Bleeding from the Bunghole

[bovarchist]

11/13 on the quiz. Said Congress was 30% women, and didn't know the lady was CEO of Yahoo.

Marco Rubio was a lucky guess.

[windy]

I don't think most men would object to the woman saying "Yes, Yes, Yes, lets have sex now!" but that is not what usually happens, even though the other person is giving signals to that effect.

Maybe I'm confused here but AFAIR enthusiastic consent does not necessarily imply constant verbal feedback (even though someone who's a bit on the Aspergian side might wish for that).

The key word is 'necessarily': if enthusiastic consent is to be written into law, it better be damn clear what it means, but instead everyone has their own 'I know it when I see it' version. For example, look at this post and the comments:

http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2013/03/e ... c-consent/

If the advocates were willing to discuss the problems with the definition(s), that might not be an issue, but quite often it seems questions are met with "why are you even asking, are you looking to rape someone?"

[mary (abbie's ilk)]

I have always found that if the onions are sweated in a light sherry it adds a flavour to any risotto.
Don't let them go all Blackety Black though. :rimshot:

I use butter to saute my shallots or onions. I really prefer animal fats to vegetable fats for bringing richness to a dish.

But I do use wine. If it's a chicken-stock risotto, I like to use a relatively sweet, low-acid wine, like a 'white' Zinfandel in the early stages. I really like Beringer's White Zinfandel. It's very consistent year-after-year and makes a good cooking wine.

If it's a beef-stock risotto, I like to use a Chardonnay. I know it's a white wine, blah, blah, blah, red-wine is for beef, but I think it supports well without overwhelming the dish and, therefore, out-performs most red wines for risotto.

It's not a risotto recipe, but here, my recipe for punkin' pies: http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2005/11/ ... _late.html

Yes, slaughtering pumpkins is somewhat tedious, but there is a huge difference in taste. Be warned that a largish pumpkin can net you around 10-15 pies.

I do this once a year, crank out 20 or so pies, then swear never to do it again, until the next year when I've forgotten about the work and all i can think about is PIIIIIIIIE!!!!!

If you are on any form of diet, or diabetic, probably not the recipe you want.

I suck at cooking risotto...Chef Ramsey is always screaming about "teh risotto"..well he'd throw the pan at me...

I need apple recipes please...just back from apple picking..have a nice pork roast with apples lined up..but after that nada...

[mordacious1]

<snip>

:lol:

We have awesome stick insects in Texas btw - longest insects in the US.

I realize that most people might find that to be a dubious distinction.

The longest insect in the world (so far) is also a stick-insect. Found in Borneo, it measured 56.7 cm (more than 22 inches).

[Jan Steen]

http://i.imgur.com/cOW34dr.jpg

Jan, stop making Bjarte Foshaug cartoons funny!

We need them to serve as the negative control standard when measuring humour!
:D

You're right. I apologize. :oops:

Here is the ISO standard for the absolute zero of humour:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BUgWpEZCYAAAdRJ.jpg

[mary (abbie's ilk)]

Do you know more about the news than the average American?

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/the-news-iq-quiz/

I got 13 out of 13 correct.

I got 11 out of 13. Better than 91% of the public, according to Pew. Not bad for before 6 AM with no coffee.

same here.. I got the Dow Jones graph wrong.. and the age/ country graph wrong..

[German LurkBoatsman]

FrankGrimes and paddybrown,

first, in personal life, for me enthusiastic consent comes mainly down to willfully und joyfully participating. Female initiating also gives bonus points, pretty sure about it! That's what 'yes means yes' means for me. For hook-ups, I don't know any better way to actually determine consent. LTRs may have different rules, that's up to the couple, but for hook-ups I'd find anything less than that to be unhealthy and maybe even begging for trouble. YMMV, I don't know.

I don't quite understand the alcohol argument. As enthusiastic consent implies active participation that alone would prove that the woman was not passed-out, totally incoherent or unable to act on her wishes. A blackout on the other hand is problematic for any definition of consent, isn't it? At least her last memory before blacking out would more likely be one of enthusiastically consenting to whatever we were doing then :D

In court, I don't see how we can talk about the endless discussion about the wording as long as we don't have any actual wording. Surely Hopefully, any legislation would clarify what is meant by enthusiasm or even obmit that word. If it comes down to "how did you make sure the other party was consenting", yeah, there are situations where I'd like that question to be asked. Where 'the non-consent was not given clearly enough' is not enough for me. This includes radically different levels of inebriation or an obvious power difference between parties even if it is only implied and not openly used as a threat.
I don't know how or if that will change court outcomes. That would also depend quite a lot on the actual wording of the law, I guess.

About this point, regardless of the defendant's reply, the prosecutor could argue till the cows came home that the consent wasn't enthusiastic enough even if the supposed victim was begging for sex.

There's no point in always looking for the very worst interpretation of anything. Maybe it's a side-effect of spending too much time in FTB fantasy land. Don't let the rape paranoia bug bite you ;)

[Ape+lust]

One scenario I've never seen the SJWs consider is the closeted gay guy who suddenly finds himself prone on the couch with a tongue down his throat and hands rummaging in his pants. Not only is he grossed out, but he's terrified his homosexuality will be revealed.

Ladies, don't do that. The enthusiastic keyword doesn't just apply to yourself. Wait for the guy with his dick out full stinger, bellowing COME AT ME BRO.

[Gumby]

Jan that was fucking brilliant.

[justinvacula]

12/13 on news quiz

[justinvacula]

Where is Tuvok? I haven't seen Tuvok in some time :(

[windy]

Nobody, and I think I mean literally nobody, is holding up enthusiastic consent as a legal standard, something that would or could be defined in statute and demonstrated in a court of law.

Either naive or disingenuous. Why is it constantly brought up in relation to rape cases and lack of convictions, if nobody is advocating for it as a legal standard?

It's also false. As I posted earlier, various feminists and feminists organizations in Sweden have been lobbying for enthusiastic consent. Even the analysts who wrote the government report in 2010, who suggesting changing the law, did discuss how consent would be defined, and opted for not allowing "silent" or "internal" consent.

