True Equality

RE: Libertarianism defined. Is Libertarianism right or left?

ArgusEyes — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:05:03 GMT

One of my favourite blogs is P.Z. Myers pharyngula, although I rarely agree with much of what he says when it’s not about atheism. He write a doozy of a post entitled “Libertarianism defined”. Here’s the money shot.

“Libertarianism. A simple-minded right-wing ideology ideally suited to those unable or unwilling to see past their own sociopathic self-regard.”

That is perfectly in line with my own sentiments. Libertarianism isn't so much a political and economic movement as it is a widespread pathology.

That’s A-grade intellectual discussion right there. Head on over to the post and you won’t find much in the way of justification, nor will you find any at another post he links to. It’s interesting to see such nonsensical primitive denunciations of a whole system of belief from someone who is undoubtedly fed up of hearing the same from religious people. Does he think that when he makes a simplistic dismissal of libertarianism that it’s okay? When a creationist says that atheists “don’t believe in anything” or “they just want to live consequence free lives”, does P.Z. breath a sigh of annoyance at how ignorant and uninformed they are? Well this proves he’s really not that different from them, change the subject but the attitude remains the same.

Now what of the substance? What substance? There’s really no point trying to address such a mess but there is one point there that makes me cringe.

“Libertarianism. A simple-minded right-wing ideology”..

I’ve heard this charge levied against Libertarianism often. When you hear someone make this claim then you can be sure that they’re quite ignorant of the etymology of political terms and the meaning of libertarianism.

Let’s start at the beginning, with a little help from Wikipedia of course.

The terms Left and Right have been used to refer to political affiliation since the early part of the French Revolutionary era. They originally referred to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France, specifically in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791, when the king was still the formal head of state, and the moderate royalist Feuillants sat on the right side of the chamber, while the radical Montagnards sat on the left.[8] This traditional seating arrangement continues to be observed by the Senate and National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic.

Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum were the attitudes towards the ancient regime ("old order"). "The Right" thus implied support for aristocratic, royal and clerical interests, while "The Left" implied support for republicanism, secularism and civil liberties.[1] At that time, support for socialism and liberalism were regarded as being on the left. The earlier "left-wing" politicians were advocates of laissez faire capitalism[citation needed] and the "right-wing" politicians opposed it, until the early nineteenth century when anti-capitalism gained favour among the leftists due to the rise of socialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_politics

The terms “left” and “right” are very nebulous. Leftism and conservatism have no political content to them, in that the radical imam who wants the society to remain under the rules of Shariah is conservative but he is very different to an American or British conservative. The political content of the conservative is dependent on the society he or she wished to conserve.

The same is true for people on the left. Being left means that one wants to move society towards a goal or new order. In this sense we can see that Libertarianism is left based. It has a societal ideal that it wants to achieve. If you don’t know what this ideal is then hit Google and do a bit of research. Libertarians often call themselves “classical liberals”, in that they adhere to the liberalism of yore, the free market kind that existed before it became synonymous with diluted socialism.

People mix up libertarianism with the right because of the similarities between libertarianism and conservatism in the western world, which is where much of the discussion happens. Libertarianism overlaps with conservative in America because conservatives want to conserve a society which has been conducive to freedom whereas Libertarians follow a political philosophy grown out of the American experience and hold freedom as a value. Therefore they follow the same policies much of the time, such as smaller government, smaller taxes, etc.

15 Questions from a Feminist

ArgusEyes — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:45:49 GMT

Recently I was contacted by a feminist who asked me 15 questions. I rarely do so much typing without offering the end result for everyone else to see and criticise so here are my answers:

1. What is feminism to you? Is its position defensive or offensive? Do you think one could be sympathetic to its theories?

To me, feminism is the enemy. The existence of the men’s rights movement is owed directly to feminism and its influences on society. No feminism, then no MRA’s (Men’s Rights Activists). This is not to say that the movement has not achieve some good, but like most victim movements its inevitable end is depravity, and I’m sure MRAism will be the same which is why I am reticent to associate myself with any “ism” without due diligence. I am more anti-feminist than I am an MRA.

Feminisms position is primarily offensive, it is about imposing a political view on society. Even if I were to agree with the gender goals of feminism, I, as a Libertarian, would surely despise its totalitarian leanings. Most feminists are leftists, they have a plan for how things should be.

2. Because you believe in equal opportunity as opposed to material equality, do you think that little girls and teenage girls really have equal opportunity? Or are young boys disadvantaged?

What I have always said is that females have no less opportunity than males in our western societies. However, there are many areas where they have more opportunity/rights. See my video “men are more oppressed than women” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlWIfMjzBII) for examples of this. Boys are certainly disadvantaged when compared to women but I don’t want to come off as a whiner here. I don’t go around thinking “man, I’m so oppressed”. It doesn’t happen. I am a person who is opinionated and takes a visceral dislike to feminism and the ideas and attacks on men it represents.

3. Does patriarchy exist? Doesn’t the fact that men have more power, prestige, and influence in America confirm that patriarchy exists? What are your views on hegemony?

Yes. As a societal system in many countries around the world, it exists. Does it exist in the west? No. Words have meanings. If we look at the definition of patriarchy:

“a form of social organization in which the father is the supreme authority in the family, clan, or tribe and descent is reckoned in the male line, with the children belonging to the father's clan or tribe.”

Males must have the ruling position by design for it to be patriarchy. I’ve had a feminist make the argument to me before that since most politicians in the UK are male then it’s patriarchal, but this is ridiculous of course, they’re there because they were elected, not because of their genitalia. If we were to have more women as politicians in a year’s time then would we live in a matriarchal society? No. It was another example of sloppy thinking by a person who desperately wanted to be the victim.

4. Considering about 60% of women in America self-identify as feminists, do you really think that feminism is all about the vilification/ emasculation/ castration of men? Aren’t they more subtle and nuanced than “wanting to blame you for everything”?

You are simplifying what I believe feminism to be. Hatred of men may be a common trait in feminists but it is not what feminism is about or what attracts women to feminism. I’ve not heard this 60% figure but it wouldn’t surprise me. Many people don’t know anything about feminism and have bought into the line that is stands for equal rights and all things good. The appeal to popularity isn’t a good argument. People can buy into crap and have done so many times throughout history.

5. What would have to change before men and women achieved true equality?

Societal: We would have to adopt the opportunity view of equality and mean it; we would have to get over this instinct of sniggering when “men’s rights” are mentioned and realise that women have no less opportunity than men do and now men and boys are suffering in many regards. We also need to drop chivalry and the need to protect women using the law. If we are going to have equal opportunities then we need to get over this primitive protectionist mentality.

Concrete examples: No different prison punishments for males vs. females. Shared custody as a default. No quotas (AKA positive discrimination). Equal retirement ages. No wage coercion. Equal opportunity for protection for male victims of DV. Plus some..

Also, more women than men in the workplace, politics or university is not an instance of oppression against men if they got there by their own choice on an equal playing field. If they got there by bringing men down with the coercive force of the state, then that is what I have a problem with.

6. How do men in today’s society feel about women in general?

As a misanthrope, I cannot tell you what “men” think. Many who I’ve talked to are as fed up as I am about many aspects of modern feminism.

7. Is there a difference between women and women’s roles in England and women’s roles in America? I’ve heard that women from the UK are more independent, and we are 93% religious.

Whatever differences there are will be small. I think that the two societies are largely similar and thus will be the gender roles.

8. (Do you still refer to us as “the colonies”?)

Nope.

9. Aren’t some (some) men’s issues irrelevant to gender discrimination? For instance, I was watching John Stuart, which featured some air time about a certain men’s rights group in Canada. Their leader voiced concern that “when a football player gets kicked off a football team, none of the cheerleaders would think to still cheer for him, in class, at school… “ and that “men don’t have a place to organize and be guys anymore”. I couldn’t believe it. He’s angry that girls don’t cheer for boys MORE than they already do? And what are bars, poker nights, gentlemen’s clubs, basements, auto mechanic shops, sports stadiums, and the US Senate for? Obviously men’s rights aren’t particularly concerned about these things, but what about others? Men’s circumcision, for instance? Or the fact that more men are dropping out of school? Or the prevalence of suicide, or the exemption of women in combat? None of these issues have anything to do with feminism or oppression, and yet they’re treated as such.

That guy was Warren Farrell, he is a luminary of the men’s rights movement and he has a lot of sensible things to say. I would take what you see on the John Stuart comedy hour with a pinch of salt, they are not above cheap editing and misrepresentation.

Some problems are an indirect consequence of feminism. Girls rise and boys fall in the wake of a massive political and social movement known as feminism which is dedicated to benefiting women and girls. Either girls have reached their natural superior status and boys have fallen for some other reason, or the social engineering over the past decades has had a bad effect, or some other reason. MRA’s and anti-feminists pick the middle one.

10. Don’t most men feel superior to women on some level?

On some level maybe. Like physically. However, I don’t think men stand around feeling superior about this, they understand that men are men and women are women, and both have their good and bad qualities.

11. Can men and women treat each other with mutual respect without pandering to the conventions of chivalry and femininity?

Mutual respect is easier without the knee-jerk manbashing that I’ve encountered from numerous young women I have lived with and worked with over the years. I’ve seen nothing like this on a similar level from the men I’ve known. It’s not 50/50. Female attitudes have been influenced by the societal zeitgeist over the years and this has been driven, in turn, by feminism. The gender war has been a one-sided war so far, we have a problem with manbashing media more than the other way around. Women need to let go of their resentments if relations are to become better.

12. Why do you accuse women of ‘destroying the family’? Wasn’t the 1950s family scene degrading to women? Isn’t it good that women are putting their careers first?

This one is bemusing. Could you point out where I said this?

13. How are little boys and girls socialized, and how does this affect their perceptions of gender?

One of the greatest socialising factors in our society is feminism. Richard Dawkins, in his book “The God Delusion” refers to the actions of feminism as “consciousness raising”. He states:

“It was the feminists who raised my consciousness of the power of consciousness-raising.”

...

“Man, mankind, the rights of man, all men are created equal, one man one vote - English too often seems to exclude women. When I was young, it never occurred to me that women might feel slighted by a phrase like "the future of man". During the intervening decades, we have all had our consciousness raised. Even those who still use "man" instead of "human" do so with an air of self-conscious apology - or truculence, taking a stand for traditional language, even deliberately to rile feminists.”

[http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=%22it+was+the+feminists+who+raised+my+consciousness+of+the%22&source=bl&ots=1ghH-2IhyR&sig=AESfS975FZ1wnnF0afu_IHNToOQ&hl=en&ei=d8NvS8TUBof8tAOWp-2xDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22it%20was%20the%20feminists%20who%20raised%20my%20consciousness%20of%20the%22&f=false]

I feel this when I use the generic “he”. We have indeed been affected by feminist in our western societies, they have formed our language and laws. I can tell you how it affected one little boy – me. I was hurt by the feminist slogans about fish and bicycles. I felt the manbashing on TV. Feminism has had free reign – there is no normative opposition to their views until the one that is growing now.

14. Wouldn’t implementing a ‘men’s studies’ department be redundant, due to the fact that every academic subject extols the achievements, conquests, and intellectual breakthroughs of men in history, art, science, etc.?

I do not think there should be men’s studies departments. My reaction to feminism is not to instigate the same policies but with the sex reversed to males instead of females.

However, I don’t agree with your representation of many fields to extol the achievements of men. They extol the achievements of great figures in history, some of these are women but the vast majority are men because of the nature of gender roles in the past. Fair or not, these men are extolled not for being men, but for being the great figures of history.

Also, extolling the achievements of men would not be the aim of a men’s studies course. The course would be a study of the male mind and role in society. To the historical courses take this approach to understanding men?

15. Is domestic violence really 50/50 in severity, domination, long-term effects, etc.?

I don’t know about 50/50, it probably doesn’t end up that way but I do think that DV against me is played down in our society. Whether it is 50/50 or not, men deserve the opportunity of protection that is being afforded women if they are suffering from DV.

Cold Calculation

ArgusEyes — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:47:06 GMT

America and the UK slide further down the index of freedom.

ArgusEyes — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:05:16 GMT

There has been a nifty little resource that I have been using for a while now. It’s called the index of economic freedom and is produced by the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank based in Washington D.C. thus it assesses freedom from a small government perspective. It is by no means definitive but operates as a good loose guide to the amount of economic, business and fiscal freedom that a country may offer.

Last year the U.K. was hanging in the number 10 slot but it has fallen off of the top ten in 2010, which was expected. What was surprising was the negative 2.7 drop of the Unites States from a “free” country to a “mostly free” country. I knew it would drop but not by so much.

New Zealand, my new country of interest which is holding all my attention at the moment (hence no posts or videos) has risen to number 4 in the list. Leftist/Statist governments make a country and people less free.

Mith's Blog: The Feminist Anti-Porn Argument

ArgusEyes — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:53:35 GMT

Okay, Mith here. I'm going to be doing a few blogs for Argus. Once I figure out how to work this thing...*hits computer with hammer*

Close enough.

Anyways, onto more serious matters. It's often been a common to hear feminists complain about porn. Well, that makes sense. They see it as a way to degrade women...but is that true? Here's a link to a Feminist blog (vlog?) on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHXyomf6NAA&feature=PlayList&p=3B6AC545B0E0C730&index=0

As the blogger indicates, she feels that she cannot clearly outline her problems with porn, but she does have a list that she believes does it well enough for her. As such, I have taken the time to outline the large, large problems with this list. Said list can be found here:

http://antipornfeminists.wordpress.com/whats-wrong-with-pornography/

And if you'll bear with me, I still haven't learned to use the quotation method that Argus has, so I'm going to put the quotations in bold and a slightly larger text.

Pornography harms women.
Pornography is not fantasy. Pornography happens in the real world, to real women; everything you see in pornography happened somewhere to a real woman.

Yes, Pornography is real—to an extent. Pornography is an entertainment industry. So while some of these things in porn do happen, such as the actual physical sexual contact, it doesn’t mean that everything else such as incidents surrounding it happened. Nor in fact, does it mean that these women are being forced into this. They choose to do this. Just because a woman is low on income and sees this as a last resort does not mean that they were forced by into it. There are other options that the woman has, but for some reason she chose that industry to make her life.

The pornography industry is a multi-billion dollar global industry.
Pornography exists to make money. It is an industry that chews women up and spits them out; it is an industry where exposure to violence, harassment, injury and infection are seen as normal and acceptable.

Yes, yes it may be. The problem is, that doesn’t make it illegal. Construction workers face similar problems. They are constantly being exposed to danger and they are asked to physically destroy themselves. Or US soldiers. They’re asked to put themselves in areas full of hostile enemies with not just knives, handguns, and a midnight alleyway, but against enemies with automatic weapons, bombs, and tanks. Life is not this rosey little world where everything is fair and nice. People from all walks of life are forced to do things they don’t like.

And why is this a 'woman’s' issue? Why is this not potrayed as something that also chews men up and spits them out? Are they no less on sexual display? Are they no less considered meat that is to be tossed out when no longer of value? What about men who start suffering erectile disfunction? What about men who get too old and are no longer considered of use?

Pornography doesn’t expand our sexuality – it stunts it.
Mainstream heterosexual pornography dictates a narrow and limited idea of human sexuality. In pornography, male sexuality is predicated on cruelty, coercion and degradation; female sexuality is predicated on submitting to or appearing to enjoy being subjected to cruel, coercive and degrading treatment. Pornography eradicates women’s sexual agency, and makes it harder for women to find out about their own bodies and their own sexuality.

False. Yes, there is some porn that does indeed display men using predetorial means of obtianing sex. Porn that displays men being manipulative, forceful, and doing things that are degrading nd cruel is not potraying an accurate form of sexual experience. But then again, pornography isn’t a documentary. It’s not meant to teach men what sex is—it is there to act as a ventation. In the same way that playing a video game of two hardcore cops on the edge is not an accurate represenation of how real police officers work is not meant to portray the reality of law enforcement, neither is porn an actual representation of sexuality. Because it’s not supposed to be.

Porn is directed at men, or least, the majority of it is. And thus, most porn represents a very male dominated presentation because it is a male fantasy. It is the idea of men getting entirely what they want out of sex. What is that? Pleasure and dominance. Just like how in an action game, we want to be a gun totting badass who guns down innocent civilians who get in the way of villains. Porn is nothing more than a fantasy. It’s no better than attacking a violent movie for being violent.

This doesn’t mean that men who watch porn will become violent. It may, for some who are rather naïve, direct them into having some early trips in how reality works if all they’ve seen is fantasy, but that doesn’t mean it ruins their life forever, just like how playing a football game on the Wii and then playing it in real life suddenly causes a brutal awakening to the naïve player. As for women—again, this is not a female oriented industry. Perhaps there are women, who like it, but this is again, a fantasy and they will not be looking to be making love with someone, but rather get out sexual tension.

Pornography portrays sexual violence against women as normal, natural and an inevitable part of male sexuality.
Sexual desire does not develop in a vacuum. The prurient attitude we have to sex in this country, combined with a lack of decent sex education, means that many people use pornography as their primary source of information on what sex is supposed to be like. Mainstream heterosexual pornography tells men that the sexual abuse of women is exciting, and that women enjoy being abused. It tells women that in order to do sex properly, they have to put up with and enjoy such abuse.

Just as sexual desire does not develop in a vacuum, neither do humans lack the ability to learn when reality isn’t living up to fantasy. A young male, even one who has learned only sexuality from porn, is not going to act that way against a woman for only the reason of watching a porn video. Human interaction is far more complicated than that. If a young male experiencing sex for the first time does something overtly aggressive that he sees portrayed in a fantasy—it will be met with female hostility. Why? Because the female does not like it. Now, because in most cases, men want to make their sexual partners happy long before sexual interaction, they will often immediately cease that action. Why? Because it is a logical response. Just like how if I were misinformed in a proper way to speak to someone, I would not continue to act that way when my expectations of their responses are not met. This is because we are a very social species and we will more often than not cease a behavior that is disapproved by another individual.

This is not always true of course. There are plenty of people who will insist upon their way and demand that others obey—but that is not the fault of pornography, but rather a mixture if improper raising on the parent’s part or simple problems with that individual. It is not the company’s fault that someone has chosen fantasy over reality and has trouble because of it.

Pornography reinforces male supremacy, and the idea that men are entitled to sexual access to women’s bodies.
Men define themselves as being whatever is not a woman, in order to be a man it is necessary for there to be a subordinate group of women for men to compare themselves to and feel superior to. In mainstream heterosexual pornography men are always the active agents and women are always the passive objects. No man in pornography ever fails to get what he wants; the women in pornography exist solely to satisfy men’s desires, they have no will or desire of their own except to service men’s needs.

An incredibly bad argument. First, saying that men define themselves as what is not womanhood is utterly and completely bunk. Men are the way they are because men desire to be masculine and they define that based upon their own desires and culture. Furthermore, men are not always portrayed as active agents. There is plenty of pornography depicting women as the aggressors and men as passive objects that the women desire to have and get—purely for their own sexual pleasure.

Again, this isn’t something that men thought on for hours, days, weeks, or even years, but rather a natural desire of humans. It has taken a sexual encounter and potrayed it in a light that while not socially acceptable—is exciting and hence, arousing. The same is true in women. Some women might find a porn where a woman gets forced into sex as arousing because women view masculinity as desirable. And while they would never accept a male who forces her into sex when they want to, they find the situation arousing because it presents a very radical and masculine heavy image.

Pornography portrays sex and women as disgusting.
The words used to describe women and women’s bodies in pornography betray the fact that women and sex are seen as dirty and disgusting by the men who use it: ‘bitch’ ‘cunt’ ‘slut’ ‘fuck toy’ ‘fuck hole’ ‘dirty’ ‘filthy’ etc etc.

Again, that is not entirely true. There are plenty of porn movies, games, and the like that portray sex as deep, beautiful, and in some cases, even spiritual. The women in these more ‘dirty’ pornographies are not portrayed in such a manner because they wish to influence the audience, but rather to appeal to the audience’s already set desires. People don’t make movies (often) because they want to influence people, but rather to appeal to something people like. Action movies and comedies exist because people like them and will pay to see them.

In that same manner, people will pay for dirty porn because they want dirty porn.

Pornography promotes misogynistic beauty standards.
In mainstream heterosexual pornography women are interchangeable, it trains women and men to see a natural female body – one with pubic hair, or small breasts, or any fat – as unnatural and disgusting.

Another misconception. First off, this only shows the lack of knowledge and the abundance of ignorance shown here. There are many pornographies out there that show fat women, older women, hairy women, and women with small breasts as attractive and desirable by males. This is again, because it is playing to the likes and dislikes of people. People in general, prefer attractive counterparts. This is based on a natural desire to seek out a mate that is not only healthy, but successful. This is determined by many factors that make men and women attracted to each other. Women seek out masculine men and thus will be more attracted to men with greater physical strength and stamina, but even more so men will be attracted to women with hips that shows they will bare healthy children or ample breasts that show they will be able to supply that child with nutrition.

Pornography affects you.
Even if you are not a pornography consumer, a significant number of the men you interact with every day will be. It’s difficult to imagine that a man can spend a lot of time viewing and masturbating to degrading images of women without that pornographic ideology having a negative effect on his view of women.

It’s difficult to imagine because it isn’t true. Most men are not stupid, easily led individuals who will believe one source of information their entire life when all of their interactions prove this to be wrong time and time again. Nor is it true that because a great deal of women like Twilight—a fantasy about an emotionally distant and abusive male vampire who treats his girlfriend like an object and nothing better than added luggage—that they will suddenly all desire men such as that. Which is ironic because most men hate Twilight because the vampire Edward is an emotionally distant and abusive boyfriend who treats his girlfriend like an object and nothing better than added luggage.

In short, if this is what you consider a good argument, you’re in trouble. The argument ignores the reason for porn and why it exists. It furthermore ignores the fact of why it exists. This isn’t an argument about morality or how these women are being abused (because they aren’t, they chose this), but rather an argument of porn causes sexual violence and violations. It’s no different than claiming that video games cause violence. It ignores that most people understand the difference and it ignores that most people do not act they way they should in a fantasy setting because fantasies by their nature, are designed for that purpose. So we can act in ways we don’t often act. So we can be the villain, or the cop on the edge. Or the hardcore stud screwing some hot chick and tells her to go make sandwhich.

The fact is, you don’t understand men or women. You just want to paint a perfect world where no one ever even conceives of people being remotely violent or aggressive towards another in a way that isn’t socially acceptable when in fact, we all do it. And the reason we simulate it is so we don’t actually have to do it to get the same satisfaction from it. Just like how some people play video games for the thrill, some people watch porn of abusive sex for the thrill of being mistreated or mistreating. They all appeal to portions of the human mind.

It’s the attack of the feminist stereotypes!

ArgusEyes — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:03:13 GMT

Oh lordy, I’ve been sent three links in the past day that have raised an eyebrow or two. The first is from long time cyber stalker DianaBoston, who criticises me directly by name. I won’t spoil the video but the crux of it is a moral equivalence so vile and stupid that I almost vomited on my shoes.

Check out some of her comments:

MensRifleAssociation (2 days ago)
Reply | Spam
you sure did swing your club today.

DianaBoston (2 days ago)
Reply
Men use clubs, women use their brains and a sword. The sword of justicia!

Okaaay. Moving swiftly along. We have stereotypes B and C.

I would reply to some of these but I’m just too busy.

Come to New Zealand. Where the wildlife will rape you.

ArgusEyes — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:31:46 GMT

I’ve not med one of these yet, thank fuck. Just some inquisitive Kea’s.

Climategate: Much ado about nothing

ArgusEyes — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:37:12 GMT

In case there is anyone out there who cares what i think about this. I have been massively underwhelmed at the criticisms of the email. Others have said it well.

I think that the science now tells us more than enough to warrant action. Certainly there remain uncertainties, but not on the issue as a whole.

With regards the private e-mails posted on the internet, I think the story is a simple one and it could apply to any one of us. Think of all the e-mails you have written over the past 10 years. Now imagine that someone criminally breaks into your e-mail account and downloads all of them, handpicks a few and posts them on the internet to cast you in a particular light. We could all be shown to be saints or sinners or anything in between.

Now look at what has happened with these scientists going about their work in much the same way anyone of us might attend to our job. Enough said.

Potholer54. Great as always.

I am still skeptical about Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). I accept the scientific basis but question the doomsayers' claims. I still think AGW is catnip to various “isms” and the reverse to other “isms”.

I think that the proposed solutions, which is to control and intrude into our lives, are horrible and anti-liberal.

Is homosexuality natural?

