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From Jay Nordlinger on NRO:

I have a friend who attended an academic conference in Scandinavia, and I thought you’d enjoy — or at least be interested in — what she had to say:

“Over lunch, I asked one of the sharper guys about the problem of Islamic fascism in Scandinavian cities. He admitted that there are now no-go areas for police in certain cities. He said that no one in mainstream society will talk about it. They’re all too afraid. He said, ‘The only ones who are writing about what’s happening in European cities are American conservatives — so, please: Keep up the good work.’”

When feminists are done taking care of the problem of sex slavery in Western Europe, perhaps they can next tackle the problem of Islamic-dominated urban areas. No doubt “society must change” will be their solution, and certainly the fact that those areas have transformed from Christian to post-Christian and then to Islamic would seem to indicate that such change is possible.

Although if it’s that easily accomplished, one wonders why they are so reluctant to criticize the notoriously repressive patriarchy of Islam. I always find it amusing how very vocal women suddenly fall silent when the other party proves insusceptible to verbal contortions and sexual blackmail.

The strong are sometimes wrong, but the weak are never free.

Inspired by the thought of women in chains, Mrs. Smitty rambles:

Vox seems to suggest that western feminists somehow eradicated the Judeo-Christian tradition in former Soviet block countries where the sex-trafficking victims in the article are from. Hm. Was it feminists or um, male autocrats who tried to break the hold the church had on the masses, comrade? Giggle. I’m not sure. I’m just a girl.

And because she’s just a girl, it will surprise no one to note that she attempts to mock the point while simultaneously managing to miss it entirely. Typical, I’m afraid. But since she’s just a girl, I will attempt to explain it slowly and clearly enough for even her smaller female brain to follow it.

Since the matter under discussion is one of a particular set of societies where the sex slavery is currently taking place, it makes no difference where the “victims” are from. Whereas Christian Germany did not approve of prostitutes, much less sex slaves, from anywhere, post-Christian Germany cheerfully accepts them from Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. (Of course, Western feminists, as always, are only concerned about the college-educated white ones.) The women cited in the article were not enslaved in the former Soviet bloc, they were enslaved in Germany, a Western society that fully subscribes to feminist equalitarianism. One is embarassed to find it necessary to remind Smitty that while nineteenth-century America’s black slaves were largely from pagan Africa, the only reason they are of any interest to us today is due to their enslavement in the United States and I rather doubt she would similarly point her finger at the African pagans instead of American Christians in that case.

Vox and his admirers might be interested in finding out how many of those former Soviet block countries contain masses of Catholics and other Orthodox Christians. Romania is hardly the “New West” or a bastion of feminist thought.

Again, the slavery in question is taking place in Germany, the UK and other Western, feminist, post-Christian European countries. Would Smitty find it meaningful to discuss historical American slavery by considering the religious customs of Africa? Furthermore, those Eastern European countries have been forcibly secular for five decades, so attempting to blame a much-persecuted church just smacks of silliness.

It’s a fault in logic to say something that happened at the same time as something else caused that something else. Correlation is not causation. One might just as glibly and plausibly argue that global warming increases sex slavery. Doesn’t make it a good argument. Unless you can show that Christian values are inherently better than feminist values for protecting humans from other humans, and that there indeed *was* a shift from Christian to feminist values in the places under discussion, you haven’t got a leg to stand on.

Ah, the creaking canard of the maleducated. A more accurate statement is to say that while correlation is not necessarily causation, it is a good indication of where to begin looking for it. However, anyone with any reasonable grasp of world history knows that the only culture to have not only rejected slavery but forcibly stamped it out in others is nineteenth-century Christian Britain. And those who are aware of the way in which practices such as the international slave trade, thuggee and suttee were forcibly stamped out know that it was driven solely by Christians motivated by religious zeal, not the practitioners of any other religion or philosophy.

