Bookworm Room - Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

“Me too” — women of America unite as victims of men UPDATED

October 16, 2017 by Bookworm 29 Comments

The Me Too meme on Facebook encourages a sense of victimhood in women, and is part of the way we deny biological reality and cultural anti-rape bulwarks.

If you’ve checked out Facebook in the last 24 hours, you’ve probably seen a lot of your female friends post two words: “Me too.” This is a shorthand version of a meme that started yesterday:

Me too.

If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.

Please copy/paste.

As you’ve surely noticed, the meme jumbles together harassment and assault, which are entirely different things. Assault is a criminal act. It involves any unwanted physical touches on the person, from the butt grabbing Ben Affleck apparently enjoys, to the pussy-grabbing that President Trump noted rich guys get away with (without ever saying he’d done it himself), to out-and-out rape. Harassment, on the other hand, doesn’t involve physical contact. It involves mental contact, with the man using words or touch-free motions to impose his power or sexual desires on an unwilling female.

Just about every woman I know who routinely appears on Facebook has put up a “Me too” post. I suspect, though, that few of them have actually been raped, something for which I am grateful. One of the virtues of life in America is that women aren’t raped often, even on college campuses.

In addition to rape, of course, there are other sexualized (not sexy) touches that men visit on unwilling women. I once had a guy twerk on me on a crowded bus, years before twerking was a thing. Technically, this was probably an assault, but I simply ignored it. In my mind, it wasn’t a “guys are animals, I’ve been assaulted” moment. Instead, I took it as a “there are way too many crazy people wandering around San Francisco” thing and got on with my life.

From what I gather reading my female friends’ posts and comments, many of the “Me too” women had that type of interaction — unwanted touches that were fleeting, offensive, and part of life in a world with men — and characterize it as an “assault.”

What most seem to have experienced, though, is some form of non-physical sexual harassment. That’s the kind of contact between men and women that is purely a head game — the man doesn’t lay hands on a woman, but he speaks or behaves in a way that’s purely sexual and can range from scary to offensive to (yes) funny, depending on how pathetic their genitals are when the raincoat opens to how genuinely funny their dirty, or slightly risque, jokes in the workplace are. (Yes, I will laugh at a clever, and not too dirty, dirty joke.) [Read more…]

Trump Kills The HHS Mandate: CNN Preaches To Christians; The NYT Preaches To Progs

October 15, 2017 by Wolf Howling 68 Comments

Whether it’s CNN telling Christians or the NYT telling progs, the message is the same: Christians have to get with the program; socialism trumps principles.

CNN is at the vanguard of a progressive jihad to drive Christian voters away from Trump. CNN’s two openly gay (one married) hosts, Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper, are taking part in lecturing Christians that they have no business voting for or supporting Trump. On Lemon’s panel, one panelist accused all Christians who support Trump as having “made a deal with the devil.” On Cooper, Charlie Sykes called it “stunning” and “remarkable” that Christians would support Trump, apparently preferring that they would have simply wasted their vote.

As to Cooper and Lemon, I wonder if either of these two have ever opened a Bible, let alone spent more than a two minute block of time with a Christian? If so, they might learn that average Christians see their religion and their freedom of conscience as under an existential assault not seen since the time of the birth of socialism in the French Revolution. And none of that is coming from Trump or the right.

Most recently was Anthony Kennedy’s torrid, unconscionable. and blatantly unconstitutional act judicially amending our Constitution to proclaim a constitutional right to gay marriage. Before that was the Obama DOJ decision to unconscionably and unconstitutionally rewrite the Civil Rights Act of 1964, establishing new laws that create “gay rights” and that allow for the prosecution of Christians in the public square who do not acquiesce. At the same time was the extra-constitutional act by HHS to establish as law that all Christians purchasing health insurance must not merely purchase, but also effectively underwrite birth control and abortifacients. And then of course there is the prog effort, ongoing for well over a century, to act in loco parentis, beginning in kindergarten, to promote ethics and morality free normalization of sex, abortion and abnormal sex in America.

As to Sykes, what he is arguing for is Christians to act so dogmatically that they could not pull the lever for anyone other than one of the twelve disciples, thus handing political power to the Christian’s persecutors. He wants to transfer his personal animus towards Trump onto Christians generally. [Read more…]

Toxic masculinity, Progressive hypocrites and victims, and real men *UPDATED”

October 14, 2017 by Bookworm 26 Comments

The past two months have proven that toxic masculinity is the Progressives’ purview, while real American men still get the job done no matter the risk.

