Tag Archives: Violence

Robert E. Lee: Douchebag of Epic Proportions

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I came across this disgusting post today. Of course, you never know whether quotes are accurately attributed on the internet, but it appears D’Souza did in fact say this in an interview:

“Historically illiterate” sure sounds elitist and incisive, but you know what’s fucking worse than being “historically illiterate”? Just being the regular old type of illiterate. Hey Dinesh D’Souza, have you ever heard of like, a dictionary? He may have missed the entry, but “integrity” is defined thus:
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
Synonyms include honesty, probity, virtue, morality, decency, sincerity, and righteousness. It would seem to me, perhaps a “historically illiterate” woman, that a man whose loyalty to the state of Virginia caused him to lead a fucking army to wage a war in support of two causes he allegedly opposes is literally the exact opposite of someone who has “integrity.”

Do people even listen to themselves when they say retarded shit like this? Hey, this Nazi really is against murder, but he murdered a bunch of Jewish people, because you know, loyalty to Germany and such. Of course, obviously very much a man of “unimpeachable integrity.” And if you disagree, you’re definitely historically illiterate.  

It’s not because I am a “historically illiterate” leftist that I feel this way. I grew up in Lee’s home state of Virginia. I’ve been immersed in all the fun confederacy stuff, including plantation tours, visiting Lee’s house, touring Stonewall Jackson’s house, etc. While I sincerely enjoyed and appreciated those historical lessons, believe me when I say I’ve heard to no end that Lee really hated slavery and didn’t even want to secede but DERP DERP LOYALTY TO HIS HOME STATE. That fairy tale sounded plausible to a TEN YEAR OLD but then you know, I grew a brain and realized it was bullshit logic. It may be a legitimate point to make about moral dilemmas a man may face in his lifetime, or the ethical quandaries entailed in war, but it is inaccurate to herald Lee as man of great moral resolve. If loyalty to your state causes you to compromise two of your (allegedly) closely-held values, you are by definition NOT someone who has particularly strong moral principles. 

Putting petty issues of definitions and logic aside, Wikipedia provides an enlightening account of Robert E. Lee’s attitude toward three of his slaves, who escaped but were forced to return to Arlington:

Wesley Norris himself spoke out about the incident after the war, in an 1866 interview printed in an abolitionist newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Norris stated that after they had been captured, and forced to return to Arlington, Lee told them that “he would teach us a lesson we would not soon forget.” According to Norris, Lee then had the three of them firmly tied to posts by the overseer, and ordered them whipped with fifty lashes for the men and twenty for Mary Norris. Norris claimed that Lee encouraged the whipping, and that when the overseer refused to do it, called in the county constable to do it instead.
 “Unimpeachable integrity” indeed.
 

Libertarians Who Think Women Are More Prone to Socialism Are Fucking Idiots

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Idiotic misogynists, to be precise.

If people harboring such sexist opinions took just two seconds to think about history and everything that is completely obvious to any non-comatose human, they would instantly conclude there is absolutely no credibility to the claim women prefer big government, authoritarianism, socialism, or collectivism, when compared to men.

Let us start by reviewing the entire concept of government, shall we? Last I checked, governments all over the world, for most of human history, have been instigated, operated, and perpetuated disproportionately by men. Kings, emperors, lords, monarchs, and other rulers of all sorts have almost exclusively been men, with exceptions being in the minority. Generals, armies, conquerors, and marauders throughout all of human history have also mostly been people with penises. Thus, it’s safe to say men pretty much fucking invented the concept of government-related war and violence.

In the United States, women did not even have any uniform right to vote until 1920, much less have any power in government. We all know voting is useless anyways, so to ignore all of American (and human) history and claim women are prone to favor government and are somehow more responsible for irreparably contributing to its current gargantuan form is a special kind of unprecedented absurdity.

Next, let us review some of the worst (big) government leaders in the history of mankind:

  • Genghis Khan
  • Hitler
  • Kim Il Sung
  • Mao
  • Pol Pot
  • Stalin

This list is not comprehensive by any means, but when worst dictators and bloodiest leaders come to mind, NO women make the cut. You can google some more “worst dictator” lists here, here, and here, and if you undertake a simple CTRL+F function, you will observe that the word “she” does not appear on any of these lists. This is not to say there are none (e.g. here), but this point cannot be subject to any kind of serious debate.

It is also indisputable men have and continue to fill the ranks of the biggest, most violent, statist institutions in the world, i.e. the police and the military. The military and the police are the backbone of any government operation, as they wield the force to do the government’s bidding. Without military and police to forcibly subjugate people into succumbing to a government’s will, laws and regulations are completely meaningless. What is the percentage of women who occupy these professions? They are clearly in the minority in the United States, and I’d venture to guess a vast minority when taking the rest of the world into account. While women (unfortunately) increasingly seek employment in these fields, for most of history, these jobs were occupied by men. 

Even today, when women have made great strides and progress against sexism in the United States, as of 2016, women make up only 19 percent of all members of Congress, and less than 25 percent of all state legislators. They constitute 6 of the nation’s 50 governors (see here). Worldwide, women are also the minority when it comes to government power and control. If women “love big government,” they sure have a funny way of showing it, and if men love limited government, their actions sure as fuck aren’t in accordance with that professed affinity.

Any intellectually honest libertarian recognizes there is hardly any difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to big government. The parties differ only on petty issues when it comes to spending. When Democrats and Republicans alike favor huge budgets, huge government programs, a bloated military, and endless war, there is absolutely no merit to the claim that because women are more liberal, that they are more statist than men. So the fact women tend to lean Democrat and support liberal social policies speaks very little to the issue, as men in equal proportion favor other types of equally costly big-government programs. To claim women significantly embrace statism more than men is to ignore most of human history and use a shamelessly selective attention to facts to arrive at a misogynistic conclusion.

