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In which I dissent from Rich Lowry’s lamentation of raunch culture:

In her Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, Levy asks how it is that if feminism won, so many unenlightened, bimbo-loving guys are so happy. She reports from the front lines, traveling with the crew of Girls Gone Wild, which films young women flashing the camera for videos sold on late-night TV. They are eager to perform. “It sounds like a fantasy world dreamed up by teenage boys,” she writes. “Any hot girl you see will peel off her bikini top, lift up her skirt … all you have to do is ask.”

“A baseline expectation that women will be constantly exploding in little blasts of exhibitionism runs throughout our culture,” Levy argues. “‘Girls Gone Wild’ is not extraordinary, it’s emblematic.” Women strive to look the part. Breast-augmentation procedures zoomed from 32,607 a year in 1992 to 264,041 last year.

While I will admit that I am extremely pessimistic about the ultimate fate of the Equalitarian Society, I find it impossible to lament the fact that significantly more American women are now sporting finely sculpted C- and D-sized breasts. I know a fair number of women who have upsized on the topside, but I had no idea how popular the procedure was becoming.

I wonder how long it will be before some grim-faced politician somberly declares the War on Porn? Like the War on Drugs and the Bush administration, that will be another disastrous, invasive and liberty-destroying beast embraced by deluded conservatives.

From a Salon writer’s interview with Benjamin Kunkel:

I have a sense that particularly in New York — though I’m sure it exists this way in Boston and in San Francisco — there is a super-abundance of attractive, intelligent young women whom a man is very unlikely to be worthy of, who nevertheless set a higher value on him than he sets on them. This makes any sort of decision very difficult. Because to constantly be exposed to people whom you are unworthy of to begin with, yet who want you more than you want them, is confusing.

That assumption, that generally young men are unworthy of their female counterparts, is certainly in your book. I would get hanged for saying it, but there’s an uncomfortable truth there.

Yes. As far as I can tell.

So you’re a guy. Tell me what makes these men unworthy?

Men are unworthy in the sense of being more unfinished as people [and] in the sense of being, as romantic partners, bumbling and dishonest in a way that women are maybe not as often. The ideal of a couple that we subscribe to is one that I think is likelier to satisfy women on the whole more than it is men … So rather than men claiming that for a deal to be made they are going to insist upon certain rights or options that would sound sleazy — mainly some mild sort of institutionalized promiscuity — rather than insisting on such terms as a fundamental aspect of whatever contract is being worked out, the man basically [winds up] feel[ing] as if his desires aren’t quite the right ones….

For all our generalizations, I’m speaking very specifically, about my peers who live in New York City and at 30 are almost all single. It’s possible that I just have really unmarriageable friends.

But probably not.

No, probably not, in that they are hot and successful: desirable by commonly held human standards

I find this exchange to be tremendously amusing. Rather than apply Occam’s Razor and reach the correct conclusion, that those “commonly held human standards” are actually commonly held female standards and that the writer’s friends are, in fact, unusually unmarriageable, it’s necessary to – surprise, surprise – diagnose yet another male psychological disorder.

Now, it is surely possible that men are threatened by these shining examples of glorious female humanity, and in realizing themselves unworthy of such superior demigoddesses, dare not approach them. On the other hand, it is arguably more likely that what these women believe should be attractive to men is not, in fact, attractive to them. When a man dumps a junior executive VP in favor of an aerobics instructor, it’s usually for the very simple reason that he likes the aerobics instructor better. These women think they’re intelligent, and they can’t figure that out?

Not that I particularly care about the problem of the New York single woman, but that’s easily explained as well. Last year, I warned a friend in New York who was pursuing a new romance with a man who had recently moved there that people go to the Big City to have adventures and experiences, not to settle down. New York, London and Tokyo are probably the three worst places to find a man who wants to get married as a woman’s odds of finding a handsome and intelligent man interested in marrying her are probably better in a farm town with a population of 500.