ArgusEyes — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:42:09 GMT

Sometimes I make a post on a forum or discussion thread that I think is worthwhile enough to post here. Apologies if this seems cheap but a particularly interesting one arose recently. The issue of “is homosexuality natural” on my MRAS YouTube group as it happens. Why not join and join in on the discussion?

Here is the opening post:

actually..I didnt agree with it a bit. The ACT itself is unnatural. Homosexuality cannot sustain itself.It needs hetrosexuals to survive. If it was natural it would be able to sustain itself like other natural things. When he speaks of oppisites he is wrong. There is no such thing as dark.....only the absense of light.

…

creepyguy...life really aint that complicated. So would you say beastiality...polygamy....paedophilia.... are not unnatural=bad things?

My post:

When discussing this issue it is important that we rigidly decide our terms of discourse.

“Natural” purely means “formed by nature”. Homosexuality exists in a lot of other animal species apart from our own. In this sense homosexuality is indeed natural, so is paedophilia and bestiality.

But you muddied the waters by making a moral equivalence. Essentially natural=good and unnatural=bad. There is no basis for this. An animal species that is an evolutionary dead end and which is doomed for extinction is still formed by nature. Natural isn’t necessarily good. So we as a culture can create a moral code as to what we will accept and what we won’t, be it natural or unnatural. Medicine is also unnatural because they were not formed by nature, their ingredients were but medicine is a creation of man, not of nature.

Also, we don’t say that because man is natural and formed medicine therefore medicine is natural as well. We don’t apply an inheritance chain to this otherwise everything would turn out to be natural and the term would lose all its meaning.

Here are some sources:

Bestiality in nature: Mating toads leap the species barrier.

Homosexuality in nature: 1,500 animal species practice homosexuality

I respect Robin Williams about a hundred times more now.

ArgusEyes — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:29:09 GMT

A man who plays good games can’t be all bad. I actually always liked Robin Williams.

Can we generalise feminism?

ArgusEyes — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:24:56 GMT

I have been involved in an email dialog with a feminists, Jen, who bills herself as a “real feminist”, by which she means she is not like those radicals. Great. Her criticism of me is that I criticise feminism as some kind of monolithic entity and don’t pay enough heed to the real feminists like her. This discussion is so common in my email inbox that I feel it would be useful to include it on this blog. It is still ongoing so expect updates.

It starts with her original email to me:

I would be responding to your videos on your comments page, but unfortunately, there are way too many stupid people there for my taste, and no matter what I know I will be bashed because I don't hate women or feminists. This is sort of my response to the all of the videos from you I have watched.

I agree with a lot of your points on our culture's persecution of men. Fathers are just as vital to the family as mothers. Though I think it is unfair to blame only the feminists for encouraging things like no-fault divorce and fatherless families. The persecution of men began after WWII when the media portrayed responsible men, men who made sacrifices and supported families, as emasculated, mocking them, mocking the life of a "normal" man, portraying it as being shallow and unfulfilling. The movie Rebel Without A Cause embodies this perfectly. This fabricated portrayal of an empty fatherhood aroused feelings of boredom and discontent in young men who did not like what they had to look forward to. Hugh Hefner's motto of having ties to no one, including woman and family, became the popular manly ideal. This was still the 1950's. If society considered it unmanly to provide for one's wife and family, or even start one, normal, plain women were screwed. The male rebellion of beatnicks and greasers was prompted by fear of castration via fatherhood and responsibility. The female rebellion of I am woman hear me roar BS was also provoked by a fear a different one, of being left in the gutter, in exchange for Hugh Heffners more attractive, sexually active bunnies. Most guys are afraid of castration. Most women fear spinsterhood. Such is a fate worse than death for both. You know what followed in the 60's and 70's.

Since then, our society continually has two views of men: you are either a free man, a womanizing sex God who is a Chuck Norris protege - or you are the emasculated father who is literally drained by his controlling wife and whiny kids. Both are bullshit. Similarly, there are two views of women in society: you are either an attractive sex toy, or you are the ugly saggy-tit spinster, who if she were married, or someone's mother, would be a nagging volatile shrew. Also Bullshit. The true feminists, as well as the deranged psychotic man-hating ones are a mere product of this. But the heart of the evil lies in those who controlled (and still control) the fantasies of the masses in the first place.

These puppetmasters who support the psychotic feminists with their media coverage only do so, because they want to tear down those who pose an actual threat to them (fathers who love and stand by their families), not because they really care about justice or women's freedom. They want to make such men afraid to have families of their own, afraid to be responsible, to love fully, afraid to stand and fight. What these fools (the psychofeminists) don't realize is they are playing right into the traps of the tyrants they claim to oppose. Once they are done destroying the will of the only men with the courage to fight for those they love, there will be no men to protect their rights. I say it as a feminist: women's freedom depends on the state of civilization, and the support of good men. It always has and will. No amount of protesting, no law is going to change that.

I apologize for the mouthful. But it seems like you've never been exposed to a real feminist (the "men are pigs" psychos are a VERY LOUD minority, who are definitely more fun to rant about than us boring feminists who are straight, have boyfriends and love their dads), and think you know what real feminism stands for. Usually, we hold a lot more in common than we realize, but don't have the humility to want to listen to the other side. Oftentimes as soon as men such as yourself discover that I am female, or god forbid a feminist, that I can't be reasoned with or care deeply about their perspective.

I am often busy, but would gladly like to hear your response, as I believe you did want to get a dialog going. (Unless you are the male version of the psycho-feminist. I sincerely hope you arent.) :(

My first response to her:

Hi,

I can do a dialog, no problem, and I will address your points but if I may break this down a little bit to make it more manageable by asking you a question.

I realize you are young, but are you prominent in any organization or are you on the front lines of feminist thought promoting your views?

Sincerely,
Mark

Her response:

Hello again! I apologize for the late response - it is Thanksgiving here and I have been spending time with my family for the past week.

As for my "prominence" there is no official feminist organization that I see any need to join as of now, unless one counts forums and various websites and college groups. Honestly, I think one can just as much if not more accomplished through making films that reach a general audience, than by stopping traffic with a mob of annoying protesters - but that is my personal approach.

Yes, I am young, still in college, and have yet to make my grand contribution to humanity. I am not a public speaker or a politician. But I am a storyteller, and can thus reach just as many people through my work.

My response:

Hello again Jen,

I was beginning to think that you had forgotten about me.

Your answer was what I thought it would be. You're an interested individual, right? However, you're not a member of an organisation or on the head of N.O.W. I receive emails from many people who complain that I only attack the radicals and that I don't consider the "real feminists", to use you own term, but when I probe further then I find that they are people who have normal jobs and who don't push the field of feminism or steer its course.

I am not going to ask you introspect and ask you why you consider yourself to be the standard to be measured against for ideological pureness. In short, why do you consider yourself to be the "real feminist" when you are not prominent in the movement and the radicals are the ones behind the wheel? Doesn't it make more logical sense to call these feminists the "real ones"?

Sincerely,
Mark

Her response:

Unlike most movements, feminism is a loose collection of individuals. To think there is but one ruling dogma or only a few key feminists whom we all follow like sheep is outdated. Maybe a couple of older feminists, who mind you are starting to die off - but most feminists that I know, and virtually all feminists of my generation are not man-haters. Feminists do hold one thing in common: we believe that women are as fully human as men and should not be disrespected or poorly treated on the sole grounds that they are "women and therefore inferior".

Many of my ideas come from my mentors - who share my core values and HAVE made contributions to feminist thought. When I asked my mentors what it means to be a feminist, they told me what I am telling you now. As in any industry, those with the ability to succeed, those with the passion and dream to choose his or her own life, should be allowed to do so, man or woman of any race or background (provided they aren't abusing their freedom by oppressing others). Those who seek to punish and oppress men with such vehemence nearly always have some kind of emotional or psychological disorder.

Does Bill O'Reilly represent all conservatives? Does Michael Moore represent the majority of liberals in his country? They are certainly leaders of a sort and do have their following. That doesn't change the fact that most people on both sides think they are douchebags. That's why they are mocked. Likewise, radical man-hating fems are mocked. No one really takes them seriously except for the politicians who support them. Are Muslim terrorists true Muslims? Because they speak the loudest and kill people, I suppose that means they are the only true Muslims and the quiet family of Muslims next door who faithfully observe the five pillars are just a bunch of phonies.

Finally, because I'm guessing you will ask this:

Why aren't "real feminists" out there defaming those outspoken crazed feminists?
It is very difficult ground to tread. I use the Muslim terrorist example because that's a similar reason that other potential leaders do not speak up on public television and in the streets of San Francisco - because then the extremists will even attack their own. Lots of feminists (particularly younger ones) for this reason are quiet and reserved about their more relaxed (but still feminist) views. Instead, you will hear mostly from the trained apprentices of past extremists. Many people want to be leaders, or at least make some contribution, but are afraid to go against the established order - or don't know how to oppose it without being silenced forever.

This is my last response to her:

Hi Jen,

Believe it or not, your message is almost word-for-word verbatim from what many others have sent to me on a regular basis. I get this criticism all the time. They say I can't pin down feminism because feminists believe all sorts of different things. Yes they do, and so do conservatives, liberals, libertarians, communists, black liberationists and on and on..

If feminism is free-floating and nebulous then there is no point in the term is there? It has to mean something doesn't it?

I read a lot of liberal pro evolution blogs and these guys rip into conservatives all the time. But I realise that evolution denial is a common trend in conservative circles relating to their religiosity. I don't feel the need to defend conservatism against these attacks by saying that not all conservatives deny evolution, because I realise that the criticism is legitimate and fair.

There is an indiscriminate attitude that predominates in many people. What you said can be made a stock response to any criticism of a group or ideology. What you are essentially doing, whether you realise or not, is shutting down debate and it's a bad idea. Being discriminate and generalising is the essence of wisdom, if you cannot find patterns then you cannot achieve any valuable or accurate macro level picture of life. Whilst feminist do differ on things, you can generalise about the views they hold. I'll give you an example. I can think of no feminists I have encountered or heard of, apart from an ifeminist, who would accept the MRA view of the wage gap (yes we can generalise MRA's too). They would overwhelmingly say that this is proof of ground yet uncovered for women and would be activist on this issue. Criticisms of this attitude and association of it with feminism, like in the conservative example above, is legitimate and fair.

Sincerely,
Mark

Indian wife abuses husband in front of son

ArgusEyes — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:09:47 GMT

This has been passed onto me by a good friend so I won’t do too much of my own commentary and simply report the videos which are on YouTube. They aren’t in English unfortunately. It is a 4-parter.

Indian Wife Abuses Husband, Son Witnesses (on IndiaTV)

Purushottam Mahajan was physically and mentally abused by his wife, he has videotapes of about 60 days of abuse, many men do not even have this evidence, some of them suicide!. The Police has not yet taken action on Purushottam's complaint against spousal-abuse, even after 2 years of his complaint to various police and other authorities.

Cherchez-le-Femme

ArgusEyes — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:10:02 GMT

Cherchez-le-femme means “Find-the-female” in French. It is a term that I got and modified from Charles Krauthammer where he mentioned “Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif” (find-the-Jew) in reference to the Time’s Joe Klein who decried the odious attempts of "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . . . to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs.". I’m not touching that one now so don’t even try, but ever the thief, I will attempt to crowbar this term into the popular discourse, by which I mean i will use it a lot, so remember who came up with it first, alright?

Before your brain drops out with my inconsequential wittering (hey, I’ve been away a long time), let me introduce this piece from the BBC, Poor women ‘bear climate burden’:

Women in developing countries will be the most vulnerable to climate change, a report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has warned.

The agency said there was a disproportionate burden on those women and called for greater equality.

They do most of the agricultural work, and are therefore affected by weather-related natural disasters impacting on food, energy and water, it said.

Regular readers will notice similarities to the “Greener Gender: The Greener Gender: Are men worse for the environment?” essay that I wrote some time ago, in which I criticised author Gerd Johnssom-Latham for bandwagon jumping and using climate change to server her ideological agenda. The exact same thing is happening here. Notice the middle paragraph in the quote above. “The agency said there was a disproportionate burden on those women and called for greater equality.“. Call me a fool if you want, but that sounds like a roundabout way to solve the problem. If an deleterious phenomenon is going to disproportionally affect a certain group of people then one would think that the first order of the day is to mitigate the effect, not to propose a social solution targeted at the group of people, people like this are meddlers and they irk me.

This is where the term “Cherchez-le-Femme” comes in. This is the phenomenon we saw in the “Greener gender” report and in this report from the UN. People with an agenda are extraordinarily adept at linking a lot of things that happen in the world to their particular agenda. Certain people are obsessed with Jews, and everything that happens comes back to the Jews somehow, it really is quote boring talking to such people. This is why I am skeptical about climate change. I will accept that it is happening to a certain degree because as I know from defending evolution and science on so many occasions, that it takes a little bit of chutzpah to go against the scientific community. However, as an astute observer said on the Dennis Prager show one time, climate change has become catnip to a bunch of failed “isms”. It is a ripe fruit dangling in the faces of various political groups, to be picked and used to advance their purposes. The imaginary female that will be damaged by the next big thing must be sought by the feminist and identified as a victim to be solved by the medicine they offer. Hence the reason they say “more equality” is needed rather than “stop global warming” or even “raise the standard of living”.

I must also point out for people who don’t know my views. There is a problem in the third world, you’d have to be blind to not see it. Women in many countries around the world have less rights, some people say “therefore feminism” whereas I say “therefore equality”. Contemporary feminism as a solution the the plight of women in the third world is a bad idea. You can look to this and other blogs to advance that particular case. One last observance on this issue, the executive director of UNFPA is Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. If you go to her bio then you will see her dedication to standard feminist causes. I have highlighted the instances of the word “women” in the image below to show this. Now, I don’t normally dig into people’s past but it goes to the central message. Ms. Obaid is clearly a feminists who is looking to climate change as the catnip to sell her cause. It’s sneaky and veiled and will turn people off of her cause in the end.

Mathematics

ArgusEyes — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:50:51 GMT

1. Teaching maths in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?

2. Teaching Maths In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is 80% of the price.
What is his profit?

3. Teaching Maths In 1990
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is £80.
How much was his profit?

4. Teaching Maths In 2000
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Maths In 2005
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habit of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. Your assignment: Discuss how the birds and squirrels might feel as the logger cut down their homes just for a measly profit of £20.

6. Teaching Maths In 2009
A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling licence. He is also fined a £100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it deemed too dangerous and could cut something. He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another £100 because he is such an easy target. When he is released he returns to find Gypsies have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land. He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further £100. While he is in jail the Gypsies cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for £100 cash. They also have a leaving BBQ of squirrel and pheasant and depart leaving behind several tonnes of rubbish and asbestos sheeting. The forester on release is warned that failure to clear the fly tipped rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced £12,000 plus VAT for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.
Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make £20 profit by hard work, give up, sign onto the dole and live off the state for the rest of his life?

7. Teaching Maths In 2010
A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry, because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub- prime mortgages in Alabama and lost the lot, with only some government money left to pay a few million pound bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses.
The logger struggles to pay the £1,200 road tax on his old lorry however, as it was built in the 1970s it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.

Some Bulgarian loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the governments expense. Following their holiday back home they return to the UK with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay £21,500 registration fees as a gang master.
The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers, as bonus's are not cheap. The parliamentarians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances.
You do the maths.

8. Teaching Maths 2017
أ المسجل تبيع حموله شاحنة من الخشب من اجل 100 دولار. صاحب تكلفة الانت=D 8ج من
الثمن. ما هو الربح له؟

Curmudgeoning Around New Zealand

ArgusEyes — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:45:57 GMT

Hi all. Those of you who have been paying attention will know that I am currently touring New Zealand for a year, this is why the blog has been receiving no updates. However, I thought I should give the perfunctory shout out now and then to let you all know I’ve not driven off of a cliff or been eaten by a sheep.

Men lose their minds over pretty women

ArgusEyes — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:01:34 GMT

I think most men in the audience can think of a situation in his life where he degenerated into a pile of mushy brain goo in the presence of a stunner, It’s happened to me.

So here is a study: “Study: Men Losing Their Minds Over Women”. Didn’t really need to be done but it’s always useful to have some kind of scientific backing when dealing with people who have problems with reality.

The study measured brain function in 40 male heterosexual student volunteers, who were asked to perform a standard memory test in which they were shown a stream of letters and had to quickly say if each was the same as the previous letter. They then spent several minutes talking to either a man or an attractive woman and then repeated the test.

The researchers found that even a few minutes with the attractive woman was enough to make the students slower and less accurate on the test. The more attracted they were, the worse their results.

They also studied the effects on women students of being in the company of handsome men, and found the test scores were unaffected.

…

The idea for the study came from one of the scientists, who was so impressed by a beautiful woman he met that when she asked where he lived, he had forgotten his own address! He had temporarily lost his mind.

The one-stop wage gap video repository

ArgusEyes — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:23:09 GMT

The “Why Men Earn More” playlist on my channel needs more maintenance then I have been giving it. As we all know, the wage gap argument is the most common retort in any argument with a feminist.

In a similar vein to many creationist/evolution debates. Their claims are simple – there is a gap and therefore sexism. Whereas our answer requires knowledge and understanding of markets and human nature, the viewpoint of the feminists has won in the popular culture – it is the commonly accepted “thought” despite having little thought in it at all.

A subscriber contacted me and told me about a dialog he had with a friend about the wage gap. We have all been in situations like that where, afterwards, we felt that we could have made a much better case for our side than we did. Or you think the classic “Damn! Why didn’t I say that?”.

Here is the playlist as it stands now. I have Warren Farrell’s videos in there and I have recently added Walter Block’s excellent lectures to it as well. If you know of a good video on the wage gap then email or comment on this thread and it will be added.

Liberal Fascism at Pharyngula

ArgusEyes — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:44:03 GMT

My favourite blog is by a person I largely can’t stand. P.Z. Meyer’s Pharyngula has a post on a recent bloggingheads.tv kerfuffle.

“I've always rather liked Bloggingheads — at least the idea of it, with one-on-one discussions between interesting people. It flops in execution often, since some of the participants wouldn't recognize reason and evidence if it walked up and slapped them in the face with a large and pungent haddock (the right-winger political discussions are unwatchable, and it's always had this problem of giving people like Jonah Goldberg a platform), but their Science Saturday has been generally good. I don't always agree with the people they have on, but at least they're interesting and provocative. And Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer have been superstars of the format.”

Yes, the reason it “flops in execution often” is that it allows people on with differing views to P.Z. Meyers. The very same flop in execution applies to freedom of speech.

However, those of us who are adults can handle opposing viewpoints without throwing tantrums, and may possibly admit that what Meyers considers a flaw is really the biggest strength of freedom of speech.

bloggingheads.tv is a website that offers many views, although I can’t stand creationism I enjoy watching stuff like this and no doubt I would have enjoyed watching Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer too. However, they have pulled out of Bloggingheads because of the presence of creationist babble that was “insufficiently opposed” oh the horror! My first thoughts when I head this is that Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer are childish fools. Is depriving the site of their own opinion in order to curtail future creationist content a mature approach to the problem? If anything, this will give credence to the common creationist claim that they are “expelled” wherever they go.

I think that a creationist love fest is funny to watch, and my hackles certainly don’t get raised at the existence of such a thing.

Not even mentioning that science is a lot more decidable than political opinion is. Jonah Goldberg wrote a book called Liberal Fascism. I recommend that Meyers should pick up a copy if he wants to understand how his “liberal” belief system is not so liberal anymore. As should be apparent by this ridiculous post of his.

Natural Selection: A Machine for Making Almost Impossible Things

ArgusEyes — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:08:21 GMT

Taken from a lecture by professor Steve Jones called "Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right".
http://royalsociety.org/event.asp?id=4140

The proof for oppression against women: Still missing

ArgusEyes — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:29:00 GMT

This post garnered a lot of discussion in the comments thread, which I am happy to see, I started this reply to a poster named bob who makes the cases for why women are more oppressed than men are. These are oft-repeated arguments so I felt it was important to dedicate a new post to my reply.

“Women get beat, raped, and exploited more.”

Men are more likely to be the victims of a violent crime, if you’re talking about D.V. then some say it happens to men a lot too. I’m not going to commit to stats since I am not a stats guy but I’m damn sure it happens to men more than those paltry handful of D.V. shelters that accommodate males. Rape does affect women overwhelmingly due to the nature of the crime.

However, for both D.V. and rape the same answer applies. These things are both crimes, therefore how is this oppression against women? We continually push, as a society, for more laws and services for women who have been raped or battered so we realise that this is a problem. Consider a crime where men are more likely to be the victim, like violent crime in general, it is accurate to say that violent crime oppresses men? No it is not, since it is not perpetrated by the state, but by individuals on other individuals and is recognised as being illegal.

The important part is where you claim women are exploited more but you’ve merely changed the words you use. Women are oppressed, women are exploited.

Never a scrap of evidence on how. The nearest you came to it was when you said this:

“Look at Middle Eastern countries.”

We are living in the west, criticising feminists in the west, who complain about the west and try to affect legislation in the west, they claim that all these oppressions happen to women in the west and when I ask how, what do I get in reply? “Look to the east”. What a crock.

“Women get paid less, men don't get to retire as soon.”

You’re missing the importance of the retire issue. This is government policy which treats men differently based upon their sex. Why do we always restrict freedom of speech to the government? Because government is the necessary totalitarian mechanism of control over all citizenry, you cannot escape the government. However, if the bakery doesn’t want you to say certain things then you can always walk out, you can never “walk out” of the government.

I realise this important distinction which is why I distinguished between the types of oppression and state that the state mandated instance of oppression are surely the worst kind and if men win in this area then what is the point of going further? The things I pointed out involve government action or funding. Do the feminists have an example of where the government acts in this way? Lets see..

The wage gap is a common example. Does the government enforce different pay on people based upon sex? Well no, it doesn’t. In fact, there is legislation passed in 1970 (1963 in the U.S. I think) that says that companies cannot pay people differently based upon sex, so if this does happen then it is like in the rape and D.V. examples where individuals in companies are choosing to pay women less. It is against the law. Therefore no government oppression exists.

The wage gap is the most sheepish feminist line out there. You’ll hear it spouted again and again when talking about these issues. It seems strange to me that so many people view the world as being so systemically sexist through-and-through as to make such a gap so pervasive throughout society. Ever since I first heard about the gap I though it was B.S. since I am not inclined to believe such conspiracy theories.

Feminism has won the culture war, its effects and ideas are pervasive in society to the extent where people can get ostracised for misplaced comments and heretical thoughts. Yet despite this people are still such sexists?! Any man will know a number of women in his life, his mother, sister, aunt, grandmother. Do so many men want what is bad for women?

I don’t want to portray that I am simple minded to how convoluted humans can be, I know that nothing is simple, taller people earn more than others because people subtly prefer taller people. Will the position of an attractive person when compared to a similarly-abled unattractive person be better? I would put my money on “yes”. However, I honestly do not find the feminist line on the wage gap to be persuasive.

The economists I know do not support the mass sexism explanation for the wage gap, these are people who actually look underneath the underneath in matters of markets and wages. I have not seen thoughts which support the feminist line in what I have read in the works of Milton Friedman, Walter Block, Thomas Sowell, etc. I see again and again that the wage gap used as proof of victimisation is made by feminists and feminists-economists (effectively like a “creation scientist”) and other groups of the activist victimist mentality such as racial groups.

In fact, I would play the victim if I wanted to. Check this out.

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_503DRRB.pdf

Those Asian women sure did a great job of breaking through that glass ceiling didn’t they? Having studied computer science, I can tell you that for all their flaws, the Asian students had a fierce work ethic. It would be an unfair world that dictated that the rest of us who had not worked as hard had to be raised on a pedestal to their level to close this “gap”.

As Thomas Sowell so aptly puts it, Asians always kill the yarns that the victimists try to sow.

We've frequently heard, and will hear much more I am sure if Hillary is the Democratic nominee, that women make 76 cents for every dollar a man makes. Can you give us a basic rundown of why that discrepancy exists?

There are lots of reasons. Men and women do not work the same number of hours. They do not work in the same occupations. They do not work continuously the same, and so on.

You know, if it was really true that you could hire a woman for three quarters of what you could hire a man with exactly the same qualifications, then employers would be crazy not to hire all women. It would be insane to hire men. Not only would it be insane, it would probably put them out of the business because the ones that were smart enough to hire women would have such a cost advantage that it would be really hard for the others to compete.

There are lots of gross differences between men and women and other groups and some of them shocked me when I first started doing the research. For example, I found that young male doctors make considerably more than young female doctors. But, when I dug into it a little deeper, I discovered that young male doctors work an average of 500 hours a year more than young female doctors. Obviously, a doctor that works 500 extra hours is going to make more money than the other doctor.

