Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - This Week in Stupid (31⧸01⧸2016)

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Jan. 31, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

25:41

This Week in Stupid (31⧸01⧸2016)

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	Hello everyone, welcome to This Week in Stupid for the 31st of January 2016.
	If you find anything you'd like to see on This Week in Stupid, please tweet using hashtag TWIS or post it to our Sagan of Akad.
	Before I start, I'd just like to thank my friend V. Monroe for taking care of This Week in Stupid last week.
	I was off oppressing women in other countries, so I very much appreciate him maintaining the patriarchy in my absence.
	I'd just like to note there have been some updates to some of the things he covered in his episode.
	Apparently the sniper rifles used to train Muslim immigrants are low-tech and not something that would normally be used in war, and the Russian media have claimed the 13-year-old girl was raped whereas German media claim it didn't happen.
	There is a link for further reading if you'd like to investigate for yourselves.
	So without further delay, let's have a look at the events of last week, and magnificently I get to start on a really positive note.
	Canadian artist Gregory Alan Elliott, who was accused of Twitter harassment by professional problem glasses wearer Stephanie Guthrie and a small cabal of her feminist friends, has been found not guilty.
	Feminist outlets then responded as feminists always do and attempted to spread as much fear to women online as they could.
	The internet just became an even uglier place for Canadian women.
	Are you afraid yet?
	Come on women of Canada, are you quaking yet?
	Where are your handbags?
	Clutch them!
	Clutch them tighter!
	In a precedent-setting move, the Ontario Court of Justice decided that harassing women online is not a crime.
	The judge found Elliot not guilty of criminally harassing Toronto feminists Steph Guthrie and Heather Riley.
	Okay, so you do have a charge of criminal harassment.
	It's just that apparently Elliot wasn't committing that crime.
	So it's not that harassing women online is not a crime, it's that Elliot wasn't criminally harassing anyone.
	You say it yourself in these two paragraphs.
	Just so we're clear, your attempt at spinning this is a really poor one.
	So in order for Elliot to have been found guilty, it had to be proven that he knew he was harassing the women and that they were fearful as a result.
	It also had to be proven that their fear was reasonable.
	And the judge decided that Elliot was not aware that he was harassing Guthrie and her fear was not reasonable, but that Elliot did know he was harassing Riley, but she had no reasonable grounds for fear, and so the charges against Elliot were dismissed.
	So I think this is all rather silly, but it is fairly straightforward.
	Elliot disagreed with them on Twitter, he tweeted at them, they didn't approve of him tweeting at them, despite the fact that they were mentioning him.
	Canada does have laws against criminal harassment, so he was charged with this, found not guilty, end of story.
	But apparently many idiots are now asking why then, Elliot was found not guilty.
	Well, you've just explained exactly why.
	Further, why was someone who could never understand what it is to be terrorised in this way put in charge of gauging the legitimacy of women's fear?
	Oh, that's a good question.
	I mean, I wonder if it's something to do with them not using the word fearful or fear, but instead concerned.
	And then, I do have to wonder why you're using the word terrorised, because if I was being terrorised, I wouldn't describe myself as being concerned.
	But the thing is, it sounds like you're asking for Sharia courts for feminism.
	Are you saying that women deserve a different judicial system to men?
	But the thing is, this verdict is troubling.
	A precedent has now been set that if a person is harassed online, the harassment will not be deemed criminal unless a physical element is introduced, or unless the harasser repeatedly uses violent language.
	Listen, idiots, the term violence necessitates physical force, so if you say violent language, it sounds like you're talking about the impact of the sound waves of that language on someone's eardrums.
	That's the violence inherent in the language.
	It is a stupid, nonsensical term, and you're an idiot for using it.
	But that's just me being a pedant.
	Listen to this next part and tell me whether you think the word entitlement applies to the speaker.
	My reaction to the ruling was great.
	It's open season on women now, Ontario NDP MPP Sherry De Novo told Vice.
	You can say whatever you will about whatever woman you want.
	It's just freedom of expression.
	Not only is that insanely entitled that you shouldn't be able to say whatever you want about whoever you want, but it's open season on women now.
	How paranoid is that?
	All the trolls are now going to register for Twitter and then start sending women tweets on the internet and they'll go to sleep and all they'll hear in their dreams is, I disagree with you.
	I think you're wrong on this issue.
	And Stephanie Guthrie is going to wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night screaming, block, block, block!
	I know I've gone on quite a lot about this article, but seriously, there is just so much in it that's just such nonsense.
	I mean, look at this bit, right?
	It's clear that Kanzan, the judge, doesn't understand the fear of violence women carry around with them.
