Incitement

“If you protest, you’re just inciting the police to shoot you, so what do you expect?”

Pretty stupid, huh?

How about, “if you don’t want people to protest, then don’t treat them in a way that they feel like they need to protest.”

Same shit with drawing Mohammed.

If you don’t like people drawing Mohammed, perhaps you shouldn’t incite them to do so by reacting so negatively about it.

Drawing Mohammed is now not only permissible but (I think) absolutely goddamned necessary. It is necessary to defy those who would stifle debate with violence.

The winner of the “Draw Mohammed” contest.

Do I like offending Muslims? No. Not at all.

I thought, for example, that “Piss Christ” was fucking stupid. I still think it is fucking stupid. The only thing that gives “Piss Christ” any value, to me, is the fact that it inspired calls for censorship.

But, nobody ever got killed over it. Christians moved on.

If anyone ever killed someone over “Piss Christ”, I’d be peeing on crucifixes like it was an Olympic sport.

Draw Mohammed. Spread pictures of Mohammed. They’ve now made it an imperative.

Woman Charged Under Revenge Porn Law – Oh, Shocker

No I wd not cuz I no wut im talking about, LOL thx bai.

I hate the whole revenge porn thing. Not just that people do it, but I hate talking about it. Why? Because the whole subject just attracts bullshit like tourists with fanny packs attract gypsies.

One of the biggest sources of bullshit it attracts is the MacKinnonite-Dworkinite “legal scholars.(1) That’s the wing of feminist “thought” that sees everything in terms of “its the girls against the boys, and the boys suck.” They all banded together to make revenge porn a “civil rights” issue, and a gender issue, most inconveniently failing to investigate the facts.

They tend to see this as “a thing men do to women.” Guess what. It ain’t.

Here is how they look at it:

In 2009, Professor Danielle Keats Citron published “Cyber Civil Rights,” arguing, for the first time, that we ought to understand and address cyber harassment as civil rights violations. In that article, she called for a cyber civil rights legal agenda to prevent, punish, and remedy bigoted online abuse that make equality in our digital age “more of a slogan than a reality.” As she documented, the Internet has “all too often reflected and reinforced the offline world’s power imbalances.” Cyber harassers “raise the price” women, sexual minorities, and other members of historically subordinated groups “have to pay to engage with others on- and offline by forcing them to suffer a destructive combination of threats, reputation-harming defamation aimed to interfere with their employment opportunities, privacy invasions, and denial-of-service attacks because of their gender, race, or sexual preference,” she explained. (source)

That was stupid then, and it is stupid now — the notion that online harassment is in any way more focused on anyone by virtue of their race or genitalia. That might have been the case back when there were no women on the Internet. But, even then. Monica Lewinsky claims to be “patient zero” with this shit, and who was her key tormentor? Linda fucking Tripp. And case after case after case shows that harassers are often women, and frankly, more of the serious cases are involving women doing the harassing.

That is in no way intended to mean that I believe that it is 180 degrees from what the “Cyber Civil Rights” idiots think. They’re 90 degrees off, not 180. If we kicked all men off the Internet for a year, I would not imagine that things would improve, at all. Trying to make this a gender issue might serve a publication agenda — because academia loves that shit — but that’s the only thing it serves. It sure as hell does not serve any quest for truth.

So with that as a backdrop, we find this. At least one journalist seems surprised that the first conviction under Virginia’s revenge porn law is a woman. As she is someone whose exposure to revenge porn is probably limited to reading a few stupid blog posts and press releases, coupled with the male stereotypes that she probably carries (fairly, I suppose), her surprise is not all that surprising.

But, when we look at what happened here, is anyone really surprised? News reports about the conviction describe the perpetrator’s motives in pretty familiar terms.

“Waynesboro Police Sergeant Brian Edwards said, “What was the intent of Ms. Craig for posting this? She considered the victim a romantic rival for this one individual’s affections and she said that she did it out of anger.” (source). See also (source)

Yes, there are dickless creeps (I refuse to call them “men”) out there who are behind revenge porn sites, and who distribute the crap. In fact, I’m confident saying that more than half of the perpetrators are dickless creeps. But, a pretty good chunk of them are women — exhibiting some pretty negative feminine type behavior — the whole “woman scorned” thing is a rotten stinky thing. And, just like some people exhibit really shitty behaviors, which are more likely when you have XY chromosomes, there are other really shitty behaviors that come with the ol’ XX model.

So, to answer this bubble headed “journalist”, I will say “No, No I am not surprised.” What I am surprised at is that anyone still buys this bullshit simple narrative of its “boys against the girls.”

That isn’t helpful.

And, I won’t accept the opposite either. Any commenters who say “yeah, it’s all the bitches” can go fuck themselves in advance.

Curing ignorance. It is not really in vogue, but lets give it a whirl, if you’re not too busy.

Update: This sums it up perfectly.

___________________
(1) For those of you who don’t know what that means, Andrea Dworkin and Katherine MacKinnon are legal scholars (I use the term loosely) who are alternately credited with the idiotic statement that “all heterosexual sex is rape.” While we are trying to dispel bullshit here, lets do that in all directions. Neither Katherine MacKinnon nor Andrea Dworkin ever actually said those words. The Straight Dope has a good summary of it — here, with links.

Mayer Brown, shame on you. (日本、ストライサンド効果へようこそ)

The offensive statue.
Photo Courtesy of Melissa Wall, Ph.D. under a creative commons license.

Every law firm gets confronted (on a pretty regular basis) with the question: “should I put my name on this?”

That soul searching comes into play when you wonder, “is this honorable?” You know when it is, and when it isn’t.

I’m not talking about representing a client that you know is guilty — they deserve a defense. I’m not talking about representing a really evil client — because there might be an important legal issue in play.

I’m talking about when you do something truly disgusting.

That bar is pretty low. Despite the lawyer jokes, I have encountered few lawyers who have ever even approached that line.

