"Judge Cronan's dismissal is the joke, and more than a bad joke at that."

Said Roy Moore's lawyer Larry Klayton, quoted in "Sacha Baron Cohen, Showtime win dismissal of Roy Moore defamation lawsuit." 

Moore fell for one of Baron Cohen's pranks and then sued Baron Cohen for $95 million, alleging defamation. 

The judge said it was "clearly a joke," and "It is simply inconceivable that the program's audience would have found a segment with Judge Moore activating a supposed pedophile-detecting wand to be grounded in any factual basis."

"As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics..."

"... in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results," report Scott Shane and Alan Blinder in the NYT. This was the election where the Democrat, Doug Jones, narrowly defeated the Republican Roy S. Moore.

Though the margin of victory was only about 20,000 votes (with a decisive turnout of black voters), we're told the project was "likely too small to have a significant effect on the race...".

One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.

“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says....

There is no evidence that Mr. Jones sanctioned or was even aware of the social media project. Joe Trippi, a seasoned Democratic operative who served as a top adviser to the Jones campaign, said he had noticed the Russian bot swarm suddenly following Mr. Moore on Twitter. But he said it was impossible that a $100,000 operation had an impact on the race.

I hope he'll also say that it's impossible that what the Russians did in the 2016 presidential election could have had an impact on the race — but somehow the nation has been roiled by that impossibility for 2 years.

The funding [for the Alabama false flag project] came from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who has sought to help Democrats catch up with Republicans in their use of online technology.

The money passed through American Engagement Technologies, run by Mikey Dickerson, the founding director of the United States Digital Service, which was created during the Obama administration to try to upgrade the federal government’s use of technology....

So, our tax money got these people up and running?

Mr. Morgan reached out at the time to Renée DiResta, who would later join New Knowledge and was lead author of the report on Russian social media operations released this week.

“I know there were people who believed the Democrats needed to fight fire with fire,” Ms. DiResta said, adding that she disagreed. “It was absolutely chatter going around the party.”...

The report does not say whether the project purchased the Russian bot Twitter accounts that suddenly began to follow Mr. Moore. But it takes credit for “radicalizing Democrats with a Russian bot scandal” and points to stories on the phenomenon in the mainstream media. “Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers,” reported The New York Post.

Sacha Baron Cohen must be desperate for footage. He uses this sequence with Roy Moore even though he gets nothing comical or embarrassing from Roy Moore.

I forced myself to watch this whole thing, because WaPo did an article on it, "Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest prank: Using a fake pedophile detector on Roy Moore":



It's very slow going, with Cohen in ridiculously thick and expression-impairing makeup and a very heavy accent. Cohen tries to get Moore to say something embarrassing about "freedom-loving" Alabama, but Moore remains stable and reserved and uses abstractions that give Cohen nothing to work with. Moore sat down for this interview because he was led to believe that he was being honored for his support of Israel.

Cohen brings out a device that, he says, the Israeli military uses to detect pedophiles, and it goes off when it's held near Moore. This might have been funny if Moore had become very angry or upset, but Moore was stoical for a little while, then says, "I am simply cutting this conversation right now. Good night. I support Israel. I don’t support this kind of stuff."

It's quite simply a prank that failed and should not have been used unless Cohen wants us to conclude that he can't succeed in his tricks anymore. This is another perspective on the Era of That's Not Funny. It's harder for comedians to derive comic material from non-comical characters like Moore. Moore knew enough to keep a pleasant smile, then a poker face, and then to walk away. That's not funny.

"Roy Moore accuser Tina Johnson lost her home Tuesday in a fire that is now under investigation by the Etowah County Arson Task Force."

"'I am devastated, just devastated,' said Johnson on Friday morning. 'We have just the clothes on our backs.'"

Roy Moore won't go away.

He's filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of Montgomery, Alabama and is trying to stop the certification of the election results (which is supposed to happen today). Moore wants a new special election, CNN reports.

