Sunday, April 26, 2015

GoFundMe Tells Sweet Cakes To Go Fund Themselves

Aaron and Melissa Klein ran a bakery in Gresham, Oregon for seven years called "Sweet Cakes By Melissa." They had to close their store in 2013 after judge Alan McCullough fined them $135,000 in a civil judgement. Their crime? Refusing to bake a gay-themed "wedding cake" for two lesbians, Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman.

The judgement is meant to compensate Cryer and Bowman for "emotional, mental, and physical suffering."

On Rachel Cryer's Twitter page, she describes herself as an "angry lesbian." Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I believe the lesbians' lawsuit is nothing more than lawfare, a targeted lawsuit designed to inflict pain and suffering.

A Christian Charity recognized this judgement for what it is: persecution of Christians for their beliefs. President Franklin Graham and Samaritan's Purse started a GoFundMe page to help the Kleins raise enough money to pay the fine.

The Gay Mafia wasn't too pleased with this development. Apparently, it is no longer enough to mount boycotts and send death threats to the couple and their five children. Homosexual activists want to bulldoze the site and salt the earth.

They began a campaign to pressure GoFundMe to cancel the donation page for the Klein's. I scoured the company's Twitter feed and find no evidence of a massive Twitter campaign. It's possible the activists DM'd the company and thus those messages are private. Most likely, the homosexual hive used listserv, and coordinated an email campaign directed at GoFundMe.

Either way, they applied enough pressure to GoFundMe for the donation page to be removed. The reason for the removal? GoFundMe claims that the donation page violated it's Terms of Service, specifically the section forbidding raising funds "in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes."

The definition of "heinous" is hatefully or shockingly evil. I wouldn't even call the link between "not baking a cake" and "shockingly evil" tenuous. I would call it non-existent. It is a shameful day in America where the free exercise of religion is no longer protected by the Constitution, but worthy of being described as "formal charges of heinous crimes."

I think GoFundMe got it wrong. I believe that they have the right to do so. I won't quibble with their Terms of Service. Maybe just point out that their T.O.S. is codified discrimination. I just believe that they stretched the definitions within to satisfy a vocal, angry minority. I hope that there is enough backlash from supporters of the Kleins to at least bring GoFundMe to a Come To Jesus moment.

In the meantime, every business that may potentially be targeted by malevolent homosexuals ought to institute Terms of Service. Make one of them say something about forbidding depictions of lascivious or abnormal behavior.

On this Sunday, as the church bells ring, let them ring out justice for the Kleins.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Rape Culture

Seemingly every day I read about references to "rape culture" in relation to various American institutions, such as academia, the military, and popular culture. Wikipedia describes "rape culture" as one in which rape is "pervasive and normalized." This is because of behaviors that "include victim blaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, [and] denial of widespread rape."

Funny how Fifty Shades of Grey is never brought up in discussions of sexual objectification. This is because of an uncomfortable truth for feminists, that most women want to be sexually desired and dominated.

Radical feminists would like us to believe that we are in the midst of a national rape epidemic. This is all done for political reasons, so that the radfems and their social justice dilettantes can install their cadre into positions of power. The fact is, that rape has been declining for forty years.

Nevertheless, radfems have decided that what we need is a moral panic. One way they hope to accomplish this is by pushing meaningless statistics. One statistic that has no inherent context, and is being promoted by RAINN, claims that only three percent of rapists ever receive punishment. This is an estimate presented as fact, which can only discourage women from reporting their rape. After all, there is virtually no chance that your rapist will ever be punished. That statistic relies on a rape reporting rate that is little more than a guess, and isn't limited to forcible rape. Various degrees of sexual assault, attempted rape, and rape threats are included to inflate the total.

Leaders at all major institutions are in a state of hypervigilance about rape and sexual assault. The Secretary of the Army recently insisted that preventing sexual assault was his "top priority." I believe the Secretary's top priority is combat readiness, and his remarks about sexual assault are a way to avoid being hauled up to Capitol Hill and being interrogated by Claire McCasharridan and Kirsten Gilliharpy.

