Drafting men is the bad idea for any but the military purpose of pretty clearly true blue and honest to gosh national defense.
Does that include drafting men to participate in any mess we might get into because of our far flung Cold War alliances like Article 5 of NATO?
I hesitate to say aye or nay to drafting men to save Riga from the dreaded Russkies.
Yes, I suppose, given the alliance. But that is another argument against that alliance.
The even worse idea is drafting women.
Male-Only Military Draft Is Constitutional, Federal Appeals Court Rules
A federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the male-only military draft system on Thursday, overturning a lower court ruling.
In an opinion issued Thursday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans noted that the Supreme Court upheld the male-only draft in 1981 and said the 5th Circuit is a “strict stare decisis” court and “cannot ignore a decision from the Supreme Court,” adding that only the Supreme Court may revise its precedent.
. . . .
After arguments before the 5th Circuit in March, a federal commission recommended extending the draft to include women as well.
“The Commission concluded that the time is right to extend Selective Service System registration to include men and women, between the ages of 18 and 26.
"This is a necessary and fair step, making it possible to draw on the talent of a unified Nation in a time of national emergency,” a summary to the commission’s final report said.
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2020
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
MSNBC running this stuff a lot. Very funny. Excellent sendup of the vacuous moron in the White House.
https://www.youtube.com/user/sarahcooper
I can't believe she and Nicolle Wallace are turning this into an occassion for feminist bellyaching about how easy life is for totally incompetent men.
Penis envy?
I can't believe she and Nicolle Wallace are turning this into an occassion for feminist bellyaching about how easy life is for totally incompetent men.
Penis envy?
Monday, June 29, 2020
More full of shit activists
Biden campaign says 36% of senior staff are people of color
Joe Biden’s campaign says a little more than a third of its senior staff are people of color, sharing staff diversity data after facing pressure to answer questions on the issue.
The campaign said that 36% of its senior staff are people of color, but did not disclose how much of its overall campaign staff are people of color.
The campaign also noted that women are in the majority of both the campaign’s senior staff and its full staff.
The candidate has faced warnings from activists that he must be careful not to take the Black community for granted.
Right.
They might stay home, or vote for the Great Fat Orange Klansman, if he doesn't watch it.
I had a feeling they might.
Black voters helped deliver him the nomination, and will be key to his White House hopes this fall.
They and just under half the whites who vote this time.
Two or three times as many as the blacks who will vote for him.
Joe Biden’s campaign says a little more than a third of its senior staff are people of color, sharing staff diversity data after facing pressure to answer questions on the issue.
The campaign said that 36% of its senior staff are people of color, but did not disclose how much of its overall campaign staff are people of color.
The campaign also noted that women are in the majority of both the campaign’s senior staff and its full staff.
The candidate has faced warnings from activists that he must be careful not to take the Black community for granted.
Right.
They might stay home, or vote for the Great Fat Orange Klansman, if he doesn't watch it.
I had a feeling they might.
Black voters helped deliver him the nomination, and will be key to his White House hopes this fall.
They and just under half the whites who vote this time.
Two or three times as many as the blacks who will vote for him.
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Let the orgy of oppo research begin!
Expect it when the radical left put forward their list of heroes and heroines to replace the ones it rejects.
The statue celebrates this fellow for being a hero of press freedom under Mussolini.
Protesters target statue of famed Italian journalist who married a 12-year-old in Eritrea
The statue celebrates this fellow for being a hero of press freedom under Mussolini.
Protesters target statue of famed Italian journalist who married a 12-year-old in Eritrea
A statue of famed Italian journalist Indro Montanelli in Milan has been painted red and sprayed with the words "racist" and "rapist," while a petition has called for its removal.
While serving in the army in 1935-1936, during Italy's war in Eritrea, the 26-year-old Montanelli bought and married a 12-year-old girl.
During a 1969 interview with Italian journalist and activist Elvira Banotti, Montanelli said he was married to the child because he "bought" her, which he said was part of the region's tradition and common among Eritrean soldiers.
When Banotti pressed Montanelli on whether he had raped the girl, named Desta, the journalist did not answer the question directly but defended himself by saying that he was married and that the issue of rape was out of the question.
. . . .
Milan's mayor, Beppe Sala, said Sunday that although he had seen the video in which Montanelli admitted he had bought the girl, he believed Montanelli was a "great journalist" who fought for press freedom, and that the statue should remain where it is.
"Now I invite all of us, I invite our community to reflect on two issues. The first question I ask myself and you is what do we ask of personalities we want to remember with a statue, with a plaque, with the name of a street or a square, or a garden?
"Do we ask for a spotless life? For a life in which everything was absolutely right? It is possible. However, few would remain to remember," he said in a video posted to Facebook.
"And the second question that I ask myself and you is: When we judge our lives, can we say that our own is spotless? And without things that we wouldn't do again?" he said.
"I put my hands up, my life is not. I made mistakes, I did things I wish I hadn't done, but lives must be judged in their complexity.
"For all these reasons, I think that the statue must remain there. I am nevertheless available to discuss the issue of racism and Montanelli whenever you want," the mayor added.
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Betty Crocker, you're next
Right after Mrs. Butterworth and Sarah Lee, but before Duncan Hines and Mr. Peanut.
Quaker has bent the knee.
Aunt Jemima brand to change name, remove image that Quaker says is 'based on a racial stereotype'
The Floyd demonstrations have mutated into a rebellion of the racial left that has so far left behind the sexual left.
