Bill Cosby is innocent

I regularly argument that men should be innocent until proven guilty, especially when there is a frenzy of decades-old dubious accusations from people seeking financial settlements.

Brendan O’Neill writes in the UK :

Whatever you think of Cosby – I remember even as a kid I thought The Cosby Show was pants [is this some British jargon? -George] – this media-led public criminalisation of someone who hasn’t been convicted of a crime should chill you. Because the fact is, Cosby is innocent of rape. Just as you are. Just as I am. At least until such a time as someone does the very hard job of proving beyond reasonable doubt that he did rape someone. There’s a phrase for this, I think. How does it go? Ah, yes: ‘A man is presumed innocent until proven guilty.’

The speed with which Cosby has gone from being the uncle of modern America to the scum of the world wide web has been terrifying. As a CNN headline summed it up: ‘From TV dad to accused sexual predator.’ That’s basically what has happened to Cosby’s reputation in the space of two weeks.

Many of the pundits rushing to demote Cosby to devil have used the phrase ‘no smoke without fire’, now that 16 women have made similar allegations. This might seem commonsensical, but it is also antithetical to what we used to know as justice. As historical incidents everywhere from Salem in the seventeenth century to Shieldfield in the 1990s show, lots of accusations do not mean guilt can be inferred, and can actually mean the opposite. ... In short, often there is smoke without fire, especially in a climate of ‘frenzy’; a climate of fear; a climate that longs for a monster; a climate like Salem, where accusations also spread like wildfire; a climate like that currently surrounding Cosby. ...

Well, I have news for these twenty-first-century Salemites: Bill Cosby, we must presume, is innocent. And given that the passing of the statute of limitations means he’s very unlikely to be brought to court to face his accusers, he will remain innocent. I’m sorry if that gets in the way of your search for a demon to yell about, but that’s life: liberty and justice are more important than your weird psychological need for evil.

The clincher for me was the accusation that he used a date-rape drug against his victims. While such drugs do exist, their usage by sexual predators is almost entirely a myth. I do not think that there has ever been a case of someone like Bill Cosby using it. If he had, and one of his victims made a prompt complaint and got a urine test, then he would be behind bars.

The fact is that women often consent to sexual relations and have regrets the next morning. They tell themselves stories to excuse themselves, and sometimes they even believe their own BS.

Update: If you are wondering about motives, Bill Cosby is worth $400M.

Criminal due process

Criminal due process does sometimes work. The Ferguson cop was found innocent by the grand jury, even tho President Barack Obama and the Democrat Party did everything they could to encourage race riots.

A lot of people were hopeful in 2008 that electing a black President would improve race relations, raise the image of blacks, and address whatever legitimate grievances blacks have. But he has only spoken up on a handful of black issues, most notably the Harvard professor Gates who locked himself out of his house and refused to cooperate with the cop, Trayvon Martin who brutally beat up George Zimmerman and got shot, and Michael Brown who punched a cop, tried to take his gun away, and charged him in an apparent attempt to kill him. In each case, the black guy was 100% in the wrong and deserved what he got. And yet Obama blamed it on white racism in each case, and said that riots were "understandable". He has turned the Democrat Party into the hate-white-people party. Democrats get fewer and fewer white voters in every election.

Football player Ray Rice won his appeal. It was obvious that he was being punished for feminist whining about a video of him punching his girlfriend, and not for any grounds based on his contract. He still has to find a team to take him, tho.
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USA Today reports:

In an interview with Dazed & Confused magazine, he says a woman raped him during his #IAMSORRY performance art installation in L.A. earlier this year.

One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was outside the door when this happened, whipped my legs for ten minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me. ...There were hundreds of people in line when she walked out with disheveled hair and smudged lipstick.

Of course everyone is blaming the victim. Or alleged victim.

In other crime news:

Incensed that her boyfriend began eating their Thanksgiving dinner while she was asleep following a day of drinking, a Pennsylvania woman grabbed a knife and stabbed the man after chasing him around the dining room table, cops report.

Jack-Lyn Blake, 47, is locked up in the Luzerne County jail on an assortment of criminal charges, including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, reckless endangerment, and making terroristic threats. ...

Two years ago, Indiana resident Taz Miller, 18, was arrested for stabbing his mother’s live-in boyfriend after discovering that the man had eaten all the leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

Rare restraint on court reporting

The Connecticut Law Tribune reports:

In a ruling from the bench Monday, Nov. 24, New Britain Superior Court Judge Stephen Frazzini enjoined the Connecticut Law Tribune from publishing an article based on a court document that had previously been published on the Judicial Branch website.

Daniel J. Klau, the newspaper's lawyer, said he has already filed an appeal. He and other media law attorneys say this appears to be an extraordinarily rare case of prior restraint on free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. They say that normally pre-publication court orders have been deemed constitutional only in matters of extreme threats to public safety, on the level of national security.

Frazzini's oral ruling is currently sealed, but Klau said he is working to have it unsealed. "I am actually under a restraining order about what I can tell my own client. There are some things that I can share," said Klau, of the Hartford office of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter. "What the Law Tribune can say," he said, "is that in a child protection case on the juvenile court docket, the court granted a party's request for an injunction barring the Connecticut Law Tribune from publishing information that it lawfully obtained about the case."

My own case had even more outrageous orders. I was banned from posting public testimony that was given in open court. No child protection argument was even given, and it was done only to protect the misconduct of CPS and court officials, like Irwin Joseph, Sally Mitchell, Ken Perlmutter, and Heather Morse.

The Law Tribune immediately filed an objection to the motion, arguing that any prior restraint on publication is unconstitutional. "Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringements on First Amendment rights," the brief states, quoting the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case of Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart.
In fact, the Connecticut Constitution provides greater protection of speech than the U.S. Constitution. In case law, the brief states, the state Supreme Court has ruled that juvenile court confidentiality does not trump First Amendment rights. ...

William Fish, of the Hartford office of Hinckley, Allen & Snyder has frequently represented The Hartford Courant in media law cases. "This sounds like a true case of prior restraint," he said. "It's outrageous. It sounds like an overreach—a clear breach of what a judge is allowed to do...

"Prior restraint of the press is only constitutional in very rare situations," said Fish. "You basically have to have a situation where someone is going to publish in advance the plans for the D-Day invasion."

James H. Smith, president of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information, called prior restraint issues "settled case law. You can't prevent the press from printing news. Even in Juvenile Court. It's a matter of covering how the American system of justice is being handled."

He added, "Prior restraint was settled with the New York Times' Pentagon Papers case" in 1971. "The U.S. Supreme Court says that you can't stop the press from publishing a story unless it's Armageddon."

That's right. Federal court decisions have declared free speech rights to publish H-bomb secrets, and ruled against any prior restraints. And yet family and juvenile court judges act as if they are not subject to the First Amendment and the federal precedents.

The father, Eric Foy, has filed a complaint against CT DCF (aka CPS). Not sure if this was intended to be sealed. As I understand it, CPS brought accusations against the parents, and the dad blamed the mom for abusing the 3 kids. The dad's lawyer advised him to consent to giving up the kids to foster care, on the theory that he could get them back later once investigators see that it was the mom's fault. Now he has a second lawyer telling him that was a dumb idea, as the kids are stuck in foster care and he only has supervised visitation and the local psychologists are refusing to take the case.

