Sunday, June 18, 2017



Is feminism incompatible with romance?

I think it is and I think that is a great loss.  I see feminism in very black hues.  At it extremes it lapses into insanity. The definition of insanity (psychosis) is loss of reality contact and I know of few feminist beliefs that are in good contact with  reality. 

That can sometimes be shown by the conflict between their own beliefs -- conflicts which normally seem quite invisible to them.  For instance they believe in equal pay for equal work and yet when they note that women overall earn  less than men they regard that as unjust -- even though it is perfectly plain that -- for perfectly good reasons -- men and women do not do equal work.  Their call for equal pay for equal work justifies the inequality in pay that they deplore.

And one could go on.

But I think that by far the saddest thing they promote is their inherent hostility to romance.  It may seem strange for a sober old social scientist like me to be talking about romance but I note in possible mitigation that I have been married 4 times.  There has to be either insanity or romance behind that but I will leave it to readers to decide which.

Mostly here I want to draw attention to romance in popular music and I think my purpose is well served by drawing attention to an evergreen pop song called "I will follow him".  Its sentiments are everything that feminists anathematize.  It is about as "patriarchal" as you can get. Its lyrics follow:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I love him, I love him, I love him
And where he goes I'll follow, I'll follow, I'll follow

I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go
There isn't an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep me away

I must follow him (follow him), ever since he touched my hand I knew
That near him I always must be
And nothing can keep him from me
He is my destiny (destiny)

I love him, I love him, I love him
And where he goes I'll follow, I'll follow, I'll follow
He'll always be my true love, my true love, my true love
From now until forever, forever, forever

I will follow him (follow him), follow him wherever he may go
There isn't an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep, keep me away
Away from my love (I love him, I love him, I love him)

I love…

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Andre Rieu does a splendid version as follows:



Follow the whole thing through and watch the faces on both the singers and the audience.  Have you ever seen so much happiness in one place? It is a song of ecstasy.  Feminism is antagonistic  to what is best in being human.  To them the song is just propaganda but has any of their propaganda ever evoked any ecstasy at all? Not as far as I can tell. An ecstasy of hate maybe.

Now let me draw attention to one of the most popular bands in the history of pop music: Abba:

I have always rather wondered why I have never heard criticism of ABBA from feminists. Both "Mamma Mia" and "Waterloo" recount how a woman is captivated by a man that she cannot give up -- surely the reverse of the feminist gospel. And in "Money, Money", the female singer aspires to marry a rich man! And "Dancing Queen" is a simple little ballad about a teenager who loves dancing. Again not quite a feminist priority. So at least the best known ABBA songs seem quite conservative to me.

Something to remind you below. Don't ogle the beautiful blonde Agnetha too much.







If by some magic all the embittered feminists of the world could suddenly transform into normal women, the world would be a much happier place -- JR

UPDATE:  It is always amusing when people half know things.  It has been put to me that "I will follow him" is not a romance at all.  It appeared in a 1992 movie about nuns called "Sister Act" and is in fact a devotional song.

That is true but it was ORIGINALLY a hit in 1963, sung by Little Peggy March and is a straight love song with no religious references.  I actually remember when it was first a hit. I teased feminists with it then





Church of England chief backs 're-christenings' after sex changes: Officials risk furious backlash by introducing 'services of welcome'

The Church of England yesterday suggested it will offer transgender Christians ‘re-christenings’ with their new names.

Vicars cannot re-baptise those who have changed sex but could use existing ‘services of welcome’ to announce a new name before God, the most senior official said.

The advice is likely to be endorsed next month by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod.

It will ease pressure on Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby from liberals who want to see the church’s conservative rules on sex and marriage swept away. But it is likely to provoke a furious backlash among some traditionalists.

The CofE’s most senior official, Synod Secretary General William Nye, said in a paper sent to Synod members: ‘It is a fundamental belief of the Church that baptism can only be received once.

‘There is therefore no possibility of the Synod approving a form of service for the re-baptism of transgendered persons in their new gender who have already been baptised.’ But he said the CofE can have no objection if they want to have an ‘Affirmation of Baptismal Faith’ service in a new name.

