Toast with just a schmiers

Ramesh Ponnuru writes on NRO's Corner:

Speaking of Republican strategists, another one spoke to me the other day. I asked him what Republicans could do to bounce back, and he had three suggestions.

The first was for the president to "stop going to New Orleans."

The second was that Republicans needed to find a way to go on offense on taxes

The third was that Miers withdraw her nomination.

And so the momentum builds.... Also on The Corner, Jon Podhoretz notes that this praise for Miers comes from the TalkLeft blog:

Most of those I've spoken with believe she will be okay or better as a Supreme Court Justice. While she may be more conservative than many of us, all thought she would be fair. No one can recall a single instance of her talking about abortion or Roe v. Wade.... The main thing to keep in mind are the alternatives. From a legal standpoint, we lucked out with both Roberts and Harriet Miers. If she were to withdraw and Bush were then to repay the radical right what they think he owes them, we will be far worse off.

Hea culpa

Joseph Farah demonstrates the fortitude to openly admit past errors:

My instincts were right back in 2004.

I should not have pulled the lever for George W. Bush and I should never have urged others to do so. Even my wife, who coaxed me to break my vow never to support a candidate who doesn't honor the Constitution, agrees now it was a mistake.

Without making more excuses, all I can say for myself was that I was so moved by the action of the Swiftboat Vets and their righteous campaign against traitor John Kerry, my emotions got the best of me.

I lost my head. I was not true to the promise in my own book, "Taking America Back," just out in paperback, to avoid supporting the lesser of two evils, to avoid making insidious compromises in electoral politics, to avoid, at all costs, supporting politicians who do not understand and abide by the Constitution.

Mr. Farah is a good man, and I'm pleased that he's decided to face the facts. I admire anyone who has the courage to shake their head, admit that they got it wrong and try to learn the appropriate lesson.

In wistful perspective

I always find it interesting how the Constitution and unalienable rights endowed by the Creator have to be "put in perspective". Or how violations of them have to be "understood in context" of the surrounding events.

That's just weasel talk for justifying the evasion of the limits on the government by the government. Which has happened in the past and will happen in the future, until those rights are noteworthy only for their absence.

It would be nice if just one government, somewhere in the world, was truly dedicated to the rights of the individual instead of constantly attempting to manufacture a thousand thousand reasons to limit, work around and eliminate them. Just one. All the security wet-blankets, the social net neo-Marxists, the power-mad bureaucrats and the respect-through-legislation women can have the rest of them, as far as I'm concerned. Just one, is that too much to ask for? Apparently.

I would live there.

Racists, racists everywhere

Sinewave demonstrates his successfully indocrination by the PC crowd:

OK, I'm going to slammed for this, but here it goes. I feel using "me-so" in Michelle's name is racist.

She is ditzy and pompous, but I don't believe a tramp.

The "Me-so" title implies she is a whore from SE Asia. I assume your using it becasue she's of Asian descent.

Feel however you like. Of course, by this definition, any reference whatsoever to an individual's race is racist. But Dictionary.com defines racism thusly:

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Does lableling an Asian woman "Me So Michelle" indicate a belief that her demonstrably low level of intellectual character is based on her being Asian? Does it even state anything about her ability at all? No. Does it amount to discrimination or prejudice? Again, no. If I were regularly referring to all Asian women in this manner, then one might have a case, but this is clearly not so and the basis for my disregard for this particular Asian woman should be fairly well established by now as one that has everything to do with the content of her character, not the color of her skin.

I do quite enjoy applying infelicitous appellations, and Michelle Malkin's not only refers to her being a metaphorical prostitute - only Bill O'Reilly more richly deserves the title of media whore - but also refers to her insistence on thrusting herself into the middle of whatever issue is currently topping the news cycle. And the metaphor works very well indeed; I am always amused by one of the ways in which bloggers regularly refer to her:

OKLAHOMA UNIVERSITY BOMBER
“It looks like Michelle Malkin is on top of it.”
October 7, 2005
Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online

TOM DELAY INDICTED
“Michelle Malkin is all over it”
September 28, 2005
Badger Blogger

AIR AMERICA SCANDAL
“Michelle Malkin is all over it.”
August 3, 2005
Spartac.us

BUSH WILL ANNOUNCE NOMINEE IN PRIME TIME
“President Bush has made up his mind! And he will announce his nomineee for Supreme Court Justice tonight. Should be interesting. Michelle Malkin is all over it.”
July 19, 2005
Strange Things Afoot

There's a word for women who make a career of draping themselves all over everything, is there not? And what is that word, it seems to be escaping me just at the moment?