	And at what point in an interaction with a man that fear begins to manifest?
	He repeatedly said there were no sexual or physical threats made, but the women did feel threatened, and that's how violence begins.
	With threatening and controlling behaviour.
	What?
	What are you fucking talking about?
	What are you on about?
	This was tweets on the internet.
	Nothing like that happened.
	They literally had control over their own interactions with Elliot.
	They blocked him.
	And that's it.
	And that's all that happened.
	What are you talking about?
	Do you even remember what you were talking about?
	Violence comes from those who ignore other people's boundaries.
	Yes, so what?
	That doesn't matter.
	There wasn't any violence involved.
	I mean, there were literally no threats.
	There was literally nothing that happened.
	What are you talking about, Vice?
	But that's not enough for the feminist politician De Novo, who says that she's floating the idea of introducing a new bill to address online harassment of and verbal violence towards women, which will probably turn out to be a really short bill since verbal violence is a thing that doesn't exist.
	She also said that people could potentially be charged with hate speech for harassing others online.
	Either way, she says the bar has to be set a lot higher than the threat of physical violence.
	She's trying to legislate against women being inconvenienced.
	And not really even women.
	We're talking about feminists here.
	Once again, a man's quote, freedom of expression, trumps a woman's right to feel safe and secure.
	Well, that's something we should really talk about, isn't it?
	Because I mean, people do have the rights to freedom of expression.
	I mean, these rights are under attack by feminists, as we can see literally here, where they can't even talk about the term freedom of expression without attempting to be disdainful of it.
	But there is no such right to feel safe and secure, and only the most molly-coddled of people could possibly think that there fucking was.
	I doubt there is a political document in all of history that attempted to guarantee any kind of right to feel a certain way in any way, shape, or form.
	I feel like I'm explaining this to a child or something.
	Vice, every person's feelings are subjective.
	So what makes one person afraid might make another person feel safe?
	You cannot create universal laws around people's feelings.
	It just can't work.
	And the thing is, these dangerous lunatics who think you can actually legislate for feelings turn out to be breaking some actual laws.
	Take for example, Melissa, I need some muscle over here, Click, who's being charged with assault after violating the rights of a student journalist in order to protect the feelings of the protesters.
	So a spokeswoman for the Columbia Prosecutor's Office said that Click was charged with third-degree assault, a class C misdemeanor that carries a possible 15-day jail sentence.
	Now, personally, I can't believe she still has a job, but apparently she does, and is seeking tenure.
	See, this is what happens when someone decides, you know what, I'm just going to go with my feelings.
	Fuck the laws, fuck other people's rights.
	I'm just going to go with my feelings.
	I feel that this is the right thing to do.
	You'll recall that the president of Missouri resigned, and so interim President Foley has said, we are confident that she does not pose any danger to any student.
	Which is as ridiculous as this has become.
	Nobody has fucking suggested she presents a physical danger to the students.
	It's not like we think that she is going to disembowel them or something.
	Click has already demonstrated that she is willing to abuse her position of power to infringe on the civil rights of other students.
	Click seems to have a deep ideological bias that prevents her from acting responsibly and fairly to all of the students.
	Honestly, I really do hate the word games, the language they use, to deliberately obfuscate things.
	I mean, maybe it's not even deliberate.
	Maybe these people don't even realise what they're doing.
	The thing is, I really shouldn't try and discount the possibility that feminist academics aren't actually dangerous lunatics.
	I mean, there is an article here covering a new study that suggests rom-coms perpetuate dangerous myths and make it harder to prosecute stalkers.
	Romantic comedies.
	Apparently they teach women that stalking is a compliment.
	I'm sure all this fear-mongering is done for the best of intentions, but what they're really doing is trying to persuade women to be afraid of their own fantasies.
	The social scientist who conducted this study found that when participants watched films in which persistent pursuit was depicted as frightening, they became less likely to agree with stalking myths.
	But when they watched a romantic comedy, they perceived it as realistic and became more likely to agree with them.
	Wow, really.
	If you make something sound scary, people don't agree with it.
	If you make it sound positive, they do agree with it.
	Incredible.
	I wonder if one day we'll understand why the human psyche works this way.
	Well, apparently it's because men are socialized to be persistent, and women are socialized to be flattered by it, which tells you everything you need to know about Julia Lippman.
	It's all socialized.
	There's no kind of biological drive here at all.
	There's nothing, it's all about what they've learned.
	They need to just unlearn it.
	Men will finally be in the feminist utopia.
	We're taught that we should want this from men, Lipman said, and that means we're desirable.
	And who doesn't want to be desirable?
	You can't really be that stupid, can you?
