The price of sex

From "Cheap Dates" in the New York Post:

“Every sex act is part of a ‘pricing’ of sex for subsequent relationships,” Regnerus said. “If sex has been very easy to get for a particular young man for many years and over the course of multiple relationships, what would eventually prompt him to pay a lot for it in the future -- that is, committing to marry?”
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So, what can women do to return the balance of sexual power in their favor? Stop putting out, experts say. If women collectively decided to cross their legs, the price of sex would soar and women would regain control of the market. Like a whoopie cartel.
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“Let’s be realistic: It’s not going to happen here,” Regnerus says. “Women don’t really need men and marriage -- economically, socially, and culturally -- like they once did. What I hear in interviews with women is plenty of complaining about men or about the dating scene, but their annoyance is seldom directed at other women.”

There is a prisoner's dilemma problem involved--what looks good to the individual may not be good for the group. Plus it is arguable that the end effect of the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s may have been to make many women worse off, not better.

Chinese mothers

Shannon Love responds to the article in the Wall Street Journal about the superiority of Chinese mothers by pointing out the importance of teamwork.

Those who criticize team sports for instilling a competitive spirit usually miss the cooperation that they also teach.

Whom to blame

From Jennifer Rubin: "When things go wrong for the left, it blames the people; when things go wrong for the right, it blames the governing elites."

Buyers' remorse

I liked this conclusion to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, though I think he is being a bit too optimistic:

Slowly, the nation has recovered its poise. There is a widespread sense of unstated embarrassment that a political majority, if only for a moment, fell for the promise of an untested redeemer—a belief alien to the temperament of this so practical and sober a nation. 

I know people who still cling to the belief that we have a redeemer as POTUS.

Russ Douthat on Decadence

Russ Douthat in the NewYork Times reflects on the implications of bleeped scenes in South Park:

This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

Happily, today’s would-be totalitarians are probably too marginal to take full advantage. This isn’t Weimar Germany, and Islam’s radical fringe is still a fringe, rather than an existential enemy.

For that, we should be grateful. Because if a violent fringe is capable of inspiring so much cowardice and self-censorship, it suggests that there’s enough rot in our institutions that a stronger foe might be able to bring them crashing down. 

The chattering class loves the meme of right-wing violence but takes no precaustions against it. The same people never mention Islamic violence yet its threat causes them to self censure. Actions speak louder than words.

Animal sacrifice

If you are an animal rights activist, you want it to stop, but if you value diversity, you should want it to continue. How does the modern progressive decide on the tradition of a centuries-old animal slaughter?

The world's biggest animal sacrifice began in Nepal today with the killing of the first of more than 250,000 animals as part of a Hindu festival in the village of Bariyapur, near the border with India.

The best columnist in American (or Canada)

Mark Steyn on Dominick Dunn, a writer of whom I had never heard.

Catholics react to the death of Ted Kennedy

In the National Catholic Reporter, Sister Maureen Fiedler says she was inspired by the late senator:

But today feels a bit like the end of an era. Ted Kennedy, like his brothers, was a champion of civil rights, women’s rights, and the welfare of the “least of these.” He strongly and eloquently opposed the war in Iraq. Because his life (and the lives of others in his family) embraced the great Catholic social justice tradition, they have made me proud to be a Catholic.

Patrick Madrid responds on his blog:

At best, Mr. Kennedy was highly selective as to which of "the least among us" he would deign to defend. Case in point: Abortion. The senator established his record squarely on the extremist position of defending the legality of abortion.
Many are not aware that he was originally publicly pro-life (I comment on the details of his transformation from pro-life to pro-abortion here).As a result of Ted Kennedy's indefatigable championing of the pro-abortion movement, tens of millions of the "least among us" — unborn girls and boys — were killed through abortion under his senatorial auspices.Whatever his positive qualities may have been, and no doubt he had some, the tragic reality is that Senator Kennedy's long political career was squandered by his vociferous, relentless promotion of abortion. And that, sadly, will be his enduring legacy.

