Men Should Probably Ask the Men’s Rights Movement to Please Stop

“This is something I’ve always suspected about men’s rights activists, but it’s satisfying to see those suspicions turn out to be true.”

―Paul Constant

Sigh.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/482908761338572800

Yes, really.

Keep reading:

The “vast majority” of college women lie about being raped. Men are violent because of their mothers. Feminists are plotting to dominate men.

One thing was ringingly clear among attendees at the first-annual International Conference on Men’s Issues in St. Clair Shores this weekend: Women are becoming an increasing threat and something must be done to stop them.

(Neavling)

Among the sights and sounds Steve Neavling witnessed were denunciations of rape accusations as “buyer’s remorse”, lamentations that, “There’s no stress defense for hitting your wife”, and even lowering the age of consent to thirteen so unwitting men don’t get into trouble for making a “mistake of age”. Janet Bloomfield explained to the conference attendees, “The point being that it can be incredibly difficult to know, just by looking at someone, how old they are”.

Meanwhile, male is the new black Negro, and I have no idea what to tell anyone about Lee DeVito’s astounding account of sexual harassment at ICMI.

____________________

Constant, Paul. “There Are Fewer Men’s Rights Activists Than You Fear, but Those Few Activists Are Exactly as Terrible as You Think”. Slog. 2 July 2014.

Neavling, Steve. “8 ugly observations about conference on men’s rights in metro Detroit “. Motor City Muckraker. 29 June 2014.

DeVito, Lee. “I was molested at the Men’s Rights Conference”. Metro Times. 27 June 2014.

Fetus Dolls and Candy

Right.Um … how about we just check in with Katie J. M. Baker of Jezebel?

Want a squishy toy fetus with your corn dog? If you’re visiting the North Dakota State Fair, you’re in luck! Last weekend, local anti-choice advocates slipped soft fetal models into kids’ candy bags without parental permission during the fair’s gigantic parade. “I don’t know exactly where I stand on abortion,” one mother told Jezebel, “but I believe in my rights as a parent.”The North Dakota State Fair boasts a bevy of attractions, including performances by Tim McGraw and Creedence Clearwater Revisited. But Minot Right to Life spent the weekend giving away creepy little fetuses to kids without asking parents’ permission first. “It was really disturbing watching children run around with them,” one recalled. A federal judge recently temporarily blocked enforcement of the state’s highly unconstitutional six-week abortion ban; perhaps appealing to elementary schoolers’ interests is the group’s Plan B?The Precious One” fetal models are manufactured by Heritage House, a “pro-life supply store,” for $1.50 a pop — cheaper if you buy in bulk. “Its beautiful detail, softness and weight can really move hearts and change minds!” the website promises. A customer service representative told Jezebel that the models are most often given to pregnant women at “pregnancy centers” and kids at school presentations. The customer reviews on the site (it’s like Yelp for fetus-lovers instead of foodies) further imply that the doll-like figures are great for kids. “Children especially like to hold them,” one satisfied customer wrote. “No other item that we hand out has the amazing effect that these fetal models have — instant attachment to the unborn!” said another. “So many times, we hear, ‘Awwwww! That’s adorable!’ Or we just see a girl’s tears begin to form and fall.”

Point number one: You know how we hear conservatives complain, from time to time, about how we need to just let children be children, and thus never teach them that gay people or birth control exist? So … er … yeah. This doesn’t fall under that rubric?Point number two:

Devyn Nelson, Executive Director of North Dakota Right to Life, said he hadn’t been contacted by organizers and claimed that the booth ran out of “Precious Ones” because there was such a high demand for the mini fetuses. “Kids like them, but adults like them too,” he said. “They have nothing to do with abortion. You don’t have to bring abortion up at all.”

Uh-huh. Right. Makes perfect sense.Just sayin’.

Gemini Spectres

But, yeah, a commenter on Daily Kos called George W. Bush a Nazi in 2004, so … both sides do it, right?

—Dan Savage

Conventional wisdom often pays homage to the belief that there really isn’t much difference between the two main American political parties; indeed, if one party displays problematic behavior, the response is often to point out that both parties do it.

And it’s true that bigotry is not confined to Republicans, or conservatives in general. But, as Savage notes, it’s kind of hard to find a similar Democratic- or liberal-side episode that rivals reports coming out of Maryland, where the Conservative Political Action Committee endured an encounter that, well, therein arisies the problem. Scott Keyes and Zack Beauchamp explain for Think Progress:

The exchange occurred after an audience member from North Carolina, 30-year-old Scott Terry, asked whether Republicans could endorse races remaining separate but equal. After the presenter, K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans, answered by referencing a letter by Frederick Douglass forgiving his former master, the audience member said “For what? For feeding him and housing him?” Several people in the audience cheered and applauded Terry’s outburst.

