We have a new leader

In the race for the coveted title "biggest right-wing asshole on the planet," wily veteran George Will has just surged into the lead!

George Will: Progressivism Made Rape Victim ‘Coveted Status’ with ‘Privileges

I just . . . I don't even. . . I mean I can't  ---- I'm just trying to even figure out what the logic is supposed to be here.

So here's the opening thesis of his latest stupid, awful column:

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (“micro-aggressions,” often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. 

Um, okay. . . I suppose maybe that could in theory be true. If "victimhood" was to somehow become a coveted status that would somehow confer some sort of privilege,  I guess maybe you would have people coming out of the woodwork to claim that status, but since that isn't actually a thing that has ever happened anywhere ever, I'm not sure it's a particularly relevant point.

And academia’s progressivism has rendered it intellectually defenseless now that progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, has decided it is academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.

Okay, well first of all, for those of us who are not right-wing assholes, the term "regulatory state" doesn't really resonate as such a frightening boogeyman as it does for you.

 

Aieeee! Regulations!

Those of us who are normal people realize that that "regulatory state" is what gives us a reasonable amount of confidence that our breakfast won't give us e-coli, or that the plane we're on won't plummet from the sky,  or that our new house won't collapse around our ears.

Also, the rest of that sentence also makes no sense. 

Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. “sexual assault.”

Okay, first of all, fuck you for putting quotes around the phrase sexual assault as if it were some sort of fictional thing to be dismissed out of hand. Second rape is not "a.k.a." sexual assault. Sexual assault can be anything from unwanted groping to  unwanted kissing to actual full-on rape. And where do you get off with the "supposed epidemic" shit?  Because every statistic I've seen indicates that this epidemic is all too real. Also, fuck you.

Herewith, a Philadelphia magazine report about Swarthmore College, where in 2013 a student “was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months”: “They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. ‘I basically said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he said, “OK, that’s fine” and stopped. . . . And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.’”

Okay, that sounds like a pretty straight-forward description of a rape. certainly not the most horrific account, but still, she said no and he fucked her anyway. Kind of the dictionary definition of rape, isn't it?

 Six weeks later, the woman reported that she had been raped. Now the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of “sexual assault” victims. It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.

Um, are you saying that because this woman reported her rape, that is why the Obama administration has decided to get involved? And how exactly is the administration proposing to "excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture?" Because there really don't seem to be a lot of ambiguities here. She either says yes or she says no. Only a right-wing asshole rape-apologist would try to read any ambiguity into a simple yes or no response.

 The administration’s crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition; Joe Biden has been heard from. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported.  Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous.

How? how does arithmetic demonstrate that? The percentage of assaults reported has no bearing on the number of assaults that occur. 

 Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009 to 2012 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent — too high but nowhere near 20 percent.

Oh, well, the American Enterprise Institute, that bastion of honesty! Well then, I guess we can just go ahead and ignore the CDC's report that  "in a study of undergraduate women, 19% experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college."  Because what the hell do they know, compared to the American Enterprise Institute, and their analysis of ONE entire college!

 Also, let's pretend for a minute that your guy at the American Institute of Right-Wing Assholery is right about the statistics being off. How much sexual assault is acceptable? If it's less than 20% should nothing be done? How many women being assaulted are you okay with, because for those of us outside the right-wing asshole bubble, it's generally zero.

 Combine this with capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching. 

Right. Non-consensual touching. Why do you have a problem with that being included? It's like complaining that the non-sexual assault statutes include not only beating with clubs, but even non-consensual punching!

 

Totally shouldn't even count! The guy's not even dead!

 

 Then add the doctrine that the consent of a female who has been drinking might not protect a male from being found guilty of rape. Then comes costly litigation against institutions that have denied due process to males they accuse of what society considers serious felonies.

 
 
Yes, "society." "Society" considers sexual assault to be a serious crime. George Will apparently doesn't, but "society" does. Hey, George, another term for "society" is "all decent human beings."

 Meanwhile, the newest campus idea for preventing victimizations — an idea certain to multiply claims of them — is “trigger warnings.” They would be placed on assigned readings or announced before lectures. Otherwise, traumas could be triggered in students whose tender sensibilities would be lacerated by unexpected encounters with racism, sexism, violence (dammit, Hamlet, put down that sword!) or any other facet of reality that might violate a student’s entitlement to serenity.

 And why would anyone have any objection to this? No one is saying you can't assign Hamlet or Huck Finn. No one says you can't discuss the rape of Nan King. Just that before you do, it's just kind of a decent thing to say "hey, before we start, just a little warning that  the subject matter may be offensive to some of you, Huck uses the N-word a lot." 

This entitlement has already bred campus speech codes that punish unpopular speech. Now the codes are begetting the soft censorship of trigger warnings to swaddle students in a “safe,” “supportive,” “unthreatening” environment, intellectual comfort for the intellectually dormant.

