The Twitter Is A Private Company Casuistry

Maybe by now you've heard that the Oregon bakery that refused to make a dyke wedding cake has closed for good. Sweet Cakes By Melissa was featured in this space in 2015.

You've got to love the headline in this Oregon Live report. Sweet Cakes was the company that "turned away lesbians." Should leave no doubt where Oregon Live's sympathies rest.

Sweet Cakes was very much a private company, and they were razed to the ground for expressing their constitutional rights. Two such rights were specifically enumerated in the Constitution: the free exercise clause and the free speech clause.

So don't bother defending Twitter when they ban someone for offensive speech. There is no such thing as free association in Weimerica.

Twitter, Inc. pays a 35% tax on their net profits. What is this other than a license fee to do business in America? Thought of another way, America is $20 trillion in debt with another couple hundred trillion in unfunded liabilities. In this regard, the government is allowing Twitter, Inc. to retain 65 percent of their net profit.

The common shares of Twitter, Inc are held by both private individuals and by public employee pension funds. Taxpayers like you pay the salary of the fireman, the teacher, and the policeman. A percentage is withheld and transferred to the pension fund, which then invests in Twitter.

Also, more Twitter employees are about to be laid off. These workers will receive unemployment checks for awhile. State unemployment insurance is a tax levied against employers, and pays out workers who have become "unemployed through no fault of their own."

The tax is funded by the employer, but is administered by the state. The state reserves the right to extend unemployment benefits unto infinity to avoid soup lines.

And another thing. The internet was reclassified as a Title II common carrier. There are hundreds of pages of regulations that every company has to follow to ensure that they act "in the public interest." This is supposed to regulate the behavior of ISPs, but a case can be made that Twitter is an internet service provider.

Either way, the notion that any company is a private club that can associate with whomever it pleases is a relic from a bygone era. Just ask Aaron and Melissa Klein.

Declaration Of Separation For New America

This is evidence of a coordinated campaign to deprive Ivanka Trump of her livelihood. What is the moral case for this, other than the fact that she helps campaign for her father?

It wasn't too long ago that Brendan Eich was the target of retribution for a thousand dollar donation he made to California's Prop. 8. The gay mafia laid in wait for six years before they forced him to resign as CEO of Mozilla Corp.

Eich's contribution, at the time, corresponded to the publicly stated positions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The candidacy of Donald Trump, on the other hand, comports with no commonly accepted norms. In the aftermath of the third Presidential debate, New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait declared that Trump was a "domestic insurrectionist."

It's just another way of calling him a Nazi. It does put Trump in some providential company.

King George III of England considered the founding fathers to be insurrectionists. Every single one of them placed their lives and property at risk. Should they have lost, they would have been hanged, and everything they owned would have been confiscated.

The coordinated state media's use of hyperbole has put Trump's life at risk. Obama probably wouldn't drone him if he won the election, but you never know. Certainly, the business empire that Trump has built, his posterity, has become ripe for forfeiture.

Good thing you decided not to contribute to his campaign. You thought about buying a hat, but inertia ensued. Now that you think about it, a campaign contribution in 2016 could haunt you ten years from now, so why bother? Maybe you should scrutinize my Twitter timeline and emails while you're at it.

Two hundred forty years ago, the men of New England presented the King with a list of grievances. Among them,

"He has refused his Assent to Laws"
"He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance"
"He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone"

In two hundred and forty years, what, exactly, has changed? Not one blessed thing. Then, as now, there were men of good will and faith who realized, with clear eyes, that their bygone reactions to countless insults just would not do.

Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize has a certain elegiac quality. It feels like a lifetime achievement award. We in the West have too much enthusiasm for canonizing our secular saints before they have passed.

The Nobel Prize is nothing more than signaling approval of those in the in-group. If it were sincere, they would have revoked the Peace prize awarded to the man who dropped ordnance on seven different countries recently.

What "outstanding contributions for humanity" in the field of literature has earned Bobby Zimmerman such distinction?

