This analysis from the Wall Street Journal nails it. (H/T ECM)
Excerpt:
For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity, which is bound up with their politics in a way that it is not for any other group (possibly excepting gays, though that is unrelated to today’s topic).
An important strand of contemporary liberalism is feminism. As a label, “feminist” is passé; outside the academic fever swamps, you will find few women below Social Security age who embrace it.
That is because what used to be called feminism–the proposition that women deserve equality before the law and protection from discrimination–is almost universally accepted today. Politically speaking, a woman is the equal of a man. No woman in public life better symbolizes this than Sarah Palin–especially not Hillary Clinton, the left’s favorite icon. No one can deny Mrs. Clinton’s accomplishments, but neither can one escape crediting them in substantial part to her role as the wife of a powerful man.
But there is more to feminism than political and legal equality. Men and women are intrinsically unequal in ways that are ultimately beyond the power of government to remediate. That is because nature is unfair. Sexual reproduction is far more demanding, both physically and temporally, for women than for men. Men simply do not face the sort of children-or-career conundrums that vex women in an era of workplace equality.
Except for the small minority of women with no interest in having children, this is an inescapable problem, one that cannot be obviated by political means. Aspects of it can, however, be ameliorated by technology–most notably contraception, which at least gives women considerable control over the timing of reproduction.
As a political matter, contraception is essentially uncontroversial today, which is to say that any suggestion that adult women be legally prevented from using birth control is outside the realm of serious debate. The same cannot be said of abortion, and that is at the root of Palinoia.
To the extent that “feminism” remains controversial, it is because of the position it takes on abortion: not just that a woman should have the “right to choose,” but that this is a matter over which reasonable people cannot disagree–that to favor any limitations on the right to abortion, or even to acknowledge that abortion is morally problematic, is to deny the basic dignity of women.
To a woman who has internalized this point of view, Sarah Palin’s opposition to abortion rights is a personal affront, and a deep one. It doesn’t help that Palin lives by her beliefs. To the contrary, it intensifies the offense.
It used to be a trope for liberal interviewers to try to unmask hypocrisy by asking antiabortion politicians–male ones, of course–what they would do if their single teen daughters got pregnant. It’s a rude question, but Palin, whose 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy coincided with Mom’s introduction to the nation, answered it in real life.
Let me explain what I think the problem is in plain English. Feminists want to blame their failures on the men. They have invested everything in the belief that the world is inhospitable to women. The only way for women to succeed according to feminism, is to whine and complain and be a victim, and to make yourself into a man and deny your femininity and kill your own offspring. Sarah Palin didn’t do any of that. Yet she was very nearly Vice President. She doesn’t hate men, and she doesn’t kill babies. Her success is the counter-example that shows that all of feminism is just self-serving lies that feminists invent in order to blame men for their own failure to succeed, marry and have children. THAT is why they hate Sarah Palin. They hated Bush because he was a Christian, and they hate Palin because she is pro-male, pro-marriage, and pro-life.
And as you all know, I do not want Palin to be President in 2012. I want Michele Bachmann to President in 2012, who, as a homeschooling mother, is the stronger purer form of what Sarah Palin represents. She’s 100% feminity wedded to 100% conservatism. She is a walking refutation of feminist griveance-mongering. You don’t have to be a feminist in order to succeed as a woman. You don’t have to hate men. You don’t have to hate marriage. And you don’t have to kill children. You can love men, love marriage, and love children, and you can still go straight to the top.
UPDATE: Robert McCain has more.
Taranto is very close to something here, and I wonder if he doesn’t push the argument to its logical conclusion because he is afraid that he would be denounced by hysterical women — yes, even Republican women, even some “conservative” women — if he spoke the blunt truth.
One of the necessary consequences of the Modern Professional Feminist Career Woman Lifestyle is that it tends to limit women’s procreative capacity. It isn’t merely that feminism’s embrace of the Culture of Death elevates abortion to sacramental status. Rather, it is that feminist notions of Progress require that women foresake (or at least postpone) the love-marriage-motherhood model of happiness in pursuit of careerist equality. Even if a woman does not actually go all-out in following the anti-phallocratic ideology — “Feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice,” to quote Ti-Grace Atkinson — her pursuit of the career woman lifestyle inevitably restricts her reproductive opportunities.
By the time she finishes college and grad school and establishes herself firmly en route to an upper-middle-class socioeconomic future, the the Modern Professional Feminist Career Woman is 30 or older. Even if she could meet Mister Right, she’s not going to abandon her career — for she has been taught to consider life meaningless without a professional career — in favor of domesticity. Ergo, even if she marries and decides she can afford a baby, she’ll have to hire someone to raise it for her while she returns to the job from which she derives her sense of purpose and identity.