If a law firm takes on the Nazi party as a client, in furtherance of some greater good, I do not look down on them. Nobody should. Represent a child pornographer? I can see plenty of justification there. There is almost no cause that doesn’t have some justification.

But, sometimes you gotta say “no.” Or, at least if you say “yes,” you must do so with class and dignity.

For example, if you represent a child molester, that is ok. You take it on from the point of “I may not condone what my client did, but he has a right to a defense.” But, if you put in your pleadings “the kid had it coming to him, he just looked so fucking sexy in that altar boy outfit,” well then… you are a dishonorable and filthy-taint-licking-piece-of-shit.

Ok, got that? That is the bar you need to step over. It doesn’t take strong leg muscles.

I’m sort of disappointed that I have to draw that distinction for anyone. But, I come to you with proof that this lesson is actually necessary.

Mayer Brown brings you this masterpiece— a lawsuit where they are trying remove a memorial for World War II “comfort women” from a public park. You see, it “offends” some of their clients. The cause itself is a bit slimy, but how they’re going about it qualifies them as “the least honorable law firm in the world.”

For those of you who do not know what the “comfort women” were — they were about 200,000 women (some say as many as 400,000) who were forced into working in whorehouses for Japanese soldiers during World War II. (source)

Many were abducted, and some were barely in their teens. “I was taken at the age of 11,” one former sex slave Kim Young-suk said.(source)

As you can imagine, these women were not terribly pleased with this treatment. And, wouldn’t you know it, but some of them are still all harping on the past.

The few surviving comfort women, all in their 80s and 90s, cry foul.

“I was walking along the side of the road when I was captured and taken away,” says Ok-Seon Yi.

It was 1942, and Japanese and Korean soldiers grabbed her and threw her in the back of a truck. Her family never knew what happened to her, she said, and gave her up for dead. She spent three years at a military brothel in China. She was 15.

She’s 87 now and lives in a home for survivors like her outside of Seoul. She’s tiny, with white hair, frail and quiet — until the subject turns to Japan.

She shakes her fist. “The Japanese government are thieves,” she says. “They’re trying to rewrite history.

“They have no right to take away my honor and dignity,” she adds.

She says she’s thankful for the memorials in the United States, and says America is the only country that can right the historic wrong. (source)

So in comes Mayer Brown to try and put and end to this outrage. Not the outrage of forcing a couple hundred thousand girls and women to suck the cocks of filthy imperial soldiers, mind you — but the atrocious conduct that happened in the City of Glendale, California. You see, the City of Glendale has done something awful — it put up a memorial to the “comfort women.”

“They were raped maybe 10 times a day. On weekends, as many as 40 to 50 times a day. The majority of them were teenagers,” says Phyllis Kim, who as part of Los Angeles’ Korean-American Forum helped bring the statue to Glendale. “There are victims who are still alive, and waiting for an apology.” (source)

This little statue does not sit well with… well, lets scratch our heads for a minute about that, shall we? Who are Mayer Brown’s “clients” in this lawsuit?

Two of the plaintiffs are Japanese-Americans who live in Glendale. The third plaintiff is an “organization” called “GAHT-US.”

Plaintiff GAHT-US Corporation (“GAHT-US”) is a non-profit public benefit corporation organized under the laws of the State of California. The purpose of GAHT-US is to provide accurate and fact-based educational resources to the public in the U.S., including within California and Glendale, concerning the history of World War II and related events, with an emphasis on Japan’s role. (Complaint at Para. 7)

Well, if we look for GAHT-US (The “Global Alliance for Historical Truth”), what do we find? We find that it is a corporation that someone created on February 6, 2014. After 14 days of legal existence, this lawsuit was GAHT-US’s first act — well after slapping up a web page.

This “Global Alliance’s” address is 1223 Wilshire Boulevard #613. That’s a UPS Store.

The world headquarters of GAHT-US

Ok, so with that illustrious organization out of the way, lets look at the two people that they managed to get to stand up for this noble cause…

As a Glendale resident of Japanese heritage, [Michiko Shiota Gingery] believes the Public Monument presents an unfairly one-sided portrayal of the historical and political debate surrounding comfort women…” (Complaint at 2).

The other Plaintiff, Koichi Mera, had similar gripes. I do see their point. I mean, on one side you have all these women who were kept in sexual slavery and essentially gang raped for 4-5 years. But, where is the side of the poor Japanese soldiers who had to fuck them? What of them? Have you ever had to fuck a woman who was captive and crying? I mean, think of it? Those poor Japanese rapist soldiers. The fact that nobody thinks of the other side in this discussion is really distressing. Bravo, Mayer Brown, Bravo.

Additionally, the Plaintiffs are upset because the monument offends them. They “would like to use Glendale’s Central Park,” but they now avoid the park because they are offended by the Public Monument’s pointed expression of disapproval of Japan and the Japanese people.(Complaint at 2, 4)

Guess what? I bet the City of Glendale actually loves Japan and the Japanese People. Aside from the fact that they seem to have a disproportionately large number of scat porn enthusiasts (second only to Germany), and this little “comfort women” thing, the Japanese are a-ok by me. For fucks’ sake, they gave us Godzilla. After being the only country to ever get nuked into the stone age, they staggered around for about 18 months, and then they kicked the entire world’s ass at technology, amassing wealth and power on a level that it took 17 Italians to equal the productivity and innovation of one Japanese high school girl with a Hello Kitty purse.

But yes, we all have our blemishes — and government-organized mass rape is a pretty bad one.

So if the consequence of such a sick-as-fuck act is that there’s a bronze statue in the corner of some obscure park 10,000 miles from the nearest piece of Japanese territory, I think that’s pretty fair.

