It's a contagious disease, similar to Alzheimer's: Reasoning Deficit Disorder. The list of illogical behaviors the afflicted exhibit is very long.

Historically, speech restrictions have been opposed by disadvantaged groups -- civil rights advocates, labor union organizers, left-wing radicals. Now, as the Times gingerly notes, those students who most value free speech are from "groups historically or currently in positions of power."

Those favoring censorship in the name of inclusion and diversity cannot imagine that the censoring regime will ever turn on them.

They blissfully ignore the lessons of history, that revolutions always devour their own. Just ask Robespierre or Trotsky. Just ask the Brown Shirts or the kulaks.

Despite predating all of those, our Founding Fathers understood that muzzling dissent, even odious dissent, led to dictatorship and tyranny. Thus, under the system they set up, even Illinois Nazis are free to proselytize. The same Constitutional protections afforded the Illinois Nazis were afforded advocates of abolition, civil rights, desegregation, and women's suffrage.

Those freedoms our Founding Fathers insisted be enshrined in our foundational document may be the very reason the American Revolution is the only revolution in history not to descend into madness and tyranny.

So, let's toss 'em all out in the name of inclusiveness and diversity. That'll end well.

Maybe it's the pendulum swinging the other way. For a generation or two lots of women have been all "empowered" and "I-am-woman-hear-me-roar" and "Anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better." Then they find out there's a lot of hard work and scary stuff to slog through to earn your way in the world every damn day. Maybe they got more than they bargained for.

I still say there is no such thing as earned power. Either you have it or you don't. Amy's personal religion is not my own so this phrase has no meaning.

As seen on twatter:

#Intersectionality, at its core, is about taking a sledgehammer to what is left of classical liberalism and the notion of a tolerant multiracial society.

https://twitter.com/0ryuge/status/977122490563444736

I think that is because that they believe whatever power structure that follows on afterwards will be under their control.

They're not smart enough to understand they'll be Revolutionary France, and after they've run out of real enemies to take their vengeance on, they'll start taking vengeance on their allies.

And then you get a Bonaparte. I guarantee they won't like Bonaparte.

I still say there is no such thing as earned power.

I get what you're saying: the only people who have power over you are those whom you allow to have power over you.

On the other hand, your wife has earned power over you, does she not?

How about your employer, at least in terms of your employment?

I'm pretty sure that LEO and the prosecuting portion of government feels they have earned power over you. The IRS also thinks so, and at some point so will Social Security and Medicare.

Remember: this witches brew is stewing in academia. As these adherents move out into the Real World, they'll become bureaucrats, lawyers, judges, elected officials, activists and so on. And that brew will seep into their work, and affect us all.

They'll be able to wield the power of government over you for your own good. Because you're too dumb and/or testosterone poisoned to understand.

There is no such thing as 'earned' when it comes to power IRA. You can give it, you can take it, but earning implies a moral framework. In order to have 'earned power' we must share a moral framework which defines that relationship.

Quite frankly we don't have any such relationship. While I share many moral virtues with Amy by no means do we share all or perhaps even most of them. Hence Amy may feel she has earned something from me while I ignore her and feel no obligation to pay up. By her framework she has earned authority but by mine she hasn't. Without that same set of moral rules the term is meaningless.

As for your examples, LEO doesn't earn power. They demonstrate it. They enforce it. Talk with some LEO. There is no earn. Same with the IRS. It is a simple relationship. If I don't file the paperwork they demand or pay them what they think I owe them they will take my money and property by force. There is no earning involved only force.

Then they find out there's a lot of hard work and scary stuff to slog through to earn your way in the world every damn day. Maybe they got more than they bargained for. ~ bkmale at March 23, 2018 6:40 AM

There is a belief seemingly inherent in modern feminism that assumes prowess in engineering, physics, mathematics, etc. comes naturally and does not require hard work. Thus, any discrepancy in the percentage of women or minorities in these fields is due solely to discrimination and not to different choices or abilities.

I've read several female authors over the years, especially in fiction, and they all show the same tendency, glossing over any need for hard work to master a field of study. For example, Harry Potter needs a skill and - poof! - he has it, usually just before he knows he needs it, and then he wields it expertly almost immediately. His only struggles are with his social skills and his confidence.

