He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. – Thomas Paine
As we’ve discussed before, erosion of civil liberties always begins with unpopular groups, and then once the precedents are established they are gradually extended to everyone else. Nobody minds when it’s “just” criminals, undesirables, foreigners, heretics, slackers, sinners, perverts and whores being persecuted; in fact they cheer officials “getting tough” and decry instances where the worst consequences are avoided due to “legal loopholes”. And while the useful idiots are cheering tyranny and supporting politicians who increase it, the categories get broader and more numerous until one day it’s their door being smashed down in a “no-knock raid”, or their daughter being arrested for wearing a miniskirt and carrying condoms, or their children being abducted because someone didn’t like photos they took, and suddenly they’re concerned about civil rights a generation too late to do anything about it. Last month there was a perfect example in the Wall Street Journal:
I am a feminist. I have marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women’s rights. Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and for the Violence Against Women Act. But that was before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college in New England, was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of “nonconsensual sex” that supposedly occurred during the course of their relationship a few years earlier. What followed was a nightmare—a fall through Alice’s looking-glass into a world that I could not possibly have believed existed…Title IX…has obliterated the presumption of innocence that is so foundational to our traditions of justice…the tribunal does pretty much whatever it wants, showing scant regard for fundamental fairness, due process of law, and the well-established rules and procedures that have evolved under the Constitution for citizens’ protection…
…the…allegations were a barrage of vague statements, rendering any defense virtually impossible…Nor were [they] supported by any evidence other than the word of the ex-girlfriend. The hearing itself was a two-hour ordeal of unabated grilling by the school’s committee, during which, my son later reported, he was expressly denied his request to be represented by counsel…The many pages of written documentation that my son had put together…were dismissed as somehow not relevant…witnesses against him were not identified to him, nor was he allowed to confront or question either them or his accuser. Thankfully, I happen to be an attorney and had the resources to provide the necessary professional assistance to my son. The charges against him were ultimately dismissed but not before he and our family had to suffer through this ordeal…I fear that in the current climate the goal of “women’s rights,” with the compliance of politically motivated government policy and the tacit complicity of college administrators, runs the risk of grounding our most cherished institutions in a veritable snake pit of injustice…Unbridled feminist orthodoxy is no more the answer than are attitudes and policies that victimize the victim.
Cry me a fucking river. Judith Grossman’s son escaped with his academic career, reputation and future intact; how many young men with less wealthy and well-connected parents can say the same? The abominable policies she and other soi-disant “feminists” have supported for decades have made a mockery of the justice system, creating kangaroo courts where evidence is optional and accusers are afforded special protections not given in any other crime, including murder; in the hothouse environment of universities, where administrators avoid anything that might jeopardize political goodwill, it’s even worse. As Scott Greenfield writes in his commentary on the article,
This was about promoting the feminist agenda that no woman who alleged that she had been sexually abused, no matter what evidence she had or existed to the contrary, should ever, ever, lose. This isn’t a contrarian view, or a secret scheme, but as open and apparent as could be. It affected the serious and foolish alike. It was a policy choice. They would rather ten innocent male students be expelled than one false accusation of sexual misconduct fail. And it not only seemed like a good idea at the time, but was bolstered by legal scholars who ridiculed the notion that the rights afforded to criminal defendants, due process, reliable evidence, confrontation, double jeopardy, have any place in university discipline when a claim of sexual abuse was on the table. Anyone who thought the accused deserved half a chance was a misogynist, which is one step above a rapist and deserving of whatever pain was inflicted anyway.
But as Greenfield points out, even when people like Grossman wake up to the reality of the monster they have invited into their homes, they still only acknowledge that tiny portion of the injustice machinery by which they, personally, have been affected:
…Judith Grossman’s…vision is still limited to that which touched her life. The evil she sees is “unbridled feminist orthodoxy,” because her son was charged with sexual misconduct. But it’s no more evil than any agenda stoked by the “current climate” of fear. I hope she is never forced to come to the larger epiphany because her son has been accused of some other offense against some other orthodoxy…she still has a very long trip ahead of her before she realizes what the “tradition of justice” really means.
