Rights For Disabled People Via The UN

Wouldn't it be cool to be part of an organization with no responsibility or accountability but plenty of authority to make pronouncements and edicts from on high? It would be suweeet! Heck, maybe that's what it's like to be a "community organizer", but I digress. The UN has come up with a new treaty for the disabled (but doesn't go on to define disabled):

The CRPD guarantees disabled people:

• The right to make their own decisions
• The right to say No to being placed in an institution
• The right to say No to medical or psychological treatment
• The right to live in the community
• The removal of barriers to participation in daily life
• Equal opportunities for all

So, let's just take an example: mental retardation from Down's Syndrome. So a mentally retarded child has a right to life. Does that mean that they can't be aborted? Once alive, the child gets to make his own decisions. He can say no to institutionalization. He can say no to medical treatment. He can have "equal opportunities". What does that mean?

The United Nations produced one more empty "treaty" to address a problem for which there is no solution. Disabilities cover a broad spectrum. A person born with no arm is disabled, but of course should have all the rights and responsibilities of a fully functional person. All disabled people deserve to be treated with respect but some are in no position to make decisions about their own care.

Will this treaty stop female (just being a female is a disability in some cultures) infanticide in India and China? Will this treaty end the abuse (and really disabled births because relatives marry) of disabled children throughout the Islamic culture? No and no. Will it make bureaucrats feel better? Yep. Should the United States sign this treaty? Hell no.

It's Okay To Be Racist, Sexist, Misogynist, Misandrist, Ageist or Mean Generally IF You're Liberal

Liberal commenters over at Cassy Fiano's blog felt free to spew hate toward her because shes conservative and female:

Grebrook:
Dude, she's fat. LOL. And she goes and gives this pathetically condescending interview about how she doesn't date liberal men, as if liberal men really care? It's kind of like a black guy telling the KKK "nah, you're not good enough for me to be a member". They're not exactly inviting him in.

Cassy, you're fat, seriously. Until you lose weight, I think it's safe to say that you don't have much room to talk about "liberal idiots" if you're not intelligent enough to stay healthy.

Grebrook:
Rofl, do you actually read this blog? This girl is a walking cliche. A fat, white angry Republican ...

Fat? A whale? Come on guys, couldn't you come up with anything better than that? I mean, really. That's like, the most boring, unoriginal insult in the book. Try a little harder next time. Please.

It isn't about lack of imagination, Cassy. It's about entitlement. Being liberal entitles a person to say and do anything because their motives are pure and their premise unquestionably correct.

So, Hillary can, with a straight face talk about her white people supporters. Obama can disparage "the other" because he's better, knows better. These are the leaders of the Left. The average Leftist blog commenter is just doing the same thing albeit on a less sophisticated level. The talk will denigrate into fat rolls and vaginas. My personal favorite sexist joke recently here:

What is the smartest thing to come out of a woman's mouth? Albert Einstein's cock.

The joke was in reference to me being a stupid, entitled, fat, old bitch. It was a personal attack to demonstrate my abject stupidness. It was okay, though, because when you're smarter and liberal (read better) using a sexist attack is perfectly acceptable.

Today, James Kirchick writing in The Advocate highlights liberal homophobia:

If John McCain had confessed to being “not comfortable” around “those people,” handed a microphone over to the likes of Donnie McClurkin, cast aspersions about the sexuality of political opponents, or just openly called someone a “fruitcake,” the denunciations from liberals would be swift and unforgiving. Yet Democrats in particular and liberals more broadly always get a pass. Indeed, at the time of Stark’s outburst, the Human Rights Campaign defended the congressman by emphasizing that he "is one of the gay community's staunchest allies." Log Cabin Republicans president Patrick Sammon points to the example of the Democratic mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Jim Naugle, who has made a series of homophobic remarks about the many gay tourists who visit his Florida city. Rarely, however, do news stories ever mention that Naugle is a Democrat. “If he was a Republican, every single story about him would have ‘Republican’ before his name,” Sammon says.

The liberal journalist Eric Alterman, a columnist for The Nation and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress think tank, is a particularly nasty example of the liberal homophobe. Two years ago he challenged gay, HIV-positive journalist Andrew Sullivan to prove a claim Sullivan had made about Alterman regarding military action in Afghanistan, offering to pay “$10,000 to the AIDS charity of Sullivan’s choice.” He mocked Sullivan, “who is HIV positive and likes to discuss this fact with reporters,” for his “remodeled bathroom in P-town.” Alterman regularly refers to Sullivan as “little Roy,” after Roy Cohn, the gay aide to Sen. Joe McCarthy who died of AIDS complications. Following Ann Coulter’s labeling Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot” in 2007, Alterman said, “Look, the word 'faggot' ... is a word one hears in private conversation quite frequently; she just said it in public.” Makes one wonder what sort of company Alterman keeps.

Why do liberals get a pass when they are clearly hypocritical and would, themselves, skewer someone on the right who used the same rhetoric? Because, their ideology is pure. They have good intentions. Their motives are above question.

I'm not arguing for stifling free speech. As I wrote last week in "America Up!", there is far too much victim-claiming behavior by far too many people. The political correctness has stopped honest debate about real solutions and lead to absolutely insane actions. Political correctness has put the emphasis on the superficial rather than the substance. What I am arguing is that the liberals want and get to have it all ways. It is perfectly fine to play dirty, use nasty language, and hold discriminatory beliefs as long as they wear the right name and party.

Democrats and liberals always get a pass. It makes me think that they don't really believe their politically correct rhetoric and just spew it to obtain and retain power. Holding the Right to stringent speech standards restricts the debate and forces only certain kind of conversations with pre-determined outcomes. How convenient. Even better, liberals can attempt to restrict the speech of the opposition by using the very same offensive speech they claim is wrong. Wow, what a great deal.

Nutter Richard Falk Heads UN Human Rights Commission

Maxed Out Mama explains the significance:

Among Mr Falk's qualifications is that he was an international law professor at Princeton University. Of course! And he is distinguished for his openmindedness and critical thinking abilities, as demonstrated by this lovely quote:

On March 24 in an interview with a radio host and former University of Wisconsin instructor, Kevin Barrett, Mr. Falk said, "It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don't think we can answer definitively at this point. All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official investigation of the sort the 9/11 commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess."