In the late 1960s, the appropriate term of art for men who hadn’t seen the light was “male chauvinist pig.” Feminists applied this moniker to men who refused to recognize Second Wave feminism (equal pay for equal work and equal opportunities). As feminism morphed into trying to control male sexuality in a world that had abandoned old-fashioned codes of conduct, the term switched to “sexist.” The focus was no longer on equal pay for equal work and equal opportunities, but had switched to a focus on sexual harassment in the workplace.

The 1960s and 1970s war on sexism had a great run. Millions of trees died thanks to voluminous HR binders regularity workplace conduct, a whole industry of compliance coaches was enriched, and law firms seized upon compliance as a reliable income stream. Eventually, though, most men began to wise up and stopped grabbing women or making unwanted sex a quid pro quo for workplace advancement. By the 1980s, the focus shifted from concrete harassment and assault on the job (with the later being a criminal act as well as a tortious one), to the intangible standard looking at what the so-called “reasonable women” would consider to be a hostile workplace.

Decades of training and litigation against chauvinism, sexism, and hostile workplace-ism have done their job. The biggest part of the bell curve of American men has been trained not to discriminate against women in the workplace, not to expose them to unwanted sexual advances, and not to create a hostile workplace.

You’d think the Progressives would celebrate, but that would mean you think that they’re interested in improving women’s lot, rather than maintaining power over America’s social dynamics. With the latter as their true goal, Progressives needed a new target. With men avoiding past behavioral sins, Progressives have shifted from blaming egregious behavior to blaming men for merely existing.

Yes, the fact that you are a man is toxic. Just by being you, you offend and crush women. You sit wrong, you speak or speak-up wrong in meetings, you explain too much . . . you’re just too, too male, you disgusting, bullying creature, you!

One of the results of this war on men qua men, is the feminizing of the most recent generation of young men, especially those from America’s self-styled Progressive elite. Here’s a concrete example: When I’ve visited my little Bookworm’s obscenely expensive liberal arts college, which is 63% female, the men I saw (a sampling of 30-40 on a small campus) were not traditionally manly. All gave off a vague bisexual or gay vibe.

Having thought about it, I’m pretty sure the gay guys actually were gay. I have a suspicion, though, that those who appeared bisexual were, in fact, young men who have been trained away from appearing manly. For example, they all end their sentences as women do, with upward inflection or uptalk. That is, even when making a declarative statement, their inflection rises at the end of the sentence, making it sound like a question.

When something shocks or surprises these young men, they press their hands to their cheeks as women do. They gossip as women do. And they engage in social spats as women do. That is, we’re not talking the hierarchical jostling that’s typical of men; instead, what I saw was “mean girl” behavior from young men. There is no toxic masculinity of campus because there is no (or very little) masculinity on campus to begin with.

Separate from the damage done to young men, what Progressives failed to realize with their full frontal attack on masculinity itself is that, when you clamp down on ordinary male behavior, you end up with a subterranean, festering, oleaginous, potentially explosive mass of truly toxic behavior. This hidden behavior is going to be at its worst in those communities that make the loudest noises about how evil such behavior is: Hollywood, with Progressives in Washington, D.C. a close second. [Read more…]

Harvey Weinstein is not “a sex addict, he’s a predator.”

October 13, 2017 by Bookworm 74 Comments

Harvey Weinstein’s disgusting, abusive behavior sheds light on the fact that, from Clinton to Cosby to Weinstein, it’s never about sex, it’s about power.

The Progressive media is talking about Harvey Weinstein in terms of sex, seemingly acknowledging Weinstein’s own definition of himself as a “sex addict.” As Emma Thompson accurately notes, though, the l’affaire Weinstein is not about sex:

“I don’t think you can describe him as a sex addict, he’s a predator. That’s different. He’s at the top of, as it were the ladder of, a system of harassment and belittlement and bullying and interference. This has been part of our world, women’s world, since time immemorial.

Thompson is the first person (I know of) to say this straight out — it’s not about sex. It’s about power. I find that interesting because Second Wave feminism has forever, and accurately, said that rape is not about sex it’s about power. You’d think the media would be more tuned in to this.