	The very act of being desired by men is what makes you desirable.
	Honestly, your opinion on whether you are desirable or not doesn't actually make a difference to whether you are actually desirable.
	But some women do want that and some don't.
	It's really weird that feminist researchers seem to be on a mission to destroy anything that women enjoy.
	Researchers have found a major problem with The Little Mermaid and other Disney movies.
	Researchers.
	Disney movie researchers, apparently.
	So apparently there is data about the Disney princess movies that have come from linguists Carmen Fort and Karen Eisenhower, who have been working on the project to analyse all the dialogue from the Disney Princess franchise.
	Because apparently that really is something that you can be paid to do.
	Now you have to understand that Disney princess research is still in its preliminary stages.
	It's a young field.
	It's a very youthful discipline.
	So some of the data might not be complete, but we'll take a look at it and see what we can glean from it.
	So in Disney's modern princess movies, men often speak more than women.
	The films from the 90s were particularly male-dominated.
	Personally, I think this is just a case of comparing apples to oranges, to be honest.
	Each one of these films is different.
	They have different characters for different reasons to tell different stories in different time periods and places.
	There's not really much you can actually compare here.
	Sometimes the stories have more female speaking parts and sometimes they don't.
	What they found is that the older movies contained fewer speaking roles, so you'd have a better balance of male to female, and then as the casts for each movie tend to grow, they would add more male characters than female characters.
	Now our social scientists don't know, but they're prepared to give us their best guess as to why this is.
	And they think that it's carelessness.
	Because we're so trained to think that male is the norm.
	So when you want to add a shopkeeper, that shopkeeper is a man.
	Or you add a guard and that guard is a man.
	I think it's just really ingrained in our culture.
	You know what, you're right.
	I think you're right.
	I think it really is ingrained in our culture that we try to represent reality as accurately as we can.
	That's what it is.
	It's not life imitating art, it's actually art imitating life.
	We're so used to thinking, well, that guard probably is a man because it's a dangerous job.
	And for some reason, women aren't clamouring for dangerous jobs.
	Honestly, the war on gender roles is becoming absurd.
	Look at this Norwegian article that I've used Google Translate on.
	Girls dress up as princesses and boys dress up as superheroes, and now they're cancelling this carnival because of it.
	Not all children experience this day as something positive.
	We experience that today's carnival is built much on the commercialization of shops and the characters kids disguise themselves as is stereotyped in terms of both fantasy and sex.
	Then some then drop some light outside and we want inclusive children's groups and events that build on this.
	To put that in plain English, because some children don't enjoy this carnival, we are cancelling this carnival so no children can enjoy it.
	This is like an actual reason they're giving.
	We have seen that the traditional costumes of the kids have been gender stereotypical.
	There are many girls who are dressed as princesses and many boys dressed as Spider-Man and we do not want to reinforce gender stereotypes in kindergarten.
	Can you even imagine someone telling you that?
	Someone said, well, you know, we would have a carnival for your kids, but I'm sorry, some girls will dress as princesses and some boys will dress as Spider-Man.
	You'd be like, okay, so.
	And they'll be like, well, we've got to cancell it.
	Why?
	Well, because it's reinforcing stereotypes.
	You'd be like, so what?
	Well, because they might turn out to be regular girls and boys.
	Yes, and what's the problem with that?
	Well, some people don't turn out to be regular girls and boys.
	Well, what does that mean?
	Well, that means nobody is allowed to turn out to be a regular girl or boy, because some people don't.
	But this is the really ironic bit, right?
	It's unfortunate if we teach our children that boys and girls cannot do the same things.
	Well, we don't do that, but toys and clothes that encourage different behavior for boys and girls can give the children the narrow confines of who they may be.
	It can be problematic for the individual boy or girl who struggles to fit in.
	And it can be problematic from a gender equality perspective, by creating an expectation of the children about the roles of different sexes may have.
	Isn't that just unbelievable though?
	I mean, we're going to constrain who you're allowed to be because otherwise you might find yourself constrained on who you're allowed to be.
	Just leave them the fuck alone, you meddling busybodies.
	And so now we come to the point where feminism intersects with Islam, specifically the values they both espouse.
	For example, both sex-negative feminists and Islamists can both celebrate that Pakistan has banned pornography.
	So 400,000 adult websites have been blocked in Pakistan because of a recent Supreme Court order requiring the telecom sector to take remedial steps to quantify the nefarious phenomenon of obscenity and pornography that has an imminent role to corrupt and vitiate the youth of Pakistan.
	Which is a long-winded way of saying when someone think of the children.
	Feminism really starts showing its Marxist colours when it comes up against dealing with Israel though.
