WatchI'm reading Muzzled: The Assault On Honest Debate by Juan Williams, and it's pretty good. He points out that both right and left in America have certain positions that are censored though social pressure. Anyone taking these non-PC positions will be mocked and then excluded by their own social group, and may lose their job. Some examples of non-PC positions:
On the left, you may not say:
- Islam is an extremely violent religion, and Mohammed raped, robbed, and murdered.
- Abortion is obviously murder when the fetus can do things like distinguish its mother's voice from other voices, for example.
- Black fathers often don't hang around, and black kids often shun anyone who does well in school for "acting white".
- AIDS was spread mostly by promiscuous anal intercourse between men.
- It's silly to say "African American", "Native American", "visually impaired", and "Happy Holidays" when everyone knows you mean "black", "Indian", "blind", and "Merry Christmas".
On the right, you may not say:
- The ultra-low 15% capital gains and dividend tax rate is a giant giveaway to the rich at the expense of the 99%.
- We don't like Obama mostly because he's black and has a Muslim name, not because of anything he has actually done.
- Obamacare was created from Republican healthcare proposals, but because Obama got it passed, we hate it.
- The war in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and there were no weapons of mass destruction. We should not be there.
- The US has a much higher level of gun violence than other countries largely because of the NRA.
On both sides, you may not say, "You know, the other side has some valid points."
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Almost forgot: both left and right are categorically forbidden from criticizing Israel for any reason:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/government-official-who-makes-perfectly-valid-well,20499/
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leoj707 says
Yes they are because women in pre-industrial societies almost always came with children and were perpetually pregnant. Even if they were without children, no one would hire a woman to work in the fields or ships or whatever over a man. She simply couldn't return as much value and wouldn't be worth the wages or the space.
leoj707 says
This was untrue hundreds of years ago and is untrue now.
A modern "independent" woman has a man take away her garbage, has a man fix her pipes, has a man replace the brakes on her car, has a man design her electronics, has a man paint her house, has a man fixing the power lines, has a man working on her roads, has a man plowing the ground for her food, has men catching her fish, and men cutting lumber for her buildings. It may not NEED to be that way, but it certainly IS that way.
It would be an EXTRAORDINARY exception to have a woman do any of these jobs for the average person in the United States. Even in cases where women own a garage or women operate a farm, she's paying male labor to accomplish almost everything. It's not even about ability necessarily, women simply DON'T DO THOSE JOBS. There's no reason why they would have volunteered for those jobs 300 years ago if they don't volunteer for them now.
leoj707 says
I'm sorry but this is absolutely untrue. It may sound good in practice, but in theory it never happened that way. A woman who attempted to be independent in pre-industrial society simply died. If you don't believe this, understand that most children died even with two parents working hard to keep them well fed and protected. How was a woman supposed to go it alone when children had far less than a 50% chance of living with a man and a women giving their all to keep them healthy?
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leoj707 says
Are entire species is too frail to handle the physical labor required for survival. About 200,000 years ago, our species almost went extinct. There were some 20,000 people in Africa, barely a breading population. It's because of this almost extinction event that we consider modern man to be 200,000 years old. We're all descendant from that small population that was almost snuffed out like every other branch of hominids.
Of course, had we been snuffed out either the Neanderthals or Homo Erectus would have been able to survive.
iwog says
That's largely due to the fact that people had to have eight children in order for two or three to survive into adulthood. Losing children was a common place occurrence back then.
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iwog says
Shit, I must be a woman, because I have a man do all those things for me too. I mean, I could design the electronics, but why bother when Intel does it so well?
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Dan8267 says
Oh, but Neanderthals have been able to survive.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110809/full/476136a.html
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leoj707 says
Most scientist think it's unlikely we're descendant fro Neanderthals because of insufficient similarities in Mitochondria DNA. The evidence isn't conclusive either way, yet, but in any case, genetically we're not as similar to Neanderthals as to the Africans 200,000 years ago.
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Patrick says
When this book was published it created a significant uproar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy
There was also They Dare to Speak Out that came out around in '85...
