Vox Popoli

Don Banks writes on SI:

Boomer Esiasion on CBS’s pre-game show Sunday actually said if the Vikings make the playoffs, head coach Mike Tice should have his salary quadrupled and “don’t be surprised if he’s coach of the year.”

Coach of the Year? Tice couldn’t even win Coach of the Year in his division. Ever hear of Lovie Smith, Boom? And yes we know you and Tice hail from the same neck of the woods on Long Island, and both went to Maryland, but how about a little objectivity?

I am going to go upstairs, remove the purple Vikings sweatshirt I am currently sporting, and take a shower. A long, hot one. I shall do my level best to forget that I ever read anything to this effect. Should I fail, I shall then go about seeking psychiatric help before I snap and am found frozen to death in the process of making naked snow angels to spell out FIRE MIKE TICE in giant letters outside Winter Park.

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKISHLY BLOND GOURD, BOOMER? ARE YOU EVIL OR ARE YOU MAD? DO YOU PARTICULARLY HATE THE VIKINGS OR JUST MINNESOTANS IN GENERAL? AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

UPDATE – okay, I am feeling calm now. I am at peace, I am at one with the world in all its vicissitudes, with the NFL and with the Vikings. Now that I am capable of thinking soberly about this, I have concluded that Boomer Esiason is in the pay of Matt Millen, who realizes that his only hope of winning the NFC Central – yes, I know, shut up, I still haven’t accepted the 16-game season – is to encourage even greater incompetence than he can muster. He’s already done the Packers in with Sherman, the Vikings with Tice, and Lovie Smith was a devious plot that went horribly wrong due to Millen’s racist miscalculations.

By the way, there are few individuals I hate in the world, but Matt Millen may top the list. I still remember every single Packers-Vikings game wherein he would spend the entire game slagging the Vikes under the nominal guise of a color commentator.

How does he still have a job anyhow? Hey, maybe Millen can hire Tice!!! Now THAT would be perfect!

Derbyshire dislikes Irving Kristol’s elitism:

“A year ago, I asked Kristol after a lecture whether he believed in God or not. He got a twinkle in his eye and responded, ‘I don’t believe in God, I have faith in God.’ Well, faith, as it says in Hebrews 11:1, ‘is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ But at the recent AEI lecture, journalist Ben Wattenberg asked him the same thing. Kristol responded that ‘that is a stupid question,’ and crisply restated his belief that religion is essential for maintaining social discipline. A much younger (and perhaps less circumspect) Kristol asserted in a 1949 essay that in order to prevent the social disarray that would occur if ordinary people lost their religious faith, ‘it would indeed become the duty of the wise publicly to defend and support religion.'”

Here we have a guy who plainly doesn’t believe in God, but who thinks that well-padded intellectual elitists like himself ought to evade the issue in public for fear of demoralizing the proles and perhaps jeopardizing some padding thereby. I can’t think of anything nice to say about that; and in fact, the only things I CAN think of to say would not be suitable for a family website.

I’m no neoconservative. But I do note that Kristol’s position is of a long and distinguished lineage, dating back to Socrates and including Voltaire, Joyce, and more recently, Eco among its adherents. And, as was implied in today’s column, there is something to be said for doing one’s best to remain on the side of that which has proven to build civilization instead of tearing it down, regardless of one’s private doubts.

Derb adds:

To your question: “And Derb, why is it wrong for atheists and agnostics to believe that religion can be a force for good?” If you can point me to anything I have ever said or written that suggested such a thing, I’d be obliged.

If you were to start a list of people who, while themselves atheist or agnostic, believed widespread religious belief to be a social and/or personal good, you would have to block out a weekend to get the job done. Confucius, Plato, the emperor Augustus, Ben Franklin…. This has been such a commonplace intellectual position that if you DID think it wrong you’d have to cross half the great thinkers & doers of history off your Christmas card list.

I always find this interesting, given how so many modern atheists and agnostics sneer at religion and will often even go so far as to insist that as a cause of war and general evil, should be stamped out. And yet, the brightest lights IN THEIR OWN CAMP would vehemently disagree.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Arnold Schwarzenegger stunned California last week by selecting the former deputy chief of staff to Gray Davis, the Democratic governor ousted by the recall that brought Mr. Schwarzenegger to power, to be his own chief of staff.

Conservatives are furious that Susan Kennedy, a 45-year-old former acolyte of radical activists Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, will be Gov. Schwarzenegger’s top administrator, with power to hire and fire staff. Some liberals are angry at her joining a GOP governor; others are bemused. This Wednesday, 450 Gray Davis alumni will fill the state capitol for the unveiling of Mr. Davis’s portrait. Ms. Kennedy will be reunited with David Zingale, another former top Davis aide, who is now chief of staff to First Lady Maria Shriver. Jason Kinney, a Davis speechwriter, quips that Mr. Schwarzenegger has decided to “finish the second term of Gray Davis.” Mr. Davis, for his part, notes that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

I tried to warn starry-eyed Republicans of this in a column during the post-recall election, but the Hewittian-led pragmatists won over the ironically more realistic idealists.

