Ken Perlmmutter is worse than I thought

Some angry dads and moms have contacted me about Psychologist Ken Perlmutter, as they found my complaint against him. Apparently he has done a lot of bad child custody evaluations.

I do not want to dox him, or attack him personally, but he needs to be held accountable for his official actions. He works as a public official for the county family courts of counties surrounding San Jose California, and makes $400 per hour. He continues to do harm in his official capacity, and his court victims need to know the truth about why he does what he does.

I have known for a long time that he had a son who died, but I did not post it because it did not seem relevant to me. But now I am told that it is key to understanding his work.

Perlmutter divorced his first therapist wife, and later married a younger woman and had a son Joey with her. Joey died at age four of a treatable illness, but was not getting medical care. Neither parent was charged with neglect, but some people hold him responsible.

I am not blaming him for that. He is innocent until proven guilty, as I always say.

The problem is that Perlmutter never got over this death. He never had another child, and he is wracked with guilt over what he could have done.

He is a bitter and broken man.

$800k a year of court money buys him and his wife a rich lifestyle and fancy vacations, but it is not enough. They have no child, and they lost their precious boy. He needs to make other parents suffer the loss of a child, as he has suffered.

Whenever possible, his evaluations do not recommend joint child custody. He likes to see one parent lose all custody, and he will do whatever he can to make that happen. Somehow inflicting pain on others makes his own pathetic life more bearable.

He will manipulate the facts to force good parents to endure the loss of a child.

Perlmutter is personally more psychologically disordered than the great majority of the parents he evaluates. He is more disordered that the typical mental asylum inmate.

If all of this is even half true, then Perlmutter is a sadistic monster. He is a modern Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I estimate that he has messed up the lives of 1000 kids. He should be locked up.

Update: I found this reply to a omplaint on another blog:

I would invite any person who has any questions about my practice or ethics to phone me and personally discuss them with me.
My phone number is 650.322.5011.
Thank you.
Ken Perlmutter

Another comment says "There is a special place in hell for animals like Perlmutter."

My gripe is not so much with him personally, but with a system that grants screwballs like him enormous power over people's lives. See also this Change petition, from someone Perlmutter evaluated.

Judge uses shrinks as political punishment

Dinesh D'Souza is a right-wing Christian Indian-American author who is probably best known for making a couple of anti-Obama movies. He is also a convicted felon for making a couple of political campaign donations in the names of others in order to bypass legal limits.

People love him or hate him, based on his political and religious views.

At a hearing Monday in Manhattan in which he ruled filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza must continue community service for four more years, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said he considers D’Souza’s violation of federal campaign-finance laws to be evidence of a psychological problem and ordered further counseling.

D’Souza’s defense counsel Benjamin Brafman provided evidence to the court that the psychiatrist D’Souza was ordered to see found no indication of depression or reason for medication. In addition, the psychologist D’Souza subsequently consulted provided a written statement concluding there was no need to continue the consultation, because D’Souza was psychologically normal and well adjusted.

But Judge Berman disagreed, effectively overruling the judgment of the two licensed psychological counselors the U.S. probation department had approved as part of D’Souza’s criminal sentence.

“I only insisted on psychological counseling as part of Mr. D’Souza’s sentence because I wanted to be helpful,” the judge explained. “I am requiring Mr. D’Souza to see a new psychological counselor and to continue the weekly psychological consultation not as part of his punishment or to be retributive.

The judge says it is not punishment, but this was a very petty crime and not one of corruption or a mental disorder.

This is the American equivalent of a Communist reeducation camp. The judge does not agree with D'Souza's worldview, so he orders psychotherapy to change his values.

“I’m not singling out Mr. D’Souza to pick on him,” Berman said at the hearing Monday. “A requirement for psychological counseling often comes up in my hearings in cases where I find it hard to understand why someone did what they did.”

WND reported that at the Sept. 23, 2014, sentencing hearing, Berman said he could not understand how someone of D’Souza’s intelligence, with credentials that include college president, could do something so stupid as to violate federal campaign contribution laws. D’Souza was at the pinnacle of his career, writing bestselling non-fiction books and producing popular feature films.

As WND reported, after pleading guilty to campaign-finance violations, D’Souza was sentenced in September to eight months in a work-release center, five years of probation, a $30,000 fine and community service. He pleaded guilty in May 2014 to arranging “straw donors” to contribute $10,000 to the failed 2012 U.S. Senate campaign of Wendy Long, a college friend. ...

Berman explained at the hearing Monday that his social-work training combined with his psychology major has made him sensitive to psychological issues in the criminal cases he hears.

“You have to understand, I have a background in social work with a psychology major,” Berman explained. “I’m sensitive to mental health issues in the criminal cases I hear, and I do not want to end psychological counseling at this time in Mr. D’Souza’s case.”

So the judge was a psych major in college and that entitles him to psychoanalyze the defendant?

Liberals have a very hard time understanding conservatives. Non-Christians have a very hard time understanding Christians. And authoritarian judges have a hard time understand how someone would believe that he has a free speech right to support the political candidate of his choice. (There was no bribery accusation; the donation was just a gift.)

Yes, D'Souza has beliefs. That should be obvious to anyone who has listened to him for 10 minutes. And he is not going to drop those beliefs just because some bigoted judge orders him on the couch to talk to some lame shrink.

“What I’m reading in the psychological case notes is compatible with my own impressions,” Berman continued. “The psychological case notes indicate that while Mr. D’Souza is highly intelligent, he has remarkably little insight into his own motivations, that he is not introspective or insightful, but that he tends to see his own actions in an overly positive manner.

“I consider the original crime in this case is an insight issue,” Berman continued. “That Mr. D’Souza committed this crime involves a colossal failure of insight and introspection. The case notes also say Mr. D’Souza has weaknesses in controlling his own impulses and that he is prone to anger in reaction to criticism.”

The judge noted the psychologists “chart indicates Mr. D’Souza tends to deny problems, that he lacks insight into his own behavior, that he is arrogant and intolerant of the feelings of others, while projecting an overly positive image of himself.”

This is just asinine psychobabble. When shrinks disagree with your actions or opinions, they often say you lack insight or introspection.

D'Souza has publicly debated political issues, and even religious issues. Of course he reacts to criticism in those debates. I think I watched a recording of one of those debates, and he seemed normal to me. Disagreeing with a debate opponent is not a mental illness. If he did have a disorder about reacting to criticism, he probably could not do such a debate.

Federal judges have a lifetime appointment, unfortunately. This one is unfit for the bench.

I am beginning to think that we need an exorcism:

Can — or should — an exorcism be done for the United States, as was done in Mexico this past May?

Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, the archbishop emeritus of Guadalajara, performed the rite, together with priests from across Mexico, at the Cathedral of San Luis Potosí in a closed-door ceremony. The purpose: to drive away the evil responsible for skyrocketing violence, abortion and drugs in that predominantly-Catholic nation.

Such “exorcisms … have helped bring awareness that there is such a thing as sin influenced by Satan,” said Msgr. John Esseff, a priest for 62 years in the Diocese of Scranton, Pa., and an exorcist for more than 35 years.

“The devil has much to do with [influencing people in] breaking the law of God,” he said. ...

According to Father Thomas, demonic activity has been increasing in the United States because people are choosing to be dissuaded away from God and opening portals such as New Age and witchcraft that are gateways to the demonic. “When faith becomes thin and Satan and agents of Satan move in, there are going to be effects,” he said.

“It was Pope Benedict XVI who said that as faith diminishes, superstition increases.”

Father Mike Driscoll, chaplain of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Ottawa, Ill., and author of the new book Demons, Deliverance, and Discernment, explained that, in addition to possession, demons can infest a place or thing.

We are infested with demons, and I don't think that the Catholics are up to the challenge.

After exorcising this judge, I would exorcise Lena Dunham. I have criticized her for her sick book, picture, article mocking her Jewish boyfriend, and a few other things. Now her problem is that she claimed to be postponing marriage until gays can marry, and now she has no excuse:

But my friend Audrey put it best when she raised her hand and told our professor, “I object to the marriage-industrial complex. But I want that dress. So now what?”

“I’m never getting married,” I told my friend Isabel while we floated in the Dead Sea. We were twenty-two and smeared with mud. “It’s a tool to oppress women and eliminate their freedom,” I added. “Plus, who wants to make out in front of their parents?”

She was newly in love, high on connection. “You’ll take that back the minute you meet someone you like,” she said.

Three years ago, when I was twenty-five, I met a bespectacled musician named Jack. He had a passion for John Hughes movies and driving on the Jersey Turnpike. His belief in, and insistence on, true equality for L.G.B.T.Q. citizens was no small reason why I fell in love with him, and, early in our relationship, I watched him struggle with the decision of whether or not to perform at a straight couple’s wedding. He discussed the matter at length with queer friends, concerned that it might be a form of betrayal (ultimately, he was given their blessing, though he seemed fairly tortured about it anyhow). The struggle was real and raw for Jack, and so it somehow became understood, between us, that we wouldn’t even consider marrying until every American had the same right. And I said it proudly whenever I had the chance, with the grandiosity and intimations of sacrifice you hear from certain lesser vegans.

Jack would be nuts to marry this head case. Not until Satan is driven out, anyway.

Update: A reader points out:

Surprise, surprise. The judge in the D'Souza case used to be a Family Court Judge.

It all makes sense now. That possibility did not occur to me, as I did not think that family court judges ever get promoted to being federal judges.

Psychology profession is unethical

The big story today is how the psychologists have been corrupted:

The Central Intelligence Agency’s health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a new report.

The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation’s psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programs of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.

The report, completed this month, concludes that some of the association’s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association’s ethics policies in line with the Defense Department’s interrogation policies, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.’s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency.

The CIA says that no one was tortured, that less that 5 terrorists were subjected to enhanced interrogation (with water-boarding), and that the process gave info that helped find Osama bin Laden.

Others dispute this, and say that Bin Laden was found because a $25M bounty was paid to someone who ratted him out.

I do not know who is right, but I do know that the psychology profession supports an industry of unscientific and unethical forensic child custody evaluations. In the big majority of cases, there isn't even any expert psychology knowledge that is brought to bear. Like the above CIA allegations, they are just corrupt apologists who are paid to lend credibility to an evil program.

Ten Parental Alienation Fallacies

Psychologist Richard A. Warshak is the parental alienation expert, and he has published:

False beliefs about the genesis of parental alienation and about appropriate remedies shape opinions and decisions that fail to meet children’s needs. This article examines 10 mistaken assumptions: (a) children never unreasonably reject the parent with whom they spend the most time, (b) children never unreasonably reject mothers, (c) each parent contributes equally to a child’s alienation, (d) alienation is a child’s transient, short-lived response to the parents’ separation, (e) rejecting a parent is a short-term healthy coping mechanism, (f) young children living with an alienating parent need no intervention, (g) alienated adolescents’ stated preferences should dominate custody decisions, (h) children who appear to function well outside the family need no intervention, (i) severely alienated children are best treated with traditional therapy techniques while living primarily with their favored parent, and (j) separating children from an alienating parent is traumatic. Reliance on false beliefs compromises investigations and undermines adequate consideration of alternative explanations for the causes of a child’s alienation. Most critical, fallacies about parental alienation shortchange children and parents by supporting outcomes that fail to provide effective relief to those who experience this problem.

The full article is behind a paywall. His previous article was on Batman's Traumatic Origins.

Psychiatrists and Hair Dryer Incident

Need some proof that psychiatrists and psychologists are screwed up? Here is story of a trivial solution to a nasty mental problem, and it is somehow controversial:

The Hair Dryer Incident was probably the biggest dispute I’ve seen in the mental hospital where I work. Most of the time all the psychiatrists get along and have pretty much the same opinion about important things, but people were at each other’s throats about the Hair Dryer Incident.

Basically, this one obsessive compulsive woman would drive to work every morning and worry she had left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house. So she’d drive back home to check that the hair dryer was off, then drive back to work, then worry that maybe she hadn’t really checked well enough, then drive back, and so on ten or twenty times a day.

It’s a pretty typical case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it was really interfering with her life. She worked some high-powered job – I think a lawyer – and she was constantly late to everything because of this driving back and forth, to the point where her career was in a downspin and she thought she would have to quit and go on disability. She wasn’t able to go out with friends, she wasn’t even able to go to restaurants because she would keep fretting she left the hair dryer on at home and have to rush back. She’d seen countless psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, she’d done all sorts of therapy, she’d taken every medication in the book, and none of them had helped.

So she came to my hospital and was seen by a colleague of mine, who told her “Hey, have you thought about just bringing the hair dryer with you?”

And it worked.

She would be driving to work in the morning, and she’d start worrying she’d left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house, and so she’d look at the seat next to her, and there would be the hair dryer, right there. And she only had the one hair dryer, which was now accounted for. So she would let out a sigh of relief and keep driving to work.

And approximately half the psychiatrists at my hospital thought this was absolutely scandalous, and This Is Not How One Treats Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and what if it got out to the broader psychiatric community that instead of giving all of these high-tech medications and sophisticated therapies we were just telling people to put their hair dryers on the front seat of their car?