Now, I will readily admit to having a serious problem with Malkin, just as I do with Bill O'Reilly, Al Franken, Ben Shapiro, Frank Rich, Susan Estrich, Maureen Dowd and Sean Hannity. My problem is that people take these ludicrious charlatans seriously, when they would be much better off paying attention to the John Derbyshires, Jonah Goldbergs, Ramesh Ponnurus, Pat Buchanans, George Wills, Eric Altermans and Ann Coulters of the world. Even when the latter sort are wrong - and they often are - at least they attempt to be intellectually honest when they go about making their arguments.

More Me So Moronics

Charles Lofgren reviews Malkin's travesty for the Claremont Institute:

The brunt of criticism has fallen on Malkin's claims about the relocation as a response to a military threat perceived as real at the time. Unfortunately, she does not carefully sort out what was known at the time from what was not. One of Malkin's blogger critics quickly observed that the Japanese submarine's shelling of the oil field near Santa Barbara on February 23, 1942, could hardly have been a factor in the key decisions of the preceding several weeks. In response*, Malkin noted that she had linked the shelling to the speeded-up evacuation of Terminal Island on February 25. This comes about 80 pages later.

Similar difficulties are explained away less easily. After describing the shelling episode, Malkin turns to Japanese operations in the Pacific immediately after Pearl Harbor and to Secretary Stimson's fear of raids against the American mainland. The reader then learns that Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, a Japanese naval commander, had precisely this in mind. Relegated to a footnote is Malkin's qualification that the source from which she drew the episode "states that other Japanese officers were unenthusiastic about Yamaguchi's plan." She does not mention at all that Yamaguchi presented his plan at a conference on February 20-23, 1942, on board a Japanese battleship. Did Yamaguchi's plan help shape American thinking relating to the evacuation? Could it have? One suspects not. (Malkin covers herself, perhaps, by noting that similar ideas circulated in the Japanese media.)

Another problem of sequence emerges when the reader learns "[i]n the Philippines, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and statesman Carlos Romulo described massive Japanese espionage activity in the country prior to the war." Malkin then provides several details. The source is a book by Romulo, one written and published following his arrival in the United States in June 1942. A bit further on, as added evidence for why Americans in late 1941 and early 1942 could reasonably have worried about the enemy in their midst, the reader learns that "Japan's surrender in 1945 came as a traumatic blow to many Hawaiian Issei," and that Tomoya Kawakita, a Nisei who served in Japan's army, "tortured scores of American POW's held in a Japanese prison camp." The torture occurred during the war, of course, and Kawakita was exposed after the war once he returned to Los Angeles.

The reviewer's reference to "the brunt of criticism" is interesting considering that none of the debates in which Malkin was willing to engage had anything to do with the military threat. That was the issue I raised, the one that Malkin was willing to lie rather than address in any way.

And for all that Yamaguchi might have had the bright idea to engage in a stupid, risky and pointless series of raids, the USN's post-war interviews with other Japanese admirals demonstrate very clearly that his superiors, including Admiral Yamamoto, had no intention of invading Hawaii, let alone the American West Coast. As I have demonstrated, even a successful and costless series of raids could not have slowed down the American war effort by a single day, let alone "crippled" it as Malkin ludicrously asserted.

It is a pity that the reviewer did not see fit to mention how Malkin not only demonstrates a near-complete ignorance of a) military logistics, b) American war plans, c) basic Naval details (she not only halved the number of American aircraft carriers, but didn't know where any of them were in early 1942) and d) post-Pearl Harbor naval movements and theatre priorities, but a singular in ability to reason logically in asserting a proof of military necessity based on Secretary of War Stinson's post-war comments. Since Stinson was arguably one of the primary players in the internment order, Malkin is simply engaging in circular reasoning.

