Banning Rugby
Via Reason, a college rugby team has been banned because, gasp, they sang boorish songs when drunk:
The University of Mary Washington permanently cancelled its student rugby team after evidence surfaced that team members had engaged in sexist chanting at an off-campus house party. All members of the team were also required to attend sexual assault training.
But while UMW's rugby team has 46 players, only 8 of them were even in attendance at the party—meaning that not only did a public university punish a few students for engaging in inappropriate (though constitutionally-protected) speech, it also punished other students who had nothing to do with said (again, constitutionally-protected!) speech.
The microaggression unfolded last November at a house party near the Fredericksburg, Virginia, campus, according to Jezebel's Erin Gloria Ryan. Some students, likely drunk, sang a demeaning song about raping corpses and "wiggling it" inside whores—inappropriate stuff, to be sure, though not really targeted at a specific entity in a threatening way. The chant apparently has its origins in rowdy "pub" songs. It's a curious tradition, though not one intended to inspire actual malice, it seems.
I played rugby for several years (for Harvard Business School, of all places) and never encountered a rugby club that did not have a repertoire of raunchy pub songs. It was a tradition, which I presume was copied from the mother country, that teams would share in singing of these songs over many drinks after a match. While often crude and offensive, they were known to all to be so. I can't remember anyone being somehow confused between what was in those songs and what was a correct way to comport oneself in society. We sang crude songs for a few hours, and then went back to crafting strategies for water meter manufacturers.
Leaving aside the first amendment issues and whether there is really any harmful behavior here, think for a moment about the nature of crime and punishment here. College rugby teams have comported themselves as such for literally scores of years without any blowback except for occasional disdain from the blue bloods (the inciting of which is probably half the reason for the exercise in the first place). No laws or written rules were broken and the team was comporting themselves in a way that had been at least implicitly tolerated for generations. Then all of a sudden the team is disbanded. No advance warning, no discussion in advance that such behavior would now be treated in the future as illegal.
Onlooker from Troy:
Fine. This kind of thing will just hasten the demise of the university hegemony. Unfortunately many innocent people will (and have) been hurt in the process, for sure.
March 25, 2015, 7:44 amskhpcola:
College rugby teams have comported themselves as such for literally scores of years without any blowback
Welcome to the Quickening. If you hadn't spent your years wallowing in Libertarian onanism, you'd have seen this coming. Instead, you and your arrogant fellow travelers have been circle-jerking about hefty intellectual puzzles such as "Coke vs, Pepsi." Thanks for nothing, anti-patriots.
March 25, 2015, 9:22 ammorgan.c.frank:
it's a cute turn of phrase, but empty and meaningless. just what is it we aficionados of liberty ought to have been doing? getting in line with the reactionary right and opposing most forms of personal liberty so prevent a few others?
the great irony of your comment is you reveal yourself as precisely the kind of coke/pepsi guy that make supporting either party impossible.
just what is it you have done? push a social agenda that alienates the center and thereby largely kept yourself from power?
"with me or against me" is the dogma of a child.
as for "anti-patroit" truly, you are a buffoon. blind loyalty to faction is not patriotism. if you cannot see this, well, i think we have diagnosed the issue.
i suggest reading our founding documents. you'll find them libertarian, not conservative. those documents, i support. the reactionary policy of far right conservatives who seek to force others into their own prejudices? nope.
the graet irony is that you are what you purport to hate. you want government to tell me what to do, just about different things.
you're just blind to it because you think my liberty is following YOUR morals and subjective choices.
you're just another guy mistaking holding the whip hand for fairness and liberty.
you could not be more effective in making fun of and discrediting yourself.
well done.
March 25, 2015, 11:30 amskhpcola:
You prove my point about Libertarian arrogance by up-voting your own unhinged, incoherent, and facile screed. You are a fringe retard with a facile grasp of history and pragmatism. Go hide in your bomb shelter and quiver, child. Your cult will never attain any ability to stop the destruction of the United States by leftists (whether they be D-bags or GOPe), because you and your fellow Libertarians are retards that repeatedly take their marbles and skitter home when their temper tantrums don't sway thinking people to their atrophied ideology. Whatevs, dunce. Libertarians are just leftists too embarrassed to say so in polite company, convinced that they're smarter, better, and imbued with a god-like morality...just like Obongo. In short, you are an absurd caricature of what a patriot actually is.
