Year of the Pig

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So we are spang in the midst of what is being called a “sexual harassment apocalypse.” But this is only being experienced as an apocalypse by a certain class of individual—that class being what we might call the poseur-feminist. This is one who cops the attitude of quisling males who somehow decided that, provided their politics were in order, they could be pigs in their treatment of all the women around them. By their calculus, it was a great racket while it lasted.

But let me define apocalypse first, a word that is singularly appropriate to what is going on. This is the name of the last book in the Bible in the Greek, and that word means an unveiling. The Latin for it is Revelation, which—as applied to this situation—is what happens when you flip over a large flat rock in your garden, and there discover a host of creepy crawlies.

The initial unveiling was that of Harvey Weinstein but—as such things go—it promptly swept up things that had been revealed before this, and things that were to come thereafter, and here we are. So let us call it the year of the pig. We are talking about the situations involving Harvey Weinstein, Mark Halperin, Anthony Weiner, Kevin Spacey, et al. These are the cases where some significant level of guilt can be considered to have been already confirmed. And in the category of “still under investigation,” take the example of Hamilton Fish at The New Republic. And Dustin Hoffman got himself accused just the other day. We also have the category of men who have gotten a bye for various political reasons, like Bill Clinton or Donald Trump, but whose reputations contribute to the same general effect.

Now in line with what I have argued in the past, these allegations do not create a collective “group guilt,” such that any allegation should be treated as automatically true. Operating that way is a central problem with our identity politics.  Some men lie about women they have groped, and some women lie about having been groped. At the outset, we don’t know. So when an accusation is made, and also denied, the thing that must happen is an evaluation of the evidence before any determination is made.

But in what we are seeing now, even when particular incidents are denied or explained, the weight of the acknowledged and cumulative story is grotesque. In other words, it is beyond safe to say that certain places in this fair Republic have been crammed with dirty deeds for quite a while now, and it has started to fester. The Hollywood pus is starting to ooze.

And that is why this whole thing has created another interesting thing to puzzle through—which is the thing I want to ponder today. The question why so many progressive and liberated women put up with this kind of thing, for so many years, and all throughout the upper echelons of Enlightenment Town.

The lesson is this—I think it shows us the power of paradigms. Belief in the dogmas of the one true church can survive a long line of individual run-ins with skanky priests. It can’t last forever, but it can last a long time. And that is what I think is happening here. This is how it works.

As with all hard-driving and proselytizing religions, the progressive dogma is that humanity is divided between the elect and the reprobate, the enlightened and the throwbacks, the coastal cosmopolitans and the hicks of flyover country. Just as Islam divides the world between the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-harb), so also the progressives divide the world into the blue states, which are basically European but without castles and ruins, and the red states, where people still go to rodeos and state fairs, and eat deep-fried things.

With this state of “war” assumed, the dogmas of the progressive faith have taught for a generation or more (and taught fiercely) that the red states are misogynistic to the bone. Women are kept barefoot and pregnant, back there in the kitchen, where from time to time they are forced to make biscuits. One of the first things that propaganda in a time of war always seeks to do is dehumanize the enemy, and in this the progressive propaganda war has succeeded spectacularly. It is most on display with regard to sexual issues (because sexual issues are perennially relevant everywhere you go), but they are also very active when it comes to racial matters.

And the revolution is all of a piece. If you have the stomach to check, you can tell if any of your Christian leaders have capitulated to the Gramscian rot in principle. If they join in on the furrowed brow concerns about anonymous posters putting up notices that say hateful things like “it’s okay to be white,” they have surrendered already. When that kind of mild and unassuming statement triggers entire campuses, reacting to the “white supremacy,” you know that it can’t be long now. If that is a hate crime—that the police feel they need to investigate—what would they do if someone wrote an op-ed for the student paper with the headline “I am moderately contented with being a Caucasian male”? When that kind of thing is treated as though it were the return of Attila, you should know what is happening. Decent white dudes are being demonized, that’s what is happening.

So here is my point, I promise. If an entire strata of our culture has been so propagandized as to be triggered by something so stupid, do you think they have also accepted the idea that red state America is chock-a-block with misogyny? Yes, of course they do. It is axiomatic with that group that conservative males are far, far worse in their treatment of women than liberal men are. And with that running in the axiomatic background, the treatment of women they see with their own eyes in enlightened and progressive enclaves like Hollywood is beyond appalling.

Got it? “The conservative men (that I have heard about) are terrible. The liberal men that I know are far better. But the liberal men that I know treat women in ghastly ways. Therefore . . .” And that is how Oklahoma is assumed to be just a notch or two above Mordor.

And this feeds another feminist dictum, which is that all men are rapists, that heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition, and that men themselves are the human disease. If the really good ones (who have accepted the “one true faith”) are so bad, what must the bad ones be like?

The only alternative to this line of thought is conversion, radical deep conversion. In order to break free of this set of assumptions, the entire architecture of progressive thought would need to be toppled. Nothing good will happen in our culture until then. But unfortunately, rather than stand up against this school of architecture, many of our Christian leaders are trying to decorate this kind of unbelieving architecture with a Bible verse here or there.

If they let us post our Bible verse for ten years, and that is all we ask, then we will have, in our own little flaccid way, sought the peace of the city.

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CHer
CHer
6 years ago

“Some men lie about women they have groped, and some women lie about having been groped. ”

“But unfortunately, rather than stand up against this school of architecture, many of our Christian leaders are trying to decorate this kind of unbelieving architecture with a Bible verse here or there.”

Amen and amen. I thought I better get that in before a probable thread hijacking.

Mark H.
Mark H.
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

In other words, before insanity bites.

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

Well, you had 30 minutes to spare. :)

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
6 years ago

And this feeds another feminist dictum…that heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition.

Oppression? No. Patriarchal? Absolutely. Sexuality is not egalitarian. Heterosexuality, aka normal sexuality, aka not perversion, is patriarchal, by definition.

I tend to agree with the feminists that biology is sexist. They want to overturn biology to achieve their egalitarian ends. I want them to stop abusing little boys by turning them into little mutilated boys to achieve something that is impossible.

MeMe
6 years ago

“The question why so many progressive and liberated women put up with this kind of thing, for so many years, and all throughout the upper echelons of Enlightenment Town…..” Because women have always sided with power and for the most part, we always will. Ugly truth about women, but our standards, our ethics, tend to be far more about who you are than what you are doing. Inappropriate advances from Donald Trump are going to be tolerated far more than inappropriate advances from some guy driving a Honda. One of the problems women face in the world is actually our… Read more »

Mark H.
Mark H.
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Well bless your heart. It almost sounds like you have been reading in the manosphere.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

our standards are always going to be fluid, subjective, and well rationalized.

Unless she has a bad feeling, then it is absolute fact and never to be challenged. Lol!

But, then again, you just said your standards are going to be fluid.

Thank you for illustrating again why men should be leaders. I really appreciate it.

MeMe
6 years ago

“Thank you for illustrating again why men should be leaders.”

Except for the obvious and unspoken truth, just who do you suppose is leading all these women into sin as we speak? Women may well suffer from the blight of being compelled to rationalize and spin for men, but men are still the ones doing the deed and attempting to claim no responsibility.

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“… just who do you suppose is leading all these women into sin as we speak?”

It is rather absurd to suppose that “all these women” are being led “into sin” solely by men. Women, just like men, have a carnal nature that naturally desires the temptations of the flesh. For example, Eve sinned without Adam leading her into sin. Ultimately, Satan is the one who tempts us, not other people, although Satan will use any means available to achieve his purpose.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

The problem being, one cannot logically conclude that men should be leading since fallen and weak women seem so vulnerable to falling prey to men who….are leading. It makes about as much sense as trying to claim that we have to teach ALL men how not to rape,or actually how not to behave in a sexual manner at all, since women apparently possess no powers of discernment themselves. The answer I was hoping for was that God should lead. Men lose their minds over a pretty face and women lose their minds over powerful men. Obviously neither gender is qualified… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“The problem being, one cannot logically conclude that men should be leading since fallen and weak women seem so vulnerable to falling prey to men who….are leading. ”

Except God said they should. That should be all the evidence you need.

“The answer I was hoping for was that God should lead.”

They are. They contend God said men should lead.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“They contend God said men should lead.”

Well, Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Mark Halperin, Anthony Weiner, Kevin Spacey, et all, have all been Men Who Lead. There are also quite a few on the conservative Christian side too, the manly Men Who Lead.

So the idea should never be to pound one’s chest and declare “men lead because God said so,” but rather Who am I following and where does He call me to go?

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“So the idea should never be to pound one’s chest and declare “men lead because God said so,” but rather Who am I following and where does He call me to go?” You’re changing the topic. What I responded to was “The problem being, one cannot logically conclude that men should be leading ” Which is directly anti-Biblical. You can easily conclude men should be leading when taking a Christian worldview. That Men aren’t without sin doesn’t change the Biblical directive. Of course women should be mindful of who they’re following and where He calls them to go. That’s not… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“You can easily conclude men should be leading when taking a Christian worldview.”

Well than let us praise all the Weinstein women for their submission and obedience to the Men who Lead.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

So we’re just going to dishonestly skip over the part where I qualify the statement to clearly account for the Weinsteins of the world.

Are you even going to respond to the direct claim of Biblical edict?

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

@MeMe,

” Who am I following and where does He call me to go?”

Presumably women should be asking this question, too, rather than setting their moral standard to “be fluid, subjective, and well rationalized.”