A sex addict is someone who is so obsessed with sex that he or she ceases to function in all other ways. The person’s marriage or other close relationships collapse, the person is unable to earn a living, and the person starts getting some very nasty physical consequences. In other words, sex addiction is like drug or alcohol addiction. Anthony Weiner illustrates this principle well. He could not stop himself, long after his problem destroyed every aspect of his life. That’s an addiction.

Weinstein’s power plays against women did not cause him to suffer from any of the downsides associated with addiction. He could have kept his predatory behavior going indefinitely but for the fact that (a) his movies are no longer making money, (b) his protectors, the Clintons and the Obamas, are gone from power, and possibly (c) he came down too strongly on the side of Jews defending themselves when he announced that he was making a movie about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

So, no, this is not a sex scandal. As has long been the case with Bill Clinton, this is an abuse of power scandal. That’s why conservatives are not hypocrites for refusing to jumble Trump in with this mix of predatory men. Trump’s supporters know that the Hollywood Access tape did not include Trump boasting about rape or sexual blackmail. Instead, he said two things: (1) he made a push for a woman by flashing his wealth at her and, when she declined, he backed off and (2) he stated accurately that when you’re rich and famous, there are women who willingly let you get away with anything. [Read more…]

With a fire too close for comfort, I spent the day time-traveling

October 12, 2017 by Bookworm 8 Comments

Long ago and far away….

I’ve been very lucky this week because the Napa-Sonoma fires never came closer than 30 miles to my house. However, with the fire storm moving at warp speed and winds helping to push it, we packed emergency evacuation bags. After I packed the basics — spare clothes, cash, basic toiletries, dog food, etc. — I started thinking about sentimental things that I would miss.

Truth to tell, I’m not a very sentimental person. I find possessions somewhat burdensome, and have been working slowly and sort of steadily to purge my house of all the clutter. After my Mom died, my sister (who also is not very sentimental) and I were able to decided very quickly that most of Mom’s possessions would not improve our lives or our memories. We held them one last time, said goodbye, and then threw out the things that were just “stuff” and arranged for the sale of the rest.

What we did not get rid of were the photographs and oh, boy! Did my Mom have photographs. She had a chest, roughly the size of a large foot locker, that now sits in my house, filled to the brim with photographs. A lot (almost half) are of my childhood and I’m not at all sentimental about that. I won’t throw them away, but I certainly won’t waste time scanning them.

However, the other half is family history. Over the years, my Mom laboriously sorted and labeled hundreds of photos. Since my family got around, the pictures have a certain historic charm and the “history major” in me realized that I would be unhappy if they were lost, as I enjoy looking at them. (I do not enjoy looking at photos of myself. My kids are uninterested in these photos as well, so there’s no incentive to make special efforts to preserve them for the children.)

Despite Mom’s have been gone almost two years, I was a slug and hadn’t touched the photos, so there they were, ready to be fuel for a fire. Spurred on by the thought that there was no way to carry them with me if another fire or an earthquake destroyed my home, I spent today scanning. I managed to scan almost 500 photos, taking my maternal history from the 1880s through to the eve of WWII. (My Mom came from a wealthy family, they were able to afford a lot of photos at a time when photography was an expensive hobby.)

I haven’t yet found my Dad’s photos, but I know that there are very few. He came from abysmal poverty and managed to eke together a small album of photos when he escaped Germany and then another handful of photos in Israel before he came to America and started a family. Sadly, most of the people in the photos are lost to history, as my Dad died before ever identifying them. I’m reasonably certain that many did not survive WWII.

So rather, than blog today, I thought I would share with you some of the historically interesting photos that saw me traveling back through time today. The captions are under each photo. [Read more…]

Look to the pagans to understand why Western Civilization matters

October 11, 2017 by Bookworm 25 Comments

Without Western Civilization, we veer dangerously close to reverting to our pagan roots — roots watered with the blood of human sacrifice.

For millennia, Jews have forbidden human sacrifice. Although there are myriad more sophisticated interpretations examining the Biblical narrative about the Binding of Isaac, the most basic interpretation was that God created this dramatic scenario to impress upon Jews that he did not crave human flesh and blood. This is hardly unexpected, given that man is made in God’s image. One doesn’t deliberately despoil His creation.

