Was more or less my reaction when the bovine cleavage that has Jacqui Smith attached to it was appointed Home Secretary. Bizarrely, the conversation I was having was with my mother.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I found unsettling about this appointment. My first instinct was comically naive: “How can a woman be tough enough to be Home Secretary?”. My second instinct was much more on the money though. An awful lot of women have a capability that is theirs alone to be cold, draconian, illogical, vindictive, calculating, evasive and utterly blind to their fallibility.
Harriet Harman – the vile feminist barrister and authoritarian harridan – was a trail blazer in this area. Cherie Blair – the vile feminist barrister and authoritarian harridan – was right behind our Prime Minister for 10 long years. Look out, by the way, for more of that with Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton taking their seats at the top table in America.
As an aside, Chris Rock on Michelle Obama was priceless:
“Barack has a handicap the other candidates don’t have: Barack Obama has a black wife. And I don’t think a black woman can be first lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it! A black woman can be president, no problem. First lady? Can’t do it. You know why? Because a black woman cannot play the background of a relationship. Just imagine telling your black wife that you’re president? ‘Honey, I did it! I won! I’m the president.’ ‘No, we the president! And I want my girlfriends in the Cabinet! I want Kiki to be secretary of state! She can fight!”
Anyway, my concern was not whether Jacqui Smith would be tough enough, but whether she would be fair enough. Modern female thinking doesn’t seem to lend itself to libertarianism. I strongly suspect Ayn Rand was a post-op transsexual.
Indeed – her authoritarian streak is a mile wide.
As the UK Home Secretary, she has been noted for advocating strongly authoritarian policies. Examples are a law to detain crime suspects for several months without charging them for any crime, a central database that logs all mobile phone and email/internet traffic in the UK, and restrictions to the freedom of photography. She justified these policies as necessary “anti-terror” laws.
That fails to mention her recent and darkly comical pushing of ID cards.
And her current hobby-horse is prostitution. She says 80% of prostitutes are trafficked or coerced – effectively slaves. Having sex with one of these women should bring a charge of rape. The onus must be on the man who procures a prostitute to ensure that she is not working for anyone else under duress.
It seems difficult to fault the logic until you hear Niki Adams, spokesman for the English Collective of Prostitutes, who says (as she did when talking to Andrew Neil) that Smith’s figures are utter nonsense.
For the second time in a row, Minnette Marrin has this nailed down.
Of course it is wrong to force women into sex against their will in any circumstances. To do so is to break laws that already exist against rape, sexual assault and trafficking. It is also true that there must be some situations that are obviously dubious and that any law-abiding man ought to get out of as fast as possible. If, for example, the girls are very young and speak hardly a word of English, it is a fair bet that something is wrong.
Normally, though, how is a man to tell? I’ve come across a lot of prostitutes, some in the red-light districts of Hong Kong, Bangkok and Luang Prabang in Laos, some in the smarter parts of London’s Mayfair. I once spent the weekend on a boat on the South China Sea with a Playboy Miss April, who distinguished unselfconsciously between “jobs” and “f***-jobs”. I even know of a few women who, between alimony cheques, have occasionally turned a few tricks for men of their social acquaintance, whom they would not normally dream of charging for the privilege. And I know of one woman who charges her lawfully wedded husband for sex. Feminists used to say that marriage itself is prostitution and, to judge from the tabloid newspapers, in some cases it is.
From all this one thing stands out. Prostitutes vary enormously (as do punters) and so do their situations. Some are forced, more or less; others are not. Some are wretched; some seem content. And if there is no way that a man could find out reliably whether a woman is under duress, then to prosecute him for his ignorance is in effect to trump up charges against him. It is unmistakably unfair.
When confronted on Radio 4’s Today programme by this knockdown argument, Smith repeatedly ignored it; she said instead – and irrelevantly – “I’ll tell you what I think is more unfair and that’s that there are women in this country who are effectively held in slavery.” That is a perfect example of what used to be called female argument – irrelevant, emotional and beside the point.
…
Once again this government is trying to override common sense, human nature and personal freedom in the interests of a policy not fit for purpose. Judging by Smith and Harman, if there’s one thing worse than the man in Whitehall who knows best, it’s the woman in Whitehall who knows best.
The live and let live society that once prevailed here has very much changed since women got control of things. Some would say it has disappeared completely.
Finally, consider the psychopathic tendencies I posted about previously. I do believe Smith and Harman display them. Clinton most definitely does – look at her manufactured waterworks during the primaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist-Revised
Factor1: “Aggressive narcissism”
- Glibness/superficial charm
- Grandiose sense of self-worth
- Pathological lying
- Cunning/manipulative
- Lack of remorse or guilt
- Shallow affect
- Callous/lack of empathy
- Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
- Promiscuous sexual behavior
Enough for now.
AJ
