December 15, 2017

A top aide to the Texas Attorney General had to resign after sharing (on Facebook) that much-shared "Can We Be Honest About Women?" piece in The Federalist.

The NYT reports.

You know the Federalist piece? I didn't share it, but I certainly noticed that it was hitting a sweet spot for some people. Maybe it said what you wanted to say:
We can’t always assume women are hapless damsels in distress horrified by how they’re objectified.

Here’s a little secret we have to say out loud: Women love the sexual interplay they experience with men, and they relish men desiring their beauty. Why? Because it is part of their nature....

Women have their natures and their sin. Part of their sexuality, their feminine nature is beauty and the allure of sex. Their sin is exploiting it to abuse and take advantage of men, to reduce themselves to objects instead of cultivating their minds and souls, and to focus so much on the outward parts that they forget the value of inner virtues....
And it was written by a woman, D.C. McAllister, so that might make a man feel empowered to express an opinion he suspects he probably shouldn't say directly.

Now, the man who lost his job, Associate Deputy Attorney General Andrew D. Leonie, didn't merely share the article and allow McAllister's relatively elevated statement to speak for him. He spiked it with his own blunt words:
“Aren’t you also tired of all the pathetic ‘me too’ victim claims? If every woman is a ‘victim,’ so is every man. If everyone is a victim, no one is. Victim means nothing anymore.”
That was posted in the middle of the night, and by the end of the next day he was out.

The NYT notes that Leonie describes himself on Twitter as "Deplorable & Irredeemable Texas Christian Tea Party Republican Constitutionalist Conservative Libertarian." He doesn't seem to have tweeted since his resignation.

The official statement from the attorney general's office was: "The views he expressed on social media do not reflect our values. The O.A.G. is committed to promoting and maintaining a workplace that is free from discrimination and harassment."

71 comments:

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

So that's what I can't say in public and keep my job. Thanks for the hint.

traditionalguy said...

Today's score. Political Correctness one,Texas Christians nil. Sounds like a rigged system.

Fabi said...

Unapproved thoughts are bad, mmkay?

David said...

So now we know that Paxton is definitely going to run for Governor or Senator.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

This just occurred to me. Isn't this a Camille Paglia moment? Is she alive?

Rob said...

The man was guilty of a thoughtcrime. He’s lucky they didn’t let rats gnaw his face.

Nicholas said...

Wow, this is very, very scary indeed. This is Danmore redux; the guy didn't even write a long screed, just a few words. I don't follow the logic of "If every woman is a ‘victim,’ so is every man" but in the current climate of hysteria, a little hyperbole can pass. Surely this was a private Facebook account, not that of the Texas AG's office. I would have thought the First Amendment would apply in Texas, of all places. Yes, I know it does not protect you from the consequences of your exercise of First Amendment rights, but if the State goes so far as to fire someone for this, it's preventing the effective exercise of those rights. By the way, aren't the Trump Haters of the FBI still employed there, despite thousands of messages at least as mean as this one?

PB said...

Here's a little secret (turning around certain words from the quoted article): many women don't experience sexual interplay with men and they never find men relishing their beauty. These woman have no beauty or sexual allure to exploit to abuse and take advantage of men. They are pissed and are going to make life miserable for the rest.

traditionalguy said...

The Women's Lives Matter activists are going to find themselves in the NFL's (Not For Long) position. They will no longer fill their stadium with fans.

The sports analogy is dead serious. Love and romance was civilized humanity's favorite Indoor Sport of choice. And now the PC mob brags about killing it off.

I guess Baseball's sudden popularity will boom again. At least its rules make sense.

rhhardin said...

Society has decided that honest opinions should only come from retired people.

Everybody else hold your tongue.

Fabi said...

Go long on sex robots.

lgv said...

""The views he expressed on social media do not reflect our values...""

"No other expression of values other than ours will be allowed or tolerated. There is only one way of thinking. Anyone who thinks there is more than one way of thinking is automatically wrong and should never be employed in a government job."

Steve said...