After the exchange, Terry muttered under his breath, “why can’t we just have segregation?” noting the Constitution’s protections for freedom of association ….

ThinkProgress spoke with Terry, who sported a Rick Santorum sticker and attended CPAC with a friend who wore a Confederate Flag-emblazoned t-shirt, about his views after the panel. Terry maintained that white people have been “systematically disenfranchised” by federal legislation.

When asked by ThinkProgress if he’d accept a society where African-Americans were permanently subservient to whites, he said “I’d be fine with that.” He also claimed that African-Americans “should be allowed to vote in Africa,” and that “all the Tea Parties” were concerned with the same racial problems that he was.

At one point, a woman challenged him on the Republican Party’s roots, to which Terry responded, “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.”

He claimed to be a direct descendent of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

At some point it seems nearly comical, like the easiest agent provocateur gig in history; just get up and play whatever bigot caricature comes to mind, and find people in the conservative audience rallying to the cause. And it is true; there are times when one would be forgiven for thinking they were not dealing with a genuine conservative, but instead some overzealous, half-witted provocateur trying to discredit a movement.

One of my favorites was a conservative associate who reckoned that Obamanoia had nothing to do with racism, but rather that a fantasy president Obama was victimizing good, decent people by forcing them to resort to racist slings and arrows. “Race is absolutely not the motivation for opposition to Obama,” he explained, “but it is used by some as a tool in the fight against him.”

Update: Lindy West takes her Twit and goes home

Well, nobody could see that coming. Before I had time to get up the preceding post discussing Lindy West’s arrogant histrionics^†, she took the drastic step of blocking me from her Twitter account.

My crime?

@thelindywest It’s @SethMacFarlane, FFS. Who expects PC or feminist humor? Don’t presume nobody notices. It’s just part of the expectation.

No, really:

Even better, Ms. West offered me an animated picture of someone named Alithea making a masturbatory gesture.

Briefly, then: You’re doing it wrong, ladies.

Ken Hutcherson: The face of bigotry

The “Prayer Warrior”, Pastor Ken Hutcherson, testified before the Washington state House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Monday, in opposition to marriage equality. The video is making its way around the internet, so here is a transcript:

I am Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church; I’ve been a pastor for quite some time—been black for a lot longer than that. I was born and raised in Alabama, where blacks and whites didn’t get along very well, and I tried to be one of the main reasons they didn’t. I was extremely discriminatory toward whites. The only reason I played football, so I could hurt white people legally.

The problem is that you guys keep throwing up to us that this is a civil rights issue. There’s nothing civil rights about this. Nothing. It is not protected by the Constitution. And you’re throwing up in front of us over and over again that you should not allow the people to vote for this because it’s just not right for a civil rights issue. Well, you’re trying to make it a civil rights issue, but it isn’t. It’s not protected by the Constitution. The reason why the civil rights for me was taken to the Congress and not the people was because it was protected by the Constitution. So the people did not have a right to go against the Constitution unless the people voted to change the Constitution.

And it hasn’t been changed yet.

It is so important for you to understand that what you are asking me to do as an African-American, is accept what you’re going through because you’re uncomfortable. Not because you’re persecuted. Not because you’re hung in great numbers simply because of your color. I was born black. I am black. Gonna die black. And even Michael Jackson couldn’t get out of being black. So you gotta understand when you try to throw those things at me it does not hit. Does not hit at all. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of disturbing and very upsetting.

Upsetting because, you know, you talk about love, you talk about wanting that family and everything else, and you talk about the children. You know what? I got half-black kids. They’re worse than all-black kids, ’cause they’re discriminated against just as much. And you have passed laws that make sure if there’s any black in any kid, they’re considered African American even though I got married to the whitest white woman in the world.

So let’s do what’s right for kids. I would never bring my kids into a situation—if I love my kids—how you have berated your kids in front for emotional response—and Representative Pedersen, you are the worst. You brought four kids in here, and they was devastated. Hopefully they was devastated because they was in here, and not because they act that way all the time. But yet still it isn’t about the children. It isn’t about marriage. It is about you. And it is about you wanting your way, and you’ll use whatever and whoever you can to get it.