Amusingly enough, the Malkin defender cited by Powerline in Me So's defense follows her lead in failing to address any of these points, preferring instead to engage in what-if scenarios. But I'm quite pleased that others are finally noticing the gaping hole in Malkin's moronic thesis, as Lofgren finally concludes:

"Indeed, Malkin never quite brings together the argument that for the decision-makers in Washington, D.C., military necessity, as inferred from sources known at the time, was the reason for the indiscriminate mass evacuation that actually occurred."

Exactly. Although I would tend to agree with Ken Masugi in saying that "needlessly inaccurate" isn't really fair to the book. "Wildly inaccurate and nonsensically amateurish" would be more precise, in my opinion.

*This is why I despise Malkin. She simply can't admit that she's wrong. Whenever she's exposed, her immediate reaction is to lie. At least the leftist lunatics usually have the excuse of genuinely not having a clue.

The teaching moment

Crom hits a girl:

Regarding the Jolie v. Pitt matchup it's ridiculous to think that she would even stand a chance. I am a mid-level combat hapkido student and when I recently sparred a black-belt female it was a joke. She was more talented in her movements, but if I hadn't have pulled my punches I would have broken her. By the end of the three minutes she was not pulling anything, and I still was holding back.
She was furious at the end of the match, and said that in a tournament she would have been the victor. I replied that in a tournament, yes - but on the street she would have been stomped.

This is typical of the attitude of both women and men who are only trained to tournament fight. It bears no more resemblance to actual physical combat than modern fencing does to the armored brawls that characterized medieval combat.

There were no such point fighters at my dojo, as it was not only the most notoriously brutal fighting school in the Twin Cities but the only one to ever sweep all the first-places in a major tournament, from gold to black. However, on the few occasions I did run into a woman sporting this kind of attitude, I simply smashed right through her defenses and dropped her. Do this twice in a row and either they'll lose the attitude and ask what they can do to try and defend themselves - which is usually what happens - or else they'll pretend to be hurt and quit for the day.

Most martial arts schools do their students a real disservice by failing to allow them to spar properly. Techniques are great, but they're only one part of the equation. Speed, power, fitness and general toughness are all important elements of unarmed combat and they vary in importance depending on the specific opponent.

A wrestler will almost always beat a tae kwon do kicker, as will a boxer. But both boxers and wrestlers are very vulnerable to judo and akido moves, and nobody matches up well with kali fighters except the manics who do the real muey thai, not the watered-down American kickboxing version. There is no magical one set of techniques that can guarantee victory over anyone, it's simply a matter of increasing your probabilities of success given what you have to work with.

All the skill and technique in the world don't matter much if your opponent whacks you over the head from behind with a baseball bat, is so much stronger than you that your blocking limbs get broken or is so much faster that you don't even see the blows coming. Women who train but don't fight hard contact simply don't understand how great their speed and power deficiency is until it is demonstrated to them in a manner they cannot help but understand.

As my instructor said when he helped me up off the floor after completely failing to pull his punches: "You were getting careless, so I felt that it was a teaching moment."

The faith of the SF writer

From James P. Hogan's THE GENESIS MACHINE:

The Aub that Clifford grew to know better during this time turned out to be even better than his first impressions had suggested. Like Clifford, he was preoccupied, almost obsessed, with a compulsive urge to add further to the stock of human scientific knowledge; he had no political persuasions and few ideological beliefs, certainly none that could be classed as part of any recognizable formal system. He accepted as so self-evident that it was not worthy of debate the axiom that only the harnessing of knowledge to create universal wealth and security could provide a permanent solution to the world's problems. It was not, however, the desire to discharge any moral obligation to the rest of humanity that spurred him Onward; it was simply his insatiable curiosity and the need to exercise his own extraordinary inventive abilities.

Actually, "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" is not exactly a new or aspiritual concept. The fact that adding to the stock of human scientific knowledge is what one wilts doesn't change the fact that as described here, it is an entirely selfish exercise and however desirable it might be in comparison with another who wilts genocide or forced sexual pleasure derived by the use of violence and physical strength, it hails from the same ethical source.

Indeed, the notion that knowledge - for which "education" appears to be considered an adequate substitute, if not wholly synonymous - will provide a permanent solution has become a veritable religion of its own. It is a faith every bit as blind as the Communist religion; although it lacks a single, extraordinary prophet it does have a handy priesthood in the secular SF-writing community.

