More on Palin-hate? [continued…and continued…]
I never expected to be writing so much about Sarah Palin at this point.
You’d think the subject had been more or less exhausted, but the hate goes on (and if you’ve missed my previous thoughts on the matter, and happen to want to read them, just go to the category “Palin” on the right sidebar and start clicking).
But this post at a feminist blog on the Left, defending Palin (yes, you read that right: defending Palin) is well worth reading, including its comments section, even if you think you’re getting sick of the subject. It offers a very different take.
Pseudonymous blogger and feminist Violet Socks isn’t in agreement with Palin on much of anything political. But she is outraged by the venom unleashed almost from the start in Palin’s direction, especially that spit out by women, and in particular feminist women (something I noticed and remarked on here and here).
Violet tries to explain it, and makes a valiant and impressive effort to do not only that, but to sort out the vicious lies from the truth (hint: it’s mostly the former that constitutes the bulk of the rumors about Palin). I’m always gratified to see someone on the other side try to be fair to Palin (or anybody, for that matter), and I think Violet gets a lot of it right. I won’t try to summarize what she says; read the whole thing to get the flavor of it. But her best (and already much-quoted line) is:
These people don’t hate Palin because of the lies; the lies exist to justify the hate.
Bingo.
If Violet ends up saying she still can’t really explain it all, and is feeling somewhat stumped by the phenomenon, I think that’s because Palin-hatred has a highly emotional and irrational aspect. This element was best summed up by comment #237 in the thread, which struck a big chord with me by comparing the process to the famous Shirley Jackson short story “The Lottery,” which describes but does not explain the ritual stoning of a woman by villagers.
Palin-hatred has mysterious irrational aspects, but it also has explicable and indentifiable ones. And although no single one of them is sufficient to account for the phenomenon, together they have a powerful synergistic effect. You might say that Palin-hated represents the perfect storm, the confluence of flashpoints regarding class, education, beauty, sexuality, Christianity (don’t discount the latter; it’s important to the hatred and comes with a whole set of assumptions, some of which Violet discusses at some length), and female ambition.
In a particular irony, Palin is indeed a feminist (as Violet also points out). She’s just not their kind of feminist, according to the predominantly Leftist and liberal feminist establishment. So she is especially infuriating to them, a sort of feminist Uncle Tom, who receives the sort of ire ordinarily reserved for people like Clarence Thomas, considered a traitor to his race for being a conservative Republican.
One thing I found especially interesting on reading the comments section at Violet’s post is that, as many of the liberal feminists there have observed with dismay the Palin hatred and the lies that fueled it, it seems to have stirred up a process of doubting and wondering for some of them. Their unease concerns the Left in general: they are wondering if they can continue to trust that it’s telling the truth about other things. Do I detect, perhaps, the beginning of a political change process?
[ADDENDUM: It has occurred to me that, although very different in perspective, focus, and scope, Palin-hatred is similar to anti-Semitism in its virulent irrationality, as well as the fact that “These people don’t hate Jews because of the lies; the lies exist to justify the hate.”]
I take a more cynical view: feminism was just another pretext for leftist agitators to stir up the potentially disaffected as a vehicle to advance leftism. Much like their campaigns against racism, and that promoting homosexuality, the leftists don’t actually subscribe to their rhetoric. It’s simply a means to an end.
From that perspective, leftists flaying a dissident woman or minority with the most bigoted hatred imaginable requires no reversal of views – they never held the contrary views in the first place.
Don’t enable her, she’ll get the message, let her fade away, we can do better, she is smart, but not presidential material, keep it real.
Neo wrote, “Do I detect, perhaps, the beginning of a political change process?”
I hope so. There was a choice between two candidates. No she wasn’t the smartest woman in America (that is strawman at it’s finest)
We had a choice.
The choice was not between the smartest guy and a senile guy or an incurious woman and an old man who made blunders.
The choice was clear:
Choice A:
Prescription for America. You might’ve disagreed with either John or Sarah on an issue but by and large they had America’s interest at heart. During the debates John ridiculed Obama for even hinting at raising ANY taxes during a recession. John GOT it. Sarah also had the prescription.
Choice B:
Virus for America. As a conservative looking for Obama’s solutions – I saw that his ideas would have a negative effect on the nation and economy. Obama doesn’t get it. Neither does Joe. During the debates Sarah told America it is the wrong thing to do to raise taxes during a recession. Joe responded with his famous Scranton line and about how where he grew up you helped each other out. Joe looks at government and taking from people AS the solution. It’s the virus.
Nyom’s of the world don’t get it and make false accusations of the Sarah’s as incurious.
It’s strawman to act like anybody is saying she was the brightest or the best. I didn’t see anybody on the Republican or Democrat ticket I actually thought very positively of.
But she sure had the prescription. And she was attacked horribly with no basis in fact.
Her response to Charlie Gibson was the correct way of responding. Charlie Gibson was the one who GOT IT WRONG about the Bush doctrine.
Nyom got it wrong and voted for the virus.
I was hoping to hear Sara Palin say, “Once I am no longer governor of Alaska my first trip will be to New York. I will be happy to accept an invitation to appear on Letterman at which point I will whip his skinny ass and give him a REAL gap in his grin.”
Neo, I certainly hope so. Women have burned their bras and put on a corset of dogma propagated by career feminists. One of the great things about getting older is the freedom one has to be cantankerous. It’s rather fun to say “been there done that, but you haven’t.” Maybe some women will start to realize that their lives and their choices, and their experiences are as valid as the prescribed paths.
I don’t care whether Palin goes on in politics, but I am grateful to her for widening the horizons of average people and for revealing the smugness of our intellectual elites. Have you read Shop Class as Soulcraft? I’ve only read about it so far, but it sounds like another chink in the wall of received wisdom about the well-lived life. Things are happening.
The problem with the 2008 election — Biden, Palin, McCain, and Obama was none of them were fit to be president.
nyomythus, are you paid to come here? Is this blog your “assignment” like has been seen elsewhere?
I think the only shift in the zeitgeist is more wish-thinking. Broaden the Conservative tent by branding personal freedom and responsibility (human liberation) as a conservative (classical liberal) value … ditch the religious right they will follow by default and if not they can kiss our ass. We’ll get an administration that defends responsible free marketing and democracy at home and abroad.
Nyom, that was contradiction in one neat package of a paragraph.
Read what you wrote again. Be a little more curious as to what you write yourself… Geez.
Broaden.
Ditch.
Incurious? 😉
The blog and its comments were interesting. So, yes, there are some women on the left who can see how unfairly and brutally Palin has been treated, and given a somewhat safe space they will talk about it.
Good for them.
I was struck by the attempts Violet and some of the commenters made to link the hatred of Palin with the adoration of Obama.
Not enough to clinch the argument, but it is an insight to suspect that many on the left know in their hearts that Obama is an iffy empty suit and that they have sold a piece of themselves to praise him and to vote for him.
Palin Hatred could be a good cover for all the ways they feel bad about their political and personal choices.
Not all feminists are demagogues. After all, if it were not for feminists women would not have the vote, Sarah Palin would not have been Governor.
However, certain dogmatic leftists did use feminism to promote their own power base. And it could be that as women see this woman shoved around, they will start to feel some empathy, some understanding that maybe she is human after all, even if she is a rube.
I have been struck that it is the liberal women I know who were upset about Palin’s nomination. They took it personally.
There is a real knot of clenched and tangled emotions tied up around Sarah Palin that have yet to be entirely accounted for.
Of all the lefties who slammed Palin this weekend for quitting or letting the voters of Alaska down, how many expressed a similar concern when Gov. Sebelius of Kansas, Gov. Napolitano of New Mexico, and Sen. Clinton did the same thing?
I cannot help but note and contrast the MSM’s acid, thrown figuratively in the face of Palin and her family, with the MSM’s decade’s long, extremely understanding–if not worshipful–and soft-focus treatment afforded the Kennedys.
Today, the New York Post reports (http://tinyurl.com/mlljte) on a forthcoming book, “Bobbie and Jackie: A Love Story,” which from the quotes and their sources seems deeply and irrefutably sourced, about a torrid 4 year love affair between RFK and Jackie that started shortly after the death of JFK; an affair that Ethel Kennedy–mother of Robert’s 11 children–count’ em 11–knew about, as did apparently the whole clan and hangers on. Apparently, the book talks not about flagrant infidelity, but about Jackie and RFK, heartbroken by the death of JFK, “consoling each other.” Some quotes from the book as reported in this article:
“It was the coming together of a man and a woman as a result of his bereavement and her mental suffering at the hands of her late, lecherous husband,” according to Jackie confidant Truman Capote.
“It was passionate, [but] it was doomed.”
According to Gore Vidal, “The one person Jackie ever loved . . . was Robert Kennedy.”
Contrast this with the treatment afforded Palin; for instance, contrast the long silence, then solicitude, for the Kennedy clan’s institutionalized daughter Kathleen with the venom heaped on Trig, the Palin’s Down’s Syndrome baby, including, this past week, a photo shopped and distorted picture of Trig posted by a democratic operative.
John F. Kennedy was a womanizer of gargantuan proportions–but the press kept this quiet. JFK had few real legislative or foreign policy accomplishments to his credit and some great mistakes; his disastrous meeting with Khrushchev–who thought him a soft, inexperienced rich kid, a lightweight, the beginning of our advisers/troop buildup in Vietnam, and the Bay of Pigs disaster, to name a few. Yet, all we heard was the hijacked legend of “Camelot.” I remember the moving shots of “John John” at JFK’s funeral. Can we imagine the same kind of reverential treatment, almost deification, being given, on any occasion, for Palin or any member of her family? It would only be mockery that came her way.
Teddy Kennedy drove his car late one night into the ocean at Chappaquiddick, and got himself out, but left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown, and according to once source at least, spent the time til the morning–when he finally reported the accident–in a hotel room calling various advisers and lawyers to see how to play things. Yet, no jail time, no real punishment, mouths were closed, police decided not to investigate, prosecutors declined to prosecute, and he skated away.
In 1975 teenage Kennedy Cousin Michael Skakel apparently beats to death Martha Moxley, the teen aged girl next door, and hits her so hard with a golf club that the head breaks off, yet despite the fact that the golf club belonged to his mother, it takes 25 years for him to be brought to trial and to be convicted. Moreover, Skakel gets the special deal of being tried and punished as if he were a juvenile. Palin holds up a fish in a commercial, and is hit with an ethics complaint, one of fifteen, all garbage, all dismissed, but it costs the Alaska state government $2 million, and her family $500,000, to defend her.
The latest Kennedy on Congress, Patrick–voted the dumbest member of Congress by one Capitol Hill publication–wrecks his car on Capitol Hill in the early morning, and is in and out of rehab for drug and alcohol addictions and bipolar disorder–they dragged him out of rehab for the cap and trade vote, yet, the press treats him kindly and sympathetically, with respect.
Could there be more different and unfair treatment imaginable? One family is honorable, one dishonorable, crimes committed by one are ignored, crimes are fabricated and attributed to another, one family is above and, essentially, exempt from the law, and the law is set–without cause–on the other family like a pack of hyenas, one family’s children–normal and disabled–are treated with respect and solicitude, one family’s children–normal and disabled–are treated with venom and contempt.
It is not at all about the truth, it is all about “who controls the narrative” and for what purpose they control it.
Several interesting things about the cited blog.
One was that some lefties get it – Obama is a stuffed shirt. Refreshing that not all of them are starry-eyed.
Another was that some also perceive that Palin got a raw deal, and was treated like dirt, for no reason.
The third was a reflection of the pathology of many of the posters there blaming any and all evils on the “patriarchy.” Girls, girls, time to grow up and take charge of your own lives, for good or ill, and stop blaming everything up to and including bad weather on the “patriarchy.” Women can be – and typically are – nasty to each other without any male involvement whatsoever. They’re rather like blacks going through logical gynmastics to blame black-on-black homicides on whitey.
Mr. Frank makes a good point. However the women he mentioned would all point out they left for the higher calling of serving their country not just their state. In their minds they may actually believe some of that but for the most part it is merely “cloaking” their desire for more power and a national pulpit.
Unfortunately I think they’ll find they are destined to either disappear into the void of Obamaness or end up being scapegoats for the administration screw-ups – at least until Obama loses his teflon coating.
And if they they end up being sacrificed on the altar of Obama for their (supposed) screw-ups not only will their aspirations for higher office disappear, but any further career in politics will be off the table. The democrats in their state won’t take them back and, even if they tried a “Specter” the republicans wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole (or even a seven foot Hungarian).
We’ve been through this before. Nyomythus has an overriding fear/abhorrence of those on the right who are also religious. Time and and again he has expressed this in various forms.
I have never been a churchgoer, but I fear a Bible thumper a lot less than I do one of the politically correct.
Perhaps it has to do with experience. I have no idea what experience nyomythus has had with Christian fundamentalists/evangelicals ( yes, I realize the terms are not synonymous.). My experience has been that my not being a churchgoer has not been an impediment in relating to them. They are much more tolerant than many of the politically correct, in my experience.