	For example with this article tying queer liberation to fighting Zionism.
	I guess we'll just take it on blind faith then that these are things that actually intersect.
	So apparently more than 200 protesters shut down a presentation organized by a Zionist group this past weekend during the National LGBTQ Task Force's Creating Change conference in Chicago.
	As the protesters explained, for several years the Israeli government has attempted to use propaganda about the freedoms some LGBTQs in the country have as a cover for their increasingly brutal rule over the Palestinians.
	A process known as pinkwashing.
	Okay.
	Apparently this is not the first time that the task force has been criticized for marginalising people of colour or cultivating racism at creating change.
	Okay, so you're accusing them of using propaganda about the freedoms some LGBTQs have in Palestine or lack thereof in comparison to the actual freedoms that they have in Israel.
	And that's racist.
	Talking about the legal status of gays in Palestine and comparing it to the legal status of gays in Israel is racism.
	It's cultivating racism.
	I mean I actually don't know what conditions are like for gay people in Gaza or the West Bank.
	So I googled it and apparently America's leading gay news source thinks that they're no haven for LGBT Palestinians.
	Since the Oslo Peace Agreement, Israel has given the Palestinian Authority civil authority over the West Bank, and since 2005's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas has been the governing authority there.
	Neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas recognises LGBT rights and has maintained a hostile environment for gay citizens, forcing them to flee their homes.
	As I understand it, in Palestine, being gay is something you will be executed for.
	Damn it, feminists, remember about the Kyriarchy.
	Some people can be impressed in some ways and privileged in others.
	This is one of those examples.
	Look, here's another case that we can use as an example.
	Danish teen fought off her attacker and now she'll face a fine.
	A 17-year-old girl who is physically and sexually attacked in Sonderburg will herself face charges of using a pepper spray to fend off her assailant.
	So she told police that she was attacked in central Sonderburg on Wednesday around 10pm by a dark-skinned English-speaking man.
	She said the man knocked her to the ground and then unbuttoned her pants and attempted to undress her.
	However, she was able to save herself from further assaults by using pepper spray on the attacker.
	She really should have considered whether or not pepper sprays were legal in Denmark before using one to oppress a poor immigrant man.
	But you'll know it's okay though, because the man who attacked the 17 year old has fled from the scene and has not been charged.
	And so it's fine.
	The victim is being fined for using a weapon that she shouldn't have had but was effective in not only deterring her attacker and preventing her from being raped, but also without causing lasting harm to the attacker.
	And the attackers go away scot-free.
	And in related news, a nightclub in Sonderburg is now barring guests from entering if they cannot speak Danish, English or German, which will have the added bonus side effect of keeping out the French.
	Unless Comrade Corbyn has his way, in which case he'd probably let every Frenchman into Britain.
	Speaking in his native Russian, Corbyn said that everyone who wants to come to Britain and has a connection should be free to submit an application for processing by UK officials.
	He added, we're talking 3,000 people.
	It's not very many.
	Are fucking- You've taken to nagging!
	The Labour leader said that his party has in the past been too defensive about immigration and should make the case that benefits the migrants can bring to the economy, particularly public services.
	We already have twice as many people unemployed as there are free jobs in this country.
	How exactly does bringing more unemployed people into the country help Jeremy?
	In an interview with Sky News, he said, we're not doing anything about the refugee crisis that's actually happening in Europe itself.
	Which actually isn't true, is it, Jeremy?
	Because the government has agreed to accept 20,000 Syrian refugees into the UK and is understood to be considering plans to bring 3,000 unaccompanied children into the country.
	I don't want to defend the Conservatives, but that is something, and it's at least a reasonably low figure.
	I mean, you weren't in power, Jeremy, but I remember New Labour.
	I remember that, according to The Guardian, between 97 and 2010, they brought in 2.2 million immigrants.
	They didn't ask anyone if they wanted 247,000 people a year to move to the UK.
	They just did it.
	And we're not talking about skilled workers either.
	We're talking about unskilled workers of which we have plenty already.
	And I'm not trying to just dump on immigrants or anything.
	You know, if you want to emigrate to another country, fine.
	Go through the proper legitimate processes.
	Put in your applications.
	Show them what your skills are.
	Tell them why you want to move and be a good citizen of that country.
	You cannot just turn up uninvited, especially when the chances are you are simply an economic migrant.
	You're not actually fleeing from a war.
	But if you do turn up unannounced, don't then try to force your way in by storming a ship and forcing the port to close.
	Britain's most senior immigration judge has said that these people are probably not refugees, but migrants simply trying to get into the UK.
	Why?
	Because of perceived advantages in the UK rather than France.