Libertarians often point to the disproportionate numbers of liberatarian men and cite the dearth of women in the libertarian movement as evidence women prefer statism. This is nonsense. The vast majority of Americans identify as Democrats or Republicans. How many libertarian anarchists do you personally know? It would be generous to suggest they might constitute 1 percent of the American population. To argue that because women constitute a disproportionately small pie of this 1 percent means women as a whole are more “socialist” and “love big government” is to embrace a stupidity beyond comprehension.

Put another way, a Pew poll has found that 15 percent of men identify with limited-government views, compared with 7 percent of women. In other words, 85 percent of men are statists, and 93 percent of women are statists; thus, the ostensible argument is that although men are overwhelmingly statist, because they are a few paltry percentage points less likely to be statist, they are prone to freedom, while women are prone to big government.  Are you really that stupid, or do you just hate women because you’ve lived in your mother’s basement too long, don’t get any pussy, and need someone to blame for your fragile ego?

Yes, shockingly, it is true that if one discards all data points indicating men are also statists in high percentages, one could indeed selectively conclude women are less libertarian. In fact, it is a universal truth that if one eliminates all the data serving as evidence against their argument, the remaining data will support their hypothesis. Who knew?! To limit the sample size to the small percentage of libertarians, and ignore the many (majority of) men who are statist in order to insist on the twisted conclusion that women particularly love  and support statism means only this: you’re really good at mental gymnastics and are a total embarrassment to humanity.

Obviously, libertarianism is about individualism, and there should be no blame game as to which arbitrary collective is more “responsible” for socialism, but if we’re going to play this game, let’s play it fairly. Putting aside political preferences, and returning to the more probative evidence, because fuck the preferences – the irrefutable truth throughout history demonstrates men are government. Who the fuck really cares if women like government more if men are the ones who invented it, and continue to operate, control, and perpetuate it in much higher proportions than women? For anyone to argue that women’s insignificantly slight preference for government (if it exists at all) somehow proves a gender disparity in attitudes toward government only reveals the depths of their delusion and idiocy.

Never Fuck Men Who Are Anti-Abortion

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The Brisbane Times reports a Catholic school teacher threatened  to send an email to the staff and parents of the school at which he worked with a colleague if the colleague went through with a planned abortion. He has been charged with 3 counts of rape for threatening to release explicit videos and mar the reputation of a colleague if she refused to continue in a relationship and have sex with him. The man, who remains anonymous (but shouldn’t – the media should let us know who this vile mother fucker is) pleaded not guilty and claimed he took these measures as a “last resort” to prevent the woman from “murdering” his child.

And this is why women should never, ever, ever have sex with men who are anti-abortion.

Men who are against abortion think of women as less than human, because they value clumps of unconscious cells over the mind, desires, preferences, and bodily integrity of full-grown human women. These are the types of men who would sooner sentence 9-year-olds and 11 year-olds to a lifetime of depression, anxiety, and irreparable health consequences than permit her to abort a fetus created out of rape.

Most people do not value the preferences and needs of plants, snails, chickens, or goats, all constituting one form of biological life or another, over the lives and happiness of other people. Essentially then, men of this ilk who have sex with women are comparable to men who engage in bestiality. They have sex with creatures they perceive to be subhuman, over whom they believe they have intellectual and physical dominion, because it is more comfortable and convenient for their insecure egos. To these men, women are human-like, but are primarily vessels for propagation of a man’s DNA. Therefore, when faced with a situation in which the subhuman creature does not yield and succumb to this caveman’s expectations or desires, these primitive men may resort to threats, extortion, and/or violence to get their way in the name of “morality.”

It’s not that these men respect “life” in general. These same men are not using extortion, violence, and laws to prevent people from killing goats or pigs for food, or hunting bears and elephants for sport, all of which have more mental capacity and consciousness than many early stage fetuses. They are not bombing in vitro fertilization clinics to protest the countless fertilized eggs idly sitting around, or even being destroyed in medical laboratories.

Rather, the highly selective concern for “life” is limited to clumps of cells that reside in women’s bodies, and their insistence on using violence, force, and threats in furtherance of propagation of that “life” is limited to coercing women into spreading genes. Disingenuously, the only time such a clump of cells matters, is when the burden, inconvenience, or threat to life and limb must be borne by a human woman. This convenient concern for otherwise indistinguishable cells is without any ostensible or reasonable basis compared to concern for the lives of lions, tigers, baboons, or zygotes in petri dishes, and can only be explained by misogyny.

These men believe that just as a pig or cow on a farm has no inherent right to determine the terms or circumstances of reproduction, neither do women. It is the farmer who has the right to decide whether and when to increase the size of his stock for the good of the herd, and it is men and/or society who have the right to tell women whether and when to reproduce for the collective good of the (human) farm.

Certainly, if one does choose to have sex with such a base man of this mentality, resulting in pregnancy, abortions can be procured in secret, but why even accord such a disgusting person the privilege to begin with? There is no reason on earth to ever fuck someone who first and foremost, does not even recognize a woman’s fundamental humanity and right to self-determination.

Thus, unless one is completely comfortable with fucking a man who fucks donkeys and sheep, one should be just as uneasy as fucking a man who is against abortion. Because to that kind of man, you are the donkey.

Is Your Daughter Going to Be a Slut? Take this Quiz To Find Out!

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Desperate to know whether your little princess has a future as a ho-bag or slut in store for her? Take this simple quiz to find out. Keep track of your score for each question. At the end, give yourself 5 points for each “yes” answer, and 0 points for each “no” answer.

  1. Did your wife eat enough kale while pregnant?
  2. Did your wife consume too much sugar while pregnant?
  3. On a scale of 1-10, how good looking are you?
  4. On a scale of 1-10, how hot is your wife?
  5. Is your wife a hoochie?

Just kidding. This is not a real quiz. And the answer for anyone taking it is, “Who fucking cares?”

Men in their late twenties and thirties everywhere who slutted it up in their youth and find themselves expecting, or father to, a young daughter have this bizarre concern their precious princess is going to grow up to be a loose woman. I do not know where this fear comes from, as it takes two people to have sex, and if these men enjoyed slutting it up so much in their youth, they should view slutty women as a boon and source of great joy to men everywhere, not something to be feared. I love drinking beer, traveling, and eating. Therefore, I would not have any irrational fear of raising a son who becomes a lover of beer, traveling, or eating. See how that works?