Some of this is really way out there because even though countries rattle sabers much of it is just to prop up energy prices. Israel actually buys oil from Iran..just not directly. Usually it gets into Rotterdam and they buy it there
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/04/israelstehranconnection
The scary thing about Mershimers book isn't so much what it said but where it left off. It stated future revisions would contain what fundamentalist Christians believe on top of this. Some of the terminologies and concepts of identity are so illogical. If Israel claims they are a Jewish state how can it be democratic given that religions themselves are not democratic. Otherwise we'd all just vote each other into heaven.
Fortunately there are other lobbies such as J Street that can counter AIPAC.
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Patrick says
Hanukkah is not and never was a winter solstice holyday. In fact it is not a Holyday in jewish tradition, but a minor period of remembering. Of course, Christmas was initially celebrated on January 6th with the Baptism, later on moved earlier to Dec 25th, thus creating the 12 days of Christmas between Dec 25th and Jan 6th. This was done to cover North European Yule celebration.
Only in America the celebrations were moved to the period prior to Dec 25th partially for commercial reasons and partially to get close to Hanukkah, which got elevated out of any proportion for the same exact reason.
So, Happy Holydays sound like better greeting than Merry Christmas, which is a nonsense before Dec 25th.
But I think the most appropriate greeting would be "Happy Shopping".
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Dan8267 says
And beef brisket and homemade jelly donuts. At least at my house!
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iwog says
Pregnancy and child care does not make women frail, just very busy.
Apparently the majority of farm labor in Africa is done by women.
http://www.revolve-magazine.com/2011/03/28/east-africa-horticulture/
iwog says
Well… yes the do those jobs, and they are “volunteering” for them in increasing numbers. I am suspect of your claims because I have seen -- and known -- women working in all the fields you mentioned. While these numbers are still very low I don’t know if I would call the women working in these fields “EXTRAORDINARY exception[s]”.
Women in construction:
http://www.osha.gov/doc/accsh/haswicformal.html
Women auto mechanics:
http://www.womentechworld.org/bios/auto/articles/more.htm
Women in engineering:
http://www.tms.org/students/ProPref/9802/womenEngineers.html
While these numbers are low they are increasing, and they are high enough that it is not “unheard of” to see women in these jobs.
Have you driven by 4 or 5 twenty “man” road crews? Then you have driven by a few women working on a road crew.
There are clearly some women who want these jobs, and that number probably exceeds the number working in the jobs today. Men/society makes working in these jobs difficult and unappealing for women. It is not that there are not many women who are entirely capable of -- and want to -- performing these tasks.
back to the article on engineering
iwog says
On this we agree. This was more or less my point when I said:
leoj707 says
To which you replied:
iwog says
OK, first I said “equal” not “independent”. Even for men independence from the society in pre-industrial society was a death sentence.
But it has happened that way. Aside from the example bellow the field of anthropology has many examples -- agreed that they are not very common, but they do indeed exist -- of societies where men and women lived in relative equality. Sorry, but I don’t have time now to pull up more examples; maybe later if this topic continues.
In my previous post I did provide a link to a pre-industrial society where it was acceptable for women and men to perform the same “jobs” -- note: with the exception of leadership.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/jun/15/childrensservices.familyandrelationships
The big point being “ [T]here's no stigma involved in the different jobs.”
Our society has attached a stigma to women -- and men for that matter -- performing certain jobs. In the past we have even created laws that prevented, punished and/or killed women that tried to take on jobs that “belonged to men”.
On a side note: I am kind of pounding out these responses and don’t have the time today to give them quite the attention that they and you deserve, but to be clear.
1. I agree that men and women have different genetic “talents”
2. I don’t think that in a perfectly “fair world” 50% of electrical engineers would be women. It is probably a correct statement that simply do to gender differences not as many women want to be engineers, but the number that can/want to do the job is probably much higher than it is today. Who knows? Maybe the number is closer to 30% (the number that attend engineering school).
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leoj707 says
Call 50 plumbers in the San Francisco Bay Area and 50 plumbers who show up will be men. This is not an exaggeration.
Have your car brakes done 50 times in the San Francisco Bay area, and 50 men will do them. This is not an exaggeration.
Women working in all the fields I mentioned are extraordinary exceptions. I would be very very surprised that you had a single exception in your own life. I certainly don't have a single exception in my life, and I've been paying my own bills for 26 years.
leoj707 says
That's 1.4%. Furthermore how many of those "service technicians are pulling drums and fixing breaks, and how many of them are sitting at computer screens?