Needless to say, my warning was futile and she was shocked when she was informed six months later that he thought it would be a good idea if they started dating other people.

If you find yourself continually confused about something, chances are that one or more of your base assumptions are incorrect. The value of any theory is its ability to explain and to predict; if yours can’t do either, you should probably look for a better one.

Three polls from the safest country in the world:

The Swiss do not feel less safe despite a rise in crime. But according to a new study, a growing number want to see the death penalty introduced.

Did not feel safe:

2005 – men 6% women 20%
2003 – men 3% women 19%
1999 – men 12% women 31%

Hold me, Fritz! I’m here, Rolf….

SC is too strong to defend herself:

Do you honestly believe you can look at just those two variables and draw substantive conclusions about them? Have you ever heard of globalization? The shift away from manufacturing and toward service industries? You really think that women in the workforce are causing your problems? Sounds like fear to me.

The entire problem on this blog is men who fear strong women. Fortunately I think most of the world is a little more rational. So you boys have fun blaming all your shortcomings on women and government – I have to go back to the real world now.”

Is anyone else surprised that SC is incapable of anything but yipping like a toy poodle? She has to make everything personal, so a discussion of average wage rates is suddenly transformed into a personal problem worthy of a pop psychoanalysis, mostly because that is the only field on which this “strong woman” is capable of engaging anyone.

Yes, one can look at just two variables and draw substantive conclusions about them when those two variables are Price and Supply. Globalization affects both supply and demand while service industry wages are not necessarily lower than manufacturing wages – who gets paid more per hour, a high-class prostitute in Switzerland or a shoe assembly-line worker in Vietnam? The fact that Demand (in the form of GDP growth) has skyrocketed only underlines the seriousness of the effect.

The idiocy of SC’s position is easily demonstrated, of course. Given that everyone rightly believes 21 million immigrants since 1970 have had a depressing effect on American wage rates, SC will find it very difficult to convince anyone with an IQ over 30 that 34 million women have been able to enter the labor force over the same period with absolutely no similar effect.

Run away, little girl. Run away and tell everyone how you scared the big bad mans.

CC wants more columns on “conservatives”:

Constitution? What Constitution? I didn’t think we still had one of those…

If we do, it’s not because of people like Ben Shapiro. His WND columns are an embarrassment to actual conservatives who unfortunately get tarred with the same brush because he calls himself “conservative”. But his most recent column about the FBI’s anti-porn squad goes over the top. I have asked him to point to the place in the Constitution that gives the federal government the authority to do anything about porn. Since the Constitution contains no such authority, I expect he will now write another column whining about how un-American it is to expect that the government abide by the limits spelled out in the Constitution.

But about your column of 12 September,… Yes, we have to remain vigilant against usurpation from politicians, but we also have to be vigilant against people like Mr. Shapiro who would give away our liberty in order to work against some perceived problem. I hope you will soon do an article pointing out that side of the coin.

I tend to agree, although there’s an awful lot of self-styled conservatives who have hissy fits whenever I point out that their “conservative” darlings are still low-rent big government whores despite the flower-print Laura Ashley dresses they wear to conceal their tattoos, piercings and assorted skin ailments.

To be honest, I haven’t read the column in question. One reason that my columns often seem to be out of sync with the news cycle is that I don’t read anywhere nearly as many columnists as I used to. Most columnists, myself included, have a few basic themes on which they tend to harp. But since most of them follow the news so closely, they can begin to sound basically the same over time.

I don’t think I need a break, not yet, but don’t be surprised if my columns start getting a bit eccentric. Bush-bashing is boring and far too easy, criticizing Democrats is like pushing a button to shoot fish in a barrel and there’s so many more interesting things worth discussing.

Or maybe I’m just hitting a caffeine low and meandering….

