Dear Stupid People,

I know I shouldn't let other people's idiocy bother me so much, but there comes a point where I can no longer just watch another human being say really, really, really, REALLY moronic things without keeping my mouth shut and saying something about it.

This thing about people making up brand new “gender identities” that are unconnected to anything in reality has reached epic proportions of dumb.

Seriously.

Have you heard about this shit?

From what I can tell, it all started with people who were honestly suffering trying to get together to help each other get through things, and to help those of us lucky to not have their problems understand what they were going through. Unfortunately, what it has evolved into is a clown-show. Its now a complete joke. Its an echo-chamber where people whose only real shared problem could be charitably described – and recognized as such by anyone with a working brain – as “social ineptitude.”

These sad people sit in on discussions of equal rights for homosexuals and transgendered people, learning the lingo and the common arguments and that that carefully garnered intel and turn it to their own purposes. They quote famous human rights activists way, way out of context to add that elusive whiff of legitimacy to a situation that couldn't be less legitimate if its parents hadn't been married when it was born. They act as if their “fight for equality” was morally and factually equal to the fight to end racism, transphobia, homophobia, class discrimination, or sexism. They worm their way into discussions of actual, real issues and then cleverly turn statements that were originally designed to protect true victims who are at risk of losing their jobs and lives to their own benefit.

I'm talking about the so-called “otherkin” and “otakukin.”

In case you're unaware, otherkin and otakukin are people who “identify” as animals or anime characters, respectively.

No, really. They do that.

No, I'm not joking. I promise, I'm not joking. This is actually a thing.

They really do “identify” as animals and anime characters.

Now, I'm a pretty open-minded guy. My basic philosophy is that you can do, say, or believe what you want as long as what you are doing, saying, and believing doesn't hurt anyone else and as long as you aren't shoving your actions, statements, and beliefs in other people's faces when they don't want you to do so. But this shit is just too stupid for me to let go.

According to these people, the lack of widespread acceptance of “otherkin” and “otakukin” is contributing to an environment of mass oppression. Mass oppression? Really? So these people are losing their jobs and being beaten up and murdered and raped because they think they're a chinchilla trapped in a human body? Because they think they are actually the human incarnation of Shinji Ikari? No? None of that is actually happening? No one's actually being killed or beaten or forced out of their jobs? Then what, I ask, is actually going on that could possibly qualify as “mass oppression?”

What's that you say? People are listening to these people say that they are actually animals or anime characters and are laughing at them instead of just accepting it? People are being mean on the internet and not just believing these people out of hand? That's your so-called “mass oppression?”

Are you kidding me, here?

In addition to these weirdos, a new form of personal delusion has popped up onto the landscape. You've all no doubt heard of transgender, but have you heard of transabled? How about transethnic?

No?

Well, if you've got a few hours free and a lot of booze handy, try googling the term “transabled oppression” or “transethnic oppression” and then sit back and prepare to be entertained.

Transabled people are – apparently – disabled people who were unfortunate enough to be born in perfectly functional bodies. They “identity” as being blind, deaf, paraplegic, quadriplegic, and so on despite not having been any of those things a day in their lives. They talk a lot about how hard it is to go through life in a perfectly healthy body.

Transethnic people, on the other hand, are basically people who “identify” as being part of a different ethnicity. In the 90s we called people like that “weeaboos,” except these jokers take it up to 11. The weeaboos just acted like they weren't white or Asian or whatever. These people really do believe they are truly of another ethnicity.

Quick digression: I thought that “transethnicity” was a sick joke until a friend sent me a link to a blog by a white man who “identifies” as a black woman. He apparently claims that he is “oppressed” by other black women who have the gall to actually question his self-proclaimed “identity”.

And then there's the “demi-sexuals.” Apparently, these are people who are sexually attracted to people they are in love with. Yeah, really. They claim that this is a real sexual orientation and that they are being oppressed. How are they being oppressed? I have no idea.

I find the very idea of these people offensive. I feel that they are mocking the very real pain and the very real struggle of disabled people and ethnic minorities to find an equal place in our society. And the greedy appropriation of the “trans experience” just so they can claim to be marginalized is disgusting to me. What these people claim to “suffer” is nothing compared to what actual trans people go through on a daily basis. They are not going to be denied a job, they are not going to be denied housing, they are not going to be forced to be who they aren't, they are not going to be subject to violence because they are “transfat” or “transblind” or “transasian” of whatever.

“Trans” is short for “transitioning.” These people aren't transitioning. They're appropriating.

These yahoos have even come up with a special term for those of us who have too much common sense and too much compassion for the struggle of real transgender people to buy into their nonsense. They call us “singlets.” Apparently, all of us who walk around refusing to buy into their nonsense enjoy “cisprivilege.” People who are actually disabled apparently enjoy “cisability privilege”, while actually people of color enjoy “cisethnic privilege.”