Ok, so their clients are offended and rich, (I presume the rich part). The complaint has at least some rational points. They seem frivolous, but not completely off the wall. One part of the complaint discusses how this memorial interferes with the foreign relations between the United States, Japan, and South Korea. (Complaint at 14). I’m not saying it is a supportable argument, as Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312 (1988) seems to dispense with the key point here. In that case, a D.C. ordinance sought to suppress speech that might chafe foreign powers. This is a little different, since it is private citizens trying to suppress governmental speech, but the core of the matter is the same — smooth foreign relations are not a sufficient justification to suppress speech.

The complaint also makes one rational argument –That the monument went in without the proper procedure being followed before the Glendale City Council. (Complaint at 16). I have to agree with this one (if it is true) — cities should not be engaging in ultra vires acts. And, the complaint could have made those arguments, stating that the complaint was brought reluctantly. Or, just lay off the victims, but make the dull legal points.

But no.

No.

Instead, Mayer Brown put its name to gems like this:

During World War II and the decade leading up to it, an unknown number of women from Japan, Korea, China, and a number of nations in Southeast Asia, were recruited, employed, and/or otherwise acted as sexual partners for troops of the Japanese Empire in various parts of the Pacific Theater of war. These women are often referred to as comfort women, a loose translation of the Japanese word for prostitute. (Complaint at Para. 14) (emphasis added)

You know… “whores.” They just “acted as sexual partners.”

I mean, lets just call them what they really were, BATTLE SLUTS!!!

Right now, my face is figuratively bright red and in searing pain from the epic facepalming that I am imagining doing to myself.

The complaint reads like a who’s who of hypocritical trash. Yoshikazu Noda, the poor mayor of Higashiosaka, Glendale’s sister city is quoted as saying that the installation of the monument was “an extremely deplorable situation and the people of Higashiosaka are hurt at a decision made by [Glendale] city to install a comfort woman monument.” (Complaint at Para. 38).

Awwww… does it hurt, Noda? Can you describe the pain? Is it anything like being kidnapped, and then being raped repeatedly, every day, for four or five years? Does it hurt like that? Or just like when you step on a Lego brick in the middle of the night — because that, I tell you, absolutely fucking smarts.

The Plaintiffs want the monument removed and kept off of any and all public property in Glendale, and of course, they want money. (Complaint at 17).

I will give them some credit — at least the complaint did not call for all the remaining comfort women to be rounded up and shipped off to Manzanar.

Despite that small bit of tactful omission, I have never seen anything this dishonorable with a law firm’s name attached to it. I’ve seen dumber shit. I’ve seen more frivolous shit. I’ve seen more unethical shit. But, never seen anything this foul or shameful with a law firm’s name attached to it.

The silver lining in this? Mayer Brown’s abject stupidity and dishonorable behavior will bring their clients into complete disrepute (which they deeply deserve), and will educate more people than ever on the history of the “comfort women.” The “comfort women” have already won this battle – and they aren’t even really on the field.

Don’t let the bastards get you down, “Comfort Women”… Mayer Brown just made your critics into complete laughingstocks.

UPDATE: Looks like Popehat is pissed off about it too

I have written about many maddening lawsuits at Popehat. But I cannot remember a lawsuit that so immediately repulsed and enraged me. (source)

Greg Lukianoff: How Campus Censorship Breeds Incivility, An interview with Wendy Kaminer

I am both psyched and honored that Marc asked me to contribute to The Legal Satyricon. I am a First Amendment lawyer and president of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Marc and I know each other through the First Amendment Lawyers Association, a group of bad-ass attorneys that have devoted their careers to defending the rights that make all other freedoms possible.

For my first post, I’d like to debut a great new interview I did earlier this year with author and Atlantic columnist (and FIRE Board of Advisors member) Wendy Kaminer. Wendy is a no-nonsense defender of civil liberties who shares a deep understanding of why campus censorship—the field in which I work—should concern everyone right, left, and center.

The interview includes discussion of everything from the rise of wildly broad bullying policies, to the role of pop psychology in leading to the campus-speech-codes movement, to how campus censorship interferes with opportunities for students to develop critical thinking skills (a point I hit repeatedly in my new book Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate. All royalties from the sale of the book go to FIRE, by the way).

I thought her point here was particularly interesting:

There is this trend towards protecting students from whatever is considered offensive or insulting or uncivil speech. And the consequence of that is that they get out into the world and they don’t know how to argue. I’m afraid we’re going to be plagued for a very long time by these mindless, stupid mindless shouting matches that now dominate our political debate.

You know, it’s one of the ironies of this drive for civility that when you label argument or any kind of offensiveness as incivility and you write all these civility codes and you discourage people from vigorously arguing or engaging in satire that makes fun of other people or makes fun of their sacred cows. The irony is that you end up encouraging incivility because people don’t know how to argue. They don’t know what to do when confronted with an idea they really don’t like. They don’t have an administrator they go complain to, and so they just shout it down because they haven’t learned how to do anything else.

Sing it, Wendy.

Both Wendy and I fully agree that civility, otherwise known as “politeness,” has some value, but it is nowhere near in value to the crucial role of debate, discussion, and candor in a free society. I think she is right when she says that attempts to force civility actually foster group polarization and what I call in my book, an unscholarly certainty about complex issues.

I encourage readers to check out Wendy’s recent column about a controversy at Harvard where, as is often the case in my experience, the campus interpreted an obvious piece of satire and social commentary to mean precisely the opposite of what it almost certainly meant (and don’t take my word for it, the experts over at Comedy Central agree, as well.

In closing, Marc suggested I just come out and ask that you support FIRE. No nonprofit works harder or gets more done with less than this little organization that punches way above its weight. Thanks again to Marc, have a happy new year, and I hope to write again after I get back from my long-delayed honeymoon in late January.

-Editor’s note – we put our money where our mouth is. I donated to FIRE this year. I urge you to as well.