One profound thing you said in the book, when talking about disparities between the wages earned by white workers and minority workers in this country was that there are differences between groups all over the world, so why should we expect different groups to make the same amount of money in the first place? Can you tell us a little bit more about those differences...

I think most people have heard that there are these differences, but I think that what most of them have not heard is that there are the same differences between Asian-Americans and whites as there are between whites and blacks. Asian-American families have higher incomes than white families; during downturns in the economy, whites get laid off moreso than Asian-Americans. Among people who apply for mortgage loans, whites get turned down more often than Asian-Americans. Whites have to resort to sub-prime loans more often than Asian-Americans.

But, most of the people who talk about these things leave out Asian-Americans because it really kills their whole story. Their whole story is that non-whites do poorly because of white racism. Well then, if you find that there is the same disparity between Asian-Americans and whites as there is between whites and other non-whites, that whole argument falls down.

http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/02/an_interview_with_thomas_sowel.php

It’s 4am and this is getting long. So I will end it there. I am truly interested in hearing rebuttals to my points here since I am interested in finding the truth on these matters. I have not heard the feminist come back with reasonable counter arguments to points like these. They usually make the claims and then these claims work their way into the zeitgeist. But as for not, that elusive proof for oppression against women is still missing.

O.K. Guys.. This is what it takes for the oppression against women to stop

ArgusEyes — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:36:33 GMT

Some people can believe crap that can make your head spin. Some chick (I honestly thought she was a boy until she spoke) is moaning the usual moan about how I said all feminists were a certain way and I cannot possibly criticise feminism ever because they’re all different. Yeah, the usual stuff.

It was the little exchange we had that was so delicious, I may very well take it down as an all time classic feminist line.

I wrote:

Yes, a person who thinks she is oppressed will likely become a feminist, and yes, viewing oneself as being oppressed will make one angry.

However, history is replete with people who deluded themselves into believing fantasies that weren't true, and didn't ponder their own fallibility or potential to be wrong. Feminists fall into this camp. Acting on faith with emotion is the cause of so much evil, it is in this way that the feminists perpetrate sexism and oppression upon other's heads whilst at the same time claiming that they are against such things.

If you can provide that final elusive proof of oppression against women, outside of petty grievances about wolf whistles or myths like the wage gap stemming from systemic sexism, then we can start to find some common ground. But until you do so then to decry yourself as being oppressed as a woman in the year 2009 is worthy only of contempt.

She replied:

Again it seems that you're solely speaking from your personal experience with feminists. you cannot say that all feminists do all these things you stated because you dont' know every feminist. this may be some trend you are writing about or w/e but to make broad blanket statements is pretty pointless.

i honestly dont feel like going through the trouble of proving the oppression against women but until the day where a woman can go out side and walk wherever she wants, wearing whatever she wants, no matter what time of day and feel completely safe, then oppression against women doesnt exist, or when parents start feeling safe about leaving their children with a male babysitter.
part of being a human being is constantly questioning your opinion and changing your opinion. i think its funny that you're falling back on to the "feminists have some deluded sense that women are oppressed" argument. ive heard it all

Hard to know what to say to that. I just left it at:

I wish you the best in your wait for utopia.

The Lies of a Female. Expanded

ArgusEyes — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:50:55 GMT

I made a somewhat quick post called “The lies of a female” which garnered a lot of negative feedback. It turns out that some text was missing and I should expand on what I meant back then, and what I still stand by now.

Original post is here:

---

Tattoo girl: 'I lied about my stars'

The girl suing a tattoo artist who left her with 56 stars on her face has admitted she lied.

Kimberley Vlaeminck, 18, claimed that she'd asked for three small stars but fell asleep during the procedure and woke up with a whole galaxy on her face.

But she has now confessed she knew exactly what tattoo parlour owner Rouslan Toumaniantz was doing but changed her mind later.

She said she lied because her father was "furious".

As I would be. It was a stupid thing to do. Why am I mentioning this? Because this incident made me think about how women falsely accuse rape on the same grounds.

Many times women use rape for some of the most flimsy and petty reasons. Such as:

Excuses.

On further questioning the woman confessed that she was spending time with her lover in his car near the Shanghumugham beach. She cooked up the rape story to excuse himself.

Getting back at family.

A woman was jailed yesterday after her false claim of rape resulted in an innocent stranger being arrested.

In an attempt to make her family feel guilty following an argument, Kerry Saunders invented a story that she had been sexually assaulted after a night out.

Revenge against an ex.

'It has been a nightmare and I would not be on this earth if it had not been for the support of friends and family. I would be six feet under.'

That's how Briton Andrew Tutty described the ordeal his ex-girlfriend, Louise Johnson put him through with multiple false allegations against him, including rape. Read the article here (Daily Mail, 7/25/09). Johnson was recently sentenced to 18 months in prison for her crimes which the judge called "lies of the most vile kind." "There was not a word of truth in what you said," he added.

It all started when Tutty decided to break off his two-month relationship with Johnson. She went immediately to the police with the fabricated claim that Tutty had raped her. He was arrested for that and only released after he had made bail.

And no reason at all.

"To this day, we have no clue why she made this up," says Bekele's attorney, Robert Flennaugh. While the charges were pending, Flennaugh had tried, as defense lawyers do, to come up with some reason why Clifton might have dreamt up a false claim—some motivation, a grudge. In rape cases especially, when it's one person's word against another's, jurors need to see some reason for the victim to lie, especially considering how painful it is to come forward with such a charge.

Clifton had once contested a grade from Bekele, thinking she deserved a 4.0 after receiving a 3.9. And she'd sent him one e-mail that seemed possibly inappropriate. But that was it, Flennaugh says. They'd had no other contact outside the classroom.

Flennaugh would have had a tough time raising doubts in jurors' minds about the accuser's motives, a fact that still makes him shudder. Had she not gone so far as to create the bogus e-mails, his client would likely be facing a possible prison term, Flennaugh says. "If she hadn't lied too much, where would we be? We'd be in trial."

I found these in a couple of minutes of googling.

The reasoning process that this young tattoo girl went through is very similar to false rape cases. When I read this story I immediately thought of some of the reasons I have heard false rape accusers cite*. In this instance, she was not accusing rape, but she was accusing an innocent man of incompetence that could have gotten him fired or banned from his profession (not actually knowing how the tattooing profession works, but follow me on this).

In response to a situation she completely negated personal responsibility and, in my personal opinion, the character trait of personal responsibility is more of a male character trait than a female one. In fact, when people say that males need to find their “inner woman” to become more compassionate, you should retort that more women should “find their inner man” and become more responsible.

Joking aside, this is not funny. Because of these unbearably petty excuses listed above, women who do this can effectively destroy a mans life. His freedom and liberty is taken away, he can be ostracised from family and society, he may be raped himself in prison and in the worst cases he may take his life. These are all possibilities that can occur and purely at the behest of an evil little narcissistic liar who couldn’t control her petty little emotions and decided to put another person to the sword because of her anger or her rage. I’ve known women like this, all that matters to them are their own feelings, they feel entitled to be the centre of the universe and inflict their emotions upon you, be it by pouting and stropping about and pulling faces, or going to extremes like this. They feel entitled to do it and they are the worst sort.

Why is this important?

There are ideologues in this country, and others, who operate under faith based delusions that women don’t lie about rape, or don’t do so in any significant numbers, and who are driving the political system. Look at someone like Harriet Harman, this person is a man hating bigot who occupies a position of immense power, the Orwellian “equality minister” who is rampaging through the system (whilst she still has the power before these bums are voted out) instigating her female supremacist agenda. Being the classic feminist, rape is on her radar. As is par for the course, more and more men need to be held accountable for rape. I.E. The standard of evidence must be lowered. This is an end run around the concept of justice and will only exacerbate the situation.

Harman doesn’t believe that women falsely accuse rape in any great way, or if she does then she doesn’t care. People who believe in justice and fairness need to stand up against this cancer. Some people are the bottom of the barrel, both men who actually rape and women who would put an innocent man in prison for rape. Our current system where a man can go to prison purely on another person’s word is disgusting and a system that lets a person who would try to deprive another of their freedom off with a slap on the wrist is double so.

We need to uphold standards of evidence crimes, we need to punish those who try to get innocents tried for a crime, to have the same punishment as the person who they falsely accused would have gotten.

*For news about false rape, one of the best sources on the web is the false rape society.

Holy Crap! Study that didn’t need to be done.

ArgusEyes — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:57:17 GMT

As a great man, Dennis Prager, once said. A study either confirms common sense or it is wrong.

Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'

A short-term study of Twitter has found that 40% of the messages sent via it are "pointless babble."

Carried out by US market research firm Pear Analytics, the study aimed to produce a snapshot of what people do with the service.

Almost as prevalent as the babble were "conversational" tweets that used it as a surrogate instant messaging system.

The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest.

Get out.

Victim a go-go

ArgusEyes — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:13:13 GMT

Thank You + About Me

ArgusEyes — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:02:33 GMT

Feedback: I am a failure, who is disappointed with his life

ArgusEyes — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:08:35 GMT

karlsmith00 wrote:

"your channel is hilarious. another example of an ugly guy who's dissapointed[sic] with his life, and then he becomes a "men's rights" activist to avoid any personal responsibility for being a failure.

you're a loser, and it's your fault. men have more rights, more than they should. but thanks for the channel, it's always good for a laugh."

This is a very good summary of people with victim based mentalities. They can respond to their personal inadequacies by attaching to a physical characteristic of their own being, by attaching to being black or a woman or a homosexual, etc. Elevating the status of the group that they belong in by accident of their birth they elevate their own status by default.

However, hateful individuals like karlsmith00, who have merely stumbled onto part of the truth, lack the ability to discriminate vise a vise the efficacy of a cause. A victim is a victim where their cause is just. If I can point out where a MRA has less rights in law and suffers genuine oppression in terms of reproductive rights then that is viable case, but it does not make him a victim in all avenues of life. When feminists turn over every rock to find grievances and to create victimisations out of whole cloth then that points to the moribund victim manufacturing nature of what the movement has become.

He also has a problem in understanding reality or seeking the truth. Evidence that I am a failure? Apparently this hugely ugly (in mind, not body) individual knows how satisfied I am with my own life. Never mind the fact that physical appearance is not important to men.

The fact of the matter is that I haven't made a video in a while because I am so busy with my personal pursuits. Programming websites, programming games, reading, writing, photography, planning a huge journey overseas, and much more. The whole meaning of an activist/victim is that they have little to their life outside the pet cause of political activism.

Google Chrome OS: His is better than mine

ArgusEyes — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:31:20 GMT

Do Not Want

ArgusEyes — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:59:31 GMT

Google's Chrome OS a direct shot across Microsoft's bow

Analysts said a key part of Google's strategy is to persuade software developers to start writing applications that run in Web browsers, rather than customizing them for a specific operating system such as Windows. "All Web-based applications will automatically work" on the new operating system, Pichai and Upson wrote.

I don’t want to sound like a luddite here, but nothing sounds more shite to me than playing games and using complex apps in a browser. I work in the field of websites so I understand how good they are getting with time. If it turns out to be good then I will happily eat crow but this doesn’t strike me as something that will take off anytime soon.

Think about it, is there a modern game that installs in less than a gigabyte of space? How about downloading that?

I will say, that one of the most important things to do is to separate the layers under which applications run. What is great about the web is that WebPages are written in open languages which browser writers support on the various OS’s, this can work with languages like Java and .NET which work under a virtual machine, but that has not taken off too much. Running from a browser will make apps that can run on Google Chrome OS also work on Windows, but the huge library of Windows apps will not work on Chrome. Let’s see how this one plays out.

The best thing about this is:

Chrome could attract computer users who want more speed and security than Windows currently provides. Google promised the software, which will be free, would boot up quickly and "get you onto the Web in a few seconds."

…

And the move could prove to be good news for consumers, since more competition in the operating system market, long dominated by Microsoft, could lead to lower prices and increased innovation.

Yes. Competition is excellent for users. If Google Chrome OS is quick and light and people want that (I want that!) then Microsoft will lighten windows and lower prices also.

Making a Monkey out of Darwin: A Rebuttal (part 2)

ArgusEyes — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:24:17 GMT

"Although born to a Catholic family Hitler become a hard-eyed Darwinist who saw life as a constant struggle between the strong and the weak. His Darwinism was so extreme that he thought it would have been better for the world if the Muslims had won the eighth century battle of Tours, which stopped the Arabs' advance into France.

Yes, he was such a Darwinist that he didn’t really mention it anywhere.

Historian Jacques Barzun believes Darwinism brought on World War I: "Since in every European country between 1870 and 1914 there was a war party demanding armaments, an individualist party demanding ruthless competition, an imperialist party demanding a free hand over backward peoples, a socialist party demanding the conquest of power and a racialist party demanding internal purges against aliens -- all of them, when appeals to greed and glory failed, invoked Spencer and Darwin, which was to say science incarnate."

If you followed that, then explain it to me in non crazy talk.

Yet a theory can produce evil -- and still be true.

Like nuclear physics – when do we get to blame Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Lise Meitner? Or, maybe, humans have always fought each other? Nah, that’s crazy talk.

And here Windchy does his best demolition work.

Darwin, he demonstrates, stole his theory from Alfred Wallace, who had sent him a "completed formal paper on evolution by natural selection."

"All my originality ... will be smashed," wailed Darwin when he got Wallace's manuscript.

The idea that Darwin stole his theory from Wallace is a historically illiterate falsity. There is no truth in it. Darwin sat on his theory for a very long time and ran the risk of being snubbed to the post by Wallace so they presented their ideas around the same time. You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts.

Darwin's examples of natural selection -- such as the giraffe acquiring its long neck to reach ever higher into the trees for the leaves upon which it fed to survive -- have been debunked. Giraffes eat grass and bushes. And if, as Darwin claimed, inches meant life or death, how did female giraffes, two or three feet shorter, survive?

Giraffes eat bushes and grass as well as leaves from trees. Has this guy ever seen a nature documentary? His ridiculous strawman about there being a cut-off for the length that a giraffes neck needs to be is ridiculous, are all trees the same height? No. Ergo, a shorter neck gets less food and a longer one gets more, ergo advantage, ergo natural selection can choose it.

Discovered in England in 1912, Piltdown Man was a sensation until exposed by a 1950s investigator as the skull of a Medieval Englishman attached to the jaw of an Asian ape whose teeth had been filed down to look human and whose bones had been stained to look old.

Yet three English scientists were knighted for Piltdown Man.

Therefore evolution is false.

For 150 years, the fossil record has failed to validate Darwin.

Complete inversion of the truth.

And Darwinists still have not explained the origin of life, nor have they been able to produce life from non-life.

Sounds like a child doesn’t it? Scientists haven’t answered everything yet, whilst your made up myths have explained exactly zero. Also evolution is not abiogenesis and I stifle the biggest yawn in the world.

The most delicious chapter is Windchy's exposure of the Scopes Monkey Trial and Hollywood's Bible-mocking movie "Inherit the Wind," starring Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow.

The trial was a hoked-up scam to garner publicity for Dayton, Tenn. Scopes never taught evolution and never took the stand. His students were tutored to commit perjury. And William Jennings Bryan held his own against the atheist Darrow in the transcript of the trial.

In 1981, Gould had this advice for beleaguered Darwinists:

"Perhaps we should all lie low and rally round the flag of strict Darwinism ... a kind of old-time religion on our part."

Exactly. Darwinism is not science. It is faith. Always was.

Some bullshit about a film only loosely based on reality, a quote mine and the faith card and we’re finally done. Phew.

When you see a “…” in a creationist quote, you can pretty much rely on the fact that you’re being lied to. Here is the fully quote from Stephen Gould:

But most of all I am saddened by a trend I am just beginning to discern among my colleagues. I sense that some now wish to mute the healthy debate about theory that has brought new life to evolutionary biology. It provides grist for creationist mills, they say, even if only by distortion. Perhaps we should lie low and rally around the flag of strict Darwinism, at least for the moment — a kind of old-time religion on our part.

But we should borrow another metaphor and recognize that we too have to tread a straight and narrow path, surrounded by roads to perdition. For if we ever begin to suppress our search to understand nature, to quench our own intellectual excitement in a misguided effort to present a unified front where it does not and should not exist, then we are truly lost.

So he says the opposite to how it is being construed by Buchanan. I know how these things can work though, because I have messed up quotes before. He has passed on a quote that another has sent him without looking it over, it can happen to any of us.

The last line is standard, the creationists aim to being us down to their level by conflating evolutionary theory with faith. It speaks to the fact that they know their position is less tenable so they’re trying to drag us down to their level. Nice try but sloppy B.S. like this continues to render creationism the laughing stock of anyone but the most faithful who will gobble this up.

Also see “Pat Buchanan makes a monkey of himself about evolution” and “Old fossil "disproves" Darwin!”.

Making a Monkey out of Darwin: A Rebuttal

ArgusEyes — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:21:52 GMT

Well, this one's going to be fun.

Patrick Buchanan has written a piece for RealClearPolitics.com called “Making a Monkey Out of Darwin”. It’s a knee-slapping rip-roaring fun ride down lame off-the-shelf creationist claims alley. In short, the claims are:

“Darwinism” inspired Karl Marx
“Darwinism” inspired Hitler
“Darwinism” inspired eugenics
“Darwinism” caused world war 1!? (That’s a new one to me)
The neck of the Giraffe
Nebraska Man
Piltdown Man
The fossil record is rubbish
Stephen J. Gould fossil quote
Darwinism doesn’t explain how life started
“Darwinism” is a religion

Well, isn't that original? Let’s get dug in.

"You have no notion of the intrigue that goes on in this blessed world of science," wrote Thomas Huxley. "Science is, I fear, no purer than any other region of human activity; though it should be."

Right, science as a procedure has created innovation that has completely changed the way we live. However, the people who do the work are humans and humans are flawed, a particular scientist will cling to his or her theory despite reasonable evidence that it is wrong because of his or her personal pride and cognitive dissonance. But, in the long term the theories are gradually refined or thrown out. The scientific method is backing a theory with evidence and submitting it to peer review, it is the best method that humans have derived for finding the truth. It’s a messy process but life is not as simple as wishing making and magical thinking. I don’t believe that a sustainable farce for an extended period of time is likely in the scientific community.

As "Darwin's bulldog," Huxley would himself engage in intrigue, deceit and intellectual property theft to make his master's theory gospel truth in Great Britain.

He is quoted above for two reasons.

First is House passage of a "cap-and-trade" climate-change bill. Depending on which scientists you believe, the dire consequences of global warming are inconvenient truths -- or a fearmongering scheme to siphon off the wealth of individuals and empower bureaucrats.

I am a very light global warming skeptic, I say “light” because as I mentioned above, I don’t think that a prolonged farce is possible in science so I make criticisms very very reservedly. However, I believe that in the global warming issue, there are two groups to the left and right who have emotional reasons for embracing or denying the theory based upon their own belief systems and how much it can advance or recede their agenda. It is a sure golden goose to those who believe in greater governmental control and environmentalists (many times the same people) and people who are the opposite – who believe in smaller government and who oppose the other side consider it to be a thorn in their side.

That Darwinism has proven "disastrous theory" is indisputable.

"Karl Marx loved Darwinism," writes Windchy. "To him, survival of the fittest as the source of progress justified violence in bringing about social and political change, in other words, the revolution."

"Darwin suits my purpose," Marx wrote.

Darwin suited Adolf Hitler's purposes, too.

I should address the endless reference to “Darwinism”. Some evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins use this word often, others don’t like it. I am one of the latter. What does it mean? To put “ism” on the end of something is to make it a belief system of the first word, this no always accurate (I.E. “feminism” is not a belief system of the “feminine” – they often despise traditional femininity) but Darwinism would be a belief system of Darwin, which man or woman who accepts the theory of evolution would accept it as a reasonable term that they base their views on Darwin's? You might as well call me a “Newtonist” or a “Einsteinist”. We accept the body of work of these great people but we do not center our belief systems around them. A good example of a legitimate use of the term would be “Christian” or “Christianity”, the form is different but the idea is to base one’s life on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Darwinism is not an appropriate term in our modern times.

As for the substance of the above quote, I have a certain kind of distaste for such mud-slinging. To assume the superiority of one’s own race or group is a “Darwinist” inspired meme is it? I disagree, I would content that this is a fundamental facet of human nature. Does something like evolution or “Darwinism” lend a patina of scientific credibility to such ideas? Probably. Buchanan states in his article that a theory can be true and yet inspire evil ideas, true, then what is the point of his article? Because he seems to flit between stating that "Darwinism" is false to stating that it has caused evil (even if it may be true), I think he is trying to fling enough mud to make some of it stick.

I have decided to wrap this up as a "part 1" for now.

Bringing the sexes together – by denigrating one of them

ArgusEyes — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:33:38 GMT

Sometimes the letters from the luverly people who disagree with me make me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Now, since you do not believe in human rights (the same rights for every human being alike), I'm thinking you feel one of the sexes is inferior and does not 'deserve' the same rights as another.

I have not come across any factual, scientific books that prove the natural superiority of men. But I have come across a few concerning women. And one of them below is one that I feel will help you be more understanding of what feminism is TRULY about.

You seem like an intelligent man, but I just hate to see you put down feminism and claim it is just a silly woman-victimizing movement. Well, as a feminist, I can assure you it is not that at all.

The book that many feminists use to argue their stance is entitled "The Natural Superiority of Women" by Ashley Montagu. Now, I know you may already assume it is a female-chauvinist book, but it's stated in this book many a time that the book is meant to being the sexes together instead of widening the already gap between them. The author of the book uses only facts and science to prove how women are naturally superior. He also clearly says in the epilogue that he uses no personal opinions or rhetoric.
If you do so choose to read this book, you will better understand feminism for what it really is and not judge it based on what you think it is about or from what you read off of "feminist" websites.

I can only *hope* that you will read this book, I can't and won't try to 'convince' you to go out and invest a few dollars to widen your horizons and to understand feminism. Whenever you wish to read it is a good enough time.

Thanks for reading this.

The lies of a female

ArgusEyes — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:50:18 GMT

I have expanded on this post in a new post, I reccomend that you read that version instead of this one as it explain my point in more depth. You can find it here.

The girl suing a tattoo artist who left her with 56 stars on her face has admitted she lied.

Kimberley Vlaeminck, 18, claimed that she'd asked for three small stars but fell asleep during the procedure and woke up with a whole galaxy on her face.

But she has now confessed she knew exactly what tattoo parlour owner Rouslan Toumaniantz was doing but changed her mind later.

She said she lied because her father was "furious".

Link to article

As I would be. It was a stupid thing to do. Why am I mentioning this? Because this incident made me think about how women falsely accuse rape on the same grounds. Many times they

We need to eradicate the ridiculous idea that women and girls don’t cry rape when it didn’t happen. Why even suggest such a common sense notion? Well, because there are people who adhere to faith based belief systems, not facts, that say that women do not falsely accuse rape. The most prominent example of this that comes to my mind is the Duke Lacrosse rape case, where the young men were assumed to be guilty.

But feminists and left-wing activists will dismiss these studies as biased because men where involved. For instance, one feminist, Wendy Kaminer, stated that "it is a primary article of faith among many feminists that women don't lie about rape, ever; they lack the dishonesty gene." Anyone believing women lack a dishonesty gene never dated women. If they do lack that gene, then someone out there is performing miraculous surgery to implant that gene. What's so amazing about such statements is: they are not based on any scientific evidence -- it is a sexist premise.

John O'Sullivan, a left-wing social scientist, discovered a widespread defense of the belief that "no woman would fabricate a rape charge. Feminists themselves admit as much."

Law Professor and left-wing political activist Susan Estrich stated that "the whole effort at reforming rape laws has been an attack on the premise that women who bring complaints are suspect."

Duke Rape Case All Too Common

For tales of false rape accusations, one of the best resources on the web is the False Rape Society.

Men's Rights: The Core Issues

ArgusEyes — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:19:23 GMT

The Schools Vs. Boys

ArgusEyes — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:46:22 GMT

This hostility to boys comes out of feminism, which is the belief that if you can't do squat yourself, keep anybody else from succeeding, and that way you'll look good by comparison.

I’ve mentioned Fred Reed before. Hell, I've probably posted this link to “The Schools Vs. Boys”. Written in his normal no B.S. style.

Taking a break

ArgusEyes — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:05:25 GMT

The last bunch of view replies expanded into more than one and due to personal efforts to go travelling around the world mean that activity will dwindle on the YouTube and blog side.

Hooray!

ArgusEyes — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:06:31 GMT

BBC: Labour slumps to historic defeat

Labour has suffered its worst post-war election result as it was beaten into third place by UKIP and saw the BNP gain its first seats at Brussels.