Well isn't that special.

This might be the height of arrogant bullshit. These people just need to stop. Right now. Just stop. If they had any real idea how hard it was to live with a disability, to be denied employment or housing because of their gender identity, to be treated as less than human because of their skin color, would they really be clamoring to be a part of it?

As a straight white man who “identifies” as the gender he was born into I can't speak for those groups, but I can tell you that living with a disability is hard! I'm in pain pretty much 24-7-365. I have vertigo spells of various intensity every ten or twelve minutes, some of which last just moments, while others last minutes. I have trouble walking, tire easily, and sometimes can't remember what I want to remember. And I got off lucky! This is not something that should be reduced to a punchline so that someone can pretend that they are oppressed.

As for the so-called “demi-sexuals”, you assholes need to stop blogging about coming out as demi-sexual to your parents as if it was such a fucking hardship. Do you really believe that, in a heteronormative world, that your mom and dad are going to have a hissy fit because you enjoy the most normal, vanilla form of sexual attraction on the planet? Really? You're not oppressed, you're vanilla. I don't remember ever seeing a news article about a “demi-sexual” who was murdered for being “demi,” or thrown out of their apartment, or fired from their job.

And finally, let me direct my eye to you people who claim to be “transfat”. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I don't care if you weigh a thousand tons on the inside, on the outside you're still just a skinny asshole. You still get to walk into any clothing store you want and buy your clothes with ease. You can go into a restaurant to eat without having people snicker over your size and how much you're eating. You can go to a grocery store without people staring at what's in your cart and making jokes. When you go to a doctor, you don't have him constantly warning you of the heart attack you're going to have at any moment even if everything else about you is healthy and normal.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

I wish these people were a put on. I really do. But the more I read about these idiots, the more I realize that they are deadly serious. It disgusts me to a point that its impossible for me to actually describe. Being marginalized because of a disability or your sexuality or your ethnicity is horrible and affects your life in real and painful ways.

Again, I can't speak for people of color or the transgedered, but I can tell you that “disabled” is not just a label you wear for shits and giggles. Its something you struggle with from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until the moment you fall asleep at night. It means that you often die earlier from the stress of just living than you might if you were healthy. This isn't some cutesy game where you pretend to be suffering, claiming to be oppressed and engaging in fake outrage over how the rest of the world refuses to accept you.

Stop. Just stop.

Feminism's False Dichotomy

"I'd like every man who doesn't call himself a feminist to explain to the women in his life why he doesn't believe in equality." -- Louise Brealy

Ladies and gentlemen, let me direct your attention to this statement by British actress, writer, and journalist Louise Brealey.  I call your attention to it because it is indicative of modern feminist thought.  It is also a perfect example of what intelligent people call the "False Dichotomy Fallacy."


Putting it quite simply, the False Dichotomy Fallacy is when a person frames their arguments as if there is only two possible options to choose from.  That is, they frame their argument so that either A is the truth, or B is the truth, as if there are no other possible options, despite the fact that its perfectly possible for any of the options C through Z to actually be true.


In this case, Ms. Brealey is saying "If you do not support feminism (Option A) you must oppose gender equality (Option B)."  Her statement makes it quite clear that, in her opinion, at least, you cannot believe in and support gender equality if you are not a feminist.  And the reason why this is a fallacy (that is, the reason why it is bad logic) is simple:  it is absolutely possible to not favor "Feminism" (a specific political movement) and yet still be in favor of "gender equality" (a specific political ideal).


If you're wondering how such a thing is possible, I beg of you:  open your mind and stop drinking the Kool-Aid for a moment and listen.  It is possible for several reasons.


First, it is entirely possible to be a proponent of gender equality, yet not agree with the methods by which the feminist movement goes about achieving gender equality.  Remember the push to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, back in the 70s and early 80s?  There were several pro-women groups -- groups made up of women campaigning on behalf of the rights of women -- who opposed the ERA because they opposed the specific language involved in the proposed amendment.  They were not opposed to the idea of gender equality -- they just didn't like the fact that the Amendment, as it was written, infantilized women and implied that they (women) were second class citizens.


In addition, several of those women refused to describe themselves as "feminist" and did not support the ERA because they didn't go for the "sexual politics" part of the movement (and by that they and I mean the actual "sex" parts of the politics -- the free access to birth control, the support of abortion, and so on) while supporting the "gender politics" parts of it (equal pay for equal work, no second class citizen status, and so on) involved in feminism,  These women still supported gender equality, but didn't agree with the entire platform built by organized feminism and thus would not identify themselves as feminist.


Second, it is entirely possible to dislike the "enshrining female privilege" aspects of the modern feminist movement without wanting to end equality between the genders.  The modern feminist movement opposes -- and I am not making this up, they actively OPPOSE -- any attempt to bring more public awareness to male victims of rape or domestic violence, or equal access to recovery resources for male victims of rape and domestic violence.  The movement apparently sees such efforts as "taking the resources away from women", who are apparently more important than men simply because they are women.


