Some People Don't Understand

[King Snarf]

Xodar, if women could vote in just "over half the states" that still means there were states they couldn't vote in, and that's not ok in a free society. Trying to spin it into a states rights issue perfectly illustrates why states rights aren't necessarily the ideal path to personal liberty that proponents of the concept like to claim. They can just as easily be an avenue to more localized majorities further marginalize groups that are minorities in a particular state, as can be seen in examples such as slavery, racial segregation, gay rights, reproductive rights, recent policies regarding immigrants in Arizona. Seriously, trying to say that whether or not people with certain genitalia and chromosome configuration should be disallowed certain rights until their state government says otherwise is more conducive to freedom than a constitutional mandate granting such rights across the country is logically unsound and doesn't communicate a great concern for equal rights.

Clearly the trend was likely to continue as it had for the previous 50+ years.
The intention of the divided government was for people to be able to relocate if they didn't like and the the state wouldn't change some law. The states were likely intended to be able to engage in economic measures against each other
Where will you go if you don't like a Federal law? You'd have to leave the entire country amd learn an entirely new culture, maybe language, and so on.
Government is an evil, if necessary, as you are all admitting. An overall government is even more evil.

... You mean like how THE SLAVES could run away to the North or Canada?

Seriously, Federal Law should ABSOLUTELY be used to ensure civil and equal rights. It should not be up to a popular vote or a state legislature to decide.

[daphne]

There is an obvious false equivalence being made between technosexuality and misogyny in the article. If I want a robot dog, does that mean I am objectifying real dogs, or that I can't be a loving pet owner, or that I'm somehow cruel to real animals?

This, a hundred times.

What the "other side" fails to realize about their arguments is that when you draw an equivalence between objectifying women and feminizing objects, that's also demeaning to women. It's saying that just because this object superficially looks like a human, it should be considered a person, which is at best incredibly shallow and at worst psychopathic. We have objects like this is real life already: statues, mannequins, Realdolls, etc. So should mannequins, for example, get equal pay for standing 16+ hours in a store? No, that's ridiculous. But that's the sort of absurdity this equivalency implies. It demeans the struggles of actual people and cheapens the arguments about human rights for the sake of making icky feelings about the way the world is changing go away. (This is practically the same argument for why the gay marriage debacle is equally ridiculous.)

[daphne]

Seriously, Federal Law should ABSOLUTELY be used to ensure civil and equal rights. It should not be up to a popular vote or a state legislature to decide.

This ALSO a hundred times. I've gone around and around with my conservative (and mostly Catholic) friends about this during the last election, in regards to gay marriage rights. Human rights are human rights. Humans get them, period. So what you're actually saying is either (a) that they're falsifiable by popular vote, in which case they are essentially useless and what the Hell are you holding them in such high regard for? or (b) that gays are not actually human beings, in which case LOLLERCOASTER, thx for the lulz Small Brained Backwards Tribal Cave Person.

In contrast, machines are actually not, for the moment, people, nor can they be even remotely proven as such. They do not get rights, and won't until they evolve to the point where we perceive and accept them as our equals in every manner. On the other hand, right-wingers are perfectly happy to declare that a clump of undifferentiated fetal cells or a multi-national corporation is a person, so maybe we'll be dealing with this issue sooner than we think.

[King Snarf]

Yeah, the whole "If you don't like it, then move" should be for things like "Gosh, I wish my property tax were lower" or "I'd prefer a less humid climate" and not "Man, I wish I could avoid persecution for being who and what I am."

[dale coba]

The intention of the divided government was for people to be able to relocate if they didn't like and the the state wouldn't change some law.

At best that was an option. It was hardly THE reason for divided government.

The states were likely intended to be able to engage in economic measures against each other

... except, Interstate Commerce clause, Article I, Section 8, clause 3; plus two centuries of interpretation by the Judiciary... so no, not "likely intended". For "likely intended" read "absolutely forbidden".

By whom, exactly, did you mean? Who "likely intended"?