He’s one of the few bloggers who gets deep into these moral issues. All my Christian readers should bookmark his blog.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
I think it’s a bit simpler than that.
Dems (or the pissy psychopath group of them, at least) always get possessive about their pet “minority” groups straying from the yard of acceptable thought, and the more successfully they stray, the more angry they get. (Look at the horrible things aimed at Dr. Rice, the attacks on Justice Thomas, etc..)
Palin is a threat. She shows that the Repubs not only will give women a chance for big stuff when they’re not already big news, she shows that women on the right can be fulfilled. Does anyone doubt she loves her husband and children? (Why do you think they kept trying to start divorce rumors about her?)
The abortion thing just hits even closer— more than the minority issue, abortion is something they will violently lash out about. And here is this picture-perfect Republican woman who is anti-abortion, has a son they would have urged her to kill, and has a daughter with a child they also would have urged to have killed. And she’s happy. She won’t even give them the satisfaction of being confrontational about it– she just lives, and talks.
(I suspect that the refusal to be unpleasant and give them an excuse was a factor in hatred of Bush, too.)
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Sarah Palin has no chance of getting elected. The surveys indicate she would do poorly against Obama. She knows few details on the issues, just obvious conservative wing talking points. The smart Republicans know this, that is why they are hoping Sarah Palin doesn’t run for president, and why they are for mainstream knowledgeable candidates like Mitt Romney.
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Romney is WAY too liberal for me. He’s liberal on fiscal issues (RomneyCare) and social issues (pro-choice, and pro-gay-activism). No thanks! I prefer Michele.
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The only republicans I can think of that would want Mitt Romney for President are moderates. Conservatives and Libertarians wouldn’t want him as President.
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Classic dems who left the party when it got wild, basically.
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Who do you like in 2012, Foxfier?
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Nobody, yet.
Other than that I’d like the morons who got us in this fix with their “smart politics” to shut up until they can come up with a rational argument that doesn’t involve mind reading.
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Legal Insurrection is doing a series here on “tell me about X.”
Looks like the Lakewood shooting is a pretty big nail for Huck.
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I saw your comment:
“He is an outstanding pro-life democrat who for some reason is running as a Republican.”
LOL! He is a Democrat on fiscal policy – he voted to raise taxes and he is for Big Government. I think he is also lousy on illegal immigration. And, as you noted, he is soft on crime.
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What’s you take on illegal immigration, Wintery?
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I want massive increases in legal immigration, and a fence built on the south border to block illegal immigration. I want a national ID card with a national registry and it must be used when voting, together with a utility bill showing the mailing address. I want a hike in gas taxes balanced with a cut in employee/employer payroll taxes. Basically – I want taxes on hiring legal employees ABOLISHED and I want the revenue to come from consumption taxes. That way, the illegals must pay taxes and the legals don’t.
I also want to end education, medical care, birthright citizenship, welfare and any other government benefits for illegals. I want massive penalties for voter fraud and hiring illegals. And I want a massive drop in the federal minimum wage. Right to zero, if possible.
I really really believe in increasing legal immigration, though, and especially through employment of skilled workers. I want vastly increased work permits for skilled workers. Especially if they want to bring capital to start a business, if they are not committing crimes, and it they are able to work for X years straight. Legal immigrants should not be eligible for any government benefits though until they become citizens. I want a huge, difficult citizenship test that is designed by Michele Bachmann and that requires 100% memorization of the founding documents.
I would also expand opportunities for people to get citizenship through military service or through charitable donations or by starting businesses and hiring American workers or by investing in American stocks.
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Our neighbor, who isfrom Malasia, told us that while its hard to gain citizenship in Malasian, its possible and relatively easy if you are starting a business there.
I agree, capital should count towards citizenship.
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Neo-Neocon has a post on her view of it. (If you don’t know her– she’s a fairly recent convert from the cult of liberalism. Thus the “Neo” prefix to “neocon.”
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“For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity.”
Really? And what about the Democratic men (and Republican men) who “hate her?” Does she threaten their sexual identity, too?
Not let’s extend this little analogy. If ever there was a group whose sexual identity has been threatened by a woman (Hillary Clinton, Sonia Sotomayor) or women (liberal women, feminists) it’s Republican men (WK, you are a prime example: you’ve made a career out of whining over what these women are doing to your chances of getting married. Kind of like the kettle calling the pot black, don’t you think?)
And dear Sarah: she’s so threatened by, well, everyone: the media, the left. What’s she afraid of? Care to take a guess?