Oh, wait. Sex is different. Women aren’t supposed to enjoy sex, so all those slooties these men slept with in their youth were defective, broken, or immoral. This mentality strains logic to the breaking point, yet is shockingly common. Men somehow want to constantly fuck different people, but cannot bear the idea the women on the receiving end might do the same and enjoy it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because they are rapists at heart. I think it entirely fair to characterize it as such, if these men truly enjoy going around feeling like they’ve conquered a bunch of unwilling, unhappy, and begrudging participants, who obviously cannot possibly be moral, normal, or healthy individuals if they actually want the sex. There is no way around this logic. Every time a guy fucks a woman, hopefully, that woman is consenting to it and enjoying it. If a guy has consensual sex, there is presumably a woman on the other end who wanted to have it with him. This isn’t fucking rocket science.

Or maybe the real fear is just that – these men come to a realization that they were predating upon women they believed to be emotionally unbalanced, weak, not in the right mind, and/or semi-retarded, and fear their daughters may face similar predators. In that event, the men with these concerns should reflect upon their lifetime of asshole behavior, rather than project their fears into a sick need to obsess over their daughters’ sexuality. Additionally, maybe the focus should be on raising a happy, well-balanced, non-retarded daughter instead of fretting over the number of dicks that might go inside her vagina. The order of priorities could not possibly be more absurd here.

Even in 2017, some men are unable to grasp the concept that individual women own their own sexuality; men – whether husbands, boyfriends, fathers, or brothers – do not. A woman is like, a human being and stuff. Women have sexual desires just like the other 50 percent of humanity. Men fail to understand they sound like total neanderthals when they talk about using guns to threaten their daughter’s boyfriends. They do realize this is the acceptable, westernized version of certain fundamentalist Muslims who treat their daughters and wives like property and guard their sexuality with head-to-toe covering, right?

Making violent threats of murder no less, against innocent young boys trying to date your daughter is not funny. It is not cute or merely being “overprotective.” It is fucking disturbed and psychotic. I have a nice brother, about 5 1/2 years younger than me, who is a good person, and whom I love. I was probably a gun-hating liberal in his early days of high school, but if I learned some deranged dad of some princess threatened him with a gun, I would have been on Google searching the fastest way to get my own fucking gun to threaten to blow that dad’s head off myself. If you think threatening to stone or beat women to protect their chastity is lunacy, you should find violent threats against innocent, young, male suitors for the purpose of protecting your daughter’s virginity equally insane.

It is literally the same concept. Male relatives who think they have a right to use violence to enforce their female family members’ chastity – whether against the woman herself, or against perceived violators of that chastity – do so because they feel entitled to control female sexuality, “purity,” and ultimately, reproduction. They likely can articulate no reasonable explanations as to why they feel compelled to control sexuality or reproduction, but it’s certainly traced back to the base and patriarchal construct that emphasizes the need for women to be virgins. This is 2017, people. Your daughter is not a piece of property; she owns herself, and by extension, she also owns her personality, her desires, her actions, and her sexuality. There are few things in existence in the United States in 2017 that are more embarrassingly unprogressive and backwards than this.

And please don’t insult anyone’s intelligence by arguing the “biology” card. While there are obvious biological differences between men and women, these are far too minor to justify society’s drastically disparate treatment of men versus women’s sexuality. Further, even assuming your bullshit biological “argument” is correct, biology does not dictate morality. Biology explains why children are more likely to be murdered by their stepfathers than biological fathers, but this says absolutely nothing about the morality of murdering stepchildren. Stepfathers don’t want to waste resources on children who do not pass on their genetic material, and are more likely to kill unrelated children. But even though biology explains this phenomenon, the explanation is nevertheless irrelevant to the ethics involving murdering children. Similarly, whether biology explains how women behave sexually is irrelevant to the ethics or morality of telling women how they should behave sexually.

If you want to dwell on biology, arguably, men invented this patriarchal idea that women love being virgins, hate sex, and only want it with one person because evolutionarily speaking, men want to pass on their own DNA (and no one else’s), and therefore wanted to guarantee they did not spend energy and resources being cuckolded and raising a child who biologically belonged to another man. But again, irrespective of what accurate or inaccurate biological explanations may exist, this is entirely irrelevant to ethics and morality. Also, newsflash: paternity tests were invented in the 1960’s, and there is no longer any excuse for a creepy obsession with seeking unmarred virgins under the guise of wanting to preserve your DNA. You can always find out with an extremely high degree of accuracy whether a woman is carrying your DNA or not. See e.g. Various episodes of Maury and Jerry Springer. It seems the classy, educated gentlemen featured on those shows are capable of grasping the benefits of a paternity test. Men who haven’t caught onto this nifty invention are a good 60 years behind the times. Let me emphasize that part about being “backwards” once more.

Then, there’s the crowd favoring the “emotional problem” argument alongside the “biology” argument. This group couches the thinly-veiled criticism of women who love sex in falsely sympathetic terms, in that they pretend they only shun or dislike sluts because they claim it is evidence of some kind of emotional or mental illness in women. Again, I fail to see how a man who loves having sex is normal, but a woman in the same situation is mentally or emotionally ill; regardless, this sentiment is nonsense for other reasons. Don’t think you can bullshit me with this kind of false concern about the emotional well-being of women, because I know the men pulling this lame excuse aren’t also irrationally and inexplicably concerned about their female fetus or 4-year old princess becoming an alcoholic, drug abuser, manic-depressive, narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath, which are equally if not more common, and much more serious and destructive emotional problems. Read: “I don’t care if my daughter is a half-retarded heroin junkie sociopath – just please don’t let it be the case that she loves sex!”