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

@MeMe,

“The answer I was hoping for was that God should lead. “

Your question, which I answered, was regarding who is leading women into sin, not “How do women avoid sinning when men lead sinfully?” or some similar question.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

This is such a head scratcher. I am very fond of Victorian novels, and a very common plot device is the seduction of an innocent housemaid by a bewhiskered villain promising marriage. (There are countless variations on this, but you get the idea.) However,despite my best efforts to uncover it, I do not see this happening among the ordinary young people I know. I see boys and girls who like sex and lots of it, and who don’t care about traditional morality until someone gets hurt feelings and an STD. Even in my own far distant youth, most attempts at… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

It’s a both/ and is it not? Teach men how to behave, teach women who to avoid.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

And teach them both to avoid the occasions of sin! There was a real flaw in the traditional Catholic education of girls. They were taught that men, from the ages of 13 to 90, think about sex 1500 times a day. They were taught to take a thick magazine along on group dates in case they ever had to sit on a boy’s lap on a car ride. And some of them were even taught not to wear shiny shoes that reflect up! What they were not taught is that, for a normal girl, the day will come when she… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

So it is not what they were taught that was the problem, but what was neglected to be taught.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Yes, and there was a lack of balance. A few girls who took literally everything taught by some kinds of nuns did sometimes end up irrationally afraid of men–the vast, vast majority of whom are not rapists. Normal men do not turn into ravening wolves at the drop of a hat. And normal girls are not pure and timid creatures who will never have a sexual thought until their wedding night. I would have liked the whole thing to have been more realistic. “Look. You are not supposed to have sex until you are married. Both you and your boyfriend… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

And normal girls are not pure and timid creatures who will never have a sexual thought until their wedding night.

So I have a relative and her husband needed to have a talk to her on their wedding night about the birds and the bees so that the matter of consummation could eventually be addressed!

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Oh dear, I hope it worked out well for them!

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

,

Her parents did poorly in that regard. I hope they did better otherwise.

I’m a little surprised though. Kiwi girls don’t have a reputation of ignorance about sex.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

Agreed, and it was a long time ago. By all accounts she was a good woman.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

OK, I’m sure you’re right but I can’t think of anything I would have found more embarrassing than my parents talking to me about sex–other than, you’d better not have any. On my trial visit to the convent, Sister Mary Adelaide was required under Canon Law to make sure I was aware of exactly what I would be giving up by taking a vow of chastity. She even illustrated her talk with rough drawings, and it put me off sex for quite some time! If you have read many modern novels, there’s not a whole lot more instruction a bride… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“. One of the problems women face in the world is actually our ability, compulsion, skills around rationalizing the behavior of men. I”

It’s almost like God told women on the whole that “they will obey men” as punishment for the Garden or something.

Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

No, women aren’t to obey men as punishment. The headship of the husband is part of the created (non-fallen) order. It’s the strife in the marriage that is part of the consequences of sin. The wife will *seek* to master her husband, but he will yet rule over her. It’s a sure recipe for unhappiness. That mess is something to be worked against, much like thistles in a garden.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

I think you mistake me. I was referring specifically to a previous argument with MeMe. I had used God’s punishment of Eve in the garden “you will obey men”, as evidence that the concept of women obeying men must by definition not mean men are superior to women. If men were innately superior to women, how would having to obey them be a punishment? She responded by scoffing at the absurdity that anyone was still suffering the effects of God’s specific punishments from the Garden. I brought it up now because she seems to be directly talking about precisely just… Read more »

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

If so, then I misunderstood you in the other thread as well. :)

I don’t follow your second paragraph here. Do you agree with my description in the above post?

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

It depends on what you mean. I am separating “Women will obey men” and “Wives must obey husbands” into very different things. One is part of the nature of women, baked into their being, not unlike the punishment at the Tower of Babel. At the Tower of Babel, it isn’t that God instructs us to avoid working together, it’s that he’s made us unable to work together as punishment. With husbands and wives, he’s giving an instruction on what you need to strive to do. With simply the punishment in the Garden, a woman might feel compelled to obey her… Read more »

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

You seem to understand “[thy husband] shall rule over thee” as meaning “women will obey men.” That is very strange to me. I don’t know how you would reason from the narrower statement to a larger conclusion like that.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

Well, it’s hardly a major portion of my worldview, and I haven’t studied the hebrew, but I always found it notable that the language didn’t leave it open for defiance. It wasn’t “You need to do this”, it was “This will happen.”

MeMe’s description of how women naturally fall into following men seemed to fit how I interpret this perfectly, so I picked up the ball and ran with it. After all, every other portion of the punishments there in Genesis were nature of living life on Earth things, not directives for behavior.

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Got it.

As I understand it, the judgment spoken to the woman foretells conflict in the marriage relationship. The ESV translates is as “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

Since I understand it indicating conflict, I see it as something to work against. It is something we long to see ended. These things will not finally be over until we’re all with the lord. Meanwhile, they aren’t cherished parts of the created order, but lamentable effects of sin.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

I’ve always thought of it as “You will tend to love and need him more than he loves you, and this is just the way it is. He will rule you but he won’t have the desperate need for you that you have for him, and this emotional imbalance is part of the curse.”

But, in evaluating my exegetical skills, you should remember that until fairly recently I thought the enmity between the seeds of the serpent and the woman meant that real women are naturally afraid of snakes.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Could you give me a rough paraphrase of the curse that is consistent with your position here?

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Let me dig up the verse in a few translations so I can reconstitute how I got here to begin with. It not being particularly relevant in day to day life, it isn’t something I’ve come back to in some time, nor did I ever dig deeply enough into the original grammar to conclude this interpretation as definitive fact.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

I find this interesting, partly because I don’t understand it. Before feminism, was it as common to find women struggling to submit to their husbands’ authority? When you read novels from the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a pretty solid assumption that husbands were in charge and that women deferred to them. So, if most women did not struggle with submission, were they somehow exempted from the curse? If you have the sort of temperament that makes submission easy, is there still any virtue in your submission?

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

“So, if most women did not struggle with submission, were they somehow exempted from the curse?”

If a garden doesn’t have weeds, it probably gets lots of tending. Although it doesn’t need as much as you might think if you’ve only had experience with gardens that have been let go too long!

Mark H.
Mark H.
6 years ago

I do agree with Doug’s logical chain here: “We know that men in flyover country are awful. Our blue-state men are much better. Given the scandals among our men, it must be terrible in the blue states!”

The question is, what will trigger the cognitive dissonance within the liberal bubble to bring a few of them a step or two toward sanity?

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  Mark H.

“The question is, what will trigger the cognitive dissonance within the liberal bubble to bring a few of them a step or two toward sanity?”

In spite of their self-proclaimed intelligence and superiority, I would suppose there is nothing that could accomplish such awareness.

carandc
carandc
6 years ago
Reply to  Mark H.

“The question is, what will trigger the cognitive dissonance within the liberal bubble to bring a few of them a step or two toward sanity?”

“…preach Christ crucified…” 1 Corinthians 1:23
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17

As I’ve heard it said, “Preach the Gospel at all times. ALWAYS use words.” NOT Francis of Assisi.

David Douglas
David Douglas
6 years ago

When you come across a new (in the words of David Burge of IowaHawkBlog) scumbag (or douchebag, I don’t remember which) du jour, the add to the anti-pantheon of feminist hypocrites, just remember:

Mike Pence won’t dine alone with any-woman-not-his-wife.

What a maroon.

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  David Douglas

Yeah, they want it both ways. Pence must be some kind of throwback prude from another century. He should be able to eat with a group of Victoria Secret models, telling them how beautiful they look in tight yoga pants, but not objectify them in any way. And if anything happens, it’s okay if it’s 100% consensual…but the models can change their mind about their consent after the fact.

Jane
Jane
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

One cynical take that was fashionable when the furor about the Pence rule started was, “He thinks he can’t control himself from raping any woman he’s alone with.”

There’s a certain amount of Schadenfreude when the people who thought that was a good argument, find out that their own right-thinking heroes actually *can’t* control themselves from raping women they’re alone with.

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Jane

When it comes to decent, non creepy vps,

Seems like the Dems don’t have two Pence to rub together !????

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  David Douglas

David, exactly why do you think Pence is a maroon (the color adjective) or moron (the noun)?

Ginny Yeager
Ginny Yeager
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Dave,
Regarding “maroon”, didn’t you ever watch Bugs Bunny?

David Douglas
David Douglas
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Dave,
In the last few decades I became familiar with this malaprop because Doug Wilson has used it. However, I’m pretty sure, being about the same age, that when I read it, I knew its provenance immediately. It’s use here seems to be the “mot juste”. At least to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  David Douglas

David, again . . . it doesn’t matter if you are a bugs fan or a Daffy fan. What’s your beef with Pence?

Ilíon
Ilíon
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

You don’t get sarcasm, do you?

David Douglas
David Douglas
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Dave,
Per Ilion, sarcasm.

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  David Douglas

Thank you.

MeMe
6 years ago

“Some men lie about women they have groped, and some women lie about having been groped. ”

Surprisingly not, Pastor Wilson, and I think this is where I see the disconnect. Objective truth happens, groping is groping, and when we say women lie about it, what we are actually saying is she consented, she wanted it, she is to blame,therefore it cannot be a bad thing, not a real case of “groping.” The thing is, is “rape” with consent still rape? I suggest it is, and groping is still groping. Sexual assault is not a subejctive thing.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“when we say women lie about it, what we are actually saying is she consented, she wanted it, she is to blame,therefore it cannot be a bad thing, not a real case of “groping.”” Unless, of course, women are sinful fallen creatures like everyone else and perfectly capable of lying. Do you think the women on this board, Jill for example, incapable of lying? This is an impressively despicable and vile comment. Cleanly showing my claims of misandry to be perfectly apt. Under this worldview, even if the accused man can prove his accuser is lying, he must be innately… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“This is an impressively despicable and vile comment. ”

All in good humor here Justin, but you sure don’t get out much, do you? I assure you, if you think my comments are “despicable ,” “vile” and the epitome of all “misandry,” you may need to toughen up a bit before you try walking out in the real world.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

” you may need to toughen up a bit before you try walking out in the real world.”

