ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
George Orwell: Animal Farm 1945
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.
One of the first arguments that generally come out of the mouth of a person who supports abortion when confronted by the argument on innocent life is that you aren’t killing baby in abortion.
Not anymore. Mary Elizabeth Williams has decided to go the other way here is the title or her Salon Piece
This was the exact thought process that led me to the exact opposite position. I, too, noticed a distinction between how women approached an in-utero child when they wanted the child and how they felt about it when the pregnancy was unexpected and unwanted. Logically, it made no sense to me that the mother’s disposition should change the biological disposition of the baby. Therefore, it made no sense that it should change the ethics of the situation. But Mary Elizabeth Williams goes a whole different direction
Mary Elizabeth Williams doesn’t just go in a different direction she goes all Comrade Napoleon on us
All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss
By this same logic, isn’t infanticide also fine and dandy? After all, if we’re talking about autonomy, kids aren’t exactly independent as soon as they are born. No infant can take care of themselves. And even later on in childhood, children rely heavily on the adults in their life to provide shelter, food, and emotional support. What about kids and adults who become disabled in life? What about quadriplegics?
When terrorists flew jets into tall buildings, they believed that those 3,000 lives were “worth sacrificing” for the furtherance of their situation. When Nazis led people with disabilities into gas chambers, those lives were “worth sacrificing” for society. When Herod had all the male children killed Bethlehem, those lives were “worth sacrificing” for his ease of mind.
The utilitarian mindset is a crystalline brutality of efficiency. If human beings of unknown or dubious worth cannot contribute to the comfort of a society, or the success of an endeavor or the happiness of one’s life, they are swept aside and away.
I’m shocked none of these ladies mentioned slavery, the ultimate utilitarian argument, consider these words from Williams…
She understands that it saves lives not just in the most medically literal way, but in the roads that women who have choice then get to go down, in the possibilities for them and for their families.
..and remember the arguments in the past concerning the black man, and the red man and how their subordination allowed the superior the more important to advance and achieve, to give them roads to go down and possibilities for them and their families.
A recent study published by Great Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists (H/T Alveda King Blog) includes data collected from 22 studies, conducted over 14 years, involving over 887,000 women, of which at least 166,831 had abortions. The results? Eighty-one percent of women (81%) who have had abortions suffer an increased risk of severe mental health problems.
All these reactions have merit but they miss the real story of the Salon piece although Elizabeth comes closest…
Were I a cartographer, I would hasten to warn Ms. Williams against this route; I would mark the map, “Here be Monsters.”
Elizabeth Elizabeth Elizabeth you are so close, being kind-hearted you conclude that Ms Williams is taking herself on a monstrous route unknowingly, but observe her argument carefully. This is a place she has been forever, in fact an honest reading of her piece admits the pro-abortion side has been there all along. The only reason she is making this statement in public is she believes it will advance her cause.
In short Ms. Williams is not taking the route toward the monsters, she is the MONSTER and the monster has decided it is strong enough to show true colors. By it being printed in a national magazine publicly it informs others that they can openly discuss this topic without fear.
That begs the question why now? Well that’s a piece is for tomorrow.
The 36th president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, is infamous for many things.
Most domestically notable are two programs: the Great Society and Medicare. Both programs can arguably be viewed as bait to Americans. Bait for what? Luring the poor into government dependence, luring the elderly into the same, and luring the descendants of all into catastrophic debt. This debt applies both individually and nationally.
However, I was fascinated to discover that these programs were not LBJ’s first forays into hooking groups into government control. At The Federalist, Leslie Loftis notes that his first target was the church.
When the federal tax code was written, that the government couldn’t tax churches was assumed. For one, at the beginning of the union, only the federal government was prohibited from establishing a religion. The state governments could and did establish churches. They didn’t tax churches, but collected taxes for the church. This stopped after the Civil War and the ratification and subsequent case law of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the federal proscription against an established religion to the individual states.
[snip]
Essentially, churches have complied with the exemption requirements of the tax code rather than asserting the right to be free from taxation.
Loftis points to bi-partisan examples of this selective enforcement, but notes that
[m]ost churches, however, tend to err on the side of caution lest the IRS decide to prosecute, either on a whim or as part of a larger political intimidation program much like the one they have run in the past few years against conservative secular organizations.
