details.

          If kids weren’t already considered a product to be bought and sold, the problem wouldn’t come up nearly as much. I have run into “good Catholics” whose entire approach to kids is “I, I, I.” Hardly good for the kid, and not good for the adults, either. Alienating or not.

          There’s also the not-unserious issue of basically removing the man, and only the man, from the child he’s supposed to take as his own– in spite of modern mangling of language, “a couple” doesn’t get pregnant. The woman gets pregnant, either with his child or someone else’s.

          It would take a very strong marriage to focus entirely on the child as a person they are adopting, neither “treatment” for a medical condition nor “she has a baby,” and guys are already treated like disposable garbage whose only contribution is genetic all too often. The kind of marriage that would support one of them donating an organ, or a large amount of bone marrow– something that would take you out of circulation for half a year to save another’s life.

          1. If kids weren’t already considered a product to be bought and sold, the problem wouldn’t come up nearly as much.

            Been around a lot, and rarely encountered this attitude. Yeah, it happens, but there’s 320+ million people in the US alone.

            Thing is, it’s mostly the Chinese and Russians (by the numbers) who are doing the selling, and rather desperate couples (generally) doing the buying–your movie stars aside.

            Again, knew a couple in AU (a different couple from above, both of these were American) who could not have kids for some reason (age, whatever didn’t ask). They “bought” a kid from Russia. Mom was, IMO a little wierd about being happy that the kid was in school so she could go back to work, but *dad* was as happy as if he’d won the lottery.

            If the woman in a marriage believes a man is “disposable garbage” (and no, I’m not even doubting you on this one) then whether the baby is natural, IVF, adopted, or hand delivered by Jesus astride a stork, nothing is going to work out. Well, maybe the Jesus thing, if it’s a two miracles for the price of one day.

            But if you’ve got two adults who are committed to raising a child in the healthiest and most positive home they can, then again it doesn’t matter *how* that child comes into being.

            Healthy people have a capacity to love and care for a child. Maybe not *quite* as much as the most loving “natural” parent possible, but a damn site better than some of the utter shitbombs out there.

            And yes, I’ve known I, I, I people of various faiths. One of my wife’s friends had the misfortune to be born to a catholic activist AND have her birthday be on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. EVERY SINGLE YEAR Mom managed to scrape together enough money to be in D.C. marching for the rights of the unborn rather than where she belonged–giving her kid a loving home. But these wasn’t an adoption, this wasn’t an IVF or other method, this was the good old fashioned way.

            I’ve seen lots of “natural” families torn apart in the normal ways–addiction, abuse, abandonment, adultery and extended adolescents. Those (generally) that have made it to the point where IVF is a reasonable option are already under a great deal of stress (Seen it) and already candidates for problems.

            1. We didn’t have IVF because we couldn’t afford it and I couldn’t stomach the idea of the “discards”. Robert was however born from IUI.
              Why? I don’t know and no one did. We started trying at 22 and both of us were as healthy as could be and there was nothing they could find wrong. Finally they figured out I was actually conceiving but miscarrying every other month because there was a glitch not permitting the implanting of the embryo.
              HOWEVER the doctor wouldn’t do the hormone adjustment without being sure conception had happened. Hence IUI.
              Creating the baby by an industrial process or having him be a product NEVER occurred to us. We desperately wanted a child (a large family, actually) and we couldn’t afford adoption abroad, and didn’t feel equal to adoption in the US with its years of uncertainty if baby momma gets religion and decides to reclaim the child. As for older children William has documented the issues.
              I can understand the church’s concern, future tech going forward, etc, but here I’m going to claim absolute moral authority: NO ONE WHO HASN’T GONE THROUGH THIS — month after month of not being able to conceive, and having absolutely no idea why because your health practitioners tell you you’re as fertile as spring — CAN KNOW WHY PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY DO. No one. I remember hating friends because they could get pregnant and I couldn’t. Rational, no. But that’s how desperate I was.

        3. Let us posit for a second or two that there is a moral difference between a egg fertilized inside the body that fails to implant (God’s will donchaknow) and one outside that isn’t implanted (Satans will?).

          There’s a massive difference between someone dying in their sleep and someone dying because I shoved them off a cliff. I’m not much for calling it “God’s will” rather than, oh, “naturally occurring.”

          We don’t have a clue how many theoretically viable zygotes fail to implant naturally– the numbers we do have are based off of IVF studies, which by definition are going to be non-standard; we do know that some not-biologically-a-living-organism things implant and start what appears to be a pregnancy, because sometimes it goes on long enough that there has to be interference.

          Yes, the “give up, God doesn’t want you” folks are at best annoying, and frankly it’s rather insulting since there are tons of perfectly moral ways to try to cure infertility if it’s the result of the human systems not functioning correctly.

          The research into this has been largely not done because breaking the system good and hard with various hormone treatments, then applying IVF, “fixes” it. If you don’t consider the kids lost to be a concern. The massive, willful ignorance about women’s natural systems– the deliberately inflicted ignorance about our bodies and their natural, healthy function– is frankly disgusting. “Oh, your female cycle is doing something that isn’t expected. Here, slam your system with hormones!”

          1. Hm, apparently I’m still pretty pissed about that, too, and I’m one of the lucky ones– they didn’t get their “you must be on the pill at 16” hooks into me, and my system still functions just fine.

            Good grief, how much easier high school COULD have been if I’d had a basic understanding of what my cycle and hormone variations could do to me… these days, I can recognize when I should avoid manipulative people especially hard!

          2. One hard problem here is you believe in “Gods Will”, and I don’t, so it’s hard for me to set bounds on something I don’t believe in.