And also the manhunts, Mr Falk! Don't forget the North Carolina and Virginia manhunts! In 2004 Richard Falk wrote the foreword to Griffin's book claiming that the US attacked itself, so in fairness to Mr. Falk one would have to say that he did not adopt this theory as a UN Human Rights campaign strategy. He's been barmy for a while, to put it in Brit-speak. One would say that Mr. Falk has spent too much time sniffing the academic glue in extremely progressive Princeton University circles.

Great, just great. Why is the U.S. even in the UN? Move the whole blasted enterprise, to, say, Riyadh.

Fat Chicks & The Ideal Body

Last week, I noted the British would-be beauty queen's desire to break the mold. She is plus-sized. She is young and most everyone thought she was beautiful. Should she be in the competition? I mean... What are beauty pageants about anyway? In this politically correct world, solving humanitarian crises and being talented are weighted heavier, than, er, weight. Right. In the real world, it's her bikini and her dress and her face. It's a beauty pageant.

A friend of mine noted that beauty pageants are about achieving an ideal. And it seems that these days, it's politically incorrect to say you prefer fit and thin people, but when it comes down to brass tacks, people still feel free to secretly condemn fat people.

I know. I know. I'm talking about two different things. On the one hand, I find it ridiculous that the physical ideal is being defined down when it comes to something that is purely aesthetic. On the other hand, it seems that fat people are the last bastion of hate. Consider this research:

Puhl, who has been studying weight discrimination for nine years, said our culture has made it clear that it's wrong to discriminate against someone because of race, color, creed, gender, age and so forth, but that it's OK to show someone the door because he or she is fat.

"We send a message to citizens in our culture that this is something that is tolerated," she said. "We live in a culture where we obviously place a premium on fitness, and fitness has come to symbolize very important values in our culture, like hard work and discipline and ambition. Unfortunately, if a person is not thin, or is overweight or obese, then they must lack self-discipline, have poor willpower, etc., and as a result they get blamed and stigmatized."

Women in particular are harassed and weight is often the way a woman is disparaged. For example, blogger Violet Blue, a woman who blogs about sex says this:

I just write and talk about sex. But every woman on the Internet gets called slutty and ugly and fat (to put it lightly) no matter what; all we have to be is female. In dinner conversation, my friend Lori reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote, "Give a man a mask, and he'll tell you the truth." I restated it for the Internet, replying, "Give a man a mask, and he'll slit your throat." The application here is, "Give a man (or a woman) an anonymous account, and he'll eviscerate your self-esteem."

The problem is, with so many women I talk to, the trolling is effective. The number of times I've talked down a crying girlfriend after she's been trolled in her comments about being fat, ugly, skanky, slutty or stupid is higher than I can count (no matter what she writes about). Trolls watch too much mainstream porn and TV, and believe stereotypes are real; they slap us with it and then we believe it, too. We compare ourselves to overly thin models, actresses, and porn stars, and it messes with our self-image and our ability to express ourselves sexually, and especially to enjoy sex.

And that is most definitely true. Go onto any blog and you don't see a man disparaged for his weight or face. It just doesn't happen. Rarely, a man's sex life or private parts are brought into the issue. Women, well, they just get it. They get reduced to the physical and sexual.

Is the blogosphere representative of society as a whole? To a certain extent. Women are harshly judged by their looks and their bodies. People are judged as lacking in character if they pack on the pounds. They are considered stupid. They are the butt of jokes.

In addition, the ideal seems pin-thin Hollywood girls. No one can measure up. And yet, there's a backlash against this trend, thus the chubby British girl going for the beauty pageant.

I think there are two things going on. First, I think the ideal needs to be thin and healthy but not anorexic. So the British girl should either lose some weight and get fit or get out of the running. It seems ridiculous to have a beauty pageant not be abut beauty. Second, the bias against fat people should be expunged from society but I don't expect it to be. People are visual. People view fat as controllable, and a reflection of a person's character.

As long as people have eyes, people will judge visually. There will be prejudice. However, the standards or ideal shouldn't be changed to make us feel better. There's enough political correctness these days. We don't need to go down this road with beauty queens. Beauty queens need to be, well, ideally beautiful.

Some Thoughts on Australian Forgiveness

My friend in Australia rejoices at Prime Minister Paul Rudd's decision to apologize to the indigenous Australian population for forced separation. Other Australians like Tim Blair says this in an aptly named post Happy Sorry Day!:

Sadly, the effect of the apology on those it’s aimed at is a secondary concern. This is more about smug white folks feeling nice about themselves. That’s why, despite it being an apology for allegedly terrible events, everybody is smiling.

Manny at Auspundits sees this as the beginning of indoctrination which is the government's ultimate goal:

Today, across Australia, state Labor governments and teacher's unions encouraged public schools to feature Prime Minister Rudd's apology to the "stolen generation" and to "educate" its pupils of the historical importance of this largely symbolic gesture. The kind of impetus and vigor with which this was pursued has not been seen in Australian life for well over a decade. Not even the "Public Schools: A National Priority" campaign was so shamelessly promoted.

My concern and the one I voiced to my friend a couple weeks ago, is that the apology is essentially toothless. It cannot right the wrongs. The children are damaged. (Google search it here.)

I'm highly suspicious of collective guilt generations on. Claire Berlinski wrote of the German psychology a few generations after the horrors of Hitler's regime. It's not good. Germany has its own peculiar need for pride and strength and discipline that has been lost in nihilistic angst but boils beneath the surface. It seems to me a uniquely German perspective. The guilt and fear feed resentment. At a certain point this reactionary emotion needs to be left behind.

In the Anglicized West--Britain, America and Australia--an uncomfortable pall rests on them for various reasons. Britain struggles with a pernicious multiculturalism and integrating Muslim populations. America struggles with another form of pernicious multiculturalism where Blacks harbor the legacy of slavery (and some still seek reparations), Latinos vie for special status and American Indians live apart, cut off from the American dream. In Australia, the Aborigines are, according to my friend, a shadow people operating out of the view of everyday Australians.

These strains of shame from the past suck the possibility from the present. They also separate peoples, isolating them from the potential of the new age. For the Aborigines, clinging to old custom will leave them behind the modern world. Is recognition that you're a victim a good thing?

My concern is that casting oneself as victim can be damaging long-term. If it induces helplessness and hopelessness, what's the point? And for those apologizing: Did you do the harm? Then, what good is the apology?