By contrast, Canada and other do not have such free speech laws, as in the story of Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons. She was a Canadian girl with a sad story of shame about an embarrassing photo. Canadian newspapers cannot print her name, and one is being investigated for doing so. Her father disagrees, and tells her name and story every chance he gets.

Happy Thanksgiving

Question of Female Masochism

F. Roger Devlin writes The Question of Female Masochism:

We are attracted to qualities in the opposite sex which our own sex lacks. For many women, this means an attraction to male brutality. Such women may claim to want a sensitive fellow who is in touch with his feelings, but this bears no relation to their behavior. What women say about men comes from their cerebral cortex; how they choose men depends upon their evolutionary more primitive limbic system. Even campus feminists choose arrogant jocks to “hook up” with, not male feminists in touch with their emotions. I have heard it suggested that the best reason not to strike a woman today is that you will never be able to get rid of her afterwards.

I am not sure what to make of this. If he is right, then most domestic violence is just human nature, and attempts to stop it are foolish.

Suppose millions of women are only happy with a husband or boyfriend who occasionally beats them. Then why would be have laws and policies to interfere with that?

Of course some women will say that "Fifty Shades" is just a fantasy, and they do not deserve to be put in the hospital. I am all in favor of mutually agreeable relationships. But under current law, a man can be prosecuted for domestic violence even if the wife is not injured and never makes a police complaint. See for example the San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi story.

California protects seductive trannies

California passes goofy laws all the time, and Gov. Brown just signed this one:

AB 2501, Bonilla. Voluntary manslaughter.

Existing law defines voluntary manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. The crime of voluntary manslaughter is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 3, 6, or 11 years.

This bill would state that for purposes of determining sudden quarrel or heat of passion, the provocation was not objectively reasonable if it resulted from the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual advance towards the defendant, or if the defendant and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship. By changing the definition of a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

How often does this happen? You meet what you think is a woman in a bar, take her home, begin sexual relations, and then discover she is really a man? And then you are so traumatized that you can never have a satisfactory sexual experience again? Or you fly into a rage and kill him/her?

I am guessing that this law might affect one case every ten years. It was passed just to show some symbolic respect for the LGBTQIA lobby.

Okay, fine, maybe trannies should have the sexual freedom to trick someone on a one-night stand. I don't care. I am wondering this obscure and outcast special interest group gets a law like this passed, and a million noncustodial dads cannot get a law giving them the right to see their kids.

Swedish women need a new word

Sweden is a feminist paradise, with lesbian divorce, 80% of kids born out of wedlock and no parental rights, and now the seek a Swedish word for their favorite activity:

The idea for the contest emerged after a member of RFSU - a national not-for-profit organization which aims to promote an "open, positive view of sex and relationship issues" - brought up the absence of a specific word for female masturbation in the Swedish language at a bi-annual meeting of the group in 2013.

"Rather than sit around amongst ourselves talking about it, we thought we would launch a nationwide competition," Kristina Ljungros, a spokeswoman for the association told The Local.

"We are trying to put sexuality on the agenda - the positive aspects, not just the negative ones like sexual abuse. We want to focus on the good parts, the lust".

"When it comes to masturbation, people mostly think about just men doing it and we don't think of it as common for women. If we don't have a word in the language, how can we even talk about it?" she argued.

They all speak English anyway, don't they?

Meanwhile, we are getting rid of English words:

ELON, N.C. – Elon University has dropped the term “freshman” from its vocabulary and replaced it with “first-year,” a move made official this fall and implemented in everything from its website to orientation workshops.

The change at the small, private liberal arts college in North Carolina was done to promote inclusivity, celebrate diversity, and ensure the campus did not promote sexist stereotypes or create a hostile and unsafe environment for female students, campus officials said in interviews with The College Fix. ...

“The term has often been felt to refer to the vulnerableness of young women in college for the first time,” Royster said. “Given the rates of sexual violence perpetrated against women on college campuses, it is useful to examine any use of a term that suggests that a group of people just entering college might be targets for such violence in any way.”

So some boy might rape a girl if she is called a freshman, but not if she is called a first-year student? This is nuts.

One accusation turns dad into criminal

A reputable conservative publication Human Events reports:

“High risk SWAT team rolls in and takes all my guns,” said Edward F. Taupier the respondent in a two-year divorce action that has escalated to an all-out war. “It took two armadillo armored vehicles, 75 officers with weapons drawn, and 45 minutes to raid my house.”

Although he said he posed no risk to the officers, Taupier was thrown to the ground and arrested.

Taupier, who is a former Wall Street chief officer at Citibank, said he has no prior record of arrests or charges – not even a speeding ticket – yet his home was invaded and his guns stolen based on a false allegation made by a person he does not even know, he said. ...

After being bailed out of jail, costing his family a total of three-quarters of a million dollars in bond, Taupier said he is assigned to 27 new bail and bond conditions, wears two ankle bracelets, which includes a GPS tracker, and is not permitted to leave the house except for court appearances. This is all despite the fact that the initial risk warrant was determined to be invalid in criminal court, he said.

“I am on 24-7 lockdown. All my freedoms have been denied,” he said. “This happens to people in North Korea or in the Russian Gulag.”

One day after the arrest, his contract with Citigroup as a financial officer was terminated. The job that gave him the opportunity to be at home with his children after school, instead of warehoused in day care, was taken away from him too, he said. ...

Nonetheless, he said his 50-50 percent custody of the children was unilaterally dissolved by Bozzuto. The new judge assigned, because of the long length of this case, Judge Jorge A. Simon, accepted the ex-wife’s demand to cease weekend visitation and limit any visitation to supervised at a court approved location. “My time with my children now consists of two six-minute phone conversations per week.” ...

The entire family court system is embedded with players in a scam designed to soak money from good parents in order to fund a system that is completely broken. “I come from a big Irish, Catholic family. Family is everything to us,” said Taupier. “My family has been destroyed by family court.”

Normally I would be very skeptical about stories like this. In the USA or the Western civilized world, anyway. But now it is a plausible consequence of our legal system. The ex-wife can say that the dad has guns, and the judge can say that the best interest of the kids requires preventive action.

My local high school was just shut down because one stupid kid sent a foolish email with a threat. They are still figuring out who did, and I suspect that they will kick him out of school. If this dad sent some sort of credible serious threat, then perhaps some action is warranted. But it sure appears that they have overreacted no matter what he did, and the local high school also overreacted.

Divorced parents have to pay college tuition

In most states, parents have no legal obligation to pay for college. The kids can get student loans, as everyone else. But NJ parents have to pay:

Two New Jersey parents have been ordered to contribute to their adult daughter's education, against their will. However, despite a midnight deadline to cough up thousands, they still say their estranged child is not entitled to a dime.

21-year old Caitlyn Ricci sued her estranged parents for her college tuition and won.

Her parents tell Action News that they haven't spoken with their daughter for almost two years. But now they may have to pay $16,000 this year and in future years for her college tuition. ...

It's interesting to note that her grandparents are the ones who paid for the attorney to sue their own son, Caitlyn's father Michael.