They also oppose doing anything about leveling the playing field for men in Family Courts (thus giving men the rights and consideration already enjoyed by women) or the problem of false accusations of rape and abuse being used as weapons in divorce cases (to put it bluntly, the feminist movement claims that there are no false accusations, and that women would never stoop so low as to use a rape or abuse claim as a weapon against a man).


They oppose doing anything about the fact that the percentage of men graduating from college is dropping swiftly.


And they oppose -- and this one get's me fucking angry, guys -- they actively lobby against the increase of governmental funding for research into so-called "men's health issues" like testicular cancer and the like despite the fact that men's health research is only funded to the tune of a tenth (1/10th) of how women's health research is funded.


And remember, while they are fighting to stop anyone doing anything about these problems, they are screaming to the rooftops about how society as a whole is ignoring "women's problems".  Which makes their opposition to men's causes a little suspect to me.


Now, realistically, I cannot say that every single feminist on the planet opposes all of these things.  As individuals, I'm sure that they don't; I'm sure that there are feminists out there who are perfectly willing to campaign for more assistance to male domestic violence victims, or to level the playing field in family court.


But...


However...


That said...


Unfortunately, the feminist movement -- organized feminism as an overall whole -- actively and effectively does oppose these things.


And on that basis alone, it is perfectly reasonable for a lot of people to look at the actions of the organized feminist movement, think about it a little bit, and then come to the conclusion that they just can't get on board with that.  It is perfectly reasonable for them to say "Sorry, but I am not a feminist if feminism means treating male rape victims as jokes to be ignored at best and insulted and abused at worst."  Or say "Sorry, but I am not a feminist if being a feminist means thinking that there's no reason to do anything about men dying ten to fifteen years earlier than women, or committing suicide four times as often, or dying of cancer twice as often."


Which, to bring it back to the point I started on, means that anyone saying "You're either a feminist or you're a bigot who opposes equality" is either an idiot (which Ms. Brealey isn't) or has some sort of agenda that would benefit from people not thinking about just how much damage the feminist movement is truly doing to our society.


Think about it.

Oh, I Triggered You? Too Fucking Bad!

I've had a long, hard life.

Sometimes that long hard life has been soul-crushingly hard.

Things have happened to me that I don't wish on my enemies.

I've been the victim of abuse, both as a child at the hands of my parents, and as an adult by a woman I thought I could trust.  I've been raped, and then treated as a joke by the authorities I tried to report this crime to. I've suffered broken bones, and lacerations. I've contracted bubonic plague, a disease you only read about in stories. I've seen friends die bloodily in front of me in accidents. I've had my life all but destroyed by people I trusted with everything.

So its safe to say that I know what "trauma" means. Trauma is some form of horrible, damaging experience that usually involves some sort of peril or loss that left a lasting scar, either physically or psychologically. And personally, I deal with my own trauma by talking to people. By writing this blog. By sharing my experience with others.

According to a certain young lady, my entire understanding of what trauma is and is not is completely and utterly mistaken. Apparently, trauma is now defined as "anything that makes you upset". And the way to prevent forcing someone to relive "trauma" is to issue "trigger warnings". That is, a warning that certain material might contain words, themes, or ideas that trigger "traumatic memories" in people who were once upset by something. Its a way for people to avoid that which bothers them rather than having to face it and deal with it. She explained, thoroughly, that a person should be able to expect a "safe environment" where nothing 'triggers" their "trauma".
It was the stupidest thing I've heard in months.

You know, I feel for people who really went through traumatic experiences, but my empathy ends when these people demand that society change to suit their personal desire to permanently avoid ever experiencing bad memories. Its like no one ever told these crybabies that they have no right to expect that they will never, ever be reminded of a bad experience ever for the rest of their lives.

And don't think I'm making an exception for myself. I have problems. There are things that make me flash back to bad times, too. You know what, though? I'll deal. I'm a fucking grown-up, and part of being a grown-up is dealing with the pain of your life. I have never demanded that women in elevators leave so that I can ride with the men, just because the thought of being alone in an elevator with a woman terrifies me. I've never mentioned to anyone how seeing a broomstick in the hands of a woman makes my legs shaky. I do not need to get a "trigger warning" because some TV show is running a storyline dealing with domestic abuse.

You know, my grandparents generation fought the worst, most damaging, most horrific war in the history of our species. When they were done, they came home and built this country into the land of opportunity that it was for the longest time. And they didn't do this by walking around as if the boogeyman was going to jump out at them at every turn. They didn't demand other people change to protect their tender sensibilities. They just dealt with it privately, not imposing on other people,  and lived their lives.