I thought I was slightly neurotic because I daydream of animal costumes for my fetus (cat ears! leopard print!) and have detailed mental debates on which classical instrument she should play (piano if we choose a traditional lifestyle, violin or cello if we decide to live a nomadic one), but I’m pretty sure being scared of how many dicks will one day see her vagina encompasses a crazy of epic proportions.

My parents basically never had any discussions about sex with me, and left that task up to public schooling and my friends. However, I recall one time in high school, when my friend joked in front of my mother that her mother thought she was a big whore. My mother raised her eyebrows and said something to the effect of, “Don’t worry about being a whore. Just don’t get AIDS and don’t get pregnant.” I probably laughed hysterically at the time, but in retrospect, this is practical and reasonable advice for a 15 year-old girl.

My husband and I are concerned about whether our future daughter will be intelligent, healthy, and happy. We do not give two donkey shits about whether one day many years down the road she might have sex with more men than the acceptable number set by society. If you do, your priorities might be in the wrong place.

Thoughts on an Article I read Pertaining to the Economics of Marriage and Divorce

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I recently read The Economics of Marriage and Divorce on FEE.org, which raised some interesting points. The article starts out in an informative manner, and is rightly critical of state meddling, regulation, and intervention in the private matters of marriage and divorce. However, the article goes on to say,

Another turning point was no-fault divorce, which was first introduced in California in 1969 and has spread to almost every state. In no-fault divorce, a spouse does not need to prove wrongdoing but can merely claim incompatibility. It is sometimes called unilateral divorce because one party can request it; the other cannot refuse. Moreover, marital conduct cannot be used as a factor in determining the division of property. The arrangement is set by law, not by the parties involved.

The writer cites to skyrocketing divorce rates as a result of No-Fault Divorce policies, and goes as far to quote a Men’s Rights Activist who laments, “You can be forcibly separated from your children, your home, and your property, also through literally ‘no fault’ of your own. Failure to cooperate with the divorce opens the innocent spouse to criminal penalties. No-fault divorce made divorce far more destructive by allowing the state to undertake court proceedings against innocent people, confiscate everything they have, and incarcerate them without trial.”

I don’t think “No-Fault Divorce” should have required a law to begin with, as no one should be forced by the long dick of the law to stay in an unhappy or even abusive relationship, but the reality is the law wants to have an opinion on just about everything, and this particular regulation (really, it seems to be the negation of a prior regulation – Fault Divorce law) happens to be one that is in accordance with the principles of liberty. Consider the alternative. If one spouse wants to leave, should the other truly have the right to refuse and to enforce that refusal? One may not want to lose their spouse and face terrible financial consequences, which are exacerbated by government laws, but the answer should not be to force people with government laws to continue to be legally bound together against their will.

I will never forget when my high school English teacher from sophomore year casually related a story of her marriage to her first husband, who was regularly physically abusive. She literally had to show up at court with bruises on her body, with a witness in tow (a friend), and both of them had to testify to the horrors of her husband’s beatings for her to be able to legally obtain a divorce. There are numerous abhorrent aspects of family law, but No-Fault Divorce’s abandonment of antiquated ideas of people as slaves or property is not one of them. Do we really want to return to the days of Fault Divorce? Is this author really a feminist?

Strangely, this article describes in great detail how financially destructive and downright devastating divorce can be – then proceeds to nonsensically argue the current legal state of marriage is such that marriages are insufficient contracts because they essentially are agreements that “can be unilaterally broken without consequences”  …Say what?

Admittedly, one person initiating a divorce and dragging the other unwilling party through unwanted consequences is lamentable. The fact the consequences can be so severe, expensive, and dire, is largely the fault of other government policies, as the writer rightly points out, but the answer is not to require someone to prove “fault” – e.g. adultery, cruelty, abandonment, mental illness, and criminal conviction – or be forced to remain in a marriage. Indeed, for an article coming from FEE.org, I have to point out it is the very antithesis of libertarianism to advocate a person be forced to remain in a marriage unless they prove certain elements of fault, just because some number of years ago they made vague promises to be “patient” and “kind” and to be together “forever.”

While there are a great many things wrong with family and divorce law, this Men’s Rights Activist (predictably) and this author (who claims to be a feminist) blatantly turn logic on its head by suggesting that not forcing someone to stay in an undesirable marriage is in fact “forcibly” separating family, home, and property. This makes absolutely no sense, unless operating on the assumption people are objects, or a means to an end, and that a spouse is legally entitled to the labor and utility of the spouse attempting to dissolve the marriage.

The author concludes, “No-fault divorce removed all vestige of marriage as a contract between two people” and proposes the following:

The simple and proper solution is to return to marriage as a civil contract. It does not need to be a complicated agreement. It could and probably would evolve in the same manner as wills have—that is, a variety of standard ones can be purchased inexpensively in bookstores or online. Close down the family court systems that regulate divorce and which provide lawyers with inflated incomes. Allow the breach of a marriage to be arbitrated in a manner spelled out in the contract itself.

While I can get on board with the idea of privatization of matters that are none of the government’s goddamn business, it is absolutely not the case that No-Fault Divorce is to blame for the failure of marriage as contract. If marriage is to be treated as a contract, it must abide by the principles of contracts, and most marriages do not, and historically have not, at least in the modern era with which I am familiar. The hopelessly vague, undefined, and nondescript marriage vows 99.99 percent of couples currently exchange in the course of wedding ceremonies would never hold up as a valid contract in any court of law (private or state-run).

Additionally, to the contrary, it’s unlikely marriage in and of itself could ever be an uncomplicated agreement. There are undoubtedly some clear indicators of wrongdoing, such as repeated cheating or violence, but for the most part, marriage is a complex relationship of constant negotiation and re-negotiation based on mutual, rather vague, promises of people to do their best to stay together. Sometimes even cheating or violence may be forgiven, but sometimes a more minor offense might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back after years of emotional neglect or abandonment. Regardless, it’s not the place of the law to dictate what constitutes “fault” and force parties to remain together in the absence of proof of that fault.