In other words, due to LBJ’s little trap, most churches yield to fear and/or love of money.
Oh and Loftis also notes that the IRS is the process of composing new guidelines for political activity by tax-exempt religious organizations and churches at the the legal behest of the Freedom From Religion Foundation(!) Aren’t all we Jesus freaks, Bible-thumpers and bitter-clingers looking forward to the passage of such regulations so that we can find out what’s in them?
Back to LBJ. We have had several problematic presidents and the current one seems like the biggest one. But he and his ideological siblings who sit in political office at all levels of government–like Houston Mayor Annise Parker–can look to the politicians of the past and thank them for laying the foundations of tyranny by luring an intentionally under-educated populace into assenting to it.
Politicians like LBJ: Dixiecrat, Reenslaver of black Americans, and Persecutor of the Church.
The 4th Doctor :“You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”
Doctor Who: The Face of Evil Episode Four
Stan:I want you all to call me “Loretta”
Monty Python’s Life of Brian 1979
In the course of my reading yesterday I came across this piece at The Other McCain concerning the ongoing war between Radical feminists and Transgender activists.
I wish Brennan and her radical feminist allies could be strategic enough to realize that there is a huge majority of people who would be willing to support them on this one point — that “woman” is a biological category, not a “gender identity” — if only they realized how important this issue is. The fact that the people being targeted now are my ideological antagonists is not irrelevant to my concern. If hardcore feminists can be targeted this way, what do you think is going to happen when the Tranny Totalitarians target conservatives?
While I find the fight between this em “interesting” groups of people quite amusing there was a rather clarifying moment within this post. This was a tweet from a “transgender” person by the name of Sophia Banks and a response by a person who goes under “SugarPuss” that neatly encapsulates the actual reality here:
Now before we comment on this tweet there is one thing that needs to be clarified. There is, in fact, a tiny amount of people who are born with the sexual organs of both sexes and or an abnormal production of hormones. If a person is in such a situation one should respect whatever decision said person makes at the age of decision in terms of choosing to define oneself as either (or no) sex. None of what follows applies to a person with said medical condition.
Now back to that tweets, The bottom line is with the exception I just noted above there is a simple fact that can not be disputed:
Women do not have penises.
Or as Nursie once explained in Black Adder Series 2
Women do not have penises, Women have never had penises and baring an incredible advance in genetic modification and manipulation or transplant surgery women never will have penises any more than men will have wombs.
Now there are a statistically insignificant amount of men and women who have for whatever reason chosen to have their bodies physically altered, via surgery and or hormone treatments to resemble the opposite sex and who have chosen to live as such. The recognized term used for such a person is “Transgender”. In some countries such alteration is recognized by law, however this doesn’t change the actual reality any more than laws claiming a woman’s testimony is worth half of a man’s under sharia describes an actual mathematical ratio of eyewitness validity.
Now if that tweet said “Transgender woman” rather than simply “woman” I would have no problem with it as it acknowledges the objective reality of a person choosing to physically or chemically altering themselves in a way recognized by law. Nor do I have a problem with a person such as Sophia Banks choosing to live as a woman, function as a woman etc etc etc. Whatever my opinion of the wisdom or sanity of such a decision it’s not my life and therefore not my business. Nor would I have a problem is a person meeting “Sophia” chooses to use female pronouns in discussion, particularly if they had no acquaintance with Sophia before the alternation. Two of the three “transgender” people I know I only met after their “transformation” therefore I find it convenient to use feminine pronouns particularly if they do not wish their previous status disclosed.
However a line is crossed from amused disinterest line to outright defiance if any attempt is made to compel me to acknowledge this delusion as “fact” or if one wishes to force such an acknowledgement by law. At that point this goes from a delusion that only harms the deluded to an attempt to impose a blatant falsehood as truth which is wrong. A great parallel to this would be the group of “catholic” women who ordain themselves & others as catholic “priests”. It’s one thing for them to live this delusion, it’s quite another if they demand the actual Catholic Church to recognize the validity of their make-believe orders.
Or think of the character of Teddy Brewster in the Movie Arsenic & Old Lace.