Peggy Noonan threatens to shed her Three Monkeyhood:

A lot of Bush supporters assumed the president would get serious about spending in his second term. With the highway bill he showed we misread his intentions.

The administration, in answering charges of profligate spending, has taken, interestingly, to slighting old conservative hero Ronald Reagan. This week it was the e-mail of a high White House aide informing us that Ronald Reagan spent tons of money bailing out the banks in the savings-and-loan scandal. This was startling information to Reaganites who remembered it was a fellow named George H.W. Bush who did that….

At any rate, Republican officials start diminishing Ronald Reagan, it is a bad sign about where they are psychologically. In the White House of George H.W. Bush they called the Reagan administration “the pre-Bush era.” See where it got them.

It’s interesting how some of the administration’s staunchest and most fervent supporters are beginning to get cold feet. No doubt they’re thinking about how Bill Clinton’s big supporters are regarded today. Another Republican blonde, Ann Coulter, seems to be reaching similar conclusions today as well.

History is the cruelest judge.

I find it more than a little ironic that the Republican masses will almost certainly continue to ignore my demonstrably more accurate analyses in favor of these more popular conservative writers. Remember these past track records when you encounter numerous pieces from Republican writers explaining how Hillary Clinton can’t possibly win the Democratic nomination or the 2008 election.

SC wonders why we can’t all just get along:

You might say that they chose to have children when they were in that situation, but that argument doesn’t hold water when so many of this country’s jobs pay too little for a household to survive on one income. We have so much to beat each other up over without manufacturing more.

Of course, if you ever wish to improve the situation, it’s not the worst idea in the world to examine what caused it to come about in the first place. And why do so many of this country’s jobs pay so little?

I suggest that SC would do well to examine the history of American wage rates to find the answer.

It was very clear from reading yesterday’s little discussion that most men and women do not understand one very basic difference between them. Men don’t understand that women live in a daily state of fear, while women don’t understand that men simply don’t. There are, of course, individual exceptions to this general rule, but they are few and far between.

If you ask a woman about her fears, you will almost invariably find yourself in for a long conversation. Women are afraid of being alone in a big house, of walking past a stranger, of being talked about, of wearing the wrong clothing, of having the wrong hairstyle and always, always, of making the wrong decision. Women are all too often rendered almost paralyzed by their fears, which is why so many of them find it difficult to make even the most basic decisions. Some of these fears are imaginary, but most are not. Any man who thought like a woman and behaved accordingly would likely be diagnosed with paranoia, and rightly so because while many of the risks she perceives are real, his are not.

Consider one of the more harmless examples of this in action. At any college, you will find that it is women who constantly change their majors and fail to graduate despite having more than enough course credit to do so. You will also find that it is women who don’t have jobs waiting for them after graduation, not because they are incapable or don’t have the necessary grades, but because they can’t decide what they want to do. When I graduated from university, every single man in my college social circle had a full-time job that he was starting in a matter of weeks and not a single woman did. These weren’t dumb or untalented women – I just spoke to one the other day who is a VP at HBO – but they were petrified at the multiplicity of options being presented to them by the real world whereas the men, as is their wont, were going about their business of entering that world with typical masculine tunnel vision: “I need a job now, so I will go get a job. Maybe I’ll like it, maybe I won’t. If I don’t, I will leave it and get a different job.”

Meanwhile, graduation rolls around and the women are still attempting to game out every possible scenario and figure out how job X will impact their goals at 30, 35 and 40 compared to job Y. And even if she likes job X now, what will she do if she changes her mind in a year and it’s too late to take job Y… and so on, ad infinitum. Yes, I’ve listened to a lot of these conversations and I find that a free-flowing supply of alchohol is a prerequisite. Finally, the women decide to put this life-defining decision off and go home to Mommy and Daddy for six months while they discover themselves. Again.

I suspect that this decision-making paralysis is related somehow to the female ability to multitask and may be similar to the inability of extremely intelligent individuals to focus. In the female case, the wider her horizons, the greater her ability to see things that can go wrong and the likelihood that she will worry about them.

