Category Archives: News

Viral Red State article answers: why don’t men want to marry any more?

Here’s the article from Red State, written by Brandon Morse.

The first point he makes is that feminism teaches women to have character traits that make them unattractive to marriage-minded men. Feminism teaches women that evaluating men for marriage according to traditional male roles is “sexist”. There are no traditional male roles that women should prefer. Moreover, feminism teaches women that there are no female roles either. So, these women don’t understand men, and they aren’t prepared to be wives and mothers.

Brandon writes:

Even in modern families, men are taught how to treat a woman, provide for her, and work hard to keep her happy. Women aren’t taught how to treat a man or how to make him happy; they’re strictly taught what to expect from a man.

I can’t speak for all men, but in my case, I have definite plans for my marriage, and so a woman’s preparation and desire to be supportive is very important to me.

I’m trying to achieve these goals:

  • influence the church with apologetics
  • influence the university campus (students and professors) with apologetics
  • be involved in politics, advocate for conservative policy
  • open the house to students and neighbors to teach apologetics and demonstrate a loving marriage
  • raise 3-4 financially independent and influential children

And when I ask women what they bring to the table to help me to achieve all that, they often say that they’ve done nothing. Even the Christians try to get out of having to do anything hard by saying that God has a mysterious will that’s higher than my plans – plans which are designed to achieve specifically Christian goals. But if you look at the woman’s life, this mysterious God’s will never requires her to do anything difficult that would serve God. In practice, “God’s will” is just another word for doing what is easy, fun and peer-approved.

Brandon writes:

The sad truth is that many young women nowadays don’t know how to be in a marriage… they’re not taught how to treat a man, but what to expect from him… they’re flat-out dissuaded from providing anything but their presence to the partnership. They believe that offering their love to the man is sufficient and that men should just be grateful to have them.

What can you tell about a woman who has not prepared for tasks, like defending her faith, promoting conservative policies, or raising effective children? If she has not studied or practiced to do these things, then she isn’t suddenly going to become disciplined and effective after a wedding ceremony.

Men like when they set out to do something, and get support from their wives to achieve it. Can women today support men?

Brandon writes:

Along the lines of never learning how to treat a man, women are never taught how to value a man’s emotions unless they pertain positively to her. He must prove every day how much he values her for just existing. She expects this but is taught by our society to not reciprocate unless he earns it.

Men feel this weight, and the thing that would give them strength is withheld. Men suffer attempting to emotionally support the partner who has no interest in uplifting him in return. It’s a lonely existence in a relationship for two, making it, in truth, a relationship for one…her. What makes matters worse is that women are confused by their men’s lack of emotions. They were never taught how we think, much less appreciate it.

It’s rare for me to get support from younger women. Older Christian women can do it, but they are from a different time.

Now, people say to me “just go ahead and get married, and you can change the woman’s mind afterwards to value the things you care about”. But do young women today offer a way for men to change their minds about anything?

Brandon writes:

Now, let’s say you’re a young man entering into the stage of your life where dating to marry becomes typical. Looking at your prospects for marriage you see career-oriented women, some of whom make more money than you do and are very proud of this fact…. their opinions on any given subject seem more trendy than well thought out. They seem shallow as a result.

You see these women in your dating pool consistently exhibit opinions about your sex that are less than kind on social media. They’re taught they’re your intellectual superiors, that they’re right in any given argument no matter what… Very rarely do they display any joy in being giving or of service to their men. Even more rare are displays of humility. It reeks of narcissism.

One of the questions that I ask women to see if they are teachable is “where do you get your political news”? This question is to see if they care about anything other than their own feelings and social standing. I also ask “have you ever read any non-fiction that caused you to change your mind”? This to see whether she changes her mind about anything by increasing her knowledge.

But what I get from the Christian fundamentalists AND the career-focused feminists is the same: “I don’t read news, and I don’t read non-fiction”. If she doesn’t form her beliefs by gaining knowledge, then what method does a man have for leading her? She will only do what she feels like or what is pleasing to her peer group. If she doesn’t respect knowledge in general, then she doesn’t respect a man’s knowledge.

Brandon concludes:

Men want to feel welcome in their own relationships. Right now, they aren’t. They feel like passengers, or maybe even more accurately, chauffeurs. If women want men to marry them, then women will have to become marriage material and that means leaving behind the mainstream pop-philosophy and looking into the idea that maybe the feminists were wrong.

The schools, churches and culture are not doing anything to teach women how to be valuable to men. So why would a man marry? If I have to commit my time and money to being someone else’s slave / handbag then that will cause me to achieve goals less, right? As a Christian man, I don’t see how being a slave / handbag to a woman serves God.

Is there evidence of systemic racism in the United States?

Systemic racism is the idea that people can’t lift themselves out of poverty by making good decisions, because powerful groups in society that hold the poor down, regardless of their decisions. Do you think that America is a place where no matter what choices you make, you’ll never be able to be more prosperous? That’s what the leaders of Black Lives Matter think.