As long as Teddy is simply blowing his bugle and just talking to neighbors his delusion is not a problem or at most a minor annoyance, but the moment he demands secret service protection as an Ex President and insists on attending international conferences being acknowledged as Theodore Roosevelt and takes legal action to secure and compel it, then one would be compelled to remind him of objective reality.
And that brings us to this tweet I put out in response to Stacy’s post that caused so much fuss yesterday.
Not our biz if @sophiaphotos wants to take hormones to play Gidget. That chances if he wants to compel us to play by law @rsmccain#tcot#p2 — Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) July 23, 2014
(note typo in tweet should have said “changes” rather than “chances”)
I’ve tweeted a lot over the years and I’ve never seen more uproar and quicker response from any tweet I’ve ever sent out and believe me I’ve sent out some provocative tweets in my time.
The responses I got varied from the simple vulgar expletive:
@DaTechGuyblog Uh huh, ask me the same question I asked you, clever. I’m literally just calling you out on your transphobia. — MicJPM (@Mic_jpm) July 23, 2014
to those suggesting I should be removed from the radio:
— #AnyoneBUTFord2014 (@itsgottobegood) July 23, 2014
I found it all quite amusing and returned tweets for a bit until actual “life” trumped my amusement but as of this writing angry responses continue to enter my timeline. I’m not inclined to block them because I’m a first amendment guy & I generally don’t block an account unless it’s a phony troll one. Contrary to their totalitarian impulses crazy uncles/aunts have the right to their opinion just as I have and I further am confident in the wisdom of my followers.
While flogging this reaction might be good for traffic & DaTipJar there is a more interesting phenom to note in term of both psychology & the net that I’d like to discuss.
Five years ago (have I really been doing this that long?) I wrote a piece called “The Empowerment of Crazy Uncles” where I talked about how the internet empowers the 1% of people who are, shall we say reality challenged.
The problem is with the internet and social networking and the like that crazy 1% or 1/10 of one percent is suddenly empowered. Instead of the crazy uncle at the family gathering that you can ignore, suddenly he has 1000 friends that he can text to rebut and counter rebut all night. He is affirmed and empowered and boy is he motivated, because now there are thousands of people telling him he’s been right all along and is MUCH smarter than everyone thought.
300,000-3,000,000 crazy uncles as individuals isn’t a big deal, but get them all writing e-mails or making phone calls and most importantly AFFIRMING themselves and suddenly you have a potent economic and or political force. Suddenly there is a huge market for a book or 10,000 people willing to pay $20 for a DVD. That’s a fair amount of change and a person can make a good living off of it.
While the net empowers these crazy uncles there is one limiting effect upon them. While they make up a considerable niche market and an excellent activist base in reality they are a rounding error when compared to the actual population. That means if you have constructed your psychological identity based entirely on an illusion and have spent thousands of dollars and years of your time reinforcing said illusion via surgical & chemical alteration the one thing you dread above all else is the person who, without fear, is willing to deny your illusion , to pull back the curtain of the Wizard, or point to the procession and say “but the Emperor has nothing on!”
And if such a person is in any way a public person that might encourage others to do the same the carefully built lie that is one’s life becomes as fragile as a block of flats put up by hypnosis:
You want to talk phobia THAT’s phobia.
But it’s not just those deluded and fearful of reality who are endangered, it’s the people who make their living supporting and enabling such delusions. The expensive treatments, the bestselling books, the political machines who can count on shock troops, the ability to exploit these people financially & politically for their own gain is never more in danger than when people are willing to stand up and bluntly say the truth. And the truth is this:
When your identity & belief system in your life can be summed up neatly in a 3 minute gag from a Monty Python movie.
Then it’s likely a wise move to re-examine that system closely.
It’s one thing to lose a cherished delusion, it’s quite another to lose the gravy train that those people illusions finance. That demands a loud, immediate and even a totalitarian response. That’s the real fear on display for the world to see here, if they did not have this fear they would have ignored me as just some guy on twitter to block.
Two things in closing: None of this nonsense removes the inherent dignity owed a person by virtue of humanity. Furthermore said person remains a child of God and thus the proper subject for prayer as required. Those are the rules.
If one’s goal is to intimidate and silence that last thing you want to see is this:
The amusing & irrational tweets from those outraged by my homage to reality will be the subject of my lead post tomorow. @rsmccain#tcot#p2 — Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) July 24, 2014