A NJ lawyer questions the legality of the ruling:

The fact is that accordingly to precedent is that New Jersey Courts must carefully examine the issues surrounding the breakdown of the parent-child relationship prior to apportioning college costs. Here, there was no hearing, no examination of who was at fault for the breakdown, evidence that the parents were not consulted and their opinions not respected.

A college education is an investment in the kid's future. Or maybe just a chance to attend drunken frat parties. A 21yo is an adult, and parents are not required to buy her a car, rent her an apartment, or invest in a business she may start. A fancy college is a luxury.

Family court consent means nothing

A reader writes:

I really hate when I hear that most child custody is decided by mutual consent. Mine will be on that list. I have a choice to go to trial and spend money that I don't have and have the GAL tell the judge that I should have no time with my kids or accept what she is offering. Since I can't really afford to go to trial, and knowing I will lose, I have to go with take the offer. This is like agreeing to eat a pile of dog crap of my own volition, knowing that if I don't I am going to be forced to eat the pile of cow crap over there and be shot in the head when I am done. Everyone can say I chose to eat the dog crap, but the truth is I had very little choice in the matter.

Yes, that's right. Lawyers like to brag that they got a settlement with the agreement of all parties, as if everyone is happy.

One of the dirty little secrets of the court is that the judge can usually get his way with consent of the parties, and claim that he never ordered anything against anyone's agreement. In criminal court, for example, most cases are settled by plea bargain, where everyone is formally in agreement on the guilty plea and sentence.

Of course the defendant is only pleading guilty because he has been convinced that a trial will have a much worse outcome. But none of that is on the official record.

In family court, you have formally agreed to terms unless you exhaust all possible legal options. That means all motions, trials, appeals, etc. If you decide not to appeal a trial outcome, for example, then you are considered to have agreed to it, because you chose not to use your legal right to challenge it.

Most of those legal options are just a fruitless waste of time and money. I have heard family court judges tell parents that they better accept an evaluator's recommendations, else he will make them both miserable.

Unless you have a 6-figure legal budget, it is nearly impossible to exhaust your legal options. Even if you do, and you hire a mad-dog lawyer to take the case to trial, he nearly always chickens out in the end. He might burn $50k on pre-trial motions and witness, but when it gets to trial, he will nearly always work out a deal with the opposing lawyer, and then try to convince you that it is the best deal you can get, and the trial is too risky. In the view of the judge, you just spent a lot of time and money negotiating, and then consented to a settlement.

So nearly 100% of child custody cases are decided by mutual consent. Does that mean that the custody law is irrelevant? No.

I once heard an idiot propose that the checkmate was irrelevant to chess. Nearly all high-level games end in a draw or resignation, and checkmates are very rare in the official logs. So we don't need them, he argued, because the players can recognize who has won.

I hope that you can see the flaw in his argument.

People make the exact same logical mistake when they argue that parents do not need any statutory rights to their kids because most child custody disputes end in a mutual consent settlement.

Okay, I will spell it out. Chess players resign when they see no way to avoid being checkmated. Parents agree to different settlements based on whether or not they expect the court to uphold their rights. Lots of people sign off on evaluation recommendations because they have little or no practical choice about it.

If signing off on a coerced deal is consent, then a rapist could argue, "I put a knife to her throat and start to rape her, but she asked me to put a condom on and I did, so she consented to it." No, she did not consent. She just chose the better of a couple of poor options.

Adopting African toddlers

Not sure what is going on here. Is an African baby the new Hollywood status symbol? Is this the best way to impress Sean Penn? Do actresses have anti-pregnancy clauses in their contracts?

Cosby cannot prove his innocence

CBS News reports:

Social media is reviving sexual assault allegations against comedian Bill Cosby.

A woman came forward this week to say she'd been raped by the comedian years ago.

That set off a backlash, including the cancellation of an appearance on "Late Show With David Letterman" scheduled for next week.

Cosby has never been charged with sexual assault. But this is not the first time he has been accused.

Once accusation is from 30 years ago. Another from the 1970s. At least one says that she was given a date-rape drug.

There are no police reports, medical exams, or corroborating witnesses. For the most part, these seem to be women who only came forward many years later seeking money. Cosby is rich.

The date-rape drug is mainly a myth. Yes, there is such a thing, but nearly all accusations about it are false. If Cosby were drugging women, it would only take one to go straight to a physician for a blood test, and to the police to make an arrest. Then Cosby would be in jail. Our society has no tolerance for that sort of thing.

I say men should be innocent until proven guilty. There is no way to prove innocence or guilt about a sexual assault allegation from 30 years ago. He should be given the benefit of the doubt.

More and more, men are considered guilty based on dubious accusations. Here is the Obama administration requirement on colleges:

F-7. May the complainant’s sexual history be introduced at hearings?

Answer: Questioning about the complainant’s sexual history with anyone other than the alleged perpetrator should not be permitted. Further, a school should recognize that the mere fact of a current or previous consensual dating or sexual relationship between the two parties does not itself imply consent or preclude a finding of sexual violence. The school should also ensure that hearings are conducted in a manner that does not inflict additional trauma on the complainant.

If a man is accused of a serious crime, then he should have the right to present contrary evidence. If the girl says she was a virgin who would never have sex with a frat party date, then the guy should have an opportunity to rebut that. But Obama policy does not allow colleges to let him have that opportunity.

I wonder if the Obama feminists have discovered what is going on in Antarctica:

In 2006, they saw, for the first time, a fur seal attempting to copulate with a king penguin, on Marion Island, a sub-Antarctic island that is home to both species.

They published details of that incident, and speculated that the sex act at the time may have been the behavior of a frustrated, sexually inexperienced seal. Or an aggressive, predatory act. Or a playful one that turned sexual.

But the new incidents, published in the study "Multiple occurrences of king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) sexual harassment by Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella)", still surprised the researchers.

They could go either way on this -- try to stop it or issue marriage licenses for it.

Update: Breaking news:

Adrian Peterson, the star Minnesota Vikings running back who had been facing child abuse charges, has been suspended by the NFL for the remainder of the 2014 season without pay.

The league said it informed Peterson in a letter from Commissioner Roger Goodell that he will not be considered for reinstatement before April 15.

The league said it suspended Peterson "for violating the NFL Personal Conduct Policy in an incident of abusive discipline that he inflicted on his four-year-old son last May" - the first example of the league's crackdown on players involved with domestic violence.

He was one of the best running backs in the NFL.

Next comes the psychobabble:

In his letter to Peterson, Goodell hinted at what those aggravating circumstances might be: "You have shown no meaningful remorse for your conduct. When indicted, you acknowledged what you did but said that you would not 'eliminate whooping my kids' and defended your conduct in numerous published text messages to the child's mother. You also said that you felt 'very confident with my actions because I know my intent.' These comments raise the serious concern that you do not fully appreciate the seriousness of your conduct, or even worse, that you may feel free to engage in similar conduct in the future." ...

As part of his path to reinstatement, the NFL is insisting Peterson meet with Dr. April Kuchuk of the NYU Department of Psychiatry before December 1, 2014, reports CBSSports.com' Will Brinson. Kuchuk will design a counseling and therapy program for Peterson after that meeting to be shared with the commissioner and NFLPA. If he does not adhere to that program, he could face a lengthier suspension, Goodell warned.