I, on the other hand, thought it was the best fricking story I had ever heard and the guy deserved a medal. Here’s someone who was totally untreatable by the normal methods, with a debilitating condition, and a drop-dead simple intervention that nobody else had thought of gave her her life back. If one day I open up my own psychiatric practice, I am half-seriously considering using a picture of a hair dryer as the logo, just to let everyone know where I stand on this issue.

Okay, half the shrinks were okay with this solution to the problem. But what's the matter with the other half?

I guess someone could say that bring the dryer was not solving the underlying mental problem. But then giving her pills surely does not either. Did they want to give her pills instead? Weird.

I think that the point of the story is that we should put up with Bruce Jenner's mental illness instead of trying to cure him, but I did not read the whole essay. I am just posting it for what it says about divergent views among mental health professionals.

Nazi leaders were given ink blot tests

Someday the psychologist profession will be embarrassed thtat they ever endorsed child custody evaluations for the court. But they have a lot else to be embarrassed for. Here is a new one to me:

These medical societies actually concluded their plea with a request that executed Nazis should be “shot in the chest, not the head”, so that their brains could be preserved for autopsy. On that point, they didn’t get their way – the method of execution at Nuremberg was hanging followed by cremation, precluding Nazi neuroscience autopsies. However, another of the psychologists’ requests was granted: the request that defendants should be examined using “psychological tests such as the Rorschach”. ...

According to two Rorschach experts, Miale and Selzer, writing in 1975, the fact that Göring saw dancing figures in this inkblot pattern indicates a psychic pattern of “hypomanic defense” while the fact that he saw the men as having red hats “indicates an emotional preoccupation with status”. Hmm. ...

Disturbing – but what does all this mean? Were the experts just seeing what they expected to see, assuming that the Nazi’s responses were abnormal because they were Nazis? A 1976 study by Molly Harrower suggests so. She gave the Nuremberg transcripts to ten Rorschach experts, mixed up with Rorschach responses from some non-Nazis, including some Unitarian ministers. The records were anonymized (blinded) and the Rorschach experts were asked to work out which set of responses came from the war criminals. They proved unable to do this better than random chance.

This is so stupid that it is funny. But I had court-ordered Rorschach tests for the family court.

While the test used to kept secret by psychologists, you can now see the images on Wikipedia, or take a free online version of the test.

Using social media against anti-freedom lobbyists

A Santa Cruz Sentinel editorial complains:

The debate over Senate Bill 277, which would make vaccinations compulsory for schoolchildren, has taken an ugly turn. Although we understand the rights of opponents to express themselves, their tactics have gone way too far.

A group of opponents have taken to social media — and not merely to state their views. Instead, they’ve been sharing not only personal information about the bill’s lobbyists, but they’ve also decided to publish photos online of their whereabouts.

There is a big difference between activism and harassment.

The California Medical Association, a supporter of compulsory vaccination, has complained about a video by California Chiropractic Association President Brian Stenzler in which he urges an SB 277 foe to follow them “all day long — follow them to a T,” according to an account in the Sacramento Bee. ...

Apparently, however, some opponents aren’t so restrained. Some of the activists are taking to the Internet and social media to track the activities of supporters. Doing so crosses the line.

We acknowledge that we support the idea of compulsory vaccination. To us, the science is clear, that the vaccination of children is necessary to avoid the spread of diseases like pertussis, measles and more.

Despite that stand, we understand that some people are going to push back, and that the idea of compulsory vaccination is a tough pill to swallow for some advocates of free choice.

This complaint seems a little premature, as it appears that no one has been harassed.

Here is the offending video. Maybe I am misinterpreting it, but I don't see any advocacy of harassment. He mentions the name of a lobbying on his side, to distinguish her from two other lobbyists on the other side. He says to follow them, but in the sense of "follow the money". Maybe he just wanted to identify the financial interests wanting to force vaccines.

Here is Democrat state senator Pan assuring the public that they will have a choice, and then introducing a law to eliminate that choice.

I wonder why there are not more social media attacks on public officials. Obviously some parents get very upset at laws that force medical injections of marginal value. Parents also get upset at public officials who try to take their kids away, especially when they act out of corruption, maliciousness, or incompetence. I do not favor any harassment, but I certainly think that public officials should be exposed when they are acting against the public interest.

Gay political study was bogus

Could bogus psychology and social science research be used to promote LGBTQIA politics? Of course.

A Dec. 2014 NY Times story said:

Gay political canvassers can soften the opinions of voters opposed to same-sex marriage by having a brief face-to-face discussion about the issue, researchers reported Thursday. The findings could have implications for activists and issues across the political spectrum, experts said.

Psychologists have long suspected that direct interaction, like working together, can reduce mutual hostility and prejudice between differing groups, whether blacks and whites or Christians and Muslims. But there is little evidence that the thaw in attitudes is a lasting one.

The study, published Thursday by the journal Science, suggests that a 20-minute conversation about a controversial and personal issue — in this case a gay person talking to voters about same-sex marriage — can induce a change in attitude that not only lasts, but may also help shift the views of others living in the same household. In other words, the change may be contagious. Researchers have published similar findings previously, but nothing quite as rigorous has highlighted the importance of the messenger, as well as the message.

“I am very impressed with this paper,” said Todd Rogers, an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a founding director of the Analyst Institute, a voter research group that helps Democratic candidates.

Now it says:

Editors’ Note: May 20, 2015

An article on Dec. 12, 2014, reported on a study published by the journal Science that said gay political canvassers could change conservative voters’ views on gay marriage by having a brief face-to-face discussion about the issue. The editor in chief of the journal said on Wednesday that the senior author of the study had now asked that the report be retracted because of the failure of his fellow author to produce data supporting the findings.

That is an understatement, as the study was completely faked:

The survey firm claimed they had no familiarity with the project and that they had never had an employee with the name of the staffer we were asking for. The firm also denied having the capabilities to perform many aspects of the recruitment procedures described in LaCour and Green (2014).

This study got a lot of publicity, and gave a lot of hope to leftist political activists.

Custody evaluators have no reliable research

Philip Greenspun trashes the forensic psychologists who do child custody evaluations:

Lawyers and judges whom we interviewed were skeptical regarding the value of court-appointed psychologists. Here was a typical litigator’s perspective: “They have no reliable research. They have no long-term research. There is no proof that psychology and psychiatric professionals are any better predictors of parenting than lay judges. [divorce psychology/custody/GAL work] is a wildly expensive industry that has grown up based mostly on hocus pocus. ‘Best interest of the child’ is a legal term, not a psychological term yet we are turning to psychologists to tell the court what is best for a child.” Psychologists who got paid to testify in court spoke confidently of their ability to deliver value. Psychologists who were not being paid to do this work spoke scornfully of their colleagues who were. Linda Nielsen, professor at Wake Forest: “”Anyone who tells you that they’ve checked their biases at the door is an idiot. Evaluators have their own prejudices.” Joyanna Silberg, who has written extensively on child abuse: “Psychologists have sold their souls. I will not do custody evaluations. It is ridiculous to look into which parent is feeding sugared cereals. I will not pretend that I have divine power.”

