{"id":46181,"date":"2014-08-06T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=46181"},"modified":"2014-08-05T14:14:06","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T19:14:06","slug":"war-war-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=46181","title":{"rendered":"War, War, War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is having breakfast at the River Oasis Cafe in Stillwater.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Avery LIBRELLE&#8217;s car, belching oily smoke, coasts to a halt outside the cafe.\u00a0 LIBRELLE walks in, sees BERG, and sits down next to him<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>LIBRELLE: Hey, Merg!\u00a0 The War on Women is a real thing!<\/p>\n<p>BERG:\u00a0 Oh, hey, Avery.\u00a0 Huh.\u00a0\u00a0 You don&#8217;t say.<\/p>\n<p>LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I do say.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a fact.\u00a0 Republicans want to shut down women&#8217;s access to Reproductive Health services and products.<\/p>\n<p>BERG:\u00a0 For starters, &#8220;reproductive health services&#8221; means &#8220;abortion&#8221;, which to about half the country means &#8220;killing babies&#8221;.\u00a0 Say what you will about whether it&#8217;s a right, but there&#8217;s a legitimate discussion to be had about its morality and whether society should be condoning, much less paying for, it.\u00a0 And evading that discussion by calling it &#8220;war!&#8221; is just intellectually craven.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As to &#8220;goods&#8221;, the discussion is about whether business owners should be required to pay for goods and services that morally repel them.\u00a0 Again, there&#8217;s a discussion to be had &#8211; and calling the discussion a &#8220;war&#8221; is intelletually cowardly.<\/p>\n<p>So your &#8220;War on Women&#8221; is really a systematic avoidance of an adult conversation about two serious topics.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hah!\u00a0 The War on Women is a fact!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>BERG:\u00a0 Well, lots of Democrats <a href=\"http:\/\/townhall.com\/tipsheet\/mattvespa\/2014\/08\/04\/are-democrats-ditching-the-war-on-women-n1874301\">might want to leave the room before agreeing with you<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 What we <em>do <\/em>have, on the one hand, is a &#8220;war&#8221; involving &#8220;representatives&#8221; of half the population objecting to being questioned about the moral implications of infanticide and the overrunning of other peoples&#8217; religious freedom, and on the other hand half the population feminizing the education system to <a href=\"http:\/\/ricochet.com\/main-feed\/The-War-on-Men-The-War-on-Women?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter\">systematically oppress boys<\/a> &#8211; even <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.acton.org\/archives\/67526-hegemonic-misandry-continues.html#.Uz7Gory_OWA.twitter\">trying to turn boyhood itself into a pathology<\/a> &#8211; or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/health_and_science\/medical_examiner\/2012\/09\/sex_selection_in_babies_through_pgd_americans_are_paying_to_have_daughters_rather_than_sons_.single.html\">something to be un-selected <\/a>in the reproductive process, a line of systematic oppression that has <a href=\"http:\/\/ideas.time.com\/2013\/08\/19\/school-has-become-too-hostile-to-boys\/\">made the education system from kintergarten through college so hostile to boys <\/a>that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nber.org\/digest\/jan07\/w12139.html\">they only represent 40% of college students<\/a>, which will have the long term effect of <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.the-american-interest.com\/wrm\/2013\/03\/20\/men-in-decline-means-more-single-moms\/\">undercutting traditional male roles<\/a>?\u00a0\u00a0 And of those boys who <em>do <\/em>go on to college being <a>considered guilty until proven innocent of sexual assault on college campuses <\/a>and other <a href=\"http:\/\/nypost.com\/2014\/06\/03\/man-falsely-arrested-for-child-prostitution-suing-feds-for-2-75m\/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=NYPTwitter&amp;utm_medium=SocialFlow\">alleged sex crimes, <\/a>along with the erosion of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2014\/05\/20\/mccaskill-says-legislation-could-seek-tougher-penalties-colleges-sexual-assaults#sthash.PrAP60FN.jVcnFjg0.dpbs\">due process &#8220;protecting&#8221; people<\/a><a> in such cases &#8211; no, <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mindingthecampus.com\/originals\/2014\/04\/the_white_house_joins_the_war_.html\">even more due process<\/a><a>, <\/a>such as being <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefiscaltimes.com\/Columns\/2014\/05\/07\/How-College-Sex-Became-Obama-s-War-Men\">presumed a rapist until you prove otherwise<\/a><a>, <\/a>being denied even the right to claim one&#8217;s innocence in front of campus <a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/archives\/2013\/12\/17\/guilty-until-proven-innocent\">&#8220;courts&#8221; that even kangaroos would disavow <\/a>&#8211; and even being <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/news\/articles\/SB10001424052702303932504579252140450035638?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion\">branded as a criminal even sooner <\/a><a>, since college is apparently too late<\/a>, in a system-wide series of policies and to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefrisky.com\/2013-09-19\/cosmopolitan-blogger-anna-breslaw-masturbated-on-the-subway\/\">bizarre double standards <\/a>\u00a0that a cynic might say is designed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gaypatriot.net\/2013\/12\/11\/criminalizing-heterosexuality\/\">make (male) heterosexuality itself<\/a><a> a crime<\/a>.\u00a0 And then going on into the work force, to be treated as <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424127887324328204578571513417729392.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion\">guilty until proven innocent<\/a> in employment sexual harassment cases, while it&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jammiewf.com\/2013\/war-on-men-archie-comics-ceo-accused-of-referring-to-male-employees-as-penis\/\">difficult for women to even be accused<\/a>. And then going on, after all that, to maybe become a father, in a system that <a>legally defrauds men &#8220;accused&#8221; of paternity<\/a><a> and even those who <\/a><a>disprove paternity<\/a><a>, giving rise to an industry <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/femail\/article-2407401\/Women-sell-positive-pregnancy-tests-Craigslist-25-each.html\">defrauding men and courts<\/a>, or maybe even getting married, finding that divorce is much easier and more palatable to women because men are systematically <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424127887324328204578571513417729392.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion\">denied rights in child custory litigation<\/a>, and going on to see that the system ignores <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/boys-in-custody-and-the-women-who-abuse-them\">crimes committed against boys <\/a>(remember the Nigerian schoolgirls?\u00a0 How many celebrities did selfies with hashtags protesting the hundreds of Nigerian boys that have been not kidnapped but murdered by Boko Haram), and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avoiceformen.com\/feminism\/when-feminists-attack\/\">being abused for suggesting <\/a>that maybe men&#8217;s rights need some attention, or even <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424127887324577904578555581403945500.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion\">saying the war on men exists<\/a>, then I need to ask you &#8211; who&#8217;s the actual war against?<\/p>\n<p>LIBRELLE: &#8230;\u00a0 [<em>Slowly stands up, walks out, and\u00a0drives away in a cloud of blue smoke<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p>[<em>And SCENE<\/em>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is having breakfast at the River Oasis Cafe in Stillwater.\u00a0 Avery LIBRELLE&#8217;s car, belching oily smoke, coasts to a halt outside the cafe.\u00a0 LIBRELLE walks in, sees BERG, and sits down next to him. LIBRELLE: Hey, Merg!\u00a0 The War on Women is a real thing! BERG:\u00a0 Oh, hey, Avery.\u00a0 Huh.\u00a0\u00a0 You don&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-46181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-men-and-women","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46181"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46194,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46181\/revisions\/46194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}