Federal Circuit’s COCKSUCKER Decision Sucks

As many long-time readers know, Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act is one of my pet peeves. This is the section of the Trademark Act that gives pretty much unfettered discretion to a trademark examiner to deny a trademark registration on the basis that the mark itself is “immoral” or “scandalous.” The Federal Circuit just decided In Re Fox, in which it reaffirmed some very bad law, and in which it lacked the integrity to address some Constitutional fictions upon which most 2(a) denials are based.

“[n]o trademark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from the goods of others shall be refused registration on the principal register on account of its nature unless it[] (a) [c]onsists of or comprises immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter.” 15 U.S.C. § 1052.

One of the most absurd elements of a 2(a) denial is that the evidentiary standard is so open to abuse. An examiner may prove “immorality” or “scandalousness” by simply establishing that the mark is “vulgar.” In re Boulevard Entm’t, Inc., 334 F.3d 1336, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Essentially, if the examiner finds a single online dictionary or chat board where someone says “that’s vulgar,” then that is usually enough for the examiner, the TTAB, and the Federal Circuit.

So, another 2(a) denial is just a “ho hum” event. But, this portion of the opinion shows just how little respect the Federal Circuit has for Constitutional issues. I mean, come on guys, at least try and make it look like you didn’t just mail it in.

The prohibition on “immoral . . . or scandalous” trademarks was first codified in the 1905 revision of the trademark laws, see Act of Feb. 20, 1905, Pub. L. No. 58- 84, § 5(a), 33 Stat. 724, 725. This court and its predeces- sor have long assumed that the prohibition “is not an attempt to legislate morality, but, rather, a judgment by the Congress that [scandalous] marks not occupy the time, services, and use of funds of the federal government.” In re Mavety Media Grp. Ltd., 33 F.3d 1367, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (quotation marks omitted). Because a refusal to register a mark has no bearing on the applicant’s ability to use the mark, we have held that § 1052(a) does not implicate the First Amendment rights of trade- mark applicants. See id. (Op. at 2)

I find it outrageous not just because the court is wrong, but because the court was so glib and dismissive of the First Amendment.

Trademarks propose a commercial transaction; speech that proposes a commercial transaction is “commercial speech” and thus subject to First Amendment protection. Virginia State Bd. Of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 762 (1976). Trademarks convey messages about the type, cost and quality of the product or service associated with the mark. See Friedman v. Rogers, 440 U. S. 1, 11 (1979). The trademark is a tightly targeted bit of expressive activity that seeks to persuade a potential customer to choose one product over another, either due to the identification of goods or to the communicative element of the trademark itself.

Thus far, all USPTO decisions regarding the constitutionality of Section 2(A) rely upon the improperly decided case In re Robert L. McGinley, 660 F.2d 41 (Fed Cir. 1981).

McGinley is where we get the idea that since trademark applicants are still free to use the trademarks, then there is no abridgment of speech if your trademark is denied registration due to its content. However, this reasoning is simply shoddy and contrary to a body of First Amendment jurisprudence. For example, in striking down New York’s “Son of Sam” law, which prohibited criminals from profiting from writing books about their crimes, the Supreme Court held “[a] statute is presumptively inconsistent with the First Amendment if it imposes a financial burden on speakers because of the content of their speech.” Simon & Schuster v. New York State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 115 (1991). In the Son of Sam case, the authors were still free to write, but were denied the financial benefits of their labors. That was the end of that law. This appears to completely dispense with the McGinley reasoning.

Bad Frog Brewery, Inc. v. New York States Liquor Authority, 134 F.3d 87 (2d Cir. 1998) analyzed a similar issue. In that case, the appellant sought to use a trademark of a frog giving the finger. The Second Circuit held that since trademarks are commercial speech, prohibition on use of so-called “offensive” trademarks did not advance the stated governmental purpose of protecting children from vulgarity or promoting temperance, nor was it narrowly tailored to serve that purpose. Not binding on the Fed. Cir., but I think that the Fed. Cir. is the wrong place to challenge McGinley. There is no indication that the Fed. Cir. will ever admit that it was wrong in McGinley, and every time it gets a chance, it doubles down.

Finally, there can be no clearer authority for the death of Section 2(a) than Lawrence v. Texas. (“The fact a State’s governing majority has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.”)

“Morality” is not a valid reason to confer or deny a governmental benefit – instead the government must articulate a reason why registration of a mark might be harmful, and then apply that reason to the particular circumstances at hand, in a narrow manner. The government has done none of this in this case, nor in any other 2(a) denial.

2(a) Delendum Est!

Anonymous Comes for Hunter Moore – Moore’s Man Card Revoked

Anonymous has now targeted Hunter Moore.

In a release published today, Anon writes:

Greetings citizens of the world, We are Anonymous.

This is a call to all Anonymous worldwide, you have a chance to make a real difference in the lives of hundreds of bullied teenagers and protect them from real harm such as rape or stalking.

Hunter Moore, Founder of previous revenge pornography site http://www.isanyoneup.com is coming back stronger than ever from the shutdown of his previous website. This capitalist makes money off of the misery of others.

People submit pictures of others naked to his website and he posted their social networking profiles along with the pictures.

This time he is taking it a step further and plans to list physical addresses next to the victims pictures along with a map to their house, self proclaiming that he has singlehandedly enabled the stalking of hundreds.

His servers are up. he already has domains he is secretly testing and will go public soon. He hides behind a loophole of section 230 of the United States online decency act which states he cannot be held legally accountable for third party submitted content.

This is a call to all of anonymous. We Will hold hunter moore accountable for his actions, we will protect anyone who is victimized by abuse of our internet, we will prevent the stalking, rape, and possible murders as byproduct of his sites.

Operation Anti-Bully. Operation Hunt Hunter engaged. We are Anonymous, we are Legion, we do not Forgive, we do not Forget, Hunter Moore, EXPECT US. (source)

I applaud them for it. I do have one issue with the missive — I don’t think that Moore is as protected by Section 230 as he likes to believe.