Labour's share of the vote at the European elections was just 15.3% - worse than party bosses had feared.

The Tories won with 28.6%, beating Labour in Wales but failing to increase their total share significantly.

The results have sent shockwaves through UK politics and led to renewed calls for Gordon Brown to quit as PM.

'Two-fingered salute'

The BNP gained a seat in Yorkshire and Humberside and in the North-West of England, where party leader Nick Griffin was elected - the first time the anti-immigration party has won seats at national elections.

And hopefully Harriet Harman will get a job she deserves. Like cleaning public toilets.

I’m not too happy about the rise of the BNP though, they are nationalists. But I guess that the backlash can be strong when it is against such a bad government as we have had.

Patriarchal Society via Socialization versus Personal Responsibility

ArgusEyes — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:47:15 GMT

Walter Block Lecture on Sexual Discrimination and Capitalism

ArgusEyes — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:31:36 GMT

The Dogma of Feminism

ArgusEyes — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:20:07 GMT

Hi BoundlessEyes, thanks for the video response. For those who don’t know, I contacted BoundlessEyes in the first place to see if she wanted to make a response to my video “what is feminism”. I did so because she seemed to engage in discourse to a greater degree than many other YouTube feminists, which is not difficult seeing as no other group seems as reticent to explain and defend their views.

There is a talk show host I admire called Dennis Prager who has a saying that goes “I prefer clarity to agreement” and that is what I thought we could do here. Clarify where we differ as opposed to just battling it out to win. To do that effectively we I want to address the most important points where we differ. These topics will be on patriarchy, on gender differences and on Harriett Harman.

On patriarchy: I do feel that your video lacked clarity as it seemed like you were less interested in explaining your position and more interested merely reciting dogma.

[see video]

Answering questions in this way will get your fellow feminists nodding in agreement but I fear it has less effect on the rest of us who haven’t swallowed that blue pill. Far be it for me to get in the way of your intellectual masturbation but could you please define your terms more clearly. Patriarchy would be rule by males, at least according to the dictionary that I know you like to use. How can a democracy be a patriarchy? We have had a female prime minister and we have women in government. Iran and the Catholic Church are patriarchal systems. Western democracies are not.

Far from being a solid concept the term seems to encapsulate whatever feminists want it to, and yes I have read a number of opinions on the subject and in doing so I have encountered raises the bar for decedent writing quite a bit. Take one particular view

Feminist writer Marilyn French, in her seminal work Beyond Power, defines patriarchy as a system that values power over life, control over pleasure, and dominance over happiness.[1]

This is not a rational argument. It is an emotional and religious one. And, to be quite honest, it reeks of conspiracy theory.

On gender differences: I believe that we should all examine the things we believe to honestly assess whether they are true or not.

Take for example the common claim that women use more words per day then men do. The numbers you will hear cited differ in each case but they always cite that women use more words than men do.

As a man I am not insulted by this claim, it is either true or it is not.

If we take these studies and add on top our understanding from other research [3] that different areas of the male and female brain are used in sounding out words along with our plain and common sense observations of our sisters and mothers and female friends talking more on the phone and in the office.

Given thus fact it is not a huge leap to posit that the actions and careers that men and women take could be influenced by our differences. I see an obvious nurturing advantage in women, evolutionarily programmed to aid in the protection of young no doubt. Would this have any effect on more women wanting to be nurses for example? It might not but as us scientific sceptics like to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Could we have the evidence that this is societally constructed and by whom and to what ends?

What evidence you have presented would get you a failing grade in any science class for lack of proper isolation of variables. Yes a girl who was raised by dogs, as some sort of proof that humans are a tabula rasa to be scribbled upon by a conspiracy of white males intent upon god knows what. Are you familiar with the phrase “non sequitur”.

You can’t shame me with such dishonest tactics. I have always held that humans are the product of a mixture of nature and nurture as I specifically said in the original video. It surprises me not that being raised by dogs will be a profound effect on a developing child’s behaviour. The difference between the sexes is a fact and if humans can be manipulated so easily then the question of David Reimer still stands? Let’s see the intellectual honesty with which you approach this issue.

That. Was particularly loathsome. Let me read to you how David Reimer described his experience.

"It was like brainwashing. I'd give just about anything to go to a hypnotist to black out my whole past. Because it's torture. What they did to you in the body is sometimes not near as bad as what they did to you in the mind - with the psychological warfare in your head." [4]

David Reimer is now dead, he committed suicide.

I think your supercilious little dismissal about being teased on the playground is a sham. And you need to be honest with yourself about how easily you grasped onto any little scrap of information that you could use as a plausible deniability mechanism to not have to deal with the obvious black eye that the David Reimer case gives to feminism. If you ever want to know why people like myself get angry at feminists then just think about what you just did.

On Harriett Harman:

Remember at the beginning when I mentioned clarity instead of agreement? Well this is the perfect example of a clarifying moment. I don’t need you to explain how the things that Harriett Harman believes leads to her actions. I know how she thinks and why she is doing what she is doing. People who commit bigoted actions frequently do so on twisted belief systems and believe themselves to be in the right. If I may quote Mr. Prager again.

Victimhood. A lifelong study of good and evil has led to me conclude that the greatest single cause of evil is people perceiving of themselves or their group as victims. Nazism arose from Germans' sense of victimhood — as a result of the Versailles Treaty, of the "stab in the back" that led to Germany's loss in World War I and of a world Jewish conspiracy. Communism was predicated on workers regarding themselves as victims of the bourgeoisie. Much of Islamic evil today emanates from a belief that the Muslim world has been victimized by Christians and Jews. Many prisoners, including those imprisoned for horrible crimes, regard themselves as victims of society or of their upbringing. The list of those attributing their evil acts to their being victims is as long as the list of evildoers. [4]

And to that list we can add you and Harriett Harman.

A woman whose mind has become so twisted as to act like women are oppressed by some nebulous patriarchal force whilst occupying a position of immense power and using that power to actively give a governmentally mandated superior status to women.

You have no excuse, from now on, whenever you open that dictionary and say that feminism about equality know that you are participating in a massive lie. For what you actually come to support in reality is sexism and oppression by the very definition of those words that you’ll find in that same dictionary. For in Harriett Harman’s own words:

'It is about saying, "because you are a woman I'm going to put you in this promotion".' [6]

If you read that and like what it says then you can pat yourself on the back and join a very select club of totalitarians who use their grievances to push for tyranny over liberty. Who masquerade under the banners of changing for the better but who in turn bring more misery onto earth. Who push their small minded dogma onto all.

The “What is Feminism” video encapsulated all of what modern feminism means today and the Pièce de résistance is you, a young feminist coming along and proving everything that I’ve said:

Feminism is a movement with a gendered name that claims to stand for gender equality but really is an activist political movement and sexist belief system which, in its worse forms, denies reality, suppresses women’s choice, tramples liberty, hurts men, infantilises women and fosters animosity between the sexes.

Sources

[1] Patriarchy: Encyclopedia II - Patriarchy - Feminist view
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Patriarchy_-_Feminist_view/id/5367497

What is patriarchy?
http://www.essortment.com/all/whatispatriarc_rhsf.htm

[3] Men and Women Use Brain Differently, Study Discovers
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/16/us/men-and-women-use-brain-differently-study-discovers.html

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/09/24/sex_on_the_brain/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-419040/Women-talk-times-men-says-study.html

[4] The true story of John/Joan
by John Colapinto
Rolling Stone December 11, 1997
http://www.healthyplace.com/gender/inside-intersexuality/the-true-story-of-john-joan/menu-id-1427/

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, Glenn Sacks
http://www.hisside.com/6_6_04.htm

Death by Theory? Wendy McElroy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120914,00.html

Told to Act Like a Girl, Carey Roberts
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/0519roberts.html

[5] Why Do People Do Evil?
http://www.creators.com/opinion/dennis-prager/why-do-people-do-evil.html

[6] I'll put women in charge of banks: Harriet Harman's plans to use equality laws to challenge macho City culture
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178140/Ill-women-charge-banks-Harriet-Harmans-plans-use-equality-laws-challenge-macho-City-culture.html

War and Peace

ArgusEyes — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:11:43 GMT

It was recently Memorial Day and an excellent blog called “The Big Picture” at the boston.com website features an array of photographs from prominent world events. It featured a piece on the Memorial Day and I recommend you all check out these amazing photos.

Some videos are planned and written over a span of a couple of weeks and some videos are written on the spur of the moment in a couple of hours. This is the latter. When I read some of the comments at the bottom of the Boston article I felt that at this point in the world nothing is more deserving of deconstruction than the foolish things I have read regarding the nature of war and peace.

Sebastian Munich said:

no war, no death

Hiram said:

Support the troops. Bring them home.

David says:

War is stupid.

Lin said:

WAR=DEATH

NO WAR

PEACE

Al Curtis said:

when will we learn???

Elisabeth said:

Stand for peace.

You get the image. To be sure, most people did not make such foolish statements but the attitude that these people have demonstrated can be seen in society, sometimes in a more elegant form, sometimes not.

For me, this kind of mentality is hard to understand since even a couple of seconds of light thinking can turn up problems with this simplistic way of thinking.

The book I have on my desk beside me is called “Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty” by Roy Baumeister. It has 431 pages and is only one of many books one can buy on the subject of human cruelty. Do you think that when you open it up it has “WAR=DEATH, NO WAR, PEACE” on the first page followed by 430 pages of blank paper? Hardly.

Life is frequently confusing and distressing but saying things like “no war, peace for everyone” is the lazy way to feel good about yourself, such trite sayings are not a respectable moral or intellectual position for a person to take.

War stems from the human animal, I am sure that for as long as there have been humans there has been war, and it is not a simple thing to turn off a fundamental part of us all. To merely suggest that “no war” is your solution and then to sit back and feel morally superior at the “solution” you have just proposed is to announce to the world that you are more comfortable in a fantasy world of your own creation as opposed to seeing the world as it really is.

To suggest that the elimination of war is the vehicle to achieving peace is to be morally muddle headed over the nature of humanity and evil, not fighting human evil does not guarantee peace but merely allows that evil to conquer us all when it goes unchecked. To be sure, the state of not being in war is the state that comes naturally once we have achieved peace. Not the other way around.

Was “no war” an admirable position to have taken in response to Hitler? How many Jews would still be alive if the pacifist crowd had their way back then? Would European Jewry exist in any form today?

This problem is characteristic of a lot of what I see and hear from the left, the lack of ability to think beyond the first stage leads them to the conclusions of being anti-war because of their simple mindedness. After all, war involves killing and death so since those are bad things then the moral path surely exists in avoiding war. But to allow the evil to exist may be worse in the long run than the death toll incurred from fighting a war.

Take, as an example, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These events led to the surrender of the Japanese in the pacific war and thus ending World War 2. Approximately two hundred and twenty thousand Japanese, who were mostly citizens, died in the bombings combined.

A simple mind will merely look at these deaths and conclude that this was a horrific crime to be avoided, and whilst I agree that it was indeed horrific you need to look deeper. This tactical action led to the surrender of Japan, an action that caused War Minister Korechika Anami to attempt to commit seppuku after signing the surrender document. The Japanese were a people who would have fought longer against odds that would have caused another people to surrender to. The mainland invasion of Japan would have been a bloody episode in the history of the world. But, by a display of superior firepower it was avoided.

Therefore it is accurate to talk about the moral clarity of the event, or even the moral mathematics of it. But this concept is reprehensible to those who lack moral clarity. Since people were killed therefore it is an act to be shunned. Thinking in this way makes these people feel happy with themselves as they pursue the path of least resistance to the opiate of mind numbing righteousness, by simply following nice feelings and words like “LOVE”, “ACCEPTANCE”, “PEACE” and “LIFE” and they can feel happy with themselves, even if their way results in more death and misery, because surely there can be nothing wrong with following your heart and loving unequivocally. I don’t pretend to have all the answers in life but at least I know that it’s just not as simple as that.

Let’s translate this to modern events. North Korea is basically a gigantic concentration camp, a backward isolationist fascist state emulating communist Russia from decades ago. Their own people are starving as they rush to bigger and better militarization, the most worrying of which is their recent nuclear tests.

The beaurocrats around the world aid North Korea by giving them time by constantly calling for peace talks that the North Korean fascists continually show no regard for being compliant with, they have abandoned the armistice that ended their war with South Korea and are aching for war. North Korea is an echo chamber of festering paranoia and hatred, and now they have nuclear weapons. I say this now that I think there will be war with North Korea.

There have been many people who have recognised the reality of the situation. General Douglas Mac Carther said the following to the US senate in 1951 on the US withdrawal from Korea.

“history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier wars. It points to no single instance where this end has justified the means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace.”

Gen Douglas Mac Carther to US Senate 1951 on US Withdrawal from Korea

Another person who had wise words on thus subject is a much maligned figure, who I will probably be criticised for featuring. George W. Bush.

[See Video]

Denial of the harshness of life can be one of the worse things that a human being can do because for their own narcissistic sake they enable evil to proliferate on earth. The price of present reticence could well be future massacre. The reason why America is the greatest country in the history of the world is for no other reason that it has done the most to fight evil, to die for the sake of others.

History tells us that human evil will exist forever, and that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Sources & articles of interest

Joe Biden Calls President Bush’s Speech to Israel Bullshit
http://americaswatchtower.com/2008/05/15/joe-biden-calls-president-bushs-speech-to-israel-bullshit/

Memorial Day, 2009 – The big picture @ boston.com
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/05/memorial_day_2009.html

Peering into North Korea – The big picture @ boston.com
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/peering_into_north_korea.html

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Battle of Iwo Jima
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

What would you have done?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/30/japan.secondworldwar

North Korea threatens war as it tears up 50-year armistice
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6369797.ece

I thought of another good line

ArgusEyes — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:35:31 GMT

Democracy is merely the legal form of buying votes.

If it catches on remember, you heard it here first.

Claims of truth

ArgusEyes — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:36:51 GMT

To bolster my previous post somewhat, here is Matt Dillahunty from “The Atheist Experience”:

Hey, that’s a good line.

ArgusEyes — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:14:58 GMT

I received some email from a kooky guy who believes in a grand conspiracy of social elites, yada yada.. It’s the standard stuff you find all over the internet. he wrote me reams of assertions but backed up with facts and I wrote him a reply that I thought to be rather good. So here it is.

Hi,

When I say it is true that men and women are different. Then I do so only because the science and common sense seems to back up that particular claim. I do not accept the idea of absolute truth. I think it is a possibility that anything can be overthrown, no matter how solid it appears to be but if you one wants to do so then extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Feminists do not supply evidence that men and women are not the same, they only assert it. They've asserted it for decades without providing any proof for the claim and the evidence goes against it. This is why we can deduce that they follow some kind of dogmatic religious belief system.

The extraordinary claims that you make are merely asserted also, you provide no evidence for them. You say "this is the truth" just like the feminist does, therefore you are both suffering from the same mental processes. Same walls, different wallpaper.

So I choose to solidly reject your "truth". For truth with no truth in it is merely a delusion.

Sincerely,
Mark

Man, I am awesome!

Ramping up the Video War

ArgusEyes — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:25:48 GMT

Well, my “What is Feminism?” video has gotten a lot of views and 1menaregood1 has released an excellent video called “21st century equality”:

Whilst feminism continues to have trite videos about feminism meaning you can “be yourself” and warbling how it is a “state of mind”. Our site has the arguments and our side has the facts.

May more videos like this come.

What is Feminism?

ArgusEyes — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:22:47 GMT

This is about as intellectual as many discussions on feminism get. I focus on feminism in my videos so much because no other political movement is so demonstrably wrong and stupid as I believe feminism to be, and yet people still swallow the blue pill and whisper comforting myths to themselves as to the true nature of feminism. This video is a very condensed description of feminism as it exists now, in the modern world, there is not time to cover the history of feminism and I am speaking about the people who form the academic and activist vanguard of the movement.

The first step is to deconstruct the term “feminism”. When we put “ism” on the end of a word we do so to denote a belief system. So apparently feminism is a belief system of the feminine or of acting in the interests of the feminine, as is confirmed by the dictionary definition of the term:

1. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.

3. feminine character.

This sounds perfectly reasonable, and the early feminist movement has done a lot to raise awareness of the need for women and men to have equal rights but it has been perverted, as most movements eventually do. Here it is mentioned that feminism is a doctrine advocating equal rights but a lot of people mention it as advocating equality. These things are not the same and words have meanings and it is important that we go beyond the beyond to examine how these philosophies play out in real life.

We understand equality, in terms of mathematics most clearly, as two sides of the equation being the same. But a lot of us understand that humans cannot be made uniform, we vary naturally as a species in ability and drive so when using the word equality, libertarians and classical liberals refer to the equality of opportunity and the non-discrimination of law. Whereas socialists and collectivists use the word equality to denote equality of outcome or sameness. Therefore the libertarian definition of equal rights is closest to what this dictionary definition says and the actual feminists are farthest from it.

The feminist stands for the socialist collectivist model, you can see this in the types of arguments they make. When a feminist argues that the fact that women earn less than men and therefore this is proof of discrimination, they never try to explicate whether or not women are making personal decisions which result in less pay, as Warren Farrell proves in his book “why men earn more”, or whether or not this is really discrimination. Feminists assume that the existence of a difference is, in and of itself, proof of discrimination and that is the end of the story for them.

This un-academic and simple minded treatment of a complex subject betrays the religious nature of what feminism actually is. It is a system of beliefs that are not open to examination, they are faith based. Nothing is more faithfully held to the feminist than the belief that the roles men and women assume are socially constructed, that is that the differences between the two are largely due to conditioning and that the main difference is physical.

As much as feminists will try to deny this, the wage gap argument that so many feminists make is one proof for the veracity of this argument. If you assume that an outcome in numbers is all that is needed to prove discrimination then you are tacitly admitting that the two sexes are the same but of course this is not true, any reasonable person can understand this through his or her interactions in the daily world. Male female difference is one of the favourite topics of comedians because it strikes at the heart of the differences between us and our angst at those differences.

The feminist meme that gender is socially constructed, whilst true in some, is ultimately a denial of science. If one is to admit that men and women differ physically and that the brain is a physician organ like any other. Then it stands to reason that men and women have different behaviours due to different brain compositions and hormonal balances and this is exactly correct. As a science geek myself I have read numerous studies about the differences between men and women. I know of not one peer reviewed scientific paper which claims that men and women are the same. Feminists simply do not back up their claims like their detractors do, such as Steve Moxon does in his book “The woman Racket”.

A good example our innate differences is the case of David Reimer who was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision left him with no penis. David rejected his indoctrination and changed his gender back to male but suffered mentally and eventually committed suicide. The case was hailed as a success in the media but after the truth came out, Dr Money, who suggested the change, rejects criticisers as being part of the “anti-feminist movement”. [1]

Numerous surveys report that young woman want to stay at home, put more emphasis on the family, prefer male bosses, marry up to men making more than they do and have a different sexual nature to men. However, this evidence does not get incorporated into feminism because they already have their conclusion and they use evidence like a drunk uses a lamppost – for support rather than illumination, this is a prominent feature of many other pseudosciences such as creationism and homeopathy. A good example of reality falling on deaf feminist ears is this extract from the BBC’s women’s hour program.

(please see the video for audio)

The outcome based view of the feminist makes them an enemy of liberty. Since, in liberty you have the opportunity to fail or to have the effects of your actions affect the standing of the social group you are in. Such things are reprehensible to the collectivist so the solutions they propose are always to push for big government intervention into all of our lives.

This is happening constantly, the latest event I am aware of is of “Harriett Harman” the “minster for women and equality” proposing an “Equalities Bill” which would force companies to publish average hourly rates for their male and female employees. In very recent news she will now use this bill to force banks to hire women.

'Sometimes we have to take scary methods in order to achieve worthwhile results,' she told a mainly female audience. 'It is about saying, "because you are a woman I'm going to put you in this promotion".'[5]

I must use brevity in light of the fact that I am physically shaking with anger and rage whenever I read the latest fascist proposal from this worm of a human being. But the next time you hear a feminist squawking about what whatever is disturbing their system at that particular time then just remember this, this is what they believe in and this is what they will do. Female supremacy, sexism and socialism bordering on fascism.

Despite Harman’s efforts to put women on a pedestal, one of the big myths around feminism is the notion that it acts in the interest of women. In fact not many things are more disdainful of women than feminism is. This is exemplified by a famous quote from Simone de Beauvoir in reference to stay at home mothers:

"No, we don't believe that any woman should have this choice. No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make it."[3]

The arrogance of this is staggering. Surely the person who should be acting in the interest of a woman is that individual woman. One of the actions the left performs is that it monopolises a group and pretends to be the only legitimate and allowable moral voice in representation of that group. A woman who subscribes to feminism is making a serf of herself to a particular political agenda.

Apparently a woman cannot choose whether to appear in pornography or to prostitute herself as there is a strong feminist opposition to such things. Why is this so? This is a clear cut case of where feminism acts to restrict the choices of women and as the Simone de Beauvoir quote alludes to, there is an agenda about what the feminists want women to be doing. The objection to pornography comes from being anti-male. Their problem with it is that women are being sexually submissive to males but there is also strong evidence that an increase in pornographic proliferation leads to less instances of rape.

The leftist activism of feminism is inherently anti-conservative. Old models of femininity are seen as being created by and for the benefit of men therefore the aim is to break the bonds between the genders. The example of the wage gap is an example of the disdain for women’s choices; another good example is how things such as Rape and domestic violence have their meanings skewed to include more and more women in their folds.

Does this attempt to broaden the meaning of rape help young women or hinder them? Feminism continues to exist as long as it has a bill of victim grievances to sell. By keeping young women angry and scared they ensure the next generation of young feminists through their paranoid conspiracy theories. I met young women like this at university not too long ago and they had chips on their shoulder that were at complete odds with their status in the 21^st century. Never before have has women had so much choice and freedom and never before have they been so angry.

The truth is that feminism is an identity which people with an activist mindset can slip into like a warm slipper. Their modes of acting and though are not too dissimilar to what one can see in black activism and gay activism and if a feminist was born a black man then she would be following Jesse Jackson instead of Gloria Steinem. Same walls, different wallpaper. These movements start with noble causes but as they succeed the membership is whittled away to the radical members who are left with the task of manufacturing grievances to legitimise their own existence.

The majority of people who call themselves “feminist” have bought the notion of feminism meaning equality and thus call themselves feminist without too much thought as to what feminism is, but these people do not sit on the payroll of feminist organisations or on women’s study faculty or try to pass feminist inspired laws. They are simply a rather convenient human shield for the radical feminists who are doing the damage. Feminists like this:

“The National Organization for Women-NYS stands in solidarity with NYS Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington in support[sic] legislation that will once and for all state clearly that violence against women must be regarded as a "hate crime."”[4]

Believe me, I have a long list of laws and proposals like this. Another good example is gender quotas. There is another name for a philosophy whereby you look at the world through the lens of sex, where every situation must be examined in how many women are in it and how it affects women. The name for this is sexism and that is ultimately what feminists are, sexists. Any man who says comparable things about women would be branded as a sexist and bigot and sent packing in short order.

So in short: Feminism is a movement with a gendered name that claims to stand for gender equality but really is an activist political movement and sexist belief system which, in its worse forms, denies reality, suppresses women’s choice, tramples liberty, hurts men, infantilises women and fosters animosity between the sexes.

Sources

[1] When Feminist Dogma Met Dr. Mengela - Carey Roberts

http://mesarchives.blogspot.com/2004/05/when-feminist-dogma-met-dr-mengela.html

[2] Bill set to expose gender pay gap

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8019605.stm

[3] Chapter 12: The Gender Wardens

http://blog.enlightenedwomen.org/2009/04/06/chapter-12-the-gender-wardens.aspx

[4] NYS Lawmakers Must Rethink Violence Against Women as a Hate Crime
February 26, 2009

http://www.nownys.org/pr_2009/pr_022609.html

[5] I'll put women in charge of banks: Harriet Harman's plans to use equality laws to challenge macho City culture

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178140/Ill-women-charge-banks-Harriet-Harmans-plans-use-equality-laws-challenge-macho-City-culture.html

[not referenced] Intelligence in men and women is a gray and white matter

http://today.uci.edu/iframe.php?p=/news/release_detail_iframe.asp?key=1261

[not referenced] Women's brains are different from men's – and here's scientific proof

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/womens-brains-uareu-different-from-mens-ndash-and-heres-scientific-proof-870849.html

Dennis Prager comes to YouTube

ArgusEyes — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:37:07 GMT

It’s about friggin’ time.

