The New Puritans

[Antiganon]

This issue (not the OP article, which is a trainwreck) seems like a couple people read too much into it, and told their story to other political operatives (not surprising given those involved) who used it to make a set of hit pieces and protect a vulnerable incumbent in a primary.

I maintain this (and other hit pieces aimed at up and coming dems) are mere political stunts by Republicans and right-wing Democrats looking to bloody the progressives ahead of November.

[arandomuser]

matt taibbi is a russian shill lol
i bet you matt is 100% supporting trump in november alongside other "real liberals" like krystal ballo

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and also
dont the college students kind of have a point?
what the guy did was 100% consensual and legal but the power structure of a lecturer/professor and student is kind of uncomfortable, like if a boss was fucking an employee, like matt taibi is a freespeech guy does he just ignore that those college democrats also have a right to feel like that behavior is unnaceptable to them personally and thats their right to oppose his nomination in the dem primary? it seems like matt is arguing their speech is wrong,

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[Milchshake]

Again, the people who brought up problems with Morse are young progressives who were uncomfortable with his treatment of them.
Taibbi/Greenwald, etc, claim they are treating youth as adults, but insulting them for setting boundaries.

Did Taibbi even read the statement? Or more interested in tilting at establishment most corrupt Dem ever!
A statement from the College Democrats of Massachusetts regarding our letter to Alex Morse:





Some people claim, on the basis of the letter, the College Dems are suggesting that merely friending someone on social media, or harmless DMing them. Cool pic bruv!
That's emphatically not what they said.
What they DO say is that Morse "sought out students that he met at our events privately on social media, in a manner widely understood by our generation to indicate intimacy."

[Edge-]

Amusingly, while this tempest in a teacup is going on there appears to some actual puritan nonsense going on with some Republicans freaking out at Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion daring to sing an ode to the benefits of "wet-ass pussy" - https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...klash-1042491/

[Elegiac]

Amusingly, while this tempest in a teacup is going on there appears to some actual puritan nonsense going on with some Republicans freaking out at Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion daring to sing an ode to the benefits of "wet-ass pussy" - https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...klash-1042491/

The thing which kinda mystifies me is it's not even that dirty, like Khia was singing about this sorta stuff just when the recession was hitting.

But hey props to Shapiro publicly outing that he's never turned on his wife.

[Edge-]

The thing which kinda mystifies me is it's not even that dirty, like Khia was singing about this sorta stuff just when the recession was hitting.

But hey props to Shapiro publicly outing that he's never turned on his wife.

Like, I listened and it's exactly as horny as you'd imagine and also kinda freakin funny. Not my jam, and I don' think I could argue it's "good", but it's a fun song.

Yet I'm seeing precisely no liberal/leftist backlash to the song. I'm wondering what Matt Taibi's take on it would be though. WHAT DOES THE MAN THINK OF WET-ASS PUSSY? INQUIRING MINDS MUST KNOW!

[eschatological]

Some people claim, on the basis of the letter, the College Dems are suggesting that merely friending someone on social media, or harmless DMing them. Cool pic bruv!
That's emphatically not what they said.
What they DO say is that Morse "sought out students that he met at our events privately on social media, in a manner widely understood by our generation to indicate intimacy."

What is that method? Why haven't they said it? Because "sliding into DMs" is understood by our generation to indicate intimacy, or the attempt to be intimate. Is that what he did? In case you don't know what "sliding into DMs" is, it usually just means tossing a one liner to someone in a DM on Instagram with the intent on trying to hook up. It happens every second of every day even among 30 year olds.

Did he send unsolicited dick pics? Cause that'd be egregious and cross a line, to me, definitely. The very vagueness is why it's open to interpretation.

[Elegiac]

What is that method? Why haven't they said it? Because "sliding into DMs" is understood by our generation to indicate intimacy, or the attempt to be intimate. Is that what he did? In case you don't know what "sliding into DMs" is, it usually just means tossing a one liner to someone in a DM on Instagram with the intent on trying to hook up. It happens every second of every day even among 30 year olds.