Goodell gets paid up to $40M a year for pandering to feminists in this way.

I realize that people disagree about the benefits and harms of corporal punishment. But it is not the place of the NFL to tell a man to how to discipline his child. And it is certainly not fair to send a man to a re-education camp for standing up for what he believes.

The NFL is in a panic because they don't know how to stand up to feminists, and because Sunday night football ratings have fallen below The Walking Dead, a silly show about killing zombies. I do not think that they will be helped by suspending their best players.

Driving female promiscuity and big balls

I follow the science on questions of human nature. For example, kids do best with their natural parents. Evolutionary theory predicts this, and all the studies show it.NewScientist reports:

Infanticide drives female promiscuity and big balls

Great balls of furriness! Among mammals, large testicles are a sign of a species with a history of males that have no qualms about killing the babies of their competitors.

A study of more than 200 mammals from mice to lions reveals that in species where infanticide is frequent, females make it hard for males to know which baby to kill by mating with lots of different males during the same season. The study also finds that the ancestor to all great apes - including humans - probably committed infanticide.

Infanticide is widespread among mammals. Lions do it, chimps do it, many adorable-looking lemurs do it. Why? A leading theory is that males kill infants sired by other males because it frees up females to have their own offspring, perpetuating their own genes rather than those of their competitors.

The NY Times is less sensationalist about the same study:

There had been earlier reports of infanticide by adult male mammals, but scientists mostly dismissed the behavior as an unimportant pathology. But in 1974, Dr. Hrdy made a provocative counter proposal: infanticide, she said, is the product of mammalian evolution. By killing off babies of other fathers, a male improves his chances of having more of his own offspring. ...

The authors of the new study, Dieter Lukas and Elise Huchard, started by plowing through the scientific literature, looking for evidence of infanticide in a variety of mammalian species. The researchers ended up with data on 260 species, and in 119 of them — over 45 percent — males had been observed killing unrelated young animals.

I don't want to read too much into animal studies, but whenever you hear about a father abusing a kid, it is usually a step-father or a foster father. Efforts to remove a kid from a real dad usually make things worse.

The pacifist anti-violence feminist types might argue that all male aggression is harmful, and should be bred out of the population by separating such men from kids. Research indicates that men are naturally aggressive, and women are more attracted to the more violent and aggressive men.

Marriage intent, commitment, and animus

The fix is in for same-sex marriage, and most judges seem to have gotten the memo that we are getting it regardless of the law and the voters. But gay law professor Dale Carpenter complains about a judge not on board:

Yet Judge Sutton does not even feel the need to cite a single study to support the view that it’s commitment, not sexual orientation, that matters in relationships and child-rearing. What a remarkable, rather matter-of-fact claim for a court that in the same breath treats constitutional rights as if they were set in stone by men who lived 150 years ago, never to be enforced beyond their narrow understanding by anyone but the very state legislators they distrusted.

The Sixth Circuit fully agrees that the earth has moved under our feet on the subjects of homosexuality, same-sex relationships, and gay parenting. What a shame that it does not honor the framers of the amendment by acknowledging that they might have had the insight to know that their own human understanding might be fallible.

I am pretty sure that those framers knew about homosexuality.

The judge did not cite any studies on homosexual commitment to child-rearing, because they are worthless. People have to say that stuff, or else they will be accused of being bigots.

My concern here is not with the few (less than 1% of the population) who want to have same-sex marriages. I am wondering why this minority gets all the constitutional rights, while millions of fathers cannot see their kids.

There are legitimate social science studies showing that kids do better with dads and joint custody. Those constitutional framers really did believe that parents had rights to their kids. And yet family courts routine deny those rights, and higher courts refuse to hear appeals.

Carpenter's main argument for same-sex marriage is that the laws against it are based on unconstitutional animus. I cannot find the word "animus" in my dictionary. The evidence for animus is usually stories like this:

Tight trousers and other skin-tight clothes are not ‘appropriate’, according to a member of the Jehovah’s Witness governing body.

Anthony Morris III told fellow church members: ‘They are tight all the way down to the ankles, it’s not appropriate, it’s not sound of mind.”

‘The homosexuals that are designing these clothes – they’d like you in tight pants.’

Maybe so, but there is 10x more animus towards fathers.

There is also animus towards moms also. I have heard stories of moms who somehow got on the bad side of some court official, and then got treated like children. There is animus towards homeschoolers or anyone doing anything out of the ordinary like that.

The whole doctrine of Best Interest of the Child (BIOTCh) is just a way for judges to apply their prejudices against those for whom they have animus.

Somehow some tiny percentage of the population has managed to reform all our marriage laws, and not done a thing to support the parental rights of real parents.

Here is an example of animus towards men:

Thousands of people have called on the Home Office to deny a visa to a controversial US “pick-up artist” who holds seminars that critics say teach men sexually abusive and racist tricks to attract women.

Julien Blanc was forced to cut short his Australian tour last week after his visa was cancelled in the wake of protests against his seminars. Police in Victoria confirmed that Blanc and his assistant, who had planned to stay in the country until December, had left. ...

“It is wrong on every level – it is promoting violence against women and girls, it takes advantage of men and it sends a message to survivors of sexual assault that they will not be listened to. To allow someone into the UK who is explicitly promoting these things is abysmal.”

He is just a dating coach. If a woman were giving lessons to women on dating more successfully, no one would take any offense. My local supermarket checkout counter has magazines with dating advice for women. But this guy gives a few flirting tips for men, and they deport him! (The dating seminars are similar to sales seminars. It is hard to see how one is more offensive than the other, as the message is about the same.)

Here is an attack on a Euro space scientist because his shirt is supposedly sexist! He had to apologize and change his shirt. I do not see any gays being deported because they wear tight pants or flowery bowling shirts.

Against Empathy

Paul Bloom writes:

When asked what I am working on, I often say I am writing a book about empathy. People tend to smile and nod, and then I add, “I’m against it.” This usually gets an uncomfortable laugh.

This reaction surprised me at first, but I’ve come to realize that taking a position against empathy is like announcing that you hate kittens — a statement so outlandish it can only be a joke. And so I’ve learned to clarify, to explain that I am not against morality, compassion, kindness, love, being a good neighbor, doing the right thing, and making the world a better place. My claim is actually the opposite: if you want to be good and do good, empathy is a poor guide. ...

It is easy to see, then, how empathy can be a moral good, and it has many champions. Obama talks frequently about empathy; witness his recent claim, after his first meeting with Pope Francis, that “it’s the lack of empathy that makes it very easy for us to plunge into wars. It’s the lack of empathy that allows us to ignore the homeless on the streets.” ...

Most people see the benefits of empathy as akin to the evils of racism: too obvious to require justification. I think this is a mistake. ...

He explain his argument in a New Yorker article last year, and this one is part of an online debate with experts.

His critics argue that without empathy, we would be just like Hitler killing the Jews, or just like the Israeli Jews killing the Gaza Arabs. You know someone's argument is probably weak if he has to make Nazi analogies. One says “Dead babies are not an argument.”

Definitions of empathy vary, but it is means something different from sympathy and compassion.

As a rule, women are more empathic, and men are more analytical. Psychologists tend to be effeminate and empathic.