This is the most difficult part of getting people to open their eyes to the dire state of civil liberties in America: all but the most benighted souls support protections for their loved ones and groups for whom they feel sympathy, but I’m afraid very few understand that the most important rights are those afforded to the people we can’t stand, because they are the ones the tyrants are most likely to use to pry open loopholes that never stay small for long.
“An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
Pretty good quote.
Employers in the USA are forbidden to discriminate on the basis of race and class. And so they use education as a proxy for being a nice, respectable, suitably shaded person. IIRC, it’s gotten to the point that if you hire someone with fewer paper qualifications than one with more, it’s ipso-facto evidence of discrimination.
So you can see how the strategy of a) making colleges inhospitable to males, and b) turning colleges into diploma-mills churning out bachelorates for “diversity studies” for those who toe the political line line works with respect to the goal of privileging women. It’s all-out war.
But I think the free market will win this one. Men, goldurn it, tend to be good at doing stuff. Accomplishing things. Competitive advantage will go to businesses who find a way to get around these laws. For instance: by hiring contractors and short-term labor.
It’s what we are seeing happen.
I think you’re observations are spot on.
It’s the struggle between governments and business. Governments try to control business – but the people in business are much smarter than the ones in the government. As soon as the govvie’s seal up a loophole – business finds another.
I think the best example was the 2007 crash which occurred because of Mortgage Backed Securities. Follow the timeline – and you’ll see that government forced banks to lend to people who couldn’t repay these loans. The Capitalists, ever quick witted and unwilling to sacrifice profits – packaged all those loans up and figured out a way to profit off them. Capitalists will ALWAYS outsmart the government.
That’s why I’ve always thought the Marxists were a bit smarter then Socialists. Socialists like to play around with capitalism … but Marx was like … “Fuck that – get a gun – take everything they have and destroy them as class”.
With regards to the Mortgaged Backed Securities, if the businessmen were really smarter than the government, then shouldn’t they have been able to figure out a way to profit without causing an economic crash?
Or (and this is sadly the more likely) is it that they didn’t care whether a crash occurred or not because they’ve not only got theirs, but the government was dumb enough to step in and bail them out?
Who’s out the money? Not the banks – the government bailed them out.
So yes – this proves the banks outsmarted the government (and the taxpayers too for that matter).
See, this is one of my problems with libertarianism. Regular folks don’t like being screwed over. They don’t like it when the government screws them over, libertarians get that. They ALSO don’t like it when big banks screw them over, but libertarians DON’T get that. And the Bush crash was ALL about big banks screwing everybody over, with the help of bought-out legislators and politicians. If it makes you feel ANY better, we are fast headed for a government which will not do ANYTHING that corporate American disapproves of. We will all have been permanently outsmarted. But hey, it’s OK, because the corporations are doing it … right?
Wrong. Like many people, you are confusing libertarians with Objectivists; there is some overlap but they aren’t the same. Yes, libertarians DO get people not liking being screwed over by ANY entity; here’s a recent example called “The Case Against Cronies“, and my column for tomorrow, “Leviathan”, just happens to be on this very subject.
Hi Maggie,
In response to Pat, you implied that Objectivists (as opposed to Libertarians) would approve of banks screwing over individuals with the help of bought and paid for politicians. I respectfully submit that that viewpoint is a caricature originated by Whittaker Chambers under the auspices of William F. Buckley; one that has been very useful to those of both the left and putative right who would use the apparatus of government to abuse the rights of the individual.
While there may be the odd individual who claims to be an objectivist that supports this view, it is not consistent with the philosophy itself. For that matter, I’ve run into folks who claim to be objectivists while holding forth that the color of one’s skin can be used legitimately for differential political treatment, an assertion which flies in the face of Rand’s observation that “racism is the most crude and primitive of all forms of collectivism. ”
A short version of Rand’s ideal of social interaction can be contained in the following; “Trade by mutual consent to mutual benefit.” There is no room in such a philosophy for the idea that while rights violations by other individuals are proscribed, rights violations by collections of individuals (institutions of any sort) are somehow encouraged. I can provide numerous references toward that end, if you are interested.
In fact, in addition to Rand’s more famous distaste for altruism, she had no tolerance for what might be called “predatory egoism.” As George H. Smith points out in this essay
George H. Smith devoted 5 essays to this topic at the html jump above this excerpt. If you are interested in a general understanding of Rand’s issues with altruism and its impact on ethical theory, this is a fairly painless introduction. And while Smith started as an Objectivist in the 1960’s he now considers himself to be a libertarian so issues of special pleading and the like are not likely to arise.