It's not by the legitimate and semi-legitimate legal scholars - yes, such is said by the fringe media whom the Right-wing revisionist machine paid to pretend Jefferson and Washington were Evangelicals (Deists are the stripped-down opposite, one step removed from Agnostics).

Government is an evil, if necessary, as you are all admitting. An overall government is even more evil.

No, and no "if" - Government is necessary, and not inherently evil. Your over-reaches are clumsy today, in that I no way agree that an "overall" (federal) government is more evil than that of states like mine which conspire against non-Republicans, lying that I.D. solves an imaginary voter fraud issue, and tailoring a law to disenfranchise those groups who would vote their UNMITIGATED RACIST ASSHOLES out of office. (that's Republican elected State officials I'm damning to the lowest circle, no one here).

Only inside the FOX bubble are my above truths offensive untruths. You know, the bubble of cotton candy lies that so greatly clouds minds with what they want to hear, that Romney didn't prepare a concession speech. A bubble that willfully assumed that the white vote percentage wouldn't decline another two points this cycle, as it has steadily for decades. That stuff is the worse at distorting your world view than crack. Republicans could have had a solid majority in the Senate, but no one can tell them general election voters loathe their righter-than-right primary selections. They'd rather preserve their illusions than win.

Are a fading demographic of pale, old men going to kick their crack to the curb?
No, that would be a very new reality for such old dogs to force themselves to accept.

Mugwumps, Know-Nothings - these were major political parties that burned themselves to ash, scrambling to stir up enough hate to keep themselves in office. Now their names are only jokes out-of-context, and nothing beside them remains.

- Dale Coba

[King Snarf]

Only inside the FOX bubble are my above truths offensive untruths. You know, the bubble of cotton candy lies that so greatly clouds minds with what they want to hear, that Romney didn't prepare a concession speech. A bubble that willfully assumed that the white vote percentage wouldn't decline another two points this cycle, as it has steadily for decades. That stuff is the worse at distorting your world view than crack. Republicans could have had a solid majority in the Senate, but no one can tell them general election voters loathe their righter-than-right primary selections. They'd rather preserve their illusions than win.

Generally, I agree with you, though many of the Republican losses had more going on than male white privilege blindness; sometimes there was just general fuckwittery that made people see things clearly, like in the Joe Walsh v. Tammy Duckworth race. "Let's see, my opponent is a legitimate war hero who lost both legs in Iraq; I'll accuse her of whining any time she mentions her service record!"

[dale coba]

Oh yeah, in the House there were a bunch of Republicans who were more extreme than their districts. 2010 the tide came in, and it was a Republican flood - but that tide sloshes back and forth, those seats are the hardest to keep. Also, more accidental politicians in that movement - they can flame out easy.

But where did Walsh and his supporters learn to respect that method of uncivil discourse? At Talk Radio and FOX News they validate such behavior. Act like Bill, act like Rush, ape the authoritarians who pander to their putrefying ids. They lose their perspective, they believe that outsiders come election day will also revel in their same pathologies.

- Dale Coba

[King Snarf]

Oh yeah, in the House there were a bunch of Republicans who were more extreme than their districts. 2010 the tide came in, and it was a Republican flood - but that tide sloshes back and forth, those seats are the hardest to keep. Also, more accidental politicians in that movement - they can flame out easy.

Well, also remember that 2010 the Republicans were all "Jobs! Economy!" and then once they were in office they were "We can't worry about jobs now! We've got gay marriage and abortion to outlaw!"

But where did Walsh and his supporters learn to respect that method of uncivil discourse? At Talk Radio and FOX News they validate such behavior. Act like Bill, act like Rush, ape the authoritarians who pander to their putrefying ids. They lose their perspective, they believe that outsiders come election day will also revel in their same pathologies.

- Dale Coba

Well, the extreme journalists are starting to get theirs, because many are sick of them. Beck lost advertisers, and now he doesn't have a show on FOX. Rush lost a TON of advertisers, as well.

[barakuda]

Glenn Beck got denied Mickey ears by the creator of Epic Mickey the video game.

