Scandal

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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Among the many moral precepts I failed to heed, mostly because I could make neither heads nor tails of it, was the “woe onto him who gives scandal. It were better for him if he were tied to a millstone and thrown into the sea.”

The illustration on that page of the cathecism was amazing, with all the vivid emotion of a Victorian lithograph, showing a man having his neck tied to the millstone, which of course led young geek me to stare at it and go, “Well, no worry throwing it in the sea.  The minute they throw it anywhere his neck will be broken.”

At the same time, at my time of life, and the place where I lived, this seemed like a truly overblown reaction to the things my grandmother and her cronies called “scandal”: wearing your skirt a little too short; kissing your boyfriend; having loud parties.

In retrospect, these, and their slightly more serious cousin — getting knocked up before marriage — were indeed scandals, to an extent and in a way, but the scandal is to my mind more what we’re seeing unroll in Washington (or Rome): something that unmakes the rules of society and the world.

What I’m trying to say is that I keep hearing people who pay attention and seek their news beyond the media (because the way the media is behaving is a scandal) keep saying that, oh, the conspiracy of our State Department and the FBI against (at the time) a presidential candidate was a scandal.  What is going on with Kavanaugh being accused of being a poopie head at an undisclosed location, with no witnesses when he was in high school, and the thing being taken seriously, or the accuser being praised for courage is a scandal. (At least half of the #metoo accusations and the way they were taken was a scandal.) For that matter the way that Benghazi was willingly covered up by a compliant and partisan media was a scandal.  The entire Russia investigation nonsense is a scandal. The way conservatives (and more generally males) are treated in our society is a scandal.

A scandal is — as I see it, and I want to point out I’m no theological expert — an action or statement that so fundamentally breaks the rules on which the society/church/science/interest is based on that it unravels the thing upon which it stands.

So, were those kisses in public, the short skirts, the parties scandals?  Definitely and to an extent.  The pregnancy was more so.  But they were little scandals.  They were indeed breaking the rules of the society, and if you flaunt enough such breaks, the rule becomes dead letter.

Now, I happen to think a good many of these rules, in Portugal, when I was a kid, were in great need of being broken, or at least softened.  Stuff like the skirts, or kissing your boyfriend, or even going out alone at night fall.

But I would think that, wouldn’t I, born in the early sixties and coming to age in the seventies, “let’s demolish oppressive rules” (particularly for women) was THE rule to follow.  Of course where it led is not what we expected.  We’ll leave it at that.  I’m not someone who can judge it, particularly since I’m now acculturated to a culture where the rules were never as oppressive.

I still think the whole millstone treatment is a bit much for a quick peck with your boyfriend, or even a pre-marital pregnancy, but then again, I’m not good with rules.

On the other hand, the kind of scandal we’re saying, and coming closer and closer together, and unreported and thereby unpunished is dismantling the very underpinnings of our society.

You can’t have government trying to discredit a candidate without causing people to doubt all elections.  You can’t have the vast amount of fraud we have without removing the underpinnings of our trust in elections.  You can’t have “believe all women” without removing our judicial system, in which the accused is always presumed innocent, even if you found him with the smoking gun in his hand (he might after all have just picked it up after the murderer ran off.)  You can’t have trial by rumor and innuendo without undermining our entire system.

It’s impossible. If without witnesses, without corroboration, with an history of false memories (she blames her therapist for her having thought that there were four attackers before) if Kavanaugh’s accuser is allowed to derail his nomination, a fundamental thread will have been pulled out of our social fabric. Hell, if she and everyone who is putting a man and his family through hell aren’t PUNISHED in fact, or in deed (by having their every shady moment brought to light) society has suffered a death blow.

“But Sarah,” you say.  “Wouldn’t that intimidate some woman on coming forward, after suffering some assault?”

Sure is.  If she comes out thirty years later, has no proof, has no witnesses and is demanding an FBI investigation of something that EVEN IF TRUE is NOT A CRIME.  (Drunken groping might be boorish behavior, but it’s not assault or a crime.  At least not depending on the severity, etc, which frankly, her being obviously drunk out of her gourd at the time is impossible to determine.)

Women are not gods.  We never were.  Just because we say something is so, it doesn’t mean it is.

Women lie.  Just like men lie.

And beyond that, when you talk of something that long ago, women might believe they’re telling the truth, but there’s no guarantee they are. EVEN if they told their friends/parents — which this chick didn’t — women have often been mistaken/have hallucinated it/are not quite all there/recovered memories under therapist or not, which are largely fabrications.

Not only does the insistence that we believe some woman’s unprovable, vague recollections insane, the insistence that, even if they were true, they should derail the career of a man who has never had such an incident again, amounts to destroying everything we believe in.  There is a reason that juvenile records are erased, and again, this is not even something that would warrant a record.  Heck, I’ve been groped and pinned to walls by guys whose names I don’t remember (fortunately I was never drunk in public unless I was with my family, and even then just on the tipsy level.  So most of those men got knee in the groin or hat pin ditto) but I would blush to derail even a job application by one of those guys, even if I knew who they were.  To be a teen is to be uncouth.  I suspect most of those men would now shy away from groping a total stranger with no encouragement (particularly if they remember the knee to the groin.

But there is something far more important than our judicial system at work.  There is civilization as we know it.

Exaggeration?  Not by much.

Already in every day life any man is held hostage to any woman.  A woman, in our colleges, in our work places, in most de-facto living arrangements can end a man’s career by saying that he hurt her/abused her/failed to listen when she said (whispered/muttered) that she was uncomfortable.  Most of our institutions don’t pursue investigations.  They get rid of the man because it’s easier.

This is already causing males to be afraid to date, or be alone for any reason with a female.  In the work place, this makes any type of cooperation between males and females risky and fraught.

These new rules as practiced are already hurting women (even women like me, who’d never make those accusations, because we’re not that neurotic.) And they do hurt some select men very badly indeed.  Destroy many of them.

If we go on, if we keep assuming women are beings of light who never lie, never make up stuff, and whose word shouldn’t be checked, this goes one of two ways: the bad and the very bad.

The bad is where after a while people rebel.  Look, the rules of cutting extra slack to women are there for a reason: we’re weaker; for a part of our lives we’re impaired by hormones and pregnancy; we have a disadvantage in working outside the house.  So, some extra slack is cut and our path is eased (well, at least some of ours.  I’ve never noticed it.)

The unspoken condition is that we don’t abuse that extra help, that extra protection (things like the fact that a woman wears provocative clothes or having a checkered past not being brought in on rape cases for instance) by using it as a cudgel to get our way and destroy men just because we want to destroy them, because we disagree with their political stands, or because they’re ugly and their mothers dress them funny, even.

Now this has been abused a long time everywhere else.  Like the middle school trying to kick younger son out for kissing a girl against her will in the lunch line, while they had footage of him spending the whole time talking to his Spanish teacher.  (Yes, they did say “maybe it was another day. Women don’t lie about this sort of thing.”  Consider this and consider the unmaking of the world already in that assumption.)  Yes, liberals (of all sexes) have tried conservatives by wholly made up rumor forever. Witness idiot last week who decided an anti-Marxist article was anti-racial-subgroup of the day.  And the rumor goes forth, and the left believes it, because it’s convenient to believe it.  This has been going on a long time, because they need to believe everyone who disagrees with them is a villain.  Or that designated “evil” people like males are villains.  It makes the inevitable purges and gulags of Marxism seem justified.

But when it happens this publicly, this obviously, this nakedly, this in-the-public-eye?  The scandal is magnified twenty fold.

When women do things like that, and do that publicly and openly enough, and experience no punishment, society — if it still has enough cohesion to save itself — will turn against us.  With a great convulsion the “make the way easier for females” will be cast out.  And we’ll be cast in the same position as women in Muslim countries.  Our word will be worth nothing, and we’ll be sexual and emotional playthings of men.  If you think it can’t happen here, you’re not aware of both the great anger building up, and the foundational nature of the crime against everything this society is built on taking place.

That’s the bad result.  But there’s a very bad one.  Which is that this is allowed to continue and every woman is allowed to be a tin-pot dictator, capricious and irrational like the wind.

In that future — and we’re almost there — humanity doesn’t survive, because men simply disengage from women.  There are other sources of pleasure, and they’ll just stop risking playing kissy face with the alligator.

So, what can you do?  You can make sure this is the scandal it indeed is.  Make a great noise.  Point out how this is unraveling all of our system.

And vote.  Vote against every ass clown who is howling for a man’s blood based on a crazy  accusation of non-crime.  And vote against everyone of the same party who doesn’t immediately and vocally disavow the ass clowns and all the madness they stand for.

Because if this is allowed to stand, it were better for them if they were tied to a millstone and cast into the ocean.

And for that matter, us too.

 

 

319 thoughts on “Scandal”

  1. The thing is, this is par for the course for a clique losing power and trying desperately to hang on to it. Civility os for those periods during which the balance of power is so much in one direction that there is very little point in getting hot under the collar.

    The Democrat establishment is losing power. They have shored up their structure for a while by expending Media prestige, or in other ways, but they have been spending more political capitol than they have been getting back for a while now.

    I fear that this will be allowed to stand. The Republican Establishment is too goddamned accustomed to losing like gentlemen. They are changing, but are they changing fast enough?

    But IF it isn’t allowed to stand, they Progressive Left parasites will have burned one more asset. And they won’t be able to do it again for a long time.

    What SHOULD the Republicans do? Tell the Democrats “You supported a serial harasser and rapist through eight years in the White House. If this is the best you can do against our candidate, we’ll just confirm him over your squeals of outrage and ask you if you’d like some cheese with that whine.”

    And then let the conspirators sink into deserved obscurity, which they will HATE, far more than they would hate being ‘martyred’ for the ’cause’.

    1. Two things in our favor. Trump is in no way shape or form a traditional Republican. He is a builder and corporate raider in businesses where dirty pool is a given.
      And I’m sure that the fondest hope of the left was that once this charge was laid judge Kavenaugh would simply withdraw his name from consideration. No matter how innocent he might be, fighting this dirty some of it sticks both on him and more importantly on his family. But I have every confidence that he, his wife, and their kids have discussed this and come to the conclusion that no, this perfidy shall not be allowed to win the day.
      Keep in mind that this is an eleventh hour attempt to stall filling the court seat until after the midterms. The left believes with all their evil hearts that they will win back at least the house and probably the senate as well, and once they’ve pulled that off will prevent Trump from doing anything further on his agenda. Never doubt that in their minds it is better to destroy this country than to allow others to determine its future.

      1. Thus *IF* Kavanaugh is somehow defeated (withdrawal, downvote, whatever) the response is to go MORE conservative/constitutionalist. “Take, that, assholes!”

        2. How often does the President’s selection of a Supreme get blocked?

          I bet El Presidente has picked a fall-back candidate who would make the SJWs’ heads explode.

          1. Quite a number of nominees did not make it onto the court for various reasons.  A number were confirmed, but declined.  Some were withdrawn before a confirmation vote.  One died four days after he was confirmed.  There were also occasions where the nomination lapsed due to the end of session of Congress, being either postponed or tabled.  (For example: the nomination of Merrick Garland falls under this category.)  By my count eleven have been rejected and eleven have been withdrawn. 

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nominations_to_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

            1. First one in my cognizance was, of course, Bork, though apparently in my lifetime Nixon had a couple of picks rejected. I guess I ws too young to be paying attention ‘way back then’.

              1. Bork was the most recent, but that still does not change the history, which when it came to Supreme Court appointment was apparently far more contentious before we were born.