He said: ‘This service refers to the fact that the individual has already been baptised, asks them to repeat their baptismal vows and re-affirm their faith. The focal point of this service is on the individual’s faith in Jesus Christ, rather than on the individual’s name or gender – regardless of whether or not it was different from when they were baptised.’

He added: ‘There is no legal or doctrinal difficulty about a baptised transgendered person re-affirming their baptismal vows using a name different from the Christian name given at baptism. A member of the Church of England may be known by, and use, different names from those given at baptism or confirmation provided that they do not do so for fraudulent or other similar purposes.’

Mr Nye said that the Synod meeting in York next month may ‘conclude that existing liturgical materials provided sufficient flexibility to meet this pastoral need’.

The affirmations would benefit senior bishops because the decision to carry out the service would be left in the hands of local priests. Bishops would not need to permit the service or take part.

The Synod is to debate a proposal from the Blackburn diocese which calls for liturgical material to mark a person’s gender transition. Diocesan priest the Rev Chris Newlands said the call came after a transsexual called George had been ‘wrestling with the spiritual dimension of what was happening to him’ as he was changing sex and ‘felt the need to reintroduce himself to God, with his new name and gender identity’.

The move follows humiliation for Archbishop Welby in February when his attempt to secure a compromise in the Church’s 30-year struggle over gay rights collapsed. Liberals did not accept a refusal to allow same-sex marriage while traditionalists rejected the idea that churches might say prayers to celebrate gay relationships.

Last year a parliamentary committee said all rules that might hinder people changing sex should be abolished.

SOURCE






Multiculturalism in Texas



A 23-year-old man who is awaiting trial for the rape and murder of two Texas women earlier this year is facing new charges of sexual assault in the rape of a third woman.

Reginald Kimbro was indicted on Wednesday in connection to a 2014 sexual assault at the Isla Grand Beach Resort on South Padre Island.

The unnamed victim says that she met Kimbro at the resort on March 21 of that year, and that at one point they started kissing.

According to a police report, Kimbro took the woman into a women's restroom and tried to have sex with her but she refused. So he choked her and raped her. She immediately called police, and Kimbro was arrested at the scene. A rape kit also found his semen inside of her.

However, prosecutors later dropped the charges when Kimbro claimed the sex was consensual.

Prosecutors changed course after his recent arrests, sending the case in front of a grand jury which ruled to press sexual assault charges.

Kimbro has been in Tarrant County Jail since April 24, when he was arrested for the sexual assault and murder of his ex-girlfriend Molly Matheson, 22, who was found dead in the shower of her home on April 10.

A month later, prosecutors accused him of murder in the death of another woman, 36-year-old Megan Leigh Getrum. 

Kimbro admitted to police that he'd visited his ex-girlfriend on the evening of April 9, claiming that the two began to kiss, but said that she declined to have sex and he left the apartment around 1.30am on April 10, according to an arrest warrant affidavit reported by the Star-Telegram.

Police questioned Kimbro in the murder on April 14, and hours later, Getrum was murdered while hiking in the Arbor Hills Preserve in Plano.  Her body was found on April 19 in Lake Ray Hubbard, about 30 miles away.

Prosecutors alleged that Kimbro raped and murdered Getrum by 'compressing her neck and dumping her in a lake, which resulted in lethal blunt force trauma and indications of drowning'.

DNA connects Kimbro to both sex assaults and murders.  

SOURCE





The SPLC: Race-baiting hucksters or terrorist sponsors?

The Southern Poverty Law Center rakes in millions of dollars each year claiming to be a “watchdog” that “monitors” so-called “right-wing hate groups.”  In reality, they’ve been sued for racially abusing what few black employees they ever hired, and their hate-filled rhetoric has been tied to two assassination attempts.  In 2012 a SLPC supporter shot his way into the headquarters of the Family Research Council, after seeing an SPLC attack piece labeling the FRC a “hate group.”  In reality, the FRC is largely nice little church ladies.

