7thsfsniper

I absolutely agree with you. What do you think the division will be in Europe(racial, religious, economic) and do you really think it will take that long for it to start? I might say you are correct here only because it seems many people today are slow to take action and don't have the commitment of yesterday. On the other hand, there are certainly record setting tensions, rising daily. How long CAN one not act?

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7thsfsniper

Welcome to the thread BIGFELLA. Go easy on me, I'm still looking up most of the stuff from last we met. I'd be intersted to hear your take on my last quote of DALEM.

Dreadnought

Now if only the younger generations would see it that way we just might get some place.

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Adux

Rj1,

As a country which has tried out the mixed economy and centeralzation, it was a resounding failure, we kept on it for 40 years.

Bigfella

Well, you have two choices here.

1) Force people to live in unhappy marriages 'for the sake of the children' (seen it close up a few times - faggedabadit) OR

2) make both parents accept that their emotional & financial responsibilities to their children don't end with the marriage. This means that fathers who don't get custody still have to pay for the kids upbringing & it means that mothers who do have to respect the importance of the father.

If men want to be ashamed about anything it is that too many of them (though thankfully less & less) are still sulking about the fact that they have to share some fraction of their once untrammelled social power with women. Personally I LIKE living in a world where women consider themselves my equal & the law agrees. If this means that I have to work a bit harder to define my role in the world than my father or grandfather did then so be it.

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7thsfsniper

Quoted from Bigfella,
It remains the case in Australia (and perhaps elsewhere) that in some jurisdictions men can use the defence of 'provocation' in cases of violent assault. This provocation can be something like a partner using harsh language, threatening to leave, or, god forbid, actually doing so. There are numerous cases of men who have murdered their spouses getting reduced sentences as a result. You see, we men have such low self contgrol that when someone challenges us we just can't help but beat them to death. Right?
end quote


You gotta be kidding me! Provocation! It seems to me those laws need an overhaul! Those kind of "men" aren't men at all in my book. But before I get stereotyped here, I'll say this. If my wife chooses to argue then we have discourse in which we may come to an agreement and maybe not. I told her far before we were ever married that I would never resort to physical violence as long as she would not. She knows, hit me, I hit back, as with anyone else that wants to try. There is a big difference btwn chess and football. Now would I actually hit her? Doubt it very seriously, its not how I was raised. I once heard comedian Sam Kinison say "I don't condone wife beating......but I understand it". That in itself I think is another debate.

T_igger_cs_30

Bigfella Hi

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Bigfella

What exactly is it about the reduction of one half of humanity to non-people that required a counter debate?

Just for the slow learners, lets recap with but a handful of points:

*Human civilization has existed for what, 7000 years, 10,000 (not my area, so I'll take estimates).

*By the standards of human rights most of us strive for, the 'West' is the standard by which we judge others.

* Until 1884 women in Victorian England remained a chattel of their husband (yes folks, they wuz property).

* In the west the first nations to grant univeral female suffrage vote did so barely a century ago. In supposedly free nations like Britain women were jailed for daring to protest this injustice within my Grandmother's memory. It took Switzerland until 1971 to give women the vote nationally, while the last Canton held out until the 1990s.

* The first American state to make spousal abuse illegal did so in the 1880s. As late as the 1970s some European countries were still enacting such laws.

* Marriage was still considered a defence against a rape charge in Britain & some parts of America into the 1990s. As late as the 1990s some judges in Australia still thought it acceptable for a man to use force to compel his wife to have sex. Some Western nations still do not have laws formally outlawing it.

* Into the postwar period many employers still expected women to quit their jobs upon marriage. It took until 1965 for America to enact Federal Employment laws outlawing discrimination & mandating equal pay. Other nations like Australia took even longer.

* I can still remember girls being pulled out of high school after 3-4 years by parents who believed women had no need for further education. This was the mid-1980s and no, they weren't religious nuts.

So, using an admittedly random sample we can see that the 'other side' of the feminist debate - that women were of lesser to no value - held the field for many thousands of years. It conceded its power gradually, and sometimes only after a fight. Other than that feminism had the argument completely to itself.

What was so 'right' about the thousands of years preceding feminism that they required defence?

Hows about we all accept that like the anti-slavery & civil Rights movements feminists did us all a great favour by forcing westen societies to face up to an appalling injustice at its very heart. The also helped the general health of sopciety & economy by unlocking the largely ignored potential of women to contribute in ALL aspects of society. This has all happened extraordinarily late in the story of human civilization, and it is yet to completely play itself out.

NOTHING that has happened to men as a result of this change is even remotely comparable to what was being done to women even a few generations ago. That a few male egos have been bruised along the way is unfortunate, but given the scale of the injustice that has been remedied it seems a pretty small price to pay.

Bigfella

Nice to see us agreeing for a change Tigger. I'll just clarify a point:

"If men want to be ashamed about anything it is that too many of them (though thankfully less & less) are still sulking about the fact that they have to share some fraction of their once untrammelled social power with women."

BF


Why are we generalising "men" as ashamed? I have made mistakes, but ensured I met my financial and moral obligations, not because I had to, because I wanted to. This attitude of saying "men are ashamed" I doubt even exists, if a man chooses not meet his obligations to his children and his financial obligations from a failed marriage, then I doubt you will ever "shame" him about anything Tigger

I agree. I was only using 'shame' in reference to Bel's rather bizarre repetition of his 'age of man-shame' phrase. I think he was talking about men being shamed by others (evil feminists no doubt). Of course, the phrase was suitibly bizarre that I'm not confident I have any idea what it meant.

Adux

WoW, One for female equality. YAY!!!

Women and many other 'types' people have to decide wether they wanted to BE EQUAL or treated SPECIAL. It cant be both/.

dalem

I figure it will start with a big nationalist reaction to something like the Paris car burnings. In one country - could be France, Germany, one of the Beneluxes, or some other place I'm not thinking of - a hard-line Nationalist party will be "swept into power", as the history books say, and the imported minorities of Euroland will start getting it in the neck. Oppression and disfavoritism will blossom into a full-grown pogrom somewhere, local Islamic and other forms of terrorism and banditry will increase and the really creative places will go Yugoslavia and start killing each other wholesale.

Euroland in general, being powerless to stop such a thing, will ignore it for as long as they think possible, then pick the side guaranteed to cause the longest and largest problem.

That's how I see it anyway. Never underestimate the capacity of the Euros to stack each other like cordwood every few decades.

-dale

dalem

So you're a big believer in "two wrongs can make a right" then?

-dale

Shek

Malthus?

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glyn

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T_igger_cs_30