Today''s Links

Hi all, I thought I save you the laborious trouble of having to click over to Conservative Grapevine to see what I thought was important enough to share:

James Lileks is on a roll today. He takes on the idea that America Sucks!

What would a Barack v. McCain race look like? Just One Minute tells you.

The Arch Bishop of Canterbury (yes, they still have one and yes, he still wear a pointy hat) believes that sharia in Britain is "inevitable". Blue Crab Boulevard shares the sordid mess.

Shrinkwrapped discusses the liberal war strategy. Dust, be afraid, be very afraid!

Isn't the Democrat party the party of the people? Right. If you're a Democrat Super Delegates will decide your sorry ass fate. Patterico explains what that means.

Jeff Goldstein shares with the moderate NPR audience why conservatives loath McCain.

And we should all start thinking about VPs since Romney has bailed from the race. The Anchoress names Heather Wilson. Who?

Female Circumcision Ban A Sign of Cultural Imperialism

Or female circumcision (a euphemism if there ever was one) could just be a barbaric butchery designed to forever rob a woman of sexual enjoyment. And yet, there are those who will defend it:

Dr. Ahmadu, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, was raised in America and then went back to Sierra Leone as an adult to undergo the procedure along with fellow members of the Kono ethnic group. She has argued that the critics of the procedure exaggerate the medical dangers, misunderstand the effect on sexual pleasure, and mistakenly view the removal of parts of the clitoris as a practice that oppresses women. She has lamented that her Westernized “feminist sisters insist on denying us this critical aspect of becoming a woman in accordance with our unique and powerful cultural heritage.”

You know, Dr. Ahmadu is welcome to go to Sierra Leone, that bastion of culture and progressive thought, to get the procedure. Heck, I don't care if she goes to the local cosmetic surgeon and turns her body in Michael Jackson. That's her right.

But this procedure is forced on girls. Children, who have no consent in the matter. And don't bring up male circumcision, please! At least there are medical benefits to that procedure and it doesn't interfere with a man's pleasure.

I'm glad the woman enjoyed the procedure. Great, for her. But making this legal is a way to degrade women as children and society should stand against that.

Pathology Vs. Cure

At left, Houston Texans Ability Camp.


Do our infirmities define us? Ann Althouse is reading Oliver Sack's latest book (I have yet to read it, I read his first two) and says:

What do you think about this notion of illness as part of one's character? Normally, we see illness as an alien invader to be fought off or, if that is not possible, endured.

Can it be both?

My autistic son has moments of such purity of soul that a "neurotypical" person just doesn't have even at moments of perfect centeredness. And then, he will be so obtuse and self-involved that I want to scream and yank him out of the disease--the disease that is robbing him of interpersonal interaction, the disease that is robbing me of closer relationship with my son. My son gives me a glimpse of God and the next minute all I see is pathology.

There is little that's pretty about pathology. It looks ugly on slide and it looks ugly in life. I've had patients talk about "my diabetes" or "my cancer" or "my manic-depression", like it's a pet they proudly nurture and care for. Far be it for anyone, including a doctor, to intrude and suggest that the disease doesn't define them, that it is a hurdle to overcome. Oh no, the disease becomes the raison d'etre. It becomes existence. The disease becomes an excuse, the crutch to not build character. And that narcissistic passivity eventually defines them.

Even without an enabling victim, disease is a burden. Autism might be interesting and even sweet things are a by-product, I still want it gone. It is an enemy to me and to my son. The world is a mystifying place for him when he's not locked in his own orbit. He will grow up. I will grow old and I worry.

That's disease. It robs a person of experiences and potential. It may bestow some gifts but it takes away others. It renders a person helpless and dependent. How is that good? These hardships can develop character for both the sufferer and the care-giver, but it's just so much mumbo jumbo to say that physical or mental maladies are lovely. Althouse continues:

Sacks writes so beautifully and tells such interesting stories that it's hard to resist his point of view. He is thoroughly excited and fascinated by the brain abnormalities of the individuals he studies, and he expresses this emotion through the romanticization of disease and the perception of the disease as part of the integrated whole of the person. As I reader, I catch his excitement, but I worry sometimes that it's wrong to look at other people this way.

Oliver Sacks is a kind, gentle scientist and observer of human behavior. He doesn't reduce a child or adult struggling with some neurological disorder to their disease. He sees a complex and interesting organism. He also sees potential. That openness was a breath of fresh air for a new generation. It has only been the last fifteen to twenty years when parents are no longer being blamed for "making" a child autistic. Parents and families were likewise blamed for schizophrenia and other neurobiologic diseases. So Dr. Sacks has worked, thankfully, in a non-judgmental way to bring formerly stigmatized diagnoses into the mainstream.

Still, Ms. Althouse has hit upon the truth. Let's not romanticize these infirmities. Let's find cures.

University Ethics

Part of the reason chiropractors are scorned is because their schools have liberal acceptance standards. While medical schools make it difficult for everyone besides affirmative action beneficiaries to get in, chiropractic colleges let nearly everyone in. I don't have a problem with that, in some ways. There are plenty of people who finally get their act together as seniors in college and deserve the opportunity to follow their dream.

There is a dark side, though.

Chiropractic colleges, law schools, and med schools allow many people in who don't have the intellectual chops, take their loan money and merrily roll along while the former student, or bewildered and under-qualified graduate can't pass his boards or bar exam and is stuck having wasted time, money and now struggles to find a job where he can pay off his debt. Likely, he can't.

One girl I know took an altered schedule, inflating her loan amounts because she was in school longer, and now works in retail where another friend bumped into her at the mall. She was a nice girl, not very bright, and not doctor material. She should never have been allowed to continue fumbling through, but the green-eyed administrators took her money. She is a slave to the school now, like the rest of us with college loans, but she will never, ever pay them off. I'm not sure the administration cares about that either, as long as she pays. And she is not alone. By the end of my third semester, nearly half of my class had failed out. Fine, right? But they already had nearly $30,000 in debt.

Another friend, again not too bright, worked his arse off to get into dental school. He struggled academically, but had excellent hands. Being a dentist, like being a chiropractor, like being a surgeon, is really a blue collar job in a white collar. The work is repetitive, highly skilled, and requires a sixth sense for knowing what's "off"--that is discerning when the problem you're seeing isn't really the problem. The stakes are higher and the machine more complicated and intricate, of course, then your average Chevrolet, but it's similar work. My friend the dentist is thriving. He runs another doctor's five practices. That doctor is more a business man. My friend is a technician extraordinaire. Had he been excluded from dental school, it would have been a shame. He still had the smarts enough to pass boards.