But, lets set the legal issues aside for this post: Moore is a douchebag, and deserves everything that Anonymous may throw at him. Here’s why:

Once upon a time, girls weren’t all paranoid about being raped, having shit slipped in their drink, or being stalked. Then, douchebags discovered rohypnol, stalking, etc., which ushered in a new era of “Why has this asshole just showed up at my table with a drink in his hand? Does he think I’m an idiot?”

Now, thanks to these clowns, you need to convince the girl that she should have sex with you AND that you’re not going to rape her or cut her into little pieces. Girls who were once approachable are scared to death to even have a conversation with you in a bar. All because of douchebags who need to circumvent rejection with drugs. And stalking. Lots and lots of stalking.

The douchebag’s MO is to shit out a cloud of fear. That cloud of fear supports an ecosystem that only benefits two kinds of people — other douchebags and second-wave feminists who absolutely love women in fear, because it makes their bullshit message resonate with just enough terrified women to keep a few of them signing up for their classes. Never forget the best way to control behavior is through FEAR. Just like the TSA, fear creates a justification for existence. There is the implied message of “If you challenge me, I’ll fucking spank you, so you better choose wisely.” But, if you take away fear, the assholes evaporate.

Involuntary Porn sites (like those run by Hunter Moore, Eric Chanson, Craig Brittain, and Chance Trahan) are the online equivalent of the asshole who goes to a bar with roofies in his pocket, or who stalks a girl who won’t give him the time of day. They punish all women through fear because they got rejected by their high school prom date or some chick in a bar or…whatever. They get off on the smell of fear and the resultant power over a woman and this is the drug that gives them the warm tinglys.

Imagine if no women had to live in fear of a shithead ex-boyfriend or these dickless fucks. Forget the morality of what they do, if you want, and think about from a purely utilitarian / economic perspective. Without these nimrods, a woman would always feel comfortable letting you take naked pictures of her. Women would feel comfortable sending you those pics as a “hey good morning” present. More naked pictures of girls means a better world for everyone, in my humble opinion.

Real men don’t get off on scaring women. Real men get off on trying to take that fear away.

Not because we are nice, or chivalrous. OK, some of us are, but more importantly, it’s because we want more naked pics and Hunter More and Craig Brittain are fucking with that.

So fuck you, Hunter Moore. Fuck you, Eric Chanson. Fuck you, Chance Trahan. And Fuck you, Craig Brittain.

Any man who gets off on putting women in fear loses his man card.

Good hunting, Anonymous.

This Message Brought to You By the World’s Biggest Drag

Earlier this month, the State Department’s Chief Diversity Officer, John Robinson, admonished us all to watch what we say because, yet again, somebody somewhere might be offended. Source. (see column entitled “Diversity Notes”, beginning on P. 8)

Most people are already familiar with the term “handicap” and why those who take issue with it do so. Similarly, anyone who’s seen the Boondock Saints knows the consequences of using “Rule of Thumb”. But also added to the growing list of verboten phrases are: “Hold down the fort” for being offensive to Native Americans, “Black and Tan” for being insensitive to the Irish, and “Going Dutch” for portraying Nederlanders as cheap.

I guess a PhD in obscure history and phrase etymology are now prerequisites to stay off the PC Police’s radar. To be honest, I find Mr. Robinson’s dusting off of that terrible 1990’s phrase “NOT!” more egregious than any of the new inductees to the PC handbook.

No apologies to NHRA racing enthusiasts who may take offense to being compared to something that is un-fun.

CNN Debate: Should FCC Boot Rush Limbaugh From the Airwaves?

On the side of kicking him off the air, Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem.

On the side of protecting his right to free speech, Marc J. Randazza.

This is not the same debate over whether the subject of his diatribe has a valid defamation claim against him. I wrote about that here.

The Southern Poverty Law Center Takes on Male Centric Blogs – Receives Bloody Nose

The SPLC is, by most measurements, a noble organization. However, just like the ACLU, it seems to be suffering from mission creep. It recently rounded up a number of male-centric blogs and decided to add them to its blacklist.

One of them, so far, “A Voice For Men” fought back. Not by filing a defamation suit (which it might have had a legal right to) but by adding more speech to the marketplace of ideas. A Voice For Men published this “Open Letter to Richard Cohen of the SPLC.”

AVFM – 1
SPLC – 0

Sandra Fluke is not a “slut” (just a liar)

Apparently, Rush Limbaugh found Sandra Fluke’s bullshit slinging on Capitol Hill to be worthy of disrespect. (so did I) He called her a slut (I did not), which of course, brought about the shrill screeching of harpies.

Nancy Pelosi had this to say:

“When Sandra Fluke testified before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee after Republicans attempted to silence, she courageously spoke truth to power. As a result, today, she has been subject to attacks that are outside the circle of civilized discussion and that unmask the strong disrespect for women held by some in this country. We call upon the Republican leaders in the House to condemn these vicious attacks on Ms. Fluke, which are in response to her testimony to the Congress. Democrats will always stand up for women’s health and women’s voices.”

Of course, if Sandra Fluke was speaking “truth to power,” then she wouldn’t have lied about needing $1,000 a year for birth control. If she was telling the truth, then that means she’s getting banged more than 1,000 times a year, if that’s for condoms. (Georgetown’s health insurance covers birth control for non birth control purposes) I’d say that would qualify her as a “slut” if true and we’re using the common usage of that term, but it more likely qualifies her as a liar (and not a slut) — so the “truth to power” shit doesn’t fly. (Update: For more on this, check out this Reason Article).

For the record, I don’t think she’s a slut — I think she lied about how much she needs for contraception — and further for the record, I have nothing against sluts. Lying assed bitches, on the other hand, I don’t think too highly of. (and she may not even be bitchy — but it fits the song).

Fluke said:

“No woman deserves to be disrespected in this manner. This language is an attack on all women, and has been used throughout history to silence our voices.”

