Marvel's Agent Mary Sue

In Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it is said that drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is similar in effect to having your brains smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.

Watching Marvel's Agent Carter was like having your brains smashed in by a large gold brick inscribed with the words "PATRIARCHAL OPPRESSION! WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE!"

I really wish it were different. I really wanted this series to be good. But alas and alack.

My first warning was upon reading the series synopsis: "It’s 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad."

Uh-oh. "Marginalized" is a leftist buzzword, I thought. But perhaps it's just a quirk of word choice, I thought. Or perhaps that will be a minor point in character development. Hopefully, it won't be that bad.

It was not that bad. It was a hundred times worse.

The marginalization was not just a character development point. It was not even a theme. Instead, Marxist-feminist gender theory was the premise, point, and purpose of the entire show. It was not a comic book TV show about secret agents fighting bad guys. It was actually thinly-veiled agitprop about the evils of The Patriarchy™. In this way, the show violates the cardinal rule of the storyteller: art serves the muse, not the agenda.

Perhaps you think I'm exaggerating. I really wish I was. But upon reflection and discussion, I become more and more convinced that the show creators did not just include Marxist-feminist themes because it was their world view, but they deliberately and specifically made numerous plot, story, character, and dialog choices to browbeat the audience into accepting the Marxist-feminist narrative, from the first scene of the first hour to the last scene of the second. Come along with me and I will explain all.

The Art of Non-Argument: How to Debate without Debating

There is a strand of argumentation that I have been seeing very frequently of late, and it is one of which I have become increasingly weary, and would love nothing more than if the entire world just agreed to drop the whole thing for the good of mankind. Rightly speaking, it isn't really even an argument, but rather a non-argument. It is an attempt to do away with argument, stop it cold in its tracks, so that the conversation can't continue.

This non-argument is seen in many different conversations and is stated in many different ways. It comes up in conversations about law, about justice, and about public morality. Its specifics vary from time to time, but it almost always starts with the following statement: "that may be your personal opinion, but...."

In effect this non-argument does not insist that the opposing view is wrong, but rather that the opposing view is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how reasonable, how rational, or how true the opposing view is. All that matters is that the opposing view has no place interfering with the outside world. It is not an attempt to refute the view, or show where the one proposing it has erred. It is a trump card, designed not to engage in debate, but rather to avoid debate altogether. Playing this trump card is simply an attempt to prevent the logic and reason of others from having influence on one's own thought.

And I can easily see why one might be tempted to make this non-argument. As we have seen from the ladder of inference, the premises we take to a conversation—true or false—are personal and based on our experiences. Another person, with another set of experiences, may approach the conversation with a different premise. Since no amount of rational argument or reasonable deduction will convince another person that his experiences did not happen, it is in most cases impossible to change the opinion of the other person. And since the premises—and experiences upon which they are based—are not only not the topic of the conversation, but most frequently are not even brought up, we most often don't even know why we disagree on the topic. The rude person assumes the other person has a defective brain, and calls him stupid or his views irrational. The charitable person, trying to understand how a seemingly intelligent and reasonable person may have arrived at such an unintelligent and unreasonable conclusion, may be tempted to simply invoke the non-argument. That is, "well, the person may have reasons for his belief, but since they are not my reasons, they don't affect me." Hence, the "that may be your personal belief...."

What irks me most about the non-argument, is that, in its attempt to defuse the disagreement charitably, it doesn't seem to have thought itself through very well. For, truly, aren't all our beliefs personal? If one person's argument is not admissible because it's his personal belief, why not any other's? Shouldn't we adopt the post permissible moral code possible? "Well, yes," reply the non-arguers. "To each his own." But then, does that not allow for all sorts of atrocities, from murder, rape, and torture to shoplifting, petty theft and everything in between? "No of course not! You mustn't harm another person!" But... isn't this your personal belief? And since the definition of "person" is one of the very things the non-argument is often used to obfuscate, why should we use your personal definition of personhood over any other? Taking it further, isn't it only your personal belief that personal beliefs should not be forced on others? In its attempt to marginalize the other person's argument, the non-argument marginalizes itself.

The non-argument attempts to reduce law, justice, and morality to the realm of the subjective, such that preference for one morality over another is simply like a preference for chocolate over vanilla. The problem is, I've never met someone who actually treats morality as if its not objective. Those who make the assertion that morality is always a private matter are the ones who are most indignant and most self-righteous at perceived injustices against themselves or others. If all morality is a private matter, subject to personal opinion, then there can be nothing inherently immoral about injustice. On what ground do you protest someone who commits an injustice against another? It may be your personal opinion that his actions are immoral, but who are you to enforce your personal opinions on others?