Alleging voter fraud, Moore says that out-of-state residents voted and that there was an "anomalous" turnout in Jefferson County (which is 43% black and had a 47% turnout).

Moore lost by 21,311 votes, in case you're wondering how many bad votes he'd need to locate. Imagine a new special election! Who benefits from Roy Moore staying in the news? I'd say: Democrats.

UPDATE: Maybe now he's gone away:

An Alabama judge's ruling against Roy Moore. pic.twitter.com/T9xl3K4NND

— Alan Blinder (@alanblinder) December 28, 2017

Another Trump tweet, further processing the Roy Moore defeat.

We've been talking about what Trump tweeted at 10:08 PM. Now, here's what he tweeted at 5:22 AM:

The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017

Here's the NYT article about the new tweet:

The write-ins wrote out Roy Moore.

Sad!



Add it up yourself:



The photo of Roy Moore is a screen grab I made from "LIVE NOW: Roy Moore's Election Night Headquarters...." (which you can watch non-live).

The graphic of the vote was grabbed from the NYT article "Alabama Election Results: Doug Jones Defeats Roy Moore in U.S. Senate Race."

Trump absorbs the Roy Moore loss: "the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!"

Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win. The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017

That's a modest, well-balanced response, but will he get any credit for that?

In the primary, Trump fought hard for Moore's GOP opponent, but he adjusted and found a way to support Moore — who was made very hard to stand anywhere near. Now that Roy Moore is out, Trump is moving on. He's an optimist who tends to see the good in whatever happens and to go searching  for new ways to win. In this case — I'll say, modeling optimism — Trump is better off looking for good things elsewhere than stuck with Roy Moore, his candidate, in the flesh, in the Senate, vocalizing social conservatism in an unappealing way and attracting a big expulsion effort.

Do you remember that it was called a "stunning defeat" for Trump when Roy Moore won the primary?* On September 27, I blogged by WaPo's Robert Costa, said:

Moore’s win... demonstrates the real political limitations of Trump, who endorsed “Big Luther” at McConnell’s urging and staged a rally for Strange in Huntsville, Ala., just days before the primary. The outcome is likely to further fray Trump’s ties to Republicans in Congress, many of whom now fear that even his endorsement cannot protect them from voter fury.

I said:

What if this thing that seems to be Trump is bigger than Trump — a wave he figured out how to ride for a little while, but from which he can fall and which will roll on without him? Or is the whole thing — whatever it is (anti-establishment fury?) — already played out? We can't have an endless string of characters like Trump and, now, Moore... can we?...

How many "out there" candidates can there be? How wild can you be before people won't trust you? It's hard to know in post-2016 America. We've got a taste for the bizarre and we don't trust the appearance of normality anymore.

Yesterday, Alabama chose normality, and there's good in that for Trump, who's pretty bizarre.

2 people watching the election results — on 2 different channels, at different locations — just told me they can tell the newspeople already know Roy Moore will win.

I wasn't watching the election results yet. I was finishing that last post.

Meade was watching Fox News, and he just started talking about how he could tell by the way they were talking that they are seeing some sort of information — which they're not revealing — that shows them Roy Moore will win.

A minute later, I got a text from my son Chris, saying "The tone of the punditry on CNN makes me think they know he'll win."

UPDATE: NYT declares Jones the winner!

"Roy Moore shows up to vote on horseback."

Reports the NY Post (with a photo).

ADDED: The first commenter and (I'm thinking) a million people on the internet responded with some variation of "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."



Hey, whyntchya leave me alone, I'm tryna do my routine here.

"I encourage you to take a stand for our core principles and for what is right. These critical times require us to come together..."

"... to reject bigotry, sexism, and intolerance," said Condoleezza Rice, speaking as "a native daughter" who "at heart, remain[s] an Alabaman who loves our state and its devotion to faith, family, and country."

Which side is she on?