This from the woman who comments nearly every day and when people point out where she’s objectively wrong she starts lashing out with ad hominem attacks “woman hater, divorcee, trying to earn approval of men” . When people respond to her ad hominem attacks by criticizing her for those ad hominem attacks, she jumps straight to the victim platform. Oh no, you’re all so mean to me! Don’t respond to my comments ever again Jill!

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Yep. You need to get out in the real world but leave her in a bubble. If you call any of her shenanigans, she’ll ask you not engage with her…you don’t know what she’s been through. But what if you’re a guy who lost your kids and money in a frivorce…and you’re paying for your wife and her new husband/boyfriend’s house? Suck it up, buttercup. You’re in the real world now, so stop acting like a baby. Man up! (Or “Woman up!” in Jill’s case.) For the record, the frivorce story didn’t happen to me, but it’s very real and… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, you are whining. Stop whining. I’ve never had a “victim platform.” My comments about divorce have been in direct response to some people trying to claim I was doing marriage all wrong, living in sin, and my husband, who they don’t even know, was bad or something. I fought back by mentioning that those pointing fingers at me the hardest, were all divorced. I do often fight back when I am under attack and no I am not going to apologize for it. If anyone’s feelings were hurt in the process, too bad. Either get over yourself, learn to… Read more »

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

I told you there’s no way to win, Justin. It doesn’t matter if she hurts anyone else’s feelings, but you can’t communicate with her if you don’t “speak kindly.” And man up, just like I told you she’d say.

At least Jill can say that she’ll only allow one person on this earth to speak ex cathedra to her. “Either get over yourself, learn to speak kinder to me, or avoid me altogether” sounds like a command from on high to me.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

Luckily, it’s one that even the pope has no authority to enforce unless there is some divine commandment that applies only to our treatment of MeMe. And, of course, medieval queens with whom it was not safe to disagree.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

You’re right of course. I just can’t help myself. She puts forth such nonsensically terrible arguments nearly daily, and doesn’t maintain intellectual consistency even within the same post. It’s like tossing a pro baseball player a slow pitch straight across the plate. How can you not swing?

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

It isn’t just that. Most of us learned in debating class that you don’t bring a gun to a knife fight and you don’t tear wings off flies. If even the silliest argument was presented nicely, most people would resist the temptation to move in for the kill. It’s the fact that illogical and hostile arguments are presented as “I have this on direct authority from God and nobody had better even think of disagreeing. And God told me to call you a few mean names. So there.”

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“… doesn’t maintain intellectual consistency even within the same post.”

Sometimes not even within the same comment.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

^– What I meant by post.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

And now, this just in. “My comments about divorce have been in direct response to some people trying to claim I was doing marriage all wrong, living in sin, and my husband, who they don’t even know, was bad or something.” Let the record reflect that while I have occasionally pointed out the logical fallacies of MeMe’s arguments and often criticized the gratuitous nastiness with which she presents them, I have never accused her of doing marriage wrong, living in sin, or having a bad husband. I distinctly remember complimenting her both on her happy marriage and nice husband. MeMe… Read more »

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

” I distinctly remember complimenting her both on her happy marriage and nice husband.”

And you’re being quite charitable in believing her marriage account. Given her track record here, including deliberately misquoting others, I’d say her integrity isn’t rock solid.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

“MeMe is fooling herself if she thinks that is why she views me with uncontrollable loathing.”

Nobody ever likes the person behaving the way they know they themselves are supposed to be behaving.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“MeMe is fooling herself if she thinks that is why she views me with uncontrollable loathing”

Wait, who said that? I seem to have lost track of who said what in the midst of so many accusations. Regardless, I assure everyone I perceive absolutely NO ONE with “uncontrollable loathing.” I’m actually laughing here. That’s quite melodramatic, very self-absorbed, and a bit hysterical. Whatever would make someone think they are so important to me they could actually inspire “uncontrollable loathing?” Half the time I don’t even have enough energy for “mild annoyance” let alone, “uncontrollable loathing.”

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

,

“Jekyll and Heidi”? :)

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, to save MeMe the trouble of discussing my character, I freely admit that I am capable of lying! I have not lied about sexual assault, but I can imagine circumstances in which I might have been tempted. For example, Detective Olivia Benson on SVU tells me that a serial rapist will walk unless new witnesses come forward with testimony that supports the victim’s story. And I hope that I would have resisted that temptation. But I think the whole thing is framed incorrectly. When the charge is groping, it doesn’t just come down to whether the woman consented. She… Read more »

lndighost
lndighost
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Meme, you are right in saying that sexual assault is not a subjective thing. Potiphar’s wife said that Joseph tried to rape her. He had never touched her or wanted to. Presuming we can trust the word of God, she was telling a barefaced lie. No two ways about it. Do you accept that story as true? If so, is it so far-fetched to say it’s possible today that a woman might say a man touched her when he did nothing of the kind?

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  lndighost

Indighost, I have spent enough time around the dreariest kind of feminist to know how to reconcile this disparity. It doesn’t matter that poor Joseph was entirely innocent. Truth doesn’t matter–only “truthiness”, and truthiness sees the actual events of the narrative as unimportant. Who cares about Joseph if, every day somewhere in the world, a Man is abusing a helpless woman and is getting away with it? Only someone who hates women would tiresomely insist on Joseph’s innocence. As for Potiphar, so what if it didn’t happen to her? It happened to other women, didn’t it? Why let a technical… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Worst of all in this collectivism, that the starting presumption doesn’t need actual evidence supporting it, and if you question the starting presumption, you’re guilty of condoning the imagined crime.

“The police are out there just killing unarmed black people!”

“Really? Because based on the numbers, an unarmed black man is 25 times more likely to win the lottery than he is to be killed by the police. I mean, certainly it’s terrible and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but this is an outlier amongst outliers isn’t it?”

“Stop supporting white supremacy!”

drewnchick
drewnchick
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Hmmm…I always thought that rape was pretty much defined as non-consensual. Without becoming graphic, isn’t rape forced (and therefore unwanted) sex. But if sex is wanted, consented to, and not forced, how is it still rape? Sounds more like normal sex. As for groping…yes, it is well-defined, too. Regardless of whether someone wants to be groped, it still happens. But it can also be lied about…most definitely! “No, I didn’t grope her,” says the defendant. Now, either he’s telling the truth or he’s lying. If he’s telling the truth, then the accusation “He groped me!” is untrue. And it just… Read more »

Trey Mays
Trey Mays
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

What about the woman who lied about the Duke Lacrosse team? Did that not happen?

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

The thing is, is “rape” with consent still rape?

I am not following how this might happen. How is it rape when it is consensual?

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Stop being so literal and pedantic! How can a woman, bearing the inheritance of centuries of oppression by a heartless patriarchy, give meaningful consent? Here I am, a woman. Deprived of an education by a heartless father who sent me into the matchstick factory to keep him in drink. Kept illiterate by my betters who feared I might discover Simone de Beauvoir if they taught me to read. Told that my only purpose in life was to satisfy the wicked lusts of men and then drown myself in the river when I lost my charms. You might as well expect… Read more »

arwenb
arwenb
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Someone who knew of this arrangement climbed the ladder and pretended to be the boyfriend.

In Idaho (IIRC) this would be “rape by fraud”

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

“How is it rape when it is consensual…….” I was thinking primarily of young boys being groomed into homosexuality, children being victimized by velvet glove pedophiles, and women agreeing to sleep with drunks in order to placate them and prevent violence. Than there is the entire BDSM community, where consent can get all convoluted. And there are numerous victims in the world who are so downtrodden they don’t even realize they have the right to not consent. Many things can motivate women to endure groping, for example fear, reluctance to make a scene, shame, etc. Their lack of resistance may… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

I agree with you about those things being wrong. I wouldn’t personally use the term consent when it appears there is no consent.

I think it unwise for an adult to appear to consent.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Unless she is being threatened with violence, it is also dishonest.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

“I think it unwise for an adult to appear to consent.”

A mother who consents to sex to prevent her boyfriend for abusing her children may well be unwise, but it’s still a fact of life. Someone having sex with their boss to avoid losing their job and their medical insurance may well be unwise, but it is also a fact of life. There are a million ways to back someone into a state of “consent.”

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

To agree to sex to save your job and health insurance may be mitigating, but it is still sin and a serious one.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

I think people can see the wrongness more clearly if it doesn’t involve a woman having sex with the boss. Would it be sinful for her to lie under oath in order to keep her job? To commit fraud? Would we excuse a man’s cooking the books on orders from the boss because he was afraid he would lose his health insurance? I am sure there are third world hellholes where this choice must be made with life or death stakes. But I doubt that there are many bosses, however wicked, who have so little sense of self-preservation as to… Read more »

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

@MeMe,

Back in our younger days, I think those “facts of life” were called excuses. You know, reasons or explanations put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Absolutely insane that you were downvoted for that.

carandc
carandc
6 years ago

“…you can tell if any of your Christian leaders have capitulated to the Gramscian rot in principle.” Pastor Wilson, your regular beating of this drum is incredibly important at this time and I’m thankful that you do it and do it well and I hope you continue to do so. I’m a public school teacher and recently had an early twenties grad student complete a short practicum in my classroom. The way phrases like “hegemonic masculinity” rolled so easily off of her tongue demonstrated to me that the caricatures I see online of the Evergreen College-types are not caricatures at… Read more »

Ginny Yeager
Ginny Yeager
6 years ago
Reply to  carandc

AMEN!

-BJ-
-BJ-
6 years ago

Doug,

I don’t have time to comment much anymore, but don’t forget that you have many folk here in the grind of daily ministry who appreciate your work. We shamelessly steal a lot it, too.

From a National Guard Chaplain and a local church assistant pastor, please keep up the good fight.

