Glenn Beck’s NRA-ILA Leadership Forum Speech

A fair number of highlights.  Good speech.

Some folks don’t like his delivery (just a tad melodramatic at times), but few can argue against the actual message.

Polygamy, Marriage Equality, and Male Disposability

Last month, Slate had this interesting pro-polygamy piece by Jillian Keenan:

Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?

We can only hope.

Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.

I’m not really going to look at gay marriage or the concept thereof.  The interests of liberty would probably best be suited by getting government out of it and letting individual churches decide; and otherwise leaving alone thousands of years worth of humanity’s history and understanding of marriage.

But polygamy starts to change the dynamic of human society much more violently, and leads us towards barbarism.

Read that last section and notice what’s missing.  Slate says it would “help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.”

Notice what’s missing?

Polygamy is not good for men.

Before the institution of marriage came about, strong or fortunate males got mates, weak or unfortunate males did not.  That’s not exactly a world that preserves liberty.  That’s a world where a few powerful men with multiple wives procreate and advance their own personal societies, and extra men truly are made disposable.

As per the joke made by President Calvin Coolidge, a rooster can mate a dozen times a day… but he’ll do so with a dozen different hens.  Those dozen hens don’t need a dozen roosters.

Those other eleven roosters in a polygamous society, deprived at a basic level of ever being able to reproduce, or to create families of their own, aren’t going to ever be productive.  They are predetermined genetic losers because they didn’t have wealth and power enough to attract women – women who simply flock to the most powerful, best providers in society and join a harem.  That helps protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and the (powerful man’s) family, which Jillian advocates.

It also leaves the other eleven out there susceptible to the idea that if they blow themselves up and kill a bunch of people from a different society for the powerful man, they’ll get their own harem of 72 virgins in the afterlife.  So why not go on suicidal missions to protect that powerful man’s family?  Seems like a good enough idea.  They’re already destined for the genetic dustbin anyway.

From Slate commenter Paul Murray:

Polygamy is the natural state of affairs in our species. A small number of men – “partiarchs” – have multiple wives and children, forming tribes. They hand their wealth over to their heirs, and the other sons are discards, “arrows in your quiver”, to be spent and used up in incessant wars with the tribe on the other side of the river.

This is great for women. Any woman would rather be fourth wife to a winner than have a loser all to herself, and in a polygamous, patriarchal, tribal society almost all the men are losers.

Problem is: these men have no reason to contribute to society. None. So these societies tend to be poor because its mainly the labour of men that creates wealth. It is no coincidence that civilisation rose when monogamy was invented and mandated. It’s the promise “for every man who works, a wife and children” that built the roads, dams, and bridges.

You think polygamy is a fine idea? Head on over to tribal Africa, or tribal anywhere else, and welcome the future. How ironic that the end-game of feminism is to reintroduce actual patriarchy.

This feminist-leftist moral relativity about polygamy truly does begin to destroy society.

There are entire branches of the “pick-up artist” community dedicated to revenging the wrongs of their own beta-hood by treating women like dirt.  The theory is that women treated like dirt think that they’re in the presence of a great and powerful man – because that powerful man can afford to treat women like dirt, so then any man who treats women like dirt must be powerful enough to have his pick.  Really, he’s just an asshole, but he’s mimicking the tricks of powerful assholes, and turning everyone into assholes.

He’s half of the equation.  The other half is the Slate author who wants to join in polygamy with 100 other women and Brad Pitt.  He can afford to raise their offspring, she can be well-provided for, and she gets the status of being wife #384.  Remember what she writes:

it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families

Her perfect world where she’s wife #153 to George Clooney actually justifies the degenerate pick-up artist slimeball, and sends the world ever-spiraling down.

All of this slowly reduces society into a culture of barbarity, a culture where a few powerful men really can rule the world completely – a savage patriarchy – but women’s self-interest is preserved.  They get to pick powerful mates, and they get their genes provided for by the powerful males.  It’s a very brutal, animalistic tribalist society that replaces civilization.