Doesn't an Attorney General's office deal with victims of crime and the complex ways in which they testify against criminals, seek restitution, get other help, and get involved in sentencing of convicted criminals? It seems he was commenting on a very sensitive are in regard to his work----he wasn't just commenting on how women present themselves or how they differ from men. Also, there is probably a policy or employee guideline that limits whether public comments can be made by individual employees of the DA's office about sensitive policy issues they deal with so closely. Did he restrict his Facebook access to only a few persons or could anyone view his comments? I don't think this was just a thought-crime issue, but more a workplace policy violation of a hot-button issue.

Oso Negro said...

Here's the deal, folks - 1) it is Texas, but the state government of Texas is located in Austin, which is as liberal as Madison; 2) all lawyers should be suspected of progressive tendencies, I mean why go to law school if you are certain that the society can be improved by more regulation?; 3) we are in the middle of a full-blown national hysteria - give it another month and any man who hasn't voluntarily confessed to crimes against women will be termed a "rapist"; 4) the A.G. has political ambitions and it just won't do to convince the opposition that this time, surely this time they can turn the state blue; and finally 5) freedom of speech - a quaint notion from the 18th Century - now reserved for criticizing Republicans and conservatives.

Oso Negro said...

All that said, he is right. A man gave me the creeps 30 years ago. Yep, same as straight up rape.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Tom Carper admitted in 1998 that he had hit his wife, although in earlier campaigns he had denied the charge and said it was a GOP hit job. Being guilty of both violence against a woman and lying about it didn't keep Delaware voters from making him a Senator in 2001.

Carper sits in the U.S. Senate along with Gullibrand and Warren and they haven't said a peep about him, but this guy in Texas loses his job because he expressed wrong think and sent an unPC article to someone? gee, and here Inga was telling me yesterday that actions are worse the words. Ingas fellow Democrats disagree. so Carper slapped his wife around a little. He's liberal so they make allowances for these little mistakes, like they did for the Kennedys and LBJ and Clinton and Gropey Joe Biden, also from Delaware.....Anns native state is punching above its weight in this respect.

Wilbur said...

Steve's comment above is the most relevant.

Anyone in law enforcement who engages in social media is foolish, and deserves whatever negative consequences ensue, even utterly unfair ones like with this guy.
Aside from posting opinions with which your employer may not agree, you're only asking for trouble, mostly from the criminal element, when you put your business in the street so to speak. It's why I post at various blog sites under a nom de plume. I consider anonymity to be a privilege and try not to abuse it.

rhhardin said...

Their values don't matter. The law matters.

donald said...

It’s that damned Johnson and the war amirite?

Steve said...

We should ask ourselves what we think of the FBI's impartiality now that Peter Strzok's texts are known---texts that he certain didn't share on social media. While what he expressed may be a thought-crime, it shows that such "crimes" can tell us a lot about a person's inability to perform serious work impartially.

Will Cate said...

Almost certainly he was pressured for his words, not necc. the article to which he linked.

He chose poorly.

Robert Cook said...

1. The first amendment does not prohibit an employer from taking action against an employee for speech by the employee they find objectionable.

2. A public government employee has to be ignorant beyond belief not to know to always be circumspect in his or her speech, even if made as a private citizen.

Qwinn said...

Strzok didn't get fired. He got moved to HR where he can make sure that no one is ever again hired at the FBI that disagrees with him that Republicans are pure evil. So at least that worked out well.

tim in vermont said...

He did have to go.

tim in vermont said...

So when do the mass resignations from the Mueller probe begin on the same grounds?

Hagar said...

Be more careful with your pronouns, Cookie; that's a thought crime right there!

Larry J said...

If you want to know who rules you, find out who you can't criticize.

buwaya said...

Free speech is not simply a matter of law, it is a cultural trait. The US is actually behind many other countries, now, in this, as a matter of culture if not law. It is a tremendous, crippling loss. Not really recoverable either.

A closing of the American mind indeed, and a sure sign of decadence and decline.

Fernandinande said...

"Police have warned Christmas party goers to obtain consent before kissing under the mistletoe otherwise they may be guilty of rape."
(From a tweet deleted after ridicule, but nobody was fired or resigned because it comports with The Narrative).

From
"Criminalizing a bit of Christmas fun has to make you wonder. Is there any aspect of our life left into which the police state does not intrude?"

stlcdr said...

Ain’t Social Media great. One of Greatest Inventions of All Time.

(Note that this is written with a sarcastic tone - damn you, Social Media for not expressing true intent!)