Sadly the information is only available in Swedish, but for those who can read it, or want to put it through google translate or something:

Det är vår bedömning att för samtycke på sexualbrottslag-stiftningens område, lika lite som för samtycke som allmän ansvars-frihetsgrund enligt 24 kapitlet brottsbalken, inte bör finnas något formkrav. Hur samtycket kommer till uttryck, för att tillåtas ha relevans i antingen en ren samtyckesreglering eller en medelsreglering, kan således variera stort och har ingen betydelse för dess giltighet. Vad gäller den särskilda frågan huruvida inre samtycken ska godtas ställer vi oss bakom uppfattningen att inre (eller tysta) samtycken inte ska beaktas. Med en frånvaro av ett formkrav för samtycket torde detta ställningstagande dock inte få någon särskilt stor praktisk betydelse. I stället är ställningstagandet av principiell natur. I en samtyckesreglering blir budskapet att sexuella handlingar som sker utan att samtycke har kommit till uttryck – genom handling eller underlåtenhet – inte är tillåtna. Vad gäller samtycken som enbart sker i det inre kan dock konstateras att även om de inte är relevanta straffrättsligt blir gärningarna förmodligen inte lagförda. Finns ingen part som uppfattar sig förorättad är sannolikheten för en anmälan närmast obefintlig.

Now, I admit that I might have misunderstood some things, I'm not a lawyer and might be reading things wrong. On the other hand, this was written by juridical experts and not feminists, as a suggestion on how to reform the law.

That proposal seems to contradict itself. A couple of sentences after the 'no silent consent' bit, it says consent can be expressed "genom handling eller underlåtenhet" (through actions or by omission). How is "consent by omission" different from "silent" or "internal" consent?

[Tribble]

That pretty much blows Ally Fogg's case out of the water.
I always find it silly in these kinds of debates to claim that "nobody is asking for that". If you have any experience of the 'gender wars', as Fogg undoubtedly does, then you will know that no matter what loopy position you can come up with someone will be advocating it. Now that person may be loopy, or even disingenuously trolling, but they will be advocating the position, making the claim of "literally nobody" easily debunked.
In the current scenario - enthusiastic consent, yes, it is clear that the Swedish example falsifies his point. I would be surprised that someone involved with gender issues and laws has not been following the Swedish situation. I can only assume it is either incompetence on his part or cynical dishonesty.

One of the reasons I feel you can't really debate concepts I call 'isms' (feminism, libertarianism, conservatism, liberalism, communism, etc.) is that you will inevitably run into the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. You point out the horrible things said recognized feminist leaders, and the feminist you're arguing with immediately decries that person as 'no true feminist' and she is 'only speaking for herself.'

Further, you end up with clowns like AronRa who refuse to acknowledge there are, depending on how fine you cut it, multiple branches of feminism. I like to keep it simple and go with 'equity' feminists and 'radical' (gender) feminists.

Equity feminism describes a kind of feminism that sees the ideological objective to be equal legal rights for men and women, whereas gender feminism in Sommers' usage describes mainstream forms of feminism that has the objective of counteracting gender-based discrimination and patriarchic social structures also outside of the legal system in everyday social and cultural practice.

But I've seen lists of feminist sub-cultures that are over 40-branches deep.

Which is kind of like religion. For example, there are three big branches of Christianity -- Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant. But when you start noticing the internal doctrinal differences... I read there over 30,000 sects to Christianity.

Which always makes me think of this:

[youtube]BDmeqSzvIFs[/youtube]

[German LurkBoatsman]

James,

No guy I know of would object to a woman being upfront about either wanting or not wanting sex. Men have traditionally pushed in the romance game for fewer mind fucks and more honesty. But you have to understand, these teasing games put a lot of power in the hands of the woman. You think those types of women who enjoy manipulating men with sex are going to give up that power for SJW ideology? (...)

can't really connect any of this to enthusiastic consent. Your points about alcohol and retroactively non-consenting apply to all forms of consent, it has nothing to do with the enthusiasm part. If at all, going for enthusiastic participation would clear things up and leave less room for ambivalence: for me, for bystanders, for the girl, however her memory may be affected the next day. It takes some special kind of weirdo to accuse you of rape after participating the whole night. But with such a person all bets are off anyway and it's best to avoid them.

And that's the second point. Endless teases, manipulators, swj... I'm not interested in them. And the one time I dated an sjw type I should have noticed from the moment when she had all kinds of hang-ups about the flirting... particpating, teasing, whoops, wait, I'm not that kind of girl, oh, now I am... bla, bla, bla... Would have saved me some time and irritation.
So, going for enthusiastic consent is a great way to weed out the nutters and head cases.

Also, no one is upfront about wanting or not wanting sex. The fronts are changing, that's what flirting is about. It's just the SJWs who always seems to imply every change in a woman's opinion towards sex means the woman is being tricked by a rapist.

Even though I'm not a fan of so-called pick-up artists, making these ideas law would put every single PuA in prison for rape.

Not a pick-up artist, but I think the artistry consist of getting the woman to enthusiastically consent. If the artistry is meant as 'how can I trick an unwilling person into not saying no too loud', well, that kind of person should gtfo, I have no intent of defending them.

[zenbabe]

Do you know more about the news than the average American?

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/the-news-iq-quiz/

I got 13 out of 13 correct.

Well aren't you mister fancy pants 1 percent.

I got 12 of 13.
Missed the question about Congress, was on the cusp of picking the right answer but alas, opted for hope that my instinct was wrong.

[zenbabe]

Out of interest, does anyone actually watch the stuff I shared? (i.e. should I bother? No hard feelings, just curious :))

Sometimes I watch, sometimes I don't have the time to devote ~an hour to watch, sometimes I want to turn my brain off and simply look at 'shops.

But I always appreciate the opportunity, Aneris :)

[Huehuehue]

I don't get the hate for enthusiastic consent. I find it an ideal fit for random hook-ups up to the point where I find it a waste of time to deal with elaborate mind games what the woman really wants or whatever. Either it clicks and she participates in the flirting and then the escalating (and she better do it enthusiastically) or I'm not really interested. Life's too short and in some situations I actually don't wanna spend time with women who have hang-ups about sex or expect gender-appropriate wooing or crap. IMO it also sorts out a lot of crazy bitches who are just conflicted about sex and relationsships.
I'm also perfectly fine if some random flirt doesn't end with a one-night stand, can still be very fun. So I found if the woman enjoys herself and is a grown-up, she is perfectly able to express her wishes as how she'd like the night to end and will actually do so.

Of course, LTR and marriages are different and couples should be able to define for themselves how they define and communicate consent.
And I'm speaking about enthusiastic consent, i.e. willingly and joyfully flirting, participating, initiating etc. I don't speak about 'crystal-clear consent with notarized statements of intent within previously agreed time intervalls under the assupmtion that penis means rape'. That one is just sexless feminist fantasy nonsense. Or maybe a d/S kink I don't care for.

instead start asking the perpetrator what he did to ensure that she did want.

Again, I find that perfectly reasonable. Shouldn't anyone be able to answer that?