Contrast that with male authors whose protagonists must endure the hero's journey in order to master a skill, but suffer almost no social skills deficits, being the object of every man's envy and every woman's fantasy.

Real life is somewhere in between.

I read somewhere that one major difference between men and women in the workforce is that women don't express themselves with confidence about tasks or roles for which they don't feel themselves well-prepared while men are prepared to "fake it until they make it."

It's not just women who do this, but beta males also. This leads to alpha men fulfilling the Peter Principle, leaving women and beta males being underemployed and stewing in resentment of their alpha male colleagues who get promoted to their level of incompetence.

Victim empowerment seems to be the revenge of the diffident, underemployed, left out, passed over, and picked last who lacked the confidence to take on a role or challenge for which they were not specifically prepared ahead of time.

Being hit in the face with the reality that the male engineer who's making big bucks probably had to study many lonely nights and weekends to learn the skills necessary to be in a position to make that kind of money is not what these wannabe engineers had in mind. College is for partying, right?

Being hit in the face with the reality that the male engineer who's making big bucks probably had to study many lonely nights and weekends to learn the skills necessary to be in a position to make that kind of money is not what these wannabe engineers had in mind. College is for partying, right?

Conan the Grammarian at March 23, 2018 9:16 AM

I really think that what Academia and women hate (but I repeat myself) is any type of objective criteria. Doesn't matter if it is math, science or an IQ test. If men, Jews, Asians or white people in general are statistically as a group better at it, they want it either completely gone or minimized as a worthwhile activity. It makes them look bad and they feel threatened.

Individual differences in inate abilities or work ethic cannot exist in the socialist paradigm. Differences in outcome must be explained by racism, and sexisim, i.e. flaws in the culture or else the whole basis for their belief system dissolves.

I would say it depends... are they in situations where people are constantly spouting verbal abuse at them? Then yeah, standing up for yourself is necessary.

I doubt that's the case at most universities, though.

Maybe Hannah Arendt was right in The Origins of Totalitarianism when she wrote:

"Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest - forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize the masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives."

If so, that's not a good sign.

Women are corrupted by the power that comes with being the "damsel in distress" who "must be believed". The damsel has no responsibility for her situation, and no obligation to do anything for herself. That responsibility and obligation traditionally falls solely on the men around her. Now that individual men have been socially and economically emasculated, it is the all-powerful Daddy State which will reliably come to the damsels' collective rescue.

Women generally don't want to do the work and take the risks necessary to be "strong and independent". It is better to be powerful BECAUSE of your dependence and the illusion of "powerlessness". It is easier for women to be the net beneficiaries of government largess, rather than the net payers that men are. Women want to be able to complain that they are kept in the wagon -- being pulled by men. See how they are kept behind the men? An outrage, I tell ya'.

Yep. Women have it pretty good right now. BUT,

Sex droids, VR porn, and artificial or rentable wombs are on the way, ladies. So are the effects of men's justifiably negative reaction to the hysteria of the #metoo attack on masculinity. Once your position with men becomes "redundant", and your sexual and reproductive powers start to vanish, what will you do? Start being nice again as you beg ("enthusiastic consent") for sex? Don't worry, Daddy State will be happy to f*ck you (over) at that point.

The future is female -- misery. I take no joy in that prognostication.

Do we need a patriarchy to protect these fragile flowers from the Big Wide World with all its dangers?

"I've read several female authors over the years, especially in fiction, and they all show the same tendency,..."

Try CJ Cherryh, any of her Alliance-Union related stuff, or Wave Without a Shore.

The fragility stuff is encouraged by our safe and pampered lifestyle. This is even moreso for upper class women who have never had to do a dirty job or live in a dangerous place. Having worked in construction and played football teaches you a lot about persistence, putting up with discomfort, working your ass off. Men voluntarily put themselves in more risky situations for fun and also rough-house and argue a lot. Women never debate--it hurts someone's feelings. Men can call each other names and we all laugh. Not women. Thus women are much more likely to be "hurt" by speech they don't like. The idea that they don't have to go to the speech by Milo never occurs to them.

"I've read several female authors over the years, especially in fiction, and they all show the same tendency,..."

You could also try James Tiptree Jr.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6468136