That won't last.
Quaker has bent the knee.
Aunt Jemima brand to change name, remove image that Quaker says is 'based on a racial stereotype'
The Floyd demonstrations have mutated into a rebellion of the racial left that has so far left behind the sexual left.
That won't last.
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Universal sexism
It appears the universal conviction of popular culture that for a woman in authority to get the necessary respect her underlings must address her as a man.
They must call her not "Ma'am" but "Sir", not "Boss" but "Boss Man".
Catherine the Great, Queen Elizabeth I ("Gloriana"), the Queen Empress Victoria, Golda Meir, and Mrs. Ghandi would all have found this conviction profoundly sexist and misogynist.
As do I.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Is it OK for the black majority to make laws governing the choices of the white minority in South Africa?
I ask because of this guilt-tripper doing her level best to stoke outrage that white people will make abortion laws impacting the choices of nonwhites.
Oh, dear me.
White conservative women have played key role in abortion policy changes this year
The main storyline on reproductive rights for months now has been this: Men, many of them conservative, have moved to curtail access to legal abortion and even ban it, imposing their will upon women.
That would be the main guilt-tripping misandrist propaganda line that we are so disgusted by and so used to.
The truth, however, is more complicated.
White women have joined men, mostly but not exclusively in the Deep South, in using their conservative majorities in multiple state legislatures to make sweeping changes to abortion policies this year.
Those laws that survive legal challenges will most deeply affect women too poor to travel or move to a state with better access to abortion services.
That’s a group that is disproportionately black and Latino — and, in the case of black women, a group that tends to support access to legal abortion.
This gap between those making the decisions and those affected by them, experts say, is a dynamic with deep roots in American history.
And it happens the other way 'round in every American city or county where a black and overwhelmingly Democratic majority makes the rules for whites, often much more Republican, and other minorities.
Oh how awful!
Wait, is it racist to deplore black majority rule over a white minority? White nationalist? White supremacist, even?
Oh, golly.
The role of white women — long key players in dictating and constraining the reproductive choices of others — is too often discounted and overlooked, experts say.
In 2019, new abortion restrictions were passed in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana after white women co-sponsored them, many voted for them and in one state, signed the changes into law.
(In those four state legislatures, 48 women — almost all of them white — voted for the restrictions.)
When Democrats get like this they just make me want to puke all over them.
And regret that the Republicans want to kill me, so I can never vote for them, no matter how revolting the Democrats get.
Oh, dear me.
White conservative women have played key role in abortion policy changes this year
The main storyline on reproductive rights for months now has been this: Men, many of them conservative, have moved to curtail access to legal abortion and even ban it, imposing their will upon women.
That would be the main guilt-tripping misandrist propaganda line that we are so disgusted by and so used to.
The truth, however, is more complicated.
White women have joined men, mostly but not exclusively in the Deep South, in using their conservative majorities in multiple state legislatures to make sweeping changes to abortion policies this year.
Those laws that survive legal challenges will most deeply affect women too poor to travel or move to a state with better access to abortion services.
That’s a group that is disproportionately black and Latino — and, in the case of black women, a group that tends to support access to legal abortion.
This gap between those making the decisions and those affected by them, experts say, is a dynamic with deep roots in American history.
And it happens the other way 'round in every American city or county where a black and overwhelmingly Democratic majority makes the rules for whites, often much more Republican, and other minorities.
Oh how awful!
Wait, is it racist to deplore black majority rule over a white minority? White nationalist? White supremacist, even?
Oh, golly.
The role of white women — long key players in dictating and constraining the reproductive choices of others — is too often discounted and overlooked, experts say.
In 2019, new abortion restrictions were passed in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana after white women co-sponsored them, many voted for them and in one state, signed the changes into law.
(In those four state legislatures, 48 women — almost all of them white — voted for the restrictions.)
When Democrats get like this they just make me want to puke all over them.
And regret that the Republicans want to kill me, so I can never vote for them, no matter how revolting the Democrats get.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
How to speed the death of the EU
Europe’s patchwork of abortion laws is absurd. Rights must be made universal
That will thrill the voters in Poland.
Brexit effect forces women to go to Netherlands for abortions
Of course, the objection isn't that rules need to be all the same, but that rules need to be all equally permissive of abortions throughout Europe.
Or some women interested in killing their unborn babies might find it inconvenient, confusing, and annoying, poor things.
A stronger push for control of the laws regarding sex throughout Europe by the post-Christian, PC, feminist, liberal morality, and especially laws regarding abortion, will help drive the breakup of the EU almost as much as liberal, post-national and post-nationalist convictions regarding the morality of immigration and the rights of prospective and actual migrants have done.
That is unfortunate in many ways, for Europe and for Europeans.
But the truth is that liberals, like anybody else, are only willing to tolerate kinds of diversity that they just don't really care about.
Those they hate they want to outlaw, persecute, and abolish.
Leaving the EU is an obvious way for more conservative European countries to escape domination by the nearly universal post-Christian moral orthodoxy.
The more liberal countries, on the other hand, would be free to legalize infanticide at will, suicide and assisted suicide, and euthanasia, probably rather more often than I would.
And I am confident they would.
That will thrill the voters in Poland.
Brexit effect forces women to go to Netherlands for abortions
Of course, the objection isn't that rules need to be all the same, but that rules need to be all equally permissive of abortions throughout Europe.