            Which is to say that if God has the characteristics that Catholics usually ascribe to him, if he wants a zygote implanted it will get implanted. If he doesn’t, it won’t. To say that because one way is “natural”, and hence God’s Will is in play, and another way “un-natural” and thus God’s will won’t have an effect seems to be a paradigm breaker.

            The thing is, God’s Will is *really* hard to test for, so you can’t really use it in one place and not another without either divine guidance, or a really good reason.

            One thing we “know” is that generally it takes most couples around 5 times to get the woman preggers. Some people consistently manage it in 1 (Near as I can tell both my kids were like this), and some people need other fixes.

            And there *has* been quite a bit of research into fertility treatments. Yes, most of the current solutions tend to be mucking with hormones, but we’re humans and the vast majority of stuff inside us is manipulated by chemicals of various complexity.

            My mom (the one that raised me, not my gene-donor) had, IIRC endometriosis (sp?).She lost at least 2 babies in the early 1960s. Today the can fix that surgically (unless it’s really bad), and IVF doesn’t help.

  15. I love watching them eat their own. The best part is after the dust clears those left look around and wonder where everyone went.

  16. I read the original sub-thread in question, and I think the commenter in question was joking rather than serious. (If someone has links to other threads that indicate they were serious, I’ll change my mind.)

    I think they thought they were being particularly clever, quite possibly with the intent on hurting you both (rather like the wine, in Screwtape Proposes a Toast).

    The fact that the joke in neither funny nor clever would escape them.

      1. It part it is. It’s very hard to tell if they’re joking.

        The other part is that it doesn’t really matter if they’re joking, since their political views permeate everything they do, so it’s still telling that they even chose to joke like that.

        3. That’s why they can’t stand parodies, allegories, metaphors and jokes made or based off them.

          To them, there’s no such thing as a joke, except to be used as an excuse to try save their ass when they’ve blundered into one of the ‘danger spots they cannot see.’ This is also logical, because it explains why they have no sense of humor at all.

      3. Partly because a very popular tactic of the movement is to reserve the prerogative to turn on a dime about whether one was or was not joking depending on the tactical needs of the moment — if you want to defuse an opponent’s criticism of your remark, give them the disdainful smirk, “Can’t you handle satire when you hear it?” and if you want to put them on a moral disadvantage, wait until they start laughing and then demand in sudden rage, “Oh, you think this is *funny* do you?!”

        As Andrew Breitbart used to say of Jon Stewart, “Clown nose on, clown nose off.”

        1. Larry was hammering a troll on Twitter yesterday. A guy was accused him of stealing Dead Six, and trying to laugh off Larry’s responses. Of the troll, Larry noted: “He puts lol in every post so you know he is funny”.

            1. Accused Larry. I don’t think he considered that Mike would have something to say about that. 😉

              1. Still.

                What’s funny is that the guy accused Larry of “stealing” his least popular book series (based on things both he and Mike have said). I’m like, “really?”

                1. “What’s funny is that the guy accused Larry of “stealing” his least popular book series (based on things both he and Mike have said). ”

                  Really? IMHO it is by far the best Larry has written. Not to denigrate his MH series, I think it is great, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Dead Six series.

                  1. I love it too. However, because of Larry’s name and Baen’s name on the spine, it gets put in Fantasy in most book stores, even though it’s more of a thriller.

                    It still sells. Apparently, it sells fairly well. However, when compared with Monster Hunter and Grimnoir, it lags behind by a fair margin.

                  2. It wasn’t a serious accusation, as I read it. More like he was making a feeble attempt to tweak Larry by claiming to do everything Larry had done.

        2. Like a crazed archer scattering firebrands and deadly arrows, is he who deceives his neighbor, and then say, “I was only joking.”

    2. While it’s neither funny nor clever, it’s a complement to Sarah. Of all the “Bad People” they could have chosen, he/she chose Sarah as being the “puppetmaster” behind Requires Hate. [Very Big Grin]

  18. I often accept blame that is not mine. Why? Because blame games and words don’t matter. It’s just hot air. There are worse things to accept willingly.

    Because, that thing you describe about the spot on the floor? That was my childhood. My mom was not well, mentally speaking. The rules were different every time. I had no “normal” to adapt to. Frequently, my feelings were an excessive burden to her. So I ‘turned them off’. I tried to please and adapt to a crazy person. If I’m not careful, I find myself STILL doing that, even when she’s not around anymore.

    No, it really doesn’t help with coping with crazy political crap. But I am really great in an emergency!

    1. Good for you for surviving and outlasting. It makes me happy that you can live on your own terms, even if it’s a struggle sometimes to escape the old survival plan.

    2. My mother had a milder (?) case of what you describe above; I remember frequent switchings while I plead “What did I do wrong?” and usually got no answer, or occasionally being accused of knowing what it was. “Fidgeting in church” was a Sunday special (at ages 6 thru 10 or so): can a boy that age be expected to sit stock still for an hour?

      1. Only after much practice. I found looking attentive and trying to figure technical methods to accomplish the miracles the preacher was talking about to be very helpful.

    3. I am sorry for you. Dealing with such people, often Cluster-B’s including Borderlines and Narcissists, is hard. Borderlines especially like to play the game of splitting (you’re awful because you crossed me and always suck) and arbitrarily change the rules based on what makes them feel bad rather than an objective standard.

      It sucks your soul out. It drains you of energy and will like a vampire.

      I’m glad you came through it.