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At least WK has good reason to feel antipathy toward such women. I can’t abide Hillary Clinton, or Sonia Sotomayor. Their anti-life, anti-family stance disgusts me – especially as a woman, because they pervert womanhood.
And I like men who dislike the political machinations of such women. I think they’re sensible and they have guts. The average liberal man is a weak-willed, lily-livered creature, cowering at the mere thought of offending these rabid feminists. No thanks. I’ll have a real man instead.
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How many of these liberal men have you met?
I ask because I’m quite surprised by your assessment.
I know a good number, and, though I disagree with their position, I really don’t feel it’s fair to paint them all with this broad brush.
Many of them have come to their conclusions by methods that have nothing to do with “cowering at the mere thought of offending these rabid feminists.”
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I’ve met a good many such men – sadly. When I say liberal men, I’m referring to men who vote liberal – who vote for people like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or are fans of theirs. And usually such men will tell me proudly (clearly under the mistaken impression that it’s going to impress me, as a woman) that they’re feminists and they support a “woman’s right to choose” or that they don’t think they can really make definite statements about the issue of abortion because they’re men and it’s a “woman’s issue”. And I can tell that they think they’re being terribly pro-woman and enlightened. Of course it really means that they’ve fallen for liberal propaganda hook, line, and sinker. I usually argue with them, much to their surprise. And if they’re single, I silently cross them off the list of possible husbands. :-P Although, by that stage they’ve usually realized that I hold stronger opinions on the topic than they do, and I can see by the look on their faces that they’ve decided I’m a bit of an extremist or a “fundamentalist” and I’m not going to be satisfied with their insipidity.
It’s not entirely their fault that they are the way they are. They’ve been conditioned to be that way – by schooling, liberal media, movies, etc. Many of them are quite likeable when it comes to their personalities – friendly, polite, etc. But there’s no way I could rely on them to teach my kids well or rely on them to support me in my conservative views and activities. They’re useless to me as husbands.
It doesn’t help that liberalism is rife here because I live in a racially obsessed country where (for historical reasons) people think that to not be racist they need to be liberal.
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“And if they’re single, I silently cross them off the list of possible husbands.”
Hearing a Christian woman talk like this heals a deep wound for me. It is GOOD to know that there are Christian women out there who evaluate men on character and not on other non-Christian criteria. I am SICK and TIRED of having Christian women who read their Bibles, sing praise hymns in the church, go to Bible study, etc. tell me that being an engineer is wrong, being chaste is wrong, marshaling facts and evidence in arguments is wrong, not drinking alcohol is wrong, making moral judgments is wrong, not being politically correct on things like war, abortion, marriage and environmentalism is wrong. I have had “Christian” women who had non-Christian boyfriends that they cohabitated with and then had abortions tell me that I am a bad person for doing what the Bible says. If I listened to Christian women, I would be a non-Christian. I have RARELY felt affirmed or encouraged to earn and save money, study apologetics, and be self-controlled. I am always being pressured to spend money and be more “entertaining” and less “judgmental” – as if that’s what Christian men are supposed to do.
What sickens me about men these days is that they treat the world of morality and ideas as a game where they just have to say the words that their teachers and female peers want them to say in order to be accepted, (and perhaps to get easy sex). Is that what God made men for? It is infuriating to me that men, who are supposed to be independent and defiant, have reduced reason and morality to people-pleasing.
Men are supposed to be like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OfvfEL-hmw
Transcript:
That’s a man.
Compare that with the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:11/Luke 6:22 and Peter’s words in 1 Peter 1:3-9 and 1 Peter 3:8-22. Christians don’t fear suffering. We don’t look to others to get our marching orders.
Sometimes I wonder whether people actually read the Bible to find out what it says, or just to read comforting words that don’t tell them anything about how they ought to be. Being a Christian means not caring what other people think when you do what is right. Period.
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So, you, Mary, from South Africa, live and work around the average American liberal male that makes up the bulk of the liberal vote. enough to make this assessment?
I don’t think so.
You and Wintery may be thinking that I am harping at you like you are the enemy. I am not.
I’m trying to point out that you and Wintery are subject to certain prejudices. These prejudices make your understanding of the big picture flawed. And since your big picture view is flawed, the solutions you come up with are faulty.
Liberalism IS flawed, in and of itself. But is it flawed at a core level below the surface level of inflamatory “Weak men, overbearing women” accusations.
You are not dealing with reason or logic here. This is pure emotionalism and giving into fear mongering.
Most of the liberal men that I know through the numerous communities I have lived in and the jobs I have worked and who make up the base liberal voters in American polotics are motivated by something else. And it is not by their own weakness and fear of women.