BTW, proudly proclaiming yourself not to be a member of the "Coke vs. Pepsi" contingent just makes you a card-carrying retard of the "Coke vs. Pepsi vs. RC Cola" contingent, you moronic simpleton.
March 25, 2015, 11:49 amCT_Yankee:
If I were there... The team has been disbanded, so I would no longer be part of the team, and therefore not required to attend indoctrination classes. I might use that time to practice my rugby for "pick up games" between other rugby enthusiasts that found they now had more "unstructured free time". Perhaps it is time to form an alliance with a nearby college's rugby team to cheer them on and celebrate all things rugby until they get their own team back.
March 25, 2015, 12:16 pmmorgan.c.frank:
i stand corrected.
THAT was even more effective in making fun of and discrediting yourself.
truly, those are some epic delusions and persecution fantasies under which you operate.
actually, what this country needs is a viable third party to rein in the stupidity of team donkey and team elephant.
watch, it's coming.
your antiquated Luddite rumblings are becomning less and less relevant by the day.
consider your proposition:
let me take your liberty in the bedroom, marriage, recreation, procreative choice etc so i'll protect your guns and your wallet.
sorry jackass, but i do not buy into your fake dichotomy.
i'm not going to let you and yours try to take some of my liberty to protect the rest.
you're just a deluded ranting fool trying to sell me what is already mine.
if your vitriol spewing idiocy is patriotism, count me out.
you are not a patriot, you're just a would be tyrant who is too stupid to see that he is what he despises.
deluded hypocrisy is no basis for political belief.
the fact that you think libertarians are leftist when they oppose taxes, regulation, wealth redistribution, limits to speech, and limits on guns just shows what a lying/deluded fool you are.
i know your type. you're an ignorant social reactionary who is dying to push his own views onto others and cannot bear the idea that people disagree with your foolish rantings.
you are happy to take my rights to force me to do what you want, but oppose anyone taking yours the same way.
you're a rank hypocrite, a liar, and a fool.
but, but all means, keep making fun of yourself.
you will make a great southpark character.
March 25, 2015, 12:23 pmmorgan.c.frank:
also: im curious: how does someone become so stupid and bigoted that to disagree with him on an issue makes one instantly on the "other team".
i mean, you say libertarians are just leftists who will not admit it. yet this is utterly untrue. your issue is that you see the world in only black and white. if they differ from you, they must be the other. "different from both" is apparently too difficult an idea for you.
it's like you see the world as containing only 2 sets that do not overlap at all.
seriously, how does one become so stupid and ignorant?
i'm betting on "kicked in the head by a mule as a child".
am i close?
March 25, 2015, 12:28 pmskhpcola:
I find it difficult to believe, but you must put a shit-ton of mental energy into your retarded spurts of commentary if you are so proud of that elementary-school-level pabulum to up-vote every one of your comments. You Libertarians are cute when you slip into one of your self-indignant, ignorant tirades. Kind of like your drooling, slobbering, avuncular Luap Nor, when that retard starts whining in his high-pitched bitch voice. I imagine your slack-jawed visage screwed up in concentration while you pound out your feeble replies. Good job, junior! Here's a gold star for you! *pat pat* Why don't you scurry home and eat a snack...
You, like every Liberaltariantard, can't grasp the reality of the Electoral College. I assume that you are good with the function of the EC, eh? It's been with us since the Founders hashed out the rules for this experimental republic. The EC keeps this nation a country with only two viable political parties, by the manner in which it apportions its votes. Smart people (not you and Libertarians, clearly) understand that and identify with one of those parties and attempts to fashion their chosen "side" to their liking. One party or the other is going to get actual political control over how this nation functions. That's reality. That's the way that it. Instead of being a rational participant in the process, fucktards like yourself squee about fringe issues and jerk themselves into high dudgeon about petty bullshit that will not be solved via their chosen path.
