Feminists vs Captain's Masts

via Laura Wood, I came across this:

“The current commander-based system is a throwback to the days of the Revolutionary War and was established at a time when military courts did not even exist,” said Anu Bhagwati, former Marine Corps Captain and Executive Director of the Service Women’s Action Network. “The military does not send our troops into battle with 18th century weapons, nor does it treat the wounds of war with 18th century medicine, so why does today’s military continue to use an 18th century legal system?”

“Many of our trusted allies have adopted a modern legal system where decisions to prosecute serious crimes are made by legal professionals rather than commanding officers,” Bhagwati said.

And Wood's commentary is here:

Though only 15 percent of the armed forces are women, they have an overwhelming effect once the principles of equality are accepted. According to SWAN, which has generous corporate sponsors, “SWAN’s mission is to transform military culture by securing equal opportunity and freedom to serve without discrimination, harassment or assault; and to reform veterans’ services to ensure high quality health care and benefits for women veterans and their families.”

The “freedom to serve without discrimination” is an open-ended project to undermine national self-defense. It is already too late to turn back. Though Bhagwati decries the systematic inequities of military life, she is almost certainly a beneficiary of systematic inequity in the form of favoritism for women and nonwhites, and would never have achieved her current influence if the group she champions had not already won the most important prize: a position of unchallenged moral superiority. 

The commander-based system works in ways that Ms. Bhagwati may not appreciate, namely that it permits commanders to punish those whose behavior doesn't quite rise to the level of a crime but falls short of standards.  Were commanders to not have the Article 15 tool at their disposal, for those 86% of defendants accused of sexual assault but not convicted in a court martial, the story would end right there.

Moreover, I call Ms. Baghwati's activist foresight into question, for I seriously doubt she would be satisfied with the civilian "conversion"  rate for rape...around 10%-ish...when the miltiary's rate is somewhat higher at 14%.  There is little evidence civilian prosecution of military offenders would yield more convictions; and would likely produce less.

And as for "freedom to serve without discrimination", TTH calls out SWAN's and Ms. Bhagwati's agendas perfectly. The military discriminates all the time: against fat people and against dumb people via weight and ASVAB standards, and against Christians, men, and whites every day via "freedom from Christianity" and diversity programs.  Do these latter groups, systematically discriminated against in order to provide the sort of freedom to serve without discrimination that Ms. Bhagwati seeks, count? Or is the "freedom from discrimination" the sort that actively discriminates against some groups so that others may enjoy more power, more autonomy, and fewer obstacles and difficulties?

Now Arriveth the Consequences

...of the adoption of anti-natalist attitudes and a refusal therewith to bother to marry early and have kids:

[A]s the baby boomer generation grows old and if the number of elderly care workers fails to grow with it, many people might end up being cared for by robots. According to the Health and Human Services Department, there will be 72.1 million Americans over the age of 65 by 2030, which is nearly double the number today. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country will need 70 percent more home aide jobs by 2020, long before that bubble of retirees. But filling those jobs is proving to be difficult because the salaries are low. In many states, in-home aides make an average of $20,820 annually.

“There are two trends that are going in opposite directions. One is the increasing number of elderly people, and the other is the decline in the number of people to take care of them,” said Jim Osborn, a roboticist and executive director of the Robotics Institute’s Quality of Life Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. “Part of the view we’ve already espoused is that robots will start to fill in those gaps.”

The Baby Boomer generation, ever so enamored of navel-gazing and so full of self-love, were loathe to care for their own parents and instead were inclined to institutionalize their long-suffering parents into group homes.  That's bad enough.  Worse yet was their moral and spiritual example, which failed to foment in their children (i.e.,those of my generational cohort and those that followed, like Millenials) the desire to have children themselves.  The result is that there aren't enough children to take care of mom and dad, and there are only so many low-skill migrants and down-on-their-luck native Americans willing to work for less than half the US median income to discharge this arduous task.

Another aspect of this developing phenomenon is that we are seeing yet another symptom--the hook-up culture being the most obvious attempt at forming emotional bonds in the relational moonscape that is American culture these days--of Americans' increasing social isolation.

Ban Guns

...in prison. Wait, what?:

Some links.