Surely, some terms of marriage commonly used are unambiguous; promises to be faithful are widely understood. Few people are going to get away with, “Oh shit, you mean sleeping with your sister/brother violates my promise to be faithful?” On the other hand, spouses often promise to “honor” or “respect” one another. They assent to bible passages in the course of their vows to be “patient” and “kind” to each other. But what does this actually mean?

Anyone who has ever read any contract will notice the first several pages of any contract contain recitals and definitions setting forth the mutual understanding of relevant context and certain terms. Well, what in the fuck does “honor” or “respect” mean to each individual? Are you dishonoring your husband if you only do the laundry every month when he wants you to do it every week? Is your husband disrespecting you if he plays too many video games after you’ve asked him to cut down? What does “patience” and “kindness” entail? How patient do you have to be after your husband forgets to clean up the dog poop day after day, month after month? How kind do you have to be if your wife kicks the family cat? Some women promise in vows to “follow” their husband, the god-ordained “leader” in marriage; does that apply when the husband goes on a murder-suicide rampage? How are these terms defined, and how are the respective actions to be implemented?

To my knowledge, few, if any marriage vows bother to define or clarify the meaning or expectations associated with these terms. If a husband regularly enjoys taking a giant shit on the living room floor, is this “dishonor” or “disrespect” constituting breach of contract? And if so, to what remedies is the wife entitled? In that case, would a proponent of Fault Divorce agree the husband committed fault? Or is that insufficient “fault” such that the wife is still without reason to “unilaterally” breach the contract? If a spouse threatens to cheat or file for divorce, but has not actually done it, does it count as anticipatory breach, so that the other is immediately entitled to remedies? Or given the duration and gravity of the relationship contemplated, are such matters considered minor breaches for which the breaching party is entitled to a chance to cure the defect?

Things get even more complicated. Contracts are rightfully dissolved when there is a frustration of purpose. If Alana contracts with Beth to supply widgets for building robots, but Alana’s robot factory gets crushed by an asteroid, there is a frustration of purpose, and the contract can be terminated. As applied to marriage, most people enter into marriage to mutually provide and receive security and happiness. What happens when one person feels financially and emotionally insecure and miserable? This is certainly frustration of purpose for at least one, and possibly both parties, but more importantly, who is the breaching party? Is it the person who failed to take reasonable measures to provide security and happiness to the other? Or is it the person who is insecure and miserable because he/she is simply a difficult person? We don’t know because none of these things are agreed upon in advance of 99.99 percent of marriages. 

Imagine the many pages of definitions one would have to append to a contract to be able to define what circumstances constitute “security” or “happiness” for each individual involved. Perhaps one might want to include a clause indicating that if a party substantially complies with certain acts in furtherance of promoting security and happiness, the duty/responsibility is considered fulfilled and the other spouse’s lack of subjective feelings of security and happiness is not grounds for breach. Or perhaps the parties might decide that in fact, the individual subjective valuation of these elements is key (or would that then be an illusory contract?)

Even if we were to force a contract analysis on marriage vows, which do not remotely fit the definite requirements of contract formation, what’s to say the flood of divorces are actually “unilateral”? Maybe the spouse who filed for divorce on No-Fault grounds in fact felt dishonored, disrespected, unloved, and not at all “cherished” for the last 15 years, and thereby finally decided to seek divorce as a remedy for the 15 years of continual breach by the spouse who is unwilling to divorce. This attempt to conflate marriage promises with enforceable legal agreements is laughable and downright wrong.

If definite terms of a marital relationship were in fact achievable, one could begin to make some good faith arguments as to who was breached the contract and the damages owed accordingly, but in the absence of these definitions, marriages that dissolve today and result in nasty legal consequences do not come to such ends because someone “unilaterally” breached a clear-cut, valid, and mutually agreed upon contract “without consequences” or because of No-Fault Divorce. Rather, they dissolve in a messy way because an adequate, comprehensible, and enforceable contract as to rights, responsibilities, and property division was not created to begin with.

Many, many, many people do not make clear agreements when they get married (or any agreement at all), and then become entangled in the government clusterfuck of divorce law when shit hits the fan. Of course, even for couples that do make clear agreements (e.g. in the form of a prenuptial or marital agreement), the government (at least in California) can unfortunately override their agreements to an extent, e.g. agreements to not pursue spousal support or child support. But according to this source, only 5 percent of divorces involve couples who had a prenuptial agreement, so these people are in the vast minority.

What is far more practicable and realistic is for the finances associated with marriage, rather than marriage itself, to be subject to contract principles, but free from some of the egregiously unjust and burdensome laws currently in existence. It is much easier to formulate how to split a house, a 401K account, or how to divide other family assets, than to decide who is at “fault” for the degradation of happiness, security, fulfillment, and meaning in a marriage. When entering into a marriage (however each individual may subjectively define that relationship), it is a good practice to decide in writing or otherwise how to split assets, property, income, and how to handle other matters in the event of dissolution.

Certainly, as acknowledged above, because of bad laws and state meddling, even if people do come to definite agreements, they can face expensive lawyers and unfortunate consequences. However, as it currently stands, while legal fees and hurdles can be a barrier, the majority of people do not bother to attempt to make specific agreements because they simply do not want to. According to the Huffington Post, it is a minority of people who think a prenup is a good idea (44 percent), and even of people who have been divorced, only 15 percent wish they had one in the first place (here). Just take casual poll of people you know, and it becomes clear it’s not just that it can be cost-prohibitive to hire attorneys; a large proportion of people avoid definite, binding financial agreements in the context of marriage simply because they believe it unromantic, morbid, pessimistic, and just a plain bad idea, and this has absolutely nothing to do with No-Fault Divorce, nor is it solely the fault of government.

Refugee Family Reunites With Lost Cat After Epic Journey

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I consider myself emotionally balanced most of the time, though I am prone to sentimentality over cats and rage over matters involving violations of human and civil rights. I think pregnancy has slightly magnified these tendencies of mine and today, I came across a moving story that encompassed both of these issues. Cats, human rights violations, and pregnancy were a trifecta that really pushed me over the edge in this case.