Fernandinande said...

so that might make a man feel empowered to express an opinion he suspects he probably shouldn't say directly.

A male, but not a man.

"Police have warned Christmas party goers to obtain consent before kissing under the mistletoe otherwise they may be guilty of rape."
(From a tweet deleted after ridicule, but nobody was fired or resigned because it comports with The Narrative).

From
"Criminalizing a bit of Christmas fun has to make you wonder. Is there any aspect of our life left into which the police state does not intrude?"

Hitchens on free speech

(Posts are still disappearing....)

Fernandinande said...

so that might make a man feel empowered to express an opinion he suspects he probably shouldn't say directly.

A male, but not a man.

"Police have warned Christmas party goers to obtain consent before kissing under the mistletoe otherwise they may be guilty of rape."
(From a tweet deleted after ridicule, but nobody was fired or resigned because it comports with The Narrative).

From
"Criminalizing a bit of Christmas fun has to make you wonder. Is there any aspect of our life left into which the police state does not intrude?"

Hitchens on free speech

(Posts are still disappearing....)

RichardJohnson said...

Robert Cook:
2. A public government employee has to be ignorant beyond belief not to know to always be circumspect in his or her speech, even if made as a private citizen.

Quinn:
Strzok didn't get fired. He got moved to HR where he can make sure that no one is ever again hired at the FBI that disagrees with him that Republicans are pure evil. So at least that worked out well.

Robert Cook, what say you?

Anonymous said...

Cook: 1. The first amendment does not prohibit an employer from taking action against an employee for speech by the employee they find objectionable.

2. A public government employee has to be ignorant beyond belief not to know to always be circumspect in his or her speech, even if made as a private citizen.


Yeah, we know, Robert. The above is the first thing you lefties always trot out when somebody gets sacked for having views you don't like. (Now, if somebody merely gets criticized for expressing views in conformity with your own, then the criticism is totally unAmerican and omg the Nazi authoritarians are on the march.)

Sebastian said...

"The views he expressed on social media do not reflect our values. The O.A.G. is committed to promoting and maintaining a workplace that is free from discrimination and harassment."

Correct. Agreeing with a conservative interpretation of the witch-hunt climate promotes "discrimination and harassment." Firing someone for expressing such views is, of course, not a form of "discrimination and harassment."

"Our values" are now reduced to catering to women's feelings.

Anonymous said...

buwaya: Free speech is not simply a matter of law, it is a cultural trait. The US is actually behind many other countries, now, in this, as a matter of culture if not law. It is a tremendous, crippling loss. Not really recoverable either.

The great tragedy of Americans is that we believe our own bullshit about "propositions", and can never, ever be made to understand that things like free speech are, as you say, cultural traditions, not legal abstractions. Cut off or poison those roots, and the abstraction of the tradition written down in the law books means nothing or anything.

I'd modify that to say that it is the tragedy of post-WWII Americans. I don't think earlier generations of Americans lacked this understanding.

mockturtle said...

Male-female relationships, much like interracial ones, fared better before we started talking about them.

The Elder said...

'Leonie describes himself on Twitter as "Deplorable & Irredeemable Texas Christian Tea Party Republican Constitutionalist Conservative Libertarian."'

Hmmm. That sort of describes me, too. Except the Texas part.

Unknown said...

What Cook is endorsing is the idea that governments can fire their employees for having the wrong politics. That's the world we now live in, where it's a firing offense to not be a liberal.

And Cook says that's 100% a-ok. Somehow, though, if Trump fires Mueller for politics.... well, that's the end of civilization.

--Vance

Ken B said...

Robert Cook proves once again all that leftwing lamentation we hear endlessly about the Hollywood Ten and the evils of blacklisting is pure bullshit.

chickelit said...

I used to refer to "The Reckoning" as "Hillary's Revenge." Now I can see that I was wrong; "The Reckoning" is a Dwarkian echo.

Dude1394 said...

And men everywhere begin to harden their hearts.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

If every woman is a ‘victim,’ so is every man. If everyone is a victim, no one is. Victim means nothing anymore.”

Sounds like an Incredibles fan. Well, steal from the best..

I2: 15 June 2018

Bill said...

Isn't this a Camille Paglia moment? Is she alive?