                Could you imagine anyone now being confirmed and then declining the position? It used to happen.

      2. Most likely they know it can’t stand or Diane Feinstein would have brought it out in July. If it was a slam dunk, July would have been just great. But July would have given it time to be resolved as nothing. The whole point is to delay confirmation until after the elections. Which means, yes, the Senator doesn’t give a rat’s ass about this woman or about the “crime”.

      3. One of the best things you could do would be to write to Mr. Kavanaugh and express your support of him and his family.

      5. Well, I’m pretty sure that Mrs. Kavanaugh is completely on board with fighting back. In a very nasty way, too – handing out cupcakes to the vultures hanging around their house. (Yes, I do consider that to be mean; it breaks the whole narrative into itty-bitty pieces.)

          1. It’s also subversive. I think we all too frequently discount the “working stiffs” among the MSM that, if not our allies, are at least the enemies of our enemies (the “journalists,” producers, editors, etc.).

    2. They set up the meeting.

      Ford says she can’t possibly make it.

      The guy in charge has said “Fine, but we’re not delaying any more than that.”

      And all the bots I’ve seen have been screaming they won’t “allow” Ford to talk…and have had it pointed out she was invited.

      1. Hopefully he keeps his word. Just too used to the football disappearing and the senate has this all real tight, unless can be sworn in during term.

        1. Wouldn’t it be sweet if Trump managed a recess appointment — over the inevitable howls of outrage, as the general public snickers in vicarious delight?

            1. Yebbut: it would stall the matter beyond the midterms WITHOUT the Dems gaining the victory they want of scuttling Kavanaugh’s appointment. And… once again, the Dems could/would be exposed as being anti-constitutional.

        2. I just saw the letter Senator Grassley sent to DiFi, “requesting” an unredacted copy of the attacker’s accuser’s letter. https://twitter.com/senjudiciary/status/1042534223347953664

          Apparently, it hasn’t been “judicious” for her to actually share a copy with anybody other than her partisans. Wow.

          Sounds like there will be a hearing on Monday. Might be the Judge versus an empty chair. Hmm.
          .

      2. Don’t forget her lawyer’s breathless, “she is recieving death threats!!” Yes, perhaps her critics are simply following the advice of Maxine Waters. Exactly what had Sarah Sanders done to deserve her “welcomeNOT” at the Little Red Hen? The breaking of civility is another scandal the Left has made; understand if you break it, so can the other side.

          1. “Given the history involved, I want to know how many of them were sent by the lawyer.”

            Beat me to this.

            I’ll go one better. (a) Scream charges that can’t be countered. (b) claim death threats (c) ???

        2. Not only that. The ringleader admitted to actually running license plates to identify home addresses.

    3. No, the Republicans shouldn’t tell the Democrats off for being hypocrites and not bringing a better case against Kavanaugh.

      They should simply tell them to fuck off, then vote to confirm. Yes, I’m being crude, because the depth of my anger does not allow loquacious explication.

      Every media type who cheered the story on should be absolutely frozen out by every Republican, treated as journalista non grata. Every elected official who has grandstanded on it should be hammered on it relentlessly by, as Kurt Schlichter calls ’em, “the Normals.” (which, btw, actually includes most of the Odds in this struggle for civilizational norms.)

      1. so how about the latest accusation? Took 6 days to call everyone she knew from the time at Yale and ask if it even possibly was him and none could confirm it, so hey, lets go ahead and make the claim anyhow!

      3. New meme suddenly popped up:
        “This is a job interview, not a court hearing! Rules of evidence don’t apply!”

        Fine. Then the job interview rules do, and we’ve got interviewers who are so insanely hostile to the prospective hire– who won’t be working with them– that they are either actively lying or covering up sexual assault for political advantage.

  2. Case #1, accuser is telling the absolute truth. Drunken high school boy groped her, made her feel threatened, but no actual rape or physical damage occurred. Boy then went on to live an exemplary life for the next 36 years. So of course the left demands his crucifixion.
    Case #2, accuser was attacked much as her story says by someone. But she has solid reasons for animus against the Kavenaugh family stemming from a foreclosure case mother K. sat on. And she has a long history of left wing involvement. And since wishing can often make it so in a troubled mind, it just so happens this is the perfect time to go public.
    Case #3, complete put up job. Accuser is a solid left wing progressive Democrat who hates everything Kavenaugh stands for. She’s drunk the kool-aid about internment camps for gays, overturn of Roe, cheap assault weapons available to everyone from early teens on up. She can conflate an unpleasant experience from her youth into an accusation that is impossible to either confirm or refute. Huge win for her side.

    1. Case #4 – The accused drove his car off of a bridge, and left his female companion inside to drown while he staggered away without telling anyone.

      Need I say more?

      Even allowing that the accuser’s story is true (and I don’t believe it is), the Dem hypocrisy is astounding.

      1. I find the piling on by left wing celebrities particularly galling.
        Same crowd that jumped to the defense of Roman Polanski who in 1977 drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13 year old girl. He was convicted, but before sentencing fled the country to France where he continued to make movies and get awards and praise from all the Hollywood crowd.
        It was not until this year, 2018, that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to expel him along with Bill Cosby from their membership.

        2. And yet no one has said a word that I know of about James Levine being fired from the NYC music scene due to accusations from the 1960s. Either everyone knew and was scared of him even though they were just waiting for an excuse to clear the decks, or they sacked him the instant anyone raised an accusation, just in case (since it was at the peak of MeeToo.)

          1. I saw some, but all from the right– ranging from “look out, they’re taking Left scalps now,” through “See, see, this is A BAD IDEA” to several folks going “Look, I think this guy is really innocent. Double bad idea.”

          2. Wait, just remembered one was a right-wing repost of a presumably left-wing lady defending his innocence, they know eachother through some kind of a music thing.

    2. Note that the first time Kavanaugh’s accuser mentioned his name was (according to the reports I’ve seen) in 2012 during Romney’s candidacy, shortly after an article appeared mentioning Kavanaugh as one of Romney’s potential Supreme Court picks. This piece of data lends more credibility to scenario #2: the accuser sees Kavanaugh’s name, mentally tags him as a bad guy (since he’s a Republican candidate’s potential pick), and then starts remembering the attack in high school and associating Kavanaugh with that attack. Mentions it to her therapist at the time, but doesn’t pursue it further because Romney loses the election and Kavanaugh is never going to be on Obama’s list of SC picks. Then six years later, that mental association has become a firm memory that she’s convinced herself of, so she easily passes a polygraph. (Which doesn’t prove that her story is true, just that she believes it. There’s an incident from my childhood in which either my sister or I came up with a clever joke. My memory is that I came up with it, but when I mentioned it to her a couple of years ago, she was convinced that she was the one who came up with it. Both of us would pass a polygraph test based on that incident, since both of us are convinced of our version of the story, but only one of our stories would be true.)

      1. She also deliberately scrubbed her social media and internet presence of all political content shortly before the Feinstein announcement, and retained a Democratic Party insider as her lawyer who among other things denounced the people accusing Al Franken of miscounduct, in other words, an attorney who is partisan hack whose mission in life is to advance the power of the Democratic Party. The attorney has rebutted any efforts to discuss Fords claims, and will only allow Ford to testify if her credibility cannot be challenged. One only tries to delay testimony of a witness or limit questions about credibility of one knows that one’s witness has serious credibility issues or flaws in their story. The entire purpose of this is for them to scuttle the nomination without Ford ever having to testify and be evaluated as to credibility, because for the Democrats, the truth is irrelevant. Just like with their demands for documents which they were never going to read anyway as they had announced they were voting against Kavanaugh, no matter what, the purpose here is to delay, delay, delay until after the election, at which points the Democrats have made clear if they control the Senate they will never confirm any Trump nominees for anything.
        If people can’t get motivated to go out and vote against the Democrats given their stated intentions, they deserve the crapshow that will be the result as we slide much closer to full fledged civil war.

      2. Plus the history of last minute claims and accusations does add up to a pattern that makes people disbelieve. Add in the Rolling Stone hoax and even a true allegation will be heavily questioned.

        And as this is ongoing you have Menendez and Ellison both accused and not a word. Sadly the media still drives significant opinion. All people hear is how everyone hates him.

        1. Technically, I don’t think it requires the therapist to be wrong. The therapists notes don’t mention him by name, but even if she said the name, I’m not sure the therapist would necessarily write it down.

          As far as I know, the therapist hasn’t said anything about whether she(?) recalls a name being mentioned or not.

          1. If the therapist is smart, she’ll be doing her best to avoid being named.

            This crud is toxic.

            Guessing she by playing the odds, but it might’ve been male and the original story came up to manipulate him….

      4. Q.V. the differing stories between Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, (and presumably the late George and John), about the time the Beatles met Elvis.

    3. At this point, I’m far from sure I care. Say everything she clams if the rock bottom truth. Hell, say she was sold down to Tiajuana and only escaped years later. Fuck em all. They have rode roughshod over our culture and our rights for entirely too goddamned long. They have attacked reasonable decent men as if they were vampires and werewolves. And they are trying to drive the country over a cliff.

      Confirm the man, and if he IS a rapist (like Bubba Clinton) supply him with hot and cold running broads so long as he keeps ruling ‘Originalist’.

        1. Really? I was kinda ranting there….

          I don’t actually believe he’s a rapist. If I thought he was, I’d be kinda disappointed in Trump, who I expect to be smarter than that.

          I think the accuser is so full of dung, she’s indanger of being so,d as manure any time she steps into a garden shop. I think we should say so, loudly. I think we should tell the Left in blut terms that their credibility on such issues rates lower than slime mold. Amd we should hold a confirmation vote tomorrow, amd when asked why we are ‘rushing to judgement’ say “Because the Democrats have ceased to be remorely reasonable, and it’s time to hit back.”

          I also think we should zero out any government grants to any institution that employs Anita Hill while we are at it.

          1. I don’t believe he’s a rapist, either. At all. BUT EVEN IF HE WERE IT WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE. The left has to be stopped from pulling this crap and shown the middle finger.

              1. It isn’t so much the current political environment, but the current Left-wing control of the media, that is the biggest problem. The media controls public perception (which is why they hate and want to destroy free access to information on the internet), and therefore public opinion.

          2. Unless tactics get reversed against and not rewarded for some time, there is no chance of even softening the destruction of the country. If the Republicans keep playing pattycake and not punish opposition when they go all out thete will be no good solution save for the dead.

            As an example, any ICE deportation funding will be zeroed out in next years budget. Meanwhile reps can’t even decrease the money to fibbies or irs.

          3. I considered your rant entirely to the point. As junior pointed out, Teddy got away with murder; and no one seemed to mind.
            To lionize that man, and then act morally outraged over a 17 year old copping a feel?
            I am absolutely sick of the double standards, of moral outrage only when it helps their agenda. Trump is exactly what both the Democrats and the GOP neverTrumpers deserve. His tweets [words] are no more outrageous than their deeds, and frankly far less damaging to the country as a whole.
            How dare they critize his lack of decorum; they have none themselves. Is it really fake news? He seems on target with that. Are his tweets entertaining? Far more than comedians on tv are.
            Eight years of Obama, then a criminal to take his place? They are insane, and I really don’t care what they think anymore.

    4. The attitude that the accuser, if a woman, must always be believed, is Sharia in reverse, where women are always believed and men are disbelieved, as compared to Sharia where men’s testimony is afforded 5 times the weight of a woman….oh wait, even under Sharia the woman gets some weight whereas the left’s attitude is, to quote one Democratic Senator from Hawaii, “men shut up.” Of course these standards do not apply to Democrats who are accused:

      1. It’s a return to form for Democrats. If the accused is a member of a group you don’t like, they’re automatically guilty.