  19. “Anyway, after this Requires Hate creature had abused them and called them names and caused them to grovel, and enlisted the cowed cooperation of Alex-no-binary gender and our old friend Damien so-dense-that-I’m-afraid-a-blackhole-will form around me . . . ”

    Alex Dally MacFarlane and Damien G Walter aiding and abetting Requires Hate. This certainly makes sense of a lot of things, doesn’t it?

    1. And yet, I’ve been told I’m the jerk because I support Larry.

      Larry might be loud and blunt, but I don’t recall him opining about the joys of throwing acid on anyone. Ever.

          2. You don’t “oppress” Vampires. You kill them in self-defense and in the defense of others. [Evil Grin]

            Christopher Nuttall doesn’t like the “Romantic Vampire” and when he writes stories where vampires can/do exist, his characters often talk about fools who worship/love vampires and of vampires “play along” with the fools.

            2. [about fools who worship/love vampires and of vampires “play along” with the fools.]

              Shouldn’t that be “plays along with the foods”? 🙂

            3. his characters often talk about fools who worship/love vampires and of vampires “play along” with the fools.

              Sigh. Didn’t anyone ever tell those vampires not to play with their food?

      2. Acid attacks and death threats? That’s perfectly okay!

        The important thing to remember is that Larry is evil because he called Scalzi a pussy and believes women should be able to fight off their attackers.

        1. He called Scalzi a pussy, Scalzi got all butt hurt over it, so what did I do? Made sure I had a scene in it where one male character tells another male character to quit being a pussy.

          Like I keep saying. I’m a people person.

        2. The important thing to remember is that Larry is evil because he called Scalzi a pussy and believes women should be able to fight off their attackers.

          To be clear, should be ALLOWED to; that equivocation could be greatly mined, even though any honest person would check to see what Larry was supporting.

        3. Whereas, as we all know, calling a man a “pussy” for being weak and helpless is far more insulting to women as a group than is assuming that women are inherently so weak and helpless that there is no point in trying to teach them to be able to fight off their attackers.

          1. Alternately it is extremely offensive to FelineAmericans. And don’t get started on that “More than one way to skin a cat” nonsense.

        4. believes women should be able to fight off their attackers

          Un moment. Larry does not believe that women should be able to fight off their attackers, he knows that they are able to learn to do so and this ought to be encouraged. He has even taught them … training them to qualify for CCW permits.

          1. I subscribe to the “fighting chance” goal of self-defense. Mostly because someone *will* try to pretend they have an argument when they argue the imperfect efficacy of a CCW permit.

            A fighting chance is better than no chance at all, and worth it even without guaranteed outcomes.

            2. True. In life there are no perfect solutions and few guaranteed outcomes*, in spite of what the lefist dreamers want.

              Note: If you don’t have some means of countering those who try to gain what they want by force then you are guaranteed to come out on the wrong end of the stick when you encounter them.

        5. *gasp* If women fight off their attackers then how can the SJWs use the Mighty State to make everything better?! 😕

          (Sad thing is, I can imagine some SJWs saying something like that. They’re almost impossible to parody. Might be why they don’t like jokes and parodies. They get irritated at people laughing at them when they’re being serious.)

          2. Sigh.

            Haven’t they aligned themselves with the same people who object to stop and frisk and have trouble with actually keeping convicted criminals in jail?

        2. …I think something like that got referred to in a Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode. Spike mentioned that he was at Woodstock, fed on a flower person and spent quite some time afterwards staring at the back of his hand.

  20. ” You start by admitting humans aren’t infinitely perfectible, and that even the “anointed ones” can have flaws like a search for power.”

    See, this is the root of it. This is the lie whispered by the serpent in the Garden. You shall not die and you shall be like gods. And people still believe it.

    1. A careful reading will see: you will be like (other translations use the word as) gods. Not you will be God.

  23. I’m just trying to imagine a Sarah Hoyt-style “whisper campaign.”

    Megaphone instead of a bullhorn?

  24. Pingback: Why I don’t like Social Justice Warriors | Monster Hunter Nation

    1. My favorite comment on Twitchy:
      “Tell you what. YOU land something on a verdammt asteroid going 35,000 miles an hour and you can wear whatever you want, m’kay lady? Now, STFU and make me a sammich.”

      1. So I’m not the only one who responds to accusations of misogyny with “go make me a sammich?”

        I…well, I’m not sure if I should be relieved or dejected. :/

        2. I’m a bit amused that I’m not the only one who’s considered getting one of those shirts and wearing it. Though for me, I don’t really go for that sort of style. I might make a sacrifice if it annoys the crap out of various SJWs.

          Hm. Maybe one with the mental models from Arpeggio of Blue Steel, an anime series I recently came across.

      1. Colorful and retro. The standards of what is ‘sexist’ and what is ‘feminist empowerment’ in images seems to be capricious and arbitrary. Would the same shirt with all the women clothed in burkas be unoffensive?
        When the people complaining about this shirt start campaigning for woman’s rights in the Muslim Near East, I will consider listening to what offends them.

        Instead of a tearful apology, the response should have been ‘Get a life.’

        1. Instead of a tearful apology, the response should have been ‘Get a life.’

          He has one.

          The bullies are destroying it.

          The apology MIGHT keep his teenage girls from dealing with “Daddy lost his job.”

          1. The apology MIGHT keep his teenage girls from dealing with “Daddy lost his job.”

            Sadly, this. Sucks, but there it is.

            1. Yes, I suspect he got chewed out by a politically sensitive and ambitious bureaucrat, given the option of an apology or losing, effectively, his life’s work. Given the emotional whiplash of a day that has to be one of the top ten in his life followed by being accused of foulness over something so trivial, I understand his emotions.

              The people who endlessly whine about “bullies” are the nastiest, pettiest bullies around.

