Undead sexist cliches and various odds and ends

In this post, Echidne tackles the topic of my first Undead Sexist Cliché, the idea that if men aren’t being Real Men it’s because women aren’t supporting them properly. Even if you buy that principle, Echidne points out, the arguments by Kay Hymowitz don’t make much sense.
Echidne also tackles the British politician who explained that women’s success is automatically a loss for men.
On other topics, Dahlia Litwick rips into the Obama administration’s decision not to try Khalid Sheikh Mohamed in civilian court. Glenn Greenwald discusses the ongoing erosion of our Constitutional rights. Scott Lemieux asks why wiping out capital gains taxes is usually hailed by conservative/libertarian free-market enthusiasts as a good thing rather than government intervention.
Having lived in a town with a libertarian (well, sort of) newspaper for years and hearing them endlessly endorse the end of capital gains taxes in editorials, I’m whole-heartedly in agreement on the latter (and all the other ones I linked to as well, obviously). The Playground Daily News, as it was known at the time, saw no conflict between proclaiming that government should not use the tax code to influence economic decisions and proclaiming in the same column that government should encourage investment by eliminating capital gains taxes (this was in the same column).
Wiping out capital gains says that if you make $20,000 selling real estate or stocks, you deserve better taxes than someone who makes $20,000 in hourly wages. Or in royalties. It’s as arbitrary as saying plumbers shouldn’t pay income taxes.
And of course, a lot of capital gains doesn’t do anything to boost anything. Selling land is subject to capital gains; I don’t think that’s going to inspire anyone to make more land. Collectibles—Beanie Babies, comic books, art, antiques—are also subject to capital gains taxes; how does slashing taxes on them benefit the economy as a whole?
As Lemieux points out, this is yet another Repub giveaway for the rich, and even less sensible than most of them.