        1. so what y’all are saying is that if you are a rapist, wife beater, criminal, felon, all around bad person, make sure their is a D after your name and you will be fine. ( if you are willing to change your name to Clinton, that will insure no criminal charges )

          and yes spell check I am a crappy speller … but y’all is a word. and if Sarah would lone me a couple of her fingers, I will show them to you.

    5. she has solid reasons for animus against the Kavenaugh family stemming from a foreclosure case mother K. sat on

      Watch out for spreading this bit. I checked the publicly available information, and Martha Kavanaugh’s only involvement with that foreclosure was approving the mortgage holder’s voluntary request for dismissal (meaning there was some other agreement struck with Blasey’s parents – not at all uncommon). It was a different judge in Montgomery County Court that approved the foreclosure order.
      Now, whether there is some other reason for bad blood between the two families, or possibly Ford-Blasey just had the wrong story in her head, I don’t know. We do know that there is serious Trump hatred in her head, which is sufficient in itself to be very skeptical.

  4. And donate if you can, as Money is Speech; and donate also your time to work for the candidate that is neither a moron nor puts themselves under the authority of morons.

  5. “Women lie.”

    Wow, you’re not getting invited to the #MeToo party. ~:D

    Recently I had the opportunity to invest time, money and effort into a project that would have benefited quite a large number of Canadians (and Americans) had it succeeded. Everything was going great, until we got to the lawyers. They are quite good lawyers, as it happens. Their opinion, taken as a whole, was: “This is an excellent idea! This will help many people! But, you could end up broke. Somebody could eat your lunch. Probably will.”

    Long story short, we all took our bats and gloves, and went home. Ball game called on account of its raining assholes.

    When you can’t in good faith offer a product or service to the public, and have some assurance that predators won’t use the courts to take your house, then you don’t offer it. Plain and simple. So we didn’t. Y’all lost out and didn’t even know.

    What’s happening in the American government right now is one faction trying to bully the other faction into staying home. The Russia circus and the Kavanaugh circus is one faction, the DemocRats, deciding that this time they are going to use ALL the nuclear weapons, ALL the dirty tricks, burn ALL the bridges, and maybe even kill some people. They’ve decided that this limited government Republic thing is no longer getting them what they want, so they’re going to trash it. They’ll make sure that anyone sane from the other faction takes their bat and ball, and goes home.

    This is how politics has been pursued in Mexico and South America, Turkey, Greece, Italy etc. for a very long time. They’re used to it. You pick a faction based on its ability to protect you, and you stick with it. Corruption is the Way It Is, not an anomalous outrage like it is here. Your faction keeps the predators off, not the law. The law is basically just another protection racket, run by the ruling faction.

    What’s going to happen? Well, just take a look at Mexico. Nation-wide gun ban, hundreds of new shootings every week. Two or more factions that don’t care who gets killed, so long as they get their free cheese. There’s a story at Drudge about wild dogs fighting over a human head in some alley in Tijuana today.

    https://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/09/18/mexican-street-dogs-fight-for-discarded-human-head-in-tijuana/

    Yeah, that would be the Tijuana that’s right-tight up against the US border to California, where people from San Diego regularly go for drinks on Saturday night.

    That’s where the Dems want to go, full Mexican-style factionalism. Its not a great way to live, judging by the guy’s head getting eaten by dogs. Just sayin’.

    1. See, the thing is, if the Dems don’t want to get thrown out of helicopters a la what is alleged to have happened in Chile – this is how you get thrown out of helicopters.

      When you roll the dice they are playing with you have to have a major hook into the military, or you just get the other side playing the “we have all the guns” card, and you start seeing people disappear in the dead of night and various mysterious helicopter-exited bodies showing up in very remote places.

      If the Republic here falls, it will not tip to the left.

      1. I agree, it won’t tip to the “peace/love/stoners” faction they way they think it will. It will go totalitarian, like they always do. Like Mexico is. Everybody loses, nobody wins.

        That’s what makes the Dems a special kind of stupid. They don’t understand that the limited government Republic thing is the mechanism allowing them to speak at all. The opposite of Leftist totalitarianism is not Rightist totalitarianism. Those are both the same thing. It doesn’t matter what colour the flag on the pole is, your head still ends up as dog food.

          1. Only if the right finds its will. So far the long march has been unopposed and the soma flowing. Once again communication being constrained and the government has shown its willingness to suppress its enemies.

            Eventually totalitarians lose their grip, but usually after its all gone. And often even then the totalitarian face simply changes. There are reasons that most totalitarian governments, especially with body counts have been communist.

            1. A successful dictatorship in the US will be right wing and probably have a significant Christian element. Just how the populace swings. Totalitarians rely on consent of the government, in some ways more than democracies do.

              Think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn what if about the secret police knowing they were walking into traps every night. That is consent of the governed. In the US as a whole that will require something right of center.

              Do not think, though, that many working for totalitarian government through the Left won’t change sides. The useful idiots will remain true to ideology, but the ones driven by lust for power will adopt whatever tunes are needed to get it. In a weird twist, even some on the left understand it.

              You see it in Robert Silverberg’s Hawkbills Station of all places.

              1. Pretty much every modern dictatorship is that nation’s political culture turned up to 11. Hitler was a warped version of Fredrick the Unique, Stalin was a return to Peter the Great, Mao was one of the Emperors of old, and so on.
                The Russians accepted the NKVD & absolute Party rule because they were used to the old Cheka & autocratic rule.

                  1. A little bit of both, I think, with a good hit of Teddy.
                    I suspect it would be a real version of what the Left pretends the 50’s were like.

                    1. Yeah, TR turned up to 11 or 12 – bully pulpit, trustbusting, outdoor nature promoter, nationalist. And the current Alphabets and Zuckerbooks are working really, really hard to set themselves up to as the ideal target-of-convenience for the next trustbusting populist to come along.

                    2. We’d probably get a return to speech codes, laws against sedition, censorship, and general return to moral busibodiness.

                    4. “‘immoral’ things like smoke.”

                      Smoke all they want. Just not where I’m at or where I might be. Then sit no where near me (sorry smell lingers, on smoker, on their kids & pets …) … well can but then no complaining when I start sneezing & coughing repeatably, unstoppable.

                2. Except our political culture is an aggressive socialist culture with cowed and browbeaten non socialists.

                    1. Even in blood red Oklahoma i have numerous native acquaintances who support single payer, higher taxes, etc. Only individual political signs around are for the democrat. I have two people in my immediate family of 7 that don’t insult me, call me a bigot, etc. All because everyone is stewing in the toxic sea being served to culture.

                      If it wasn’t the primary numbers wouldn’t even be flipped, they wouldn’t be close. You wouldn’t have dozens of employees flagrantly disregarding laws and orders because it doesn’t empower the state. We would be wondering what the Senate was going to do to chastise the garbage of the past two weeks. In reality no one will be surprised to see Kavanaugh voted down by Republicans. We expect that a significant number would vote to convict an interloper in their clubhouse on lies. I wouldn’t need to be fluent in spanish to go to the bank.

                    2. Sigh. Stop reading VD’s blog. All this bullshit about the White Race (organize for what? so it can be ruined by government like everyone else?) He wants the US to fail. It retrospectively justifies all his stupid ideas.

                      Also, yeah, you know some stupid people. The stupid HAVE ALWAYS been with us, and also honestly, have always been elected.

                      Single payer sounds great if you don’t hear anything against it. 50 years ago minimum guaranteed income sounded great.

                      Foul spirit of the Volksdeutshe expatriate, come out of this man!

                      Seriously, get a grip.

                      NO, SERIOUSLY.

                      Let’s examine what you can earn with this despondency and gloom:

                      If we’re going to win anyway (and I don’t mean midterm elections, but I suspect we will too) you’re making yourself miserable for nothing.

                      If we’re going to lose or suffer a set back, what do you earn by sapping people’s morale and will to fight?

                      Who spreads despondency, if he doesn’t want us to ultimately lose?

                      Get that stuff out of your head and stop it.

                    3. Am attempting. Just learned long ago to be pessimistic. That way I’m only negatively surprised half the time.

                    7. I’ve been optimistic four major times. Every one went down in flames.

                      As said, this is completely disconnected from net. This just looking out my door.

    2. This is how politics has been pursued in Mexico and South America, Turkey, Greece, Italy etc. for a very long time. They’re used to it. You pick a faction based on its ability to protect you, and you stick with it. Corruption is the Way It Is, not an anomalous outrage like it is here.

      It takes a lot of energy to avoid reverting to the mean.

      For 250 years or so the US has done that (even before we were the US). We even found a way to avoid it after The Civil War. For that reason alone every statute of Robert E. Lee should remain standing…more than anyone, even Lincoln, he was the leader who made sure that we didn’t revert to the mean then.

      Now one party and a not insignificant fraction of the population want to revert the mean of human political history. The party because they think it will empower them (some, maybe, but on the whole, no), and the people because it will allow them to loot others under the rubric of “fairness” (it will, for a while, until the looting convinced people to not be so productive because it will be looted).

      I am worried this week will wind up being the moment the ability to reverse the train heading for that reversion will become unstoppable. If they succeed in eliminating Kavanaugh then they will use this tactic against any and all opponents. At that point the ballot box is gone. The new YouTube influencers report is nothing but a hit list on who the left wants Google et al to silence, which will take away the soap box which has barely been won back.

      Most people never serve on juries.

      There will be only one box left and if we have to resort to it then we’ve lost before we started and we’re fighting over getting the least bad outcome possible.

      1. I would argue for erecting statues of Lee and Grant shaking hands. Lee, more than anyone else, kept the Southern extreemists in check, and Grant did much the same for the North.

        Naturally, the Progressive Left would have hairly conniptions. So it’s got no actual downside, per se.

        1. I’m good with said statues…or even them at a table.

          Or of Joshua Lawrence Taylor ordering the dipping of US colors to the surrendering Confederates.

          But today’s leftists have no idea of how to behave after a fight, which means the only resolutions of fights with them can be the utter destruction of one side or the other.

            1. Perhaps not class, but in the past they had brains. They knew tantrums after a loss meant more losses.

              I think part is they really believed the “No Republican presidents again, ever” and figured even GOP congresses would be gone by 2020. So they wouldn’t lose so didn’t have to be tactically smart about handling losses.

              Then they got Trump.

          3. You mean Chamberlain, I think. But it was a chivalrous gesture. Churchill claimed the American Civil War was the last war fought between gentlemen.

            1. I do mean Chamberlain. I saw the comment and thought “that’s what I wrote” and them came to look.

              I don’t know what happened there.

              This is embarassing because if I ever had a son I wanted to name him Joshua Lawerence Chamberlain Nowell after the officer, teacher, and governor who saved the Union.

              1. Big admirer of Chamberlain as well. That being said, if the Confederates had moved on Culp’s Hill the evening of the first battle rather than letting the small Union force there get reinforced and fortify the position, Little Round Top is irrelevant. Culp’s Hill was the dominant high ground and artillery position of the battlefield and control of it by the Union prevented the Confederates from being to drive the Union Army from Cemetery Ridge from the flank.

                1. Oh, I agree. He got to be one of the few men who can claim to have made a decision that saved the Union by circumstance.