Did he send unsolicited dick pics? Cause that'd be egregious and cross a line, to me, definitely. The very vagueness is why it's open to interpretation.

Straying into the territory of personal opinion but;

I generally look skeptically at relationships that start in an educational or professional setting because the disparity in power in the relationship - power in the sense that one party's opinion is given greater "weight" by virtue of seniority - isn't something that a lot of people are willing or able to address in a way that would make anything resulting from that not...problematic, in the long term. The relationship also always tends to be colored by the dynamic that existed at the first; couples that meet in a professional setting tend to "professionalise" every issue in their relationships, etc.

[eschatological]

Straying into the territory of personal opinion but;

I generally look skeptically at relationships that start in an educational or professional setting because the disparity in power in the relationship - power in the sense that one party's opinion is given greater "weight" by virtue of seniority - isn't something that a lot of people are willing or able to address in a way that would make anything resulting from that not...problematic, in the long term. The relationship also always tends to be colored by the dynamic that existed at the first; couples that meet in a professional setting tend to "professionalise" every issue in their relationships, etc.

I mean, that makes it seem like because I'm a lawyer, I shouldn't date someone with only a high school education. Because that would be problematic for the other person.

Put it more squarely in the legal field: If I work for a firm in, say, M&A (ugh, gag me).......I can't date a paralegal from White Collar Crime? Because I have this implied sense of seniority over her? I would agree dating a paralegal who works for me would be shitty. But workplace romances are pretty common, and as long as there's no direct supervision or influence......I don't see what the problem would be.

You're implying he met these people as their professor, btw, when you suggest this is an educational romance where there's a "disparity in power" - which he didn't, as far as anyone has alleged. He met them at events held by a Democratic organization, which he is a prominent local person in, and then looked them up on IG.

And holy shit, if you're arguing that a relationship is problematic because one doesn't have the intellectual chops to hang with the other in a debate, just fucking end dating forever.

[Mihalik]

Amusingly, while this tempest in a teacup is going on there appears to some actual puritan nonsense going on with some Republicans freaking out at Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion daring to sing an ode to the benefits of "wet-ass pussy" - https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...klash-1042491/

I don't even like the song, but the Republican overreaction goes from mildly amusing to "I'm gonna take a step back because this is way too much crazy for me."

Like calls for banning the song and appeals to Jesus and whatnot.

Considering the scale of the reaction it's like no republican man has ever made a woman wet and no republican woman has ever been turned on in her life.

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But hey props to Shapiro publicly outing that he's never turned on his wife.

I'm pretty sure sex in the Shapiro household is very much like everything else Shapiro does...he goes at it like a hamster on crack but because he doesn't actually know what the fuck he is doing it's all an epic fail, then Shapiro smugly sputters out in 70 seconds or less thinking that "he destroyed" his wife...then seeing the mix of boredom, confusion and disappointment on her face, he gets mad and storms out of the bedroom to call his bros Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin (whose wedding he wouldn't attend if invited) to moan about the unrealistic expectations feminism gave women.

[Theodarzna]

Why are people talking about some song reviewed by some guy, versus the IRL moral panic over a political candidate getting laid as a pretext for Dems to back a corrupt pawn of the Lockheed Martin among other ghouls? Sorry but I don't think some song is as relevant or meaningful as the weaponization of a sex moral panic that has potential political policy implications.

How shallow does one need to be to change the subject from very real political events to some song?

[Endus]

Why are people talking about some song reviewed by some guy, versus the IRL moral panic over a political candidate getting laid as a pretext for Dems to back a corrupt pawn of the Lockheed Martin among other ghouls? Sorry but I don't think some song is as relevant or meaningful as the weaponization of a sex moral panic that has potential political policy implications.

How shallow does one need to be to change the subject from very real political events to some song?