I'm not sure if you are advocating for it as law. But I find it interesting as a discussion, so I'm using you as a reason to analyse the issue of enthusiastic consent as law. Apologies if you're advocating no such thing.

Enthusiastic consent may be a reasonable piece of (non-legal advice), a society which is more open about sexual intentions may be a very good thing indeed. But I argue it has no place as a legal standard.

I'll give you two reasons for this.

1: You cannot define "enthusiastic consent" in a way which does not vitiate a form of already valid consent. It thus baffles legal definition.

2:"Enthusiastic consent" does not, in fact, fix any problems.

Let's take them in turn.

Enthusiastic Consent vs Consent

Consent is simply the assent to a particular undertaking, a dictionary definition will suffice for any legal question on the topic. However, what is enthusiastic consent? What is the difference between enthusiastic consent, and regular consent? I submit in reality there is none.

You see, it is not down to me to assess a party's enthusiasm in their consent, only to hold a reasonable belief in their consent. If someone says yes to sex with me, how, pray tell, am I to assess whether this is "enthusiastic"? I personally very rarely show much enthusiasm generally, even when I am quite enthusiastic. Not everyone shows their hearts on their sleeves, it is for the both parties to consent, and for them to also ensure the other party has consented and no more.

Consider the following scenario:

Persons A and B engage in intercourse, neither party demonstrates any discomfort, but neither party shows any "enthusiasm" either. Was this rape for lack of enthusiastic consent? I understand this appear somewhat ridiculous, but there's no definition given here, so I have no idea what the basis is for adjudicating it!

Put simply, what is the difference in consent and "enthusiastic consent"? Provide a definition which makes the two separate. If you cannot; then there is no point to adding "enthusiastic". If you can, then you will have scenarios where valid consent is given, but it is still rape for not being "enthusiastic". Ergo, enthusiastic consent will lead to regular consent, which would normally be valid, being vitiated. It is for you to demonstrate this is a good thing.

What good does enthusiastic consent do?

Again I submit it does nothing. For example: if someone is paralytic from alchohol or passed out, they cannot consent and it is rape. It is obvious here that there is no consent. The"enthusiastic consent" idea doesn't help elucidate this principle further. There is no consent. There cannot be consent. Adding the words "enthusiastic" to this offence in no way changed the character of that offence. It does not add any legal value to the issue and thus can be discarded.

It would appear that people are advocating the view that there is a widespread issue of people not knowing that a passed-out person not saying "no" is not good enough for consent. This may be true, but the "enthusiastic consent" thing doesn't help here either. All they need to know is that there can be no consent given here. Complicating it with a diatribe of "enthusiastic consent" is not helpful, see my first point.

Let us consider the following scenario:

Person A has sex with person B. Person B does not consent in any way. Person B murmurs something barely coherent but sounds like "stop" several times. Is this rape? Yes. We don't need enthusiastic consent to know this is rape. Again, from a legal point of view, there's no need for the word. And from a practical point of view, the average person knows that saying "no" is not consent. I suggest adding notions of "enthusiasm" here do little to help. Or are we to believe this person simply didn't know they were raping someone? In which case I suggest they have no knowledge of consent in general. And with that knowledge, sans enthusiasm, they would know it was rape.


Conclusions

Whenever anyone suggests a definition which can potentially become a legal definition, we must be very careful. Changing the definition of "consent" to "enthusiastic consent" is a pointless exercise as it could warp the regular definitions of consent and cause normal encounters to be rape.

If you, as a personal policy, only seek enthusiastic consent, if you teach your children only to seek enthusiastic consent, if you believe it is a goo general idea to have enthusiastic consent, all the more power to you. I have no problems with it being done, my issue is with it being a legal standard, for the reasons I have given above, I find it potentially pernicious and ultimately unnecessary, for it fixes nothing. It does not catch more true rapists in the web of legal culpability. At best it may make the prosecution's life easier, but that is no reason to create criminal legislation.

As a final note:

There's no point in always looking for the very worst interpretation of anything. Maybe it's a side-effect of spending too much time in FTB fantasy land. Don't let the rape paranoia bug bite you

I disagree. It's what you have to do with law. If you have a criminal definition, you must figure out how it is interpreted. It is against basic principles of justice for criminal law to be vague. Part of the substantive rule of law theory is that law must be specific, and vague law cannot be tolerated. Vague laws mean people may struggle to know when they commit crimes, and that is not a good result. It is good practice to ask "what's the worst way this law could go?" to find out if its reach is too great.

TL;DR: Enthusiastic consent is fine as personal policy, perhaps even good. But it is a terrible legal concept.

[Ape+lust]

I wonder if PZ ever reads the National Review, know your enemy and all that. He'd be surprised to see they were writing about him this week:

It is a politics of perpetual intra-Republican denunciation. It focuses its fire on other conservatives as much as on liberals. It takes more satisfaction in a complete loss on supposed principle than in a partial victory, let alone in the mere avoidance of worse outcomes. It has only one tactic — raise the stakes, hope to lower the boom — and treats any prudential disagreement with that tactic as a betrayal. Adherents of this brand of conservative politics are investing considerable time, energy, and money in it, locking themselves in unending intra-party battle.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/362303/print

[German LurkBoatsman]

Windy,

The key word is 'necessarily': if enthusiastic consent is to be written into law, it better be damn clear what it means, but instead everyone has their own 'I know it when I see it' version. For example, look at this post and the comments:

http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2013/03/e ... c-consent/

If the advocates were willing to discuss the problems with the definition(s), that might not be an issue, but quite often it seems questions are met with "why are you even asking, are you looking to rape someone?"

haven't read it all, but I don't find that many problems with the link you provided. Some are more talkative in bed than others, I guess, as long as you find a way to communicate with each other and look after the other person you're okay. In my book. Can't talk for any SJW who needs extra rules as if sex's a D&D extension.***

The thing is, propagating enthusiastic consent as an ideal to strive for is different to actually write down a legally binding rule how to enforce it. In the end both are probably quite different discussions.

***(Never played D&D so I'm sorry for the nerd shaming. Actually, the few girls I knew who played D&D were very nice :P )

[Karmakin]

There are just so many problems with "enthusiastic consent" in practice. No guy I know of would object to a woman being upfront about either wanting or not wanting sex. Men have traditionally pushed in the romance game for fewer mind fucks and more honesty. But you have to understand, these teasing games put a lot of power in the hands of the woman. You think those types of women who enjoy manipulating men with sex are going to give up that power for SJW ideology?

