Joe Rogan interviews Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist and tenured professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He is currently embroiled in a battle with his university and the progressives over the use of “preferred prounouns”.

That term refers to some transgender people wanting to use something other than “he” or “she”. Some of them are content with using “they”, which is grammatically incorrect but at least a real word. Others prefer an ever increasing list of new words, each more absurd than the previous. Not only do they wish to use these new pronouns, they also expect everyone else to use them. Anyone refusing to do so is violating the person’s identity.

Of course, since this is happening in Canada it comes with an additional penalty: refusing to use a person’s preferred pronoun is a crime punishable by fine. Should one refuse to pay the fine, one risks jail time.

That is right. It is possible to go to jail for calling someone “he” when they prefer “zir”.

Student gets $6 million abuse settlement from school following abuse

In rare instance of accountability, a former student abused by one of his teachers will receive a $6 million settlement from the school district:

Vince Finaldi, an attorney for the former high school student, said the egregious conduct of Redlands Unified School administrators in the case warranted what may be one of the largest single-victim sex abuse settlements by a public agency.

“The size of this settlement represents the gravity of the damage done to this young victim and his family and it also highlights the extreme malfeasance and neglect by school officials who turned a blind eye to the criminal conduct of a teacher and failed to protect a student,” Finaldi said.

Laura Whitehurst faced 41 felony counts of unlawful sex acts. She faced a potential 29-year prison sentence. She chose to plead guilty to six counts of lesser offences, resulting in a one-year jail sentence. She was released after six months and placed on probation. She was also required to register a sex offender, but otherwise faced no other penalty. She also shares custody of the child that resulted from her abuse of the student.

The former student’s attorneys argued that the school officials were culpable because they knew of the abuse but nothing to stop it. School district officials agreed to a settlement, although it appears for purely public relation reasons:

A little discussion about modern feminism

The American Enterprise Institute posted an interview between Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia. It is a fascinating discussion about the current state of modern feminism within academia. Their conversation reminds me of the commentary in Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge’s book Professing Feminism. They wrote the book in the late 1990s, yet twenty years later the complaints about the polarizing impact of modern feminism remain the same.

If feminists had the kind self-reflective conversation Sommers and Paglia had during the interview, I suspect more people would become feminists. Instead there appears to be an element within the modern feminist movement that latches onto the worst type of victimology, cognitive dissonance, and self-righteous selfishness. There is no self-reflection, only the arrogant “knowledge” that feminists are right because they say they are right.

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Boy ‘abused with a dog’ by Army recruits-inquiry — Senior recruits at an army apprentice school used a dog to abuse a boy who was training to join the Army Band, a national inquiry has heard. The abuse survivor, given the pseudonym CJU, told a royal commission hearing on Friday he had spent 38 years carrying the burden of his abuse. ‘Not only was I raped by my seniors and by staff at Balcombe (a Victoria-based school) who I thought I could trust, I was mentally abused with a dog, the lowest of the low, bestiality,’ he said.

Britain’s worst pedophiles convicted of historic abuse of young boy — Ex-Navy chief Douglas Slade, 74, and racing driver Christopher Skeaping, 71, were members of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). The pro-paedophile activist network openly campaigned for legal sex between adults and children in the 1970s and 80s, and wanted the age of consent to be axed or lowered. Twisted supporters of the group – which Jimmy Savile has been linked to – shared obscene material and advice with fellow deviants.

Ex-altar boy who spoke out about being sexually abused by priest found hanged in home — A Pennsylvania man who spoke out against clergy abuse after publicly identifying himself as a victim of a predator priest has killed himself, authorities said. Brian Gergely, 46, was found hanged in his home in Ebensburg on Friday, Cambria County Coroner Jeffrey Lees told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Gergely went public in 2003 while suing Monsignor Francis McCaa and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, saying he was abused as a 10-year-old altar boy.

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‘Campus Witches’ beat up a male student over sexual assault allegations — The “Campus Witches,” a feminist group at the Ankara University Faculty of Languages, History and Geography, has suddenly garnered newfound popularity after video footage showing female students from the group physically assaulting a male student and accusing him of sexual abuse went viral. As the video posted on the Campus Witches’ Facebook page on March 29 shows, security officers came to rescue the male student after members of the group began to physically assault him.