Of course, I'm being a little unfair here by grouping everyone who makes the non-argument into a group with those who deny objective morality. Many who non-argue are not opposed to the concept of a universal moral law, but rather, simply misunderstand the opposing view. The non-arguer may not understand the reasons behind his opponent's views, and just simply infer that it's for some mysterious unknowable reason. "You only say that because you think the Bible tells you to." But this, again, is a non-argument, because it doesn't address the actual reasons behind the view, just the inferred reasons. It ignores the appeals to natural law and objective truth, and instead simply attacks a strawman.

Despite these obvious (to me) problems with the non-argument, I continue to see it used whenever someone doesn't want to admit a view contrary to their own into the debate. Whenever someone takes a stand for traditional marriage, the non-argument will be made "that's just your personal opinion about marriage! You can't force that on others!" Whenever someone says that it is an injustice to deny the unborn their rights, someone else will non-argue "but that's merely your opinion on personhood! You can't deny a woman her right to choose!" Whenever someone explains the moral difficulties of euthanasia, the non-argument appears, "keep your morality off my body!" In none of the cases is the non-arguer actually making a case about the nature of marriage, the rights of the human person, or the dignity of human life. All he is saying is that all such arguments are irrelevant.

Some Much Needed Perspective

Ok, let's get something straight. I've seen a risible idea circulating lately and I cannot let it stand, so I have come to set the record straight.

You ready?

Steve Jobs Did Not Change The World.

Blasphemy! I hear you say.

But get over it. He did no such thing.

To prove my point, here's a list of 11 things that Changed the World:

1. Christianity
2. Islam
3. The Roman Empire
4. Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy
5. The scientific world view (that material causes can explain empirical observations without invoking supernatural causes, not that everything can be explained scientifically, I mean).
6. The Protestant Revolt
7. The Enlightenment
8. The steam engine
9. The industrial revolution
10. The automobile
11. Electrification

Here are 5 things that have not changed the world, but have made life slightly more convenient for those living in the first world:

1. The graphical user interface
2. The portable MP3 player
3. The online music store
4. The smartphone
5. The tablet PC

The personal computer probably has changed the world (although since it's less than 50 years old, it's hard to say how much those changes will matter in 1000 years), but Steve Jobs did not invent it. Speaking of which, here is a list of 5 things Steve Jobs did not invent:

1. The graphical user interface
2. The portable MP3 player
3. The online music store
4. The smartphone
5. The tablet PC

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not a one. What he did is best summarized in this Basic Instructions: Steve Jobs is the kid who copies off your test, then gets a better grade than you.

What Steve Jobs did is shape the development of one world-changing device, and several minor conveniences. All would have developed without him. They might not have developed in the same way. Some ideas may not have been implemented, or taken longer to refine. Maybe the wouldn't have caught on and been as widespread, But they'd still all be there. 

If Steve Jobs never existed, you would still own a personal computer. You'd still be reading my writing on your color rasterizationator through the intertubes. E-Commerce would still exist. You could still listen to music you purchased online on your portable MP3 player. You could check email on your phone. You might do it all differently; you might not do any of it at all, but you still could do it all.

Contrast this with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. As Mike Flynn points out, without them, there may never have been a scientific revolution. Universities may not have put such an emphasis on natural philosophy. Middle Ages and Renaissance scientists may never have said "what if" and asked how the world worked. Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler may never have seen a need to update Ptolemy (it worked; why fix it?). No science, no industrial revolution, no modern life. To be sure, those things may have come, but it may have been centuries later. We might be living in the technological equivalent of the 17^th century.

Introducing a fundamental change to the way people view the world, whose echoes still shape thought 2000 years later. That's changing the world. Not making a device that allows rich people to listen to music on the go.

Stop the World, Please. I'd Like to Get Off.

For the benefit of impatient readers, who can't be bothered to read long screeds, I've asked Dr. Seuss to re-write my previous post as a poem.

Stop the world, I'd like to get off,
It's spinning so fast and I've had enough.
It's making me dizzy, I just can't keep up,
To this changing reality that makes me throw up.

An orange is an orange, a rose may be pink,
A dog is a dog, or so I would think.
But others tell me that I'm being mean,
To insist on reality instead of a dream.

They make up what's real when they don't like what's fact,
And pretend not to notice that their lives are an act.
"Don't be so close-minded, it's simply uncouth,
"Life's what you make of it, just like the truth."

"An orange is an apple, a dog is a cat,
"No rose can be pink." What's up with that?
I simply don't get it and I've had enough.
The word's simply crazy and I want to get off.