Or some women interested in killing their unborn babies might find it inconvenient, confusing, and annoying, poor things.
A stronger push for control of the laws regarding sex throughout Europe by the post-Christian, PC, feminist, liberal morality, and especially laws regarding abortion, will help drive the breakup of the EU almost as much as liberal, post-national and post-nationalist convictions regarding the morality of immigration and the rights of prospective and actual migrants have done.
That is unfortunate in many ways, for Europe and for Europeans.
But the truth is that liberals, like anybody else, are only willing to tolerate kinds of diversity that they just don't really care about.
Those they hate they want to outlaw, persecute, and abolish.
Leaving the EU is an obvious way for more conservative European countries to escape domination by the nearly universal post-Christian moral orthodoxy.
The more liberal countries, on the other hand, would be free to legalize infanticide at will, suicide and assisted suicide, and euthanasia, probably rather more often than I would.
And I am confident they would.
Sunday, July 14, 2019
The only Dem who agrees with me and with most Democrats and most Americans?
Bernie Sanders Fires Back at Joe Biden Over Medicare for All Claims
I think this is worth a Pinocchio.
Biden said Saturday that his proposal for a public option would cost about $750 billion over 10 years, according to CNN.
He is the only Democratic front-runner that opposes a single-payer health plan enrolling all Americans in a Medicare-like program.
That last is a lie, if the Times is right.
As of June 23, 8 of the Dems supported M for A.
12 supported some sort of public option, including Mayor Pete, Casto, and Joe B.
3 did not respond to the Times' question.
A new survey of the Democratic candidates by The New York Times finds that many of them prefer less sweeping changes than the Medicare for All Act, the single-payer bill introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and supported by Senator Elizabeth Warren and several other presidential hopefuls.
A majority of candidates in the survey — including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the leader in early polls — said they would rather add a “public option” in the health care system that would compete with private plans.
The public option was once considered too far-reaching — champions of the idea in Congress could not muster quite enough support to include it in the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
But it is now seen as a more moderate alternative to Mr. Sanders’s plan, which would all but eliminate private health insurance and enroll everyone in a government-run program.
Even some candidates who back the single-payer approach of Medicare for All told The Times they would also be willing to support a choice between some kind of public option and private insurance, an acknowledgment that many Americans like their private coverage and want the choice to keep it.
. . . .
The findings underscore that the Democratic field, like the electorate, has not moved en masse to left-wing positions on health care.
While Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren are among the most full-throated supporters of major change, influencing the conversation with their provocative ideas, many other candidates say they are inclined to try to broaden options for health care rather than wholly replace the current system of coverage with a strictly government-run one.
“We don’t need to blow up our current health care system to provide everyone with high-quality, affordable care,” Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado wrote, explaining his preference for a public option.
Thing is, Joe B is leaving not much room for other moderates.
Why choose an unknown, if you are a moderate, when a superstar is on the ticket?
Things are a little different for the, uh, immoderate voters.
Because so many of them are identitarians who really, really don't want to vote for an old white guy, Sanders doesn't have the same effect on them that Biden has on moderate voters.
For each of Sanders and Biden, the second choice most popular among their voters is the other old white guy.
That might be a dash of identity politics getting in there, but I think it's name recognition and maybe just a preference for experience.
I think this is worth a Pinocchio.
Biden said Saturday that his proposal for a public option would cost about $750 billion over 10 years, according to CNN.
He is the only Democratic front-runner that opposes a single-payer health plan enrolling all Americans in a Medicare-like program.
That last is a lie, if the Times is right.
As of June 23, 8 of the Dems supported M for A.
12 supported some sort of public option, including Mayor Pete, Casto, and Joe B.
3 did not respond to the Times' question.
A new survey of the Democratic candidates by The New York Times finds that many of them prefer less sweeping changes than the Medicare for All Act, the single-payer bill introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and supported by Senator Elizabeth Warren and several other presidential hopefuls.
A majority of candidates in the survey — including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the leader in early polls — said they would rather add a “public option” in the health care system that would compete with private plans.
The public option was once considered too far-reaching — champions of the idea in Congress could not muster quite enough support to include it in the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
But it is now seen as a more moderate alternative to Mr. Sanders’s plan, which would all but eliminate private health insurance and enroll everyone in a government-run program.
Even some candidates who back the single-payer approach of Medicare for All told The Times they would also be willing to support a choice between some kind of public option and private insurance, an acknowledgment that many Americans like their private coverage and want the choice to keep it.
. . . .
The findings underscore that the Democratic field, like the electorate, has not moved en masse to left-wing positions on health care.
While Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren are among the most full-throated supporters of major change, influencing the conversation with their provocative ideas, many other candidates say they are inclined to try to broaden options for health care rather than wholly replace the current system of coverage with a strictly government-run one.
“We don’t need to blow up our current health care system to provide everyone with high-quality, affordable care,” Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado wrote, explaining his preference for a public option.
Thing is, Joe B is leaving not much room for other moderates.
Why choose an unknown, if you are a moderate, when a superstar is on the ticket?
Things are a little different for the, uh, immoderate voters.
Because so many of them are identitarians who really, really don't want to vote for an old white guy, Sanders doesn't have the same effect on them that Biden has on moderate voters.
For each of Sanders and Biden, the second choice most popular among their voters is the other old white guy.
That might be a dash of identity politics getting in there, but I think it's name recognition and maybe just a preference for experience.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Freedom of speech dying in Canada?