When it comes to politics, I don’t give a damn WHAT your religion is. To me it is irrelevant. Your politics are relevant.
I think what bothers the haters most about Palin is that which many of her supporters love most about her.
Her authenticity, genuiness, honesty, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get.
Most people live behind a mask of what they want people to think they are, a constructed image. Palin has the personal courage to be who she is, and to let people see who she really is.
You ask “Do I detect, perhaps, the beginning of a political change process?”
Ah, hope springs eternal and sunny.
To answer: No process will actually take place. It will not be allowed internally or externally.
Obama is too Left to fail, to big to fail, and too black to fail.
Vand: Obama is too Left to fail, to big to fail, and too black to fail.
Profound
I’d have incredible respect for him if he became aware of pro-growth economic policies. We need him to succeed and learn.
Obama is too Left to fail, to big to fail, and too black to fail.
Don’t tell us – tell him.
vanderleun: to clarify my remarks about a political change process—the women to whom I’m referring were not Obama supporters in the first place. They are liberals and/or Left, but they don’t like him or what he did to Hillary. I am talking about internal change on their part, not away from Obama, but away from their unthinking acceptance of what the Left may say.
As for whether Obama will be allowed to fail, I agree with you that the press and most of his supporters will find it very hard and perhaps impossible to admit what a fiasco he is.
What I’m thinking is that Palin’s move puts yet more pressure on Obama to finally get some results, as the soaring rhetoric isn’t hypnotizing the plebes like it used to.
Last week Helen Thomas, Colin Powell, and Warren Buffet all turned on him. Polls are looking droopy for The One lately.
And Obama’s porkulus program is a train wreck, all it’s done is bump interest rates and tank the dollar. We are being laughed at by bad guys like Tehran, Pyongyang, and Al Qaida who amazingly turned-down Barack’s friend-requests.
Palin could trounce him in 2012, when Americans would vote for the Gipper-in-Heels in droves- while begging for lower taxes, free enterpise, a defense posture with some backbone… an end to the radical, anti-American nightmare we’ve got now.
Go get ‘em Sarah-
I don’t know if clinical psychologist doctoral candidates write dissertations, but this would be a wonderful subject.
What a wild ride it has been; and so revealing. Reminds me of taking youngsters to the stream and turning over rocks. We tell them that you can discern the health of the stream by the type of insect and invertebrate life you find. Well, a few rocks have been turned over in our societal stream; and what crawled out does not portend good health.
Oldflyer, the case would not make a good dissertation because Palin-hatred in overdetermined: there are too many paths that lead to the same point. Some resentment, some denial, some transference, some uneasiness with The One, and more causes than we probably ever name.
The saddest meme running through that thread was the idea that The Patriarchy has taught women to hate women, that even feminists can’t resist their patriarchal programming. This one is sad because it speaks to a life dominated by tinfoil hattery that probably gets in the way of a lot of normal social relationships, replacing them with fear, bitterness, and resentment. To sacrifice yourself in the name of such an ideology is pitiful.
To teach young women to sacrifice themselves to it is wicked.
Funny about that thread and quantum entanglement. Sure seems to break the “signals can’t go faster than light rule.” But a lot of physicist say no it does not.
It is good to see someone from my side defending Palin or at least calling out the media on the way they obsess and then trash her.
But there is one side to this that needs to be put in perspective and that is the humor of the whole Palin thing. Most of the posts and comments I have read on the blogs I frequent think Palin is just plain odd and the comments they make are much more humorous than hateful. I mean this goes past partisan politics. It’s a form of American entertainment. And there is no reason to think a Democrat out there wouldn’t get the same treatment.
Like: the “Palin IQuiterod”.
Or the piece written on Urbaniak
http://urbaniak.livejournal.com/207036.html
I take your point about it being an “internal” change and, as we know,that’s where all change starts. But if it stays there, as much of this internal change looks to do, it matters little to the society as a whole. As you well know, the price of externalizing internal change is so high that most opt for silence instead.
I haven’t read the Palin post by Ms Socks or the comments, yet. I intend to.
But just a quick thought on Palin hatred. We know for many on the left, Palin does embody every touchstone of leftist hate. I think they especially hate the fact that while she is smart, tough and accomplished, she does not fit into their mold or anyone else’s. She’s very tough to stereotype unless you make up the lies whole cloth.
Let us also remember that the left’s de-humanizing treatment of Palin and her family is in a deeper sense a de-humanizing treatment of all people with which leftists disagree. It seems that it’s not enough for them to just disagree, they have to hate and tear down the opposition also. A reflection sad on them. But I am sure that such venom will be henceforward applied to any and all right leaning opposition.
As for her running for president. While she would be a great catalyst to energize people, I think she needs to study up on national and international affairs if she wants to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. She will have to be able to articulate a vision for our nation and a coherent philosophy that underlies her vision.
She is smart and determined, and she can do it. Lord knows she can easily be smarter than Obama and Biden. But in her debate with Biden, she allowed to go unremarked some jaw-droppingly stupid and untrue statments, which she should have pounced on. She will notbe able to let such things pass the next time around if she wants to win.
I am sure that she will have to be smarter and tougher than all of the other candidates because the full force of the democrat’s and their MSM allies politics of personal destruction will be directed against her. Ironically, it may be one of her most potent weapons because it will alienate many voters.
Dr. Socks has been fighting this fight since last Fall. All her posts on Palin are well worth reading. Her late October into early November series on “If you vote for Obama here’s what you’re voting for” is brutal.
If you’re interested in this sort of thing from the Left you can also take a look at Anglachel’s blog – sadly she’s not posting much any more but for months she was on fire with posts about Palin, classism, and the Blogger Boyz. I can pretty much guarantee that Anglachel’s economic outlook will cause any conservative’s head to explode but watching her dissect the snobbery of Obama liberals and Institutional Feminism is more than worth a little cranial derangement.
Another source is The New Agenda. I don’t read them often but they also understand the idiocy of those who claim to be feminists letting themselves be used as attack dogs against Palin for Obama.
Does this presage a political change process? Perhaps for some of the commenters but almost certainly not for Dr. Socks or Anglachel. My impression from reading them for about a year now is that they are dedicated philosophical progressives and dedicated philosophical feminists and so are most of their commenters. They hate Obama partly because he is not truly a progressive by their definition and partly because he’s a sexist pig. They defend Palin because they’re Real Feminists who understand that *sexist* denigration of any woman is unacceptable. In this they are sisters under the skin to Little Miss Attila and her understanding of the American sharia at work in the Letterman “jokes”.
Tim P Says:
July 6th, 2009 at 10:14
I’ve often wondered if that was what all the winking was about in that debate. I don’t remember her winking in any of her other public appearances and speeches.
An alternative explanation is, as the VP candidate, she was bound to support and parrot McCain’s positions. Maybe the winking could have been a signal like some POWs have done.
I look forward to seeing what Palin looks like unattatched to McCain or his people. I felt like maybe they had her restrained to a certain extent.
On a side note, I had just checked back on this site to read any updates, got up to get a bowl of cereal, walked back to the desk a couple of times (I am a pacer) and looked down to see a scorpion near where I was walking in sock feet. Man I hate scorpions!
I first saw the Reclusive Leftist post linked at Grouchy Conservative Pundits.
I didn’t read it then, but later when I saw it linked at American Digest,
I read the post and a number of the comments.
I’m not a leftist or a feminist, but I have to say that it is an outstanding post and there are some truly remarkable comments.
Pleez can we has preview? 🙂
Dr. Socks, the blogger in question for this topic. is a fascinating case.
One one hand, as Elise notes, Socks really goes after Obama with several sharp, appropriate sticks, and she remains true to feminist principles of defending Palin, a woman unfairly and viciously attacked in part for being an uppity woman.
On the other hand, as Occam and Oblio note, Socks and her commenters fall into the black hole of “It’s all the fault of patriarchy.” If women are hating on women, it’s got to be men’s fault.
But at least these women are noticing some dissonance. That’s where I started after 9-11.
Yes, huxley, it makes me optimistic to see any kind of light bulb going on over a leftist’s head, even if it’s a low-wattage Christmas tree bulb. You gotta start somewhere.
I read Socks and about 370 comments.
Couple of observations:
Some of these folks think zero is bringing the party to the RIGHT. Too right for them, by golly.
That will tell you something.
Blaming the patriarchy for women’s inability to not savage Palin would be funny if it did not smear women’s intellectual independence, with feminists doing the smearing.
The following did not get through moderation last night and probably won’t, ever, so I’ll redo it here.
Tammy Bruce said organized feminism exists to serve progressivism. If women’s issues are a useful tool to promote progressivism, women’s issues are important. If not, not And, in some circumstances, women and their issues will be thrown under the bus if they conflict with progressive progress.
Bruce was turfed out of the LA NOW for insisting that the OJ thing was about a women abused and murdered by her husband. It was more useful for progressives to frame it as a poor black guy done down by The Man for daring to touch white flesh. Bruce lost.
There are three rape cases in the news at Duke. One was the lax hoax. One was Jermaine Burch who raped one woman and then another while out on bail. The third was the sickening Frank Lombard, an adminsitrator at Duke.
Which one got the ink? The potbangers? Faculty outrage? NAACP and Black Panther attention? Feminists’ outrage?
Right. The one that didn’t happen. Because it had the right narrative. Rich white guys, jocks, poor black woman. Burch is black, his first vic white. Don’t know about the second. Duke, as an institution, and the feminists, yawned. Wrong narrative.
So, while Socks is making an honest effort, she misses the point. Palin is a threat to progressivism and so must be destroyed by any means necessary. The ease with which the hate is ginned up is disturbing, but it’s deliberate. What is unpleasant to contemplate is the number of folks who so easily buy into it.
That it contradicts what feminism is supposed to be is a detail not worth discussing. Because that is not important. Feminism is not important and women are not important, except as tools for the struggle.
Wolla Dablo the story you told about the treatment given in the USA and I might add worldwide to two different families one the Kennedy’s Democratic aristocrats and the other the Palins Republican bedrock exemplifies just what is wrong with America and the Western world today.
The Kennedy’s who grew wealthy by gangster bootlegging in the 20’s under their godfather Joe who was of Irish immigrant stock and a rabid hater of the UK and also a supporter of Hitler and a rabid opponent of America’s involvement in WWII. However despite this they are treated like America’s uncrowned Royalty and beyond the Law and any criticism. The Palins are vilified and the Law is used and is willing to trump up charges against them .
You have only yourselves to blame USA your dumb dumb cretinous celebrity culture worship has brought you to this and now you will have to suffer the consequences.
Many people have pointed out Obambi’s faults weaknesses criminal associations lies and stupidity. But protected by the same stupid MSM and co conspirators in the Democratic party and Republicans who have been hounded to death for years the USA rolls on with its head in the sand to its inevitable demise.
While Dr. Socks makes some good points about the Palin hatred there is one comment in her column that I find bothersome:
“. . . I personally wish that Christianity would evaporate from the face of the earth . . .”
So she is, in at least one aspect, still narrow-minded.
Perhaps Palin-hatred is not as mysterious and irrational as it might seem. Some time ago, while studying Islamic genocide and oppression of dhimmis I was struck by instance after instance of what could only be described as an Islamic practice of human sacrifice. Dr. Robert Godwin, over at One Cosmos, began related discussions and turned me on to René Girard, a French historian, literary critic, and anthropological philosopher. Dr. Girard provides an explanation of the scapegoat mechanism as the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion and as a ubiquitous device by which communities control internal violence that arises from mimetic rivalry and the intra-communal hatreds and hostilities that mimetic rivalry generates.
Time is short so I’ll be brief. Palin-derangement syndrome is both frightening and fascinating when observed with Girard’s scapegoat mechanismand mimetic theoryin mind. Even the insane libels, imaginations and projections about sexual perversions charged against the Palins can be anticipated in the frenzied character assassination of Sarah Palin. It seems we are observing the escalating fury precedent to a human sacrifice. I would not be surprised that if Gov. Palin had not chosen to withdraw from center of the storm that she and/or her family might suffer real violence as a result of this phenomena. This is the Old Religion. It does not surprise me that Palin-derangement syndrome, like Bush Derangement Syndrome arises among the unchurched, those who are most distant in our society from a hearing of the Gospels and the Gospels’ powerful anti-scapegoating message.
Neo-Neocon: good doctor, your observation about anti-Semitism above is very much on point. The scapegoat is chosen ironically because of its perceived inherent goodness and because of it can be isolated and because the risk of reciprocal violence is low. I recall, in “Violence and the Sacred” (I think?) Girard’s discussion of Jesus as the perfect anthropological scapegoat victim and, in the absence of Jesus, how Jews of the Pharisaical tradition become come the next best target for scapegoating because of their perceived goodness. This can explain why the Neitzcheans selected Europe’s Jews to be the primary victims of the Holocaust. If true, America’s Jews should find David Axerod’s invocation of the scapegoating mechanism as a means of destroying Sarah Palin at this particular moment in American history quite unnerving …
I’ll try to check and provide references as time permits.
Nyomythus, did Jesus run over your dog or something?
Occam’s Beard provides the overriding insight in the first comment. To many women, feminism is but an accessory to their basic liberal outfit. Palin doesn’t go with the dress.
Mr. O’Malley provides a fascinating possibility going deeply. Even though such things are always speculative, not verifiable, it is often useful to try to view events through different prisms and see what jumps out. That one is truly scary.
See, this is why I come here. Neo’s salon compares favorably with the live variety.
Its like we are witnessing a morality coup by the left, where its thought that good and evil swapping places would solve internal conflicts and the feelings of judgement of the deviant. As if changing the game of golf to high score wins would by default make the inexperienced player the better golfer.
Turns out that reality wont cooperate in this scheme. Because even the most die hard leftist hitch hiking on a desolate highway at night, would overwhelmingly have to admit a preference to being picked up by Sarah Palin and her buddies as opposed to Barak Obama and his buddies.
Sarah Palin reminds them too much of this massive flaw at the core of their professed ideology.
Richard Aubrey — Yes, while reading Socks, I sure thought of Tammy Bruce and her exit from NOW.
The feminists of the 1970s broke from the sexism of the New Left, but once feminist leaders assured themselves of a place at the table running things, it became solidarity forever again, and the concerns of non-left women went right under the bus.
Feminists often make the utopian appeal that if women were in charge, the world would automatically be a better place. One need only examine the behavior of feminists and feminist organizations to see the absurdity of that claim.
I read Reclusive Leftist’s blog. I agree with OB’s and others’ key observation that a (sad) presumption of evil patriarchy is the glue that binds for many in that group. If that’s true and the anecdotal seems to point that way, the quest for clarity is obviously doomed from the outset (it’s the wrong premise stupid) and the discussion essentially degenerates, at least for me, into a web of well articulated stuff with no real place to go. Reclusive Leftist herself sets the tone for a cool, hip discussion upfront with snazzy phrases such as *my own gig* and *Purity Balls*, and so forth. And, of course, many in that ‘commentariat’ pick that up right away and begin to engage in their unspoken competition to be just as cool, just as hip (cf. *absofuckinglutely*, *blow that correlation*, *fever swamp*). Sorta gives me a creepy feeling of looking in on the rituals of a cult doing bounding rituals rather than reading the thoughts of free human beings.
that should be ‘bonding rituals’
I think part of the hatred too is that Palin comes from the paleoconservative wing of the Right which has always been home to the extreme white Christian identity side — in fairness and defense of paleoconservatism I believe most of them loathe these few that tarnish the whole, but on micro levels it’s something they are inter-wedded with and find some ‘polite’ common ground for when it should be intolerable — I’m from the South and I understand the South. This is what drove me to the Left as a young man, and why I’ve come back to fight Leftist and Rightist bigotry today … happily parked in the center between neoconservatism and classical liberalism, unmesmerized by the templates and talking points of both the Democrats and the Republicans, though listening to Democrats is much more irritating than listening to Republicans, in general, so if my car is parked in the center it’s facing toward the right.
JohnC
In a later post, rl posts a letter from a Hillaryg about how she got sucked into Palinhate. “bonding” was very much a part of it.
“hip”. what you needed to believe to be in with the kewl kids. in-group joke.
I’m glad at least a few on the left are capable of seeing the disconnect between what they claim to believe, and how they act. Bashing Mrs. Palin and her husband and kids… even Obama said, family should be off limits.
apperantly, they believe he only meant leftwingers families. It’s already costing him, in small ways maybe.
I’m an old style Reagan conservative, my wife is a blue dog democrat, our daughter who’s ten, is already asking questions about this. My wife is deeply resentful about the way the democrats are treating Sarah and enraged about them going after Trig. She wouldn’t and didn’t vote for Obama if you pulled a gun on her, and our little girl is picking up on Dad’s fondness for the governor. She doesn’t vote yet, but… this whole mess has cost them two votes, my wife is now independent, and when our daughter votes she’s keenly aware now, some people will bash a woman around if it suits them,,
Both feeling betrayed by the democrats with little enfluence from me. Both,.. see Obama for the sexist jerk, and enabler of sexist jerks he is.
At the least this proformence is creating many a new independent, (formerly democrat) voter who is looking to pay them back. My wife’s family is about 75% female, and all democrat, or… at least they were, not now. Some dead enders hang on blindly to the koolaid pitcher, but most are angry, and are now questioning many of the old lines from the DNC. They were democrats out of family tradtion, never looking too close,. or thinking much about it. Their family still living off the old FDR saved the universe tales from great grand pap.
not anymore.
The real legacy of this, may be, to awaken politically those who had always been asleep, voting from habit not conviction. Even my mother in law, ranted about an issue,.. and I asked,.
“why are you a democrat,.. that’s a conservative position?”
silence, then, “it is NOT!.. ”
A quick education, showing her the democrat website’s positions on various subjects, and the GOP’s.. she was gobsmacked, always assuming that the dems hadn’t changed since 1967, not paying attention at all. This lying about the governor has awakened many a slumbering blue dog.. that is their legacy..
Which they’ll be extremely sorry for, come election time. I don’t think anyone really sees how deep the fallout will be from this.
Trimegistus
Nyomythus, did Jesus run over your dog or something?
There’s only scant and second-hand evidence that a prophet name Jesus, as many seem to understand it, ever existed –and even if h did and was born o a virgin birth, parthenogenesis isn’t impossible all the so-called gods all 10,000+ of them escape vaginal canal (much like the filthy old men that made it all up), and rose from the dead with seems to have been a common occurrence of the time, the leap to divinity is a non sequitur extraordinaire and ”contemptuous to the struggle and achievement of human history”, of the only intelligent beings that there is, in the only world that there is; we and this one. Stop the wish thinking and deal with reality!
feminism was just another pretext for leftist agitators to stir up the potentially disaffected as a vehicle to advance leftism
The Left used Feminism alright. But the ideas of Feminism to this classic liberal w/conservative traits are valid and powerful. I guarantee that the amazingly brave female dissenters of Iran are the result, directly or indirectly, of Feminism. Feminism shakes the one of the pathologies of Islam of the rabid fundamentalist type. It is one of the reasons they want to destroy the West.
ditch the religious right[from Republican Party] they will follow by default and if not they can kiss our ass.
The GOP should not “ditch” any group. Republicans need to adhere to the inclusiveness of Reagan. If the GOP will return to the Reaganesque principles of limited government, a free market economy and a strong national defense instead of focusing on fundamentalist versions of morality the religious right in the GOP will not be a problem. It’s all in where you choose to be. Religious folk in the GOP need to realize that promotion of Reaganesque principles will inevitably lead to a heightened morality in the GOP specifically and America generally.
Girls, girls, time to grow up and take charge of your own lives, for good or ill, and stop blaming everything up to and including bad weather on the “patriarchy.”
A very good comment.
Palin could trounce him in 2012
Yes, she could — because you can never know how politics will turn out. Right now I think she has made a mistake but there are few mistakes that cannot be overcome.
As you well know, the price of externalizing internal change is so high that most opt for silence instead.
The Left has been our own version of terrorism of the social type. Artists, writers, publishers, entertainers and professionals in many disciplines have been forced to be silent. But they can vote. The problem here is that they have in many cases actually internalized the false memes of those that have repressed them.
the left’s de-humanizing treatment of Palin and her family is in a deeper sense a de-humanizing treatment of all people with which leftists disagree.
A hell of a good comment. Does the commentor have a degree in Philosophy? If not an honorary degree is hereby bestowed by Grackle University.
I look forward to seeing what Palin looks like unattached to McCain or his people. I felt like maybe they had her restrained to a certain extent.
Been wondering this very thing myself.
Nyom wrote, “Stop the wish thinking and deal with reality!”
Reality is that Nyom is incurious. A dolt. A sexist wife beater… Should be in jail really 🙂
Anyways, I haven’t seen anything like it. I just about yelled at my TV again which I haven’t done in a decade watching Bob Beckel and another woman commenting on the Hannity show yesterday about Palin.
I have never seen so much absolute hatred. If somebody were to play that segment and nothing else they would think Palin is just a quitter as that word was said about 25 times. I kid you not.
Nevermind that Alaskans have their state back. Nevermind that Sarah will go on to do other things and defend herself and find a way to pay her legal bills. Nevermind that the slanderers can now be held accountable in the court of law. Nevermind that she changed the game on everybody so that:
1) Alaska government can govern
2) Alaska tax payer dollars are not spent on this stuff like it was.
3) Alaska governor staff are not spending 80% of their time responding to lunatics
There’s only scant and second-hand evidence that a prophet name Jesus, as many seem to understand it, ever existed–
Wow. That was a one sentence rant.
I think the Jesus-haters dwell on Jesus and his works more than the devoutly religious.
Just like pacifists seem to dwell on killing more than killers and pro-choice feminists have children and babies on their minds more than moms!
I think the things you despise come to own you more than the things you love.
http://tammybruce.com/2009/07/sarah-palins-4th-of-july-statement.html
As Tammy Bruce says:
This is not a statement from a woman who intends on moving into obscurity.
Except to sexist people who don’t have a grasp on the English language. 🙂
Nyomythus–although born into the Christian tradition, I have spent many decades studying all sorts of religions and philosophies; Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism–Hinayana and Mahayana, Hinduism, Animism, Wicca, Shamanism, Islam, Taoism, Confucianism, the ancient Classical and Pagan traditions etc., and I am convinced that there is a basic intuition of the Holy at the core of our Universe, and at the core of the human experience.
You may argue that all religions and philosophies and the moralities and ways of life they preach are totally made up and cynical human constructs, a way for those on top of societies to control those below them and to assure their power, a control system to channel human behavior in certain directions, and to lessen, somewhat, our human taste for chaos, aggression, theft, rape and murder.
I happen to think that, made up or not, these religions and philosophies and the moralities and ways of life they preach, if they suppress somewhat our human taste for chaos, aggression, theft, rape and murder, are generally (Islam being the glaring exception, since it actually encourages, increases and sacralizes our human taste for aggression, bloodshed and hatred of the “Other”) a good thing.
Neo,
Meg Whitman has the prescription for California and will be a candidate for gov.
Watch her for your future posts.
Watch the demonization begin.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2009/07/06/20090706will06.html
I think an even bigger hurdle for Palin, if she wants to run in a Republican primary, is that she has the Republican establishment firmly against her. In her rise in Alaska she offended both sitting Republican senators. In her VP bid, she offended the national party. I don’t think she can repair this breach, even if she were so inclined, by essentially begging for foregivness. She is in a position where she has to build an organization which can take over the party. Not impossible, but those who accomplish that don’t seem to win their election, cf., Goldwater, McGovern. If she can breakup the unholy alliance between ordinary feminists and leftists, allowing a more central coalition to form, that would be accomplishment enough, in my mind, but I have learned to avoid optimism.
feminism was just another pretext for leftist agitators to stir up the potentially disaffected as a vehicle to advance leftism
Not in the beginning. People who consider feminism a bad idea today are talking about current Institutional Feminism which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party *and* seems to have lost its way with Third Wave stuff that I don’t entirely understand but that doesn’t seem to have much to do with what feminism was about back in 1970.
Even more important, people forget – and aren’t old enough to remember – what it was like for women before 1970. As hard as it is to believe today, the idea that all women – not just exceptional ones – should be able to pursue any field they were interested in and competent at was startling. The idea of equal pay for equal work – literally equal work not just same job title or comparable work – wasn’t universally accepted.
My mother was widowed when my brother and I are were 10 and 4. She went to college and got her teaching degree so she could support herself and us. In the early 70’s – not the 50’s, the 70’s – she was discussing some female character in a book with her high school seniors and one of the male students said that he thought when men and women did the same job, the woman should make less.
Feminism was a good thing and – in what I consider to be its correct form – is still a good thing. The problem is that the public face of feminism is liberal, Democratic feminism. Thankfully, that’s not the only feminism there is.
Wolla Dalbo
Your confusing the work of the Enlightenment with religion.
Elise, I wasn’t clear. Feminism was always a vehicle for leftist agitation; I was in the belly of the beast at Berkeley when feminism got rolling. That’s not to say that there weren’t legitimate grievances, just as in the civil rights movement, but feminism like civil rights most certainly was pushed by leftists as a vehicle for agitation.
Occam, I was in the feminist movement when it got rolling. The goddess only knows what you were up to in Berkeley but in Houston we were grass roots, consciousness raising, want a decent job feminists. The most agitating thing I or any of the other women I knew did was to call our State legislators and ask them to support the ERA.