Delusions of Reality

Do you know what the definition of insanity is? No, it's not doing the same thing expecting different results. That's called practice. I do it every day with the piano and, sure enough, the results are slightly better each day.

No, insanity is when one's perception of reality is different from reality itself. For instance, a man who believes himself Theodore Roosevelt, or thinks himself a cat, or that he hears voices. In each case, the person's idea of what is real is different from what is really real. The man is not Theodore Roosevelt, or a cat, and the voices are mere hallucination.

Increasingly, I've been feeling that the whole world has gone, by this definition, completely insane. Totally loony. Off their rockers. Large swaths of the population seem to be totally given over to ideas that have no bearing in reality. It's like everyone is playing a children's game where we all pretend we're monkeys in the zoo, or astronauts in outer space, or cowboys and Indians. But when I don't play along, or return to reality and stop pretending, everyone gets mad and indignant with me because they really believe they are monkeys or astronauts or cowboys. It's really quite surreal.

What brought on this feeling most recently was an article my Google reader recommended items pointed me towards (it recommends weird things). Apparently a school in Michigan has refused to allow a girl to be homecoming king because she's a girl, not a boy. This is, apparently, a problem because the girl is playing a make-believe game in which she pretends she's a boy. But the weird part is that so many other people are playing along and pretending the same thing. The news item itself refers to her as a "him", despite the fact that it even mentions towards the end that she hasn't even had the cosmetic surgery to add boy-parts. So in no real, objective way is this girl a boy--only in her mind and the minds of those playing along with her. She has no Y-chromosome, or male genitalia, or a prostate, or any of the biological capabilities that set men and women apart, yet many people seem totally willing to give themselves into the fantasy that she is somehow a boy.

The thing is, I understand how we arrived at this point. This bit of insanity starts with a very simple and common desire--people want to have sex. Nothing in the world wrong with that, of course. "The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity," sayeth the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2335) (emphasis original). The problem comes when people want sex without consequences. Since procreation is the natural end of sex--as ordained by God and, y'know, biology and natural selection--we have to step into our first little bit of insanity to get the footloose and fancy free sex we want: we must pretend that babies are not the natural end of sex, but an unintended side effect. This is, of course, a perception that is disconnected with reality--an insanity, if you will--but one that is pretty easy to make. After all, babies only occasionally occur from sex, and with contraception, they almost never occur (although I always feel obliged to mention my friend who has gotten pregnant three times while on The Pill). It becomes very easy to enter the contraceptive mentality, and convince ourselves that, as Jennifer Fulwiler says, "pregnancies that weren’t planned [are] akin to being struck by lightning while walking down the street — something totally unpredictable, undeserved, that happened to people living normal lives."

But this new pseudo-reality we've created for ourselves has consequences and implications of its own. If we pretend that sex is only for pleasure or bonding, and only mutual consent is required, then that means that any sexual act that fulfills that purpose of pleasure is not only licit, but equivalent to any other sex act with the same goal. The necessary outcome of this make-believe logic is that homosexual acts are equivalent to heterosexual acts. Suddenly, we've found ourselves with a new bit of insanity and we must now say that sex that has the potential to produce life is no different than sex that cannot by its very nature. We must pretend that homosexuals' unions are just like that of my wife and me, even though we made one of these and they can't. This is a much bigger disconnect from reality, but once we have accepted it, we are forced to pretend that, since homosexual sex and heterosexual sex are the same, therefore gay "marriage" must be permitted because not to do so would be discrimination.

And yet again, this new bit of greater insanity pushes us further along. For if gay "marriage" and real marriage are no different, then that means that men and women, when you get right down to it, are no different. And here we've finally arrived in Cloud Cuckoo Land. This is where we end up saying that we must pretend a girl is a boy simply because she says she is. We have separated our thoughts from reality. Real, objective things in the real, objective world no longer hold sway on our minds. We have gone bonkers.

(Another consequence of the make-believe world in which pregnancy is an accident is that it leads us to the perfectly reasonable and compassionate conclusion that it's cruel to require a woman to be pregnant against her will--since her little insanity made her incapable of knowing sex could get her pregnant--which leads to allowing her to "terminate the pregnancy", to use a euphemism for infanticide. But since no one is in favor of infanticide, we must, therefore, pretend that the infant is not one, or is not alive, or does not exist. This delusion leads us to completely absurd ways of rationalizing our make-believe world. Instead of using the English word for baby, we use the Latin one ("fetus"), and pretend that changes the nature of the baby. We invent arbitrary and make-believe criteria for humanity or personhood or "aliveness" and pretend that since the baby absorbs oxygen through an umbilical cord instead of his lungs, or since he cannot survive in an environment hostile to him, he somehow is not alive (how many dead people do you know with a heartbeat?). The more science piles on evidence of the humanity of the pre-born, the more we arbitrarily raise the bar and invent make-believe reasons that it is not.)

