Well that's just swell!

Caution: Commenters point out, rightly, that I am making some assumptions based upon a short clip which is, conveniently enough, absent context. He could have been speaking of the evidentiary difficulty in such cases -- I don't know. I'm looking into it to find out. So far, I continue seeing only the left talking about this, and only citing the video. No one even will say what H.B. 488 was about.

Update: Laurie David's Cervix seems to have found a reference in the Washington Post which clarifies:

From a Wapo Letter to the Editor from Feb 24 2002:

Regarding the issue of whether a woman can be raped legally by her husband, which the Virginia House of Delegates voted recently to change ["Virginia House Backs Bill to Outlaw Wife Rape," Metro, Feb. 8]....

Black and Del. Kenneth R. Melvin (D-Portsmouth) express concern about wives who cry rape falsely. Black says that changing the rape law could put a husband in "enormous fear of the damage to his reputation" in the event that a wife filed a false rape claim.

So yes, in 2002, it appears that Virginia did not yet have a law criminalizing rape by spouse, and the House voted in favor of it. But Dick Black objected to on evidentiary grounds. Commenters are now telling me he ultimately voted in favor of it, despite the concerns he announced.

That ain't gonna fly, people.

The post as previously written follows:

I am getting a little sick of seeing the words "Republican Virginian State Senator" together like this.

Hey Republican Virginian State Senators -- maybe sit this one out a while, huh? You've done enough.

This is going to start a fight, but I think it's a fight that must be had, whether it is upsetting or not.

There are various factions who are pushing fairly unpopular political ideas. They defend doing so by noting these are their "principles" and such.

First, let me say something about these being principles: Fine. We cannot have a fight over principles and expect to persuade each other. People stand their ground on principles, and I can't tell anyone who supports an unpopular position that it is "wrong."

These things are subjective. Yes, they're subjective, not "objective." People always claim their principles are objective, but that fact that Man A and Man B take precisely opposite positions on what each alleges to be an "objective" matter of principle demonstrates they are in fact subjective.

So I can't tell this guy, Dick Black, that he's "wrong" that a husband cannot be convicted of raping a spouse in any way that is likely to persuade him.

One's principles are one's own, and they're hard to challenge and almost impossible to change.

But here is what is objective: Hard cold data -- polls and the like -- that demonstrate that some positions are so far outside the mainstream to be political poison.

We used to be a smarter party about this. But the political fashion within the GOP has become "YOLO" of late. People who are otherwise rational individuals have begun deciding that it doesn't matter if the plank against birth control has 10% support and 88% opposition*, YOLO, whatever, we're going to go down in flames because our principles demand it.

One can take whatever positioned principle one likes. A man who is right does not need a poll to tell him so, or to justify his beliefs. The truth, it is said, makes a majority of one.

But many people seem to be taking that idea to mean that it's now responsible, even virtuous, to remain studiously ignorant of where actual political opinion lay. That is, that only a Coward would bother checking the numbers to see if a particular position had any chance of carrying the day, or, conversely, sinking the entire statewide ticket in a major election.

It is one thing to say "I don't need a poll to justify my principles." That is a correct position to take.

But it is entirely another thing to say "I don't need to be informed about polls at all in making tactical political decisions about who is best poised to actually deliver the bulk of my political agenda." To say that is solipsistic, indulgent, and lazy, in that it makes up a silly false reason for not doing one's homework.

Polls can't tell you what the right position is-- that can only be told by a man's conscience.

But polls can tell you what the winning position will probably look like.

I don't believe this guy will will a primary, so I don't think he'll wind up losing a House seat (or, worse yet-- winning a House seat, and becoming an albatross around every conservative's neck).

But I'm not very certain in that belief. Not as certain as I'd like to be. I'd like to think that grassroots voters are still capable of making sound tactical political decisions. Well, actually, they are so capable. It's just that the will to make sound tactical decisions might not be there anymore.

Sound tactical decisions have become very unfashionable of late.

There are elements of the grassroots which are acting very irresponsibly, almost gleefully reckless like a teenager with the parents away and the keys to the car, calling out "YOLO!" with abandon.

YOLO is not a wise strategy in life and it's no better in politics.

So yeah, I imagine this Don Black character will lose, or be dissuaded from seeking national high office.