Freedom v Handouts

This is why amnesty and so-called "immigration reform", as currently envisioned by the "Gang of Eight:", will only inflict further harm on our republic.  Not only are our legislators considering expanding the labor pool by upwards of 57M over 10 years--a crazy thing to do when unemployment is 14% and shows little signs of abating--but we are importing a low-skill, culturally dissimilar demo far less interested in liberty (and the accompanying responsibility) than they are in no-cost-at-the-point-of-delivery taxpayer-financed freebies.

Assuming that we should be allowing immigration at all in these economically and culturally turbulent times--a big assumption, to be sure--we are faced with the question: Which sort of electorate should we import? A high-quality, intelligent, skilled, disease-free electorate who values the rule of law and the historically exceptional gift of freedom? Or those still culturally attached to their homelands, disinterested in assimilating, and who even hate us for our freedoms?

The Root of Evil

Killer Training

While I am most certainly not on the "video games make my sons evil" bandwagon, I don't think it is unreasonable to at least partially attribute violent, homicidal behavior to the culture of death we have in America...how first-person-shooters desensitize players to human suffering and even enjoy it to a certain extent.

Gun Deaths By Race, &c

I note that, once again, it is Obamerica that has the gun-homicide problem, although this graphic also makes clear that white America has a resiliency problem as well. It would be an interesting problem to explore--the reasons why black males tend to kill others, while white males usually direct their lethal intent at themselves.

 For both populations, however, one thing is clear: No gun control law anywhere is ever going to keep those intent on harming themselves or others from doing so.

A Weapons Guide for Obamericans

Fetus

Only thing I would change for this would be to add another image to the "rabid feminist" slot...that of chattel property to be disposed of at will.  Kinda like this:

12 Reasons Why I Voted (D)

Awesome.

Coming Out of the Closet

...as a Christian. This isn't going to go well:

Sports analyst Chris Broussard stepped briefly outside of the Christian closet on Monday and paid the price for it.

“Personally I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex [lifestyle] between heterosexuals. If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin,” Broussard said on ESPN. “If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be. I think that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ.”

ESPN, not long thereafter, apologized for permitting these remarks to disrupt Monday’s canonization: “We regret that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today’s news. ESPN is fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement.”

A past-his-prime ball player publicly declares his reasonably well-hidden homosexuality to much fanfare and is declared a hero about whom the President "couldn't be prouder".  But dare to publicly repeat the clearly written Word, and you are a "distraction". Clearly God's popularity is on the wane, best to keep such extremist beliefs to oneself.

Makes Sense To Me

35 to be president.  Used to be 25 to rent a car, but the age has come down recently. 21 to (legally) buy a beer and/or purchase a handgun.  18 to vote. 18 to go to war and/or be drafted. 18 to purchase a long gun. 16 to drive.  16-ish to get married.  But only 15 to snuff out a human ife via the "Morning After Pill", no need to worry about parental consent.

Hate Us For Our Freedoms

The Boston Bombers and their parents evidently suckled quite comfortably at the public teat for a decade:

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance - a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012.

Perhaps receiving $10K+ a year rankled so much that lashing out at the society that literally fed, clothed, and housed them was the only sane choice.

Oh, never mind. They just hate us for our freedoms.

Looking the Wrong Way

Sometimes I wonder if they're looking the wrong way on purpose:

The YouTube channel Patriot News Organization on Thursday uploaded a training video from the Department of Homeland Security that depicts a fake news broadcast about a police SWAT team raiding an American house and arresting "extremist" members of a “local militia group” for possession of illegal firearms and planning to commit terrorist attacks.

“Very disturbing video straight from DHS website - they use it to help train all of the deputized agencies during a crisis, even hospital administrators, media faces, everything and everyone that would be involved in such an event,” reads the Patriot News Organization’s description of the video.

Exactly when the video was made is unclear, but the video description links to a DHS website featuring documents that were uploaded in 2009 and 2012.

In the video, a fake local news anchor comes on the screen with breaking news.

“Reports of possible illegal activity by a local militia group appears to have spurred law enforcement into action,” the anchor says.