The thing is, at some point between "I want to have sex with that hot girl in the bar" and "a girl is a boy," I would think that people would realize the insanity of their train of thought, and the disconnect it has with reality. But yet people plow ahead, full throttle, never looking back, never stopping to consider where they're going. I find myself wondering, with a good deal of trepidation, what the next piece of absurdity will bring.

As J. Budziszewski points out, sin begets sin, but as Mark Shea points out, sin makes you stupid. We start with a simple sin and end with a simple madness.

A Pair of Deuces

It is always interesting and enlightening when your opponent tips his hand or reveals his next play. Even if it shows something you had already guessed, there is a satisfaction that comes from knowing that your guess is right.

For instance, when Planned Parenthood is caught repeatedly lying to and deceiving women, they have tipped their hand. It becomes clear that what we guessed—that they do not care about the wellbeing of women and are only in it for the money—is true. Similarly, yesterday's decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, and the arguments surrounding it, tip the hand and show their motivations.

In this case, what tips the hand is not just what is said, but also what is not said: I still have not heard from any gay "marriage" advocate why a government ought to grant special recognition to gay relationships. Instead, the argument seems to be, "well, heterosexuals get marriage licenses, so we should to." This is an argument with the maturity of a two year old.

Lest we forget, remember that gays are not banned from getting married. Any two men could go to Vegas and profess their undying love for eternity—or at least the next seven to 15 years—in front of their friends, family, or loved ones. This isn't merely about marriage as a social institution. This is about marriage as a government-sanctioned relationship. And that's the case that I've never heard made.

To me, gay "marriage" seems kind of like a male tampon. What's the point? If the point of marriage is to encourage through law the just and proper use of the sexual facilities so that children grow up with their parents and women are not abandoned by deadbeat dads, why do those whose sexual acts cannot result in children need these same legal encouragements? But I suppose our society has drifted away from that notion of marriage. Marriage is just something you do to make you feel good. And feeling good is so important that now, apparently, we have a fundamental unenumerated right to a marriage license.

The usual arguments for why government ought to recognize gay "marriage" tend to invoke things such as hospital visitation rights or power of attorney. These arguments fall flat once you realize that all 50 states already grant hospital visitation rights with a simple legal document. And power of attorney can be granted to anyone, not just a spouse, again with a legal document. In fact, the state of California already grants gay couples all the same benefits as married heterosexual couples. They already have everything except the title.

Which is what tips the hand. Gay "marriage" isn't about equality, it's about approval.




Despite common social prejudices, homosexuals are in every way legally equal to heterosexuals, and enjoy all the same rights and benefits. They can't be fired for being gay, they are not taxed more, they don't have separate drinking fountains, or have to give up their seats when a straight person gets on the bus. They even have all the same rights and restrictions regarding marriage as does a heterosexual: a straight man cannot marry another man either. Despite claims that they're "second-class citizens", they clearly are not, at least from a legal perspective, and to call them such is an insult to those who really were second-class. Some may say, "but what about the military!" Even they don't ban homosexuals. Only homosexual acts, which is a different thing entirely, unless you maintain that a person and his actions are equivalent.

No, the real second-class citizens are those in the womb. They are the ones to whom basic human rights are denied. I wonder how the gay-rights lobby would react if it could be demonstrated that an unborn baby was gay. Would he suddenly start having rights? Perhaps we should jump on the phony "gay gene" bandwagon.

But the gay "marriage" advocates aren't interested in mere equality of persons; they want gay relationships to be considered equivalent, and that's the approval they got in this decision. "Rather than being different, same-sex and opposite-sex unions are, for all purposes relevant to California law, exactly the same," says Judge Walker, an H.W. Bush appointee, reassuring us that Souter was not the only judicial activist Bush appointed.

Of course, from my side of the sexual revolution, and as a father, I wonder if Judge Walker has ever held a baby, or understands the difference between sexual unions that might produce offspring and those that can't. But then again, things that are obvious from my perspective on this side of the revolution, seem to baffle those on the other side. I mean, don't we already have ways of preventing sexually transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy? It's called "consider the consequences of your actions." What's the fuss about?


And in the end, that's what this all boils down to: furthering the agenda of the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution was one aspect brought about by a changing social philosophy; that of self-gratification as the highest good. Of course, self-gratification comes with a price. There are consequences to deal with.

