Author: VD

Morgan wonders about spousal abuse:

But would your Voxinian utopia have any legal protections for victims of legitimate spousal abuse? In case you haven’t noticed, there are evil men and women out there who do find their way into a relationship. If everytime Ted has a bad day at work he comes home and beats Sally black and blue in front of the kids, what recourse should she have. Should a woman like that not be able to take her children and expect some support from the father?

And for the sake of argument we’re going to assume this is *true* abuse.

A reasonable question deserves a thoughtful response, and that last qualifier indicates that it is a reasonable question instead of the usual attempt to change the subject. Most divorce-related “abuse” is fake, but we merely acknowledge that point, mark it as irrelevant to the question and move on….

If the abuse is both physical and genuine, which is to say proven in a criminal court of law, and if there is no history of the purported victim either a) engaging in similar physically abusive behavior or b) engaging in adultery, then it is quite reasonable to consider allowing for some degree of child support and punitive “alimony”. Child support should be based on average financial requirements for the historical area of residence, not the ludicrous “manner to which the spoiled brats are accustomed”, and the “alimony” should be considered a species of fine that is paid directly to the victim over a period of five years and would depend entirely on the egregiousness of the offense(s).

If a woman – or a man, for that matter – wants a divorce over getting slapped once without sustaining any injury, that’s fine, but will have to make do with whatever fine a minor assault misdemeanor commands. And regardless of the precise level of financial penalty, the law should go both ways. If a woman slaps a man, she’ll be due for precisely the same damages that a man would owe for doing the same thing. The more serious the injury inflicted, the steeper the damages, of course.

As others have pointed out, self-defense is always an option, but lethal self-defense is not a justifiable response to most of what is now considered “abuse”. The reason a high, criminal standard of proof is necessary is that women are already being coached to produce false “evidence” of their abuse for the benefit of the fake family “courts”, including action videos and fraudulent witnesses.

MM is hung up on fairness:

I’ve still yet to hear any good reason I should subsidize someone else’s reproductive choices. And this is from someone that would like to have kids!

How about: because your society will die and your nation will disappear in your grandchildren’s lifetimes if you don’t?

Actually, the only “subsidy” needed is to refrain from taxing married parents. That alone would likely do the trick. Four kids and a wife, no income or property taxes until the youngest turns 18. And no inheritance tax period.

With a deal like that, men would be proposing to their parking lot attendants about 15 minutes after receiving their first paycheck. It would also solve 20 percent of the divorce problem. Banning alimony and child support would eliminate most of the remaining 80 percent.

Mark Steyn, despite his neocon sympathies, is perhaps the finest commentator writing today:

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee” – the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

In the administration’s response to the Abdul Rahman outrage, we see that Secular America is as hapless as it is sterile. It is past time for Christian America to stop worrying about what others think and exert its spiritual, intellectual and financial muscle.

If the law bans the Law, then the law is invalid. Mightier empires than Secular America have fallen before the name of Jesus Christ. This is not a call to set up a theocracy and command people to worship God, it is written that will happen eventually in its own time. Secular America cannot survive without the tacit support of Christian America. It is time to withdraw that support, to refuse to be complicit and to refuse to cooperate in the death spiral.

Do not participate in the public schools. Do not spend money on culturally poisonous entertainment. Encourage your sons to be men and your daughters to be women… if they want to make their own choices, inform them that they will do so without your financial support. How many women would be headed for a barren life as a professional cube-dweller without a complicit Mommy and Daddy paying for the degree that made it possible? How many men would have married a girl if a complicit Mommy and Daddy hadn’t told him that he was too young to even think about it and needed to play the field?

The irony is that while Secular America has little to fear from Christian America, (except in its ability to commit cultural suicide), it has much to fear from the inevitable consequences of its own actions. Its fate is already sealed; the question that remains is if it will drag Christian America down with it.

Americans don’t like atheists so much:

American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Well, let’s see, they want to ban Christmas, are constantly trying to tell everyone else what to do, always assume that they are more intelligent and educated than everyone else on the mere basis of their beliefs and have a historically murderous track record that is second only to Genghis Khan.

There are some delightful exceptions, of course but I’ve found that American atheists tend to have social skills that hover around the Chess Club level, just above the hairier man-hating feminists. Unlike European atheists, who couldn’t care less whether you believe in Jesus Christ, Allah or Mighty Cthulhu, American atheists will bring up either a) the Spanish Inquisition, b) the Crusades, c) the purported Christianity of Adolf Hitler, or d) the Thirty-Years War within five minutes of hearing that incindiary word, “hello”.