The video then cuts to “John Gleason” at the site in front of a house with fake fire fighters and SWAT officers swarming the area.

“This is the scene of an intensive investigation into the operations of an extremist group reportedly planning a series of terrorist attacks on U.S. cities,” Gleason says. “Details are sketchy, but allegedly the militia was using this house to store a cache of military weapons.”

While he says this, an image of an officer dressed in explosive-proof gear is shown heading into the house.

Gleason then says that the FBI and “other agencies” are on the scene, and that police raided the house of two men for “illegal possession of firearms, but they apparently found more than they were bargaining for.” As Gleason says this, SWAT officers are shown hauling two typical looking men from the house.

Last month, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis admitted that the DHS spies on "anti-government" Americans.

It's not as if the data isn't out there.  White males, pretty much the only demo in liberalist DiversityLand that one may repeatedly depict as criminals-in-waiting without fear of accusations of "racism", "racial profiling", "stereotype threat", or whatever, are statistically not the threat law enforcement or counter-terror agencies need to be focusing upon.  That is, if past performance in any way predicts present or future returns. Yet that doesn't stop the MSM and LEAs around the country from painting white males and/or the religious Right as the threat.  With all that attention directed toward those scary religious white guys, and with generalized reluctance on the part of media or the .gov to even utter the "T" word or couple "terrorist" and "Islam" together in the same sentence, small wonder then that they don't recognize the warning signs when they appear.

HT: Wintery Knight

Book Review: Enjoy The Decline

The Book: Enjoy The Decline, by Aaron Clarey, 204 pages, published 2013.

Summary: Subtitled "Accepting and Living with the Death of the United States", this book asserts that the United States is in a terminal economic and social decline. It argues that readers, in order to live their lives to the fullest during this decline, should adjust psychologically to this new reality and re-organize their lifestyle so as to not only insulate themselves as much as possible from the decline, but even to enjoy life during this decline.

By far the most useful aspect of this book, in my opinion, is in the case that it makes for readers to realize that whatever bourgeois values they may presently possess, there is a high probability those values are maladaptive in the present economic and social climate. Up has become down and right has become wrong in these last days of the American republic. Work hard and save for retirement? Don't be ridiculous.  Why save when the nation's leaders gleefully debauch the currency, pulling a "stealth Cyprus" to the tune of 8 - 10% each year? Why delay gratification  when there will likely be little / no Social Security for Xers and younger generations, particularly if the government will simply appropriate your savings through an outright Cyprus/France/Hungary/Ireland/Argentina/Poland-style seizure? Why work hard, when doing so only qualifies you to be taxed even more to support an income redistribution scheme consuming more than 2/3 of the Federal budget, "spread [your hard-earned monies] around a little", to bankroll parasites who didn't earn it? Why hope for things to get better when unemployment is presently at around 14% and the labor force participation rate is at a 30-year low, is trending downward, and has been so for decades? And why scrimp to pay for college while the higher ed bubble continues to inflate, making your parent's advice to "get an education" in order to succeed nearly financially suicidal and economically ill-advised in the new economic reality?  For that matter, why marry and have children? Silly rabbit, very few men and women these days are equipped to be proper husbands and wives.  Moreover, 5,000 years of traditional Marriage 1.0 has been subsumed by Marriage 2.0--and now, by homogamy--and is characterized by easy divorce and the subsequent trafficking in former spouses (usu but not always ex husbands) for the pecuniary interests of the state and ex-wives.

Pretty grim picture, to be sure.  So what does Mr. Clarey advise? First, that readers of his book put into action the conclusions that naturally follow from a hard-nosed assessment of the ground truth: a realignment of their behaviors and habits. To this end, the author dedicates a chapter toward what he calls "the art of minimalism"--reducing possessions to the minimum essentials necessary, thereby lowering purchasing, maintenance, storage, and disposal costs.  Techniques from the minimalizing playbook include buying things used or second-hand, avoiding having (expensive) children, acquiring a trade in lieu of an "education", performing repairs yourself, eschewing going out to eat and instead entertaining at home, avoiding buying real estate (a house is a liability, not an asset), and buying only catastrophic health insurance. Moreover, since the minimalist lifestyle will likely appeal to far more men than women, readers should have little issue with following through on his additional recommendation to avoid  the expense of weddings--and if one does get married, elope. Do it all correctly, and Mr. Clarey calculates that a single fellow can live quite nicely for less than $USD 20,000 a year, depending on the locale. It doesn't take that much time to earn 20,000, even in today's poor economy, leaving the Enjoying the Decline (ETD) citizen ample time to take many vacations, work when he wants, and enjoy life in general, heeding Mr. Clarey's call for readers to "not waste their youth" like he did.