See what she did there? She’s using the feminist law professors play book. She puts her bunk out there and she gets criticized for it. Where does she run for shelter? “The bad boys used bad words.” She puts on the victorian clutching pearls and screeches that she’s being attacked because she is a woman. If she can turn it from an attack on her into an attack on all women, then Rush loses.

This just proves that she’s even dumber than she first seemed. Honestly, when you have a target as soft as Rush, why bring the idiot gun? If any woman I respected ever got called a “slut” by Rush Limbaugh, we’d all have a hell of a laugh about it. “You mean that fat fuck pill head hypocrite?” A nice response would have been “as we all know, a whore fucks everybody and a slut fucks everybody but YOU.” I dunno, something trite and cliche like that, to show that Rush Limbaugh’s idiocy rolls off your back.

No, instead she played the “if you criticize me, you hate all women” card. The only one dumber than her is the worthless law professor who told her to say that. (and I guarantee you that one did).

Here’s where Rush went wrong: Why criticize a woman for being a slut? Sluts are awesome. We here at the Legal Satyricon embrace all sluts (or whores, as it were) and welcome them to practice their craft with impunity. Sandra Fluke is no slut. For christ sakes, look at her! No slut dresses like that. A slut would know how to get a guy to pay for her birth control. A slut would know how to talk to men — who ultimately are the ones she needs to convince. No, this is no slut. This is just an overprivileged liar who got coached by other overprivileged liars. In turn, those overprivileged liars didn’t do a good job of preparing her for her presentation. Thats what happens when you prepare by only speaking to your victim studies classes — everyone pats you on the back and nods their heads. Then, one day, you have to deal with real people who will view what you say with a critical eye. Then you get slammed.

The really sad part is that Fluke, by lying, really did a disservice to a noble cause. Insurance companies and employers should not be able to say they object to certain medical expenses on “moral” grounds. (I’d say a private school ought to be able to, but that’s another discussion). The position she was out there to support is the right one. But, she decided to lie and to over dramatize the situation. In doing so, she made herself look stupid, and she did a grave disservice to her cause. Now, by trying to turn it into a feminist issue about naughty language, she’s doing even more damage. She should just shut the fuck up and let a woman who knows what she’s doing take her place.

Sandra Fluke isn’t being attacked by Rush Limbaugh (or anyone else) because she’s a woman. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t want to silence Ann Coulter, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, or (until recently) Olympia Snowe. She’s being attacked because she’s an idiot and a liar.

If she were just a slut, the whole world would love her. Nobody really minds a slut. Nobody, not Rush Limbaugh and not me, and not anyone sensible, suffer lyin’ assed bitches lightly.

Happy Halloweenie!

Up next from the “Chrissakes will you lighten up” department: It takes a special group of people to try to ruin Halloween. A handful of college students in Ohio (who have likely never had sex with a partner) are protesting certain Halloween costumes. Source. Their “I’m a culture, not a costume” ad campaign has a sufficiently forlorn looking collection of ethnically diverse students next to Halloween costumes that portray their particular ethnic background while holding a sign that says“This is not who I am and this is NOT OKAY”. There’s an asian chick in front of a geisha costume, a middle eastern guy in front of a terrorist costume,  a latino guy in front of a pistolero costume- you get the idea.

Since whitey didn’t make it into the campaign, may I, on behalf of my Norwegian brothers and sisters, be the first to protest the slutty Viking motif being peddled by these guys?  I can assure you Viking women never wore silver pleather. MAD FACE! And my catholic friend takes issue with the priest / nun costumes. Nuns don’t wear fishnet stockings! That’s offensive! My Wiccan buddy most definitely does NOT have green skin and PETA just called. Don’t even think about dressing up as a cat this year. What’s next? No “Occupy Wall Street” costumes because it’s insensitive to hippies? These are the kind of assholes that hand out apples and scented erasers to trick-R-treaters instead of candy.

Can Connecticut take porn from its prisoners? Should it?

Many concerns come to mind when someone thinks about spending time in prison.  First and foremost, there is always the risk of being shanked with a very, very sharp toothbrush.  For the financial criminals, there is the distinct shame of being bested by Bernie Madoff in a game of badminton.  This is to say nothing for the fable of being made someone’s bitch. But what about a lack of porn?

Connecticut’s prisons were very tolerant of pornography in its prisons until recently. (source.)  Now that the Connecticut prisons are pulling the plug on this entertainment, the inmates are threatening to sue.  This is not isolated to the Northeast, either, as a Michigan man filed suit over a guard’s refusal to provide him with pornography, claiming the guard’s action violated his constitutional rights. (source.)

Not to put too dull of an edge on it, but prisons can basically do what they please to inmates. Correctional facilities have staked out the lowest standard of review available under law.  Prisons can enact policies that run counter to prisoners’ First Amendment rights as long as the regulations are rationally related to a legitimate penological interest, a standard that has consistently led to judicial affirmation of anti-pornography policies in the big house. Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 413 (1989); Smith v. Dept. of Corrections, 219 Or. App. 192, 198, 182 P.3d 250 (2008).  In contrast, the next-lowest standard of review – and generally the lowest for non-prisoners – is rational basis review, where a government action must be rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest to be constitutional (and intended as such – no post hoc analysis is allowed).

Courts review a prison’s limitation on the inmates’ First Amendment rights by using the three-prong reasonableness test enunciated in Thornburgh:

1. whether the governmental objective underlying the regulations at issue is legitimate and neutral, and whether the regulations are rationally related to that objective;
2. whether there are alternative means of exercising the right that remain open to prison inmates at de minimis cost to penological interests; and
3. the impact that accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on others (guards and inmates) in the prison

490 U.S. at 414-18 (citing Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 85 (1987)); Owen v. Wille, 117 F.3d 1235, 1237 (11th Cir. 1997).

As seem in prong 3, rehabilitation interests of prisoners are not all that may be, or is, considered when evaluating these policies.  Courts have found that preventing the harassment of employees who work in the prison is a valid justification for a limitation on sexually explicit materials among inmates. See, e.g., Mauro v. Arpaio, 188 F.3d 1054, 1059 (9th Cir. 1999).