Now for some Greg Martin

ArgusEyes — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:02:17 GMT

There has been a lack of imagery and colour here recently with endless text posts so have some of this:

Read Hitchens (the other one)

ArgusEyes — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:55:56 GMT

When you say Hitchens then most will think of Christopher Hitchens. However, there is another prominent Hitchens who goes by the first name of Peter.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

He is decidedly more conservative than his brother and is a columnist for the mail and author in his own right. I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by his writing style. Check it out.

Comment: re: Thai king Under monarchy you are a subject not a citizen part 2

ArgusEyes — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:15:54 GMT

I got a comment in reply to this video that I feel requires highlighting mainly because of its length.

I commented the below on your VDO, so I might as well put it here:

#1 I don't like how you post your VDO w/o doing reseach and giving incorrect information. But I DON't generalize you as a representative of British people. I believe there's LOTS of good British people out there who take responsbility b4 posting VDOs.

However, I also disagree with those Thais who post aggressive responses as well. In fact, those who reponse are those who can't control their anger. For those who have more EQ, they have to take 1hour++ trying to write a long response to all VDOs posts in Youtube considering the amount of information we have in order to explain to make you understand taking our culture difference..
Sigh.. It's very tiring I can tell you. Nobody's going to be that free, so it's likely you will have more of impulsive stupid response.. Sorry for that I should say.

Like I mentioned before. A Thai person emailed me and said that they tell this story to many foreigners despite it being true, the story was also relayed to me by someone with a Thai wife so I thought I was on pretty steady ground in retelling it in the video. However, if it is not true then I don’t feel that the message of the video is any different. There ARE lese majeste laws in Thailand and people DO get put in prison under them. This is a fact and the substance of the video remains the same despite a minor factual error on my part. Like most of my videos this is opinion, it is not a facts video therefore leading with the weakest and most petty point is a debate fopah against you. It is amusing that people revel in such glee when they have a factual mistake to hold on to. I feel the joy people take, like you do here, in pointing this out is related to what little substance the rest of their argument, if any, has.

Oh, and I’m glad that you feel that there are lots of good British people out there, despite me.

#2 Please don't deny it. You marked ALL monarchy bad in your 1st VDO. If you only talk about your own monarchy in the UK then why you say so much about Thailand in your VDO, including putting it in the VDO title!???? If you take all references to the "Thai" out then I'll leave your DVOs all alone. Fair enough?

Why would I deny it? Monarchies are outmoded tyrannical oligarchies. As a libertarian and individualist, why would I support them?

I talk about Thailand because I had recently found out about the lese majeste laws and the YouTube ban and I thought “hmm, that would be a good subject for a video”. There is no hidden agenda here.

#2.1 Nope you didn't criticize our King but you criticize us having a King and protecting our King using our own "internal" law. I myself choose to have Youtube temporarily banned in my country in order to ask it to moderate its VDOs mocking & disrespecting our King. (FYI: the law is written by the PEOPLE through its democratic system, not by the King. the king's only there by name but no real power.)

This is why I am against democracy. I have no doubt that people are short minded fools that would cut off their nose to spite their face. When you let populism and mob rule dictate laws such as this then you have no one to blame when an evil king comes into power and then you find yourself locked up in a jail cell for having criticised him.

Remember this: Admiration is the emotion farthest from comprehension. Because you love the king so much, you cannot see that you are creating a rod for your own back.

#3 Yes, you have your right of free speech to say it, and so do I. No personal offence should be taken here either as we're supposed to have a civilized debate. Anyway, telling incorrect information (e.g., In Thailand, one can't stamp on the money, etc.) is not really a good practice of free speech.. Other foreigners will quote from you and there'll be no end to all misunderstandings we have everywhere now. You see, we have to spend so much time in answering all VDOs.. so it'd help if you do more reading-ups first..

Again you harp on this point. As if it makes up a substantial amount of my total argument. Hopefully all rational people can see what you are doing is petty.

#4 For the future concern, leave it for future. If our future king's not this great, surely enough that Lese Majeste Law won't be there for long!;) lol! If we're not happy, surely Thai people'll never fail to voice ourselves out! (as you've seen here! lol (* can't stop giggling here sorry) OK, serious talking, no system's absolutely best in all situation, neither monarchy nor absolute democracy will be 100% great.. I do expect something bad in future to happen, we'll have to wait and see.. But for now as I commented earlyer, the king's been the country only hope against all corrupted politician we've had from our democracy system.. So without monarchy, we can't guarantee if any other system will benefit us either..

Here’s a strange idea. Freedom.

If you have freedom then people who love the king can continue to love him and people who do not love the king can have their say.

Without freedom, like at the moment with lese majest, only one of these groups can have their say.

In short: Freedom allows all views whereas tyranny only allows a certain number, the freedoms allowed by liberty are a superset of those allowed by tyranny. In a free society the fascist can be a fascist, a collectivist can be a collectivist and an individualist can be an individualist. If the collectivist takes over then he will force all to adopt his particular philosophy. This is the base evil behind collectivism.

#4(cont'd) In fact, if we don't have our monarchy to balance the power, we'd have become like Myanmar where the army has absolute power. Things're not easy there. They king has his power cuz people like me and others here are ready to fight for him, so he's the only one who can persuade the citizen to share a mutual goal. In the army fight with students 10 yrs ago, he was the only one who can stop the fight

You need an absolute power to balance the power to stop you being ruled by an absolute power? Right.

PS. You seem to be more relaxed before the end of this VDO and I'm glad to see that. As I say, I don't want this to become personal or anything. I think it's because of our culture difference. Based on the Thai & Asian context, you look very aggressive in your 1st VDO that's why you got those hateful email. Those response like "go to hell," etc. have to be ignored.
Anyway, every country has educated & uneducated, high EQ & low EQ people. As a Thai I have to say sorry for that. Anyway, your VDO is better than some others that just express their ideas using monkey face & Photoshop.

Thanks for reading.

I don’t like the approach of videos like that. I don’t know what purpose is served by being wilfully offensive and obtuse without making a decent point. I offend people because they disagree with my ideas, not because I’m trying to be wilfully offensive.

BBC: Bill set to expose gender pay gap

ArgusEyes — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:44:04 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8019605.stm

That wicked and wretched woman Harriett Harman is marching forward as she has done in the past with her collectivist agenda.

Many employers will be made to reveal how much male staff are paid compared with their female colleagues, under a bill being published later.

The Equality Bill aims to tackle discrimination against a range of groups including women, the elderly and those from lower social classes.

It will also make it a legal duty of public bodies in England and Wales to address social inequalities.

The Conservatives have described the plans as "class war attacks".

Minister for Equality Harriet Harman pledged the bill would help to "narrow the gap between rich and poor and make Britain more equal". The result of this [bill] will mean that it will take longer to get out of recession and companies will be loathe to take on more employees
David Frost
British Chambers of Commerce

Ministers say the need for new measures is borne out by evidence showing that by the age of six, bright children from poor families are overtaken by less able children from wealthier homes and that people in deprived areas tend to suffer more from ill health.

The government had promised the bill, which will also ban age discrimination outside the workplace, in its manifesto before the last election.

Ministers also want to tackle the fact that - 40 years after the introduction of the Equal Pay Act - women in the UK still earn on average 23% less per hour than men.

The new bill will require companies employing at least 250 staff to publish their gender pay gaps by 2013. If too few have done so voluntarily, the government will use laws to make it happen.

It’s the usual stuff. Equality really mean sameness. The government will be expanded, the power it will have in intruding into our lives and businesses will increase.

People like Harman do not change their tune or their blinkered views of the world. A demonstration of this can be seen in her following words:

David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, will tell its annual convention on Monday that the government too often sees the answer to a problem as being more legislation.

"The result of this will mean that it will take longer to get out of recession and companies will be loathe to take on more employees," he will say.

But Ms Harman said there was "no excuse for having unfairness when times are difficult".

"The economies and societies which will prosper in the future are not those that have rigid hierarchies, where women know their place and where you can't go forward because of the colour of your skin," she said.

"That's a very backward-looking argument."

The usual rot: The gap is proof of unfairness (it is not), women have their place (they do not, what age does Harman live in?). She bangs on about race like the leftist is wont to do and then sums up her ridiculous straw-man by saying "That's a very backward-looking argument.". Yes, yes it is Harriett.

As for Mr.. Frost. I’m glad that some people get it but in all honesty this country is fucked. i consider Britain to be fascistic. A good story that was sent to me by a viewer is this:

Thought police muscle up in Britain

BRITAIN appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.

There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.

Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution's principal tasks was "to alter people's actual psychology". Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people's psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.

The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out. It was Straw who previously called for a redefinition of Englishness and suggested the "global baggage of empire" was linked to soccer violence by "racist and xenophobic white males". He claimed the English "propensity for violence" was used to subjugate Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that the English as a race were "potentially very aggressive".

In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness.

Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government's anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: "If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you." Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: "If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings." It took him five years to clear his name.

Page was at least an adult. In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher's first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: "It's racist, you're going to get done by the police!" Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: "An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form."

A 10-year-old child was arrested and brought before a judge, for having allegedly called an 11-year-old boya "Paki" and "bin Laden" during a playground argument at a primary school (the other boy had called him a skunk and a Teletubby). When it reached the court the case had cost taxpayers pound stg. 25,000. The accused was so distressed that he had stopped attending school. The judge, Jonathan Finestein, said: "Have we really got to the stage where we are prosecuting 10-year-old boys because of political correctness? There are major crimes out there and the police don't bother to prosecute. This is nonsense."

Finestein was fiercely attacked by teaching union leaders, as in those witch-hunt trials where any who spoke in defence of an accused or pointed to defects in the prosecution were immediately targeted as witches and candidates for burning.

Hate-crime police investigated Basil Brush, a puppet fox on children's television, who had made a joke about Gypsies. The BBC confessed that Brush had behaved inappropriately and assured police that the episode would be banned.

A bishop was warned by the police for not having done enough to "celebrate diversity", the enforcing of which is now apparently a police function. A Christian home for retired clergy and religious workers lost a grant because it would not reveal to official snoopers how many of the residents were homosexual. That they had never been asked was taken as evidence of homophobia.

Muslim parents who objected to young children being given books advocating same-sex marriage and adoption at one school last year had their wishes respected and the offending material withdrawn. This year, Muslim and Christian parents at another school objecting to the same material have not only had their objections ignored but have been threatened with prosecution if they withdraw their children.

There have been innumerable cases in recent months of people in schools, hospitals and other institutions losing their jobs because of various religious scruples, often, as in the East Germany of yore, not shouted fanatically from the rooftops but betrayed in private conversations and reported to authorities. The crime of one nurse was to offer to pray for a patient, who did not complain but merely mentioned the matter to another nurse. A primary school receptionist, Jennie Cain, whose five-year-old daughter was told off for talking about Jesus in class, faces the sack for seeking support from her church. A private email from her to other members of the church asking for prayers fell into the hands of school authorities.

Permissiveness as well as draconianism can be deployed to destroy socially accepted norms and values. The Royal Navy, for instance, has installed a satanist chapel in a warship to accommodate the proclivities of a satanist crew member. "What would Nelson have said?" is a British newspaper cliche about navy scandals, but in this case seems a legitimate question. Satanist paraphernalia is also supplied to prison inmates who need it.

This campaign seems to come from unelected or quasi-governmental bodies controlling various institutions, which are more or less unanswerable to electors, more than it does directly from the Government, although the Government helps drive it and condones it in a fudged and deniable manner.

Any one of these incidents might be dismissed as an aberration, but taken together - and I have only mentioned a tiny sample; more are reported almost every day - they add up to a pretty clear picture.

Scary scary stuff.

Change, progressive, regressive, what?

ArgusEyes — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 03:34:51 GMT

Il Duce, Redux?

Trying to handle the crisis, the Fascist government nationalized the holdings of large banks which had accrued significant industrial securities. The government also issued new securities to provide a source of credit for the banks and began enlisting the help of various cartels…. The government offered recognition and support to these organizations in exchange for promises that they would manipulate prices in accordance with government priorities. A number of mixed entities were formed… whose purpose it was to bring together representatives of the government and of the major businesses.… This economic model based on a partnership between government and business was soon extended to the political sphere, in what came to be known as corporatism.… The Fascists began to impose significant tariffs and other trade barriers.… Various banking and industrial companies were financially supported by the state.… [The national leader] created the [New Governmental Entity]….[which soon] controlled 20% of [the nation's] industry through government-linked companies.… [The national leader] also adopted a Keynesian policy of government spending on public works to stimulate the economy.… Public works spending tripled to overtake defense spending as the largest item of government expenditure.

As much as that description sounds like U.S. government policy begun under George W. Bush and now greatly expanding under Barack Obama, the above passage of course describes the economics of fascist Italy in the 1930s, as summed up by Wikipedia. (A quick Google search produces plenty of similar summaries of "economic fascism.") Furthermore, "The Fascist conception of life," Mussolini wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual."

A disgusting meme is spreading

ArgusEyes — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:59:39 GMT

This has been worrying me for some time now. I have been hearing an increase in mutterings about “the failures of capitalism” and “the death of capitalism”, presumably uttered with straight faces.

What is this? Has enough time passed for us to have forgotten about the immense evil caused by utopian ideals. If not capitalism then what? Socialism? Communism? What?

From Rasmussen:

Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

The poll is dubious do I’m not jumping off cliffs yet. There is also an upshot in people mentioning classic defenders of the free market like the Milton Freidman clip from a while back.

This comes at a time where America, traditionally the bastion of capitalism and wealth, has elected a president like Barack Obama. Now, I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon of screaming about this being socialism and communism like Glenn Beck seems to do every time he forgets to take his chill pills. What I will say is that the values and ideals that Obama represents seem to be the opposite of what the US was founded on. From JFK’s “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” to “what can I give you”.

An adventure in intellectual vacuity

ArgusEyes — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:57:22 GMT

Let’s have someone who has no idea of what feminism is ask a guy who has no idea of what feminism is. He is right, though, to not subscribe to an ideology he has no idea about.

A government built on empathy will ultimately degrade those it seeks to help

ArgusEyes — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:44:59 GMT

There is a guy on YouTube called “Thomas” who I have been having an email exchange with, I have been posting my replies on this blog as I feel it is important to get other people’s take on the matter and to also display a reasonable person who debates well. You can see my previous responses in the posts “I get email: 'Real Injustices'???” and “Our governments stifle the freedom of men in order to infantilise them”. I present his newest email minus introductory pleasantries and signature.

YOU SAY THAT YOU WANT THE FREEDOM TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICES AND MISTAKES AND THAT THE OPPRESSIVE SPECTRE OF GOVERNMENT SHOULD STAY OFF OF OUR BACKS.

Unless you are completely anarchist, you will agree with me that the implementation of laws that take away for instance peoples freedom to commit murder is very necessary, because the freedom to do such things severely stifles the freedom of people other than the choice making individual itself. In this way, a human beings right to choose to do whatever it pleases ends precisely the moment when its choice of action does damage to or stifles the freedom of other individuals, and most of us (including you and I) are very appreciative of a government intervening on our behalf to stop other people from compromising our freedom by stealing from us, killing us, hurting us, cheating us and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately the most privileged group in our society, i.e. white western males often seem to believe that government should only intervene to the extent that western white male (dare I say patriarchal?) freedoms and liberties will be protected from oppression, and that the oppression and hardships unique to a single given minority should continually be allowed to be practiced by said privileged group of white males.

We ban murder in our society because we consider a murderers freedom to kill to be worth a lot less than the freedom and security of potential murder victims. By this logic society should also consider male sexual dominance to be worth a lot less than the freedom and security of women and children, especially in the face of all the evidence of both the harmful effect of pornography on the human mind and on the enormous human costs of the sex industry itself. It does not, however, because of the utter lack of empathy of the privileged ruling class in society; a class whose supremacist ideals of individualism and freedom do not apply to the suppressed, but amounts only to the freedom of the oppressor to continue oppressing.

ALSO, IN COMMENTING ON MY ARGUMENT REGARDING THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN CHOICES, YOU SAY THAT GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT ANALYSE THE NUANCES IN OUR DECISIONS AND IN THE LIGHT THEREOF DECIDE WHAT IT THINKS ARE ACCEPTABLE WAYS TO LEAD A LIFE BECAUSE THIS STIFLE[S] THE FREEDOM OF MEN [AND] INFANTILISE[S] THEM.

It would seem that you did not read my last letter that closely, so let me answer the above-mentioned (again) with a true story this time. Consider 19-year-old Maksuda. She is a single mother and has been a factory worker since she was 11. She became pregnant with her daughter at age 17 and found herself unable to keep up with the rapid production of goods. Her manager noticed her slow down and said that he didn't want to hear her excuses about being pregnant. She tried to respond but according to her, "He violently kicked [her], hard, in the stomach and [she] fell to the floor. [She] fainted." She worked until she was eight and a half months pregnant and tried to ask for a legal maternity leave but was told that there was no law for this in the factory.

I wont tell you how this story ends, but rest assured that if you as a government official tell Maksuda that you will not analyse the nuances in her decision to be in the factory because you do not wish to infantilise her, the expression on her face will not be one of extreme gratitude. But then again, you did say the freedom of men; not the freedom of women and children my bad.

Moreover I do not think that your very individualist statement that [i]f people want to degrade themselves then let them do it would not look overly humane in the context of Maksuda and neither does it in the case of the victims of the sex industry.

FINALLY, YOU SAY THAT WANTING TO BAN THE DISTRIBUTION OF PORNOGRAPHY AND NOT PORNOGRAPHY IN SPIRIT IS IMBECILIC.

This is, in fact, NOT what I insinuated. If you would care to look at my letter again, it says that I am NOT AT ALL [] proposing that we make it illegal for women to [] participate in pornography. If this was not clear I apologise and I hope that you will let me clarify this point. What I mean to say is this:

If a woman should really (really?) want to engage in double anal and vaginal penetration while simultaneously being called a worthless little slut reduced to the mere tightness of her genital openings in the privacy of her own home in front of her brand new SONY handycam, then that decision is of course entirely up to her. What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is of no business of the state - period. In the same way, if you want to smoke a fat cigar in the privacy of your own home, not caring about the empirical evidence in front of you, telling you that it could kill you in the long run, then that is also entirely your decision. But

The moment you enter a multi million dollar industry in which you get paid (as opposed to doing it for free) to do physically and emotionally devastating things to yourself in public (as opposed to doing them in private) for the amusement of white western males in order to support your children or a drug abuse (as opposed to doing it out of personal inclination), then considered government intervention is most certainly justified as it is was when the government decided that you cannot blow smoke from your fat cigar in my face in public and endanger my health or stifle my freedom from getting lung cancer.

To be honest, Mark, I do not think that our disagreements are as much about a clash of fundamental world views as much as they are about our very differing views on privilege and empathy.

Our differences are indeed about empathy. I feel that making political decisions on empathy is a fools path. Empathy is not normally universal, that is just not what humans do right? When we empathise then we do so towards some perceived oppressed group, and that leads to misery.

Your writing drips with a kind of Marxist demagoguery. When you talk about “white males” at every step then I think it’s not too much of a leap to imagine your mentality causing real oppressions for that group, and then what? Re calibrate, recast them and then they become the new victims? This kind of thinking has caused more human misery than is possible to calculate.

Basing systems on empathy and emotion is the worst thing us humans can do. It is a well know phrase that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. I don’t doubt that you are a good man but your mentality causes harm. Let’s have an example:

There was a luxury tax passed a while ago on yachts. The idea was basically eat (ahem sorry, tax) the rich. What happened? The rich stopped buying yachts, they would buy other things or work around the loopholes to avoid the tax. Sales of yachts dropped. Who suffered? The not so rich people who worked in shipping yards and providing services that related to yachts and yacht owning. So the emotion of punishing those deemed to be the haves, the emotion-based laws punished the types of people they are supposed to empathise with.

The foundational flaw of your argument is where you compare direct action which cannot be misunderstood like committing violence against another person, with an ethereal threat for which you need to make a winding justification for its danger.

People have churches and groups and can make their own mind up on what is bad for them, when you make the government enforce it on all people then this is tyranny. For everything there is a line, a pat on the back is hitting and some nebulous threat according to you is not the same as a tangible threat.

Also, ever considered that you might be wrong? I feel that rape has decreased due, in part, to the proliferation of porn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDshCXHBjQc). Think beyond your specific causes for a moment. The average life expectancy of a homosexual male is decreased about 14 years by their actions, compare this to the loss of life through cigarettes (7 years the last I heard). Now, in a system you want where policy is made on what people emote about being good for society. What is to stop a bigoted anti-gay group from oppressing homosexuals? Nothing, if you can make a strangled case for it then it might pass. In my system nothing like this can pass because of the basic freedoms that I would grant to all.

I heart Daniel Hannan

ArgusEyes — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:18:25 GMT

Also, via a Vox day interview (thanks liberal fascism blog on national review online):

VD:One thing that tends to confuse Americans is that the British National Party is not very popular despite holding what appear to be populist views on immigration and the European Union. Why do they enjoy so little support compared to the three major parties?

DH:Because they are, contrary to the way they are described in the BBC, a party of the far left. They're in favor of nationalization, they're in favor of protectionism, they want workers' councils to run industry, they want a massive state program of rebuilding manufacture. Like Hayek said about the socialist roots of Nazism, they are a national socialist party and the socialist bit is very important to them. Plus, there is a line, a very important line in politics, between being anti-immigration and anti-immigrant. And they've crossed that line.

VD: In a certain respect, they really are fascists, but in the Italian Fascist sense.

DH: Yeah. I think most of these so-called “far right” parties are on the left by any normal definition. It's a brilliant media trick in Europe to always refer to them as “the far right”. The target of that is the mainstream right. Every time you read about the BNP in the press, it's always prefaced with “the far right BNP”, as though they were like us, but more so, which is the opposite of the case. When somebody reads that, it doesn't make them think any worse of the BNP, it makes them think worse of the right. Which, of course, is why they do it.

It’s nice to hear that talk from a British MP bit it’s too little too late.

Porn Up, Rape Down

ArgusEyes — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:51:05 GMT

Ada Lovelace: The most overrated figure in the history of computing

ArgusEyes — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:45:25 GMT

AIG bonuses: Destroying your kitchen to swat a housefly

ArgusEyes — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:24:00 GMT

Yep. Government that retroactively has the power to punish groups of people that it wants to, to satiate the ignorant torch-wielding masses misinformed by the media. This is why you want to keep government as small as possible, as open as possible and as restricted as possible.

Female Bigots

ArgusEyes — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:34:11 GMT

People criticise me all the time for the things I say against feminism, they claim that I am a woman hater and want to keep women barefoot and pregnant in kitchen. I always retort back by saying that most of my critiques are against feminism which has erroneously been made synonymous with women’s rights.

But I must say, that the things I say pale in comparison to the kind of demeaning pap one can find in the mainstream media which is written directly against men by females. As Fred Reed observed:

An industry exists today in the writing of pieces proclaiming the weakness of men and the superiority of women

I present two such recent cases to you now. The first is an article written by Laura Bennett called “Exactly how are men superior?”, you will find it on “The daily beast” I will read the opening of the article.

I love my sons—they’re funny, sweet, and full of surprises. But I don’t understand how a species incapable of feeding themselves—much less hitting the toilet—ever came to rule the planet.

Last week as I watched the 44th male take possession of the most powerful position in the world, I had to ask myself how men ever came to be in charge of the world. How did they surpass women in status, power, and wealth? I don’t hate men, I live with far too many of them to survive day-to-day harboring such feelings. I just know that women are the more capable sex. As early as the age of two, girls leave boys standing bewildered in their dust as they speed along the social, emotional, and intellectual racecourse of life.

I am not dealing with Einstein here, just regular boys, and besides, I bet Einstein had his mother tying his shoes for him until he was in college.

My daughter, Cleo, was self-sufficient and independent from the time she could walk; my boys can't take a piss without my help, and even then they can’t manage to get it in the toilet bowl. My boys have been slow to walk and talk, impossible to potty-train, and refused to give up breast-feeding. I had none of these problems with my daughter. When Cleo was five, I came home exhausted from work and fell asleep on the sofa. I opened my bleary eyes to find her eating pizza.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“I called Domino’s.”

“Where did you get the money?”

“Your purse.”

“Did you tip?”

“Twenty percent.”

I can’t imagine any of my boys, much less my husband, taking such proactive measures against personal hunger.

What I am not going to do with this article, is try to debunk it, it doesn’t need it. If you agree with Laura Bennett that a fully grow man does not have the cognitive capacity of a 5 year old girl then there is nothing that will change your mind because you, like Laura Bennett, are a reprehensible bigot.