Handicapped by their youthful social inadequacies, this fairly intelligent group of people nevertheless can be depended upon to get it wildly wrong whenever it comes to the basics of human interaction. This is not only why their futuristic techno-utopias are usually designed to mimic economic and political models which are already defunct, but why their sex scenes are unspeakable disasters so clumsy as to make romance novels look sophisticated. The reason that the woman always takes the sexual initiative in an SF novel is that the overweight wallflower who has written the book cannot for the life of him imagine how one would even begin to go about seducing a woman.

The SF-writing community sometimes reminds me of the journalism crowd, another group notoriously bad at self-examination. They are smug in their certainty that they have no ideology, even as they go about the act of propagandistically furthering the supposedly non-existent beast.

As predicted, the Miers nomination is toast

From Drudge:

The DRUDGE REPORT can now reveal that not only did Harriet Miers testify that she would not join the “politically charged” Federalist Society -- she testified that she had joined a liberal organization – the Democratic Progressive Voters League.

[According to the Handbook of Texas Online [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/DD/wed1.html], the Democratic Progressive Voters League is a Dallas political organization closely associated with the Democratic Party.]

Miers was also asked whether she considered “the NAACP [to be] in the category of organizations” that she considered to be “politically charged.”

Her answer: “No, I don’t.”

Adios, Miss Harriet.

Air America and the Fraters undercard

Witrack emails to inform me that someone named Stephanie Miller is a big fan:

Stephanie Miller mentioned, or rather read and made fun of your latest article on KTLA 1150, an Air America station.

She called it "dating tips from a skinhead". And they said you probably live in your mother's basement, etc. It wasn't really that funny when they talked about it, to me anyway.

Just thought you'd like to know that you have now hit the big time, being mentioned Air America!

It seems Witrack and I have divergent opinions on hitting the big time.... I've never heard of this woman before, but I'm guessing that Miss Miller is a strong and independent liberal thirty-something career woman with a communications degree from a third-rate university who doesn't have children and loves cats. Now, I don't actually know anything about her since I don't listen to talk radio, but what are the odds that I'm completely wrong? Two percent, maybe three? If anyone's inclined, look it up and see if I'm right.

Anyhow, Chad the Elder and the Fraters Libertas gang will be pleased. They can now add Vox Day vs Stephanie Miller to their proposed Northern Alliance - Air America rumble.

And then it occurs to me. Witrack, my friend, what on Earth are you doing listening to Air America? Is it even supposed to be funny?

UPDATE: Witrack says that you can probably hear it tomorrow, if you're so inclined, here. Let me know if they say anything interesting.

The second rock falls

Mr. Joseph Farah affirms my Monday prediction regarding Creepy McCrypto:

Most of the attention on the nomination so far has focused on her lack of experience, her track record, her opinions on abortion, etc.

But the silver bullet that will do in the nominee is her cozy relationship with Bush – one that likely placed her in a position of covering up scandals in the Texas Lottery to keep secret the preferential treatment the president received as a young man to enter the Texas Air National Guard.

All it will take is a subpoena or two to get the whole sordid story on the public record – in front of a national television audience.

I don't think George W. Bush, already experiencing unfavorable public opinion ratings, will allow that to happen.

Mr. Farah's sources are much better than mine - especially since he's in DC doing the talk radio thing while my connections consist solely of my synapses - but it's interesting that he is reaching the same conclusion.

It's a mystery

I just can't figure out why the Pan-Gargler would think that soccer players tend to be a bit fruity.

Nevertheless, I'm still optimistic about the upcoming World Cup. I think a semifinals appearance is possible, if not likely. But we should be able to get past the group stage, which would be nice.

Mailvox: Undsoweiter

KS informs us that she possesses a 130+ IQ and reading comprehension problems:

I am rather disappointed that you would mandate a woman of my age, 18, to start looking for a mate immediately for the sole purpose of producing children, whereas you issue a caveat to young men to stay single. You tell us women on World Net Daily, " Remember, your choices narrow as you get older, while men's choices broaden," because, apparently, once we are no longer young and fertile, we are no longer of any value to the opposite sex. I suppose when your wife hits menopause, you will immediately begin hunting for a younger mate.

