"if It Wasn't For All The Fucking Women.."

[silentknight]

It may be my bias here, but I think Birthers and other extreme right wingers are the ones that don't look at the big picture. The "Big picture" for them is "what makes the most sense for my own personal pocket book and status as a white religious male"

 

This may indeed be happening in places. But in my conversations with biologists, the consideration has arisen that perhaps all organisms view themselves as being at the center of the universe.

 

Oh, definitely. We can't experience anything outside our own mind. It's a result of our methods of sensing that we see ourselves as the center of the universe.

 

I don't think true altruism exists. Everything takes it's own self interest first, and even when we're doing "good" things we get some gain from it. such as status or even a feeling of being a "good" person. Animals even more clearly behave the same way. My cat "loves" me, because I give her everything she needs.

 

What some people don't seem to realize is that "self interest" isn't only material goods. Wanting to keep society in order or make the world a better place ultimately leads to interest in having oneself or one's descendants live a better life.

 

My point above was that we can take a wide view, in which we try to include as many others in "better world" we want, or we can be selfish and think only for our own material gain. A lot of people think this way. They think "Captialism" gives them the right to only care for themselves, and they believe everyone else should do the same, and that it will "balance" if everyone does. But if you think about it objectively, it's obvious that those who start with and advantage (more money or status) will more easily succeed. It's true that an underdog will succeed on occasion due to tenacity and good ideas, but the deck is stacked against them.

 

I grew up poor. My father died when I was very young, and for a long time I was raised by a single mother. I know what it's like to be poor. I'm at a better place now... I went to college based on student loans and grants, and I've managed to get a decent paying job. I'm in huge debt because of this, but my daily life is comfortable. I both know what it's like to be poor, and what it's like to be middle class. Poor people are not poor due to a laziness. Some of the poorest people I know worked multiple jobs, they just didn't have skills to get better jobs.

 

I got lucky. I don't doubt that part of that "luck" is being a white male. Even though I grew up poor, older white males are more willing to give me a chance than someone born a woman, or black, or hispanic, etc. I don't want a world where I'm privileged now, and others suffer. I want a world that gives opportunities to others so they can get a better life too. But I'm not saying I'm altruistic, or some kind of paragon. this world benefits me too. If I come against hard times, etc.

 

While in politics neither side perfectly meets my goals in this area, from what I've seen the democratic party is closer.

[Akheia]

Can we put down the armaments and accusations? Pretty please?

 

I was once on a job site doing some work. And I opened a door into a room to pass through it which had many women in it. And they were all women. Well, as I opened the door I apparently stepped into a conversation which was in progress. A woman was saying, "too many men." And her tone seemed disgusted in some manner.

 

I was also once speaking with a woman with whom I had become friends. And she told me that she has spoken with women who think that "the solution" (whatever that means) is to rid the world of men.

 

Those are simply facts of my experience. But my point here is... have we not had enough yet of the battle of the sexes?

 

When men stop trying to legislate my uterus, when a male-dominated Congress isn't even questioning the need for a Violence Against Women Act's renewal, when men pay me the same amount they get for the same work, when I am equally represented in my government and in big business, when I am free to vote, drive, fuck, and love in the manner that suits me best all over the world, when my refusal to fuck a man doesn't give him implicit permission to harm me or mutilate me, when my metaphorical daughters can grow up in a world that doesn't try to sexualize them from preschool on, when old white guys aren't sitting around actively contemplating how wonderful the world would be if I had no say whatsoever in the laws that will affect my very life, then yes, I'll agree that it's time to put down my weapon (that being: my words; I advocate only peaceful resolutions).

[Stamps1962]

I read somewhere that some polling organizations have a factor they take into account when guessing at voting results; it's that the majority of all white males and the vast majority of white males over 40 ALWAYS vote Republican. It doesn't matter what the issues are, whom the candidates are, what they tell their wives and families or the pollster that's what they do in the voting booth. If that demographic ran the country we'd be a fascist state.

 

If it helps, all the white males I'm friends with (which means, none from my wife's church) are voting democrat. This is the 25-35 range.

 

That's great- especially since it looks like you live in a swing state. I do think there is hope for the future. Sadly, a lot of old farts are going to have to die off before we can get there.

