Category Archives: Morality

Updated: Exporting Soft Porn

Aesthetics, America, China, Family, Morality, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

A great deal of carping goes on about the crap China exports to us (by popular demand). Very little is said about the sh-t we ship over there. Here Glenn Beck reports on the little American Lolitas, courtesy of Disney, who help sell sexy underwear to China’s children.

Beck describes (and later shows on screen) a

“White girl, 12 years old, reclining in a matching bra and panties set with Disney’s signature mouse ear design in a particular creepy detail, the pigtailed child is playing with a pair of Mickey Mouse hand puppets. In the left-hand corner is the familiar script of a Disney logo.”

The child sports cleavage which might have been enhanced digitally.

The Chinese should give Americans a hard time over this.

American children appear to be party to a very sexual vibe cultivated in sexually inappropriate family interactions and nurtured at schools. Watch any Hollywood film and you see girls being overtly sexual with their dads and vise versa.

(Why do so many American parents kiss their kids on the mouth? Absolutely inappropriate. Why do so many parents let their daughters walk around looking like “pint-sized tarts”?)

As an example, consider the Vanity Fair Miley Cyrus photo, where the girl, in various states of undress, nestles in the arms of father Billy Ray Cyrus, and looks up at him seductively. Major creep-out.

When I was growing up the instinct was to try and stay a little girl a little longer—especially around dads.

To be honest, a country exporting cheap electronics has a leg up on a country that peddles porn, don’t you think?

In case libertarians get confused, as they are wont to do, between cultural commentary and libertarian legal theory—of course peddling porn, soft and hard, ought to remain legal. The law should stay out of all voluntary exchanges between consenting adults.

Update (May 6): I must admit that, although I’ve never watched the program “Hanna Montana,” the girl Miley strikes me as anything but sweet and innocent. Perhaps my idea of nice is different. The Cyrus girl is loud, overbearing and extremely precocious. For such a twit, she’s also full of herself. The little I’ve seen of the “family” doing its wholesome-values shtick, the more they’ve struck me as shallow and showy, not wholesome. Then again, I’ve not had the chance to plumb the depths of “Hanna Montana” and her handlers.

Whenever the Fox-News folks have oozed over the wholesomeness of this girl is and then cut to actual footage of Cyrus carrying forth—my impression has been the opposite. When I think of wholesome (and as pretty as a picture), I think Martina McBride.

As to the whole blame Dad and Disney thing, I’ve expressed my views before: “The paternalistic depiction of women as passive agents, demeaned by male-driven appetites, is a humbug shared by conservatives and liberals alike.”

Cyrus may be 15, but she’s a single-minded exhibitionist, propelled and driven by the fame thing. In all likelihood, she originated the idea of posing for Vanity Fair and would not stop pestering her pappy until he relented. Anyone who has a teenager and handles her as does the typical American parent—like a demigoddess—knows I’m right.

Those who persist in the poor-teen-is-a-victim routine don’t have children. Or are oblivious to the reversal in parent-child roles that has come to typify the dynamics in the American family.

Update 3: Nitwork Solutions Suspends Wilders Site

Free Speech, Islam, libertarianism, Media, Morality, The West

A hosting service has suspended the site erected by the heroic Geert Wilders to popularize his film about the Quran. Wilders is the only politician I know of, aside Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to speak truth to power about Islam.

We all recall the tragic fate another brave Dutch film maker met. Vincent van Gogh’s great-great-grandson—more authentically Dutch you cannot get—was “stuck like a pig” on an Amsterdam street by a Muslim immigrant.

So who has curtailed Wilders in his heroic efforts? An American company, of course:

“Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation … The company could not immediately be reached for comment. Its terms of service contain a sweeping prohibition against ‘objectionable material of any kind or nature.’”

(I’ve just asked the designer of our new fabulous website under construction to check up that the server to which we will be migrating tolerates speech. American companies are becoming oppressive.)

The Herald Tribune has characterized Wilders as heading “a reactionary party with 9 seats in the 150-member Dutch Parliament, which was elected on an anti-immigration platform. He lives under police protection because of death threats.”

If by reactionary the Tribune means that Wilders would dearly like to prevent Sharia from becoming the law of the land in his beloved homeland, and that he doesn’t rah-rah for Muslim rioters, then yes, I guess he could be called a “reactionary.”

The fact that a man who voices unpopular opinion is required to “live under police protection” in a western, liberal society—this, the Herald Tribune doesn’t find the least bit “reactionary.”

Update (March 25): Posted over at Jihad Watch is an interview with “Nitworks Solutions.” That is if long pauses and pregnant silences from the company’s representative constitute an exchange.