Here’s what Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project, says in the New York Times (a former newspaper):

To summarize, none of the actions we are told black people must take if they want to “lift themselves” out of poverty and gain financial stability — not marrying, not getting educated, not saving more, not owning a home — can mitigate 400 years of racialized plundering.

Got that? It doesn’t matter what individual choices a non-white person takes in America, they’re going to be poor. The “systemic racism” of the powerful whites will always keep them down. Single motherhood doesn’t make people poor, and marriage doesn’t make people wealthier. Dropping out of high school doesn’t make you poor, and getting a Masters degree in computer science won’t make you wealthier.

But let’s take a look at the data from the 2019 Census, and see the evidence:

Income By Ethnicity in America
Income By Ethnicity in America

White people are doing a bad job of keeping non-whites down

Well, it looks like at least SOME people of color are able to do well in America despite all the “systemic racism” that keeps non-whites down. And do you know what those non-white groups at the top have in common? They’ve made good decisions, they’ve worked hard, they haven’t blamed other people when they fail, and they’ve saved their money instead of spending it on shiny junk.

Let’s look at some decisions that the non-whites who are prosperous have made, that those further down have not.

Asians marry before they have children, so the kids have two parentsAsians marry before they have children, so the kids have two parents

Education and marriage

This article is written by the far-left radical Nicholas Kristof, writing in the radically-leftist New York Times (a former newspaper).

Excerpt:

A new scholarly book, “The Asian American Achievement Paradox,” by Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou, notes that Asian-American immigrants in recent decades have started with one advantage: They are highly educated, more so even than the average American. These immigrants are disproportionately doctors, research scientists and other highly educated professionals.

It’s not surprising that the children of Asian-American doctors would flourish in the United States. But Lee and Zhou note that kids of working-class Asian-Americans often also thrive, showing remarkable upward mobility.

[…]There’s also evidence that Americans believe that A’s go to smart kids, while Asians are more likely to think that they go to hard workers… Asian-American kids are allowed no excuse for getting B’s — or even an A-. The joke is that an A- is an “Asian F.”

One reason Asians students do so well is because their parents are usually married:

Strong two-parent families are a factor, too. Divorce rates are much lower for many Asian-American communities than for Americans as a whole, and there’s evidence that two-parent households are less likely to sink into poverty and also have better outcomes for boys in particular.

American blacks have a 73% out-of-wedlock birth rate. A huge difference compared to Asians.

So, when Nikole Hannah-Jones tells you that education and marriage don’t matter, she’s just wrong.

Compound interest

Education and marriage are important, but so is saving your money. The wealthiest people in America are typically the ones who are experts at saving money early, and investing it. They know about the law of compound interest. If you invest money early and leave it alone, then it will grow into a fortune by the time you are read to stop working.

This graph explains compound interest:

Don't trust people with non-STEM degrees to tell you how to get richInvesting $24,000 from age 21 to 41 vs investing $24000 from age 47 to 67

What does Nikole Hannah-Jones say when she looks at that graph? She doesn’t think that saving money makes a difference to having more or less wealth. She thinks skin color determines whether saving money makes you wealthy or not. The graph clearly shows what we should be recommending to young people of color. They need to stop spending money and start saving it, and the earlier the better. It doesn’t matter what your skin color is, saving money early JUST WORKS.

Similarly, when she says that home ownership doesn’t make you more wealthy, this is just terrible advice. It’s always better to pay down your own mortgage (at least when interest rates are low like they are now) than to pay someone else rent. You have to live somewhere, and paying for your own home is better because it costs about the same as rent, and then you get to keep the home when you’re done paying for it.

Communism

Nikole Hannah-Jones does have a “solution” to disparities in wealth. Her solution is communism. She wants to transfer money from those who earn, to those who don’t. But we already have tried that in the 20st century and it resulted in the deaths of over 100 million people. That’s not my opinion, that’s all documented in a book published by Harvard University Press.

Socialism Communism Countries Per Capita GDP Income
Socialism Communism Countries Per Capita GDP Income

You don’t even have to read the book to know the truth – just look at countries that score low on the Index of Economic Freedom, and compare their GDP per capita to countries that score high on the Index of Economic Freedom. The more communist a nation goes, the less wealth there is for the citizens. That’s why people in Venezuela are eating zoo animals and selling their bodies in prostitution for food, while nearby capitalist countries like Panama and Chile prosper. Nikole Hannah-Jones wants to reduce economic freedom, but we know by looking at other countries that this reduces per-capita GDP over time.

There’s a lot more than could be said here, but the point is that we need to be telling American blacks to make decisions that match the decisions of other successful non-white communities in America. We need to start teaching young people basic economics so they don’t fall prey to charlatans.

Scott Klusendorf defends the pro-life view on the Unbelievable radio show

I'm Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve of incrementalism
I’m Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve of this debate

This is a re-post of a debate on abortion.

