On Holland, England, Declarations of Independence and Crazy Ass Admirals

I've been watching Admiral on Netflix. Admiral is a Dutch film about the great Admiral de Ruyter who kicked the British Navy's ass in the 1600s (Brits make the best villains, it's the accent). The movie's great and it reminded me of three things. First of all, English and Dutch are very similar languages - Admiral has a lot of Dutch with English subtitles in it and with both there at once it's surprising to this monoglot English speaker how much I understand - I almost feel like I could be multilingual but......naaaah, who'm I kidding?

Second, American freedom is based upon a Dutch/English Joint Venture. The Dutch had the first modern Republic in the world so when the English finally got sick of their jackass Scottish kings they had a "Glorious Revolution" and turfed them out (The Brits were always good at PR - even back then they were thinking about the tourist trade) . But that meant they needed a new king for the tourists so they imported a slick Dutch model called William (which is a bit ironic because after all, another Willie had invaded England in 1066 and made them kowtow to him in French which no doubt frosted their ale mugs pretty badly). The key selling feature of this guy - aside from him being married to an English Princess - was that he was house trained, specifically House of Commons trained to be a Constitutional Monarch. It's this "Glorious Revolution and King Adoption" that the American revolutionaries based our Declaration of Independence as "Free Englishmen" on. If the Dutch hadn't bred house trained princes then we might have been in trouble.

The third thing that I noticed in this film was that everything comes full circle: the Dutch gave us the Republic thing, whacked a prince with a rolled up parchment until he was trained enough to not wee on Parliament so the English could give us the Glorious Revo idea. And what did we give them in return? The Errol Flynn maneuver whereby movie stars who are supposed to be playing sober captains and admirals instead behave like......well, jackass Scottish kings - forgetting their duty completely and running amuck like baboons with swords and capes. Which is precisely what this de Ruyter hepcat did in the movie.

So thanks Dutch dudes for the constitutional republicanism and capitalism and trade and all that and here's your ridiculous movie cliche in return. Let us know if you need anything else. We've got a really cool large breasted ingenue cliche we call Marilyn Monroe-ism that we can let go for cheap. Or if you're into mid century ass wiggling rock star cliches we can let Elvis' Pelvis go for a song.

Trans Bathrooms and Lenin's Who? Whom?

One night a dear friend of mine was accosted by a mugger trying to steal her purse.  Unfortunately she fell on it and the mugger caved her face in with his boot.  It took multiple reconstructive surgeries to restore her.  For many years after she had a fear of encountering men alone that she didn't know, particularly in places where she didn't expect them. Like in the women's toilet or shower. The general name for this condition is 'Androphobia'. It afflicts both crime victims and individuals susceptible to it. Women with this condition (every bit as tragic as gender dysphoria) live constrained, limited lives - to avoid panic they avoid any situation where they might encounter strange men. Up until recently women's toilets, shower facilities and dorms were considered safe places.

I have lived in both Islamic (Abu Dhabi) and heavily Orthodox Jewish (University City, MO) communities.  There are roughly 200,000 Haredi Orthodox Jewish women and another 600,000 devout Muslim women in this country.  For both groups sustaining their faith tradition, indeed sustaining their identity requires that they avoid displaying their beauty to males not part of their families.  Their hair, their forearms and legs and feet are included in these restrictions. Historically they had no concern utilizing a public toilet or locker room.  No more. And to the objection 'but this is just religion'. To these women their faith is their identity. Every bit as much as someone with gender dysphoria.

When he was conquering Russia, VI Lenin formulated a slogan that describes the current situation well:  Who? Whom?  His point was that the important question in a revolution - whether political or social - was who would win?  Who would oppress whom? Who was on top and who was on bottom.  And because Lenin was above all a lawyer focused on law, this was a zero sum concept:  the winners take directly from the losers. Historically in America and the west  we've avoided making explicit law on gender access to facilities, instead we've had a rough community consensus. Communities have chosen to segregate 'intimate' public facilities by male/female and society has gone along.  Some places probably don't even have laws - it's simply understood and people generally enforce it informally.  This works out well because it accommodates the truly trans who have been using women's facilities since the toilet and shower were invented. They had to take care lest they be outed as men but since their goal was to be women it worked.  And it allowed the Androphobic and devout women to play along with something that was in fact, a bit of a fiction.

The problem is that the left and the Obama administration have gone Leninist.  The Federal government is mandating that law and regulation be established giving Trans legal access to intimate facilities set aside for the members of the opposite biological sex if they claim gender dysphoria.  So now the polite ambiguity and informal social consensus are collapsing into the awful majesty of the law.  And that means bright lines must be drawn and for someone to win the other side has to lose.

So it's now a battle to death between two tribes only one who can win.  Once the law is inserted it's impossible to go back to more informal relations. As has happened in so many other parts of our society the entry of law has created immense chasms between us, increasing hatred and contempt on both sides. So the Trans may win this one but let's stop pretending this is liberation...it will cost more than a million American women a part of their autonomy and peace of mind while angering at least a hundred million of their families, friends and neighbors.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention:  Orthodox Jews and Muslims - not to mention conservative Christians have almost 4 children for each couple.  Secular Americans: less than 1.5.  I don't know what GLBT childbirths look like per couple, do you? So this isn't anywhere near a permanent 'victory'. Because it's the children of the fecund humiliated that will have political power.....and long memories.

The thing that the lawyers among us keep forgetting is that life is meant to be a love story, not a rule book.  The more rules you make, the crueler and more atomized the society becomes. After all, we all have our 'rights'.

Milo's Mind

Milo Yiannanopolis is best known for mocking politically correct Social Justice  Warrior opinion. As he puts it: "I was born conservative and chose to be homosexual".

"Believing that a person’s sex, race and orientation defines the acceptable limits of the opinions they may hold is called 'identity politics.' It’s a bizarre but flourishing cult in America today that makes fools of its supporters by presenting an insultingly reductionist view of human nature."

You will hear a lot more about Milo. And will be told that to be a 'Good Person' who cares about 'social justice' you must hate him. But he's obviously right.