The reach of these policies has been broad. In Washington v. Werholtz, 2008 WL 4998689 (Kan. App. 2008), the Kansas appellate court upheld a policy that banned all sexually explicit material, which included any display, actual or simulated, or description of a variety of acts, including intercourse and masturbation.  While such a policy will cover Larry Flynt’s oeuvre, it will also ban trashy romance novels and some important works of fiction, such as L’ Histoire d’ O.

As long ago as 1989, Iowa grappled with this issue, which made its way into the New York Times.  Under Iowa’s policy, only inmates who had been psychologically screened and approved to view the material – with prisoners whom prison psychologists believed would be obsessed with the material being denied access to it. (source.)  The policy drew a bizarre distinction between how various forms of pornography were treated; inmates who could view porn were allowed to keep “soft-core” content in their cells, while hardcore content was only viewable in a well-supervised reading room.  One then-inmate complained that the reading room was impossible to enjoy under this policy, as the guards filed through the area as if it were a freeway – denying him any privacy in which to evaluate the materials.

In 2006, Indiana instituted a similar policy.  The Indiana Commissioner of the Department of Corrections previously explained that state’s pornography prohibition as something in the interest of both inmates and facility employees.  The Commissioner’s explanation appeals to stay at home moms everywhere, exempting medical and anthropological instances of nudity, but adopts an “I know it when I see it” definition of pornography. (source.)  Ultimately, Indiana’s restrictions amount to subjective, content-based limitations determined by what individuals find stimulating, as opposed to some objective standard by which the content can be evaluated, such as penetration. (Id.)

I strongly disagree with these policies.  While I have not been incarcerated in prison, I question the harmful effects pornography can have on its inmates, and am deeply troubled by the broad sweep that these policies can have – swallowing up non-explicit materials that have considerable value.  While prison exists to deny agency to its inmates, one cannot help but wonder if these policies beg the question about pornography’s supposed harmfulness.  In fact, research shows that more porn = less rape.  While there are other covariants at play, as everyone who has read Freakonomics knows, the results of isolating pornography and analyzing the porn-rape relationship have been in porn’s favor.  Beyond rape, the gratification of pornography may replace or inhibit other criminal or undesired activities as well.  In short, the premises that prison guards’ penological interests rest upon – that porn is bad and makes people do bad things – are beginning to be proven as bullshit.

When I debated the Indiana commissioner on Fox News, his rationale was to “promote public safety in Indiana.” Give me a break. Is Mary Homemaker “safer” because a convict doesn’t have a porn mag? He also stated that he wanted to see his prisoners devote their time to more constructive pursuits. This being Fox, I didn’t get a chance to cross examine him, but I presume he didn’t mean ass-raping one another. The biggest load of bullshit he slung was the meme that prisons need to ban porn because they want to promote a non-harassing environment for prison guards.

Seriously? You want to be a prison guard, but you can’t handle the sight of a guy reading Hustler? I got news for you if you’re “offended” by the sight of a guy jacking it to porn — you can’t handle being a security guard at a candy store, let alone being a prison guard.

The rationale for these bans clearly has nothing to do with “safety,” and it has nothing to do with the feminist-imposed “hostile work environment” bullshit. It has to do with an erotophobic attitude, fostered by superstition, and then fertilized with the crap of cheap political points.

Nonetheless, prisons have erected a high wall around themselves, their guards, and their asinine policies.  In a way, it is logically consistent for an enterprise that exists largely as a consequence of unjust and counterproductive policies such as the war on drugs to have special legal protection allowing it to further screw the people entrusted to its care. See Thornburgh, 490 U.S. at 407 (describing modern prison administration as an “inordinately difficult undertaking”).  As such, challenged to these policies, however well deserved and meritorious they are, seldom succeed.

This is COLUMBUS DAY!!!

Pick another day, Crybabies!!!!

This is COLUMBUS DAY.

I’d like to invite anyone whose name ends with a vowel (Persians excluded) to raise their hands, extend their middle fingers, and flip off the Native Americans, the hippies, and everyone else in the International Association of Crybabies who has a piss and a moan about Christopher Columbus.

This is not “indigenous people’s day,” it is not “la dia de la raza” and it isn’t frigging “wear a beret, listen to Joni Mitchell, and wear patchoulli day.”

To the “Native Americans” who have a beef with Columbus Day — suck it. First off, it isn’t as though you sprang from the goddamned earth in Foxwoods. You’re immigrants too. You just wandered across ice to get here. We took boats. You were here first? I give a fuck? In fact, you’re at best the third wave of “Indians” to get here. What happened to the other two? You fuckers killed them. So get off your high horses or whatever you were riding before the Spanish brought horses here.

There was a war. You lost. That’s how it works. That’s why the Celts wound up living in Ireland, Scotland, and every shitty rain-soaked crag in which they could cling to life — because they lost wars. That’s why nobody speaks Gaulish or whatever Vercingetorix spoke. They lost the damn war.

Sorry you crybaby fucks. That’s what happens when you LOSE A WAR. Trust me, the Italians know how you feel. We suck at wars. We used to be awesome at them. That ended some time around 400 A.D. Since then, the Italians are the Chicago Cubs of warfare. (But you’re the Padres)

Tons of us came here to get away from the consequences of being really shitty at fighting wars. It worked out for us. We gave the world the thermometer, barometer, piano, electric battery, nitroglycerin, eyeglasses, the radio, and The Telephone.

We turned ghettoes into neighborhoods where people would kill to have a studio apartment. (Yes, I know that is the Gays’ job now, but it used to be ours) We taught the mayonnaise-faces what good food tastes like. We gave America 39 Medal of Honor recipients. We gave America Filippo Mazzei, John Basilone, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bruce Springsteen, Vince Lombardi, and Gino the Ginny. You know what their middle names are? “Fuckin” that’s what.