This quackery reflects badly on the whole profession.

Obama pushes for more LGBT kids

The LGBTQIA attacks on the civil liberties of everyone else continue. Now Pres. Barack Obama wants to censor private counseling sessions.

The NY Times reports:

A 17-year-old transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, stunned her friends and a vast Internet audience in December when she threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after writing in an online suicide note that religious therapists had tried to convert her back to being a boy.

In response, President Obama is calling for an end to such therapies aimed at “repairing” gay, lesbian and transgender youth. His decision on the issue is the latest example of his continuing embrace of gay rights.

In a statement that was posted on Wednesday evening alongside a WhiteHouse.gov petition begun in honor of Ms. Alcorn, Mr. Obama condemned the practice, sometimes called “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, which is supported by some socially conservative organizations and religious doctors.

The White House statement says:

When assessing the validity of conversion therapy, or other practices that seek to change an individual’s gender identity or sexual orientation, it is as imperative to seek guidance from certified medical experts. The overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrates that conversion therapy, especially when it is practiced on young people, is neither medically nor ethically appropriate and can cause substantial harm.

No, it is not true that the scientific evidence is against conversion therapy.

A dirty secret of the profession is that psychotherapy hardly ever changes or cures anyone. The success rate on most problems is very low, unless the patient is motivated the change in the first place. Mostly counseling just talk to patients to make them feel better about their problems.

I've looked at the supposedly scientific statements against conversion therapy. They go like this: If you assume that sexual orientation and identity are innate and immutable, and that a determination has been made of a particular orientation and identity, then anecdotes suggest that trying to change either is often harmful or unproductive.

There are also anecdotes claiming conversion therapy can be successful, and no good scientific studies comparing them.

In short, there is no good scientific evidence that conversion therapy is any worse than any other psychotherapy.

As a practical matter, the consequence of a law like what Obama proposes would be that if someone is confused about his sexuality and seeks counseling, the counseling will have to encourage him to be gay or transsexual.

You might say that no one should have to endure psychotherapy to change their fundamental beliefs. I would go further, and say that no one should be forced to endure psychotherapy at all, as I believe the whole field does more harm than good, and that forcing it is an abuse of human rights. But the family (and juvenile) court do it all the time. Judges order parents off to counseling because it is supposed to help everyone, or to change behavior in response to dubious complaints, or as punishment, or as some weird fitness test. That is, if the dad does not do the ordered counseling and get a good report, then the judge has an excuse to cut off child custody and visitation.

If the shrinks had any ethics, they would refuse all court-ordered counseling.

Here is a typical response to Obama:

So, this is where we are now.

A mentally ill person wants to be the opposite sex. A counselor suggests that the person consider accepting the natural sex. Mental patient commits suicide and blames counselor’s suggestion of just going natural.

n=1

Based on this sample size, the President (not a psychiatrist nor a peer committee of such) suggests as a matter of public policy and professional practice that mental patients not be counseled to accept their natural sex rather to embrace their delusions of being the opposite sex.

Are we serious?

This is at least as stupid as any religion.

Is the president now some kind of high priest who advises all people on all matters whatever without regard to being entirely unqualified?

This is one of the sickest opinions to come out of the White House. Here is what former VP Dick Cheney says, about other policies:

I vacillate between the various theories I’ve heard, but you know, if you had somebody as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world and reduce our capacity to influence events, turn our back on our allies and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama’s doing. I think his actions are constituted in my mind those of the worst president we’ve ever had.

I do not agree with anything Obama has done.

Moody women are now on drugs

A female psychiatrist writes in the NY Times:

WOMEN are moody. By evolutionary design, we are hard-wired to be sensitive to our environments, empathic to our children’s needs and intuitive of our partners’ intentions. This is basic to our survival and that of our offspring. Some research suggests that women are often better at articulating their feelings than men because as the female brain develops, more capacity is reserved for language, memory, hearing and observing emotions in others.

These are observations rooted in biology, not intended to mesh with any kind of pro- or anti-feminist ideology. But they do have social implications. ...

Sales of antidepressants and antianxiety meds have been booming in the past two decades, and they’ve recently been outpaced by an antipsychotic, Abilify, that is the No. 1 seller among all drugs in the United States, not just psychiatric ones. ...

At least one in four women in America now takes a psychiatric medication, compared with one in seven men. Women are nearly twice as likely to receive a diagnosis of depression or anxiety disorder than men are. ...

The most common antidepressants, which are also used to treat anxiety, are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (S.S.R.I.s) that enhance serotonin transmission. ... These medicines frequently leave women less interested in sex. ... On S.S.R.I.s, you probably won’t be skipping around with a grin; it’s just that you stay more rational and less emotional. Some people on S.S.R.I.s have also reported less of many other human traits: empathy, irritation, sadness, erotic dreaming, creativity, anger, expression of their feelings, mourning and worry.

Nobody wants to say it, but most women are emotionally unstable, without a man in the house. They need a man, or drugs, or they go nuts.

I did not know that the biggest selling drug is an anti-psychotic. That drug is primarily used for the treatment of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Under Obamacare, mental illness is supposed to be covered the same as physical illness. A separate story says nursing homes overuse this drug, and bill Medicare.

There is research showing that women change their mate preferences during their monthly cycles. There are also feminist scholars who deny this, as it implies that women are slaves to their hormones and emotions.

Opposing opinions on shared parenting

Family psychologist John Rosemond writes a newspaper op-ed:

When considering the issue of custody, domestic court judges often regard two divorcing parents who are equally responsible as deserving of equal time with their kids. They rule, therefore, that the kids will spend 132 days a year with one parent and 133 days with the other but that custody during birthdays and holidays will alternate from year to year. That’s very nice and virtually guarantees that neither parent is going to be upset, that they are both going to feel as if the court treated them fairly. Indeed, that is consistent with what they tell me: it’s fair.

No, it’s not fair. These judges are ruling for the best interests of the parents but their best interests are not the issue. Concerning custody, the children’s best interests should rule.

This shows the parent-hating attitude of the family psychologist. The judge should only settle the dispute between the parents, and leave the parents the responsibility of the kids.

But this psychologist has the leftist hivemind mentality of giving judges and psychologists control over deciding the BIOTCh.

Part if not most of the problem is that in divorces that involve children, the kids are often regarded as prizes to be “won.” ... The norm is warfare in which the kids are both suicide bombers and disputed territories.

The proactive solution is the traditional arrangement where one parent has primary custody and the other has the kids every other weekend, a month or so during the summer, and on alternating birthdays and holidays.