Universities don't just deal unethically with under-qualified students. The list of sins is long as Paul Berkowitz editorializes in The Wall Street Journal. Students receive far worse punishment than professors for similar violations like plagiarism, he notes. KC Johnson exposed the dark underbelly of the workings of Duke University--the poster child for post-modern muddledness. Berkowitz says:

The return to campus this fall brings sharp reminders of the confusion about their purpose that plagues our campuses, and so underscores the need for serious study of university ethics. In the recently published and already critically acclaimed book "Until Proven Innocent," K.C. Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr. show how the Duke University faculty and administration collaborated with a reckless press and a lawless prosecutor in the rush to convict in the court of public opinion -- and, but for the superb work of their attorneys, in the criminal courts of Durham, N.C. -- three white lacrosse players falsely accused of raping an African-American stripper.

The problem at Universities is simple: unaccountability. I would think that the Duke Board of Regents would roast Duke's President Broadhead over an open pit, but no. Who knows how many millions of dollars they paid out to the Duke players and guess who will pay? That's right. Future students.

Universities are hermetically sealed environments. Their primary goal is the continuation of the organism. Educating students is secondary for the leadership. They have money concerns. Fine. But they should be as transparent as their ethics departments encourage private industry and the political class to be. I'll give the final word to Berkowitz:

But don't expect the leading ethics centers -- Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Princeton's Program on Ethics and Public Affairs, or Yale's Program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics -- to sponsor lectures, fund graduate student and faculty fellowships, or publish writings that examine these and numerous other ethical questions that stem from contemporary university life. While lavishing attention on legal, political and medical ethics, and to a lesser extent business ethics and journalism ethics -- worthy areas of inquiry all -- our leading university ethicists have shown scant interest in exploring university ethics.

David Bernstein has more. Glenn Reynolds gets the hat-tip. My question for these law professors: When they see a student who obviously has no chance in the real world, do they fail them? Do they recommend expulsion? And are they overruled by administration?

I've talked about addressing the loan monopoly and getting rid of student loans. That would clean up Universities some, but there is no question that Universities could use shining the bright light of truth on their own unethical practices and then change them.

Courting Killer: Columbia Was Chosen For A Reason

It now seems that Ahmadinejad chose Columbia (they didn't invite him) because of Columbia's storied past. Columbia invited Hitler's envoy. This was what then President Butler said:

In response, President Butler harrumphed something about how Columbia "does not ask what a man's opinions may be but only whether he is intelligent, honest, and well-mannered in their presentation and discussion. There is no subject which a company of scholars such as that assembled on Morningside Heights, is not prepared to have presented to it by a man or woman of high intelligence and good manners, and to hear fully discussed and debated." When the "well-mannered" Herr Luther made his appearance on Morningside Heights, it seems only to have whetted the Nazi lust — and to have established a precedent for abasement. It turned out that the only kind of intercourse the Nazis understood was the kind conducted by General Eisenhower, who not only liberated Europe but went on to Morningside Heights, where he brought great distinction to the presidency of the University.

Columbia's modern president shows the same kind of moral obtuseness and it's astounding. Because Ahmadinejad spits his venom at a common enemy, George Bush, a good portion of the Left don't mind that the poison would ultimately kill them, too.

This is where consuming hatred gets a person: the line between rage and suicide blends. Would Dean Coatsworth rather die than honor his own country? If Ahmadinejad has his way, everything Western, American, Israeli, Jewish and Democratic will give way to Sharia and death squads and extermination. Dean Coatsworth would not be spared this fate, his lofty ideals notwithstanding. Back to a quoted Jeff Goldstein post of yor:

And so we have Islamic fascists exploiting the postmodern rhetorical assumptions of a western socialist / progressivist left in order to bring about the spread of totalitarianism.

Goldstein says today:

"Of course we’d invite Hitler to speak”
So says the Dean of Columbia. Sadly, no follow-up question asking how he might react should der Fuhrer get a little tipsy at the post-speech cocktail party and order his band of traveling storm troopers to stuff a dozen or so gypsies, a gay couple, and 6 million Jews into one of the caterer’s mobile convection ovens.

Which is a shame, really, because I think there’s half a chance we’d have been treated to a bit about “respecting cultural differences.

It is doubtless that Ahmadinejad knows Columbia's history. He chose Columbia for a reason. He knows our history even if the scholars choose to forget theirs. These Western elites don't mind being played for fools. Again. That's why I don't call them Useful Idiots. They are worse than useful because they are not idiots. They are intelligent. They know the game and they have chosen a side and they don't stand for freedom, no matter how they spin it. They stand for oppression and extermination. Anyone with any sense will revile them. Men like Dean Coatsworth are disgusting human beings.

P.S. This is the same institution who wouldn't allow the Minutemen to engage in the free exchange of ideas. Some ideas are more "correct" than others.

Berkely Breathed Rocks

I have all the Bloom County books as anyone who stays in the guest bedroom knows. In my bleak teenage years (are there happy teenage years?), Berkely Breathed's witty takes and silly satire got me through with lots of laughs. To prove my County cred, my favorite character is Oliver. See left. In my favorite series, Oliver debates whether God exists and God answers, but Oliver studiously misses the message in the stars.

Berkely Breathed is back in the news. His syndicated column Opus won't be run in some papers because of this strip:












Captain Ed says this:

Today's strip features Steve Dallas and his on-again, off-again paramour and spiritual flibbertigibbet Lola Granola. In the strip, she has changed her name to "Fatima Struggle" and argues that she now knows not to resist a "man's rightful place". That's it; no exploding bombs, no images of Muhammed, no violence.

Also, no newspaper has addressed its decision to black out Breathed for today and next Sunday. It's possible that next Sunday has something more objectionable, but if today's strip is any indication, the reasoning is that newspapers refuse to show any kind of satire that targets Islam, even if specifically aimed at its radical extremes.

Last week, the Post and all of Breathed's customers had no problem satirizing Jerry Falwell and Christian beliefs of the afterlife. I'm glad they didn't; I found it funny and provocative, the kind of installment that Breathed usually produces. If anything, today's strip is less about the religious belief of Islam than last week's was about Christianity's tenets, and yet, the newspapers found it necessary to protect themselves from this strip and not the other. Why is that?