	The thing is, I know I'm probably sounding quite heartless at this point, but intolerable conditions is one of the series of reasons why they should be allowed to move here while France processes their claim for shelter.
	Well, no, they don't have to be there.
	They could have stayed where they are.
	They could have gone home.
	They should go home.
	As you said, they are not fleeing war.
	They are economic migrants.
	They haven't applied through the official channels.
	So the answer is fucking no.
	But remember, there is no link between the Cologne sex attacks and the migrant crisis.
	The European Commission denies the link.
	The denial of reality goes right to the very top in the EU.
	I can hardly believe I'm reading this, but the sex attacks that took place in Cologne and New Year's Eve were simply a matter of public order and had nothing to do with the refugee crisis Jean-Claude Juncker's inner circle believe.
	The European Commission will be the voice of reason and tell the public that there is no link between the migration crisis affecting the continent and the attacks on women in Germany and elsewhere.
	Internal minutes disclose amid growing fears of a xenophobic backlash.
	Look at this fucking ostrich logic.
	Okay, we know that there were Syrian refugees.
	We in fact know that the majority of them were definitely migrants.
	Some of them were known to the authorities by name.
	And we know they were playing an Arabic sex harassment game called Taharush.
	But it was just a matter of public order.
	I mean, German men do this just as often.
	Why is everyone joining a far-right party these days?
	We just have no idea.
	The minutes of the European Commission's weekly cabinet meeting from January 13th hint at officials' fears that the events in Cologne could turn public opinion sharply against the million migrants who have entered Europe.
	They spell out Mr. Junker's frustration at the inaction of the national governments under pressure from voters and hint at panic that the inability to halt the growing volume of economic migrants could undermine the credibility of the European project.
	Demetrius of whatever migration commissioner said the EU is facing its moment of truth in which they have ironically decided to lie to the public.
	They called for the unconditional rejection of the false associations between certain criminal acts such as the attacks on women in Cologne on New Year's Eve and the mass influx of refugees.
	Despite the fact the people arrested for committing the attacks were themselves refugees.
	Honestly, I would love to hear from people who lived from within the Soviet Union and I would like them to tell me whether this is anything similar to what Soviet governments did in their time.
	Seriously, I want them to explain to me why now is there needed a safe zone for women ahead of the city's carnival.
	I mean all of the years leading up to now, German men didn't feel the need to gang assault and rape, but for some reason after a massive influx of migrants, German men decided to get all rapey.
	I mean what is it about migrants that makes German men want to sexually assault women?
	I'd like them to explain this to me.
	Does it matter that the police are actually holding asylum seekers as suspects in the sex assaults?
	Of course not.
	Why would that matter?
	How would that tie economic migrants posing as refugees to the sex assault?
	nothing to do with them, but we are going to set up extra street lighting and provide a safe zone for women in the city center, staffed by social workers, to fend off those attacks from German men.
	Why are the police warning that they face difficulty securing convictions against those responsible for the sex attacks?
	Do you think it might be white privilege or something?
	I'm actually quite interested in hearing what Majid Nawaz has to say about Islam.
	This guy was a former Islamic extremist and he thinks the far left is helping ISIS.
	Majid is hitting all the right notes when it comes to criticism and reform of Islam.
	I mean I'll just pull out a few extracts for you.
	He says we need a rational conversation about reforming Islam.
	Totally agree.
	You don't need to be black to challenge racism, you don't need to be gay to challenge homophobia, and you do not need to be Muslim to challenge Islam.
	Nawaz coined the phrase the regressive left, which he describes as a section of the left-wing politics who are abusing such terms as racism, bigotry, and Islamophobia to shut down debate.
	Islam is not a race and it's certainly not racist to scrutinize Islam, just as it is not anti-Christian to scrutinize, critique and satirize Christianity.
	Wow, he's making a lot of sense, isn't he?
	Nawaz said it is absurd to state that the likes of ISIS are not inspired by Islam, as some liberal thinkers on the left have attempted to claim.
	It is self-evident that ISIS has something to do with Islam.
	When ISIS throws gays off the top of buildings, they are using scripture.
	In fact, there are traditions ascribed to the Prophet where it says exactly the punishment that should be given to gays.
	When they are stoning women to death, it is in scripture.
	When they are chopping off hands, I can read you the Arabic in the Quran which tells them to do that.
	I am not saying that it is Islam.
	I am saying that it is a view of Islam that is justified by scripture.
	What a marvellous way of explaining it to the regressives.
	I won't go through the entire interview, but as you can probably tell from what I've read out so far, the interview itself is excellent.
	The links are in the description and I strongly advise you to read through it.

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