My god, but the stupid is past burning...
May. 26th, 2010 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI am going to assume you are all sitting down for this.
I am going to assume you have neither liquids in your mouth, nor delicate objects near to hand.
Because I have, I think, encountered one of the most incomprehensible arguments of Libertarian MRA... nonsense is too generous. Words fail me.
First... realise that Roissy thinks this thing was a good observation on male female relationships.
Second, and this is the part which is hard to fathom... this guy is arguing that... no, I can't sum up; it would take too long. I'll have to quote him.
Rape is equality
It's not hyperbole. It's not poorly phrased (thought, expressed, whatever rationalisation you might like to get around the bald-faced horror of that concept) he defends it in comments.
His thesis is that men have money, power, social leverage, etc, and women are taking it away from them, so; to balance the books, and establish a truly equal footing men need to take something from women. That would be sex. If you take away men's resources and status in the interest of "equality" then we need to introduce sexual coercion to reestablish sexual fairness, if not equality, and, "Rape is making the best of a bad job and men know this instinctively. And it does not take an awful lot of men with my mindset to make life as unpleasant for women as it is for men. Think about it -- do you women really want equality? If you you aren't willing to put up with men demanding the equal right to have sex anytime we want just as women can, then doing things such as forcibly dissolving Norwegian companies who don't have at least 40% women in the boardrooms and other affirmative action is probably a bad move.
The buried ideas in that are croggling. When you read further, in the comment you see that women have gotten what equality they have not because it is just, but because they have stolen it (by force... he's a Libertarian, so the gov't passing a law which prevents discrimination is a taking, a la Rand Paul. There is a whole lot of evil in that.
When you parse out his thoughts, they boil down to women aren't really people.
For every female beneficiary of affirmative action there is, by definition, a male victim. I am not just speaking for myself. , I think he's trying to say women aren't actually capable of being competent at anything, esp. when I see, "still you are saying that it is more OK for a man to be forcibly stripped of his money, status and power in the name of "equality," because he doesn't really "own" it, while a woman's assets -- her body -- is inviolable because she owns it. So you are saying that a man cannot even in principle own anything valuable and inviolable that the opposite sex wants. I am arguing that those assets are morally equal and that if it is OK use affirmative action to redistribute male assets to women, even if men have earned these assets though superior motivation and harder work because we desperately need them to attract a mate, and probably because of superior ability on average in many profitable fields, then it is also OK for men to forcibly take what we want from women, which is sex. ."
Note the weasel words, "probably because of superior ability on average." The mind boggles. The thing in there which is so sad is the idea that the only thing women want is material goods.
Hogwash. I have never been rich. I have never been more than tolerably comfortable. This has not kept me from having a fair number of women find me interesting, and sexually desirable. I have even (shock of shocks) been able to have a moderate amount of romantic, and some purely libidinous, success with women I was interested in. Not having to put up with, "some Alpha's cast-offs" as Roissy and Berge seem to think ought to be my light (I'm no Cary Grant, no Brad Pitt and no Donald Trump. I am not an asshole to other men, nor a jerk to women. By the model they have I am supposed to be teaching myself to enjoy enforced abstinence as a way of life, so I can stop suffering the, "pangs of dispris'd love. If this my life has been so abstinent as all that, I'll be happy to live in the monastery).
What really irritates me (the equality = men are losing out so women need to be raped thing doesn't irritate me. It makes me both angry, and pitiful. Angry that this little twit can be seriously arguing it [even as a gedanken experiment and pitiful that he is so pathetic in his failures) is that he can believe this would somehow make things equal. He doesn't really seem to think it would make things better.
Which means he doesn't think women should be equal. Since he is a libertarian, and so thinks all people should be allowed to do what they will, and holds that women aren't entitled to equality (at least not in a world worth living in) it must therefore follow that he doesn't really think women are people.
Which is, actually, so blindingly obvious from the get go that I wonder at my being upset enough to waste all your time pointing it out.
But, to close, lets posit a little thought experiment of our own... would Eivind Berge be willing to have been born a women, in the present age where they are, by his lights, in the catbird seat; they have "forced" equality economically, and situational superiority sexually/emotionally.
Anyone want to take the bet he wants to be a woman? I'd even be willing to offer odds.
I am going to assume you have neither liquids in your mouth, nor delicate objects near to hand.
Because I have, I think, encountered one of the most incomprehensible arguments of Libertarian MRA... nonsense is too generous. Words fail me.
First... realise that Roissy thinks this thing was a good observation on male female relationships.
Second, and this is the part which is hard to fathom... this guy is arguing that... no, I can't sum up; it would take too long. I'll have to quote him.
Rape is equality
It's not hyperbole. It's not poorly phrased (thought, expressed, whatever rationalisation you might like to get around the bald-faced horror of that concept) he defends it in comments.
His thesis is that men have money, power, social leverage, etc, and women are taking it away from them, so; to balance the books, and establish a truly equal footing men need to take something from women. That would be sex. If you take away men's resources and status in the interest of "equality" then we need to introduce sexual coercion to reestablish sexual fairness, if not equality, and, "Rape is making the best of a bad job and men know this instinctively. And it does not take an awful lot of men with my mindset to make life as unpleasant for women as it is for men. Think about it -- do you women really want equality? If you you aren't willing to put up with men demanding the equal right to have sex anytime we want just as women can, then doing things such as forcibly dissolving Norwegian companies who don't have at least 40% women in the boardrooms and other affirmative action is probably a bad move.
The buried ideas in that are croggling. When you read further, in the comment you see that women have gotten what equality they have not because it is just, but because they have stolen it (by force... he's a Libertarian, so the gov't passing a law which prevents discrimination is a taking, a la Rand Paul. There is a whole lot of evil in that.