Two quotes from Rand should put to rest the idea that she would advocate for the “screwing over” of any individual by another individual or collection of the same;
And;
Governments forced the banks to lend money? I have come across that before, but I’d have to google the link that discredits it. This is a meme put about by the banks and their sympathizers.
Maybe you should google “Community Reinvestment Act”.
Also – those who say that the government wasn’t forcing banks to lend to subprime borrowers include people like Paul Krugman – who is a complete idiot.
I have to disagree with you, Paul; it started with Bush Sr. back in the early ’90s. I can remember reading about it in the paper, telling Jack (my ex) that it would result in a huge financial debacle. This is not to say the banks are innocent, because they did plenty to make the situation worse. But the original notion that it was a great idea to force banks to make loans to people who were unlikely to pay them back was a product of Washington politics.
The class of company with the bulk of the bad loans and the highest failure rates was the non-bank mortgage company; they were not subject to the regulations you’re saying caused the problem at all. They went into that marked completely uncoerced by government.
I call BS – Freddie and Fannie were key in the collapse – and they are government controlled entities. They may have been exempt from certain laws but you can bet your ass they were lending to as many people as possible and often minorities who couldn’t reapay the loans.
This isn’t even really a point that can be debated. “Troubled Assets” – the very definition means someone who can’t repay the loan.
The reason that the crash was as bad as it was is that the various lenders weren’t lending to ‘minorities’ who couldn’t repay the loans. That would have made the whole thing to goddamned transparent. The entire loan process was loosened, so that all KINDS of people who couldn’t repay the money got loans.
My Lady and I went through the loan process several times during the hight of the idiocy. EACH TIME we were told we ‘qualified’ for much more money than we had any real chance of repaying. Fortunately my Lady is the daughter of an actuary, and a math-science major; she could run the numbers through the old formulas, and we kept our liabilities within screaming distance of the reasonable. I think a lot of people assumed that the lenders knew what they were talking about, not realizing that the lenders business model was being screwed with by politics.
All the shenanigans that people point to when they want to damn the banks boil down to the lenders trying to find a way to make the mess work (and failing). And, no, I don’t think that the people left in the banking business are innocent; the decent ones bailed and left the banks in the hands of the scoundrels and the morons.
Men are good at doing stuff because they must do so. Men are in most things better at doing stuff because they must do so. There is virtually never another choice for a man. A woman is by far more able and allowed to earn her keep through her sexuality than a man. That’s why there are more women who are prostitutes and kept wives. You made good observations.
Oh, these observations are pretty common currency in the manosphere. Go see mgtowforums.com, or avoiceformen.com .
Really? Do you really not understand what anti-discriminatory laws are for?
When there is an imbalance in the work force due to convention/prejudiced (black people traditionally don’t/can’t to x, women traditionally don’t/can’t do x) the laws are there to force their presence into the work force. After a few decades, or perhaps a generation or two, the “traditionally don’t/can’t” is no longer artificially stopping people from entering industry x. Then the free market can take over, and the balance will, for the most part, even out.
Holy crap, to imply that “men are better at x because they can’t do anything” else is lunacy, the same lunacy that, 150 years ago, promoted the belief that “black people are just intellectually inferior, that’s why they are prone to being slaves”. Men can be home-makers just as easily as women, but prejudice and precedent prevent them from doing so (not to mention the whole pedo-hysteria).
Also, are you actually calling Marxist policy practical? You do understand that class structure exists for a reason, right? That is hardwired in to human social interactions? And that wiping out one “upper class” only leaves a void that will be filled by, guess who, the leaders of whatever Marxist revolution wiped them out?
Sheesh. If you have to pat yourselves on the back for being privileged white males, at least have the decency to do it honestly. You know, something along the lines of “Gee, its just not in my best interest to allow women and minorities into the work force, because then I have to work harder to keep a job!”
“Then the free market can take over, and the balance will, for the most part, even out.”
Riiight – just how socialism after a period of time will no longer be necessary and the utopia that is communism will simply happen. I can’t help noticing that the various laws enforcing equality of outcome don’t have cutoff dates. Why is that?
