I thought it was a good article and brought up things that need to be discussed with others. I forwarded the link to a female friend of mine who is at college. I thought she would need the info.

Camille Paglia's intellect is a stiletto sharpened to a sometimes astonishing edge. Because she's bisexual, the left eagerly wants to claim her as theirs, but when she irreverently shows disdain for their moral relativity they shrink in fear. It's always refreshing to see the consistency of Paglia's thrust that evil is an unavoidable element of human nature that is too often allowed to hide in the dark. Regrettably, she's right about women who combine provocative wear and questionable entertainment locations as making themselves targets for predators. Young adults are prone to risk-taking, and the girls who dangle their sexual availability may be driven by the same urge to flirt with danger as the young men who drive cars too fast.

This article had a great point about progressivism. She had me until it turned into a lecture to dress conservatively. It seems her solution is to cover up midriffs and shoulders and that the men should just continue being stupid, wild cavemen. Based on my, admittedly glazy and superficial undergrad education, man’s instinctual deviance from a woman is a claim. I would listen more if the author provided some kind of reference.
I don’t think I missed the point of the article; that young girls need to take some responsibility to prevent these crimes and that society should not bear the sole responsibilities, but the author makes the same “progressive” mistakes by blaming the attackers’ actions on something larger than the individual.
My two cents? Instinct, at least not a gender specific instinct, is not to blame. It is the attacker. They are stupid, crazy, heartless and selfish. And yes, the victim should know there are looneys in the world and carry a sidearm or at least some pepper spray for protection.

Those are real problems with competing security services that don't accept the same authority; to that extent, government has to be a monopoly.

But the "perfect stranger" problem exists even in places where there is only one set of authorities. Ferguson is a good example. There, the city government and police are controlled by an in-group which is not trusted, or trustworthy, as seen by most residents and would rather predate against them than protect them, so Rand's "war" would be better than the present tyranny.

My ideal solution would be to decentralize policing and courts as much as possible while still having a single central authority (more or less along the lines of David Friedman's writing about ancient Iceland).

Second best would be to bring back segregation, but more along party lines instead of racial ones, because at least a stable peace would be created that way.

I am always amazed at how poorly people apply the schema of all they learn to life. While so much is different, in so many ways it is all the same. One of my favorite sayings is, “It’s the same thing only different.”
The Borg and the Federation, the Sith and the Rebellion.
Evil is all based on your perspective. Evil is determined by those in control or in charge, by those who make the determination of what basis and in what morality you must abide.
Throughout history the same discussion, the same perspective conflict is played out. The Greeks vs. the Persian. Greeks viewed Persia as Evil, and visa-versa.
The United States Constitution and the principals on what this country stands for is the basis in “our” morality our ethical behavior and our legal statutes.
Move to Iran and your sense of morality, evil, right and wrong are vastly different. One major failing in our education system is in NOT teaching cultural differences and differences in viewpoint. What makes the Nazi Evil and the Capitalist Virtuous? What perspective makes the Communist Virtuous and the Capitalist Evil. If you talk to an Anarchist, all order is evil.
Much like the adage, “History is written by the victors,” so too morality, evil, good are all dictated by those in control.

This was express very well by Abraham Lincoln in 1864.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name -- liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names --liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. -- Abraham Lincoln, in a speech at a Sanitary Fair in Baltimore, MD, on April 18th, 1864

Going back to the article specifically, the Liberal and their "morality" assumes you have a better moral argument laying dead, raped and strangled with your own pantyhose, than if you had to argue why you pumped 9 rounds of .45 cal into the rapists chest.

To be more specific: they think the government has no enemies but what the government makes. They are the same kind of people Rand talked about in her essay "The Nature of Government." Like the statists, they hold that police and militaryhh protection is no different from any other good or service. Unlike the statists, they seek to privatize police, military, and judicial services also, and create an entirely voluntary association, similar to Rand's own Atlantis, with individual security (actually not required, since membership was by invitation only and they were all on the same page), a mercenary navy and intel service (Ragnar, his ship, and his spy network), and private arbitration (Judge Narragansett).

Rand talked about one trouble with that: suppose A suspects B of stealing from him, and the security services of A and B clash when A tries to recover his stolen goods from B.

Here's another problem: what duty does a mercenary force have, and to whom, when an attack against the "homeland" comes? Now it turned out that Ragnar recruited half the male population of the valley, that being all the available aircraft could carry, into the Atlantis Air and Land Militia to search for and rescue John Galt. They succeeded. We all agree that was a moral result. But: was that result in accord with Objectivist ethics? This would seem a stretch on "The Ethics of Emergencies." And here's the worst problem: too many of those libertarians don't treat an attack against a "perfect stranger" who happens to reside in their neighborhood with the same seriousness as they would treat an attack against themselves.

great point

Too many in the libertarian movement cannot comprehend evil either. They especially cannot comprehend the concept "external enemy." Their central dictum is: "No enemies but what you make."

This was really interesting. I read it on your FB page. Thanks for posting!

Ohh noooo, Mama, no, no--please!

she'd slap your ass with a whip-overman style :)

Alright!!!

yes, and you have been indoctrinated as she points out in the article.

ah, yes, snoogoo, you are not a mark ;)

she isn't really that political. she's mad at the left in this article, but she takes huge bites from the right all the time. look up her other stuff

go look up other Paglia articles. she is a fan of Rand

I vote for a happy alternative, as a woman I can wear what I want because I don't live in Taliban land, but if I am going to dress a certain way, I should wear at least enough clothing to conceal my weapon :)

You're being incredibly naive and missing the point of the article.

Not a bad article. Thanks for posting. It's so difficult to pass on learning and experiences in life of the pure evil lying in wait for the naive to not just young women, but also young men. That part of our lives as human beings has been hidden from our children for decades now and leaves them poorly prepared to deal on their own in life, business, and relationships.

I agree with a lot of what she says, but then from my impression starts thinking "how on can I possibly shoehorn this apolitical issue into a left/right narrative." She comes close to saying victims of sexual assult are partly to blame b/c they should known they were kind-of asking for it with "bared flesh and sexy clothes".

She was on the right track in the beginning. Trying to make the issue about politics leads her to an ignoble place: "she was kind of asking for it"