Some degree of emotional empathy is bred in the bone. The sight and sound of another’s suffering is unpleasant for babies and, as soon as they are mobile enough, they try to help, patting and soothing others in distress.

I thought that this would be true, but it has not been my experience. I have seen babies completely ignore a fellow baby who is screaming in pain.

Here is a description of a high-empathy woman, from a psychologist who believes that empathy is a universal good that solves all interpersonal problems:

Hannah is a psychotherapist who has a natural gift for tuning into how others are feeling. As soon as you walk into her living room, she is already reading your face, your gait, your posture. The first thing she asks you is ‘How are you?’ but this is no perfunctory platitude. Her intonation — even before you have taken off your coat — suggests an invitation to confide, to disclose, to share. Even if you just answer with a short phrase, your tone of voice reveals to her your inner emotional state, and she quickly follows up your answer with ‘You sound a bit sad. What’s happened to upset you?’

Before you know it, you are opening up to this wonderful listener, who interjects only to offer sounds of comfort and concern, to mirror how you feel, occasionally offering soothing words to boost you and make you feel valued. Hannah is not doing this because it is her job to do so. She is like this with her clients, her friends, and even people she has only just met. Hannah’s friends feel cared for by her, and her friendships are built around sharing confidences and offering mutual support. She has an unstoppable drive to empathize.

I would say that Hannah has a personality disorder. I have known people like that, and they always have an assortment of personal problems stemming from their inability handle straightforward communication and apply cold reason.

Empathy is also crucial for leftist politics. Nobody votes for Barack Obama based on results. They somehow get convinced that he has more empathy, even tho he is not particular high empathy. But he has some effeminate personality traits that some people confuse for empathy.

As an example, here is an argument against the recently failed N. Dakota Measure 6 for shared parenting:

Sometimes the heart takes precedence to the head

It's an easy no on Measure 6, because North Dakota judges already act in the best interests of the children without having an untenable law that ties their hands. ...

It is hard to argue with the philosophy behind Measure 6, the shared parenting initiative.

Proponents believe the interests of children are best served when they grow up loving and being loved by both of their parents.

The reality is that children would be best served in families where there are two loving parents. ...

In our state, most custody cases are resolved by mutual agreement, not by knockdown drag-outs.

This is leftist female empathy thinking, from a man. He seems to recognize that shared parenting is superior, that the ballot measure does that, and that a rational vote would favor the measure. But it does not give the judge the opportunity to make an empathy-based decision after a contested trial. So he votes no.

Here was the ballot summary:

This initiated measure would amend section 14-09-06.2 of the North Dakota Century Code to create a presumption that each parent is a fit parent and entitled to be awarded equal parental rights and responsibilities by a court unless there is clear and convincing evidence to the contrary

Here is a lawyer opposing the measure on TV, and he argues that divorce lawyers do not profit from child custody disputes, but they will make more income if the measure passes, so they have funded the attack ads against the measure.

Yeah, that does not make any sense. But that is what he says.

No rational person would be convinced by such nonsense. Only self-interested lawyers, stupid people, and leftist-feminist-pro-empathy folks who don't believe that parents have any rights to their kids. The measure essentially says that parents have a right to their kids, unless proved unfit.

What the measure would have eliminated are the knockdown drag-out fights over who is the better parent, or who is in the best interest of the kids. So N. Dakota parents, and parents in the other 49 states, are always subject to the second-guessing of a judge about the BIOTCh.

Vegan mom is arrested and loses newborn

Florida news:

A new mother is fighting for custody of her son, who she hasn't been alone with since he was 12 days old, because of her vegan beliefs.

Sarah Markham's baby was taken from her because she opted not to take him to the hospital when he was losing weight.

Instead, she told investigators she wanted to try feeding him vegan formula.

Now she's fighting to get him back while she faces criminal charges.

“They've kept a child away from mom,” said attorney Mark O’Mara. “My client can only see her child once a week or twice a week because they're requiring the child be out of county.”

Sarah Markham was arrested in June when her son was less than two weeks old. He had lost 10 percent of his body weight.

But instead of taking the boy to the hospital under doctors' orders, Markham wanted to try supplementing breast milk with vegan formula.

Markham is a Seventh-day Adventist, according to an arrest report, and holistic healing is in line with her beliefs.

A 10% body weight fluctuation is completely normal for a 2-week-old baby. The story gives the impression that veganism is the cause, but I doubt it. The stores sell baby formula based on soy, rice, or other vegan sources, and they have the same calories and nutrient value as other formulas.

This sounds like some over-reaching pediatrician who is suspicious about a mom's religious view. My guess is that members of these non-mainstream religions have to circulate lists of pediatricians who are know to be friendly to their views.

Update: Markham has won:

On Wednesday, a Seminole County, Florida, judge told Sarah Markham that she would get custody of her son Caleb, with the provision that she provide a nutritionist's report within 10 days. ...

"There's no case, there's no abuse, there's no neglect – there's simply a doctor who has been challenged by a mother, and he didn't like it," said Bo Markham, Caleb's grandfather.

The judge agreed, throwing out Seminole County Child Protective Services' claim that Sarah Markham was not fit to care for the child.

Attorney Mark O'Mara said he expects the criminal case against the mother to be thrown out, as well.

Judge issued bogus warrants for 17 years

Law professor Orin Kerr writes:

Here’s a remarkable case from the Ohio Supreme Court, State v. Hoffman, involving an unconstitutional arrest warrant. The defendant was arrested for a misdemeanor based on a defective arrest warrant, leading to the discovery of evidence of murder. The remarkable part is why the arrest warrant was defective. For at least 17 years, magistrates in Toledo, Ohio were instructed to issue arrest warrants without ever actually making a probable cause determination. Officers would just say that the suspect had committed an offense, and the magistrates would issue the warrant without ever hearing the factual basis for that conclusion. Here’s the testimony of the magistrate who issued the arrest warrant in this case:

Q. And during your 17 years of swearing in criminal complaints with requests for arrest warrants, did you know what probable cause was?
A. No.
Q. Had you ever made a probable cause determination?
A. No.
* * *
Q. Did any of [your] training include making a probable cause determination?
A. No, it did not.

Pretty astonishing, given that the text of the Fourth Amendment says, “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”

I am wondering how they ever got to cross-examine the magistrate. If family court judges had to testify about their procedures and competence, a lot of people would be shocked at how bad they are.

Singles in parks are suspects

The Australian news reports:

AN ENGLISH theme park has barred all single people from entering — just in case they are a paedophile.

Puxton Park, a family-friendly theme park in a coastal town west of London, has a policy of not allowing single men or women through its gates in order to protect the children inside. ...

The park’s managing director, Alistair Mead, has defended the rule, which has been in place since it opened seven years ago.

“There is a lot in the headlines about paedophiles and things that are going on with children,” he told the Western Gazette.

“We have done our research and, in line with all other parks, we don’t let single men or women in.

All men near kids are suspect. That is life today. When I was a kid, I would sometimes see signs saying that kids had to be accompanied by adults. Now the downtown Santa Cruz California park has a kid play area, and the sign says that all adults must be accompanied by kids.

If they are scared of pedophiles, I might expect them to be scared of that pig mascot at the front door.