When Jews took this principled, doctrinal stand against human sacrifice, they were outliers. The book of Genesis, in which the Binding of Isaac appears, probably dates back to around the latter half of the 15th century BC (that is, about 1450-1410 BC). Everywhere else in the known world human sacrifice was normative. In a world controlled completely by animistic polytheism, the notion of mere animal sacrifice, which kept from the Gods the tastiest, most important offerings, was ludicrous.

Eventually, both Greece and Rome turned against human sacrifice, but they still remained dedicated to animal sacrifices. These rituals often involved slitting an animal’s belly open and “reading” its entrails while the animal still lived.

Moreover, when it came to humans, neither Greece nor Rome was known for its humanist impulses towards life. Indeed, both Greece and Rome heartily approved of infanticide, rape, torture, and blood sports. Meanwhile, outside of these nations and their first, dainty steps towards modern Western Civilization, the Celts and the Germanic tribes continued with gusto to placate capricious gods with human blood and flesh.

The genius of Christianity was that, over the centuries, it successfully convinced pagans, from Rome to Britain to Norway, that Christ was the ultimate human sacrifice. Through the ritual of transubstantiation, worshipers would receive the eternal benefit of that voluntary sacrifice without having to destroy another human being to placate the Gods. Throughout Europe, these newly created Christians joined with Jews in their understand that man is unique in that he is created in God’s image; one doesn’t mutilate that image and throw it back in God’s face.

The fact that both the Jews and the Christians eschewed human sacrifice didn’t instantly turn them into vegans. In Biblical times, the Jews continued to wage bloody war long after the binding of Isaac and the Christians did the same long after the crucifixion. The Christians also maintained torture and blood sports. Nevertheless, this humanist seed, once planted and cultivated, burst forth in the Enlightenment with all sorts of interesting ideas:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Those words, and the ideas and practical consequences behind them, changed the world. War did not end, but it lessened. Men did not eschew violence, but societies under the umbrella of Western Civilization continued the long slow process of becoming less violent. (For more on the genetic reality that Westerners are less violent, I recommend Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, an honest science book that got its author banned from the New York Times.)

These revolutionary ideas about mankind’s worth would have been incomprehensible to pre-Christian pagans. To them, man was a plaything of the gods, and the gods were the embodiment of the cruel, irrational, omnipresent natural world surrounding the pagans. These hungry, angry, capricious figures needed to be placated and human blood was their favorite food. [Read more…]

Jews excel at antisemitism, as they do at so many things

October 10, 2017 by Bookworm 14 Comments

A recent attack against Harvey Weinstein in a Jewish publication reminds us that, when it comes to antisemitism, America’s Jews are overachievers.

Almost three years ago, I wrote a post entitled Some of America’s ugliest antisemitism comes from young Hollywood Jews (language warning). I wrote after I had watched a comedy roast of James Franco and was appalled by the way in which the other guests slung about gross insults, all of which reeked of antisemitism. It’s no exaggeration to say that they tied into the worst kind of anti-Jewish propaganda, whether emanating from the Tsar or the Nazis.

As I noted in my post, the insults weren’t the pointed, but still loving, insults that so enrich the Yiddish language and Jewish jokes. Certainly Jews have never been under any illusions about certain cultural features that arose in ghetto and shtetl, but there is no self-loathing in these jokes or in the rich Yiddish words. Instead, they wittily acknowledge the human condition without dehumanizing the human. There is no antisemitism in this traditional Jewish self-analysis.

The same cannot be said for what came out of such well-known Hollywood Jews as Sarah Silverman, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Andy Samberg, and James Franco. Their jokes were hideous, oozing self-referential antisemitism. Here are some examples of those jokes, along with my comments about what they reveal (language warning):

King of Hollywood: [about The Guilt Trip] Listen, if I wanted to watch two ugly Jews weaving through traffic, I’d watch Seinfeld’s web series.

***

Nick Kroll: Many of you might not know that Seth has a writing and directing partner named Evan Goldberg. What does this other guy look like that you’re the face of the operation? I assume he’s like a sweaty Orthodox Jew eating a pastrami sandwich, and he said [scrunching up his face and using a thick Yiddish accent] “I did nine dick jokes on page four, and I was thinking that the guys are friends, and then they’re not friends, and at the end of the movie, they’re friends again.”