What about those jobs where men, in fact, as a matter of reality, *are* better? The swedish firefighters come to mind. All gender equal, nice and balanced, except for the minor little point that women take 10 minutes to break through a security door where a man takes one. You take it as given that imbalance is due to “convention/prejudiced” but you don’t actually prove it.
While I’m at it: where are all the women garbage collectors? Sewerage workers? Feminists want laws to enforce equality, but only for cushy office jobs.
To tell you the truth, I actually don’t give a shit. I work in IT, and the truth is that either you can code or you cant. Sure, the industry heavily male. So? You want your payroll software to compile, or not? If you don’t care, why not hire a Swedish firefighter to cut your code?
I’m an engineer, and a girl. I can tell you that anti-discriminatory laws really helped a lot of girls decide to learn to be engineers (and the classes that I shared with the CS majors lead me to believe it was the same in that major as well). Not just allowed them to get jobs, but actually motivate them to learn, because they felt like they had a shot in a sausage dominated field.
Also, do some research beyond whatever you read on your sexist man-blogs, there are women garbage collectors and sewage workers, even through its still a minority, and anti discriminatory laws apply to those jobs also.
Look, I don’t really care if the solution is perfect, just that it worked, and I can tell you that it did. Also- lets not get into a burden of proof argument here, because last I checked, you didn’t provide a scrap of evidence for your “Swedish firefighter” statistics either. Balanced workforce doesn’t necessarily mean 50/50, it just means unrelated to the bigotry of prejudiced people in the workforce. You know, the influence of people like you.
Honestly, a lot of ground has been covered in the last 50 years, but we’re just not there yet, and last I checked, businesses haven’t gone bankrupt just because there are laws that say the can’t fire someone only because they are female/black/gay/whatever. There has to be actual evidence that they suck at their job, which, if they do suck, is rather easy to find. So where’s the problem? Oh, right. There isn’t one.
Seriously, society has not collapsed, progress has not slowed, and your constant whining about the “war on men” just sounds childish. Go spout your ignorant demagoguery to someone without a brain.
I’ll add a question of my own: what about encouraging men to work in women-dominated fields (like kindergarten teaching or daycare)?
Anti-discrimination laws are not at all the same thing as “positive” discrimination and while I’m all for the former, I’m against the latter, because “positive” discrimination is still discrimination, unfair and insulting.
I agree with that! I’d love to see more male secretaries, nurses and kindergarten teachers. You know, to the point where you don’t need a ‘male’ in front.
Male kindergarten teachers?
Sure, can you say “unfounded accusations of child molesting”?
That is sexism, and is something that needs to stop, and its part of my point. I think Maggie did a post on that, one of her moral panic pieces.
The only one I can think of right now that fits the bill is the recent Bernard Baran piece, “Absolute Corruption“.
Yeah, that’s the one!
You and I should meet – because you seem to think that you and I are equal physically. Babe, lemme assure you – I AM VASTLY SUPERIOR TO YOU IN ANY PHYSICAL ENDEAVOR.
Now – you can “dumb” a job down – you can say … “Oh we don’t want anyone lifting more than 50 pounds in this job” – and if you make that kind of restriction then you can put women in that job – but you are degrading the job and – when a 60 pound object raises it’s head – it’ll be one of the men to pick it up.
You … have a desk job – you do not know what it’s like in the physical labor world.
I do.
I may be playing devil’s advocate here, but I didn’t see anything in stormdaughter’s comments on this thread that claimed or implied that she’s your physical equal. Unless I’m missing something, what I’m reading here is that those laws were intended (at least originally) to make it so employers have to say to applicants “I need someone who can lift 60 pounds. You can’t lift 60 pounds, therefore I won’t hire you,” as opposed to dismissing them out of hand just because they happen to be a woman, black, gay, whatever.
Granted, there are unscrupulous people who would deny the reality and make out as a victim of discrimination where there is none, and ‘dumbing’ down in the name of craven political correctness is definitely something that happens much too often, but I don’t think that’s what stormdaughter was driving at.
Precisely, thank you.
Krulac seems to take everything I say as a threat to his manly muscles. It confuses me, because I have not once claimed to be, or to want to be, his physical equal, and we have exchanged banter on this subject over and over.