Being the voice of the most ill-begotten generation in human history: the baby boomers. They were the first generation in history to grow up without any material wants. As a result, they are the most morally bankrupt cohort in our history.

The baby boomers are in favor of preserving the environment. This means favoring regulations that limit new construction and keeps their home valuations high.

The baby boomers are mostly anti-war. They only favor war being waged against women and children so long as their guy is the one prosecuting it.

The baby boomers expect a continually expanding economy to the extent that they will saddle their children and grandchildren with debt.

And Dylan's award validates all their self-indulgent aspirations.

It's not really the fault of the boomers. They grew up without a dad.

They used to have a dad. He was young and handsome. But he was ripped away during their formative years. His pretty young wife also resembled the residual self image of their aspirations. Jackie wore a pillbox hat and scrambled around the rear deck of the Lincoln Continental trying to scoop up his brains and pieces of skull.

She was captured in her blood-and-tissue spattered pink skirt and jacket on the flight bearing him away from Dallas. Her right glove, white that morning, was caked in blood. Her left glove was missing.

Jackie Bouvier passed away more than twenty years ago. But her name lives on, in the fictional maiden name of a cartoon character whose husband is universally mocked.

America's step -dad was vulgar and rough, and started sending their brothers far away to kill and die. America went from smiling and waving from the open convertible to pulling the hard shell down around us.

If some maniac drops a nuclear bomb on me, I will comfort myself knowing they also got some sanctimonious asshole who loved Bob Dylan.

Voter's Guide To California's Ballot Propositions

Short answer: they usually cost money and should be voted against without hesitation. You can count the number of worthwhile California propositions on one hand. Prop. 13 capped property taxes and has been a smashing success. Prop. 187 prohibited illegal aliens from receiving state services like public education. It received nearly 59% support.

But Federal Judge Mariana Pfaelzer, a Carter appointee, blocked 187, and Governor Gray Davis refused to appeal. In the space of a generation since, California's demographics are radically different. The city of Santa Ana is now less than ten percent white.

Prop. 8 stated that "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California," and passed by over 600,000 votes. Black voters who put Barack Obama into office also put Prop. 8 over the top. That's all moot now.

Let's look at the propositions, anyway.

Prop. 51 would authorize nine billion dollars in bonds for schools. Just what we need! More indebtedness for the sake of our failing public schools.

Propositions 52, 53, 54 just don't care. There are eighteen statewide propositions on the ballot. Too much.

Prop. 55 extends the tax increase on Californians earning more than $250,000. Or, in the language of the proponents, it will ensure that the "wealthiest Californians continue to pay their share." Notice that they always call them the "wealthiest" instead of the "most productive."

Never mind the subversion of morality that allows society's takers to vote on measures that confiscate the earnings of the makers.

Prop. 56 raises the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $2.00. Why not by ten dollars?

Prop. 57 would increase parole and good behavior opportunities for felons convicted of nonviolent crimes and allow judges, not prosecutors, to decide whether to try certain juveniles as adults in court. These are two very distinct propositions that really should be voted on separately.

Prop. 58 repeals a previous initiative that mandated English-language instruction in public schools. It's the current year, and the idea that our citizens should understand the mother tongue is so retrograde.

Prop. 59 encourages our state's elected officials to use their authority to overturn Citizens United. Should California elected officials propose overturning the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

Prop. 60 would require those producing pornography to wear condoms. Yeah, we really need a state commissioner inspecting bukkake shoots in Chatsworth. The upside to this would be that these productions would move out-of-state.

Prop. 61 requires state agencies to pay the same prices that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) pays for prescription drugs. Vote yes on this if you support drug shortages.

Prop. 62 repeals the death penalty. California hasn't executed anyone since January 17, 2006. The fuck we even have it on the books for?

Prop. 63 prohibits the possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines and requires certain individuals to pass a background check in order to purchase ammunition. Which part of "shall not infringe" is hard to understand?