                  But he did make the right decision and then did more than a few remarkable things after such as surviving being shot through the pelvis, honoring the surrendering Army of Northern Virginia, teaching every subject at his university except mathematics, and being governor of Maine four times (including one that could be termed ‘averting a coup’).

                  An equal to George Washington Carver and Benjamin Franklin in the annals of great Americans.

    3. “This is how politics has been pursued in Mexico and South America, Turkey, Greece, Italy etc. for a very long time”

      The trouble is that it is the way half of the country has acted for my entire life. Bipartisanship has always been either grow govt or do what we want. The media gins up outrage after outrage, growing bolder and bolder. And the actual govt apparatus is openly partisan and goes after its enemies.

      The Reps need a spine. Hopefully the ultimatum is held and vote taken without defections. Granted it’s still a defensive actions but would be a positive thing.

    4. Yeah, and Fred Reed thinks Mexico is just hunky dory. Some weeks I like what Fred’s written, some days I just want to slap him in the face with a large, smelly, slimy carp.

      1. I felt that way cor a long time, amd then realized that what Fred sees is life on the ground. The governments of Mexico have been dreadful pretty much throughout recorded history, and the common people do their best to ignore them.

        Fred isn’t writing about Mexican Policy, but about life in his own town in Mexico.

        Also, keep in mind that our picture of Mexico as drug-lord run wasteland is driven by Hollywood, which hasn’t gotten much right for more than half a century. I realize that drug and crime gangs are a problem there, but have no sources on it that I trust.

        1. Think Miami during the early 80’s Cocaine Cowboys era. Lots of hard core violence going around, plus an increased crime rate and government corruption- but most people in the area lived normal type lives.

  6. I suspect there was some time-lag in my.. experiences? While others were having sex on first (or only) ‘dates’… I had the Old Fashioned notion that one waited till the third to even kiss…

    That harmed no-one, or at least no-one ELSE. What is going on now? Damnit the GOP needs to get some backbone and fight. “You want us to listen to her, but say she shouldn’t have to talk? That says you’re full of $MANURE. The vote is $TIME. Also, go BLEEEEP yourselves.”

    1. It might have been old-fashioned, but look how much better your life turned out than this latest #MeToo beeotch. She’s a fricking train wreck.

      GOP is the Party of Opposition. Whenever they “win” an election it is always a mistake. The idea is to lose but only by a little bit. That way the free cheese still comes in, but there’s no work involved.

    2. I was a late bloomer, so far as the opposit sex was concerned. Hooked up with My Lady in college, and stuck with the best friend I’ve ever had. Haven’t made the ‘beast with two backs’ for years, and honestly don’t miss it much. Cuddling isn’t as intense, but the good feeling lasts longer. And if I MUST orgasm, I can do it myself.

      Sex is overemphasized.

      OTOH, I also think prostitution should be legal. It would do more good for sex workers than all the hysterical Crusades, and the Feministas could pound sand.

  7. I thought of some (many!) of the guys I knew in high school and college as if they were golden retriever puppies. They tend to jump up on you and slobber, and they need to be trained not to.

    Sticking with the metaphor, they’re perfectly nice dogs once they mature.

      1. There are people who were caught doing something stupid as teens, and there are people who were not caught.

  8. For most of my life, my personal policy has never ever go to a man’s house or apartment unless there is a group (OK, dropping off books and stuff like that is different). First date? Working on a project? Dinner and a movie, or coffee, or meet at the library and use a table in the study wing. Why? To keep people from starting rumors about me or making unwarranted assumptions. Now it is to protect the guys from accusations. Which is pathetic, that men and women have to keep a tape playing in the back of our minds of “What does this look like? Could this handshake be used against me? Can we carpool to the meeting or would separate cars be safer?”

    The backlash is going to be terrible. #leavemeoutofit

    1. SJWs are basically demanding a return to the doctrinaire Victorian era, but with Atheism this time. Strict separation of the races and sexes, lest a scandal occur.

      I’m inclined to misbehave.

      1. It’s a partially understandable reaction to The Sexual Revolution, which included a lot of bilge. Read any of The Playboy Philosophy stuff from the ‘60’s; it’s winceful. A lot of unreasonable expectations were placed on women, as if they were ‘wrong’ to want something more meaningful than monkey-sex.

        And feminists have some justification for being annoyed by the ubiquity of sexual imagry. I find homoerotic imagery mildly irritating; it’s a message that wants a reaction from me that I don’t have in stock, and thus constitutes noise. I don’t want it stopped, though. That’s called ‘getting along with the neighbors’. It could all be turned down a bit without displeasing me at all.

        But they aren’t going to stuff the porn djinni back in the bottle, nohow. Cameras and platforms for distribution are too cheap.

        *shrug*

      2. “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” H.L. Mencken

        Like other Puritan sects, the modern SJW/Feminist/Marxist axis of shared victimhood is motivated by the gnawing thought that other people are out there doing what the true believers do not want them to be doing, and they must be stopped!

        Caring that much about controlling what other people are doing is the path that leads to mass graves.

        1. It’s surprising how often feminist rhetoric will be more-or-less all about how women have to be protected from the harsh realities of life, or how their brains are different and unsuited to reason and objectivity. (But better… the difference is that it’s *better* to have a brain unsuited to reason and objectivity.) Women are about nurturing and the Feels and can’t be expected to compete on merit.

          I don’t believe it. Aside from the horrors that hormones do to our brains, they work perfectly well. At least before they’re rotted from the inside out.

          1. “protected from the harsh realities of life, or how their brains are different and unsuited to reason and objectivity. ” <– I call BS, or more politically correct, "hauls out large shovel to get remove of the waste product from bulls."

            "I don’t believe it." <– 100% agree.

            "Aside from the horrors that hormones do to our brains"

            ^^ Disagree with this half. Agree with "they work perfectly well." Personally never noticed hormones affecting my brain.

            Physically, heck yes. Mentally. Nope. Physically sometimes I wished just once the guys I worked with got to experience(*) the pain & other physical side effects … you know, the one that occurs when you have to prep for certain scoping medical procedures.

            (*) Would have to be more than once, or twice. Once you can "deal". It is the "oh, … again?", effect you want to hammer home. That for most of us, that is 945 "Again?".

            Oh, well, one can dream.

            If you can't tell. I have no, none, sympathy, empathy, for most snowflakes that use this as an excuse.

            1. I’m not sure that physical can be separated from mental. I recommend that anyone *not* try to learn a new job post-partem. Not everyone is the same, of course. For me, anything I already knew how to do was unimpaired. Any new knowledge was like being up against a featureless wall. I’m sure that sleep deprivation was an issue there as well, but hormones too.

      1. Clear-set rules, more or less known and constant across society help people not to misunderstand intentions and signals. I don’t think it even matters all that much what the rules *are* so long as everyone has the same rule book.

  9. Causing people to doubt elections, destroying the judicial system and undermining the entire system is the goal of the left and the Democratic Party. The Constitution, the Rule of Law, and basic decency are all obstacles to their pursuit of absolute, totalitarian power.

    Much like with Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which the American left is using as a template, all of the insanity that has percolated on college campuses is being pushed into society at large. This includes the silencing of dissent, the kangaroo courts, and the excommunication of all who do not engage in “goodthink.” Facts are considered irrelevant and are to be disregarded when contrary to the narrative, and people are to be judged solely on the group to which they belong and their conformity to leftist orthodoxy. In their view of the “perfect society” people are either saints or sinners based on which group they belong to, and those who are members of disfavored groups don’t deserve to have any rights and are to be purged from society, first figuratively and then ultimately literally. There is a very good reason why the more socialist a country is, the more likely there will be mass graves. For instance the left seeks to basically undo the industrial revolution in the name of “saving the Earth” and insist that only global redistribution of wealth, rather than creation of new wealth, can “stop the catastrophe”. The last person to go this route of eliminating the “corruption of industry” from society was Pol Pot.

    When Maxine Waters screams that “they are not welcome anymore, anywhere” she is simply stating what the Nazi’s said about Jews and what every other genocidal leftist and religious zealot (such as the Iranian Mullahs) has said about any group they dislike. Every step that the Democrats are using in their quest for power is derived from what the Nazis, Bolsheviks and Mao’s Red Guard used to take and seize power (including their own brownshirt SA in Antifa and BLM).

    This of course is the root of Obama’s “we are five days away from the fundamental transformation of America”. He wasn’t taking up fixing the problems that exist, he was talking about wrecking and destroying the entire framework and replacing it.

    The reason the Democrats are using t Earth tactics is because institutionally, as a Party, they have gone all in on this kind of Marxist “fundamental transformation”, the only thing that they disagree with at this point is pace and tactics to be used.

    1. I quite seriously do not think that this is the GOAL. With all my heart and soul I believe that people doing this, such as Feinstein (I used to think that she was a decent person, if not to my political taste, at least *good* in some sense) are certain that when the dust settles on their victory that the country, the constitution and it’s protections, and society will remain. Probably even nicely “liberal” like they wanted back when they were anti-establishment in the 60’s. Or full of equality and love and rainbows like their elderly hippy professors told them it would be.

      I’ve seen too many earnest arguments about “false equivalencies” to imagine for even a moment that the average person thinks that destroying constitutional protections for the person they hate is going to destroy the constitutional protections for everyone, because you simply can’t compare the person they hate to the person they favor. They aren’t *equivalent*.

      “This can also be turned on you,” is like speaking a strange alien language of beeps and squeaks, that’s tonal on top of it.

      1. Seeing the open contempt for the constitution’s limitations on government power (Obama voiced his regret about its limitations many times, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself has recommended as a template the South African constitution rather than the US one as what should be followed by nations enacting new constitutions) I do think that there are many in the Democratic Party who are fine with ditching the Constitution. Some may be willing to keep it formally in place, like the Roman Senate in the days of the Caeser’s, but their “interpretation” of it is that whatever they need to read into it to achieve their goals is necessarily constitutional. Many of the younger leftists, unlike Feinstein, aren’t even willing to do that (note the Bernie/Occasio crowd, Antifa and BLM all marching to the chant of “our revolution won’t recognize the Constitution”.

        1. I don’t dispute what they’ve said and done, I simply think that they are convinced, somehow, that they can eat their cake and have it, too.

          They can’t.

        2. As someone said recently, the Constitution is the only thing that keeps them from getting thrown out of helicopters. I’m pretty sure they’d miss it if it were gone, even if it is an outdated document written by Dead White Patriarchal Males.

          (I think it was Michael Z. Williamson. Apologies if it was someone else.)

          2. They’re certain they’d be the ones in power. So far, they are the only ones exhibiting a will to it so it’s not a bad assumption.

      2. Lots of people buy into the ‘it can never happen here’ hype. They figure that all that will happen is that people making more money than them will have to pay more, that more of the nice immigrant couple down the street are crossing the border and the bill will never come due.

        In addition the media still has hold of enough people that its selective outrage still drives results.

        Meanwhile those driving the push are either expecting to not live to the collapse, want it, or figure they will ride it to power.

        2. My observations of history come to two statements: “If it happened before it can happen again” and “Anything that happened elsewhere can happen here”.

  10. The word “scandal” is Greek skandalon, a stumbling block (which seems to be a rock or brick left where someone could trip over it) or more generally a trap or snare. It might be related to the Roman idea that if you are going on a journey, and you trip or stumble at the threshold, it’s a bad omen and you should stay home that day. The Greeks seem already to have used the expression metaphorically, for something that leads people into moral failure.

    Really it seems as if the underlying offense is for a Republican, conservative, or constitutionalist to seek office, and anyone who commits that can have “evidence” manufactured against them. It’s disturbingly like Stalinist show trials.