1.4% is an anomaly, and that's in the modern world with computers and gas powered torque wrenches and hydraulic lifts and modular components.
I understand the need to believe in girl power, it just simply isn't true and 300 years ago it would get you killed because you would not be able to compete with men. Could a woman farm a field? Maybe. Could a woman farm a field to the extent a man could? No chance whatsoever. I don't know a single woman in my personal life that could even lift a plow harness, let alone put it on a horse and use it. (and I've done it myself)
leoj707 says
A biologist knows that in any species, the breeding female is absolutely the most important member of a population. It's normal for the male, and even the offspring to be sacrificed so she can live and reproduce.
I find it an untenable argument that humans are the only exception to that rule. The reason women weren't allowed to own property is because more women survived that way. The reason women couldn't choose their own mate was because more women survived that way. I don't even know of a biological process that would even do otherwise.
If you still don't believe me, realize that women were "liberated" at almost the exact moment that technology allowed it. Is that simply a coincidence? No way.
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When I say "Happy Holidays", I actually mean "fuck you, I don't give enough of a shit about your life to say anything with actual sentiment behind it".
The original post here is kind of dumb (no offense Patrick!)
These are the opinions of Juan Williams. People will hold it up to argue for stuff because they assume he's a genuine, objective person because he used to be on NPR but got fired for making a mildly bigoted comment on fox news.
The reality is that Williams is an economically liberal, socially conservative person. There used to be a lot of these folks back when Democrats were the party of the deep south, but they're rare lately. His statements over the years reflect that, and nothing he's saying here disputes it.
Half of these things are opinions, not facts, so saying that people on the left or right don't want to talk about it out of "political correctness" is absurd. These are simply "things that Juan Williams believes but not everybody agrees with him on".
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iwog says
What I find interesting is that Women's Groups are seldom interested in having more diversity in hard labor jobs, and/or jobs that pay shitty. Not that plumbing is terribly dangerous or low paying. But when was the last time you saw a female (bug) Exterminator?
I never heard NOW bemoan the lack of female ditch diggers, garbagemen, or oil rig roustabouts. Or even Cab Drivers. They may oppose gender biased hiring practices (usually minimum physical ability requirements that actually have a good basis in reality, like a fireman being able to carry the weight of an average person over their shoulder), but do not push for 'equal representation' in these fields like they do for say, high rung on the ladder Corporate Jobs.
If women continue to gain more representation in non-dangerous, good paying professions, but continue to avoid the dangerous, low-paying ones, then that means that men will get the shaft, since the number and types of jobs available is largely independent of gender. If 50% of the CEOs are women, that doesn't change how many garbagemen or cab drivers are needed.
This is actually manifested in the numbers, right now. Several commentators have noticed this is a "Mancession", since Construction and Trades suffered the most in the Housing Crisis, while positions in Health Care and Education did not experience the same severity in job losses.
This may change going forward as women start to lose positions as the public sector cuts back, however, job losses for females are still much lower than males - BOTH in the UK and US.
Also:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/8954370/Women-do-better-than-men-as-mancession-hits.html
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mdovell says
I don't see how that contradicts what I said. It seems to support my statement.
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Auntiegrav says
The future, for every single one of us, is death.*
*unless some major medical breakthrough occurs
Are you implying that there is some ultimate, higher purpose to human life? Don't say that too loudly, you might get shouted down...
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wthrfrk80 says
Medical breakthroughs can only delay death. Eventually, the universe itself will not be able to support life as usable energy approaches zero as The Second Law of Thermodynamics demands. You'd have to be able to jump to another universe, if one even exists, or create a new universe to escape the heat death of ours.
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iwog says
OK, anecdotal evidence aside let me see if I am understanding you correctly. You believe women to be significantly weaker than men. This physical difference is at such a degree that in a pre-industrial society if women were to attempt to compete with men for jobs they would be so out-matched that there is "No chance whatsoever" they would be able to find work and this would result in women literal starving to death.
Men in their wise benevolence wanted to protect any foolish women from themselves. So, they created a system of laws/customs/rules to prevent any woman from throwing her life away on pursuits beyond her physical capabilities.
This in-spite of me already citing one pre-industrial society where men and women "compete" for all the same jobs.
Do I understand your position on this correctly?