Continuing on the minimalism vein, for those ETDers who want to go the "full Clarey", he recommends not even bothering to save for retirement (see "why delay gratification", above).  Won't that leave a person penniless in old age?  Yes, it will, and Mr. Clarey suggests, in all seriousness, the .45 cal "Smith and Wesson retirement plan", as the last six months of life are extremely expensive and not all that pleasant anyways.  Not a very Christian recommendation as far as recommendations go, but Mr. Clarey does not identify as a Believer and therefore has the latitude to recommend such a nihilistic option.

For those who do follow his minimalist advice, Mr. Clarey outlines several benefits: freedom from employers and the daily rat-race, better mental and physical health, a better social and family life, more travel, more sleep, and, paradoxically, a higher chance of becoming rich.  In Mr. Clarey's accounting, minimalizing your life offers you the chance to enjoy your youth while you can and focus on things that really matter, such as family, friends, and other human relationships, rather than on busting your hump as a cube-drone for a faceless company to whom you are likely little more than a number.  And even if you're not, is your work more important than your family? Will your work be there over the long haul? Or will your family?

Interestingly, Mr. Clarey's book contains a chapter called "Plunder", where he identifies ways in which an ETDer may take advantage of the many government programs designed to provide assistance to those with similar income levels as the minimalizing ETDer, thus aiding the ETDer in the effort to enjoy life and work less.  From welfare to free meals to health care to food stamps, the author provides a road map to where the aspiring ETDer may obtain all the no-cost-to-him government cheese available. Won't that make the ETDer a member of the parasite class, those folks disparaged above (see "spread around", above)? Certainly, but then again, one may rationalize doing so in view of (a) they're giving it away anyway, (b) the ETDer is merely taking back what he paid in, and (c) in taking some of the cheese, the ETDer is helping accelerate the decline and fall of the United States and the presumably the spawning of whatever political entity will eventually replace it.

The last chapter of the book was also the most uplifting one. Titled "Revenge", it has nothing to do with directly harming one's adversaries; instead, it advises the ETDer to "get back" at the leftists who have destroyed this country simply by being happy. By living life to the fullest, by doing fun things, grandiose-fun things, working less, being a better, more cultured person, having better friends, by truly enjoying and making the best of a finite life, the ETDer rubs the leftist's nose in the equalitarian misery he has made for himself.  Thus while the leftist on his death bed compares the ETDer's life, lived to the fullest, to his, and is filled with envy, in contrast, the ETDer will die with few regrets but many good memories.

All told, I thoroughgoingly enjoyed this book, despite some jabs at my male-heavy semi-industrial home town in a  flyover state suffering from chronic "brain drain"--as well as ethically dubious advice to mooch off church groups as part of the Plunder program. In addition, even though I am not in a position to minimalize as much as he recommends (married, three kids, etc) there is wisdom in here for just about everyone. Especially for the single male, for whom I think this book is most applicable. For it is he who is not subject to baby rabies, not genetically hardwired to "nest", and likely to be marriage-cautious if not marriage-avoidant, single males are the population subgroup best positioned and most inclined to enjoy the decline, such as it is, and will be.

Out of Town

...for a week. No internet where I'm going. Comments off while I'm away. See you folks when I get back!

White Dudes Need Not Apply

Screen capture of the blog where

a woman allegedly claims to have 

systemically discriminated against
white males. Click to enlarge

UPDATE (Apr 29, 2013): It is possible (HT Paul Elam) that the quoted text and the linked blog below are part of a hoax in which many who ought to be more skeptical, including myself, bought into.  That said, I stand by the second half of this post, which asserts that poor and/or rural white dudes really need not apply to colleges these days.