It is imperative for Americans to remain focused on our priorities and not give way to side shows and antics. 

Now, she's saying "Americans," not "Alabamans," and she's using the word "imperative." That sounds like an elite outsider, lecturing. And she is an elite outsider, having got out. But she was speaking in Alabama, at the Invest in a Girl Celebration at the Von Braun Center, in Huntsville.

It's hard to tell which direction her abstraction points. It's the anti-Moore forces that have put on the "side show and antics," right? Or is Roy Moore's whole public persona a "side show" with "antics"? (I'm thinking of his 10 Commandments routine and pandering about sexual "perversion.") Maybe Rice means that both sides are distracting voters with side issues. She says "focus[] on priorities." Does that mean focus on what legislation you want Congress to pass? Or does she mean personal morality?

She continues:

I know that Alabamans need an independent voice in Washington. But we must also insist that our representatives are dignified, decent, and respectful of the values we hold dear.

Which candidate is the "independent voice"? And does that "But" mean that the one who's not the independent voice is the one who's "dignified, decent, and respectful of the values we hold dear" or is she just saying we want both things? And what are "the values we hold dear" — not dating and kissing underage girls or not aborting babies? Is Rice trying to be the master of ambiguity?

She switches to the bland value of just voting:

Please exercise your right to vote - a privilege won by the sacrifices of our ancestors. 

There's also a right not to vote. And a privilege not to vote. Many very sensible and good people believe in not voting. Some people have a religious scruple against voting,* some have the comic/distanced attitude expressed in the old line "I don't want to encourage them,"**  and some are  maintaining neutrality so that they can analyze everything better.***

Condi concludes:

Sustain the central ideals and values that make our country a beacon for freedom and justice for the sake of Alabama and for the good of the United States of America.

I think she's trying to say something without saying anything — trying to be appropriate in an elevated setting in the strange, specific state where she grew up (and Denise McNair did not).
____________________

* Wikipedia on "Religious rejection of politics":

Many Taoists have rejected political involvement on the grounds that it is insincere or artificial and a life of contemplation in nature is more preferable, while some ascetic schools of Hinduism or Buddhism also reject political involvement for similar reasons. In Christianity, some groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, the Amish, Hutterites, and the Exclusive Brethren may reject politics on the grounds that they believe Christ's statements about the kingdom not being of the world mean that earthly politics can or should be rejected.

In other religious systems it can relate to a rejection of nationalism or even the concept of nations. In certain schools of Islamic thinking nations are a creation of Western imperialism and ultimately all Muslims should be united religiously in the umma.... Likewise various Christian denominations reject any involvement in national issues considering it to be a kind of idolatry called statolatry. Most Christians who rejected the idea of nations have associated with the Christian Left.

** Some of the best comedians take this position, often with better lines than the old joke I quoted above. For example, George Carlin:

"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote -- who did not even leave the house on Election Day -- am in no way responsible for that these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created."

I know: the joke there probably is that he does vote, and you're an idiot if you don't.

*** Scott Adams has an April 2016 post on "The Value of Not Voting":

Anderson Cooper of CNN says he probably won’t vote in the coming election. He says voting would bias him when he covers political news. I agree.

I call it the joiner problem. The minute you take a side, you start acquiring confirmation bias to bolster your sense of rightness. Objectivity is nearly impossible once you commit to a team.

The way confirmation bias works is that you can’t see it when you’re in it. Other people might be able to observe the bias in you, but by definition you can’t see it in yourself. The act of voting causes a sort of psychological blindness.

I would be in this group if I weren't a longtime devotee of the ritual of voting (and maybe if, like Cooper and Adams, I didn't live in a swing state) but I do decline to decide until the time to vote arrives, and I have at least twice picked my presidential candidate as I walked to my polling place.

"Me and the wife are thinking about voting for Moore, but I just don’t like some of the things they saying about him."

