Comments on: Much Ado About Nothing

By: Drach3fly

Drach3fly — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:48:39 +0000

Dependably. Maggie said ‘Dependably’. You all may be dependable for those you encounter, but it is not at all dependable that men could encounter you.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:45:56 +0000

@Informal Whoring – you’re also missing the super obvious objection to hiring more female secret service agents. That is, with a vanishingly small number of exceptions, women are rubbish bodyguards – especially in contrast to the biggest, toughest, best trained military men available.

Just ask Gaddafi how well his female bodyguards performed when the shit hit the fan. Oh, too late.

By: INFORMAL WHORING

INFORMAL WHORING — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:10:40 +0000

People keep going on the news saying that if the Secret Service had more female agents, things like this wouldn’t happen. I think the people who say this either incorrectly believe that for men, seeking sex is just like partying and is a thing done only for recreation and would stop if there were women there to keep the men in check, or they deny that the men would continue to look for sex anyway, and would either keep going to prostitutes or would approach their female colleagues for sex (especially if that were easier to do than trying to circumvent restrictions on seeing prostitutes–not that I’m sure any rule could ever completely stop men from seeking out local women in the foreign country where they’re working). It seems to me that the solution of both hiring more female agents and restricting male agents from seeing prostitutes would make for a dangerous or at the very least extremely unpleasant working environment for women in the Secret Service, which would result in few women wanting to hold that job, and so mostly men would work for the USSS and they’d be back at the same problem they have now.

By: Laura

Laura — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 12:49:26 +0000

No, there’s more than 2 ways. I’m proof of this and am not alone in that. Even if I were the only 1 I would still count. There’s non-whore women who don’t play games, etc., to lead men on and then won’t have sex. The same goes for disabled and/or otherwise handicapped men. There’s non-whore women who help them out also who are as dependable as whores.

By: doclove

doclove — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:14:21 +0000

I forgot to add that sadly most Americans in my opinion think like Peters when it comes to prostitution which is sad.

By: doclove

doclove — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:10:42 +0000

I 100% agree with your comment above. You put it more clearly and succinctly than I did. It is easier for most men to rape most woman than it is to get a woman to agree to professional or semi-professional prostitution because a prostitute always has the right to refuse and sometimes does refuse. Thank God most men do not have the emotional nor intellectual capacity to rape unlike what most neo-feminists tell you, and in fact (genuine)rape is much lower than what most of our neo-feminist brainwashed male and female American population believes. Even if men don’t rape and aren’t getting an adequate amount of sex, most will to one extent or another become surly to others. A few like George Sodini and U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan as well as others will kill and murder. For the record, I think Sodini and Hassan had other problems as well which compounded eachother, and thank God there are few men like them. You are correct that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters didn’t think this through.

By: Bandoblue

Bandoblue — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:43:04 +0000

That’s good, then. Glad to hear it.

Oh well, I have a larger ideological axe to grind here. I am of the faction that feels that 30 years of constatnt effort to delegitimise governent as a component of civilized society–e.g., Grover Norquist’s famous statement that he wants to shrink government until he can drown it in the bathtub–have done us real and lasting harm. Government is not panacea. But on my view good government and prudential regulation are necessary to the functioning of an advanced economy and society.

I therefore get blond with fury when civil servants behave in ways which play into the hands of those who would destroy government root and branch, leaving us exposed to the predations of malefactors of great wealth. That’s the real reason for my anger.

I cheerfully acknowledge that I am your guest here though, and respect the rather different view of government you’ve consistently expressed.

By: Maggie McNeill

Maggie McNeill — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:22:45 +0000

Actually, I don't think so; it's my perception that most people seem completely uninterested in the "scandal" despite media & political attempts to make it into Watergate. The reporter I spoke to had the same perception, as did my source in the Pentagon. It seems most Americans recognize that the agent was a fool and an asshole (for trying to cheat the hooker), but reject the idea that prostitution makes it worse; even Forbes and Christian Science Monitor said as much.

By: Bandoblue

Bandoblue — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:34:32 +0000

Understood. Actually, though, to me, the security angle is a bit of a red herring. I don’t for an instant think security was compromised.

In my mind, we have two separate things going on.

One is a lot of pearl-clutching puritanism over sex, which is stupid.

The second is a straightforward issue of job performance. I don’t want the agents fired for having sex. I want them fired for not understanding the basic behavioral requirements of their work. Whether the ambient US cultural puritanism is stupid or not (I think it is) it is exactly the kind of reputational risk a Secret Service agent should know to avoid. Instead of avoiding it, they piled risk on risk until it exploded in their face. The real world fact is, they totally blew up the President’s ability to communicate anything at all during this summit. That’s unforgivable in their line of work.

That said, I can see that it is very hard to criticize the judgement of the agents (which I feel strongly about), without giving rhetorical shelter who would engage in pearl clutching and slut shaming. I realize that now matter how subtly I try to draw the distinction, most of my fellow Americans won’t hear it, and will think I am with them on the slut-shaming, because that’s where their head is at and its all they’ll hear.

By: Maggie McNeill

Maggie McNeill — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:08:24 +0000

As I said to a reporter yesterday, the requirement to exclude outsiders from a secure facility is reasonable and if the agents broke it they should be disciplined. It’s the pretense that an outside hooker presents more of a threat than an outside deliveryman, maid or shoe-shine boy that is absurd.