Yes, once a woman is no longer young and fertile, she is completely useless for having children, except in a professional capacity as a doctor, midwife or fertility technician. If having children was my foremost priority, I would certainly replace a post-menopausal or barren wife for one capable of bearing children. But what does any of that have to do with Monday's column or the subsequent discussion?

KS reveals a haphazard manner of thinking all too typical of today's youth, conflating narrowing choices with a complete lack of value and failing to note the obvious caveats applying to the two columns in question. Furthermore, she either reveals the female tendency towards totalitarianism in confusing individual observations with an order by an authority figure or she does not understand the word "mandate".

You instruct us not to flirt, or bait-and-switch. " Unlike their female counterparts, men who say they don't want to get married or have kids usually mean it." You seem to think it is fine for men to not want children or marriage, but not for women. If it is our biological purpose as women to bear children, shouldn't all men also fulfill their biological purpose in providing the other 23 chromosomes and, oh dear, a feminist thought, perhaps share in the responsibilities of raising children?

First, I never mentioned anything about flirting, second, does KS seriously wish to argue that it is ethical or effective for women to engage in bait-and-switch tactics? And while it would be demographically desirable for young men to harbor more interest in marriage and children, the evidence suggests that the lack of such interest is primarily a symptom caused by the construction of the Equalitarian Society, its quasi-legal courts and masculinized women. One cannot cure the disease by treating the symptoms and ignoring the cause. There's more sloppy thinking here, as it is not possible for men to share in the responsibilities of bearing children, which is the subject at hand. Men have always shared in the responsibilities of raising children, unless one redefines the activity as excluding the provision of food, shelter and protection.

According to you, we should "settle earlier rather than later." I resent the fact that you even use the term "settle." It gives me the impression that you do not think we have a right to search for a decent human being beyond our peak reproductive age, so long as he provides viable sperm, he will do.

A resentful woman, imagine that! Again, KS confuses individual opinion and biological realities with the force of law. You have the right to do whatever you want. If you want to collect cats, go for it. But you will settle, sooner or later, because The Perfect Man does not exist. There is always an opportunity cost, even if you make the best of all possible choices.

Indeed, in my opinion, the job of mother is the most difficult on the face of this earth, and many women are not equipped to fulfill it, especially if they follow your advice and bear children before 25, before they have had time to experience the world beyond their parents' homes. This is why I am uncertain as to whether I want children. I would love to have them, but I am not sure if I would do as amazing a job that my mother did with me and my siblings. And may I point out that the tradition of marriage used to be a father selling his daughters in order to improve his connections, wealth, and status. As if his female children were livestock, ommodities to bring him material gain.

Here KS makes a remarkably stupid statement. The job of mother is one of the easiest jobs on the face of this earth and trillions of women have successfully performed it. About the only easier job is that of father. The fact that they are uniquely necessary jobs does not make them complex, dangerous or hard to do.

As for the tradition of women being regarded as commodities, if KS and other young women elect to continue following the equalitarian precepts of the Sisterhood, I think we can just about guarantee that the West will see a revival of the practice within 100 years.

Mailvox: a pleasant surprise

RL asks some interesting questions:

Allow me to turn that question around. If you also believe that Western Civilization is the best and brightest, then why are you so quick predict its demise?

Are there any actual historic examples of an entire civilization, any civilization (not a kingdom, empire, or country), completely disappearing from the face of the earth because they stopped reproducing enough?

I think I'll address the first question tomorrow, because I'd prefer to do so in more detail than I feel like ripping off right now. But as to the latter, that's a bit of a difficult question.

First, because any civilization which has become defunct is, by definition, not around now, so we don't necessarily know what happened to it. For example, historians have a few theories about why the Etruscans were wiped out by the Romans, but we don't actually know.

Second, a civilization which becomes demographically vulnerable is seldom left in peace to vanish in silence. Indeed, among the various aspects of a decadent culture is an declining inclination to reproduce. But humans, like nature, appear to abhor a vaccuum, especially if there's perfectly good land and other resources available for the taking.

If one examines the case of Italy, the immigrant population has grown from 156,179 of 54.1 million in 1971 to an estimated 3.8 million of 58.5 million in 2004. So the population appears stable, even if the percentage of Italians is falling. But the real problem is that in 1971, the birth rate was above the replacement rate of 2.1, now it is well below it, at 1.17. So, the trend is going to increase rapidly and the declining number of children is already readily apparent to anyone visiting an Italian city.