            1. I’m pretty pissed at Exjon for slandering Santorum like that. It was needlessly rude and false to boot– as one comment points out, in reality Santorum might have quietly said pretty much what Exjon did about the shirt being in poor taste.
              Then again, Santorum would have the sense not to wander away from the spokesman and still expect a polished spokesman response.

              1. “The fact that a scientist of any gender, but especially a man, would think it’s a good idea to wear a shirt covered in naked women while representing a major space agency and a significant research project is appalling; and clearly, he had no idea that he was engaging in exactly the kind of casual sexism that drives women away from STEM,”

                Honestly, any man or woman that is going to be driven away from STEM by the shirt some guy wears on a TV interview, should be driven away. a)they obviously are making decisions with their feelings not their brains, b) how are they ever going to persevere through all the failures and disappointments to actually have a success and accomplish something if the mere sight of a gaudy shirt causes them to give up?

                  1. What possible complaint can they have against a little consensual bondage? Seems awful norm-normative to me, imposing their kinky non-kink sexual preferences on the rest of society?

                    1. Because it’s Repressive of women, apparently. Although Feminists have constructed the card-house of logic that even a Dominatrix is not empowering of women because she’s typically fulfilling a man’s fantasy (her own fantasies don’t count, I guess).

                    2. Oh, and an addendum. While it’s always horrible for women, men can do it, as long as they do it to each other, and in the middle of a gay pride parade.

                2. a shirt covered in naked women

                  OK, posibily I’ve got a problem with my eyes, or someone has altered the meaning of naked since I last checked, but the women were definitively wearing, um, maybe not street clothes, but things.

                  1. Yep, on Sarah’s Facebook I asked “where were the naked ladies?” After all if I’m going to “offend” the SJWs, I REALLY want to offend them. [Very Big Evil Grin]

                    5. Okay, here’s the thing. I’m not … swimming in dough because… well, I never am, but there’s a lag between doing our roof and getting money from insurance, otherwise I’d just print them and mail them. HOWEVER as is, I’m going to post a thing saying how much they cost with shipping. You send it via paypal with your address, and you get one.

                    6. Sounds fair to me especially since I was thinking of buying it anyway. IE Wasn’t thinking of a FREE T-Shirt.

                    8. Email is randomly dumping AtH in the spam folder again. Not all of ’em mind, just — random.

                      Anyroad. Works for me!

                    9. Woman! We know that you can be generous to a fault.

                      You are in business, to help support yourself and your family, yes? Give us a chance to actually buy things.

                    1. You are asking this of someone who inhabits the world of Anime cons (and now SF/F) with all of the various Goths, Steam Punkers and Cos-player that goes with it?

                      (And soon we will be adding Furry!)

                      Actually, no, I don’t think that the radical feminists are trying to legitimize Emma Peel’s clothes for street wear. (Dang. I am now recalling Diana Rigg in the Hellfire club episode.) Quite the opposite.

                    2. It certainly influenced John Byrne and thre… four decades of X-Men illustration.
                      https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bleedingcool.com%2F2012%2F05%2F23%2Fswipe-file-steed-and-mrs-peel-0-and-the-x-men%2F&ei=ZtxnVK7yLsbQggTThYPoAg&bvm=bv.79142246,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNEEAGex2lCXuzV-fBqR7rMuVOTz1Q&ust=1416179172704605

                      Which is a terrible, terrible thing. We must deplore it at length. At great length.

                    3. What you have to understand is that a feminist taking off clothes and running around in public is empowerment. Men actually seeing such a thing instantly turns it into objectification apparently.

            2. Spew warning: in the comment section; “The terrorists wear shirts with pin-up goats in burkas.”

                1. My thoughts when I looked at the first one SPQR linked, went something like this, “cool shirt, I think I–THEY WANT WHAT!?….. But it would almost be worth that, just to wear it into a job interview and see the boss’s face.”

          1. Yes, but you don’t count Sarah. We just wave you and Toni around to shield ourselves, you know. (eyeroll, facepalm)

            1. Chris,

              If by shield you mean hide behind, because it’s the safest place to be when Sarah goes off on them.

              😉

                1. Now I have an idea for a t-shirt
                  Sarah holding a Claymore (sword) with “FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY” under it.

      1. Meanwhile, in the real world, Russia has sent warships to Australia in advance of the G20 Summit. I swear, I can hear the 24 countdown music in my head when I watch the news lately.

        1. The Russians have backed off when the Parramatta showed up. Putin made puffing noises that the Australian ships needed to get out of the way. Abbott said “no.”

          So the Russians are now cooperating and ‘doing research’ together with the ships there.

          I’m not so sure which ship had it’s crew pulled out of leave to go and meet those incoming warships, the Parramatta or the Sydney, but that’s a ship of very annoyed sailors out there.

          And Aussies don’t waste ammo on warning shots, I’m told.

        3. Yes.

          Imagine if it had been Leonard’s mother giving the presentation. She would have been just as effective at convincing the girls they don’t want to go into science.

    5. In unrelated news, a group of Femen protestors took to St. Peter’s square today, strutting around topless then pantomiming sodomizing themselves with crucifixes.

      Any bets on how the SJW types enraged by the shirt will react to something a few orders of magnitude more offensive?

      2. You notice that Femen gets defended on the grounds their protests bring attention to things, when in reality, I’ve never seen even an article on them that doesn’t bury whatever they were (allegedly) protesting deep in the body.

        1. “ … that doesn’t bury whatever they were (allegedly) protesting deep in the body.”

          Mary!!!!!!