Now, the mass shooter who attempted to assassinate Republican Members of Congress has been linked to the nasty, racist, organization.  Is it time for the FBI to infiltrate the SPLC like they did the KKK? – Editor

The Granny Warriors are a dangerous hate group. Just ask Mark Potok and his crack staff of investigators at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Just one problem. Try finding the Granny Warriors. There is a website with that name; a fashion blog of sorts that has not been updated since 2015. There is another one-page website that shows pictures of an RV with the name Granny Warriors on the side. When the Granny Warriors first appeared on Mark Potok’s list, CNN was able to find the woman who founded the group who at the time was 74, making a quilt and suffering from congestive heart failure.

The richest poverty group in history

What is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)? They fashion themselves as the protector of America from hate. They issue reports on “hate groups”, and occasionally sue one of them, usually those so poor they can’t muster a defense. And they have gotten fabulously wealthy doing it. Charlotte Allen, writing in the Weekly Standard, called it “the richest poverty organization in the history of the world.” The group is sitting on cash reserves of $350 million and raises upwards of $50 million every year, mostly from direct mail, making northern liberals believe we still live in a world where black men are lynched with impunity and KKK riders-in-the-night burn crosses and even houses.

There is obviously a large dollop of hucketerism in what SPLC does. Morris Dees, who founded SPLC in 1971, got rich long ago on direct mail selling “everything from doormats to cookbooks,” says Allen. Dees is even in the Direct Mail Hall of Fame. Like any good carnival barker, he must scare the rubes into the tent and shake the shekels out of their pockets. He does this by making them think the dark night of fascism is upon us at every moment. Hence, even Granny Warriors are a threat.

Skeptics to the right of them, skeptics to the left of them

There are many SPLC skeptics, certainly on the right, but many on the left as well. Leftist Alexander Cockburn went after Dees et al at Counterpunch saying they were taking advantage of Barack Obama’s election to frighten “trembling liberals” into thinking “millions of extremists [were] primed to march down Main Street draped in Klan robes, a copy of Mein Kampf tucked under one arm and a Bible under the other.” Left-leaning Harper’s ran a 2000 piece called The Church of Morris Dees” charging that most of those on the SPLC list were fringe groups that perpetrated no violence and that most of the examples of violence cited by SPLC were lone wolves associated with no groups whatsoever.

When SPLC’s new list came out in 2013, the one with Granny Warriors, no less than Foreign Policy Magazine asked, “is American really being overrun by right-wing militias.” That year, SPLC claimed to have identified an all-time high 1360 hate groups, up from 1007 the year before. Foreign Policy questioned SPLC’s motivations and their methodology. SPLC is not an “objective purveyor of data,” they reported. “They’re anti-hate activists….their research needs to be weighed more carefully by media outlets that cover their pronouncements.”

Foreign Policy charged SPLC with using tricks to drive up the numbers. They do this by not making a distinction between national groups and local chapters. American Third Position Party, for instance, something you have certainly never heard of, is listed 17 times in SPLC’s 2012 report. The American Nazi Party is listed six times and the Council of Conservative Citizens is listed 37 times. Foreign Policy says when you eliminate multiple listings, the 1007 groups in 2012 becomes 358.

And among the remaining 358 are a blog called Crocker Post, a website/podcast called The Political Cesspool, and an anti-Islam cite called Silver Bullet Bun Oil. Foreign Policy scoffs at the notion that these are “groups” at all.

‘Hate’ labeling is not harmless

The charges made by Mark Potok and his colleagues are far from harmless even if some of their targets are. Charles Murray was targeted as a hater by SPLC and this caused the now famous riot of students who attacked him and a Middlebury College professor who hosted him.

To this day, you can visit the downtown Washington DC offices of the Family Research Center and see the bullet holes left by Floyd Corkins who invaded the office 4 years ago with the intent of mass murder. He testified under oath that he decided to attack FRC based on Potok’s listing of FRC as a hate group. The attack came only months after the release of SPLC’s 2013 report.

Potok himself has said the intention of his group is not to simply monitor hate groups but to “destroy them.” Given the propensity of the left to resort to violence these days, this is of increasing concern to the other Christian groups who are in the crosshairs of Mark Potok and his chief “investigator” Heidi Beirich. It is reported the shooter of Congressman Steven Scalise on a ballfield in Northern Virginia had “liked” SPLC on Facebook.