PC suppression of freedom of speech seems much further along in Canada than here.
Anyway, judging by the arrogance not only of her words but of her tone.
Activists condemn Canadian cinema chain for screening anti-abortion film
Abortion rights defenders in Canada have accused the country’s largest cinema chain of hiding behind freedom of expression laws in order to screen a controversial US anti-choice film which has been described as “anti-abortion propaganda”.
The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) said Cineplex Entertainment has “made a decision based on money, not freedom of speech” by choosing to screen Unplanned.
ARCC executive director Joyce Arthur said: “The movie theatres who are agreeing to show this film under the guise of free speech are publicly legitimizing anti-choice views."
Oh, my. How dare they?
She told the Guardian: “Why does much of civil society seem to think it’s still OK to allow public challenges of women’s rights in the name of free speech? That would never be tolerated if it, for example, were a white supremacist movie.”
I doubt that anyone will be making any new, theater-quality white supremacist films in the foreseeable future (grid willing).
How would she feel about an arts theater showing Birth of a Nation, I wonder.
Her comments came after the chief executive of Cineplex Entertainment defended his decision to screen Unplanned, a movie based on a memoir by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic who has become a prominent anti-abortion activist.
. . . .
In an open letter released Monday, Cineplex Entertainment chief Ellis Jacob said he made his decision to screen the film across Canada after receiving letters and calls on “both sides of the conversation”.
Jacob wrote: “Canada is a country that believes in and rallies behind freedom of expression, but that isn’t always an easy thing to do and it certainly doesn’t always make you popular.”
He said the decision was complicated and was not taken lightly, and that Canadians have the choice not to see the film.
. . . .
Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1988, after Dr Henry Morgentaler successfully petitioned the country’s top court to rule that its abortion law was unconstitutional.
However, anti-abortion sentiment is growing in Canada. Last year, Maclean’s magazine writer Anne Kingston profiled the resurgence of the anti-abortion movement in Canada, noting that many of the country’s anti-abortion political groups have close ties to their US counterparts.
With ‘Unplanned,’ Abortion Opponents Turn Toward Hollywood
The movie comes as conservatives are feeling emboldened to roll back abortion rights, including potentially overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, after the confirmation last October of Justice Brett Kavanaugh solidified their majority on the Supreme Court.
Another anti-abortion film, “Roe v. Wade,” starring the conservative actor Jon Voight, was promoted at the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., in January, but has yet to announce a distribution partner or release date.
. . . .
“Unplanned” is based on the memoir of the same name by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Tex., who became a celebrity of the anti-abortion movement after what she said was a crisis of conscience.
The film dramatizes her conversion narrative and includes three unflinching portrayals of abortions, the first and most explicit of which occurs in the first 10 minutes.
. . . .
The abortion scenes earned the movie its R rating, for “some disturbing/bloody images,” which meant that its trailers couldn’t run in front of non-R-rated films, or even on some Christian radio stations, such as K-Love and Air1.
But the filmmakers said they weren’t willing to compromise on the graphic portrayals, which are central to the film’s appeal to viewers as a self-proclaimed exposé that promises hard truths.
In that first scene, teased in the trailer and on posters as “the moment that changed everything,” Abby, played by Bratcher, witnesses an ultrasound-guided termination of a pregnancy at 13 weeks.
The ultrasound, as depicted onscreen, shows a fetus with a discernible head, torso and limbs frantically squirming away from a doctor’s probe — an action that Abby later describes as “twisting and fighting for its life” — before being liquefied by suction.
Anyway, judging by the arrogance not only of her words but of her tone.
Activists condemn Canadian cinema chain for screening anti-abortion film
Abortion rights defenders in Canada have accused the country’s largest cinema chain of hiding behind freedom of expression laws in order to screen a controversial US anti-choice film which has been described as “anti-abortion propaganda”.
The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) said Cineplex Entertainment has “made a decision based on money, not freedom of speech” by choosing to screen Unplanned.
ARCC executive director Joyce Arthur said: “The movie theatres who are agreeing to show this film under the guise of free speech are publicly legitimizing anti-choice views."
Oh, my. How dare they?
She told the Guardian: “Why does much of civil society seem to think it’s still OK to allow public challenges of women’s rights in the name of free speech? That would never be tolerated if it, for example, were a white supremacist movie.”
I doubt that anyone will be making any new, theater-quality white supremacist films in the foreseeable future (grid willing).
How would she feel about an arts theater showing Birth of a Nation, I wonder.
Her comments came after the chief executive of Cineplex Entertainment defended his decision to screen Unplanned, a movie based on a memoir by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic who has become a prominent anti-abortion activist.
. . . .
In an open letter released Monday, Cineplex Entertainment chief Ellis Jacob said he made his decision to screen the film across Canada after receiving letters and calls on “both sides of the conversation”.
Jacob wrote: “Canada is a country that believes in and rallies behind freedom of expression, but that isn’t always an easy thing to do and it certainly doesn’t always make you popular.”
He said the decision was complicated and was not taken lightly, and that Canadians have the choice not to see the film.
. . . .
Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1988, after Dr Henry Morgentaler successfully petitioned the country’s top court to rule that its abortion law was unconstitutional.
However, anti-abortion sentiment is growing in Canada. Last year, Maclean’s magazine writer Anne Kingston profiled the resurgence of the anti-abortion movement in Canada, noting that many of the country’s anti-abortion political groups have close ties to their US counterparts.