Jim Beebe
Jim Beebe
6 years ago

I’ve heard this called “the hierarchy of beliefs”. The more cherished, foundational belief here is that libs are better than cons. When faced with nasty libs, rather than change their belief that libs are better, they conclude that cons must be even worse than they previously thought, thus leaving the higher-ranking, more foundational belief unaltered. Please help: there is a joke that illustrates this that I have forgotten. The punch line is something like, “well whatta-ya-know, [something] really can [do something they obviously can’t do]”. I don’t think it was “pigs really can fly,” but it was something like that.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Jim Beebe

That’s interesting, Jim. I am more lib than con, but I wondered what happens when a lib meets an undeniably nice con. It would be too much to hope for that he or she would say, “I wonder if I am wrong in assuming the nastiness of all cons.” I think that most moderate cons are more likely to see a nice lib as likable but misguided.

MeMe
6 years ago

“But this is only being experienced as an apocalypse by a certain class of individual—that class being what we might call the poseur-feminist.”

Pastor Wilson, you’ve kind of glossed over some issues with people like Bill Gothard and the multiple other more conservative Christian men. Like it or not, there are a staggering number of “quisling males who somehow decided that,” provided their religion was in order, “they could be pigs in their treatment of all the women around them.”

drewnchick
drewnchick
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

While much could be made of Catholic priest scandals, televangelist scandals, Bill Cosby scandals, and many others–and all of them are just terrible–I am not sure Wilson was “glossing over them” so much as purposefully turning his spotlight on Hollywood and the Liberal elites who have busied themselves with pointing out how horrible Christians and conservatives are while they, themselves, engage in horrid things.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  drewnchick

And I will point out as I always try to do when Catholic priest scandals come up, that if you take the priests found to be guilty as a percentage of all priests, it’s actually a lower portion of the priesthood at large than the sex offender rate amongst the general population. It’s the rarity of such things in Christian circles that makes them such stunning tragedies, while the very well known commonality of this behavior in Hollywood that makes these scandals unsurprising.

drewnchick
drewnchick
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Oh, I quite agree with that.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

The Catholic priest scandals were not primarily about the # of priests who abused. They were about how the church COVERED IT UP, marginalized the victims, and kept the perpetrators from facing justice for their crimes for decades. Quite similarly to how Roy Moore acting sexually with young teenagers isn’t a horrific scandal for the Christian community. They could denounce him, insist on repentance, and tell him that he take a permanent step back from representing us in public life. No, the horrific scandal for the Christian community is them rising to the support of Roy Moore, demonizing the victims,… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: Quite similarly to how Roy Moore acting sexually with young teenagers isn’t a horrific scandal for the Christian community. They could denounce him, insist on repentance, and tell him that he take a permanent step back from representing us in public life. No, the horrific scandal for the Christian community is them rising to the support of Roy Moore, demonizing the victims, blaming our enemies, and even saying that sexual contact with young teenagers isn’t something to be upset about anymore. Wouldn’t Jonathan first need to have found Roy Moore actually guilty of the accusations first? Or is… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

No Katecho, I don’t need to “have found Roy Moore actually guilty of the accusations first”, because his supporters are already claiming that we should back Moore even if he IS guilty. That is what I am troubled by. Statements like these are what I find most damning for the community: “After a long pause, Alabama Bibb County Republican chairman Jerry Pow tells me he’d vote for Roy Moore even if Moore did commit a sex crime against a girl. “I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn’t want to vote for Doug,” he says. “I’m not saying I… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: No Katecho, I don’t need to “have found Roy Moore actually guilty of the accusations first”, because his supporters are already claiming that we should back Moore even if he IS guilty. That is what I am troubled by. Jonathan seems to be tooting up a collection of the kind of Christians who also voted for Trump, regardless of his admitted sexual immoralities and misconduct. Lamentably, such Christians can be documented to exist, but I don’t see how that excuses Jonathan’s leap to convict Roy Moore the moment the accusations first came out. Jonathan seems to be trying… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

You’re jumping between two very different things here. Nothing that I was arguing about the culpability of the Christian community has anything to do with your attacks here, I made quite clear that Roy Moore’s guilt is only the guilt of one man. The community’s guilt for responses like the ones I detailed above would remain whether or not he is guilty of personal sin. I do believe that the evidence is far beyond reasonable doubt now that Roy Moore engaged in a lot of inappropriate activity which he had previously denied, including the targeting of high school girls for… Read more »

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  drewnchick

I’m yrying to figure out how we went from Bill Gothard to a “staggering” number like him. I think think of a handful, but that’s it.

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Like it or not, there are a staggering number of “quisling males who somehow decided that,” provided their religion was in order, “they could be pigs in their treatment of all the women around them.” Another great example of how a more careful reading of Wilson might have forestalled an poorly-aimed objection. If one simply emphasizes the qualifying phrase AS AN APOCALYPSE, it becomes clear that Wilson’s claim here was not that ONLY Hollywood bigshots are engaging in sexual abuse; it was that the associated scandals are being experienced by ONLY the poseur-feminists in THIS PARTICULAR WAY. One might reasonably… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Rob Howard

“Would MeMe like to re-read the post and modify or retract her complaint?”

No. The point I was making was more akin to the idea that people in glass houses should not be throwing stones. Women, don’t fall prey to Harvey Weinstein when you can fall prey to a nice Christian man like Bill Gothard is the truth of the argument.

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

That may very well have been the point MeMe was making, but the question under consideration is whether MeMe’s point had any bearing on the actual subject matter of Wilson’s post. Wilson nowhere denies that some prominent pastors have blasphemed the name of Christ by their behavior. Does MeMe believe that because some professing Christians betray their faith, Wilson et al are precluding from examining the prevailing philosophy and practice of the unbelieving world? Women, don’t fall prey to Harvey Weinstein when you can fall prey to a nice Christian man like Bill Gothard is the truth of the argument.… Read more »

adad0
adad0
6 years ago

“…which is the thing I want to ponder today. The question why so many progressive and liberated women put up with this kind of thing, for so many years, and all throughout the upper echelons of Enlightenment Town.” C’mon Doug, RHE, Rachel Miller, et all, had you to blame as the pig du jour instead! According to the gullible gals of “Christendom”, you and anyone associated with you are the big patriarchal slimey monsters, not Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein and the liberal litany. Guess those gals were wrong. ???? They would not know a “decent dude”, even if he wrote… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago

“And this feeds another feminist dictum, which is that all men are rapists, that heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition, and that men themselves are the human disease. If the really good ones (who have accepted the “one true faith”) are so bad, what must the bad ones be like?” With all due respect and total seriousness, can you answer me that one? Can you offer me a better answer than the one I have? Because, true or false, I have come to the conclusion that indeed, all the evidence seems to point to the fact that absent the Lord,… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

You’re conflating rape, specifically, with sin as a generality. All rapists are sinners. All men are sinners. Not all men are rapists.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

It also presupposes that no woman ever initiates or enjoys sex. And you’re the one who needs to get out more??

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

True, though I’m trying a new method of 1-point per message posting. She can’t ignore the most prominent topic if I never speak to anything else.

Edit: And to be fair, I do need to get out more. Stay at home Dad in a one car family. In cold weather, it’s not uncommon to go Sunday to Sunday without having cause to even go outside.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

For the record, this comment was NOT directed at either Jilly or Justin. But the truth remains, absent the Lord, “all men are rapists, heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition, and that men themselves are the human disease.”

To believe anything else is to believe that by nature men are not truly sinful, that salvation is not really required, and that we are all capable of simply designing a patriarchal-political system that somehow prevents sin. Like it or not, absent Christian values, absent salvation,and given the right circumstances and access to power, all men become potential rapists.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

” all men become potential rapists.”

And you were so close to finishing without betraying your premise.

Nobody suggested that not all men have the potential to commit that particular sin (as do women, though less common). What we said was that they aren’t already rapists at present. If you want to change your position to this new, much more sensible place, that’s fine. But then, you end up with nothing to complain to Doug about.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Shall I just repeat what I said?

For the record, this comment was NOT directed at either Jilly or Justin. But the truth remains, absent the Lord, “all men are rapists, heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition, and that men themselves are the human disease.”

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

@MeMe,

Repeating a statement changes nothing in regards to its truth. If you are so certain about the truth of that statement, back it up and put that statement and quote (and take credit  for it) in the lead paragraph of a post on your blog. I’d put it on a comment there myself, but you moderate my comments there and you would not allow it, would you?

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

“….you moderate my comments there and you would not allow it, would you?”

“Search comments: OKRickety” seems to reveal 324 published comments from you on my blog. So apparently my moderation of you is lax at best.

Second of all, multiple times I have written posts directly linking to Pastor Wilson and his comment section, so your accusation that I don’t quote my own self and take credit for the things I say, is also false.

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

@MeMe, Let’s look at the whole truth of the matter of my commenting on your blog. Most of my 324 comments there were made before you recently put my comments on moderation. And you know that you have not approved (deleted, whatever) a few of my comments since that time, showing that you are not lax in moderating my comments. If you deny the above, then you are lying. Are you so thick-headed that you did not understand that “that statement” referred specifically to this: ‘ But the truth remains, absent the Lord, “all men are rapists, heterosexuality is patriarchal… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

I saw it. What you left out in your retelling is the next paragraph where you try to attach that evil nonsense with a Christian worldview in an attempt to suggest that disagreeing with it was heresy. In that attempt, you shifted your language to “potential” knowing full well you couldn’t attach the whole of your bigoted nonsense to God’s word. So which would you like? Your original, very firm statement that’s easily rebutted with logic, Scripture, or basic understanding of the linear progression of time, or your second, much more laid back position to fit into Christianity, which doesn’t… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, you’re good at this! Too often I shake my head gently, as if trying to get the water out of my ears, and try to figure out how A morphed into B. So, I want to make sure I have this clear. It would be heretical to deny original sin. (it isn’t heretical for a Catholic to deny total depravity, but that’s not important now.) Original sin (or total depravity) leaves everyone in need of a Savior. To doubt this puts you outside the Christian faith. Therefore, if everyone is naturally sinful, then everyone is capable of committing any… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

” Does this denial make me a heretic?”