Here is how deep the paranoia is. Here is yesterday's stupid newspaper advice:

DEAR AMY: I am a mother of two and I am blessed with a wonderful, caring partner. I come from a big, close family and my partner comes from a small, distant family.

We see my family more often than his, because I keep my kids away from his family -- his dad in particular. I have this gut feeling that he could be a child molester.

The problem is that my mother-in-law wonders why we never visit or call. I don't see how she can act so clueless about her husband's wandering eyes.

Worried Mom

DEAR MOM: It is vital to follow your instincts when it comes to the people your children come into contact with -- but your narrative is a little hollow. Let's say you truly believe your children aren't safe around their grandfather. Why don't you call their grandmother on the phone? Why not invite them to do things with you in public? Why not invite the grandmother to spend time with you alone?

You are leveling a serious accusation against this man, and you do so couched in vague terms.

You must be open with your partner about your instincts, and you and your partner should try harder to find ways to be in contact with this grandmother -- even from a distance.

She has somehow decided that her father-in-law is a child molester based on nothing but the look in his eyes. It is impossible to detect child molesters that way.

No, it is not vital to follow such paranoid instincts. Paranoia is a psychological disorder. Amy acknowledges that this is the vaguest possible accusation, and yet she urges her to keep her kids away from their granddad anyway.

This is today's world. It is not just the crazy paranoid moms who treat men as child molester suspects, but it is public park officials and newspaper advice givers.

Dope smoker loses kid to foster killer

This is one of those stories with so many things wrong that it is unnecessary to list them.

The Houston Press reports:

Little Alex Hill would have been turning four-years-old this Friday. But rather than celebrating their child's birthday, the toddler's parents have only the bitter consolation of seeing a judge in Milam County hand Alex's foster mother a life sentence for murder.

The life sentence is a small victory in the case of two-year-old Alex, whose July 2013 death was caused by devastating injuries at the hands of her foster mother, 52-year old Sherill Small.

Alex was placed in Small's care in early 2013, after her father admitted to child welfare investigators that he had smoked marijuana while the child was tucked away in bed at night.

By all accounts, towheaded Alexandria "Alex" Hill, was a healthy and happy toddler, living with her parents, Joshua Hill and Mary Sweeny, in Cameron, Texas in late 2012. But in Texas, using cannabis goes against child welfare policy, and Hill, who told investigators he'd been smoking pot at night, was in violation of those laws.

"Mr. Hill admitted to smoking marijuana in the house when his daughter has been upstairs sleeping," the caseworker representing the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services noted in court records. ...

Fearing for her safety, Hill refused to give Alex back, despite the threat of jail time, unless the state placed her in a different home. The placement agency ultimately gave in, and Alex was placed in her second foster home, this time with Sherill Small, who had one other child in her care.

Small had been approved as a foster parent by Texas Mentor, a third party private agency who provides foster homes to the Texas Child Protective Services system. No mention was made of Texas Mentor's shady track record -- they had racked up over 15 violations by this point, according to the Dallas Morning News.

One hundred fourteen more violations would ultimately follow, but none of this information was shared with Hill. The first time he heard it, he was sitting in the courtroom listening to testimony on Alex's beating death. ...

Ultimately, Small admitted to Rockdale police that Alex's injuries came from her slamming the toddler onto the floor of the home where she lived with her husband, Clemons Small III.

But it was an accident, Small said, one that happened when she was "playing a game" with the child. Still, she admitted to being "frustrated" with the girl because the the toddler had woken up early that morning to get herself food and water. ...

Turns out Sherill Small's third husband, Clemon Small, had a pretty legit criminal history, including multiple drug charges for marijuana.

During the home study portion of the couple's foster application, Clemon described himself as a recovering crack cocaine addict, and admitted to multiple drug charges. Small also admitted to the home study investigator that she had also been out of work for months. Rather, she made a living by keeping foster children.

Still, the report from the home study concluded that "the family is capable of providing a safe home environment," and Small was given the go ahead to provide foster care.

Marijuana consumption is effectively legal in California, so I do not think that it can be grounds for CPS or family court action. I do not know whether dope-smokers are allowed to be foster parents. My guess is that the foster parents conceal their vices.

Sperm deal kids ruined by four-parent feud

There is no need to conform to 1950s family ideals, the LGBTQIA activists keep telling us. People should have the freedom to make their own kinds of families. Here is where that leads.

When crazy violent lesbians need to get inseminated, where do they go?

The UK Telegraph reports:

Two young girls born through an informal sperm donation deal between a gay couple and a lesbian couple have been scarred for life by a bitter six-year feud after their two fathers and two mothers fell out, a judge has warned. ...

But he said the emotional and psychological wreckage “illustrates all too clearly” the problems “unleashed” by such informal arrangements between friends or acquaintances. ...

It discloses that the couples, who are both separately in civil partnerships, ran up more than half a million pounds in legal costs in a case involving more than 30 separate court orders and a string of judges.

The judge ruled that the girls should remain living with the mothers – despite serious problems at home including domestic violence between the two women at times – because to move the children would have an even more “devastating” effect on them.

He ruled that the mothers would be supervised by social services and that the fathers would have contact with the younger daughter – known as B – but only write to the older girl – known as A – because she had become convinced she did not want to see them. ...

The judgment details serious domestic problems between the women. The biological mother – known as M1 – was in and out of hospitals and clinics for mental health treatment and became heavily reliant on her partner, known as M2. But she was described as “controlling” and, at times “callous and uncaring” towards M1. ...

But the judge said the fathers were also guilty of “raising the temperature” in the dispute, upping their demands and claiming that the girls’ treatment amounted to torture and even that their lives were at risk.

“It will be apparent from reading this, and my previous judgements, that the litigation has had a destructive effect on the parties," he said.

In the old system, the parents register their marriage with the govt and then the govt leaves them alone to rear the kids. In the new system, anything goes, no one criticizes anyone's morals, and the govt micromanages your lives while you spend a fortune in legal fees.

The judge blames the parties, but why can't the judge make decision without 6 years of hearings? It should not be that complicated to determine the legal parents, and let them rear the kids.

Liberalism ruined her parenting

Darlena Cunha, a former television producer turned stay-at-home mom to twin girls, writes in the Wash. Post:

I’m a diehard, bleeding-heart liberal. And it’s ruining my parenting.

My intentions are good. I want my two daughters, 6, to think critically, to fight for fairness and justice whenever they can. I want them to value equality above all else. But sometimes, I also need them to do what I say. This contradiction is hard to explain.

Take a recent incident, involving some candy. I’d given each girl the same number of gumballs. But one of my daughters lost some. She then implored me for extra. “Now I have less and that’s not fair,” she moaned.

“But they’re my candy! It’s not my fault we lost some of hers!” the other one replied.

My solution — to put all the gumballs together in one bowl and split them equally — was unacceptable to both. All afternoon, they threw tantrums, slammed doors, or tried to slyly outwit me, crumbling when I didn’t fall for it.

“How about we keep our own gumballs and I get an extra other kind of candy that she doesn’t get?” said one.

“Why am I being punished for her missing candy?” asked the other.