              1. The Horde needs a new label: “Caution! Infectious Agents!”

                Laughter is infectious, too. *grin*

          2. Blink, blink, blnik

            You do know the text is called the body of the article, don’t you?

            That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

    6. If you like space, buy this shirt:
      http://www.alohaland.com/whats-new/new-gunner-girls
      This is a SJW atrocity. How DARE they take a great achievement like what the ESA did this week and turn it into some sort affirmative action whine fest. This doesn’t do physics, or space any good. What they are doing in fact, hurts the great women scientists I have known. If the SJWs were in anyway truly interested in advancing the cause of women in the sciences they could highlight what they do rather than hang on a stupid shirt as some form of microaggresion.

      1. If the SJWs were in anyway truly interested in advancing the cause of women in the sciences they could highlight what they do rather than hang on a stupid shirt as some form of microaggresion.

        Makes one wonder if this garbage isn’t deliberate.

        Over at Mr. Knighton’s post I figured out that if this guy had been a “safe” geek, something that didn’t challenge their self image as the cool kids, he’d be unharassed.

        But the geek is successful; the bullies MUST attack.

        If more women become like him– get into a cool job that, after much hard work, turns out really awesome results, while looking cool and happy, much happier than them– they lose their power.

        It really is #gamergate redux. They don’t want women in science. They want to take over science for their greater glory.

            1. No.

              I’m trying to figure out who he got to spell check his posts. The man has dyslexia worse than me. He regularly has spell check essentially look at him and say, “I don’t know WTF you’re trying to say”. 😀

              1. ….doesn’t everyone have Thesaurus.com on their quicklinks for exactly that reason?!?

                (not even dyslexic, just can’t spell for crud)

                1. Not so much. I think he has trouble spelling “thesaurus” well enough for that to happen.

                  Love the man, but he sends me emails sometimes that makes me want to grade them and send them back for him to correct.

                  1. My dad was almost fifty the first time he ever turned on a computer. After back surgery he was retrained at a job using a computer all day. A little history, I get my love of reading from my mother, my dad will struggle and spend all evening reading a three page magazine article. He was complaining to one of his coworkers shortly after starting his new job, about spellcheck not working correctly. It wouldn’t tell him how to spell the word he was trying to spell, the coworker looked at what he had written and told him, “that is because spellcheck has never seen it spelled THAT way before.”

                  2. Such things can scar a person for life.

                    After years of think that my Daddy’s father used to return my thank you notes red penciled I asked Daddy is this was true, or had I imagined it. Daddy thought a moment and then replied that, while he was not sure, it sounded like something his father would have done.

    7. Man helps land probe on comet, and all we can do is freak out over his T-shirt.

      What small, petty people we’ve become.

    8. They know they’ll never be a part of anything like what those scientists accomplished, to they attack one over what he wore to feel better about themselves. It’s disgusting, but I guess people like that take pride in what they can. They’ll never send a robot into space to harpoon a comet, but they can attack a man who helped do just that, which in their small minds makes them a part of something bigger and better

      1. Well, he wasn’t wearing the requisite geek uniform. You know the one: white short sleeve shirt with dark or khaki pants, a nondescript tie, a pocket protector and plain black socks and dress shoes.

        They were already discombobulated, and they don’t like to have their reality rocked. It had to come out somewhere.

  26. Pingback: Much Needed Moral Clarity from Sarah Hoyt | John C. Wright's Journal

  28. I might have been the one who brought the phrase “cannibal feast” into the whole topic last week. I’ve been following the dynamics of them for years. It’s a good marker for a movement in collapse when it turns on its own. It begins when their tactics of “othering” everyone outside the group quits bringing in sufficient converts to maintain growth, and both internal and external pushback against over-the-top tactics gains traction. At that point they start applying “purity” standards to their own group in a struggle for internal power and control. Alays accompanied by a cry for “unity,” of course. As Davefreer noted and as I noted, the rank & file and early members always surprised to discover that THEY are the first against the wall when the Revolution comes. Because they’ve served their purpose and must now be removed from the internal paths of power.

    The examples in history are endless. The Reign of Terror. The Great Purge. The Cultural Revolution. All were the same thing, writ large. The current revelations about the purging of WisCon are a more current example of how this plays out in smaller groups.

    Me, I’m making more popcorn.

    1. If you aren’t mixing in appropriate ratios of caramel corn, chocolate corn and cheese corn your* a raaaaacist.

      *Not a typo

    2. the rank & file and early members always surprised to discover that THEY are the first against the wall when the Revolution comes

      Minor correction, they are merely 2nd against the wall. First against the wall are the members of the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation

  29. Pingback: Afternoon no coffee 2014-11-14 – Men and seminary | Mangy Dog

  30. *apologies if someone’s already mentioned all this. Can’t get ATH at work anymore, so limited time to read in the afternoons now.

    When I first came across that comment about RH & our host being one and the same, my first thought was “obvious ploy.” Along with, “how the heck would she even have time for that, plus the blog, plus MGC, plus PJMedia, plus writing, and moving, etc.?” I feel rather certain that were she blessed with superpowers thus able to bend time to her will, she’d use the power on *much* more important things, like writing. Or cat videos. It speaks of some arrogance to say that any one of us would bother chasing around the blogs doing stuff like this.

    That’s one of the major differences between us, the conservative/libertarian/stay-off-my-lawn standoffish types, and the average Ever-So-Caring SJW. It’s who we are, as writers, readers, technicians, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, and so on. They define themselves as a random junk-box of characteristics: person of color, LGBTWTFBBQ, minority, Feminist, SJW, and so on.