Clearly. Now let us go confess and repent of being drug dealing mafia rapists, who force blind paraplegic underage women to be abused by hippopotami.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

No, I’m going down to the local police station to file rape charges against my non-Christian and presumably unsaved neighbors. All of them. The young, the old, and the wheelchair-bound.

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

There is a New Yorker cartoon for that:

“Watch out for him. He just had his wheels oiled.”

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

@MeMe,

‘But the truth remains, absent the Lord, “all men are rapists, heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition, and that men themselves are the human disease.” ‘

What an excellent example of your actual character! I expect that statement would be loudly applauded at many feminist gatherings.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

“What an excellent example of your actual character.”

Why, thank you. I’m sure you didn’t mean that kindly, but just the same I’m compelled to ask,so why is this news to so many Christian men? It seems so obvious to me that we are sinners, that the Lord died for us for a reason, that arguing about how good men are and what liars women are is just the epitome of all foolishness. Doesn’t it say in the bible “there are none righteous, not one?”

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Which, as has been pointed out, not remotely the same to what you’re saying with your thesis.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Here’s my entire thesis, ABSENT THE LORD, “all men are rapists, heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition, and men themselves are the human disease.”

The moral of this story is that we need the Lord. Headship won’t save you, the patriarchy won’t save you, and your politics won’t save you.

And yes, to be a Christian and yet to not accept this basic truth is very strange indeed. What exactly do such people claim to have been saved from?

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Completely agree with this: “The moral of this story is that we need the Lord. Headship won’t save you, the patriarchy won’t save you, and your politics won’t save you.”

But singling out men with “men themselves are the human disease” is not right. We all know that women are the same is this regard.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

“But singling out men with “men themselves are the human disease” is not right. We all know that women are the same is this regard.” So then explain to me how the naive (easily deceived) and perpetually cursed Eve who is allegedly under the authority of men as punishment left over from the garden, could possibly be equally responsible, “the same in that regard?” You simply cannot have it both ways. If Eve is not in charge than Eve does not bear the same amount of responsibility. What so many are trying to argue is that Eve bears all the… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“What so many are trying to argue is that Eve bears all the responsibility since men are by nature good and couldn’t possibly be rapists. Also, God put men in charge but it is totally Eve’s fault if they sin.”

Who? I haven’t seen anyone argue this.

“That is NOT my belief system but it seems to be what many are trying to argue.”

Ah, so they didn’t argue this. It “seems” they argue this. Does it seem that way maybe because that would be a much easier argument for you to deal with?

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

I don’t really know what you’re going on about now. I’m not going to explain what I don’t hold to be the case.

Every person is sinful, which is the “human disease.” That doesn’t leave out any human being but Jesus. All women are decidedly sinful, just as are all men, except our lord.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

I’m not disagreeing with you on that. In this specific comment I’m objecting to her contention that those who disagree with her are faulting Eve uniquely and that “men are by nature good”. It isn’t an honest retelling of her opponents, and MeMe has a history of overtly and intentionally misrepresenting the statements of others.

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, I was intending to direct that comment to MeMe. She lost me completely.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Your thesis

“Here’s my entire thesis, ABSENT THE LORD, “all men are rapists, heterosexuality is patriarchal oppression by definition, and men themselves are the human disease.””

Is not the same statement as your moral

“that we need the Lord. Headship won’t save you, the patriarchy won’t save you, and your politics won’t save you.”

Needing salvation from sin in general is not the same as being guilty of a very specific sin. This is just verbal sleight of hand. You can keep saying these two are the same statement, that doesn’t make it true.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

It’s also completely at odds with a lot of human experience. Why do the presumably unsaved Japanese have a lower incidence of rape than we do? Why do the godless Swedes have what is generally considered to be the most egalitarian society in the world?

Sins vary by people and cultures. But I don’t think there is any culture in which it can be said that all, most, many, or even quite a few men are rapists. You might as well say that because cannibalism is sinful, all men must be cannibals.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Given the right circumstances, all men are cannibals.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Which again, is moving the goalpost from “all men are rapists” to “all men can be rapists”.

The former is obviously not true, and nobody disagrees with you on the latter, including Doug’s article.

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Well, for that matter, some men are eunuchs.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

This is getting too silly for words. I will happily concede that all men and women are sinners. Some men are rapists, just as some men are liars and thieves. Some women kill their husbands for the insurance money.

Will MeMe concede that “all men are rapists” is no different from “all women are murderers”? If all unsaved men are rapists. are all unsaved men child pornographers?

If I personally believed that all unsaved men are rapists, I would be far too frightened ever to leave the house.

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

to be a Christian and yet to not accept this basic truth is very strange indeed What’s even stranger is to watch MeMe duck and weave around perfectly cogent objections to the wording of this statement, ignore the offered agreement with an alternate phrasing (presented by herself, likely by accident, with the addition of the word “potential”), and wrap up with a “moral of the story” that offers to rebut a position no one here has expressed. Here’s my entire thesis, ABSENT THE LORD… It’s amusing to see MeMe demand exactly the sort of careful reading that she declines to… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Rob Howard

I think there is a third possibility which I sympathize with because I’ve been there myself. You overstate your case, realize your position is unreasonable, and don’t really know how to walk it back.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I’ve asked a dozen times for you to stop attacking me Jilly, to cease and desist from commenting negatively every time I attempt to say something. But the truth is you really haven’t got anything else to do with yourself, do you? No friends, no life, no real church, not the kind that actually knows you and cares about you personally.

lndighost
lndighost
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

That’s the kind of spite that Jesus died for.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

And you can go on asking from now until the Second Coming, and my answer will still be the same. If your comments are silly but harmless, I will ignore them. If they are mean-spirited, harmful, and wrong, I won’t. And if you resort to personal attacks on other people, I will dig out the sarcasm cake and add another layer of frosting. Deal with it. As for the rest, if only you knew the half of it. Oh the tragedy of a woman who was unable to keep her man. How much I could have learned from you on… Read more »

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Likes this.

Freida
Freida
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Weeping softly. And laughing loudly. :)
Thank you for not depriving us of your wit and and hilarious self deprecation.

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

The two possible explanations I proposed were essentially Evil and Stupid. Jill, in her charity, has uncovered a third, that perhaps MeMe is merely driven at times by a prideful spirit, which is a pretty safe thing to suggest when dealing with humans and could likely be said about most of us, and certainly about myself. That MeMe takes Jill’s softer third option as an occasion to a) sidestep the ongoing critique of her positions, and b) launch yet another unconscionable verbal assault suggests that Jill has touched a point in MeMe already tender from much pricking of the conscience.… Read more »

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“No friends, no life, no real church”

I’m just going to start flagging comments where personal attacks are the primary content.

Jane
Jane
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

Good plan. I will join you.

Silas
Silas
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

MEME, it is irrelevant who your comments are directed at. Your comments are public and are open to public correction and rebuke. You repeatedly intentionally misread Wilson’s posts. This explains your also poor reading of scripture. There appears to be no men in your life who love you enough to tell you to be quiet and listen. You have repeatedly slandered, false witness, and taken the Lord’s name in vain by distorting His Word. Until you learn humility and exhibit the fruits of the Spirit with repentance you should not comment.

Matt Mitchell
Matt Mitchell
6 years ago

Why is it anymore that where there’s an ability to post to blogs or the like, things simply devolve to pretty much name calling?

MeMe
6 years ago

“Decent white dudes are being demonized, that’s what is happening.”

Whew! Well that’s quite a relief. Silly me, I thought the problem was that women were being harassed, raped, and sexually exploited. The real problem is that “decent white dudes,” are being made to feel a bit uncomfortable and now fear being labeled rapists.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

You dishonestly ripped his statement from context to make it appear he was saying something he wasn’t. That paragraph wasn’t even referring to rape, but alleged racism.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Wait a minute. I thought MeMe had conceded that women also exhibit natural depravity. Are we really back to square one? All men are rapists, and all women are injured innocents? People who really understand the ghastliness of rape are not quite so willing to look at the men in their lives and think of them as rapists. They are not quite so willing to think of honorable men as somehow equivalent to the Night Stalker. I am offended by statements like “All women are skanks and sluts.” Decent men think of their wives and daughters, and are even more… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

There is nothing dishonest about it at all. I have just realized that the purpose of Pastor Wilson’s post was not to show compassion or concern for women who have been victimized at all, but simply to nurture and encourage the indignation and rage of so called “decent white dudes.”

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Nothing about your explanation addresses the claim. Even if you were correct about his intent, it doesn’t provide justification for directly misrepresenting his words.

Further, your rationale is no different from the men you abhor. The man who rapes the woman because clearly she simply *must* be consenting because of what she’s wearing and that way she looked at you. You’re not a mind reader. You don’t get to assume his intent and chastise him for your imagination.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

It doesn’t usually take this long for an attack on Men In General to morph into an attack on Pastor Wilson. But, why the surprise? What else does she expect from someone who is indubitably male? I hope he will forgive me for offering the compassion and concern on his behalf: “All you men who waste time on this board when you should be apologizing to women, listen up! It has come to my attention that every single one of you is a rapist or has rapey thoughts in your fevered little brains. I am ordering cold showers for all,… Read more »

Freida
Freida
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

But you left out the need to repent of cannibalism.