If you come after them with that charge, it will roll off them like water off a ducks back because it has no merit in their lives. They will just look at you like you are a crazed right-wing wacko who puts too much stock in fear mongering propoganda.
When I have time, I will get to the core issue of liberalism. But later. I don’t think you can hear me now. You are so carried away by your emotionalism and are so convinced by the propoganda that anything I say to get your eyes off of the red herring and onto what really motivates liberals will count for nothing.
Remember, I’m telling you from the stand point of another person who wants to get this country back on track, back toward conservative values. I’m not saying it just to be contentious.
If you want to win a war, you must actually know your enemy. Not what propoganda says, nor what the fringe and extreme groups of that enemy thinks it’s about.
You have to get to the core, the root.
I’ll wait till you are ready to actually hear me, if you ever get to that point. Then, Lord willing, we can explore it a bit.
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Mara I’ve been through undergraduate and graduate programs, and in my experience the men have not studied these issues, but instead treat liberal positions as noises they have to parrot in order to get approval from professors and female peers. They haven’t thought anything they say through. If you have ever debated a liberal male on any issue, you will find that they quickly cave in because they have never investigated these issues to get at the truth of them, but instead simply made the noises they needed in order to get good grades from professors and sex from women. That’s how men who are weak work – they do whatever is expected of them in order to have as little trouble as possible in their lives. The faster they say “Blame Bush” in their poli sci class is the faster they get their “A” and can go back to playing video games while drunk. The faster they say “I’m pro-choice” is the faster they find themselves in bed with a drunk feminist at a frat party. Those are the rules.
I think students are especially prone to believing whatever it takes in order to fit it. They quickly accept liberal positions in order to get good grades and please whoever needs pleasing. I have had debates with men who espouse abortion as being “pro-woman” until I mention the statistics on sex-selection abortions. THEY HAD NEVER HEARD OF THAT. So you pin them down on being anti-woman and their heads explode because they were just spouting what they’d been taught to spout in order to get good grades. They have no independent thinking capability at all but only do what is necessary to get good grades.
And then of course women complain that there are no men who will marry them. DUH! Liberal men make LOUSY fathers and husbands, because liberalism is the denial of self-sacrifice, duty and honor. You get what you ask for. If you ask for John Edwards, then you get… JOHN EDWARDS. I actually had a post-abortive woman express fear about marrying someone like John Edwards, and then 5 minutes later talking about how great John Edwards policies are. This was a Christian woman, by the way, who developed all her policy positions based on EMOTIONS.
The solution to this is for women to understand what a man needs to do to be a husband and father by thinking through marriage and parenting like a set of usage scenarios of a piece of software. It’s an engineering problem. What is it that a man does in a marriage? What is it that a man needs in a marriage? Those questions would help women think through what they should be choosing and what they should be doing to QUALIFY for a good man and to help him to execute the scenarios. The time has come for the “look at wedding pictures and dream of what the bad boy would look like in a wedding picture” school of courting to stop.
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Thanks, WK. It’s encouraging to read your view too. I know there are good men such as yourself out there with a willingness to stand by what they believe, even when they’re disliked for it. Keep it up.
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Mara, I can assure you that there are lots and lots of liberal men here. And they love Barack Obama. He’s a really a big deal here. I don’t live in the styx. And liberal men are liberal men the world over.
I can’t agree or disagree with this thing you want to tell me until you tell it to me.
But as far as I’m concerned liberal men are entirely unsuitable for me. How can I attach myself to a man who doesn’t see the right to life of pre-born children as important enough to refuse to vote for pro-choice candidates? Such a man is either ignorant, or doesn’t think clearly enough or doesn’t have enough moral backbone to be the kind of husband I want. Most of them have had feminism drummed into them as “a good thing for an enlightened man to be in our day and age”. This is not emotionalism. This is facing the facts. If I followed my emotions I’d be saying something quite different right now and I’d be married to a liberal man.
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What abortion is, is the view that you can pursue happiness by breaking sexual rules and then kill other people who get in your way (babies). If you think that such a person will make a good husband and father, (realize that marriage REQUIRES commitment and self-sacrifice), then good luck with that. A guy who thinks that sex is recreational and that murder is an acceptable way to deal with the demands of dependent humans that he brought into being is not suitable for the institution of marriage. Marriage is a specific thing. It has specific use cases. Specific requirements. You do not plug in a John Edwards to do the work of a Wayne Grudem. It doesn’t work.