Christian Brothers accused of dodging Ballarat child sex abuse compensation claims — A religious order implicated in a notorious child sex abuse ring in Victoria has been accused of refusing to assist victims achieve adequate compensation. A survivor and his lawyer said the Christian Brothers, who ran the St Alipius Boys School in Ballarat, were adopting a smoke and mirrors approach to avoid paying up.

Feds: Hastert paid to hide sexual abuse, then cried extortion — Five teenage boys who say they were molested by former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert. That is the dark secret the feds say led Hastert to agree to pay one victim $3.5 million so others wouldn’t come forward, federal prosecutors said Friday in a sentencing memorandum. It’s a secret that cost the once-powerful Republican $1.7 million in payouts — along with his reputation. The memo offers a damning account of the sexual abuses for the first time in a case that’s been shrouded in mystery.

The Slippery Slope of Consent Laws

I am not a fan of slippery slope arguments. Far too often people see something they do not like and assume the absolute worst possibility with no evidence. Yet sometimes these arguments are fair. One such instance is the argument against consent laws.

Feminists have pushed these laws for years. They have been most successful on college campuses. Many colleges and universities now institute policies that essentially require the accused to prove no assault occurred. Often included in these policies are provisions that require other parties to act on behave of the alleged victim.

A recent case shows the inherent problem with these provisions:

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It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept. Case in point:

Alleged rape victims sue University of Tennessee over respecting due process

Several women allegding sex assault filed a lawsuit against their school for creating an alleged hostile environment:

Six women filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday claiming the University of Tennessee has created a student culture that enables sexual assaults by student-athletes, especially football players, and then uses an unusual, legalistic adjudication process that is biased against victims who step forward.

They cite dozens of examples in the suit, most of which have nothing to do with their specific cases and are not sex offences. The group argues, however, that the school’s permissive attitude created an environment that promoted the alleged sexual assaults.

One could make such an argument. Many schools do have separate standards for student athletes, and it is not uncommon for such students to get a pass when they behave badly. It is possible that this would include instances of sex offences.

Where the lawsuit gets bizarre is in the the last accusation:

The plaintiffs say that UT’s administrative hearing process, which is utilized by public universities across the state, is unfair because it provides students accused of sexual assault the right to attorneys and to confront their accusers through cross-examination and an evidentiary hearing in front of an administrative law judge. The administrative law judge who hears the case is appointed by Cheek, the lawsuit says.

In other words, it is unfair to provide accused students their right to due process. They should not be allowed to question their accusers. They should not be allowed to defend themselves. They should not be allowed to even see the evidence against them. This is “unfair” to the accusers.

The reason this appears in the lawsuit is because some of the cases in Tennessee have been dismissed due to lack of evidence. This lack of evidence would only come out found during evidentiary hearing or if the accused could question the accuser. As noted in another article:

It’s worth remembering why UT is not rushing to judgment: Its Chattanooga administration’s adjudication of an accused student got swatted down by a judge last summer, who said the burden of proof was on the school to show that (surprise) a student athlete didn’t obtain consent from his accuser. In other words, “affirmative consent” is not legally enforceable. […] This is what the group of six rape accusers want to end – a procedure that puts complainant (accuser) and respondent (accused) on the same legal footing. Where accusations don’t equal guilt. Where there’s not a predetermined result to satisfy a federal witch hunt backed by financial threats.

This is ridiculous and unethical. While it is understandable to decry a school protecting its student athletes (who are often the people the schools use to make money), it is indefensible to argue that we should remove due process because sometimes the accuser’s story does not parse. Yet this is the stage we have reached, where accusers and their supporters will trample other people’s rights for the sake of protecting someone else’s rights.

We will see whether the lawsuit continues. It is difficult to see how it this will go forward given the nature of the accusations. The complainants are essentially arguing the school acted improper by not violating the accused’s constitutional rights.