NCFM NOTE: In the article below, Sex, Lies, and the War on Men, James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal tells it like it is and feminists fume, thank you very much.
But, James, you forgot to thank panties in a bunch Senator Claire McCaskill.
To true is your revelation that she’s holding up one of America’s best generals from promotion because the good [sic] Senator wants to bring attention to the problem of sexual assault in the military. As usual McCaskill and ilk rely exclusively on fabricated feminist advocacy statistics rocketed into the media by ever-expanding definitions of sexual assault to include things like snoring, using the wrong color French-Tickler, sex with socks on, and having to repeat yes 33 times under ten seconds before getting naked.
That said, we applaud Senator McCaskill as so should you Mr. Taranto; for without her steadfast shoveling feminist jurisprudence down the throat of the military and her condemnation of Lt. General Susan Helms for living up to her oath of office you would never have been so roundly castigated by the rat pack of misandric hypocrites who war on men with sex and lies. The same pack of hypocrites who condemn all forms of abuse, including hate speech by wagging the shame, blame, and guilt finger at men’s rights advocates when they, like you shine the light on their lies exposing them for who they really are…
Indignant they become after being unexpectedly roused from their protectively dark but comfortable hidey-holes. Exposed, they foam at the mouth with the only weapon they have when caught in the light of truth, hate speech. Or as you say Mr. Taranto,
“Some of the comments were just abusive. At the website of Cosmopolitan magazine, Natasha Burton called us a “freaking jackass.” Victoria Lee tweeted: “why is it always guys who look like Taranto, the ones who know crap about women, … try 2talk abt women.” We contrasted that tweet with one from Jessica Valenti (who was not referring to us): “Calling a feminist ‘ugly’ is generally the first response of humdrum misogynists and the last resort of covert ones.”
Sauce for the goose, we suppose. (Though we now need a gender-specific phrase for an argumentum ad hominem against a man, the male equivalent of the argumentum ad feminam.) But then Lauren Rankin replied: “good god, man. that’s not a comment on your attractiveness; it’s a comment on your white, male privilege.” Rankin thinks she’s defending Lee by construing her comment as racist.
The feminist website Jezebel featured a piece by Katie Baker (last seen lashing out at Susan Patton) calling us “a prolific woman-hating troll,” “the worst” and, for good measure, “THE WORST.” We’ll give her “prolific.” Then she wrote: “I’m not interested in engaging with Taranto, because he’s a cockroach.” As we’ve noted before, describing one’s adversaries as vermin is a rhetorical trope of the genocidaire.”
Wicked work they weave left to the dark. Keep shining that light Mr. Taranto. Keep exposing their hidey-holes. Millions of good people, common sense loving people, are coming to know what you say is true. We, MRA’s, have been sounding the alarm for decades. It’s nice to know others hear the echo… Truth triumphs, always. We admire your courage Mr. Taranto because we know the rats are busying themselves to rid you of house and home. If there’s something we can do to help… well, we’ve been around since 1977, give us a call. We, like you, prefer to think of men as humans, not cockroaches… “prolific woman-hating troll…” whew, not nice…
Sex, Lies and the War on Men
The rights of the accused are under vicious attack.
A massive twit-storm washed over your humble columnist yesterday, set off by our Wall Street Journal op-ed defending an Obama nominee and the rights of criminal defendants. To recap briefly: Sen. Claire McCaskill has placed a “permanent hold” on the nomination of Gen. Susan Helms to be vice commander of the Air Force Space Command. McCaskill is punishing Helms for having granted clemency to an officer under her command, Capt. Matthew Herrera, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault.
We reviewed the facts and concluded that Helms was correct in holding that the prosecution case was so weak as to make the conviction unjust. (Herrera did not escape punishment: He pleaded guilty to an “indecent act” and was involuntarily discharged from the service.)
Our argument infuriated feminists, yielding hundreds of tweets and perhaps a dozen posts on various leftist websites. Particularly noteworthy was a tweet from @Invisible_War, which promotes a documentary described as “a groundbreaking investigation into the epidemic of rape in the US military.” The tweet read: “Appalling: @WSJ’s @jamestaranto thinks we’re criminalizing male sexuality by prosecuting military rape.”
That is an utter falsehood. Our column discussed sexual assault but made no specific mention of rape, a distinct and more serious offense under military law. Herrera was not accused of rape. We sent a corrective tweet to @Invisible_War, but no correction has been forthcoming. Readers are left to draw their own inferences as to the film’s credibility.
