Vox Popoli

Evil Bender doesn’t even possess the tools to begin a discussion about morality:

The basis of morality in which I pronounce judgement is one of rational thought, Vox. I don’t need to desperately scream about how the world is opposed to my belief system in some misguided attempt at making myself feel morally superior.

It’s like trying to explain physics to a puppy. Anyone feel the urge to illuminate Evil Bender with regards to how rational thought can no more be the basis of morality than a hammer can be the basis for architecture? This is the same problem faced by those who believe in “science”, which can never tell one what to do, only how to do it.

It also never ceases to astound me how left-oriented individuals constantly mistake the assertion for the actual. You’ll have to show us that rational thought, EB, because the evidence for it thus far is certainly scanty. It would help if EB could start by rationally defining “good” and “evil” for our edification. As for the rest of his argument, it is similarly ludicrous. For example:

A solution for slavery starts by building a world where bigotry, intolerance, and hatred aren’t acceptable.

Considering that none of those three concepts has ever been one of the primary, secondary or tertiary motivations for institutional slavery in any historical culture,* and furthermore, such concepts have never been eliminated or even quantified, this is one of the most deeply silly statements to infest the blogosphere in the brief history of blogging.

If Evil Bender didn’t exist, I’m not sure he could be properly imagined in all his stupendous wonder.

*1. Personal enrichment. 2. Cheap labor. 3. Personal gratification. 4. Reducing military capacity. One rather doubts the Turks hated their Janissaries or that Julius Caesar cared much one way or another about 53,000 Auduatuci he enslaved in 57 BC.

The Kafkaesque k harbors a fantasy about wearing a secret policeman’s outfit:

1. Violence against women is never funny, and never deserving of ridicule. Never.

Someone probably should have told Chris Rock this before he launched his career as comedian. “I would never hit a woman… but I’ll sure as Hell shake the shit out of her!”

2. In case you don’t understand, because most of you don’t appear to be utilizing all of your God-given faculties, violence against women is NEVER funny.

To say nothing of David Chapelle. “I’m Rick James, bitch!” And the more that puritanical feminists preach against the horrors of “violence against women”, the funnier the average person will find it. You see, only one person laughing about violence against women is sufficient to disprove k’s absurd assertion no matter how many times she repeats her mantra. If you don’t think it’s funny when a verbally agressive woman unexpectedly, but deservedly gets her clock cleaned, well, you’re just a sad and humorless individual. And if she’s a feminist who publicly professes a belief in total equality, so much the better.

3. I find it interesting that both Evil Bender and The Lizard Queen have written lengthy, thoughtful responses, but when I come over here to find the other half of the debate, I read only mockery. Try to formulate a coherent argument rather than berating your opponents. Or do you not have a logical, coherent argument that can be supported by evidence? Is that what all this belittling is about—hiding your inability to eloquently express your ideas and defend your belief system behind schoolyard ridicule?

I have already formulated a coherent argument, that to which Evil Bender, the Lizard Princess and Mrs. Smitty were respondingly poorly, insufficiently and inaccurately. k shows herself to be a cretin here, as she thinks her ontological assertion is enough to make Evil Bender’s response “lengthy” and “thoughtful” despite the fact that EB himself stated that he was not making a detailed argument, only that he could. k must be a woman, since she thinks a four-sentence expression of personal feeling passes for a “thoughtful response” demanding a coherent counterargument. What does she think I’m going to do, insist that Evil Bender doesn’t feel the way he says he feels? As I said, a cretin, and a deluded one at that.

Between the LQ’s redundant notion of political action against an activity that violates numerous existing laws and Mrs. Smitty’s demonstration of her vast reserve of historical ignorance, there is little to do but mock. Once you’ve demonstrated the way in which a case is reliant upon a falsehood, there’s nothing left but the taunting.

The Daddy Lizard pipes up:

There are many ways that these facts mean that Vox is wrong in his fantasy of what would happen if my daughter became involved in fighting sexual slavery.

Why don’t you mention at least one of those many ways then, if not providing a comprehensive list? Oh, I know, you could but you can’t bother. Whatever. Anyhow, I harbor no fantasies about his reptilian spawn, I merely mentioned the likely result if the Lizard Princess decided to go teach those awful, sexist Eastern European slavers a Hollywood lesson. How I loathe the use of “to fight” as a metaphor, and yes, I’m including you, Chuck Palahniuk.