    The former defines us by what we do. We value actions, not activism. Our values are constructive, not destructive. We do not define ourselves by who we hate. Or who hates us. The latter focuses on feelings rather than results. Appearances over functionality. Walls torn down rather than structures built. They fight “Social” Injustices like having to pay for one’s own birth control, rather than real tragedies like Sharia Law that should fire the righteous indignation and anger of any rational soul, and they do so ineffectively and win only by their opponent’s weakness or inattention. Read Tom Kratman’s “Why Us? The Military and Humanitarian Assistance” for an expert’s view that touches on this (i.e. where I stole some ideas from).

    That Damien, Alex, Scalzi, and the Grand High Glitterati tolerated and excused such behavior speaks volumes. By implication, bad behavior can be excused by past victimization (which can stretch back farther than any man has yet lived). This is utter and complete nonsense. Bad behavior is bad behavior. It is not “acting out” or “punching up” or any other excuse-making twaddle. You don’t reinforce it, you step on it, hard. Whether you pound it with a tetsubo or gut it with a gladius, it must be addressed for what it *is.* And then you move on, because trolls feed on attention, therefore starving a troll is a moral good.

    That is what I admire about Sarah, Larry, and many of the rest of you folks here. In the sprawling playground that is the internet, y’all have managed to remain adults. Adults with ICBC’s and Carptapults, true, but adults. *grin*

    1. Classic multiple-personality situation: She is writing as RH et al while “Sarah” is sleeping. That would explain her ongoing issues of being tired and worn out.

    2. Damien is definately of the Low Glitterati. After all, unlike the others, he hasn’t really done anything yet except fling poo.

  31. A minor point of fact: Jim Jones was first and foremost a communist. He cloaked it in Christianity to sell it, but only because he couldn’t get anyone interested in pure Marxism.

    After a bit of success, he moved to San Francisco, where he became a cause célèbre. All the darling icons of the left flocked to his services — I’ve seen photos of the Carter’s attending one of his services, and I believe Pelosi, Boxer, et. al. made their appearances.

    He moved his flock out of the US because his communist ties and accounting were getting scrutiny. His henchmen killed a Congressman who went to investigate the “heaven in earth” they were building along Marxist principles, and then Jones decided everyone who followed him had to die, too. Some were shot (possibly most); many of those who drank the poisoned Flavor-Aid were apparently forced to do so.

    Afterwards, he was no longer a leftist hero. His commitment to Marxism was buried, he got classified as a religious nut and everyone moved along, because there was nothing to see there…

    1. Any Communist is, by definition, a religious nut. Communism is a religion, as one can tell by its behavior. It fights viciously over minor variations in doctrine. In every way it mimics the worst behaviors of all the world’s religions.

        1. You can get militant atheists to shriek in such outrage when you point out their behavior is pretty much the same as any religious fanatic. Good clean fun.

            1. That sound like a good way to start a fight with certain type of atheists. [Evil Grin]

              On the other hand, I don’t think Sarah would enjoy the fight here (unless it was an atheist troll who “took offense”). [Smile]

            2. Atheism as practiced by certain atheists does. Atheism as such, the belief that no Supreme Being exists, is not religious as such — any more than Theism and Deism as such are necessarily religious.

              1. Atheism is the belief that there is no god. This is a faith based belief, because it cannot be proven.

                Religion is commonly defined as a faith based belief.

                Therefore Atheism is every bit as a much a religion as Christianity, or Buddhism, or Islam.

                1. I think it more profitable to assert that a religion is a series of (arguments? tenets?) precepts derived from a fundamental premise.

                  Thus we have the three great monotheistic faiths and the many alternatives derived from the idea that there are many gods or no gods.

                  But it must certainly be possible to elect the Faith principle that there is/are no god/s without deriving formal precepts from that conclusion.

                  Thus while technically atheism depends on a faith-based conclusion, the existence of a religion consequent to that leap does not follow.

                  That said, I personally believe atheism is a religious faith even absent a systematic set of beliefs dependent on that first principle. It is not necessary to share a premise to envision its arguments.

                2. Would you describe someone as religious because he believes that there is a Supreme Being, in the abstract, and does not do anything because of that belief?

    2. It’s totally AMAZING the numbers of lefty California pols – and national lefty pols too – who distanced themselves at speed from Jim Jones after the mass suicides at Jonestown.
      One of my near neighbors (and she’s kind of a flake, too – but never mind) is the daughter of a career Army medical service NCO who was one of those who went down to retrieve the bodies. Yep, after about a week of swelling and fermenting in the heat … that was a mission so ugly that it’s hard to take it in, without about throwing up your socks..
      And Jim Jones was such a fixture in SF politics.

  33. If the “two-part name [you] can’t even spell” is Benjanun Sriduangkaew (which I’d have a hard time spelling either; I copied and pasted the name from Larry Correia’s blog post), that looks like a typical Thai name to me: multi-syllabic, and extremely hard for an English speaker to pronounce. Fun fact: Thais rarely use their full names. Their full names aren’t a secret or anything, it’s just that they’re too unwieldy to use most of the time, except on formal occasions like graduation ceremonies. Most of the time, Thais use short single-syllable nicknames like “Nok” or “Fah”. If a Thai person introduces himself to you, he’ll tell you his nickname, not his full name — it’s entirely possible to be friends with a Thai person for years before you find out their official legal name!

    This has been your Fun Cultural Fact of the Day™.

    1. Wait, so the Thai are Irish Catholics?!?

      Alright, well behaved Irish Catholics. Otherwise their mothers would be saying all five to nine names in the “you will die” tone often enough for strangers to memorize them…..

      Come to think of it, that explains where all the well behaved relatives went….

