…and so I probably will post something else in late afternoon or some time this evening.
Just thought I’d let you know.
The wheels of Durham grind on
There’s a saying about justice that goes like this: “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”
I think Durham took it to heart, because his wheels are still grinding.
The whole article is worth reading.
Peter Hitchens on changing one’s mind
You may recall Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011. His slightly younger brother Peter Hitchens – equally sardonic and intelligent – appears in this video. Both brothers were leftists in their youth and both became more conservative later on, but Peter went much further to the right and also embraced Christianity whereas Christopher remained a committed atheist.
Here Peter is being questioned in 2016 about his own change process, and he has some interesting things to say:
A lot of you are probably familiar with that phenomenon. I certainly am.
However, Hitchens goes on to add this:
Is that the case? Did “everybody” prior to the 20th century become conservative as they grew older? Of course not. There are plenty of radical writers of the 1800s, for example, who remained radical. And what of the garden variety radical back then – well, who knows? I don’t think there were any surveys.
What’s more, how uncommon is it for radicals to become more conservative as they grow older, even today? Not all that uncommon; after all, a lot of readers here would count themselves in that group. There are a significant number of such people in public life, as well.
So I’m not at all sure there’s been any marked change in the proportion of radical leftists who became more conservative as they got older in, for example, the 19th Century as compared to now.
But perhaps Hitchens is limiting his point to people who not only become more conservative as they get older but who also were once atheists and become devout Christians, as well. Granted, that is obviously going to be a smaller group than those who merely become more conservative over time. But is it really all that small compared to in the past?
I have no idea, and I don’t think Hitchens does, either.
Open thread 10/28/21
Can there be “consensual sex” between 15-year-olds?
Now we have learned – from the ever-helpful WaPo – that the 15-year-old girl raped by the “boy in a skirt” in Virginia had previously had some sort of consensual sex with him on two occasions.
There are many huge issues connected with this story: the school board’s coverup, the use by the Biden administration of the father’s resultant rage to spark labeling upset parents as domestic terrorists, and the biased way the MSM has handled the story (including the disclosure of the previous “consensual sex,” which seems to blame the girl), to name just a few. But in this post I’m going to take up a separate issue than the rape, which is the more general one of “consensual sex” between 15-year-olds.
What is sexual “consent” for 15-year-olds? They are considered to be under the age of consent, and if that distinction is to mean anything – and I think it should – then neither is capable of consent in the legal sense. Nor were these two previous “consensual” acts statutory rape, because neither of the two had reached the age where that law would be applicable.
These days, however, “consensual” sexual activity at that age is not at all unusual. Even when I was in school some underage children were sexually active, but it’s very much more common nowadays. There are almost certainly many reasons why today’s children are so sexualized, but the upshot is that sex is almost expected of them in terms of peer and cultural pressures.
I’ve written about this before. An excerpt:
Feminists, of course, are actually at least partly responsible for the problem, telling girls it’s liberating to sleep around, which helps lead to the skewing of teenage sexual behavior more to the adolescent male ideal—with a vast vast assist from the internet.
It’s a mess, and the hookup culture among teens that I wrote about here is arriving at earlier and earlier ages, and fueled by the visual stimuli of easily-available porn on computers. Individual teens can resist it if they are very strong, but the pull and pressures to give in to it (whatever a girl or a boy might secretly wish to do or not do) is incredibly powerful. It’s one thing to know that holding off from easy sex at a very young age will protect you and help you in the end. It’s another to actually have the strength to do so.
This has been going on for many years, and oral sex in particular is now commonly expected and normed for this age group. Often “consensual” doesn’t mean what one might think it means, either, because even if there is no overt rape the sex can be exploitative and norm-pressured. This affects both sexes, and although sometimes there is obvious psychological pressure from one or the other in the pair, sometimes it’s just the pressure that comes from the atmosphere and peer expectations surrounding both.