If these people today are so psychologically fragile that they fall to pieces over the merest mention of something vaguely related to their "trauma", especially if their trauma wasn't actually all that traumatic in the first place, they need to seek out serious professional psychiatric assistance. They belong in a mental ward, not in a college.

And they certainly have no place dictating what other people can think, say, and do.

How self-entitled do you have to be to think that you have some sort of right to dictate to other people how they run their lives? To expect everyone around you to cater to your own psychological problems?

Seriously, how narcissistic do you have to be?

So again, if your past bothers you so much that you feel the need to complain about what other people are doing or saying, then get help. See a psychiatrist. Get over it.

Don't try to tell other people what to do.

Just grow up.

Deal.

Because that's how real grown-ups handle life.

Government Is Not the Problem

Here's the truth:  governments make mistakes sometime.

Government, like all things, is not perfect.

And when government botches things up, it generally botches things up disasterously.

Especially when the Republicans are in charge.  No, seriously, a study was done regarding events which the government completely and totally messed up on, and the Republicans lead the Democrats for incompetent management of government by a ratio of 4:1.

And of course, government is not the proper solution to all problems, and is hardly ever the entire solution to anything.

Here's more truth for you:  the government is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to handle certain issues.  It is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to stand up to, and stop, the abuses of democracy and other American ideals by those who would attempt to dominate, subjugate, and explot the interests of We the People...   In this sense, the government, especially at the federal level, is very definitely the ultimate solution.

There is a long tradition in this country of carping about the government.  And its not just this government, either.  I'm absolutely certain that somewhere, sometime, way back in Ancient Mesopotamia, somebody was complaining about Sargon the Great and how his administration was doing nothing to assuage the troubles faced by the common man.  Of course, before the rise of modern democracy, those who complained about government generally were those who had been disenfranchised somehow.  The poor and the downtrodden.  The outlaws.  The political enemies.  Because prior to democracy, the rich and the powerful loved the government.  After all, they were the government.

For the poor, it was generally wise to keep your complaints about how the local lord was running his fiefdom to yourself unless you had a real need to discover what torture and execution felt like.  This all changed with Democracy.  First with the United States, then with France, and then slowly with the rest of the world.  Suddenly the age-old tradition of government being the plaything of the rich and powerful was completely flipped.  Democratic governments were controlled, at least theoretically, by We the People...

Unfortunately, this didn't sit well with government's former owners.  They knew that this "democracy" fad had to go, and so they came up with two basic strategies.  First, they tried to buy it back.  Politicians, judges, and public officials of all stripes were generally quite amenable to this idea, selling their time, attention, and loyalty, not to mention their honesty and integrity, to the highest bidder.  But it wasn't enough.  Try as they might, the rich and powerful couldn't ever seen to fully complete their conquest of the government and all those pesky We the People... who weren't interested in just standing back and letting the rich take over again.  So they came up with a second, complimentary strategy.  The second strategy involved dividing and conquering.  If the rich could persuade a bare majority of the really stupid poor people to go along with them, they could tighten their grip on the reins of power.

There are a lot of ways to divide.  Race and religion are the two greatest hits when it comes to causing a population to eat itself, and boy howdy were these put to good use by the rich and powerful in their efforts to divide We the People...  Concurrent with the rise of democracy, however, came a new tactic:  promoting active distrust of the government, so as to lessen its legitimacy.  It also lessened the people's sense of ownership of the government.  A disenchanted and apathetic citizenry, one that doesn't think government works, and doesn't think their vote counts, will tune out the entire subject of politics.  They will not show up at polling places, and thus not exercise their power of control over the government.  This gives a much wider opportunity for the rich and powerful to grab control with only a small percentage of the voters helping them to do it.

This tactic is pure evil.

No, seriously, it's evil.  It's evil because it intentionally risks driving the entire country into the ground.  The wisest leaders know that citizens loving and believing in their government is crucial to the strength and well-being of the entire nation.  Conservatives are willing to abuse this ancient axiom to gain political and economic power.  They rationalize it away by saying that it is they, the rich and powerful, who have always had the "divine right to rule."  But the truth is, they have no interest whatsoever in a nation "for the people, by the people, and of the people."  What they want is a return to the "good old days" when there was no democracy.

With the faith of We the People... in their government wrecked, the rich and powerul can do whatever they want.  They can slash taxes on themselves while increasing taxes on the poor and middle class.  They can deregulate their giant, predatory businesses.  They can write laws and appoint judges who will favor them.  They can loot the treasury.  They can start wars all over the globe.  They can propagate their fundamental philosophy, that "greed is good."  They become what they most crave to be:  rulers of the world.  You know that the ruination of America is not far off when such a philosophy, as utterly lacking in any sort of virtue as it is, gains the upper hand.  The less We the People... believe in their government, the weaker they are, and the better the rich and powerful like it.