Using a term like "rape culture" implies that environmental influences are the main causal factors behind sexual violence. One thing these cultural commentators always ignore is that we are in the midst of the greatest sociological experiment in human history. Generation after generation of boys and girls are being raised by single mothers. Millions of boys with no male role model. Millions of girls who never experienced a dominant male modeling desirable behaviors.

There is recent, compelling evidence that genetics plays a decisive role in determining whether a person commits rape. Since most rapes are committed by repeat offenders, my theory is that rapists are missing important empathy traits, much like most psychopaths. These people may interpret sexual resistance as a play signal. No amount of "Take Back The Night" rallies and sensitivity training will affect brains like these.

This is not to say that the way that men and women are socialized does not play a role in how sexual encounters are experienced. The current moral panic about rape may be backlash from the sexual liberation of the 1960's. Women have been conditioned to expect sex without attachments, and they are not emotionally equipped to deal with that. One way women used to be expected to control the outcome of sexual encounters was by "playing hard to get." This has conditioned generations of men to interpret "no" as less of a stop sign than a flashing red light: proceed, but with caution.

The term "rape culture" comprises a constellation of fallacies. One is an appeal to emotion. It is right to defer to the feelings of rape victims. So much so that today, the elevated status of a rape victim may be tempting for broken women to aspire to.

Another fallacy is the appeal to authority. Rape victims are no longer called victims. They, and victims of sexual assault, are now referred to as "survivors." This is done to elevate their moral authority above all others.

A third fallacy comprising the term "rape culture" is an appeal to science. In this case, the appeal is to social science, with cherry-picked statistics, conclusions in search of data, and ignoring evidence that disproves a desired conclusion.

Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valenti have spilled copious ink defending the perpetrators of UVA's gang rape hoax. They and others have been conspicuously silent on the gang rape on a Panama City Beach, or the systematic rape factory known as Rotherham. This is because the perpetrators afflict the narrative. As members of protected classes, they must not be identified.

The magazine Everyday Feminism has a top-ranked Google page entitled Examples of Rape Culture. The page is a collection of broken links, Richard Mourdock references, and absolution of women for any and all negligent behavior. Each of the twenty-five on this list is supposed proof that women face a rape gauntlet, and public indifference to it, everytime they leave the house.

For example, one item says that "sexual assault prevention education programs focus on women being told to take measures to prevent rape instead of men being told not to rape." The penalty for a convicted rapist is prison. This fact is not being kept secret. Part of a prison sentence's intent is punishment, part is deterrence. Punishing rapists and deterring would-be rapists is more effective than so-called positive reinforcement. All the sensitivity training in the world won't deter a psychopathic rapist. Neither will awarding them a cookie for not raping or not cat-calling.

Women used to be expected to guard their virtue. There was a strong evolutionary reason they did so. This was one way that a male could ensure the children he was helping to raise belonged to him. Today, this concept is vulgarly referred to as "slut-shaming." Police investigating sexual violence are being discouraged from inquiring whether a female was walking home alone, or drinking too much. This is now called re-traumatizing the victim. Also, rape jurisprudence is being dropped from law school curricula. This is leading to erosion of due process protections for men accused of sexual violence. The constitutional guarantee of equal protection before the law may not apply to men.

Another item in the Everyday Feminism article decries "Rape jokes – and people who defend them." The link points to the website imgur.com, and is broken. Perhaps columnist Shannon Ridgeway was referring to when Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut. That insult launched a relentless campaign to silence him, that continues to this day. But when David Letterman jokes about Sarah Palin's 14-year old daughter being raped, so-called champions of the oppressed rush to his defense.

A joke about rape is tolerated if the person telling it is a Democrat supporter. It is also tolerated if the joke is about male rape. The movie My Cousin Vinny has a memorable bit about male rape anxiety. Every comedy involving incarceration has male rape as a prominent sub-theme. But that's ok, because males are the oppressor class, and it's always funny when they are afraid.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Trial Lawyers Ready For Hillary

San Diego attorney Johanna Schiavoni appeared on the local news this morning to gush admiration for the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. CW affiliate San Diego Six identified her as a political analyst/attorney. She was interviewed by Heather Myers, who generally hosts a balanced, professional conversation.