Lest anyone think that pointing out these obvious trends is only a concern of the right wing seeking a return to the Dark Ages of the 1950s, I note the following:

"the anthropologist and writer Ida Magli has a more controversial view of why Italy's fertility rate is falling. She says: "No one wants to say the truth--that Italian women don't want to be mothers. In this country, there is no help for a mother with a child. So maternity destroys her chances of working and realising herself."

Mailvox: a few reasons

RL asks, we answer:

What I took issue with was his thinnly veiled assertion that the history and biology made it right and that women should just accept their position as cows.

"It's been that way for millions of years, and only just the last few decades have people like you begun to believe differently." - George.

My example with the king was showing how most people on this site, I strongly suspect, wouldn't agree with that line of reasoning if applied to other areas of longstanding (but generally overturned in modern times) historical precedent. Thus, why should women necessarily accept their biological and historical position?

1. Because the human race will end if they do not accept their biological position. Women, to their credit, are not indifferent to this, as the fear of nuclear war and global warming shows. Nevertheless, it is the Western woman's refusal to accept the biological demands which God/Nature/evolution has placed on them that is on the verge of guaranteeing the loss of every so-called advance that women today currently cherish. As we are already seeing in Europe, if a society becomes insufficiently interested in sustaining itself for whatever reason, other societies will readily move in to replace it. This is not exactly a new phenomenon.

2. Since very few women are both interested in and capable of a productive career in theoretical or applied sciences, any prospective technological solutions would likely be primarily dependent upon men. As I alluded in my column yesterday, a brave new technological world is just as likely to degrade women's position in society as it is to enhance it, if not more so.

3. Because women are biologically disadvantaged and will always be personally vulnerable to individual male power and aggresiveness. This is one reason why the serious gender feminists push lesbianism. Without completely breaking all contact with men, it is impossible for a woman to maintain a position of superior power without the tacit acceptance of the men supporting her.

As for questions of right and wrong, that obviously depends on your perspective. The West's Judeo-Christian cultural tradition clearly indicates that women have a duty to accept their special position, which is not a bovine one but rather one of supreme importance. If one rejects that, as many obviously do, then one cannot really make any judgment on the matter without first defining the morality with which one is doing so.

A lizard on the Cherry Blossom Throne

The retirement gap
By Teresa Heinz
October 8, 2005
The Boston Globe

Isn't it interesting how a feminist always feels the need to pretend that she's a normal, heterosexual, married woman when her partner-in-crime is running for office? Or, for that matter, when she is. If feminists were actually mainstream, normal women would instead be surreptitiously dropping their married names when in the public eye.

That's why it amuses me when people talk about a second President Clinton. If the Lizard Queen gets elected - and she may well - I expect her to announce that she'd prefer to be addressed as President Rodham by mid-November 2011.

That's if we're lucky. If we're not, we'll be publicly confessing our sins against Her Reptilian Majesty prior to being carted off in the tumbrils.

So much for assimilation

Study Finds Fertility Is Higher Here than in Home Countries;
Illegal Aliens Have Birthrates 50% Higher than Native-Born

WASHINGTON (October 12, 2005) -- A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies finds that women from the top ten immigrant-sending countries collectively have higher fertility than women in their home countries. As a group, immigrants from these countries have 23 percent more children than women in their home countries....

* In 2002, immigrant women (legal and illegal) from the top 10 immigrant-sending countries had 2.9 children on average, compared to a fertility rate of 2.3 children in their home countries -- a 23-percent difference.

* Mexico immigrants in the U.S., for example, had 3.5 children per woman compared to 2.4 children for women in Mexico. Among Chinese immigrant fertility is 2.3 in the U.S. compared to 1.7 in China, and immigrants from Canada have 1.9 children compared to 1.5 children in Canada.

I'm just wondering what is the point of sending young women to college if afterwards they are still too clueless to grasp the probability that children raised by non-English speaking immigrants from unfree countries are not exactly likely to share the preferences - from food to form of government - of those they are expected to replace.

I mean, if you can't figure that out, just what benefit are you likely to offer society anyhow?