The people in the lower and middle classes who support these corporate oligarchs in their take-over of the United States are those who share some of the anger and bitterness of governmental control over their "freedoms."  Again, just as with the rich and powerful, it is their "traditional values" that they believe are being threatened by the government.  These "freedoms", these "traditional values", are things like the freedom to discriminate, the freedom to be as prejudiced and hateful as they want to be.  The freedom to force other people to live as they do.  The freedom to suppress books and movies and television shows and music they don't like.  Those are the freedoms and traditional values we're talking about.  And this is why social conservatives buy into the "government is the problem" bullshit.  They see government spreading and enabling equality, liberty, justice for all, and the pursuit of happiness -- in other words, government trying to live up to its own ideals -- they see government spreading scientific knowledge rather than religious ignorance, and modernity and multi-culturalism being applied to the art of governance, and they dont like it at all.

Why?

Because all of this chips away at the advantages and privileges they have enjoyed for generations.  The actual or perceived loss of being special infuriates them.  Thus, they become willing henchmen for the siren's call of the rich and powerful:  "government bad!" which allows the oligarchs to steal the government away from We the People...

Of course, the concept that "the government is the problem" is a great big lie.

Even the most cursory glance into the history of the United States reveals this idea to be nothing more than a myth.  We the People of the United States, organized into our shared objectives in the form of the federal government, has achieved more in the last 238 years (as of this writing) than the rest of humanity has in the last thousand.  The progress that we, Americans, created has stunned, amazed, and revolutionized the world in ways that cannot be overlooked, ignored, and dismissed.  I may rail about unnecessary military adventurism, but I also have to admit that from the Continental Army all the way up to today, the American military has also been the world's policemen, and the world likes it that way.  From Lewis and Clark all the way up to the Apollo astronauts, Americans have led the world in courage, fortitude, and character when it comes to revealing new worlds of wonder.  Federally funded scientists have led the way in virtually all areas of science.  America's national parks are the envy of the world.  Our dams and bridges and interstate highway system was once one of the crowning achievements of mankind.  The American Post Office still is the benchmark by which all other such services around the world are measured.  When calamity strikes anywhere in the world, it is to the United States that people look to for aid.  Even people who just hours before were badmouthing the government cry for federal help when their world comes crashing down around them.  Oh yeah, and one more thing.

You know that internet thing that everyone talks about?  The one you're using right now?

It was invented, created, and initially funded by the US government.

And even more important than these triumphs were the times when the government was all that stood between some part of American culture and the corruption of our ideals.  When this happens, not everyone is happy with the government, especially those people who are asked -- forced sometimes -- to back down and let other people live as they want.  When a group of people takes a particular dislike to what another group of people are saying, or doing, or even just thinking, and move to actively stop them, it is the federal government whose job it is to stand in the way of the onrushing horde and say, "No.  They have a right to their freedoms just as you do, and your not liking them is no excuse."

Equality.  Justice.  Liberty for all.  The pursuit of happiness.  That's what its all about.

There are those out there who would love to thwart these ideals for other Americans, simply because they don't like the other Americans.  It is the job of the federal government to stand in the way and say, "No."

Racists don't like being told they had to treat black people and Hispanic people and other minorities like human beings.  Chauvenists don't like being told that they have to treat women as equals.  Homophobes don't like being told that they have to be forced to treat gay people as human beings.  Religious zealots don't like being told they have to tolerate people who believe differently than they do.  Polluters don't like being told they have to protect the environment.  Banks don't like being told that they can't run the economy like it was a casino.  Insurance companies don't like being told they can't deny their customers treatment or cancel their customers at will.

People even bitch about such petty things as having to wear their seatbelts or wear a motorcycle helmet.  It's always something.  There is no limit to the carping and griping and bitching that goes on about the government.

Sometimes the griping is warranted, such as the backlash against the Bush administration's utter failure to properly prepare and manage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  For their failure to properly prepare for or react to Hurricane Katrina.  For the housing bubble, the bank bailouts, and, eventually, pretty much everything about the George W. Bush administration.  Still, its a long way from recognizing that one particular segment of the government, at one time, was really, really bad at governing to believing that all government, everywhere, is bad.

Study American history and you find that government actually works pretty well, and more virtuously, when its allowed to govern.  When it doesn't face a lot of interference from conservative business interests.  When the conservatives are in charge, they see to work to make sure their own negative prophecies regarding the "failure of government" come true.  The conservatives make the messes, the liberals then have to fight tooth and nail to clean those same messes up, while simultaneously being blamed by the conservatives for the messes they are cleaning.

So yeah.  The old saw about government being the problem is a huge lie.

Unless, of course, you're talking about a conservative-controlled government. 

There Is No Such Thing as a Free Market

Simple as that.

There is no such thing as a "free market."  Period.

There never has been, there never will be.

Its a fairy tale.

Yet another conservative myth.

The very idea is 100% bullshit.