I've been wondering about that myself. It's possible she's burrowed into a book project (in addition to her responsibilities as a teacher) and will eventually come up for air with a quiver of deadly observations.

Steve said...

Leonie is also fighting the trend of twisting the meanings of words to the extent they become meaningless----here, "victim" can lose its force as an identifier of those truly harmed by misbehavior. But this has long been a problem, and a source of humor even within the discussion of politics.

In The Gondoliers, by Gilbert & Sullivan (1889), the confusion of a republic with a polity that levels every distinction of merit between citizens is ridiculed. It is asserted that "when everyone is somebody, then no-one's anybody". That is, when the usual meaning of "Somebody" is used to describe not just the accomplished but everyone, then no one is honored and no one is "Anybody" special.

dreams said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Qwinn said...

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the ________ Party?"

Fill in Communist: Horror! Blacklist! McCarthyism! Jackbooted thugs!

Fill in Republican: Pfft. Yeah. So what? No 1st Amendment rights for you!

Right, Robert?

Oso Negro said...

Buwaya said - Free speech is not simply a matter of law, it is a cultural trait. The US is actually behind many other countries, now, in this, as a matter of culture if not law. It is a tremendous, crippling loss. Not really recoverable either.

A closing of the American mind indeed, and a sure sign of decadence and decline.


Yes. The Communist Chinese enjoy greater freedom of speech than do Americans.

Owen said...

Twitter is turning out to be one of the most powerful engines for job destruction known to man.

It is also a social suicide machine that would make Jack Kevorkian proud.

Ann Althouse said...

"Doesn't an Attorney General's office deal with victims of crime and the complex ways in which they testify against criminals, seek restitution, get other help, and get involved in sentencing of convicted criminals? It seems he was commenting on a very sensitive are in regard to his work----he wasn't just commenting on how women present themselves or how they differ from men. Also, there is probably a policy or employee guideline that limits whether public comments can be made by individual employees of the DA's office about sensitive policy issues they deal with so closely. Did he restrict his Facebook access to only a few persons or could anyone view his comments? I don't think this was just a thought-crime issue, but more a workplace policy violation of a hot-button issue."

Yes, and I agree.

Jeff Y said...

The Texas Office of the Attornet Geneal is hopelessly compromised on any issue involving women. The office derives most of its budget from federal matching funds for the collection of child support. The Texas OAG recieves almost half a billion dollars from these matching funds.

The department is very blunt about it. I have had lots of problems with my ex-wife refusing to let me see my kids. She even witheld them from me over a Christmas holiday with no explanation. I called the Texas OAG. The lady helping me on the phone said, and this is a direct quote I recorded, "We don't get paid to help you see your kids. We get paid to help your wife collect child support. We don't get involved in child possession disputes." She said it in a canned way, as though it was scripted and read a thousand times.

The Teaxs OAG has also acted against all legistlative attempts to rewrite a statute presuming that it is in the interests of the children that one parent always pay child support - an arrangment that conveniently maximizes the budeget of the Texas. All attempts to presume that equal possession time is in the bests interests of the children have been successfully put down by the Texas OAG. In Texas, children belong to mothers not fathers.

The Texas OAG is a strong advocate of radical feminist policies because that's what they get paid for. So, the department firing a man for saying the most obvious truths, obvious for the ages even, well it doesn't suprise me in the least.

Robert Cook said...

"What Cook is endorsing is the idea that governments can fire their employees for having the wrong politics. That's the world we now live in, where it's a firing offense to not be a liberal."

No, I'm saying that an employee representing any institution--public or private--who makes personal but public comments about issues that do or may involve the institution, or that are controversial and may reflect badly on the institution should expect there will be consequences for being indiscreet. This is self-evident.

It is also self-evident that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws that repress speech; it has no bearing on an employer disciplining an employee for speaking out of turn or indiscreetly. That the employer is the government is immaterial, and doesn't mean the customary employer/employee relationship doesn't apply, or that the First Amendment does.

Robert Cook said...

"'I don't think this was just a thought-crime issue, but more a workplace policy violation of a hot-button issue.'

"Yes, and I agree."


Horrors! Ann Althouse endorses tyrannical restrictions on speech!

Unknown said...