What Bear and others who point to the melting pot of yore don't seem to have considered is how modern communications and travel technology now obviates the need for immigrants to adapt to their new home. Believe me, you can live almost anywhere in the world and as long as you have a satellite and an Internet connection, you wouldn't even realize you were on a different continent unless you left the house.

Immigrants now face a choice to abandon their cultural traditions or to maintain them, and it increasingly appears that they are electing to retain them. It's worth noting that "the rights of Englishmen" have never been instilled anywhere except by force; they will not likely be preserved here by those who have no interest or traditional connection to them.

Mailvox: the dialogue continues

M writes back, and interestingly enough, declines to declare her major:

As for your opening gambits, your beef seems to be more with women focusing on education at all, not what kind they get. So if I answered "Neuroscience" or "Engineering”, what I could expect to get is the same as if I said “Philosophy” or “International Relations”. In short, you already answered your own question: “It will make you very employable, I'm sure.” While categorizing all of your critics into either “frothing feminists” or “ignorati” is pretty much unworthy, I can’t really blame you when people come out with “I’m an exception to your article because I’m ________ degree and so cool.”

First, it's not that all of my critics are frothing feminists or ignorati, it's just that the vast majority of them demonstrate serious reading comprehension problems, an inability to see the forest for the trees or an unshakeable allegiance to feminist dogma even when it flies in the face of demonstrable reality. As anyone who read the Fark comments knows, there wasn't a single substantive critique in the lot. I'm always quite happy to engage a serious critic, unfortunately they are very few and far between.

Second, very few men or women realize that "education" is largely a crock. I speak two foreign languages, one of which I learned in high school. While I do not speak the language I studied in college and for which I received a major from an expensive private university, I am quite comfortable in a language in which I have never been "educated". Education is not wholly synonymous with learning and a degree is not proof of knowledge, let alone proven expertise.

Furthermore, most college educations are completely wasted. Except in the most demanding technical fields, one's career seldom bears much relation to one's education in the United States. It is very different in Europe, where the educational tracks are guided, but here in the States I'd be surprised if 5 percent of the countless Sociology, Women's Studies and International Relations majors ever spend a single year working in a job that is even tangentially related to those academic fields.

And for this it's worth sacrificing marriage, children and the Western cultural tradition? Some might think so. I disagree.

What I’m more interested in at the moment is where you left the other half of your argument, and why. Statistics don’t show that we’re in the middle of a population crisis here. In fact, the situation is just the opposite. The birth rate for natives is a little above replacement, and that is admittedly mostly due to the national emphasis on education and career rather than family during the most fertile years of our lives. This is true of most developed countries, with the US at a 2.1 fertility rate, and most European countries hovering between 1.2 and 2.0. However, in the US, the rate of replacement due to immigration (and high immigrant fertility rates, both legal and illegal) more than makes up for our close call on the native fertility scales. This has become a big political issue in the past decade because immigrants are ceasing to absorb into our society, learn our language, etc. Therefore, I can really only come to the conclusion that you left the other half of your argument behind… that you are not calling for women to have more babies, you are calling for white women to have more babies. If you wanted to seem more PC, you would say native women or “US citizens”. I’m somewhat curious as to why you are so willing to be branded a misogynist, but hang back from the racist brand.

I don't know how accurate that last sentence is, considering that more than a few commenters here and on Fark weren't shy about applying the racist label. To which I can only say that if that were true, I would imagine that my career as a NCAA D1 100m sprinter would have been a lot more difficult, given that it's not exactly a massive Caucasian's club.*

And while I don't care greatly about the color of the babies of tomorrow, I am very much concerned with who is having them. As Europe is learning, third-world immigrants from countries which have not had the benefit of 500 years of the Western tradition are not an adequate substitute for native-born citizens who have. Even from the liberal point of view, is an illiterate Argentine who is more familiar with Peron than George Washington really an adequate substitute for a female Boston Brahmin who teaches political geography at Harvard?

Isn't it at least possible that importing a significant percentage of people with no cultural tradition of free speech, limited government or even monogamous marriage just might have some effect on Western countries' ability to continue their traditions? In Britain, for example, not only Piglet but even the Cross of St. George - the national symbol - is being banned in public due to immigrant sensitivities.