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iwog says
Well, we agree on the moment of "liberation" just not the technology that caused the liberation. So yeah not a coincidence.
leoj707 says
Do you think that women would have still be liberated if the only technology advances were ones that made traditional jobs for men easier? If all the tools for woman's work did not exist -- especially birth control?
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leoj707 says
Yes.
What allowed women the freedom to own property, negotiate their own sex contracts, and pick their own employment wasn't the devices you mentioned. It was the overabundance of food, clothing, and shelter that freed them from having a man at their side. It also created the absurdity of a woman answering the phone all day being paid as much as a mechanic or a miner.
It's the illusion of women being capable of living without a man that created the feminist movement. All that really happened was that all the traditional jobs men used to do within the family were outsourced to other men piecemeal.
Instead of a woman being 100% dependent on her husband, she's 1% dependent on the butcher, 1% dependent on her plumber, 1% dependent on her auto mechanic, 1% dependent on the utilities technician, etc.
70% of women raising children without a father is a disgusting vile awful first world tragedy that is partially to blame on this "women can do anything" mythology.
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iwog says
We may have to agree to disagree on this, but it was time that allowed women to demand equality.
Hmmm... I don't think you understand the magnitude of house work in a pre-industrial world.
As a fun experiment try for 30 days doing all the women's work in your household with no assistance from modern inventions.
Do all the cooking, from scratch, by hand -- OK, you can use the electric/gas stove-top/oven even if it is cheating a bit
Wash and dry all clothing by hand
Keep the house clean by hand
All child care done by you without the aid of anything electric or disposable (yes, wash by hand those cloth diapers and reuse them) -- hopefully you have kids, makes the experiment more fun
No use of indoor plumbing! all water must be carried into the house by you; if your wife wants a bath/shower the water must be carried and heated by you; Bottled water is OK, but you can only bring into the house, per trip, what you can carry in your hands -- I guess if you are more than a mile from a water source you can cheat and use your car, but still don't put more in your car than your can carry without the use of modern carts
For shopping see water acquisition above; Also, only raw basic ingredients -- I guess you can buy butter, unless you want to add to the fun and get a butter churn
Someone has to do all that work to keep a household from falling apart.
When you are done with the experiment I will be interested to know if you think you would still have time to find a job outside the house. After, of course, you spent your "free-time" fighting for the "right" to get that job outside the home.
iwog says
Until she had time to work a woman was still 100% dependent on here husband for the $ to pay these other men.
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leoj707 says
How is equality defined though? On a legal basis it is the same..well actually a women technically can be argued to have more due to abortion. No man can outright force a given choice onto a women, it is legally up to her. Therefore whoever the father is then legally depending on her choice for the matter..
Technology nullified much of the housework and manual labor performed by women. Feminists are 100% right on the mark that back in the day the brunt of this was performed by women. But factor in today running water, washers, driers, dish washers, ovens, microwaves, refrigerators etc and the labor drops dramatically. Other aspects were certainly taken up by men. 40 years ago if a man wanted to take home ec in high school it would look odd. Turn on any cooking show these days and plenty of guys can cook. It isn't that hard given you are following simple directions.
the old mantra of "equal work for equal pay" is odd. If a given group(s) of people can be paid less than other groups then why would employers even hire those other groups? In other words if women always make less money than men why would any company hire a man then? It's that odd contradiction with age as well. Younger people aren't always cheaper because if you hire someone above the age of 65 you don't have to deal with them going back to school, having children, health insurance, 401k etc.
It was annoying to work a bit in home improvement and see women sometimes demanding to see male employees come over and explain everything to them even though it would be 100% exactly what another women told them.
It can also be argued that when womens rights and civil rights were added it did not create more jobs to anticipate the higher labor participation rate. As a result wages dropped. No one in their right mind would want to roll back the clock but we always have to maintain the environment for jobs to be viable.
Within the concept of equality how exactly can that exist if the concept of identity is different? If everyone is equal then why separate bathrooms by gender? Heck why not make all clothing lines unisex then? If everyone is equal how an affirmative action exist or if it is to exist what metrics would be used to dismantle it?
How can the government *make* people equal? Certainly there are methods created to help like the ADA for those with less mobility (wheelchairs, crutches, walkers), closed captioning mandates on tv's for those that are deaf, audio content for books for the blind and sight impediments/larger print etc. As good as all of these things are I do not believe that it establishes a concept of equality.