And there is no point in women complaining that there are no good men when they deliberately choose bad men. Marriage is not wedding pictures. Marriage is not baby pictures. Marriage is not a home with a car and a white picket fence. The outward show of a good marriage comes from a man’s worldview, a man’s choices, and a man’s experiences. There are WRONG MEN who cannot satisfy the obligations of being a husband and father. And you can’t tell the good ones from the bad ones by physical appearance or how entertaining they are or whether your secular girl friends LIKE HIM OR NOT.
Marriage is not the endpoint of the partying/hooking-up lifestyle. You cannot get there by following the path of selfishness and hedonism.
Note: This also works for same-sex marriage, which is the view that adults can deny children a biological parent and a stable, monogamous, long-term relationship. If you support same-sex marriage, then you are pro-adult-selfishness and anti-child-welfare. The same is true for single motherhood and no-fault divorce. Supporting any of these policies is a disqualification for marriage and parenting.
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And even if they’re not sleeping around, not being immoral, etc, their foundations are too weak to be reliable. Even if they mean it when they say they love the woman they marry, they have no reason not to dump her when they “fall in love” with someone else because their ideology doesn’t tell them that anything other than “feelings” ought to be obeyed in relationships. Even if they’re not the sort who would coerce a woman into an abortion, they wouldn’t know how to dissuade her or think they had the right to try to protect her child. Even though they might genuinely love their children, they will pass on the same poor philosophies on which they base their own choices.
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(Swoons) You must be an engineer!
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:D
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Okay, I guess what we need to talk about is the rank and file democrat verses the elites.
It’s the rank and file democrats the make up the majority of the vote. Not the elites you are dealing with.
The elites are in control of the schools. But they are not the majority of democrats.
If you only want to focus on the elites, then I would ask you to specify, to save confusion and misrepresentation of the majority.
The democrats I know have stable marriages, work, go to church, and, on the surface, look a lot like the republicans.
My next door neighbor is a lawyer and is still married to his first wife. He’s man enough, goes fishing and boating. Their kids are grown and they are enjoying grandparenthood.
He isn’t a lousy husband or father, nor are any of my other liberal neighbors who put democratic signs in their yards and walk in the local parades for their favorite candidated during election season.
I guess until you live among those, you will make the false assumption that all democrats are like your liberal elite, college, subgroup.
You need to be careful. This country is a lot, lot, lot bigger than the colleges and universities you are dealing with.
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Mara, I know lots of people like that. And I said they’re not all nasty and horrible. But this neighbour of yours who votes for the democrats is seriously remiss. He’s a lawyer, for crying out loud! He’s got education and enough smarts to listen to the politicians and hear what their policies are. I’m sure he’s a pleasant person. But he has no excuse. His pleasantness and amiable nature doesn’t change the fact that he is voting for someone who supports making it easier to kill pre-born children. He’s content to have his nice happy family and ignore the fact that he’s letting children die. I stand by my previous statement.
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And even smaller things like denying the poorest minority children the right to a good education by giving parents VOUCHERS. I hold people responsible for the effects of how they vote. If a person means well and votes based on emotions, they are STILL RESPONSIBLE for the harm they do. The decision to NOT INVESTIGATE the issues is MORALLY CULPABLE.
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I completely agree with you and WK. A person’s voting record shows exactly what they hold to be true.
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You guys are missing the entire point.
You think you’ve got these people all figured out.
You don’t.
Your view is shallow and one dimensional.
It is also overly emotional.
You cannot talk honestly about or to people like this while you have so much emotional baggage.
Even being right and knowing why you are right, you’ll never be able to speak to them because you don’t know where they are coming from, what motivates them, nor are you willing to see it.
You’ll continue to put them on the defensive, persuading none of them. You will only alienate them further, when it is so avoidable.
There is something to be said for, “I see where you are coming from, but have you considered this…”
Like I said.
When you are ready to stop with all your pigeonholing and broad brush painting, then we can talk.
Until then, have fun agreeing with each other and perpetuating angry, inaccurate, and ineffectual conversation.
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Am I allowed to judge people’s character based on their voting record?
I.e. – if Democrats vote for a man who opposes a ban on Born Alive Infant Abortions, can I not infer that they are either 1) selfish or 2) negligent by being too lazy to inform themselves about candidates and issues?
I am not saying they are EVIL, but that the consequences of their decisions to be ignorant and to vote based on their emotions are evil. I.e. – they are not evil themselves – they mean well, but they factually wrong, but what happens from their wrong vote is evil.
I gave an example (vouchers for kids in failing schools) and Mary gave an example (abortion). What is wrong with making an inference about the liberal voter from the policies that they support?