So I think this board should be absolutely ashamed of how you’re allowing kids to be used for an adult reason.

Thank you very much.

Obviously, there are some issues one might pick with Hutcherson’s argument, but this man is the face and voice of the heterosupremacist movement in the Evergreen State, so it’s probably best to just let him speak for himself.

National Review Online: Conan the Barbarian should be PG-13

Did you ever have one of those moments when something so obvious sticks out that you nearly lose an eye to it, but at the same time it’s so damnably stupid you almost don’t want to tell anyone about it because, well, it’s just that stupid?

Such is the case with John J. Miller’s lament about the newly-minted Conan movie:

As a fan of Robert E. Howard and his character Conan, I’m of course looking forward to seeing the new Conan film. But I can tell the producers already have made one major mistake: It’s rated R. How dumb is that? My son, who has read and enjoyed dozens of the old Marvel comics, almost certainly won’t be seeing it now. The film should have been PG-13. My guess is that it will struggle commercially just because of the rating–and old-timey fans of the original stories will grumble for another generation about how Hollywood messed up.

I mean, where do you even start with that?

Here is her spout ….

If there is one thing Americans should remember after this debt ceiling debate is over—accepting, of course, that we won’t remember anything important—it ought to be this bizarre yet apt cartoon from Rainer Hachfeld, via Cagle Post:

Park 51, 9/11, and other notes

Let us start with this:

Not all opponents of the Ground Zero mosque are motivated by anti-Islamic prejudice, to be sure. But relatives of 9/11 victims who object still are confusing Islam with terrorism.

They’d like the mosque to move somewhere else — but how far away from Ground Zero is acceptable? If two blocks is too close, would four be better?
Logically, if the mosque is meant as an exercise in “triumphalism,” it ought not be allowed in New York City at all.

The fact is that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had it exactly right when he said, “Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and Americans.

“We would betray our values — and play into our enemies’ hands — if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave in to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists — and we should not stand for that.”

And President Barack Obama had it right (the first time) when he said that America’s bedrock dedication to religious freedom “includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan.”
It’s a shame that Republican howls caused him to backtrack on the statement. And it’s a shame so many Republicans have forgotten the distinction between Islam and extremism so clearly delineated by Bush.

Would you believe that’s Mort Kondracke?

Well … okay, why not?

If they can deliver ….

For my generation, those simplistic “educational” reels alleging to inform people about vital issues have become something of a cultural joke. To wit, The Simpsons, which frequently mocks these films, as in “Homer’s Odyssey” (nuclear power), or “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love” (sex education).

Thus prefaced, I would point to The Stranger‘s Eli Sanders, who notes:

On Friday, in the Washington Post, Washington Senator Maria Cantwell and Republican Susan Collins of Maine, wrote:

There has been much talk recently about whether Republicans and Democrats in Washington can produce a bipartisan clean-energy and jobs bill. The answer is: We already have.

Already have produced, yes. Already passed in the U.S. Senate? No.

Which is why, with clean energy now at the front of everyone’s mind because of the very dirty energy that’s on perpetual display down in the Gulf of Mexico, Cantwell is headed to the White House this Wednesday (along with Harry Reid, John Kerry, and others) to talk with President Obama about what needs to happen—and what can, realistically, get through the Senate.

Which brings us back to simplistic informational films:

It’s simple: If they can deliver ….

I know, I know. It’s Congress, and trying to be bipartisan, at that. Still, though, if Sens. Cantwell and Collins can bring us everything that video promises, I’ll raise a glass to their honor, at least.

Best of luck to them.

A couple of obvious jokes: Bald bespectacled bears

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy … er … yeah.

Really.

Or, according to the Daily Mail:

You’d have thought a fur coat would have been the ultimate bear necessity.

But not for the unfortunate Dolores who has lost all her body hair and has just been left with a few tufts around her head.

Vets have been left baffled by the condition of the bespectacled bear, who lives at a zoo in Leipzig.

And Dolores isn’t the only one. The sudden hair loss has affected all female bears at the zoo.

Some experts believe it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction.

It’s something of an unfortunate oddity, for certain. While the zoo is enjoying some increased attention for its bald bespectacled bears, the animals themselves are suffering rashes and skin inflammation, as well.

We can only hope for the best, but yeah. Charles Mudede comments that, “A bear without hair looks like something from outer space”. I must disagree. I saw Savage Planet on basic cable, and I know that extraterrestrial giant killer bears have fur.