Her parley with Schiavoni was as soft as they get. Her first question was, "What do you think of the way she made the announcement?" Schiavoni replied, "I actually thought it was a brilliant move, and I was fascinated by the video."

Wow, that is some profound political analysis. Myers asked Schiavoni about Clinton's corrupt and paranoid tendencies, and would they rear up in the media, such as how "suddenly all these emails have vanished off her server." Uh, Heather, don't want to tell you how to do your job, but the emails didn't "vanish." Clinton's IT guy supposedly wiped the hard drive.

When Myers asked Schiavoni about Clinton's potential rivals in the G.O.P., Schiavoni said, "What's interesting about the Republican side is that the candidates are far less known, and a lot of them have very high negatives." How can they be unknowns, and also have very high negatives?

Identifying Schiavoni as a "political analyst" was an attempt to skirt F.C.C. rules for equal time by pretending her viewpoint was balanced. Shame on San Diego Six.

The segment was opinion disguised as analysis. Johanna Schiavoni should have disclosed her political affiliation. It took me one minute to find out that Schiavoni probably only contributes to Democratic causes and candidates. Just glancing at her 2008 contributions, shows donations to Organizing For America, Obama Victory Fund, Friends of Barbara Boxer, and Emily's List.

These contributions are material to the political issue at hand, and not disclosing them, while presenting yourself as a neutral political analyst, is dancing along a fine line.

It should also be incumbent on the news organization presenting the analysis to do some background due diligence on their guests. When I watch CNBC or Fox Business, they promote certain stocks. They always divulge whether the analyst owns stock in each company, or whether their family members do.

This disclosure should extend to political analysis. I don't think that it should be unlawful not to. We already have enough laws. It should be done because it is the right thing to do.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Men's Lives Matter

One thing about the killing of Walter Scott really jumped out at me. I haven't seen the video because I become disturbed quite easily. My morning news played the video a half-second after warning me that the contents "may be disturbing to some." I turned my head, changed the channel and watched a Western.

It is painful to become aware of yet another mis-application of force by a police officer. I know that Walter Scott was a black man. I'm not colorblind. But he was my age. By the time a man reaches fifty, the fight-flight-freeze response is pretty ingrained. The passions have cooled, and the urge to fight has subsided. Walter Scott could have frozen but he chose to run.

No matter the testimony of the officer involved or his fellow officers, the fact is that Walter Scott was shot in the back. That would have been revealed at the inquest, and a murder charge would have been sworn against the policeman.

What has agitated me so much about this incident is that it is reported that Walter Scott chose to run because he was afraid of being arrested on a family court warrant. He fled because he believed that there was a warrant for his arrest for failing to pay back child support.

It appears there was no such warrant. But that doesn't mean his decision to run was not supported by logic. According to NBC News, Scott had been arrested at least three times for missing child support payments.

It is counterproductive to jail men for missing child support payments. They are potentially cut off from their source of income. But that's not the only tool available to family court. They can also have a man's driver's licence or professional license revoked. Family court should not be invested with such police powers. They have far too much civil power as well.

Women file for divorce eighty percent of the time. That may be because there is a powerful financial incentive to do so. Chances are they will be awarded custody of the children. Women are awarded custody of minor children roughly eighty-five percent of the time. The non-custodial parent always pays the custodial parent.

Jailing people for failing to pay child support is something every good feminist should strive to equalize. There is a huge gender gap in warrants and jailings for missing child support payments. A man who is in arrears is eight times more likely to be incarcerated as a woman who is in arrears.

If a woman files for divorce, she should get nothing in the current no-fault system. Child support obligations should be mutually beneficial to all parties. If the man doesn't pay, he doesn't get to see the kids, and the kids will know that they have a selfish asshole for a dad.

My heart breaks for Walter Scott.


TED

 BUNDY WAS PROBABL TRANS NOOBODY TALKS ABOUT THIS...THEY/THEM LEFT DETAILED NOTES ON THERE/THEM OBSESSESH WITH THE VAG