But I'm a lot more worried about this than I would be during a non-YOLO! political cycle.

* My error; corrected. I forgot which position polled at this catastrophically bad level. I originally wrote the no-abortion-in-cases-of-rape position polled 10/88; actually, it's the anti-birth control one.

Thanks to Anon Y. Mouse for pointing out the numbers didn't sound right.

Second Correction/Caution: Commenters are cautioning that we don't really know what this guy was talking about -- maybe he was just making a point about how difficult it would be to prove such a rape, not that they shouldn't be contrary to law.

At first I dismissed this, but I realize now there is greater ambiguity than I first thought.

So, I am currently looking for a longer explanation of this particular quote, what he was talking about, what the bill under question (H.B. 48 actually was, etc.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:59 PM | Comments (398)
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So, Rich Lowry wrote:

[I]tÂ’s hard not to see Pajama Boy as an expression of the Obama vision, just like his forbear Julia, the Internet cartoon from the 2012 campaign. Pajama Boy is JuliaÂ’s little brother. She progressed through life without any significant family or community connections. He is the picture of perpetual adolescence. Neither is a symbol of self-reliant, responsible adulthood.

And so both are ideal consumers of government. Julia needed the help of Obama-supported programs at every juncture of her life, and Pajama Boy is going to get his health insurance through Obamacare...

The breakdown of marriage and its drift into the 30s mean there are more Julias and Pajama Boys than ever. The growth of government feeds off this trend, and at the margins, augments it. The vision of the Obama Democrats, distilled to its essence, is of a direct relationship between the state and the individual without the mediating institutions of family, church and community that are an inherent check on government power.

Tocqueville wrote long ago of the infantilizing tendency of such all-encompassing government. “It would be like the authority of a parent,” he wrote in a famous passage, “if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.” If you wanted to depict what Tocqueville was getting at in one meme, Pajama Boy wouldn’t be such a bad way to do it.

By the way: The piece I'm about to quote (well, quote by way of NRO's quote) is actually right in suggesting that Lowry "fears" Pajamaboy. We all do. Let's be honest about this: Yes, we are afraid that weak, feckless, Fashion-Cupcake-Indulging Pajamaboys will become more numerous, sapping the country of fire and spirt and industry, and demanding more and more state-provided comforts.

Just like parents fear that their children might not want to ever leave the nest.

But the way the New Republic puts this is just silly. It's like #slatepitch, a deliberately stupid article published to get rubbernecking "Oh my God what a bus collision" traffic.

Lowry goes on to connect what he characterizes as an immature version of masculinity with a liberal’s overreliance on a paternalistic government. “Pajama Boy’s mom probably still tucks him in at night, and when she isn’t there for him, Obamacare will be,” he writes. Millennials and Democrats just love their mommies too much! But while this is a ritual mockery that’s ostensibly about Obamacare, what it really reveals is a long-boiling, deep-seated fear on the right of the moment when a more beta-appearing man becomes the mainstream notion of masculinity.

ThereÂ’s plenty of evidence that moment is upon us. Hanna RosinÂ’s 2012 book, The End of Men, was the capstone of a growing tower of cultural works on the curious gender-role reversal [Repetitive citations omitted.]

In an economy that is increasingly influenced by women (in all but three of the 2,000 largest metropolitan areas in the country, in the aggregate, single childless women under 30 are out-earning their male counterparts), the men who seem to be reaping the clearest rewards are those who seem to comfortable with the adjustments of a world thatÂ’s 40 years into second-wave feminism (and one in which, for that matter, gay culture is no longer fringe culture). The chest-thumping alpha males of yore now take their social cues from men who have worked out a more subtle way to assert themselves in the world. Metrosexuals arenÂ’t a new, urban category any more; people who might have been referred to that way ten years ago are now just called dudes....

But if Pajama Boy is nothing out of the ordinary—which I’d argue he isn’t—then that means conservatives are losing several culture-war battles, and thus a great deal of valuable electoral ammunition.

Conceded, Pajamaboy isn't out of the ordinary. And that's a problem.

Because Pajamaboy is soft, and this is a hard world. This isn't about getting along with women. (Women don't particularly like Pajamaboys.) It's about simply having fewer and fewer actual Men.