Polygamy is great – if you’re one of the powerful men, or one of the chosen women.  To everyone else, it’s death one way or another.  The most successful elements of humanity did away with polygamy for a reason.

Hagel Declares War On Pinups

From Military Times:

Hagel: Troops’ workplaces will be checked for ‘degrading’ images of women

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered a close-up and comprehensive inspection of all military offices and workplaces worldwide to root out any “materials that create a degrading or offensive work environment.”

The extraordinary searches will be similar to those the Air Force conducted last year and prompted officers to scour troops’ desks and cubicles in search of photos, calendars, magazines, screen-savers, computer files and other items that might be considered degrading toward women.

The inspections will now target soldiers, sailors and Marines.

The workplace searches will be conducted by “component heads” before July 1, and Hagel expects each service to submit a report summarizing the findings.

The inspections were controversial and many airman complained that it felt like a “raid” and arbitrarily targeted materials such as fitness magazines and beer posters.

Air Force officials said the prevalence of those items may be correlated to sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace.

Hagel outlined several other measures aimed at cracking down on sexual assaults.

 

Not this: More porn, less rape.

Apparently chastisement and more of this:

He ordered the service chiefs to develop ways to hold commanders accountable for maintaining a command climate of “dignity and respect”.

Hagel said he wants these measures to “really drive the cultural change.”

 

Fuck Hagel.

This was my fucking “workspace”.

We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene!

–

To Hagel, this is degrading:

Yet somehow this is not (graphic).

Sarah Palin Freedom Speech at NRA-ILA Leadership Forum

Worth watching.

Made a few waves in the media, too.

John Wayne on Liberals

Strange to hear John Wayne talking about Keynesianism and socialism on the horizon, as he dissects modern liberalism/leftism.

2 Chainz to Play ATF Agent on Law & Order: SVU?

From Twitchy:

The gentleman on the left recklessly pointing a gun at his head is vulgar rapper 2 Chainz. The gentleman on the right is rapper Ice T, a.k.a. Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola from the TV drama “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

I don’t know if he’s “vulgar” – at least moreso than anyone else in his genre – nor does that really make a difference in this context.  His music to me sounds like well-produced modern rap, but nothing terribly exciting.  In general, I tend to like rap that carries a certain style of heavy beat, is more hip-hop and funk than rap, is intentional parody that’s funny, or is so bad it’s funny, or else inexplicably in Russian, so it all comes down to taste.

But even if his style of rap isn’t to my taste, let’s give credit where it’s due – I think this is a pretty good spontaneous potrayal of an ATF agent.  Not bad, 2 Chainz.

Not bad at all, 2 Chainz.  But you have to do it with less actual thought as to what you’re doing.  It’s evident your finger’s off the trigger, and a real ATF agent would keep his finger on the trigger.

If you’re scratching your head with the muzzle all Plan 9 From Outer Space style and the trigger just is a bit out of reach, that’s cool.  Remember, it’s got to be casual stupidity and carelessness, not intentional.  Acting is sometimes hard, 2 Chainz.

Our friend Katie Pavlich pointedly pointed out that pointing a gun at one’s own head (and one at the camera) is rather foolish and promotes “reckless and dangerous gun culture in America” and got the kind of response you’d expect from someone who can’t take criticism.

Sure, maybe a serious chastisement punctuated in such a manner as to drive the point home a bit wasn’t something that Ice-T was expecting and that might have put him on the defensive because… well, it’s really stupid and indefensible jackassery.  But it seems “F off B” is all he could come up with.  Manning up to the criticism and saying “yeah, we were being reckless jackasses” is probably a little bit tougher to do than saying “F off”.  Looks like the point was made and it stung a little bit.