It might be possible, theoretically at least, that a truly "free market" could exist, if we're talking about something like the public market square of a village with a hundred people or fewer in it where everyone knows and trusts each other.  But in any thing larger, like -- just to pull an example out of the air -- a nation of 300+ million people?  Forget about it.

Of course, the truth is that the very same people who so aggressively promote the idea of a "free market" are actually the last people on Earth who actually want such a thing:  the corporate conservatives and the professional politicians that the corporates have bought and paid for.  These folks don't really want a "free market."  They want a rigged market.  And the truth is, that's pretty much what they have.

Of course, they can (and do) think of ways to make it even more rigged in their favor, which is what they truly want:  a world where Big Business owns and runs the world, and where government -- the only entity with the power to counter and put controls on Big Business -- is small enough to "drown in a bathtub."  (At least when it comes to regulating business; Big Business loves it when government promotes the interests of Big Business.)

So what do Big Business corporate conservatives actually mean when they talk about a "free market?"

Glad you asked.

What they mean is that corporations should be free to do whatever they want.  They should be free to sell anything, anywhere, without any concern over whether the product is harmful, toxic, or dangerous.  What they mean is that corporations should be free to enslave their workers and not have to pay them a living wage, or pay them at all, in fact.  Corporations should be free to demand utter loyalty from their workers, while returning no loyalty whatsover to those same workers.  They believe that corporations should be free to extract, exploit, subjugate, and monopolize whenever they want to do so.  Corporations should be free from any sort of tax burden, and from government regulation, and responsibility for any damage they cause.  They believe that corporations should be free to buy and sell politicians in order to control the government.  And they believe that corporations should be free to eliminate the competition using any means necessary.

When conservatives talk about the "free market," it's simply code phrases for the Big Business concept of Heaven:  a world in which Big Business does what it wants, any time, all the time.  Of course, this would be Hell for everyone else.  And by "everyone else" I include smaller businesses, because the truth is such a world would be a killing field.  The moment a small business poked its head out of its hole, Big Business would swoop in like a hawk and devour it.  As for the workers and the consumers, the "free market" envisioned by the giant multi-national corporations would make them hardly better than slaves.  Such people would be free to accept their lot and nothing else.

You say one of their products blew up in your face and left you blind?  Prove it wasn't your own fault!

You say unsafe working conditions led to your husband getting killed?  Try sueing us.  We dare you; not only won't your "frivolous lawsuit" get anywhere in the courts, we might send some guys over to your daughter's elementary school so she can send a message back home to mommy and daddy for us about how its smarter to not make waves.

In such a world, parastic banks would run wild with speculation, buying and selling without constraint and inventiing all manner of financial "instruments" which which to dissect their customers and relieve them of money, security, and future.  The privatization of anything and everything would run rampant in the conservative wet dream of a "free market."

How about a quick game of "let's pretend".  Let's pretend such a world came about.  What, exactly, would that lead to?

First off, the goal of the corporate conservative's "free market" is to assume all the powers of government and then take those powers to the limit, including total control and exploitation of the people.  So say goodbye to freedom, democracy, the vote, and the ability to decide for yourself how your life will go from then on.  Your electricity, gas, and water wouldn't come from public utilities, but from predatory corporations who can raise the rates or cut you off whenever they feel the whim.  Toll roads and bridges would proliferate.  The court system would be privatized, with a strong profit incentive to lock as many people away in the privately run prisons as possible.  Wars would be completely privatized, with a strong profit motive to keep the fighting going as long as possible, and to use up the weapons and equipment so as to create a need for more.  Education would be privatized, with only the wealthy getting more than just the basic training.  Public schools would become indoctrination centers where children are taught to be barely literate worker bees or soldiers for the state and its corporate overlords.

Think about how much money the very rich could squeeze from the lower classes with such limitless power.

Without government subsidies, price controls, and regulations, food production would become wholly predatory.  Prices would skyrocket.  Food quality and safety would plummet.  Only the rich would be able to afford clean, healthy food; the rest of us would have to settle for the cheap stuff and take our chances with every bite we eat or drop we drink.  That's assuming we could afford any food or water in the first place.  Scavenging, begging, and starving would become a way of life for billions of people.  And health care?  Sorry, but with no government assistance, no government health programs, disease would explode into pandemics.  Of course, the wealthy would protect themselves by ghettoizing the poor.  No need for them to worry, though, because even if the disease does make it to them, they have all the doctors.

The problem is that even a system where the very rich control everything and fuck the poor, it all falls apart very quickly.  Unregulated capitalism eventually eats itself.  When the poor and the middle class disappear, the profits the rich depend on also disappear.  But the corporate conservatives, who are all about instant gratification and getting the short term gain, know that trillions upon trillions of dollars are to be made by the greatest pirates the world has ever seen.  And as long as they're making tons of money now, they give fuck all about what happens tomorrow.  Not their problem, man.  They've made their fat stacks of cash, and that's all that matters.