Roll Call finds an Alabaman to quote.

If Roy Moore wins, says David Brooks, Republicans are "for a generation...repulsive" and "repulsive to people of color forever."

Brooks gets awfully grandiose and contemptuous (on "Meet the Press" today), especially at the end when he tells Republicans "you end up, not only making yourself unpopular but sort of corrupting a piece of yourself... There is no end to what they are going to be asked to tolerate, and that is just, internally, so corrosive."

Does a win by Roy Moore really mean all that? Why can't it just mean that the voters of Alabama — deprived of these allegations (about old events) until after the primary — were stuck with a choice between a particular, possibly morally flawed Republican who would represent them in Congress by voting for the policies they want and a Democrat who might be less morally flawed but would vote against the policies they want, and they voted according to their policy choices and not as a judgment on the morality of the man?

If Roy Moore's opponent wins, I would expect Democrats to exult at the fabulous new political opportunity and even to laugh openly at the Alabamans (who will be on the receiving end of contempt no matter what they do).

And I do not believe that after this election there's going to be any great shift to voting based on which candidate is more moral. I watched the Sunday shows this morning. All that cheesy emoting in the Theater of Sanctimony. Such scenery chewing! Especially by Brooks.

Isn't he too a sinner?

"Roy Moore accuser admits altering yearbook entry."

Why is she admitting this now?

[Beverly Young] Nelson will hold a news conference Friday at which her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said expert evidence would be presented that it was Moore’s signature.

“We’re going to present evidence that we think is important on the issue whether Roy Moore signed the yearbook,” Allred told ABC News.

It sounds like they went out and got their own expert — after refusing to use some neutral entity in a safeguarded process — and that person couldn't verify the whole thing. So they're admitting that part of it is fake, and they want us to accept that expert's view that the other part is real.

Do you understand why the Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks thinks he has to resign?

I'd been trying to understand, and I don't get it. Chris Cillizza looks at the resignation letter and deems it "absolutely bizarre."

From the letter: "Due to my familiarity and experience with the process of surrogacy, I clearly became insensitive as to how the discussion of such an intensely personal topic might affect others. I have recently learned that the Ethics Committee is reviewing an inquiry regarding my discussion of surrogacy with two previous female subordinates, making each feel uncomfortable. I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress."

Also in the letter, as summarized by Cillizza, after Franks's wife had 3 miscarriages, the couple were able to use a surrogate to produced twins, and they wanted more children. That was a topic he discussed with 2 of his female employees. What's so terrible about that, especially after he acknowledges that the discussion made the employees uncomfortable and expresses regret. Can't we all move on?

Cillizza goes on to mock Franks's statement because it says too much. It proceeds to criticize the media:

"Rather than allow a sensationalized trial by media damage those things I love most, this morning I notified House leadership that I will be leaving Congress as of January 31, 2018," Franks said in the closing lines of his statement.

But I think it says too little! What was so awful about what Franks actually said (as opposed to how the employees, by their own report, felt)? Cillizza, a member of the press, goes sarcastic: "Riiiiight. It was the 'sensationalized trial by media' that's to blame here. Not the conversations about surrogacy with two female employees. Got it!" Cillizza wants those who resign from Congress to keep it short. "Be brief," he advises.

Well, that's one way to put it. If they get part way into an explanation, we're confused. We might want to say: Then why are you leaving? In the longish version that Cillizza mocks, the answer to why is that the media have gone wild and are horribly cruel. Cillizza didn't quote another line in Franks's letter, which I see here:

"But in the midst of this current cultural and media climate, I am deeply convinced I would be unable to complete a fair House Ethics investigation before distorted and sensationalized versions of this story would put me, my family, my staff, and my noble colleagues in the House of Representatives through hyperbolized public excoriation."