So now the problem of alcohol comes into it. How much alcohol invalidates consent? SJWs have been very careful to not place a limit. Of course, no amount of alcohol a man drinks invalidates HIS consent, and in the case of both being drunk, it seems fairly certain the SJWs would argue for the man to be held on rape charges using SaalPalani "men drink to become better rapists" reasoning. So we have to assume any alcohol at all in a woman's bloodstream invalidates "enthusiastic consent," no matter how enthusiastic and consensual she seems. Say goodbye to mixing alcohol and sex, you better be drier than an Abolitionist's grandma before you try any funny stuff, mister!

The next problem is retroactive removal of consent. Many SJWs seem to be arguing on Pharyngula and FTB that if a situation "feels" rapey, or you look back on it and it seems like "maybe it was all rapey and stuff", you can retroactively remove your consent and call it rape. Even if you consented at the time. The ultimate get out clause. All of us here know about the power of memory to feed us false information? The brain has no particular bias towards true information over pleasing falsehoods. Give someone permission to feed their victim complex and they'll recover all sorts of memories.

This whole enthusiastic consent thing is, I think, just another way for certain kinds of women to increase their sexual power over men, further punish male sexuality and enjoy all of the benefits of the party hard lifestyle without any of the risks. A man might drink himself blind stinking drunk and wake up the next morning with a disgusting woman who took advantage of him that night, but if she had even of a thimble full of alcohol, she'll be the one calling HIM a rapist. Most men in that situation would take it as a personal life lesson and move on. A SJW calls it a horrible rape.

I think there are just some women who need a constant emotional and legal safety net where they can blame someone the moment they experience something that isn't 100% to their expectation and satisfaction, where men and most other women manage to learn from sexual life experiences without needing to pawn off responsibility.

I agree. I also agree with your point (which I cut accidentally) that these SJW rules seem to be written by people who don't have sex, don't like sex, or have very strange sex.

And a lot of men refuse to play these CCC mind games. See, I don't have a problem with "enthusiastic consent" if it's just a game some SJWs want to play when they get fucked. But Crystal Clear Consent has the stench of a SJW idea that they want to make into law. This would, along with a weakening of the presumption of innocence in rape cases (which they are already pushing for) have the potential to cause great harm to any man who has sex with any woman he doesn't know too well. Even though I'm not a fan of so-called pick-up artists, making these ideas law would put every single PuA in prison for rape.

As for me, I suppose I'll start filming my bedroom with hidden cameras in case I ever bang a SJW.

This.

The reality is that if the SJW's want to change male behavior, they also need to change FEMALE behavior, or you're just going to get a fuck ton of "Nice Guys" who've gotten burned because they listened to the SJW's and found out that made them completely unattractive to the average woman. By the way, when I said this is what blew up this thread and made them all crawl back to the "No no no that's not what we want, we just want people to watch for signs of non-consent" stronghold that quite frankly every decent person agrees with anyway.

Yeah. That's why ElevatorGate happened. And the whole anti-harrassment thing. The reality is that for them this has NEVER been about behavior. It's about sexual value. It's about creepy/ugly/dorky/awkward guy GO AWAY. There always has been a running away from what exactly behavior is over the line, which is what everybody reasonable has been asking, except for the obvious. It's always well...it depends.

[Sunder]

Do you know more about the news than the average American?

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/the-news-iq-quiz/

I got 13 out of 13 correct.

11/13. Slightly overestimated the Congress question and didn't recognize the woman near the end.

Since I flubbed two questions regarding women in positions of influence I suppose that confirms my horrible privileged sexism.

[debaser71]

The thing with news quizzes is that many people don't always keep up with the news, every day, day after day, for their entire lives. For example in the early 2000's I was a political news junkie, today I don't watch any political news. Most of the news I read is local news. But even so...

... 13 of 13 correct.

Polls are stupid.

[$ Dawg]

If you look at the Sexual Market Value quiz PZ took... it gives extra points to a man who... when a gal grabs his dick thru his pants... gently pushes her away, then gives a disinterested glance to the side, rather than reciprocating enthusiastically. Enthusiastic Consent rules would make the gal a rapist for falling for the ruse, and the PUA is a victim for playing mind games. The SJW nerds are criminalizing Cool.

[TedDahlberg]

One of the reasons I feel you can't really debate concepts I call 'isms' (feminism, libertarianism, conservatism, liberalism, communism, etc.) is that you will inevitably run into the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. You point out the horrible things said recognized feminist leaders, and the feminist you're arguing with immediately decries that person as 'no true feminist' and she is 'only speaking for herself.'

Similarly, Myers' insistence that atheism is more than not believing in gods opens it up to arguments along the lines of "Stalin was an atheist too". Now that's a bad argument, but significantly more complicated to counter if atheism is not just lack of belief. It becomes a question of interpretation, and the argument will never end.

[Sunder]

Similarly, Myers' insistence that atheism is more than not believing in gods opens it up to arguments along the lines of "Stalin was an atheist too". Now that's a bad argument, but significantly more complicated to counter if atheism is not just lack of belief. It becomes a question of interpretation, and the argument will never end.

The headache that argument caused was ultimately what drove me away.

I could not believe how belligerent he got over that. Especially considering how politely people attempted to disagree and calmly explain their reasoning.

And in true hypocritical jackass fashion he simultaneously accused people who disagreed of attempting to "shut down the discussion" while telling them individually to shut up and fuck off because he was tired of having this argument that he had broached and that he already thought he was right and that they were stupid so there was no point.

[ROBOKiTTY]

I always watch everything Aneris posts. If there hasn't been anything, I stare at the avatar.

[TedDahlberg]

Similarly, Myers' insistence that atheism is more than not believing in gods opens it up to arguments along the lines of "Stalin was an atheist too". Now that's a bad argument, but significantly more complicated to counter if atheism is not just lack of belief. It becomes a question of interpretation, and the argument will never end.

The headache that argument caused was ultimately what drove me away.

I could not believe how belligerent he got over that. Especially considering how politely people attempted to disagree and calmly explain their reasoning.

And in true hypocritical jackass fashion he simultaneously accused people who disagreed of attempting to "shut down the discussion" while telling them individually to shut up and fuck off because he was tired of having this argument that he had broached and that he already thought he was right and that they were stupid so there was no point.

Similar to why I gave up on Pharyngula. The particular issue that time was male circumcision, but it went much the same way. It's not even a topic I feel very strongly about, but the way Myers shut down discussion and belittled those who had brought it up was disgusting.

[Guestus Aurelius]

Do you know more about the news than the average American?

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/the-news-iq-quiz/

I got 13 out of 13 correct.

