Libertarians think Fiction is Reality.

300,000 people in West Virginia can’t use their tap water for anything but flushing their crap down the dumper because an unregulated toxic chemical facility just upstream from Charleston’s water supply sprang a leak: it’s so bad, people in 6 counties can’t bathe, wash their clothes, cook, clean, and such. Sensible people asked for some regulations, but the Libertarians blocked them, because the “free market” would magically make the tank farm’s operator do everything necessary to make the place safe and squeaky-clean. Of course, that turned out not to be the case.

Last year, a town in Texas suffered a devastating and deadly explosion because a barely-regulated fertilizer plant blew up. This being Texas, only a few sensible people argued for regulations, and the Libertarians blocked them too, because the “free market” is a peachy and perfect way to ensure safety and cleanliness in industry. In fact, the libertarians are STILL blocking new regulations even after that blast, so that town (or another) could blow up again at any moment.

Time after time, this silly-arsed idea that businesses are somehow innately good and will always do the right thing when left to their own devices has been proven false. And yet its adherents still insist that it is true, that we just need to get rid of even more government and then it’ll work, honest, really, pinky-swear. That’s like a compulsive gambler telling you that if he just had more money to bet, he’d be on Easy Street.

This ideology does not work in real life. Smart people who live in the real world and have read Adam Smith know that a regulated free market is what works best. But because a czarist Russian exile had an understandably huge hate-on for Commies and wrote a few novels, somehow a lot of otherwise sane and intelligent individuals decided that a whole philosophy should be based on those novels; and indeed, a new economic theory be created out of the whole cloth and immediately declared valid, based largely on those novels. Fiction, to libertarians, is reality.

And that, friends, pretty well sums up Libertarianism: it is a theory, based on fiction, that has no basis in reality. People have been trying for decades to make it real, to make it work, to take it from marionette status and turn into a real boy. All that has been realized from their efforts is that Libertarians have grown a very large set of donkey ears as their Ayn Rand-based Pleasure Island has gone morally, intellectually, and financially bankrupt.

Libertarianism has failed. It is dead. Stop trying to make the corpse move; bury it and try something based in the real world next time.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

On Edit – more than one cranky reader has pointed out that the band Rush is no longer espousing libertarianism in their more recent lyrics. Apologies to Rush, and anyone else offended by the reference, which I have removed. Thanks to those who pointed out the error.

A FOURTH Torrington, CT Offender is Arrested in Rape Case

Yes, that’s right: two 13-year-old girls were raped in Torrington, CT not long ago, and for all the bulls*** being spewed by the Pro-Rape contingent in that town and elsewhere, the cops keep arresting people: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/03/28/2785524/4th-conn-teen-charged-in-sexual.html

So much for the “no big deal” crap we’ve been hearing from a**holes around the country. So much for the “what was she doing hanging around football players” crap, the “she wanted it” crap, the “slut, whore, bitch” crap, and all the other bits of s*** being slung at the victims. Cops almost never bust men for sex crimes when no sex crimes have been committed. Hell, cops oftentimes don’t bust men for sex crimes when there HAVE been sex crimes committed.

Yes, it really happened. Yes, it’s completely and totally the fault of the rapists. No, it’s not the girl’s fault. Period. End of story. Fin.

Mr Blunt and Cranky

13-Year-Old Girls Don’t Make Men Rape Them

According to the amazingly stupid population of Torrington CT, the children who were raped by three local high school football players are to blame for being raped. These cretins say that the barely-teenaged giris made the criminals commit the crimes, as If these children possessed magical superpowers that allowed them to control the actions of adult males.

This is ridiculous, people. Pedestrians don’t cause muggers to assault them. Banks don’t make people rob them. And women (including teens, Tweens, and younger girls) do. not. make. men. rape. them.

Hypocritical fools like the rape apologists in Torrington want to have it both ways: on the one hand, these raping scumball football players are powerful, authoritative, god-like young men. And at the same time, they are weak little wussy-boys who can be commanded by little girls to commit crimes.

Sorry, peeps, both statements cannot simultaneously be true. The most likely explanation (and the one preferred by the authorities, you’ll note) is that the accused criminals are responsible for their crimes.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Torrington, CT Students Rally in Favor of Rapist

See these idiotic fools in Torrington, CT? They are holding up fingers to give the number (21), the jersey number of one of the child-molesting, raping scumbucket football players who is currently awaiting trial for his despicable, perverted, revolting crimes:

Yes, there are girls among them. Girls telling a rapist that they support his raping. Boys, too, telling girls that they believe in their right to rape. Oh, and they say it’s all the girl’s fault: http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2013/03/25/news/doc514fd4e6545d2940833348.txt

Has no one told these s***-for-brained sociopathic jackasses that rape is a f***ing crime? Evidently not: the cops seem to have decided it was no biggie: http://www.westhartfordnews.com/articles/2013/03/21/news/doc514b355849970363491914.txt

Mr. Blunt and Hugely Pissed Off

America, We Are Steubenville. We Are India. Rape Happens Everywhere. Stop Pretending You Don’t Know.