[King Snarf]

Glenn Beck got denied Mickey ears by the creator of Epic Mickey the video game.

HA! Choke on it, Beck!

[Miss Pris]

I shudder to bring us back on this topic, everyone's started to get along so well... but... "feminism" is a social critique that questions institutional and cultural patriarchy as something previously uninterrogated. It doesn't seek to elevate one sex or gender over any others, outlaw fembots, protest art of beautiful women (in fact a true feminist response to female nude painting would be Lucien Freud's explicit male nudes, not an end to female nudes), etc. The point of feminism is to question binaries, not kill everyone's good time (although no one can control how feminism gets used or what is done in its name...) From what I can tell, nearly all of the members of this community, male, female or otherwise, are feminists (in that we don't want to repeatedly rape, torture, and violate the human rights of a female body that is under our complete, legal control and whose life is ours to destroy and dispense with.) We should probably stop throwing the term "feminist" around like it's a curse. Many of the people in this community would not be a part of any community at all right now - they would be sitting in a dark room somewhere wondering what the hell was wrong with them, why they were so "sick" - if it wasn't for feminist critiques of "normative" sexuality. Feminists paved the way for open discussions of non-reproductive sex, longing, and desire (long before the postmodernists.) It's not feminism that many of you object to, it's the use that some people have made of it.

[dale coba]

Amen.

a) Feminism is a tool. It poses questions. UV fluorescence is useful because the light brings out a character we can't see while viewing with the one, "natural", common, unquestioned light.

b) Those questions are usually crucial, because they're among the hardest questions left to be asked - highest-hanging fruit yet to be picked.

A separate, useful analytical tool might be, "What would an extraterrestrial think about this?"
Answer: Justice is not consistently applied, and there are strong "gender" themes in the pattern.

- Dale Coba

[darkbutflashy]

May I add something to chill? Ridiciously on-topic!
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4510

[dale coba]

Even more ridiculously in echo of my light spectrum analogy


- Dale Coba

[darkbutflashy]

I have no doubt that storyline will lead nowhere, and that's the whole point of it.

[xodar]

I shudder to bring us back on this topic, everyone's started to get along so well... but... "feminism" is a social critique that questions institutional and cultural patriarchy as something previously uninterrogated. It doesn't seek to elevate one sex or gender over any others, outlaw fembots, protest art of beautiful women (in fact a true feminist response to female nude painting would be Lucien Freud's explicit male nudes, not an end to female nudes), etc. The point of feminism is to question binaries, not kill everyone's good time (although no one can control how feminism gets used or what is done in its name...) From what I can tell, nearly all of the members of this community, male, female or otherwise, are feminists (in that we don't want to repeatedly rape, torture, and violate the human rights of a female body that is under our complete, legal control and whose life is ours to destroy and dispense with.) We should probably stop throwing the term "feminist" around like it's a curse. Many of the people in this community would not be a part of any community at all right now - they would be sitting in a dark room somewhere wondering what the hell was wrong with them, why they were so "sick" - if it wasn't for feminist critiques of "normative" sexuality. Feminists paved the way for open discussions of non-reproductive sex, longing, and desire (long before the postmodernists.) It's not feminism that many of you object to, it's the use that some people have made of it.

Feminism is an institutionalized neurosis that attracts various type of neurotics and people -- lawyers, judges, social "scientists", alleged therapists, etc. -- who seek to profit by it and thus scads of others who see it as a way to popularity and fame, or at least acceptance. Acceptance by screaming in hate at others isn't constructive.
There is not and has never been a "Patriarchy". They never send me any information or orders because, like the Elders of Zion, they do not exist. Western women are not now nor have they ever been oppressed. Rather they are highly privileged, pampered, and coddled.
There have been laws and customs against various "sexualities" but most of those are being done away with. We may find those laws had a useful purpose besides encouraging rproduction, though I don't know what, in most cases, those purposes might be.