Got the 1st one wrong. I thought it could be same-sex marriage states, but it included Iowa which seemed unlikely, so I went with minimum wage.

More to the point, it didn't include New Jersey, which recently legalized same-sex marriage. So I got that one "wrong." I went with minimum wage instead, since I knew it couldn't have been the other two choices (legalized weed, Asian population).

The other I got wrong was the stock market graph. I went with an overall uninterrupted increase since '08, but apparently '09 was rock bottom.

11/13 here, but I'm gonna call it 12.5/13.

RIP Caine's rat. :violin:

[Remick]

Do you know more about the news than the average American?

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/the-news-iq-quiz/

I got 13 out of 13 correct.

12/13. I got the second last wrong (had no idea who she is).

Only 10 :(
I had no idea about the Florida senator, no idea about the judge question and thought the first graph with the massive dent was the correct one, not the forth that skyrocketed later.

I got 13 of 13, but had to guess on the congress %. The first two you got wrong is pretty standard for not being in/from the US. The last one you got wrong is why many of us are so pissed off when people like Romney call the poor the "takers".

Also, I do watch the videos you post.

[German LurkBoatsman]

Hue,

I'm not sure if you are advocating for it as law. But I find it interesting as a discussion, so I'm using you as a reason to analyse the issue of enthusiastic consent as law. Apologies if you're advocating no such thing.

I don't advocate it in general. In cases of obvious differential in inebration or power I'd like to see the less 'hindered' person be held to more responsibility in ensuring the other person is actually consenting and not just going along while feeling/being unable not to do so. But I'm no lawyer and that's a massive case of grey areas and probably dependent on differing national laws. Also, in some cases there are special laws already, say, concerning professional environments or for underage sex.

So the only disagreement with your post is maybe here:

For example: if someone is paralytic from alchohol or passed out, they cannot consent and it is rape.

Isn't it the other way around. If silence is consent (or at least non-retraction of previously given consent keeps being consent) then the only reason your scenario is rape is because the paralytic person is not able to retract their consent (not not to give it) even if they would wish to do so. This is, as long as the rapist (in your scenario) keeps saying the other person was capable of saying no but just didn't, the rapist walks away free.
If you change the law to define consent as actively consenting, there's a) a larger safety limit between being able to actively consent and being totally passed out, so maybe less room for actual misunderstandings. b) In the case you describe, the actual rapist has to describe how he got continued consent and this can then be compared to actual evidence (e.g. video) when that is available.
Of course in most cases there's no evidence like video tapes, the rapist could be lying, a false accuser could be lying, so I have no idea if there's any measurable difference in real life.

Also, if enthusiastic consent will ever be legislated in any form, I guess one would choose a less ambiguous term, maybe actively consenting or continued consent or something.

So, now we all wasted a lot of time because of some Swedish feminist group's rape law advocacy whose text we couldn't even understand from the beginning ;)

[German LurkBoatsman]

I always watch everything Aneris posts. If there hasn't been anything, I stare at the avatar.

I find myself doing that a lot, too.

[zenbabe]

What baffles me about this mantra of enthusiastic consent + drinking is that as a 'happy drunk' type of person, when I had a few drinks, my consent slipped pretty easily into giggling, playful enthusiasm, though occasionally I woke the next day to a headache and wincing regret.

I am completely perplexed as I try to pull the threads of the messaging together. The same SJW will demand that a woman must give enthusiastic consent, that drunk sex is rape, and simultaneously demand that no one ever suggest to that woman that she be cautious about over imbibing.

I think their arguments rape my brain.

[German LurkBoatsman]

Similar to why I gave up on Pharyngula. The particular issue that time was male circumcision, but it went much the same way. It's not even a topic I feel very strongly about, but the way Myers shut down discussion and belittled those who had brought it up was disgusting.

Same with Elevatorgate. I never even cared how RW wished to be propositioned or not propositioned in an elevator, all the best to her. But establishing "you disagree with me so you're a sexist" as not only an accepted but actually an recommended form of discussion to make the community more inclusive and welcoming... unbelievable.
But explain that to anyone and you're obsessed how angelic Rebecca Watson once softly said "guys don't do that."

[Guestus Aurelius]

I find it hilarious and pathetic that Pharyngulites scramble to win Caine's "friendship" and approval (and that Caine so often fishes for such behavior). Of course, since Caine gets anyone she disagrees with banned, it's a good political move. If you want "in," you must use SJW-speak, be constantly outraged, and demonstrate either victim cred or oppressor shame. What a shit show!

[Pitchguest]

Similarly, Myers' insistence that atheism is more than not believing in gods opens it up to arguments along the lines of "Stalin was an atheist too". Now that's a bad argument, but significantly more complicated to counter if atheism is not just lack of belief. It becomes a question of interpretation, and the argument will never end.

The headache that argument caused was ultimately what drove me away.

I could not believe how belligerent he got over that. Especially considering how politely people attempted to disagree and calmly explain their reasoning.

And in true hypocritical jackass fashion he simultaneously accused people who disagreed of attempting to "shut down the discussion" while telling them individually to shut up and fuck off because he was tired of having this argument that he had broached and that he already thought he was right and that they were stupid so there was no point.

They've already made it clear their focus on discussion (or the lack thereof): ConcentratedH20 has it memoralised in his signature.

As for the need to implement morality into a concept that requires none, wasn't the problem with the various religions who asserted their morality stem from an all-powerful, all-loving deity — and therefore atheists who don't believe in nor worship such a deity would have no morality to speak of — *precisely why* atheists didn't want to assign their lack of belief in a diety any kind of moral authority or that their lack of belief should dictate their beliefs accordingly?

[tfoot]

random thought on 'enthusiastic' consent.

1) after 20 yrs of marriage? srsly? Reminds me of that naked gun sex 2.5 clip Frank Drebin to Ed....'sometimes i envy you ed... you have same woman, night after night after night (cue ed looking with mornful depressed look), while Im off running around with some 20 yr olds who just want cheap sex.... etc etc' (cue ed frothing at mouth)

2) is there any reason why women consenting to sex should be the only interpersonal activity which has to be consented to enthusiastically?
Consenting to pay for dinner should not be enough, it should be enthusiastic consent etc etc...

[EdwardGemmer]

I like the idea of enthusiastic consent, but I think it gets a bad rap because it envisions parties have to jubilantly yell positive expression to every act. That is silly. Maybe a better meme would be "enthusiastic about consent," in that giving and obtaining consent is a great things and an important part of sexual activity. It also isn't all about rape, but more about positive sexuality. Preventing rape is obviously an important goal, but it also isn't the sole goal when it comes to sex education.