Take food for example. "Hungry? Why wait?" The Snicker's slogan perfectly summarizes this philosophy. I want what I want now. But wait! There are consequences to our actions! If we eat whatever we want whenever we want, we'll get fat. It should come as absolutely no surprise that the nation's biggest health risk is obesity and the most frequently performed medical procedure is abortion. Those are related. Of course, we want to forestall those consequences, but we don't want to work at it. The gym is hard work, as is chastity. We prefer our consequence alleviations in pill form. Introducing birth control pills and diet pills. Those, too, are related.

The easiest way to deal with consequences is pretend they aren't consequences. They just happen to unlucky people. Pregnancy becomes and accident. Poor young girls who didn't do anything wrong are, in our president's words, punished with a baby. But if babies aren't a consequence of sex, then there really is no difference between heterosex and homosex. But then if there's no difference, the only possible reason for opposing it is bigotry. So it's easy to understand why that term is bandied about so often in the debate. (I propose a corollary to Godwin's Law: as the length of conversation with a liberal increases, the probability of being called a racist, sexist, homophobe, or bigot approaches 1.)

But simply denying the consequences for yourself is not enough. We require approval for our actions. What a sinner likes the least is to be called out for his sin. It is little wonder that the heterosexual revolutionaries are on the homosexual bandwagon. Legal approval for gay "marriage" gives further approval for fornication.

For this reason, I often feel sorry for the homosexuals who have been caught in the fight for chastity, used as both a human shield and a weapon by the revolutionaries. The real fight is not about whether homosexuals should be granted the rights of heterosexuals. It's over the fundamental nature of sex, and the proper attitude towards it.


A society that embraces gay "marriage" is one that is doomed to suffer unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, divorce, broken families, and abortion. Of course, homosexuality can only propagate one of these things, so one may ask how the others are related. Gay "marriage" is not the cause but rather the symptom. While the pro-matrimony camp likes to make the argument that homosexual unions will weaken marriage, I suspect that the damage has already been done. The fact that we are at the point where we are having fierce debates over the legalization of gay "marriage" indicates that already the notions of chastity have fallen by the wayside. Governmentally-sanctioned homosexual unions can't make things that much worse, but they certainly can keep them from getting better.

I simply cannot imagine a society that encourages homosexuals to fornicate freely, and even grants approvals and blessings to them for doing so, and at the same time demands that heterosexuals take complete responsibility for their actions and treat sex as the awesome and terrifying power that it is. No, sex is either completely free for all, or is completely sacred to all. And if its as cheap as a Snicker's, people, particularly women, will get fat.

This is, of course, related to the abstinence education debate. Abstinence education is only as effective as society permits it. If children have 30 minutes in school being taught that refraining from sex is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy and STIs, and the rest of their waking lives is spent in a culture that drenches them with sex, sexual imagery, and the idea—furthered by permitting gay "marriage"—that sex need not have consequences, what message are they going to learn? Of course they will have sex. But then we have those nasty consequences to deal with! Unwanted pregnancy and STIs abound! The "solution", then, is to hand out condoms like they're candy. But of course, this only furthers the idea that sex is free. More sex and, when the condoms inevitably fail, more pregnancy and disease.

From my side of the revolution the solution is clear: chastity. But then I am called a bigot who promotes inequality for daring to suggest such a thing.


So the choice is between chastity and fornication, homosexual unions and matrimony, happiness or sorrow. Gay "marriage" represent such a tiny part of it. The damage, if any, done by one gay couple fornicating is negligible. The damage done to the society that encourages it is immense.

Several fellow students (all of them women) in my writing class have left perfectly polite comments on my last two homework assignments. I have decided that I am going to go get the town crier all over them.

The comments:

At the beginning of chapter 3, Jack gives Regina the order to depart Arcas spaceport with the command "Miss Burke, take us up." Three women in the class seemed to take exception to this. One circled "Miss" and wrote "Pilot"; one wrote "Ms."; and a third circled "Miss" and left the note "Wouldn't she have a title with more dignity?"

In the next week's homework assignment, Regina referred to herself as "the new gal" aboard the ship. One of the women circled it and wrote "Women don't like this word" and gave several alternatives, such as "girl", "pilot", "crew member", "mate".

Really? Women don't like that word? You are speaking for all women? Then why do I hear my grandmother use it so often? Are you contending that she is not a woman?

Concerning the implication that "miss" is a title without dignity, this one single sentence demonstrates and proves with one single breath the heinous thing, and my biggest gripe, with political correctness: political correctness seeks not to avoid offending, but rather to find offense where none is intended or, even more likely, even present.

