So, yesterday I had a comment I had to think about before I approved.

I always think about approving new commenters before bed, because this gives them free rein to scat all over the threads before I wake and usually before the Huns are active and neutralizing. So this comment made me hesitate.

First there was the name. The name was Ele. Now that means “he” in Portuguese. It could also arguably be a diminutive of something like Giselle. OTOH it’s also a misspelling of Elle – French for “She” which is the sort of commenter name feminists with glitter in the hoo ha tend to saddle themselves with.

Then there was the comment. Not only were there internal alarm bells in the comment itself (I’ll explain) but the comment itself was living proof that the commenter had either not read or not understood the post AT ALL.

The comment is this:

I’m sure this will get lost – but Hoyt, did you look at the site you linked to? The vast majority of it is misogynistic ramblings, including the idea that all women are bitches unless they find a man attractive (because that’s the only thing that makes a woman behave). He said that.

I’ve always respected you, but look at your sources. While the article itself is not objectionable, linking people to a site that clearly espouses hatred of women is not a good idea. Don’t give him a platform – and don’t give liberals ammunition.

The internal alarm bells are as follows “Hoyt” – no one who reads this site for any amount of time, no matter how silent, calls me “Hoyt” particularly in an appellative sort of way “Hoyt” betrays that they were sent here and have seen no more than the header, not even bothering to look at the books for sale on the side.

So, that “Hoyt” effectively contradicts “I’ve always respected” – because this person doesn’t even know what my first name is.

This is enforced by “respected” – look, “respect” is almost exclusively a liberal word. Usually used in the sense of “respect the office” or “respect me because I have this credential.” When speaking to a blogger or a writer, a conservative/libertarian is more likely to use “I’ve always admired” you.

The only thing that decided me to let the comment to was “And don’t give liberals ammunition” which is typical of young, scared and possibly in the political closet conservatives and libertarians. (Later, they grow a spine and they start being able to walk upright, but that’s something else.) Also, that the comment was all in all fairly innocuous. Not wholly innocuous. It might very well have been planted with the intent of having me defend that site, and therefore having me further tainted by association. Since I hadn’t read the site and didn’t have time to answer in full, that wasn’t a problem.

Well, this morning it’s tilted slightly more towards the “obnoxious SJW ( sodden social jejnue justice whiner warrior) infiltration” on this comment, because a) this person judging by her email writes like one (this is not conclusive. People try to pass in various ways) b) there has been no other comment, no plea to me to be careful, nothing.

If that’s the case, she should hold onto her hat. And if she is a young but daft conservative/libertarian in the closet, she should hold on to her hat.

In the first case because “I ain’t afraid anymore” (there is a Portuguese joke, told after the revolution, not incredibly funny to anyone who didn’t live through it, about a guy who orders a brandy and a coffee and refuses to pay because “I ain’t afraid anymore” – that’s sort of what I feel like.) In the second case because, oh, honey, you need to learn reading comprehension.

For those concerned about the link and how the man at the site is a misogynist who “hates women”. I still haven’t read the other posts on that site, but I can see the header. He’s one of the proponents of “Game”. For those of you who aren’t acquainted with this facet of the manosphere “ Game” is what pickup artists call what they employ to… well, pick up women.

While in general I disagree with pick up artists as much as I disagree with feminists and for the same reason (because they make an entire half of the human race into widgets, definable only by what is between their legs) I cut them more slack then I cut feminists. I do this for two reasons:

First – There is a world of difference between reading a blog that tries to counter female oppression in, say, Saudi Arabia, and one that tries to counter female oppression in the US. The first might go a bit far in objectifying men or thinking all men are evil without my thinking the person is a loon. In the second, unless the person is devoted to working against white slavery or works at an abused women shelter – PFUI. So, I cut more slack to men who in the US are effectively second class citizens when they go a little far in their own defense, than I cut women living in what is now an effective matriarchy when they blame all their issues on “patriarchy.” (I’m not saying that some women, in the US, due to situation, character, etc. aren’t oppressed, only that the average SJW truly isn’t and uses it as an excuse. And that I cut no slack.)