However, Twitter really isn’t a venue that’s conducive to explaining how the image of flaunting the danger a firearm by placing it to one’s temple is sometimes seen as a display of courage, albeit a profoundly stupid one.  That might be best left to anthropologists to examine why other masculine avenues to prove courage have faded in the last few decades – not only in the rap subculture, but in broader culture as well.  To turn this completely on its ear, it’s worth asking why is this considered a good idea or a cool pose?  What led to that cultural conclusion?  (And again I note that it does exist in broader culture as well.)

To 2 Chainz credit, his finger is off the trigger – good for safety, bad for playing an ATF agent -… though pretty much every other firearms safety rule is ignored.

While we’re on gun safety and bad examples, it’s worth considering that he may be the only one professional enough in that room to carry that gun.

Or maybe 2 Chainz has been learning firearms handling from good ol’ Tex Grebner.

Melissa Harris-Perry: To Each According to Your Ability, To Each According to Your Need

First she said that children are property of the community.

Now she says you have the right to have all your needs fulfilled at all times.

You can feel like you earn more, to pretend to have meritocracy, but really, everyone needs all of their needs cared for at all times.  The doctor has no right to his labor – he has to labor for the community good.  The farmer has no right to his crops – he is there to provide for the eaters.  The builder has no right to the house he builds – he is there to provide for those who want houses.  The woman has no right to herself – she is there to provide for men who need her body.  The healthy man has no right to his parts – he is there to be disassembled and harvested by those who need his organs.

To each according to your ability, to each according to your need!  Eat the rich!

Via the People’s Cube:

The Non-Existent Military-Civilian Gap

The US Navy’s chief of information, Rear Admiral Kirby, laments that there’s a “military-civilian gap”.   But what he doesn’t understand is that it exists only to him and those in Ruling Class circles.

In more than 10 years of war, we in the military have gone to great expense and trouble to listen to the concerns of foreign peoples and cultures. We have learned Dari and Arabic and Pashto. We have sat cross-legged in shura and tribal councils. And yet I worry that we do not pay our fellow Americans the same courtesy.

It’s time that we do a better job understanding and relating to the people we serve.

Really?  Has he been reading William “Troops are vile scumbag mercenaries who should grovel before their betters” Arkin‘s pieces?

Kirby’s perspective is horribly distorted.

We do not talk with them. Too often, we talk at them. We are the guest speakers, the first-pitch-throwers, the grand marshals. We show them the power of our capabilities through air shows, port visits and other demonstrations. This outreach is important, but it isn’t always a two-way street. And it doesn’t improve our understanding of the society we defend.

No, Kirby, you’re an admiral and chief of information.  You talk at people, you are the guest speaker, the first-pitch-thrower, the grand marshal.  You attend and orchestrate the dog-and-pony shows.

This lament comes up a lot from the left, and sometimes it comes up from those stuck inside the DC bubble.

I’ll address it the same way I did last time:

There are two Americas.  There are those who serve, those who know those who serve, who understand service to the country, and those who don’t.  Leftists and mainstream media writers are constantly scribbling about this.  Read enough and you’ll find it shows up all the time.  They lament that that the military isn’t representative of the nation, especially since we’ve switched to a volunteer system.  It’s not an uncommon thing to notice.  But it’s not a disconnect between the broader US public and the military.

It’s a divide between the Country Class and the Ruling Class.  The military is the Country Class, and the Ruling Class always wonders why they aren’t represented enough.  They wonder why the military is societally so far away from them, the same way they don’t understand farmers, truckers, miners, etc.

I guess I should amend that.  Once you’re an O-7, you’re crossing over into the Ruling Class.

Kirby is an admiral and chief of information – he’s firmly in the Ruling Class.  Off the top of my head, I can name 10 coworkers who are veterans in my job.  Outside of work, back in regular life, I can come up with at least two friends from circles as far back as high school who are veterans – in circles that weren’t very military-oriented.  If I count family and those who’ve served, I end up with 5 off the top of my head.  The military and veterans don’t talk at people the way the Chief of Information Admiral does… because they aren’t the Chief of Information Admiral.