    1. That explains a lot. I was wondering where that quote came from. In the Protestant Bibles I grew up reading, that verse says something like “whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble.”

      1. Well, there is also “Jerusalem is a stumbling block.” So it is an OT concept also.

        The interesting thing is that in moral theology, it encompasses doing things that are not wrong in themselves, but which predictably trip up others into sin, as well as clear sins that drag others along.

        1. A lady at church has never forgiven herself for ordering a drink at a social gathering because the men were getting beers and such. The only other woman there also ordered a drink to go along. She was a recovering alcoholic. Took her bottoming out again to return to recovery. The lady at church still wants a take-back on that evening.

      2. The KJV is along the lines of “whomever offends one of these little ones.” I’ve typically taken that to mean that The Lord takes a *very* dim view of child molesters.

          1. Because of the Isaiah translation, where the skandalon phrase can be taken as “stone of stumbling” or “stone of attack/offense”, a lot of translations do all the “skandalizo” in Greek as “offend” or “take offense.”

            So it’s a bit more violent than it sounds to us. (To the point that some people think Jesus is joking, because He’s using hyperbole. Um, maybe He’s using hyperbole because He’s really really serious….)

            Anyway, the general impression is, “You are tripping up kids and poor people (“little ones” can be “anawim” too) and sending them plunging to their deaths, and you think it’s fun? Fine. I will stick a freaking huge stone around your neck and dump your butt in the ocean.”

            (Btw, an angel dumps a millstone into the sea in Revelation 18:21, as a warning that Babylon will be destroyed so hard that it will never be seen again. So there’s another bit of nuance.)

            1. Actually, though, Jesus says that the millstone thing would be better for them than what is going to be done to them.

              So yeah, it’s not going to be happy fun times in the afterlife for the unrepentant abusers and molesters.

        2. I have never once considered that passage in the context of molestation. I’d always figured it in the context of teaching. Causing a young person to lose their faith. I suppose that molestation would do that, too, of course.

    2. An unmetaphorical definition is “anything which can lead someone into sin.”

      People can take scandal at things themselves innocent or even good, but scandal can be given by things evil (or at least appearing so).

      1. Yup, yup, you’re explaining it better than I did.

        People were also “scandalized” by Jesus’ good behavior in the OT, and by His claims of authority. Obviously this would not be regarded by the Gospel writers as His fault; people were boggling and running into trouble by it, but it was because they had the wrong attitude.

  11. Politicians of both parties are scum. You have to be a poor excuse for a human being to even be invited to their parties. Why the public can’t see that from their actions is very hard to believe. But then we have voters who don’t know how to get a postage stamp to send their absentee ballot in deciding the chief executive and the people who make the laws.
    The really pathetic stupid illusion is if you just change the group of scum in power things will be all better. They periodically give the other party a turn at looting the peasants and never seem to twig to the fact nothing changed. There is a long slimy trail of politically active people leading back to each state and a willing force in every city and county. If by some miracle a flaming meteor took out the capital during the President speaking to both houses of Congress and the Court it would make zero difference. This is like snipping the tail off a salamander. It will grow a new one from the body politic in a few days. If voting made any difference they would end it, and that is not funny.

    1. Politicians generally are scum. Public, private or military. That’s why the idea of Big Government is fundamentally insane. You’re handing over control of your life to the people least likely to manage properly.

    2. Such a recall will never succeed unless it is to replace them with someone further to the left, as the people in charge in Cali can simply manufacture enough votes from illegal aliens to tip any election. It is quite possible the House will change hands due to illegal alien votes in California districts, as California pushes to let illegals vote in state and local elections (San Francisco is doing this already). Once in the both, they are going to vote for the school board candidate and councilman but not vote for the House seat? Really?.

      1. If we keep the House and Senate, the instant response by McConnell and Ryan should be to refuse to seat any representative or Senator from a state that allows non-citizen voting. Incidentally, SCOTUS would have NO say.

          1. And McConnell and Ryan would gently point out that Article I says they are the sole deciders, so get fucked.

    3. Then again, aristocrats, autocrats, bureaucrats, commissars, czars, chiefs, oligarchs- whatever you want to call your unelected leaders of the people- are even worse scum. Except you’re pretty much stuck with them for life.
      At least our scum is technically chosen by and accountable to the people at large. Better a choice between a giant douche or a turd sandwich then to get the jumbo sized Steely Dan* whether you like it or not.

      *and not the one with Fagen and Becker

  12. Time for Californians to call for the impeachment(*) of Feinstein, Pelosi, & M. Walters. Wish it helped for non Californians to help, but it won’t.

    (*) yes fully aware it is not called impeachment to recall someone from their Senate & Congress seats, just turn about is fair play.

    Best I can do is call for the demo(rats) that have had seats in my state (forever) to call for censorship of the offending fellow demo(rats); I can dream.

    What is happening to Kavanaugh is so kind of wrong. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

    Heck. I’m willing to burn Ms. Ford at the metaphorical stake. AND my maiden name is Lovelace (with a late 70’s career in Forestry) … Not that the jokes/comments, supposedly at my expense, didn’t fly over my head given as naive as I was, but still.

    1. Such a recall will never succeed unless it is to replace them with someone further to the left, as the people in charge in Cali can simply manufacture enough votes from illegal aliens to tip any election. It is quite possible the House will change hands due to illegal alien votes in California districts, as California pushes to let illegals vote in state and local elections (San Francisco is doing this already). Once in the both, they are going to vote for the school board candidate and councilman but not vote for the House seat? Really?.

      2. When did Cali come into common usage. I was born in California and lived there my first 50 years. SoCal to be exact. The University is Cal. Is Cali as result of the reconquista? Are the illegal colonizers renaming the state? Every time I hear Cali, it reminds me that my home state has changed beyond recognition.

        1. My dad was using it before most of the “Hispanics” in our valley– up in Modoc– were from anywhere but Spain or Basque country. When he was a kid.

          The Spanish-ancestry folks were…definitely not down for Mexico having anything to do with the US. They MIGHT have been able to be persuaded to consider Spain, but only if they butted out. I can’t imagine the Basque putting up with anybody being too nosey.

          So probably not.

          1. Hmmm, All language has regional differences I guess. Never heard Cali once in 50 years living in LA, Orange ans San Bernardino counties.

            1. the first time I heard California referred to as ‘Cali’ was in the 1987 LL Cool J song “Going back to Cali”. So, its not a recent development at all

  13. I don’t think we’ll get as bad as Islamic countries*, but we are headed for some pain– basing it off of the Idiot Index.

    Ten fifteen years back, it became pretty common to see idiots justifying treating men like crud because A man had offended her, so they were all terrible.

    Now the idiots justifying actual targeting of innocent women because that’ll show ’em are getting louder. It’s especially annoying, because either wronging people because of their sex is wrong, in which case the justification for not caring if the target actually DID anything goes away, or there’s nothing wrong with it, in which case they’re not responding to a wrong and poof away goes THAT justification.

    The number of either that I know in person are pretty dang low– I’m not counting that cousin or five who’s been Totally Sure the other sex are all evil and to be blamed because of how they Were Done Wrong in love.

    Although that cousin is probably the right place to look, other than plain old Mean Girl/Bully behavior searching for an excuse.

    *Mostly because it’s not so that any woman can destroy any man; a woman has a bonus to her side, which tilts the scales, especially if they can get a mob behind them. They’ve misjudged the target several times– heck, Stan Lee should’ve been a shoe-in, but it failed, and there are of course the hordes of Dem officials who amazingly aren’t having anything stick.

    1. Most people can understand “you were hurt and hate men/women so I’ll disregard your venting and even be a bit sympathetic, but by no means agree with you”. It doesn’t make it okay to say awful things but when someone has had a very bad personal experience most people can understand the source and at least point out that it’s unfair to paint with that broad brush.

      The problem is that we’re supposed to accept the premises of the angry-feminist groups without attempting to sort out real issues from anger-venting, but when it comes to MRA we’re supposed to condemn them all instead of sorting out real issues from the anger-venting. Worse is the social acceptability (in some circles) of counter-shaming and ridiculing those that were hurt when it’s men.

      And it’s very *very* different when someone who actually was personally hurt will vent in angry and hateful ways and when, as seems common on the angry-feminist side, they *borrow* someone else’s hurt and use it to excuse their own behavior.

      Double standards are destructive. I don’t get why normal people can’t understand that.

      1. Yep.

        What scares me is that you can SEE the feminist activist tactics being taken up by men. Well, males.
        If you’ve ever used the careful designation of “female” instead of woman, lady, or girl, you know what I mean there.

        1. And they’d be stupid not to!

          It’s horrible all around, but people aren’t DUMB. We could combat double standards that could be identified, saying that everyone should be treated the same, but when it’s not possible to push the same old rules for everyone it’s completely stupid for people not to adopt the new rules, no matter how destructive they are. It would be like demanding to be the victim and then grovel and say how thankful you are to be stomped on.

          Which is near enough to the outright demands of what people ought to do that it’s not even funny.

          1. And I’m right back where I ended up farther upstream… there’s no comparing the “good people” to the “bad people” so the unequal treatment, if successful in “winning” will not have removed the protections of custom and society from the “good people” even if it’s been stripped from the “bad people” which it OUGHT to be, because they are BAD.

            1. Alice More: “Arrest him!”
              Sir Thomas More: “For what?”
              Alice More: “He’s dangerous!”
              Margaret More: “Father, that man’s bad!”
              Sir Thomas More: “There’s no law against that.”
              William Roper: “There is: God’s law!”
              Sir Thomas More: “Then God can arrest him.”
              Alice More: “While you talk, he’s gone.”
              Sir Thomas More: “And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!”
              William Roper: “So, now you’d give the Devil the benefit of law!”
              Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
              William Roper: “Yes! I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
              Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”

          2. Really, the psycho-feminists are winning so much that…they are mocked everywhere but when they’re useful to the left for the two-minute hate?

            When even people whose lives depend on being thought of well by most of the public will say “I am not a feminist”?

            THAT is when you start taking on evil tactics?

            The psycho-feminists are not using “new rules.” They’re using destructive tactics against vulnerable targets. They just justify it by talking about “new rules,” same as any other predator takes on any advantage.

            1. Depends what you define as winning. I still say the driving factor in much of the identitarian stuff is revenge bullying. No different than a toddler breaking a toy instead of sharing.

              1. *nod* Exactly. Like when my son sits out back and CRIES VERY LOUDLY because he’s been told 1) go outside, 2) no Kerbal right now, 3) you can’t have a cookie.

                If you don’t object to it, you know what you get? More of it. And yes, it’s a royal pain to try to fight it when someone else is the one giving in just to shut them up. That is life, those saying othewise are salesmen, etc.

            2. Yeah, but when you’re genuinely the damaged party those psycho-feminists seem like everyone.

              And I would quibble because while people *on the right* will say they’re not a feminist because of the crazy, I really don’t see any push back on the left at all or else what is this #yesallmen thing? Or the demand that every woman deserves to be uncriticially believed no matter what? Or that a few falsely accused men doesn’t change anything. And if you complain it’s “male fragility” har har har.

              Those aren’t things put forward by crazy fringe fanatics. The only push-back seems to be a raging fight between pro-transgender activists and lesbians who don’t like penises. (Because lesbians don’t like penises even when they are social constructs.) But what are “mainstream” or normal folks on the left doing to defend male victims of any sort? The NYT hired some girl who liked tweeting about how much she liked being cruel to white men.