I’m quite willing to stipulate that feminism eventually became wedded to ideas like supporting countries that had been ground under the heel of European male oppression (without giving any thought to the fact that most of those countries treated women like dirt) but that wasn’t my feminism or the feminism of the women I knew in the movement. As far as I can remember, it wasn’t even the feminism of Ms. magazine when it first started out. I blame it on all that Third Wave stuff but that may just mean I’m officially a curmudgeon.
I daresay everyone here is a feminist by the standards of supporting equal pay for equal work and opposing violence against women. Those were the two general messages that reached the public plus Ms. magazine.
However, seventies feminism splintered off from the sixties New Left and its leaders had lost none of their revolutionary fervor. They questioned the place of women within the movement and the sexist tenor of the movement, but not the movement itself.
Check out Robin Morgan’s original 1970 sourcebook of feminism: Sisterhood is Powerful. It’s a disturbing, even crazy, document of revolution. Among other things it contained a fantasy called the S.C.U.M. Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men) by Valerie Solanas who later attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol. Solanas is still a bizarre folk-hero to radical feminists.
Like it or not, this is where today’s feminism came from — the swamps of the New Left. And it shows.
Even more important, people forget – and aren’t old enough to remember – what it was like for women before 1970.
I strongly recommend the remarkable TV series about America in the early sixites, Mad Men.
My sister can’t even watch the show because it is so unpleasant to see how women were treated then.
Thanks, huxley, that was exactly my observation, that feminism was essentially a leftist schismatic movement.
I can well believe it was different in Houston, but in Berkeley feminism’s leftist origins and commitment were painfully apparent. Feminists, SDS, and Black Panthers ran pretty much in parallel politically.
Feminism’s leftist orientation wasn’t an after-market bolt-on; it was their on day one, although it may not have been apparent everywhere.
Back then Robin Morgan came to my campus and organized the women students into taking over the administration building. Those were the days.
I questioned one of the agitators who came with Morgan that maybe this would damage the school, and got back “This school doesn’t deserve to survive if it blocks our demands” full in the face.
Feminists, SDS, and Black Panthers ran pretty much in parallel politically.
Exactly.
Sorry, “their” above should’ve been “there.”
Damn homophones, and intruding work!
“You might say that Palin-hatred represents the perfect storm, the confluence of flashpoints regarding class, education, beauty, sexuality, Christianity, and female ambition.”
Neo, I’m sure you’ve touched on it in previous posts, but omitted from your list of flashpoints is, IMO, the factor which underlies all of the others: Abortion.
As one commenter at Reclusive Leftist said, Palin, by virtue of showing off her family on stage, and on top of that, having a down-syndrome baby up there, how dare she? Palin made these women feel judged for the decisions they made, decisions for which they already felt guilt and remorse. Or rather, they were judged by their own consciences.
Sara, by virtue of
Feminists, SDS, and Black Panthers ran pretty much in parallel politically.
Are you trying to say “feminists, Vietnam War protesters, and civil rights activists ran pretty much in parallel politically” or are you trying to say “W.I.T.C.H, SDS, and Black Panthers ran pretty much in parallel politically”?
Not all 1970s feminism was driven by Robin Morgan any more than all Vietnam War protest was driven by Tom Hayden or all civil rights protest was driven by Huey Newton. The feminists in my lineage didn’t want to destroy universities, corporations, or the government: we wanted to participate.
This was NOW’s first mission statement, written by Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray:
The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.
I have gathered that it is a standard belief among many on the Right that women who considered themselves feminists in the 1970s were either destructive political radicals themselves or were unwitting dupes of such radicals. I certainly cannot do anything to disabuse those who believe it of such a notion. But perhaps you can understand that it’s unlikely you’re going to convince me I was too dumb to understand how I was being hoodwinked.
Elise.
So you weren’t hoodwinked. Buy yourself a cup of coffee.
He’s talking about those who were and are.
Most people who opposed the Vietnam War and recently the Iraq War or supported the Civil Rights movement were simply liberal Americans with good intentions. Likewise the feminist movement that arose in the 1970s.
Nonetheless, the leadership driving those movements was far more radical and leftist. SDS, ANSWER, SNCC. Even Martin Luther King was much more of a leftist than most people realize.
Go to Betty Friedan’s wiki entry and note that she came straight out of Marxist, leftist, labor circles.
Elise, I didn’t mean to give offense, but frankly, yes, I think the feminist movement had then and has today hard-core leftists driving the bus.
Mission statements and such are all well and good, but actions speak louder than words. Consider this (rhetorical) question: when has organized feminism ever come down on an enemy of America (or capitalism)? I’m unaware of any instance.
It’s OK to have been hoodwinked, btw. I think all of us here have been, at one time.
My own transformation began in a small meeting in college to organize a demonstration, where Angela Davis made clear that the public posturing was solely for PR consumption, and that she couldn’t care less about the putative issue, except as a means to an end: to agitate, and thereby to “mobilize the masses,” and ideally to provoke a violent police reaction and get some heads broken.
The scales fell from my eyes with what I was sure was an audible “clang.”
Occam.
The non-hoodwinked would have been out there with the agitators, hoodwinked or not. (But actually hoodwinked).
Angela Davis and her ilk were speaking to the in-crowd. They expect others to approve, which they do.
Then they lie to the gullible.
I think the feminist movement had then and has today hard-core leftists driving the bus.
Then maybe the driver needs to be changed, but don’t burn the bus. As to the value of the ideas of Feminism: All you have to do is ask yourself, “Would I rather be a woman living before the Feminist movement or a woman living today.” See how that works? The movement may be rife with unpalatable figures but Feminism has changed society for good and for the good.
The idea of equality for women is a separate thing from some of those individuals who may be leading the Feminist movement at this time, or in the 70’s in California, etc. The Left has always sought to align itself with whatever noble causes happen to be around — the better to give itself credibility with fair-minded folks. But the causes remain noble for all that.
I see signs that the women of Islam are now picking up on the idea of Feminism. Their bravery during the recent dissent in Iran was inspiring. Millions of Muslim women have that image in their minds now.
That was part of my shock: she obviously considered me in that group.
I didn’t break completely at that time, but a philosophical tectonic plate palpably shifted.
Occam. I’ve been scalesless for decades. Yet, from time to time with only a little malice aforethought, some groups have thought I was one of the choir.
Boy, what they say to the choir!
And what they claim to the gullible.
grackle, feminism joins the labor, peace, and civil rights movements in having been hijacked and/or instigated by leftists as a vehicle. That’s not to say that the movements lacked any validity, but that each was/is heavily infested with hard-core leftists who are there to advance their own agenda.
After David Carradine died, I rented Bound for Glory — Carradine’s award-winning portrayal of Woody Guthrie. The film contains a climactic moment when Guthrie gives up his high-paying radio job because he won’t play bland music to suit the corporate sponsors, prefering instead his songs for the downtrodden workers.
The true story was that Guthrie had declared himself a Communist, was playing regularly for Communist gatherings and was writing a column several times a week for the official American Communist newspaper, The Daily Worker. Guthrie left the radio station, owned by a populist New Deal Democrat by the way, after the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, because the radio station did not its staff making justifications for the Stalin’s new partnership with Hitler. An entirely different story and far from flattering of the now-sainted Woody Guthrie.
Since the McCarthy years, the leftist, even outright Marxist-Communist, nature and connections of prominent liberal leaders has been airbrushed out of the picture. To suggest otherwise is to be condemned as an hysterical right-winger. But the facts are almost as bad as someone like Ann Coulter reports them.
There is the whole question of the effectiveness of tossing such bombs into the public discourse because it offends the majority of liberal Americans who supported varous causes out of conscience.
As Occam said, “That’s not to say that the movements lacked any validity, but that each was/is heavily infested with hard-core leftists who are there to advance their own agenda.”
Huxley.
Pete Seeger did the same kind of thing, including the turnabout after Operation Barbarossa started.
Reversals in position occasioned by such events as Operation Barbarossa are a useful way of discerning the dupes from the hard-core apparatchiks.
It’s rather like phase-sensitive detection in electronic circuits. Shot noise is random, and so has no well-defined frequency. By modulating the signal of interest at a known frequency, and then detecting at that frequency, one can differentiate true signal from random noise. Only the former zigs and zags in perfect consonance with the modulation frequency. Anything not obligately locked in on the modulation frequency ends up zigging half the time when it should be zagging, leading to an out of phase contribution that exactly offsets in-phase ones, leading to no net detection.
I don’t entirely understand but that doesn’t seem to have much to do with what feminism was about back in 1970.
“Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.” – Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10
“A world where men and women would be equal is easy to visualize, for that precisely is what the Soviet Revolution promised.” – Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, Random House, 1952), p.806
most of what feminism CLAIMS to have stood for it never did, it co-opted the success of others, and just like obama and other left has totally hid its communist goals.
suffragetts were not feminists… they were suffragettes… from the earliest days they infiltrated any organizations and turned them towards the same cause.
most women dont know the history, they are too busy patting each other on the back for believing tons of BS.
there were tons of women who succeeded before ‘feminism’, we just dont celebrate them.
we celebrate margerete meade, who lied in her works and made up a lot with the goal of ligitimizing lukacks type education. along with kinsey another pip.
my grandmother was a research chemist… that is she did her work in the 30s.
problem was the before the 70s people had to prove they could do the job, it was a meritocracy. and yes, many belived that women couldnt do many jobs, they would have to earn it like the men.
however historically speaking any who tried hard enough earned the right. like emmy noether. why she isnt celebrated is because she wasnt a communist.
palin is not liked cause she is succeeding by merit. and they hate her because they like her.
and in case you want to argue the communist roots of modern feminism, i have tons of material and such.
“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” — Josef Stalin
and by using womens gullibility and their vanity and self delusions, they have turned it into a process to which each cultures women fall prey too.
when done, they have much less of what they wanted!!!!
“No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” — Interview with Simone de Beauvoir, “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975, p.18
and voila. they no longer have that choice…
Stress during pregnancy has detrimental effect on offspring
http://www.physorg.com/news144332350.html
Stress during pregnancy can have unfortunate consequences for children born under those conditions — slower development, learning and attention difficulties, anxiety and depressive symptoms and possibly even autism
and so doing the work for stalin, they hurt their own children to get lives with more meaning than mother hood cause a bunch of others convinced them..
thats all it took… (just as hitler writes how he targeted the same group… just as obama did too)
the feminists sided with obama because they are communist first. (ever notice how those states dont let us export it to them?)
“Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the Women’s Movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage.” — Sheila Cronan, “Marriage,” in Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism, p. 219
and voila, they put in all the same things that lenin did, and we are down the same road… free love was first in the soviet union, as was no fault divorce. as was centralized schools where women would put their kids to be indoctrinated while they went out for themselves.
after 2 to 3 generations of women abandoning their families in some compromise that doesnt work (i can list tons of stats), and doesnt make her happy, and facilitates removing the things she loves most, a social life, family around her, and more…
the whole thing has fallen apart and we are moving down the line to the soviet life the feminists promised. and if you look at that bouvier quote you will see it was way before the 70s
if you stood back and tried to descrive what the changes would lead to if you didnt use their rhetoric, you might realize that they are dividing the species into two permanent classes.
the over uber class, which is smart and talented and inter relates the way we used to in the more healthy manner. and a under class, in which the sexes both work and they are separated. free sex and all that makes it easy to mix them up for breeding more, and no culture makes them dumb as cattle, but more capable than robots.
[this is how far the vision is taking us since its never been updated. that is, witout the vision to see automation and robotics and space travel, with computers, they thought that the only way to utopia was to create a permanent state of stupid ferals who mate for physical selections (rather than smarts, culture, education, etc), and serve the needs of the uber class. the utopia they descrive is for them, not us]
Thanks, Art. (How I miss FredHJr. on issues such as this!)
Investigate the social policies of the early kibbutzes, where children were kept in a dorm away from their parents to break down family structure.
Paradoxically, but predictably, the kibbutz movement foundered on exactly this problem: parents in general, but women in particular, wanted to have their families near them, and to run their own households. Anyone who’s ever seen two women in one kitchen could have foreseen this!
feminism joins the labor, peace, and civil rights movements in having been hijacked and/or instigated by leftists as a vehicle. That’s not to say that the movements lacked any validity, but that each was/is heavily infested with hard-core leftists who are there to advance their own agenda.
Then we agree — I don’t like them any more than you do.
There is federal legislation in place to address and correct the injustices that gave rise “to the labor, peace, and civil rights movements” and Feminism too. Although I guess I never saw the need for a peace movement. Those folks always seemed to want peace for our enemies while our enemies made violence on us and our friends. I’m not much for turning the other cheek. “Hit back harder,” that’s what I say.
I am mostly content with the state of society these days except for affirmative action. It needs to stop, at least as it’s presently construed. In regards to better race relations it’s become counter productive. The civil rights movement lacks real injustice of the institutional kind — Obama is proof of that. You’ll always have individuals who want to hate someone but institutional discrimination has been eliminated as much as law can eliminate anything.
If I could freeze things the way they are now, correct that silly affirmative action pendulum that’s swung too far, I think we would have the best that life and history has to offer. We’ve gotten very close to that ideal state.
But I think Obama wants to start swinging a bunch of pendulums way over to the Left. If he’s not stopped, if he’s not opposed effectively, there’s going to be hell to pay.
That’s why I want a strong Republican Party that’s focused on principles of governance, on the Reagan model, instead of wanting to kick people out or allowing mountebanks to convince Republican voters that it’s better to vote Democrat or that duly nominated Republican Presidential candidates are not worthy of the voters’ enthusiasm.
I don’t think Sarah Palin is the kind that would tell someone to vote Democrat. I think she would aggressively campaign for Republicans even though she might not agree with them on every point. Maybe I’m reading my own desires into her but I can’t picture her as being anything but inclusive. That’s why I like her.
Oh! That’s you Assistant Village Idiot!
Thanks are due to the generous responding commenter for citing my comment of July 7th, 2009 at 7:51 am . But it seems I must thank a professional! I am honored by our approval but cautioned by your competence. 😉
.
Thank you AVI.
.
“Gandalf: Always remember Frodo, the Ring is trying to get back to its master”
Similarly,
at times it seems that the post-Christian West tries ever to return to the Old Religion.
.
It is my understanding that empirical research in psychology and neuroscience provide independent support for René Girard’s claims. I’ll quote Wikipedia:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Let’s explore this scapegoating mechanism and how it might inform us about the demonization of Sarah Palin. We can employ a few chosen quotes from How to Scapegoat the Leader” by Thomas A. Michael
http://www.ispso.org/Symposia/Melbourne/Michael.htm
Our crisis occurred from late the Fall of 2000 through September 11, 2001, with the electoral ascension of a political alliance that our Secular and Leftist elites were determined to view as illegitimate, through to the shocking events of 9/11. Note the Left and Secular elites’ hysterical reaction to the emergence of the Religious Right as part of the new governing political alliance. Recall also the desperate slur that Bush-Cheney were “selected – not elected”. Moreover, 9/11 broke the Secularist-Progressive eschatology. Strong Religion had returned and so it was no longer certain that religion was destined to pass from history like the Cheshire’s smile.
Here the collapse of the social order began with the perceived eclipse of the Secular and Leftist elites. The dangerous small group was the Evangelical Right, which was relentlessly equated with murderous Islamic Fundamentalists of 9/11. The dangerous individual was Pres. Bush, who according to “Truther” histrionics perpetrated 9/11. And according to the MSM Pres. Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq. The whole contrived controversies about Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding are part and parcel about “supposed attacks on the foundations of” American culture
David Axerod and crew worked furiously and substituted Gov. Palin for Pres. Bush on the morning after Gov. Palin’s 2008 Republican National Convention speech.
Note also the relentless insistence on the Left that Gov. Palin and family have engaged in egregious criminal sexual misconduct.
Consider the place of Texas and Alaska in American imagination. Both Pres. Bush and Gov. Palin are Evangelicals and disfavored “white” ethnics. Both Bush and Palin have noted accents. Both Bush and Palin are supposed to be of lesser intelligence. Both Bush and Palin are construed to be socially inept poor communicators and Pres. Geo. W. Bush is most obviously a “marginal insider” from the top of our social and political hierarchy
Note how members of the Republican elite and portions of the Republican base (Libertarians, PaleoCons, small government conservatives, fiscal responsibility conservatives among others) have joined in “circle around” the victims, Gov. Palin and Pres. Bush.
It will be interesting to observe how Gov. Palin’s “expulsion” from the land of the political living plays out. Time will tell as they say …
I absolutely agree with you, grackle.
For those who read and ponder these matters, we in the United States already have “the best that life and history [have] to offer.” Hands down.
The question is whether we can maintain this through the current pendulum swing. I’m an optimistic fellow but I’m not so sure. Much damage is being done and affirmative action is only one factor among several.
Freezing things is never an option.
Affirmative action = Reverse RACISM
Feminism = Gender Hate
Gay Rights = Demonisation of Heterosexuals
Liberal = PC, Green NAZI, left wing, multi culti, anti Christain, Islamophile Moonbat
Just look at how America has reacted in the last few days
1) A Black/ middle aged white woman perverted paedophilic drug addicted pop star who PURCHASED three WHITE children as playthings died of an overdose.
RESULT orgasmic nationwide grief and MSM meltdown.
2) A Republican Governor previously pilloried by the MSM and ‘libtards’ and the recipient of frivolous lawsuits by the same as well as disgusting attacks on her family quits.
RESULT Even MORE disgusting attacks on her and her family by the MSM and ‘libtards’ than before.
Is this the USA you are so proud of because now you know why no one in the world respects the USA any more you have no morals at all.
That’s the power of the MSM and the advertising industry for you, Pragmatist. Worse yet, they foisted a dreadfully inexperienced radical affirmative action hire on us as POTUS during a war with a genocidal enemy and a dangerous economic downturn. Just wait until we get the bill for that blunder.
One must say, that I’m not observing any, as in any at all, orgasmic nationwide grief about Michael Jackson at the “street level”. I’m not in LA, though.
Hmmm? Let’s try this form Wikipedia’s essay on the Matrix
OK
let’s do a little editing
The question is whether we can maintain this through the current pendulum swing. I’m an optimistic fellow but I’m not so sure.
I think we can at least mitigate the pendulum swing but we’ve got to stick together and act as one. Heeding a celebrity author who tells us to vote Democratic because she doesn’t like McCain, trudging morosely to the polls(or not going at all) because of disappointment from the nomination outcome and allowing a nation of potential Republicans witness the humiliation of the Chairman of the Republican National Committee won’t get us there. I would like to see the RINO neologism fade away. We have to stop doing ourselves harm before we can stop the Progressives from doing us harm.
Much damage is being done and affirmative action is only one factor among several.
Unless we can stop Obama, the Democrats and the Progressives we’ll never get rid of affirmative action. Not knowing what you mean I can’t speak to the “several” factors.
Freezing things is never an option.
I never said it was. I wrote, “If I could freeze things …” Everything is always in flux. Nothing ever wants to remain the same.
Affirmative action = Reverse RACISM
Agreed.
Feminism = Gender Hate
At it’s most extreme, yes. But there’s no doubt in my mind that women are better off now than before. I would not want the old way for my daughter.
Gay Rights = Demonisation of Heterosexuals
Here again, only at its most extreme. My personal attitude is that I am very tolerant of gay-ness(homosexuality is a term that seems to be considered pejorative these days) but I do not want yet another sector of the population to be anointed as a favored minority. I see no reason why they should not marry. I realize this will earn me some brickbats so fire away with reasoned debate — I have an open mind and stand ready to be convinced to another opinion by superior argument.
Liberal = PC, Green NAZI, left wing, multi culti, anti Christain, Islamophile Moonbat
I would substitute the term Progressive for “liberal” in the above.
Just look at how America has reacted in the last few days
1) A Black/ middle aged white woman perverted pedophiliac drug addicted pop star who PURCHASED three WHITE children as playthings died of an overdose.
RESULT orgasmic nationwide grief and MSM meltdown.
“MSM meltdown,” yes. “Orgasmic nationwide grief”? Not from me, not from you, not from many more, I suspect. There seems to be a fascination that has to do with the combination of his celebrity-hood, his abundant talent and his weirdness that has created the MSM meltdown. His whole life was a sick tragedy. He was a victim and became a victimizer in return. I think Neo can tell us what a common pattern this is.
2) A Republican Governor previously pilloried by the MSM and ‘libtards’ and the recipient of frivolous lawsuits by the same as well as disgusting attacks on her family quits.
RESULT Even MORE disgusting attacks on her and her family by the MSM and ‘libtards’ than before.
Letterman had to apologize. That’s progress of a sort. The continual attacks are an indication of their fear of her. They know she’s potentially a huge problem for them. They’ll do anything to discredit her. We have to support her. As long as she has our support they can wound but they can’t kill. The only question in my mind is: Is she strong enough to take it?
Is this the USA you are so proud of because now you know why no one in the world respects the USA any more you have no morals at all.
My morals are not your morals but they ARE morals. You don’t own morality. Respect for the USA will come when the USA repossesses a simple but illusive thing called “will.” But it’s not as bad as you think. A lot of folks all over the world would like to live here. We’ll know that it’s truly over when that changes.
I agree Grackle. This is no small point. Real Liberals are our friends even if they disagree with us on most policy issues. They stand up for democracy, real human rights, honest elections and free speech. We need them to argue with us so we can test each other’s ideas. And on occasion they are going to be right.
thats ok… turns out that a caller to al sharptons show decided to reveal something she knows, and thats sarah palin killed wacko jacko…
FEMALE CALLER (31:50): He (Michael Jackson) is truly the soundtrack of my life. I also have a theory about Sarah Palin as well and I’m going to put it out there on radio, hopefully someone can investigate.
But, I think maybe she did something to Michael Jackson. Maybe there’s a scandal there. Maybe she’s stepping down because something’s about to come out. I don’t know, but I’m gonna just put it out there on your show so we’ll see.
SHARPTON: All right, thank you for your call, Ashley. That’s interesting. I’ll put it out, we’ll see.
people are getting dumber by the day in the west and completely unfit to survive without the state providing everything including kibble.
Useless British university graduates
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197742/Graduates-failing-jobs-test—Employers-forced-leave-jobs-unfilled-quality-recruits.html
I argue with my socilist professor friend that he isnt preparing these post grads for a life in teh real world where their employers will expect them to follow through on their discoveries and create products and things….
well this is proof that they are not preparing them for a world where they can function. but a world where they can dysfunction (the neo function. like 70 is the new 20)
98% of what you need is still not enough
remember it isnt the poro guy who is short the cost of a meal that goes hungry, its the other guy short 5 cents that has to tighten his belt.
RESULT orgasmic nationwide grief and MSM meltdown.
actually this is not true… this is the image that we feel if we watch msm and believe their bs as if pravda is believable.
many places have reported that the whole huge thing about it was really only among the media elite and such. the majority of people couldnt give a rats but-t.
the crowd that was supposed to be a million turned out to be 50k…
talk about dissonance… not only between the elite and reality, but between pragmatist beleiving that the media was at all valid in their reporting of this and how that must reflect the people.
drives me nuts that peopl can have one conversation where they talk about the media being compromized and crappy, and then on another time, ignore that and work on another idea while doing so.
the victim victmiizer pattern is false… while it seems that way, in truth, we have the temperments we are born with…
the whole victim victimizer thing is a way of saying we are not responsible for who we are, but we are all victims of the circumstances of our lives and so can be excused for waht we do.
if this effect was true, in very short order every family would be completely abusive. or do they considert the obverse to be true too, that if you treat the person with a bad temperment they will become good?
does that work in real life? not at all, the number of lawsuits by parents who adopt kids and arent told what they are like and who abuse their own children and or are violent.
while things can skew those on the fence, and that can be used to create this illusion of the unbroken victim party, it doesnt stand up (except in sociology where most of that research is now poisoned by marxist ideology as the only truth).
the whole victim thing is so bad that this thread runs through all our propaganda, the same that women are superior, whites are inferior, men are oafs and doofuses, and other fixed points.
whats even more interesting is not whether the child was abused but whether the child was part of a traditinal family!!! that is the effects of being raised by a mother only (and one made absent by feminism), is a much larger prediction of whether the person will grow up and be abusive and act out to others.
All but three of 23 recent studies found some family structure effect on
crime or delinquency. Seven of the eight studies that used nationally
representative data, for example, found that children in single-parent or
other non-intact family structures were at greater risk of committing criminal or
delinquent acts. For example: A study using Add-Health data found that even after controlling for
race, parents’ education, and income, adolescents in single-parent families
were almost two times more likely to have pulled a knife or a gun on someone in
the past year. (Todd Michael Franke 2000)
so in essence, you can read and read and you will see that the children victimizded by feminism and liberal/soviet doctrins are the ones that turn out as sociopathic animals destined to always be the unter menchen (to use the original term).
Six of seven studies that looked at whether overall rates of single
parenthood affected average crime rates found that changes in family
structure were related to increases in crime. For example:
· A study that looked at the relation between divorce rates and out-of-wedlock birthrates and violent crime between 1973 and 1995 found that nearly 90% of the change in violent crime rates can be accounted for by the change in percentages of out-of-wedlock births. (Mackey and Coney 2000, p. 352)
· A study that looked at crime in rural counties in four states concluded,
“[A]n increase of 13% in female-headed households would produce a doubling
of the offense rate.” (Osgood and Chambers 2000, p. 103)
So it turns out that liberalism creates feral men who then go out and make victims of women. when heteronormative families create men who respect women and are so respectful they will change the culture to a bad one jsut cause the women want it, even if they dont want it and its irreversible.
“Results like these are a reality check for people such as Peggy Drexler (“Raising Boys Without Men”) who argue that it is only poverty, and not father absence, that hurts children. Boys are hardwired to grow into men. But they are not hardwired to grow into good family men. That’s a job for mothers and fathers working together.”