Because the only "moral panic" is from reprobates like Matt Taibbi, and nobody gives a shit what fearmongerers like him panic about.

[Levelfive]

I mean, that makes it seem like because I'm a lawyer, I shouldn't date someone with only a high school education. Because that would be problematic for the other person.

Put it more squarely in the legal field: If I work for a firm in, say, M&A (ugh, gag me).......I can't date a paralegal from White Collar Crime? Because I have this implied sense of seniority over her? I would agree dating a paralegal who works for me would be shitty. But workplace romances are pretty common, and as long as there's no direct supervision or influence......I don't see what the problem would be.

You're implying he met these people as their professor, btw, when you suggest this is an educational romance where there's a "disparity in power" - which he didn't, as far as anyone has alleged. He met them at events held by a Democratic organization, which he is a prominent local person in, and then looked them up on IG.

And holy shit, if you're arguing that a relationship is problematic because one doesn't have the intellectual chops to hang with the other in a debate, just fucking end dating forever.

I do think a professor dating students at the school where he teaches is pretty sketch, but that aside, it's quite a doom spiral to go from one letter from one group to one guy and turn it into whatever dark puritanical future Taibbi's predicting for us all. It's interesting, too, that he's ostentatiously withering that we've entered an epoch in which students and readers can't be treated like adults, while simultaneously bemoaning the effect this will have on voters.

[unfilteredJW]

Why are people talking about some song reviewed by some guy, versus the IRL moral panic over a political candidate getting laid as a pretext for Dems to back a corrupt pawn of the Lockheed Martin among other ghouls? Sorry but I don't think some song is as relevant or meaningful as the weaponization of a sex moral panic that has potential political policy implications.

How shallow does one need to be to change the subject from very real political events to some song?

Clutch harder.

And stop posting shit from you husband's feed. Just hit the share button.

[Elegiac]

Why are people talking about some song reviewed by some guy, versus the IRL moral panic over a political candidate getting laid as a pretext for Dems to back a corrupt pawn of the Lockheed Martin among other ghouls? Sorry but I don't think some song is as relevant or meaningful as the weaponization of a sex moral panic that has potential political policy implications.

How shallow does one need to be to change the subject from very real political events to some song?

Sorry, can't hear you over Megan Thee and Cardi B. Matt Taibbi's latest gripings are kinda weak beats by comparison.

[Theodarzna]

And ofcourse, it is revealed the core accuser in this situation is hoping to launch his own political career via Richard Neal. So, this really paints these accusations in a whole new light as career/clout chasing. Typical.

[Levelfive]

Oh, so the story is actually smaller and pettier, then, and not part of some broader pattern of creeping radical left Puritanism, after all. Cool.

[Edge-]

I'm honestly incredibly shocked at the level of national attention that the mayor of a town of 40K, running for a Congressional district to unseat a guy who chairs Ways and Means that few people nationally are probably aware of, who briefly taught at a school of 30K students, is getting in reaction to a student group telling him they don't want to associate with him.

Like, this very much seems to be the "tempest in the teacup" to me, and functionally no different than what we'd see on Campus Reform and their endless complaints about microaggressions from liberals on campus.

So it's not puritanism, but rather boring old politics? Boy does Taibi's whine about puritanism seem kinda silly now.

[Theodarzna]

I guess I should be surprised about the nonchalant attitude people have about Rep. Neal using homophobia and ginning up a sex panic that Liberals went all in for to protect the Health Insurance lobbies good friend and Lockheed Martin uber ally. Or maybe I shouldn't be.

[Endus]

I guess I should be surprised about the nonchalant attitude people have about Rep. Neal using homophobia and ginning up a sex panic that Liberals went all in for to protect the Health Insurance lobbies good friend and Lockheed Martin uber ally. Or maybe I shouldn't be.

No homophobia was presented in any respect whatsoever, and the only person engaging in any "sex panic" here was Taibbi.