There’s a line from King Lear that comes to mind here. “The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman”. I believe that it’s Edgar who says that. Just because a person appears nice doesn’t mean that they cannot cause harm. A person can mean well (as liberals do) but have unintended consequences that cause harm. E.g. – voting to raise minimum wage with the unexpected result of many lower income people losing jobs, or voting to impose price controls with the unexpected result of a shortage.
Not sure why you think that my disagreement with liberals on specific policies is me being emotional.
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Mara, I’m still wondering what these other motives are that you think are the main ones. Please explain. I was actually pretty nice about it. I said they were ignorant, or didn’t think clearly, or weak. There’s another option: they could be depraved. But I assumed these were the pleasant ones we were talking about. If there’s another option we’ve not thought of, please let us know.
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Mary: “The average liberal man is a weak-willed, lily-livered creature, cowering at the mere thought of offending these rabid feminists. No thanks. I’ll have a real man instead.”
This is the comment that got me started.
Your accusation that the average liberal male is motivated by fear is inaccurate.
Your average liberal male is motivated by the same things the average male is motivated by. They want to be a hero and have a positive influence on the world. They are motivated by compassion and want to make the world a better place.
Yes, their methods are screwy. Yes the pendulum has swung to far the other way.
It used to be that a woman had NO control over her body. She didn’t even have the right to know how her own body worked. The early teaching of women concerning their own bodies was vigorously fought against and women ended up being weakened and dying young from too many pregnancies in too short of time and dying due to child birth and lack of prenatal care. I’m not just talking about immoral women. This included married women trying to do what was right.
So it’s not the case any more.
Death due to pregnancy is way down.
But the tidal wave of reform carried a momentum that the liberals are still riding, thinking they are doing good when really they are not.
Abortion is not the only thing.
There are many others. Like minimum wage.
The point is, they aren’t motivated by fear.
They are motivated by doing good.
Misguided, yes. Of course. I so agree with that.
But in their hearts they want to do what is right.
I’m sorry for the ones you know that have been bullied into it. Even so, I’d still appeal to them from the positive, doing the right thing approach first. Appealling to them from the negative, “you’re a weak, limp wristed, poor excuse for a man” rarely works, even if it is accurate.
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I have to tell you Mara, I had the exact opposite reaction to Mary. I felt deeply validated and vindicated when I read her comments. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with men today, and I think that I really appreciate Mary’s disappointment with the liberal men in South Africa. I would go even further and say that even the Christian men in the church are a big disappointment to her – having no plan for marriage and family, no comprehensive worldview informed by Biblical convictions, no preparation to defend their faith, and no courage to stand up alone and be different. I think that a lot of women like Mary who have refused to settle for weak, compromised, liberal men have a right to be angry and disappointed.
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Mara, I agree that men want to feel heroic. My problem is that many of the liberal ones are so concerned about their fellow liberals CONSIDERING them heroic, rather than objectively BEING heroic, that they are prepared to make very unheroic choices.
I realize that a person can perhaps not understand eocnomics enought to make wise choices there and so liberal fiscal policy is not necessarily the result of being weak. That’s why I focus on the abortion issue, because it’s much more stark and clear cut.
If a person is educated and intelligent enough to be a lawyer, they have a responsibility to check out the policies that politicians support. If they examine the voting record of Barack Obama and they see that he he has voted in favour of Partial Birth Abortion remaining legal, and against the Born Alive Infants Act (I’m on a different continent and I know about these things, so it’s not hard to find), they need to see the seriousness of this man’s anti-life stance and refuse to vote for him. Obama is *radically* anti-life. Anyone who knows this and still goes ahead and votes for him cannot be acting out of heroism, but out of a cowardly desire to merely appear heroic to their fellow liberals, including radical feminists.
Sure, on an individual basis, I will listen to what a person has to say and attempt to persuade them winsomely to the best of my ability. But it’s really important on a collective basis that men (who, as Wintery said, are very strongly influenced by what women think of them) see that not all women consider their pro-choice stance to be heroic. It’s important that they see that there are those who think it is cowardly. Mostly, the only female voice they hear is that of radical feminists from NOW telling them that to be pro-woman and heroic in a woman’s eyes is to be pro-choice and if they are pro-life that must mean they are in favour of oppressing women and decidedly unheroic. They need to hear the opposite from women (presented as strongly, or it will have no impact) that to be pro-life is truly heroic and pro-woman and that to be pro-choice is cowardly and anti-woman.
Thanks for giving me an opportunity to express this more clearly. I hope some men are listening… ;-)
Wintery: Thanks for understanding. I should clarify that I’m not disappointed with ALL men. It’s the liberal ones that frustrate me.
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“They need to hear the opposite from women (presented as strongly, or it will have no impact) that to be pro-life is truly heroic and pro-woman and that to be pro-choice is cowardly and anti-woman.”