And you know what? "Anti-patriot" is an apt term for you and your ilk. I used to simply have an abiding dislike for the LP. Until prominent Libertarians revealed their hatred for this nation. Ron Paul? Fucking piece of slimy shit...wouldn't have lifted a finger to stop the Holocaust, because it didn't affect us. Fuck him. Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek? Thinks that pledging allegiance and saluting our flag is an exercise in absurd jingoistic comedy. Fuck him, too. I've heard various Libertarians voice other commentary along those lines and others. My abiding dislike turned to open contempt. You assclowns are anti-patriots, cloaked in arrogance, ignorance, and fantasy.
March 25, 2015, 12:44 pmmorgan.c.frank:
seriously, you need less thesaurus and more logic. your comment reads like glossolalia.
the electoral college applies ONLY to the presidency. you do realize that there are other branches of government, yes?
further, your argument doe snot even make sense. a minority party in a first past the post electoral process for a president cannot win either. what you attribute to the EC is really just a function of numbers.
but if we could get, say, 15% of congress to be libertarian (or libertarian leaning, as is occurring) then we get folks that support the donkeys/elephants when they are pro liberty and rights, and oppose them when they go off on the sort of reactionary rants you seem to favor.
you have the mentality of a prison gang member. join us or fight us.
in my gang or my enemy!
the idea that i might agree with you on, say, guns and taxes, but disagree with you on say drugs and marriage seems to break your inflexible little brain.
in general, those who bellow "anti-patroit" at anyone who disagrees with them tend to be the budding fascists and totalitarians.
you seem to be a prime exemplar.
salute my flag and pledge allegiance or fuck you?
you're a joke dude.
you seem to be one of these deluded fools who accuses everyone else of his own failings and demands obedience and submission to his team while trying to call it patriotism and freedom.
the hilarious irony is that you ARE what you profess to hate: a hypocritical would be tyrant.
you seek to coerce your fellow countrymen while calling yourself a patriot. you're like somehting out of orwell.
conformity is freedom! join us or die!
March 25, 2015, 12:59 pmJon Murphy:
You're nucking futs
March 25, 2015, 1:12 pmJon Murphy:
Hey, man, check your privilege! This guy is obviously mentally ill. He didn't choose to be this way.
March 25, 2015, 1:13 pmmorgan.c.frank:
i'm hoping i can get him to say "dey tek er yobs!"
March 25, 2015, 1:21 pmskhpcola:
You leftists squee about the most insignificant bullshit. Your party is the perfect place for you. The LP will always be a fringe party of isolationist assholes, anarchist filth, and arrogant shitweasels. You've found your niche and I'm happy for you.
March 25, 2015, 1:25 pmmorgan.c.frank:
so, let me get this straight skh, you excoriate those who view requiring a pledge of allegiance as abhorrent, then call yourself a patriot?
that is some seriously bad thinking.
you support the right of the state to demand allegiance as opposed to the right of the individual to make his/her own choices?
and you think that view is somehow consistent with our founding ideals?
the success of america came from the recognition that the rights of the individual were inherent and took preceedence over government.
yet here you are equating taking them away with patriotism.
you're just a would be jackbooted thug who is too stupid to realize it.
March 25, 2015, 1:26 pmskhpcola:
If you are a Libertarian, thanks. "Fucking nuts" is their specialty, so projection is expected.
March 25, 2015, 1:26 pmskhpcola:
At no time did I express a desire to make a pledge of allegiance compulsory. Pointing out a dickhead who doesn't have enough patriotism to show pride in being American is something different. Sure, make a decision to not salute the flag, as Ozero did up on that stage. It shouldn't illegal, but the unpatriotic cocksuckers aren't protected from criticism and ridicule, either. You are claiming that a rejection of American Exceptionalism is actual patriotism...that word doesn't mean what you think that it means, obviously.
March 25, 2015, 1:32 pmskhpcola:
Nyuk nyuk! Erase the borders! Wheeeeeeeeee! Pfft.
March 25, 2015, 1:33 pmmorgan.c.frank:
so, it's not compulsory, but any decent american will hate you if you don;t do it?
yup, you're a bastion of tolerance alright.
and man can you not think in a straight line.
i just told you why i thing america is exceptional: we based a society on the primacy of the inalienable rights of the individual.
it's guys like you who are a threat to that. you oppose liberty and rights when people use them in ways you do not like. that is the whole reactionary GOP mantra.
we tell you who you can marry, what recreational substances to use, butt into your reproductive rights, and put our heads in the sand on immigration and pretend walls and laws are working.
you are a threat to American exceptionalism. it's not based on "do it my may".
this is not to say there are not other threats.
team donkey is an ever bigger and scarier threat than team elephant, but having to pick one is like asking someone if they want herpes or aids.
there is a better way. i don't want either.
the fact that you think libertarians are leftists is just deluded to the point is insanity.
it's wildly untrue.
libertarian ideas ran the US for over a century and they worked like a charm.
we went from being ragtag colonies to a top world power under them.
then we lost our way int he 30's and never recovered from the fascist/statist experiments of the time.
asshats like you are just too dumb to see it.
YOU are what is wrong with the GOP. you are the reactionary wing that keeps them from taking the center because you wanna legislate personal choices and force your dogma on others.
most of the country wants liberal social rules and smaller government.
it's just theta the endless gangwars between the 2 parties make every election choice between extremists.
we get communist vs bible basher, over and over.
it's YOU and this endless partisan morass generated by the primary system that are wiping out american exceptional ism.
you're the disease, not the cure.
the good news is, the demographics are against you.
watch, the millenials are going to wind up being a VERY libertartian gang. their views are highly libertarian. they are just too young to vote their wallets yet as opposed to their social conscience. they are NOT gonna vote for an anti abortion president. EVER. so long as you reactionaries remain adamant on that issue, you'll be shut out of the white house.
March 25, 2015, 2:00 pmskhpcola:
You are a master of extrapolation, morgan. I am not a Rethuglican, I am a conservative. I do vote Rethuglican, because that party more closely aligns with my values. Those values don't include anything that you ascribe to me above. The evangelical faction disgusts me and the conservatives that I know. We don't want anybody to tell us how to live our lives. Legislating morality is a loser, every time. Marriage is a social contract and the government's involvement should be limited to enforcing that contract between two voluntary people, regardless of sex. I, and many conservatives, think that drugs should be legal, especially drugs that are nothing more than plants that grow naturally in nature.
Your graf about privacy, freedom of seizure, etc. is a head-scratcher. I bet that more conservatives are pissed off about those issues than leftists and lobby Rethuglicans to right that floundering ship. Bush and McCain and Graham and McConnell are Republicans, not conservatives...and we conservatives are trying to take back the party from those people.
And the meat of my loathing for Libertarians is something that you elided in your comment. On two issues important (if not the most important) to Americans, the Libertarians side with the leftists every time. Every single time. Immigration and national security. Your snipe above about immigration toes the LP tenet of open borders. Libertarians are isolationists, which is a direct threat to this nation. You'll claim that you're a non-interventionist, but you aren't. You, like your god Luap Nor, would stand by and not fight to stop the Holocaust. You'd let Israel be overrun and probably view that as a net positive. Yep, you Libertarians are leftists, when it comes to immigration and national security.
And this:
they are the biggest generation in US history and they have ZERO interest in your social interference and surveillance state.
"They" are being inundated with diktats from the leftists in charge, who actually use the powers of government to spy on Americans and punish them for thinking differently. "Social interference?" Haha! That's the left, bruh. Everything from mandating the purchase of a product to prying into our diets and constant nagging about exercise. It's not the Rethuglicans doing these things. I think that you are wrong. They'll wind up being good conservatives that realize that the viable option is to kick out the GOPe and weaken the leftists. The LP is an also-ran that will never have any contribution to the social fabric of the US, because they'll never have any political power. You can kvetch and keen, but that's the way that it's going to play out. The Randtards that disrupt speeches by conservatives and the Randtards that will surely disrupt the caucuses will be seen as the leftist trash that they are by 95% of the right-wing constituency. But hey, being a proud Whig is important to you. Too bad that the Whigs will never gain a national office, either.
March 25, 2015, 3:41 pmNot Sure:
Progressives say they value "diversity", but in reality, it's only when diversity is redefined to mean "things they like". College these days is "progressive" on steroids.
March 25, 2015, 3:50 pmjdgalt:
The silver lining is that now the same people can form a new team with no official connection to the college, and sing what they like with impunity while wearing the new team's shirts. Here's hoping that this idea catches on at every lefty-dominated college.
March 25, 2015, 6:11 pmmarque2:
Your writing is a bit rude, but there is some truth in it.
March 25, 2015, 8:15 pmskhpcola:
I'm not always an intemperate, bombastic asshole, but when I am, it's usually because some Libertarian has experienced a fugue of self awareness and are in the throes of a grand mal seizure of cognitive dissonance. Such as here.
March 25, 2015, 8:37 pmmarque2:
I particularly liked your comments last year, when Warren did yet another arrogant rant about illegal aliens. Sitting in his rich neighborhood he sees no problems, they do the gardening, day-sit the kids, while teaching them Spanish, they do all the maid work, all for $5 per hour, which has to be the perfect wage, because they were free to agree!, In fact one neighbor is getting this work done for mere room and board, in the basement. No, looking outside the gated upscale community to see the crime, and the drugs, and costs to society in the form of welfare and medical payments, and just a general decline in educational levels, and the cohesiveness of our nation.
I agree with you, Libertarians can be a very arrogant bunch, and if one doesn't post just right, and you will get whacked.
March 25, 2015, 8:42 pmskhpcola:
And they'll attempt the whacking in an unctuous, haughty manner that glows bright with moral superiority, because they are convinced that freedom means being able to be an anti-American sphincter while claiming a dear fondness for our founding principles. Alex Tabarrok recently signed a vanity proclamation, along with a bunch of other academic types, declaring that erasing borders and sending trains, planes, and automobiles to third-world shit-holes to bring back the downtrodden is a moral imperative. Because fuck America. Or something. He actually said that people shouldn't be punished for where they are born...7 billion people in the world, and Libertarians want the US to breast-feed every one of them with tax dollars. Fuck it. After all of those uneducated, diseased, violent folks get here, maybe Belize will be a a great destination.
March 25, 2015, 8:58 pmNimrod:
The main problem with this is that the standards are guaranteed to not be applied equally to everyone. If for example a predominantly black basketball team decides to sing gangsta rap songs with essentially the same lyrical content then they won't be touched in the slightest. Even worse, you could have a group singing pro-jihad, pro-sharia, pro-female-subjugation songs and they wouldn't be touched either.
These double standards are brought to you by Marxist zero-sum conflict theory and Maoist campus organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society. Though the names have changed, the substance has not and it is now mainstream enough that a president who embraces these beliefs can get elected not once but twice!
And we've now raised more than one generation of people without the critical thinking ability to correctly identify where these ideas come from, much less be able to tell if they're actually beneficial or harmful.
Short of a major disaster, I can't really imagine any sort of social or economic pressure that would cause any of this to change.
March 26, 2015, 1:10 amBram:
When I lived in Boston I played for Old Gold. We played against Harvard Business School. Their hooker kept kicking me in the shin - I eventually got satisfaction (and a penalty) when he didn't notice his shin guard was turned around.
Then we drank and sang raunchy songs in a classy old room instead of our usual dive bar.
March 26, 2015, 6:58 ammorgan.c.frank:
you make appeals to practicality, then you go do the opposite.
it's conservatives that are making the gop unelectable.
you guys and your bible bashing social agenda and angry rhetoric about patriotism meaning "do what i say" and trying to ram your own beliefs down the throats of others are WHY the left is so ascendant.
you are the ones alienating the middle. it IS you doing these things. you go after abortion, gay marriage, drugs, immigrants, and all my privacy and rights around freedom from search and seizure.
you are exactly what you hate.
if you could just get out people's personal choices, the right would take over the US by taking the whole center.
the problem is that the bible bashers wield too much influence in the GOP primary so it produces terrible, unattractive candidates.
this will get worse every year because the old, angry reactionaries like you are dying off.
you're mired in the past. you're an evolutionary dead end that's too myopic and self deluded to see it.
when you speak of the donkeys interfering in diet and water use and whatever else, i completely agree with you.
what you do not see is that you are just another flavor of the same thing. they want to tell me what to eat, you want to tell me who to marry.
you are mistaking "agrees with my prejudices" for "fair and just."
your arguments are also DEEPLY inconsistent.
you just got done ranting about how in the US you need to pick a side or be marginalized. you have to pick red or blue.
then, you claim not to be a Republican.
you''re certainly not a democrat.
so what the hell are you?
we do not have a "conservative" party. you are now engaging in what you just complained about.
this is the sign of limited intellect with heavy prejudice and no self awareness.
over and over, you make my point for me: you are what you claims to despise.
i suspect the reason the coke/pepsi analogy upsets you so much is that it's hitting the bullseye.
it describes you EXACTLY.
you're just another flavor of the same poison.