Three hours later, the result was the same as it would’ve been had I taken a sterner approach from the get-go: We did what I said. But what should have taken five minutes took three hours, and everyone was in a bad mood.

Yes, there could be something wrong with your concept of fairness when you cannot explain it to a 6-year-old child.

Autistic brains look like normal brains

The whole field of psychology has a long history of unscientific nonsense. The most respected studies today are those that use some sort of objective measure, like brain scans, to show that some people have abnormal brains. In particular, there are millions of people who have been convinced that they are autism spectrum disorder, or attention deficit disorder, or something else on the basis of brain scans. But most of that is also crap.

Here is new research:

A new paper threatens to turn the world of autism neuroscience upside down. Its title is Anatomical Abnormalities in Autism?, and it claims that, well, there aren’t very many. ...

There was no evidence for between-group differences in any measures of gross anatomy or in specific brain regions including the amygdala, hippocampus, most segments of the corpus callosum, and the cerebellum, which have been implicated in previous anatomical studies of ASD.

These results suggest that many of the previously reported anatomical abnormalities are likely to be of low scientific and clinical significance… anatomical differences between high-functioning ASD and control groups (aged 6 – 35 years old) are very small in comparison to large within-group variability.

This suggests that anatomical measures alone are likely to be of low scientific and clinical significance for identifying children, adolescents, and adults with ASD or for elucidating their neuropathology.

I think this is an important paper and one that the autism field will need to take very seriously. There are hundreds of studies claiming to have found differences in brain structure in autism, many with small sample sizes, and Haar et al’s failure to replicate almost any of these claims, is sobering.

Hundreds of papers proved wrong by this? Rarely does one study show that everyone is wrong about some supposed disorder, but this appears to be an example. The psychologists have taken some personality differences and bogus brain scans and falsely made a disorder out of it.

Meanwhile, brain scans do show differences between dope smokers and normal brains. The same NY Times has a story about parents who help their kids smoke marijuana.

(The above figure shows two copies of one brain. It was not part of the research.)

Lena Dunham's sick book

She has her own show in HBO, and she is all about revealing more than we want to see. But some publicity is too much:

On Saturday, HBO’s Lena Dunham sent a “cease and desist” letter to TruthRevolt demanding that we remove an article we posted last Wednesday on sections of her book, Not That Kind of Girl. The letter threatened legal action if we did not both remove that article, as well as print a note, the suggested language of which read as follows:

We recently published a story stating that Ms. Dunham engaged in sexual conduct with her sister. The story was false, and we deeply regret having printed it. We apologize to Ms. Dunham, her sister, and their parents, for this false story.

We refuse. We refuse to withdraw our story or apologize for running it, because quoting a woman’s book does not constitute a “false” story, even if she is a prominent actress and left-wing activist. Lena Dunham may not like our interpretation of her book, but unfortunately for her and her attorneys, she wrote that book – and the First Amendment covers a good deal of material she may not like.

Follow the link and read the book excerpts, if you want. They seem sick to me. So is her show, where she regularly takes off her clothes and shows her overweight tattooed body performing sex acts.

The implication here is that Dunham sexually abused her little sister, and turned her into a lesbian. Saying that might be libel, except that Dunham practically admitted it in her own autobiography. I certainly have no knowledge of the matter. Read her own words, and decide for yourself. Read more here, where you can learn that she grew up with rich weirdo parents in a $6M apartment and elite private schools. Some of her book may well be fictionalized, as some of the quotes sound implausible to me.

Dunham is, of course, a leftist feminist Democrat Obama-worshipping social justice warrior.

Update: CH piles on. Actually there is little to add, except that we are in sorry shape is she is really a role model for today's millennial girls.

Update: PJ O'Rourke's opinion:

The characters in Girls take drugs. They “hook up” in a manner that makes the casual sex of the 1960s seem like an arranged marriage in Oman. And they drink and they vomit and they drink and they vomit and they drink and they vomit.

It’s every parent’s nightmare. I had to have a lot to drink before I could get to sleep after watching this show about young people who are only a few years older than my daughters.

NBA player ruined by false DV charge

National Review reports:

How a False Domestic-Violence Charge Ruined An NBA Career
Forget due process, evidence, rights — domestic-violence accusers are almost always believed.

A startling report last week by the AP’s Jon Krawczynski sheds needed light on the harrowing story of Dante Cunningham, a victim of a false domestic-violence accusation and a baseless restraining order.

Last season, Cunningham was a forward playing for the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, completing his second year with the team.

They did not just drop the charges for lack of evidence; they proved that the accuser fabricated the charge.

But still, no perjury charge and no NBA career. In today's domestic violence politics, an accusation is like a conviction.

If I were part of the DV lobby, I would be working with sports officials to make sure that false charges do not ruin careers, because stories like this undermine their movement against real perps. But the leftist-femininists do not think that way. They do not believe that an accuser should have to prove her charges, and do not want her held accountable. Any man losing his job is seen as a victory for their movement.

Non-dad must pay $30k child support

Men get stuck with paternity claims all the time, but the guy here has air-tight alibis. First, a DNA test proves that he is not the father. He could still lose in court if he failed to show up in court. But here, he can prove that he was never served with court papers, because he was incarcerated at the time. Here is the Michigan story:

In child support cases, courts sometimes force people to pay back the government’s welfare contributions to a child, even in scenarios when the person being ordered to pay support is not actually the child’s parent. According to WXYZ-TV ABC 7 Detroit, Detroit man Carnell Alexander is facing that exact situation after an ex-girlfriend of his listed him as the father of her child on an application for welfare benefits. Despite the facts that a DNA test proved that he is not the father and his ex-girlfriend agrees that he should not have to pay support, the State of Michigan is ordering him to either pay back the nearly $30,000 worth of welfare contributions it paid to the child’s mother or go to jail.

In 1991, Alexander was informed during a routine traffic stop that there was a warrant out for his arrest due to his failure to pay support for a child that he had allegedly fathered back in 1978. However, Alexander had no children. In a court hearing, the state claimed that he was listed as a child’s father on a welfare benefits application and that too much time had passed for him to request a DNA test to contest its paternity claim. The court argues that he knowingly ignored a court order requiring him to pay support and that he should have raised the issue when that order was given to him. In the late ’80s, a process server signed a document alleging that the court order was delivered to Alexander at his father’s house and that he refused to sign it. However, WXYZ-TV ABC 7 Detroit made contact with the Michigan Department of Corrections and confirmed that Alexander was incarcerated at the time of the delivery of the court order, meaning it was impossible for him to have seen the order and refused to sign. Alexander maintains that he never saw the order and knew nothing of the alleged paternity dispute until he was pulled over and informed many years later.

Allegedly fathered in 1978? Such a child would now be 36 years old! That fact alone should be enuf to dismiss the case.

Why would a man vote Democrat?

Gordon E. Finley & Dianna Thompson write:

The most presciently under-appreciated and intentionally ignored book in gender politics was published by David Paul Kuhn in 2007 and titled “The Neglected Voter: White Men and The Democratic Dilemma.” The message is in the title. White men have fled the Democratic Party in droves, for good reason – and why shouldn’t they continue to flee in 2014,— while keeping an eye on 2016? ...

