“Rape culture hysteria is devastating society, and it does so even as the rate of rape falls sharply,” writes Wendy McElroy in the preface to her new book, Rape Culture Hysteria: Fixing the Damage Done to Men and Women. McElroy quotes an anonymous poster:

“‘Rape culture’ did not slip sleeping pills into my drink. One man did. … Don’t let rapists go free of responsibility by saying their choices are made for them by society.”

How dangerous is the “rape culture” construct? Convicted sexual assailant Brock Turner ably demonstrates the risks of blaming collective culture for individual behavior by aiming that weapon in the opposite direction. In his pre-sentencing statement to judge Aaron Persky, asking for probation rather than prison time, Turner writes:

“I know I can impact and change people’s attitudes towards the culture surrounded by binge drinking and sexual promiscuity that protrudes through what people think is at the core of being a college student. … Before this happened, I never had any trouble with law enforcement and I plan on maintaining that. I’ve been shattered by the party culture and risk taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school.”

See what he did there? With a few glib turns of phrase, Turner turns the same logic underlying “rape culture” claims to his own purposes. He ceases to be an assailant and becomes another  victim.

Brock Turner didn’t sexually assault an unconscious woman next to a dumpster outside a fraternity house. “Party culture” did that.

Brock Turner didn’t penetrate that unconscious woman with a foreign object (Brock Turner’s finger). Binge drinking, sexual promiscuity and risk taking behavior did those things.

Blame booze. Blame college. Blame culture. Just don’t blame Brock Turner. Poor, poor Brock. Bad culture! Bad! Go stand in the corner, culture!

Well, no. In reality, Brock Turner did what he did, and only Brock Turner is responsible for it. His “culture” excuses are just that — excuses.

And how did our REAL culture — as opposed to the “rape culture” we supposedly live in — respond to Turner’s crime? With universal outrage.

More than a million people have already signed a petition calling for the removal of judge Persky, who sentenced Turner to a mere six months for his crime, from the bench. Stanford University has banned him from its campus, and USA Swimming (which controls Olympic trials) from its events, for life.

Some “rape culture,” huh?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Rape, Culture, Responsibility, and Brock Turner,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 06/12/16
• “Rape culture, responsibility and Brock Turner,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Montgomery, West Virginia Herald, 06/15/16
• “Rape culture,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, Virginia Legacy [web and print editions], 06/15/16
• “Rape culture, responsibility and Brock Turner,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Fayette, West Virginia Tribune, 06/16/16
• “Rape, Culture, Responsibility, and Brock Turner,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Bell Gardens, California Sun, 06/16/16

“The White House said Tuesday [June 7] that President Barack Obama will veto the Senate’s version of the annual defense policy bill,” Richard Lardner of the Associated Press reports. Why? Lardner cites provisions that would prevent Obama from shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay and limit the number of “national security” functionaries he can put on the White House payroll.

Deeper in the story, however, we find meatier objections: The $600 billion bill “denies the Defense Department’s request for a new round of military base closings” and Senate Armed Service Committee chairman John McCain (R-AZ) “plans to propose an amendment that would add nearly $18 billion to the defense budget to pay for additional ships, jet fighters, helicopters and more that the Pentagon didn’t request.”

If Obama, who doesn’t face re-election, follows through on his veto threat House and Senate Democrats will likely join Republicans in overriding that veto so long as they get their share of that $18 billion and the bases in their districts remain open. What gives? Nothing. It’s politics as usual.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson asserted that the purpose of government is to secure the rights of the governed to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Jefferson, to put the best face possible on things, was hopelessly naive. The purpose of government is — and always has been — to transfer wealth and power from the ruled to the rulers. Politicians crave unearned power; plutocrats crave unearned profit. The two groups, broadly constituting the “political class,” prop each other up and assist each other in milking the rest of us.