The Guardian shared a story of an unfortunate refugee family who had to flee Iraq due to circumstances of violence. They could not imagine parting with their family pet, a beautiful white cat (though I am partial to black ones), so a mother, five children, and their beautiful white cat named Kunkush left Iraq and headed to Greece together in November of 2015.

100,000 refugees arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos that month, and according to The Guardian video (below), “Kunkush was scared and got separated from his family.” This statement is written in big, unmistakable letters in this compelling video of human and animal resilience. The family had to move on, since Greece was merely a brief stopover point, and they did not yet know where there final destination would be, as is often the case with victims who are displaced by war.

Kunkush was located in a village nearby several days later, and was picked up by a veterinarian. After two months, a volunteer traveled with Kunkush to Berlin, and a search for his family began.

It turns out, his family had relocated to Norway, and in February, Kunkush was reunited with his family. This video (you have to watch it) is so incredibly touching, as it shows the loving reunion between Kunkush and his family after a long and seemingly impossible journey. The mother can hardly wait to get him out of the carrier, and once he is in her arms she cries, “Kunkush, my life! My darling!” as she kisses him. I almost fucking cried at work watching this damn thing.

There is nothing more beautiful than a happy ending like this; a family forced from their homes under tragic circumstances finds a new home, and their beloved cat makes it home to them under the most improbable of circumstances. You can read more here.

Yet, for every miraculous, beautiful moment, there is some ugly, vile, person with cow shit in the place of where their heart should be to tear it down. The story was posted by And My Cat on Facebook:

While many enjoyed the story and shared positive thoughts, many of the comments were imbecilic, egregiously ignorant, and reprehensible.  For instance, Exhibit A, Rita Maji DeLisi, a royal cunt who enjoys Ohio sports commented, “Sad…pathetic owners leave pets behind. Get yourself a statue next time. You don’t deserve the love pets provide.” Another equally cunty Facebook user apparently agreed with her and liked her garbage post.

 

Not to be outdone, Exhibit B, Corrina Peacock Ashley stated, “They shouldn’t have left him!!!” and Exhibit C, Bettyann Brunette Lilley called the family “pieces of crap” and “fools” for leaving their fur baby. That’s right; in reaching an unprecedented low, Lilley actually called children fleeing from war “pieces of crap” and “fools” because they lost their cat. It is truly un-fucking-believable.

First, maybe if Rita’s military was not bombing the shit out of Iraq and murdering civilians over there, this poor family probably would not have had to fucking flee to begin with. It’s easy for compassionless, disgusting north Americans to judge a family under these circumstances while stuffing themselves full of Doritos and Pizza Hut in the safety of their own homes, which have never been damaged, destroyed, or even threatened with foreign bombs or troops.

Second, it’d be nice if these fucking idiots would do the world a favor and learn to read. The video clearly indicates the cat was scared and ran off. He was not abandoned for fuck’s sake. If they were capable of reading even at a second-grade level, they would have learned from the video that Greece was not this family’s final destination. In all likelihood, they did not have legal status to stay in Greece indefinitely as undocumented aliens and search aimlessly for their runaway cat. Rita is possibly the type of American who supported Trump and his abominable wall and seethes with hatred at illegal immigrants, but she somehow expects this family to overstay their legal welcome in Greece to search for a fucking cat. Does this make any goddamn sense?

Even if the poor cat were in fact abandoned, is it too much to ask to have a bit of sympathy for a family literally fleeing for their lives? Let’s not forget that refugees drowned in Turkey and even Lesbos, where this family landed, and cats are not known to be the best swimmers. Maybe at that point, the family was relieved Kunkush had at least run away on land and not died. It’s easy to judge another human being, but no one really knows what they would do if forced into the same situation of war, violence, and displacement. But I suppose that’s far too beyond the mind of North Americans living their revoltingly militaristic and supercilious lives, marked by extraordinary obesity in both a metaphoric and literal sense – the overindulgent, masturbatory corpulence of the self-righteous American manifests itself both mentally and physically.

In sum, fuck these people.

The Media’s Distortion of the English Language and its Role in Absolving Police of Heinous Crimes

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The American concept of justice has fallen so far that police are no longer recognized as individuals having the volitional capacity to act with corresponding consequences; instead their crimes are treated as forces of nature or acts of god.

When ordinary people harm or kill others, it is typically viewed as what it is, regardless of whether the aggressor was acting in the course of employment. Doctors who recklessly injure patients are sued and suffer injured reputations. Taxi drivers and truckers are held to account if they drive carelessly and cause unjustified injuries. Employment aside, people who attack others without just cause are duly considered to be criminals. Most people in society are deemed negligent individuals and face appropriate recourse when they engage in heedless behavior that results in injuries to others.

Not so with the police. When police are careless, negligent, reckless, or even malicious – they are viewed as blameless, because in the United States, it has become impossible to blame the police. This makes perfect sense when you perceive that a great proportion of Americans essentially view the police as gods who can do no wrong. Just as it is not possible to cannot cast moral blame or “personal” responsibility upon nature or god, so has it become with American police.

Last week, Miami police stormed a house in a SWAT raid and injured two children, who were left bloodied and bruised. The family claims the police raided the wrong house. Police and the media claim that in the chaos of the raid, a child “ran into an officers weapons” [sic]. More here and here. Take note: the police did not create chaos by dangerously barging into the wrong house and injuring children. It was during “the chaos of the raid,” which magically appeared on its own, that a child injured himself, by running into weapons.

Last year, Miami Beach police tasered a teenager, Israel Hernandez-Llach, who died as a result. The news carefully avoided the indisputable fact that a cop killed the teenager for fleeing the scene of vandalism, and artfully suggested that the teenager died of “heart failure” from what authorities called the “energy device discharge.” Again – the cop did not shoot a taser at a teenager and kill him – it was the “energy device discharge” combined with “heart failure” that caused his untimely death.

