John C. Wright's Journal

Long ago, that same fastidious instinct which makes a man unwilling to spend his idle hours in a morgue, or a sewer, or an unsanitary meat packing plant run by slave labor in China, prompted me to steer clear of all outlets of the mainstream media.

This instinct failed me this morning when, provoked by curiosity regarding the Republican National Convention, I looked up the latest news on Google.

Typing in the word ‘Trump’ and clicking the News (sic) tab had the following results: Read the remainder of this entry »

A reader writes:

That’s not what modern gender theory dictates, though. So the misunderstanding is with you, perhaps as a result of hearing it explained by people who didn’t understand it or those with agenda benefited by misleading people (not your fault necessarily). Modern gender theory suggests that masculinity/feminity is in significant part a construct, but by no means a “meaningless” one. It’s hard to disagree entirely, either, when for example one looks at how many identifiers of masculinity in, say, the early 1700s, have become identifiers of feminity by the early 1900s, or how it varies between cultures. The world would be a very different place if things were as hardwired as some in the 1930s theorized, for example.

Without addressing the original topic where this remark is found, I would like to comment on the underlying assertion being made:

It is the weasel word ‘construct’ which brings into derision Modern Gender Theory (sic: he means ‘sex’ unless it is a linguistic theory). Like most modern theories, it is at once saying something perfectly obvious and saying something utterly opposite the truth, and when confronted on the point that is utterly opposite the truth, the modern blandly denies the second meaning and retreats to repeating the utterly obvious.

As for example, from the observation (utterly obvious) that human languages differ, the modern linguist concludes (utterly outrageous) that thought is conditioned hence controlled by speech. Hence the modern addiction to political correctness: as if one could abolish misogyny by substituting ‘he and she’ for ‘he’ as the genderless pronoun.

As for example again, from the observation (utterly obvious) that all men are created equal, we reach the (utterly outrageous) conclusion that all cultures are equal, the barbaric, backward, stupid and savage somehow magically indistinguishable from the civil, advanced, enlightened and cultured. Hence the modern act of civilizational suicide known as multiculturalism.

This form of argument is called ‘Motte and Bailey’ tactics, where the speaker retreats to the obvious when confronted, and pretends the outrageous is not being asserted.
Read the remainder of this entry »

A paragraph below I used before in another place, but I hope I will be excused for quoting myself when my thought in the matter is unchanged:

I think we are all tired of hearing the same unimaginative insults flung by rote. I think we are past the point of being bored with hearing pro-free-market, pro-small-government, pro-liberty, anti-gungrabber, pro-life, anti-pervert, pro-family, anti-barbarian, anti-terrorist, pro-borders, pro-civilization patriots being called fascist.

It is the diametrically antithetical contrary of truth, like calling someone who insists on all races being equal in the eyes of the law a racist, or like calling an anti-feminist a misogynist or (that stupid made-up word) sexist.

Love of rule of law is the mere opposite of racism, and love of affirmative action is racism pure quill. Hatred of women is feminism. Love of women celebrates their difference from men, and seeks laws and customs to provide them a separate sphere of life in which their supremacy is unchallenged. Feminists hate not only men, but also virgins and mothers and everything and anything feminine. Calling these femininity-hating creatures feminists is calling cannibals cooks.

This is why honest men and philosophers define their terms and discuss their differences of opinion in measured tones, and Newspeak propagandists and rhetoricians never do, and speak either in sneer or screams.

In reality, to which I assume all who read these words are loyal, words have meaning, and the word fascist means a national socialist totalitarian. The Morlock is loyal to unreality.

In unreality, words have emotional import only, and are used only to express emotions, much like the barking of a dog expresses anger, or the purr of a cat expresses pleasure. What you are reading is a Rorschach blot of words, merely one subjective meaning plastered atop another, forming the verbal version of what, when expressed visually, is seen in a modern art museum as a can of shit, or a bottle of urine, or some other thing alleged to be art. In unreality, ‘fascist’ means BARK! BARK! BARK!

Read the remainder of this entry »

Some yammerwit asked me what law Hillary broke by placing classified State Department material on her private and unsecured server.

18 U.S. Code s. 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information reads at paragraph (f):

“Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”

Please note that merely by taking State Department emails into her possession and retaining them after her stint as Secretary was done, she is a felon. The security level of those emails is immaterial. Removal from its proper place of custody of even one is sufficient.

There are separate statutes concerning the destruction of subpoenaed documents, obstruction of justice, lying under oath, and so on.

Back in the last century, when one had to go to the law library in the court house to look up a Federal statute, ignorance of the law, while being no excuse legally, was not necessarily willful. Now, you can find the law on several websites at the touch of a button. Hence, such ignorance is not excusable.

If the press columns you read did not say what Hillary was charged with, their deceptive negligence is also inexcusable.