The unfortunate truth about Christianity is that, roughly since its inception, it has been used to justify and condemn the same outrages; slavery is one of those things, and there was this…thing? …in Salem? The Inquisition was got a bit messy, too, I hear. It’s impossible to pull out a scorecard and say how many times so-called Christians were good and how many times naughty. To argue about whether or not it was the Christians who kept slavery around (say in the American South) or the ones who abolished it is stupid when just about everyone claimed to be Christian in the US in the 1860’s, including the pre-feminists. Whether ChrisH likes it or not (I think he likes it), Christianity has traditionally kept women at a political disadvantage. Something about women shouldn’t talk in church–which the apostle probably thought was a mere expedient considering how soon Jesus would be returning. That little expedient was used to devalue women’s talk and thought: thou shalt not vote. Or own thy own property. Or own they own body. Shockingly, after a couple millenia or so, women got tired of this, and piggybacked (in the US and in England) their “liberation” movement onto both the democratic movements in Europe in the late 18th century and later the anti-slavery movement. When poor men and slaves got rights, women wanted some, too.

The fact that Christianity was also used to justify slavery does not change the fact that Christians were the only ones to reject and eliminate it. Buddhists didn’t. Hindus didn’t. Moslems didn’t. Atheist freethinkers didn’t. Nor does it change the fact that slavery is creeping back into post-Christian Europe. Now, one might argue that these are all coincidences, of course, one might also be shocked speechless that the sun has risen again. In either case, one would be an ignoramus.

As for the Inquisition, it was the most humane institution of its time, it had no blood on its hands – executions were performed by the State, not the Church – and in any case, fewer people were executed at its behest than drown in buckets every year in the United States. To cite it as a historically infamous abuse of human rights is to demonstrate one’s historical ignorance and susceptibility to fact-free propaganda.

Some feminists go too far in their claims and do treat men shabbily. The so-called liberation of women has had, like Christianity and just about every single belief system/movement in history, some good and some bad results. There’s no “war on men” any more than there was a need for the Vagina monologues. We do need to rethink our systems for raising children–including who takes care of them and why AND (ChrisH) whether the differences between girls and boys are biological or social, and how we might handle the very real biological differences.

But blaming sex slavery in Eastern Europe on western feminists is stupid.

The feminist system for raising children has already failed, as the aging and declining populations of Europe demonstrate quite clearly. It is less rational and self-sustaining than Communism, which is impressive. And while blaming western feminists for sex slavery in Eastern Europe might be stupid, blaming them for sex slavery in Western Europe is perfectly reasonable.

I am, of course, always prepared to learn what the good results of feminism have been. As yet, I’ve yet to be informed of any that are not tautological.

And finally, Nige, we do (and should and always will) use humor to rebuke stupid people and try to deter them and others from duplicating ridiculous (root word ridicule, right?) behavior. I think what TLQ means, though, is that the consequences–for this woman and others–of their mistakes are not laughable. If you really *watched* a woman be beaten and raped and deprived of her liberty, and you laughed, because she’d made some stupid mistakes….? I’d divorce your ass. My feminist foremothers fought to give me the right to do that, too.

One has to wonder if Mrs. Smitty would also divorce the long-suffering Nigel for daring to laugh at the popular Darwin awards, wherein more serious and lasting consequences are awarded for equally stupid mistakes. Or is it only the crime of finding amusement where she f
inds none that is divorce-worthy?

1807
British Parliament bans the Atlantic slave trade.

1810
British negotiate an agreement with Portugal calling for gradual abolition of slave trade in the South Atlantic.

1815
At the Congress of Vienna, the British pressure Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands to agree to abolish the slave trade (though Spain and Portugal are permitted a few years of continued slaving to replenish labor supplies).

1817
September 23: Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty prohibiting the slave trade: Spain agrees to end the slave trade north of the equator immediately, and south of the equator in 1820. British naval vessels are given right to search suspected slavers. Still, loopholes in the treaty undercut its goals. Slave trade flows strongly, 1815-1830. Slave economies of Cuba and Brazil expand rapidly.

From Wikipedia: The Slave Trade Act (citation 47 Geo III Sess. 1 c. 36) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in 1807 the long title of which is “An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade”.

The people who pushed the act through were a group of Evangelical Protestants allied with Quakers and united in their opposition to slavery and the slave trade. The Quakers had long viewed slavery as immoral, a blight upon humanity. By 1807 the anti-slave-trade groups had a very sizable faction of like-minded members in the English Parliament. They controlled, at their height, some 35-40 seats.

As far as I am aware, Japan is the only other nation besides Great Britain to have abolished slavery without external pressure, although that appears to have been more a matter of individual conscience on the part of shoguns like Toyotomi Hideyoshi instead of cultural pressure, as the Japanese mass enslavement of Chinese and Koreans followed the abolition of slavery in Manchuria by only six years.

The Lizard Queen (junior Internet edition) reveals an astounding naiveté:

I’m not sure I understand how I am any less capable of fighting the re-emergence of sex slavery than a man would be.

Why don’t you visit Germany, find some Ukrainian or Russian men and ask them that question. Then, after you’ve been beaten a few times and are properly broken in, you can ponder the subject when you’re not occupied with servicing your customers.

US Soccer captain Claudio Reyna or the referee in today’s USA-Ghana game? It’s a close call, but I’m going with Reyna courtesy of his spineless, cowardly, testicle-deficient performance after giving up the ball in a manner that would get one of my six year-olds benched.

The one rule, the ONLY rule that applies to the last man back is to GET RID OF THE BALL UNDER PRESSURE! Even when there isn’t pressure, kiddie defenders are taught to clear or pass the ball with a maximum of two touches. Reyna, being an all-too typical midfielde who believes that no ball should be too-quickly deprived of his presence, stupidly – idiotically – hung onto the ball despite being the last man back and gave it up in the worst possible circumstance.

To then go down and pretend you are hurt as the other team scores is lame, unsportsmanlike and remniscent of poultry ejectus. I’ve previously asserted that Reyna is overrrated and probably shouldn’t be starting, this just confirms it and would rightly serve to bring his international career to an ignominious end. Arena did the right thing in taking him out before the half was over, and, if he retains his job after the Cup, he’d better find another captain and another ball-controlling center midfielder.

This isn’t to say that the penalty given by the FIFA referee was excusable. A decent referee would have noticed that Ghana has been looking to go down all game long and done what most of the refs have been doing and waved it off. And it’s totally insane for FIFA to allow its referees to repeatedly give out cheap penalties and red cards against the US team on the one occasion when some Americans are actually watching; you don’t develop interest in a sport by turning off potential spectators the only time they tune in.

Because slavery isn’t funny. Except when it is:

I probably shouldn’t do Vox Popoli the credit of a link, but this is so heinous that I couldn’t help myself. I know that he likes to troll his own blog for hits, but when you suggest that Slavery is funny, and say “As for the sex slavery, if feminists are so concerned about it, then let them end it,” well, then you’re an immoral bastard and a terrible human being….

There’s more to say here, on subjects raising from Vox’s firm belief that “Judeo-Christian” culture is the solution (to a problem he mocks), to his idea that somehow women trapped in Slavery have “worked so hard to advance it.” But, frankly, he isn’t even worth that level of detailed analysis.

1. How does one troll one’s own blog? Anyhow, what frightens people like Evil Blender isn’t that I’m a troll, it’s that they know I often mean what I’m saying. And in this case, I absolutely did. It’s increasingly looking like the burqah or the brothel, baby.

2. Who is Evil Blender to say what is and is not funny? And if you don’t find humor in the notion of rampant sex slavery throughout the equalitarian, feminized New West to be funny, well, you probably think Alanis Morrisette is ironic and should look for your laughs in American sitcom hijinks.

3. If Evil Blender is devoted to evil as his nomenclature suggests, then is my “terrible” Judeo-Christian “immorality” actually good? What is the basis of his morality from which he pronounces judgment? And if the Judeo-Christian ethic that ended the nineteenth century slave trade is not a potential solution for the new slavery problem, what ethic is, considering that the slavery is taking place in the environment of post-Christian secularism to which most American opponents of Judeo-Christianity subscribe? What would Evil Blender suggest instead, perhaps the Hindu tradition home to thuggee and suttee?