Second – They are in touch with reality. Yes, they are in fact wrong in the idea every woman can be manipulated in the exact same way. I fell in love with my husband after what would be considered “friendzoning” and by his doing EVERYTHING wrong according to “the game.” However, if your goal is to attract a certain type of woman for a certain type of affair they are in fact right. And they’re right on the very fundamental fact that men and women are different. (Now if they got that women are also different from each other, they’d be even saner.)

IOW the man on the site, unless it’s a very odd representative of The Game is not advocating killing women, or keeping them in a burqa, or taking away their right to conduct commerce. He’s instructing men on how to seduce them. He might hate women (I doubt it. Why in heck would you devote yourself to pursue them?) but if that’s your definition of “Misogyny” you really don’t know anything about how women are treated the world over.

I sort of figured it wasn’t anything as bad as the white supremacist site that shall not be named, because they have scouts who come and infest a site for months because it’s rational. (The white supremacist site is not. And it’s a pity I can’t link to it, because among other things their interpretation of Portuguese history is a hoot. For instance, based on pictures of Portuguese kings in the NINETEENTH century they think all Portuguese used to look like Germans. In fact, the Portuguese kings were related to Queen Victoria, of course, but that had nothing to do with the population. Henry the Navigator, who was arguably the royal with the most Portuguese blood preserved in painting, looked like… a Portuguese man. [His father was, arguably, of Jewish ascent since his mother was a commoner of converso background. He was an illegitimate son.]) Such sites tend to be very silly, even for just one post.

Okay, that’s now disposed of. Now we can move to the important part:

That comment betrays a total lack of understanding of the post.

The whole point of the post was to show that the right (and my fellow libertarians should forgive me. I know that we are just short of the sans culottes in the French revolution with the same lack of reverence for “our betters” but lacking that fascination with equalite, except before the law, and therefore it hurts to lump us in with socons and with people who, in Europe, defended kings. The thing is in the US we are on the right. Possibly the most right of all, since we cling to the “old form” of our founding documents. So, bear with me) reads and evaluates ideas and artwork in themselves, while the SJWs rely on a version of “unclean.”

To put this another way: I liked that article because, with a minor quibble, I thought it described very well what has been happening in literature and gaming. I didn’t even bother looking at the other posts on the site (or the header) because that POST made perfect sense and described the situation in words I didn’t have to write, which then provided the background to my post about why the left is intellectually sterile.

The left, though, can’t apply logic to its beliefs, because if it did they’d crumble at the touch (no? really? Answer me quickly: which one is more UNJUSTLY oppressed? A black woman raised in the lap of luxury by college-professor parents or a white man in the Appalachia raised by a druggie single mother? Which one deserves your help more? If you said the woman, you just proved you internalized your Marxist training perfectly, but you can’t think. If you said “the man” you just proved you are trying to game me. The actual answer is “It depends on the content of their characters.” That’s the ONLY sane, rational answer for a non-racist human in a free society.)

So instead, they rely on a system of “cleanliness.”

Having defined some thoughts as unclean — those that disapprove of any women for any reason whatsoever, or which fail to believe men and women are exactly alike (we’re not. Vive la difference), those that say the poor might have done something to bring their plight on themselves, those that approve of any republican, ever, those that intimate that the person might vote for anyone but a democrat/socialist/communist, those that disapprove of communism and all its works and all its empty promises – they then go around trying to avoid the contagion of those thoughts.

To that end, their fellow SJWs help, by acting like lepers in the middle ages, tolling their little bell and shouting “unclean, unclean” every time a blog or book betrays one of the germs of these forbidden ideas.

They have to, you see. Like lepers in the middle ages they have no clue how the contagion occurs, they just know that exposed people often become that which the SJWs disapprove of. (I.e. ANY rational thought can crumble their perfect pseudo-religion.)

Under that heading, I am already unclean. I’ve admitted that I will vote against democrats in every possible election if for no other reason because the press refuses to report democrat malfeasance which both covers up and enables corruption of democrats in power.

Their system, because irrational, and because they are so loud, has been intimidating and maiming the right for decades.

You see, no one wants to become a target of their screams and pointing because, well, who the heck wants to be called a nazi because they disapprove of gynocracy in Science Fiction or of giving awards to people because they, in the ultimate analysis, have a vagina and/or an interesting genetic background?