When you parse out his thoughts, they boil down to women aren't really people.
For every female beneficiary of affirmative action there is, by definition, a male victim. I am not just speaking for myself. , I think he's trying to say women aren't actually capable of being competent at anything, esp. when I see, "still you are saying that it is more OK for a man to be forcibly stripped of his money, status and power in the name of "equality," because he doesn't really "own" it, while a woman's assets -- her body -- is inviolable because she owns it. So you are saying that a man cannot even in principle own anything valuable and inviolable that the opposite sex wants. I am arguing that those assets are morally equal and that if it is OK use affirmative action to redistribute male assets to women, even if men have earned these assets though superior motivation and harder work because we desperately need them to attract a mate, and probably because of superior ability on average in many profitable fields, then it is also OK for men to forcibly take what we want from women, which is sex. ."
Note the weasel words, "probably because of superior ability on average." The mind boggles. The thing in there which is so sad is the idea that the only thing women want is material goods.
Hogwash. I have never been rich. I have never been more than tolerably comfortable. This has not kept me from having a fair number of women find me interesting, and sexually desirable. I have even (shock of shocks) been able to have a moderate amount of romantic, and some purely libidinous, success with women I was interested in. Not having to put up with, "some Alpha's cast-offs" as Roissy and Berge seem to think ought to be my light (I'm no Cary Grant, no Brad Pitt and no Donald Trump. I am not an asshole to other men, nor a jerk to women. By the model they have I am supposed to be teaching myself to enjoy enforced abstinence as a way of life, so I can stop suffering the, "pangs of dispris'd love. If this my life has been so abstinent as all that, I'll be happy to live in the monastery).
What really irritates me (the equality = men are losing out so women need to be raped thing doesn't irritate me. It makes me both angry, and pitiful. Angry that this little twit can be seriously arguing it [even as a gedanken experiment and pitiful that he is so pathetic in his failures) is that he can believe this would somehow make things equal. He doesn't really seem to think it would make things better.
Which means he doesn't think women should be equal. Since he is a libertarian, and so thinks all people should be allowed to do what they will, and holds that women aren't entitled to equality (at least not in a world worth living in) it must therefore follow that he doesn't really think women are people.
Which is, actually, so blindingly obvious from the get go that I wonder at my being upset enough to waste all your time pointing it out.
But, to close, lets posit a little thought experiment of our own... would Eivind Berge be willing to have been born a women, in the present age where they are, by his lights, in the catbird seat; they have "forced" equality economically, and situational superiority sexually/emotionally.
Anyone want to take the bet he wants to be a woman? I'd even be willing to offer odds.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 08:19 am (UTC)Sorry you don't like my tone, but you seem to have confused me with an actual Libertarian. I am a former Libertarian, and I am not disagreeing that there are large numbers of racist and sexist people in the Libertarian Party. Where we disagree is over the notion that one crazy Libertarian in Norway who has written a post encouraging rape is typical of the entire LP.
I agree with you that Libertarianism is wrong philosophically and ethically; I don't think it's appropriate to say that all Libertarians are actively racist and sexist any more than I think that it's appropriate to say that about any other large group of people. I don't agree with you that most people who get over sexism and racism tend to be to the left to start out, but I do agree with you that they tend to eventually end up there. As I did. (Not to imply that my work on myself is done, either.) I certainly don't disagree with you that the majority of well-meaning, non-misanthropic Libertarians are naive and/or misinformed. I don't know Kennita at all well, and in fact didn't know her real name until recently, having met her through fandom, but I pegged her as naive pretty early in my limited acquaintance with her.
I think people join parties because of beliefs they already hold, and that being in a party doesn't change them much. One of two things tends to happen: either they find that they agree with the people in the party they're in, and their beliefs may get more entrenched, or they find that they don't agree with the people in the party they're in, or they change their minds about things, and they leave and find another party.
I certainly agree with you that the Libertarian party is not a force for good in the world--which is why I'm no longer a member thereof.
Well, I have not noticed a shortage of female Libertarians. Nonwhite Libertarians are rarer because to be a Libertarian you really have to be kind of blind to the effects of privilege in a way that is difficult if you're black, Kennita Watson notwithstanding. Most of the nonwhite Libertarians I've met have been Asian-American.
I doubt that there are any Libertarians whom you (or I) would consider an actual champion of liberty and equality, but that's because they have a different understanding of "liberty" than you do and they tend not to understand privilege at all, not because they all hate women or non-whites. That doesn't mean that they all want women to live in terror of rape, even though this misogynist asshat does.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 09:56 am (UTC)I think that Libertarians in general are racist and sexist. I don't think they advocate rape as a form of manufacturing equality. Obviously this guy's a kook and I doubt most Libertarians are overly-eager to embrace him as the party's poster child (even if he was American and not Norwegian). I don't believe I said anything to that effect anywhere. Saying a group of people demonstrate sexism in how they vote is quite a bit different than saying a rape advocate represents Libertarianism. Also, I was not in any way saying that all Libertarians hate women or non-whites. I know a great many people who are, or love, women and who vote for sexist laws, or who are or have nothing personal against non-whites but who still vote for racist laws because they don't understand how institutionalized racism works. These people are from all political parties, not just the conservative ones.
It seems to me that you and I are in agreement about just about everything, so I am wondering why you are finding ways to say "I don't agree about ..." when I never said those things in the first place. Did my words offend you in some fashion? Do you think I am casting judgment on you because you used to be Libertarian? I am not trying to be snide here; I used to be the queen of insulting people unintentionally and am trying to learn how to speak my mind without giving undue offense. It's entirely possible that I am casting judgment on you and simply not realizing it - I am still learning about my own beliefs about privilege and I do have some prejudices against conservatives that I am working to modulate or eradicate. In short, I am trying to respect you.