Tag: politics

Mailvox: the futility of cancer

Nate explains both why left-wing parasites are driven to take over organizations and why their takeovers always end in the eventual demise of the organization:

They never learn. They don’t understand civilization, and they don’t
understand power. That’s why they are never able to successfully build
organizations in the first place. So they have to take over the
organizations others have already built and try to use them for their
own goals. They think that the organization itself… the name… is
what makes it relevant. So they imagine if they can just get control of
it… all that power will be theirs.

So they break the very tools they are planning to use to fix the world.

Then
they stand there with a dumb look on their face… trying to drive a
nail with a broken hammer… and cannot understand why it isn’t working.

This process is as true of the Episcopalian Church and the Boy Scouts of America as it is of the SFWA.  Some believe that destruction was always the aim, but I don’t think that is true of the average parasite who joins an organization. I think in most cases they genuinely wish to “improve” the organization and do not understand that their desired improvements will kill it.

I’ll write more on this in the next day or two, in my response to NK Jemisin’s call for further “reconciliation”. What is interesting is the way in which Nate’s description here perfectly describes her approach to “improving” SF/F.

Their analytical abilities don’t appear to exceed that of the average cancer cell. The current SFWA is rather like a collection of cancer cells congratulating themselves on how much they have improved the body they are inhabiting and celebrating the way in which they have driven most of those disgusting, unprofessional white blood cells out.  And it is not hard to imagine their alarm when suddenly the body that sustains them begins to cease functioning, for no particular reason at all.

This is something that the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling may wish to keep in mind, lest it one day find itself going the same route as SFWA.  And speaking of SASS, the organization released a statement entitled: “Statement on the expulsion of a member by another writers’ organization“

In response to requests for comments regarding the decision of another writers’ group to formally expel a lifetime member, SASS Secretary and spokesman Lou Antonelli makes the following statement:

“Although the subject in question was exercising his free speech rights under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, that has nothing to do with the standards of conduct and behavior within a private organization

“Like any private club, the organization in question is allowed to police its membership according to its regulations and bylaws. This is an internal discipline issue and not a matter of concern to the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling.

“The by-laws of the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling clearly state that members should not discuss religion or politics within its auspices, and its members are expected to treat each other with respect. Those are our bylaws, and each group operates according to its own bylaws and policies.

I note that not only does SFWA have no standard of conduct and behavior, but it previously had one that was, if I recall correctly, junked during the Russell Davis administration.  As the SFWA’s statement demonstrated, the current Board believes it can throw anyone out of the organization at any time for no particular reason at all.  If I hadn’t made it clear to everyone that I was the member to whom the statement referred, no one would outside the SFWA Board and its confidants would even know with certainty who the expelled member was.

Of course, it would certainly be amusing if the Board’s assumptions turned out to be incorrect, would it not?  Because in that case, I would not even be expelled at all. And it occurs to me that someone inclined towards conspiracy theory might even conjecture that the reason the SFWA Board refused to publicly identify the expelled member is because they know very well that the expulsion was not legitimate, that it was a sham expulsion, and they are attempting to avoid being sued for damages once the illegitimacy of their action is established.

Tiananmen Spring

You may recall I was more than a little dubious about the “Arab Spring” being trumpeted by Middle East experts such as Thomas Friedman:

A security operation to clear protesters camped out on the streets of
Cairo since President Mohamed Morsi was deposed by the military last
month has left at least 40 people died. The Egyptian Interior Ministry says 200 people have been arrested,
including 50 in the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in in Nasr City and 150 at the
Nahda Square sit-in in Giza.

By mid-morning, state television reported that security forces had finished breaking up the sit-in there. Bulldozers were said to have been used to uproot the camps. The Interior Ministry said security forces had “total control” over
Nahda Square, and that “police forces had managed to remove most of the
tents” in the area. Security forces had blocked all access to the
protest camp.


Sources on the ground told Al Jazeera of at least 40 fatalities,
while the Muslim Brotherhood said at least 300 people had been killed,
with more than 5,000 others injured.

Democracy is not a viable alternative for any society that is not both fully civilized and homogenous.  It used to work for the USA and the UK.  It still works in Japan. It has never really worked on the continent of Europe. It is not a societal panacea and it should never come as a surprise when the imposition of a democratic system leads directly to violence and political turmoil.

Remember, civil war is nothing more than extreme politics.

Spot the false assumption

CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent changes his mind about the evils of marijuana and its medical inutility

I apologize because I didn’t look hard enough, until now. I didn’t look far enough. I didn’t review papers from smaller labs in other countries doing some remarkable research, and I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.