Oh, yeah -- because radical Islamists react with violence rather than rational objections. And the newspapers, in all their collective courage, can't find it within themselves to let a satirist do his work where it is most needed. Billy Hollis at QandO says the newspapers should be ashamed of themselves, but won't be. Maybe Breathed can tackle that as his next subject.

Wouldn't want to inflame the moderate American Muslims. Don't worry about inflaming the Christianists, though.

More Politically Correct Research

Do racial preferences result in failure for the lawyer aspirants they're meant to help? We'll never know, because the results could be uncomfortable for all those who value the status quo.

Forget truth. Political correctness trumps science.

Politically Correct Homophobia

Here's Ann Althouse's take:

What crap! Davis is a Democrat, interested in destroying Giuliani and showing his contempt for Republicans by revealing a despicable belief that they hate gay people and that their hatred can be stoked by images of actors behaving according to gay stereotypes. Decent Democrats should condemn Davis's video campaign, "Gays for Giuliani." It's blatantly homophobic. And I condemn Fox News as well, for reporting the story the way it did, illustrating it with a stock photograph of Giuliani in drag that lacks any sufficient connection to belong in a professional journalistic report on the video campaign.

Republicans should resist being baited by this sort of trash and should take note that Democrats are afraid of their front-runner -- afraid enough to deal in stereotypes that offend their values. Or are you going to tell me that Davis is an independent operative, doing his own thing? Then condemn him!

Of course this ad is homophobic. Who the gay Democrat director is trying to stereotype is Republicans. You know, those one-dimensional, close-minded haters.

Because the ad is made by a gay Democrat, of course, it isn't homophobic. It's politically correct gay stereotyping serving the greater good. It's OK to sell your soul if you win back power.

Michael Vick Over?

I wrote a Michael Vick dog fighting opinion that nearly everyone disagreed with but my husband and my mother. While watching NFL football (yes, I love violent ground acquisition sports), the announcers were pontificating that no owner would want to sit with Vick because he lied and people are disgusted about the dog fighting. Blah. Blah. Blah. Whatever. I have one name for everyone: Bill Clinton. Of course Vick lied. Everyone lies when they get caught doing something wrong these days. At least that's what people say when people are screwing or killing other people. Maybe dog killing is held to a higher standard. These days, it seems it is. Back to football.

Football is about two things. Number 1: Money. Number 2: Winning.

Michael Vick will be a cheap date when he comes back into the league. He will make a contrite statement. He'll profess his wrongness. He will make his apology heart-felt and sincere. He will get paid relative dirt. And if he is successful, he will help a team win. In short, he will help some team owner make big money. (Now, if he decides to be a jerk, ala Leona Helmsley, he'll be hung from the rafters. But he is black, entitled, rich guy. That at least gives him more grace than a rich, entitled, white woman.)

America will forgive him. And the guys who watch football don't really give a crap anyway. Most of them. Some, are deeply offended and hope he never comes back into sports.

In a world where OJ roams free and gives autographs to adoring fans, Michael Vick is small potatoes. Or at least that's my opinion. What I find weird is the bleeding heart concern over dogs when wife-beaters, murderers, drug users get a pass. To me, it's bass-ackwards.

Oh wait, I'm NOT the only one thinking this. David Stein of the Sporting News says:

Mike Vick, without a plea bargain, would face, based on felony conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and conspiring to sponsor a dog in an animal fighting venture, 5 years in prison. With a plea it is possible that his sentence would be somewhere in the 8-12 month range -- or 3-4 TIMES the jail time of the guy who killed a woman, or possibly 12 TIMES or more the jail time of the guy who allegedly beat his wife ... again.

And at the Orlando Sentinal:

If only Michael Vick had been arrested for abusing women instead of dogs.

He'd still be on the football field today.

He'd still have the love and adoration of his fans

And, yes, he'd still have his Nike deal.

Such is the shame of professional sports.

Dogs are treated with more respect than women.

What would be a just result for Vick? A $500,000 donation to SPCA or some such dog foundation, a year probation, and 160 hours of community service, the hard kind scooping poop.

Now, some are writing about the entitled air that star athletes breath leading them to believe they are above all laws. Further, some decry the spirit surrounding black athletes where groupies and hangers-on encourage thuggish, criminal behavior to "keep it real". As in, you ain't black enough, you don't have street cred, yo if you don't "keep it real". These are related, but different problems entirely.

On the one hand, the subject is justice in America. As in, there isn't any when murders get suspended sentences and a dog fighter can spend up to six years in Federal Prison (where there is no time shaved for good behavior). What the above reporters allude to is the problematic dynamic where there are too many laws, enforcement is arbitrary and punishment is so uneven as to be unjust. And then there is the hell that awaits prisoners. Prison rape seems to be an acceptable means of punishment, these days. It is despicable and it makes me sick that we live in a country that believes that it's acceptable justice. It's not.

On the other hand, there is the cultural problem. Blacks have created a thug sub-culture where education, achievement and good values are considered "too white". For a black to maintain his blackness, he must use slang, be criminal, and keep the 'hood mentality. It's "keeping it real". On this topic, Jason Whitlock of Kansas City.com writes:

So let’s go ahead and redefine “keeping it real,” shall we?

We might as well, now that Michael Vick kept it real stupid and probably is headed to a federal penitentiary, the vacation destination of choice for men who believe criminal behavior and a lack of education are cultural benchmarks.

Trust me, I take no satisfaction in Vick’s decision to reach a plea agreement on dogfighting charges or his impending incarceration. The lack of parole and rehabilitation opportunities in federal penitentiaries and the mental disease caused by those shortcomings are as revolting to me as the crimes that land men there.

But this column won’t be a blast on our morally bankrupt penal institutions. This column will be about the lesson we all should take from Vick’s dramatic fall. Not long ago, the man did have the world by the tail. He owned a $130 million contract in a city, Atlanta, that adored him, and he was labeled a “franchise” quarterback.

He threw it all away because he bought into the self-destructive, immature, hip-hop model of “keeping it real.”

And this mentality isn't helped at all when black activist leaders support criminal behavior and brand anyone offended by the crime as racist. This delusional thinking enables the very choices that harm their own community:

Earlier this month, in a march to the Georgia Dome to assert their support for Vick, civil-rights leaders from the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Center cautioned the public against rushing to judgment before Vick appeared in court.