Of course, there was plenty of sexual pressure in my day. But certainly not as much, and it was far more interpersonal rather than all around us in the culture. For example, a lot of girls were pressured into their first sexual experience by the tried and true “if you loved me you would do it” or “you must be frigid if you don’t want to” or “I’ll break up with you if you don’t.” In addition, by the age of fifteen, boys and girls both have sexual urges, and that’s always operating. But in the olden days society at least frowned on such sexual encounters very overtly, and there were rules about what could be seen on TV or in the movies or in music (the internet didn’t exist). That’s no longer the case, and we are seeing the results in the early sexualization of our children.
[NOTE: In this post I didn’t write about the role of the schools in encouraging sex, but they have a role, too. We hear about books in school libraries containing pornography, for example. Astounding.]
Judge issues interesting ruling in proceedings prior to Rittenhouse trial
The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse is about to begin on November 1, but in a related hearing the judge has ruled as follows:
On Monday, Schroeder reiterated his reportedly long-held policy against allowing the word “victim” in his criminal trials until there is a conviction. He said the word is “loaded” with prejudgment.
Therefore prosecutors will not be allowed to use that term to refer to the three men shot by Rittenhouse (no one disputes that he shot them; the question is whether his actions were justified by self-defense).
The defense team will be allowed, however, to refer to the men shot as looters or rioters or arsonists:
The three men Kyle Rittenhouse shot during a protest against police brutality in Wisconsin can be labeled rioters, looters or arsonists if the teenager’s defense team has evidence to support the characterizations…
Binger, the prosecutor, argued that the words “rioters,” “looters” and “arsonists” are “loaded, if not more loaded,” than “victim.”
At the link there’s a photo of Rittenhouse in the courtroom. Until now I’d only seen the photos of him that night in Kenosha, and I hadn’t realized what a baby face he has (well, after all, he’s 18 now and was 17 when he shot the men – but he looks really young to me).
That NBC article I linked doesn’t do a good job of explaining why a judge might make this differentiation between what class of terms are allowed for the people Rittenhouse shot. I looked in a few more articles but didn’t find any good explanations there, either, so I’ll just offer my own sense about the basis for the decision. I think it’s that the presumption of innocence for the defendant, Rittenhouse, precludes labeling these men as “victims” because it seems to pre-judge the very question the trial is supposed to resolve: whether their actions constituted the sort of provocation that would justify Rittenhouse shooting in self-defense.
However, the three men either were rioters and/or looters and/or arsonists or they were not, and they are not the defendants. Of course, the defense attorneys can’t just accuse them of anything they want. But they can present evidence of what the men were doing that night if relevant and if those activities fit the definition of the terms “rioters,” “looters,” or “arsonists.” The three men don’t have the same protections defendant Rittenhouse does (and only one is alive, although that isn’t the basis on which the ruling was made).
That’s the answer I’d give on a law exam, anyway.
Riley on Sowell
[Hat tip “Jan MN.”]
For those of you seeing an in-depth discussion of Thomas Sowell, here’s a video interview with Jason Riley, author of a biography of Sowell. His book is called Maverick, which I think is a somewhat unfortunate title since it conjures up (for me, anyway) John McCain rather than Sowell.
But if you want an introduction to Sowell’s life and work without reading the book, here it is:
Open thread 10/27/21
Wandering bluetooths
I want to get one thing straight at the outset: the plural of “bluetooth” is “bluetooths,” not “blueteeth.”
And don’t be misled by all those nitpicky claims (this, for example) that there is no plural of “bluetooth” because it’s an adjective modifying “headset” or “speaker” or “connective device” or the like. Yes, it is. But that’s not the way people use the word – they say “bluetooth” to mean the thing itself. And so I have arbitrarily chosen “bluetooths” as my plural, because “blueteeth” sounds too much like – well, like blue teeth.
I have a great many bluetooths. That’s because I have an arm disability that means that holding a phone up to my ear for any longer than a minute or so can spark various kinds of pain. And, since I like to talk on the phone for lengthy periods – at least, with certain people – I have an assortment of the finest bluetooths in the land, about four of them.