If equally shared parenting were the law, then there would be no such war and prizes in the vast majority of the cases. The war is created by the idea that judges and psychologists should decide the BIOTCh.

Psychology professor Linda Nielsen replies that the research overwhelmingly favors share parenting anyway:

Last year, 110 international experts on child development, early childhood attachment and divorce reached a ground-breaking consensus -- shared parenting, including frequent overnighting with both parents for infants and toddlers, is in children’s best interests.

Too many mental health professionals and professors offer recommendations about parenting plans that are based on their personal beliefs -- not on empirical data. Indeed many of these professionals have never read the available research. Just as some poorly informed doctors offer outdated or harmful advice about medical treatments, there are professionals who offer advice to judges and mental health practitioners that is not research-based.

More troubling still, many of these speakers and writers convincingly present their opinions as if they were actually reporting empirical data – a disguise that is not only disingenuous but potentially harmful to children whose lives are affected by judges’ and mental health practitioners’ decisions regarding custody issues. In short, too many well intentioned judges and practitioners have been misled into accepting advice that is not based on empirical evidence.

Shared parenting is not about parents’ rights. It is about making the best choices for children -- decisions that are firmly grounded in research -- not on the personal opinions of parents, seminar speakers, mental health professionals or judges.

To me, the best arguments for shared parenting are those of freedom, personal autonomy, and maintaining the family as a basic unit of civilization. If you value those things, it is obvious that shared parenting is better. The alternatives involve involve a vast invasion of civil liberties and social order.

Of course the research favors shared parenting, and the judges and psychologists who say otherwise are following their prejudices.

I got this from the National Parents Organization blog, and it does a fine job, but it is not enuf.

Apparently no one accepts an argument on either side unless it is phrased in terms of child interests. This is like the inmates running the asylum. The parents should be in charge of the kids. End of story.

Our society has witnessed a vast deprivation of our civil liberties for the sake of leftoid control of the kids. The people have put up with it, without much debate.

The gun lobby has done a very good job of convincing the public, and then the political authorities, that gun possession is a matter of right. Yes, there are studies showing that guns make people safer in their homes and elsewhere, but the bigger argument is that having gun rights is an essential part of our freedom.

Why can't the dads convince anyone that parental custody and authority is a right, and an essential part of our freedom? We should not need these stupid social science studies. No man is free as long as some judge or psychologist is controlling the upbringing of his kids.

The Alan Turing Movie stinks

I finally watched The Imitation Game, the movie that supposedly tells the true story of mathematician Alan Turing. The true story would have been a good movie, but this was about 90% fiction. The screenwriter Moore said:

When you use the language of 'fact checking' to talk about a film, I think you're sort of fundamentally misunderstanding how art works. You don't fact check Monet's 'Water Lilies'. That's not what water lilies look like, that's what the sensation of experiencing water lilies feel like. That's the goal of the piece.

I should remember that line, and use it the next time someone catches me in a factual error.

Here are the makers describing what the movie is about:

Nora Grossman: When we were first were developing this screenplay we were very concerned with making this NOT your traditional bio-pic - not a sort of Merchant-Ivory period piece - and that was a guiding factor when we were developing the project. This was a sort of gay rights movie but also a thriller, Turing was the father of computer science and a gay man - so we wanted to draw on all the facets of this life to appeal to modern audiences - as well as World War Two enthusiasts, computer theorists, gay advocates - all kinds of people. ...

Graham Moore: This was a film about love, not a film about sex - and Alan Turing's love for Christopher is fundamental to his life. Alan fell in love with Christopher Morcom when he was a teenager and it was the great love of his life - I don't think he ever fell in love again, really, and we wanted to show how fundamental that relationship was to him. I think Christopher the person and Christopher the machine are really the sort of second character in the movie.

Turing is portrayed as a gay hero or martyr, but they sure have a funny view of that role. He never actually has sexual relations with anyone. He is portrayed as an emotional cripple as a result of some childhood bullying and tragedy. His homosexuality only comes into play as he is blackmailed by a Soviet bible-quoting spy into betraying his country and rejecting his fiancee. And in leading to his suicide 10 years later after a policeman suspects him of being a spy. Most of this is fiction.

His death was probably an accident. Supposedly he ate a cyanide apple, but no one even tested the apple for cyanide. He died a year after he completed the punishment for having sex with a teenaged boy, so it is doubtful that the events were related.

Homosexuality is secondary to being an Aspie hero and martyr. Throughout the movie, Turing is portrayed as having a mental illness that causes him to have no friends, to have no sense of humor, to not cooperate with his co-workers, to alienate his superiors, and to do silly things like separate the peas and carrots on his lunch plate. His best friend is the machine that tries German crypto keys, and he is devastated when it is destroyed at the end of the war.

Again, most of this is false. This article says humor was a big part of him. This Wash. Post article gives a glimpse of why Turing was admired, none of which is in the movie accurately.

In the movie, Turing decides to let the Germans kill the brother of one his 5 co-workers who are doing all the decoding of German messages. In reality, England had thousands on the decoding project, but none had the authority to order military attacks.

There are many scenes mocking Turing as an aspie. For example, his co-workers say that they are going for lunch, and he does not understand that they are inviting him. Of course they did not say that they were inviting him, and it makes just as much sense to interpret the scene as showing his co-workers being poor communicators. But the movie is all about Turing, so he is the one being blamed for the poor communication.

In another scene, a young Turing complains people often mean something other than what they say. This is used as a reason for him to get interested in cryptography, but it is also an Asperger stereotype. That is, Turing is the type to say what he means and mean what he says. A lot of men are like that, but in Turing it is presented as a pathology.

Some people do claim that Turing had Asperger syndrome (high-functioning autism), based on this list of symptoms:

School report described him as "antisocial"
Only one friend at school
Unable to control younger boys at school or manage co-workers
No attempt to socialise with academic superiors
Interests in science, mathematics, chemistry, codes and ciphers, nature
Always ate an apple before bed
House was cluttered with whatever he was interested in at the time
Always put the cork back in the wine bottle at the end of a meal
Often worked through the night
Wrote about his work to people with no scientific background
Stiff gaze in photographs
Lack of eye contact
Awkward appearance
Characteristic response to presentation of new ideas (stabbed fingers and said "I see, I see")
High pitched voice
Misunderstood enrolment form for Home Guard
Over-analysed colleagues' approaches
Poor handwriting
Always got ink on his collar at school

Really? How can people regard this stuff as symptomatic of a serious mental disorder? Well, not everyone does, as Asperger was removed from the DSM-5.