***

Sarah Silverman: I can’t tell if this is the dais or the line to suck Judd Apatow’s balls. This dais is so Jewey. What is this, the Comedy Central audit of James Franco?

***

Sarah Silverman: Jonah is such a Jewy dick, you have to watch his movies through a hole in a sheet.

***

Nick Kroll: “James Franco is truly our generation’s James Dean. So handsome that you forget he’s only been in two good movies. Dean, of course, died at the tender age of 24 sparing himself the embarrassment of writing self-indulgent short stories and getting roasted by a bunch of jealous Jew monsters.

***

Nick Kroll: “Seth Rogen is so Jewish.”
Crowd: “How Jewish is he?”
Nick Kroll: “Seth Rogen is so f***ing Jewish… Anyway, it’s great to be here.”

These awful “jokes” are just the ones that internet publications deemed amongst the funniest things the assembled “comedians” said. There were more, and they were all in the same vein, saying horrible things about Jews. None of them gently laugh at the human condition. None offer insight into human foibles or human decency. All play into the most vile stereotypes about Jews: Jews are ugly, Jews sweat and stink, Jews are obsessed with sex, Jews are eaten by jealousy, and Jews are simply “f***ing.”

These jokes are a primer in self-loathing. They perfectly reflect the Stockholm Syndrome that has overtaken America’s Progressives Jews. These young Jews — who are amongst the most recognizable people in America, and have become power brokers in Hollywood — have internalized all of the worst stereotypes about Jews. They believe this of themselves.

Moreover, as is often the case with people who perceive themselves as defective, they’re trying desperately to be the first to insult themselves, relieving the “normal” person with nothing left to say. (Sarah Silverman’s stories of her horrific childhood bear out this theory about beating yourself first, before someone else does it.)

[Read more…]

Trevor Noah misses an obvious point about gun control

October 9, 2017 by Bookworm 15 Comments

Trevor Noah, a black man from South Africa, fails to see the irony in his demand that Americans turn their arms over to the government.

Trevor Noah South Africa Apartheid Second Amendment Gun Control

This is what it looks like when only the government has guns.

As is the case with all Progressives who have a late night television perch, Trevor Noah, the black South African who took over Jon Stewart’s post at The Daily Show, has been open about his wish that the U.S. government should seize all guns in private hands. (By the way, you’ve surely noticed that none of these Progressives seem disturbed by the fact that they’re attempting to give Donald Trump, the man they love to hate, virtually unlimited control over an unarmed American populace. The lack of logic confounds me but — hey! — they’re Leftists, so why am I expecting logic anyway?)

Trevor Noah’s on-air remarks about guns are same-old, same-old, so I won’t rehash them here. When it comes to gun grabbing, the Left has nothing original to offer. What’s more interesting is what Noah said off camera:

In a between-the-scenes moment from “The Daily Show” posted online Thursday, Noah took on critics who have questioned whether the foreign-born comedian should be chiming in on gun control. “This is an American conversation,” conservative radio host Larry O’Connor told Fox Business in a clip Noah showed his audience.

“People go, ‘Why do you have an opinion about this?’ And I say, ‘I hear what you’re saying but ask yourself this question: Why did nobody say that when Americans were protesting for South Africans to get freedom during apartheid?’ No one asked that question.”

Noah makes a valid point. People of good will, when they see something wrong, tend to have opinions. But if Noah is going to compare modern America with apartheid South Africa, he’d do well to take that comparison one step further and, instead of asking us whether he’s allowed to have an opinion, ask himself a different question: “Would apartheid have existed in South Africa if that country had a Second Amendment?”

The only possible answer to that question is “No.” The white South African government was able to exert tyrannical control over black South Africans, who were a majority, because the latter had no recourse. They were disarmed and helpless before tyranny.

Before opining again about gun control, Trevor Noah would do well to read Kevin Williamson’s truly splendid discourse on the rights articulated in the Second Amendment, rights that live in all people without regard to “documentary proof”: [Read more…]

Happy Columbus Day

October 9, 2017 by Wolf Howling 2 Comments

A PROCLAMATION

Five hundred and twenty-five years ago, Christopher Columbus completed an ambitious and daring voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. The voyage was a remarkable and then-unparalleled feat that helped launch the age of exploration and discovery. The permanent arrival of Europeans to the Americas was a transformative event that undeniably and fundamentally changed the course of human history and set the stage for the development of our great Nation. Therefore, on Columbus Day, we honor the skilled navigator and man of faith, whose courageous feat brought together continents and has inspired countless others to pursue their dreams and convictions — even in the face of extreme doubt and tremendous adversity.