Second, family law reform. An inconvenient truth for the Family Law Sections of State Bar Associations and those living off the Domestic Violence Industry is that most children of divorce love both of their parents and do not want to be separated by law from either of them. If divorced fathers, second wives, moms and the voting-age children of divorce band together and make their demands known to candidates, 2015 may be the year of post-divorce Equal Shared Parenting and the elimination of Permanent Alimony. ...

Fifth, if men need any more reason to move out of their mother’s basements and get off their video games, they need look no further than “Affirmative Consent.” California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed SB 967, popularly known as the “yes means yes” affirmative consent for sex on campus bill, followed immediately by Democratic Gov. Cuomo who by fiat imposed affirmative consent on his university system – even though data show there is no “rape crisis” on the nation’s campuses.

The heart of the problem is that the affirmative consent movement gives total power, control and resources to women in all matters sexual while simultaneously denying all due process rights to the accused man in campus tribunals. The denial of due process includes the denial of: the presumption of innocence, an attorney, cross-examining your accuser and an evidentiary standard higher than a coin toss. College men who have been expelled with the Scarlet “R” affixed to their transcript have no future.

The differential impact of SB 967 on California’s sons and daughters is horrific and must be replaced by legislation that treats the nation’s sons and daughters equally.

Bad as Brown is, his opponent is a leftist Republican-in-name-only who voted for Obama in 2008 and whose biggest claim to fame is working for the 2008-2009 bailouts. He seems to be on a mission to destroy the California Republican party. I am voting for Brown, who is going to get re-elected anyway by a large margin.

I mentioned the N. Dakota shared parenting initiative, and you would expect civil libertarians to be all in favor of it, as being under the discretion of a family court judge is the opposite of civil liberty. Apparently feminism and leftism trump civil liberty:

The American Civil Liberties Union is opposing a ballot measure in North Dakota aimed at offering shared parenting between the genders. The ACLU joins with several other institutions meant to keep parents from engaging in shared parenting of children. They’re branding their campaign, “Keeping Kids First,” but it seems more like it’s about keeping one gender first.

In reality the “Keeping Kids First” coalition is a front group for feminists, the ACLU, divorce attorneys and the state bar association. Divorce attorneys have a particular interest in not seeing this pass because they have a lot of money to lose if divorce becomes much less troublesome. Parlaying their tactics as an issue of women’s rights and feminism is more likely a cover for their personal financial interests, and one based on the idea of gender supremacy.

Measure 6, on the ballot this fall in North Dakota would establish approximately 50/50 shared parenting as the default when parents split up, unless a court finds that one of the parents is unfit. One of the divorce attorneys opposing the measure wrote in the Pierce County Tribune that, “It would require courts to divide children’s time half-and-half between moms and dads, in every case, no matter the circumstances.”

We need at least one state to pass a shared parenting law, so we will have objective evidence on whether it works.

Update: Another opinion, on a site for men:

Why American Men Should Refuse To Vote

1. Your vote is meaningless

2. Politicians on both the left and right hate you

There is not a single politician of importance in the U.S., liberal or conservative, who gives a damn about men’s issues. ...

3. Politics itself is a charade

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it’s difficult to look at the pageantry of American politics and conclude that they aren’t all in on the scam. Unless you’re a low-information voter who only cares about government handouts and boutique issues like abortion and gay marriage, both the Jackass Party and the Dumbass Party are bound to disappoint you. Neither party has any interest in solving the issues it purports to care about, because keeping their supporters unsatisfied is the only way to motivate them to turn out at the polls. ...

So tomorrow, stay home. Play video games. Make love to your girlfriend. Snort an eight-ball and watch reruns of Girls. But for the love of God, don’t vote.

Suggestion to leave a hostile place

The Dilbert cartoonist writes:

In my prior post I suggested that if a person lives in a hostile place, that person should leave. ...

The loser worldview is that whoever is causing the problem needs to fix it for you.

The problem with the loser worldview is that in many cases the only person who CAN fix the problem is you, even if you had nothing to do with causing it. A winner in that situation fixes his own problem. A loser sits indefinitely waiting for others to solve it for him, even knowing that won't happen. ...

If you want to see a good example of winners, look at the Asian and Indian population in the United States. The country handed them the usual boatload of intense discrimination with one hand and the promise of unlimited education with the other. Who's your valedictorian now? That's what winners do. No blame, just personal responsibility.

The subject started with a very widely circulated viral video of a women on the 10-hour walk in New York City. The video was edited down to about 5 minutes of unwanted comments to her.

You find it and commentary by googling catcall video, even tho there aren't really any catcalls on the video.

The most striking thing about the video is that the whites and Asians leave her alone, while all the rude comments come from blacks and Puerto Ricans or other Latinos. She looks as if she is walking thru Harlem, with unemployed black men loitering in the streets making comments. The video could be a KKK recruiting video.

Dilbert has probably gotten a lot of flak from feminists, but surely that is the conclusion that most women have come to -- if you don't like rude comments from loitering black men, then don't go for long walks in Harlem.

Sure, she has a right to walk wherever she wants. But others have free speech rights. There are lots of safe places to walk. Given the choice between (1) walking in a safe or friendly place, and (2) trying to reform the manners of unemployed black men loitering in Harlem, which would you choose?

Dilbert would probably tell me that it is stupid to complain about the family court, because there is no realistic chance of winning. It is more practical to just leave the hostile place.

Taking away privacy and autonomy

As same-sex marriage gets forced on us by various judges, the accompanying attack on family autonomy is obscured.

Stella Morabito writes:

I recently argued in The Federalist that same-sex marriage is merely a vehicle to abolish all civil marriage, and with it, all family autonomy. I predicted that “singles’ activists” would try to finish the job by using those same “marriage equality” arguments to claim that all civil discriminates against singles and therefore should be abolished. Lo and behold, a singles’ activist, author of the book “Singlism,” and blogger for Psychology Today, Bella DePaulo, confirmed exactly that in her critique of my Federalist article, “Welcome to Selfie Nation.” Here’s what she said: “Morabito says that what I really want is ‘to abolish marriage without saying so.’ That’s not quite right. I’m happy to say so.” ...

The arguments I make for marriage and family are straightforward, even plain. Central planners have always understood that when you legally isolate people, you can better control them. Take away the sanctuaries of marriage and family, and you take away everybody’s privacy and autonomy. The state zooms into that vacuum. ...

But the bottom line is that singles’ activists are poised to be handed the “marriage equality” baton by LGBT activists so they can use it to fight for “unmarried equality.” In the end, this basically means keeping singles single and making marrieds single, too.

Too many Americans seem hypnotized by the slogan that abolishing civil marriage will “get the state out of the marriage business.” No. It sure as heck won’t. Have you ever heard anyone who makes this claim explain exactly how it gets the state “out”? I haven’t, and I’ve concluded that’s because it does no such thing. Rather, by abolishing marriage, you simply give the state permission to refuse to recognize your marriage, and its attendant rights and responsibilities. This refusal inevitably extends to the rest of family relationships, including parent-child.

Thus, the effort to abolish marriage is intimately connected to the ongoing radical redefinition of family. All of this is about—whether consciously and willfully, or not—abolishing family autonomy, abolishing privacy, and, by logical extension, abolishing all personal relationships based on mutual trust.