      1. *grin* One day when I was 10 or 11, I was playing in a friend’s backyard. All of a sudden her mother started reciting all the apostles (or so I thought). It was just my friend’s little brother’s full name. Apparently he’d gotten into some magnificent mischief.

      2. Oh my yes!

        Was a friend of a family with nine children, while full names were only used at home, as you note, when it was full warning … I knew everyone’s entire name.

    2. I hope everybody here remembers sf/horror writer/filker/composer S.P. Somtow aka Somtow Sucharitkul. Although his name wasn’t too hard to pronounce or spell, he does have a fairly long moniker.

      He seems to be doing better this year with his operas and concert productions. No riots, no lese majeste accusations…. Man, and I thought Shakespeare had it hard.

  34. Somewhat relevant:

    Musicologist Solomon Volkov, who chronicled the relationship between Shostakovich and Stalin, quotes from the secret diary of Lyubov Shaporina, a contemporary of Shostakovich and founder of one of the first marionette theaters in Russia. She summed up the terror artists faced everyday: “All these arrests and exiles are inexplicable, unjustified. And inevitable, like a natural disaster, no one is safe. Every evening at bedtime, I prepare everything I’ll need in case of arrest. We are all guilty without guilt. If you are not executed, arrested (or exiled), thank your lucky stars.”
    From: Snap, Crackle, and Pow! Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth Sulks and Sizzles at the Met

  35. Oh, and because I haven’t seen anyone say this yet:

    I’m shocked, shocked that someone using the name Requires Hate would turn out to be a malignant individual!

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  37. I’m not surprised that the SJWs are trying to pretend Requires Hate only crossed the line when he/she/it went after fellow SJWs. Really, nothing these lackwits say surprises me.

    Or so I thought.

    But this thing here, this actually shocks me a bit.
    http://sffpoc.wordpress.com/
    This is a commentary “space” for the Requires Hate Victims that is specifically segregated into one thread for PoC “People of Colour” and another thread for “non-PoC”. Apparently, people of colour can’t “feel safe” commenting on the internet if non-people of colour comments are there too.

    I’d compare this to the Whole Foods habit of physically separating plastic wrapped “organic” bread and “non-organic” into different bins and having separate slicers for them… except that its an order of magnitude crazier. Its the Internet. You’re not really there. You’re at home, typing into a machine.

    Its worse than White cooties. Its -virtual- White cooties. Which is completely mental, if I may be allowed an able-ist slur.

    As well, they say things like this: “Anything persistently divisive, hateful, threatening or potentially harmful will be nuked from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

    Which is fine, except that its said at the bottom of a post with a “NO WHITES” sign on it.

    Dear SJWs, I know you lurk Sarah’s blog looking for things to be offended by. Let me just say that the MORON who set up the above “Safe Space” blog has moved me. Moved me to seriously considering attending some SFF cons that I may meet some of you SJWs in person and tell you off at considerable length. You are re-creating Segregation, and I’m disinclined to put up with your efforts in silence.

    I’ve never been to a con. I’ve never even thought of going to one. But for the opportunity to beard you lot in your den, I might buy a plane ticket. Because you are pissing me off.

    If I’m thinking that, there’s a whole lot more thinking it.

    1. A quote posted over there included this line: “There is nothing more valuable than letting the other know that we see them.”

      Bull. There’s a lot more valuable than letting “the other” know that you see them. There’s reaching out, saying, “Been there, done that, and here’s how I reached success” and actually freaking helping. You know, kind of like how Sarah, Larry, and a number of others do.

      But no, it’s much more important to some of these people to look at someone like me (with learning disabilities) or folks with other deals that make them non-SWMs, and say “I see you”. Guess what? We all see them unless we’re freaking blind. And, if someone is blind, you’re talk about nothing being more valuable than letting someone know that you see them is awfully able-ist.

      1. There’s nothing more valuable than immediate “feedback” in a conversation, to let people know when they have erred and strayed.

        Fuckers just walked on my invisible spot!

        1. Aaaaaahhhhh … No. That was my invisible spot. Yours is over there.

          I marked mine specially with an invisible pen — look on the underside and if you don’t see the mark you know it is mine.

  38. Additionally, I was moved by this thing here:

    “Imagine doing this to a child.

    The kid is walking through a room doing nothing much and suddenly POW… and then you tell the kid… well that was YOUR fault. You screwed up. You stepped on that spot on the floor.

    So the kid looks at the spot and it looks like every other spot. But the kid is told that, no, the fact that she can’t even SEE the spot is what the problem is. You can’t SEE the spot… that’s why it is YOUR fault. Also, a good child will try to learn. You’re a good child, aren’t you?

    So the kid says, yes… it was my fault. I could not SEE the spot. Not seeing the spot makes this my fault.

    Afterward, it’s still impossible to see the spots, and walking across the room becomes fraught with danger. Sitting down at the keyboard gives this very “good” person the shakes and panic attacks… where are the spots? She still can’t see the spots but she MUST agree and believe that those spots exist.”

    That is a description of what its like to have Asperger’s Syndrome in a public school. That’s why SFF fandom has so many Aspies in it, SFF traditionally has been about finding the invisible spots and dancing on them. I’m not a published SFF author, but my whole blog is that. Dancing on the spot, daring anybody to say anything. Because I’m not a skinny little kid anymore, benches.

    Are we going to now be afraid to write what we want because another bully came along?

    Doubt it.

    1. Even those of us who aren’t aspergers are Odd — we react weirdly to things. I turned it upside down by taking after the bullies at a young age, but my middle school years were a LOOONG stretch of that exercise.
      No. Don’t let them. This is our space.