[Legion]

I seem to increasingly find myself employing a jungle metaphor of life on Earth. I suppose I could also use a garden metaphor, though this would likely conjur different connotations. In any case, different people likely attach different meanings to the idea of a jungle. Perhaps some have ominous and foreboding thoughts of death waiting in various forms around every corner. I think this highlights the competitive aspects of jungle life. These thoughts are with me too, but also very prominently there are thoughts of cooperation and symbiosis.

 

Indeed, we humans are eukaryotic organisms, meaning that we have distinct organelles within our cells. Among these are mitochondria, which are widely believed in biology to have once been free-living organisms and that during the course of terrestrial evolution were brought within our cells in a symbiotic embrace.

 

Anyway, I know many men, and no two of them are the same. They are each individuals. And the same is true of the women I know.

 

I've come to realize many things about the experience of life, and one thing stands out most clearly. Life is complex. It increasingly seems to me that every moment of it is filled with paradox and self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

I greatly admire Cesar Milan, perhaps better known as the dog whisperer. And here too, in my mind, self-fulfilling prophecy is paramount. He seems to repeatedly stress the idea that if we approach a dog in fear and apprehension, then it is more likely that our fears will be realized.

 

Does anyone out there feel me on this?

[silentknight]

I understand and I agree, but i don't like the term prophecy for it. That lends it a mystic voodoo quality, but it's not. It's little factors about how one thinks or behaves that effects the outcome of one's life. The decisions one makes out of fear, or the non-verbal cues one gives off.

[Legion]

I understand and I agree, but i don't like the term prophecy for it. That lends it a mystic voodoo quality, but it's not.

 

I see. Yeah, in the biology I've studied with others, we use term complexity and intend it in a technical sense. But the formal (mathematical) analog is called impredicativity.

 

It's little factors about how one thinks or behaves that effects the outcome of one's life.

 

Yeah, I agree. I think everything is connected, and behavior is the nexus of many things.

[Vigile]

 

 

When men stop trying to legislate my uterus, when a male-dominated Congress isn't even questioning the need for a Violence Against Women Act's renewal, when men pay me the same amount they get for the same work, when I am equally represented in my government and in big business, when I am free to vote, drive, fuck, and love in the manner that suits me best all over the world, when my refusal to fuck a man doesn't give him implicit permission to harm me or mutilate me, when my metaphorical daughters can grow up in a world that doesn't try to sexualize them from preschool on, when old white guys aren't sitting around actively contemplating how wonderful the world would be if I had no say whatsoever in the laws that will affect my very life, then yes, I'll agree that it's time to put down my weapon (that being: my words; I advocate only peaceful resolutions).

 

 

[Akheia]

LOL!

[lunaticheathen]

Did anyone on this thread say get rid of all men? NO.

 

I only heard STOP PRETENDING YOU RULE OUR BODIES AND MINDS. If that's not you, I'm not speaking to you. If it is, you're fucked.

 

Are you fucked?

[mwc]

'that stupid abortion thing'. My dealer friend said that Obama would be a goner if 'it wasn't for all the fucking women.'

He makes a point. I doubt the abortion thing is as big an issue among the abstinent spinster women. Fucking women clearly choose Obama.

 

mwc

[Legion]

Well, I know when I'm beat, and I'm beat.

 

I imagine that there are many kinds of ex-C's, but it seems to me that this particular gathering of them is dominated by those whose religion is Leftism. I'm not seeing compassionate, intelligent folk here. I'm seeing nasty irrational people, and it makes no sense to me to try and do anything with it.

 

Ta ta, take care.

[silentknight]

Well, I know when I'm beat, and I'm beat.

 

I imagine that there are many kinds of ex-C's, but it seems to me that this particular gathering of them is dominated by those whose religion is Leftism. I'm not seeing compassionate, intelligent folk here. I'm seeing nasty irrational people, and it makes no sense to me to try and do anything with it.

 

Ta ta, take care.

 

I'm sorry you see it that way. I try to be a very compassionate person, and I try to view all sides of a picture in any situation. Please, try to understand our viewpoints, while sometimes inelegantly displayed, are often motivated by wanting the best for all people.