Instead, I lumped them with the high-visibility malingerers, just looking to get high. I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because of sound scientific proof. Surely, they must have quality reasoning as to why marijuana is in the category of the most dangerous drugs that have “no accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.”

They didn’t have the science to support that claim, and I now know that when it comes to marijuana neither of those things are true. It doesn’t have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works. Take the case of Charlotte Figi, who I met in Colorado. She started having seizures soon after birth. By age 3, she was having 300 a week, despite being on seven different medications. Medical marijuana has calmed her brain, limiting her seizures to 2 or 3 per month.

Assuming that the government does anything for scientific reasons, common sense reasons, or simply in the national interest is almost always going to turn out to be wrong.  Don’t do it.

Marijuana should be legalized. So should every other illegal recreational drug. The cost of banning them is simply far too high.  It is time to end Prohibition 2.0.

The dismay of the white liberal

As Brown America waxes in influence, its longtime white liberal allies are dismayed to discover that the minorities they championed never actually gave a damn about the liberal principles they espoused:

Here’s the Daily Kos founder on the Snowden revelations:

I
don’t give a shit. Seriously, I just don’t care. NSA spying is bad! So
is stop and frisk. So is splitting up families by deporting children to
countries they’ve never been to and don’t speak the language. So is
harassing American muslims.

Government overreach
is bad. But to act like having the government track who you call is the
height of government abuse is a very white privileged view of the
privacy issue.

But as for Greenwald and Snowden? Seriously, I don’t give two shits.

Please,
Mr. Moulitsas, tell us, what is the proper, non-privileged,
multi-cultural view of the “privacy issue”? Is it one that stays within
the confines of what’s allowed by the Democratic Party? Is it one that
is relevant to the war on women, or voting rights, or immigration, but
ignores the collapse of the rule of law and the justice system (which is
far from a “white privileged” issue)?

Of course a
Mr. Moulitsas doesn’t give a damn about privileged whites such as
Greenwald and Snowden.  They are not of his clan or a minority in a
similar position. Imagine how shocked the white liberals are going to be
when they find out their erstwhile allies don’t give a damn about the
equality, the environment, abortion, women’s rights, or any of the
Left’s other sacred causes.  They never did, they merely went through
the motions and mouthed all the right words in order to ensure
themselves a place at the table.

The two-party system
based on ideology is totally foreign to most non-Americans, who are
accustomed to interest-based politics.  Now that minorities, real ethnic
minorities, make up a significant part of the Democratic party, it
should come as no surprise that they are beginning to reveal the true
nature of their politics.  Because of this, don’t be surprised when La
Raza becomes an effective third party in California and begins to
compete directly with the Democrats.

It’s not treason, it’s just free trade

So, the threat from al-Qaeda is so great that Americans have to give up all their civil liberties, while at the same time, al-Qaeda is being subsidized by the U.S. government:

Supporters of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan have been getting U.S. military contracts, and American officials are citing “due process rights” as a reason not to cancel the agreements, according to an independent agency monitoring spending.

The U.S. Army Suspension and Debarment Office has declined to act in 43 such cases, John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, said today in a letter accompanying a quarterly report to Congress.

“I am deeply troubled that the U.S. military can pursue, attack, and even kill terrorists and their supporters, but that some in the U.S. government believe we cannot prevent these same people from receiving a government contract,” Sopko said.

But even that is less apparently treasonous than the US government directly supplying al-Qaeda, with whom it is supposedly at war, with heavy weaponry.  At this point, it looks as if Obama’s chief legacy will be having been the greatest gun salesman, both foreign and domestic, of all time.

It’s enough to almost make me wish I’d voted for him.

Congress exempt from Obamacare

Just in case it wasn’t sufficiently clear that Obamacare is going to wreck American health care, the executive branch has given the congressional branch an exemption from the law:

The White House has approved a deal that will exempt members of Congress and their staff from some of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, Politico reported late Thursday. Under the law, popularly referred to as Obamacare, lawmakers and their aides were required to source health insurance “created” by the law or offered through one of its exchanges, and without the subsidies they currently enjoy, the members of Congress would have faced thousands of dollars in additional premium payments each year, the report said. However, the Office of Personnel Management now plans to rule that the government can continue to make a contribution to the health-care premiums of the lawmakers and their staff, it said, citing unnamed congressional sources and a White House official.

Their shamelessness simply knows no bounds.  None.  Cicero was right; democracy does lead inevitably to aristocracy. The fact that we presently have an aristocracy of connections and influence rather than an aristocracy of blood only means that it will be another generation or three before the latter is made institutional.