Yes, this is my view too. I am having experiences lately where I go to bat for my friends on Facebook and after pounding away at the bad person for a while, they give up and suddenly become civil. It’s like you have to cite paper after paper in order to get them to behave. Graphs work really well, especially if it’s from like NASA or some research institute. Seriously, it’s like you have to really be aggressive and persistent to make them BELIEVE that anyone else at all has a different point of view than they do. I think they think I am kidding initially, and that shaming me is going to work to cover up shortcomings in their evidence.
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I have just as much right to point out that the liberal males that I know, here in the states, are nothing like what she is describing.
I still fully disagree with their stand. What they think is a cure is really poison and I want to figure a way to get that across to them.
But these are men who are already married, have children, are strong pillars in their community, etc.
I think it would be better for everyone if she would qualify and say, “The average liberal males that I know and have come across are, a, b, and c,” or “The average liberal male of marrying age that I have come across is…” rather than, “The average liberal males (which would imply of all time in all places) are a, b, and c.”
Her anger reminds me of an angry feminist rant I read under a story about a pediphile.
She said that all men were sex crazed fiends. That they would screw whatever they could get their hands on, women, little girls, little boys, animals.
Working in social services, I’m aware of situations where men DO use their little girls this way. I’m talking bio fathers as well as step fathers, uncles, cousins, older brothers.
We actually had one family that moved into our area where the father told us, point blank, as serious as a heart attack, “That’s the reason men have daughters. So they can have someone to be with.”
Sick
Sick
Sick
And little girls that grow up in this could get the impression that all men are this way.
Be we know that all men ARE NOT that way. That was just that one angry feminists limited view.
She is also entitled to her anger.
But she is not entitled to paint all men with her prejudiced brush.
All men are not that way.
I know this for a fact.
Just like I know for a fact that the average liberal male is not as Mary describes. At least not in my life.
So, I ask again. Please qualify your statements.
Realize that your limited life-time experiences is not a full representaion of the whole.
And I will try to remember to do the same.
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Whenever I feel weak at the idea of getting called on the carpet by offended feminists who try to silence me, I always think about my future children and whether they will be able to live in the world that the feminists have made. That gives me courage. Not just courage to take stands, but courage to resist being tempted to gain their approval by agreeing with them. A LOT of men will say and do anything for the approval of liberal women. It has to stop. Men should have an audience of one, and ourt ambition should be to be pleasing to him and to acknowledge him in all ways.
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as an independent that votes republican about 60% of the time, let me tell you why I HATE Palin. She is probably the dumbest of famous people in the spotlight and exemplifies so much of what is wrong with this country today. I have never understood the push “common folk” as politicians and our countries increasing hate of the intellectual elite. Why in the world would you want a “common folk” or average person (I believe Palin to be below average) running a country as great as this one? Would you want your heart surgeon to be as “smart” as Palin (having to go to 5 different colleges, your dad admitting that you don’t like asian people, naming your kids alienating names, etc)? Would you want the computer and software engineers that are designing the medical equipment you or your family depend on to be “common folk”? How about the avionics on the jets? So why would you want someone that everytime she opens her unscripted mouth she proves just how dumb she really is making decisions that could have serious long-term affects for this country?
I just wish her 15 minutes of fame would end so we could get some real work done.
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She is VERY unpopular with independents.
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Please, some verifiable examples of her stupidity please. Compare and contrast with our current president’s supposed intelligence (again, verifiable sources please)
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Hey, speaking of being critical, what did you think about my article critical of Rachel Maddow on the missile defense? That wasn’t too mean was it? I tried to be nice.
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Tom, stupidity is an opinion, not a diagnosis. Perhaps you find her continuous run-on sentences, all tied together with her favorite word (“also”) along with her inability to cite any of the newspapers she reads, and her writing on her hand, and her constant whining about what a victim she is, and her proclamations about going “rogue” to be enlightening, but when Jerry calls her “stupid” I know exactly what he’s referring to. Being stupid is as much about what you don’t say as what you do , how you say it and who you take on. On all accounts, she does not come off as particularly intellectual or intelligent, the way most more appealing politicians do.
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I judge the intelligence of a politician by whether they can balance a budget and keep unemployment low. An intelligent politician understands how to balance a budget, and how to attract businesses who will hire workers. That’s the measure of intelligence – results. To find out which politician is smarter than another, you just have to look at the numbers.
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So, numbers and Palin? Good point, W. She’s not a numbers gal: all hat and no cattle, as we say here in cowboy country.
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Take a look at the budget in Alaska when she was governor and the unemployment rate. Then compare it to other people’s budgets and unemployment rates. That’s how you compare the only thing that matters: RESULTS.