I know this is just a movie, but Hollywood nearly always portrays mathematicians as insane, such as in A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting. No one complains about it. If you do, the common response is that mathematicians really are crazy. Or point out that Hollywood stereotypes a lot of other groups also.

The TV and movie aspie traits seem to be based on Hollywood stereotypes, as opposed to diagnosable symptoms. The TV show The Big Bang Theory has a character Sheldon Cooper who is widely regarded as an aspie, even tho the producers deny that they had any such intent and he does not match the textbook symptoms. The movie Turing is like the TV Sheldon in that he arrogantly picks fights by claiming that he is smarter than everyone else, and is a pain to everyone around him. Real-life aspies are not nearly so confrontational.

These stereotypes are apparently firmly held. I once talked to a woman who confidently asserted that Sheldon would lose custody of any child in family court, and would deserve to lose it. When I asked her why, she got all emotional and said she could not explain it, but it is obvious.

Maybe she is right, as some deep prejudices are at work here. If nerds and scientists are really such bad parents, then it should be fairly easy for statistics to prove it. But there is no such evidence. Sheldon's obnoxious traits probably would irritate the judge, but that should not change a decision, if the system worked properly. If you want to see the emotional and illogical thinking of a non-scientist mom, check out this Free Range Kids post.

The average dopey woman or psychologist would probably say that Penny would be a better parent than Sheldon. If Penny marries Leonard and he takes charge of the relationship, then maybe she would be a good mom. Otherwise, she would be a nightmare.

This movie has been widely praised as deserving of Oscars, and as promoting the LGBTQIA cause. I do not think that it helps their cause. The movie took the story of a great man, and rewrote it as a story of a man ruined by homosexuality. Homosexuality leads him to betray his country, his fiancee, and himself. He would have been much happier if he married his fiancee.

The movie's real hatred is for mathematicians. Yes, it needed fact checking. Besides all the gross factual misrepresentations, this movie does not give the feel of Turing, his work, his personality, code-breaking, or any of that. His biggest idea of the movie is to use guesses about the messages to cut down on the key search. That is the most obvious idea of all. What were they doing for their first year of work, if not that?

The real Turing was a computer pioneer who had some brilliant ideas that are easily explained. The movie would have been much better if it explained what he really did, as opposed to inventing all these crazy stories about things that never happened.

The movie is expected to get the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. That means that the critics approve of turning a factual book into nonsense. I do not accept the argument that movies necessitate such fabrications. It also got nominations in the other big categories: best picture, best director, best actor, and best supporting actress.

I get judged by judges, psychologists, and social workers who probably get their prejudices from movies like this. Thanks, Hollywood. I wish you never made this rotten movie.

Update: This movie did indeed win Best Adapted Screenplay, as expected. Here is another rant about how bad it is:

The most disappointing thing about the Oscar-nominated film The Imitation Game can be summed up in the way that Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician played by Benedict Cumberbatch, answers his boss, Commander Denniston, when Denniston asks him why he needs to build a machine to crack the Germans’ unbreakable code.

“It’s highly technical,” Turing says, dismissive. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Turing may as well have been speaking to the audience, not just his sneering commander, because for a movie about a technological pioneer making a technological breakthrough, The Imitation Game barely deals with technology at all.

Instead of an inventor, it shows a stereotype. Instead of a machine, it shows an obsession. And instead of inspiring us to follow in the footsteps of a person who shaped technology, the film inspires us only to get out of the way of the next genius who can.

That drew this comment:

The movie got four things right!

1. Alan Turing was gay.
2. He was briefly engaged to his coworker lady friend.
3. He worked on Enigma.
4. He died after the war.

Besides that it was a complete fiction. "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" was more historically accurate. ...
Sadly, the real story is way more interesting and moved much faster than the movie.

The true story would have been a much better movie.

Update: I did not watch the Oscars. Did it really have some gay guy prancing around in his underwear? And Moore, the Turing scriptwriter, whining about how he tried to commit suicide so he was like Turing? I am glad I did not watch it.

Update: Moore's Turing acceptance speech was so gay that he had to publicly deny that he was gay. Seems to me that he could have shown his liberal cred by saying that he was bisexual or a cross-dresser or something.

Update: Moore also has White House connections:

Moore’s mother is Susan Sher, who was Michelle Obama’s chief of staff and is now coordinating the push to have Obama’s presidential library located in Chicago. But their relationship is beyond professional – they’ve been friends for years.

Update: The gays and lesbians praised Moore, until he announced that he was not gay. They were offended that he would compare gays to bullied non-gays:

But it’s also important to note that being gay simply isn’t the same as being a “geek.” Moore may see them as comparable (and, though he has identified himself as straight, his affect may have opened him up to homophobic bullying), but the truth of the matter is that the social force behind anti-gay prejudice is far stronger and more pernicious than the animus against social outcasts.

So Moore looks and acts gay, but unless he is taking it in the rear end, his concerns do not count. These people are sick.

Likewise Patricia Arquette got heat for complaining about treatment of straight white women, while ignoring all the other groups.

Pentagon claims Putin has Asperger

USA Today reports:

A study from a Pentagon think tank theorizes that Russian President Vladimir Putin has Asperger's syndrome, "an autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions," according to the 2008 report obtained by USA TODAY.

Putin's "neurological development was significantly interrupted in infancy," wrote Brenda Connors, an expert in movement pattern analysis at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Studies of his movement, Connors wrote, reveal "that the Russian President carries a neurological abnormality." ...

Researchers can't prove their theory about Putin and Asperger's, the report said, because they were not able to perform a brain scan on the Russian president. The report cites work by autism specialists as backing their findings. It is not known whether the research has been acted on by Pentagon or administration officials.

The 2008 report cites Dr. Stephen Porges, who is now a University of North Carolina psychiatry professor, as concluding that "Putin carries a form of autism."

There is no brain scan test to determine if a man has Asperger Syndrome. There is not even any such thing anymore, as it has been dropped from the DSM-5.

Both reports, the 2008 study of Putin and a 2011 analysis of Putin and then-President Dimitry Medvedev, cite Putin's physical difficulties as shaping his decision making and behavior. "His primary form of compensation is extreme control," which "is reflected in his decision style and how he governs," the report said.

Military analysts first noticed Putin's movement patterns on Jan. 1, 2000, "in the first television footage ever seen of the then, newly appointed president of Russia," wrote Connors, who has been studying movement patterns for the Pentagon since 1996.

"Today, project neurologists confirm this research project's earlier hypothesis that very early in life perhaps, even in utero, Putin suffered a huge hemispheric event to the left temporal lobe of the prefrontal cortex, which involves both central and peripheral nervous systems, gross motor functioning on his right side (head, rib cage, arm and leg) and his micro facial expression, eye gaze, hearing and voice and general affect," the report said.