No one minds agnostics, partly because they’re perfectly willing to admit that they have no idea and partly because they tend to keep their suspicion that you don’t either to themselves. Atheists, on the other hand, seem to have nearly as strong a propensity for proselytizing as Jehovah’s Witnesses,

And, of course, they SAY their disbelief in a god doesn’t mean that they have no morals or character, (although they can never explain what their carefully thought-out morality is based upon), but then, it’s not as if they believe they’re ever going to be held to account for lying about it either.

There was an article today in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that discussed the recent statistic that 40% or more female college graduates here in Germany are still childless by age 40. And the thinking is that the fault lies in lack of a suitable mate. Male college grads want spouses young and pretty (not that hard to find) and the female college grads want men even better educated and more successful than themselves (apparently harder to find).

The author of the article posited that childlessness leads to unhappiness and I agree with her. What will you advise your own daughters?

If I had a daughter, I’d tell her to go to college, get a degree and then pursue an advanced degree and a career. That should leave her a whole three years, between 27 and 30, to quickly get married and start having children. Of course, if she makes a bad dating choice or two during that time frame, those three years will flash quickly by and she’ll either have to settle or find herself entirely SOL.

But then, writing memos, making Powerpoint presentations, attending speed-dating events and feeding cats is entirely satisfying and is really okay and while maybe it’s not what she wanted she’s still in a really good place right now and her therapist thinks she’s doing fine now that they’ve got the dosages straight… or so I’ve been told.

This should get very interesting in the next ten years, when most men figure it out and start scrapping the liberal arts scam altogether in favor of technical education and Internet degrees that cost less and take less time. Women, of course, will continue to go for those sociology and poly-sci degrees because college is “so important” in much the same way that Hillary Clinton “has done so much”.

By the way, here’s one feminist’s solution to the problem. One guess as to where she finds the answer… (hint, it begins with a G):

If politicians want babies to kiss on the campaign trail, they’re going to have to ante up, starting with part-time jobs with full benefits, tax equity, paid maternity leave, Social Security benefits for stay-at-home parents, and subsidized child-care centers—with well-paid teachers. Even more important, they’ll have to finally admit that the minivan does not qualify as a child-care center, and make the school day match the work day—complete with PE, music, sports, and other enriching activities on site. (Think of the traffic jams that could be eliminated!) Men must sign binding contracts to start doing laundry, mastering the vacuum cleaner, and driving the carpool a few times a week. Then—and only then—should women agree to fire up the oven. After a few years without new life to inspire, project their expectations upon, and inherit their empires, men just might come around. And if they don’t, childfree women will have plenty of time to take over the world and do the job for them.

Actually, that Japanese politician’s idea of banning women from higher education would cost far less and achieve much better results faster, but our ever-brilliant feminists will be wearing burqahs and living under sharia before they’d admit that. After all, if it’s obvious and based on historical reality, it’s probably too simple a solution. It makes much more since to attempt drastically changing society by force, especially since their previous attempts have been working out so well for them.

Wherein Michael Ledeen reveals how out of touch he is:

WHERE’S THE MEDIA? [Michael Ledeen]

In March, 2004, nearly two hundred people were killed and hundreds more wounded in suicide attacks on the occasion of the Ashurah, the holiest day in the Shi’ite calendar. The disaster led the news. last year Karbala was relatively calm, but there were bombings in Baghdad. Again, big news. This year, millions of people filled the streets of Karbala, and there was no violence. And Baghdad was also pretty calm. You might think this was newsworthy, but of course you’d be wrong. And you know why the MSM did not compare this year’s celebration with those of the recent past: the comparison would have suggested progress, and that’s taboo. Better to focus on Cheney’s TV preferences.

Or perhaps they are paying attention to how our Afghan-installed government is flirting with the idea of killing a man for the crime of worshipping Jesus Christ. Ledeen is looking forward to Iran while the rest of the West is looking with horror at Afghanistan and Palestine and wondering why on Earth anyone listened to the insane neocon theory about how democracy would save the Middle East.

From the New York Times:

Few of us sitting around the table were as talented and as directed at age 17 as this young woman. Unfortunately, her test scores and grade point average placed her in the middle of our pool. We had to have a debate before we decided to swallow the middling scores and write “admit” next to her name.