Soft censorship?



 How is that censorship? Censorship is a professor saying "I was going to discuss  the holocaust, but I'm not allowed to talk about it." Trigger warnings means the professor says "Fair warning, we're going to be discussing the holocaust today." It's not even similar.

 It is salutary that academia, with its adversarial stance toward limited government and cultural common sense, is making itself ludicrous

You don't find it just a teensy bit ironic that someone who uses words like "salutary" "adversarial" and "ludicrous" is down on academia? 
Well, maybe not so much ironic as intellectually dishonest, or mendacious. Even prevaricative. (see, I can use big words, too. Doesn't make me any more correct.)

 What government is inflicting on colleges and universities, and what they are inflicting on themselves, diminishes their autonomy, resources, prestige and comity. Which serves them right. They have asked for this by asking for progressivism. 

Yeah, serves them right! Now they're gonna have, um. . . less sexual assault? I guess?
 Um, that'll teach 'em?

George Will Makes the All-Time Dumbest Political Prediction

MINNEAPOLIS

Northern Iowans are Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings fans. This fact could be portentous 16 months from now when the Iowa caucuses occur and
Minnesota's two-term governor, Tim Pawlenty , probably will be seeking the
Republican presidential nomination.

Seriously? Are all Iowans this retarded, or just Republican Caucus participants?
You really think that Iowans are going to look at the slate of candidates and think, "Hmm, Pawlenty, he's from Minnesota, right? Hey, so are the Vikings! He's got my vote! I was going to vote for Newt Gingrich, but I really hate the Falcons!"

Now he may end up being right in a way, Pawlenty might do well in the Iowa caucus, but if he does, Will better not say "I told you so." That would be like saying "I knew the Giants would beat the Phillies because Orange is a way stronger color than red!" If I had predicted the Giants win for that reason, I would still be an idiot even though they did win.

Oh, but the stupid isn't done yet. Because Will goes on to add this:

His mild manner seems to appeal to some jalapeño-flavored conservatives. A new
biography of Rush Limbaugh says that, so far, Pawlenty is second only to Sarah
Palin as Limbaugh's choice for 2012.

So how does that bode well for Pawlenty? Seems like anyone idiotic enough to let Limbaugh influence their vote would go Palin. Assuming that he hasn't quit the race before their state's primary.

Oh, and also this:

Tall (6 feet 3), slender and rarely strident, Pawlenty probably is the only
potential president who will announce: "I'm not exactly Lady Gaga."

One would assume that no candidate would feel the need to point that out.

Remember When George Will Used to be Not-Insane?

From Crooks and Liars:

TAPPER: George, I want to start with you. I know you don't agree with what Republican Texas Congressman Joe Barton had to say, but does the idea of this $20 billion escrow account make you uncomfortable?

WILL: It does. Look, there is no defense of BP which has an execrable safety record in this country, from the refinery disaster in Texas in '05, the Morris Slope leak in '06, all of that and so no apology from BP. But if you don't want to live in a Northern Hemisphere Venezuela, you ought to be a little queasy about the fact that a president, any president of any party, using raw political power, without recourse to courts that exist for this sort of thing. . .

Oh, the courts! Suddenly, the right is all in favor of people using the courts to have their grievances redressed! You know, Torts? The righties just loooooove torts!

. . . under laws, with due process, essentially confiscates $20 billion from a publicly held corporation, about half of its shares held by Americans, to be dispensed, again, with out judicial supervision, as the political branch sees fit.

Supervision by judges? What if they're activist judges? Since when has the right wing had any respect for the judicial branch?

That is worrisome. Even, they have even said that BP maybe held responsible for the lost wages caused by, not BP, but the administration's own moratorium, six-months moratorium, on deepwater drilling. Which maybe more costly to the economy of the Gulf than the spill itself.

Really? A six-month moratorium on drilling more costly than having the shrimping, fishing, and tourism industries destroyed for at least a generation? Really? That's what you're going with? You're gonna just go ahead and stick with that, then, hmm? Yeah? The six month thing, more costly than the giant catastrophe? Yeah? Really?

WILL: Well, among those asking, upon what meat doeth [sic] our Caesar feed that he has grown so great?, is "The Economist" of London, which I think we have all accept as a mainstream publication. They say, in a section of their lead editorial, called "Vladimir Obama", "The collapse of BP's share prices suggest he has convinced the markets that he is an American version of Vladimir Putin, willing to harry firms into doing his bidding. If the president does not stand up for due process he will frighten investors across the board. The damage to Americans environment is bad enough, the president risks damaging the economy, too." That's not a partisan outfit, "The Economist".

I think that if you title your editorial "Vladimir Obama," you've pretty much given up all claim to being a mainstream non-partisan outfit. And by the way, BP's stock price only ever went down as low as $32 a share, that's hardly a collapse.