It this sort of crap were in a child custody evaluation, I would say that the court was being misled with psycho voodoo. I hate to think that our foreign policy is driven by this sort of nonsense.

Time-ins instead of time-outs

This article claims to apply the latest brain research to child discipline:

She is part of a progressive new group of scientists, doctors, and psychologists whose goal is ambitious, if not outright audacious: they want to redefine “discipline” in order to change our culture. They want to rewrite, or perhaps more precisely said, rewire how we approach interacting with kids, and they want us to understand that our decisions about parenting affect not only our children’s minds, but ours as well.

So, we’re going to need to toss out our old discipline mainstays. Say goodbye to timeouts. So long spanking and other ritualized whacks. And cry-it-out sleep routines? Mercifully, they too can be a thing of the past. And yet, we can still help our children mature and grow. In fact, people like Bryson think we’ll do it better. If we are going to take seriously what science tells us about how we form relationships and how our mind develops, we will need to construct new strategies for parenting, and when we do, says this new group of researchers, we just may change the world.

They are against spanking, of course, and horrified that spanking is correlated with dark skin, low income, and Republican politics.

They also urge time-ins instead of time-outs, and claim that the stress of putting a kid to bed the wrong way can have long-term consequences. A child having a tantrum at bedtime could be like a soldier getting PTSD.

A century ago, the Freudian psychologists claimed that science proved that much adult neuroses are caused by improper toilet training as a toddler, such as learning too soon or late. Freud's theory was never proved.

I am not sure the modern theories are any more scientific. I have my own common sense opinions about putting a kid to bed, but I cannot prove that there is any long-term advantage. According to the article, this is the biggest conversation topic among parents of toddlers today.

New British crime: controlling behavior

Bad ideas from Sweden and Japan do not necessarily come here, but England seems way ahead of us with its feminist nanny state laws, and we usually get their bad ideas. Here is the latest:

If ‘controlling behaviour’ is made a criminal offence, no relationship is safe.

I have always thought that otherwise sensible people can turn into complete nutcases around their partners. Relatively mellow people can become obsessed with the most insignificant nonsense when it involves their other half. This is because relationships involve the development of a peculiar, often pretty weird dynamic, which often only makes sense to those involved. I thought this was all pretty normal and had been part and parcel of relationships since the dawn of time. Last week, the UK government made it clear that it thinks I am wrong.

UK home secretary Theresa May announced that a new offence of ‘controlling and coercive behaviour’ is to be introduced to combat the threat of ‘extreme psychological and emotional abuse’ within relationships. Examples of this so-called abuse include: ‘preventing the victim from having friendships or hobbies; refusing them access to money; and determining many aspects of their everyday life.’ The new offence follows the government’s expansion of the official definition of domestic violence in 2013 to include emotional and psychological harm (under the new category of ‘domestic abuse’).

The latest move was justified on the basis of a consultation over the summer. The government said that 85 per cent of those consulted were in favour of reforming the law on domestic violence.

Really? 85% want the government to oversee and micro-manage how a couple influence each other in a relationship? I doubt it.

I posted about this UK law before, and got these comments:

Justin said...
My thoughts exactly. When I heard they were making "emotional abuse" a crime, my first thought was, holy shit, WAAAY more women than men are emotionally abusive. Emotional abuse and controlling behavior are a female specialty.

Quartermain said...
I have the feeling that the law would only enforce unilaterally.

Yes, as a practical matter, men are not going to call 911 to complain about a controlling wife, and no one is going to take them seriously even if they do. There are not any limits to what women will complain about.

For an example of female manipulation, here is a current letter to the Slate advice columnist:

Dear Prudence,
My girlfriend is what you would call “judgy” and it’s seeping into our personal life. She’s constantly saying my behavior is not normal, which includes such things as the way I stock the fridge. When she doesn’t like my opinion or the way I’ve phrased something, she proclaims that we’re going to have a new restriction about what I’m allowed to say. When I was a grad student and took longer than she liked to study for an exam, she called up my friends to find out how long it took them to study. When she was mad that I couldn’t go out on a certain weekend, she took down all the photos of us in her apartment. How do I put an end to this judgmental and controlling behavior? I feel like I’m on eggshells. We actually have a good time together until I say the wrong phrase, don’t abide by her schedule perfectly, or don’t meet other expectations.
—Tiptoeing

I have never heard of a man doing this sort of nonsense.

One reason that women get away with ridiculous complaints is the white knight phenomenon -- there is always a man to stick up for a woman no matter how unreasonable she is. Not sure if it is some hormonal response or misplaced chivalry, but they are despised in some quarters for doing it.

Speaking of manosphere jargon about male-female differences, CH quotes:

GAME is all the techniques and strategies to get better with women, including negging, cold reading, push pull, frame control, but also self improvement topics like working out, better posture, career development. The RED PILL, in contrast, is the deeper understanding that women are not sugar and spice and everything nice, that they in fact have a strong need to be sexually overwhelmed and dominated, that they are fundamentally emotional and childlike, that their concept of truth is not the same as that of men, and that their core nature is not to be loyal. The red pill teaches men to love and appreciate women as they are, not as we want them to be.

These concepts are widely misunderstood. They are rooted in scientific knowledge about human nature, and evolutionary psychology response to it.

3 bad trends in the British nanny state

The UK is way ahead of us with the nanny state, and with various leftoid forces that are ruining the country. The London Telegraph explains:

Among the many serious puzzles raised by the peculiar workings of our “child protection” system, three continually recur. One is a huge increase in the number of children now being removed from their parents on grounds of “emotional abuse”. This has been by far the biggest contributor to the explosion in the numbers of children taken into care since the “Baby P” scandal in 2008, rising by 92 per cent. And most have not been for actual emotional abuse but simply for the possible “risk” of such abuse happening in the future. A second charge against parents which comes up too often is their failure to “co-operate with professionals”, such as the social workers who are tearing their family apart. A third, used to justify 90 per cent of child removals, is the role of those “independent” psychologists hired by social workers to report that the parents suffer from such vague conditions as “borderline personality disorder”, or “narcissism”, leading them to “put their own interests above those of the children”.

Yes, those are three horrible anti-parent trends, and an appeal just upheld all three.

Everyone agreed, as an earlier judge found, that the children were “thriving”, that the parents were devoted to them and had done them no harm. But the same psychologist again found the mother not fully fit to look after her boys and said there might therefore be a “risk” of future harm. When the social workers removed the children, relations between them and the father grew so fraught that, when he accused one of them outside a courtroom of lying, and the social worker pushed him, he took a defensive swing at the man’s head and was fined £430 for assault. The father then refused to allow his baby to go through a traditional temple naming ceremony because, in defiance of Hindu rules, the social workers insisted on being present. ...