Does anyone argue that when Jack refers to Regina as "miss", he is doing it specifically to degrade her, or demean her? (He is quite capable of  doing this in other ways.) Would you argue that if I held a door for a young lady and said "let me get that for you, miss," that I am purposely and actively, with malice aforethought, trying to show my superiority over her, lower her dignity, take away her right to vote, and chain her to the kitchen?

Please. Be surd. (absurd : surd :: incest : cest)

The "best" argument I have heard against the titles of miss and mrs. is that these titles "chain a woman's identity to her marital status, and thus make her a slave of her husband" which is logic on par with "if a woman weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood and thus a witch." This betrays what John Wright so expertly points out about those who follow the Religion of PC: "They think (or rather, they feel) that when they are calling one thing by another name, that the actual nature of reality changes. They put themselves in a position where they can no longer talk about real things. Words are severed from referents."

He is, of course and as always, right. Those who worship at the altar of PC, and also those in the left wing (usually the same crowd) believe in the magic of language relativity: that is, by changing the way we refer to something we can change the nature of the thing itself. This seems to me to be closely associated with moral relativism: the belief that we can change morality by wishing it away. What is wrong for you or for another is not wrong for me because I don't want it to be. We see this in other aspects of life, too: if we call a "baby" a "fetus", it is no longer human, and can be killed; if we refer to people as having "gender" instead of "sex", then by changing their gender, they can change the fundamental nature of themselves. News flash: if I name my cat "rover", refer to her as "the dog", and feed her dog biscuits, she still won't bark. Sex is a biological and supernatural reality. Changing how we refer to it won't change its nature.

The reality of miss and mrs. seems to me to be far more innocuous. In a society where men purse and women allure, one would expect simple and obvious social cues that would indicate to the pursuer if the allurer is available to be pursued. Titles are one aspect of this, as are rings (hence, a woman wearing an engagement ring; I think of a man's wedding ring more as a reminder to himself than as a signal to other women). Were we to live in a society that operated in the opposite fashion, where women sought out a mate, bought him dinner, escorted him to the opera, and took him home and kissed him goodnight on his porch, I would expect the titles to be reversed.

But the PCists, of course, are chained to their idea of language driving nature; thus if we call an unmarried woman "miss" and a married woman "mrs.", we are saying that her nature changes when she gets married. Since they feel this is offensive (and I have never heard a good explanation for how it is offensive, probably in no small part because they feel rather than think it is offensive) they think (or rather, feel) that by changing a woman's title to the generic "ms.", we have somehow altered her nature and the nature of marriage.

As mentioned before, one of the primary aspects of political correctness is how it assumes offense where none exists. To refer to a married woman by a different title as an unmarried woman seems reasonable to the normal, rational person. In fact, these are the terms that were used for decades, if not centuries, and no offense was meant or taken. But then one day (and that is probably quite literal) some follower of the dogma of PC decided that words that had no offense attached to them before suddenly were offensive and that they had to be changed. Granted, language changes, but suddenly deciding that words have new meaning never before intended is not the sort of gradual change as "chuse" changing to "choose". Other examples of this include suddenly deciding that using the pronoun "he" to refer to groups of mixed sex is offensive, where it never was before, and that the term "secretary" to refer to those with a secretarial job, is offensive. (I once asked a PCist why it was that "secretary" was demeaning to women. She explained that it was because it harkened to a time when women were only allowed three careers: secretary, teacher, and nurse. She did not explain why "teacher" and "nurse" were still allowable. (This is one reason I'm Catholic and not PC; the rules are far more intuitive and easier to understand.))

Another aspect of Political Correctness is that it only seeks to find offense directed a certain groups that are mascots of the left. Surely, the PCists object to "offenses" against blacks, American Indians, women, homosexuals, and other "protected" groups. I have never heard one so much as flinch at offenses directed at Irishmen, men, Catholics, or evangelical Christians. Somehow, Muslims have weasled themselves onto the "protected" list, which means those outside the Church of PC get to watch, with wonderful bemusement, how those in the PC Church "protect" from offense those who are probably the least PC, and indeed viciously hate some of the other protected groups. (For instance, my writing instructor mentioned, perhaps in a doubt of the faith, that she was having a hard time accepting the PC dogma that fundamentalist Islamic societies had a "right" to horribly abuse their women. I remain blissfully outside of PCism, so I can answer as any sane man should: no such right exists and we can kill the bastards for doing such.)