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iwog says
Whoa, what society do you live in, Iwog?
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leoj707 says
Damn, life before electricity and modern appliances sucked. In related news, have you hugged an engineer today? I think Leoj's posting proves that engineers have improved the quality of your life more than any politician or priest ever could.
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iwog says
That's because all the female plumbers work in the porn industry. I'm basing that assertion off of a cursory Google Image search of "female plumbers".
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leoj707 says
Housework was always subcontracted out to domestic help in any middle class to upper class family, or even to slaves in some eras. It didn't help the women's movement any.
What did help was a society wealthy enough to let women earn a living without doing much physical labor. I hate to open up another can of worms, but almost all jobs that females are hired for involve either a warm body with limited skills, (receptionist, actress, clerk, bank teller, personal secretary, bright eyed sales girl, flight attendant, telemarketer) or skills inherent in education and nurturing of children. (doctor, nurse, teacher, cooking, domestic work) There are also a few crossover jobs that involve heavy verbal and interpersonal skills like lawyer, (I'm married to one) police officer, manager, politician, and entrepreneur.
Other than doctor, women today hold all the jobs that are valuable to a complex and well fed society and NONE of the jobs that would be of any use in creating a city in the 17th century New World. This isn't by accident. For women to be liberated, they need to participate in an advanced service based economy. It's precisely the reason why women aren't liberated in 3rd world nations and only making slow progress in developing nations.
But I digress. This is one area where I am not a liberal. Females have a biological purpose and males have a biological purpose and in human beings and they are very flexible. All populations will evolve (and this goes for social evolution too) to the point where reproduction and survival are maximized. When life is hard, women will take the submissive role to let men take care of them, (including making rules for them) and when life is easy they will assert themselves more.
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iwog brings up a interesting point and adding to it. Why didn't feminists become neo luddite? Instead of preserving the demand for their labor they embraced the ability to outsource the work to machines. Now that might make sense if they were interested in fixing the machines but that is not the case.
It reminds me a bit of prior employers of mine that would gradually shrink work people would do rather than lay them off or fire them outright. Or work would be outsourced the the surrounding area to the point where there was no work to be done.
I've seen a bit of a trend where some women simply use higher education as a networking link to find a guy (even if they don't graduate). Most women I've met get it but I do know some that are content with being homemakers..I can see that before say first grade but after that there's really not much more to do. Yes a house requires maintenance but if a family lives in an apartment what would you do with that ample time?
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Some interesting news from the UK:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1251873/What-women-want-2010-A-husband-wholl-main-breadwinner.html#ixzz1gibaqd9f
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Dan8267 says
lol, thanks for a good morning laugh...
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iwog says
So how does your theory explain the Aka society? A pre-industrial society in which women are "liberated" and perform the same jobs as men.
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iwog says
As you should well know, pre-industrial societies have a small to zero "middle class" able to afford servants. The aristocracy is also very small. Like with any social revolution numbers are needed.
If you are in a household that can afford servants the moment you try and upset the "natural balance" you get cast out and suddenly find yourself without the time to revolt. Only when a large population of women have time does the change happen.
Just for fun, you might want to watch season 1 episode 14 "Angel One" of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I just happened to watch it last night on NetFlix and it seems to agree with your theory that the stronger sex rules the weaker.
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iwog says
Yes, all populations evolve and survival is maximized.
I hate to nitpick, but reproduction is not all ways "maximized". Some species will create thousands of offspring, while other will create only a few. Maximization of reproduction is not always compatible with survival of a species.
This is also related to your comments on self-sacrifice of a species. While my understanding is that it is more often done by males it is done by females as well. Self-sacrifice is usually done to save a family member. Self-sacrifice if found with greater prevalence in species with low rates of reproduction, and the offspring are the ones -- male or female -- who self-sacrifice is most often done for. So, evolutionarily it seems to be more about preserving the next generation than about preserving breeding females.
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leoj707 says
Never heard of the Aka, but here's what the internet says. It sounds about as liberated as any 5000 year old culture.
"Marriage in Aka society can take place either by way of negotiation or by the romantic way of capture. Polygamy is fairly common in Aka society. Cross-cousins are allowed as well. The Aka trace their descent in the Patriachial point of view. Mithun are essential part of the bride price for marriage."
