Call To Arms

At the Federalist Society, a speech from Bari Weiss which outlines the issue facing us at this time, and reminds us of our collective duty to save civilization.  As she rightly says:

When antisemitism moves from the shameful fringe into the public square, it is not about Jews. It is never about Jews. It is about everyone else. It is about the surrounding society or the culture or the country. It is an early warning system—a sign that the society itself is breaking down. That it is dying.

It is a symptom of a much deeper crisis—one that explains how, in the span of a little over 20 years since Sept 11, educated people now respond to an act of savagery not with a defense of civilization, but with a defense of barbarism.

Read the whole damn thing, because you must.

It’s not just Jews who are at risk.  We are all at risk, every one of us who claims to be civilized.

Mixed Feelings

Here’s a story that gets me all philosophical:

A child psychiatrist in Charlotte, North Carolina, used artificial intelligence (AI) to make child porn, and he is now facing the consequences.

In a press release Wednesday, the United States Attorney’s Office Western District of North Carolina announced 41-year-old David Tatum will spend the next 40 years behind bars, then 30 years of supervised release for the sexual exploitation of a minor and the AI-generated child porn.

I’ll get to the philosophical bit in a moment because emotionally, of course, I want this perverted bastard to be burned at the stake and his ashes scattered far away from any children’s playground, never mind imprisoned forever.

However.

Did not some Supreme Court, in its Supreme Wisdom, decree a while ago that making cartoon-based child pornography did not constitute a crime?  Why yes, yes it did.  (The whole story, country by country, can be found here.)

I myself once looked at 3D-printed sex dolls, with the logical extension thereof as it pertained to creating sex dolls of children (FFS).

So ‘splain this to me Simon:  if it’s okay (perhaps) to create sex dolls of children, why not AI-generated images or even movies?  Remember:  no actual person is being harmed by this activity.

This is but my philosophical musing, of course — see my “burned at the stake” suggestion above.

And boy, have we created an Alps-sized slippery slope with this one.

Cenotaph Update

Yesterday we learned that “football hooligans” (a.k.a. loyal and decent Brits) are going to stop the Pal terrorsymps from taking over the Remembrance Day memorial.

Now we have this:

Football hooligans alliance supporters warn fans ‘do not come tooled up’ with weapons as they bid to ‘protect’ the Cenotaph from pro-Palestine protest – and sell out coaches for hundreds to head to London.

My thought is precisely the opposite:  by all means bring weapons, because you have to know that the “peaceful” terrorsymps surely will — and the last thing you need is to face some dangerous asshole down with only your fists when he’s carrying a “sign-holder” (club).

No no:  bring weapons yourselves, but do not brandish them or take them out — ever — unless you’re physically attacked.

Then have at it, and may the best thug win.

No doubt someone’s going to have a problem with this, but I don’t care.  Even in Britishland, one should have the proper (and lawful) means of self-defense, e.g. a pair of sap gloves (as worn by the cops, ergo legal), and some kind of head protection (e.g. one of these).  I had both on my last visit to Britishland, but I just never told anyone about them.

I also recommend carrying a sign (suitably provocative) affixed to a pickax handle.

It’s all about freedom of expression, innit?

On A Roll

…is what the VodkaPundit has been recently.  This one in particular is trademark Stephen-Funny:

Imagine you’re a people like the South Syrian Arabs who (barely) populated the region between the Jordan and the sea a hundred years ago. Suddenly, pioneer Zionists start showing up and offering money for your crappy bits of desert. Next thing you know, the Jewish-run parts are turning green with forests and lush with crops, and modern cities spring up out of almost nowhere. Meanwhile, the Arab-run parts remain pretty much as arid and worthless as they ever were, only more crowded.

There’s a whole host of reasons why that happened, but those “thieving” Jews A) didn’t steal anything and B) are only barely responsible for your woes.

A Western grownup would assess the situation and realize that it’s time to change his ways. A loser crybully straps on a suicide vest and — well, you know the rest.

I wouldn’t have used “only barely” for “not at all”, but that’s a minor quibble.

However, I haven’t read the Hamas Style Guide recently, but “loser crybully” is now apparently the accepted alternative to “worthless Arab asshole”.

Duly noted.

Quote Of The Day

From Stephen Green, commenting on this situation:

“It could be that the intel is correct and Hamas is lying to draw Israel (and perhaps the US) into fighting Iran directly, we have just another massive intel failure, or our officials are lying.”

Option d.)  All the above are true.