[acathode]

That proposal seems to contradict itself. A couple of sentences after the 'no silent consent' bit, it says consent can be expressed "genom handling eller underlåtenhet" (through actions or by omission). How is "consent by omission" different from "silent" or "internal" consent?

Yeah, I agree, it's confusing and not really clear what the author means, and it was even noticed in a thesis (page 30) that tried analyzing the proposal.
I re-read parts of the proposal today, and noticed they do go deeper into what "internal consent" is, and explains it as viewing consent as an intent rather than an action. Of course, that still doesn't explain how they separate omission from internal, since omission AFAIK is pretty much defined as not acting.
I don't know, maybe it's shades of gray? Again, "I'm not a lawyer", I might be misunderstanding parts of the proposal, law-language is tricky, which is a why I decided to also post what the actual feminists was proposing and lobbying for.

ps. Small correction, the passage from the proposal I cited was from page 214, not 14. I was way to tired when I wrote that reply, sorry.

[Huehuehue]

Hue,

I'm not sure if you are advocating for it as law. But I find it interesting as a discussion, so I'm using you as a reason to analyse the issue of enthusiastic consent as law. Apologies if you're advocating no such thing.

I don't advocate it in general. In cases of obvious differential in inebration or power I'd like to see the less 'hindered' person be held to more responsibility in ensuring the other person is actually consenting and not just going along while feeling/being unable not to do so. But I'm no lawyer and that's a massive case of grey areas and probably dependent on differing national laws. Also, in some cases there are special laws already, say, concerning professional environments or for underage sex.

So the only disagreement with your post is maybe here:

For example: if someone is paralytic from alchohol or passed out, they cannot consent and it is rape.

Isn't it the other way around. If silence is consent (or at least non-retraction of previously given consent keeps being consent) then the only reason your scenario is rape is because the paralytic person is not able to retract their consent (not not to give it) even if they would wish to do so. This is, as long as the rapist (in your scenario) keeps saying the other person was capable of saying no but just didn't, the rapist walks away free.
If you change the law to define consent as actively consenting, there's a) a larger safety limit between being able to actively consent and being totally passed out, so maybe less room for actual misunderstandings. b) In the case you describe, the actual rapist has to describe how he got continued consent and this can then be compared to actual evidence (e.g. video) when that is available.
Of course in most cases there's no evidence like video tapes, the rapist could be lying, a false accuser could be lying, so I have no idea if there's any measurable difference in real life.

Also, if enthusiastic consent will ever be legislated in any form, I guess one would choose a less ambiguous term, maybe actively consenting or continued consent or something.

So, now we all wasted a lot of time because of some Swedish feminist group's rape law advocacy whose text we couldn't even understand from the beginning ;)

?????????

If you are passed out; you cannot consent. If A flirts with B, then passes out and B has sex with A, it's rape. Flirting is not consent to sex. Furthermore, even if there was some "consent", being passed out changes the nature of the act so dramatically I suggest it would be vitiated, unless explicit consent to passed out sex was given beforehand. There is no consent here.

Furthermore; you can withdraw your consent while being silent, by, for example, pushing them away.

And no, a rapist doesn't get to say "Well A *Could* have said no, therefore I'm off the hook!" But, in fact, the defendant doesn't have to show anything.

In the UK the prosecution must prove the following:

1. Actus Reus: Penetration of the Anus, mouth or vagina without consent.
2. Mens Rea: They did not reasonably believe consent had been given.

If you are passed out, you cannot consent. If you are passed out, it is not reasonable to think you did consent. If you are passed out, the guy can say hello to an incoming rape conviction.

However, if you agree to have sex, then change your mind, without letting the other person know, then you haven't withdrawn your consent have you? Therefore it's not rape. Never mind what the defendant did/thought, consent is still there, the prosecution fails at Actus Reus.

Furthermore, the idea of "continued consent" is a part of the law already. You can withdraw your consent at any time, and if the other party does no comply, it becomes rape.

Hence my position: Enthusiastic consent does not offer anything of value, it is merely a tool of obfuscation.

It is fine if you just think enthusiastic consent is a cool idea to live by. Good approach for life, but baffling from a legislation point of view. No law which attempts to work in ideas of "enthusiasm" will do a good job.

Anyway, you've said you're not advocating for a change in the law so the point is somewhat moot.

As a side note: does anyone have a view on Dr NerdLove? It looks like he lifted a bunch of PUA theory while trying to nay say PUA theory. I recall he has a blog post where he talks about how he got "out of the friend zone" with a really old friend.

Wanna know one of the things he did? I vaguely recall he (without great force or anything) pressed her into the wall of a club and kissed her without asking. No enthusiastic consent there to that. Just food for thought about how the theory doesn't do so well.

(Random note: Not huge fan of a lot of PUA theory.)

Honestly, "enthusiastic consent" really just makes the issue more complex than it is, it tends to be pretty obvious if the other party is consenting if you're paying attention.

[Guestus Aurelius]

In SJW world, "bad sex" doesn't exist—it's just rape.

[Karmakin]

...

As a side note: does anyone have a view on Dr NerdLove? It looks like he lifted a bunch of PUA theory while trying to nay say PUA theory. I recall he has a blog post where he talks about how he got "out of the friend zone" with a really old friend.

Wanna know one of the things he did? I vaguely recall he (without great force or anything) pressed her into the wall of a club and kissed her without asking. No enthusiastic consent there to that. Just food for thought about how the theory doesn't do so well.

(Random note: Not huge fan of a lot of PUA theory.)

Honestly, "enthusiastic consent" really just makes the issue more complex than it is, it tends to be pretty obvious if the other party is consenting if you're paying attention.

That's the thing. We're not actually talking about sex here. We're talking about the prelude to sex. How you GET to that point, not what you do AT that point. That may not be what's intended, even on the SJW side, but in reality that well is truly poisoned, and quite frankly, I think that you have Watson and Zvan to thank for that.

[Huehuehue]

...

As a side note: does anyone have a view on Dr NerdLove? It looks like he lifted a bunch of PUA theory while trying to nay say PUA theory. I recall he has a blog post where he talks about how he got "out of the friend zone" with a really old friend.

Wanna know one of the things he did? I vaguely recall he (without great force or anything) pressed her into the wall of a club and kissed her without asking. No enthusiastic consent there to that. Just food for thought about how the theory doesn't do so well.

(Random note: Not huge fan of a lot of PUA theory.)

Honestly, "enthusiastic consent" really just makes the issue more complex than it is, it tends to be pretty obvious if the other party is consenting if you're paying attention.