On Monday, representatives from both civil-rights organizations declined to comment, the Los Angeles Times reported. Gerald Rose, the founder of New Order, a new Atlanta-based human-rights group, told the Los Angeles Times he planned to go ahead with a "major rally" for Vick at the Georgia Dome on Monday but acknowledged it would take on a different tone.

Michael Vick isn't a victim except of his own hubris. And no one helps the situation by pretending he is a victim.

What remains after this sad incident is this:

1. The justice system is uneven, unfair and instills mistrust.
2. The black community too often elevates criminal behavior while identifying good character and accomplishment as "too white".
3. Political correctness and misplaced priorities cause Americans to value dogs over people, athletes and entertainers over other forms of accomplishment, and prevents people of all colors from naming the problem in the black community and progressively in the community at large.

Scientific Research and Political Correctness

There are many politically correct assumptions that when challenged by research or even just vetting a new theory, cause serious backlash. I'll list a few:

• Sexual orientation is genetic
• Gender confusion is biological and genetic
• Gender roles are exclusively socially mediated
• I.Q. is the same between races, ethnicities and gender
• Evolution explains differentiation between species
• Soldiers are violent, ignorant, psychopaths
  
• Family structure does not affect developmental outcomes
• Child development is not significantly affected by parental interaction
  
• Child development is not significantly affected by the absence of a parent through divorce
• Humans cause global warming
• Public education is the best way to educate children
• Mental illness is biological and genetic
• White men are violent rapists
  

Researchers daring to question accepted dogma will be subjected to attacks both personal and professional. For example, J. Michael Bailey challenged some cherished beliefs regarding transgendered people and this is one example of the backlash:

The site also included a link to the Web page of another critic of Dr. Bailey’s book, Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender advocate and consultant. Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect.

Anyone who has spent much time on the web knows that personal attacks of a sexual nature are par for the course. Ironically, the attacks often originate from those who claim membership in groups that used to be victims of persecution. This very thing happened to Jeff Goldstein. A lesbian woman named Deb Frisch threatened his family and used sexually violent language describing his toddler son. (He's at again, challenging the notions of masculinity.) Other bloggers sharing opinions that differ from the politically correct have likewise been subjected to written, sexually explicit violence.

The violent rhetoric is nothing short of bullying. The intention is to silence diverse opinions and to rob a dissenting person of his or her voice. While these actions are disturbing in the Wild West atmosphere of the web, most bloggers have the inner fortitude to continue. They have free choice. They may suffer D.O.S. (denial of service attacks--where the website is flooded with links or hits to overwhelm the servers that support the site, so anyone searching for it will be denied service) or other acts of aggression, but they can prevail.

In the world of research and academia, however, a scientist's ability to continue to explore new theories can be quashed and the long-term ramifications should worry thinking people:

The inquiry, which lasted almost a year, brought research to a near standstill in Dr. Bailey’s laboratory, and clouded his name among some other researchers, according to people who worked with the psychologist.

“That was the worst blow of all, that we didn’t get much support” from Northwestern, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate student of Dr. Bailey’s at the time, and now a lecturer at Northwestern. “They were quite scared and not very professional, I thought.”

A spokesman for the university declined to comment on the investigation, which concluded in 2004.

One collaborator broke with Dr. Bailey over the controversy, Dr. Bailey said. Others who remained loyal said doing so had a cost: two researchers said they were advised by a government grant officer that they should distance themselves from Dr. Bailey to improve their chances of receiving financing.

“He told me it would be better if I played down any association with Bailey,” said Khytam Dawood, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University.

So grant money is used to manipulate those with differing theories and cutting-edge research. Essentially, anyone with a new thought or idea that conflicts with present dogma or politically correct opinion finds himself isolated, unfunded and reviled by the scientific community. It is the equivalent of being marked or shunned by a religious community.

Should this politically charged atmosphere continue in academia and the realm of science, scientific advances will stop here and now, because all the truth to be found has been found.

Newark Killers: Guest Gang Members

Such little cream puffs, these Newark (sanctuary city), New Jersey killers turn out to be. They were found in Virginia and had plans to escape to Mexico. Michelle Malkin notes:

Oh, and by the way, the D.C. suburbs in Maryland and Virginia where these suspects were apprehended are infested with MS-13, the illegal alien crime syndicate to which several of the accused murderers have been tied.

Doing jobs Americans won't do, indeed.

Face Readers As Airport Screeners

My mom is freaked out about the 500 new "face readers" at airports trained by eminent psychologist Paul Eckman. I have followed Eckman's work for years and read all his books (even the boring ones about Darwin and emotions in animals). Well, people are being taught to catch psychos by looking at their faces:

At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls "micro-expressions." Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they're associated with deception.

Actually, mom, the screening itself doesn't bother me. What bothers me is this:

A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler's going. If more alarms go off, officers will "refer" the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning.

The strategy is based on a time-tested and successful Israeli model, but in the United States, the scrutiny is much less invasive, Ekman said. American officers receive 16 hours of training — far less than their Israeli counterparts_ because U.S. officials want to be less intrusive.

This philosophy is just stupid. A terrorist won't be a little bit terror filled. And the police who are checking out suspicious screeners shouldn't be a little bit trained. In fact, it could be argued that better training would make screeners less intrusive. A poorly trained observer is likely to think far more people suspicious or miss the most subtle criminals. Extensive training is essential to protect the civil liberties of the innocent.

It would be impossible to implementIsrael's profiling and screening procedures, however. First, America has millions more passengers and far more airports. Second, civil libertarians and American law won't abide the obvious and non-random profiling.

In my untrained opinion, an Israeli-style program is overkill anyway. The greatest impediment to airline terrorism in the U.S. is the willingness of U.S. citizens to subdue dangerous looking and acting passengers. Rather than millions of dollars being spent on screening, make sure Americans can throttle a weirdo trying to light his shoe without fear of being sued. Citizens must be able to act in self-defense with impunity. This defense is cheap and ubiquitous. Terrorists will always be able to thwart screening systems especially in the U.S.

Empower Americans. That puts fear into the bravest of terrorists and it's just what the terrorists don't want.