4. He could do that level of detailed analysis, but it’s just not worth it. Now, where have I heard that before?

5. Who is this false Lizard Queen? She’d better take care lest the real beast take notice of this trespass upon her demense.

One thing I don’t understand is the point of putting a Sitemeter counter on your website, then hiding the results from the public. I mean, do you honestly think that it escapes anyone’s attention that only three people have left a comment on your blog that week? Or that your shameless link-whoring and resultant evolution in the TTLB ecosystem will cause people to miss the fact that ten blogs link to you for every reader that visits your blog?

It doesn’t concern me that I’m only a lowly #733 these days. Considering that I’m not even the 733rd most popular novelist in the SFWA, that’s not so bad considering the grand sweep of the blogosphere. And if it mystifies me that so many people prefer the blogs of Malkin or Kos to mine, well, one has only to look at the third party vote totals to realize that what is on offer here is of limited appeal.

There’s nothing wrong with hiding your site stats, of course, it just seems like a rather strange thing to go out of your way to do.

The Good Fraters make a few recommendations in the course of being interviewed by Bloggasm:

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Fraters Libertas: Nihilist in Golf Pants: A little too PC at times, but still one of the overall funnier blogs.

Yucky Salad With Bones: Like Erma Bombeck on Meth.

First Things: Restoring the Christian intellectual tradition one day at a time.

Vox Day: Whether you’re on the Left or the Right, Vox will drive you crazy on a regular basis. He’ll also make you think.

The Evangelical Outpost: An evangelical Marine who writes on some of the most intellectually taxing philosophical issues of the day with humor and humility? If Joe only drank, he would own the keys to the blogosphere kingdom. Or he might post one a month at Fraters.

In all fairness, the evidence suggests that I’ve only driven one person crazy. She was a grad student I dated my sophmore year of college who wound up in a psychiatric institution about a year later. Interestingly enough, she was only woman I’ve ever dated who was definitely more intelligent than I am, which tends to support my theory that the higher your IQ, the more likely it is that your grasp on reality will be a little shakier than the norm as well.

Anyhow, it’s nice to know that the guys still enjoy swinging by despite my frequent apostasy from collective right-wing blogma.

The felicidally inclined Mindcleaner has been immersing himself in Ann Coulter’s latest and he pronounces himself unimpressed. The experience sparks three questions:

1. Do you read? Or, simply put, who reads? I don’t read because I discipline myself to do so or becuase I feel in any way compelled by something outside myself. I read because I enjoy it. Sure, I’ll pick up something challenging and “important” on a regualr basis, and more often than not, I enjoy it and agree with its importance. Of course, I rarely pick up a book liberals tout as important.

Most people probably won’t believe how much I read. I finish a book every third day or so, sometimes every second day, which is why I don’t bother keeping my reading list up to date. It simply changes too often. I read five or six books at a time, although I seldom read non-fiction books straight through unless they are particularly informative. As of now, I’m reading Melissa Scott’s “Empress of Earth” on my Treo, L’Amour’s 11th Sackett novel on my laptop, Oman’s “History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages” in my bed and Bruno’s “Fascisti” in the chair-and-a-half in my office. Yesterday I finished the previous book in Scott’s Heaven series and L’Amour’s 10th Sackett novel, as well as “The Case of the Deptford Horror” and “Five Rings in Reno” from a mystery anthology edited by Ellis Peters.

2. Does reading make you smarter? I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I know there are those out there who think they’re plenty smart but very seldom pick up a book. If you’re familiar with The Daily Kos (a liberal blog) you’ll know that its namesake has admited to not being that much of a book reader, prefering magazines and newspapers, and his readers think he’s about the smartest man alive. I’ve come across many conservatives who are the same way. They eschew higher education, some for good reasons, saying they would rather self-educate. I’ve asked a few about their reading habits and they’ve almost never anything by a non-radio personality. I’m not saying that can’t make you smarter, but if it does, I’d like to know how.