It’s not too hard to prove. I will use the tired, shorthand tactic of saying imagine me writing such an article but instead of men I would be making comparable statements about Jews or blacks or women or Hispanics or any other protected group, then imagine how I would be received, let alone whether or not I could get my article published in any mainstream media outlet.

It is sad that people cannot take the correct message from all of our P.C. madness by assuming the attitude that prejudice against any group of people is not a good thing. Instead, people have absorbed the real meaning of P.C. which is a culturally Marxist class battle attitude towards groups of people who are the haves and other groups which are have-nots, and the redistribution of power between the groups. In this way Laura Bennett’s article is politically correct, women are a protected group and men are deemed as a legitimate target of ire as a group with too much power that needs to be taken from them, either by legislation or through the whip of words. This is why many who are on the pro men’s rights side of the fence are angry, look at the kind of bigotry we have to deal with here.

I will also say that it is a truth that I have observed that girls mature before boys do, both mentally and physically, this fazes me not since men and women are not the same which is a truth that does not send me into paroxysm's of despair like it does to the radical feminist. However, young women who have been raised on the radical feminist memes that men are essentially big clowns find that such notions are swept aside by the harsh mistress of reality as they enter careers where men turn out to be ambitious, resourceful and competitive. How does Laura Bennett figure that young immature boys will usually be the ones ruling the world? Answer: They grow up.

The second article I want to present to you is called “This mess was made by men. Now let the women have their say” and is written by Ruth Sunderland for the Guardian.

There was no shortage of women at the gathering of the global elite in Davos this year. It's just that most of them were either delegates' wives, there to enjoy the skiing at the Swiss mountain resort while their menfolk got on with the serious business of mending the world economy, or upmarket usherettes dressed in smart, air-hostess-style blue uniforms, helping people find their seats.

The heavy-hitting women present? There was a handful, including Angela Merkel, the German leader, and Valerie Jarrett, who came as Barack Obama's representative. Skim the handbook containing the names of the invitees and you had to pass 20 men before coming to the first woman, who just happened to be Princess Inaara, Her Highness the Begum Aga Khan. On the abridged list of about 170 business leaders, I counted five women. As a delegate put it: "Men in well-cut suits still come first at Davos."

Does it matter that women are not getting on to the guest list of the biggest male ego-thon on the planet? After all, most females of sound mind would far rather be anywhere else. But the truth is that it does. It sure does.

The big theme at this year's World Economic Forum (WEF) was "Shaping the Post-Crisis World". The idea that that can be achieved while excluding half the population is breathtaking in its arrogance and shows that the male Davos elite remains mired in its own preening self-regard and complacency. They have wrecked the world economy, but seem oblivious to the idea they may not be the best people to rebuild it. Ignoring the contribution women can make is ridiculous at any time, but how much more so when there is a clear need to reflect on the macho, tooth- and-claw brand of capitalism that caused the crunch in the first place.

I have a certain kind of contempt for those who will introduce their pet cause into situations that don’t need it. These are the actions of a fundamentalist. Also, the base assumptions that men are so inherently self-interested and bad that they will exclude women as a matter of course unless women are present, is projection on behalf of the author. Ruth Sunderland is the one who is displaying the breathtaking arrogance of self-regard here.

My response to Ruth Sunderland is the same response that I give whenever a feminist claims that we should increase the numbers of women in whatever field they’re talking about that day, be it computer science or politics, my reaction remains the same. If we “put” women into roles then we are doing so according to ideology, where someone at the top is deeming what fields need women and how we should insert them. This is totalitarianism which runs the gamut from suggestion to coercion to outright tyranny such as the case in Norway where companies which don’t have a 40% of the board of directors be female, can face closure. I love freedom, which included, by necessity, the freedom to choose the career you want, if women don’t want to be in the field of economics then who are we to tell them they need to be, or to castigate men for choosing to be in that field? Does Ruth Sunderland think that by coercing women into this field then we will be in a better situation to deal with a crisis?

I am portrayed as being an extremist a lot of the time, but it needs to be said that a lot of what I address is reactionary. That is, that I need to spend the time refuting the bigoted words of people such as the two authors I have been discussing here. This can range from large scale assaults in the law and media to small scale assaults such being confronted by a young woman at a party who feels that she can partake in limitless man-bashing in front of a complete stranger. Men’s rights activists are here as a response to the man haters who are, by far, worse.

America, you’ve come a long way baby

ArgusEyes — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:20:52 GMT

From Charles Krauthammer’s article Bonfire of the Trivialities.

A $14 trillion economy hangs by a thread composed of (a) a comically cynical, pitchfork-wielding Congress, (b) a hopelessly understaffed, stumbling Obama administration, and (c) $165 million.

That's $165 million in bonus money handed out to AIG debt manipulators who may be the only ones who know how to defuse the bomb they themselves built. Now, in the scheme of things, $165 million is a rounding error. It amounts to less than 1/18,500 of the $3.1 trillion federal budget. It's less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the bailout money given to AIG alone. If Bill Gates were to pay these AIG bonuses every year for the next 100 years, he'd still be left with more than half his personal fortune.

For this we are going to poison the well for any further financial rescues, face the prospect of letting AIG go under (which would make the Lehman Brothers collapse look trivial) and risk a run on the entire world financial system?

Even worse are the clever schemes being cooked up in Congress to retrieve the money by means of some retroactive confiscatory tax. The common law is pretty clear about the impermissibility of ex post facto legislation and bills of attainder. They also happen to be specifically prohibited by the Constitution. We're going to overturn that for $165 million?

Moore blames women for 'banal' TV

ArgusEyes — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:36:59 GMT

This one is a blast from the past. I saved this link a long time ago and just came upon it whilst cleaning out my archives.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6634255.stm

British TV standards are deteriorating because the BBC is "run by women", astronomer Sir Patrick Moore has said.

The Sky at Night host also described female newsreaders as "jokey" and called for separate channels to cater for the needs of the different sexes.

"I think it may eventually happen," the 84-year-old told the Radio Times.

A BBC spokesman described Sir Patrick as being one of TV's best-loved figures and said his "forthright" views were "what we all love about him".

The presenter said: "The trouble is the BBC now is run by women and it shows soap operas, cooking, quizzes, kitchen-sink plays. You wouldn't have had that in the golden days.

"I used to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek, but they went PC - making women commanders, that kind of thing. I stopped watching
Sir Patrick Moore

"I would like to see two independent wavelengths - one controlled by women, and one for us, controlled by men."

He claimed that interesting programmes were screened too late at night, and said he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than appear on Celebrity Big Brother. And asked about his favourite series, Sir Patrick said he no longer enjoyed certain programmes because of their modern storylines.

"I used to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek, but they went PC - making women commanders, that kind of thing. I stopped watching."

Sir Patrick appears in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-serving TV presenter, having appeared on his show about astronomy since 1957.

Sir Patrick Moore is an eccentric British astronomer. I mean, just look at the picture. Any man who wears a monocle is A-OK on my books, all he needs to complete the picture is a pipe and we’d be set.

This post is mostly something funny from a fellow curmudgeon. I am not going to hang my cap on Moores views as I stopped watching TV years ago so I don’t know what it is like now – probably crap.

What’s to say?

ArgusEyes — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:14:02 GMT

I receive this comment on my “the problems with feminism” video.

The little fat man in the video is in indonesia correct? Dont forget costa rica boys I hear there is open child sexual slavery there you can destroy lives and defend your position. Piss on you Mark, I have argued with you enough to know your just a fucking pedophile, I see hundreds of you guys every year, and your all fat? how come all you child molesters look the same? I dare you to not delete this, I know you will, you cant stand the light of day. I hope you get extradited.

From wlaaaaa. A long time troll.

John Simpson - Men’s Group The Movie…What Lies in the Hearts of Men (Pendulum Effect Ep6 Available)

ArgusEyes — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:59:58 GMT

Cross posted from equalism activism.

I’m really happy to have on the show today John Simpson. John is one of those unique guests that makes it such a pleasure to host the Pendulum Effect. He is an award winning creative film producer with over twenty years experience working in the performing arts.

John’s film productions have been screened at the Montreal International film festivals, the Palm Springs film festival, Sydney Film Fest, World of Woman Festival, Algarve Film Festival and Tropfest 2004.

Early in 2007 he launched TITAN VIEW to bring important Australian films to Australian and international audiences. More information can be found on that venture at www.titanview.com

John got involved recently with the film The Jammed, which explores human trafficking and illegal prostitution, helping to guarantee the film would be seen by a large public audience.

Turning from a film focusing on the lives of a group of women to one involving a group of men, he is the producer and co creator of the powerful new Australian film “Men’s Group” that was released in 2008. The film bears the tagline “All around the world men are gathering in groups to talk. What is going on?”

This important film, which we’ll discuss with John shortly, received a plethora of awards, including official selection at 2008 film festivals in warsaw, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Sydney and Melbourne as well as the winner of the prestigious Digispaa best film award. insidefilm awarded the movie best script, best actor and best film awards. It was the higest Scoring Australian Feature Film at the 2008 Sydney Film Festival (as voted by the audience)

The Herald sun said about this film “group gives a male community a chance to speak”, while infilm.com reported “With an emphasis on interesting characters and heartfelt performances, Men’s Group is a compelling drama that wields an emotional impact very few features this year - or any other year - can match.”

You can learn more about the film at www.mensgroupthemovie.com.

You can get the latest show by:

* Subscribing here for free with itunes
* Using this feedburner link in your browser.

Download: mp3 file

If you like the show, please leave us a review on itunes.

A feminists response to men’s suffering: “You brought it on yourselves”

ArgusEyes — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:25:24 GMT

I get a reply to my video “men are more oppressed than women”. I consider it to be one of the most important videos I have made since it succinctly makes the case for why I care about men’s rights activism and it is the video to which I desire feedback and rebuttals the most. To this day I have not received a satisfactory rebuttal. “Bri” has tried and has failed.

I know, a world where you remain a first class citizen no matter where you go, people take you more seriously, you get paid more for the same job, people don't soften their tone because they think you are a glass doll, and you are objectified to sex is so oppressive right?

Anyways...

Oh boy, Bri didn't listen to a word I said did she? Well let’s dive in.

"Men in the UK have to work until 65 to qualify for a full pension, women have to work until 60 and generally make less and have more paternity leave."

You're complaining about making way more for a tiny bit of extra time?

You’re going to see this a lot, it’s called the red herring and it’s where a non-related point is presented to try and distract me from the real issue at hand. Bri. Whether or not men make more than women do does not excuse sexist standards in law against them. In a world where we are to be treated equally, there is no places for differences in retirement like there is now and you cannot possibly disagree. So stop trying to be contrarian and grow up.

"How about the right to reproductive control."

You have one, and soon to be more. It's called a Condom.

Bri. You are a stupid stupid person. The field of reproductive control is about more than birth control methods. Do you think this is my argument? Do you think I am stupid? Do you think I am so stupid that I am literally saying that there are no birth control methods for men? Everyone else not intend on hating me and everything I say understands what I mean there. Women have more options to cancel their pregnancy and parentage, men have none. Fraud, if a man is defrauded by a woman and his sperm is stolen then does he get any rights or does he have to pay?

"How about divorce?"

The man is usually the cause. Read up on statistics.

What the hell does that have to do with anything. This is starting to sound like an illogical overly emotional tirade from a bigot and a man hater.

"A man is more likely to be convicted and convicted for longer periods of time than a woman for a similar crime, like murder."

You did this to yourselves being the blood-letters of the world that males are.

Is there any part of this filthy piece of hate that isn’t a logical fallacy. Yet again, I must ask, what is the point. All men must suffer because men on average are more violent? I guess the idea of equality is well and truly out of the window is it?

"Health spending, for every £1 spend on men’s health care, £8 is spent on women’s health care [3]."

Guys are afraid to go to the doctor, so a not as big storm is brought up and brought to attention. Again, did this to yourselves.

What a kind soul you are. Health care spending has nothing to do with “going to the doctor”. This is spending on health issues and disease. Is there a brain in your fucking skull?

"We as a society should abandon the feminist hegemony and adopt men’s rights activism as a tool to reach true equality in law. "

We already have, and it has led to the screwed up world we live in now, and the most inhumane atrocities committed ever in human history.

Ever notice the countries where women have little to no involvement due to oppression, the true oppression, are in the shitter? Only when women started having a say did we as people become more civilized and peaceful, interrupting a males brutal rule.

You did this to yourselves, and now you are paying up.

Ah, so you subscribe to the “revenge” school of feminism do you?

Even thought the men who would have “done it” are dead or old now and you young men who exist now are largely sympathetic to feminism and women’s rights. Doesn’t matter, we deserve hell because we are men, which is really the attitude that shines through in your “writing”. Bigotry like this is scary to behold.

Murderous boys who target girls and women

ArgusEyes — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:42:26 GMT

I have criticised many feminists for neglecting to mention the evils that women have committed in the past. So I feel I should say that I condemn in the strongest terms, the massacres that are primarily committed against young girls by boys in school shootings. Unlike many ideologues, I will not try to defend the actions of people in “my group” there is no group here, I am an individualist, not a victim advocate, so I must say that I wish this kid was show as soon as possible, I wish the police had shot him before he could harm a single person. But wishing does not make it so.

The most recent event is, of course, the massacre in Germany. But they go back as well, a notable example was the massacre in Nickel Mines, Pa.

"The predominant pattern in school shootings of the past three decades is that girls are the victims," says Katherine Newman, a Princeton University sociologist whose recent book examines the roots of "rampage" shootings in rural schools.

Dr. Newman has researched 21 school shootings since the 1970s. Though it's impossible to know whether girls were randomly victimized in those cases, she says, "in every case in the US since the early 1970s we do note this pattern" of girls being the majority of victims.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1004/p01s01-usgn.html

These guys are losers and scum, they are evil. There are problems that beset the sexes, men are more likely to suffer mental diseases and conditions, men are the causes of most violence. I do not wish to hide from reality behind the veil of faithful belief, reality is there to be seen by those with unburdened eyes.

Laura Bennett says more stultifyingly stupid things

ArgusEyes — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:13:36 GMT

Laura Bennett, who wrote a ridiculous piece entitled “When Did My 13-Year-Old Son Become a 'Player?'” excretes another hilarious piece that demonstrates that she seems to have problems with the concept that boys grow up and, you know, get more mature and smarter.

I’m just having trouble understanding how the little boy who hid between my legs underneath my skirt became interested in someone else’s skirt.

Source: Laura Bennett http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-01/when-did-my-13-year-old-son-become-a-player/

Sure you’re having problems with it Laura, you don’t seem to be too bright. People interested in more mental suicide should consult her previous work http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-01/when-did-my-13-year-old-son-become-a-player/

Sure you’re having problems with it Laura, you don’t seem to be too bright. People interested in more mental suicide should consult her previous work “Exactly How Are Men Superior?”

I love my sons—they’re funny, sweet, and full of surprises. But I don’t understand how a species incapable of feeding themselves—much less hitting the toilet—ever came to rule the planet.

Source: Laura Bennett http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-29/exactly-how-are-men-superior/

Yep. There’s not really any intellectual condemnation here. Let’s just laugh at the stupidity on display.

Laura, you appear to be an idiot. A better article could be written by your five year old son, please keep to the cognitive field of fashion and stop writing.

P.S. The latter article is due to be decimated in an upcoming podcast piece and video.

Nice guy gets an update

ArgusEyes — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:18:50 GMT

The niceguy forum is one of the popular forums regarding men's rights and anti-feminism on the internet. They've recently revamped themselves so maybe you will want to check it out.

http://www.the-niceguy.com/

Charles Corry - Legalized Sexism & Domestic Violence Against Men + Why the name Pendulum Effect?

ArgusEyes — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:22:01 GMT

Cross posted from equalism activism.

On today’s show I interview Dr. Charles Corry, President of the Equal Justice Foundation and founder of Domestic Violence against men in Colorado.

We also feature news and commentary in the fields of gender and equalism from our regular pundit Mark Overley. Mark discusses the rationale and background behind the term “Pendulum Effect.”

Mark, who runs the blog True-equality.net, is an English men’s rights activist who achieved notoriety by making videos on men’s rights issues for youtube, where he is known as ArgusEyes.

Dr. Charles Corry is a geophysicist and scientific consultant, as well as the founder of Domestic Violence Against Men in Colorado and President of the Equal Justice Foundation.

Dr. Corry is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and Board Member of the Colorado Springs Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

He is a former Research Associate for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a former associate professor of geophysics at Texas A&M university and the University of Missouri and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.

Dr. Corry is the author of books, research papers, reports, as well as essays on topics like the evolution of society, courts and civil liberties, censorship and domestic violence.

An individual with a fasincating and varied career, you can learn more about Dr. Charles Corry at his website www.corry.ws

I’ve asked Dr. Corry on the show today to discuss the Equal Justice Foundation and its research, lobbying efforts and services focused on domestic violence, legal sexism, civil liberties, and family law issues.

You can get the latest show by:

* Subscribing here for free with itunes
* Using this feedburner link in your browser.

Download: mp3 file

If you like the show, please leave us a review on itunes.

Learn more:

Equal Justice Foundation
Domestic Violence Against Men in Colorado

Important

ArgusEyes — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:38:37 GMT

About cross-posts

ArgusEyes — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:46:14 GMT

The last two posts are cross-posts from Equalism Activism. I want to explain in case this is viewed as laziness (which it kinda is). If there is anyone out there who reads this regularly (hi mum) then you will notice that it goes through periods of activity with me posting a lot on one week to posting almost nothing on the next. Apart from my natural apathy bouts, work gets in the way and life interjects.

At times like these there is no activity here but Justin from Equalism Activism has kindly granted me the permission to cross post gender topics from that blog and I can also cross post my pieces and videos there. So this will help to fill the gaps with something to read. Also, I am planning to move out of the country for a bit so I have a lot to do regarding the move. Including moving data, selling superfluous items and planning all the fiddly little details.

However, at all times I am racking up ideas and rants, There just isn't enough hours in the day.

Ken Wiebe - Deadbeat Dads or a Deadbeat Family Law System? + Warren Farrell on Feminism and the Gender Transition Movement - Pendulum Effect Episode 4

ArgusEyes — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:36:52 GMT

Cross-posted from Equalism Activism.

On today’s show I interview Ken Wiebe of Fathers Canada, a coalition dedicated to working on behalf of fathers and children, advancing fathers’ rights and shared parenting while exposing the corruption and sexism rampant in the family law system.

We conclude a three part interview with Dr. Warren Farrell, men’s movement pioneer. We focus on gender history along with a discussion on historical and contemporary feminism, and the future of the gender transition movement and men’s activism.

Plus, news and commentary in the fields of gender and equalism from our regular pundit Mark aka Argus Eyes, who runs the blog True-Equality.

Ken Wiebe is a father, a self employed business man and an independent contractor who has been a frequent independent contract consultant for government for approximately 19 years, in computer matters. He is the spokesman for B.C. Fathers, an unregistered support group for fathers and mothers in regard to access, custody and matrimonial disputes. He also assists in coordinating the coalition Fathers Canada.

Dr. Warren Farrell is roundly regarded as a leading figure in the men’s movement, or better, the gender transition movement. His unique background and expertise give him a perfect vantage point from which to address men’s issues. Dr. Farrell has taught gender issues and psychology at several institutes, including Brooklyn College, Georgetown University, American University and the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Diego.

As a young graduate, Dr. Farrell was a major player in the feminist movement, especially in creating men’s groups across the US, then becoming the only man to be elected three times to the Board of Director of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Farrell was featured in media including the New York Times, the Today Show and the Phil Donahue Show, leading to his authorship of the pro-feminist book The Liberated Man.

As we discuss, in the late 80s, Farrell became increasingly convinced that feminism was rather one sided and that men’s issues were being neglected, leading to deep research on a variety of topics long taken for granted, and the publication of his landmark The Myth of Male Power, which touched on a diverse cross section of issues.

Farrell would go on to research each area in great depth, leading to the publication of 5 more books, including “Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say”, a couples communication book to address the rise in divorces, “Father and Child Reunion”, to address the issue of fatherless homes and present the optimal shared parenting solution, “Why Men Earn More” to address the pay gap, and “Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men” which, among other things, called for men’s studies in academia

You can get the latest show by:

* Subscribing here for free with itunes
* Using this feedburner link in your browser.

Download: mp3 file

If you like the show, please leave us a review on itunes.

Links of Interest

Fathers Canada

Warren Farrell’s website

Help Fight Prostate Cancer, Men’s Second Leading Cause of Death

ArgusEyes — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:03:51 GMT

Cross posted from equalism activism.Movember Foundation of Canada reads:

The website for the prostate fundraising charity the

Which ever way we look at it, men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy for men is five years less than females. The obvious question is why?

Men lack awareness about the very real health issue they face. Many feel they have to be tough - “a real man” - and are reluctant to see a doctor about an illness or to go for regular medical check ups.

The aim of Movember is to change this attitude. Make men’s health fun by putting the moustache back on the face of Canadian men and raising some serious funds for prostate cancer.

Every year around 24,700 Canadian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 4,300 die of the disease, making it the number one cancer threat to Canadian men.

EqualismActivism and the Pendulum Effect team has decided to make prostate cancer fundraising and awareness our next priority by getting involved with some outstanding organizations and initiatives. The first organization, Movember, may at first sound rather outlandish, but has a tremendously important mandate, which it furthers every November:

The Movember event creates awareness around men’s health issues and raises funds for carefully selected beneficiary partners (that are also charitable organizations) in each country, with a focus on prostate cancer.

Since its inception as a formal charity in 2004, Movember has raised over $29 million (CAD) globally and is continuously working to increase awareness of prostate cancer within the community and change the attitude men have about their health.

Other charities take a more mainstream approach, including two big walks for prostate cancer each year.

Firstly, in its 31st year, the Harry Rosen walk - 5k or 8k - which takes place April 4, 2009 and is organized by the men’s clothing store. The walk takes place in Vancouver and Toronto, with donations from the Toronto eventgoing to the Princess Margaret Hospital.

Secondly, there exists the Fathers Day Safeway run/walk on June 15, 2009, which takes place at cities across Canada (Halifax, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Kamloops, Kelowna and Metro Vancouver). Last year 4,000 participants raised just under $1 million.

Most of these charities raise funds that are directed to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada, whose mission is

to raise funds for research into the prevention, treatment and cure of prostate cancer by engaging Canadians through awareness, education, and advocacy.

It is in fact the leading national organization dedicated exclusively to fighting prostate cancer, which is the leading cancer to hit Canadian men, with 1 in 7 getting it during their life. If you want to get involved with us in supporting any of these organizations please contact justin.trottier@gmail.com

If you know of any other important events and organizations supporting prostate cancer in one way or another or if you have some unique idea for a new initiative please provide those here. Agree or not with the more controversial posts on this blog, prostate cancer is a Men’s Issue of immense importance and one which is rarely the focus of health awareness campaigns despite it being one of the leading killers of human beings on this planet and one that is growing at an alarming rate compared to other health issues.

Men's Right's News - The Pendulum Effect Episode 4

ArgusEyes — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:54:04 GMT

Man must pay support though twins not his

http://www.thestar.com/article/563571

Every now and then those who are sympathetic to men's issue need to pause and take stock of just how egregious the instances of anti-male courts can be. In this piece from the Toronto Star entitled "Man must pay support though twins not his".

An Ontario Superior Court judge has ordered a Toronto man to continue paying child support even though a DNA test shows he is not the biological father of his ex-wife's twins.

In her ruling, Madam Justice Katherine van Rensburg decided that even though Pasqualino Cornelio did not father twins – now 16 – with Anciolina Cornelio, he must continue to pay child support because "he was the only father the twins knew during the course of the marriage.

Source: Precious Yutangco http://www.thestar.com/article/563571

At the end of the article it states:

The judge concluded that the children should not suffer because of the parents' wrongdoings.

Source: Precious Yutangco http://www.thestar.com/article/563571

The parent's wrong doings?! I see only one part has committed any wrong here, and it is the mother. Naturally this is all for the children. Apparently you can sell men down any river if the shibboleth of "it's for the children" is there to allow one to do so.

Situations like this are a dime a dozen, and it's a downright shame. It must be the only instance where the defrauded must, by court order, pay the person who defrauded him. And before you say the money goes to the children, I must point out to you the factual inaccuracy of that statement. The money goes to the mother who has no accountability over how she spends it, and can take the father to court to demand more money apparently.

Sorry, but the "it's for the children" line does not allow you to completely stamp on and abuse another human being. Even if that human being is one of those inferior males.

Anyone looking at what the feminists have been up to these last years will notice a certain trend, the expansion of terms and labels to include more and more men under their cover. It happens with the expansion of the term rape and here, with the expansion of the term father.