SPLC’s campaign against the Center for Family and Human Rights

Of the many problems when considering SPLC’s hate list is how any group lands on the list. What is the criteria and methodology? How did the Granny Warriors land on Potok’s list? Frankly, it’s hard to tell.

The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), the group I run, landed on the list a few years ago. In the report issued at the time, SPLC accused us of having “lauded” Scott Lively. You would be forgiven for not knowing Lively’s name. Hardly anyone does. He runs a tiny organization with a miniscule budget. He’s an Evangelical pastor who has worked with Christian groups in Uganda against what Pope Francis has called “ideological colonialism.” The left says Lively is responsible for the Ugandan “kill the gays bill”, a charge that is laughable on its face. Nonetheless, how did we “laud” him? In a news story about a federal lawsuit brought against him by a group of Ugandan homosexuals, we described his ministry in Massachusetts of giving out coffee and bibles to homeless men. That makes us a hate group, according to SPLC.

The SPLC report also cited our legal work in Belize when there was a national debate about their sodomy laws. We were asked for our expert legal opinion on Belize’s obligations under international law regarding sodomy and informed them they were free to decide the issue on their own, that international law did not require them to change their laws. My group did not take a position for or against sodomy. We never have. Giving legal advice on international law makes you a hate group, according to SPLC.

The goal: ‘destroy them’ – with the help of the media

SPLC likes to portray itself as a neutral referee, merely involved in calling balls and strikes when it comes to “hate.” But in a 2008 speech, Mark Potok let slip the mask when he said, “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes and so on…I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”

The problem here is that the media gives SPLC a free ride. Whenever my group is covered in the press, or FRC, or Alliance Defending Freedom, or American Family Association, or any of the many other conservative Christian groups, the report inevitably tags us “designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” No reporter that I know of has ever done his own research to determine if this label fits or is fair. Consider also the word “designated”, as if SPLC is a governmental entity with the authority to determine such things.

The media is not the only group utilizing SPLC’s hate-labeling. So does Wikipedia. Every article in Wikipedia about a Christian group on the SPLC list also mentions their “designation” as a hate group. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is among the very first places anyone goes to research a group they are interested in.

Amazon is in on it, too. It does not allow “hate groups” to participate in its affinity “Smile” program whereby a piece of every purchase can be earmarked for a designated charity.

Within the past few weeks the non-profit monitor/reporter Guidestar has incorporated SPLC’s “designation” into its listing of charities. Guidestar is often the first stop for donors when considering a gift because it has complete tax information for every non-profit in the United States. So now, when you turn to the Guidestar page for Family Research Council, blazoned across the top is SPLC’s logo and the warning that FRC is a hate group. Stay away donors.

Suing the defenceless

Besides their hate list, one of SPLC’s specialties is suing small groups or individuals who barely have the wherewithal to defend themselves so when SPLC inevitably wins, they get to claim once more to have beaten back fascism. Even though they sit on a mountain of cash, they also get to ask their donors to fund the suit, which they almost certainly do.

Two years ago, SPLC sued Arthur Goldberg who then ran a New Jersey-based psychological referral service for those wishing to leave the homosexual life. SPLC sued under the New Jersey consumer fraud law accusing Goldberg of duping his clients with the bogus theory that they could stop acting out sexually with men. Goldberg was well-represented with pro-bono attorneys from California. At any one time, however, SPLC had 15 attorneys working on the case. To give you an idea of what Goldberg was up against, the judge wouldn’t even allow expert testimony on change therapy since he said it was a crackpot theory. Goldberg lost and now owes millions. SPLC now goes around with Goldberg’s scalp and extracts beaucoup bucks from grateful gays.

It is a neat trick to be able to label your political opponents “hate groups” and get the media and major corporations to go along, and to get rich doing it. The purpose, of course, is to silence free speech, to end debate, and in the words of SPLC’s Mark Potok “to completely destroy them.” Many are asking how this has any place in our modern political discourse.

SOURCE


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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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