Since World War 2, the premier American political milking operation  of this type has been what President Dwight D. Eisenhower labeled “the military-industrial complex.” Politicians receive campaign contributions and golden parachutes as corporate directors. In return, “defense” contractors knock down billions in arms sales, base maintenance contracts, etc. All at your expense, and none of it related to any reasonable conception of “national defense.”

It’s not just treasure the political class takes from the productive class. It’s blood as well. Justifying insane levels of military spending requires the occasional war. Not to worry. The political class considers your sons’ and daughters’ lives a reasonable price to pay to keep their gravy trains running on time.

Don’t expect anything different from this year’s crop of presidential candidates. Donald Trump believes the bloated US military needs to be “rebuilt.” Hillary Clinton hasn’t met a war she didn’t love since Vietnam. Even “libertarian” vice-presidential candidate William Weld, running on a second Republican ticket, avers that he and running mate Gary Johnson believe “a bedrock responsibility of the US government is to maintain the most powerful military in the world, by a wide margin.” Given that the US is separated from all credible military threats by two oceans, Weld’s line is clearly the usual political class pandering.

If voting won’t fix the problem this November, what next? Well, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (nwtrcc.org) has some ideas for next April.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Got Milked? US ‘Defense’ Spending 2017,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 06/09/16
• “Got Milked? US ‘Defense’ Spending 2017,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Antiwar.com, 06/09/16
• “Got Milked? US ‘Defense’ Spending 2017,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 06/10/16
• “Got Milked? US ‘Defense’ Spending 2017,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper, 06/10/16
• “Got Milked? US ‘Defense’ Spending 2017,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California, Citizens Journal, 06/11/16
• “Got Milked? US ‘Defense’ Spending 2017,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Uintah Basin, Utah Standard, 06/14/16
• “Got milked? US ‘defense’ spending 2017,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Winnemucca, Nevada News 4 Nevada, 06/17/16

On June 5, Switzerland’s electorate voted 77% to 23% against a “basic income” proposal. The plan would have entitled each adult citizen to about US $2,500 per month from the Swiss government, with an additional payment per child, regardless of employment situation. Other polities, including Finland, the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and the province of Ontario in Canada, have trial runs of basic income schemes in the works.

Does the idea make sense? The identities of some who think it does — at least in principle — might surprise you. They include, among others, self-described libertarians such as Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, professor Matt Zwolinski of the University of San Diego, and Tim Worstall, Senior Fellow at the UK’s Adam Smith Institute.

These supporters of the idea are, generally speaking, utilitarians or consequentialists. They accept the modern welfare state as a given and want to make it more efficient and humane. That is, they think it should cost less and accomplish more. Guaranteed income seems to fit the bill: Huge administrative cost savings from the elimination of a hodgepodge of welfare programs (for example, food stamps), more freedom for recipients to spend as they see fit (in the same example, the money could be used to purchase shoes rather than food).

Understatement of the Month alert:  Not all libertarians support government income guarantee schemes.  In fact, the vast majority of us vociferously oppose the idea.

In order for the state to redistribute wealth, it must first steal that wealth (the thieves call it “taxation”). And before the state can steal wealth, that wealth must first be created.

Morally speaking, why should the creators of wealth — a category that includes everyone who labors to produce valuable goods and services, from the lowliest fry cook to the CEO of the company that built your car — be forced to subsidize the incomes of those who produce less, perhaps even nothing?

Practically speaking, why WOULD those wealth creators do so? I don’t know about you, but if I can make $20,000 a year cleaning toilets or $19,000 a year sitting on my couch watching Storage Wars … well, if you need me, check the couch. Stretching those numbers in either direction will produce different outcomes, but any income guarantee will to some degree constitute a disincentive to work.

As is always the case, it turns out that the immoral and the impractical coincide. “Basic income” makes no sense.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “‘Basic Income’: Sense or Nonsense?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 06/08/16
• “‘Basic Income’: Sense or Nonsense?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Mathrubhumi [India], 06/10/16
• “Basic income: sense or nonsense,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Florence, South Carolina News Journal, [web and print editions]06/14/16