With ‘Unplanned,’ Abortion Opponents Turn Toward Hollywood
The movie comes as conservatives are feeling emboldened to roll back abortion rights, including potentially overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, after the confirmation last October of Justice Brett Kavanaugh solidified their majority on the Supreme Court.
Another anti-abortion film, “Roe v. Wade,” starring the conservative actor Jon Voight, was promoted at the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., in January, but has yet to announce a distribution partner or release date.
. . . .
“Unplanned” is based on the memoir of the same name by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Tex., who became a celebrity of the anti-abortion movement after what she said was a crisis of conscience.
The film dramatizes her conversion narrative and includes three unflinching portrayals of abortions, the first and most explicit of which occurs in the first 10 minutes.
. . . .
The abortion scenes earned the movie its R rating, for “some disturbing/bloody images,” which meant that its trailers couldn’t run in front of non-R-rated films, or even on some Christian radio stations, such as K-Love and Air1.
But the filmmakers said they weren’t willing to compromise on the graphic portrayals, which are central to the film’s appeal to viewers as a self-proclaimed exposé that promises hard truths.
In that first scene, teased in the trailer and on posters as “the moment that changed everything,” Abby, played by Bratcher, witnesses an ultrasound-guided termination of a pregnancy at 13 weeks.
The ultrasound, as depicted onscreen, shows a fetus with a discernible head, torso and limbs frantically squirming away from a doctor’s probe — an action that Abby later describes as “twisting and fighting for its life” — before being liquefied by suction.
When politicians turn moral philosopher
Someone once spoke of the concept of human rights as an essentially contested concept: whether there are any, what they are rights to or against, which rights truly exist and how we are to know that, whose or what's actions or behavior - if anyone's or anything's - are supposed to comport with, honor, guarantee, or fulfill them, and what all such talk could even mean.
Quite true, and that is because it is an empty concept, other than in its legal use, a mere mystification helpful in securing obedience or deference.
And it is abundantly clear that this is, has been all along, and must be a political contest, far too important to be left to the philosophers.
And so, of course, it never has been.
Trump’s Ominous Attempt to Redefine Human Rights
For the Trump administration to establish a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” to examine the meaning of human rights, as it did this month, is a little like Saudi Arabia forming a commission on multiparty democracy or North Korea a commission on how to end famine.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t so ominous.
Announcing the composition of the new body, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration “takes seriously the founders’ ideas of individual liberty and constitutional government.”
. . . .
The administration has excised reproductive rights from the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights.
It watered down a recent United Nations Security Council resolution on victims of rape in armed conflict.
It has withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee and Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are both without a United States member.
So what is Pompeo’s game when he asks, “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?” and continues, “How can there be human rights, rights we possess not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity?”
The author of the article, Roger Cohen, affirms his faith as a true modern liberal believer,
Modern human rights are grounded on the dignity inherent in every human being.
They are not God-given rights, or Trump-given rights, and they apply to people of all faiths and to those who have none.
That is not at all, and is flatly contrary to, what the Declaration of Independence, a key American founding document, says, though it is not at all contrary to every traditional, Enlightenment, or contemporary view of the question.
They include freedom of speech, the press, assembly and religion, and the “right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law,” as the Universal Declaration puts it.
They involve combating discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, disability, gender or sexual orientation.
The United States, through the State Department and other means, has been a consistent advocate for these rights.
The intention of Pompeo, an evangelical Christian whose beliefs infuse his policy, appears to be to turn back the clock.
In May, The Federal Register said the commission would provide “fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”
I am not suggesting that Pompeo wants to go back there, but the “natural” rights of 1776 are not the human rights the United States helped codify in 1948.
In 1995, Hillary Clinton declared, “Women’s rights are human rights” and, 16 years later, “Gay rights are human rights.”
Quite true, and that is because it is an empty concept, other than in its legal use, a mere mystification helpful in securing obedience or deference.
And it is abundantly clear that this is, has been all along, and must be a political contest, far too important to be left to the philosophers.
And so, of course, it never has been.
Trump’s Ominous Attempt to Redefine Human Rights
For the Trump administration to establish a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” to examine the meaning of human rights, as it did this month, is a little like Saudi Arabia forming a commission on multiparty democracy or North Korea a commission on how to end famine.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t so ominous.
Announcing the composition of the new body, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration “takes seriously the founders’ ideas of individual liberty and constitutional government.”
. . . .
The administration has excised reproductive rights from the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights.
It watered down a recent United Nations Security Council resolution on victims of rape in armed conflict.
It has withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee and Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are both without a United States member.
So what is Pompeo’s game when he asks, “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?” and continues, “How can there be human rights, rights we possess not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity?”
The author of the article, Roger Cohen, affirms his faith as a true modern liberal believer,
Modern human rights are grounded on the dignity inherent in every human being.
They are not God-given rights, or Trump-given rights, and they apply to people of all faiths and to those who have none.
That is not at all, and is flatly contrary to, what the Declaration of Independence, a key American founding document, says, though it is not at all contrary to every traditional, Enlightenment, or contemporary view of the question.
They include freedom of speech, the press, assembly and religion, and the “right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law,” as the Universal Declaration puts it.
They involve combating discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, disability, gender or sexual orientation.
The United States, through the State Department and other means, has been a consistent advocate for these rights.
The intention of Pompeo, an evangelical Christian whose beliefs infuse his policy, appears to be to turn back the clock.