To all the young men who might be listening to this, if you were thinking of helping out a friend of yours with kids by letting them stay around for a couple of months. Well now it's time to think twice, because you might end up being the only father figure they've known and thus.. daddy.

Only in situations like this do people seem to get all dewy eyed over the important need of fathers... As a wallet.

In related news the blog Psychology today reports that:

On Jan. 1, Massachusetts adopted new child-support guidelines that will likely raise the amount paid by non-custodial parents, usually fathers.

Source: Paul Raeburn http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-fathers/200901/child-support-how-much-is-too-much

Dennis Prager Responds

http://townhall.com/MediaPlayer/AudioPlayer.aspx?ContentGuid=81ddddf7-6fc5-4d7d-a3da-e00fc33d38fe

As a follow-up, last week, I mentioned the reaction to a column written by Dennis Prager entitled "when a woman isn't in the mood". In short, Dennis suggests that women who do not feel in the mood to have sex with theirs should reconsider if they actually do so to help their marriages. In a large part, the feminist reaction on the blogosphere was to call Mr. Prager a rape advocate. Since then, Prager invited two of the columnists Jeff Fecke and Megan Carpentier onto his show. This is part of what he had to say (watch clip).

Bravo Mr. Prager.

In related new, this story from the Toronto sun entitled "Hey ladies, just do it".

For her husband Brad's 40th birthday, she gave him the gift of sex -- for an entire year.

It took energy, tenaciousness and focus, but the couple stuck with the experiment, even when they were exhausted, not in the mood, and overloaded with to-do list items.

"One day, the light bulb went on," says Charla, who chronicled their story in a book entitled, 365 Nights.

Source: TANYA ENBERG http://www.torontosun.com/life/sexfiles/2009/01/22/8105766-sun.html

...

Now happy with a regular sex life, the Mullers have held onto one long-lasting lesson: The importance of maintaining intimacy.

"It was, without a doubt, the most transforming year of our marriage," she says.

Source: TANYA ENBERG http://www.torontosun.com/life/sexfiles/2009/01/22/8105766-sun.html

For a woman who was raped for 365 days in a row, Charla sure does seem upbeat.

Women and children first on the Hudson crash

http://www.true-equality.net/archive/2009/01/21/the-hudson-crash---women-and-children-first.aspx

After reading and hearing far too much credulous talk in the news about God and miracles in relation to the crash of flight 1549 into the Hudson River. I encountered a news story that I had not heard anywhere else, which seemed to me to be far more important. The BBC and Associated Press report that women and children were the first onto the life rafts after the plane crash landed, then people who had fallen into the river and been plucked out.

I think that chivalry has a place in a world less hostile to men. But in 2009 with the equality of outcome of feminism prevalent in society I think men damage themselves by capitulating to chivalrous attitudes. Chivalry is the main reason male judges oppress fathers and pass anti-male laws. Throw chivalry into that icy water where it belongs.

NOW President says "Obama cabinet level picks so far under represent women"

http://gretawire.foxnews.com/2009/01/14/now-president-says-obama-cabinet-level-picks-so-far-under-represent-women/

As if we need more proof that to modern radical feminism, equality of outcome has become the goal as opposed to equality of opportunity. From fox news comes an interview with Kim Gandy, the president of the National Organisation for Women.

Synopsis: The President of the National Organization For Women complains that while divers racially, the Obama cabinet-level picks so far under-represent women. She calls it 'disappointing' and says "twenty-five percent seems a little low." She says there is still time to improve that record by appointing a woman to the now open Commerce seat and creating a cabinet level office of Women's Affairs.

Source: Greta Van Susteren http://gretawire.foxnews.com/2009/01/14/now-president-says-obama-cabinet-level-picks-so-far-under-represent-women/

Hopefully the president will not capitulate to supremacist groups such as the National Organisation for Women who would promote that you assign a woman to a post purely because she was a woman. When it comes to the people who will be running the country, I would want the best person possible irregardless of if they were male, female, black, white, Asian, Christian or Muslim.

Grandmother Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro on Behalf of Shared Parenting

http://www.acfc.org/site/DocServer/Sheila_Peltzer_Kili_Release_Final.pdf?docID=1701

Not all news is bad news though, this is a heart-warming report from the American coalition for fathers and children.

Charlotte, NC - 70 year old grandmother, Sheila Peltzer, will climb Africa's tallest peak, 19,200' Mount Kilimanjaro raising awareness for Shared Parenting and Familial Dysautonomia. Peltzer, departing January 21, 2009, will make the ten day trek up the western route where sub zero summit temperatures are expected.

Peltzer's coach for this grueling climb is former 3-time Super Bowl Champion and motivational speaker, Tim McKyer.

Many people ask me how a former professional football player and a retired school teacher became involved in this effort," Peltzer said. "It's simple. The family courts in this country are broken. Children are being denied an equal relationship with both parents. I'm unable to be a part of my grandchildren's lives because the courts denied their father enough time for shared parenting. Two of my grandchildren have FD (Familial Dysautonomia), a rare and fatal genetic disease, resulting in recurring intensive care hospitalizations. Because my son has limited access to his own children they are being denied the love of their grandparents, as well as their dad.

Source: ACFC http://www.acfc.org/site/DocServer/Sheila_Peltzer_Kili_Release_Final.pdf?docID=1701

That about sums it up. I wish that the "it's for the children" crowd, like the judge from my first story, will stop and consider the destructive effects that their "beating up on fathers" antics will actually have on children. Doing it for the children mean more than wringing every last penny out of a dad.

How dare she generalize feminists?!

ArgusEyes — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:23:15 GMT

Take a deep breath folks.. I want you to see this woman blatantly stating what "feminists" (her word) like and don't like. I mean.. what a generalization! I want all the people who bitched at me for generalizing feminists on my videos (the problems with feminism in particular) to come out and make the usual bland bleating about how "not all feminists are like that" or "you're generalizing!".

In case you're wondering, yes, that was sarcasm. But this woman gets it fairly right with her generalizations about what feminists like and don't like. It's pure gold. We feminists are not man haters but we do hate some men.. conservatives mainly. And we don't like all woman like.. say.. conservatives.

So I present this video to the jury in the case of "feminists are leftists". Court is in order.

Apathy..

ArgusEyes — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:08:56 GMT

..Sucks!

Anyone who has watched my videos for a while will notice that there are long periods where I don't make any videos and then I start up again. The reason for this is apathy. I suffer (not that it's a medical condition) from periods of apathy, which is where you feel a lack of interest or concern. So I haven't posted anything in a while so I thought I'd write about that.

It's not like depression, I simply don't feel like doing much, and since making a video is fairly in-depth (writing it, setting up, going out, etc) then it can get put off for a long time. At the moment I am feeling pretty apathetic, this is mainly due to the fact that it is winter and thus a lot of people feel down. When it comes to summer, I find it easier to focus on making videos and it is also nicer out, so I can film in fields and forests.

Read Little Green Footballs

ArgusEyes — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:03:05 GMT

There is a list of links on the right but one blog in particular deserves a special shout out for its importance. That blog is little green footballs. A right leaning blog dedicated to highlighting Islamic totalitarianism and anti evolution news items, it's basically aligned with my own blog on many issues.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

This is what a feminist looks like - A censor

ArgusEyes — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:16:56 GMT

There is a silly little vacuous propoganda video on youtube entitled "this is what a feminist looks like".

It's what you'd expect. Feminists believe in smiles and rainbows and gumbdrop lollipop trees! It's a load of rot. But if you were to examine the comments on the thread below the video then you'll see something all too predicable.

This is why I disable comment voting. It is a cudgel for the majority to beat down the opposition. It is a tool that is overwhelmingly used by intellecual thugs and doesn't serve a valid purpose apart from that.

Who is willing to guess that those grey comments disagree? Are they all obscene? I doubt it but youtube isn't giving me a way to view them.

Here is the video.

Our governments stifle the freedom of men in order to infantilise them

ArgusEyes — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:31:57 GMT

This is a follow-up to some feedback email I received. You can read the original blog post here.

Dear Mark

I could seemingly not upload this letter as a comment on your blog. Will you do that if you can?

With respect to Feministing.com I am glad that you make clear that focussing on the trivialities of a particular cause from time to time is not necessarily always a bad thing. But I completely agree with you that only focussing on trivial matters is to neglect many of the issues that really matter in this instance your trash magazine-analogy was a nice example. I do not know if Feministing.com censor opposing view, are obtuse [or] fling obscenities at their opponents, but if this is really the case, then of course they would go down in my estimation as well. I am just yet to experience this as I do not really spend much time on the Feministing home page.

You go on to say that [w]e hear a lot about women in the media and that a lot of silly commentary like Feministings does appear out there all over the place. I would argue and urge you to consider that you are having this particular experience precisely because you (because of your position in the Mens Rights Movement) are subconsciously but actively seeking out contexts in which trivialities and silliness is bound to occur. I am not making any presumptions about where you are and what you are doing, but I certainly do not experience a great interest in womens issues in the mainstream media (here speaking of the 6 oclock news and the morning newspaper; whatever your average citizen reads), and whatever issues are featured are seemingly not something which is done anything about in any case. I would, however, like to see not only more emphasis on womens issues, but on mens issues as well. If gender relations were something that all men were as passionate about as you then I believe we would have much more varied media coverage of gender issues and as a result hereof these issues would not as easily be dismissed by politicians as I often feel they are in this day and age.

Secondly I do not expect you to address reams of points in one video, but I am glad (not in the I agree-kind of way) to hear that you plan to actually formulate and publish your opinions about pornography in a YouTube-video. Notify me when you have done so, and I will (perhaps) make a rebuttal video. For now I will address the points you make in your reply.

To brand pornography evil is NOT an arrogant presumption. First of all, it could not possible be a presumption since it is not an opinion I pull out of the blue, but an assertion based on long and thorough research on the matter. Second of all it is not arrogant as my view stems from actual knowledge about the industry of pornography and thus subsequent empathy for the women in it rather than from an ignorant and ideological black/white world view which I (without makinf presumptions) think you are exhibiting at this point. Pornography and prostitution is hate propaganda and exploitation. Pornography and prostitution are factors that must be outlawed and eliminated from society in the same way that we have outlawed (but not) eliminated slavery, child abuse and the legality of men stamping on daughters necks because of their religion and bigotry. When you say that women in pornography choose to do it and make quite a bit of money doing so, you are making two assertions. 1: Women choose it themselves and are responsible for their own choices, and 2: They get paid a lot to do it. First a few words about your assertion about choice.

From the point of view you present it SEEMS (note that I am not presuming anything) that you believe that choices are something we human beings either make or do not make and that all choices are uncomplicated, clear cut and gets you from point to point in life by your own responsibility. In my opinion, to hold a view like that is simply to be ignorant of all the nuances and abstractions that a human life is full of. More than quite often, the people I meet who use the trump card argument of choice are people who will thwart any call for self-reflection about their use of pornography; most often because they are born into privilege; never having had to experience how ones social heritage, skin colour, family or economic situation, etc can affect how one makes (or is directly or indirectly forced to make) choices that will lead you to very uncompromising places in life.

I am not saying that you are necessarily one of these people. I am saying that you at least use the choice argument here as if there is not an age-long tradition of academic peer-reviewed and approved research which has long proven beyond reasonable doubt that [a] meaningful discussion of choice cant be restricted to the single moment when a woman decides to perform in a specific pornographic film but must include all the existing background conditions that affect not only the objective choices she faces but her subjective assessment of those choices (Robert Jensen. Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Cambridge: South End Press, 2007. P. 87). You ought to do some check-up research on the matter yourself before speaking so casually about choice. I assure you that thorough research has been done on the matters of childhood sexual abuse and childhood physical abuse and their later-in-life repetitive natures, the role of poverty, homelessness, economic deprivation, socially determined lack of economic opportunity, trafficking, fraudulent job advertisements, and finally cultural training and socialisation to pornified culture. There is a rich body of literature out there for you to explore, or you can perhaps start out at www.againstpornography.org. Anyway, all of the factors mentioned above must be taken into consideration when you speak of choice, and the more factors in play, the less meaningful the notion of choice becomes. Ill emphasise this with an example:

Chinese single mothers who spend 18 hours a day in a sweat shop factory under working conditions that would make even the most neo-liberal asshole cry do also have the choice to either be or to not be in that factory. But taking all of the social conditions under which these women live into consideration, the notion of choice looses all meaning. To bend it in neon for you: If one performs a degrading and/or self-destructive act whilst knowing that there is a chance of there being even worse future consequences IF the degrading and/or self-destructive act is not performed, then your choice to perform the act has been rendered meaningless.

Seen in the light of all this, your second assertion, that women make quite a bit of money doing so, i.e. doing degrading and/or self-destructive acts (my words, not yours) is not any better. That people contribute to the economy on the one side and are humiliated, degraded and abused on the other side as a consequence thereof does not a morally acceptable balance of human interests make. One would have to be either extremely ignorant or extremely cold hearted to render notions of abuse, humiliation, degradation, violence, etc acceptable as long as one could make money off of it. Unfortunately people like these DO exist and they are constantly trying to make you and others adapt their view of human kind (and women in particular, though also men) to make you buy their product and increase the demand for more abuse, humiliation, degradation and violence.

You will perhaps make the argument that some women choose to be in pornography completely of their own free will without any free-choice compromising being in play. While it might be possible to actually find these women somewhere, you still have to take into account the inescapable fact that at least some women (and probably a majority according to research) choose under conditions that seriously complicate their choices. So when you as a consumer throw on a DVD at home or engage in online pornography, you have no way of telling which category the girls you are watching belong in. Even if you knew for a fact that the particular woman or man (or donkey) you were watching was there completely by his/her own free will with no compromising conditions behind her/his decision, you are still helping the porn industry staying profitable and thus helping to increase the demand for new adult performers some of which have not made the choice themselves or under the wrong conditions. There are of course resources for getting off like YouPorn, RedTube or the good old file sharing systems, where the consumer does not contribute economically to the porn industry. But this still useless, since the consumer of porn is both altering his (or her, but in 90% of the cases his) view on sexuality and fuelling his appetite for more rough kinds of pornography; a well-known syndrome of the porn user that one kind of porn leaves you needing more and different visual stimulation for your next fix. In any case the consumer is still looking at women being degraded and humiliated and if that is his erotica then he has a problem.

I know that you are an ardent individualist, but your passionate anger about the patriarchal oppression of women in Islam leaves me thinking that you of course have empathy for other human beings. I urge you to read this article by Martin Amis and reflect on whether pornography is perhaps equally oppressive in nature. Here you go: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4153718,00.html. Now to something else.

The following I did not say in my first letter, but I am going to say it now in the light of what I have just discussed. I think that being against Islam because of Islams oppressive nature towards women while simultaneously being pro-pornography is to be against one form of oppression but for another. And now an apology:

If I in any way made presumptions (right ones or wrong ones) about you in my first letter, I am very sorry. It was a rather quick and not well though through scribbling down of commentary section material. I apologise. In this letter I have tried to emphasise when I am expressing my personal perception of you or when I am talking about people with the same attitudes and ideas as you. When I PERCEIVE something about you, I am not making presumptions be sure of that I am more than open to the fact that you are not the way I perceive you to be. Just tell me when I perceive wrongly.

Finally, I have watched your video Men are More Oppressed than Women, and I really feel that I should not mix this letter with my rebuttal of it. I will perhaps do that in another letter or make a video for you. The long and the short of it is that your assertion that men are more oppressed than women is flat out wrong, and that your arguments for it are easily dismissed we do agree on a few things in your video though.

I hope that some of the previous has made you rethink your attitude toward certain things too.

---

Sorry to bother you again, but I forgot to mention something that might not be obvious to anyone. I just want to make clear that when I say 'BAN pornography and prostituion', I am NOT AT ALL (just to emphasise!) proposing that we make it illegal for women to prostitute themselves or to participate in pornography. Even though there might be conditions that influence what choices they make, it is ultimately their own bodies and their own minds.

What I am saying is that we need to make illegal the BUYING of prostitutes and the DISTRIBUATION of pornography. In that way we will in both cases have eliminated the economic factor which ensures that it remains a growing industry. Once money is out of the picture, the ones who make porn in the privacy of their own home because they WANT to (secular society with respects to pornography as it is our goal with respect to religion) and those who have sex with 10 men a day because they WANT to, can do so without me or others suspecting that pimps and other scumbags are making money off of the humiliation of women, men and children.

At the same time we will of course have to engineer more economic opportunities and social relief for women so we remove the conditions that might make them turn to being humiliated sexually for a living in the first place and create opportunities for those who wish to leave prostitution or the porn industry

Hi,

First of all I have to say that you write well and respectfully. I appreciate that. It is certainly rare on YouTube.

Human choices are not simple, one would have to be a fool to believe that. What I think is that the government (which one implies when one is talking about laws and what should be allowed) must respect people's choices that they make. It is not the role of government to analyse the nuances in our decisions and act like mummy to us, this is tyrannical. I suspect that this is simply where we have differing opinions about what the role of government should be but I think that you too are a man who is seeking to clarify where we differ rather than win.

Some of us base our decisions around some guiding principles. For me it is liberty. The freedom to make my own choices and mistakes and to have the oppressive spectre of the government off of my back.

Bearing that in mind, let's examine your arguments where you present research. You can cite all the papers you want to me, it will mean nothing. Let's compare it to a similar situation – smoking. I know that smoking is bad for me so I don't need you to cite me research that says so.

The government deciding what it will allow me to do based upon what it thinks are acceptable ways to lead a life means we have entered a situation where our governments stifle the freedom of men in order to infantilise them. This is not a good situation.

You may say that smoking is legal and indeed it is, but the government already tells businesses that they cannot allow smoking on their own premises. Also, I cannot smoke pot can I? A substance far more useful than tobacco and far less damaging to society than alcohol is.

Basically you sound quite high-and-mighty deeming the decisions of these women to be "self destructive" and "degrading". I object to attitudes like this, be they the social righteousness of the left or the moral righteousness of the right. If people want to degrade themselves then let them do it.

To address your follow-up email. You might say that all I have written so far does not apply because you say you're not really for banning porn. Then I must say that it is quite a dishonest position to say you don't want to ban porn in spirit but want to ban the buying and distribution of it. That is imbecilic as a position to be quite frank. What is the point? That is like saying "I'm for cars as long as no-one dies in one", then you're not for cars. Also it still represents the ban happy attitude of our government where they intrude into our lives more than is necessary.

Sorry I have not written more, given how much you wrote, but I think there is a clash of fundamental world views here.

Sincerely,
Mark

The threat to liberty comes mainly from the left

ArgusEyes — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:53:49 GMT

This might sound weird but stay with me..

I'm getting more and more interested in fascism.

Not from a personal perspective mind, but from an academic one. I find it fascinating and perfectly relevant to what is happening in the modern world (see below for details). I have been recommended a book called "the black book of communism", and whilst perusing the Amazon page, I saw the following review.

This book is an absolute disgrace. Its pure right-wing propaganda and the sort of book which should be banned from being published.

I agree with other reviewers that Soviet Communism is far different from other forms. Capitalists often forget to look at the flaws in their own system, many of the atrocities which the book mentions have taken place under the command of George W. Bush and his cronies in recent months.

I think the author should have taken a different approach and maybe actually bothered reading the Communist Manifesto!

Source: Amazon.co.uk The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

I have encountered this myself. As soon as one utters a non-left opinion then there is a subset of people who ill shriek "neocon!" or "right winger!" as if these terms were dirty words in themselves, and whenever I utter a left wing idea then I get the idiots on the right shrieking "leftist" or "liberal". Both these groups are idiots but, as always, there are more on the left and the right.

The person who "wrote" this review is a fool incapable of thought and thus is pretty below the margin for consideration but the attitude of repression on the following statement:

Its pure right-wing propaganda and the sort of book which should be banned from being published.

Source: Amazon.co.uk The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

Is very worrying indeed. These attitudes come from the view that people who differ are bad. And you can do whatever you want to the bad and/or bigoted. After all, is it not morally excusable to hate Hitler? If you conflate a good person with Hitler then you can justify any action, not matter how heinous, against them. This is one of the cornerstones of human evil, how we demonise those who we disagree with and when they lose their humanity we do not care how they suffer. It happened with the Jews, it happens to a lesser degree with whites and men today. Organised movements of hatred are to be feared greatly. Hatred always precedes atrocity.

Many on the left make the argument that the threat to freedom comes from the right. In many cases they are correct, the difference between right wing fascism and left wing fascism comes mainly from the general right/left differences.

The left dreams of utopia on earth and desires unity for people to come on board with this idea. They treat their politics religiously and murder those who disagree with them politically. They also deem to destroy institutions that represent separate sources of power and morals that could conflict with their political ideals. Religion is one, the family is another. Anything that threatens their sense of unity, you can see this in the statements of the American left today, the calls for unity basically mean "drop your objections, and come on board with my program".

Right wing fascism is tied to religion mainly. Where the belief that utopia cannot be reached on earth is errant. The main way people are oppressed under right wing fascism is in their actions and thoughts regarding religion. They are theocracies where government and religion are intertwined, in the left wing the government is the religion.

Both are faith based dogmatisms. I am a mere whippersnapper in this immense academic field so I shall humbly take your corrections, but this is the way I see it currently. Back to freedoms, where the right removes freedoms is in religious areas, they mainly want to affect what you do whereas the left wants to affect how you think. Which is the bigger threat? Well, leftist socialist regimes such as communism alone has murdered more of its own people than right wing fascist regimes do. Personally, the repression of thought such as currently goes on in North Korea and China scares more than any right wing fascism does. In the west the left is far more of a threat to freedom. We are entering a left wing fascism – that of political correctness. The right is not strong in western society at the moment. The pure size of government and how they control our lives is getting worse all the time, this is not a right wing movement but a left one. The problem is worse in socialist Europe than in any other place.

In the words of Fred Reed. I'm going to move into a shack in the woods and put up a sign that says "beware of radioactive cholera".

As for political correctness fascism. Here is a news piece from the BBC about a Dutch MP who is to be charged for "making anti-Islamic statements". Great, then there is no freedom of speech. End of story. Hate speech is a rotten Trojans horse by the utopians that are always in the wings, it's exactly the kind of smiley face fascism that Jonah Goldberg talks about in his book Liberal Fascism.

Here is Pat Condell on the matter:

Great as always.

The Hudson Crash - Women and Children First?!?

ArgusEyes — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:04:06 GMT

Asked how he got out of the plane he said: "At first chaos, but everyone was kind of orderly, man. You know after a while everyone, we just, I just kept saying relax relax, women and children first. And then it just started filling with water, quick."

Source: BBC Airbus crashes in New York river

Heading toward the forward exits, and then standing on the wings, the passengers developed their pecking order. Women and children went first into the rafts, then people who had fallen into the river and been plucked out.

Source: Associated Press Survivors offer praise, gratitude after NY crash

But that's the point, isn't it: people almost died! And they didn't die! And as interesting as semantics are, and as much inherent patriarchal nonsense there is in the fabric of society coming out all the time, I for one am not going to get exercised about something someone said — maybe off the top of his head — in an effort to successfully save several hundred lives. I agree that if this is indeed the airline protocol it bears questioning, or at least cogent, non-anachronistic explanation beyond some hoary gallantry. But yesterday what could have been a tragedy, wasn't. We know women and children were evacuated first because they — and the men who followed — lived to talk about it. I would be curious to hear what the women on that flight have to say about it — maybe in, say, a week. But, as Ecclesiastes and the Byrds would have it, for everything there is a season.

Source: Jezebel Flight 1549 Survivors: Let's Talk About "Women And Children First"

Elevating the Soul

ArgusEyes — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:07:44 GMT

My second latest video was entitled "Thou Shalt Not Criticise Women". It was prepared for a podcast called "the pendulum effect". I also cross posted the transcript on the associated blog over at equalismactivism.com.

I must say that I didn't expect such a tide of negative comments. The link between atheism and leftism is sadly confirmed yet again. And also is the link between leftism and anti-men's rights movement. There is simply no place at the table for a person such as myself who has centrist/right views, if you come with anything approaching a right wing idea then the wall of intellectual thuggery will send you scurrying away.

I was up from 10:30om until 5 in the morning replying to comments and emails from my blog, this blog and my YouTube account. By the end I was depressed and rueful of the human race.

Hanging around the noxious atmosphere of comments threads with fools degrades the soul. It's the intellectual equivalent of junk food, addictive to get into but ultimately demoralising. I have decided to only do things that are elevating – creative things such as making music, developing programs and contributing original arguments.