The falsehood that we were somehow defending rapists was propagated widely. At Salon, Katie McDonough published a piece titled “Five Easy Steps for Becoming a Rape Apologist: James Taranto’s editorial provides a handy guide for blaming the victim.” (Amusingly, McDonough faults us in Step 3 for using the “gendered” word “histrionic.” She must imagine that it has an etymological commonality with “hysterical.” In fact they come from different languages: hystera is Greek for “womb,” but histrio is Latin for “actor.” Remember when that municipal worker in the District of Columbia got fired for saying “niggardly,” which a coworker mistook for a racial slur?)
Some of the comments were just abusive. At the website of Cosmopolitan magazine, Natasha Burton called us a “freaking jackass.” Victoria Lee tweeted: “why is it always guys who look like Taranto, the ones who know crap about women, … try 2talk abt women.” We contrasted that tweet with one from Jessica Valenti (who was not referring to us): “Calling a feminist ‘ugly’ is generally the first response of humdrum misogynists and the last resort of covert ones.”
Sauce for the goose, we suppose. (Though we now need a gender-specific phrase for an argumentum ad hominem against a man, the male equivalent of the argumentum ad feminam.) But then Lauren Rankin replied: “good god, man. that’s not a comment on your attractiveness; it’s a comment on your white, male privilege.” Rankin thinks she’s defending Lee by construing her comment as racist.
Related Video
Best of the Web Today columnist James Taranto on Lt. General Susan Helms, a victim of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s war on men. Photos: AJ Mast
The feminist website Jezebel featured a piece by Katie Baker (last seen lashing out at Susan Patton) calling us “a prolific woman-hating troll,” “the worst” and, for good measure, “THE WORST.” We’ll give her “prolific.” Then she wrote: “I’m not interested in engaging with Taranto, because he’s a cockroach.” As we’ve noted before, describing one’s adversaries as vermin is a rhetorical trope of the genocidaire.
All this viciousness was in the service of denying that there is, as we wrote in yesterday’s article, a “war on men.” Well, imagine if a prominent feminist journalist wrote about the “war on women” and dozens of conservative male writers responded by subjecting her to similar verbal abuse. Would that not be prima facie evidence that she was on to something? If the answer is yes–and we’d say it is–then either the same is true in our case or the sexes aren’t equal. (Select one or both of the above.)
We can take the abuse. In fact, in this instance we delight in it, not only because we see the humor but because it proves us right.
But the underlying subject matter is far from funny. The objective of these ideologues is to destroy the lives of men. Some such men are serious criminals who deserve severe punishment. But others are victims of false accusations or overzealous prosecutors. Some were involved in ambiguous situations in which a fair trial cannot establish their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Herrera clearly fell into at least that last category.
Everyone accused of a crime, even the guilty, is entitled to the basic protections of due process, including the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, and the right to appeal a guilty verdict.
One way of responding to our op-ed would have been to concede that Taranto has a point about the Herrera case and McCaskill’s treatment of Helms, but to argue that sexual assault in the military is nevertheless a serious problem that requires new administrative or legal remedies.
We can imagine being persuaded to agree with such an argument. But we haven’t seen anybody make it. The tweets and articles quoted above are typical of the response from the feminist left. The few who’ve deigned to discuss the facts of the case at all–Slate’s Amanda Marcotte and TalkingPointsMemo’s Catherine Thompson among them–have distorted them beyond recognition, obscuring the questions about the credibility of Herrera’s accuser that led Helms to reject the court-martial verdict of guilty.
This appetite for punishment regardless of facts, this contempt for the rights of the accused, is worthy of a lynch mob. That is an inflammatory analogy, but we employ it advisedly. The victims of lynching were not infrequently men accused of sexual violations.
Re published here under the Fair Use Doctrine
Anyone else have problems posting on the WSJ website? I tried to post from my facebook account but I got a message that a customer service rep had to set up my account for me to post.
“To true is your revelation that she’s holding up one of America’s best generals ”
Should read
“Too true…”
To get respect, give it. That applies to both sides.