              Maybe some of the sane and reasonable left should start doing compulsory Denunciation Dances. (Per the New Rules.)

              1. Several Hollywood girls got attacked for it– and not just that Tailor (taylor?) girl that use to sing country, main-stream folks. Sorry, names aren’t my thing.

                I’ve noticed a lot of the people saying the most outrageous stuff are feeling threatened in their careers before they hopped on– that is how band wagons work, isn’t it?

                They back down because their social group is…well…. *points at Weinstein*
                Not to mention that we know it’s overwhelmingly left wing, and they WILL blow you up if you object to others speaking for you.
                So the “Yes all men” get to make their strawmen, set them on fire, and then screech about the ashes attacking them.

                It’s guys with bullhorns. If it was actually all that accepted, they wouldn’t need a bullhorn.

                And if you complain it’s “male fragility” har har har.

                Works about as well as the idiots coming in here and saying we’re in an “echo chamber,” doesn’t it?
                They can do it when they can actually shut up the other side– but if they can’t, they just look like idiots.

                Take on the same tactics as the psychos, though– do things that are actually wrong, but try to say it’s OK because you didn’t do it FIRST, even if you did it to someone who never did it to anybody– and suddenly it stops looking so stupid. They really ARE both the same, just the left is stronger.

                Some of my crazy-left relatives are starting to come around. Every time they get out of line, some of their psycho “friends” start pulling out stuff…most of which I can counter, except for when it actually *IS* one of the idiots doing exactly the same as the crazy feminists.
                So far, I can counter the claim it’s all the same by giving examples of folks on the right–often big ones– denouncing the behavior, then asking where the same denunciation is on their side.
                So far.
                Needless to say, the urging to embrace the same tactics would not work well with that…..

                1. You might be blessed with folks who still think that the same rules should apply to everyone and that it’s not different when different people do the exact same things.

                  No, I don’t think that people should go ahead and do stuff that’s actively wrong, such as lying about people and calling themselves good for it.

                  But I don’t expect people to keep on following double standards just because someone insists that there are reasons that the exact same behavior is totally different or doesn’t count because of the identity of the person who did it. It WILL equalize one way or another.

                  1. But doing the evil things, and preening about it, is exactly what the idiots promote.

                    They don’t want to stop abuse, they want to be the ones who get to do the abusing.

                    That’s quite different from picking the correct tactics to promote the most just outcome in normal life– same way that manners suited to a formal but friendly high tea aren’t going to be fitting if there’s someone who is gaming the system. For a traditional example, I’d be insanely rude if I went mono-syllable and refused to talk an instant longer than it took to find an excuse, preferably an obvious one, to leave; but if someone is being a bore, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do, in classic manners.

              1. Good Lord child. WHO tells you whites are on their way to minority status? The left. Why? Because they encouraged people with one drop to declare themselves “other.” The benefit is THERE. For now.
                But white is still the VAST majority.

                1. Most recent was am spectator this am. Targeted more politically I guess,but between deaths and migration you see the locusts spreading. Whites are not allowed to even consider banding together or voting for their interests. And seeing as I no longer speak to most of my family because went hard off rails there are plenty that identify their sex or other first.
                  Never mind the glee that I have seen expressed for the levels of deaths by despair for white males.

                  1. Get out of the progressive Twitter and other effluvium. This is not where normal people dwell.
                    This too shall pass. Like a kidney stone passes, maybe, but it’s nothing real or fatal.

              2. Define “white.”

                Because we’ve gone from my great-grandparents’ time where the lady who was either half or full blooded Indian was “white” because of how she acted, her son was “English” (which was bad) because of his name when he moved into a valley full of Basques, Scots and Indians, his son was “Scottish” (because his mom’s family was big– one of those “that’s so and so’s grandson” things) and when I was in high school, I was not white. They did finally tighten it down to those with tribal registration….but the other side of the family features red-headed Scottish registered Indians.

                And that’s before the back and forth on if Irish and Italian counts as white or not– my kids are definitely not going to be confused for a pasty Scot, but they’re also identified as “white” by the Mexicans at least. (Again, not a good thing. :D)

                As best I can tell, “white” means “I haven’t assigned them a victim group in what I’m talking about right now.” So “Latinos” are white when the subject is African-Americans, but they’re minorities when they’re trying to boost numbers.

                1. It’ll basically be ‘not a member of victim class’ or designated scapegoat. For now will be mostly actions that differentiate a bad ‘white’ from an ally. Mostly political. But you start getting enclaves and discrimination once populace cowed and that will be much more origin and culture based. Already are nogo areas although those are not new.

                2. “As best I can tell, “white” means “I haven’t assigned them a victim group in what I’m talking about right now.” ”

                  Or “they would be a minority if they were conforming to my stereotypes for minority behavior.” See George Zimmerman, “white Hispanic”. Or Sarah Hoyt, “white Mormon male”.

  14. A scandal is — as I see it, and I want to point out I’m no theological expert — an action or statement that so fundamentally breaks the rules on which the society/church/science/interest is based on that it unravels the thing upon which it stands.
    Which is the explicit aim of the deconstructionism being taught in our universities. Many of the students don’t really believe that’s the actual goal – they take it as a tool (a dubious one IMO) in analyzing literature & music, but aid it anyway by buying into the race to the bottom of intersectionality – as in, “I’m the most oppressed so my opinion trumps the so-called facts of my oppressors”.
    Yes, we are indeed surrounded by scandal. But forewarned is forearmed. We need to vote. We need to prepare those of the next generation with whom we have influence to work against/over/under/around those who would destroy the most successful social system ever devised.
    Want to destroy an existing system & replace it with something better? Go to a place where things don’t currently work e.g. Cuba, Venezuela, Libya…

  15. my two fears on this (were):

    1) he did it
    2) he turned her down in high school, or something

    but now … his mom sat on a foreclosure she was involved in? verryyy suspect and a verrryy convenient ‘revenge’

    2. 3. Never noticed her.
      4. Dated her worst enemy.
      5. She is a patsy.
      6. She’s loony … There is a condition called “Social Dementia …”

        1. In that case, in high school I must have been turned down by a lot more girls than I ever asked out.

      1. or her turned her down at a party, and she ended up having her unfortunate event happen with the first guy she latched onto… or something

        1. And was drunk and really thinks it was him because he’s who she remembers from that party.

          I *know* how unreliable my memory is from 30 years ago. I don’t remember the names of most of my classmates and there were only about 40 of them and they were the same kids from K-graduation. At this point I’m like… Craig who? And whatshername… um… her, yeah, that one.

          One guy who scared me and I ran away… can remember the place, not the date, real good on exact details of the back door and cement step. I remember sort-of what he looked like, but I couldn’t tell you his name if I had to. Some older student I had a crush on (that was over pronto) and he didn’t do anything a sane person wouldn’t have thought I wanted.

          And. I. Wasn’t. Drunk.

            1. Now I’m beginning to wonder if my memory is different. My HS class was 400. Off the top of my head, I could give at least 40 names. I just checked- 15 of my 115 facebook friends are from HS. One of whom friend requested me and I have no idea who he is, but who talked about things we did together I remember doing when he made the friend request… 2 friends from JHS, one from grade school, all different towns. Earliest classmates I can remember names of are 4th grade; another town and state. And I joined facebook 36 years after graduation in 2009.

              1. Sounds like you had interaction with them after high school, though.

                I didn’t get into the “I can name XYZ” thing because I had trouble when I was *IN* school.

                Nobody introduced themselves, and I’m bad with names anyways.

                1. I enlisted in September following graduation. 21 years in the Navy. Between graduation and the advent of the internet stayed in touch with a whopping 4 HS friends. I graduated HS in what’s often referred to as a bedroom community. The breadwinner sleeps there, works in NYC. In the 3 years I went to HS there, at least 50 new kids entered as 50 others left. None of my facebook HS friends live there.

                  Big difference between there and where I live now. My youngest son’s class of 2017 had about 100 kids; he started kindergarten with 95 of them. There are pics with names of all the graduating classes on the walls. The same surnames repeat over and over again. There’ll be 4 classes with my surname over 18 years, and unless by random chance in the future, it will never appear again.

                  1. Grandma talked about that in her book. Until she went to “normal school” (now known as post HS, college) all her classmates were her siblings & cousins, however close to distant, regardless of surname. She joked that her mom & her sister had to marry immigrants, from outside of Oregon, because they were related to everyone in their neck of the woods. She didn’t go that far afield to find grandpa … he was raised a couple of valleys south. Moms family immigrated in from … Montana. I joke I’m related to half the state of Oregon. Hubby “immigrated” from San Diego.

                    1. Yeah. Where I live now almost everyone is related by blood or marriage within 3 jumps. There’s a few complete outsider families like mine,but not many. That’s among the “English”. All the Mennonites are related to all the other Mennonites, same with the Amish, and there’s likely intermixing betwixt the two.

                      Although I did have a 2nd cousin graduate from my HS the year before I did. Never met her. Found her existence just a few years ago. My mother lived in the next town over from her first cousin and didn’t know it. Our family isn’t tight knit.

                    2. Normal school was school for teachers. My great-aunt went to New Haven Normal School — now known as Southern Connecticut State University.

                      (She was of the opinion that it was better when it was a normal school.)

                2. “I didn’t get into the “I can name XYZ” thing because I had trouble when I was *IN* school.”

                  Yes. Pretty much. Heck I’ll go one better.
                  3-
                  A girl I graduated with & I ended up roommates in quads our Sophomore year at college. We didn’t know each other in HS. “Who’d guess?” And all that. Introduced to folks on a bring something from home. She quit college after sophomore year, no contact. Fast forward another 10 years. Mom & dad go to the annual Applegate reunion in Drain/Yoncolla area. Classmate/quad-made is a cousin. A very distant one, but still a cousin (her 3-great-grandfather is the brother of my 3-great-grandfather).

              2. Jeeze – my graduating class was 600 strong. I only recall the names of about thirty of them, and I would have to go into the annual to refresh my memory.

                1. There were ten remaining in my class by graduation.  As editor of the school year book that year each and every one of the faces remain in my mind.  On the other hand it has been decades since I have had any contact with any of them and for the most part I do not regret this.

              3. My class was over 500. I remember maybe 6 by name. Those because I met them in the second grade & were classmates(*) through at least sophomore in HS. Some others I can recognize their names, provided their names are listed in connection with graduating year & correct HS. But that doesn’t extend the list by that much. I’ve been out of HS for almost 45 years. I’m very horrible with names.

                (*) A few of those were best friends who, by reasons out of both of our controls, we dropped off of each others radar, both in & just after HS.

              4. I can kindasorta vaguely remember two or three faces, and no names at all.

                I finally got OUT; why hang on to bad memories? Other than a few things from ROTC, the entire twelve years could be erased without affecting my life in any way.

                1. Yeah. I moved away. If I’d stayed around I’d probably remember more of my classmates but I really hated school even if I didn’t hate *them*, so why would I hang on to memories like that?

    4. Worse, on a kind of tragic Rashomon scenario:

      Something did happen to her of the nature that she describes, she went to a gathering where drinking occurred and two boys attempted to attack her.  (She has admitted to being under the influence and uncertain as to all the people at the ‘party.’)   Although he was not there, at some time since the incident her mind fixed on Kavanaugh as one of the participants in her attack.  Now, though he is innocent in fact, as far as her memory is concerned he is guilty.  

      Note: I believe it has now been determined that the family was underwater on their loan, but was able to refinance before foreclosure.  Judge Martha Kavanaugh dismissed the case with prejudice, the bank could not bring action in the matter again.