This is somewhat similar to what Al Franken said yesterday:

I said at the outset that the ethics committee was the right venue for these allegations to be heard and investigated and evaluated on their merits. That I was prepared to cooperate fully and that I was confident in the outcome.... I know in my heart that nothing I have done as a senator — nothing — has brought dishonor on this institution, and I am confident that the ethics committee would agree.... It has become clear that I can't both pursue the ethics committee process and at the same time remain an effective senator for them. 

The way things are right now, the member of Congress cannot pursue vindication through the established process. The trial in the media and the opposition from other members of Congress is so severe that you have to end the exposure to their attacks. No future vindication at the end of a fair process seems worth the pain. Not to Franken or Franks.

Now, Donald Trump and Judge Roy Moore. Those guys will stand their ground forever and take it. Do you understand that?  If Franken or Franks think they're teaching a lesson by example to Trump and Moore, I think they're mistaken. They're teaching an anti-example.

Liberal media pats Jimmy Kimmel on the back for helping Roy Moore get elected.

That's not what they think he did. They think he was brilliant and really drove home the awfulness of Roy Moore. But that's what he did. I mean, if I know Alabamans, and I don't, really. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think this kind of thing exalts Roy Moore in the eyes of the relevant electorate.

Emily Yahr, at Washington Post, does a phenomenal job of showing how it looks inside the liberal cocoon, in "Read Jimmy Kimmel’s scathing response to Roy Moore after their ‘Twitter war.'"

The Jimmy Kimmel show sent its comedian down to Alabama to disrupt a Roy Moore rally that was taking place in Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, Alabama. That gave Roy Moore the opportunity to put up this tweet:

.@jimmykimmel If you want to mock our Christian values, come down here to Alabama and do it man to man. #ALSen https://t.co/E7oQB9D83P

— Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 30, 2017

That tweet gave Jimmy Kimmel the opportunity to put himself at the center of the important Senate race, and he did it in a way that is powerfully viral to Moore haters:



Kimmel did a great job, within his own realm, playing to his audience, going viral through the Washington Post and other liberal media outlets, but I think it will help Roy Moore in Alabama. I don't want to say comedians should restrain themselves lest they skew an election. I want vibrant, vicious comedy that flies free from political practicalities. But I think Jimmy Kimmel just helped Roy Moore a lot.

Now, is the Washington Post stupid not to go into the political downside of Kimmel's comedy? Maybe not. Maybe it's choosing to amuse and soothe its readers, and it's all for the good of circulation. It's too late to undo what Kimmel did, and the clip is viral whether WaPo participates in the vitality or not, and if it doesn't, it risks looking dull and unaware of what's happening in pop-culture media. And anyway, they already knew by yesterday that Roy Moore had made it through his ordeal so it was okay to give up on trying to affect the election and move on to the painful enjoyment of hating the new Senator.

Judge Roy Moore unleashes the hashtags.

Dec. 12 in Alabama comes down to this:#FullTerm #AbortionJones will give us another #ProChoice, pro-abortion #RuthBaderGinsburg style judge on the SCOTUS.

We can't let that happen.

We need another #ProLife Justice like #Gorsuch or #Scalia on the #SCOTUS.

— Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 28, 2017

Congratulations to The Washington Post for not falling for a Project Veritas sting.

"A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation."

In a series of interviews over two weeks, the woman shared a dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with Moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15. During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore’s candidacy if she went public.

"I wanted to be able to present a theater piece that was a little more intense."

Says Jenna Carol, owner of the dance studio Express Yourself in Madison, about the show "Spring Awakening," which opens this week at the Bartell Theatre here in Madison, reports the Cap Times:

Among her 27 actors, more than 20 are minors, some as young as 15.... With themes of incest, sexual abuse, suicide and abortion... [t]ypically the show is cast with college-age performers...

“We’re pushing the envelope,” Carol said. “We are not cutting anything — the songs, the content in script is still going to be presented....”

Carol said she asked auditionees’ parents to sign a release form.... And she’s decided not to stage the nudity. Further, she’s placing dancers between the main characters and the audience during the most graphic sexual imagery.