Medical Studies: Examine the Sample, Ignore the Media

Most studies use college students for the sample. For example, my biggest pet peeve study is the use of the Hep B vaccine in newborns. The vaccine study used not only on adults as test subjects, it used only on men. One could argue that we now have heaps of data since babies have been vaccinated for years, but that's just the point. The children were experiments. The vaccine required, for political reasons. On the outside chance the child turns out to be gay or an IV drug user, he or she is ostensibly protected from Hep B. There's all sorts of controversy about mandatory HPV vaccination. I'm still amazed that people willingly vaccinate their child against a disease, Hep B, that is easily preventable and entirely lifestyle dependent. Don't believe me? Here's the risk pool for Hep B:

What groups of adults are at increased risk of HBV infection?

• Healthcare workers and public safety workers with reasonably anticipated risk for exposure to blood or blood-contaminated body fluids
• Men who have sex with men
• Sexually active people who are not in long-term, mutually monogamous relationships
• People seeking evaluation or treatment for a sexually transmitted disease
• Current or recent injection drug users
• Inmates of long-term correctional facilities
• People with end-stage kidney disease, including predialysis, hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and home dialysis patients
• Staff and residents of institutions or group homes for the developmentally challenged
• Household members and sex partners of people with chronic HBV infection
• Susceptible (non-infected) people from United States populations known to previously or currently have high rates of childhood HBV infection, including Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders, and immigrants or refugees from countries with intermediate or high rates of chronic HBV infection. To see a list of these countries, go to http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/country_listing.htm
• International travelers to regions with high or intermediate rates of HBV infection. To see a list of these countries, go to http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/country_listing.htm

Is your baby at risk? I think not. In addition, recent research shows that by adolescence, only 60% of kids show immunity. So the kids need to be boosted in youth? Why not just make the vaccine voluntary and give it to all the little junkies and sexpots with their HPV vaccine when they turn twelve so they can enjoy blow jobs and heroin in the back of the bus and not worry about consequences? Except, oops, they might still have to worry about throat cancer. Just keep the number of blow job partners under five. You should be fine.

Nuance. Or, you could just wait to get married to have sex. Or you could forgo using IV drugs.

Because college student samples are such a small population segment, it's difficult to understand why anyone cites them with any confidence. The numbers guy focuses on this problem. You should read his whole article.

But psychologists may be getting what they pay for. College students aren't representative by age, wealth, income, educational level or geographic location. "What if you studied 7-year-old kids and made inferences about geriatrics?" asks Robert Peterson, a marketing professor at the University of Texas, Austin. "Everyone would say you can't do that. But you can use these college students."

"People have always been aware of this issue," Prof. Peterson says, but many have chosen to ignore it. A 1986 paper by David Sears, a UCLA psychology professor, documented the increased use of college students for research in the prior quarter century and explored the potential biases that might introduce. In the meantime, the use of college students has, if anything, risen, researchers say.

And while the studies may have limited value, and researchers know it, reporters will jump on interesting research and put it in easily digestible language that misinterprets the results. It can be worse than misleading. Reporters rarely have a medical background and often get it wrong. Hmmm....reminds me of some of the military reporting.

Proceed with caution.

Submission Is NOT An American Character Trait

Dr. Sanity feels rebellious these days:

Both CAIR and the left have made a mockery of one of our most precious freedoms and the think they can get away with it. But, as Princess Leia pointed out once in a galaxy far far away, they are only succeeding in hardening the resolve of people like myself to actively oppose their coercive and cynical manipulation of our free society. Once I could have cared less about Islam and what any Muslim believed or how they lived--as long as they left me alone. Now I have the strange and compelling desire (my "difficulty dealing with authority" personality, I guess) to organize a "Flush the Quran Day" of protest along with other forms of targeted non-PC civil disobedience, just to demonstrate to Darth Islam and the Grand Moff Leftists that submission is not an American character trait.

She is referring, of course, to the poor kid being prosecuted for having the temerity to stick a Koran in the toilet. He is being charged with a hate crime. Can you imagine being charged with a hate crime for flushing the Bible? It is so ridiculous, one can hardly imagine it's happening in America, and worse, on a college campus, where acts of rebellion are encouraged--at least as long as the kid burns the American flag. Yet here we are:

A 23-year-old man was arrested Friday on hate-crime charges after he threw a Quran in a toilet at Pace University on two separate occasions, police said.

Stanislav Shmulevich of Brooklyn was arrested on charges of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment, both hate crimes, police said. It was unclear if he was a student at the school. A message left at the Shmulevich home was not immediately returned.

The Islamic holy book was found in a toilet at Pace's lower Manhattan campus by a teacher on Oct. 13. A student discovered another book in a toilet on Nov. 21, police said.

Muslim activists had called on Pace University to crack down on hate crimes after the incidents. As a result, the university said it would offer sensitivity training to its students.

How Orwellian of them! This is a scene out of a bad movie. And it is happening.

Christopher Hitchens asks, "Why are we so afraid of offending Muslims?" Indeed.

The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.

Appeasement. Just another example of the kid without the hall pass getting detention while the drug dealers are left alone. And in the spirit of appeasement, Newsweek comes along with an article about Muslims in America. The tagline is absurd: Muslim Americans are one of this country's greatest strengths. But they're vulnerable as never before.

And how are Muslims vulnerable? The violent, marauding Koran flushers threaten their sensibilities, no doubt. Or is it the galloping hoards of Bible-beating Christians chasing them down and flogging them with love? Just the implication is offensive--Muslims are vulnerable. That would ring truer if suicide bombers weren't approved of here.

The Western world must not submit to the manipulation.

Here's how desecration is done. This is just the latest case of projection.

Live Free or Die Hard, Or Just Apathetically Let Freedom Slide Effortlessly From Your Disinterested Grasp.....It Used To Be Great

There's no livin' free in Europe these days. No one can watch Die Hard and even think about livin' free in Europe:

Yes indeed, two different titles for the same movie! I guess the "live free" part of the title was considered to be too sensitive outside of North America? I know that "Live free or die" is the state motto of New Hampshire, but that is hardly an excuse. A second difference is that The Statue of Freedom in the background on top of the U.S. Capitol is a lot closer to Willis' ear in the international version. Because the voice of freedom is much more faint?

There's no livin' free in Great Britain, either. Everyone is Salmon Rushdie according to Mark Steyn:

In 1989 Salman Rushdie went into hiding under the protection of the British police. A decade later he decided he did not wish to live his life like that and emerged from seclusion to live a more or less normal life. He learned the biggest lesson of all – how easy it is to be forced into the shadows. That's what's happening in the free world incrementally every day, with every itsy-bitsy nothing concession to groups who take offense at everything and demand the right to kill you for every offense. Across two decades, what happened to Rushdie has metastasized, in part because of the weak response in those first months. "Death is perhaps too easy"? Maybe. But slow societal suicide is easier still.