Prop. 64 legalizes recreational marijuana. A stoned electorate is a placid electorate.

Prop. 65 redirects money collected from the sale of carry-out bags by grocery or other retail stores to a special fund administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board. This requires the passage of Prop. 67, the plastic bag ban. Maybe the ban and its tax will fail, but the Wildlife Conservation Fund initiative will pass. They will probably take it to court and infer that the voters' intent was to pass the bag ban and tax anyway. Fuckers.

Prop. 66 changes the procedures governing state court appeals and petitions that challenge death penalty convictions and sentences. Probably a yes here. But what a gigantic clusterfuck with competing propositions. If this one passes and so does 62, the one with the most votes will become law. Whatever.

The "As Long As You're Not Hurting Anybody" Fallacy

i think everyone should sex w/ anyone they want as many times as they want as long as its legal/consensual/safe

how very conservative of me

— shoe 🎀 (@shoe0nhead) October 10, 2016

This is libertarian boilerplate, and people who describe themselves as "liberal on social issues," subscribe to this. But the question whether people should be free to make mistakes is different from endorsing any degeneracy as long as it's safe.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson had sex with tens of thousands of women, all of whom conceivably "consented" to it. However, somewhere along the line, Johnson contracted HIV and unwittingly exposed thousands of women to the disease. He also brought the specter of AIDS into his marital bed. Not so magic anymore.

Infidelity is but one reason to be wary of this fallacy. Consider the production of pornography. Both parties "consent" to the activity. But the production of pornography depends on a steady stream of damaged young women willing to be consumed. These are not whole women. These are sick women, virtually all of them at one time the victim of sexual abuse.

A mentally ill woman, impaired by her haunting memories, cannot be said to be offering her fully informed consent with anything approaching a sound mind. Therefore, her "consent" itself is corrupted.

Another exception is the practice of prostitution, at least in places where it is legal. We have been fed this narrative that prostitutes are savvy, noble creatures who are putting money aside for a house or for college. Just like the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman, or the Jamie Lee Curtis character in Trading Places.

However, the majority of these women are not heroic single mothers, but drug abusers paying for their narcotic. Then there is the question of supply, which the prostitution industry solves somewhat with human trafficking. So, yes, the encounter feels "consensual" but ignores the very real suffering that goes on.

All of these counter-arguments are merely temporal concerns. There are also spiritual concerns that are beyond the capacity of the self-described "rational, skeptical," minds like Shoe to consider. But the emptiness of a sexual encounter that is little more than mutual masturbation transcends the space and time of what the "rational, skeptical" mind believes takes place inside a vacuum.

When you drop a rock into a pond, it sinks to the bottom and may not disturb any other on its path downward. But it does create a wave on the surface of the pond. A single wave may seem inconsequential. But as countless pebbles and stones are being cast into the abyss, the aggregate collisions eventually reach the shore, and swamp the bystander.

Nesting Pairs Celebrate Barren Nests

The story today is about young couples having parties to celebrate the male partner having a vasectomy.

"Instead of baby showers, couples now invite friends for 'car showers' or 'boat showers' in honor of the toys they'll buy with the money they save."

A car starts depreciating the moment you drive it off the lot. Signing the loan docs and turning the key takes a thousand dollars off its value. Within a few years, the thing is consumed and is worth no more than the sum of its parts.

It's evocative of the movie, The Island, where humans are raised just to be spare parts for other people. In a way, people who give themselves over to a consumer lifestyle are just consumables themselves. Their life has no more meaning than that of an office five-in-one printer/fax machine that just exists, one day to be thrown away or parted out.

It's very telling that couples are celebrating the destruction of the man's virility. Chances are, a man that submits to this is a beta male who would be perfectly willing to raise another other man's children, anyway.

The woman gets to keep her procreative ability and sexual market value intact. She can walk away the second a higher status male appears. The fact that a man would subject himself to this procedure is proof enough that his feminization occurred long ago.