They’re people you have conversations with.  The only “talking at” comes in the form of telling people about things they have limited to no experience about – which is true of any profession.

If you end up hanging out with a gearhead and know nothing about cars, you may feel “talked at”, but that’s just because you’re getting up to speed.  Even if you know about muscle cars or imports, you may find yourself getting “talked at” as you’re brought up to speed on rat rods.

If I talked to the owner/builder of that ride, I expect to get talked at, because I know very little about it – but if I’m engaged in conversation, I’m probably going to learn.

The rest of the Admiral’s piece, when seen with the understanding that he’s part of the Ruling Class, makes sense.  He seems to lament a disconnect between himself and the civilian world.  But it isn’t a military-civilian disconnect.  It’s between himself and his DC cronies against the Country Class.  He even writes about cultivating relationships with the Ruling Class, and yet somehow doesn’t understand that’s the problem.

Naturally he, as a Ruling Class professional leader who talks at people, has decided to talk at us again and tell us all how we need to live and act.

Update: Jim Carrey and the Ivory Tower of Stupid – Too Bad They Don’t Vaccinate Against Stupid

JBH is much nicer to the guy.  Frankly, Jim Carrey is an idiot who should not be listened to aside from when he’s making funny faces to entertain us.  He should stick to that.

Over at HotAir, they note that Ann Coulter is slamming Carrey for being a rich ivory tower liberal, and they throw out some more criticisms of his unfunniness, and that’s all well and good.  Let’s not forget, though, that Jim Carrey is scientificaly speaking, an idiot. But as Levar Burton says, don’t take my word for it…

I’ll go to one of the first responses from Google when you type in “Jim Carrey vaccines” (and it’s by a doofus Manbearpig believer, no less):

Living with Jenny McCarthy must have infected Jim Carrey’s brain, because yesterday he posted an astonishingly fallacious antivaccination propaganda piece for the Huffington Post screed.

Carrey is the boyfriend of Public Health Threat Jenny McCarthy and has been an antivaccination advocate for some time. He is a funny guy and a movie star, but I don’t think either of those things should give him a public voice wherein he can mislead people about vaccinations.

The article Carrey wrote has so much wrong in it that it almost qualifies as self-satirizing. His very first paragraph is a textbook example of spin. Basically, a few months ago a special court looked at three cases of potential damage due to vaccinations, and found no evidence of any connection.

Though the same author may have plenty of blind faith in Manbearpig, he’s right when it comes to criticizing Jim Carrey and his belief in vaccines being some alchemical elixir that poisons the body’s humour.

Remember that this new anti-gun Jim Carrey is the same pro-polio, pro-measles Jim Carrey:

His case gets worse from there, and in fact contains this whopper: “We have never argued that people shouldn’t be immunized for the most serious threats including measles and polio.” I suppose that all depends on who he means by “we”; if it includes Jenny McCarthy and their autism organization, well then it’s not exactly the truth, as that is precisely and exactly what they been advocating.

Frankly, the Canadian Jim Carrey really doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on.  He mocks things he doesn’t understand, and seeks to explain things away with his own warped reasoning – both in the case of medical science and in the case of firearms ownership.

Jim Carrey’s own crusade (shared with Jenny McCarthy) has led to some 40 times the deaths at Sandy Hook.  The Anti-Vaccine Body Count site, which keeps track of preventable diseases that weren’t prevented, notes that there have been over 1121 preventable deaths due to lack of vaccination since 2007, when celebrities like Jim Carrey went on their anti-vaccination campaign.

Jim Carrey’s anti-vaccine propaganda has killed more kids than any murderers in schools.

Jim Carrey has no excuse.

Jenny McCarthy, to her credit, has at least two excuses.

Beta Nation… And Other Things

I wrote this back in May of 2012, but never bothered to publish it.  I realized in the middle of writing a post for today that I’d already written about HM1 Crabtree, but I didn’t finish it up back then…

HotAir did a piece on Bill Whittle’s last Firewall video:

Have we become a beta-male culture, as Bill Whittle argues in his latest Firewall video?  Are we just a little too in touch with our feelings to take the necessary risks to expand our horizons, grow our economy, and defend our nation?