The Quiet Man
Krulac wasn’t nearly off topic as her first reply to anything I stated in my reply to Paul Murray.
That’s just not so. See below.
Why do you feel the need to keep saying that at the slightest provocation? Are you afraid your manliness is at stake or something if you fail to scream about strength differentials at every sexism in the work place discussion? You do get that that is not the point right?
Actually, I think the 1864 Civil Rights Act, or at least part of it, does have a cut-off date. I know I’ve read of Congress passing extensions for it once a decade or so.
(I’m actually in favour of all laws having an expiration date. In addition to increasing the chance of bad laws disappearing after a while, it also keeps legislatures busy when they have to constantly renew old laws, and keeps them from enacting as many new ones. The chances of the rare important law, such as laws against murder, expiring would be pretty much nil, since no politician would want to take the blame for letting something like that happen.)
Back in the ’80s, the town I lived in actually had only female garbage collectors for a time. It was a very tiny town, so there were onlytwo ro three and they only worked in this town once a week.
That’s a pretty cool idea.
And do you mean 1864, or 1964?
I meant 1964.
Actually, after looking up some things, I think I got that wrong. Portions of the Voting Rights Act have an expiration date, and those have been renewed several times by Congress. I guess the Civil Rights Act is permanent, but I believe there have been some amendments over the years.
That’s what discrimination law starts out as being for. But eventually it gets taken over, abused, and made perpetual by the new professional-victim class. Look at black/white racial law in the US, which means today that no teacher or administrator ever dares discipline a black kid, and has thus created a whole class of thugs who believe they’re entitled to bully others with impunity. Then they leave school and start doing the same to their bosses and co-workers.
We need a “Civil Rights Reform Act” saying that people have a right to react appropriately to behavior (and employers to those who can’t or won’t do a good job), regardless of any “disparate impact” on a “protected class.”
That… already exists. At least, that’s what The Equal Pay Act of 1963 says. It ensures equal pay for women who are doing an equal job, with an exemption for seniority and merit based discrepancies.
There is a huge difference between law and policy. Idiots can make whatever policies they want for their own company (or school) but the law only supports what is, you know, in the law.
Could you all please make sure your complaining about the laws that actually exist?
” Look at black/white racial law in the US, which means today that no teacher or administrator ever dares discipline a black kid, ”
Cite please.
So what you’re saying is that we need more anti-discrimination laws so more men can work as prostitutes if they want to do so? You implied things that I never thought nor implied. Wow! What a long winded off tangent rant you made. My statements above should have been taken as generally speaking or on average men must do better than most women in on a job in order to survive because a male prostitute and a kept husband are lot harder to find than a female prostitute or a kept wife. If you can’t perform on a job or the boss doesn’t like you and being a prostitute or being a kept spouse is also out of the question then you face real problems such as homelessness if you get fired. Last time I looked at statistics and the street, more men were homeless. I’m in a humorous mood and am going off tangent. Are you asking me to be your kept husband or at least will you pay me for sexual services by the hour to be a prostitute servicing you?
My above comment on 7 May 2013 at 8:52 a.m. was directed at Storm Daughter.
Igg, certainly not. But you could movie back in with your parents. Believe it or not, most girls (for that matter, people) who lose a job and aren’t “kept wives” (which is exceedingly rare these days anyway), or whores, they just move back in with their parents.
Actual homeless people tend to have other serious problems, and the reason you don’t see women on the street as much is actually very complicated and not really related to “joblessness” and more related to “untreated mental and physical health issues” and the fact that women are more likely to get sympathetic housing because people are sexist.
I totally disagree with your statement that men must do better than women to keep a job. Its just not true, at all, and I’d like you to show evidence before you start tooting about how “women don’t need to work as hard as men “. Note- anti-discriminatory laws are not evidence in your favor, they are evidence against it.
I don’t think you understand how anti-discriminatory laws work.
Also, prostitution is illegal, so I doubt there will be any anti-discrimination laws passed on that. Besides, male prostitutes exist, but they serve gay men, not women, in general.
Yes, I agree that fewer women these days are kept wives. Even fewer men are kept husbands. You also admit the sexism about letting men be homeless more than women. However, men do still work to support their wives even if she still works to support the household too. I have personally found that more men would be happy to let their wives stay at home than the reverse if they were making enough money to do so. Usually men trade protection and to a lesser extent provision for sex while women trade sex for protection and to a lesser extent provision. I was being ironic mentioning male prostitution. However, I’ve never heard of anti-discrimination laws concerning prostitution about the gender of people.