I'm surprised this topic gets so many responses. No doubt the development of increasingly realistic artificial sex partners would have been illegal or at least largely unacceptable not too long ago but it isn't now. Anyone who pays close attention to feminism will realize it would make sexbots illegal, especially for men, since its leaders claim that forcing teen and little girls to engage in sex with older females is "good rape", even the only legitimate sex.
I see sexbots as liberation from such oppression.
We should really be glad to be free and maintain freedom from oppressive groups, theories, beliefs.

[dale coba]

Women weren't permitted to vote before 1920.
Was that a Patriarchy?

Have you seen the assault on reproductive rights as conducted in the states by Republican legislatures in the last few years? Or don't you care?

You are underinformed, generalizing simplifications and venting unconstructively.
Your energy on his subject is too darn negative for this forum.
Take it back to talk radio, where it will be valued as fuel.

- Dale Coba

[King Snarf]

Feminism is an institutionalized neurosis that attracts various type of neurotics and people -- lawyers, judges, social "scientists", alleged therapists, etc. -- who seek to profit by it and thus scads of others who see it as a way to popularity and fame, or at least acceptance. Acceptance by screaming in hate at others isn't constructive.
There is not and has never been a "Patriarchy". They never send me any information or orders because, like the Elders of Zion, they do not exist. Western women are not now nor have they ever been oppressed. Rather they are highly privileged, pampered, and coddled.
There have been laws and customs against various "sexualities" but most of those are being done away with. We may find those laws had a useful purpose besides encouraging rproduction, though I don't know what, in most cases, those purposes might be.

I'm surprised this topic gets so many responses. No doubt the development of increasingly realistic artificial sex partners would have been illegal or at least largely unacceptable not too long ago but it isn't now. Anyone who pays close attention to feminism will realize it would make sexbots illegal, especially for men, since its leaders claim that forcing teen and little girls to engage in sex with older females is "good rape", even the only legitimate sex.
I see sexbots as liberation from such oppression.
We should really be glad to be free and maintain freedom from oppressive groups, theories, beliefs.

Right. Look at the ratio of men to women in Congress, and then tell me there's no patriarchy.

[Miss Pris]

"Patriarchy" does not mean there's an organization that's sending you orders. This is not a conspiracy. It's a word for the set of cultural beliefs and dualisms that frames men as good, rational, and correct and women as bad, irrational, and wrong. I am assuming from your post that you are not a woman and have not had to drag a wrong, inappropriate, and non -concealable body around with you for you life; I'm assuming that you've never been told that your spouse has the right to kill you; I'm assuming that everything that you've ever done in your life was not attributed back to your body or biology, or that you don't live in a constant Catch 22 where if you speak a feeling or opinion it is attributed to the irrational and emotional nature of the entire group that you've been told that you must belong to but if you keep silent that is attributed to the natural docility of your sex. I'm not implying that men have no ground to stand on in talking about these things, only that if you are a man, and you don't think patriarchy exists, that's only because it's invisible to you - you don't HAVE to feel it or experience it or see it. Women don't have that luxury. This is PAINFUL. It HURTS. Xodar, I'm sure you have something in your life that you can't escape from, something that makes you hurt. Can't you have a little bit of empathy for people who have to feel that everyday and can't hide from it because what marks them as different is literally written on their bodies? No one here is making the argument that most women in the West are not privileged; they're not starving or in the middle of a war zone - nearly everyone in N. America and Europe has it better than most in the world. But you're not starving to death either - does this make it invalid when someone hurts you? On a good day, encounters with the patriarchal expressions of Western culture feels like a hard slap in the face. On a bad day, it feels like a stab to the gut. Not every feminist is yelling at you. Some of us are asking you nicely to have some empathy and stop contributing to the stabbing.