Here are the details:

Justin hosts a discussion between Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network and Scott Klusendorf of the Life Training Instititute. Mara believes women should decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, but Scott says that all depends on whether we are dealing with a human life in the womb.

MP3 of this show

My snarky paraphrase of the debate (not exact):

  • Speaker introductions
  • Klusendorf: no justification for abortion is necessary if the unborn are not human
  • Klusendorf: we need to address the issue “what is the unborn?” Are the unborn human?
  • Klusendorf: SLED: size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency
  • Klusendorf: None of these things affect the value of a human being
  • Klusendorf: Even if we don’t KNOW whether the unborn is human
  • Mara: I’m not going to debate when life begins
  • Mara: Women know when life begins by feelings
  • Mara: The moral decision is “whether I can take care of this child?”
  • Brierley: When is an unborn being human?
  • Mara: I refuse to debate that – the real question is whether women want their babies or not
  • Mara: Forced pregnancy is not OK
  • Brierley: Could your justification for abortion (not wanting to care for a child) work through all 9 months?
  • Mara: Late term abortions are rare, so I don’t have to answer that question
  • Mara: Abortion should be OK through all 9 months of pregnancy because women cannot be restricted
  • Mara: Some women are poor, they need to be able to kill expensive babies at any time
  • Klusendorf: although she says she won’t debate the unborn, she does take a position
  • Klusendorf: she assumes the unborn is not human, because she says that insufficient funds is justification for abortion
  • Klusendorf: no one argues that you can kill a two year old because they cost money, because she thinks they are human
  • Klusendorf: she is begging the question by assuming the unborn are not human, but that is the issue we must resolve
  • Klusendorf: I am pro-choice on many other things, e.g. women choosing their own husbands, religion, etc.
  • Klusendorf: Some choices are wrong – Mara might be right, but she needs to make the case for the unborn not being human
  • Brierley: What is your reason for thinking that an unborn child is different from a 2-year old?
  • Mara: An unborn child is not the same as a 2-year old, in my personal opinion
  • Mara: I am not a debater, so I don’t have to provide reasoning for my assertion, I just feel it
  • Mara: Not everybody agrees with Scott, they don’t have to have a rational argument, they just need to feel differently
  • Mara: From my experience, when a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she should be able to not be pregnant
  • Mara: Women shouldn’t be punished with a baby that she doesn’t want, even if she chooses to have recreational sex
  • Brierley: What do you think of women who think the unborn is human and do it anyway?
  • Klusendorf: It’s interesting that they never kill their toddlers for those reasons
  • Klusendorf: I layed out scientific and philosophical reasons for the humanity of the unborn
  • Klusendorf: Her response was “but some people disagree with you”
  • Klusendorf: People disagreed about whether slavery was wrong, or whether women should be able to vote
  • Klusendorf: that doesn’t mean there is no right answer – the right answer depends on the arguments
  • Klusendorf: if absence of agreement makes a view false, then it makes HER pro-choice view false as well
  • Klusendorf: she did make an argument for the unborn child having no rights because of the location
  • Klusendorf: she needs to explain to us why location matters – what about location confers value
  • Mara: I’m not going to let Scott frame my debate for me!!!
  • Mara: women get pregnant and they don’t want their babies! should we put them in jail!!!!
  • Klusendorf: I didn’t just give my opinion, I had science and philosophy, the issue is “what is the unborn?”
  • Mara: philosophical and scientific debates are unimportant, I am an expert in real women’s lives
  • Klusendorf: Which women? Women in the womb or only those outside the womb?
  • Mara: Only those outside the womb
  • Klusendorf: Only those outside the womb?
  • Mara: Women living outside the womb have a right to kill women inside the womb – women have bodily autonomy
  • Klusendorf: then does a pregnant woman with nausea have a right to take a drug for it that will harm her unborn child?
  • Mara: Unborn children are only valuable if they are wanted, unborn children only deserve protection if they are wanted
  • Mara: There are restrictions on abortion – you can’t get an abortion through all nine months in the US
  • Mara: There is a 24-week limit in the UK as well
  • Klusendorf: There are no restrictions on abortion that conflict with “a woman’s health” because Supreme Court said
  • Mara: where are these late term abortion clinics?
  • Klusendorf: (he names two)
  • Mara: that’s not enough!!! we need more! where is there one in Pennsylvania?
  • Klusendorf: well, there used to be Gosnell’s clinic in Pennsylvania, and you could even get an infanticide there….
  • Brierley: What about Dawkins’ view that it is moral to abort Down’s Syndrome babies?
  • Klusendorf: he is ignoring the scientific case and philosophical case for the pro-life
  • Klusendorf: the pro-life view is a true basis for human equality

What I wanted Scott to ask was whether sex-selection abortions were OK with her. Since her reasoning is “if it’s unwanted, it has no rights”, then that would mean sex-selection abortions are just fine. That’s what a UK abortion expert recently argued. And I also posted recently about how sex-selection abortions are not prosecuted in the UK. If you’re looking for a war on women, there it is.