[Galien]

Well, I know when I'm beat, and I'm beat.

 

I imagine that there are many kinds of ex-C's, but it seems to me that this particular gathering of them is dominated by those whose religion is Leftism. I'm not seeing compassionate, intelligent folk here. I'm seeing nasty irrational people, and it makes no sense to me to try and do anything with it.

 

Ta ta, take care.

 

Really Legion? Because I don't see a lot of intelligence or compassion in Rightists. They seem to care only for themselves.

[lunaticheathen]

Because wanting to have rule over my own body is a leftist religion?

 

Kiss my ass Legion. I will never back down from misogynism, and if that makes me "not compassionate", fucking bite me.

[Legion]

It seems we have parted ways then LH. I've enjoyed knowing you. I hope your move was successful, and things are going well for you there.

 

Now I'm off to find some more companions if I may. Perhaps there are other avid bio-mathematical libertarians out there.

 

I value the time I've had here at ex-C. I wish each of you the best.

[CelticWhisper]

Was in a co-worker's office yesterday when they were talking about hiring new warehouse staff. The conversation turned to how astounding it was that one particular female employee was seen handling all kinds of different warehouse tasks, including operating various equipment and all kinds of other warehouse-related stuff that as an IT manager I'm not terribly familiar with. I thought "What's the big deal? Some people know warehouse stuff. Why do they think that gender ever matters?" Then I realized that they never considered the possibility that human capability and ambition does not know, and has never known, gender boundaries.

 

For what it's worth, I've wanted an absolute end to the "gender war" for as long as I can remember. The whole thing sucks. Seeing female people, half the entire human goddamn species, deprived of opportunity or, more gravely, bodily sovereignty, is disgusting. Seeing all male people, the other half of the entire goddamn human species, all villified for it wholesale is also disgusting.

 

In my eyes, the problem, especially with regard to the current reproductive-freedom debate (which shouldn't even be a fucking debate) isn't female people or male people - it's people in power who want more power, or who don't want to lose what power they have. Seriously, "A person owns their own body in full, 100%. Nobody owns even a minority share in their body, and that person doesn't own even the slightest bit of anyone else's body" is not a hard concept to comprehend. It shocks me that more right-wingers - Libertarians and the like - who are so concerned with protecting their property don't see how a person's body is the ultimate personal property. Doesn't stop at abortion and reproductive freedom either, for that matter. Capital punishment, euthanasia, these are also matters of bodily sovereignty. The body is the property of the person inhabiting it. Full stop.

 

I've always been staunchly pro-choice. Some pro-choicers have said I'm too pro-choice, because I uncompromisingly support late-term abortions as well. Late-term as in "day before the due date" abortion, because to me the pregnancy is still a process occurring in the pregnant person's body and so it's still their call. Bodily sovereignty and all that. But anyway, I'm not here to debate the finer points of the progression of pregnancy when, to me, it's a matter of individual liberty.

 

I do wish there were an easier way for me to express my position without falling victim to the current with-us-or-against-us, all-or-nothing mindset I'm seeing in the political arena. I hate that the inroads being made in securing reproductive freedom are also intensifying the gender war. I finally had to remove Planned Parenthood's updates from my Facebook feed because, while the official posts were not terribly adversarial, the tone of a lot of the comments was. "Women are watching." Yes. GOOD. But I'm watching too, god dammit. That's their current catchphrase and while I feel it could be more inclusive, I'm sure they have all kinds of marketing specialists who settled on it so that's a done deal. But then there were the comments "The problem is MEN! (87 likes)." No. WRONG. The problem is individual people who vote, donate, bribe, lie, cheat, and steal their way to violating the rights of people who have the perfectly reasonable desire to not carry a pregnancy. Some of them are men-- I mean, male people. Not all authoritarian fuckwits are male people (see Jan Brewer on this issue or Sheila Jackson-Lee on TSA) and not all male people are authoritarian fuckwits. I'm on PP's side but these comments make it really hard to be such. It feels like "Thanks for standing with us. Fuck you for having a Y chromosome. Now help us fight our next battle."