In May, The Federal Register said the commission would provide “fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”
I am not suggesting that Pompeo wants to go back there, but the “natural” rights of 1776 are not the human rights the United States helped codify in 1948.
In 1995, Hillary Clinton declared, “Women’s rights are human rights” and, 16 years later, “Gay rights are human rights.”
. . . .
As head of the commission, he has appointed Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard professor known as a zealous opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage.
Other political opinions are represented, but the body is predominantly conservative and religious.
Cohen admits he really has no idea where this is going, but he is very alarmed and, given his politics, he probably should be.
It is doubtful this commission will endorse the idea the Founders or the founding documents contain or endorse half the rights currently urged by liberals, or even all the rights contained in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Nor is it likely to urge that we should endorse or support them, all the same, in any theoretical or practical way.
Here is more.
“International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission,” Mr. Pompeo said.
“As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.”
The announcement, along with a blunt commentary by Mr. Pompeo that was published in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, raised worries among human rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers that Mr. Pompeo is moving to curtail State Department advocacy for some rights, particularly ones related to women’s health and reproduction and gay and transgender issues.
Some House Democrats are pushing a measure that would block State Department funding from being used for the commission, which falls under the agency’s policy planning office.
“This commission risks undermining many international human rights norms that the United States helped establish, including L.G.B.T.Q.I. rights and other critical human rights protections around the world,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Pompeo is an evangelical Christian who is open about how his religious beliefs help shape actions and policies.
In March, Mr. Pompeo said the United States would withhold funding from foreign nongovernmental organizations that give money to foreign groups that perform abortions.
. . . .
Last month, officials in Washington told some American embassies not to fly gay pride flags after diplomats had asked to do so.
By contrast, in 2011, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, proclaimed in a speech that “gay rights are human rights.”
On Monday, Mr. Pompeo said: “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?
"How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored?”
Here is more.
“International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission,” Mr. Pompeo said.
“As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.”
The announcement, along with a blunt commentary by Mr. Pompeo that was published in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, raised worries among human rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers that Mr. Pompeo is moving to curtail State Department advocacy for some rights, particularly ones related to women’s health and reproduction and gay and transgender issues.
Some House Democrats are pushing a measure that would block State Department funding from being used for the commission, which falls under the agency’s policy planning office.
“This commission risks undermining many international human rights norms that the United States helped establish, including L.G.B.T.Q.I. rights and other critical human rights protections around the world,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Pompeo is an evangelical Christian who is open about how his religious beliefs help shape actions and policies.
In March, Mr. Pompeo said the United States would withhold funding from foreign nongovernmental organizations that give money to foreign groups that perform abortions.
. . . .
Last month, officials in Washington told some American embassies not to fly gay pride flags after diplomats had asked to do so.
By contrast, in 2011, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, proclaimed in a speech that “gay rights are human rights.”
On Monday, Mr. Pompeo said: “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right?
"How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored?”
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
You know, you may say you're a girl, but we both know you're not.
Actually, I sympathize with these bathroom bans.
Unenforceable (would door guards be posted to - ahem - frisk people at the entrances?) but good symbolism.
I am not in the least interested in licensing persecution of these folks, but such bans are not persecution.
GOP House nominee compares his anti-LGBTQ bigotry to saving Jews from the Holocaust
Likewise, I oppose and deplore as absurd mockery gay marriage.
But these are not half so serious to me as my opposition to abortion.
And yet none of these individually, nor all of them collectively, are deal breakers for me.
On social as well as class issues, voters are faced with two opposing teams increasingly committed to extremes.
One party favors abortion on demand for the whole term of the pregnancy and is apt to favor infanticide on demand as soon as they dare, while the other favors a nearly total prohibition of abortion and would never in human imagination favor infanticide.
I am closer to the Republicans; forced to choose I will choose their position.
One party favors gay marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, women in combat, and even greater absurdities in deference to sexual outlawry, post-modernist feminism, and gender revolutionism while the other would turn back the clock on the law regarding all things sexual to 1950.
I am about equidistant from both, though I find the Dem position far less cruel though much more absurd.
Forced to choose I will choose the Dems position.
With the GOP and increasingly against the Dems I favor capital punishment and long sentences.
To my knowledge there is not any actual, formal issue position of the contemporary GOP regarding race that I do not agree with.
I would prefer that whites remain a politically dominant demographic majority in the US, since I have no wish that I, my family members, or my near descendants suffer the greater or lesser indignities of minority status.
Sometimes I sympathize with the libertarian view that private economic agents ought not to be subject to government-enforced nondiscrimination.
And I generally sympathize with the legal toleration of racially, religiously, or otherwise exclusive private clubs, such as men-only or whites-only country clubs.
I am pro-capitalism (and anti-socialism and anti-Communism) without being personally a capitalist, and favor the careful sort of free-trade/fair-trade, globalizing deals favored by O and Hillary and center-left Democrats as well as Republicans.
And I would much prefer the American security forces use torture, if necessary (and useful), to prevent a serious radiological, let alone a genuine nuclear, attack on the US, or maybe on anyone, though I would also prefer that the police eschew it and not return to the third degree as a tool for choking out false confessions in preference to actually trying to find out and punish the truly guilty.
Forced to choose, I prefer a system in which education is overwhelmingly in private hands, and some of it religiously affiliated in one way or another, rather than that education be overwhelmingly - much less entirely - in the hands of state agencies committed to an official view of anything or an official secularism.
Why do I vote for Democrats, every single time?