More than five centuries after his initial voyage, we remember the “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” for building the critical first link in the strong and enduring bond between the United States and Europe. While Isabella I and Ferdinand II of Spain sponsored his historic voyage, Columbus was a native of the City of Genoa, in present day Italy, and represents the rich history of important Italian American contributions to our great Nation. There can be no doubt that American culture, business, and civic life would all be much less vibrant in the absence of the Italian American community. We also take this opportunity to reaffirm our close ties to Columbus’s country of birth, Italy. Italy is a strong ally and a valued partner in promoting peace and promoting prosperity around the world.

[Read more…]

A theory about Progressive Jews and how they got that way

October 9, 2017 by Bookworm 24 Comments

Did the Holocaust’s shadow give Progressive Jews such a fear of dying that they cling to a political ideology promising (but not delivering) peaceful death?

A theory that popped into my mind yesterday that may help explain the mystery of the Progressive Jew, a person who clings desperately to the Democrat party despite the party’s escalating hostility to Jews and Israel. I wonder if it’s all tied into the way in which the Holocaust weighs on Jews of my generation.

I got started on this line of thinking because an old, although not terribly close, friend of mine died yesterday. When I say “old,” I don’t mean chronologically old. He was my age — mid-50s — which I consider to be on the slightly younger side of middle-age. (Perhaps that’s wishful thinking.) His death was also not entirely unexpected, because it was a recurrence of a problem he’d had before and was fighting for years.

My friend is not the first of the increasingly frequent brushes with mortality that are intertwining with my life. The older generation — parents, relatives, colleagues, all in their 80s and 90s — are passing away with relentless frequency. That’s to be expected. What’s more disturbing for me is the number of people, such as my deceased friend, who are my age and succumbing to cancer, heart disease, the effects of substance abuse, and other ills that start chasing us as we age.

What I’ve noticed is that my religious friends face death differently than my non-religious friends. They’re not resigned, which indicates a lack of hope, but they’re philosophical and that philosophy melds with the hope, allowing them to focus on the treatment process without too much fear. They see themselves as part of a greater plan, with God as their partner. If this plan denies them recovery, Christians look to the promise of Heaven; Jews put their faith in the final resurrection.

In contrast, my atheist friends have nothing to hang on to. The Grim Reaper is threatening them without rhyme or reason and then, at the end, there’s nothing.

I think, though, that there’s an added twist for many contemporary secular Jews when they consider death. By the way, when I say “secular,” I’m including non-Orthodox Jews who follow the outward form of worship in reform and “lite” conservative synagogues. They belong to a Temple, they attend on the High Holy days, and they probably send their kids to Sunday school . . . but they don’t believe in God. For them, these are rituals that tie them to their childhood communities, that fulfill a long for tradition, and that are a strong part of their Jewish identity. [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 10/6/17 — the Second Amendment illustrated edition

October 6, 2017 by Bookworm 12 Comments

The Second Amendment recognizes that evil exists by giving free people the best weapon to fight back. Sometimes, tho’, life is such that evil still wins.

Now that the Progressives have gotten into their groove attacking the Second Amendment, there is a lot of material defending the Second Amendment and exposing just how bad (and tyrannical) Progressive arguments are. I’ve also included a few other topical and just plain funny posters.

[Read more…]

Our Second Amendment Rights — guns save lives (book excerpt)

October 5, 2017 by Bookworm 21 Comments

When it comes to the Second Amendment, Leftists measure it by those who die from guns; constitutionalists measure it by those who survive thanks to guns.

With the Las Vegas massacre having reopened the endless Progressive attack against the Second Amendment, I remembered that there’s a book on the subject — my book to be precise: Our Second Amendment Rights In Ten Essays. In an attempt to inveigle you into buying it, here’s an excerpt from Essay 5: “Gun Grabbers Ignore That Guns Not Only Take Lives, They Save Lives” (end notes omitted).