Anyway, the father had already abused his children, both by hitting a social worker in his older son’s presence (even though the boy had been yards away at the time), and then by refusing to allow the younger boy to be named.

The social worker probably deserved to be punched. But whether he did or not, punching a social worker should not be consider child abuse.

The way we are going, any sub-optimal behavior will be considered child abuse. If you are rude to a stranger, CPS might claim that you are setting a bad example for your kid, and hence call it child abuse.

It was a mere oversight that this woman had been described in council documents as “Dr”, when she was nothing of the kind.

Yes, here in the USA we have clowns with mail-order degrees that get called "Doctor" by the court.

I used to respect the British system of justice, since we got ours from them. However it is absurd to punish parents for risk of future emotional abuse. That is what CPS did to me. It is arbitrary and capricious. In the British system of centuries ago that still gets taught in American law schools, no such charge is legitimate.

Another problem that we also now have is psychologists claiming that some parents have a problem leading them to “put their own interests above those of the children”. The opposite would be a mental illness. That is, all normal parents put their own interests above those of the children, for some of the time at least. You can't be babying your kid all the time. This is just some stupid psychologist buzz phrase that was invented to blame parents when there is no substantial complaint.

Here are some of the online comments:

FOLLOW THE MONEY:- Judges, Lawyers, Court Guardians, all making their fortunes, carers being paid £400/week for "each" child tax free - more than most families have to feed their entire families'. £5000 for a hired gun Psychiatrist for making a report favourable to the Social Workers.
The so called Child Protection Agency aka the Child Cruelty Agency, labelled in the Daily telegraph Callous, Cruel and Corrupt. They purger themselves in the secret family courts with impunity. The most absurd accusations are made and accepted by judges. Of a case in Enfield which unusually was given publicity; the Judge said that of a dozen accusations made, every accusation was false or misleading. Yet not a single Enfield employee was punished or named.
There is no defence against an accusation of Emotional Abuse or Potential Emotional Abuse, it is a trick learnt in the Witch trials, the accused can not win.
Social Workers are Nazis and re-incarnated Witch Finder Generals as are those who are happy to support and work for them.
It is time for justice and for these people to be named and put in the stocks, their day of judgement is at hand.

My long held view: There is no situation so dire that it cannot be made worse by the intervention of a social worker.

The solution is so simple,so simple ! No child should be taken from a parent unless that parent has been charged and subsequently convicted of a crime against children.Criminal courts replace family courts,innocent until proved guilty and no children ever removed for "risk".
We have laws in uk and those who break them are rightly punished;How can it make any sense if we punish those who do NOT break any laws by removing their children? The President of the family court Sir James Munby recently stated quite rightly that to remove a baby at birth from a mother was the worst punishment that could be given since the abolition of capital punishment ! Who can argue with that?

My Name is Bhupeshkumar Patel
I am the Daddy of Baby no name.
The point you are all missing is these people steal children for a living.

This is disgusting. When can we have the revolution? Who judges the judges?

Aren't we always being told that the English legal system is so much superior than the systems of those dastardly foreigners?
These star chamber like proceedings of the English courts make these claims extremely dubious.

Which is the greater danger to children, 'emotional abuse' or a psychologist?

The rationale of the state -- judge, social workers, psychologists et al -- make perfect sense if one becomes acquainted (as I have recently) with the phenomenon of "collectivism" -- a euphemism for socialism, communism, fascism, et al. Essentially, it is an ideology of totalitarian control, where the state knows best, and the individual is expected to submit willingly and happily to the interests of the group for the betterment of society.

Collectivism is the ideology that has taken hold of our democracies, both here and in America. It has been brought in by stealth, without consulting the electorate, and it functions by coercion. Things such as the taking away of children against the wishes of their parents because the authorities think it best is an example of collectivism in action.

G. Edward Griffin explains it well in laymen's terms in various videos on YouTube, although he is based in America. "Collectivism" is the new tyranny, and the direction our government is taking in Britain, secretly, whilst pretending to advocate democracy and government via elections. Just thought you might like to know .....

Date-rape drugging sheltered from DSM-5

When women make a rape accusation days, weeks, or even years afterwards, they always get the question about why they did not report it earlier, or why witnesses say that she was a willing participant. Sometimes the answer is that the rapist must have used a date-rape drug!

The NY Times reports:

He had money, charisma, movie star looks and no apparent reason to drug his sexual partners. But he did it anyway, according to multiple accusers, who remember little except losing consciousness and waking up partly dressed and molested.

That case — of Andrew Luster, a cosmetics heir convicted in 2003 in Ventura County, Calif., of raping three women after dosing them with a date-rape drug — is distinct from comedian Bill Cosby’s. Women have accused Mr. Cosby of drugging and raping them over a period of decades; he has denied the allegations and not been charged.

Yet the stories the men’s accusers tell raise an overarching question: Why would someone who has seemingly easy access to consensual sex resort to drugging?

So there is a question for the dopey psychologist experts.

Maybe it is like space alien abduction. Abductees often tell similar stories, and claimed that they were programmed or drugged to forget the details of what happened.

Freud got into trouble with feminists for claiming that women's stories of sex abuse were made-up fantasies. So the shrink don't dare say that anymore. So they blame it on the accused:

One of those motives is obvious: simple opportunism, the reason men have spiked women’s drinks (or less commonly, women men’s) since the dawn of cocktail hour. Another is coercion; the perpetrator is aroused by domination, forcing his (or rarely, her) sexual will on the target.

“This is common enough that we debated whether to include it as a diagnosis in the D.S.M. 5,” psychiatrists’ influential diagnostic manual, said Dr. Michael First, a Columbia psychiatrist who edited it. But the idea was shelved, in part because of concerns that doing so would give rapists added recourse in legal cases, he said.

A third and far less common motive is a rare kind of “paraphilia"— an unusual sexual preference that becomes compulsive. “In this case, it’s a preference for unresponsive partners,” Dr. Cantor said.

The DSM-5 is the official book of psychiatric disorders. It has a pretense of being scientific, but as the editor just admitted, they made their decisions based on social justice political opinions, rather than on scientific merit.

My readers will not be too surprised at bad criteria being used for the DSM-5. I have posted many stories about dubious disorders and how the committee is politicized. Sometimes they loosen criteria in order to make state funding more readily available, and sometimes they tighten criteria in order to avoid stigma.

Probably their most famous decisions were to make homosexuality a disorder, and then when closeted gay psychiatrists infiltrated the committee to eliminate the disorder. The decision was ultimately made as a political vote of the membership, and not based on any scientific evidence. You can listen to a pro-gay NPR version of the story.

But I am surprised that the DSM-5 come right out and admit that they excluded a disorder in an attempt to manipulate the legal system to convict more defendants.

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.

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.