You can’t always get what you want. You won’t always get what you need. But you usually get what you deserve.

Todd is puzzled:

Do you have any idea where many of today’s women are getting fed their daily feminist bread? As a single man I keep running into women that keep describing themselves as “independent” in conversations. Men never need to qualify themselves this way because we are naturally more independent.

These women make it a point to stress their “independence” which gets me wondering whether they are reading it in Cosmopolitan or some other rag that this is what men want out of women.

The concept is pushed most heavily in college, although it has trickled down to the high schools, especially the private schools, to some extent. It is also pushed via entertainment; one can look at nearly any movie or television show and see that a woman dependent on a man is nearly always portrayed as frustrated, embittered and dowdy, whereas a woman who supports herself is portrayed as being happy, confident and more attractive to men.

The movie True Lies was an example of this, as Jamie Lee Curtis does not bloom until she becomes a secret agent in partnership with her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger. (If you haven’t seen it, do, it’s much better than you’d think and single-handedly reversed my previous opinion of Tom Arnold as being entirely unfunny.) The movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith is perhaps a good example of the SIW’s (strong independent woman)ideal, where the woman’s independence and equality is asserted to be an intrinsicly sexy thing. One can trace this theme back to Hepburn and Tracy, but while it is true that snappy repartee can be briefly entertaining, it is a horrible basis for a relationship.

It’s important to understand that women tend to think in images. This is why they are so susceptible to visual propaganda; while many men’s magazines are nothing but text and even Playboy usually features lengthy and in-depth articles, you can go through a stack of women’s magazines without finding more than a few pages that contain more than two paragraphs worth of text. Even many intelligent women who are perfectly capable of it don’t really like to think, they find it more interesting to express and explain themselves. You, on the other hand, may find the topic somewhat less fascinating.

Following the overt (college) and the covert (Hollywood) propaganda, this independence theme is powerfully reinforced by other women. As most of you have probably noted from visits to feminist-oriented blogs, external and critical input is seldom welcomed by female-dominated circles. Whereas competitive men welcome and feed off negative energy – think of Michael Jordan manufacturing perceived slights to motivate himself, Reggie Miller’s habit of walking around New York in a Pacers jersey on game day or the “we get no respect” theme echoed by every NFL team, including the home field advantage holder in the playoffs, (I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to hearing how a potentially 16-0 Colts team that is nearly every sportswriters’ pre-season Super Bowl pick is going to complain about how they get no respect), – most women shrink from it. This is why many women develop a habit of verbal aggressiveness, on the reasonable grounds that the best defense is a constant offense.

But the toughness is an illusion. They’re like tank destroyers, all gun and no armor. At college, I found that the most verbally aggressive women were the most easily reduced to tears, even if one didn’t bother to get personal. So, since the Strong Independent Woman theme is almost always a front designed to mask an inherent insecurity, so you need not take it too seriously. The key is to determine how tightly the mask is bonded to her self-perception; if she responds warmly to masculine assertiveness and takes it off within a week or two, there’s no problem. If she clings to the illusion and continues to hide behind it, write her off and move on even if you are able to see through it.

Never waste any time with anyone who makes a habit of lying to themself. They will all too easily rationalize justifications for lying to you.

Last week: 10-6. Fantasy 9-3.

W-Indianapolis Colts over Tennessee Titans
Seattle Seahawks over Philadelphia Eagles
W-San Diego Chargers over Oakland Raiders
W-Chicago Bears over Green Bay Packers
W-Minnesota Vikings over Detroit Lions
W-New England Patriots over New York Jets
W-Miami Dolphins over Buffalo Bills
L-Denver Broncos over Kansas City Chiefs
L-Dallas Cowboys over New York Giants
W-Cincinnati Bengals over Pittsburgh Steelers
W-Baltimore Ravens over Houston Texans
W-Tampa Bay Buccaneers over New Orleans Saints
W-Jacksonville Jaguars over Cleveland Browns
W-Washington Redskins over St. Louis Rams
W-Carolina Panthers over Atlanta Falcons
L-San Francisco 49ers over Arizona Cardinals

And speaking of why Mike Tice should have been fired around this time last year, please note that even an NFL linebacker is capable of outthinking the man who is still mysteriously the Vikings head coach. Miami had the second worst run defense in the league last year, giving up an average of 143.9 yards per game, and Minnesota had three decent running backs who were healthy. Naturally, Tice ran the ball a grand total of TWELVE times, if I recall correctly, thus managing to provide the Dolphins with one of their four victories that year.