Bratz Dolls May Give Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size

ArgusEyes — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:02:17 GMT

The Pendulum Effect

ArgusEyes — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:13:25 GMT

I have been asked to contribute a regular segment to a new podcast “the pendulum effect”. I’ve linked to it on the left so please check it out. I think you’re going to like it. The latest episode has an interview with none other than Warren Farrell himself.

The pieces that I will be contributing to the podcast will be focused mainly on gender related news items. I will also be recoding these segments as videos and putting them onto YouTube. This particular video is featured in the show, but it is something I have always wanted to address and what a fortuitous situation to finally do so.

I would like describe what I understand the term “the pendulum effect” to mean. I myself have used this analogy in the past and it about time I expand on what I believe it to mean. I have broken down the pendulum effect into chronological stages and I have cited feminism as an illustration of the effect, even though it could be applied to other civil rights issues such as black rights and homosexual rights.

Step 1: A civil rights need is born

For complex historical reasons beyond the scope of this article, a civil rights need is identified on behalf of a group. The pendulum effect is viewed as bipolarity between two groups. With the group on the left deemed as being the oppressed group and the group in the right as being the oppressors. The relationship may be between women and men, blacks and whites or homosexuals and heterosexuals.
Step 2: The legitimate phase of the movement

The oppressed group does indeed suffer from legitimate grievances. They become aware of the need to change their standing and push the pendulum of equal rights with their actions, to correct these grievances and to improve their image in the zeitgeist.

They face some resistance from either side, but they also face a lot of support from the oppressor side, who truly emphasises with their plight. This is the legitimate stage of the movement as the oppressed side gains the rights that they clearly should have. Luminaries of the men’s right movement such as Glenn Sacks and Warren Farrell freely admit that there are genuine gains that feminism has achieved, things such as legislation that codifies the right to equal pay such as the equal pay act of 1963 in the U.S. and 1970 in the U.K., the right to own property and to object to genuinely misogynistic attitudes as can be seen in the old style advertisements and public service announcements. I agree with this attitude personally. There is no such thing as a civil rights movement that has done no good. This is the legitimate and honourable stage of the movement. The pendulum is even.
Step 3: The illegitimate phase of the movement

The transition between this step and the last is hard to identify as the oppressed group transitions from generally doing good to doing bad. The oppressed group now has a respected and powerful lobby acting on its behalf that can affect the law, at this point no reasonable person could describe the group as being “oppressed” anymore, but the movement has turned into an industry of grievance mining, looking under every rock for signs of oppression and slights.

It is important to emphasise the members of the group are not lying to keep up the appearance if being oppressed, they truly believe it, but they are in too deep and lack the ability to holistically view the progress that their group has made, to take “yes” for an answer. The “oppressions” that their group supposedly suffers become more and more academic and created out of whole cloth. The goals of the group come more from the radical activist members, who mostly reside in academia. Issues that they choose to fight for include things such as redefining language, redefining history, redefining their definition of oppression and re-characterising the successes of the movement into further examples of oppression.

A prime example of manufacturing problems is to me, one of the most reprehensible aspects of modern feminism. This is where feminism has achieved a world where women have no less opportunity than men, can take any degree they want to and choose their own career. And then when women do not flock to careers that feminists want them to, they cites this as proof of work that still needs to be done for women’s rights. I think that women who feel empowered to enter the fields they want to enter means that the work of women’s rights is mostly done. To spin the liberation of women into an attempt to further victimise them is a disgusting act that is to spit in the eye of the good achievements that feminism has made.

The worst effect of this illegitimate phase of the movement is to brainwash the younger members of the group into hating men. The feminists have already refined history and distorted the facts to where, as a feminist said in an email to me, half of women are raped and the fraction of feminist haters dwindles in comparison to the number of men who hate women. Yeah, we sure are terrible.

None of this has any relation to the truth but what is to be the expected outcome if a young woman is told that men as such beasts? I’ll tell you the outcome because I saw it firsthand when I graduated in 2005. The young women I went to university with were angry, they were petulant and a hostile and felt the need to partake in constant belittling comments and man bashing. With an angry youth, the road is paved to the next step.
Step 4: The oppression of the oppressors

The discourse has become one sided. The feminists are seen as the authorities in the problem of equality as the status quo is viewed as being sexist and thus un-needing of representation. The feminists are now running a dictatorship of opinion and with a background noise of resentment and manufactured oppressions they start to act in a very hypocritical way. The true idea of equality has been lost, they have a new definition of the word. Equality of outcome. Sameness.

Departments of women’s health spring up, ministers for women are appointed and special programs for women are created. All of these are designed to help a beleaguered minority get the leg up they apparently need. With a population of hostile women some truly horrendous laws are passed, men’s achievements are deemed to be on the back of women. If girls are underachieving in school then they are being underserved whereas if the girls are overachieving then this is a sign of their natural superiority and empowerment. There exists no compassion for the suffering of males, many feminists will come straight out and tell you tough shit – they’ve been oppressing us for so long that it’s our turn now.

Witness the most obscene situation. The generation of women who have never had it so good being the most aggrieved and punishing the generation of men who have oppressed them the lease and want to commiserate the most. The pendulum is well and truly on the other side now.
Step 5: The backlash

The so called oppressors are now the oppressed and the cat’s out of the bag. Men are hit hard, their children are taken away whilst they are treated like criminals and are told when they can see them. They die younger, have to retire later, get shafted in divorce, suffer harsher sentences, are lagging in school, graduate less and are assaulted everyday by man bashing.

They can be sentenced to 18 years as a serf if a woman steals their sperm, they have no choice about being a parent, less is spend on their health concerns, they spend more on insurance, they can get passed over in lieu of a less qualified female at work and every morning on the tube ride to work they get tut-tutted at by adverts as being a bunch of boozing wife beating misogynistic rapists.

Then they have to listen to some snarky little co-worker tell them that.. “It’s a man’s world!”.

It’s enough to make a fellow turn to drink. More and more guys mutter heretical thoughts at the pub. When in the company of men I get favourable reactions to my material. Organised groups like fathers for justice start up and men start voicing their opinions on youtube and through podcasts like this one.

The reaction of the feminists? In one word, hysterical. They cannot react with ideas because their belief system has long been a barren intellectual wasteland populated with unproven hypotheses, conspiracy theories and falsehoods. So they react with shaming tactics, calling us “women haters” and claiming that we want to “turn back the clock” on women’s rights. Well, I don’t want to turn back the clock, but I certainly want to push back on that pendulum.

What remains beyond the backlash step remains to be seen, people who are fighting back against the ideas of feminism might instigate a whole new pendulum effect in the opposite direction. Perhaps we are doomed to endlessly push back and forth in perpetuity. I certainly hope not. Allow me to tell you what I hope the effect of the backlash against feminism will be.

We all know that a political system in which only one side is represented is not a good thing. If one side has complete control to implement their ideas then history tells us that we can end up in a horrific situation. There are two sexes and so far we’ve been letting feminism represent all issues pertaining to gender by itself. What I want to see in the future is a two party system where both sides are represented by movements that actually represent its members. I don’t pretend that I understand a woman’s point of view I am a man not a woman, let the feminists speak for themselves and men’s rights activists speak for ourselves. This two party system will also keep the other side honest, feminism has grown sloppy and overly academic in the face of no opposition so let us shine the light of scrutiny onto feminist ideas and let the ones that don’t stand to reason scuttle from sight.

Thou Shalt Not Criticise Women

ArgusEyes — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:21:04 GMT

I listen to and read podcasts, blogs and news sites from a variety of perspectives. From hardcore atheists and liberals such as P.Z. Meyer's Pharyngula to secular humanists, scientific skeptics, libertarians and religious right wingers. One person on the right I greatly respect is called Dennis Prager. I do not agree with everything he says but he speaks a lot of truth on many issues including issues pertaining to men and women.

Dennis Prager wrote a two part column recently that set the feminist blogosphere alight with indignation. I want to retell this event to you as it is an important illustration of the reaction one can receive when they take an oppositional stance to feminism.

His column is a two parter called "When a Woman Isn't in the Mood" (part 1 part 2). I shall read you a couple of opening paragraphs in order to set the tone.

The subject is one of the most common problems that besets marriages: the wife who is "not in the mood" and the consequently frustrated and hurt husband.

There are marriages with the opposite problem — a wife who is frustrated and hurt because her husband is rarely in the mood. But, as important and as destructive as that problem is, it has different causes and different solutions, and is therefore not addressed here. What is addressed is the far more common problem of "He wants, she doesn't want."

It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.

Source: Dennis Prager When a Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part 1

At the end of part 1 he writes:

I conclude Part I with this clarification: Everything written here applies under two conditions: 1. The woman is married to a good man. 2. She wants him to be a happy husband. If either condition is not present, nothing written here matters. But if you are a woman who loves your husband, what is written here can be the most important thing you will read concerning your marriage. Because chances are the man you love won't tell you.

Source: Dennis Prager When a Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part 1

Allow me to summarise. In these two columns Dennis Prager presents the argument that a wife who cares about having a happy husband rethinks the idea that if she is not in the mood then that means she must not have sex. Prager shines a light on the differences between men and women, sex is far more important to men than it is to women and that a man knows his wife loves him by the fact that she has sex with him. Does mood always determine our actions? No. Are you always in the mood to get up and go to work in the morning? Are you ever in the mood to get up in the night and feed the baby? Take out the trash? Sometimes we have obligations to do things that we don't feel like doing because they lead to good consequences down the road. Prager mentions that, of course, there are times when this advice is inappropriate. It is general marital advice and I agree with it.

Let's see what many feminists had to say about this.

Our first stop is the blog pandagon.net, and a post written by Jesse Taylor. Entitled "Shit you shouldn't say". Where the very first paragraph is:

Dennis Prager says that marital rape is a-okay:

Source: Jesse Taylor Shit you shouldn't say

Taylor is not lying here. He truly believes that in an example like Prager illustrates, where a woman isn't in the mood but makes the decision on her own to have sex with her husband is rape. What feminists believe about rape as compare to what most normal people believe is very worrying, most people would agree that it is forced sex one an obviously non-consenting person. The dictionary definition is replete with words like "force", "violent seizure" and "violation.

What Jesse Taylor is actually proposing is that in a situation where a man wants to have sex with his wife and he indicates this need and she although not feeling in the mood has sex with him, is an instance of rape.

What a loving sense of marriage in the 21st century.

I hope that all married men who are listening to this are sure that their wife was in the mood for one hundred percent of the times you had sex, because you're a rapist in the eyes of the feminists otherwise.

For all the women who are listening to this, I have a question. How do you feel about this? That the movement that supposedly represents you as a woman wants to infantilise you to the point where your own decisions are irrelevant?

Taylor's characterisation of Prager as a rape advocate is disgusting and wrong. But maybe it is a one off? We continue…

The next stop is feministing.com with a post by Jessica Valenti called "Dennis Prager: Nothing says "I love you" like marital rape".

Written in Valenti's own juvenile style, she rarely stops blockquoting enough people to write any original material. But here is some of what she says:

It takes a certain je ne sais quoi to unabashedly argue in favor[sic] of marital rape. Of course columnist Dennis Prager doesn't call it that. No no, he prefers to use some sort of bizarre high school logic about how ladies who really love their man will "give her body" on demand.

Source: Jessica Valenti Dennis Prager: Nothing says "I love you" like marital rape

There is a lesson here about people who have become radicalised filter what they read or see though a dogmatic belief system and re-translate the result and then hold that to be reality. Valenti's comments bear so little relation to what I read in Prager's article that either she mistakenly read something else, is so deep in the fetid pool of fundamentalism as to be unamenable to genuine reflection or change or she didn't read it at all. I suspect the latter.

Our next stop is jezebel.com with a post written by "Megan" called "Conservative Dennis Prager Knows It's Not Rape If His Wife "Submits""

The first paragraph reads:

Conservative pundit and marital rape apologist Dennis Prager has some advice for you ladies with faltering marriages: don't think that just because you don't want to have sex your husband shouldn't try to fuck you.

Source: Megan Conservative Dennis Prager Knows It's Not Rape If His Wife "Submits"

Again, this bears no relation to reality. At this point I must apologise for the profanity in this piece. I thought, initially, that I would try to mask it but I think it is important to realise how the people on these blogs write about people they disagree with.

The feminist blogs are characterised by their vacuity, indecency and sheepish dedication to radicalism. Is there a more reasonable critique? Yes, in fact there is. Ed Brayton's skeptical blog "Dispatches from the culture wars" featured a post on Prager's column called "Prager: Just Lay There and Take It". Brayton stays away from analogising Dennis Prager to a rape advocate, which I am happy to see, but he has still re-interpreted reality in places by claiming things such as:

…married women should always have sex even if they're not in the mood to do so.

Source: Ed Brayton Prager: Just Lay There and Take It

This is not true, in fact Prager specifically says that in certain instances his advice is inappropriate.

All the onus is on women, whom he wrongly presumes want sex less than men.

Source: Ed Brayton Prager: Just Lay There and Take It

Are we to presume that both sexes, who are biologically different, want sex in equal measures. Anyone I know from the real world would agree that men have a higher sex drive than women do, are more visually stimulated and have sex drives that drop off at a lesser rate than women's do. Yet Brayton brays at such un-progressive views of human sexuality, he is operating from theory instead and let's not let reality intrude.

The most important part of this statement is the first part, where Brayton states that "all the onus in on woman" this is true, for this particular article. I suspect that none of these writers actually listen to Dennis Prager's radio show. I do. And I can tell you that he has plenty of criticism for men as well.

I'm sure that they would all nod in appreciation when at one time on his show he lambasted husbands who go to sleep immediately after sex. He said that husbands who do this should stay awake, holding and kissing their wives after sexual intercourse has finished. And I agree with that. After all, you might not want to do it, you might want to go to sleep immediately. However, because you don't feel in the mood doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, because you show her that you love her by doing so and a happy wife leads to a happy home. Would feminists argue with that? I doubt so.

What ruffles these people's feathers the most is the fact that Prager's article is an unaffronted criticism of women. And that it actually places responsibilities and obligations upon them, the horror! The writers seem to be tied up in knots of anguish that Prager doesn't have qualifying language at every step that criticises men in equal order. Such an article would be bloated, boring and would lose all semblance of meaning. I've noticed that the feminists themselves don't mind writing articles and blog posts that singularly criticise men above women.

Download the episode of the "pendulum effect" podcast that this piece appears in.

Can Pixar make a bad film?

ArgusEyes — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:33:33 GMT

I've just finished watching Wall-E and Ratatouille from Pixar. Both films are absolutely fantastic in a way that I've come to expect from that company. I have to say that Pixar haven't made a bad film yet. The only film of theirs I haven't seen yet is cars, but I’ve heard that is good as well.

I can think of no other example of this, the nearest I can think of is the Coen Brothers who seemed like they couldn't fail for a while. But then they released a bunch of stinkers and that was the end of that.

The Pixar films are a real treat for me. They are the best animated, funniest, most character-full animated films out there and may Pixar never fall.

I get email: 'Real Injustices'???

ArgusEyes — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:26:36 GMT

Okay, for some reason I could not post this in the comment section even when breaking it down into little pieces. If you can, please do in the name of free speech:-)

Feministing.com could spend their time on more important things.

But your argument seems to be that one is a coward if one does not address the biggest and most challenging problem of ones cause first. If I was to follow this line of reasoning I too could say that YOU are a coward for taking on Feministing.com as an easy target in this respect surely there are bound to be more pressing issues out there for a stern liberal conservative than a feminist video blog, or?

Feministing.com often relies on very trivial information (which is why it is not exactly respected for its academic inquiry in feminist circles), but it DOES serve the purpose of making known the day-to-day women’s issues that we otherwise don’t hear about in the media. If you are really for women’s rights then lets appreciate Feminsiting.com for what it is.

While I’m at it, why is it that you blame Feministing.com for NOT dealing with bigger women’s issues while those of us who DO devote our time to fighting the evils of for example prostitution or pornography (under which millions of women are suffering world wide) still have to suffer your stigma of ignorance?

I might as well tell YOU that being against Islam because it is oppressing to women while simultaneously being against the work of radical feminists, who spend their lives fighting for women’s rights in different battlefields is a hypocritical self-contradictory load of crap. However, I am not going to.

It is as if you believe that the Islamic world is the only world in which oppression of women is taking place? Freest does not necessarily mean free and thus saying that the western world is the freest society for women in the world does not make inequality in the western world magically disappear.

Remember: Your cause to secularise the Islamic world (I’m on your side there!) is not the ONLY topic related to women’s issues out there. And since you have not experienced what inequality really is, being a white middle class male living in a western society, I would be very cautious using the phrase real injustices.

I am almost inclined to not answer this email as it ascribes imbecility to me, but since I have far better things to do I might as well give it a shot. First of all, your email makes many claims as to what I believe that are out and out lies since I did not make these points, you made them up and then assigned them to me, in many ways this is worst than a lie. Consider this a tip on how to write decently. Address the points of your opponents only, bunch of strawman logical fallacies does not a good argument make.

But your argument seems to be that one is a coward if one does not address the biggest and most challenging problem of ones cause first.

This is an accurate summary of my position. As pertaining to Feministing. However, I would not treat this as a rule to be applied to all people who meet the criteria. There are a few extra things about Feministing that makes me call them cowards. They censor opposing view, they are obtuse and fling obscenities at their opponents, they seem to deal only with trivial crap and they pretty much symbolise the modern feminist sandy vagina method of complaining about nothing legitimate. Given all this, I have no doubts about calling them cowards.

If I was to follow this line of reasoning I too could say that YOU are a coward for taking on Feministing.com as an easy target in this respect surely there are bound to be more pressing issues out there for a stern liberal conservative than a feminist video blog, or?

Only if I don’t take on any larger issues. I do. Also there is a marked difference between an individual person passing comments on youtube as compared to an organisation with the goal of (supposedly) helping women. Given this your comparison of my situation to Feministing’s doesn’t hold up. People can focus on trivialities, we cannot go at 120mph all day, but if triviality is all you do, then I look down on that. This is why I have a certain disdain for people who read trash magazines all the time and never pick up anything better.

Feministing.com often relies on very trivial information (which is why it is not exactly respected for its academic inquiry in feminist circles), but it DOES serve the purpose of making known the day-to-day women’s issues that we otherwise don’t hear about in the media. If you are really for women’s rights then lets appreciate Feminsiting.com for what it is.

We hear a lot about women in the media, if the superficial crap that Feministing peddles doesn’t appear then there is a reason for it. Perhaps you could elaborate on what these issues actually are? Anyway, I content that a lot of silly commentary like Feministing’s does appear out there all over the place.

While I’m at it, why is it that you blame Feministing.com for NOT dealing with bigger women’s issues while those of us who DO devote our time to fighting the evils of for example prostitution or pornography (under which millions of women are suffering world wide) still have to suffer your stigma of ignorance?

I cannot address reams of points of view in one video, that would make it long and unwatchable. The remit of the video was to make a point against Feministing so let it stand for what it attempts to do. I’ll make other videos on other days about some of what you said there.

Also to brand things such as pornography evil is an arrogant presumption that will not be left standing here. A man stamping on his daughter’s neck because of his religion and bigotry is inherently evil and thus I label it as such. Whereas a woman in a free society making her own decisions as to what to do with her own body and choosing to be filmed having sex and making quite a bit of money doing so.. Is not being oppressed. And to label a situation such as this “evil” is to display your real contempt for women’s choices. I, like many other MRA’s don’t want to “turn back the clock” and remove women’s rights like you apparently want to do.

I might as well tell YOU that being against Islam because it is oppressing to women while simultaneously being against the work of radical feminists, who spend their lives fighting for women’s rights in different battlefields is a hypocritical self-contradictory load of crap. However, I am not going to.

That was clever. Ooh, but I cannot complain because you didn’t tell me this apparently. I might as well tell you that you are a presumptuous unwise dishonest fool who has bought a pack of lies.. But I’m not going to. (beat that)

It is as if you believe that the Islamic world is the only world in which oppression of women is taking place? Freest does not necessarily mean free and thus saying that the western world is the freest society for women in the world does not make inequality in the western world magically disappear.

This is what I mean by ascribing imbecility to me. To believe this I would have to be an idiot, and I didn’t say this but you assume I am an idiot because I hold different beliefs to you. This is a character flaw of collectivists and you need to get it sorted.

Remember: Your cause to secularise the Islamic world (I’m on your side there!) is not the ONLY topic related to women’s issues out there. And since you have not experienced what inequality really is, being a white middle class male living in a western society, I would be very cautious using the phrase real injustices.

I wouldn’t say that I have such a cause, but more importantly your statement that “you have not experienced what inequality really is” is the most presumptuous thing you have said so far, you know nothing about me and whilst I have suffered no serious oppressions, men are certainly more oppressed than women in modern western societies. You need to watch my video “men are more oppressed than women” for this proof.

Sincerely,
Mark

God or pilot?

ArgusEyes — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:40:37 GMT

Most of you should know about the plane that was "landed" in the Hudson river. There was a bird strike event where a flock of birds caned both engines, then the pilot made the decision to land the plane on the river. Everyone survived thanks to the pilot and there has been much said about his actions, but there has also been an annoying undercurrent of talk about "miracles" and "God". Case in point, check out the title of this BBC Piece

Pilot hailed for 'Hudson miracle'

Source: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7832439.stm

A miracle is an event that so surpasses natural powers as to be an act of the supernatural. What part of this surpasses all known natural laws? It was spectacular but perfectly possible to do. Also, ascribing this to god is to spit in the face of the pilot who did the work, the rescue workers and the collective human sophistication that creates such stable flying machines.

It's the same thing where people say "the miracle of birth". I don’t think anything qualifies more as a natural law.. Than reproduction. And to label such things as miracles is to take serious liberties with the English language.

If you’re going to protest then don’t misspell your sign

ArgusEyes — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:49:38 GMT

Don't you love that other guy grabbing the sign.. He's like, "Dude, get that shit out of here before someone takes a picture of it". Whoops.

Get real "Isreal". You too will soon be "exstinct".

Whatever that is.

Animals

ArgusEyes — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:32:48 GMT

We are still primitive apes.

In politics, does race trump gender?

ArgusEyes — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:21:41 GMT

From politico is a story called "In politics, does race trump gender?". The abstract of the story is essentially that Roland Burris has had an easy time getting into the U.S. senate whilst Caroline Kennedy has had such a hard time, is proof that race trumps gender.

How come Roland Burris has had such an easy time getting to the U.S. Senate while Caroline Kennedy has had such a hard time?

Could it be that the race card trumps the gender card in U.S. politics?

Well, yes. It could be.

Source: Roger Simon, Politico In politics, does race trump gender?

Of course, I don't know how anyone who at least casually observes the modern zeitgeist can not have come to this conclusion a long time ago. The feeling of Barack Obama as a black man far outweighed that for Hillary Clinton as a white woman. Race and gender have political civil rights movements which advocate for them. For blacks it doesn't have a colloquial name but for women it's feminism.

Feminism is generally given less shrift than black civil rights because anyone with the brain power of a plum can identify that the pandered middle class women of the mid 20th century who started the movement were about as oppressed as my big toe. The blacks had far more genuine and repressive acts committed against them in the past whereas the egregious oppression against women I can think of would be the denial of suffrage and even that does not compare to slavery or the enforcement of the lower status of your entire race. Also, blacks are a genuine minority whereas women are a literal majority whose supposed oppressions are actually benefits that raise them above men, such as chivalry.

People who commit anti-pc acts against blacks suffer far more repercussions than those who do so against women. I hope I shouldn't need to belabour this point. Would an anti-black version of Tom Leykis be allowed to exist in our modern cultures? There are examples on both side but I think that the outrage at anti-black comments (real or imagined) is far larger than for anti-women comments.

So blacks have more advocacies for them and you don't need to look at Roland Burris to realise this. The point that is not mentioned in this article is that both groups have a "victim card" over white males. We have so many victim groups that we can judge the degree to which cards they play can act over the other victim groups. Enough of this rubbish already!.

Oh, and if anyone needs more proof that race trumps gender, may I present my final and definitive evidence.

Proof by star trek bitch!
B.T.W. the guy at the beginning should be at the end if you want to consider it from the perspective of the chronological making of the T.V. series. Is this a portent for the men's movement?

The state of Mississippi fronts the next attack on evolution

ArgusEyes — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:36:51 GMT

I heard of this story via Pharyngula, the state of Mississippi is the latest front in the attack on evolution by taking up the previously tried (and failed) tactics of adding disclaimers to any textbook that includes the teaching of evolution. This is stated in House Bill 25 under section 1 to take effect after July 1, 2009. The bill itself states:

SECTION 1. The State Board of Education shall require every textbook that includes the teaching of evolution in its contents to include the following language on the inside front cover of the textbook: