X-Message-Number: 28169
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 12:34:36 -0600
From: "Anthony ." <>
Subject: Re: Unavoidably Political

> Message #28160
> Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 11:56:06 +0200
> From: "Eivind Berge" <>
> Subject: Unavoidably Political?
> >> I was born a libertarian,
> >
> >Amazing. Do you think there is a libertarian gene?
>
> Who knows? My guess is there's a heavy genetic component.

It is probable that there are biological inclinations that make it
more likely we will align ourselves with particular ideas i.e. some
strands of libertarianism are anti-authoritarian. It is easy to see
that some people might well have biological propensities to authority
or not. But of course, to say you were "born libertarian" is absurd
because ideas are not found in genes.

> >What "misandrist" feminists have you read? Can you name names?

> Clearly you're a thoroughly politically-corrected person.

Oh no dear boy, I've just been studying history and feminism for
years, that's all.

> Yes, I can
> name names, like Andrea Dworkin,

Dead. And the "worst" she ever did was to get porn banned in some
states for a while. I suppose you fear her because you like your porn.
Or may be it is because she wrote some really angry books and they
make you feel guilty and indignant?

> Katherine McKinnon

IMO she's made the mistake of equating pornography with the
fundamental cause of female oppression. Unfortunately she has aligned
herself with the puritanical right, way too much. But I expect it is
her power and influence that scares you, rather than her poor social
theory.

> Valerie Solanas
> with her S.C.U.M. Manifesto,

Also dead. I'm not surprised she had a warped view of men considering
the horrible abuse she suffered at her fathers hands. But does it
excuse her funny/frightening manifesto? I guess you found it
frightening rather than funny. Or perhaps you are a Warhol fan?

> Betty Friedan,

Also dead. You're really afraid of a lot of dead people aren't you?
What don't you like about her? Her pro-choice stance? Her support of
lesbian rights? Her wish to amend the US constitution so that women
are legally recognised as equal (because they still aren't)? I suppose
Martin Luther King is also one of those bad people because he tried to
do something similar for his oppressed group?

> Germaine Greer.

Well, she's a bit mixed. Her views on female genital mutilation as
being acceptable are probably fine by you, but her views on menopause,
celebacy, and other issues of sexuality and autonomy probably scary
you silly.

It interests me to muse over the names you left out (& probably
haven't heard of).

> The
> so-called patriarchy isn't worth much when everyone in power is in
> thrall to radical feminist ideology.

So called patriachy?

Women's rights are more commonly compromised than men's. Improving the
status of women has got to be a priority for everyone's sake. In the
UK and worldwide, women are still subject to terrible oppression. One
in six women have suffered domestic violence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2822349.stm

One in five women are raped, tortured, beaten or assaulted. Women are
emotionally and economically exploited.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1204814.stm

Women still have to face forced marriages,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/865419.stm

the slavery of illegal prostitution, segregation from many activities
like work, education and religion, and genital mutilation.

http://www.fgmnetwork.org/index.php

Maternity pay in Britain is the third lowest in the European Union. A
British mother earning  15,000 receives  2,458 statutory pay in the
six months after leaving work; less than in all EU countries except
Luxembourg and Greece.

Women get paid less for doing the same job a man does.

I could go on, but all of this should be obvious to anyone who even
glances at the news.

Are not all these forms of oppression and inequality the very things
that feminists identify as patriarchy?

It seems to me that you are worried you'll be losing the privilages
that come with being male.

> The police are now little more
> than a special interest group for the feminists; the justice system
> has been corrupted to where any man can be convicted for "rape" or any
> manner of "abuse" simply on the uncorroborated testimony of any woman
> or child,

You've got a slim grasp of reality. Not only is uncorroborated
testimony not enough to nail someone in court, but the police are
certainly not the pawns of the Feminists (whoever this homogenous -
re: fictitous - group is supposed to be). That is not to say that
miscarriages of law do not occur - especially in the 90s when
child-abuse/porn concerns had reached witch-hunt proportions in the US
(something that McKinnon and Dworkin can be partly blamed for - but
certainly not all feminists, many of whom criticised McK and D).

> all of it based on appallingly misandristic definitions of
> what these supposed crimes consist of.

It is appalling that rape and abuse occur on the scale they do -
especially in countries currently riven by warfare - and it is
appalling that you are more concerned about a few miscarriages of
justice against men, rather than the overwhelming, daily sexual crimes
against women and girls. Sure, someone has got to defend the innocent
men incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit - shame it isn't
someone with a more balanced view.

> And of course the workplace,
> academia and the rest of society is now a hostile environment towards
> men thanks to the "sexual harassment" industry, affirmative action,
> and the constant demonization of males in the media.

Constant demonization? Give me some examples - and I don't mean
Magneto or Darth Vader. Then try to think of examples where men, male
sexuality, male power and machismo are lionised in the same media.
Then think further still into depictions of women as degraded and
lesser (ignore porn, that is too easy).

> This is not
> patriarchy in any meaningful sense even > if mostly men technically
> rule.

Men technically rule? So there are powerful, invisible female forces
behind the 99% of male nation and coporate leaders?

Even if you think there is no problem with sexism in the West (easy to
do if you're a man), look a little further to any other country
outside the West and let us all know whether you think rule by men is
still a problem or not.

> However, fortunately there is a growing antifeminist movement, and I
> believe we will turn the tide before long. Check out my favorite men's
> rights activist, Angry Harry:
>
> www.angryharry.com

Harry doesn't seem angry, he seems scared. The fight for equal rights
will always be met by hysterical, reactionary forces. In the US it was
the KKK.

> >Presumably, then, you are some sort of
> >anarchist who does not think we should have nation states, law courts,
> >hospitals, and all the other things taxes pay.
>
> Ideally, yes. But I can live with minimal nation states funded by
> taxes,

You might be able to, but if you are poor, old, disabled, or single
with children you might have more trouble.

> as long as nobody has to pay more than anybody else. The only
> fair tax is a flat tax.

That would only be fair if everyone made the same of money and used
all state-funded resources the same amount.

> >Cryonics is unavoidably political.
>
> I thought cryonics was a medical procedure.

It is. But it is also embroiled in politics. You must be aware of the
problematic laws in B.C? The legal struggles Alcor and CI have faced?
The popular press conception? The possible disharmony between cryonics
and certain ideologies?

> It doesn't have to be any
> more political than any other major life-saving procedure we take for
> granted even with socialized medicine.

Sure, it doesn't HAVE to be, but it IS - just like other medical
procedures - abortion, stem-cell research, organ donation, etc. Wake
up.

> It wouldn't be a matter of
> class warfare to make cryonics standard procedure, at least not in
> rich countries. Cryonics is
> just not provided to everybody because only a handful people believe
> there's any point to it.

What are you talking about? I only ever spoke of universal cryonics as
a hypothetical situation to illustrate my attitude to taxation. Try to
follow my argument and not build strawmen. Next you'll be claiming I'm
after a post-male Communist society. You and JohnR and JohnEgg can put
your heads together on how to distort my position if you like.

> However, nearly
> every word you say simply reeks of hatred towards anyone who owns
> anything more than anybody else --

Hatred? I'm angry at the injustice, at the fact that most people do
not have access to clean water while most people in the West (rich or
poor) carry on as if it isn't happening. But hell, poor countries are
poor because they haven't worked out a way to make money yet -
riiiiiiight?

> and even when they voluntarily give
> away astronomical sums to charity you decry them because they were
> able to earn it in the first place.

My point - again - is: earnt at what cost?
And remember, these charities ultimately help the affiliated companies
with their bottomline. Let's see if Bill and Ingvar would ever give
their money away anonymously.

> Even worse, you consider just
> about anything anybody wants to spend his money on the utmost "rapine"
> depravity.

I have been trying to illustrate that economic decisions - personal or
corporate - are not made in isolation. They having wider - often
deleterious - effects on the people and planet. Perhaps my tone has
become more shrill the more I have had to repeat this obvious fact to
a stubborn crowd ignorant of simple facts like the growing and growing
rich/poor gap.

> It seems you would only be happy if all humans were
> exterminated, just like any other religious environmentalist.

I see you enjoy lumping people together in-easy-to-dismiss categories
of "religious environmentalist" or "feminist". To reiterate - I
consider myself a sort of green-capitalist with an interest in human
survival and expansion WITHOUT having to destroy the very foundations
of our own existence. Try reading a bit beyond your own hubris and you
may find that there's a very wide spectrum of opinion outside your
mean little brain.

> I can't
> believe you're into cryonics.

I can't believe you describe yourself as highly educated. What have
you been doing all these years? Mathematics? I doubt that you've ever
read a sociological text book.

> >Why are the poor starving? Has nothing been taken from them?
>
> If they were born poor, then of course nothing has been taken away
> from them, because there was nothing to take in the first place.

Why is such a family poor in the first place?

> I
> don't believe you are automatically entitled to wealth that somebody
> else has created.

I don't believe you are automatically entitled to the profit you just
created, especially if it is at the damaging expense of some one/thing
else.

> The poor are poor because they haven't figured out a
> way to make money, not because somebody else is rich.

The poor are poor because we live in a system which requires poverty
to function.

> I am only on welfare in the
> summer, and still a student the rest of the year (which of course is
> just another kind of welfare, education being completely free here). I
> might actually get a real job someday.

You still didn't explain why you aren't trying to leave the country
that you hate so much because it pays for everyone's education.

Anthony

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