Here, it’s just a matter of how bad the Houston run defense is. Houston linebacker Antwan Peek said it best – “if you don’t run on us, you should be fired.”

She’ll probably be appalled that I linked to her, but Bellatrys has some interesting commentary on a relatively obscure play by Thomas Ortway called “Venice Preserv’d”. As I’m a great fan of Venice and used to be somewhat of a theater buff before it went All Gay All The Time – back when I had season tickets, the Guthrie had a fantastic season that I still remember fondly – I found her post to be well worth the reading:

This obscure Restoration play by the tragic Thomas Otway (who just about embodies every cliche of the Great Romantic Artist you can think of, no less than the Byron-Shelley-Keats crew of a hundred-plus years later) is something I’d never encountered until I dowsed up a book of Restoration Drama at the secondhand store and found it there.

Whereupon I could instantly see why it was both a) obscure, and b) popular whenever it was put on. It’s a strange play, and you can see why – if it’s typical of Otway’s work – that he never attained the role of guys like Congreve or Dryden in the Canon of English lit. He’s just too bloody weird. It’s not exactly realism that he’s doing, any more than Puccini’s Tosca or La Boheme are “realistic” – but it’s a damn sight closer to naturalism-in-art than the highly ritualized and poetry-for-poetry’s sake Tragedy of Dryden’s All For Love, the classic neoclassical Shakespeare fanfic rewrite of Antony and Cleopatra.

Amandagon and company are up in arms about a rape accuser being convicted:

Victim found guilty…..

What a fucking nightmare. A 17-year-old girl is allegedly gang raped, and instead of prosecuting the men she said raped her, the girl is prosecuted for filing a false report.

While this could be taken as a good sign that rape will eventually be treated like any other crime, with burden of proof being on the accuser and normal standards of evidence applying, this particular case appears to be troublesome. If nothing else, the girl responsible for making the accusation should have been given the jury trial that is her right.

As the woman has apparently not recanted or withdrawn her accusation, she does not meet the standard of a false accuser used by the Purdue, Air Force and Washington Post studies that have shown how accusations made and later admitted to be false by the accuser herself have ranged from 25 to 60 percent of all rape accusations made. And of course, it’s always possible that the accuser was genuinely confused about what does and does not constitute rape, which: “spans a spectrum of incidents and behaviors, ranging from crimes legally defined as rape to verbal harassment and inappropriate innuendo.” – Swarthmore College training pamphlet

Not having been privy either to the incident itself or the subsequent trial, I have no idea if justice was served or not. As justice must be impartial, I don’t see how one can rightly convict a woman on nothing more than he said vs she said evidence anymore than one can convict a man. Yes, in this case it’s the word of three against one, but as all three men have an obvious interest in the matter, that’s just not relevant here.

It is probably too optimistic to hope that the “all accused men are guilty” crowd will come away from this with an understanding of how relaxing the standards required for a conviction is dangerous for everyone, not just the hated rapists, but we can always hope.

In any event, there is no question that the “justice” system in this country is corrupted far beyond what most people would believe. Having been firsthand witness to a judge “deciding” a case by a literal coin flip – a case wherein I was the only person on either side who had been there and knew exactly what had happened – I can attest that an American courtroom is one of the last places to look for justice. And that’s not sour grapes, either, we actually won that case but I remain entirely disgusted by the process with victory was granted.

In baby-strapped Italy, politicians are proposing that women be paid not to have abortions. The scheme – put forward by the left – comes at a time when the Roman Catholic church is urging a rethink of the country’s 1978 abortion law, reported The Guardian. It allows abortion on demand in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Last year a majority of MPs from across all parties succeeded in bringing in a law on assisted fertilisation that gave embryos full rights from the point of conception. This could affect the abortion law.

With a general election due in four months, both sides are keen to woo the decisive Catholic vote. Under the scheme, women with financial problems would get between 250 euro ($495) and 350 euro a month for up to six months before giving birth.

The plan is outlined in a proposed amendment to next year’s budget, which is sponsored by a group of MPs that includes two women ex-ministers. This move is the latest development in a rising controversy over abortion in Italy.

The language issuing from the Vatican has grown stronger in recent weeks with one cardinal describing abortion as ‘the worst kind of murder’.

On Wednesday, a parliamentary committee gave the go-ahead for a commission of inquiry into the law, which was passed at a time when the feminist lobby in Italy was stronger and more active than today. One reason for the latest initiative gathering support is that it addresses Italy’s failure to produce enough children.

Feminism has been a complete disaster for Italy. You have only to walk through the ghost towns, or through the piazzas of the surviving villages to see the preponderance of old people and the haunting absence of children. Feminism still threatens to accomplish what waves of Islamic invasion, Byzantine power struggles, Viking conquest, internecine war on the peninsula and French dynastic pretensions could not do, namely, eliminate one of this planet’s great cultures.