Because they have built and today defend over a century of progressive achievements in aid of the common people nearly all of which have benefitted, do benefit, or will benefit myself and my wife and my immediate - however stupidly ungrateful - family.
While Republicans have opposed those achievements every step of the way and to this day would tear them all down if they could, putting myself, my wife, and my immediate family in a perilous fix.
Why am I a registered Democrat?
So I can vote in my state's closed primaries.
Unenforceable (would door guards be posted to - ahem - frisk people at the entrances?) but good symbolism.
I am not in the least interested in licensing persecution of these folks, but such bans are not persecution.
GOP House nominee compares his anti-LGBTQ bigotry to saving Jews from the Holocaust
Likewise, I oppose and deplore as absurd mockery gay marriage.
But these are not half so serious to me as my opposition to abortion.
And yet none of these individually, nor all of them collectively, are deal breakers for me.
On social as well as class issues, voters are faced with two opposing teams increasingly committed to extremes.
One party favors abortion on demand for the whole term of the pregnancy and is apt to favor infanticide on demand as soon as they dare, while the other favors a nearly total prohibition of abortion and would never in human imagination favor infanticide.
I am closer to the Republicans; forced to choose I will choose their position.
One party favors gay marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, women in combat, and even greater absurdities in deference to sexual outlawry, post-modernist feminism, and gender revolutionism while the other would turn back the clock on the law regarding all things sexual to 1950.
I am about equidistant from both, though I find the Dem position far less cruel though much more absurd.
Forced to choose I will choose the Dems position.
With the GOP and increasingly against the Dems I favor capital punishment and long sentences.
To my knowledge there is not any actual, formal issue position of the contemporary GOP regarding race that I do not agree with.
I would prefer that whites remain a politically dominant demographic majority in the US, since I have no wish that I, my family members, or my near descendants suffer the greater or lesser indignities of minority status.
Sometimes I sympathize with the libertarian view that private economic agents ought not to be subject to government-enforced nondiscrimination.
And I generally sympathize with the legal toleration of racially, religiously, or otherwise exclusive private clubs, such as men-only or whites-only country clubs.
I am pro-capitalism (and anti-socialism and anti-Communism) without being personally a capitalist, and favor the careful sort of free-trade/fair-trade, globalizing deals favored by O and Hillary and center-left Democrats as well as Republicans.
And I would much prefer the American security forces use torture, if necessary (and useful), to prevent a serious radiological, let alone a genuine nuclear, attack on the US, or maybe on anyone, though I would also prefer that the police eschew it and not return to the third degree as a tool for choking out false confessions in preference to actually trying to find out and punish the truly guilty.
Forced to choose, I prefer a system in which education is overwhelmingly in private hands, and some of it religiously affiliated in one way or another, rather than that education be overwhelmingly - much less entirely - in the hands of state agencies committed to an official view of anything or an official secularism.
Why do I vote for Democrats, every single time?
Because they have built and today defend over a century of progressive achievements in aid of the common people nearly all of which have benefitted, do benefit, or will benefit myself and my wife and my immediate - however stupidly ungrateful - family.
While Republicans have opposed those achievements every step of the way and to this day would tear them all down if they could, putting myself, my wife, and my immediate family in a perilous fix.
Why am I a registered Democrat?
So I can vote in my state's closed primaries.
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Too white, too old, too male, and especially too centrist for TV and Internet Democrats, generally
That's pretty much what opinionators in Dem media have been saying about Joe Biden since forever.
And then Kamala Harris attacked him for not being, in the past, the kind of Democrat she and the further left candidates are on race and on abortion, today.
Under severe pressure and with no credible sincerity at all he has abandoned his long-time opposition to abortion (he never actually called for Roe to be overturned).
He has not, to my knowledge, apologized for or retrospectively abandoned his past opposition to school busing to achieve racial balance, nor indicated his view of its role today.
So for days and days the media, especially the Democrat media, have harped on all this.
But his leadership in the polls does not seem to have been affected.
And then Kamala Harris attacked him for not being, in the past, the kind of Democrat she and the further left candidates are on race and on abortion, today.
Under severe pressure and with no credible sincerity at all he has abandoned his long-time opposition to abortion (he never actually called for Roe to be overturned).
He has not, to my knowledge, apologized for or retrospectively abandoned his past opposition to school busing to achieve racial balance, nor indicated his view of its role today.
So for days and days the media, especially the Democrat media, have harped on all this.
But his leadership in the polls does not seem to have been affected.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Like the chain dragged by Marley, eh?
Biden is no spring chicken.
This is the CFG polling data.
Biden opposed abortion, "forced bussing", and reparations.
So did I, and many of that generation of Democrats, back in the day.
Many of us still oppose some or all of these things, today and retrospectively.
Me included.
And I voted twice for Barack Hussein Obama, and would again.
And I voted for Hillary the Likable Enough.
I am what I am and the Democrats are what they are: the lesser evil and the better package, in net, for me, for my wife, and for those in my extended family who are mostly too stupid to vote for them.
And I still say B is too much all three of old, white, and male.
Can't we at least have somebody who's not all three?
And perhaps someone less inclined to constantly remind everyone how old and frail he is with constant, nostalgic walks down his long, long Memory Lane?
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
People have been saying it for years
Women playing men's sports is of interest disproportionately to lesbians, and not that much to anyone, women included.
Lesbians as players more than as fans, but really both.