Definitely. Having read a wide variety of books means that even if you don’t know a particular subject very well, you will still harbor a general sense of it so when you need to go into detail, you know where to look. Novels can be surprisingly educational; until I read Norwich’s Byzantine history series, I had no idea how much Byzantine history I’d learned from Harry Turtledove’s Videssos novels. I was also rather shocked to learn how much less creative Mr. Turtledove was than I’d previously believed.

3. Is reading virtuous? If you’re a Christian, you can relate to the feeling of necessity to read your Bible. In evangelical circles, it goes without saying that a person should be well read. Not reading The Word is almost sinful if not actually sinful in many eyes. Is reading in general similar? What kind of person feels guilty if he or she does not read regularly? I don’t know if I’ve ever felt guilty when going an extended period without finishing a book, but I do know I feel something is missing if I’m not into a book. And if reading is virtuous, then is it virtuous to read just about anything? I don’t want to sound like an elitist, but can reading a steady diet of Romance novels improve a person in any way?

No, reading is not inherently virtuous. It’s actually an extreme form of self-absorption, even if it is required for self-improvement. I can’t imagine feeling guilty about not reading, since I would no more voluntarily do so than I would stop breathing. As for the intellectual nutrition to be found in a diet of Romance novels, I can only say that I would seriously question the elitist credentials of anyone who hasn’t read “Jane Eyre”, “The Tale of Genji” and “The Sorrows of Young Werther”.

Anyhow, I probably read 10 light books for every book that would be considered serious. However, I think most of what is currently considered serious literature possesses less merit than pulp science fiction from the Golden Age, so I cheerfully remain in near-complete ignorance of the all-important East American genre featuring the likes of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and their tedious, navel-gazing inheritors repeatedly committing acts of literary masturbation.

From an old Florence King review of Wendy Shalit:

Women can’t tell men how to behave — they either inspire or fail to inspire. Today we inspire them by slamming doors on their fingers, pushing them away when they help us with our coats, and then, when they learn their lesson and begin to treat us with equal-opportunity boorishness, we change our minds and seek to enforce by fiat the respect which was once grounded in custom.

This is one of the most significant concepts a woman needs to understand about men. Most men absolutely loathe being told what to do and will barely tolerate it from an authority they recognize as legitimate, they will not accept it from a would-be substitute mommy. If you see a man respond to a direct female order by blinking, remaining silent and looking very blank, he is almost surely swallowing the vulgar suggestion that he would give to another man by way of response in the same situation. And the chances are very high that he will somehow manage to forget to obey.

It never ceases to amaze me how some women don’t realize how they are inspiring – or if you prefer, training – the men around them. They attempt to exert control by only being pleasant when the man is doing what they want, then are confused when the man begins avoiding their company rather than meekly altering his behavior. She ratchets up the unpleasantries in an attempt to control the situation and the relationship spirals downward.

The truth is, regardless of sex, when people reliably demonstrate a reluctance to be around you, the problem is very rarely with them, it is almost always with you.

However, as much as I respect both King and Shalit, they are both inclined towards romantic idealism instead of more dispassionate observation. Consider the following passage:

Shalit sees signs that modesty is making a comeback. Antioch College’s much-derided guidelines on asking permission to kiss and touch are not very different from The English Gentlewoman (1631) and the many Victorian chapbooks about men who “take liberties.”

Considering that the concept of the cam whore, Jenna Jameson and the delectable Brazilian wax were just entering mass culture at the time of King’s review, one has to say that as a trend spotter, Miss Shalit leaves somewhat to be desired.

To the four or five concerned Americans who are regular WND readers and inveterate mass emailers: please don’t send me WorldNetDaily columns. Believe it or not, as a WND columnist for the last five years, I am passing familiar with the web site and have even been known to read its articles from time to time.

Thank you.