I did find a highly feminist article on the Guardian that doesn't reference any actual science and is extremely long on conjecture. (most regarding male nipples) Since the Aka don't have a written history, there's no way to know what they were doing 5000 years ago and the evolution of male nipples for pacifiers is pretty absurd in my opinion.
leoj707 says
I'm not saying women enjoyed it, but I see nearly every "abuse" of per-industrial society against women as a way to ensure their survival and their ability to raise children in an era of very high child death rates.
Even today, unmarried women who lack technical and social job skills are damn near useless and either living on government aid, going to school on student loans, or leeching off a family member. ALL OF US know examples in our lives, and while you might say "there are useless men too", that is mostly because society has moved so far away from physical labor that the job description of "ditch digger" doesn't exist anymore. Women were never hired as ditch diggers, soldiers, or indentured farm workers in pre-industrial society because they simply couldn't do the same work a man could.
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iwog says
That's a very interesting hypothesis. As 17th century New World economics is not one of my areas of expertise, I can't confirm or deny this, but it does bring up an interesting question. Is it necessary for an economy to move from manual labor to intellectual labor in order for women to be equal to men in economic productivity and financial independence?
I don't think it has to do with the economy being "service-based", but rather based on mental labor rather than physical labor. If wealth is derived from mining minerals, forging swords, and building roads by hand, then men, particularly strong ones, have a huge economic advantage.
Since the end of WWII, America's economy has been more about white-collar jobs than manual labor or blue-collar jobs. During WWII, women were doing all blue-color factory labor because the men were fighting in Europe and the Pacific, but even that labor wasn't quite like pre-industrial labor. Heck, in the 19th century, children worked in factories.
But after WWII, the must have jobs were business administration, marketing, science and engineering, and other non-physical jobs. As such, gender shouldn't matter in these. If Iwog is wrong, then it's a heck of a coincidence that the introduction of women into the labor force happened in the 1960s and 1970s instead of the same time as the suffrage movement, which ended in 1920 with the 19th Amendment. Why would there be about half a century between women getting the right to vote and becoming a permanent part of the workforce unless the later required a transition to a non-physical economy? No feminist has ever complained that there are not enough women in coal mines. No, it's always CEO or senator.
I think Iwog might be on to something here. And if so, then I would hypothesize that the key to bringing equality to women in the Middle East is to develop their economies to the point where they are doing office work and other white-collar jobs. Maybe we should forward this discussion to some human rights group for further development.
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bdrasin says
Dan says
Word of advice, don't Google Image Search "Rick Santorum".
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Dan8267 says
That's sort of what author William Easterly has been implying. Sadly what happens in some countries is they get used as baby factories for short term cheap labor. In addition dowery system in Asia is pretty screwed up. Gender equality really doesn't factor into the case.
Here's an old saying that some still take to heart
"When a son is born,
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes,
And give him jade to play...
When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give broken tiles to play...
From the Book of Songs (1000 – 700 B.C.)
The middle east is different because much of it is a rentier state. Basically imagine socialism but without taxes. The oil revenue pays for everything. Women sometimes often do get degrees but hardly can do much afterward. Driving in saudi arabia is illegal. Legality of abortion and divorce can vary dramatically. I cannot see that much for women having a fullfilling life in the middle east due to the actions of governmental policies.
There is also what is called dutch disease. Basically the currency of these countries rises due to a cash crop (oil) but hurts the export markets for everything else. Factor in some revolutions and fair amounts of wars over the past 35 years and the best and brightest often leave. Diasporas can be interesting.
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Dan8267 says
That's one are where I have to disagree with you Dan. African American implies you are of African descent and you personally immigrated here from Africa and became an American. It doesn't say anything about race (not all africans are black), and it doesn't say anything about people who's ancestors have lived on this continent for generations. The term black americans, or blacks, or black people, is much more accurate when trying to identify someone by their race. Confusing nationality for race in an effort to be politically correct just muddies the water, so to speak.
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ReasonNotFaith says
I call myself an Italian American, but I did not immigrate here from Italy. Neither did my parents or grandparents. The farthest back I can trace my Italian heritage is New Jersey / NYC. So am I wrong to call myself an Italian American?
I also call myself an Irish American, but same story.