Jose Paulino Jr. was another victim of taser-happy police recently. Upon his death, police again deflected blame from themselves, and the media dutifully parroted the excuses. David Beohm, a Pennsylvania State Police Spokesman mused, “I don’t know if he went into cardiac arrest or what happened…was he under the influence of something?  What was going on with him that could create this condition?”

Allen Kephart was tasered to death over a petty traffic dispute. No criminal charges were filed against police, as Kephart’s death was attributed to high blood pressure, heart disease, and other pre-existing health conditions. (More here and here).

Several years ago, Eurie Stamps, a beloved grandfather of 12, was tragically shot by the Framingham, MA SWAT Team in a botched drug raid. Again, the statement from police at that time obfuscated any mention of individual action and personal responsibility, claiming Mr. Stamps was “fatally struck by a bullet, which was discharged from a SWAT officer’s rifle.” Who knew bullets could discharge on their own?

Similarly, when 7-year-old Aiyana Jones was shot and killed in another botched SWAT raid, it was certainly not the  case that the officer shot the child. Predictably, what happened was, “the officer’s weapon discharged one round, which….struck…Aiyana Stanley Jones in the neck/head area.” (More here). Of course. How obvious it should have been – people don’t kill people; guns send bullets flying on their own.

When it comes to reporting on most criminal activity, English grammar is pretty straightforward for the media:

Example A: The murderer[noun – a perpetrator] killed[verb – criminal activity] the child[noun – victim].
Example B: The criminal[noun – a perpetrator] tasered[verb – criminal activity] the victim[noun– victim].
Alternatively, another common usage is to use the passive voice, to emphasize that something horrific was done to the victim:
Example C: The grandfather[noun – victim] was shot[verb in passive voice – criminal activity] by the villain[noun – a perpetrator].

When it comes to police, the media exhibits a convenient and total disregard for traditional use of English. There are no direct actors, no humans to hold accountable, only inanimate objects. There are tales of bullets that discharge on their own, guns that fire for no reason, tasers that shoot themselves, and of course, multitudes of vague health conditions victims may have had which contributed to their own deaths.

This distortion of language should be transparent and abhorrent to anyone who is paying attention. Unfortunately, it seems that no one is.

If you repeat a lie enough times, people will begin to believe it. So it is with the American public. The media has repeated time and time again that police are never responsible, and never can be responsible, because they are not to be judged as individuals like the rest of us. They are of a higher order, and their actions are equivalent to forces of nature and acts of god. It’s been said enough times, and Americans now believe it.

Helicopter Parenting, Entitlement Culture, and the Police State

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A few weeks ago, these signs started showing up everywhere in my neighborhood:

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This is in addition to the cones, flags, and other portable signs that appear frequently cautioning drivers of children about, whether there are actually children about or not. For the record, many a time, I have driven by signs and flags demanding “SLOW!” speeds when there was no child in sight. Roads are no longer recognized as primarily serving the purpose of automobile passage; they are now considered by modern, entitled suburbanites to be playgrounds catering to the whims of their children and their particular leisure needs, to supplement the many existing parks, playgrounds, and natural reserves nearby.

One can imagine the idiocy (and eyesore) if everyone took this approach with signs, but for different classes of people who needed special protection – “Drive Like Your Grandparents Live Here” – “Drive Like Your Blind Brother Lives Here” – “Drive Like Your Cats Live Here” – “Drive Like Your Father Who Suffers From Dementia Lives Here” – or ultimately, better yet, don’t drive at all, because that of course would be the surest way to prevent pedestrians from being injured.

The unsightly red plastic signs lining the blocks of the neighborhood were not enough. Within a couple of weeks, these started showing up:

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Undoubtedly, next, police officers will be stationed at every block to harass motorists who dare go over 10 miles an hour, in the event that some parent might fail to monitor their child, who might then run unexpectedly in the road, might get hit, and might get hurt. When suburbanites reach the level of insanity such that they believe motorists should bend over backwards for errant, unsupervised children, and essentially be forced to drive around speed counters, ugly signs, and cones, as if navigating obstacle courses were a natural matter of daily driving, there is something seriously wrong.

There is in fact no speeding problem in this neighborhood. To my knowledge, there has not been a single instance of a child being injured, much less killed, by a speeding vehicle. Yet, neighbors glare as drivers “speed” by at a mere 15 or 20 miles an hour, even when children are nowhere close to crossing the road, and are playing safely in their yards.

For the record, there is no problem with children playing in the streets. The problem is the idea that children have no obligation to watch for cars as cars do for children, and the attitude that children should be free to roam in whatever dangerous situations they wish, while motorists who should rightly have access to streets are viewed as unilaterally responsible for their safety. This kind of approach may be a grave annoyance to drivers, but it can be deadly for children.

There was a time when parents believed the safety of their children was almost exclusively their responsibility, and that of their children (depending on their age). Now, for whatever reason, people feel they have the right to foist the responsibility for the safety of their children on complete strangers, whom they expect to be inconvenienced, or shamed, for doing nothing more than making use of roads to drive to their homes.

These attitudes are not only irritating for those inconvenienced; it seems self-evident that such coddling would not be conducive to raising independent, self-sufficient, or responsible children. Even worse, people of this philosophy refuse to limit their ill-conceived child-rearing coddling to their own lives, and insist that everyone participate, or meet strong-armed enforcement.

Thus, it is not surprising that the United States is increasingly a police state, in which peoples’ lives are ever the more regulated and controlled, all in the name of “safety.” Parents are not infrequently subject to violent punishment for deviation from stringent laws prescribing “security” and “order.” If you want to be a nanny-state sanctioned helicopter parent whose children will be forever be dependent and incompetent, you are free to do so and will find that society encourages your methods. However, if you would like your children to exercise some independence or self-reliance, or alternatively, you for other reasons fall short of the stringent dictates of the state’s child-rearing policies, you should surely fear for your fate.