But one is my very favorite. It has best sound, both outgoing and incoming, and a near-perfect fit in my ear. Therein lies another idiosyncrasy – my ear is quite small and over-the-ear devices don’t work, although full headsets do. So with a small bluetooth I have to use the in-ear sorts with the rubber tips, and it’s necessary to have the tips that come in several sizes because I need a small size.
Have I succeeded in boring you sufficiently yet? And I haven’t even come to the meat of the post – which is that bluetooths are very easy to lose and once lost they are hard to find. Most are black or white; maybe I should get one in shocking pink, but I haven’t seen any.
However, all bluetooths are small, and they lack those gizmos that make it possible to call them and have them beep back. So when they’re lost in some crevice or other – and many of these crevices seem to lie in wait in my purses – they sometimes stay lost for quite a while.
I had a whole stable of my favorite type, but over the years, one by one they’ve bitten the dust. One even committed suicide by having its “on/off” switch break in a way that made it non-repairable.
And you probably can guess the rest – which is that now they’ve stopped making that model, and a lot of people online say that its supposed replacement is much much worse. I can buy ones from China for a song that are supposedly new and purport to be the type I’m looking for, but I don’t believe they’re new at all, and in the US people are selling used ones (ugh – a used earpiece!) for many hundreds of dollars.
I don’t even necessarily want to find one of the old ones, and that’s why I haven’t named what brand and model it is. I recently lost my last one and found it again, so the need isn’t all that pressing at the moment. But for the future I’d actually like to break my dependence on this type and would prefer to branch out to something new and readily available – readily available, that is, until they stop making that one, too.
[NOTE: It occurs to me that maybe I should start a new blog category called something like, “me and my war with gadgets, or gadgets’ war with me.”]
Suddenly Sowell (plus a ruling in the Virginia school rape case)
Thomas Sowell is 91 years old, with a long record of accomplishment that includes the publication of many books that demonstrate an unusually brilliant clarity of thought and graceful yet economical expression of that thought.
A few years ago he announced his retirement. But for Sowell, retirement apparently isn’t what it is for the rest of us. At the ago of 90 he put out a book called Charter Schools and Their Enemies, and did quite a few interviews as well to promote the book.
Now the issues involving education and the left and how they are playing out in Virginia have brought him out of retirement again to write this essay. This quote tells you why:
This is one battle in a much bigger war, and the stakes are far higher than the governorship of Virginia or the Democrats and Republicans. The stakes are the future of this nation.
I assume everyone here is familiar with Sowell. But just in case not everyone is, I’ll add that he’s a black man who was raised partly in the South of the 1930s and partly in Harlem of the 1940s, became an economist who graduated from and taught at several elite institutions, and was a left-to-right political “changer” from way back.
I will add a personal note, which is that for me Sowell was highly influential in the development of my own thinking. By the time I encountered his books I had already undergone my own personal political change and had formulated my own ideas on these matters, but Sowell gave far more organization and logic to these ideas, as well as adding many of his own, all the while citing an enormous amount of research to back it up.
More from Sowell on the present situation:
When school propaganda teaches black kids to hate white people, that is a danger to all Americans of every race. Anyone at all familiar with the history of group-identity politics in other countries knows that it has often ended up producing sickening atrocities that have torn whole societies apart…
There is a point of no return in America…And we may be nearing it, or perhaps past it.
Low-income minority students, especially, cannot afford the luxury of having their time wasted on ideological propaganda in the schools, when they are not getting a decent education in mathematics or the English language.
When they graduate, and go on to higher education that could prepare them for professional careers, hating white people is not likely to do them nearly as much good as knowing math and English.
This may be a new issue to some people, but such irresponsible indoctrination has been going on for decades. Back in 1993, my book “Inside American Education” had a long chapter titled “Classroom Brainwashing.”