 

They're not all like that. I've had very decent, very enlightening conversations with a lot of the PPeople and just as there's no guaranteed formula for what makes an anti-choicer, there's no guaranteed formula for what makes a PP supporter. I get that the reason for the anger and adversarial tendencies is because Republicans did start it. I suppose it's more that they never stopped it since Roe v. Wade was settled. I get that it's a defensive response and I really, really want to see anti-choicers suffer a complete, utter, and eternal crushing defeat on this front. I want to see them trounced so badly that their descendants are humiliated for generations. (lack-of-a-)God, I think I'd go to abortion clinics just to taunt the christian protestors with the legal victory if (when) it happens. I want Planned Parenthood to win. I want religious employers forced kicking and screaming to pay, IN FULL, for birth control. I want pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraceptive medication to be fired and barred from ever working as pharmacists for the rest of their lives. I want private religious colleges to have their arms twisted into offering free condoms (and, fuck it, even Plan at their campus health centers. Anything that empowers the individual against group coercion is good, good, good.

 

I just wish I could express that to some of the people on my side in a way that says "I'm not fighting this fight the same way as you. I'm not willing to villify half the human race. I'm not willing to escalate gender hostility in the name of individual liberty and bodily sovereignty, and NO, I do NOT think it has to be one or the other. But I'm still fighting this fight and I still stand with you."

 

I wish we could just fucking erase gender already. Someone else already said it - no two male people are alike, no two female people are alike. It's because no two people are alike, and gender is just another characteristic like hair color, height and weight, skin tone, or how one best prefers to rock the fuck out to their death metal collection. I dream of the day when gender is seen as something so incidental and inconsequential as, say, eye color.

 

But that's me. Maybe I'm crazy for wanting it all, but I do.

[Akheia]

That was breathtakingly and beautifully said.

 

And more and more of us are starting to question the dogma that the right has been force-feeding society for decades. You know, if you feel strongly about visiting clinics to offer support, I heard some years ago that some clinics are welcoming such assistance to physically assist women in getting past the hordes of shrieking antis. Don't know if they're still doing it, but I think it's important for sympathetic men to get involved however they can. I suspect what you see as the problem--that many women see men as the automatic Other, the automatic Enemy--is that way just because women don't see enough men walking beside them. I'm grateful for the many people who have written encouraging and supportive words on this site--it'd be impossible for me to have that viewpoint here.

[silentknight]

Totally agreed, CelticWhisper.

 

I'd like to add that too many people worry about what everyone else is doing. Letting someone else live their life freely doesn't mean you agree with everything they do. The religious tend to think that if they allow people to do something they wouldn't, that somehow reflects on them. Live and let live.

[raoul]

It seems we have parted ways then LH. I've enjoyed knowing you. I hope your move was successful, and things are going well for you there.

 

Now I'm off to find some more companions if I may. Perhaps there are other avid bio-mathematical libertarians out there.

 

I value the time I've had here at ex-C. I wish each of you the best.

Gosh...sigh.... You are SSSOOO profound....at least in your own mind.... LOL

Seriously though, assuming I can keep from laughing, every time you try to impress people with some esoteric nonsense my bullshit meter goes off the scale and I gotta go out and buy another one...

 

Oh, almost forgot - I see you're slamming those evil lefties again.. Well my false facade friend, if it weren't for those lefties we wouldn't have gotten most of the freedoms we have which, by the way, seem to be constantly attacked by your adoring right winging loonie tunes... Now fly away...fly away....LOL

[raoul]

May I be so bold as to try and bury this fucking topic? Thanks.. Well here goes:

 

In both the private and public sectors I've had an equal amount of male and female bosses. Guess which group had the biggest balls? (sorry for the sexist sounding description but it's done to make a point).

 

That's right - the women. They were leaders in EVERY sense of the word. The men? Most of them excluding the very first one I had in the private sector were what I call 'ball-less wonders'. They played the office politics to such a degree that people like me couldn't stand even looking at them at times, especially during their performances like trained monkeys in front of higher ups.

 

The women, on the other hand, while respectful to authority, didn't bow down to it.

 

And guess which gender helped me the most in my career ladders in both private and public sectors? That's right - the women.

Guess who stabbed me in the back ALL of the time when given the chance? Yep, many of the males.