[Miss Pris]

And what's more... as long as I'm talking here... I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I can relate this to my own position as someone not starving to death, and not in a war zone, and someone who is generally considered white (so I get to benefit from having the unmarked body here) - I think a lot of people get angry from being told all the time how guilty they ought to feel for having been born into a particular privileged place. For some people (not talking about anyone in particular, except perhaps Rush Limbaugh...) this anger gets turned outward into a campaign against the very people that have already had so much hurt thrust upon them, rather than feeling annoyance toward the people who insist we feel guilty instead of grateful for the privileges we have. It is especially upsetting if you yourself have never intentionally contributed to making others hurt in this way, and if you're always considerate of others. But it's important to recognize that most of the people with "marked" bodies - I'll speak of women specifically as this is my own experience, but there are many others - are only looking for consideration, not guilt. Most feminists don't live in lesbian communes seething with hatred over the existence of men. We're you mothers, your sisters, you're daughters, you girlfriends, or you're wives, and we actually love you. I'm grateful for the privileges that I have and the unmarked categories that I get to occupy, but I'm also grateful for my marked, female body; among its many benefits, it helps me understand others who are marked in different ways (including men who have to live under the pressures of expected masculinity.) It lets me understand the pain that creeps in with repeated encounters that make you feel less than human. All most feminists (or indeed, most people arguing for human and civil rights) want is to feel human, and to have women (and other marked bodies) recognized as human, with all the rights and privileges and dignities that this designation entails. And no, we don't always get that. Don't feel angry or guilty about it - just make sure you continue being aware and considerate.
(And I'm very aware of the irony that this argument about human right to dignity and freedom from pain is happening on a forum about feminized objects, a forum that includes people who want to be robots... )

[dale coba]

Miss Pris,

The largest value to be gained from his philosophy
- the world, or the world-as-it-should-be, is organized by simple principles.
(not true, no value to gain)

Xodar's big into anecdotes from his personal, bitter experiences.
Your analytical methods belong to unfriendly domains - new, added, more complex tools.

The topic you may nominally share; but there can be little agreement regarding evidence when the parties' spheres of {the-means-of-knowledge} barely intersect.

- Dale Coba

[KingJeremy]

I enjoyed reading Priss's posts here. I think they are a great example of what "true" feminism is about, at least what I've read/heard true feminism is about. Unfortunately, these views and principles are aren't edgy and controversial, they are well thought out and make sense so we don't see this side represented, we have to look deeper in most cases. The side that Xodar rails so hard against is what is usually represented in media and that makes some people angry and bitter and not at the proper people as Priss mentioned but at anyone who wears the tag or agrees with feminism on any level. I've dated women who identify as feminist and they all were wonderful women who held up ideals very similar to what Priss wrote about, they didn't hate me because I was born with a penis nor did they attempt to make me feel it was wrong to embrace my masculinity, on the contrary actually. Viewing people as equal regardless of sex, race, creed etc is what Is what I understand when I think of "true" feminism and feminists and they do exist and they don't expect you to be any less of a man. I'd also like to add that these self identifying feminists I have dated, all 3 of them not only participated in fembot roleplay but actually enjoyed doing so, one going so far as to say that she initiated it with a future lover because she enjoyed it so much.

[WilloWisp]

Miss Pris,

The largest value to be gained from his philosophy
- the world, or the world-as-it-should-be, is organized by simple principles.
(not true, no value to gain)

Xodar's big into anecdotes from his personal, bitter experiences.
Your analytical methods belong to unfriendly domains - new, added, more complex tools.

The topic you may nominally share; but there can be little agreement regarding evidence when the parties' spheres of {the-means-of-knowledge} barely intersect.

- Dale Coba

Short version: Someone who argues primarily using emotion won't be convinced by reason.

Shorter version: Feelings don't listen to logic.

[darkbutflashy]

Sweets?

[darkbutflashy]

... is an institutionalized neurosis...

Oh my, which topic in the media isn't? Once something is crushed through that grinder you can't make out what it was originally made of. BUT you fell for it the same way gullible women think media show them what "feminism" was: that it's exploitation of men and getting away with it. That's what any woman talking about feminism is confronted with: her well-grounded arguments won't be noticed or even discarded because there are too many astroturfers on the same topic.

I think that's what you sense as "neurosis". Be assured that's not a feature of feminism. It's a feature of media and you too fell for it.