A survey of 108 rapists undertaken by Raymond A. Knight and Robert A. Prentky revealed the 60 percent came from female-headed homes,. 70 percent of those describable as ‘violent’ came from female-headed homes. 80 percent of those motivated by ‘displaced anger’ came from female-headed (single-parent) homes.
“No-Fault Divorce: Proposed Solutions to a National Tragedy,” 1993 Journal of Legal Studies 2, 19, citing R. Knight and R. Prentky, The Developmental Antecedents and Adult Adaptations of Rapist Subtypes, 14 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR 403-426 (1987).
so rather than make fewer rapists feminism makes more.
which makes sense. the social cooperative culture wuith respect once removed means that methods of mating that work and are still in us now can come out again. in the words of feminists we are no longer repressed from our animal natures. so we no longer select mates for more important things than orgasm ability, and men completely abandon selecting women for anything other than what they need them for (an average of 5 mins).
every single mother household is living the life of a child whose father was removed by others in social war.
WAR being the reason we are altruistic!!!!
Tribal war drove human evolution of aggression
http://www.physorg.com/news140174454.html
so if victims make victims, and a victim makes more than one, then the bias is towards everyone pissing on everyone else once they accept the license that this grants.
society breaks down as every victim tries to get justice from everyone else.
in this artificial reality, it becomes more lucrative to seach out victimization, and even act in a way that invites it, as long as one can blame another.
the poor person who can lie and claim victims can get more than they could get given their education and such thanks to indoctrination over edumacation.
Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families, according to a new study released Thursday. Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University tracked a sample of 6,000 males aged 14-22 from 1979-93. They found that those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being ncarcerated – even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence
were held constant.
Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation with the number of single parent families and the crime rate in a cities with a population over 100,000 regardless of the socioeconomics or racial composition of the city.
they also discovered that for every woman added to a police force civilian shootings by police goes up too.
“The greater the proportion of single-mother families in a neighborhood, the higher the delinquency rate.” Don Terry, “Killed by Her Friends, Sons of the Heartland,” New York Times, 18 May 1994, A1. Cited on page48 ofThe Abolition of Marriage, by Maggie Gallagher
A study conducted by two sociologists, Robert J. Sampson and W. Byron Groves, who analyzed data from hundreds of British communities found that in neighborhoods with a high percentage of single-parent homes the amount of crime was significantly higher. … In a study by “So powerful was the connection between disrupted families and crime that, once family status was controlled for, neither race nor income had any effect on the crime rate.” Nor did dropout rates in a Latino neighborhood studied by Josefina Figueroa-McDonough, “Residence, Dropping Out, and Delinquency Rates, Deviant Behavior 14, (1993):
Among all possible contributing factors, “only divorce rates were consistently associated with suicide and with homicide rates.”
David Lester, “Time-Series Versus Regional Correlates of Rates of Personal Violence,” Death Studies (1993): 529-534.
“A recent study of 25,000 incarcerated juveniles made by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that 72 percent of them came from broken homes. Seventy-four percent of the nation’s children live with two parents, 26 percent with one parent. A child growing up in a single-parent home (usually female-headed) is seven times as likely to be a delinquent.
Statistics from the Los Angeles Times, 19 September, 1988.
“A study of Stanford University’s Center for the Study of Youth Development in 1985 indicated that children in single-parent families headed by a mother have higher arrest rates, more disciplinary problems in school, and a greater tendency to smoke and run away from home than do their peers who live with both natural parents – no matter what their income, race, or ethnicity.”
Education Reporter, December, 1986 Cited in Amneus
“Criminologists have long used race and poverty as key variables for explaining crime rates. However, researchers at the Univ. of Maryland find that when differences in family structures are taken into account, crime rates run much the same in rich and poor neighborhoods and among black, white, and Hispanic populations.”
Douglas A. Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura, “Social Structure and Criminal Victimization,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 25 [Feb., 1988], 27-52
“In a 1987 study at the University of Toronto, sociologists noted particularly high rates of delinquency among female teens in two kind of households: 1) single-parent households; 2)households in which the mother is employed in a career or management position.
Ibid., p.3. Cited in Amneus, The Garbage Generation, page 230
so the victim thing is part of the feminism thing, which is part of the communism thing.
you should see what feminisms sexual education stuff is teaching and why. all one has to do is read abotu lukaks and hungary and one would know that by teaching sex ed the state baits teh children with forbidden fruit against the parents. and voila, the staet then has a reason to up taxes for prisons, day care, psych treatments, and a long list of social crisis.
…”Sex between young teens and older individuals increases with the number of famiy disadvantages…[The teens] lived in a family structure other than one headed by two biological or adoptive parents”…
…”Trends created an index of family disadvantage. We found that as the number of family disadvantages increases, the likelihood of sex between young teens and older individuals increases correspondingly…”
Figure 4, summarized below, showed the prevalence of sex between young teens and older individuals, by number of family disadvantages (family disadvantages include low parent education, family structure other than two biological parents, and son/daughter of a teen mother.–Source: National Survey of Family Growth 2002.
“Among females, 7% of those with no family disadvantages first had sex with older individuals when they were 15 years old or younger, 12% with one disadvantage, 20% with two disadvantages, and 23% with all three disadvantages. Among males, 2% of those with no family disadvantages first had sex with older individuals when they were 15 years old or younger, 5% with one disadvantage, 8% with two disadvantages, and 10% with all three disadvantages.”
but all yuo hear is the propaganda…. men are bad and all are pedophiles (but why make incompetent women whose biology has them seek out older protection and safety?)… victimization is bad, but why create a culture that cranks out victims and mentals in high amounts due to lack of culture and stability.
heck..
here is how blind we are…
if CARE really cared, they would not send corn or food, they would send farm equipment.
that is, you dont save starving people by giving them food, and destroying their economy by flooding the market with end product that negates the whole economy behind it. you flood it with machines and such which then create the economic cycle.
they WANT them to starve.
they WANT us to not like our lves so that we dont want to have children.
they WANT society to ahve so many sociopaths and so many bad people that we belive we cant be goverend by anything otehr than extreme force.
and the list goes on.
and worse the duped care more about whether they were duped than whether admitting to it and such woult stop it.
that is 10 people let the con artist rob another ten peopel because they care more about their image and self confidence than they care about other people.
elise… this is true of you. you were duped, you dont want to be duped. if you accepted you were duped and done so by the best, then you coudl help others not be duped. instead you enable more duping by creating false dichotomies and such.
heck… the point is that social enginieer and such, which this is all about. is experimentaion on people in mass wihtout their permission (other than tacitly implied by their desiring an otcoem and not realizing the agreement they are making. its a contract signed invalidly).
sigh sigh sigh.
Forty years ago, 90 percent of children were reared to maturity by their married, natural parents. Today, that figure is 68 percent. More than one in four children are living in a sole-parent family or step/blended family from which one natural parent is absent, nearly always the natural father. The proportion of children born to unmarried mothers has increased six-fold since the 1960s. Rates of child abuse are eight to 10 times higher in step/blended and sole-parent families than in natural, two-parent families. Divorce has increased four-fold since 1960. About 46 percent of marriages will end in divorce, and about 50,000 children are affected by divorce each year. Cohabitation has increased rapidly, but cohabiting relationships are even more unstable than marriage. Cohabitation does not lead to stronger marriages. Six percent of children live with cohabiting parents. Forty years ago, 10 young male adults out of every 100,000 of the population killed themselves. Today, it is 40 out of every 100,000. Suicide is associated with loss of family bonds, social isolation, drugs and unemployment. “The damage done by the decline of marriage” The Age (AUSTRALIA), By BARRY MALEY Saturday 8 December 2001.
The sons of single parents are more prone to commit suicide as adults than others, and daughters are more likely to have abortions and more children. The risk of suicide doubled if sons were raised by single parents. When compared with people who grew up in a traditional family with both parents, children of single parents are hospitalized more often due to injuries and poisonings. The sons of single parents also commit more crimes. Licentiate in Medicine Anu Sauvola studied some 11,000 young people, two thousand of whom came from families with one parent or guardian. The lives of the children are followed from before birth to 32 years of age. The study revealed that the family background of childhood is connected to problems in adulthood, such as physical illnesses, premature death and crime. Helsinki Sanomat: “Children raised by single parents more prone to difficulties in adulthood” April 20, 2001
oh.. so confince the women that they are going to make a greater society than the men… they get all puffed up and vanity gets them to abandon their children to abusive strangers and harm them mentally.
we get a crappy society… like sodom and gomoorah (and our secularism makes us belive there is no wisdom in this)…
and ultimately…
The sons of single parents are more prone to commit suicide as adults than others, and daughters are more likely to have abortions and more children.
we put ini place a system that creates the problems that we are trying to solve
grant it saint hood so no one can remove it, thereby making institutioal the problems.
and so now you have a cash machine till the people can no longer be bled.
Three things and I’ll bow out – since I’m obviously still too firmly under the thrall of my dupers to see matters clearly.
First, yes, some women succeeded prior to 1970 but only the exceptional ones. I reject absolutely the contention that women who have succeeded since then have done so only because they are not required to be competent.
Second, all those of you who think the way Artfldgr does will find this post – which explains why the neocons *really* support the protesters in Iran – quite familiar.
Second, Sarah Palin is a feminist. She says so herself. Make of it what you will.
Adagny Says:
“I have gathered that it is a standard belief among many on the Right that women who considered themselves feminists in the 1970s were either destructive political radicals themselves or were unwitting dupes of such radicals.”
I’m not sure it is standard. I’ve always thought it happened in phases.. after the fact (which is somewhat akin to your description). Something along the lines of; free thinking feminism, to left wing, to PC, to partisan democrat. Many on the right are often confused because the rhetoric keeps bits and pieces from each stage (re: why do they talk like radical leftists… but support the democrats?*) and this brings up the subject. From how often it has been discussed, I don’t believe there is a standard opinion on it (other than the confusion I described).
* this was much more confusing during the Clinton admin than now. As the democrats were more moderate…
Elise Says:
“Second, all those of you who think the way Artfldgr does will find this post – which explains why the neocons *really* support the protesters in Iran – quite familiar.”
You’ll have to decode it for us. Why do they *really*? From the comments I suppose there has to be some nefarious evil reason… but from my pov they’re organizing groups to overthrow an anti liberal regime… Because as ‘the right’ and conservatives have often noted, liberal democratic governments don’t tend to be beligerant to the US (re: the [true] cliché about democracies not fighting wars against each other).
The left (and the actual right btw), at its root, still sees the US ‘system’ (patriarchy, economic system / ‘capitalism’, whatever) as the actual evil in the world… ergo, the neocons and ‘right’ must be up to no good. It is a given.
A question: If divorce gives rise to many deleterious effects on society doesn’t that more or less confirm “the victimized have a tendency to become victimizers” concept?
I think abuse during childhood affects different people in different ways. I believe there are few to whom childhood abuse is not psychologically affective in some way although it may not manifest itself in classic victimizer behavior. There are no doubt many who rise above an abused childhood.
There have been a couple of comments on this thread that have mentioned René Girard and his writings. I Wikied him and found his theories to be interesting and worth further investigation when I get time. The things you learn on blogs … Mimetic aspects of human existence fits in with classic psychological theory — as in the victimized have a proclivity to become victimizers. We first learn how to be in this world from our parents — we mimic their ways.
It’s for sure that divorce has many negatives for society but it’s a fact of life in the modern Western world and I don’t think the clock can be turned back to the days when divorce was not as prevalent. The only thing we can do now is to adjust to reality and try to find ways to lessen rampant divorce’s admittedly detrimental impact. We humans are capable of radical adjustment, the sheer variety of ways of life around this old globe tells me that.
I don’t believe the ubiquity of divorce came about because of any kind of plot. And I’m not sure that if divorce could be made to disappear that things would get all that much better. Keep in mind that Michael Jackson was raised in a 2-parent household. I Googled and Wikied but did not find any mention of a divorce between MJ’s parents. I think it quite likely that Michael Jackson, may his soul rest in peace, would have benefited psychologically by being reared with Joseph Jackson out of the picture since the father by all accounts was some kind of monster. Score one for divorce.
No, the breakdown of traditional marriage is well documented to have three causes: cultural, legal and welfare support. Behind each these three causes has been the Population Control movement. Divorce and illegitimacy impair the human capital formation in children, create instability, fosters poverty and make children and mothers vulnerable to abuse and opportunists. Divorce and illegitimacy also increase social costs reducing the resources available to society to address other problems. Most often the abusers are not biological fathers raising children but male opportunists seeking sex and convenience without the cost of commitment. The unmarried “boyfriend of the month” is hundreds of times more likely to abuse a child than a married biological father living with his wife and children.
