While the name “Sargon of Akkad” sounded vaguely familiar, I had no clue who he was or what he did. That was probably for the best. But who cares if he’s not someone I would care to know about? Others did and, even if they didn’t, he still has as much right to express his views as I do. But not on Patreon, apparently.

On Dec. 6, Patreon kicked the anti-feminist polemic Carl Benjamin, who works under the name Sargon of Akkad, off its site for using racist language on YouTube. That same week, it removed the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos a day after he opened an account.

Whether there’s a connection between Milo, with whom I’m more familiar, and Sargon is unclear. Perhaps they appeal to the same crowd. Perhaps the inclusion of both in the same paragraph in the New York Times is meant to taint Benjamin with Milo’s provocations, not to mention affinity for children. But Sargon’s “deplatforming” produced a reaction. Continue reading →

A good craftsman knows that his job isn’t done when he holds up the magnificent object he just created, using all his skills, judgment and passion. He knows that his tools have to be cleaned and put away, his workplace swept and the debris removed. The creation of the object is the thing of wonder, but the job isn’t over until everything is restored to the way it was when he began.

Seth Godin uses the post-Christmas dinner analogy to make the point.

If you don’t have time to clean up, you don’t have time to cook

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Both policy and hysteria tend to be driven by change, whether it’s a one-off incident like 9/11 that is so shocking that it demands action, or year over year increases in crime. With the former, there’s a huge tendency to over-react, allowing hysteria to seize control over the recognition that it’s more shocking than significant. The latter, however, presents more sober challenges.

First, there’s the problem of numbers, whether it’s the seemingly large percentage change resulting from there being low absolute numbers. This was the case with police killings, where the numbers are so low that a small change in real numbers creates a percentage change that makes it appear as if there is a huge change. Without both real numbers and percentage change, the numbers do little to inform us, and are far more likely to inflame people without illuminating whether there is a real problem.

But the other change is in definition. As has been discussed here many times, when someone talks about rape, are they speaking to forcible rape or post-hoc regret rape? Even if you’re of the view that both are rape, they remain rape of a very different species. By expanding the definition, the numbers will increase not because of an increase in incidence, but a broader definition. Continue reading →

Some said it wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. The sky was falling, the end was nigh. Yet, here we are, another year gone by and we’re still here. As awful as it may have been, the Apocalypse has not happened, and the Sweet Meteor of Death has not claimed us yet. I choose to take this as a good thing, at least for today.

So as is my Christmas tradition, a video.

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Word is that Feminist Majority Foundation, high on its win in the Fourth Circuit, is notifying colleges within the circuit that their failure to end “sexual harassment” on social media will make them liable. GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.

In the first federal decision of its kind, the court ruled that universities have obligations under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution to investigate and take action to end sex-based harassment and threats targeting students on campus through social media. The court also ruled that universities cannot hide behind the First Amendment’s free speech protections as an excuse for not taking action.

Rare is the argument that an attenuated interpretation of a statute by second-tier bureaucrat at an executive branch agency trumps the Constitution.  Of course, enjoying rhetoric about how the unwoke can’t “hide” behind  the First Amendment’s free speech protections has become quite normal. Who cares about constitutional rights when there are feelings at stake, amirite? Continue reading →

There’s a flip side to the consideration of legalization of marihuana (the official New York spelling for pot). What about the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people saddled with weed convictions? What about the ones with pending cases? Open warrants? What about the guys with enhanced federal sentences because of a criminal history level 2 or lower based upon pot convictions? What about the people deported for the “aggravated felony” of a marijuana conviction?

And then, what about the people who are dead, because sometimes a gun goes off and a projectile is expelled from its barrel into someone’s head during an arrest for weed?

Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for expungement of marijuana convictions as part of his concept of “righting historic wrongs.” Unsurprisingly, the historic wrongs aren’t marijuana convictions, per se, but the disparate arrest, prosecution and conviction of minorities. Continue reading →

When a twit from NBC News showed a bizarre video of a high school wrestler, Andrew Johnson, of Buena Regional High in New Jersey, getting his hair cut on the mats, my first reaction was to wonder why he would let anyone do that to him. Then again, he’s not me, nor I him, so the question instead was what was he thinking.

A New Jersey referee who forced a high-school wrestler to cut his dreadlocks right before a match has been barred from further officiating pending an investigation into the incident, school district officials said Friday.

The unnamed Buena Regional High School student was told at a match Wednesday night that his hair and headgear were not compliant with regulation and would have to instantly cut his long locks or forfeit the round, according to a statement Friday from the Buena Regional School District.

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New York’s occasionally inconsistent mayor, Bill de Blasio, has decided to stand up for the legalization of recreational weed, despite the fact that pot smokers by the tens of thousands have been arrested under his watch even though many, maybe even most, committed at worst an infraction, for which a summons should have been issued, rather than a misdemeanor, for which they get arrested and spend the night at the Hotel Tombs.

But hey, the wind is blowing the right way, and that whiff of weed is in the air, so BdB follows his nose.

Legal marijuana is at a crossroads. We can either let corporate cannabis take control or let the will of the people win the day. pic.twitter.com/UEIu6CYF5V

— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) December 21, 2018

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In a variation of the social justice notion of “privilege,” that some of us by the fortune of our birth, skin color and gender, are given undeserved status that is denied others, Michelle Alexander of “The New Jim Crow” fame, argues that none of us deserve to be American citizens.

Answering these questions may be easy legally, but they’re more difficult morally. After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?

There is a tangential aspect to this question, given that we’re deluged with cries that we are an awful country, replete with racism and sexism, run by an amoral ignoramus. Why then would anyone from elsewhere want so desperately to take huge risks to come here unlawfully, to a nation where women are sexually assault hourly and half the nation carries guns with which to commit mass murder of the other half? Yet, they do. Continue reading →

In the aftermath of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, there were 83 ethics complaints filed against him. As Joe Patrice artfully put it, “— 83 of them! — ” That’s a lot of complaints.

The complaints about Kavanaugh generally alleged that he lied during his nomination proceedings, made “inappropriate partisan statements that demonstrate bias and a lack of judicial temperament” and was disrespectful to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his September hearing, the panel’s decision noted.

The complaints didn’t come from litigants personally affected, but from the usual suspects: lawyers, academics, members of the public, all of whom enjoyed their power as Americans to complain about a judge. Given the heat, it’s rather remarkable that there were only 83 complaints,  Continue reading →