My contact for all things webular tells me that “Network Solutions has a long history of screwing people. They were the first—and for a long time the only—people who registered domain names for the Internet in the early years.” They had a government granted franchise or monopoly [like Comcast in certain regions] and, consequently, charged very high fees. “Down the road, when people became savvier and other high-tech companies wanted the ability to sell domains as well, the latter had to go to court to get the ability but they won. Today Network Solutions still sells domain names and they are about a tenth of what they used to charge but they still cost more than most everywhere else. The markup is ridiculous.”

In any event, if Mr. Wilders contacts us, we’ll put him in touch with someone who’ll fix him up in no time with a reliable, willing host.

Libertarians who fail to protest such intimidation are a sad joke. Sure, a host is a private company and ought to be able to host or not host at will. However, this is an example of intimidation at the threat of death. (By the same token, neither did the ousting of Imus have anything to do with private property or market forces. Rather, mob forces shaped that event.)

In “Those Cartoons: A Reply To Walter Block,” I addressed the moral confusion that led some libertarians to shirk the responsibility to defend the great Danes in what I termed “one of the defining libertarian issues of our times,” and that is:

“Speaking and publishing under the threat of injury or death … what is becoming a matter of life and death for writers, filmmakers, comics, and caricaturists in the West.”

Update 2 (March 27): I am disappointed that some libertarians construed the protest on this post as a call for censorship. You really have to develop the ability to distinguish between a debate about libertarian law vs. one about morality and ethics. Or values, as an Objectivist would put it. Objectivists often complain that libertarians are incapable of bridging this void. I can see the merits of their complaint.

I believe I’ve done this exercise once before, but here goes again: It has to be manifestly clear that no one on this blog has called on the state to intervene with Nitwork Solutions, which, by the way, was operating by grant of a government privilege when it monopolized domain licensing; that’s another problem some correspondents clearly struggle with: telling the free from the fettered market.

In any event, the debate here is about this new phenomenon we in the West are subjected to, and that is publishing under the threat of death. What Nitwork did to the heroic Wilders is perfectly licit in libertarian law. Some libertarians, however, go so far and say it is moral; they even lend their imprimatur to Muslims in terrorizing writers for doing no more than “hoisting their epistolary pitchforks.” For this perspective, I have nothing but contempt.

That said, let’s move on to a letter from my mother, our correspondent in The Netherlands:

Wilders: A Principled Man

Holland has a hero. Geert Wilders represents many Dutch people who are anxious about the growing power of Islam in Holland. He is a member of the Dutch Parliament and has won 9 seats in the parliament.

The parliament members have done everything to stop Wilders legitimate objection to the growing power of Muslims in all spheres in this country. The government is terrified that the Arab states will object and will take measures to decrease monetary gains. This terrifies all Dutch parliamentarians and, as a result, they have done everything to stop Wilders from speaking out about this Islamization, have tried to stop him from releasing the film he has made about Islam; and have done all in their power to intimidate him into silence and threaten him to keep his mouth shut.

And this in the “Great democratic Holland,” where, supposedly, “Freedom of Speech” is a holy right of all. It is clear to all of us who support this brave man that freedom of speech in Holland is only allowed to those who agree with government policy—their fear of reprisal from Arabs, in the manner used against Denmark, is the only thing they can think about.

Wilders holds onto his principles, even though his life is threatened—he is indeed a man who is prepared to sacrifice himself for his principles—and for his country.

—Ann

Update 3 (March 29): ACCEPTING THE TERMS OF SURRENDER. As I’ve said, we’ve arrived at a stage in the West’s demise where we are publishing under duress—under the threat of death, to be precise. This state of affairs has arisen due to our welcoming into our midst a culture and faith that doesn’t comport with life and liberty. Philosophical disagreements will henceforth be settled by the kafia-clad hit squad, or their proxies, CAIR and their ilk.

LiveLeak.com has folded. Here you can find a statement of cowardice and capitulation from this outfit as to why they’ll not be honoring the courage of Geert Wilders, and posting his film, Fitna (Fatwa).

Those who threatened LiveLeak.com have rejected the way philosophical battles are fought by westerners (to distinguish from their governments). What they’re doing is laying down the law under Islam. Each capitulation brings us closer to a time when this space, and spaces as outspoken, will cease to exist.

What’s worse; westerners, with few exceptions, are accepting the terms of surrender.