If you want evidence of how imbalanced the double-standard for offensive speech is, look no further than the NCAA. Remember a few years ago when, out of sensitivity to "Native Americans" they tried to outlaw all schools with American Indian mascots? (They apparantly had a very selective use of "Native American"; I am a native to America too, but they didn't outlaw any team called "the Josephs". However, since no team with that name exists, perhaps they thought it a non-issue. I will give them the benifit of the doubt, and assume that they would have.) This, of course, was a monumental search for offense, such that they must have been using NASA's Spitzer space telescope to find it, as they clearly ignored the fact that many colleges with American Indian mascots do so with the approval and blessing of the tribe! One thing I found particularly interesting was that the University of Illinois Fighting Illini were to be banned, because "Fighting Illini" is offensive. However, there never was any mention of banning the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish. How, exactly, is "Fighting Illini" racially insensitive and "Fighting Irish" is not? Are you going to argue that the Irish have not been oppressed? Are you going to argue that it is politically correct to portray Irishmen as drunken, brawling, leprechauns, but incorrect to portray American Indians as tomahawk-wielding warriors with feathered headdresses? Now we must play a game of measuring relativism, and explain why one offense is more offensive than the other.

So it is because of political correctness that society jumps at imagined shadows of offense, but only those shadows cast from a certain angle and from certain objects, that you have to turn your head sideways and squint to see, but then it just looks like a bunny. It is because of political correctness that I can't say "miss", but no politically correct person would bat an eyelash over the term "hocus pocus", with all its associated anti-Catholic bigotry. (For those not in the know, "hocus pocus", originally, was a mockery of the Latin words of consecration: "Hoc est enim corpus meum" or "This is my body", the climax of the Mass, and that sacred moment when a host of unleavened bread is turned into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. I, personally, do not take offense to "hocus pocus", because I know that no one today uses it to offend Catholics, and probably no one who is not Catholic even knows where the term comes from. I would not stoop to correct someone who uses such a term in ignorance.)  It is because of political correctness that I can't refer to a secretary as a secretary, but the followers of PC can—and do—take Our Lord's name in vain, without so much as a worry or care to whether or not they offend me (and I do take great offense to that). I am not in a protected group; I am not worthy of avoiding offense towards. (In fact, someone once argued on this very blog that it is allowable to insult and offend white Christians because they have it coming.) But if those followers of PC don't care if they offend me, on what grounds do they argue that I should not offend them?

Since I can't think of a witty or snappy end to this article, I will let the inestimable John Wright do it for me, even though I think I am over my allocated "John Wright quote or link" quota by quite a lot this month:

Quoted for Truth:

The rudest society imaginable is one where everyone is hyper-sensitive, thin-skinned, and willing to see insults where none are intended, and, most of all, a society were everyone demands, as a matter of right, as a matter of entitlement, that no one cross or offend his ultra-fine nerves, which have been sandpapered to the most exquisite pitch of sensitivity. The professional crybabies have been given a trump card that wins every hand and always collects the kitty. So, we get more crybabies. Dignity, adieu: rudeness, hail! Hail, horrors!

If your number is 330-416-4288...

...why did you just send me a picture of your dog?



Cute dog, though, and decent quality for a camera phone.

I'm starting to learn the downside to having a "desirable" e-mail address: people forget it's not theirs.

I signed up for Gmail on April 23rd, 2004. This was pretty early, considering Google only announced the service on April 1st of that year, and it was in closed beta for many months afterwords. I got in because Google had just purchased Blogger and gave a free Gmail account to anyone with a blogger account (pretty good marketing, no? Give all the bloggers access to your e-mail service, then let them tell all their moms about it, since those are the only people who read blogs). Since I got in the gates before the barbarian hordes, so to speak, I got the highly desirable "JoeCool" screen name. No longer did I have to deal with a stupid and utterly random "385" after my e-mail account. Life was going to be wonderful.

Or, at least, so I thought.

Apparently, there is a certain, rather large, subsection of society that can't remember its e-mail address. I very, very frequently get confirmation e-mails saying something like "Thank you for creating an account on (insert website here). Click here to finalize the process." No, they are not spam or phishing scams. They are actually legitimate account creation e-mails, sent to me because someone thinks he has my e-mail address. I'm sure some of them are just times when someone, not wanting to give their real e-mail address, just entered a "dummy" address, not caring about the poor person who's address he entered and now has to wade through the mound of spam. It doesn't help him, though, because since he entered a "dummy" e-mail address, he can't finalize the account creation.