And only someone who's anti-Man could claim that nothing will be lost as Men disappear, to be replaced by Pajamaboys and related otaku.

Japan's dying population emails to say "How you doin'?"

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (424)
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Well, isn't this interesting. Just in the last hour or so, both the official Barack Obama and Organizing for America Twitter accounts have shifted their messaging from touting the benefits and success stories of Obamacare (few as they may be), to scare-whoring the costs of repealing the law.

In addition to that, WhiteHouse.gov put out a pdf bullet-pointing the parade of horribles should the American public decide they want to go this route.

This seems like a pretty significant backpedal. They've also gone to the expense of crunching the numbers (assuming they can be believed anymore than previous estimates) on the costs and interruptions associated with repealing the law at this late date. Not just nationally, but they've done this on a state-by-state basis as well. It appears a lot of time went into this new talking point.

They're also admitting that the law has significant problems:

Moving forward, the President and Democrats in Congress are committed to improving the health care law and fixing it when the need arises. Every day more uninsured Americans are signing up for plans as the website gets faster and more people with insurance are benefiting from the law.

If you're explaining, you're losing, as they say.

Posted by: JohnE. at 10:51 AM | Comments (392)
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MKH recaps the saga.

A few points.

First:

There should be a equity between the type of infraction alleged and the punishment sought. By which I mean: Something alleged to be a social transgression should have social consequences (if any consequences at all).

The game should not be rigged that such that a social consequence has economic consequences, that is, ad hoc privately enforced fines and penalties.

The punishment should fit the "crime" (if there is some crime at all). If Phil Robertson said something "mean," then mean things should be said back to him. If he made people uncomfortable, then people can use their Adult Words to make him feel uncomfortable in return.

We have evolved a repellent system in which thought and belief are punished by tangible economic penalties. And this is not something that happens occasionally; this now happens every week or month.

A firing or a suspension or a forced term in a Thought Rehab institution is now expected when someone Says a Dirty Word.

Second:

I'm weary of the statement "This isn't about the First Amendment because it's a private corporate decision."

For one thing, no one is arguing otherwise. It's tiresome to hear this chestnut trotted out every five minutes. Yes, we get it.

It's also untrue. Yes, the First Amendment, strictly speaking, applies only to the government. But there is a spirit of the First Amendment too, not just a restriction on government action.

And that spirit is this:

That we should have, to the extent compatible with ordered liberty, the maximum possible right to think and say and believe what we choose, and anyone who attempts to use force to coerce someone to think and say and believe something that is alien to them is acting contrary to the spirt of the First Amendment.

I've said this a dozen times:

The real, tangible threat to our right to think and speak as we will, as conscience, faith, or reason (or all three together) might impel us, is not from the government, but from our employers, and from the massively corporate media institutions that impose real penalties on people -- fines, really, imposed by firings, suspensions, mandatory Thought Rehab and so forth -- for daring to utter words other than the Officially Approved Institutional Corporate Slogans.

Yes, A&E has the right to suspend Phil Robinson. A&E also has the right to stand up for a broad and generous principle of Freedom of Thought and Expression.

Why does no one speak of that right? Sure, they have the right to act hostilely towards the spirit of the First Amendment and use coercive power to hammer people into only speaking the Officially Approved Institutional Corporate Slogans.

They also have the right to stick up for people's right to dissent, to be "weird," to have unpopular thoughts and heterodox beliefs. And as a media company, they really ought to have an interest in doing so.

Why does no one ever mention this? Why does no one ever push companies to recognize that right, rather than the other one?

It is well-conceded that an employer has the right to fire you for some heterodox belief or some oddball sexual habit, but an employer similarly has the right to foster an environment of self-expression and freedom, and yet no one seems to talk about a company's capacity to be a Good Actor in the realm of free expression.

There should be pushback against this idea that of course the people with direct authority over us -- our employers -- can and should fire us or otherwise inflict serious economic consequences of it for daring to live as Free Americans.

This is obvious, but apparently it's not obvious enough: We do not need a freedom to express popular or polite thought. Thoughts which are popular and polite (and approved by the state and its supporting institutions) have never been in jeopardy.