And the editorial in the Economist is a pretty blatant attempt to deflect any blame from BP:

Vilifying BP also gets in the way of identifying other culprits, one of which is the government. BP operates in one of the most regulated industries on earth with some of the most perverse rules, subsidies and incentives. Shoddy oversight clearly contributed to the spill, and an energy policy which reduced the demand for oil would do more to avert future environmental horrors than fierce retribution.

See, it's not BP's fault that it cut corners on safety and got shoddy and careless. The government should have stopped them. This is the sort of defense that routinely gets laughed out of the "courtroom" on Judge Judy. It's the sort of thing children come up with. "yeah, I took the car and crashed it, but mom and dad should have hidden the keys better." It's pathetic.

It seems to me that George Will used to be more sensible than this, before he started writing masturbatory odes to the splendor of baseball. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but he's definitely slipped into FOX territory now.

Interesting Logic

In an apparent attempt to accelerate its death-spiral from relevance, the Atlanta Journal Constitution recently gave a guest spot on its op-ed page to one Jonathon Zimmerman, author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”

And being a purveyor of phony nostalgia evidently qualifies you to speak on recent First Amendment rulings.

The case had to do with a girl posting negative comments about her teacher on the internet, but the interesting part is this:

If we really care about protecting free speech, we need to teach our kids some basic principles of civility.

And that means we sometimes have to restrict their speech — even on the Net.

If we really care about protecting free speech, we must restrict speech.

Wow. I had to let that rattle around my skull for a minute. Because I'm thinking I must be misunderstanding something. But no. Apparently, Jonathon Zimmerman's plan for protecting free speech is to have less free speech.

I could see making an argument for restricting what kids can say on the internet. I don't agree, but I could understand making an argument based on "free speech is not absolute, one can't yell 'FIRE!' in a crowded theatre," or whatever. I could understand that. But to argue that limiting free speech is necessary in order to protect free speech? I don't even understand that logic.

Not to be outdone in the insane logic department, Charles Krauthammer weighed in on the same AJC op-ed page with this gem:

Charles Krauthammer: Modernity may carry lethal impact

which makes the basic argument that "so what if Toyota kills a few people now and then, cars are fricking awesome!"

So, mostly just dickish pro-corporate, anti-regulation claptrap from one of the kings of claptrap, but in the middle of this screed, he poses this:

The questions are: How do you distinguish the idiosyncratic failure from the systemic — for example, the single lemon that came off the auto assembly line versus an intrinsic problem inherent in that model’s engineering?

See, that's actually not difficult, Chuck. Distinguishing between a problem in one car and a problem in many cars is about as easy a distinction as one can make.
And then, this:

And don’t imagine that we do not coldly calculate the price of a human life. In 1974, the speed limit was lowered to 55 mph to conserve oil. That also led to a dramatic drop in traffic fatalities — approximately 3,000 lives every year. This didn’t stop us, after the oil crisis, from raising the speed limit back to 65 and beyond — knowing that thousands of Americans would die as a result.
The calculation was never explicit, but it was nevertheless real. We were quite prepared to trade away a finite number of human lives for speed, and for the efficiency and convenience that come with it.

Okay, it is true that companies like Toyota do coldly calculate the price of a human life. They add up how much it would cost to fix a design flaw versus how much they might lose in lawsuits if some of their customers die. (Same as Ford did with the Pinto, and all the SUV makers did with rollovers)
But the speed limit story is not an example of this. The speed limit story is an example of consumers making an informed choice to accept the increased risk of driving faster in order to gain the convenience the faster speed would supply. With Toyota, the company decided to force a risk on uninformed consumers who gained nothing from unwittingly accepting this risk, in order to increase profits for Toyota.
Do you really not see the difference? In one case, Joe says "I'm in a hurry, it's worth it to me to take the risk of driving faster." In the other case, Mr. Toyota says "I want to make more money. It's worth it to me to put Joe at risk of death or injury if it increases my stock price. h, and by the way, DON"T TELL JOE!!!"

But I think today's George Will extravaganza of nonsense might beat both of them.
Will writes a column about the new update coming to the DSM. Of course, this update hasn't been released yet, so Will is forced to sneer at changes that he heard may possibly be included in the new version:

The revised DSM reportedly may include “binge eating disorder” and “hypersexual disorder” (“a great deal of time” devoted to “sexual fantasies and urges” and “planning for and engaging in sexual behavior”). Concerning children, there might be “temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria.”

And then the topper:

Another danger is that childhood eccentricities, sometimes inextricable from creativity, might be labeled “disorders” to be “cured.” If 7-year-old Mozart tried composing his concertos today, he might be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and medicated into barren normality.

Ooh! Good point! Except that the incredible amount of concentration, focus, and dedication required to produce a concerto, or any piece of serious music, is pretty much the exact opposite of the type of behavior which would indicate a diagnosis of ADHD.

But, hey. Why let logic stand in the way of a good zinger aimed at the "intellectual elite?"
(To which, by the way, you used to belong, Mr. Will.)