Many good observations there.

we’ve had this problem for a long time; it’s not just recent.  Most of the kinds of movies Bill references have similar themes — the one man willing to stand against evil when all others quail at the thought.  That’s because it reflects life as it is, perhaps especially so since industrialization and urbanization reduced the need for virtues of independence and self-sufficiency.  The difference is that we have spent the last few decades celebrating the beta-male impulse rather than those virtues in our popular culture.

…

The submariner corps looks for calm, collected types, not hotdogs but also not people inclined to fret over tough conditions.

That last line is somewhat noteworthy.  There’s the argument that we’ve become incredibly risk-averse, something that the contrarians at Spiked often point out (Britain suffers from this even moreso).  There’s also the near-cliched argument that the modern liberal seeks to feminize or neuter the male, and “empower” the female (though they do this by calling women sluts).  But that last line is quite noteworthy due to events in the last couple years:

NORFOLK, Va (NNS) — The Department of the Navy has announced a policy change that will allow women to serve on submarines. The change was considered by Congress after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates formally presented a letter to congressional leaders Feb. 19, 2010 notifying them of the Department of Navy’s desire to reverse current policy of prohibiting submarine service to women.

“There are extremely capable women in the Navy who have the talent and desire to succeed in the submarine force,” said the Honorable Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy. “Enabling them to serve in the submarine community is best for the submarine force and our Navy. We literally could not run the Navy without women today.”

SecNav Mabus is the imbecile who wants to name Navy ships after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who is only distinguishable from the rest of congress for having been shot in the head by a madman.

Putting women on submarines is a bad idea for numerous reasons (one old salt sailor mentioned that due to how subs’ heads work, women’s hygiene products present an actual threat to sub life support, which was funny until he explained it), and naming a littoral combat ship after someone whose claim to fame is being a victim is just stacking stupid on top of predictable failure.

The Beta Nation modern liberal culture celebrates the victim, not the hero.  The victim is the survivor of things outside their control, of someone who simply weathers the storm and suffers; and in some pseudo-Buddhist sense of suffering that they endure, they become something to emulate.  The thing is, the victim who becomes a survivor didn’t put themselves in a bad situation in the first place in order to do right.  Whittle mentions Alan Alda’s MASH character, who didn’t join the Army to help the injured – he was drafted and spent much of his time working against the Army – apparently not understanding that nobody wants a war over faster than the guys on the actual front line.  He “suffered” against his will while complaining about others suffering.  Real heroes volunteer, and are there to try and end conflicts ASAP so everybody can go home.

Glorifying victimhood, powerlessness, and ultimately weakness isn’t a good thing.  Supporting and offering aid to those in need certainly is, but again, glorifying victimhood is not.

The Navy used to name ships after heroes – after men like George, Frank, Joe, Matt, and Al.

They named a big ship after Chester.  How about giving Dorie one as well?

There’s been a progressive march by the … progressives… to try and force their worldview through institutions.  Name your ships after labor leaders like Cesar Chavez, lying blue falcon scumbags like John Murtha, and victim congressmen who have nothing to do with the Navy or its traditions, and you end up generating a culture that celebrates those things.  That’s the leftist progressive way – undermining institutions that exist for a reason.

A ship named after a good commander like Nimitz, or a ship named after a hometown, or a ship named after sailors who did their best, like the Sullivans, inspires reverence for those names – names of heroes.  Their characteristics, honor, determination, courage, become something to emulate.

A very telling note is that Mabus could’ve named the ship after Corpsman Holly Crabtree, who received an almost identical wound as Giffords did, but she was shot in-country, while serving, by an enemy sniper.

And her sister to the left is an Army drill sergeant.  Also more deserving of a ship.

It’s not just the beta male that’s celebrated as the new ideal, the beta female victim is as well.