      That illustrates another problem with being in the mire of history as it happens, the rumors are flying and the facts available are often incomplete.

  17. Since when does the FBI handle cases of drunken high-school age groping?

    Is anyone else curious about this sudden demand that the FBI be the ones to investigate? The same FBI that was, not that long ago, caught with it’s hands in the “election bias” cookie jar? Biased against the very President who nominated this SCOTUS pick?

    Sorry, I’m not buying it.

    1. She could have said that the local police department where they grew up should do it and the result would be the same. Not a crime, so they won’t do it, and had she alleged an actual crime the statute of limitations is past. And if the statute of limitations was not past, there’d still be no evidence and nothing to investigate.

      It’s just a move to sway public opinion “See, I’m willing to be investigated, I have nothing to hide,” in a way that risks absolutely nothing, but rhetorically works to create a contrast to suggest or imply that the other guy has something to hide.

      Because it’s all a delaying tactic, or the offer would have been made in July.

      1. Exactly. If there was actually something to investigate there would be a point. The extent this could be is via interview. But it’ll be sold as a ‘something to hide’ and reason to get those rapeublicans.

        Meanwhile a candidate drives drunk, causes accident, and tries to leave scene per police report and nary a sound.

        1. And of course the Democrats and their media propaganda arm either bury or defend Keith Ellison, Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee and candidate for AG in Minnesota from his multiple domestic violence/abuse claims. Of course given that Ellison openly praises and supports people who murder cops such as Joanne Chesimard, and is virulently anti-Semitic, he is unfit for any government position much less chief law enforcement office of a State, regardless of the validity of the domestic violence claims. That being said, because Ellison holds the “correct” views according to the Democrats (and isn’t that a frightening thought that his views are “correct” to them), they support his continued quest for office and continue to have him in a major leadership role in their party. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about how disgusting the Democrats are institutionally as a party, I don’t know what will.

      2. Does anyone know if it rises to felony assault, given she said she was in fear for her life?

        Supposedly, statue of limitations does NOT apply to that…but I’d guess she really, really doesn’t want an investigation anyways.

        1. Foxfier, the statute of limitations in Maryland is tricky. They recently extended it, and the Maryland Supreme Court said that if you still had a valid claim when it went into effect, it would retroactively apply to you. Some people are claiming that means Kavanaugh could still be prosecuted. I will note that no one has tested whether this violates the “ex post facto” prohibition in the US Constitution.

          https://www.marylandaccidentattorneyblog.com/maryland-lengthens-statute-limitations-victims-childhood-sexual-abuse/

        2. PS: I suspect that whole “childhood” aspect is why his accuser’s story on how old she was dropped by a couple of years.

    2. The FBI is brought up because

      1.) Everyone knows that the FBI investigates a nominee before they’re presented to the Senate (basic due diligence background check). The fact that the investigation is to make sure that there aren’t any embarrassing landmines, and not to prosecute for crimes, is irrelevant.
      2.) When the FBI doesn’t investigate (and they’ve stated that they won’t), then the Left can blame the lack of an investigation on Trump, claiming that he reigned in the FBI instead of allowing it to investigate.

      In short, it’s pure theater.

      1. Yeah. Any they’re responsible for security clearances, and counterespionage inside the USA, and a bunch of other things. Which is downright scary when you consider they’re openly partisan and have a competence level of “couldn’t find a painted turtle in a pet store” as one author put it…

        2. Yeah, it’s amazing how Huma “Muslim Brotherhood” Abedin could get a clearance but not Trump appointees……

  18. No offense Sarah but I “can’t like” this article because I’m sick and tired of the shit you’re talking about.

    For that matter, I think I’ll be ignoring the comments as it pisses me off so much. 😦

  19. I’ve been extremely crabby lately and it’s about this sort of stuff. About the double standards. About the PREENING about how good and wonderful people are as they yet again explain why their standards aren’t double. The go-to habit of the ism-list and anyone I don’t like is on it. The fact that there is NO even NOD toward caring about the truth of ANY accusation.

    And I know without a doubt that the usual suspects are sh*tting their pants because Sarah said that women lie. But is it a lie if no one cares about telling the truth? Because who cares about lying if no one actually thinks it’s bad to just make sh*t up?

    And maybe it’s Kavanaugh on the national stage but it’s you and it’s me and it’s the next guy, it’s every day and NORMAL to accuse people of awful things just because you don’t LIKE THEM. You’ll get called everything on that ism-list and the person doing it will believe that it’s true because they don’t LIKE YOU. And you can’t have a conversation with another person who doesn’t have a grounding in the same plane of reality as you do, who’s fantasy life you’re supposed to take seriously and answer to when they just throw slanderous sh*t out there.

    No, people who think that intersectionalism is complete bull shit are NOT racists. They just think your religion is bull shit. Deal with it.

    People who think that English words such as “fascism” and “authoritarian” mean actually wanting to control your life through government and “civilian” foot soldiers and violent mobs (antifa – cough) are not farking *fascist* or *authoritarian* because they want to leave you the hell alone!

    And no, kink-fantasies about being a “handmaiden” are not any closer to deep political thought than Cindy Sheehan in a giant vagina costume. And if a single one of you can figure out if you’re going to be anti-prude or victorians-just-didn’t-try-hard-enough on any given day, please for gods sake let us know.

    1. You have no ground to stand on because it keeps shifting. You’re expected to be psychic and perfect.

      And anything said that doesn’t come from their preferred mouthpiece that should serve to break the fantasy is thrown out and used as a reason to ignore you. See the hurricane stuff.

      1. I have been *particularly* cranky about the way a relative of mine makes a show of engaging while actually just sifting through to find a reason to invalidate your opinion… not even argue against your opinion, but to cancel it out so she doesn’t have to admit that people have reasons for their opinions or disagreement. Things like, “Oh.. (implied eye roll)… Reason magazine…”

        1. Ya. Even if the data is from usg or some school it’s tainted. As long as it doesn’t fit their truth.

          Hell, outside Twitter and returning fire to attacks, Trump has been a remarkably doctrinaire Republican. His positions were bipartisan 10 years ago. But today he is sooperhitler.

          No. Today we ate sooperhitlers

          1. Hell, Trump is arguably to the left of every GOP candidate since Bush I and probably since Nixon.

            While running for the WH he is to the left of Obama on gay rights as he is the first person elected president who openly supported gay marriage while running for President.

            1. Heh. Read some of JFK’s stuff. Even allowing for Cold War posturing, by modern standards he would be Literally Hitler. (that position must be awfully crowded nowadays)

              That’s how far both parties have banked left and kicked in the afterburners…

        2. Oh, *shudder*, those twits….

          Did she get the same “twist things around so you really agree with me, even though I just defined the term, it’s standard use, and you are saying the exact opposite”?

          Mine’s male, but same thing.

        4. My leftwing brother brings up the Koch Brothers. I love him but we can’t talk politics or it ends in shouting and tears.

          1. The Koch Brothers are fascists you know. And anything they’re associated with is totally bad because only socialism can give us public television and no one who is a capitalists funds new hospital wings. Up is down, forwards is sideways, you won’t let me micro manage the world you monster…

            1. The next time someone brings them up, point out that the Koch Brothers donate money to the ACLU. And that they support Open Borders.

        2. Even if you’re not being personally oppressed, you can still get all the feelz from feeling oppressed on someone else’s behalf.

          1. I think that the appropriation of someone else’s victimhood pisses me off more than just about anything else. And it’s so pervasive that it’s nearly transparent. it must be nice to be a victim of rape-culture without ever having been raped, after all. You get all the moral outrage and none of the actual pain. You might be an upper middle class graduate of an Ivy league school with family money to allow you to follow your passions, but by golly there are women (or minorities or whatever) somewhere who have it hard and that means life is unfair to you, too. You get to be “marginalized” without ever in your life being in spitting distance of a margin.

            It’s amazing.

    3. And no, kink-fantasies about being a “handmaiden” are not any closer to deep political thought than Cindy Sheehan in a giant vagina costume.

      That touches on a question I’ve been asking myself: why do feminists all cosplay handmaidens, claiming that is their fate if we get Trump/Kavanaugh/Romney/the next GOP person in the news.

      Seriously, on what grounds do they claim that. One ground is they haven’t read the book. Let’s assume they have.

      Handmaids are women who are proven fertile (ie, have children), who have broken the law in some form (admittedly under the very expansive laws of Gideon), and who are compliant enough to accept it. That last is important because Offred even remarks upon her intercourse with Fred that it wasn’t even rape because she knew what she’d signed up for.

      So, breaking the law is easy (most probably have committed adultery or a lesbian act), but how many are proven fertile?

      As for the compliant enough, perhaps they are admitting they are, but given age the compliant ones are most likely to green clad Marthas, the domestic servant caste of women. They certainly wouldn’t be blue clad Wives and are too old (and have the wrong fathers) to be white clad Daughters.

      Of the acceptable women their real hopes would be the tricolor garbed EconoWives of the lower status men.

      The reality is most would be Unwomen, sentenced to the colonies, or if attractive and willing to have sex Jezebels at the unofficial but state sanctioned brothels for high status men.

      Yet they cosplay the second least likely adult role in the book they would take if it were real.

      Why?

      Most likely, because they are clueless but I do wonder if the same secret desires to be dominated that drove sales of Fifty Shades of Grey, the observations of Thales while DJing (http://thedeclination.com/radfems-cenobites-and-the-lament-configuration/), and my observation yesterday that people who want to act out Gor are more often than not women is what is going on her.

      Unlike a fetish to be tortured by a Nazi or being a black woman slave to a white man (see them in the fetish scene and I avoid them like the plague) showing your desire to be a submissive woman controlled by a man by “protesting” your “oppression” by men by embracing the role of Handmaiden is acceptable sexual roleplay.

      Is that what it is? I’m not sure, but it works.

      1. The safe assumption is that they’ve only skimmed the book/series at best, and pretend for the sake of groupthink.

        1. I read the book in an afternoon. I have much better things to do with hours and hours of my time than watch the series.

          As far as the “Handmaids” fantasy/protest, I keep circling back to Florence King’s observation that there is nothing more feminine than female trouble. She was talking about periods, but I think the red-dress cosplayers are trying to project the same OMG SPESHUL AND VULNERABLE vibe that King and her classmates were projecting by ostentatiously wilting their way out of classrooms in the 1940s.

      2. Silly. They didn’t actually read the book. It’s the idea that (some) women were there as child bearers only. Doesn’t matter if right

        1. Of course, missing the world building is easy for the same people who can look at the serial failure of Socialism and think they can make it work.

    4. What keeps boggling me is how the ding-a-lings aren’t just posturing, they’re going full-press-release with gibbering that has crossed the line of some of the Sedition Acts. Serious juju, if they weren’t of the (so far) protected class.

      On the other hand, as so many of the higher D Party figures cut loose from reality-as-we-know-it and turn the crazy up to 11, we’re seeing a bunch of indoctrinated Democrats starting to look around and go “eh, wut?” as they realize the Party they’ve been supporting has gone completely batshit.

      They’re not just being obstructionist; as a group, they’re acting like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum in public.

      1. They’re not just being obstructionist; as a group, they’re acting like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum in public.

        Isn’t that pretty much what Sarah’s been predicting since…like…two years before the election?

  20. All true. And the sad thing is the feministas don’t realize that the backlash drives many men into a place where Islam looks like the perfect way to solve their women problems. “Treat me like dirt, take advantage of me, not give me the time of day; well hell, the only way to get a family or sex is to join a religion where women are nothing more than chattel, property, and I can do whatever I wish with them; including having more than one.” Doesn’t end well for any woman, And doesn’t really end well for the guys either.