That's the thing. We're not actually talking about sex here. We're talking about the prelude to sex. How you GET to that point, not what you do AT that point. That may not be what's intended, even on the SJW side, but in reality that well is truly poisoned, and quite frankly, I think that you have Watson and Zvan to thank for that.

It gets so confusing to keep up. Why does sex need "enthusiastic consent" but other areas of intimacy don't? Why sex and not kissing/fondling? Again, the whole thing sounds nice in the abstract but once we get to details it just doesn't remain coherent, hence why "consent" in itself, is a pretty good word for the whole thing.

[German LurkBoatsman]

2) is there any reason why women consenting to sex should be the only interpersonal activity which has to be consented to enthusiastically?
Consenting to pay for dinner should not be enough, it should be enthusiastic consent etc etc...

Maybe it would seem less absurd if you didn't compare sex to something that has to be endured or is just means to an end (like paying bills)?
Just saying.

[Guestus Aurelius]

2) is there any reason why women consenting to sex should be the only interpersonal activity which has to be consented to enthusiastically?
Consenting to pay for dinner should not be enough, it should be enthusiastic consent etc etc...

Maybe it would seem less absurd if you didn't compare sex to something that has to be endured or is just means to an end (like paying bills)?
Just saying.

Agreed. T-foot often "T-steps in it" with his insensitive comparisons (even though many of them are actually valid).

[Lsuoma]

I always watch everything Aneris posts. If there hasn't been anything, I stare at the avatar.

I find myself doing that a lot, too.

Here ya go. No need to wait...

http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz35 ... _cheek.gif

[katamari Damassi]

Do you know more about the news than the average American?

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/the-news-iq-quiz/

I got 13 out of 13 correct.

10 out of 13 >85%

I'm happy given some of the US slant.

------spoiler--------

11 of 13. Got the Dow Jones and who's that woman questions wrong.



Got the judge, graduate % and Florida questions wrong.

[another lurker]

Out of interest, does anyone actually watch the stuff I shared? (i.e. should I bother? No hard feelings, just curious :))

Sometimes I watch, sometimes I don't have the time to devote ~an hour to watch, sometimes I want to turn my brain off and simply look at 'shops.

But I always appreciate the opportunity, Aneris :)

I bookmark all of the educational videos and links to articles/books that people provide. And when I have time, I watch/download/read etc.

Some kind and/or evil soul here linked to this: and I made it up to lecture #14 before I had to stop. Each lecture is approximately 90 minutes or more /faint. I did learn a lot, however. <3 whoever shared that link.

[katamari Damassi]

Man: C'mon let's do it.
Woman: Not really in the mood right now.
Man: Please? Let's just start, it'll get you in the mood.
Woman: I don't want to. Take care of it yourself.
Man: C'mon I'm horny for you.
Woman: (sigh) Alright.

Welcome to rape under the rubric of Enthusiastic Consent. With a good lawyer maybe you'll get a couple years off your sentence because you didn't threaten her with a knife, but be prepared to listed right mnext to a knife wielding rapist on the sex offender registry.

[German LurkBoatsman]

Hue,

I think we're talking past each other. Of course, sex with someone who is obviously passed out is rape. I do think, however, that there's a tendency in rape trials to treat not objecting to sex as consent, even if there was never any explicit consent given. I find it ethically way more plausible to make it your responsibility that you actually check with your partner if they're okay and not frozen/in fear/in shock/barely conscious and that could be done by checking that they're actively participating or by communicating, verbal or non-verbal.

If that can be legislated in a meaningful way, I don't know. You're right, the defendant is not required to cooperate with the trial in any way and it must not be held against him. So I have no idea. Not everything that's ethical translates into law very well.

Wanna know one of the things he did? I vaguely recall he (without great force or anything) pressed her into the wall of a club and kissed her without asking. No enthusiastic consent there to that. Just food for thought about how the theory doesn't do so well.

Hah, that's actually a totes legit move that was taught to me by a close female friend in college :lol: It's not out of the enthusiastic consent handbook but it can be a smooth way to go from heavy flirting to kissing. If done right!
Pressing the girl violently against a wall a forcing your tongue in her mouth - rape.
Looking how the girl reacts when you touch her arm, her hair, holding her arm while talking with her is key. Then slightly and slowly move her against the wall, then slowly move in for the kiss - great move. At every point, you must observe if she sends any signal that she might not be okay with it. She stops smiling, breaks eye contact, stiffens up - stop it. It also must totally clear to her that she can end it at every point. It's much more like leading in a dance and see if she's ready to follow. It sends her all the right signals. And believe me, she knows what's going on once you move her around.
Additionaly, right after that you should give her every possibility to enthusiastically consent by letting her very actively participate in the kissing.

This public PUA announcement was brought to you by "WALLBANGERS - if you do it right, it's not even rape" :D

[German LurkBoatsman]

Lsuoma,

thanks for making me a happy man :pray:

[Service Dog]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-proce ... rchaeology

The important thing to notice is not only do P-P archeologists believe all archeology is tainted by political bias, they believe archeology itself should serve the interests of Social Justice.

I can't find the example a prof showed me, it was something about examining the "sensuous nature" of rocks.

....

http://www.uni-kiel.de/ufg/dateien/date ... 202000.PDF

I didn't do much more than glance through it, but this article looks like a very promising mine of post-processual bullshit. Marx is mentioned, the title has "agency" in it, and it showed up under the google feminism search.

I read the article. It's much more of a warning against the pitfalls of inserting one's politics into archaeology, rather than an example of SJW politics run wild:

“We also need to acknowledge the hard-earned lesson of history: that archaeology has been colonized by too many theoretical empires originating in disciplines with standpoints and agendas very different from our own.”

I have a much less jaundiced view-- than you do-- of intellectual fads in archeology. To me, the problem of archeologists needing to Check Their Privilege is real. The processualists tried to achieve this by applying more quantitative hard science rigor to the field, which is fine but limited. The post-processualists went the other direction by admitting that hard data has limits-- (e.g.: yes, a tribesman might keep a pack of dogs because hunting with them would increase the [quantifiable] number of calories and amount of protein obtained in a day's hunt... but another tribesman might keep a puppy that was a net loss of calories, because the puppy [unquantifiably] was fun and cuddly. Hence the need to recognize the "sensuous nature" of puppies, and rocks.) "Marxist" is a suspicious word in science, but Marxist Anthropology was a hard-data approach to tracking economies of trade and consumption, rather than making gut-instinct claims about the nature of societies... which seems sensible to me.

