The Grumpy Guinea Pig

  The Antioch Declaration is an “anti anti-Semitic” statement of faith signed by various confessional Protestants. Leaving aside the question of if the conscience of a Christian is bound to post-biblical historical facts, the Antioch Declaration has several other glaring issues. To begin with, the Antioch Declaration rails against the Enlightenment, without understanding what rejecting the Enlightenment would actually entail, as though going back to the Good Old Days of the early 17th century would mean equal rights for all. There is no true reactionary conservatism, of the type of Metternich or Charles X of France in the Anglosphere, who truly wants to undo the Enlightenment, and return the medieval style “throne and altar” conservatism.  In the United Kingdom, the most reactionary politicians of the 19th century believed in constitutional monarchy and the values of the Glorious Revolution of 1689. They were hesitant classical liberals, resisting change, but making no serious...

 When the Star Wars prequels came out around the term of the millennium, they were criticized for being too political. I don’t think the issue was the politicization per say, but rather that the politicization was in conflict with the nature of the setting.  At its core, Star Wars is basically a generic high fantasy setting in space. It is about space knights (or rather, space paladins) rescuing space princesses from the evil space emperor and his space evil knight (or rather, space anti-paladin). Arguably, the aesthetic of space chivalry is the core of the franchise, or if not a core, at least a core. Star Wars without the mix of magical medieval and soft science fiction is no longer Star Wars.  The space-fantasy setting naturally creates a retro-monarchist political system. There can’t be space princesses without space monarchies, nor can there be a Jedi order without the concept of an autonomous quasi-religious order, akin to some sort of crusader order. This retro-mon...

The non-aggression principle (NAP) is the core of many libertarian social theories. In essence, it states that men should be free to enter to engage in any action or contract which does not violate the rights of others. On the surface, this may seem like a reasonable social principle, or at least a reasonable one at the theoretical level, even if it can’t be put into practice in reality.  However, it has a fundamental flaw: it would permit, and in fact, discourage every form sexual harassment or technically “consensual” sexual assault. According to the NAP, an employer should have the right to demand sexual favors from his female employees (or male/non-binary ones for that matter.) The NAP principle is not merely silent on the issue of prostitution and contractual sexual harassment, but asserts that these things must be protected, as part of the right of contract, which flows from the right of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle.  Not only should employers have the...

 Some on the social activist left point to the example of Hooters waitresses, cheerleaders, and the like as examples of heterosexual sexualization of public spaces. Obviously, these examples are not as bad as drag shows for children. However, I would assert that defending such practices is self-defeating. I would assert that the fundamental problem is employing what I call a “professional hot chick” in non-adult spaces. I define a “professional hot chick” as a person (traditionally nearly always female) who is employed for the purpose of being physically attractive, even if she is employed in other tasks. Examples of professional hot chicks include sex workers, and also cheerleaders, sexualized waitresses, actresses in certain contexts, beauty pageant contestants, and so on. The definition would exclude women who are not indulging lust as part of their occupation, hence the modifier “professional.” However, for the purpose of this article, I am speaking primarily about professional...