Had she been a male applicant, there would have been little, if any, hesitation to admit. The reality is that because young men are rarer, they’re more valued applicants. Today, two-thirds of colleges and universities report that they get more female than male applicants, and more than 56 percent of undergraduates nationwide are women. Demographers predict that by 2009, only 42 percent of all baccalaureate degrees awarded in the United States will be given to men.

We have told today’s young women that the world is their oyster; the problem is, so many of them believed us that the standards for admission to today’s most selective colleges are stiffer for women than men. How’s that for an unintended consequence of the women’s liberation movement?

The elephant that looms large in the middle of the room is the importance of gender balance. Should it trump the qualifications of talented young female applicants? At those colleges that have reached what the experts call a “tipping point,” where 60 percent or more of their enrolled students are female, you’ll hear a hint of desperation in the voices of admissions officers.

First, a question for those who believe in gender equality. Why should colleges pay any attention whatsoever to gender? If there is no importance to gender, how can you justify admitting men on a different basis than women and why is it a problem if a college is 85 percent women or 85 percent men?

And if you believe it is acceptable for colleges to discriminate on a gender basis, why is it unacceptable for corporations to do so?

A more significant question is this: is the declining propensity for men to attend college a sign of increasing female power or the decreasing value of a college degree. Five years ago, I would have stated the former. Now, I am not so sure.

I’d never read the novella, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, so I thought I should rectify the situation. After reading it, I was sitting there in my reading chair completely mystified that Holly Golightly should have become such an icon, one of America’s Sweethearts.

Fortunately, a phone call to a friend who is a massive Audrey Hepburn fan – who isn’t, despite what the evidence would suggest, actually gay – settled the conundrum. He confirmed my supposition was correct and that the movie is not a particularly accurate rendition of the novella.

Not a bad little story and Capote is a very technically skilled writer, (if no patch on Tanith Lee), but I have to say that her fascination was completely lost on me. Nothing against psychotic, sexually available women, but I generally prefer them to be rather less cold and mercenary.

Ruth Coniff is apparently one of the few feminists capable of doing basic math:

Of course, there is one large segment of society that is still very interested in domestic and family life. But guess what? Their plan is not exactly warm and fuzzy either. In Foreign Policy Magazine–www.foreignpolicy.com–Phillip Longman, a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes that liberals, secular humanists, and feminists are going extinct. The reason is that people with liberal values are having no children, or only one, while conservatives and fundamentalists are breeding like mad–and creating a far more conservative future.

“This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry,” Longman writes.

It’s an interesting and timely argument.

There’s not much we can do about the demographic trends. But at the very least, before it’s too late, we dwindling numbers of feminists and progressives need to get our act together and start arguing for a more humane, child-friendly society instead of taking the side of profit-mad business, which is in no danger of losing its hold on power, and certainly doesn’t need any help from us.

Of course, she still doesn’t grasp that “society” doesn’t pay anyone for anything, so if you want to get paid for taking care of your family, it’s your family that has to pay you. Now, it might occur to a more thoughtful woman that she has already been paid by being the recipient of such care for around 18 to 25 years herself, or that since the elderly are collectively the richest Americans that there’s no genuine barrier to elderly parents paying their daughters for time spent working on their behalf.

Of course, feminists like Ms Coniff would likely rather see Congress pass a federal law forcing everyone to pay the family caregiver rather than be put in an uncomfortable position of asking her mother for a reasonable weekly paycheck, but then, if they were capable of thinking straight, they wouldn’t be feminists in the first place. And as for the supposedly staggering amount of housework she mentions earlier in the article, the truth is that American women have never done less. Fewer of them are married, they have fewer children… where are all the single men complaining about the crushing burden of housework they are forced to perform without help in addition to having to work for a living?

The reason “civilized cultures” like France are on the decline and their continued existence is imperiled is simple. There Is No Free Lunch. There is always an opportunity cost. If would have a wealthy and functioning society, it is necessary that the women stay home raising children and managing households while the men work, invent things and defend against predators. It’s a simple but vital concept called the division of labor, and the more you depart from Adam Smith’s brainchild for whatever reason, whether it be the name of the worker’s paradise, gender equity or Sweet White Chthulhu, the less successful and less wealthy your society will be.

She may have intended it as sarcasm, but it is nevertheless interesting how Ms Coniff appears to at least recognize the possibility that feminism’s days are already numbered.