March 26, 2015, 9:25 ammorgan.c.frank:
you also argue with straw men.
on immigration, if you think you can close the border, you're just a fool. it's not working. walls and laws will NEVER work. the war on drugs and the war on immigrants CANNOT be won. wake up dude. the immigrants are coming. NOTHING is going to stop it. the incentives are just too great.
so let's make them useful. create a guest worker program, let them in, let them work and pay taxes and start businesses. let them consume goods and services. they are, and ever have been, a big economic boon.
the issue is NOT immigrants. it's entitlements. so write that into to the guest worker program. you pay tax, but you do not get entitlements. no welfare, no medicare, no food stamps, etc. a special tax pays for ESL programs in schools for your kids.
done. we now have a useful resource instead of a massive burden and police state. the US THRIVED for most of its existence with open borders. nothing has changed.
on foreign policy, you just peddle jingoistic drivel. not all libertarians are isolationists. even rand paul is not in a real sense. but if you are talking about these asinine trillion dollar excursions into "nation building", well, now you have no leg to stand on. it has NEVER worked. it ALWAYS fails.
we have been destabilizing the middle east and stoking up war doing this since forever. the whole place is on fire now as a result. we have alienated ALL our allies.
the "nation" we build in iraq asked us to leave then got taken over by a would be caliphate. afghanistan will become a narco-theocracy 10 minutes after we leave. many parts have already reverted.
the neo-con foreign policy has been an utter disaster. the us has a TERRIBLE track record on interventionist wars and foreign policy over the last 60 or 70 years. even reagan, who, hands down, ran the best FP in living memory, made an utter hash of central america and wound up arming guys we fought later in afghanistan.
ANYTHING is better than the current FP. 3 kids with a magic 8 ball would be better.
when all your ideas are bad, doing nothing is an attractive option.
the "let's pretend the whole world is like the US and destabilize everything while putting in 'democracy' that votes in regimes hostile to the US" crowd just spend trillions to make things worse.
just what is it you think US FP ought to be?
March 26, 2015, 9:41 ammorgan.c.frank:
skh-
actually, we are defending american principles from asshats like you who would make the US into a tyranny of conservative values.
and this is pure tripe:
"and Libertarians want the US to breast-feed every one of them with tax dollars."
libertarians want people to stand on their own. they do NOT support subsidy and wealth transfer.
you live in a complete fantasy world and just make up your "facts".
turn of the o'reily, man. it's rotting your brain.
March 26, 2015, 9:44 amskhpcola:
I began a reply to you, but you're not worth the time and effort. You're an ignorant, illiterate leftist, hellbent on remaining an ignorant, illiterate leftist. "Projection and deflection, how do they work?!?!" You're absurd and your sentence-per-paragraph style is indicative of a mind incapable of maintaining continuity of thought. In short, you are self-delusional if you believe yourself to be anything other than the filthy, simplistic leftist of which you provide ample evidence. Have a great day, morgan. I'll avoid engaging you in your personal Special Olympics henceforth.
March 26, 2015, 10:14 ammorgan.c.frank:
translation:
you have no argument, just blowhard tendencies and endless lies and mischaracterizations.
i'm sorry you life has gone so wrong that you have become one of these angry, luddite reactionaries.
your arguments are contradictory and self refuting. you make up your facts and repeatedly lie.
then you declare victory.
good luck with that. it's not going to take you anywhere.
you're just a sad, deluded idiot. i'd pity you if you were not also a would be tyrant...
March 26, 2015, 11:23 amstevewfromford:
Petty tyrants will always act like petty tyrants. A reasonable society severely limits their scope of action. We now celebrate it.
March 29, 2015, 12:05 pmThus is modern life made more miserable,