  40. I think you’d be surprised how many liberals agree with your sentiment. The SJW’s ideals are what societies ought to aspire, of course no one should be discriminated against in the workplace or in public.

    It’s thier tactics, which are so similar to the failed revolutionaries, that makes thier efforts ultimately futile. Consider Maslows hierarchy of needs, in order to reach self acutalization, more basic needs like saftey must first be attained. In terms of human rights, freedom of speed would be the base and freedom of thought would be the earthen foundation for the rest to be built upon.

    It’s convietent for the SJWs to use these tactics while it is beneficial for them to use it. What would thier response be if another group attacked them so vehemently because of thier thoughts? I’m not talking about the passive “privledge”, but actve hostilities.

    There are plenty of ideas that I disagree with and that I would find offensive. However I will always defend a person’s freedom of speech, it’s the only way I can make sure mine is maintained.

    1. Look, I have an insight that MIGHT — might — change your whole world view: the SJWs are not going at it wrong. They’re doing precisely what they want: gain power. This is why every communist society ends up with horrible people in power, like Castro or Mao or Pol Pot.
      It’s not a failure, it’s what they meant all along.
      The problem with a POSITIVE concept of social justice is that you’re not a god or superior being who sees other needs and wants. No one is. The best we can aspire to are negative concepts, such as enshrined in the constitution. You’re entitled to Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (the later of which encompasses self-actualization) and if someone is infringing upon it in a way that can be proven in court, you can sue them.
      Progressivism (and btw, there’s the fallacy that history comes with a directional arrow enshrined in that name) comes up with the idea these must be enforced from the outside and that equality of results must be enforced after inequality of results is surmised from penumbras and emanations, or to put it another way, statistics. Statistics don’t show if fewer one eyed lesbians are writing sf because fewer one eyed lesbians CARE for sf or because they are being kept out.
      You can’t tell other people’s wants and needs. The people who pretend they can always interpret the broadest signs as needing their active intervention, because that gives them more power.
      It might surprise you — nay shock you — to know no one here is racist, sexist or wants to hold others in economic oppression (heck some of us — me for instance — are female persons of tan and not well off) but we understand certain things, like economics being a science and one not being able to legislate prosperity for all anymore than one can legislate sunshine on Sunday. In the same way, if you give people to legislate abstract concepts like “justice” or “equality” it ALWAYS ends in tumbrils. Because again, how can you tell? All you can do is enforce top down stuff that is unjust to all alike. And the only people who want to do that are bullies.
      This is not a defect of tactics. It’s inherent in the system.

    2. “What would their response be if another group attacked them so vehemently because of their thoughts? I’m not talking about the passive “privilege”, but active hostilities. ”

      We have seen it. Or did you think that it was a coincidence that they feel perfectly safe (allegations of doxxing and death threats to the contrary) attacking a white male British physicist for his offensive shirt and running like rabbits from the “Asiatic” girl rapists in Rotherham? I haven’t seen any picket lines around the Rotherham mosques carrying “rape culture” signs.

      1. Full text of ‘death threat’ actually linked:
        LOL so wearing a shirt with good looking women = women abuse? You’re an absolute MORON.
        Jump off a cliff. Please.

        The article also claims that someone tweeted “Please kill yourself.”

        ****

        Apparently, our recent adolescent visitor got her idea of ‘dox’ing from their rather… unique… definition. Clicking on the twitter link they provide and reading what they input….

        1. So when my Mom asked me if I’d jump off a bridge if others did it too, she was threatening my life?! 😕

          2. Yep. First step in being taken over by SJWs is that they debase the language. Jeff Goldstein over at Protein Wisdom has been sounding the alarm on that one for years.

            1. I’ve been reading his blog for awhile now. Good stuff, though the armadillo needs to stop lazing around and start dancing. 😀

    4. It’s convietent for the SJWs to use these tactics while it is beneficial for them to use it. What would thier response be if another group attacked them so vehemently because of thier thoughts? I’m not talking about the passive “privledge”, but actve hostilities.

      This a concept which Alan Dershowitz understands. In 1977 the town of Skokie, Illinois banned National Socialist Party of America from marching. In court the attorneys for the town argued that the open display of swastikas was equivalent to open physical attack to members of the community who were Holocaust survivors. Dershowitz was part of the ACLU team that successfully challenged this in from of the Supreme Court. Dershowitz has said:

      Freedom of speech means freedom for those you despise, and freedom to express the most despicable views. It also means that the government cannot pick and choose which expressions to authorize and which to prevent.

      Didn’t your momma teach you two wrongs don’t make a right.

      The SJW’s are censoring speech and attacking people claiming that they must be thinking things the SJW’s find offensive. They have taken efforts to see that people are shunned in business and social situations, not just for actions, but because the SJW’s believe they harbor ‘wrong thinking.’ How does this ultimately to lead to a society with freedom of thought and speech?

      Let’s look at one example of what the SJW culture has brought us. We now do have extra criminal charges that can be brought based on the thoughts of a criminal. We call these hate crimes*. They seem to only exist when the victim of a crime is a member of a group with a previously identified special victim status. If someone has publicly avowed that they hate all straight white males and then goes out and brutally beats a straight white male — no extra charges of hate crime will be brought against them. Is this equality under the law? No. Will it create equality under the law? Never.

      Our country is built on the principle that you have freedom of expression, which can only be limited under very narrow and specific instances — such as direct and imminent reckless endangerment of others, such as falsely shouting, ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. It is our actions for which we can be held accountable.

      *Note: Please understand that I find targeting people for violence offensive for any reason.

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