“I don’t see it necessary to flash a boob for shock value,” Carol said. “The scene between Wendla and Melchior is extremely well-choreographed. The audience will know what is happening.... We are not trying to do things just for shock value,” Carol said, “but I am trying to create something specifically for teens and young adults to perform relevant shows, something that makes you think...."

I'd like to see a copy of the release form. You're using children who are too young to have sex and they are on stage dancing about sex, amid "graphic sexual imagery"? And you need their parents to sign the release. That put me in mind of Roy Moore's approach to dating teenagers:

HANNITY: You mentioned you'd never go out with any young girl I assume you meant like when you were 32 at that time of your life, would you always ask the permission of the parent before you would take a girl out?

MOORE: Well I mean I'm saying that in their statements that they made these two young girls said their mother actually encouraged them to be friends with me. And you know that's what they said. I don't remember....

ADDED: "I am trying to create something specifically for teens and young adults to perform relevant shows..." She's using the word "relevant" in a way that was the vogue in the 1960s. You might ask now (as people asked then) relevant to what? In the 60s, the answer might be: Relevant to what's happening.

The OED has a definition for this usage — "having social, political, etc., relevance." It's illustrated by this quote from 1969, Harper's Magazine: 

Either we can commit ourselves to changing the institutions of our society that need to be changed, to make them—to use a term which I hate—‘relevant’..or we can sit back and try to defend them.

College students of the time used to criticize course material that was not "relevant." At the time, I myself was a college student, and I attended a college — the Residential College at the University of Michigan — that was so intent on meeting the younger generation's idea of relevance, that we laughed at them. I remember the Western Civilization chapter-unit titles all beginning with the word "Revolution." It's funny when kids make demands and the grown-ups just cave. Then we feel embarrassed for them.

IN THE COMMENTS: james james said...

A little more intense. Pushing the envelope.

That requires children now, doing adult things.

We've already seen the intense adults pushing envelopes; no longer a big deal.

We're bored, they think.

Speaking of pushing, let's dance...



Tcrosse: "Pushing the envelope outside the box."

Meade: "#EnvelopePushesBack."

Seeking the "purity" of "younger women."

Talking Points Memo quotes what Pastor Flip Benham said on the radio last night:

"Judge Roy Moore graduated from West Point and then went on into the service, served in Vietnam and then came back and was in law school. All of the ladies, or many of the ladies that he possibly could have married were not available then, they were already married, maybe, somewhere. So he looked in a different direction and always with the [permission of the] parents of younger ladies. By the way, the lady he’s married to now, Ms. Kayla, is a younger woman. He did that because there is something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that.”

Audio at the link. The discussion continues, with Benham, under questioning from the show hosts, saying that it is acceptable for a man to "court" a 14-year-old girl if he has her parent's permission.

I'm interested in the appeal to the value of "purity," because I've been reading Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion," which posits 5 foundations of moral reasoning, one of which is sanctity/degradation. Haidt has studied how conservatives and liberals do moral reasoning, and liberals stick to only 2 of the 5 foundations — care/harm and fairness/cheating — which is why they have a terrible time understanding (and appealing to) conservatives, who use all 5. (The other 2 are loyalty/betrayal and authority/subversion.)

The Sanctity/degradation foundation evolved initially in response to the adaptive challenge of the omnivore’s dilemma, and then to the broader challenge of living in a world of pathogens and parasites. It includes the behavioral immune system, which can make us wary of a diverse array of symbolic objects and threats. It makes it possible for people to invest objects with irrational and extreme values—both positive and negative—which are important for binding groups together.

Of course, to the liberal mind, the idea that there's "something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight" just sounds horribly sexist. And I find it hard to believe that liberals don't think about purity too. They just aim their thoughts at the impurity of the older man — the creep — who's going after young girls. His interest in their purity is impure.