The problem is they want respect without accountability. These people (because yes there are men as well as women supporting this misandric garbage) seem to think their integrity is irrelevant to whether or not they are taken seriously by society and given respect. Holding these people accountable for their actions when they blatantly violate the public trust in what they say they advocate, is not showing disrespect. Actually it is enforcing justice and preventing abuse of power. This is no different from holding a corrupt political official to account for their actions. This will continue to happen and it will happen often (credit to A Voice For Men in particular). Advocating for women’s rights does not entitle someone to tread on the rights of men or disrespect them.
With that said, I do agree that parties that “authentically” advocate for women’s rights and men’s rights should respect each other. If they truly practice what they preach without double standards and hypocrisy, then respect is a given. This is the eventual future of gender advocacy. Modern feminism will crumble and legitimate women’s rights (which I support) will emerge and when it does you can count on the men’s rights movement extending a hand in partnership. Why not? The interests of women and men are not mutually exclusive, they are interdependent and always have been. Modern feminism based on patriarchy theory would like us all to think otherwise.
Anyway that is me done on here. My webpage on HubPages is up for anyone interested.
Are you a masculist or a feminist? Calling yourself the “masculistfeminist” is like calling yourself the “jewishnazi”. Feminism is about female supremacy and eventual male extinction. You can’t favor both.
That is a fair comment. I have explained what I mean by calling myself a feminist on my hubprofile. Make no mistake I am a man and I blog online to support men’s rights and do not support modern feminsm. I called myself Masculistfeminist to deprive the ideologues of labelling me a misogynist and because I want the word reclaimed from bigots calling themselves feminists. The public is under the impression feminism means equality for women and that is why I used the word. Most people have no idea that the feminist movement does not represent the word they believe in. Hypocrites have used this word, like a wolf in sheeps in clothing to disguise themselves. I want to strip their cloak from them. I have been and am highly critical of feminism as a movement and hopefully the cognitive dissonance that arises from those seeing the feminist word in my username and what I write, will encourage them to re-evaluate what feminism should be and what it actually is. I am a masculist but given the interdependent nature of human rights, I accept the need for a legitimate women’s rights movement. I call myself an authentic feminist, meaning that I support the advocacy of equality for women without treading on the rights of men or disrespecting them in the process. That is what the public thinks it is and that is what it should be but is not. What need to fix that disparity.
Modern feminism will crumble and legitimate women’s rights (which I support) will emerge and when it does you can count on the men’s rights movement extending a hand in partnership.
No,in fact whatever the “women’s rights” you are talking about is feminism and feminism is anti-male. I will do everything I can to oppose you on this.
Stop thinking with your dick. You’re the type that got us into this situation in the first place.
I don’t think with my dick and I could not care less about what women or anyone for that matter may think of me. I am my own person and I don’t succumb to conformity of any kind.
The anger and frustration men, including men like myself have toward feminism is understandable. So I do empathise with your reaction toward me. BUT make no mistake, I don’t support feminist bullshit dogma. My blog is for men’s rights and my rights and I have been nothing but critical of feminism from the beginning.
“No,in fact whatever the “women’s rights” you are talking about is feminism and feminism is anti-male. I will do everything I can to oppose you on this.”
Women’s rights to me is not what the modern feminist movement advocates. They advocate gender supremacy, not women’s rights.
I want equality for women without treading on the rights of men or disrespecting them in the process. That is what I mean by women’s rights.
I don’t focus on that in my blog because as you know we have heard about women’s rights for decades and nothing about our own. However I do realise that I care about female relatives in my life and therefore their human rights. I identify those rights as women’s rights.
Your distrust of me is understandable, I have my own distrust as well. This what three decades of hate has done to men. We can’t even trust each other. Read my hubs and I doubt you will still be thinking I am some mangina or white knight.
I don’t give a dam about appeasing women or anyone for that matter. I do give a dam about making sure we keep the real enemy in our cross-hairs. The hypocrites and bigots in the feminist movement posing as advocates for equality are the enemy. You are not.
Whether you see me as friend or foe, you have my full support. Some people take a tougher more ruthless stance than me, that is fine. We are at war and this is a social conflict. Some people will do what needs to be done better than me. Hopefully I can still do something of value though.
The problem with going to war with half the population is that you make an an enemy of society as a whole. Gender ideologues think women are on their side lolz. No, actually it is gender ideologues versus men and women. Last time I checked for every foot soldier they have, we have 1,000. Sanity and truth prevail over insanity and lies. Their time is limited and they know it.
well cockroaches survived a billion years. feminism is no match.