 

Now perhaps this isn't germaine to the topic however, at least for me, it shows whom I admire and respect the most. And besides all of this, I believe it's the male species that started or will start MOST of the needless wars and bloodshed.

 

Perhaps that's why I go batshit whenever I see a male try and make up the rules for the other species which, to me, is the actual superior one.

[CelticWhisper]

Male people and female people are not different species. Nor is one superior or inferior to the other. That's the whole point of equality - we're all human beings and our strengths and flaws vary on an individual level. And so it is individuals whose rights must be equalized and maximized.

 

The women you worked with were good people with strong wills and strong senses of professional ethics. I would argue that they, as individuals, were model human beings and that you were fortunate to work with, around, and for them. Those who betrayed you were assholes who I can only hope got their just desserts and are worse off for it.

 

I'm not saying your experiences aren't what they were and certainly not trying to start an argument. I just believe that it's important to look past generalizable characteristics and see the unique person in possession of them.

[silentknight]

Exactly. Giving an entire sex credit for the good actions of individuals is the same as blaming an entire sex for the actions of individuals. Most people won't complain about you complementing their sex, but technically its just as prejudice. Weigh the individual in their actions alone for true equality. Anything else is sexist.

[crossroads]

Because wanting to have rule over my own body is a leftist religion?

 

Kiss my ass Legion. I will never back down from misogynism, and if that makes me "not compassionate", fucking bite me.

 

I'm a newbie, but even as a lurker, I've read enough of Legion to want to kiss you for saying this! I haven't even been able to go back to the abortion thread because reading his thoughts on it makes my stomach hurt every time. Legion, you can dress up your misogyny in all the pretty, polite words you want, you can pretend to be oh so very stressed out about the ethical pseudo dilemma that is abortion, but guess what - misogyny is misogyny, period. If you can muster up more for concern for a zygote than a woman - or even EQUAL FUCKING CONCERN - you're a misogynist.

 

That said, hello everyone!

[Ro-bear]

May I be so bold as to try and bury this fucking topic? Thanks.. Well here goes:

 

In both the private and public sectors I've had an equal amount of male and female bosses. Guess which group had the biggest balls? (sorry for the sexist sounding description but it's done to make a point).

 

That's right - the women. They were leaders in EVERY sense of the word. The men? Most of them excluding the very first one I had in the private sector were what I call 'ball-less wonders'. They played the office politics to such a degree that people like me couldn't stand even looking at them at times, especially during their performances like trained monkeys in front of higher ups.

 

The women, on the other hand, while respectful to authority, didn't bow down to it.

 

And guess which gender helped me the most in my career ladders in both private and public sectors? That's right - the women.

Guess who stabbed me in the back ALL of the time when given the chance? Yep, many of the males.

 

Now perhaps this isn't germaine to the topic however, at least for me, it shows whom I admire and respect the most. And besides all of this, I believe it's the male species that started or will start MOST of the needless wars and bloodshed.

 

Perhaps that's why I go batshit whenever I see a male try and make up the rules for the other species which, to me, is the actual superior one.

 

You know that whip-cracking ap on Big Bang Theory that Sheldon uses to annoy Wolowitz? The one that implies he is pussy-whipped? I wish we had one of those here. Even though I sorta agree with you, I'd totally use it on you right now. 'Cause I'm a guy.

[lunaticheathen]

I also wish the gender war would end, and have no wish to perpetuate it. I have met females that also urge me to submit my body to the state/men, and they get just as big of a "fuck you very much" from me.

 

Basically, with abortion, if the tissue is not in YOUR uterus, and/or you're not the (honest) doctor in front of said woman, IT'S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING SAY. I won't listen to you. Your opinion means less than shit. At least shit makes plants grow.

 

So, yes, my reaction to old men not in the medical field going on about "fucking women" having concern over their own say in their bodies is basically "SHUT UP AND DIE ALREADY!" I can't see how what they say matters. Maybe that's callus, but I don't get in their faces about the dangers of viagra and how their insurance shouldn't cover it, they should just live without boners. And it's not like getting a boner is even a FRACTION of the life-changer that a PREGNANCY is.

 

Face it, men simply don't have a biological equal to pregnancy, and some idiots (of either sex) think it's fair to regulate it? Bitches, please.