Victimism, defined

Posted on January 19, 2012 by David

So I get pinged Tuesday by the new Loudoun Times-Mirror reporter, who wants to know if I have any comment on the Delgaudio fundraising letter that embarrassed both the Weekly Standard (“This is obviously not the sort of advertising that we would accept, nor will we accept it in the future.”) and the Washington Times-associated Packard Media Group (“The ad that was sent today did not go through the company’s normal vetting process for prospective ads. If it had, it would not have passed the company’s standards and would not have been sent.”).

Sure I did, and sure enough a little while later the article was published and started generating comments. The thread took the usual trajectory that these threads do, with a few more anonymous crazies (sorry, but what else can you call the kind of people who would treat these letters as legitimate?) coming out of the woodwork as the world turned and as their leaders called them forth, but there weren’t very many of them and they were being handled in a reasonable way by other commenters. I didn’t see anything I felt compelled to report as a Terms of Service violation.

So imagine my surprise to find this morning that all 100+ comments had been removed, and commenting closed.

Continue reading →

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Nice hyperbole, but hormone blocking therapy is temporary and reversible. Going through the wrong puberty is permanent and irreversible. American Thinker needs to check its moral compass regarding the torture of children.

Posted on January 19, 2012 by David | Comments Off on “American Thinker” is not very thoughtful

‎Apparently, some in the deceitful showerhead group in Montgomery County are circulating the false rumor – corrected here by Chief of Police J. Thomas Manger – that the county has had four rapes “by men dressing as women and lying in wait for their victims in ladies restrooms.” I guess that when reality doesn’t conform to your only “argument,” you can just make up your own reality. A truly pathetic new low in moral depravity.

Posted on January 19, 2012 by David | 1 Comment

No protected classes?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by David

For years the line has been ‘no protected classes,’ and the first thing they throw in — very secretly — was a very protected class, and limited them from repercussions of their own actions.

No protected classes, indeed.

It’s important to understand in discussions of anti-bullying policies in our schools just who is asking for special rights. Is it the members of enumerated minority groups, who are often singled out for bullying because they are members of those groups? Or, is it those who seem to argue that bullying for certain enumerated reasons should have protected status?

Continue reading →

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On exceptions to “all”

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Russell

Students, all students, should feel safe at school. All students should be protected from bullying. Comedian Keith Deltano demonstrates that the interpretation of “all” can carry exceptions, and that those exceptions can be made invisible through omission. In October 2011, Deltano presented an “anti-bullying” program to Smarts Mill Middle School in Leesburg, funded by the SMMS PTA.

Prior to that, in 2006, Deltano had given a controversial and harmful sex-education presentation. I was concerned that our school system was, once again, paying Deltano to impose propaganda on the students. After attending Deltano’s adult presentation, I sent the letter below to the SMMS principal. A copy was also forwarded to the school board. Had the school board considered the content of this letter prior to their first meeting, perhaps they wouldn’t have made the decision to dismiss the human rights concerns of the previous board. Continue reading →

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“Any reason”

Posted on January 15, 2012 by David

Here’s an interesting bill introduced by Delegate Jim LeMunyon (R-67):

(HB 613) Public employment; nondiscrimination. Prohibits discrimination in public employment based on race, color, religion, political affiliation, national origin, sex, age, disability, or any other reason except reasons related to qualifications, ability, or performance.

This is apparently the response to lobbying efforts in favor of adding sexual orientation and gender identity to employment nondiscrimination language, a proposal rejected for many years by the General Assembly despite the fact that it is currently legal to fire state employees on the basis of those characteristics.

Looking at the technical amendments to the bill, there are many instances of stricken language (removal of the term “creed,” for example) and the addition of the phrase “or any other reason except reasons related to qualifications, ability, or performance.” Here’s a question for those commenters who frequently insist that any nondiscrimination language should consist of a comprehensive “no discrimination for any reason” statement rather than an always-incomplete “laundry list” of individual characteristics: Why not strike the individual characteristics (race, color, religion, political affiliation, national origin, sex, age, disability) from this bill, leaving only “based on any reason except reasons related to qualifications, ability, or performance”?

Does anyone have an argument for not doing that?

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What’s the matter with Tennessee?

Posted on January 13, 2012 by David

Good Lord, is Tennessee Rep. Richard Floyd (R-Some Other Planet) as dumb as he appears?

The man introduced a bill that would require everyone to use public restrooms that “match” the gender they were assigned at birth – as opposed to their actual gender. Rep. Floyd, it turns out, was motivated in this endeavor by the thought that a transgender woman might possibly be tinkling in the stall next to his wife or daughters, a situation that had apparently never occurred to him before.

As is usually the case when unfettered emotion meets lack of information, Rep. Floyd did not think things through. Take a look at the photographs on the left, Rep. Floyd. If your bill were to become law, and were actually enforced somehow, the gentlemen in these photographs would be required to use the same Tennessee public restrooms and dressing rooms as your wife and daughters. Do you think that you would like that? No? Congratulations, Sir. This is the first leg of your long road to recovery from being dumb as a box of hair.

We’ve had our own moments like this, but let’s hope they’re behind us now. I don’t think that it’s in the best interests of Loudoun County to be compared to such things.

Although there was initially a patron for the bill in the state Senate, he has now withdrawn it. Senator Bo Watson allows as to how he had agreed to sponsor the bill “as a standard courtesy to local House members.” That’s nice, but wouldn’t it really have been more courteous to just tell him that it was stupid?

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