When I was a kid, every Sunday we visited the slum where mom grew up. (Yes, I hated it, why?) On the way to my grandparents’ three room (rented) house, we passed this … magnificent ruin. If I had to guess, it was probably once a manorial house, now many centuries abandoned/in disrepair. (Though it might be older than that. Like its equivalent in the village, it was called “ilha” a direct translation from the Roman Insula.) It had many floors and countless rooms, out of which boiled a multitude of half-dressed, ragged, dirty children, who would swarm around you, hitting and kicking, and trying to steal stuff from your purse.

The SJWs are sort of like that, when they find a target, and no one wants to deal with the swarm of dirty, ragged and intellectually half-dressed children.

Even when you have the courage of your convictions and can defend your ideas rationally, it’s a pain. I mean, my family at the time was probably poorer than most of those kids in the slum (most of them belonged to prestigious beggar leagues. The league is very wealthy and its headmen very powerful) but this didn’t save me from being hit and sometimes having my hair ribbons (mom insisted!) stolen.

In the same way, you might be the nicest man who ever lived and have devoted your entire life to looking after women in shelters, but if you don’t follow the SJW line, they’ll call you a misogynist and a woman hater.

Most people find it not worth the trouble and are afraid of the character association.

This, in the end means that right wing politicians get attacked for reasons that don’t even make any sense. Like, for instance, Romney getting accused of something relating to women and binders, because he asked for the resumes of women who had been held back (he thought, at least) due to their gender and for giving them due advancement. That accusation never even made any sense. Not even out of context. But it was all “Women, binders” and no one, NO ONE in a public position defended the man. So all the woman (and man) on the street retained was “women/binders/war on women.”

Much worse than that, Palin got accused of being stupid and it stuck to her because of jokes by SNL and because the left speciously cut her interviews. This despite the fact she rose to prominence all on her own.

But the right is supposed to be “stupid” and so the left beat that drum. She was on the right and therefore self-obviously stupid, just like the president is supposedly the most brilliant man who ever lived, but we don’t get to see IQ tests or grades. (I’ll show him mine, if he shows me his. No? Yeah. I know.)

This is particularly effective against the right, because most of us came to our positions on our own, and therefore it’s not a unified position. I.e. there are many disagreements even among ourselves. Some of the most heated arguments I’ve ever had were with other libertarian and libertarianish people.

So, when you say “Well, this person believes in x” and it’s against my beliefs, it’s easier to scare me off. Theoretically.

The left, showing its shallowness and lack of morals, chooses to defend people guilty of real, heinous crimes. They make martyrs of people who robbed convenience stores and attacked cops. They enshrine politicians who grow rich at the public expense while talking about the plight of the poor. They embraced racists, and gave them long lives in the democratic party. And they embrace feminists no matter how horrible their blogs or stories are, including those that advocate the elimination of all males or stories (MANY. Do your homework) that imply all men are evil because penis.

This is because they have no principles and no ideas. So the “Democrat” or “communist” or “socialist” label makes someone’s thoughts “safe” even when despicable. (And the fact that communist and socialist are “safe” labels tells you how much they will swallow, because those two regimes always end in blood, faster or slower, overt or covert.)

So by allowing them to Mao Mao the right into splintering and isolating, we’re allowing the truly bad, truly disgusting, truly immiserating ideas to prevail. We’re allowing innocents to think that the SJWs have some sort of moral high ground. We’re allowing the destruction of civilization.

In the name of avoiding the kicking and shoving, the grasping by the filthy hands of the ideologically dirty and morally diseased progeny of Marx.

Except some of us ain’t afraid anymore.

The fact we don’t vote for them is enough to bring the bell and the pointing finger and the shouts of unclean. After a while they form sort of a pleasant buzz as you go about your business. And hey, if they hang around to shout sooner or later they’ll read something that will make them think. Well, it’s possible.

I ain’t afraid anymore.

In the end, we win, they lose.

Be not afraid.

WELCOME INSTAPUNDIT READERS – And as always thank you to Glenn Reynolds for the link!