Not even in Nazi Germany. The popular, state-approved thought -- that Hitler would bring "Greater Germany" (i.e., Nazi-dominated Europe) back to greatness -- was never forbidden by the Nazis.

Unpopular thoughts were threatened-- such as anti-Naziism.

On both right and left, people interested in sharing their beliefs and arguing for principles should, out of simple self-interest, agree that there should be a broad and generous latitude given to impolite, impolitic, and unpopular thought, granted by not only the formal apparatus of the government but also by other institutions of direct authority and control, such as large media corporations (which tend to reinforce and perpetuate the State Party line, especially when the State has been captured by the Left) and employers generally.

Yes, we can indulge the Left's favorite past-time ourselves and go scalp-hunting with relish.

And what happens when the next scalp sought is our own?

I agree that the Right must not unilaterally disarm in this disgusting sport. Tit for Tat, as Steven den Beste has pointed out, is a logical and effective strategy for dealing with an opponent, even when you disagree with the rules your opponent is operating by. If the Left is never forced to suffer under their own Speech Code regime, they'll never be forced to reconsider.

That said, those on the right, and Friends of Freedom generally, should take pains to point out the sport of scalp-hunting is in fact vile, practiced with vigor by broken people with voids in their souls that can only be filled by inflicting pain on other people.

And we should always point out: We are willing to abandon this head-fucked system of Mutually Assured Terror for Daring to Speak One's Mind the moment the Left is willing to do so.

Which, frankly, will be never.

They secondary boycott, therefore they exist. They have achieved nothing in their own lives, but if they can bring down a Mighty Foe, then they're important.

But we must always offer that Treaty. At every opportunity. Because this War on Individuality hurts everyone who considers himself an individual.

It is time to tell these people, with no politeness whatsoever, to Shut the Fuck Up and stop making life awful for everyone else.

They are enemies of freedom -- of freedom of conscience, of freedom of thought, of freedom of expression; of freedom, generally -- and should be hectored, harassed, and humiliated as such.

They are retrograde simpleton bullies, and bullies requiring the bracing lesson of a punch to the face.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (470)
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"Vigilantes implementing Islam upon your necks:" that's what the thugs themselves call their actions. Proudly.

Three members of a so-called 'Muslim Patrol' were today jailed at the Old Bailey for repeatedly trying to enforce Sharia law in East London.

Jordan Horner and another Islamic extremist told one couple they could not hold hands while walking down the street, because it was in a 'Muslim area'.

The radicals also attacked a group of men drinking in the road, and told a woman she would face 'hell fire' because of the way she was dressed.

Horner, 19, Ricardo MacFarlane, 36, and a 23-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons were sentenced to 68 weeks, 12 months and 24 weeks in prison respectively.

The court earlier heard that last December Horner and the 23-year-old man drove alongside Joshua Bilton and Anna Reddiford in Bethnal Green, and started yelling at them through a megaphone.

The teenage convert shouted: 'Let go of each other's hands. This is a Muslim area!' - but the couple initially assumed it was a joke.

They stopped holding hands after the men repeated the message - and when they started again, the car blocked their way until they let go.

Two weeks later, Horner and MacFarlane attacked men drinking in Shoreditch, shouting: 'Kill the non-believers.'

Horner then punched two of the group, hitting James Forward in the jaw and knocking out Patrick Kavanagh with a sucker punch to the head.

They would also do things like tell women they were "slags" (whores) and so had to "move away from the mosque." When people would protest -- saying they didn't believe in Islam -- they were told that didn't matter; this was a "Muslim area," and people within it had to respect Muslim law.

Some clips of the thugs' self-made videos below. At the end of the clip, they attribute a sinful bicyclist's fall as the work of mighty Allah.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:45 AM | Comments (266)
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This is a self-indulgent thing, but the ten year anniversary (ten years; my God) of the site is coming up. In addition, this is a slow news period, and people typically do "Best of the Year" type crap during this period to fill up column-inches.

I don't have a good memory of stuff I've written, so I'd like to ask you guys: Anything you think can be republished and still make sense?

The request concerns any and all posts, including those by the cobloggers, except the Meatball, who is dead to me, and I don't feel like linking The Federalist as part of the Ace of Spades retrospective.

A few I've already got in mind: Howard Fineman getting drunk and talking up Barack Obama, Kaboom, and Rich "Psycho" Giambatti. Plus the various "Almost as White As" lists.

Posted by: Ace at 08:35 AM | Comments (414)
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Happy Thursday.

Just one link from me today because I gotta run into work early. A former Washington, D.C. reporter who escaped back to his native Kentucky and shared his tale.

[ RSS]

[On iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:22 AM | Comments (342)
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• Even MSNBC Is Laughing At Pajama Boy
  
• Head Of Obamacare's Minnesota Exchange Abruptly Resigns
  
• Necessary Elitism And The Demise Of Higher Education
  
• 40 Million Accounts May Have Been Breached
  
• For A Mere $250,000 You Can Meet With Hillary
  
• Phil Robertson Knew Exactly What He Was Doing
  
• China's Shadow Currency
  
• Obamacare Escapes The Chains Of Law
  
• This Ad Should Be Run Against Every Dem In 2014 (autoplay video)
  
• Well That Seems Like One Heck Of An Over-Site
  
• How Can Universities Justify Membership In The ASA After Israel Boycott
  
• People Who Think They Signed Up In CA May Not Have
  
• Thousands In Illinois Told To Start Over On Health Insurance
  
• Trailer For New Season Of Justified
  
• Purge In Pyongyang
  
• College Hoops Coach Goes On Funny Rant
  
• Some Guy On A Reality TV Show Got Suspended For Some Reason
  
• Woman Learns Son Is Dead After Reading It On Facebook
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:07 AM | Comments (449)
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Overnight Open Thread (12-18-201 –Free Nice Modelo Edition

So both my work laptop and home computer have decided to not work today albeit for different reasons. So imagine the gyrations I've had to go through to post even this rinky-dinkish ONT while I'm restoring them from backups. Just think about that while you thoughtlessly scroll through my sweat-and-tears to post your precious little recipes and nude selfies.

Dem Pollsters Shocked to Find No Racism in Tea Partiers - So They Invent Some

So the Democrat-aligned pollster group, Democracy Corps, ventured into deepest darkest flyover territory to interview the strange and mysterious 'conservative voter' on various issues and their thoughts on Obama. Needless to say most described Obama as a 'liar' and a 'manipulator' which is pretty much the majority American view these days.

But the pollsters were shocked to find that not a single conservative said anything racist about Obama. Not.A.Single.Freakin.One.

Indeed, the pollsters even confess that they "expected" to find more racism among Republican voters. "We expected that in this comfortable setting or in their private written notes, some would make a racial reference or racist slur when talking about the African American President," they confess. "None did."

How to explain this odd behavior by obviously racist conservatives? Well it can only be because through a process of natural selection they have evolved into diabolically clever racists who are able to stifle their nasty racist talk momentarily when talking to predators outsiders.

They know that is deeply non-PC and are conscious about how they are perceived. But focusing on that misses how central is race to the worldview of Republican voters. They have an acute sense that they are white in a country that is becoming increasingly "minority," and their party is getting whooped by a Democratic Party that uses big government programs that benefit mostly minorities, create dependency and a new electoral majority. Barack Obama and Obamacare is a racial flashpoint for many Evangelical and Tea Party voters.

So yeah clearly racist by omission. (thanks to JohnE)

Crossbow vs Body Armor

Advantage: Crossbow.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:29 PM | Comments (835)
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Very interesting.

The most important finding (per Allah) is that the warrantless hoarding of everyone's cellphone metadata has been deemed, by the panel that was supposed to serve as a fig-leaf fake, as "not essential."

In fact, they seem to question whether the NSA's claims that such data actually foiled any terrorists attacks, anywhere, ever, is correct. The NSA claims it's happened a few times, but I have never seen any concrete evidence of that. The panel says that most such data is helpful in a negative manner, that is, to establish a negative, that a known terrorist suspect is not in contact with co-conspirators in the US, thus alleviating worries among NSA officials, and, one imagines, allowing them to better assign resources.

Now, that's not nothing at all, but that is a far, far cry from "prevented terrorist attacks." If it requires spying on everyone to establish a few negative propositions, then this program requires far, far too much.

Read the whole thing. I'm tired and sick and done. Open thread!

Posted by: Ace at 04:14 PM | Comments (470)
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