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  Freida

The SJWs say we’re all guilty of unconscious or hidden racism and sexism. By “all” I mean the demographic of which I’m a part. Maybe we’re all unconscious cannibals and rapists, too. Man, this is some serious Orwellian guilt on my shoulders. I have enough real sin to deal with aside from this hidden stuff.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

CHer, you are going far too easy on yourself. Racism and sexism are merely the tip of the iceberg. Have you ever called somebody a blind person? Classic Ableism: the correct phrase is a person who is blind. Have you listened to an argument and thought “That’s crazy!” You’re guilty of Mentalism. Have you ever secretly wondered if my refusal to eat met has something to to do with my being a West Coast liberal? If that thought has ever crossed your mind, you have committed Vegaphobia. Do you think the young and the old are less capable than you?… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“Further, your rationale is no different from the men you abhor.”

I abhor no one and certainly not men. I don’t even abhor you, who is stuck home with the kids, never gets out much, and is trapped in liberal utopia. I find it rather sad that your only sense of power and self worth seems to come from trying to insult me and tear me down with such persistence.

Jane
Jane
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“You don’t get to assume his intent and chastise him for your imagination.”

I like this sentence. It sums up neatly what a lot of people do in the course of disingenuous argument.

Freida
Freida
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

I believe there are “decent white dudes”, too. My husband is one. And maybe yours?

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Yeah, remember a few months ago when a lot of those dudes were in Houston, taking time off work to rescue people? That must have been a ploy to rape or eat people when someone wasn’t filming them. You might as well go ahead and call them “deplorables” like Hillary did.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

The ones I saw on television looked too water-logged to be tasty. I wonder what a vegetarian like me does when confronted with the need to eat one’s companions. I suppose I would have to eat their clothing.

MeMe
6 years ago

“At the outset, we don’t know. So when an accusation is made, and also denied, the thing that must happen is an evaluation of the evidence before any determination is made. But in what we are seeing now, even when particular incidents are denied or explained, the weight of the acknowledged and cumulative story is grotesque.” Perhaps if we weren’t so skeptical every time a victim tries to report a sexual assault, these kinds of things wouldn’t go on for 30-40 years. Maybe the first thing that comes to our mind should not be, “this woman is lying, what can… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“Maybe the first thing that comes to our mind should not be, “this woman is lying, what can do I protect this innocent man from Potiphar’s wife?”

Good thing nobody here, Wilson included, suggested that. Rather that we:

” So when an accusation is made, and also denied, the thing that must happen is an evaluation of the evidence before any determination is made.”

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

“Good thing nobody here, Wilson included, suggested that.”

Here are Pastor Wilson’s words, “Now in line with what I have argued in the past, these allegations do not create a collective “group guilt,” such that any allegation should be treated as automatically true.”

He also wrote a post called Potiphar’s Wife.

It is quite clear to me that Pastor Wilson’s first thought is always, the woman is probably lying.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

It is quite clear to me that Pastor Wilson’s first thought is always, the woman is probably lying.

From Doug’s other comments it seems that he thinks some women have underestimated the sins of their husbands, and that he is even worse than what she says.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

I’ll repeat what I said, “It is quite clear to me that Pastor Wilson’s first thought is always, the woman is probably lying.”

If as you claim, he believes some women underestimate the sins of their husbands,then he also believes those women are lying.

So clearly, Pastor Wilson does not believe women.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

If as you claim, he believes some women underestimate the sins of their husbands,then he also believes those women are lying.

I had “minimise” but chose “underestimate” to illustrate that he thinks the women are being gracious in the matter, not dishonest. To perceive that a criminal is even worse than the oppressed person realises is not to think them dishonest. Perhaps they are too nice or naive to comprehend the depth of some depravity.

Your assumption about Doug here is too callous Meme.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

MeMe wrote: It is quite clear to me that Pastor Wilson’s first thought is always, the woman is probably lying. When it comes to accusations, justice requires our awareness of the possibility that the accuser (man or woman) could be lying. That’s why the bar of evidence is quite high for certain kinds of accusations. Ironically, in accusing Wilson of partiality, MeMe draws attention to her own partiality that has been manifest on this blog in various encounters. MeMe’s record on this blog evidences that her “first thought is always that a woman is automatically telling the truth”. She may… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

“In the case of MeMe’s accusation, she suggests that Wilson has something against women accusers, in particular.”

I do. It is quite evident in his writing. There are also website testimonials from women who have been deeply hurt by his distrust and attitude towards them.

Then there are numerous Christian women who are hurt by the things he writes, believing them to promote the exploitation and abuse of women in marriage. Are we all bearing false witness and unworthy of being heard?

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

MeMe wrote: Then there are numerous Christian women who are hurt by the things he writes, believing them to promote the exploitation and abuse of women in marriage. Are we all bearing false witness and unworthy of being heard? No doubt there are numerous red pill Christian men whose feelings are hurt by the things Wilson writes, believing them to promote the exploitation and abuse of men in marriage. I simply point out that MeMe has not made the case that Wilson singles out women in regard to the rules of evidence. Wilson demonstrates a high regard for justice, and… Read more »

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

There are also website testimonials from women who have been deeply hurt by his distrust and attitude towards them. On this very web page, there are testimonials from a woman who has been deeply hurt by MeMe’s words and attitude toward her. Is this woman to be believed without examination of the data, or does MeMe simply grant unwarranted exceptions for herself when she is painted with the same brush she uses on Wilson? Then there are numerous Christian women who are hurt by the things he writes, believing them to promote the exploitation and abuse of women in marriage.… Read more »

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“There are also website testimonials from women who have been deeply hurt by his distrust and attitude towards them.” Those are mostly thinly-veiled hate/gossip sites, the “men = bad, women = good” ones that have further radicalized MeMe. They don’t pretend to be objective or practice the principle taught in Prov. 18:17. They may have true stories of men behaving badly in church, but the same goes for some “manopshere” sites that MeMe hates and totally discredits. They have true stories of men who have been horribly wronged in court and church. In both cases, the sites often lean to… Read more »

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Memi, I don’t know who the “we” is, who might be skeptical about reports of sexual assault, but here is what that Decent Dude said to do about reports of assault or any other sin: Matthew 18 15 “If your brother or sister[b] sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[d] 17 If they still refuse to… Read more »

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago

@Katecho @Jill Smith @lndighost @Justin Parris @Nathan James @CHer @Kilgore T. Durden I propose that it would be best if we would all choose to not respond at length to whatever MeMe writes on this blog, except when you actually agree with her. I know it’s difficult to avoid arguing against her various claims, but that is what I am going to try to do. I suspect we all agree it gets tiresome expending effort towards constructive dialogue when she will not respond in a productive fashion. MeMe’s comments are like magic birthday candles where you blow out the candle,… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

I plan to generally limit my responses to refuting any of her false accusations directed at Wilson. I don’t think Wilson should have to come to his own defense in the cases where I’m aware of so much evidence in support of him. It’s what I would want friends to do for me if I were being falsely accused.

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

I sympathize with this. I’ve been reading this blog since 2006 or so and have recently reached a point where I’ve been seriously considering just taking a break for awhile, due solely to the dumpster fire that every comment section becomes when MeMe gets involved. This saddens me, but I’ve detected in myself what I’d call an unseemly sort of glee in watching her crash around the room, and I wonder whether I’m not impeding my own sanctification by indulging in it. It is still the internet, after all. On the other hand, I do find many of the rebuttals… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Rob Howard

I too. I am noticing a change in MeMe. Her opinions have not altered, but I do not believe that a year ago she would have made the spiteful personal attacks she is making now. Witnessing them is not good for us, and making them is damaging her–all the more so because she sees nothing wrong in what she is doing. Sooner or later she will push someone too far and they will respond with things that should never be said. Things that could hurt her far more than her words hurt me. I will try to back off.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

Okay, OK, I will try!

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

OKRickety, I’m largely in agreement with you. There is little use in carrying on a conversation with her. She has convinced me, at least, that she doesn’t care enough to understand what her opponents are saying. Instead she uses Wilson’s posts and our comments for something else entirely. I won’t speculate as to what that is. The suggestion to “not respond at length” seems a very good one. I will mention that many times the “mistakes” MeMe makes are so obvious that they don’t need to be refuted and certainly not in detail. I’m also going to flag the most… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

A timely reminder. Thank you.

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

I agree. I find the interactions can bring the worst out of me. It’s easy to get involved because she really triggers certain emotions. It’s also easy to make “slam dunk” arguments with the way she sets herself up – fallacies and contradictions in almost every sentence. But I’ve wasted too much time with her. And she’s dug in her heels even more. Sometimes I’m still not sure if she’s that delusional and self-deceived…or just trolling. For the site’s sake and my own sanctification, I’ll refrain from interacting with her. However, I really think DW should ban her. ISIS must… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

Your words pricked my conscience and gave me an unpleasant (but useful) couple of moments. “She started it” is not a defense that goes over well in the confessional! And when you find part of yourself hoping for a foolish argument for the sheer wicked pleasure of ridiculing it, you have crossed the line. Please, all of you, help me keep my resolution by not encouraging me! I am enough of a show-off as it is.

jigawatt
jigawatt
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

I too am rarely participating due to the very low signal-to-noise ratio here lately. I’ve found that if I can jump in the comments early, I might have a decent conversation. But once the total number gets over about 100, it’s just not worth it. Two things would help a lot: 1. If it were possible to mute specific people AND all comments under them. 2. If we could somehow see comments sorted by datetime but still within their respective thread. Maybe collapse everything except comments less than X (user setting) minutes old, and then you could expand threads as… Read more »

jigawatt
jigawatt
6 years ago
Reply to  jigawatt

jigawatt said:

Two things would help a lot

Well, three things.

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

One final comment. MeMe is certainly not representative of most low-church, non-creedal Protestants, but she does show some of its faults. If I think the Spririt is guiding me and it jives with a little selective Bible reading…and I have a few cheerleading pastors or Christian friends (and probably don’t know me online)…then I can boldly proclaim my “truth” and proudly mock anyone who disagrees…cause the Spirit is on my side! While I’m not a Catholic, I can appreciate Jill being constrained by the church’s creeds and historical teachings. My views are certainly closer to hers than MeMe’s, who reminds… Read more »

mys
mys
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

I will throw myself into your group, too, OKRickey, and will not respond either.
I have not had time to comment much this past week…just read, and the commenting has gotten out of control. At this point, I wonder how many comments Pastor Wilson would have if MeMe did not comment, and then have others, respond. It really takes the comments in an unusual direction.