These are the types people who staff admissions offices at American colleges and, upon graduation, can't find any other productive employment other than the public sector, non-profits, or HR departments:

I’m working in my school’s admissions office for the time being. This is a great opportunity for me, and I’m so glad to have the ability to decide who will come in and who won’t. We are here to make future leaders of America and the world, and as such we have the responsibility do keep those who would make the world a worse place far away, while admitting those who have potential to use their abilities to improve the world.

For instance I can’t tell you how many applications I saw that were just dripping with white male privelege [sic]. Any of those that I saw basically went straight to the garbage can regardless of how good their qualifactions[sic] were. If I saw an application from a white male that basically was just good test scores, and activities like chess club or math club or what not then it shows me this person is not interested in a diverse environment. Obviously he made no effort in integrating with minorities or to sympathize with them and is counting on male privelege [sic] to get in. So that kind of application should get ignored. In their[sic] place I admitted a female student. This goes double especially for math/science majors.

Another time this I had an application for what sounded like an arab[sic] male who wanted to study computer science. On paper he looked good enough, decent above average scores, and such. But I checked facebook and sure enough on his wall I came came upon a particularly hateful post about Israel supposedly not having a right to exist. I promptly trashed the application and sent out a rejection letter.

The lesson here is that people are multi-dimensional. We can’t boil people down to numbers or statistics, or reject people based on the color of their skin. I’m happy to say that I approved nearly 90% of all female minority and 80% of all (white female applicants especially if the girls want to study math or science) while rejecting over 50% of white males this week and hope this trend holds out.

Emphasis mine--EW

Wow. No wonder rural white men are disproportionately refused admission to colleges, what with sexist liberal-arts masters-degree-holding-yet-can't-spell-for-dammit white females running the joint. Especially ones who think "white male privilege", like "patriarchy", is anything other than Orwellian liberalist obfusco-speak to provide political cover for their own race- and sex-preference agenda.  I find it interesting how merit subsequent to hard work and talent are evidence of "white male privilege", the sin of sins for which white males must atone by demonstrating "integration" with "minorities" or interest in "diversity". Everything a white male accomplishes ("you didn't build that") is ill-gotten, a product of a supposed advantage due solely to accidents of birth (possession of a penis + relative lack of skin pigmentation).

Goldberg was right, the white male is the Jew of liberalist cosmology, a being so inherently evil that the construct of "white male privilege" is concocted to justify using state force--Jim Crow, redux--to shove him aside so that others may take his place:

Each day in America, white males face government-sponsored discrimination. If in high school, the white male may be denied a chance to apply for special programs because he is not a preferred minority, or in some cases, a female. There are scholarships available, but many cannot be awarded to white males. In applying for university, admissions will admit “basically qualified” minorities, but reject better qualified whites. When applying for a job, the same type of discrimination occurs. If the teen finally succeeds in finding employment, special on-the-job training may be denied him in order to guarantee slots for minorities,  even if they be lesser qualified, even if they have been on the job for a shorter time. At the firm, he may be subjected to the racial and sexual harassment rituals called “diversity training,” whereby he is supposed to confess guilt to crimes committed before his birth. Yet, at the same time, he must deny his own experience; he must utter not a word about the discrimination he has encountered because he is a white male. His is the discrimination that dare not speak its name; were he to mention it, he would immediately be labeled “racist,” disruptive, and a possible threat to the firm’s good graces with the federal government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and its commissars in his employer’s personnel office. If he tires of such oppression, or if he is fired, or wins a lottery, or somehow scrapes together enough money to begin his own firm, he will be denied even the opportunity to bid on many government contracts simply because he is a white male—those contracts are set-aside for minority or female companies. 

Yeah. Sounds like privilege to me.  So much for "equal treatment" and "equality of opportunity".  Just words, mere stalking horses meant to distract the gullible from the real objective, and that is "justice", "getting even", for everything those out-group Jews, er, I mean, white Xtian guys, did and are doing to in-group "we"/"us".  This is "diversity", the feel-good word redefined as "not a white guy".

Mark Twain said that the past doesn't necessarily repeat, but it certainly does rhyme.