Abusers often go on to abuse in turn but the most often do so outside of the institution of marriage because they don’t get married or because they form unstable marriages
Why not? Of course marriage can and will be restored. Otherwise you can kiss Western and any other so infected society good-by. For example, marriage is dieing in Western Europe, but so too is Western Europe. It’s the demography. The primary obstacle to restoring marriage is the politics of welfare state dependency.
Second, all those of you who think the way Artfldgr does will find this post – which explains why the neocons *really* support the protesters in Iran – quite familiar.
My apologies for perhaps not getting the point of the comment or the link and I hope the commentor does not think I am being contentious and does not “bow out” from the discussion. I for one have enjoyed her contributions.
I read the linked blog post and it seemed to imply that Bush and the Neocons have provided indirect support to Iranian dissent in order to assist in a regime change in Iran. And this is a condemnation? I find the original Asia Times article, which I also read, and the blog post at the link both ironic in that in the past many on the Left have vilified Bush and the Neocons for NOT supporting dissenting voices in Iran. Now it turns out that Bush may have helped instigate those voices. But they are apparently not happy about it. The Progressive stances get a bit convoluted at times.
I debated a past commentor, a critic of Bush and Neocons in general who went by the name of John Spragge, whom I haven’t seen around lately, on this very subject. His contention was that Bush and the Neocons had done nothing to support dissent in Iran and one of my counter arguments was that such support would necessarily be covert and not generally known to the public. How would we know?
As far as I could tell the article did not get into possible motivation for assistance to dissenters in Iran, the article seemingly content with the implication that Bush and the Neocons may have secretly and indirectly supported regime change as reproach enough. Oh, those underhanded, secretive Neocons! Please — let us know what you think the ‘real’ motivation was. I’m dying to know.
Oops. The first sentence in my last post should have been in quotes.
[grackle- earlier] It’s for sure that divorce has many negatives for society but it’s a fact of life in the modern Western world and I don’t think the clock can be turned back to the days when divorce was not as prevalent.
Why not? Of course marriage can and will be restored. Otherwise you can kiss Western and any other so infected society good-by.
Well, I’m certainly open to new ideas. How would the writer go about eliminating divorce?
As a matter of public policy I wouldn’t try to eliminate divorce. I’d substantially reduce its frequency. Here are two “go to guys” on the topic of “how?”
Dr. David Popenoe
http://centers.rutgers.edu/center.php?c=3184
Dr. David Blankenhorn
http://www.americanvalues.org/
Illegitimacy would also have to similarly reduced.
Convoluted? Well that is because one must be flexible if one’s a priori objective: America must lose, is to be achieved.
BTW: Pres. Clinton’s military aid to Bosnia, by way of preparing a Croatia to beat the Serbs in a two week war was largely unknown until after the campaign succeeded.
BTW-II the Iranian dissident leaders have been consulting with Ayatolah Sistani in Iraq and with his aids, who have traveled to Iran for meetings. In this, Pres. Bush has provided unique and substantial support for democratic reform in Iran.
[grackle — earlier] Well, I’m certainly open to new ideas. How would the writer go about eliminating divorce?.
As a matter of public policy I wouldn’t try to eliminate divorce. I’d substantially reduce its frequency. Here are two “go to guys” on the topic of “how?”
Dr. David Popenoe
http://centers.rutgers.edu/center.php?c=3184
Dr. David Blankenhorn
http://www.americanvalues.org/
Illegitimacy would also have to similarly reduced.
The links don’t work when clicked on for me — perhaps it’s my browser settings. I did get to the linked material by copying and pasting the URLs in the address bar of my browser.
The first URL led me to a Rutgers page but no article. The second led to a long list of more links to various things. Not much help in understanding the writer’s ideas.
Perhaps if the writer would take the time to give us a brief summary of what the writer would do to reduce divorce and out of wedlock births I’m sure we readers would be appreciative. Or even pasting some quotes from the Drs. Popenoe and Blankenhorn …
Try copying and pasting the links into your web browser. That should work.
I’ve got to go out for a marathon training run. I’ll see what I can do later.
Until then be well.
Try copying and pasting the links into your web browser. That should work.
I did just that and described the results in a previous post. The first URL led me to a Rutgers page but no article. The second led to a long list of more links to various things — no link I saw there was labeled as “How To Reduce Divorce and Out of Wedlock Births” or even close. Again, not much help in understanding the writer’s solutions. I’ll try reminding the writer when I see his posts. Perhaps that will work.
I reject absolutely the contention that women who have succeeded since then have done so only because they are not required to be competent.
really? then i guess you forgot all the games to lower the standards and play favorites?
that BEFORE feminism you had female authors like mary shelly, jane austin, the bronte sisters, emiliy dickenson, and many more.
compare what they created with the S.C.U.M manifesto, or the vagina monologues (where pederastic drugged lesbian rape is ‘a good rape’).
oh.. care to look at the crime stats that show that over 70 percent of rapists were raised in single parent female homes? (thats called making a self serving vicious circle).
why? cause a bunch of 19th century socialists declared from thir arses it was the better way to live because to our sensibilities and our fantasies such things seem more correct when hammered into us everywhere.
in another thread we have covered the recent point that women are now more miserable than before!!!
and wait when they get older and they dont have families around them and are in institutions as they are old, frail, and on the obama plan rather than the husbands pension and children. history has examples of what happens… if you know them.
you may not like the FACTS i present, but i did not draw any conclusions. i did not say that women should do this, or that. i didnt say we should change it.
i just laid out the suckers game they are playing. i showed that their points are not helpful to women but harmful, and that they intended from before your stated belief, to make a soviet style communist state.
you see elise i am completely against social engineering. i am completely against the kind of mental games that they played on western women and the harm they did to the children while saying they are going to help them.
i come from a family whose roots were in the countries that invented this stuff. THATS why i know it differently.
elise. the best you were able to do to refute me was make a claim i think a certain way.
yes i guess to you i am a thorught crime violator who does not stalinize the past.
how does laying out historical facts lay out how i think? was it the fact i dared tell the truth and violated some kind of rule your upset at?
think about it elise…
you couldnt refute anything, so you got cryptic and started to meekly imply that i am a wrong thinker.
you say you werent duped, but you did take in the style and ways to the point that you think that facts are evidence of wrong thinking. you respond pavlovian and defend some really heinious people.
people who never wanted you to have a good life with what you wanted in it, because if you did, they would have no purpose and no power
women were happier when women were not working and men supported them.. they were respected more when they were with one only and 40% didnt have an std that causes cancer and infertility. they were happier before they got drunk and smoked (youve come a long way baby), hey were healthier too.
they are very unhappy now..
and thats just a fact
i never said or advised what to change. after all i am into history, and history is the unchangeable past we create with our actions.
if you didnt like my facts. write to the women that created the world that created those facts.
after all, if you ask them, they will tell you they are making history..
The only thing we can do now is to adjust to reality and try to find ways to lessen rampant divorce’s admittedly detrimental impact.
we can start by letting the moms know the facts rather than telling them that there is no effect!!!!
or that the effect is positive!!!
thats my beef. let the women know that perimenopaus starts at 25… and there fertility declines and the rate of defects increases.
let them know that by waiting they make their family lines that stretch back to the very first life form, extinct.
you can tell them the truth about the choices that others are telling them are so grand.
i would say that as many people would stay with the feminists as would stay with obama if they knew all the details and how much harm.
women are hooking up and feeling miserable doing it because they are being told that this is the way.
heck… if they realized that they are now self supporting harem girls for the elite would they believe it?
Oh Gheez! Popenoe and Blankenhorn have been leading scholars in this field for decades. I was expecting that you would be a tad more curious and have a look around and maybe contact them by e-mail and ask for information.
OK, my knees and feet are sore. I hope I’m not getting cranky but off the top of my head I can suggest.
1)- Vigorously enforce statutory rape laws. Far too many 20+ and 30+ year old males are preying upon underage, fatherless girls (and impregnating them). Requiring DNA testing and partner tracing for all pregnant underage girls, including mandatory reporting of all underage girls receiving abortions with DNA samples retained and forwarded to a DA’s for prosecution of the rapist if applicable. Require all abortion providers to obtain court approval before performing abortions on underage girls so that the girl can be placed immediately under the protection of the court if applicable.
2)- Reform tax law. End the marriage penalty. Increase head of household federal income rates to make them no more favorable than the federal income rates of a similarly situated married person. Increase tax exemptions for dependent children.
OK, I’ve got a CBO report and a GAO report to read and I need to wrap up some work and finish an essay by Rene Girard in First Things… I’ll see what I can do…
I’m running out of time but it didn’t take me long to find this at Dr. Popenoe’s National Marriage Project at Rutgers http://marriage.rutgers.edu/ . These are suggestions provided by Popenoe and introduced by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (another resource in this field).
The State of Our Unions
The Social Health of Marriage in America – 2007
Essay: The Future of Marriage in America
by David Popenoe
http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2007.htm
I’ve got some excellent material on this topic by Dr. Elizabeth Fox Genovese somewhere in my archives. I’ll try to provide more as soon as practical.
Oh Gheez! Popenoe and Blankenhorn have been leading scholars in this field for decades. I was expecting that you would be a tad more curious and have a look around and maybe contact them by e-mail and ask for information.
Perhaps I might do all the writer suggests if I were going to perform some major research in the field but just to get at the what the writer is talking about in a comment on a blog post? I believe I am as curious as the next person but I really think it’s up to the commentor to provide a basic summary of his views instead of requiring the rest of us go off to read the equivalent of a short novel.
OK, my knees and feet are sore. I hope I’m not getting cranky but off the top of my head I can suggest.
1)- Vigorously enforce statutory rape laws. Far too many 20+ and 30+ year old males are preying upon underage, fatherless girls (and impregnating them). Requiring DNA testing and partner tracing for all pregnant underage girls, including mandatory reporting of all underage girls receiving abortions with DNA samples retained and forwarded to a DA’s for prosecution of the rapist if applicable. Require all abortion providers to obtain court approval before performing abortions on underage girls so that the girl can be placed immediately under the protection of the court if applicable.
This seems pretty straightforward. I don’t mind enforcing laws but I’m wondering how placing underage girls “immediately under the protection of the court” would work. Would we incarcerate the girls without parental consent? Who would take care of the babies then? Are there enough foster homes that can/are willing to take newborns? Does the writer envision state-run creches? Wouldn’t there be a problem if the underage girl didn’t care to reveal the identity of the father? How would we go about coercing that info from her? We couldn’t very well go around DNA testing every male in the neighborhood, could we?
Another problem, larger than the questions above: According to the National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 7, issued January 7, 2009, the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000, or 2%. Assuming you could prosecute 100% the fathers you would still be prosecuting the statutory rapes of a mere 2% of all illegitimate births, only a very slight help in the overall scheme of things. The other 98% of illegitimate births would remain a problem. Also, by prosecuting those men you would not actually be eliminating all statutory rapes in this age group. We also prosecute a high percentage of bank robbers but those rascals keep on robbing banks, don’t they?
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm
Go to the above link and click on “Births: Final Data for 2006, Table 19 to download the pdf.
2)- Reform tax law. End the marriage penalty.
I like this idea. I’ve been in favor of this reform myself for some time, just from the aspect of fairness. But is it the contention of the writer that high divorce rates are a result of the tax code?
Increase head of household federal income rates to make them no more favorable than the federal income rates of a similarly situated married person.
Here again this idea gets my vote because of fairness but I can’t see it appreciably reducing the divorce rate.
Increase tax exemptions for dependent children.
Would this tax exemption include out of wedlock children?
OK, I’ve got a CBO report and a GAO report to read and I need to wrap up some work and finish an essay by Rene Girard in First Things… I’ll see what I can do…
[grackle — earlier]… Again, not much help in understanding the writer’s solutions. I’ll try reminding the writer when I see his posts. Perhaps that will work.
I’m running out of time but it didn’t take me long to find this at Dr. Popenoe’s National Marriage Project at Rutgers http://marriage.rutgers.edu/ . These are suggestions provided by Popenoe and introduced by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (another resource in this field).
The State of Our Unions
The Social Health of Marriage in America – 2007
Essay: The Future of Marriage in America
by David Popenoe
http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2007.htm
What Can be Done?
As a first step, the institution of marriage needs to be promoted by all levels of society, particularly the families, the schools, the churches, the non-profit sector, and the government …
Would Dr. Popenoe have the government pay families to promote marriage? Would he have the government fund schools to promote marriage? Would the local school boards have any say in this? Don’t most churches already promote marriage? I haven’t heard lately of any preacher railing against the institution from the pulpit. By his mention of “government” it seems that the good Dr, would have another governmental bureaucracy created in order for the government to promote marriage. Yes, I think these measures would require the creation of a government bureaucracy to dole out the money, inspect and enforce the legal mandates. The Bureau of Marriage Education? Another czar in the Obama administration?
I like the idea of non-profit organizations promoting marriage because that wouldn’t cost the taxpayer any money but of course even nonprofits have to obtain funding from somewhere to finance their activities. However, it would cost the government some revenue if contributions were tax exempt. Some enterprising folks, perhaps the writer himself could create the Institute for Sex Education and Legitimate Birth. Perhaps he could get Bill Gates to use it as a tax write-off.