5. Gun Grabbers Ignore That Guns Not Only Take Lives, They Save Lives

When it comes to guns, the gun grabbers suffer from a very bizarre limitation: Their mental horizons allow them to see only those who died because of guns, not to recognize those who did not die thanks to guns. This myopia creates the giant intellectual chasm that separates those who oppose the Second Amendment from those who support it. The former see only the people who died in the past while the latter also see the ones who will live on into the future.

Logically, we all know that people are going to die under any circumstances. Given that existential reality, the important question is not whether people will die because of guns. Instead, the important question is whether more people will live than will die thanks to guns. Leftists, however, cannot grasp that simple idea.

Perhaps it would help these gun-grabbing Leftists to read Frédéric Bastiat’s magnificent Parable of the Broken Window, which the French economist wrote in 1850. If the parable doesn’t seem relevant at first, please bear with me, and I will explain why it matters:

Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation – “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?”

Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.

Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier’s trade — that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs — I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, “Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen.”

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented. (Emphasis mine.)

[Read more…]

Ken Burns’ Vietnam War documentary — Democrat civil war

October 5, 2017 by Bookworm 12 Comments

For a brief time, the civil war at the 1968 Chicago Democrat Party convention was more consequential than the battles still taking place in Vietnam.

In my previous post about the Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary, I looked at his coverage of the Tet Offensive — both what he included and what he excluded. Last night I watched the episode about the months immediately after the Tet Offensive. Here are a few thoughts:

1. The Tet Offensive was a disaster for North Vietnam. Although Burns shies away from saying it, it’s apparent that, if Johnson had listened to his military advisers, rather than his political advisers, and pressed harder against the North, the war would have ended quickly with a North Vietnamese defeat.

2. Burns touches lightly upon the fact that, in North Vietnam, people were beginning to realize that their government was lying to them. One person stated that the government spoke only of victories (the Tet Offensive was sold as a victory) and never once acknowledged that any troops had died. The fact is, though, when you have over 1 million combatant deaths, people might start noticing.

3. America’s troops in Vietnam were incredibly brave.

4. Burns pushes hard on the narrative that most American men fighting the Vietnam War were mostly poor, dumb college drop-outs who were drafted against their will. Even the Washington Post, though, has acknowledged that this is a myth:

Between 1964 and 1973, volunteers outnumbered enlisted troops by nearly four to one. Nor did the military rely primarily on disadvantaged citizens or African Americans. According to the Report of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force in February 1970, African Americans “constituted only 12.7 percent of nearly 1.7 million enlisted men serving voluntarily in 1969.” A higher proportion of African Americans were drafted in the early years of the war, but they were not more likely to die in combat than other soldiers. Seventy-nine percent of troops had at least a high school education (compared with 63 percent of Korean War veterans and 45 percent of World War II veterans). And according to VFW Magazine, 50 percent were from middle-income backgrounds, and 88 percent were white (representing 86 percent of the deaths).

Those volunteers who sit for interviews all see the war as a waste and a mistake. That is, once again, Burns excludes from the show men who thought the war was important but that politics prevented it from being successful.

5. American goods kept the Saigon economy afloat, and there was tremendous graft and corruption. I haven’t independently researched this point, but I don’t doubt that it was true. This same corruption saw South Vietnamese troops, based upon information acquired through a CIA program, torture and summarily execute people they thought were Viet Cong. Graft and vengeance killings are historically par for the course in war, but they don’t look good played out on American televisions.

6. What we were seeing at home was a Democrat civil war: the Johnson pro-War party versus the McCarthy anti-War party. That war spilled onto the streets and into the convention hall during the Democrat’s 1968 convention. Neither side came out looking good. And if you’re looking for police brutality, just take a look at Mayor Daley’s good Democrat cops brutally attacking white, middle-class youth. As I discuss at points 8 and 9. below, in 1968 this war was more consequential than the actual fighting in Vietnam. [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 10/4/17 — the Second Amendment edition

October 4, 2017 by Bookworm 14 Comments

While not all of the links in this post discuss the Second Amendment, most do. There’s other stuff too, about health care, the economy, etc. It’s all good.