Not so much alpha

A few folks asked me where I figured Carlos Danger ranked on the socio-sexual hierarchy.  For various reasons, I concluded that despite his ambition, fame, and political power, he was most likely a gamma male .  Now we have definitive photographic proof confirming my initial diagnosis, as to the left can be seen a picture of the “beautiful young lady” with whom Mr. Danger was texting risque images.

I, for one, had no idea that Lena Dunham was so interested in politics.  Or that Carlos Danger was so passionate about marine biology.

That’s reassuring

The USG declares it will not torture or kill Edward Snowden:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter to the Russian minister of justice assuring the Russian government that the U.S. will not seek the death penalty for National Security Agency leak source Edward Snowden if he is returned to the U.S. Seeking to push back on assertions Snowden made in his request for temporary asylum in Russia, Holder also said in the letter that the U.S. will not torture Snowden.

Of course, this IS the same government that said it wasn’t spying on the entire world’s email and telephone calls. And Eric Holder isn’t exactly the most trustworthy member of that government.

The “necessity” of limiting free speech

Well, I did warn you this sort of thing wasn’t limited to the SFWA, after all.  What a pity it didn’t occur to conservatives a few decades ago that all the free speech they found unpalatable could simply be limited out of “necessity”.

For the past few years speech has moved online, leading to fierce
debates about its regulation. Most recently, feminists have led the
charge to purge Facebook of misogyny that clearly violates its hate
speech code. Facebook took a small step two weeks ago, creating a
feature that will remove ads from pages deemed “controversial.” But such
a move is half-hearted; Facebook and other social networking websites
should not tolerate hate speech and, in the absence of a government
mandate, adopt a European model of expunging offensive material.

Stricter regulation of Internet speech will not be popular with the
libertarian-minded citizens of the United States, but it’s necessary….

American free speech jurisprudence relies upon the assumption that
speech is merely the extension of a thought, and not an action. If we
consider it an action, then saying that we should combat hate speech
with more positive speech is an absurd proposition; the speech has
already done the harm, and no amount of support will defray the victim’s
impression that they are not truly secure in this society. We don’t
simply tell the victim of a robbery, “Hey, it’s okay, there are lots of
other people who aren’t going to rob you.” Similarly, it isn’t
incredibly useful to tell someone who has just had their
race/gender/sexuality defamed, “There are a lot of other nice people out
there.” 

Of course, under this logic, if the law simply considers being black, or Jewish, or homosexual an action, then such actions can be criminalized.  After all, “to be” is a verb, and verbs denote action, so therefore there is no justification for not criminalizing anyone who happens to be anything considered undesirable by the majority.  And since when is an “impression that [one is] truly secure in this society” the basis for Constitutional jurisprudence?

As this reasoning shows, progressives are not merely short-sighted, they are downright delusional.  This is pure rhetoric presented as dialectic; at absolutely no point does the argument hold up to even a cursory rational analysis.

Needless to say, if imposed impartially, such a standard would affect the groups claiming to need protection more than anyone, as many of them regularly engage in the group libel of men, whites, and the religious.  The assault on free speech is just another faux equalitarian stalking horse.

Dancing around the obvious

It’s interesting to see the mainstream press delicately dancing around something that all of them have heard about for years in their coverage of Weinergate II: Carlos Danger:

It’s also time to declare a moratorium on the line that Huma Abedin
is the smartest, shrewdest, most level-headed and glamorous asset the
Democratic Party has, and if she’s OK with Anthony, we should be, too.
Clearly, there is something very wrong with Abedin — whether it’s simply
that she shares her husband’s vaulting ambition or that she has a
pathological need to be publicly humiliated, something’s up. When The
New York Times is calling for you to take your sad assemblage of sexual
compulsions out the door, you should consider that a wake-up call. Silda
may have stood by Eliot, but even she never opened her mouth in his
defense.

Abedin took the good-wife act one step further at
Tuesday’s press conference, admitting her collusion in this new lie: “We
discussed all of this before Anthony decided to run for mayor,” she
said. So clearly, as Abedin sat for these joint interviews in which
Weiner claimed to be a changed man, she knew that wasn’t the truth, and
was happy to lie to a public that had been nothing but sympathetic
toward poor, brilliant Huma, saddled with such a dud. Perhaps they’re a
better match than we knew.

Something very wrong with Abedin… something’s up.  I wonder what that something might be that would cause a wife to be totally indifferent to her freakshow husband spending his evenings tweeting pictures of his genitalia to younger women.  Whatever could it possibly be?

I still recall the look of utter panic on Sean Hannity’s face when Gennifer Flowers came out and said something to the effect of “everyone in Little Rock knows Hilary is a lesbian” on his show.  If I recall correctly, they went right to commercials.