Long Promised, Well Delivered, It's a Lileks Screed of Epic Proportions . . .

Amitai Etzioni made the mistake of sending James Lileks one of his spamilicious missives promoting his 'communitarian' nonsense.

Needless to say, James was not amused, and he cooked up an excellent and detailed response to Amitai's Punitarian nonsense (Punitive+Communitarian=Punitarian, and all communitarians in the end know for individuals to act 'for the greater good' that serious punitive measures such as high taxes or ridiculous regulations are needed to fetter our natural self interest).

I originally called this crap, Punitive Communitarianism, but I've decided that Punitarianism is a better portmanteau of those two words that still conveys the meaning (Blake had an excellent post at his blog that reminded me of that concept, and Lileks attacks this nonsense in his screed, the Obama administration has a way of bringing out the Jacksonian in folks, I guess).

You can't spell "Punitarian" without the letters from "Puritan", and in all the ways that count, these folks are the modern version of 'Puritans', noble sounding goals, consumed by self righteousness, zealotry, and a need to find witches to burn (in the case of Punitarians capitalist are their Satan worshipping witches, but the principle's the same).

As Far as Ethical Dilemmas Go, That is a Poser (not to be confused with a "poseur")

Sure, Nazis are bad. But is it okay to sleep with them if they're really hot?

That's the challenging question the new Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) Oscar-baiting movie asks.

The answer appears to be a qualified "yes".

Luckily, whether or not to bed a comely Nazi Fräu (or Fräulein) is not something a young man is faced with on a daily basis anymore. There simply couldn't be too many real Nazi women left to sleep with, those that are still around and could have been considered actively "Nazi" are at least in their mid-80s, and would be rejected based primarily on age discrimination grounds, and all the various neo-nazis simply don't count, they're usually just misguided idiotic meth freaks, and if you choose to sleep with women who fit that description, your problems are deeper than their sad attraction to a vile ideology.

So, this is mainly a hypothetical exercise, and I think a hypothesis most men would agree with is, Kate Winslet or hotter is bangable, even if they're Nazis (but only of the 'just following orders' kind), when you get to say a Salma Hayek level of hotness, they could be right up there with Goebbels and Himmler in the Nazi hierarchy and most men would give bedding her serious consideration, but say Toni Collette level of hotness and they better be regretful about their Nazi associations and hopefully worked to sabotage that evil regime, even if it was in very small ways. Any less attractive than that and suddenly most men would get real ethical all of the sudden.



I think Adam Ant expressed it best:

I love your blonde hair
I kiss your pigtails
And I could not share
The scratch of your nails
And though you mark me
Your eyes so glassy
Oh why did you have
To be so nasty?

Remember the curls
Of the Deutscher Girls?
A love of mine
From down on the Rhine

And yes, men are pigs.

Speaking of piggish men, wow, Tool Academy, over at Jezebel there's two posts (so far) with clips, the comments get interesting, too.