I actually know a person who think Sarah Palin is stupid and who voted for Obama because they thought he would cut the deficit and reduce the national debt. I told that person to look over voting records and ratings from groups like Citizens Against Government Waste. He refused to look at voting records, he refused to look at ratings, he refused to look at the Alaska budget, or the Alaska unemployment rate. (Sarah Palin cut spending in Alaska and eliminated waste)
Nancy Pelosi added over 5 trillion to the debt in 4 years. Obama ran deficits of 1.4 trillion in his first two years.
But this person is SURE that Sarah Palin is stupid. He saw it on Saturday Night Live! So it must be true.
I had another man tell me that Bush was stupid. Bush brought the deficit to 160 billion before losing control of the House in 2007. His unemployment rate then was about 4.3%. This person voted for Obama and all his co-workers were laid off. He also though Obama was pro-life and would be tough on terrorists. He thought Bush was stupid. No, he would not look at voting records or ratings either.
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I hope then that you consider all of the politicians in power to be of low intelligence as the budget has been out of control since Reagan took power and has been steadily climbing since.
I know, good ole Sarah took control of a state in great shape and didn’t mess it up, so she probably belongs in Mensa.
Judging on results is not a bad thing, but when you’re running the only state in America that has fewer people than a mid-size/large city (Baltimore), little crime, and is RICH in natural resources without having to deal with issues like medicaid or medicare, you’re job is fairly simple – don’t mess up the great job those ahead of you have done.
Had she taken a state like Illinois and turned it around or erased the debt for California or New York while balancing their budgets, she would be a political god, but all of those are well beyond her capabilities.
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I’m shocked that anyone wouldn’t know these. I’ll just list a couple that I find hilarious since to list everything would probably fill up an encyclopedia!
While being interviewed by your god glen beck, she was asked how she would deal with the hostilities between the two korea (Nov, 24 2010): “But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies.” do you think beck made a big deal out of that – the same he would have made had it not been a red star – nope…
After talking non-stop about the evils of single payer and death panels, on March 6, 2010, she says: “We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?” So she loves single payer…when she’s stealing it from another nation.
I just can’t stop laughing when I think about people like you who ignore sooooo much just so they can continue believing what they were told to by some figure head (Rush, Glen, etc)
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I think this is just being petty. The main thing is that she cut spending and had low unemployment. Those other trivialities are of no consequence.
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Sarah Palin was Gov for two years and none of it was during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. So there’s no way to tell if her policies would have raised unemployment in Alaska vs, say, the rest of the country. You’re comparing apples and oranges, in other words.
PS: Did you read the article in yesterday’s NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/business/economy/26inquiry.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=commission%20on%20financial&st=cse
Title is: Financial Crisis Was Avoidable.
PS: You can’t talk deficits without talking the Bush tax cuts and the two wars. And that’s something you’re never willing to address, so pretty much any reasonable discussion about fiscal responsibility with you is impossible.
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The causes of the financial crisis are documented in “The Housing Boom and Bust” by Thomas Sowell. It was not inevitable. There is plenty of blame to go around, although Bush tried to regulate the GSEs in 2003 and 2005 and was blocked by the banking committee.
The deficit in 2006 after tax cuts and two wars was 160 billion dollars. One tenth of Obama’s current deficit. The unemployement rate was 4.3%, less than half of Obama’s current deficit.
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You keep putting that 160 billion dollar argument out there – if it was all only 160 billion why did the national debt double under his financial genius?
I couldn’t agree with Spinster more – and to repeat what I’ve already said – Palin had no challenges. To say she didn’t mess up a well oiled machine proves she’s a great politician makes no sense. She had no challenges or problems. The best we can conclude is that she was off on vacation a lot and didn’t have time to mess up the economy or she had advisors that just told her to keep her hands off – it’s doing good. Either way, there isn’t enough evidence to draw any conclusions about her political abilities. My car’s not broken, so I’m not attempting to fix it – does that mean I’m a great mechanic – see my car’s running great?
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The last two years were not Bush’s at all – they were Pelosi’s. When Bush had the House, the deficit was down to 160 and targeted for balancing in 2008. Furthermore, since Pelosi got the gavel, she added over 5 trillion to the debt. Can’t blame Bush for spending, that’s on the House.
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WHo said anything about the crisis being inevitable? This article says it was AVOIDABLE. It reports on the findings of The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was created in 2009 by Congress as a bipartisan panel that would investigate the causes of the country’s financial meltdown, much as the 9/11 Commission examined the background of the attacks.
A majority of the panel concluded that the 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street.
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