Fear is not a rational thing. I have had a mild fear of flying ever since a bad takeoff in San Jose some years back and no amount of statistical knowledge can prevent my heart from beating faster when the plane begins rumbling down the runway. No woman, however strong she would like to think herself, can escape the recognition that almost every man she encounters is capable of killing or raping her if he so chooses. This colors her perceptions in a way that men can’t understand and it is why women so persistently favor promises of security and safety, however ludicrous, over liberty.

For those women who think this analysis is inaccurate, I’d encourage them to ask themselves the following two questions: 1. Have you ever told your lover, or thought to yourself, how safe you feel in his arms? 2. Has he ever told you that he feels safe in yours?

As for the question of males feeling personally threatened by women, that’s just silly psychological projection. “I am afraid in this situation, therefore, if the positions are reversed, he would be afraid.” Now, on a societal level, it is true, except that men should feel threatened by women because both men and women are being actively threatened by the unfortunate realities brought about by the Equalitarian Society. Marriages, children, parenthood, education, basic human liberties and the Western cultural tradition are all at risk due to feminism and “women’s rights”, which is why both should be and will be eradicated as the intellectual and societal cancers they are.

Feminist women often shriek that the genie can’t go back in the bottle. I am asserting that it is a matter of mathematical certainty that the genie will do so, that it will happen sooner than anyone imagines and that there is nothing anyone, pro- or anti-feminist, can do about it.

Rod Dreher writes on NRO:

I don’t at all get this attitude among many on the right that our sworn duty is to back anything President Bush and the GOP choose to do. We are conservatives before we are Republicans, are we not? Facts are better than dreams, and the fact is, the president is acting like the second coming of Lyndon B. Johnson with his spending proposals on Katrina thing, and it is past time for the grassroots to have hit the wall on the spendthrift Republican president and the spendthrift Republican Congress. What is the point of electing Republicans if they’re going to spend worse than Democrats? Moreover, I’m absolutely with Michelle Malkin on this outrageous Bush cronyism regarding the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief over at the Department of Homeland Security. I find it impossible to believe that this administration or their GOP Congressional enablers care about enforcing the immigration laws of this country. And I find it impossible to believe that this doesn’t matter. A lot.

At some point, we conservatives have got to ask ourselves if we stand for principles, or merely maintaining power. We have got to ask ourselves just which conservative goals are being served by the Republican governing status quo. We have got to ask ourselves if our conservatism stands for much more than The Democrats Must Lose. I was having a beer with a fellow religious and social conservative that first Friday after Katrina, and we were both just livid about the administration’s response. We both agreed that we’d vote in a heartbeat in 2008 for a social liberal like Rudy Giuliani, who inspires confidence in his competence and judgment, over the present crowd that we both helped vote into power. I hope next year brings forth a raft of primary challengers to GOP Congressional incumbents. If we go on like this for much longer, it will be a long time before the American people trust the government to our side again. The Democrats aren’t going to remain more hapless than the Republicans forever, and the denial in which too many Republicans wish to live in right now does the cause of conservatism no good.

Now, I’ve long suspected that Jon Podhoretz was actually a pen name for a liberal woman and this would tend to support that notion. “His” response to Dreher is long on emotion and assertions and short to the point of nonexistent on facts to back them up.

No question that conservatives shouldn’t offer blind support to Republican politicians, but I have to dissent strongly from my dear friend Rod Dreher’s post, which is hysterical and unjust, and does the president a profound disservice.

Translation: You may be my friend, but you’re being mean and unfair to someone I like. I think what you said is wrong because I don’t like it, but I’m not going to tell you why because my position is based on feelings which I do not understand and cannot explain.

There are distinct similarities between the short stories of Guy de Maupassant and the music of Disturbed, besides the fact that they both rock. Discuss.