Maybe you think it can't happen here. It can happen. It is happening. Freedom gets taken away one little, subtle withholding of a point-of-view at a time. Guess which point-of-view PBS suppresses.

For a step-by-step manual on utopian socialist fantasies gone wrong, look to Venezuela (Via Fausta who has more excellent links). Daniel at Venezuela News and Views reveals this:

No more private property besides your personal belongings. That is, there will be some private sector allowed with business of reasonable size but the sate will have the right to expropriate or confiscate at will if it thinks it is necessary to its interests (NOTE: even if it is all made in the name of the "people", since it is the state that translates the "real will" of the people, well, you know which are the interests truly served).

The air borne media will have rights to emit only if they serve educative purpose. The state decides which are the educative goals.

The autonomy of Universities is done with. The state will be deciding which careers should be offered and which is the right curriculum to follow. You can decide on your own how creativity and free thought in a controlled university will prosper.

Decentralization will be done with. Governors and Mayors will be subordinated to special vice presidents. Mayors can be removed almost at will by the National Assembly. And anyway, elected Governors and Mayors will be gutted of most meaningful power they might have. That is, they will be left with picking up the garbage and be blamed for anything else that doe snot work.

Every day, people around the world trade their freedom for the proverbial bowl of soup. They sate their appetite for a day and spend a lifetime hungry.

Science gets subverted to serve political ends. Everything gets subverted for political ends and those doing the subverting do so to their own demise--they actually participate in their own destruction and only wake up when they too suffer outside of the increasingly narrow political correctness. They operate under the delusion that they will be spared. They will always be deemed correct. They are, of course, wrong.

How most excellent and honored and bureaucratic does this sound? United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yes, a bureaucracy of scientists obfuscating and outright lying to promote the notion of climate change. From Newsbusters:

That is terrible! As a matter of fact, it is a falsification of the data set. Why? Because they know the answer. And there you come to the point: They “know” the answer; the rest of us, we are searching for the answer. Because we are field geologists; they are computer scientists. So all this talk that sea level is rising, this stems from the computer modeling, not from observations. The observations don't find it!

Pretty extraordinary, wouldn’t you agree? A "correction factor." Honestly, the way these folks manipulate data is nothing less than astounding.

Yet, Mörner wasn’t finished, as he later detailed an incident when IPCC scientists actually destroyed evidence which refuted their rising sea level claims:

This tree, which I showed in the documentary, is interesting. This is a prison island, and when people left the island, from the '50s, it was a marker for them, when they saw this tree alone out there, they said, “Ah, freedom!” They were allowed back. And there have been writings and talks about this. I knew that this tree was in that terrible position already in the 1950s. So the slightest rise, and it would have been gone. I used it in my writings and for television. You know what happened? There came an Australian sea-level team, which was for the IPCC and against me. Then the students pulled down the tree by hand! They destroyed the evidence. What kind of people are those? And we came to launch this film, “Doomsday Called Off,” right after, and the tree was still green. And I heard from the locals that they had seen the people who had pulled it down. So I put it up again, by hand, and made my TV program. I haven't told anybody else, but this was the story.

Lying to protect a greater "truth" that the data shows is false. Political correctness has infected all branches of science. Tread very carefully within the hallowed halls of science. A rotting stench from the carcases of hard data fouls the air.

So a failing society seeks the easy economic way, turns science into tools for delusion, and neuters itself. And the bureaucracy does it. In this case, teachers do it. This is getting more play these days. Eric over at Classical Values has a must read post:

Decadent bureaucrats mutilate soldiers
"Decadence" is the essential condition of "a society which believes it has evolved to the point where it will never have to go to war."
--Air Force Colonel Robert Wheeler

How do you feel about the state forcing boys to become eunuchs, metaphorically speaking? (Although, all their literal sitting in a class, drugged and acting bland could be deemed literal.)

For obvious reasons, the picture on the left is not getting much mainstream media play. I can't think of a better way to expose the anti-war bureaucrats than the boys' simple demonstration that the school bureaucrats had wounded the troops. No words can match the eloquence of the bloodied bandages!

I wrote several posts about eunuchs, and I think this is as good a place as any to add a few words about Phil Bowermaster's post about transmasculinity, which Glenn Reynolds linked yesterday. I have no problem with the idea of transmasculinity (or androgyny), and don't think it is remotely the same as state-enforced policies forcing boys to become eunuchs.

I actually disagree with Eric about the fall of Rome not being associated with sexual morés. How did the military get weak and soft to begin with? Could the same denuded approach to society self-protection be related to a laissez-faire attitude toward individual self-protection? Could the Christian conservatism be a reaction to a decadent society and yet elements of Christianity--deceived and morally corrupt themselves-- participate in the downfall because of doctrinal misunderstanding (think Episcopalians)? I think so. I do agree with him here, though:

We don't have early Christians taking over as they did in Rome, nor do we have a eunuch staff running the military. However, I think there may be parallels between Christians and socialists in the ecological niche sense (Christian theology is often interpreted as having a soft spot for socialism, which IMO has caused a great deal of trouble), and I think we could be experiencing tyranny at the hands of the modern equivalent of eunuchs (people who abhor masculinity and femininity and who, while they may talk the talk about sexuality, are in reality a bunch of unattractive, "spineless, ball-less wimps" if I may borrow the phrase.....)

This is absolute truth. The neuterization of society, the declining birthrates, the unwillingness to set a boundary against anything manifests individually and societally. There is a lot of self-loathing and other loathing sexually, and that makes for a confused bunch of people willing to make terrible compromises to feel good about themselves. Back to the bowl of soup.

I do not think it's an accident that the United States hesitates to create a boundary in its relationships. There is no sense of American self--or there is a danger in losing what's left of one. There will eventually be nothing to protect. The United States will cease to be the strong arms the world can count on for protection, if those arms are so weak they can't protect themselves. Worse, they will be too weak to extend in welcome either.

It won't matter. Without freedom, liberty and justice (and all that other stuff), no one will want to come here anyway. America will be just like every other place in the world. Confused, unsafe, economically constricted, limited, petty, tyrannical, consumed by conspiracy theories masquerading as science. Dark. As in Dark Ages.