We gave America its NAME for chrissakes.

You know what America gave us in exchange? A holiday. Good enough for us.

And you know what? America didn’t even give it to us, we took it. You know why? Because at the turn of the last century, Italians and other Catholic immigrants weren’t exactly what you would call “welcome” here. Yes, they used to lynch Italians too. So, the Catholics and Italians started organizations like the Knights of Columbus as a way to band together against the bigotry they encountered. They thought that by choosing Christopher Columbus as their symbol, it would show that if an Italian “discovered” America, then as Italians, they belonged here.

So you assholes can run your little left-wing crybaby agenda on any one of the 364 other days. I don’t give a damn if you managed to get every crap stained woodstock love child, fucking Peruvian flute band, and liberal academic to weep with you as you look at the pollution on the highway. This is our holiday, and you can kiss my ass if you have a problem with it.

Don’t get me wrong. I generally have nothing but love for my Native American brothers and sisters. (although obviously not on October 12) I think that they got a crappy deal. I’m with them when they get pissed off at the completely racist Cleveland Indians logo, and I don’t think you should call a team “The Redskins” if you wouldn’t call it “The Jigaboos” (yes, its the same damn thing). I think that America DOES owe the Native Americans a little something — and it ought to be something better than the right to build casinos. We owe them respect, help, and dammit, we ought to put a hell of a lot of effort into preserving their cultures.

This guy is actually SICILIAN.

But you know what, Tonto? If you have a beef, its with the British, the French, the Spanish, and the white-bread assholes who kicked your asses. Lord Jeffrey Amherst gave you the smallpox infected blankets, not Al Pacino. You picked a fight with the wrong people, because the Italians never did jack shit to you. So get the fuck off my holiday.

Personally, I don’t know why we’re all down on the Conquistadors anyhow. Leonidas killed 20,000 ill-equipped, poorly trained, forced-to-fight losers and we call him a hero for the ages. A couple hundred Spaniards kick the crap out of an entire empire of human sacrificing, child-raping, savage nutbags who make Jerry Falwell look sane, and we think it was an awful sin?

Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and then your lives started to suck. Boo hoo frigging hoo. The Conquistadors followed Columbus and took all the gold. Yeah that sucks. If the Mayans had seen the Spanish Inquisition, they’d have called it amateur hour. I got news for you, your lives sucked before Columbus got here.

You know what else sucks? When you screw with our holiday.

So here’s the deal. Take out the calendar. No, not that stupid Mayan one that is going to be worthless next year, the REAL calendar.

You want a holiday? Be my guest. Pick any day on the calendar except October 31, February 14, March 17, January 1, or July 4. I don’t even care if you want Christmas, but picking THAT will be a marketing nightmare.

You know which day would be an awesome Indigenous People’s Day? How about the Friday after Thanksgiving? Most of us have the day off anyhow. The pilgrims wouldn’t have survived without your help. So, the day after Thanksgiving, as we’re all resting up and glad that we have four days in a row off, we can thank you. Thank you for saving the Pilgrims’ asses. Thank you for basketball, and chewing gum, and chocolate. Thank you for potatoes and tomatoes. Thank you for the windtalkers. Thank you for really cool art. Thank you for whatever the hell else you did that was worthwhile. Thank you for not stabbing every person in a Cleveland Indians shirt. Thank you for not setting off bombs at Redskins games. Thank you for being pretty damn cool about one of the most royal screw jobs in the history of mankind.

But most of all, thank you for quitting your damn bitching about Columbus Day.

University Pig Decides She Will Not Tolerate a Challenge to her Authoritah

A professor at University of Wiconsin – Stout, put up a poster from the sci fi series, Firefly. The poster had some macho shit on it about where and when the character would kill one of his enemies. Some worthless fuckhead in the school’s administration (Lisa Walter, the chief of police) lost her shit, and hadthe cops come tear down the poster.

Miller was contacted by Lisa Walter, the chief of police/director of parking services, and informed that “it is unacceptable to have postings such as this that refer to killing.” She also warned the astounded professor that any future such posts would be removed and would cause him to be charged with disorderly conduct. (source)

So the professor put up this poster in its place:

And so Chief Walter said “ok, point taken,” and gave the professor back his original poster, and everyone learned a nice lesson about the First Amendment.

NAH, Just kidding.

Chief Walter decided that disobedience of her authoritah would not be tolerated, so she sent cops back to the professor’s classroom to tear down that poster too.

with Chief Walter claiming this time that the problem was that the poster “depicts violence and mentions violence or death.” She went on to say that “it is believed that this posting also has a reasonable expectation that it will cause a material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat.” Seriously. (source)

As if the Victim Studies departments on college campuses had not done enough damage to free expression, here come the TSA agent rejects. Fortunately, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is on the case.

Student Suspended for Saying Homosexuality is Wrong

A Texas teenager expressed his opinion that, since he is a “christian,” he believes that homosexuality is wrong. Makes sense. This magic space zombie jew created heaven and earth, but the thing that really makes him mad is if two guys’ dicks touch.

His teacher wrote him up for expressing his opinion, and the school suspended him.

I’m all for giving the kid a smackdown, but like his speech or not, it was his First Amendment right to express his opinion. As long as he wasn’t being disruptive in class (and nothing in the story indicates that he was), then it seems pretty clear that the school stepped over the line. There is a report that the kid often brings up the issue, any chance he gets, in an effort to harass his teacher (who he seems to think is gay). But, even then, suspending him for frequently expressing his opinion is troubling.

Unfortunately, the Dallas Voice, a LGBT website has jumped in on the side of the teacher. (source) I find it most unfortunate that the Dallas Voice is jumping in on the side of “its tribe,” instead of the greater principle of freedom of expression.

The cause of equality would be far better served by gay rights groups standing up in favor of the kid’s right to express himself.