This is precisely why I have asserted that the Equalitarian Society will come to an end in the intermediate future. It simply isn't sustainable, not even by its own lights.

*A few years ago, I was working out with free weights in Washington DC with three giant bodybuilders. They were black and they were freaking enormous, doing leg presses with six (6!) 45-pound plates per side. I was going through my martial arts phase at the time and my head was shaved clean, which led the biggest guy to ask why it was shaved - while I was on the bench with 285 pounds over my throat and he was spotting me.

"White supremacist" I told him. "Now let go of the damn bar!" He correctly grasped the sarcasm in the situation, burst out laughing and finally took his hands off. This was necessary because he was the worst spotter ever. I think I did twelve or thirteen reps that set because Mr. Ebon Steroid Freak was curling ninety percent of the weight for the first ten.

In case you're interested

I'll be on Jim Richards Show on NewsTalk 1010 CFRB Toronto at 8:35 PM. If it's like the last time I was on that station, it should be good humor. Toronto apparently has no shortage of feminist lunatics frothing at the mouth there and they seem to enjoy using me as the sharp stick with which to poke them.

No idea if they have a webcast or not.

Blogfodder: Creepy McCryptopolis

Mellochic advocates blatant dishonesty and gold-digging:

Wow.... I feel like my sarcastic commentary can't really do this column justice. This whole article is crap. I mean... picture this... you're out on your first date with someone, and you start talking about how much you want to get married and have lots of kids. Now, if that doesn't scare them off.... Creepy McCrypto? Yeah... why didn't I drop out of high school to make babies with worthless future janitors of america? Damn... guess I'll have to settle with my chemical engineering degree and reconcile myself to an awesome Ivy-League boyfriend. What was I thinking?

Let's see, a girl with a chemical engineering degree dating a guy from the Ivy League... yes, actually, the image of Creepy McCrypto does tend to spring to mind. Note, too, how future janitors are "worthless" but the mere fact of attending the Ivy League makes a man "awesome".

Now, I'm not saying she's a golddigger, but... you know the rest. The bit about scaring them off would be funny if it wasn't so sad... Mellochic tacitly admits her desire for marriage and children while managing to miss the entire point of the exercise, which is for a woman who desires children to winnow out those men who will be scared off so she can focus her attention on those who aren't. As for the whole article being crap, if it were not for some minor points of grammar and punctuation, it would be hard to improve on this gentleman's take:

"Why, yes, the easiest way to get married and have children is to have meaningless casual overnight sex, work 60 hour jobs after 5 years of college, tell men you never want to marry or have kids, stay in long term relationships with guys that hate children and don't want them, and ignoring obvious faults in men they date for the sake of converting him later, and try to make no logical sense in choosing a partner.. yes.. THAT is the best path to take."

As for Creepy McCrypto herself, allow me to make a prediction. Her nomination will not even make it to the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Mailvox: SmartPop is good for you

Czja's brain doesn't melt down despite slogging through THE DICHOTOMOUS SUBVERSIVE:

I read your chapter in The Anthology at the End of the World. As I just said over at Ranting Room, I have put off reading this not because I wasn't curious, but because I don't know the first thing about Hitchhiker and I wanted to familiarize myself with that before picking up the Anthology. I'm glad I didn't wait any longer because it is not necessary to have read Hitchhiker in order to enjoy your analysis - although I'm sure it would be much more meaningful if you did.

You are extremely fun to read no matter what the topic.You really have that in your corner. The hypothetical you posited about Thatcher and Friedman was hysterical and set up your analysis - or whatever you call it - well. I thought it was excellent to get a defence of limited government out of a S.F. book. I wonder, were you chosen, because of your political columns, to write about that particular aspect of Hitchhiker or did they give you an free reign and you decided to emphasize Adam's "libertarian" leanings on your own?

Thanks very much and all that. In answer to your question, I was originally contacted as an SFWA writer - even though my fellow members would almost surely vote me out if given half a chance - but I was given free reign to write about whatever I wanted, subject to the editor's approval. If you consider how Jacqueline Carey devoted her essay to assuring the reader that she gets English humor, it should be readily apparent that the bar is not an overly elevated one.

That being said, I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. The book's been out long enough that I'll post my essay here one of these days.