Regarding the homeless thing, I see a chink in your armor. You are all but admitting that it is lousy to be down and out, but that it is much worse to be down and out as a man than as a woman. This is the thing many of you women and even men never seem to understand. Yes, there is a glass ceiling for women that is harder for them to move above, but their is also a glass floor which you women are not allowed to fall through as much as men with no one caring about what your problems are. Yes it is better to be a top man than a top woman, but it is also worse to be a bottom man than a bottom woman on average too. There are more top men than top women, but there are also more bottom men than bottom women.
If you are so against discrimination, then you would be against the bias against men in family courts concerning child support and divorce, Ask yourself who gets the children while collecting child support money from the opposite gender in 90+% of the cases, gets to stay in the family home, and collects alimony—Women do is the answer. You might even be against VAWA for its disparate negative impact on men. Since you are so against discrimination, then the next time a man is in the building with you, and there is a possible disturbance especially of what seems to be an unlawful intruder, then you go check it out while the man stays behind; and I would love to be that man. LOL! LMAO!!!
I really don’t like that you can’t accept that there is a way to be against discrimination without being a hypocrite, but that is besides the point.
I am against divorce discrimination, its stupid. But you’re using a huge fallacy in your argument- you cannot justify a wrong by pointing out there are other wrongs. That’s idiotic, especially if you are trying to argue that the solution to a wrong is… inconvenient? I’m not really sure what your arguing, because like I said, the laws that actually exist have provisions for merit based discrepancies, they only say that you cannot be discriminated against for not having balls. Or boobs, in the case of female dominated industry.
Also, just because the domestic status-quo exists doesn’t mean its right. Its doesn’t mean its wrong either; it has literally nothing to do with the fairness of labor laws. The point of them is that everyone must do the same level of work to keep the same job, and must be compensated equally for the same amount of work, regardless of sex or other unrelated characteristics. Its irrelevant to the discussion about labor laws if the price of failure is higher for guys, which I still think is debatable. I don’t think it has to be higher.
As an aside, me and my husband would go together, because two people are much safer than just one.
You spanked the hell out of this one Maggie! Thanks!
Here, someone defines Dworkinism, “The school of thought that says all men are scum and women who disagree with that thought are either scum or brainwashed by the patriarchy.” — http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1882419&mesg_id=1883303
You can’t shake the Devil’s hand and then say, “Only kidding.”
I’ve seen plenty of people in business who are no smarter than people in government.
Somewhere along the line, the feminism I supported and worked for, the feminism of the ERA, which was about showing women’s strength and capability, the “give us an equal chance and we will prove ourselves” feminism, got morphed into the “i’m a victim” kind.
I remember when all the dykes and whores got told to stay in the background, in the late 70’s, so that feminism would be politically acceptable. It seemed that it happened then.
Some of this attitude actually comes from a patriarchal point of view: That one’s daughters, wives, mothers are frail chaste flowers, who would only have sex as a duty to when forced to by men. This denies agency to women. The other kind of woman is a whore, who deserves no respect or rights.
Once we guarantee the rights of whores, it will free all women.
And once we guarantee the rights of whores it will free men even more than women. Good commentary on your part.
And it’s happening again right now with gay rights.
It’s the effect of what I call political gentrification it takes the rough edges off of a challenging political movement and makes it acceptable to the same mainstream society that fought it for years.. I don’t think it’s an accident that it caused feminism to dovetail nicely with other forms of main stream prudery.
I remember some talk show years back, that some poor strippers had gone on to get abused by angry feminists and religious right types and a man in the audience who had been passed a microphone said, “Well, if feminists and fundamentalists agree then it must be true!” (I think I was in high school at the time, and my reaction was exactly the opposite.)
It’s what I fear is happening to the gay rights movement right now.
See the link in my comment directly above yours.
Ah, exactly what I meant by gentrification, including sponsorship by AT&T and Bank of America, no less.
Even though most people pay lip service to “freedom” and “tolerance”, deep down what they truly believe is that only the things they approve of are good and right, and equate anything different with “bad”. To these people, “tolerance” means “to tolerate only until it can be changed/fixed”.