But I get e-mails where this is very clearly not the case. For instance, last June, Joseph Roy living at 330 Rosemonte in Thibodaux, LA 70301 purchased golf ball finder glasses, a twelve pack of golf balls, and a golfing glove, and received a free promotional golf towel from The Golf Warehouse, a total purchase of $99.59. How do I know this? Because he had the order confirmation send to me. For a while, I considered printing out the order confirmation and snail-mailing it to him, along with a polite note asking not to use my e-mail address on web sites, and also warning about sending personal details to strangers. You never know where that personal information might end up. I decided not to, but I think this will be my future policy when people send me their addresses.

This is not an isolated incident. There is a woman named Sharon Faber who is convinced I am her son. I have been receiving correspondence (sometimes including pictures) from her for over a year. The first few times, I assumed it was spam, or a typo in the e-mail address and deleted it, but after she kept e-mailing, me I realized she just plain had the wrong e-mail address. The problem was, by that point, it felt a little awkward e-mailing someone who had been sending me e-mail for a few months and telling her she had the wrong e-mail address. "Hi, Sharon. I'm not actually your son, but thanks for the pictures of your grandchildren from last Sunday's barbecue. I hope you had a good time." Now, I just filter out her e-mails, or delete them without reading them.

I have learned from that incident and now I immediately e-mail people who obviously have the wrong address. This happens at least once every couple weeks. It's usually a mother or grandmother or teenage a teenage girl sending a note to her son/grandson/classmate. In one recent incident someone sent me One Of Those e-mails (Terry Pratchett capitalization intentional). You know how they go. "This comes from a New York Times article: 70% of people in Los Angeles are illegal immigrants who caused the sewer to back up on Super Bowl Sunday when they all flushed the toilet at the same time during halftime, which flooded the sewers, startling the alligators, who snapped at the ducks causing them to all quack at the same time, but since their quacks don't echo, it caused all the Oak trees to produce acorns, even though they don't normally do so until they're 50 years old." You know those e-mails, particularly if your name rhymes with Shmristine Shmacosta, since you, as far as I can tell, originate them all. Anyways, back to the woman, not only did I get to tell her that I wasn't her grandson, I pointed her to the relevant Snopes article and recommended she research internet claims before believing them and sending them on (politely, of course).

It has been particularly bad in the past few days. Apparently, someone identifying himself as "Joe Smith" (that's original) is looking for homes in Hillsboro, Oregon, and has signed me up to receive his new home listing notifications. Jason Merritt of RE/MAX equity group, inc.—who can be reached at (503) 250-3536 or homes@jasonmerritt.com (his website is www.jasonmerritt.com)—is very politely sending me the new listings every day. Thank you, Jason, but I'm not interested in moving to Oregon at this time. (Did you know you can get a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1655 sq. ft. home in Hillsboro for $289,000? Apparently, Hillsboro must be a fairly affluent area, since that's very comparable to our condo, which is currently valued around $330,000-$350,000.) Also, someone has decided I am interested in a car, and has had quotes for a Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, and Chevrolet Cobalt sent to me from Roseville, CA-area dealerships. So far, I've received about three e-mails from each dealership every day for the last four or five days. Persistent, those car dealers. Again, thanks but no thanks.

Of course, it's not isolated to my Gmail account. It increases the spam on my other e-mail account as well. After Mr. Roy buys his golf clubs, or whoever just signed up for "Strip4U.com" sends his account activation to me, the next thing he does is try to log into my e-mail account to retrieve his e-mail. Fortunately, none of them played a certain 3D shooter from the 90's, and as such don't know my password. Unfortunately, that means they use the "forgot your password?" link to try to retrieve it. And since my Gmail account is tied to my Yahoo account, a message shows up there saying something like "Click the link to reset your Gmail account password." Again, not a phishing attempt: it really does link to gmail.com. I estimate I get about one of these e-mails a week.

So far, I'd like to think I've been patient with these people. Even though I couldn't possibly understand how in a hundred million years you could possibly forget something so simple and basic as your e-mail address, somehow people do, and I'm the one to bear the price for it. This can't go on. I am hereby requesting to the world that you stop using my e-mail address to sign up for your accounts. I am also requesting that you stop sending me e-mails, thinking you know me.

And just for clarification, if you think you have the e-mail address joecool (at) gmail (dot) com, you don't.

If you think you have the e-mail address joe.cool (at) gmail (dot) com, you don't (since Gmail doesn't differentiate between dotted and un-dotted e-mail addresses).

If you think I'm your grandson/son/classmate/ex-boyfriend/coworker/dentist/drug dealer/stripper you met at that bar that one time/fence, I'm not.

If you send me, or in anyway cause your personal information to be sent to me, it will be posted publicly on the Internet for all the world to see. Credit card numbers are appreciated.