A great book about the Second Amendment. This post focuses heavily on the Second Amendment because, once again, Progressives are using an evil act to justify depriving Americans of a singularly important Constitutional right. I’m therefore opening by shilling my own little book on the subject: Our Second Amendment Rights In Ten Essays. The ten essays are

A Typical Discussion With Gun Grabbers; Or, What Second Amendment Supporters Are Up Against
Guns Are Most Dangerous When The Government Is The Only One That Has Them
America’s Founding Fathers Ratified The Second Amendment Because They Knew That Government Is Dangerous
A Self-Defended Society Is A Safe Society
Gun Grabbers Ignore That Guns Not Only Take Lives, They Save Lives
Beware Of Arguments Comparing American Gun Crime To That In Other Nations; These Arguments Are Always Dishonest
The Only Way Gun-Control Activists Can Support Their Position Is To Lie
Disarming Americans Is A Racist Thing To Do; Therefore, Second Amendment Supporters Are Anti-Racists
Jews, Of All People, Should Always Support The Second Amendment
If We Really Want To Protect Our Children, We Shouldn’t Ban Guns, We Should Ban School Buses

Those who took the time to review the book were good enough to say nice things:

“An exceptional set of essays addressing with the common progressive attacks on our Second Amendment right, as well as the historical origins of the right and its tremendous importance to our “free state.” In light of the stated intent of certain of our politicians to overturn the Heller decision and make a nullity of the Second Amendment, I would recommend that you read these essays closely.”

“A quick read, but packed with commonsense tracing the history & variously failed implementations of gun control in contravention of our Constitution.”

“Read it, live it, breathe it … for freedom. History shows time and time again that only despots want to disarm citizens. The result? Learn from history.”

“An excellent and incisive book written by one who has a firm grasp of both the subject and the issues at stake.”

“Well written, understandable, and timely. Excellent information.”

“Read this. Your freedom is a risk.”

“Well written and quite thoughtful.”

At the risk of sounding immodest, as the Progressives’ increase their strident demands that we turn all of our weapons over to Donald Trump (yes, that’s effectively what they’re demanding), this book has some useful ways of thinking about guns and a civil society that may help you rebut the insanity.

Nothing like a little data to reveal the stupidity behind gun control. If you haven’t already heard about and read Leah Libresco’s anti-gun control opinion piece at the WaPo, you must. It’s an honest acknowledgement that everything that the gun control crowd argues is wrong — and it comes from one who once supported those arguments until her data studies revealed they had no basis in reality:

Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.

Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns. (Emphasis mine.)

Read the whole thing — and then politely, ingenuously wave it under the noses of your anti-gun friends and colleagues. [Read more…]

Ken Burns on the Tet Offensive: the good, the bad, and the propaganda

October 3, 2017 by Bookworm 29 Comments

Ken Burns’ manages to be mostly honest in a stunning look at the Tet Offensive, but what he leaves out is as important as what he includes.

Here in the Bookworm home, we’re still working our way through Ken Burns’ Vietnam War documentary. Last night, we got to the part about the Tet Offensive. Having recently been in both Hue and Saigon, the footage of the running battles really resonated with me.

I don’t know why it is, but I find that wars are always more real to me when I see the actual ground on which they took place. When I travel, I visit battlefields, and that’s despite the fact that I’m stunningly unversed in battlefield tactics. Over the years, I’ve visited Carthage, Waterloo, Ypres, the Somme, the Ardennes, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Yorktown, and others I can’t remember now. After seeing the footage of the Tet Offensive, and combining it with my personal visual reference points, I have a better sense of the battle that raged then.

Overall, Burns did an extremely good job of explaining the larger outlines of the lead-up to the Tet Offensive and the offensive itself. He explained the North Vietnamese thinking about a major assault that would cause South Vietnamese troops to defect and the populace to side with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars.

Of the battles themselves, Burns uses footage that helps explain why almost 80 journalists lost their lives in Vietnam. These journalists were right there with the US troops filming away. I got breathless watching because the sense of immediacy was overwhelming. This was Call of Duty, except with real Americans shooting real guns at real enemies, with the enemies shooting back.

Burns makes it plain that the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the North Vietnamese. Not a single South Vietnamese soldier defected; civilians just hid from the fury, fearing the communists even more than their own government; the North Vietnamese lost almost as many fighters in the Tet Offensive as America did over the course of the entire Vietnam war; and the American military proved itself in battle to superb in terms of courage, strategy, and tactics.

Regarding those casualties, this data from the Wikipedia article on all three phases of the Tet Offensive tells you all you need to know about winners and losers: [Read more…]