So.

That's the free market in a nutshell.  A truly free market is a recipe for utter disaster should it ever be imposed.  Its a beast that would tear the goose that laid the golden eggs to pieces.

Little by little over the past 30 years, the corporate conservatives have managed to nudge us further and further in the direction of their wet dream.  Since the Reagan administration, the conservative mantra has been "government is the problem, not the solution."  Its become commonly accepted wisdom among the less intelligent members of the population (almost all of whom are social conservatives).  According to this philosophy, the solution to the "government problem" is the free market.  Conservatives have been bleating this same noise for decades, and millions upon millions of people believe it.  As Joseph Goebbels correctly stated, "people will believe anything if you repeat it often enough."  This has always been the tactic of the very richest in order to gain the support of the rest of us in order to cripple the only thing powerful enough to stop them:  a government run by We the People...

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.  Since Ronald Reagan, the "free market" has had 30 years to produce the results that the corporate conservatives always promise:  that great wealth will come "trickling down" to everyone.  Jobs galore will be available, and everyone will enjoy improvements to their basic standard of living.

Anyone else but me notice that this just hasn't happened?

Seriously, for three decades, taxes have been slashed for the richest Americans.  Deregulation is the rule, dramatically reducing safeguards in every sector of business.  Competent government regulators have been replaced by capitalist foxes who are supposed to be guarding the henhouse.  The "free market" ethos has been applied to an extent that would have left the people who led this country out of the Great Depression stunned in sheer disbelief.  And this same thing has happened in countries all around the world, not just the United States.

What has actually happened is the reverse of what the conservatives behind the "Reagan Revolution" promised.  Real wages and the earning power of the average American family has stalled out if not reversed.  Prices have zoomed upward to the point where decent housing, health care, and college educations are beyond the reach of over half the population.  For the first time in American history, the greater majority of people in this country face the prospect that their children will have worse lives than they led, and that their grand-children will have lives that are even worse than that.

This is what the "free market" has done to America.  Imagine how much worse it would be if the market were even more "free" than it already is.

My Problem With Anita Sarkeesian and Feminist Frequency, Part 2

So, Anita Sarkeesian...

One of my other problems with Anita Sarkeesian is that she used crowd-funding to generate almost $160,000 using Kickstarter, and then produced two videos about how female characters are treated in video games.

Within a week of posting the first of these videos, entitled "Damsels in Distress Part One:  Tropes vs. Video Games", on YouTube, she disabled all feedback systems on her videos.  She disabled comments, rating systems, and even public access to the video's statistics.  Apparently, Anita Sarkeesian has decided that we, the public, the people who donated money to support her project, are not allowed to have an opinion when it comes to the content and conclusions of that project.

Granted, her videos did generate the usual amount of trollish insults and nonsense, but all YouTube videos generate troll comments.  But -- and here is the point, boys and girls --  in this case, the comments that pointed out legitimate holes in her research, instances where her conclusions were based on threadbare "evidence" or that seemed to obviously misinterpret the evidence or weren't even supported by the evidence, outnumbered the troll comments to the tune of around eighteen to one.

That is, there were eighteen legitimate critical comments to every troll comment.

Rather than address such legitimate criticism, Sarkeesian decided to sweep it all under the rug and pretend it didn't exist.  And when that tactic didn't work and these same criticisms began appearing in blogs, vlogs, tweets, and Facebook posts, she pulled the misogynist card out of her deck and started hitting people who were being "mean" to her with it.

To put it bluntly, Sarkeesian refuses to address legitimate criticism, and loudly and forcefully claims that anyone who dares show that her "research" has problems isn't doing so because her "research" has problems.  No, they're being "mean" to her because they are irrational women-haters.  And when other people point out how she is dodging the question, and how if these issues with her research are not legitimate it should be easy for her to correct their impressions, she just makes more accusations of sexism and misogyny.

And now she's claiming that death threats were made to her.  This accusation came just as talk of an investigation into her possible embezzlement of the research funding has entered public awareness.

Oh, did you not hear about that?  Yeah, it seems those two videos only cost around $23,000 to make, and the rest of the money apparently vanished into the vapor.  She has refused all inquiries into the rest of the money, even as she opened up a new Kickstarter to help her fund more videos.  Now, as I said, she's refusing to answer questions about it, but people who are keeping an eye on Anita Sarkeesian have noted that her wardrobe has taken a noticeably uptick in quality, and she's driving a new $50,000 sports car these days and she's no longer living in a two-room walkup but rather has apparently bought herself a house.

I'm not saying she stole the money and is spending it on herself.  I've got no direct evidence of that.  I'm just saying that its amazingly convenient that just as the unused $135,000 disappeared, she started showing up in new clothes, driving a new car, and living in a new house.  And please make note, the moment people started asking her about where the money went if not into the videos it was intended for, she made several announcements on Twitter that she received death threats.