Luken
6 years ago

Is it “gotten a bye”??? I always thought it was “gotten a buy” but I could be mistaken.

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Luken
Ginny Yeager
Ginny Yeager
6 years ago

“The question why so many progressive and liberated women put up with this kind of thing, for so many years, and all throughout the upper echelons of Enlightenment Town.”
I think ambition is the reason. The dogma comes later as a justification, resulting from their spiritual blindness.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Ginny Yeager

Ginny, there is something about the prospect of a movie role that blinds people to everything except potential stardom. I learned that everything we hear about stage mothers is probably understated. I met moms who would put their kids on starvation diets and replace perfectly good teeth if they thought it would help. I met moms who gave their kids AdderalI before an audition to make them sparkle. I find it easy to imagine how young women would think the casting couch was just the price they had to pay. It doesn’t make it okay. But you are right about… Read more »

Bike Bubba
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Agreed. I know a young lady who wants to be an actress, and she makes girls running cross country look rather stout in comparison (my 3rd daughter is a distance runner, I know about skinny), and the general vibe is “I’m trying too hard.” Sad thing is she can’t deliver a line to save her life, and she’s not that pretty–at least not 20 lbs underweight.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Bike Bubba

Discourage the would-be actress! It is a life of constant rejection, the training costs a fortune, and even if they succeed, they will be unemployed 80% of the time! And–let me put this gently–they tend to bring the drama home with them.

Bike Bubba
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

And I’m going to do that without the drama exactly how? :^)

Seriously, point well taken. Sometimes the whole thing reminds me of the Monty Python “Royal Hospital for Overacting” skit. Then there’s the 1945 comments from Maureen O’Hara to contend with–it’s been “grooming” for a while, too. I’d love to see a good Christian film industry, but it’s an uphill slog.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Ginny Yeager

And note that the EXACT same thing will happen in politics, business, and even the church.

Bike Bubba
6 years ago

Something in me wants to address the very real possibility that what is going on on the left is classic grooming. To draw a picture, an ugly one, how many of Weinstein’s movies could not have been made if the actresses had not been conditioned to accept being naked in front of strange, ugly men, and if they had not been conditioned to accept perverse actions by strange, ugly men? So I would argue that a certain degree of abuse is inherent in the feminist-progressive system; you can’t have free love without conditioning the participants to accept it. This leads… Read more »

Matt
Matt
6 years ago

“It’s okay to be white” functions much like “Make America Great Again”. The slogan is superficially reasonable and trivially good, while carrying with it any number of less than good implications that one might not necessarily wish to sign on to or leave unanswered. That makes it very difficult to oppose. Of course it was also a blatant troll and would have been better ignored, but that’s America for you. “The question why so many progressive and liberated women put up with this kind of thing, for so many years, and all throughout the upper echelons of Enlightenment Town.” Because… Read more »

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  Matt

Since you’ve spoke highly of Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton before, what’s your view of charlatans who get involved with multiple rape hoaxes and father illegitimate kids? Or maybe they aren’t charlatans? I think that’s more in line with the topic of this post.

http://freebeacon.com/politics/sharpton-misleadingly-says-he-didnt-get-involved-in-duke-lacrosse-case/
http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2014/05/19/duke-lacrosse-liberals-ratchet-up-their-denial-even-as-reality-plays-out/
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/19/us/jackson-says-he-fathered-child-in-affair-with-aide.html

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  CHer

As long as we’re tossing out non-sequiturs, what’s your view of charlatans who claim to represent the Christian community while grabbing women by the genitals?

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Matt

“The slogan is superficially reasonable and trivially good, while carrying with it any number of less than good implications that one might not necessarily wish to sign on to or leave unanswered.”

This is similar to how I feel about “black lives matter.” When the phrase “all lives matter” is considered racist, there’s a problem with the definition of racism.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

It may also be in reaction to people claiming that being white is not okay.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Bethyada, other than paying lip service of notions of white privilege, do you think that educated upper middle class white people ever really believe they are not okay? I have never encountered this personally (except perhaps in sermons delivered by white priests to wealthy white congregations) but I can’t imagine being bothered by it. It seems kind of pathetic to me, as long as it remains empty rhetoric.

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I’m neither highly educated nor upper middle class, so I guess I’m not the crowd you’re thinking of, but I’m taking the current “white privilege” talk pretty badly. It doesn’t take white skin to live my lifestyle in this country.

Just up thread somewhere is this gem: https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/year-of-the-pig.html#comment-210126 “Sure enough, my practicum student asked me, with all seriousness and a furrowed brow, how I address the issue of being a white male teacher. “

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I doubt it is the educated upper middle class. Though I could imagine it being said in response to a lot of drivel about white oppression.

It is amusing when it is said about well-to-do whites who have come from the working class.

Farinata degli Uberti
Farinata degli Uberti
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill,

I think the larger argument you overlook concerns the moral status of nationalism. To attack “whiteness” as the cultural power centers in our society so frequently do is to privilege globalism and attack the basic social units of family, tribe, and nation. In so doing, cultural and political elites are able to reinforce their own status vis-a-vis their rivals in flyover country.

Its pathetic showing as argument notwithstanding, it’s very effective, precisely because it isn’t about dialectical argument – it’s about power. A house divided is quite attractive to tyrants.

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

There are plenty of self-loathing ones. Only one stood up against this (and paid for it):
http://nypost.com/2017/05/31/college-melts-down-over-plan-for-white-people-free-day-on-campus/

demosthenes1d
demosthenes1d
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

When the elites say white people they mean red tribe. They aren’t being self critical. See section VIII below: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  demosthenes1d

Demo, that was a fascinating article, and I chased down almost all the links till I hit the WSJ’s paywall. So, my blue tribe friends will excuse a homophobic remark from a Central American because Their Culture, but never from a fellow blue triber who should know better. I was mildly dissociating myself from the blue tribe until I I recollected the Prius in the garage, the artisanal pizza box on the counter, the bottled water which originally came out of a Canadian faucet, and the Hamilton tee-shirt on my person. I would not consider CPK a liberal restaurant, based… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

What I read (which may or may not be true) is the the campaign was coordinated by some racial identitarians in the hope of provoking a reaction. If that is true, I am impatient with anyone, of any group, who makes “innocent” statements in the hope of stirring up trouble. It makes me think of how siblings troll one another– Well, I only SAID such and such and there was nothing for you to object to because what I said was TRUE. That being said, the most sensible thing to do would have been to ignore the signs.

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

It probably is true, and your impatience is appropriate. It looks like the response to the “ok to be white” posters is what was expected by the trouble makers, denunciation and investigation.

It does point to a problem (bigotry) on the American left, namely, whiteness is associated with racism.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Matt

Hi Matt. what you’re describing sounds to me more like the comment section on Breitbart than what I usually find here. Generally attacks are made on liberal ideology because it is seen as ungodly and/or destructive, but I don’t find the demo-crap obummer stuff you see all over some right wing sites. I agree with part of what you say about Weinstein’s women. However, I think there has also been a shift in how we think about sex as a acceptable form of barter. I was young in the sixties and seventies, and there was a strong expectation in very… Read more »

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Matt

“…the host and commenters believe liberals are ubiquitously stupid, insane, or evil, and constantly engage in super secret conspiracies like “Gramscian marches” to totally destroy all that is right and good.”

Yep, that sounds liberal like Harvey Weinstein alright. ; – )

As in “Harvey Weinstein hired ex-Mossad agents to suppress allegations, report claims”
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/07/harvey-weinstein-hired-ex-mossad-agents-to-suppress-abuse-allegations-new-yorker-report-claims

“stupid”? Yep.
“insane”? Yep
“evil”? Yep.
“engage in super secret conspiracies”? Yep.

Keep trying Matt. Someday you might come up with a functional point. ; – )
Today was not that day.

The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
6 years ago

Doug, you said this:

The question why so many progressive and liberated women put up with this kind of thing, for so many years, and all throughout the upper echelons of Enlightenment Town.

This question was answered two decades ago by none other than Nina Burleigh:

I would be happy to give him [Bill Clinton] a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their Presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago

That is seriously nasty! I need to go scrub out my mind right now. Who can even think like that?

The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jilly, Nina Burleigh formerly was a White House correspondent for Time magazine and covered the Clinton White House. She is now an adjunct professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and writes for Newsweek (the newspaper that sold for $1) as a National Politics Correspondent. That’s who. Burleigh is not some fringe leftist kook; she is very much a part of the mainstream left. You see, vermin like Burleigh are perfectly willing to ignore egregious sexual misconduct from their own, provided they can rut like animals and dismember the fruit of their hedonistic liaisons with impunity. It’s why Bill Clinton… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago

Well, I’m not sure that she meant it literally, but it is a disgusting thing to say. And it is hypocritical. If somebody like Ann Coulter offered to perform a similar service for Trump to get the wall built, Burleigh would be saying how wrong and foul that is. If feminism means anything at all, it should mean not offering sexual services as a quid pro quo. Or encouraging the bad behavior of disgusting men and women. Or treating either men or women as sexual objects to be manipulated rather than as people to be valued. This kind of thing… Read more »

Jane
Jane
6 years ago

“Jilly, Nina Burleigh formerly was a White House correspondent for Time magazine and covered the Clinton White House. ”

And this is why we need a “watchdog press” not subject to the laws other people have to live by — to keep politicians accountable through their tough-minded, unbiased honesty.

Note: I’m all for the First Amendment, but I dislike some of the interpretations that have exempted the media from having to follow the same laws as other people. Being free to operate does not equal being privileged before the law.