These "vasectomy parties" are like going-away parties for a man's virility. It's nice to have support when you go through an experience like this. There are people who will hold your hand and tell you that you are doing the right thing.

But these people won't want you around when they start having families. They will want to hang out with other parents.

And they sure won't be around when you say your final bon voyage. That is going to be a solo trip. There won't even be anyone around to scatter your ashes.

Instead of getting a vasectomy, why not just donate your organs today? Give them to someone who will actually use and appreciate them.

Lieutenant Colonel Treespirit Indigo Rainforest

The regressive left has long believed that America is a nation virtually beyond redemption. Our manifest sins - imperialism, slavery, consumerism - have rendered us deplorable. To remedy this, they set about remaking our country in their image of equality.

They have remade our institutions so completely that now I, the reactionary in the wilderness, would have to agree with them.

America is less a republic than a national diversity symposium.

The Air Force has announced a set of thirteen inclusion initiatives. With the exception of the Marine Corps, every branch of service is now hopelessly pozzed. And the Marine Corps doesn't have true autonomy - they were forced to accept women in combat positions in spite of their inferior performances.

"Diversity and inclusion are national security imperatives," according to Air Force Director of Diversity and Inclusion Chevalier Cleaves.

Anyone who thinks the Air Force needs a Diversity Czar is a hopeless faggot. Neoliberals believe that they are eradicating nation-states and this will make war obsolete. To the neoliberal, the purpose of the military is to stage humanitarian operations, like after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Occasionally, they will call on the military to depose an authoritarian like Gaddafi.

This is because of their blind faith in human beings as blank slates that can imprinted with the desire for charity and consideration. The notion that a capacity for barbarity and cruelty exists in everybody is alien to them.

What happens when the Native American lesbian receives an order to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack? "They only attacked us because of our colonialist imperialism, General. We should try to empathize with them instead of missile them, Xir."

The diversity hire believes in conflict resolution and deescalation. The military imperative is demonstrating the capability and willingness to respond with overwhelming force.

In The Future, Everyone Will Be A Rapist For 15 Minutes

Every time a new rape law is passed, you can see how male sexuality is being incrementally criminalized. California Governor Brown just signed a raft of new ones, and the unintended consequences are going to be rich.

Senate Bill 813 does away with the statute of limitations on most forms of rape. You might call this the Bill Cosby law.

SB 813 makes every woman a ticking time bomb. You could have a consensual relationship in college, but if she experiences regret any time before her 40th birthday, she can cry rape. My advice to young men is to keep a notarized sex journal or video record of every sexual encounter.

Assembly Bill 2888 imposes mandatory minimum sentences for sex crimes. Including pandering! Therefore, a man who solicits a prostitute MUST serve jail time, but the prostitute probably will not.

That is like mandatory minimums for drug users, but not traffickers. Why not offer diversion?

The big question in criminal justice is that we are allegedly incarcerating too many people. A big driver of that is the advent of mandatory minimum sentences. Therefore, the problem is only going to get worse. This bill is meant to punish the Brock Turners of the world, but it is going to fall most heavily on black men.

Finally, Assembly Bill 701 amends the criminal code to declare that all forms of nonconsensual sexual assault may be considered rape. Unwanted kissing or touching is now rape. How long before unwanted looks or suggestive comments are considered rape?

You can see how Gender Studies graduates are now staffing the offices of Democratic lawmakers.

Feminists have long argued that only men can commit rape, because rape is a crime of unwanted penetration. Therefore, a woman who coerces sex from an unwilling male is not a rapist; in fact, the guy always wants sex anyway.

Now attach the intent of AB 701 together with California's existing affirmative consent bill. It is quite conceivable that a woman performing a common sex act on a man too intoxicated to give consent can be considered a rapist.

Think this is a vanishingly small probability? Well, think twice, because studies estimate that between 19 to 31 percent of male college students experience some kind of unwanted sexual contact, the vast majority of it perpetrated by women.

When you consider the stigma and shame involved with men coming forward after being sexually abused, the number is likely much higher.