    1. I’ve seen the reverse of it too; where women go convert to Islam, because ‘community, family ties, companionship’ – and go there because most of the women who choose this are hardcore Leftists, and converting to ‘safer’ religions like Hassidic Judaism, or flavors of Christianity, aren’t ‘hardcore’ enough to be considered acceptable.

        1. It’s sad.

          We have women dressed up like Atwood’s Handmaidens in protest but they see no problems with the Burka. 😦

        2. I’ve heard of at least one instance in the US, via acquaintances from the net (not this group, but from one of the games I used to play). The thing that has me head-tilting a bit was that -supposedly; cannot verify- the person in question was advised to do so (specifically convert to Islam) by their therapist. While I’ve heard of therapists advising that lonely folks find human connections through communities via shared interests – and examples given include a hobby group, religion, social events, and usually given as a general example – I don’t know if it’s considered ethical for a therapist to suggest a specific religion.

          1. It’s so unethical that Dr. Ray, who does “The Doctor is In” for EWTN and Ave Maria radio, actually has each person who goes to THE GUY WHO IS THAT CATHOLIC PSYCHOLOGIST/THERAPIST ON THE RADIO fill out papers on if they want to be treated based on pure psychology or Catholicism as well.

            And 90% of his stuff on the Catholic side is “hey, I’m not a theologian, here’s what I think and why.” With a heavy dose of experience from having ten kids. (Mostly adopted, IIRC.)

  21. I saw it referred to slightly differently in one of the other PJ blogs.
    #MeToo women.
    Pound me too women.

    Doesn’t that sound like repressed sexuality?

  23. It’s sadly ironic. Back when the Democratic party ruled the South with iron hand, white women could and did falsely accuse black men of rape. It may be that the gal was caught in the act, and wanted to “protect her reputation”. In any case, the black man was pretty much doomed. If he wasn’t lynched outright, he’d wind up almost automatically convicted and sentenced to death… unless he managed to convince the jury he was innocent, and would cop a life sentence.
    One example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groveland_Four

    1. Not ironic.

      Democrats were, are and perhaps will be democrats, who are necessarily institutionalized mob rule. MeToo and BlackLivesMatter are directly comparable with the Segregationist play book of accuse, lynch, riot, terrorize, and never let any of the guilty be prosecuted.

      It is not ironic when the leopard who ate a man last fortnight, spots unchanging, eats a man today.

      1. Regarding racism, it was LBJ who realized that welfare was a better mechanism for keeping black people down & oppressed. It’s easier than Jim Crow, you get to build an enormous bureaucracy, and you get their votes too.
        But the old core Democratic belief that minorities are foolish children that need white people to protect and care for them is still extant.

          1. Where’s the movement to have LBJ or FDR’s images and statues removed from the public space, I wonder.

            1. If they “win”, it will come eventually.

              Leftist always turn on their own when there aren’t any outsiders handy. The outrage must be maintained!

  24. This is one reason I support national Shall Issue laws. You claim he raped you? He doesn’t LOOK like a rapist. What does a rapist look like?

    He’s full of bullet holes!

  25. We were founded as a nation of law, not rumor and scandal.  That carried us through the first election.  

    By the second Benjamin Franklin Bache trotted out previously disproved documents that purported that Washington was preparing to betray the Continental Army before Benedict Arnold beat him to it. During the third there were more concerted efforts was attempted.  At the fourth it got truly disgusting with all sorts of unfounded accusations.  (This included stories that assured us that Adams kept a stable of imported women and was a hermaphrodite.)

    I prefer to read about such things through the lens of past history, not in that of history in the making.  Life in the sewer stinks.  I may need to be aware of it; I don’t need to roll around in it. 

  26. If the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens?

    The wrong people get it! Politicians! Councilors! Ordinary Voters!

    Thirty years on and things have scarcely changed – and they wonder why Trump got elected.

    1. As a bonus:

      These two series (Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister) ought be required viewing for all political science students, with the strong admonition that it Is not A how-To Guide!

  27. If it wasn’t for the fact that I know what the end results would be, letting it all burn down would be so very tempting. I’ve warned people for years of what the results would be, what the issues are, and people just seem to keep doubling down.

    It’s like watching somebody with a gambling problem try to get out of it with more gambling.

    I’m tired. I really am. I’m tired of what feels like being the only person to be trying to put out this inferno that the political Left has created by pissing on it. People that I thought would be there, stand up for these things because they had stood up for the exact same thing with a few name changes, attacking them even harder because they have to prove their credentials. That trying to explain to people how #metoo and Obama-era requirements for sexual harassment numbers has created an environment where men can be ruined because of being a young idiot. Not a criminal acts, just…young men pushing a boundary and realizing that they’ve stepped over it.

    (Or any number of other horror stories, including “girl asked me out, I told her no, she claimed I raped her, I got kicked out of college-despite bringing my boyfriend and receipt copies of the date we were on when she said it happened. Can’t get into another school because I was expelled on a rape charge from another university.”)

    I told someone I knew that she was the reason why we were going to have realistic sex dolls that are actually interactive. Why? Because Western women have made themselves unsafe to men, from a fiscal, social, and emotional calculation. Choose the wrong hole to stick your joystick in, at the very least you could face an innuendo campaign that never goes away because of the Internet. And, it gets worse from there.

    (I know there’s going to be people that are going to wave happy stories in front of me. I know those. There’s also a lot of horror stories as well. Especially in the communities with men that have issues with emotions, such as fandom, gaming, etc, etc, etc…)

    I’m tired.

    But, I’m still fighting.

    1. “What you have ain’t nothin’ new…”, to quote “No Country For Old Men”. There’s always been something causing accusations and false charges since Gruk’s juju beads told him that Og was behind the plague.
      It’s not a problem we can fix while remaining recognizably human.

      1. I think that there are those who deliberately take advantage of just that, the exhaustion or the disgust of those who are not wedded to ‘a cause’ and thereby energized and carried by it as they are.

    4. That’s the real danger in their habit of silencing opposition– the opposition still exists, they’re getting warped feed-back, and they have nothing to lose.

      1. I’ve called it a Versailles Bubble-the elites retreating to a place where the rest of world is…no longer relevant. The only thing that matters is satisfying your desires within the bubble, or getting into the bubble, or not getting thrown out of the bubble. The people that have to deal with the…peasants…that are not of of the Right People inside of the bubble and their concerns can be safely and easily ignored.

        After all, they are not in Versailles. And, this is the only place that matters.

  28. Something that I think is being overlooked. Ford allegedly recalled and recounted this story during couple’s counseling. Is it unknown in couple’s counseling. Is it unknown in such situations for one or both parties to try to appeal to a counselor’s sympathy by showing how much worse THEIR problems are?

  29. Re: word study, I’ve been looking stuff up this morning. “Scandalum” and “skandalon” appears in the Vulgate OT and the Septuagint, in lots of places, mostly as an alternative way of translating the Hebrew word “moqesh”, snare. (So in those places, you might think of it more as “foot trap” or a thing that ties down your leg.)

    OTOH, it also appears as a translation of “mikshol” (Ps. 140:9, Ezekiel 7:19, etc.), and of “ulaeben negep” (Isaiah 8:14). These are pretty clearly associated with “obstacle that makes you fall down.”

    So it is a Hebrew idea and not just a Greek or Latin one, which is often the way these things work out.

  30. Found out something else… Thayer says that “skandalon” is the word in Greek for the prop-stick you use to trigger a trap. So when Wile E. Coyote sets up a box trap, he always includes a “skandalon.”

      1. So say what our movers and shakers in the media and entertainment did, making single motherhood not only okay but “hip” and “brave.” It was tripping up the little ones — the poor and their children — and destroying their hope of ever rising out of the mire, so…. Uh.

  31. This is a reply to equestriaverse in regards to this comment here. (sorry. Couldn’t reply there)

    I’ve actually found myself thinking that Marxist thought tends to be rather similar to girlish jealous envy of someone else being of ‘higher’ social/financial status than another girl; with similar response. The social destruction that Communism requires, plus the methods of Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, Lenin, as well as Rules for Anarchists, and similar; have approaches that are very similar to high school circle queens destroying their opposition to secure their very temporary kingdoms.

    Which is ultimately, I think, why it seems like the modern age has become the unpleasant familiar social warzone of High School, for those of us who suffered through it as NOT the popular groups.

    1. One of the best examples I have seen was a statement that someone who is rich shouldn’t be abe to get faster internet than you. Not that you shouldn’t have it, not that he shouldn’t be able to steer yours, but that he should have no opportunity to buy something better than you because its unfair.

      Because that rich guy who works 60 hrs, or built a company or the like (there is a lot of undeserved wealth in the country, but for some reason the bureaucrat, black marketer, hft, or con man seems to avoid all these fair share bills) should be using his money to take care of you.

      Not sure if the country would learn evenn if collapsed to zimbabwe or Venezuela levels.

      1. The morons will be with us forever, barring subsistence level survival challenges that mandate ice floes. Even then, selection of people to sustain will include some people who aren’t worth it, who are truly destructive to everything because they don’t think.

        2. I’ve heard of someone being accused of being a child molester, even though said person was in a research station in Antarctica during when this accusation supposedly happened. The particular outrage crowd dismissed the facts with something along the line of ‘thought’: ‘but we are raising awareness, so even if we’re destroying one man with a fake accusation, it’s okay because we’re doing ‘good’ by raising awareness of child abuse, who cares if it’s not real, it’s real SOMEWHERE to SOMEONE.’

          With that mindset of ‘fake but true’, it is no surprise the accusations against Kavanaugh are given attention. The agenda is all that matters, not truth, or consequences, or… anything else, really.

          Ran across this too, speaking of high school…

          https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/christine-blasey-fords-high-school-yearbook-was-scrubbed-to-hide-environment-of-racism-binge-drinking-by-minors-and-elitism/

      2. not fair that rich folks get better stuff =>
        pass laws so rich folks can’t get better stuff =>
        no reason for anyone to try to become rich =>
        universal poverty
        QED

  32. ‘”improvisational smarts of the cleaver”… zombie lizzie borden, please pick up the white courtedy phone…

  33. Writers here will appreciate this.

    http://scrappleface.com/blog/2018/09/21/kavanaugh-victim-asks-delay-to-finish-final-draft/

    “(2018-09-21) — The woman whose claims about a 36-year-distant sexual assault threaten to derail the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh told Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley today that she needs more time before appearing at a hearing “in order to really firm up the details of the night in question.”

    In a letter to Sen. Grassley from her attorney, Debra Katz, Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford said the invitation to testify about her allegations “came up rather suddenly” before she had time to fully collect her thoughts, and “assemble a coherent narrative.”

    “I’ve been working on this for a long time,” said Ford, “but it’s still really just a rough draft. The plot is kind of hazy. The hero’s journey has no compelling force to explain her actions. I’ve got a loose set of ideas kicking around in my head. I have some characters, and a bit of backstory, but I haven’t even nailed down the location, or specific time setting.”

    Ford said the most difficult part of finishing the final draft of her story is making sense of the protagonist’s character arc, the path of her inner journey.”

    1. Translation – Fiendstien & Ford need time to firm up the slanderous lie. YMMV – my $.02 FWIW

      (FWIW, miss spelling more or less intentional. Really don’t know how it is spelled & can’t be bothered to go find it & copy it … like what happened by accident.) 😉

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