Hence they see an attack against any of these “bad” things as society’s vindication of their correctness instead of the thin edge of the wedge/slippery slope that it truly is. It makes them feel good, so why would they oppose it?
“First they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew …. ”
The majority of people identify as part of the “They” in the above quotation, and therefore are blind to the final passage.
“Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do whatcha gonna do?
When they come for you?
Bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”
— Theme song, from a popular US reality show. “COPS”
The only part of this article that I disagree with is the photograph. It appears to be of a protest against illegal aliens. Now, I can see where that superficially fits the model of “people who want to see those they disagree with punished”, but like the rest of life its more complicated.
The anti-illegal immigrant protesters object to the non-enforcement of laws on the books. I, personally, think that the illegal immigrants they object to are not a serious problem. But I do agree that the immigration laws should be enforced, because leaving them in place and selectively NOT enforcing them is also a pattern of tyranny.
Consider; if the laws against sex-work were (as a matter of policy) not enforced, except where the Authorities had a case of the ass with one john or one prostitute, would that actually constitute an improvement?
The people who oppose the ‘anti-immigration’ movement don’t seem to be interested in CHANGING the laws. Maybe they think it’s too much trouble. So they favor leaving in place conditions that trap illegal immigrants in a legal limbo where they can be exploited. The ‘anti-immigration’ movement is fro enforcing the laws as they stand, which (if the laws are unfair, or even simply annoying) is likely to get the laws CHANGED.
I think you are over-estimating the intelligence of anti-immigration protesters. It may well have the effect you suggest, but I hardly think its their actual plan. There’s a lot of prejudice floating around, and people tend to have a lot of misplaced faith in the validity of laws that already exist, rather than laws that should exist.
I mean, if someone really thought the laws should be changed, they would just say so, like you just did.
Oh, I don’t think for an instant that that is what the ‘anti-immigration’ protesters PLAN. Their arguments leave me cold; they sound too much like the trip that was trotted out against the Irish in the ‘No Irish Need Apply’ era.
But their opponents are the ones that really concern me. They SOUND all wonderful and tolerant … and what they want will result in a worse situation.
What I am, somewhat closely, saying is that “Enforce the law! Punish!” is only one element of tyranny … and not the worst. The “we’ll have a law for when we need it, and we’ll let Top Men decide when to apply it” impulse is more dangerous.
The main problem with selective enforcement is that it turns the rule of law, with it’s sometimes indifferent cruelty, to rule by men (and women, Carmen Ortiz comes to mind) and into a tool for petty (and not so petty) tyranny.
This is like the computer security act that trapped Aaron Swartz, strictly enforced and the jails would groan under the weight (and we have a lot of jails).
Used to destroy people who’s politics you don’t like, and it’s perfect.
It’s the usual problem with the two factions (I’m talking about people with real power here, not necessarily people holding signs), navigating through mostly bad intentions on both sides. (I wish we had some more factions with a shot at power, but probably not in my lifetime.)
The intelligence that is being “overestimated” is that belonging to people who believe that you can keep a house in good order with an “open door” policy.
The law is the law – ENFORCE IT. If you don’t want to enforce it – change it.
Also – when you unlock your house at night – I’ll come around to “open borders” m’kay?
Unlocked doors is a weak analogy for open borders. Someone trying to enter your home without your express permission almost certainly has bad intentions towards you and your property. Someone who wants to move into your country likely just wants a job from a consenting local employer.
The sticky bit is “illegal means illegal”. We are dealing with a mentality that illegal things should be illegal because they are illegal. That is incapable of dealing with the questions “why is it illegal” and “should it be illegal”. The relevance to pot smoking and sex work is obvious.
Give that man a cigar! I chose that picture much more for the signs than for what they are specifically protesting; they demonstrate a frighteningly ovine submission to power.
(And the woman’s apparent Nazi salute is also a nice touch).
Agreed. But note that the people who oppose this group don’t seem interested in changing the law, they just want the authority to enforce in selectively AS A MATTER OF POLICY.
“Yes, Mr. Hernandez, technically you are a criminal, but I’m sure that if you cooperate with This Department there won’t be any trouble….”