Updated: Putrid Presidential Plagiarism

Democrats, Ethics, Ilana Mercer, Intellectualism, Journalism, Morality

As you know, the plagiarism of ideas is, especially to this writer, a litmus test for bottom-feeding scum, plain and simple. Why is lifting ideas worse than verbatim copying? Because only the latter is legally actionable. “Smart” people know this—they know how easy it is to get away with lifting ideas, since that’s legally kosher, if utterly odious and unethical.
Those familiar with my work know that I cite religiously and faithfully—I cite even when I don’t have to really. That’s because of my ethics. On a personal level, it’s because I’m not threatened by anyone. Maybe I should be, but I’m not. Why borrow what I may be able to best?
My last brush with this contemptible conduct came about because of a brilliant and ethical colleague—if not for him, I would not have known I had been kind of victimized yet again. He was incredulous when he came across what he recognized to be my ideas, and those of a primary source I had quoted diligently in my essay, all appropriated as the offending writer’s own.
I fought back, and got a citation appended to this second-hand text. I believe you must fight back, so that those who imagine they deserve credit for your ideas pay by losing face. They now know you’re on to them.
In my case, oddly enough, people whom I quite respected have nicked my rather idiosyncratic formulations. Sean nailed it (I could credit myself with this insight, but it’s his): “what’s at play in these instances,” he explained, “is someone who believes he has said what you said, and in the event that he hasn’t, he, being so great, thinks he deserved to have said it.” Something along the lines of, “Who the hell is Ilana to write stuff that sounds as though I ought to have written it?”
Ugly, unmanly sentiments indeed.
Prior to this last episode, about which I would not have been the wiser without my ethical colleague, there was the “professor”—they are a dime a dozen—with no paper or pixel trail to his name, who decided he deserved credit for my vindicating of Michael Vick.
If you recall, I was the first to offer a detailed and rather idiosyncratic defense of Vick’s dog fighting. Sean Hannity said he had not found anyone other than me to offer a coherent defense, which is why he criss-crossed me on his show. My piece was later published in the Orange County Register too.
Google “Defense Michael Vick.” Who’s right up there after Whoopi Goldberg (who, for obvious reasons, would come first)?
My arguments continued on the blog and took a very distinguishing tack, to which the good “professor” adhered closely. His editor defended this no-name dog of a writer. Yeah, this from a bunch that never shuts up about values—the Values Vulgarizers. (Not to mention the violators of the injunction against Second-Handerism.)
So what do I think of the allegation that Obama lifted words not his for one of his uninspiring Hear Me Roar speeches? If it’s true, I agree with Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, that, “When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to two different parties. One is to the person he plagiarized from. The other is to the reader.”
While Obama is accused of some lengthy appropriating absent any word of credit to the primary source, his come-back to Hillary is as impoverished as his plagiarism practice. Obama says she borrowed his “signature chant ‘fired up and ready to go’ in Davenport, Iowa, and later her echoing of his rally cry, ‘Yes, we can!’”
Puh-leeze. Next our “intellectual” will be accusing Hillary of stealing the “You Go Girl” bimbo battle cry. The above is clearly Hillary’s mocking paraphrase of Obama’s call to arms. Before he makes his next empty accusation, Imam Obama ought to know that “Ouch”  has also moved into the public domain.
This particular professor is a bit shabby in this department. All not very surprising, considering my own tales of woe with professors.

Update: Obama ought to have said, “To paraphrase my friend, x,” or something along those lines. However you spin it, it’s not very elevated, coming from a man who prides himself on the proper use of words. Sourcing is part of the proper use of words.

Desperately Seeking Bollywood’s Brangelina

Christianity, Ethics, Hollywood, Morality, Religion, The West

What happens when the pale, patriarchal, penis people, in the words of the inimitable art critic Robert Hughes, are finally dethroned?

Who will fix stuff? Who will man Doctors without Borders? Who will do the world’s charity work? Who do you think does it now? Arabs? Africans? Indians? As much as I despise Brangelina, where is Bollywood’s equivalent of these naïve, giving do-gooders?
I’m afraid those maligned pallid patriarchs and their likeminded women do the world’s good works.

The largest charities by revenue in the US (which means the world) are Mayo Clinic, Salvation Army, YMCAs, United Way, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, American National Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Goodwill Industries International, and The Arc of the United States. By whom were they founded?

Mayo was founded by William Worrall Mayo (hint: he’s not an African). The Salvation Army by William Booth (another Englishman). Ditto the YMCA (George Williams). Two ministers and a rabbi midwived the United Way. Drs. George Crile, Frank Bunts, and William Lower founded the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1921, and Clara Barton the Red Cross (you don’t need to see their mugs to guess their origins). And so it goes for the rest.