Recently, Debra Harrell of North Augusta, South Carolina was jailed after she left her nine-year-old daughter at a park for several hours. Ms. Harrell is an employee of McDonald’s. For most of the summer, her daughter played on a laptop at McDonald’s while her mother worked (making use of free wi-fi offered by the fast food chain). When the laptop was unfortunately stolen from their home, her daughter asked to play at the park while her mother worked instead. Ms. Harrell provided her daughter with a cell phone, and allowed her to play at a park. On the third day of this short-lived arrangement, adults who had seen her daughter alone at the park called the police. Ms. Harrell was arrested (more here).

Not so long ago, another father from Pennsylvania, Govindaraj Narayanasamy, similarly faced legal consequences when he was charged with child endangerment for leaving his 6 and 9-year-old children at a local park while he went to Walmart and LA Fitness. He returned between 90-120 minutes later, but a woman had noticed the children by themselves and called the police (more here).

Of course, not all parents who are punished by the state are glowing examples of responsible parenthood. In June of this year, Eileen DiNino, a Pennsylvania mother of seven, died in jail while serving a two-day sentence for her children’s truancy from school. She had incurred substantial fines for her children’s absences from school, and served the sentence as a result. Her children may have had a wayward mother before, but now they have no mother at all (more here). Such stories are not uncommon. Another mother in California, Lorraine Cuevas, was sentenced to 180 days in jail for similar violations in 2012.

In another instance in 2012, a mother from Arkansas was charged with a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a minor, after she made her child walk 4.5 miles to school as punishment.

In another egregious incident in 2012, William Reddie of northern Michigan found himself in trouble with the police and Child Protective Services over an allegation that the scent of marijuana was detected at his home. Police alerted CPS, and Mr. Reddie became agitated when CPS attempted to take his son (more here). This escalated into police shooting and killing Mr. Reddie. It should be apparent to sensible people that a father who smokes marijuana is better than a dead father, and a mother who tolerates truancies is better than a dead mother; but sensible people can be few and far between these days.

No matter how minor of the offense of the parent, the general public seems comfortable with police intervention, jail, and violence as the “solution.” Ironically, when police abuse, beat, taser, throw flashbang grenades at babies, and/or kill children, they are viewed as heroes, and in those circumstances, the blame still falls on parents who were not in compliance with state regulations and various nonsensical draconian measures.

Everywhere in the U.S., people are embracing the idea that children have no obligation to learn how to navigate dangers, and that the responsibility for their safety falls not solely on their parents, but on total strangers, and that anyone not in compliance with nanny-state parenting styles should have to answer to the police, through violent mechanisms of arrest and/or criminal charges.

This seems particularly absurd in the United States, where violent crime has been on the decline for five years; total crime has been on the decline since 1990, and violence experienced by children has also declined.

Recent Trend: Sexist Family Photos

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These types of pictures always make me cringe. The first time I saw a particular photo of this theme, I mistakenly believed it was an aberration. In fact; it appears to be a recent and unfortunate trend in family photography. To call this “unfortunate” might not be most peoples’ reactions to these pictures. A more common response might be, “awww…” but it is unfortunate, because these pictures are sexist. If you looked at these pictures and thought they were cute, you are sexist. Whether you are a man, woman, goat, or cat, if you think this is “adorbs,” you are sexist.

Maybe you don’t care; and that’s ok. However, when women are taught from the day they are born that they need big strong men to take care of them, protect them, and employ violence to further their purported interests, it is not to their advantage, but to their detriment. These pictures were presumably taken to celebrate or commemorate the arrival of a daughter. Yet, the salient theme for celebrating the inception of this human life is not what goals she may achieve or obstacles she may conquer, but the many things from which she apparently must be shielded. The inane little chalkboards do not say, “One day, she’ll discover the cure for cancer,” or “One day, she’ll out-lawyer you,” or if we want to keep with the theme of violence, “Don’t mess with her- because she defends herself and will fight back.” They say, “We will protect her.”

From day one, the expectations from a female are not that of decision and action; they are of helplessness and passivity. Sit still, be good, and let papa and brothers take care of you. This kind of attitude does not bode well for a sense of independence, freedom, or personal responsibility for anyone. From what, exactly, is it that she must be shielded? Historically and culturally, men beat their chests, grunt, and “protect” their female family members from sexual advances of other men – even when the advances are welcomed by the women themselves. These attitudes are rooted in the idea that women are property and the sense that it is pretty much the greatest humiliation and debasement ever if your daughter/sister exercises sexual independence.

The words “Don’t Mess With Her” and “We’ll Protect Her” immediately bring to mind the age-old stereotype of men threatening other men who dare approach their sisters and daughters. Fathers advising harmless potential suitors that he owns many guns. Brothers threatening to throw punches at an innocent prospect deemed to be unsuitable for their sister. I say “age-old,” but that’s entirely inaccurate. I was at a dinner party not 2 years ago where a man proudly declared that he menacingly advised his 16-year-old daughter’s boyfriend of the loaded shotgun he keeps in the house. He shouldn’t have been proud; he should have been embarrassed that he literally mentioned deadly force merely because a teenager dared take his daughter out on a date. This is not valiance; this is psychopathy.

The idea of men acting as the violent gatekeepers to the sexuality of their sisters and daughters is not funny or cute; it’s base, animalistic, and does women no favors. It’s time for men and women who perpetuate this nonsense to stop behaving like cave people. It may come as a surprise to some, but when inculcated appropriately, women are entirely capable of making their own decisions, with or without the approval from the men in their family.

There is clearly a gender divide here. There are no corresponding sibling photos featuring older sisters and a baby boy. The ridiculous “protection” motif is exclusive to females, perhaps because there is no dishonor when boys deviate from puritanical expectations, and because boys are not property.

Women are people too. Your teenage daughter is going to kiss, and/or have sex with whomever she pleases. So is your sister, your mother, and every other woman walking down the street, because if raised correctly, women recognize and embrace their volition. They not only make their own decisions, but accept the consequences thereof. Get used to it, and stop romanticizing a culture that grooms women from day one to fear sexuality and to accept a demoralizing and pathetic position as an object for male protection.