I don’t normally look approvingly on government intervention, but the concept of limited government in Italy is simply outside the range of the political discussion there. If they want to restore their birth rate, they’d do better to lower taxes – Italians only have one child because they have to dress it in un modo bello – put restrictions on birth control and ban abortion entirely.

Some might suggest attempting to keep women out of the workforce, (actually, they could keep most of the men out too, it’s not like most of them are spending much time doing what an American would call working), because then you wouldn’t have the requisite four or five women in short black skirts collectively serving as what passes for a receptionist.

Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy the Italian approach to business, it just drives me up the wall sometimes. I once met a friend for a coffee at 11; I didn’t get back until almost five. Lunch itself lasted more than two hours and two bottles of wine; on the way back to the office, we ran into the Milanese with whom my friend was meeting who insisted that hitting a bar for drinks were the first order of the day. As the friend of a friend, I was naturally greeted as a friend and was expected to accompany them all… hey, when in Rome….

Get the girl some absinthe… and a clue:

The sound of this post is my head bashing into a wall repeatedly.

Okay, I’m a glutton for punishment. I don’t know why I pore over things that make me boil inside the the fury of at least 3 volcanoes, but I think I do it in an attempt to make some fucking sense of the crazy people in this world. This is why I am finding myself reading over again the post by Vox Day…. The sentiments expressed by the clearly insane Vox and his commenters are as follows:

1. There is no such thing as date rape. Date rape is made up, and is akin to “post-sex buyer’s remorse.” Women cry date rape when they slept with a man and regret it afterwards.

Yes. “Date rape” is distinguished from real rape as it involves inherently sexual situations where there is seldom any possibility of obtaining evidence of either criminal activity or criminal intent, both of which are necessary to demonstrate in the conviction of real crimes.

2. Most of the time, women are responsible for being raped. The feminist movement is an attempt to eschew personal responsibility for said raping.

This is wildly inaccurate. A more accurate summary would be: “Women can be partially responsible for being raped. This does not, however, take away from the guilt of the rapist.” Apparently OOA doesn’t grasp the concept of the zero-sum game and its inapplicability here either.

3. Atheists and other liberals are moral relativists.

Thinking atheists are. They have no non-subjective basis for their “moral systems” and the rational ones subscribe to Nietszschean amorality. The vast majority, however, are simply unthinking moral parasites who pick and choose from the dominant morality as it suits their requirements at the moment.

4. The logical consequence of “moral relativism” is that there is nothing wrong with rape, since men deem the “slaking of [their] desire or lust” an intrinsic good. Therefore, even if you aren’t a conservative and don’t hate women like Vox et al. do, you are a liberal and therefore moral relativist and therefore you think rape is good.

By definition, there are no objective wrongs in the eyes of the moral relativist. Nor are there objective rights. OOA demonstrates a certain trouble with logic here. A moral relativist might think rape was good for her or she might not. Whatever her opinion, it would bear no significance for anyone else who defined their morality differently.

5. It would probably be a good idea if we adopted the approach to rape common in medieval-style Islamic law, which provides that another man must testify that a woman was raped (apart from the rapist) in order for the claim to be valid.

No one suggested Sharia as a potential solution to anything. However, the existence of some evidence – eyewitness evidence generally being considered the least conclusive – should be required in order to convict a human being of any crime.

6. It might also be a good idea if we punished false accusers. The proper punishment would be the same punishment as for rape. So, 20 years for every woman who brings a rape charge but fails in the investigation stage or at trial.

As opposed to rewarding them? Of course! A false accusation is a willful intent to harm an individual and more socially destructive than a simple assault. Also, a false accuser is someone who admits to having fabricated a groundless charge, not someone whose testimony does not lead to a guilty verdict. Such as was the case in 41 percent of the 109 rape accusations examined by Dr. Eugene Kanin of Purdue in 1994. (Wikipedia)

7. If women have regular consensual sex with multiple partners, her claim of rape is suspect and likely false. Therefore, if you consent to two partners, you consent to them all.

It depends on the circumstances. The simple point which OOA attempts to obscure is that if a woman regularly engages in consensual sex, the probability that she was having consensual sex and not being raped is significantly higher than if she never makes a habit of doing so. This is difficult to understand?

8. Rape is different from other crimes because rape is the “possibility of life” while other crimes are “destruction.”

Yeah, I didn’t buy this one. Of course, I didn’t write it either. But I note that most men would be satisfied to see rape treated like any other crime with normal standards of evidence, testimony and courtroom procedure; it is women who have lobbied and demonstrated to see it treated differently. There is no Murder Shield Law and at least a modicum of evidence beyond “I say so” is required to meet the burden of a reasonable doubt for every other crime.

She’d better keep on with that bashing. Perhaps it will knock some sense into her.