Dr. Popenoe continues:
… Marriage has fallen by the wayside, in part, because it receives less and less social recognition and approval … In an effort not to judge much less stigmatize any adult life style, we have all too often become virtually silent about the value and importance of marriage. This silence is extremely damaging to the promotion of a pro-marriage culture.
For brevity’s sake I ellipsed out much of the quote but I believe what I left in is an adequate summing up. The author basically says that marriage is not held in as high regard as it used to be and that we all ought to speak up about the benefits of marriage. I agree but I don’t see a solution here but rather an outlining of what the author sees as the problem.
… Getting people to marry is one thing, helping them to stay married is something else entirely. Helping people to stay married is the main focus of an important set of programs known as marriage education … it[marriage education] recently has been thrust into the limelight thanks to widespread publicity and government financial assistance.
Some observations about marriage education but aside from implying “government financial assistance” would be a good thing(I’m not so sure myself), no solutions.
The importance of marriage education is magnified by the fact that the marital relationship today is so different from what it was in the past … The “relationship knowledge” this requires has never been part of formal education, but there is no reason to believe that it can not [be effective] … Indeed, the initial empirical evaluations of marriage education programs conclude that they are both well-received and have generally positive outcomes.
More about marriage education.
Marriage promotion and marriage education are essential steps, but in order fully to rebuild the institution of marriage there would probably have to be a cultural shift of a more fundamental nature … This could come about through a growing realization, based on rational self-interest, that our personal happiness and sense of well-being over the long course of life are less affected by the amount of independence, choice, bodily pleasure and wealth we are able to obtain than by the number of stable, long-term and meaningful relationships we have with others. (16) And through a greater recognition of the fact that short-term adult interests can be in conflict with the long-term health and wellbeing of children, and that our children’s welfare has everything to do with the future of our nation.
Basically Dr. Popenoe says that casual relationships in modern society, easy divorce, etc. are bad for children. But who didn’t know that already? The only solution I see in the presented material is for a huge program of marriage education. Besides being an expensive undertaking on the scale the author envisions, I just don’t see it working. I say try a pilot program and see if anything good, like fewer children out of wedlock or longer marriages, results from it. This would take years to gather and interpret the data but it would be cheaper than Dr. Popenoe’s proposals.
Well, gotta go now. Very busy and perhaps a bit out of sorts from my training last night for the 2010 Winter Olympics ski jump in Vancouver. Those landings in the dark are murder and leave the ankles more than a little sore. I’ve also the entire works of Shakespeare to read before noon and intend to get Chaucer done by tomorrow morning. If I find the time I might drop by later.
You are mocking me. How disappointing.
I posted in this forum because I wanted to address the demonization of Sarah Palin from the perspective of mimetic theory and the victimage mechanism. In response to another commenter’s post I invested a bit of time pulling together a more detailed response. Thereafter my time was limited so I made a few easy quick posts. I did wish to honor your request for more information Mr. Grackle; however I wanted to tactfully convey that I would be unable entertain you with extended debate. It’s unfortunate that you did not get the hint. I guess one can’t expect the “average Joe” to understand that training for a marathon takes up considerable time.
BTW I happen to be an experience marathoner in training …
.
OK let’s take a peak at how you did with the rough answer I did give you.
TO SUGGESTION #1
How on earth did you construe placing underage rape victims “immediately under the protection of the court” as “(w)ould we incarcerate the girls without parental consent?”? The segue into “foster homes” and “state-run cré¨ches” suggest a mocking lack of concern for rape victims. Granted my draft was crude but it was written so in order to work as a Rorschach Ink Blot test of sorts. And so it succeeded. It seems obvious to me from your answer that you aren’t particularly well informed nor are you particular interested in an adult level exchange of views on this matter.
.
Well, I did not expect to find that you read the report incorrectly. See page 11 of the report you cited for me. The total births per 1000 unmarried women was 50.6 in 2006. If as you say, “the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000” then the percentage of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 to the total was just under 40% not 2% as you stated! But this too does not make sense as you appear to have misread the information presented in Figure 6 of page 11 of the report you cited.
Moreover, I’m not arguing to “eliminate(e) all statutory rapes in this age group”. That is likely an impossible task. I think I was clear that I want to reduce the number of statutory rapes. It seems to me that you are wasting my time with a red Herring argument. Your argument by analogy to bank robbery is useless too. The FBI does a pretty good job of reducing the cost in dollars stolen and innocent persons killed or wounded in bank robberies in no small part because amounts of loot taken are so low and because the FBI keeps the likelihood of capture so high and thereby the costs of being on the lam are so prohibitive that robbing banks by way of armed robbery is pretty much uniformly an uneconomic money losing venture for the thieves . Indeed experience during the last two decades shows that banks have suffered far far far more extensive losses due to fraud perpetrated during the loan origination process.
I’m going stop there as your errors, your mocking mischaracterizations and your logical fallacies suggest that there is little to gain form engaging you on this topic.
You are mocking me. How disappointing. I posted in this forum because I wanted to address the demonization of Sarah Palin … I invested a bit of … my time[which] was limited … I wanted to … convey that I would be unable entertain you with extended debate … you did not get the hint. I guess one can’t expect the “average Joe” to understand that training for a marathon takes up considerable time. BTW I happen to be an experience marathoner in training …
I wouldn’t use the verb, “mock.” “Poking gentle fun” would be my choice of words. Below are a series of the writer’s remarks that prompted me to try a bit of mild parody:
I’ve got to go out for a marathon training run. I’ll see what I can do later
Oh Gheez! Popenoe and Blankenhorn have been leading scholars in this field for decades. I was expecting that you would be a tad more curious and have a look around and maybe contact them by e-mail and ask for information.
OK, my knees and feet are sore. I hope I’m not getting cranky but off the top of my head I can suggest.
I’m running out of time but it didn’t take me long to find this at Dr. Popenoe’s National Marriage Project at Rutgers http://marriage.rutgers.edu/ . These are suggestions provided by Popenoe and introduced by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (another resource in this field).
OK, I’ve got a CBO report and a GAO report to read and I need to wrap up some work and finish an essay by Rene Girard in First Things… I’ll see what I can do…
I’ll try to provide more[material] as soon as practical.
The writer grew decidedly testy when I politely asked him to elaborate on a blanket statement made by him. I was curious to know what solutions he had for a particular social problem — the high rate of divorce. What we got instead was a couple of links that led nowhere in particular, an annoyed directive to go read some material, an expectation that we should email some experts designated by the writer in order to find out what the writer meant and peevish reminders of how busy the writer was. And the “average Joe” not understanding marathon training remark above and much of the rest of the paragraph indicates that the writer still does not get the point. Readers, it’s kind of understood that we all may have endeavors other than commenting on blogs that take up a considerable amount of our time; is it really necessary to constantly remind our co-commentors of this common fact of life?
OK let’s take a peak at how you did with the rough answer I did give you.
TO SUGGESTION #1
[grackle — earlier]This seems pretty straightforward. I don’t mind enforcing laws but I’m wondering how placing underage girls “immediately under the protection of the court” would work. Would we incarcerate the girls without parental consent? Who would take care of the babies then? Are there enough foster homes that can/are willing to take newborns? Does the writer envision state-run creches? Wouldn’t there be a problem if the underage girl didn’t care to reveal the identity of the father? How would we go about coercing that info from her? We couldn’t very well go around DNA testing every male in the neighborhood, could we?
How on earth did you construe placing underage rape victims “immediately under the protection of the court” as “(w)ould we incarcerate the girls without parental consent?”?
I asked a simple question which, BTW, the writer still has not answered. I’ll ask it again: I’m wondering how placing underage girls who have just had babies “immediately under the protection of the court” would work.
The segue into “foster homes” and “state-run cré¨ches” suggest a mocking lack of concern for rape victims.
I will ask again the questions the writer seems to be avoiding: What would happen to the newborns of the underage girls? If not foster homes or state-run creches, then where would they be placed? I think these are reasonable questions to ask and not at all indicative of a lack of concern for rape victims.
Granted my draft was crude but it was written so in order to work as a Rorschach Ink Blot test of sorts. And so it succeeded. It seems obvious to me from your answer that you aren’t particularly well informed nor are you particular interested in an adult level exchange of views on this matter.
Here we learn that the writer was not intending to answer my questions but was instead testing me with some sort of weird procedure vaguely psychological in nature. But the questions I posed are still valid and still unanswered.
[grackle — earlier]Another problem, larger than the questions above: According to the National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 7, issued January 7, 2009, the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000, or 2%. Assuming you could prosecute 100% the fathers you would still be prosecuting the statutory rapes of a mere 2% of all illegitimate births, only a very slight help in the overall scheme of things. The other 98% of illegitimate births would remain a problem. Also, by prosecuting those men you would not actually be eliminating all statutory rapes in this age group. We also prosecute a high percentage of bank robbers but those rascals keep on robbing banks, don’t they?
Well, I did not expect to find that you read the report incorrectly. See page 11 of the report you cited for me. The total births per 1000 unmarried women was 50.6 in 2006.
Not disputed, except for the fact that “unmarried women” are not the same as “underage girls,” underage girls being the subject of the writer’s comment.
If as you say, “the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000” then the percentage of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 to the total was just under 40% not 2% as you stated!
It’s not as I “say.” The data is from the National Vital Statistics System and is disseminated through reports issued by the National Center for Health Statistics. You can’t be much more reliable than these non-partisan folks. Also, it seems almost unbelievable but the writer apparently is wrong about some basic math. I was never all that good in math myself but 20 of 1000 is obviously 2%, not 40%
But this too does not make sense as you appear to have misread the information presented in Figure 6 of page 11 of the report you cited.
Well then, all the readers have to do to find out who is correct, me or the writer, is to download the report.
In the report the readers will see a chart with the vertical continuum being “Rate per 1000 unmarried women” and the horizontal continuum being various age groups of unmarried women. The first group on the left is the age group 15 — 17, which is the age group where the statutory rape victims would fall, eighteen being the age of consent in most states. The light green bars represent 2006 and the rate of births in 2006 to unmarried women age 15 — 17 is clearly labeled 20 per 1000, which is 2%, not 40%. Forty percent of 1000 would be 400, not 20. As a matter of fact, no age group of unmarried women gets anywhere near 40% of the births. The highest rate, 80 per 1000 births(8%), occurs in the 20 — 24 age group.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm
Once the reader gets to the page after clicking on the link, the reader should look for another link around the middle of the page under the heading of “More Data,” entitled, “Final data for 2006, Table 19. Clicking on this will download the pdf. to the reader’s computer and the readers can then page through to page 12 to view the chart for themselves.
Moreover, I’m not arguing to “eliminate(e) all statutory rapes in this age group”. That is likely an impossible task.
I never implied that the writer was arguing to eliminate all statutory rapes. I merely wrote that IF all statutory rapes were eliminated such a circumstance would still represent a very small amount(2%) of total births out of wedlock. A good thing to do, certainly, but no solution to the high total amount of births out of wedlock. I will remind the readers that the writer is the one that got off on this tangent of statutory rape victims. Read back if you have the patience and you will see that I merely asked how the writer would go about eliminating divorce.
I think I was clear that I want to reduce the number of statutory rapes. It seems to me that you are wasting my time with a red Herring argument. Your argument by analogy to bank robbery is useless too. The FBI does a pretty good job of reducing the cost in dollars stolen and innocent persons killed or wounded in bank robberies in no small part because amounts of loot taken are so low and because the FBI keeps the likelihood of capture so high and thereby the costs of being on the lam are so prohibitive that robbing banks by way of armed robbery is pretty much uniformly an uneconomic money losing venture for the thieves . Indeed experience during the last two decades shows that banks have suffered far far far more extensive losses due to fraud perpetrated during the loan origination process.
Again, all I can do is gently point out that reducing “the number of statutory rapes,” while a salutary goal for its own sake, will actually do little to reduce the overall number of out of wedlock births because it represents a mere 2% of those births. The other 98% of out of wedlock births would keep on being a problem.
I regret that the writer did not find my analogy to his liking. I wanted only to illustrate with the analogy of bank robbers of how providing sanctions against unwanted behavior is not a guarantee of eliminating the behavior. As for my “red Herring argument,” the term usually means a “misleading clue” and I have not misled anyone.
The readers may be interested to know that as far as bank robberies are concerned, according to the FBI, in 2006 there were 6,985 of them. Lots of robbers are caught but robberies continue to occur and that was the only point I was making.
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/bcs/bcs2006/bank_crime_2006.htm
I’m going stop there as your errors, your mocking mischaracterizations and your logical fallacies suggest that there is little to gain form engaging you on this topic.
Well, if the writer wants to stop that is his decision to make. I don’t believe I have made any errors or have put forth any logical fallacies. I think my questions were valid and they still remain unanswered.