Part of why women athletes are paid less than their male counterparts is that the fan base isn't anywhere near as large.
And it's a good reason.
Men mostly want to watch men.
As do women.
Androgyny Is Now Fashionable in the W.N.B.A.
They are looking like the lesbians they are and for so long pretended not to be.
PS.
Women in the police, women in the fire department, women in the military, especially women in combat arms.
We always knew it but for the longest time nobody was allowed to say so.
Well, men weren't allowed to say so.
Still aren't, really.
Maybe Trump will say it for us and get a bump up to 43% from his current ceiling of 41.
(And yet.)
Lesbians as players more than as fans, but really both.
Part of why women athletes are paid less than their male counterparts is that the fan base isn't anywhere near as large.
And it's a good reason.
Men mostly want to watch men.
As do women.
Androgyny Is Now Fashionable in the W.N.B.A.
They are looking like the lesbians they are and for so long pretended not to be.
PS.
Women in the police, women in the fire department, women in the military, especially women in combat arms.
We always knew it but for the longest time nobody was allowed to say so.
Well, men weren't allowed to say so.
Still aren't, really.
Maybe Trump will say it for us and get a bump up to 43% from his current ceiling of 41.
(And yet.)
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Democrats' ideology police have been hammering Joe Biden
Joe Biden Had A Very Bad Week
They already don't like him because he's an OLD, WHITE, MAN.
And they already don't like him because he's not exactly consumed with enthusiasm for the AOC/Bernie agenda, and not at all the guy to renounce capitalism in favor of socialism, even under pressure.
But he did bend on the Green New Deal and he cravenly and without a shred of credibility folded completely on the Hyde Amendment, gaining nothing but a respite in hostile criticism FROM DEMOCRATS.
Faux Democrats and outright non- and anti-Democrats of the further left have joined arms with the most radical of baby-killing feminists and anointed themselves the ideology police of the Democratic Party, and have largely gotten away with it.
They already don't like him because he's an OLD, WHITE, MAN.
And they already don't like him because he's not exactly consumed with enthusiasm for the AOC/Bernie agenda, and not at all the guy to renounce capitalism in favor of socialism, even under pressure.
But he did bend on the Green New Deal and he cravenly and without a shred of credibility folded completely on the Hyde Amendment, gaining nothing but a respite in hostile criticism FROM DEMOCRATS.
Faux Democrats and outright non- and anti-Democrats of the further left have joined arms with the most radical of baby-killing feminists and anointed themselves the ideology police of the Democratic Party, and have largely gotten away with it.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Feminazi bullshit from that cockpit of bullshit, the UN
US abortion policy is 'extremist hate' and 'torture', says UN commissioner
The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.
The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.
“We have not called it out in the same way we have other forms of extremist hate, but this is gender-based violence against women, no question,” Kate Gilmore said.
“It’s clear it’s torture – it’s a deprivation of a right to health,” she warned, pointing out that the committee of experts assigned to monitor the implementation of the nine core UN human rights instruments have each “independently declared the absolute prohibition of abortion … is against human rights”.
Gilmore, appointed deputy high commissioner in 2015, said the banning of abortion in some US states and the attempts by the Trump administration to remove language from key international documents was “deeply distressing”.
“This is a crisis. It’s a crisis directed at women,” she said, warning that we had not yet felt the full extent of it.
Gilmore, who last week spoke at a Guardian event discussing the pushback on reproductive rights, said opposition groups – the most high profile of which are conservative, Christian organisations – were well organised and well resourced, and were ignoring evidence in their pursuit of ideological goals.
“It’s an assault on truth, science and universal values and norms,” she said.
The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.
The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.
“We have not called it out in the same way we have other forms of extremist hate, but this is gender-based violence against women, no question,” Kate Gilmore said.
“It’s clear it’s torture – it’s a deprivation of a right to health,” she warned, pointing out that the committee of experts assigned to monitor the implementation of the nine core UN human rights instruments have each “independently declared the absolute prohibition of abortion … is against human rights”.
Gilmore, appointed deputy high commissioner in 2015, said the banning of abortion in some US states and the attempts by the Trump administration to remove language from key international documents was “deeply distressing”.
“This is a crisis. It’s a crisis directed at women,” she said, warning that we had not yet felt the full extent of it.
Gilmore, who last week spoke at a Guardian event discussing the pushback on reproductive rights, said opposition groups – the most high profile of which are conservative, Christian organisations – were well organised and well resourced, and were ignoring evidence in their pursuit of ideological goals.
“It’s an assault on truth, science and universal values and norms,” she said.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
The Second Sex
Women are as smart as men, by and large.
They are less aggressive, assertive, and violent.
They are weaker, too, on average.
They are partly on that account, but also because they bear and nurse children while men do neither, the second sex, assigned by nature to that place.
Everything is what it is, and not another thing.
Why then should we wish to be deceived?
Oh, and all this rot about women not being paid for housekeeping, child rearing, and the like is just a ludicrous hoax.
Everything is what it is.
I am a Democrat and a liberal.
I am not a fool.
They are less aggressive, assertive, and violent.
They are weaker, too, on average.
They are partly on that account, but also because they bear and nurse children while men do neither, the second sex, assigned by nature to that place.
Everything is what it is, and not another thing.
Why then should we wish to be deceived?
Oh, and all this rot about women not being paid for housekeeping, child rearing, and the like is just a ludicrous hoax.
Everything is what it is.
I am a Democrat and a liberal.
I am not a fool.
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