AJMetcalf Jr
6 years ago

Ditto Rob Howard: I get a great deal from this blog and the commenters. Even MeMe. It’s the first one I read and the one I catch up on when required to be in communicado.

Rob Howard
Rob Howard
6 years ago
Reply to  AJMetcalf Jr

odd that you got a downvote for this.
funny story: I live next to a Metcalf Ave.

A J Metcalf Jr
6 years ago
Reply to  Rob Howard

Could be they didn’t like my spelling. Do you mind telling me where this Metcalf Ave is located? There is a town in my State with a Metcalf St.

ROB HOWARD
ROB HOWARD
6 years ago
Reply to  A J Metcalf Jr

Kansas City.

UriahWhitestone
6 years ago

Spot on.

C. David
C. David
6 years ago

To a modern feministi , it is much more freeing and empowering to be a prostitute in LA then to be a housewife in Kansas. That is the bottom line the explains everything we are seeing in the culture today.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago

And when the exact same thing comes up in White Southern America, what is the rationalization going to be? “Oh, that was a Republican, that was different.”

The hypocrisy is going to be astounding. Timing of this post could not have been worse.

mys
mys
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan-
You are a hypocrite. Until you condemn every democrat and leftist, I think you have no right to speak of any southern republican.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  mys

I have never endorsed a candidate who was credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a child. I have never tried to claim that sexual misconduct was the particular purview of my political enemies and tried to blame their politics for their sin. And I have never tried to justify sexual misconduct with a minor because the person doing it agreed with me on political issues. So I’m failing to see what you could be calling me a hypocrite on. Have you seen the incredible things being said by public political figures in Alabama right now? “It’s okay because Mary was… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: And he got a hold of one of the two 14-year-olds (the one whom he undressed and groped) by telling her mom that he was going to “look after her” while she went into court. He portrayed himself as a PROTECTOR of a young girl and then did that. It was disgusting, and the rationalizations and defenses are digusting, and a very large portion of the country sees it. What material evidence is Jonathan going on besides the accusations themselves? Apparently Jonathan has already tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed Moore. Jonathan jumps up and down with accusations of… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Right now I’m going with the report that the mother has confirmed that Moore was alone with the girl and that the girl told her what he had done several years later (but long before Moore became a public figure), that two childhood friends confirmed the victim told them of her relationship with Moore, and that three other teenagers who were kissed and/or pursued by Moore testified to that. Those are the main points, but if you read the Washington Post story there is more circumstantial evidence beyond that.

Can you share what your minimum standard of evidence would be?

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: Right now I’m going with the report that the mother has confirmed that Moore was alone with the girl and that the girl told her what he had done several years later (but long before Moore became a public figure), that two childhood friends confirmed the victim told them of her relationship with Moore, and that three other teenagers who were kissed and/or pursued by Moore testified to that. At the time that Jonathan had tried, judged, and convicted Moore, I believe only one of the women behind the WaPo story was accusing Moore of actual sexual misconduct.… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Moore’s accusers and Jonathan’s histrionics aside, I’m curious if the idea of Mary being betrothed at age 14, to someone twice her age, also makes Jonathan sick to his stomach. If not, why not?

If Jonathan is going to be embarrassed on behalf of Christians, shouldn’t he be embarrassed by something that isn’t a likely occurrence, given first-century culture? The direction of his displays of disgust and shame-casting often makes it unclear whose approval Jonathan is going for.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, when I see a child in front of me who has been sold into slavery, it makes me sick. And I’ve seen that. When I see a 14-year-old married off to a far older man, it makes me sick. And I’ve seen that. And when I read the accusations against Moore, which were NOT that he married a 14-year-old but that he deceived her mother in order to abuse the girl sexually, and then I see numerous Christians saying, “even if it’s true, we support him anyway”, it makes me sick. And if I were to see a massacre… Read more »

nathantuggy
nathantuggy
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Let’s leave aside entirely the still-open question of the actual facts in the case that brought this up (although that really does need to be established), as well as the distinction between an age-mismatched marriage and an inappropriate relationship that also happens to be age-mismatched, which most of your posts do not seem to distinguish anyway. Are you really arguing that God has “move[d] his [sic] people to greater knowledge of good over time” and that Mary and Joseph’s marriage should be considered sickening? Why, exactly? What passage or creed or system of theology gives us this principle of like… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  nathantuggy

nathantuggy wrote:

Are you really arguing that God has “move[d] his [sic] people to greater knowledge of good over time” and that Mary and Joseph’s marriage should be considered sickening?

Jonathan seems to be overlooking that Joseph was reconsidering his betrothal to Mary, but that God sent an angel to insist that he go forward with marriage to her. In other words, Jonathan’s suggestion that God was simply going along with the “sickening” and primitive cultural practices of the time is nonsense.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

That is a falsehood Katecho, yet again, and a terrible argument too. It would make no sense in anyone’s moral universe for Joseph not to remain with the pregnant Mary. And I never said anything about the “‘sickening’ and primitive cultural practices of the time”. And you well know that God speaks in 2 Samuel 12:8 and says that he gave David’s master’s wives into his arms, but that does not suggest that God affirms of polygamy in our age. As I already said to you, clearly, there are enormous differences between their age and ours, and for you to… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  nathantuggy

“Are you really arguing that God has “move[d] his [sic] people to greater knowledge of good over time”” Yes, that is almost undoubtable in Scripture (though I do realize that there are a certain strain of Calvinists on this board who are part of the minority of Christians over time who dispute that). In defense I put forth Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 8:6-13, Ephesians 2:13-17, Matthew 11:25-27, John 1:17-18, 2 Corinthians 3:3-6, 1 Corinthians 13:9-12, and many other passages and Biblical streams along that strain. Then look to Matthew 5:31-40, Matthew 15:10-11, Matthew 19:7-8, Matthew 19:23-30, and many similar passages which… Read more »

nathantuggy
nathantuggy
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

The way you’re expressing yourself in this comment makes it sound as though you have relatively little on which to differ with me, except perhaps misreadings. I thought it was extremely clear that I was directly connecting my quote of your phrase “greater knowledge of good” *to* the idea that May-December relationships should be considered “sickening”, and on the other hand making a clear distinction between that particular case and the general application of the principle, by explicitly mentioning polygamy. So arguing in response as though I denied any progress that would effectively ban polygamy today is quite mistaken at… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: You are one of very, very few pro-slavery Christians I know, and I guess you’re now “pro-sexual conduct with young teenagers” too. I’d prefer that your voice remain marginalized. Jonathan is apparently refusing to engage the very likely youth and age difference between Mary and Joseph. Whatever “makes him sick” is completely unresponsive to that case. This is similar to his pattern of refusing to engage distinctions between predatory sexual behavior and sex-involving-a-teen. It is also similar to his behavior of refusing to distinguish between race-based slavery and forced labor to make restitution for a debt owed. Jonathan… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

“This is similar to his pattern of refusing to engage distinctions between predatory sexual behavior and sex-involving-a-teen.” Not only is that a lie, it’s an incredibly ridiculous lie as one of my clear arguments in the other thread is that there is a distinction between predatory/abusive sexual behavior and (though potentially also abusive) simple “consensual” sex-involving-a-teen. It was you of all people who was trying to obscure those differences and pretend that the “abuse” of having consensual sex with a teen was the same as intentionally abusive behavior. And I know of nowhere where I have “refused to distinguish” between… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: And if I were to see a massacre as described in Numbers 31 today, it would make me sick. It has become increasingly clear that Jonathan’s emotional responses are not informed by, or in submission to, Scripture, but I appreciate his being frank about it. Jonathan is apparently unimpressed by God’s explicit command to Israel to take up His vengeance against the Midianites, God’s detailed distribution of the spoils, and God’s explicit acceptance of a tribute offering of a specific portion of the women taken. Jonathan is disgusted. Jonathan sits in judgment over God’s actions and commands recorded… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, if you can’t distinguish between Numbers 31 occurring when Numbers 31 occurred, and a similar situation today, then you should not be lecturing anyone on the application of Biblical principles, ever.

Can you give me an example of a massacre similar to Numbers 31 which you would not be sickened by if you saw it today? Can you give me the name of a Christian leader whom you would obey if they told you to participate in carrying out such a massacre today?

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: Can you give me an example of a massacre similar to Numbers 31 which you would not be sickened by if you saw it today? The judgement described in Numbers 31 was directly commanded by God. If we saw similar commands from God today (and I have no expectation that we should, given Israel’s rather unique historic role), then would Jonathan still be deferring to his sickened stomach for authority? Apparently he would. Jonathan wrote: Can you give me the name of a Christian leader whom you would obey if they told you to participate in carrying out… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

So you agree that you would not carry out a massacre today, right? And you would be sickened if you saw one, right? In other words, you’re in the same place that I said I was before you began mischaracterizing my statement? As for the second statement, they are clearly obeying Moses. God only spoke the command to Moses, the others had to obey Moses on the assumption the word was coming from God. So I repeat my question – Can you give me the name of a Christian leader whom you would obey if they told you to participate… Read more »

Malik
Malik
6 years ago
Reply to  mys

Mys- “you are a hypocrite.  Until you condemn every democrat and leftist, I think you have no right to speak of an southern republican.” Mys, this is completely absurd.  Whether or not you agree with them, Democrats can actually be christians too.  Guess what, I am one.  I don’t support abortion, quite the opposite.  But I do support immigrants and higher immigration, better gun laws, preserving the environment, and helping poor people with health insurance etc.  And it bothers me that this makes me a “crazy liberal” to most suburban christians, maybe most christians in general.  And if Jonathan is… Read more »

jimmy flies
jimmy flies
4 years ago

“It’s okay to be white” is not about men and not about conservatives. It is not, therefore, about conservative men. It is about highlighting the fact that white people are being targeted with hate, whether those white people are conservative, liberal, male or female.