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leoj707 says
I don't think they're disconnected from it, I think they are involved in a defense mechanism. They know the far left is going to try anything to get rid of legal gun ownership (the same way the far right is going to do anything possible to get rid of legal abortions) and the right is worried about incremental moves that will get us closer and closer to laws prohibiting law following responsible citizens from owning firearms.
Dan8267 says
Watch out who you throw into that class (american gun owners). Broad sweeping generalizations aren't normally your style, and this one doesn't characterize me or any of my gun owning friends.
iwog says
My wife has a aunt who worked a farm in Europe for many years after her husband died... supported her family for many years and they did well until she got too old to be able to continue to do the work. My mother had a 70 year old grandmother who built a house all by herself and supporter herself for a decade by working the land herself until she died in her 80's.
Other than biases preventing people from purchasing from or doing business with women, how was it any different several hundred years ago. Granted, the average woman side by side with a man in a field working all day can't get quite as much done, but that doesn't mean she can't get any done, or even enough done. I don't think your arguments can carry your water the way you think they do.
Back then if they saw a capable women succeeding without a man, they were liable to accuse her of being a witch, burn her house, rape her, and kill her. It had little to do with her ability to support herself and everything to do with biases.
Dan8267 says
I would say yes, that is a misleading way to refer to yourself. I think a more precise way would be you are an American of Italian descent. You're not italian, you're American.
The "native american" thing irritates me too. I'm native american.... I was born here, my parents were born here, my grandparents were born here... If you go back far enough, no one is native to north america as we all came from descendents of people who originated in Africa. I prefer the term American Indian.
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ReasonNotFaith says
I'm guessing she didn't work the farm for many years but instead managed the farm for many years with paid labor. Even if she actually did do all the work, a woman with a tractor, fertilizer, and modern irrigation has no relevance to life in pre-industrial society. I FLATLY REJECT ALL ARGUMENTS THAT PRETEND AN AVERAGE WOMAN IS CAPABLE OF THE SAME PHYSICAL PRODUCTION AS AN AVERAGE MAN! It's not politically correct, but I know it's true and so does everyone else.
ReasonNotFaith says
"Can't get quite as much done" is disingenuous as hell and ignores reality. I would say a single man with a horse/oxen drawn plow would out produce an average female by at least 4 to 1. In fact there would be 200%-1000% more rocks that she'd have to hitch a horse to get out of the way while a male would simply pick them up and remove them.
ReasonNotFaith says
You're making a conclusion without a single shred of support. Both men and women were burned as witches, but it wasn't because of property. Women were not allowed to hold property in most cultures.
If a woman can be easily raped and killed, that just supports my point further and is a good reason why she shouldn't be allowed the same rights as a man in pre-industrial society. It's not bias, it's a bunch of fathers and brothers who don't want to see their women wrecked by the hostile world. Bias has no function in this discussion.
An interesting counter-example is ancient Rome, where women were allowed to own property and had a few more rights. However slavery was widespread and the abundance of slaves within most Roman households ensured that women could survive simply by relying on enslaved males to carry out the required labor. I find this very similar to today where nearly every necessity of life is subcontracted out to a man somewhere regardless of marital status.
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A very interesting discussion on a subject which needs a lot more debate.
I would like to go one step further and bring up something that has not been discussed here, namely, what is the real forbidden speech in American society. If one decides to go into any profession and achieve a position of influence, be it public or private, one finds that there are a number of absolute truths that one must publically agree to.
They are in effect, a form of loyalty test, articles of faith that must be absolutely believed if one is to be at the top tier of society.
Among them are:
* The U.S. government had no forewarning of the attacks on Sept 11 2001.
* The HIV/ AIDS virus came from Monkeys
* There were no MIAs at the end of the Vietnam war.
* Ralph Nader spoiled the 2000 election in Florida.
* Ronald Reagan was the "Great Communicator"
* We have two political parties in the U.S.
And lastly, the linchpin of loyalty to the establishment-
* Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut and acted alone on 22 November, 1963.
And what is really shocking is that the leadership of both the political right and left, when all is said and done, absolutely support the above list of beliefs, especially the last one.
Should one in any way publically question any of the above, the gatekeepers of society will immediately do whatever is necessasry to halt your career. You will be denounced, denied advancement, and even removed from your position should you persist. You are considered a heretic, an outcast, or worst of all a "Conspiracy Theorist"
" I know of no land where there is such little freedom of speech and discussion as America"
Alexis de Tocqueville