I can’t control what some punks fantasize about my daughter. I can’t control that they use such fantasies for verbal oneupsmanship to prove that they are right and whoever disagrees with them is wrong. God doesn’t even do that. But neither of us is deaf and blind. There is absolutely no way that someone who ridicules another in print is following God.

I don’t need verbal oneupsmanship to prove that I am right in this matter, as the historical facts speak for themselves. Any verbal sleight-of-hand is merely a means of highlighting the flawed statements made by those who are demonstrably unaware of the historical facts, the present realities and the future probabilities. I’ve yet to hear a single person make a case for how Western feminism is going to survive the next 50 years, let alone successfully address the challenges of secular barbarism or Islamic revival.

As for Daddy Lizard’s theology, the less said, the better. Still, I am relieved to know that as I have only ridiculed others via digital bits, I have escaped the divine judgment of those who so sinfully misuse the printing press.

By the way, as Lena points out in the comments, the former Soviet Union is heavily feminized, or if you prefer, antipatriarchal, which is why its population has declined more drastically than the populations of Western Europe. I was aware of this thanks to The Perfect Aryan Male’s Russian stripper, who was a nurse back in her home country, but I still don’t know the extent to which it is true in other Eastern European nations. Feminism and Communism stem from the same source, of course, as anyone familiar with the career of Betty Friedan knows very well. When Camille Paglia uses the term “Stalinist” to refer to the feminist movement, she is not merely engaging in rhetoric, she is also referring to its intellectual roots.

I just wandered back in from watching Switzerland beat Korea with a group of Swiss Italians. The Swiss fans were a friendly and enthusiastic bunch – the fact that I was wearing a red t-shirt was enough to obviate any need to purchase my own alcohol – and their team looks quite solid as long as Senderos is anchoring the defense. It was a good game, featuring plenty of attacking and intense battling for the ball, between two fairly even sides.

Senderos’ goal was fantastic while Frei’s goal was offsides, barely, but the Korean defenders made the mistake of looking for the flag instead of playing until the whistle blew, so they deserved to give up the goal. I’m not shocked that Switzerland took its group, but I am surprised, and I rather expect them to now knock off a Ukraine side that is very average apart from the always-dangerous Shevchenko. It’s a pity the spirited Koreans won’t advance instead of an underperforming France, but then, if you can’t manage to finish off the weak team in your group, going home is the usual consequence.

A big win for the Swiss, in that it allows them to avoid a very talented Spain side in the quarterfinals. That being said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if France finally shows up to play in the quarters and leaves the Spaniards once again disappointed.

What sort of Hallmark card do you buy this guy:

I’m not settling for one of those half-assed Father’s Days my dad always had, when he got socks and a card and ended up washing the dishes anyway. I’m not playing that shit. In fact, I submitted this itinerary to Mrs. Drew and have instructed her to follow it to a tee.

7:00AM – Baby cries. Someone who is not me tends to it.

9:00AM – Mrs. Drew wakes me up while wearing the uniform of a service industry employee of my choosing. I’m thinking a 1920’s speakeasy cigarette girl. It’s eccentric, yet boneriffic….

4:45PM – Limo back to airport. Private Concorde to New York City. Turn on satellite television to watch the World Cup. Find out soccer has been preempted by highlights of the Vikings 31-17 playoff win at Lambeau Field two years ago, the one where Randy Moss pretends to take a shit on the field. Except, in this version, Moss really does take a shit on the field, and then Joe Buck dies on the air in a hail of gunfire.

6:00PM – Land in Manhattan. Limo ride to Hudson Hotel. Get fitted for a suit by the very finest Italian tailor while in the car. Inhale entire nitrous oxide tank.

6:30PM – Arrive at Hudson Hotel Bar. Bouncer looks at guest list. I am the only name on the list. Enter the bar and instruct bouncer to bring me headshots of people who would like to get in for my approval.

6:49PM – Approve of no one. Get fucking drunk.

My ideal Father’s Day would look somewhat different, I mean, 9 AM? I’m of a crack-of-noon kind of guy, and the only outfit is a Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders one, complete with the white boots, but I have to respect the Italian suits as well as the murderous thoughts about Joe Buck. I’m only surprised that Mr. Father’s Day left Matt Millen out of it, although when I think about it, watching Millen suffer through the disaster that he has made out of the Detroit Lions is actually a more satisfactory fate for the evil Vikings-hating bigot than an on-air death by gunfire.

Every year, twice a year. How you like those Vikes now, Matt?

The sad thing, of course, is that even in a Vikings’ fan’s fantasy, one simply can’t picture them winning the Super Bowl.

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.