The post-processualists seem aware that their approach downgraded archeology from 'hard science' to something more like Art Criticism.

Even Feminist Archeology seems to have sprung from a genuine prior failure to account for the activities of prehistoric women in previous archeology. (Although the article does mention a theorist named Gero who sounds fishy:

"Gero draws her inspiration from explicitly politicized sources outside anthropology and archaeology: feminist political economists, third-world activists, and culture critics whose explicit agendas are to show how contemporary gender and race ideologies influence the global economic realities of women and other disenfranchised groups.”

[acathode]

instead start asking the perpetrator what he did to ensure that she did want.

Again, I find that perfectly reasonable. Shouldn't anyone be able to answer that?

I also think it's fairly reasonable, and that the feminists here do have some good points. Unlike feminists though, I think both questions should be asked.

Worth pointing out here is that Swedish rape-laws are constructed differently than those in UK or US, it seems we approach the problem from a different angle and don't mention consent at all. Rape is instead defined as forcing or coercing someone (with for example threat of violence) into sexual acts like intercourse. It has then been extended to also cover cases where the victim was in a "helpless state", for example sleeping or being very drunk/drugged, and now recently also extended to cover cases where the victim was passive, for example "frozen with fear" cases. That should IMO cover almost all cases, but consent is however not mentioned at all in the actual law, and I think that's a mistake.

Norway seem to have similar laws on rape as Sweden, and they have seem to have created a "Criminal neglect in acquiring consent" crime to cover that, which to me at least at a quick skimming through seem to be quite reasonable.

This is just "consent" though, some Swedish feminists (for example Schyman) do argue for what can only be described as "enthusiastic consent", and that tends to take things to far*. The purpose often seem to be to increase rape conviction rates, which feminists deem way to low. One of the biggest arguments I've seen against these suggestions is that it inverts the "innocent until found guilty" principle, instead putting the the accused in a position where he/she has to prove his/her innocence (ie. that there was intent) or be found guilty, and based on how feminists argue for this law, this seem to be a valid concern.

The 2010 proposal actually did discuss this, and since they were careful to make sure that the burden of proof and presumption of innocence etc still would be the same, they stated that one of the negative consequence of the law would be failing to meet the big expectations of increased conviction rates.

*I've even seen some feminist argue that "nagging sex" where one partner convince the other to reluctantly have sex, should be considered rape.

[German LurkBoatsman]

Some kind and/or evil soul here linked to this: and I made it up to lecture #14 before I had to stop. Each lecture is approximately 90 minutes or more /faint. I did learn a lot, however. <3 whoever shared that link.

I've similarly fallen to TTC lectures and recently to the YaleCourses channel on youtube (45 min lectures btw). It's the best thing to relax.

Only drawback, sitting in lectures/presentations for the job now has an unhealthy tendency of making me really relaxed and really sleepy...

[Service Dog]

http://i.imgur.com/DUTIaLB.jpg

[Dick Strawkins]

For those interested in long lectures/podcasts from which you can learn a thing or two, I'll recommend again Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast site. http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

[Karmakin]

For those interested in long lectures/podcasts from which you can learn a thing or two, I'll recommend again Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast site. http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

I've been listening the SHIT out of those.

Seconded that recommendation.

[mike150160]

Man: C'mon let's do it.
Woman: Not really in the mood right now.
Man: Please? Let's just start, it'll get you in the mood.
Woman: I don't want to. Take care of it yourself.
Man: C'mon I'm horny for you.
Woman: (sigh) Alright.

Welcome to rape under the rubric of Enthusiastic Consent. With a good lawyer maybe you'll get a couple years off your sentence because you didn't threaten her with a knife, but be prepared to listed right mnext to a knife wielding rapist on the sex offender registry.

"I'll have dessert if you will"= forced feeding
"I don't feel like going out. Let's stay in" = unlawful imprisonment
"I KNow you don't want to see a super-hero movie but it's the new Thor!" = kidnapping

[another lurker]

@Dick

Nice! ty!

[Tribble]

I wonder if PZ ever reads the National Review, know your enemy and all that. He'd be surprised to see they were writing about him this week:

It is a politics of perpetual intra-Republican denunciation. It focuses its fire on other conservatives as much as on liberals. It takes more satisfaction in a complete loss on supposed principle than in a partial victory, let alone in the mere avoidance of worse outcomes. It has only one tactic — raise the stakes, hope to lower the boom — and treats any prudential disagreement with that tactic as a betrayal. Adherents of this brand of conservative politics are investing considerable time, energy, and money in it, locking themselves in unending intra-party battle.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/362303/print

You know, it's kind of funny, because until the Tea Party came along, conservatives did very well with their branding and using gerrymandering tricks to stay in power even though demographically, based on the actual appeal of their actual positions and their voter demographics, they should be in permanent minority status. You really had to hand it to them, they were disciplined, opportunistic and could really take advantage of the way things worked.

Then came the tea party, unleashed by Republicans to attack the Democrats. Only, it's certainly backfired on them.

And I say this with the schadenfreude of a former Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republican who is really enjoying their problems and, frankly, wouldn't piss on a modern Republican if he was on fire.

I also got that when the A+ assholes attacked Benson. You lie with dogs, you get fleas.

[welch]

Caine lets the Horde know that her pet rat Chester died. Amid commenters saying they're sorry and offering hugs (safe ones, presumably), one goes into full drama mode, showing off the results of following a Creative Writing course:

@Caine:

I’m always crappy at this, b/c my instinct is always to try to make an explicit connection by saying that I remember something similar that happened to me. Somehow, it just seems to make many people think I’m trying to make it all about me. Yet when I don’t say that, I feel like I’ve left something out. I can offer you a hug without any understanding of what you’re going through, without any real empathy. But I have more to offer than that, something deeper and more meaningful. And so consider random story from my past inserted here, but only for the purpose of saying this: I’m not merely offering digitized sympathies. I’m offering to be right there with you, in the yucky place. I won’t avoid it. Neither am I only willing to jump down into the ugly because of naive ignorance of what it will really be like. I’ve been right there, and I have to tell you that I’ve been there because I want you to know the measure of my friendship when I offer, voluntarily, to clamber right back into the muck I’ve escaped so that you can have a friend meet you where you are.

This is me, eyes wide open, choosing consciously to drop these crippled feet into the sucking mud so as to get within shoulder distance. And if you don’t need me, if Mister’s enough. That’s okay. I’m here for friendship’s sake, and if I required anything back for the gesture, well, that wouldn’t be friendly at all.

"I'm not making this all about me. Not at all. Allow me to explain." :lol:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... 7/#respond

bet it was suicide.