*spit*
The ‘anti-immigration’ people aren’t Good Folk either, but they are at least for treating the illegal immigrants like adults, not peasants.
Here’s a case of a woman legally married to an American citizen:
The calls from the [immigration] agent started three days later. He hinted, she said, at his power to derail her life and deport her relatives, alluding to a brush she had with the law before her marriage. He summoned her to a private meeting. And at noon on Dec. 21, in a parked car on Queens Boulevard, he named his price — not realizing that she was recording everything on the digital camera in her purse.
“I want sex,” he said on the recording. “One or two times. That’s all. You get your green card. You won’t have to see me anymore.”
She reluctantly agreed to a future meeting. But when she tried to leave his car, he demanded oral sex “now,” to “know that you’re serious.” And despite her protests, she said, he got his way.
— http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/nyregion/21immigrant.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Ahh, all us immigrants are just here to take your jobs.
You’re taking serious flak on this but brother – I’m with you.
And to anyone who believes in open-borders … hey, put your money where your mouth is and remove the locks from house, condo, apartment or mobile home. Let anyone come in and share in the wealth you’ve built.
Don’t want to do that? Yeaahhhh … I didn’t think so!
I remember when these policies came to the fore in the 90’s. My college had a problem in which some male students were not expelled for (alleged) assaults. The mantra then (and now) was that the rules should be made as canted as possible toward the accuser to encourage women to step forward and not fail to report when something had happened. And when you would raised issues of injustice and unfairness, it was dismissed because you needed to encourage women to step forward. Any people whose lives were destroyed were collateral damage in that effort.
It’s odd because, when it comes to campus justice, everything else is kangaroo court the other way. I’ve been involved in a few instances in which students were accused of cheating. And the rules of evidence, the rules of the court were pretty much made up on the fly. In one instances, the TA who spotted the cheating wasn’t allowed to testify while a friend of the accused was allowed to call in by phone to testify. In another instance, evidence was destroyed by the Court because one of the students left the University.
Campus justice is a joke. It’s run by student lawyer wannabees whose knowledge of the law and procedure comes from watching Matlock with the sound off.
Unfortunately, your best allies may be those who ignored the problem until it affected them personally. Yes, they are often hypocrites. However, they are now involved in the issue, and this is your best time to try and get them up to speed as to why it happened, and what they can do to stop it from happening to them again. As Lazarus Long observed, never appeal to a person’s altruism or sense of justice; they may lack either. Appeal to their self-interest instead.
Unfortunately, I doubt the median human is built to think that way, or readily capable of doing so; those that are are freaks.
I wonder if the slant in campus sex laws has to do with the progressive clustering that happens on campuses, a symptom of the overarching desire to ‘show you care’ in the movement.
There is only one protection available: join the football team.
A couple friends of mine got the boot for “drunk yes” is no.
But we called campus security three times when because of screams from the star running backs room. One girl was hospitalized with broken jaw and from her screams every one in the dorm new she was anally raped.
He played two days later.
So you have a multi tiered kangaroo system where the most likely offenders are free to do whatever and the rest get the boot for flimsy evidence.
How does your theory mesh with the Duke Lacrosse scandal?
Because it doesn’t seem to mesh very well with it.
It’s lacrosse.
Dave,
that’s succinct and to the point. There’s definitely a err, umm “pecking order” in the sports hiearchy!
The more of your posts I read — and the comments thereto — the more I discover just what a strange country the US is. Sadly.
Speaking as the son of two history teachers, I say with some feeling that those who say that things have never been better are fools, and those who maintain that things have never been worse are pillocks.
This is the Law of 22 Prairial all over again.
Those who would take away the presumption of innocence are not entitled to be called the United States government. They are an occupying enemy force and need to be resisted.
It would mitigate the problem somewhat if these rules only applied to America’s overpriced “elite” indoctrination-centers Universities, but they have already started to creep into employment law, where avoiding them is harder. Eventually they’ll drive most of the economy underground, and we’ll be just another corrupt (and poor) banana republic. But other forms of overregulation are doing that to us already.
In no time at all, we’ll be just like {insert name of unpleasant country here}!
Every generation, over and over, blah blah blah I’ve said it before and nobody really denies it, except to say that this time for sure.
This is an interesting blog of Krulac’s…with occasional comments by Maggie.