Anyone who reads the school propagandists’ own words quoted there can find that a sickening experience as well.
Parents who protest the arrogant abuse of a captive audience of children are performing an important public service. They deserve something better than having the Biden administration’s Attorney General threatening them.
Sowell probably wrote the article before Obama got into the act with his own remarks on the subject, or Sowell might have added that the parents who protest also deserve something better than having ex-president Obama insulting them.
In related news, I wouldn’t sit on a hot stove till Obama retracts his statements about “phony trumped-up culture wars” and “fake outrage” on the right against school boards, but he really ought to in the light of yesterday’s judicial ruling:
Ruling on a the case that has seized national attention and reinvigorated debate over parental rights in public education, a Virginia juvenile court judge concluded Monday that a transgender teenager sexually assaulted a female student in a Loudoun County high school in May.
Chief Judge Pamela L. Brooks found there was sufficient evidence to determine the individual guilty of sexual assault.
The decision comes after the Daily Wire spoke to the victim’s father, who said the male student forcibly sodomized his ninth-grade daughter in a school bathroom while wearing a skirt. When the father attempted to describe and protest the incident at a local school-board meeting, he was arrested for disorderly conduct, allowing the sexual abuse to stay underground for months.
After the assault, the perpetrator was transferred to another school where he allegedly assaulted a second female student in early October.
In the interim, the Loudoun County School Board passed a sweeping gender-inclusivity policy allowing students to use restrooms and locker rooms, as well as compete in sports, according to their gender identity rather than biological sex.
The alleged gender fluidity of the perpetrator was not raised during the hearing, according to the New York Times, although court documents confirm the offender was wearing a skirt when the assault took place. In court, the 15-year-old girl testified that she engaged in consensual sexual activity with the defendant two different times in a girls’ bathroom at Stone Bridge High School but on a subsequent occasion was violently coerced into performing sexual acts.
In this case it’s the crime and the coverup, and part of the attempted coverup – the arrest of the protesting father – ended up exposing the extent of the rot.
[NOTE: I have no idea how the Virginia election will go. But one thing I can say is that, if I were a Democrat running for office, I’d think twice before asking Obama to speak on my behalf.]
School boards or parents?
I saw a poll in Virginia that found something like 70% of Democrats believe schools boards should have more say about children’s education than parents… Does anyone really think 70% of Virginia Democrats believe that?
Do Virginia Democrats with children actually think school boards know better than they do? Do even childless Virginia Democrats actually think school boards know better than they do? If those school boards suddenly mandated a GOP-friendly curriculum, would Virginia Democrats simply nod, smile, and go along?
To elaborate on that – I think that at least 70% of Virginia Democrats do believe that at this moment.
There are several reasons. The first is that their party leaders have told them recently to believe it. The second is that there is indeed a current tendency for Democrats to believe that “experts” know better, and in this case the school boards would supposedly be the experts.
But the third and probably most important is – as MBunge implies – that they realize that school boards lean to the left, and that the people opposing them tend (or reportedly tend) to be on the right. Therefore many Democrats would be likely to believe that school boards are implementing the correct policies – that is, ones with which they agree – and that the boards’decisions are being fought by troglodytes on the right who should not be allowed to control anything.
Do most people follow what actually is being done by school boards in terms of the policies they are promoting and defending? I doubt it, although lately with all the brouhaha around school boards I think that more people are starting to follow these developments more closely than before. But one of the biggest reasons school boards and teachers’ unions and schools of education have been able to turn the schooling of so many children into leftist indoctrination is that they have been counting on the busyness and inattention of many parents and voters.
They are also counting, of course, on Democratic politicians backing them up – McAuliffe of Virginia being a good example when he said that parents shouldn’t tell school boards what to teach. They are also counting on the MSM defending school boards and arguing in their favor.
Those same parents might change their minds despite all of that if some school board decision comes to hurt them or their children very personally. Perhaps, anyway. But unless and until that were to happen, I think they will believe what they’re told to believe.