A post at America Magazine finds his post boorish and offensive:

Someone named Patrick Madrid, who runs a blog and is involved with something called the Envoy Institute at Belmont Abbey in North Carolina, decided to attack my colleague at NCR Sister Maureen Fiedler for her post remembering the late Senator. "Maureen, with all due respect," he begins, words that reek of condescension.
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Who are these people? To what level of boorishness have the spokespeople for the pro-life community descended? And, it is any wonder we keep losing the political fight for life when some of our own exercise such obvious, callous, inhumane indecency as to ignore a lifetime of good works, render judgment not just on a man’s ideas but on his soul, and to speak ill of the dead when the body is still warm. It is shameful. And, I hope the bishops recognize that it is counter-productive to the pro-life goals we should share. Hatefulness is not attractive or persuasive.

If you are damning someone for being condescending and boorish, should you be so blatantly condescending and boorish?

One of the comments caught my attention:

Senator Kennedy did more for the unborn by turning Catholic Social Teaching into law than anyone in the pro-life movement. Had it not been for his list of accomplishments in the social welfare area, the abortion rate would have been much higher, as people would have been poorer, felt more trapped and resorted to abortion more often.

I can make arguments for and against markets and socialism, but I have no idea how you can argue that social-welfare legislation increases national wealth to the extent that this comment suggests. It is not government social programs and welfare programs that create wealth. Inventors and entrepreneurs working in the private sector create wealth. It is discouraging to see comments that betray this complete lack of understanding of why we are a wealthy country, but I suspect that in some intellectual circles that sort of sentiment is acceptable.

Elizabeth Scalia reflects on the exchange at First Things.

A fascinating graph

Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute has a graph showing the changes in political self-identification of non-Latino whites ages 30-49. A variety of different groups have slowly been getting more conservative, but one group, wealthy with a graduate degree, such as lawyers, academics, scientists, writers, and creators of entertainment programming, have been rapidly getting much more liberal.

What he shows is consistent with what I see happening around me.

Peter Pan and the recession

In the Asia Times the always interesting Spengler (David Goldman) connects Michael Jackson and the current economic downturn:

They forgave Jackson his dysmorphia and even his alleged pedophilia, for Jackson only expressed in extreme form his generation's refusal to age. In his self-disfigurement and eventual self-destruction, this fey child-man fought madly against maturity with a reckless abandon that his fans secretly admired. They loved him, not in spite of his personality failures, but because of them.
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Something astonishing had happened, compared to which the tulip bulb craze and the South Sea bubble seem like models of sobriety. The eternal adolescence that Michael Jackson so ably represented in fantasy turned into the foundation for the great investing wave of the 1990s
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Youth culture disoriented the entrepreneurs of America so thoroughly that conventional wisdom - including that of the Vatican and the Barack Obama administration - now ignores the entrepreneur as a source of economic growth.
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The hangover from America's obsession with perpetual youth will last for a decade or more. Judging from the rock-star adulation accorded to Obama, Americans haven't yet learned their lesson, which is: after a certain age, no, you can't.

Stigma beats dogma

Over at phibetacons.nationalreview.com, a post on stigma beats dogma:

In the battle of ideas, stigma always beats dogma. In other words, through stigmatization, one can defeat a set of ideas or principles without ever "winning" an argument on the merits.

Isn't this what political correctness is all about?

It's not just Nevada

It's not just Nevada that has legalized prostitution. So does Rhode Island. Found via marginalrevolution.com

Over the line

Playboy recently had a web piece about ten conservative women that they would like to hatef**k. It lasted a few hours before it was taken down after generating a considerable reaction. Some sites, including Politico, showed a cluelessness that was quite remarkable.

Styen channels Schumpeter

Joseph Schumpeter thought that capitalism would be a successful economic system but would not be successful socially. A recent column by Mark Steyn made me think of Schumpeter.

Margaret Thatcher was a great leader, who reversed her country’s decline — to the point where, two decades later, the electorate felt it was safe to vote the Labour party back into office. And yet, in the greater scheme of things, the Thatcher interlude seems just that: a temporary respite from a remorseless descent into the abyss.