A while back, a horrible sexual assault in India shocked the world. And all across our country, people said, “I’m glad that kind of thing doesn’t happen in America”. Perhaps they blathered some sort of jingoistic, racist twaddle as they expounded on how much better we are than they are. And then, comfortable in their willful ignorance, forgot about rape.

More recently, a horrible sexual assault in Steubenville, Ohio shocked the world. And all across our country, people said, “I’m glad that kind of thing doesn’t happen in my town”. Perhaps they blathered some sort of regional, class-based, racist twaddle as they expounded on how much better we are than they are. And then, comfortable in their willful ignorance, forgot about rape. Again.

Then we heard about Torrington, CT, and the recent rapes of a 13-year-old girl by two 18-year-old football players. And let’s not forget Jerry Sandusky in State College, PA, who raped many, many young boys.  And the thousands of military women who are raped each year, around the country and the world. And so on. And on. And on. Willful ignorance is getting to be kind of difficult to maintain, innit?

Take note of the similarities in all of the cases cited:  Number A, the victim-blaming.
 Letter 2, the local community trying to cover up/put spin on the crimes committed there.
 Thirdly, the outside world loses its patience with the locals and shines a large, uncomfortable spotlight on all the seamy, shady, dirty little secrets of the rape-friendly place du jour.
 Fourth, justice is (finally) served, to an extent at least, grudgingly, but the victims will be pariahs for life in their own communities, especially when the short attention span of the outside world  wanders off elsewhere. That, people, is not just.  But it’s as good as it gets.

And for every event that people hear about, there are thousands upon thousands that America does not hear about. Big cities, small towns, deserted prairies, places foreign and domestic, the weak are raped by the strong. Thus it is, thus it has been, and you don’t f***ing want to know, do you? So you work hard at not knowing. And the media, which exists to sell advertisements and create illusions, largely helps you remain willfully ignorant. This suits the rapists just fine. The rape victims (including your humble cranky correspondent) are left to be abused and even killed, and America can pretend it doesn’t know.

Cowards, a whole nation; nay, a whole world of cowards. So long as it isn’t their child, wife, mother, or such being raped, no one  wants to think about it. “It’s all so icky, it makes us feel gross, pleasepleaseplease stop talking about it and we can once more pretend we know nothing. Look at the pretty pictures, turn up the iPod, lalalalala, nothing to worry about, snooze…are they gone yet? Have they stopped talking yet? Whew, that’s a relief.”

Those of us who have no choice but to know about rape look at the willfully ignorant and feel many emotions: hate, rage, disgust, even envy at their enforced cluelessness.  But no one who is raped chooses to be raped, and we can’t choose to not deal with the consequences. The rape victim’s right to choose is forever ripped asunder at the time of the crime, and it can never be repaired fully. But our ability to not know? That, boyo, is gone forever, never to return.

What is different now is the Internet. What is different now are blogs and hacktivists. What is different now is a decentralized media that doesn’t march to the tune of the patriarchal pervert rape freaks that have forever dominated the world in which we live. The world is slowly becoming one with the rape victims in this respect at least: ignorance is getting scarce.

How was the Steubenville case blown open? Bloggers and Hacktivists. How is the Torrington case being slowly opened? Bloggers and Hacktivists. The raped cannot count on the figures of authority to protect them-all too often, it is just those authorities who commit or cover up the crimes, after all. The cyber-vigilantes have grown weary of waiting, and are taking matters into their own hands, as vigilantes always do.

And thank God for them. America, get ready to lose your innocence. The innocence you’ve never really had, just one you pretended to have, and the pretense is going bye-bye. No matter how you try to distract yourself, you are going to have to face reality: rape happens everywhere, every day, every hour.  Everybody loses their innocence sooner or later.

Fortunately, the vast majority of you will lose it  via the evening news, Facebook, twitter, or some sort of media. That’s a lot less painful loss of innocence than was the case for millions of rape victims. They lost theirs in an act of ultimate betrayal; violently, brutally, and in silence. A silence that almost every adult American has been complicit in creating and maintaining, by choosing to pretend they do not know.

Perhaps you deserve pity. But this writer, having dealt with the reality of rape for over 50 years now, is not the person to ask for such. Wakey-wakey, America, time to deal with it. Rape victims have lived with this harsh reality for millennia, and now it’s your turn. Like it or not, just like us.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky