Category Archives: Conservatism

Analyze This: On ‘The Factor,’ Psychologizing Passes As Analysis

Conservatism, Democrats, English, Foreign Policy, Reason, Republicans, Russia

Bill O’Reilly, star of Fox New, has this Pavlovian response to any suggested comparison between Russian and American military bellicosity: he foams at the mouth. Why is it absolutely verboten, on The Factor, to compare Russia’s “excursion” into Ukraine to America’s naturally illicit and illegal occupations of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, on and on?

You’re in for a treat. In defense of their reflexive rejection of the reasonable, if inaccurate, comparison—for decades the US has been far more aggressive than Russia in its foreign policy—don’t expect argument from Bill, Juan Williams and the gang. What you get is a form of ad hominem, or psychologizing.

President Vladimir Putin, said (today, Monday, March 3) Bill, is a thug. That’s why he can’t be compared to “a good country” like the US. (Childish doesn’t begin to cover this stuff.) Apparently Bush and Obama are never to be called thugs.

Why, Billy? Because they’re American?

The other “argument” for the lack of validity of said comparison was that Putin seeks the recrudescence of the Russian empire (my usage; Bill and the gang did not use that word. Read about Bill’s valiant but botched attempts to promote English). Bill has read Putin’s mind, and knows he wants Russia to be an empire again. Hence we cannot compare the actions on the ground of the two countries.

If ever you doubted that liberals and conservatives are situated on the same foreign-policy continuum, listen to the prescriptions for Ukraine of leftist Juan Williams. On the same silly segment, the Fox News “analyst” recommended that the US freeze the assets of individual Russians, stateside and abroad, expel visiting Russians and stop Russians from traveling to the US, all in retaliation for the presence of Russian forces in Crimea (which is dominated by a Russian-speaking population). Williams, naturally, also wants to see economic sanctions placed on Russia.

Williams is an “analyst” in the same way Bill O’Reilly is a thinker.

Conservative Argument From Feelings Against Fem Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action, Ann Coulter, Argument, Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Reason

Presumably pursuant to the posts “Conservatives and Lefties United Against The Beauty Ideal” and “With Some Exceptions, ‘Women Are Fascists At Heart,’” Ben Cohen of “American Thinker” has been kind enough to send me his piece, “The Legitimacy of White Male Anger.”

Thanks.

My problem, however, with “The Legitimacy of White Male Anger” is its non-stop apologetics, which come close to accepting the premise of “gender parity through affirmative action,” provided women are a little more gracious about all the concessions they are getting.

“Those demanding that more women be hired in various academic fields” are “sanctimonious and callous,” “blatantly self-serving”; not nice, demanding.

This amounts to psychologizing, not arguing.

Moreover, why is it “bad” for men to have given an “unfriendly reception” to women who’ve been forcibly integrated into the traditionally male trades?

If they don’t deserve to be on the job, on merit, why does friendliness matter; why is it the focus here? And why have men taken to arguing like women? (“You hurt my feelings. Be nice.” Or, “do feminists ever stop and consider the men’s perspective?”)

It’s disconcerting.

As an individualist, I am all for recruiting your lesbian, Amazonian lady to the traditionally male occupations. She is a rare creature who can match men in physicality. Seek her. Keep her. In an increasingly feminized, soft society, warrior women need the military, for example, as an outlet for their abilities. Let these women join the police, military or the fire brigade. An exception, not the rule, however, is the woman who can match a man in strength, speed, physical endurance and handiness.

So why on earth is male “unfriendliness” toward women who force them to do double duty on the job relevant? Even the woman-glorifying, TV cop series we all watch can’t help but display men outrunning their partners, catching up to the criminal, pummeling the thug, and saving the more feeble female cop’s life.

A male cop who serves along a 100 pound woman with silicone for breasts is risking his life. Receiving her with hostility into the force is hardly the issue here. Neither is it wrong.

I hardly think an “unfriendly” reception is the crux of the matter in the grander program of engineered gender parity.

Read “Freeze! I Just Had My Nails Done!” by Ann Coulter, where she gets straight to the matter:

How many people have to die before the country stops humoring feminists? … The inestimable economist John Lott has looked at the actual data. (And I’ll give you the citation! John R. Lott Jr., “Does a Helping Hand Put Others at Risk? Affirmative Action, Police Departments and Crime,” Economic Inquiry, April 1, 2000.)

It turns out that, far from “de-escalating force” through their superior listening skills, female law enforcement officers vastly are more likely to shoot civilians than their male counterparts. (Especially when perps won’t reveal where they bought a particularly darling pair of shoes.)

Unable to use intermediate force, like a bop on the nose, female officers quickly go to fatal force. According to Lott’s analysis, each 1 percent increase in the number of white female officers in a police force increases the number of shootings of civilians by 2.7 percent. …

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UPDATED: Conservatives and Lefties United Against The Beauty Ideal

Aesthetics, Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Propaganda

Radio mouth Laura Ingraham ventured into the “Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest,” i.e., “The O’Reilly Factor,” to promote leftist feminist thought: Laura whined that Sports Illustrated promotes a certain body image in women.

No, moron. The magazine is responding to a certain consensus about beauty, extant across most civilized societies. Like high intelligence, such perfection is uncommon. We can’t all possess the assets these thoroughbred beauties possess.

But like lefties, conservatives do not acknowledge that people are not created equal. (Come to think of it, lite libertarians are pursuing the same “thought,” but about that another time.)

The most Laura can do is take comfort in the fact that these gorgeous girls are, mostly, as dumb as bricks and will age, but there is nothing she can do to demote their coveted advantage and promote the “self-image” of her presumably uncomely kids. Nobody wants to see Gabourey Sidibe, “the mountain of human flesh that stars in the film ‘Precious,'” on the coveted cover of Sports Illustrated.

UPDATE (2/22): My comments from Facebook thread:

Someone said that beauty is like art. I agree. We are drawn to looking at lovely things. Less evolved sorts prefer what I call the porn aesthetic (see column for examples). However, I can tell you that I saw some of these beauties on Charlie Rose last night. They only have to open their mouths to spout stupid, banal, political platitudes, and wave their hands affectaciously—and I cringe. I looked on a bit, out of appreciation, then I “fled” the channel.

Btw, yammering about “diversity” is of a piece with being brain washed. We don’t have to “care” about diversity. Pursuing/practicing these political concepts is a hallmark of a propagandized people.

Quiet Rebellion In Connecticut

Conservatism, GUNS, Individual Rights

The state of Connecticut has created felons at the stroke of a pen. As a consequence, a quiet rebellion is brewing there.

It would appear that “tens of thousands of defiant gun owners seemingly made the choice not to register their semi-automatic rifles with the state of Connecticut as required by a hastily-passed gun control law. By possessing unregistered so-called ‘assault rifles,’ they all technically became guilty of committing Class D felonies overnight.”

Via The Blaze:

… officials estimate that as little as 15 percent of the covered semi-automatic rifles have actually been registered with the state. “No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000,” the report states.

Needless to say, officials and some lawmakers are stunned. …

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