Thus successfully derailing the inquiry into what happened to the rest of the money.  You'll excuse me if this is something else I find amazingly convenient.

Anita Sarkeesian claims that her refusal to respond to legitimate critics is because there are no legitimate critics.  Only hateful misogynists engaged in online harassment.  Let us take a moment to make note of the response by the gaming community to other misinformed critics of gaming, shall we?

For instance, let's look at the late Roger Ebert, the film critic for the Chicago -Sun Times.  After he famously claimed that video games cannot and will never be considered "art", he received a large number of rather hateful responses, including death threats, rape threats (no, really) and comments questioning his sexuality and sexual tastes.  His Wikipedia page was vandalized (as was Sarkeesian's, I should note in the interest of fairness), and even today, there exists on the internet a subtle hatred for the man among the online gaming community.

So, how did Roger Ebert react to this explosion of hatred?

Actually, he not only ignored the empty trollish comments and threats that he knew were just "the angry ramblings of misbehaving children intent on throwing a tantrum" (his words to describe the people making the threats), he also went out of his way to respond, at length, to those people who responded to his statements with rational, well-thought-out criticism.  And after seeing rational counter-argument, Ebert was mature enough to admit that while he still didn't quite see video games as art, he could at least acknowledge that to some people, they might reach that level.  He also admitted that he might change his opinion after more personal research into the subject.

Anita Sarkeesian, on the other hand, has done the complete opposite.

Not only has she gone out of her way to block and ignore all legitimate criticism, she constantly itemizes and publicizes the "angry ramblings of misbehaving children intent on throwing a tantrum" and advertises it as much as she can.  Now, technically there isn't anything really wrong with this; Sarkeesian has the right to flaunt the fact that she has come under fire from internet trolls if that is what she wants.

However, her behavior does raise an ugly question:  if all this harassment really did put her in danger and made her afraid for her life, why didn't she contact the authorities?

Why did she save all this vitriol up until she was ready to pursue a publicity campaign that made her look like one of the "damsels in distress" she railed against in her video?

If it was so bad, then why weren't the authorities brought in until after the legitimate critics began to outnumber the trolls on her videos?

It has been noted elsewhere that her Kickstarter plea-for-funds video was the only video in which she did not disable comments.  Or rather, the comments were not disabled until her Kickstarter goals were reached.  Or, as one critic put it, only after the hate-mail she received could no longer be monetized.  That's right.  Anita Sarkeesian played the role of the poor helpless of victim of the terror-inducing evil men in order to generate sympathy, and Kickstarter dollars.

Her entire attitude toward this has been "I refuse to even acknowledge the legitimate critics of my work, but see how much I am a victim?  Woe is me!  Give me money!"

Something else that has bothered me about Sarkeesian and her project is the nature of the project itself.  Had video game critic Jack Thompson, or even Roger Ebert, made a series of videos commenting about how all video games reinforce sexist stereotypes about women, no one would have noticed, or reacted, to the overwhelming negative response such an ridiculous claim.  But since a well-known and vocal female pop-culture critic makes the same claim, and receives a negative reaction from the gaming community, she receives praise and a lot of sympathy donations to her Kickstarter.

The misogynistic treatment of women in the online gaming community and in gaming culture in general is legitimately a serious issue.  It needs to be addressed, and something needs to be done about it.  It bothers me to no end that Anita Sarkeesian is capitalizing on this issue to her own gain.  She has treated the entire subject as a means to enrich herself, to make herself famous outside of her usual YouTube haunts, and to turn herself from an unknown researcher whose scholarly claims are under legitimate fire into a famous "feminist icon" who is the victim of "the patriarchy".

She's taking a serious issue, and turning it into a con-game for her own benefit.

Nothing good has come out of this.  Nothing.

In fact, I'd say that Anita Sarkeesian and her actions have actually harmed the cause of gender equality and the better portrayal of women in video gaming.  Other critics have stated that by tossing about the term "misogyny" is a flippant manner, Sarkeesian has actually helped undermine the power of that word.  By attributing to "misogyny" what can better be explained by laziness, profit-mongering, and pandering to the core audience, the meaning of the word itself is undermined.

So... do I think there should be more and better portayals of female characters in gaming?

Yes.  Absolutely.

Do I think Anita Sarkeesian deserved being the target of internet trolls who served no purpose other than to give her ammunition for her claims of misogyny?

No.  No one deserves to be treated that way.

But do I think Anita Sarkeesian needs to stop playing the victim card and stop lumping her legitimate critics in with the internet trolls?

You'd better damn believe it.  She needs to come clean about her research methods, the lies she told her backers, and the fact that she's had enough time to produce the entire series by now, but seems stuck getting past the second video.

Her actions are not those of an honest researcher.  They are the actions of a con-man.