But wait a couple of love struck FBI bubbas can plot and conspire to overturn American electoral process and destabilize the political system, but that's protected by their first amendment rights. But anyone else....well hell someone go get the rope.

Jose_K said...

I mean why go to law school if you are certain that the society can be improved by more regulation.. to know how to game the system.The usual , common place in the 60s , answer was to break the system from inside like Hercules ( the Greek one, not Dworkin´s). You don't need neither can break it but people need lawyers to navigate it
Classic Liberal lawyer speaking ( Administrative and Constitutional Law professor )

n.n said...

Political congruence ("=") and a summary abortion.

Meade said...

Leonie describes himself on Twitter as "Deplorable & Irredeemable Texas Christian Tea Party Republican Constitutionalist Conservative Libertarian."'

Hmmm. That sort of describes me, too. Except the Texas part.


-----------------------------

Consarn it, Son! You sound like one a them Native-Americanapolis Tea-Lordin' Libtarn Textastualists!

Qwinn said...

So how exactly was McCarthy wrong - and not just wrong, but worse than Stalin - for trying to get Communists fired from working in the code room of the Army, Cook?

Robert Cook said...

"So how exactly was McCarthy wrong - and not just wrong, but worse than Stalin - for trying to get Communists fired from working in the code room of the Army, Cook?"

1. You're moving the goal posts. You previously mentioned being a member of the Communist party would (should) have got someone jailed.

2. If there was evidence communists working in the Army code room were stealing code, they should have been fired, just as with anyone. If not, then not. Being a member of any political party, including the Communist Party, is legal in our society.

Jupiter said...

Althouse says the Texas AG is a high-minded exponent of equal protection before the law.

Jeff Y says the Texas AG is a venal parasite, empowered by the vermin in DC to destroy families for profit, acting to protect his racket.

Res ipsa loquitur, no?

bearspaw said...

Rush's Undeniable Truth #24 at play here...

1775OGG said...

Thought crimes do not truly exist, as such; unknown to others until we express them openly.

Yet, once openly expressed, we can be judged by how others evaluate our views on a subject.

That Texan is a fool, of a kind like some working on Mueller's Special Inquisition Team.

Web-based Social Media can be a Hell on Earth for some!

buwaya said...

Check PJMedia - Goldmans (Spenglers) column on free speech. He links Sam Altmans blog (Altmans outfit is basically a Silicon Valley VC clearinghouse).

blog.samaltman.com

Altman, familiar with China, says he finds China much better about free speech as a cultural value, and that this has significant economic consequences.

This is not a recent opinion. Anyone who deals there, and elsewhere abroad, and here, over the last decade, will probably say similar things. We are talking of Silicon Valley business culture, but that is just a sort of focused mirror of US elite culture in general.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Women love the sexual interplay they experience with men, and they relish men desiring their beauty.

This is true.

But it's missing one thing.

Women think the only men who should like them are the ones they also desire.

Birkel said...

As I have written before, Robert Cook is an evil individual. He would put any of us against a wall for his own ends. The end is always power over others. That power requires a loss of individual freedom which Cook applauds. The ultimate loss of freedom is a price Cook is willing to let others pay.

Gahrie said...

Being a member of any political party, including the Communist Party, is legal in our society.

Being an agent of an enemy power isn't.

Serket said...

If this absurdity can happen in Texas, it can happen in any state. He should sue them. I have a solution for this:

"Government employees can run for political office, advocate for political causes, and promote their creations or inventions, but not at their place of employment or during work hours."

- A New Constitution for a Free People

Robert Cook said...

"Being an agent of an enemy power isn't (legal)."

Being a member of the Communist Party doesn't, in itself, make one an agent of a foreign power, (enemy or otherwise).

Bad Lieutenant said...

Being a member of the Communist Party doesn't, in itself, make one an agent of a foreign power, (enemy or otherwise).

Hell is a foreign power.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

We must remember that during the early part of the cold war, "Communist" was shorthand for "Soviet agent", to McCarthyites, American Communists, and Soviets alike, and in fact, to just about everyone.

1775OGG said...

Char Char Binks:
You said "Communist" was shorthand for "Soviet agent" as tho that was a bad thing! Truly it was the truth.

Just as Antifa, and those who support them, are cut from that same whole cloth.